Non-technical Summaries Research Articles

Have the non-technical summaries of animal experiments in Europe improved? An update

Following a review of Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific pur­poses in the European Union (EU), non-technical project summaries (NTS) of all approved projects must be published in a central database using a standard template. Our initial review of the NTS reported in ALTEX in 2018 had found the NTS to be deficient in their accessibility and quality, notably the “adverse effects” section where the harms to the animals are meant to be described. Here we repeat our review to see if these legislative changes have improved the accessibility and quality of the NTS. As before, we focused on the NTS from the United Kingdom (UK) and Germany; even though the UK has left the EU, it is using the same template. We found significant improvement in the reporting of five of the six elements we identified as essential to the “predicted harms” section. However, there was no significant improvement in the reporting of adverse effects. Only 41% of German NTS and 48% of UK NTS are fully reporting this important element of the “predicted harms” section. In our view, researchers need support in describing the impact of their research on the animals and to assist here we include a checklist for competent authorities and a list of suggested terminology for standard administration and sampling procedures. Unless the NTS improve further, their utility as a tool for sharing of good practices in the 3Rs or to support evidence-based policy­making will remain limited.

Easily readable? Examining the readability of lay summaries published in Autism Research.

Communicating science to the general public could sometimes be problematic partly because the language used in scientific writing was difficult to understand for people outside the scientific community. Against this backdrop, lay summaries were introduced to the research community. Lay summaries are short, non-technical summaries of scientific articles that are aimed at a lay audience. Despite the increasing attention on the roles that lay summaries play in scientific communication, it remains unclear whether they are comprehensible to the lay audience. To address the foregoing concerns, this study examines the readability of lay summaries published in Autism Research. It was found that lay summaries were more readable than traditional abstracts but were not easy enough to read for the lay audience. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed.

Evaluating the quality of Environmental Impact Assessment Reports (EIARs) for tourism developments in protected areas: The Kruger to Canyons Biosphere case study

ABSTRACT There has been little empirical investigation of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) performance towards safeguarding conservation and promoting responsible tourism within protected areas. This paper examines the quality of EIA Reports (EIARs) prepared for tourism developments in the world-renowned Kruger to Canyons (K2C) Biosphere Reserve, one of the largest in Africa. An adapted version of the internationally recognised Lee and Colley report review package was used. The review results indicate that the EIARs are, overall, of satisfactory quality and that the reports provide adequate information to support the incorporation of sustainable and responsible tourism principles in decision-making. However, inadequacies are observed in certain review areas, namely public participation, provision for mitigation and monitoring, and content of non-technical summaries. Notably, the analytical review areas (e.g. impact assessment) perform better than the descriptive ones (e.g. presentation of assessment results), which contrasts with review findings reported in the international literature. This research provides important insights and contributes to advancing review frameworks and to ongoing debates around the potential of EIA to foster environmental protection and sustainability within protected areas.

Recognizing patient partner contributions to health research: a mixed methods research protocol

BackgroundThe overall aim of this program of research is to assess when/how patient partners are compensated financially for their contributions to health research. The research program consists of three studies to address the following questions: (1) What is the prevalence of reporting patient partner financial compensation? (2) What are researcher and institutional attitudes around patient partner financial compensation? (3) What are the current practices of patient partner financial compensation and what guidance exists to inform these practices?MethodsIn our first project, we will conduct a systematic review to assess the prevalence of reporting patient partner financial compensation and identify current financial compensation practices on an international scale. We will identify a cohort of published studies that have engaged patients as partners through a forward citation search of the Guidance for Reporting the Involvement of Patients and the Public (GRIPP I and II) checklists. We will extract details of financial compensation (type of financial compensation, amount, payment frequency etc.) and reported benefits, challenges, barriers and enablers to financially compensating patient partners. Quantitative data will be analyzed descriptively, and qualitative data will undergo thematic analysis. In our second project, we will conduct a cross-sectional survey of researchers who have engaged patient partners. We will also survey members of their affiliated institutions to gain further understanding of stakeholder experiences and attitudes with patient partner financial compensation. Survey responses will be analyzed by calculating prevalence. In our third project, we will conduct a scoping review to identify all published guidance and policy documents that guide patient partner financial compensation. Overton, the largest available online database of international policy documents, and the grey literature will be systematically searched. Data items will be extracted and presented descriptively. A comprehensive overview of guidance documents will be presented, which will represent a repository of resources that stakeholders can refer to when developing a financial compensation strategy.DiscussionOur three studies will not only inform and assist patient partners and researchers by informing compensation strategies, but also support the inclusion of diverse perspectives. We will disseminate findings through traditional mediums (publications, conferences) as well as social media, non-technical summaries, and visual abstracts.

