The Dawn of Open Access to Phylogenetic Data

The scientific enterprise depends critically on the preservation of and open access to published data. This basic tenet applies acutely to phylogenies (estimates of evolutionary relationships among species). Increasingly, phylogenies are estimated from increasingly large, genome-scale datasets using increasingly complex statistical methods that require increasing levels of expertise and computational investment. Moreover, the resulting phylogenetic data provide an explicit historical perspective that critically informs research in a vast and growing number of scientific disciplines. One such use is the study of changes in rates of lineage diversification (speciation - extinction) through time. As part of a meta-analysis in this area, we sought to collect phylogenetic data (comprising nucleotide sequence alignment and tree files) from 217 studies published in 46 journals over a 13-year period. We document our attempts to procure those data (from online archives and by direct request to corresponding authors), and report results of analyses (using Bayesian logistic regression) to assess the impact of various factors on the success of our efforts. Overall, complete phylogenetic data for ~60% of these studies are effectively lost to science. Our study indicates that phylogenetic data are more likely to be deposited in online archives and/or shared upon request when: (1) the publishing journal has a strong data-sharing policy; (2) the publishing journal has a higher impact factor, and; (3) the data are requested from faculty rather than students. Although the situation appears dire, our analyses suggest that it is far from hopeless: recent initiatives by the scientific community -- including policy changes by journals and funding agencies -- are improving the state of affairs

Author Correction: A consensus-based transparency checklist.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper

The influence of journal submission guidelines on authors' reporting of statistics and use of open research practices.

From January 2014, Psychological Science introduced new submission guidelines that encouraged the use of effect sizes, estimation, and meta-analysis (the "new statistics"), required extra detail of methods, and offered badges for use of open science practices. We investigated the use of these practices in empirical articles published by Psychological Science and, for comparison, by the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, during the period of January 2013 to December 2015. The use of null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) was extremely high at all times and in both journals. In Psychological Science, the use of confidence intervals increased markedly overall, from 28% of articles in 2013 to 70% in 2015, as did the availability of open data (3 to 39%) and open materials (7 to 31%). The other journal showed smaller or much smaller changes. Our findings suggest that journal-specific submission guidelines may encourage desirable changes in authors' practices

Public Availability of Published Research Data in High-Impact Journals

BACKGROUND: There is increasing interest to make primary data from published research publicly available. We aimed to assess the current status of making research data available in highly-cited journals across the scientific literature. METHODS AND RESULTS: We reviewed the first 10 original research papers of 2009 published in the 50 original research journals with the highest impact factor. For each journal we documented the policies related to public availability and sharing of data. Of the 50 journals, 44 (88%) had a statement in their instructions to authors related to public availability and sharing of data. However, there was wide variation in journal requirements, ranging from requiring the sharing of all primary data related to the research to just including a statement in the published manuscript that data can be available on request. Of the 500 assessed papers, 149 (30%) were not subject to any data availability policy. Of the remaining 351 papers that were covered by some data availability policy, 208 papers (59%) did not fully adhere to the data availability instructions of the journals they were published in, most commonly (73%) by not publicly depositing microarray data. The other 143 papers that adhered to the data availability instructions did so by publicly depositing only the specific data type as required, making a statement of willingness to share, or actually sharing all the primary data. Overall, only 47 papers (9%) deposited full primary raw data online. None of the 149 papers not subject to data availability policies made their full primary data publicly available. CONCLUSION: A substantial proportion of original research papers published in high-impact journals are either not subject to any data availability policies, or do not adhere to the data availability instructions in their respective journals. This empiric evaluation highlights opportunities for improvement

The Reputational Consequences of Failed Replications and Wrongness Admission among Scientists

Scientists are dedicating more attention to replication efforts. While the scientific utility of replications is unquestionable, the impact of failed replication efforts and the discussions surrounding them deserve more attention. Specifically, the debates about failed replications on social media have led to worry, in some scientists, regarding reputation. In order to gain data-informed insights into these issues, we collected data from 281 published scientists. We assessed whether scientists overestimate the negative reputational effects of a failed replication in a scenario-based study. Second, we assessed the reputational consequences of admitting wrongness (versus not) as an original scientist of an effect that has failed to replicate. Our data suggests that scientists overestimate the negative reputational impact of a hypothetical failed replication effort. We also show that admitting wrongness about a non-replicated finding is less harmful to one’s reputation than not admitting. Finally, we discovered a hint of evidence that feelings about the replication movement can be affected by whether replication efforts are aimed one’s own work versus the work of another. Given these findings, we then present potential ways forward in these discussions

Peak expiratory flow rate shows a gender-specific association with vitamin D deficiency

Context: To our knowledge, no previous studies examined the longitudinal relationship between vitamin D status and pulmonary function in a population-based sample of older persons. Objective: Our objective was to examine the cross-sectional as well as the longitudinal relationship between vitamin D status and peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) in a representative sample of the Dutch older population. Design, Setting, and Participants: Participants included men and women in the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam, an ongoing cohort study in older people. Main Outcome Measure: PEFR was measured using the mini-Wright peak flow meter. Results: Men with serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OHD) levels below 10 ng/ml (25 nmol/liter) had a significantly lower PEFR in the cross-sectional analyses, and men with serum 25-OHD levels below 20 ng/ml (50 nmol/liter) had a significantly lower PEFR in the longitudinal analyses as compared with men with serum 25-OHD levels above 30 ng/ml (75 nmol/liter) (cross-sectional: β = -47.0, P = 0.01 for serum 25-OHD<10 ng/ml; longitudinal: β = -45.0, P<0.01 for serum 25-OHD<10 ng/ml; and β = -20.2, P = 0.03 for serum 25-OHD = 10-20 ng/ml in the fully adjusted models). Physical performance (β = -32.5, P = 0.08 for serum 25-OHD<10 ng/ml) and grip strength (β = -40.0, P = 0.03 for serum 25-OHD <10 ng/ml) partly mediated the cross-sectional associations but not the longitudinal associations. In women, statistically significant associations between 25-OHD and PEFR were observed in the cross-sectional analyses after adjustment for age and season of blood collection but not in the fully adjusted models or in the longitudinal analyses. Conclusions: A strong relationship between serum 25-OHD and PEFR was observed in older men, both in the cross-sectional as well as longitudinal analyses, but not in older women. The association in men could partly be explained by physical performance and muscle strength. Copyright © 2012 by The Endocrine Society

Sunlight exposure or vitamin D supplementation for vitamin D-deficient non-western immigrants: a randomized clinical trial

Summary: Vitamin D deficiency is very common in non-western immigrants. In this randomized clinical trial, vitamin D 800 IU/day or 100,000 IU/3 months were compared with advised sunlight exposure. Vitamin D supplementation was more effective than advised sunlight exposure in improving vitamin D status and lowering parathyroid hormone levels. Introduction: Vitamin D deficiency (25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D]<25 nmol/l) is common among non-western immigrants. It can be treated with vitamin D supplementation or sunlight exposure. Methods: To determine whether the effect of vitamin