Estimating Open Access Mandate Effectiveness: The MELIBEA Score

MELIBEA is a Spanish database that uses a composite formula with eight weighted conditions to estimate the effectiveness of Open Access mandates (registered in ROARMAP). We analyzed 68 mandated institutions for publication years 2011-2013 to determine how well the MELIBEA score and its individual conditions predict what percentage of published articles indexed by Web of Knowledge is deposited in each institution's OA repository, and when. We found a small but significant positive correlation (0.18) between MELIBEA score and deposit percentage. We also found that for three of the eight MELIBEA conditions (deposit timing, internal use, and opt-outs), one value of each was strongly associated with deposit percentage or deposit latency (immediate deposit required, deposit required for performance evaluation, unconditional opt-out allowed for the OA requirement but no opt-out for deposit requirement). When we updated the initial values and weights of the MELIBEA formula for mandate effectiveness to reflect the empirical association we had found, the score's predictive power doubled (.36). There are not yet enough OA mandates to test further mandate conditions that might contribute to mandate effectiveness, but these findings already suggest that it would be useful for future mandates to adopt these three conditions so as to maximize their effectiveness, and thereby the growth of OA.Comment: 27 pages, 13 figures, 3 tables, 40 references, 7761 word

Une bibliographie commentée en temps réel : l'art de la performance au Québec et au Canada = An Annotated Bibliography in Real Time : Performance Art in Quebec and Canada

An Annotated Bibliography in Real Time: Performance Art in Quebec and Canada offers a bibliographic survey of writings, publications and printed matter on Quebec and Canadian performance art from the early 20th century to today. This university based research project, not only gathers and annotates but also questions how categories can be cross-read, revisited, and thought of in new ways. A key objective of the bibliography is to enable its future users to consider the various roles and complex networks that continue to shape the medium and practice of performance. This publication is a continuously growing resource that presents both the work of the artists and the history of the works’ reception in the past as well as the present, investigating the correlative relationship between the performer, the spectator and their given time(s). An Annotated Bibliography in Real Time offers a hybrid and discursive perspective on the historization of performance art and sheds light on performance’s many circumstances and modes of production, experience, and reception over time. -- p.

Effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blocker initiation on organ support-free days in patients hospitalized with COVID-19

IMPORTANCE Overactivation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may contribute to poor clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Objective To determine whether angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) initiation improves outcomes in patients hospitalized for COVID-19. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In an ongoing, adaptive platform randomized clinical trial, 721 critically ill and 58 non–critically ill hospitalized adults were randomized to receive an RAS inhibitor or control between March 16, 2021, and February 25, 2022, at 69 sites in 7 countries (final follow-up on June 1, 2022). INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomized to receive open-label initiation of an ACE inhibitor (n = 257), ARB (n = 248), ARB in combination with DMX-200 (a chemokine receptor-2 inhibitor; n = 10), or no RAS inhibitor (control; n = 264) for up to 10 days. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was organ support–free days, a composite of hospital survival and days alive without cardiovascular or respiratory organ support through 21 days. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model. Odds ratios (ORs) greater than 1 represent improved outcomes. RESULTS On February 25, 2022, enrollment was discontinued due to safety concerns. Among 679 critically ill patients with available primary outcome data, the median age was 56 years and 239 participants (35.2%) were women. Median (IQR) organ support–free days among critically ill patients was 10 (–1 to 16) in the ACE inhibitor group (n = 231), 8 (–1 to 17) in the ARB group (n = 217), and 12 (0 to 17) in the control group (n = 231) (median adjusted odds ratios of 0.77 [95% bayesian credible interval, 0.58-1.06] for improvement for ACE inhibitor and 0.76 [95% credible interval, 0.56-1.05] for ARB compared with control). The posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitors and ARBs worsened organ support–free days compared with control were 94.9% and 95.4%, respectively. Hospital survival occurred in 166 of 231 critically ill participants (71.9%) in the ACE inhibitor group, 152 of 217 (70.0%) in the ARB group, and 182 of 231 (78.8%) in the control group (posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitor and ARB worsened hospital survival compared with control were 95.3% and 98.1%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this trial, among critically ill adults with COVID-19, initiation of an ACE inhibitor or ARB did not improve, and likely worsened, clinical outcomes. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT0273570

The effect of Open Access mandate strength on deposit rate and latency

Access-denial because of the high cost of journal subscriptions is a major obstacle to the progress of research, universities and research funders need to adopt mandates that require their researchers to make their published papers Open Access (OA) by depositing them in their Institutional Repositories. To measure the effectiveness of these mandates MELIBEA has ranked and weighted OA mandates according to their specific requirements, and assigned them an overall score for strength. There is a weak but significant positive correlation between the MELIBEA overall weighted score for mandate strength and the Public Access (PA) deposit rate. If the policy stipulates that deposit is mandatory “For internal use” (e.g., research performance evaluation) deposit rate is significantly higher for PA and RA (Restricted Access) combined; deposit latency for PA alone is also significantly shorter. Finally, if the policy requires that the deposit must be done “At time of acceptance,” deposit rate is significantly higher for combined PA and RA deposits, compared to requiring deposit “At time of publication” or “Unspecified.” This effect is significant only for 2011 and almost significant for all years combined