Number Of High-quality Articles Research Articles

Functional network composed of 1,219 genes for Schizophrenia-- a literature data mining and enrichment analysis

Background:Over the past decade, numerous studies have focused on identifying genetic factors associated with schizophrenia (SCZ). Sample variations, such as size, population, race, disease status, and data processing methods resulted in selection differences. Nevertheless, no systemic study has been completed to summarize these reports and provide an objective full list of genes with a reported association to SCZ. Methods:We conducted a literature data mining (LDM) of over 13,515 articles covering publications from 1958 to Feb. 2016. These articles reported multiple types of marker-disease associations between 1,219 genes and SCZ. Then we conducted a gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) and a sub-network enrichment analysis (SNEA) to study the functional profile and validate the pathogenic significance of these genes to SCZ. Finally, we presented additional results from the systemic review, including publication date, quality scores, and author affiliations. Results:All of these genes have been demonstrated to present multiple mutations associating with SCZ, some of which were supported by a large number of high quality articles. Enrichment analyses showed that many psychiatric and neuropathic pathways/groups related to SCZ have been significantly enriched by these genes and that they are functionally associated with each other. Conclusion:Our results indicate that these genes may operate as a functional biomarker network influencing the development of SCZ, and that LDM together with GSEA and SNEA could serve as an effective approach in finding these potential target genes

Scientific and technological journals in Vietnam: the current state and direction of development

Vietnam is on its way to becoming a more developed country and more integrated into the global community. One of the most important key factors for development is science and technology. Scientific publications bring the most up-to-date information to scientists, researchers, and society. The quality of Vietnam’s scientific journals should be increased to international level. Also, the number of high quality articles published in international journals from Vietnam is limited compared to the number of researchers in Vietnam. There is still no Vietnamese journal indexed in Web of Science up to January 2015; while, three journals has been indexed in Scopus. This article discusses the current scenario of scientific and technological journals in Vietnam and the trend of development to international level.

Reporting of randomized controlled trials in andrology journals: a quality assessment.

Quality assessment of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) is important to prevent the adoption of findings of low-quality trials into clinical practice. The aim of this study was to analyze the quality of studies reporting RCTs in andrology journals (The Journal of Sexual Medicine [JSM], the Asian Journal of Andrology [AJA], the Journal of Andrology [JOA], the International Journal of Andrology [IJA]). A quality assessment was conducted on all studies identified as RCTs published in andrology journals (JSM, AJA, JOA, IJA) until 2011. The review period was divided into three terms: early, mid, and late each journal. The Jadad scale, van Tulder scale, and the Cochrane Collaboration Risk of Bias Tool (CCRBT) were employed. The RCTs were also categorized by country of origin, the inclusion of institutional review board (IRB) approval, funding, and blindness. There were1,954 original articles published in the JSM, 893 articles in the AJA, 2,527 articles in the JOA, and 2,086 articles in the IJA for the review period. There were 172 studies reporting on RCTs in the JSM, 33 RCTs in the AJA, 63 RCTs in the JOA, and 29 RCTs in the IJA. No significant increase in Jadad or van Tulder scale scores were found over time, nor were there any significant changes in the number of high-quality articles as assessed by CCRBT. However, significant differences in quality analysis were found according to blinding, funding, and IRB approval. The number of original articles and RCTs in andrology increased over time. However, the ratio of RCTs to original articles as well as RCT quality was statistically insignificant. It would be required for the researchers to focus efforts in performing high-quality studies to ensure appropriate randomization, reviews by IRB, financial support, and inclusion of allocation concealment during study performance.