Coherence in Non-technical Summaries of European Central Bank Financial Reports

Positioned on the intersection between the research fields of text linguistics, genre studies and expert-lay communication, this article investigates how and to what extent coherence is achieved in a specific type of summary writing, viz. so-called non-technical summaries (NTS) of financial/economic reports published by the European Central Bank. The investigation is motivated by the observation that while it is incumbent on the writer of any type of document to ensure coherence in his/her product, the special circumstances surrounding summary writing (the fact that summaries are typically required to condense large amounts of information into very limited space) may militate against a sufficient degree of coherence in such texts. Relying to a large extent on the so-called Cohesive Harmony Analysis framework provided by Systemic-Functional Linguistics, the investigation found that while the texts do succeed in employing cohesive devices in such ways and to such an extent that a clear potential for coherence is present, they fail to exploit the potential in a way that makes them properly coherent.

Public consultation in the evaluation of animal research protocols.

One response to calls for increased openness in animal research is to make protocols publicly accessible, but it is unclear what type of input the public would provide if given this opportunity. In this study we invited public responses to five different research projects, using non-technical summaries intended for lay audiences. Our aim was to assess the potential for this type of public consultation in protocol review, and a secondary aim was to better understand what types of animal research people are willing to accept and why. US participants (n = 1521) were asked (via an online survey) “Do you support the use of these (insert species) for this research”, and responded using a seven-point scale (1 = “No”, 4 = “Neutral”, and 7 = “Yes”). Participants were asked to explain the reasons for their choice; open-ended text responses were subjected to thematic analysis. Most participants (89.7%) provided clear comments, showing the potential of an online forum to elicit feedback. Four themes were prevalent in participant reasoning regarding their support for the proposed research: 1) impact on animals, 2) impact on humans, 3) scientific merit, and 4) availability of alternatives. Participant support for the proposed research varied but on average was close to neutral (mean ± SD: 4.5 ± 2.19) suggesting some ambivalence to this animal use. The protocol describing Parkinson’s research (on monkeys) was least supported (3.9 ± 2.17) and the transplant research (on pigs) was most supported (4.9 ± 2.02). These results indicate that public participants are sensitive to specifics of a protocol. We conclude that an online forum can provide meaningful public input on proposed animal research, offering research institutions the opportunity for improved transparency and the chance to reduce the risk that they engage in studies that are out of step with community values.

Digital environmental impact assessment: An exploration of emerging digital approaches for non-technical reports

Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a tool for providing systematic assessment to identify environmental, social, and economic impacts of significant developments. Through a series of technical assessments, public-facing reports are produced, including non-technical summaries of larger reports- these documents communicate assessment outcomes to non-technical public stakeholders during consultation. Consultation approaches have stagnated and achieve minimal feedback with a notable age-bias based on low turn-outs at consultation events. Digital technology is being promoted to create a widely accessible, engaging, information source to aid public knowledge and awareness of EIA outcomes. In recent years, progressive digital reporting approaches such as Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) StoryMaps, purpose-built web-solutions and bespoke-built websites, have been adopted by environmental and engineering consultancies to digitalise EIA public-facing reports.The 1998 Aarhus Convention sets out fundamental requirements for public participation within environmental decision-making, requiring inclusivity, accessibility and transparency. Consultation phases are increasingly utilising digitalised reports for their non-technical stakeholder audience, and therefore need to fulfil Aarhus requirements. This study explored the usability of digitalised public-facing documents. Interactive digital reports intended for a non-technical audience, using the interface formats ESRI StoryMaps, purpose-built web solutions and bespoke websites, were focused on due to their increasing use within public EIS reporting in engineering and environmental consultancies operating globally. Three research approaches were employed: a usability test of a purpose-built interactive digital document, interviews with digital EIA practitioners and a comparative cartographic and interface feature review. We found evidence of a digital divide between age groups and ability to effectively utilise a precedent digital report- with older users (aged 66+) less able to access information and avoid errors. Digital literacy on its own was not a reliable indicator of a user's ability to navigate a digital environment but is likely compounded by other factors such as cognitive function among older users. Practitioners saw opportunities in digitalised reports but recognised limitations in their value to some users. Current digital reporting practice presents initial usability issues, indicating direction for essential development towards a receptor-based, personalised, report.

Educational use of animals in Europe indicates a reluctance to implement alternatives.

Animals have been considered an indispensable tool to teach about the functioning of living organisms, to obtain skills necessary for practicing human and veterinary medicine, as well as for acquiring skills for caring for and conducting experiments on animals in laboratories. However, the efficacy of this practice has been questioned in recent decades, and societal views have evolved to place a much stronger emphasis on animal welfare and ethics that needs to be reflected in our teaching and training practices. Currently, many alternatives to harmful animal use are available, and it is not clear why thousands of animals continue to be used every year for educational and training purposes. Therefore, this study aimed to identify reasons for the lack of uptake of non-harmful educational and training methods by analyzing recently published non-technical summaries in the EU and EEA Member States and to provide examples of alternatives for specific learning objectives. Results from non-technical summaries from 18 countries spanning the most recent years (2017-2019) revealed that the two main perceived reasons for continued animal use are: 1) the necessity to use a living animal for “proper” learning and 2) the lack of an adequate alternative. We argue that these reasons often do not reflect reality. In conclusion, we consider it is necessary to place a stronger emphasis on engagement with ethical questions that underlie the use of animals and careful consideration of how the learning objectives could be achieved through non-harmful alternatives.

Retrospective Assessment of Animals Experimentation Projects in Romania – A Critical Analysis of Non-Technical Summaries

The aim of the present inquiry was to design an overview about the non-technical summaries available on the web page of the National Sanitary Veterinary and Food Safety Agency (Romania). We analyzed the compliance to the requirement of replacement, reduction and refinement (the 3R’s). 56 projects were found, the most of them (48), were assigned as “basic research”, 2 as “translational and applied research”, 2 as “regulatory use and routine analysis”, while 4 projects targeted “higher education or training”. The most common animals species used were rats, and mice, followed by rabbits, pigs, hamsters, guinea pigs and frogs (Rana sp.). According to cumulative severity of the project, 20 projects were classified as “severe”, six as “moderate”, three “mild”, and three as “non-recovery”. 24 projects had nor a severity assessment, neither a proper description of the level of severity. In our opinion, the number of projects classified as “severe” is too high; at least for some of them, the level of severity could be reduced using appropriate pain control techniques and / or human end-points. Overall, our recommendation is further improving the knowledge and skills of the personal involved in authorization and execution of the projects and of the authority inspectors that authorized the projects.

Botulinum toxin testing on animals is still a Europe-wide issue.