Welcome to the International Journal of Neonatal Screening

“Third time is a charm”, with this adage I would like to introduce the International Journal of Neonatal Screening (IJNS). Why three times? Well, this is the third time that the International Society for Neonatal Screening (ISNS) has launched its official journal. The first one, Screening, began in 1992, one year after the constitution of ISNS. In 1996, after Vol. 4 No.4 was printed, the publication of Screening had to be stopped. It was too expensive for the small number of members, and there were not enough institutional subscriptions (if any at all), that could compensate for the deficit. Since Screening was never indexed, the large number of high quality articles dealing with newborn screening aspects that were published in the four volumes have stayed invisible for most of the scientific community. In 1996 ISNS and the Journal of Medical Screening (JMS) agreed to have JMS as the society’s journal, but unfortunately over the years only a few manuscripts from ISNS members were submitted to JMS. Despite the efforts of ISNS council members, the situation did not change and JMS and the ISNS council decided to discontinue the collaboration from 2002. Since then, ISNS has had no official journal, and the ISNS newsletter has been until now the only forum for information exchange between members. But now, after 13 years of abstinence, ISNS makes a new attempt—the third one.[...]

Robust Ranking of Journal Quality: An Application to Economics

The article focuses on the robustness of rankings of academic journal quality and research impact in general, and in economics, in particular, based on the widely-used Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Science citations database (ISI). The article analyzes 299 leading international journals in economics using quantifiable Research Assessment Measures (RAMs), and highlights the similarities and differences in various RAMs, which are based on alternative transformations of citations and influence. All existing RAMs to date have been static, so two new dynamic RAMs are developed to capture changes in impact factor over time and escalating journal self-citations. Alternative RAMs may be calculated annually or updated daily to determine When, Where, and How (frequently) published articles are cited (see Chang et al., 2011a–c). The RAMs are grouped in four distinct classes that include impact factor, mean citations, and non-citations, journal policy, number of high quality articles, journal influence, and article influence. These classes include the most widely used RAMs, namely, the classic 2-year impact factor including journal self-citations (2YIF), 2-year impact factor excluding journal self citations (2YIF*), 5-year impact factor including journal self citations (5YIF), Eigenfactor (or Journal Influence), Article Influence, h-index, and Papers Ignored–By Even The Authors (PI-BETA). As all existing RAMs to date have been static, two new dynamic RAMs are developed to capture changes in impact factor over time (5YD2 = 5YIF/2YIF) and Escalating Self-Citations (ESC). We highlight robust rankings based on the harmonic mean of the ranks of RAMs across the four classes. It is shown that emphasizing the 2YIF of a journal, which partly answers the question as to When published articles are cited, to the exclusion of other informative RAMs, which answer Where and How (frequently) published articles are cited, can lead to a distorted evaluation of journal quality, impact, and influence relative to the harmonic mean of the ranks.

Intracameral antibiotics for the prevention of endophthalmitis in cataract surgery

Aim: To determine if there is enough evidence to support the use of intracameral antibiotics for the prevention of endophthalmitis post cataract surgery. Method: A systemic review of English language articles was conducted by performing a broad search using Medline/ProQuest, Science Direct, the Cochrane Library and Embase. The search was restricted to articles published between January 2005 and October 2010. The terms endophthalmitis and intracameral antibiotics were used to initiate the search but the term cataract was used for further exclusion. The population base incorporated adult patients undergoing cataract surgery. Limitations include one author as a reviewer of the titles resulting from the literature searches. A team review would give a more robust methodological quality. Results: Of the 493 results that were identified in the literature search 451 citations were excluded after screening titles and abstracts. Forty two publications were included for this review and were identified as being relevant after scrutiny. Publications showing retrospective data far exceeded the number of prospective case controlled studies negatively affecting the number of high quality articles reviewed. A randomized controlled study released by the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons (ESCRS) published results in 2006 showing a near _fivefold decrease in the rates of post-operative endophthalmitis with the use of intracameral cefuroxime. This study was discontinued due to ethical considerations. The study observed a clear benefit from the use of intracameral cefuroxime. Moxifloxacin has not been truly evaluated and has a potential for bacterial resistance. Topical antibiotics are unreliable relying on patient compliance and requiring frequent administration. From this review an effective solution for endophthalmitis prevention remains unclear. Conclusion: Intracameral cefuroxime administered at the time of surgery seems to work well for reducing the incidence of post-operative endophthalmitis as it is a broad spectrum and cost-effective antibiotic. The major barrier to its clinical use is the lack of a commercial preparation which increases the threat of dilution errors, which is known to be toxic to human endothelial cells.