There have been significant developments in the use of animals to test Botulinum toxin products in Europe in recent years. This paper summarises and discusses these from the perspective of the animal protection organisation. A cell-based assay has been validated by Allergan and is now being used for the replacement of the mouse bioassay for the batch testing of their Botulinum toxin A products. Two further companies (Merz and Ipsen) have recently validated similar cell-based assays to replace animals in their batch testing. However, the number of animals being used in batch tests across Europe remains at record levels; an estimated 400,000 animals per year, based on official statistics and non-technical summaries. There are concerns from animal protection organisations about the authorisation of animal testing for Botulinum toxin products that are to be used for aesthetic purposes. Furthermore, should testing for companies that have not yet implemented the alternative method continue to be permitted under the EU Directive 2010/63 on the use of animals for scientific purposes? Whilst we are on the cusp of an era where the mouse bioassay has been replaced for the potency testing of Botulinum toxin A for injection, it is important that Europe sees a reduction of animal testing in real terms.

Does size matter? An evaluation of length and proportion of information in environmental impact statements

For decades, authors and institutions have argued that the quality of Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) is somehow affected by the volume of information they contain. Both too little and too much information can be a problem. However, very few academic studies have addressed the issue of EIS length in detail. The objective of this article was to systematically analyze the volume of information presented in EISs, using Brazil as the empirical context. More specifically, this study evaluated the volume and proportion of information disclosed in 49 Brazilian EISs. This study also tried to identify sectorial variations and whether variables such as project size and number of pages in Terms of References are likely determinants of information volume. >146 thousand pages of EIS information were scrutinized in two rounds of content analysis. Data were organized in spreadsheets and then coded and analyzed through various descriptive and inferential statistical techniques. Overall, findings corroborate the fact that EISs are now significantly longer than the early ones, and still heavily loaded with baseline information. The average number of pages in EISs and in Non-technical Summaries was found to be 2993 and 94, respectively. Kruskal-Wallis and linear regression tests indicated that EIS length is likely affected by a combination of variables, including project size, territorial and sectorial characteristics. Such findings suggest that the historical approach of setting page limits to EISs through regulations and Terms of References is no longer appropriate for EIA practice in connection with large enterprises in Brazil, and arguably elsewhere. The article discusses its practical and academic implications, and highlights the need to further investigate the actual impacts of EIS length on decision-making.

Recommendations to improve the EU non-technical summaries of animal experiments.

Under the new Directive 2010/63/EC, member states have to publish non-technical summaries (NTS) of the projects involving animals that they authorise. These summaries must include information on the objectives of the project including the predicted harm and benefits and the number and types of animals to be used. Summaries should also demonstrate compliance with the 3Rs. The intention was that NTS would help increase the transparency of animal research in the EU. In this article, we review the status of the publication of NTS across member states and give some general observations on publication speed, identification, accessibility and quality. We also review in more detail the quality of reporting in a selection of NTS from Germany and the UK. We consistently found that NTS from Germany and the UK were deficient in their description of what is being done to the animals and what they might experience as a result. Using examples taken from specific NTS we highlight what we view to be good and bad examples to assist member states and researchers in producing better NTS in the future. The NTS can also be an important tool in sharing of best practice in the 3Rs and the avoidance of duplicative animal testing. For this to happen however, member states need to publish timely, ensure that NTS are accurate and, ideally, there needs to be some centralisation of the NTS.

Recommendations to improve the EU non-technical summaries of animal experiments_suppl

Under the new Directive 2010/63/EU, member states have to publish non-technical summaries (NTS) of the projects involving animals that they authorise. These summaries must include information on the objectives of the project including the predicted harm and benefits and the number and types of animals to be used. Summaries should also demonstrate compliance with the 3Rs. The intention was that NTS would help increase the transparency of animal research in the EU. In this article, we review the status of the publication of NTS across member states and give some general observations on publication speed, identification, accessibility and quality. We also review in more detail the quality of reporting in a selection of NTS from Germany and the UK. We consistently found that NTS from Germany and the UK were deficient in their description of what is being done to the animals and what they might experience as a result. Using examples taken from specific NTS we highlight what we view to be good and bad examples to assist member states and researchers in producing better NTS in the future. The NTS can also be an important tool in sharing of best practice in the 3Rs and the avoidance of duplicative animal testing. For this to happen, however, member states need to publish timely, ensure that NTS are accurate and, ideally, there needs to be some centralisation of the NTS.

EIA Follow-Up in the UK — A 2015 Update

EIA is globally recognised and implemented as a decision making support instrument in project planning. Whilst it should be involved in both, pre-development consent deliberations as well as in subsequent phases, including post construction, in practice, follow-up is often deficient. In this paper, a review of how follow-up is dealt with in UK environmental statement non-technical summaries is presented. Furthermore, opinions of UK EIA practitioners with regards to current practices and barriers and possible implications of the new EC EIA Directive from 2014 are discussed. Comparing results with earlier publications, an overall minor positive change in follow-up practices in the UK is identified and three main barriers for improved follow-up are established: (1) lack of appropriate legislation, (2) implementation costs, and (3) lack of enforcement. The latter may still be the number one reason for continued deficient practice, even when the new EIA Directive is implemented.

Nueva legislación sobre la protección de los animales utilizados en investigación

The legislation for the protection of animals used for experimental and other scientific purposes was revised in 2010 with the publication of Directive 010/63/EU. The Spanish Government has just published the Royal Decree 53/2013 of 1 February that implements the EU Directive. The new legislation presents the novelty of adding new species to protect, a mandatory ethical review, including the definition of the degree of severity and the creation of centers to promote the development of alternatives. In addition, it promotes greater transparency by encouraging the publication of non-technical summaries of research projects.

The Journal of Physiology Annual Report 2011–12

Throughout 2010, the editorial policy of The Journal of Physiology has focused on maintaining high and consistent standards of peer review of submitted research articles and providing readers with a range of informative reviews and commentaries by recognised experts. The Journal has continued to attract papers across all areas of physiology and to increase online readership. Initiatives to extend the reach of The Journal to readers outside the academic community, framed by our policy to promote the discipline of physiology more widely, have been successful, judged by downloading of content. The Journal's ISI metrics improved, indicating that our content has both immediate impact and an enduring quality.

The basic George B. Dantzig

The late George B. Dantzig , widely known as the father of linear programming, was a major influence in mathematics, operations research, and economics. As Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, he continued his decades of research on linear programming and related subjects. Dantzig was awarded eight honorary doctorates, the National Medal of Science, and the John von Neumann Theory Prize from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences.The 24 chapters of this volume highlight the amazing breadth and enduring influence of Dantzig's research. Short, non-technical summaries at the opening of each major section introduce a specific research area and discuss the current significance of Dantzig's work in that field. Among the topics covered are mathematical statistics, the Simplex Method of linear programming, economic modeling, network optimization, and nonlinear programming. The book also includes a complete bibliography of Dantzig's writings.

Missing entries and multiple trees: instability, relationships, and support in parsimony analysis

ABSTRACT It is widely recognized that missing entries can render some taxa unstable in phylogenetic parsimony analyses, leading to multiple most parsimonious trees and poorly resolved consensus trees that fail to reveal strictly supported relationships (relationships that are common to all the most parsimonious trees). An illustrated and non-technical review of strategies for ameliorating this problem, including safe taxonomic reduction and the strict reduced consensus method, is presented. Importantly, taxon instability is not necessarily a problem of missing entries per se, but it may be exacerbated by missing entries. A less widely recognized, but nonetheless important potential impact of missing entries and instability is obfuscation of the levels of the support provided by the data for particular relationships. Low bootstrap proportions and/or decay indices may reflect the instability of a subset of the taxa rather than more systemic deficiencies of the data. Even when there is no gross instability, relative instability can negatively impact upon measures of support. Rather than eschewing measures of support because of such problems, phylogeneticists should use methods of evaluating support that are not unduly affected by relatively unstable taxa. The majority-rule reduced consensus method provides one method that can be used to enhance bootstrap and jackknife analyses so as to reveal ‘hidden support’. Double decay analysis provides an analogous extension to traditional decay analysis. Non-technical summaries of these methods are presented and their potential benefits and limitations are discussed and illustrated.