Editorial: The growth of the journal of early and intensive behavioral intervention.

The Journal of and Intensive Behavioral Intervention continues to grow. Currently, we have over 40 manuscripts still in the review process for this year issues and every day brings one or two more. The sheer number of manuscripts has been both blessing and curse. It has been a blessing in showing that online journals have come of age. When I began online publishing of psychological journals, the American Psychological Association was in the middle of its failed experiment to bring psychological journals online. APA eventually abandoned its journal, and Treatment, after three years. The editor called the experiment a failure and reported that the journal was over $100,000 in debt. The reason their attempt failed was that authors were concerned that online publications were new and not very well accepted. Concern existed that such journals would not be highly ranked or would not positively effect tenure and merit pay evaluations. Time has proved these concerns to be without merit. As to the curse aspects of online publishing, moving such large numbers of manuscripts has overwhelmed our small editorial board. For the last issue, we placed a call for guest reviewers and we received about 12 people who wished to join the team. Many highly respected professionals in the field honored us with coming on board as permanent editorial board members. However, we still need more help, so I would like to extend that call in this issue. If you would like to be a guest reviewer or join the review board for the journal, please contact me directly at jcautilli2003@yahoo.com. Additionally, we are proud to announce that David Richman has agreed to become an associate editor for the journal. Dave is already hard at work on getting out a special issue this December on prevention. It should be noted that we will be publishing four issues this year. The Journal of and Intensive Behavioral Intervention had originally planned to only do three issues this year (and this was an expansion from our original commitment of two issues a year), but given the large number of high quality articles that we have received (over 100 this year), the editorial team decided to publish four issues. So this will be a bonus issue for our valued readers. The current issue is loaded with high quality and very interesting articles. We start off with an article on a three tiered model of evaluating children. Many of our U.S. readers know that the federal government has proposed that before children are diagnosed with a learning disability, they are tried on a researched based form of reading instruction that has empirical support. The article by Stewart, Martella, Marchand-Martella, and Benner suggest a three tier model to meet the regulations. Their model proposes an integration of behavioral interventions with reading interventions to help children not be left behind. In addition, the model points out a gating process from less restrictive to more restrictive interventions. Along the lines of meeting federal regulations, the new Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act is calling for greater use of positive behavioral support. Tobin and Sugia's Preventing Problem Behaviors: Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Level Prevention Interventions for Young Children look at the response of kindergarten and first grade children with internalizing and externalizing disorders to positive behavioral support programs. I believe that this article represents an excellent method of evaluating such school wide programs. Moving from system support to early identification and treatment, Manno, Fox, Eicher and Kerwin, in an article titled Early Oral-Motor Interventions for Pediatric Feeding Problems: What, When and How, explore oral motor problems. …

Clinical Evidence diagnosis: Developing a sensitive search strategy to retrieve diagnostic studies on deep vein thrombosis: a pragmatic approach.

To devise and evaluate a sensitive search strategy to retrieve diagnostic studies on specific diagnostic tests for deep vein thrombosis (DVT). Systematic reviews on diagnostic tests for DVT were identified and the studies cited by them used to produce a reference set of search results (to be used to evaluate different search strategies). Five existing diagnosis search filters were combined to produce a sensitive search. This combined search was then refined to produce a more specific strategy, which was run on medline and the results were checked against the reference set. This search was too specific and was modified to produce a more balanced final strategy, which was again tested and the results compared with the reference set. The sensitivity of this newly created strategy was compared with the existing diagnosis searches already found. Finally, studies identified by the final search strategy were critically appraised for validity and relevance and the selected articles were compared with those found in the reference set. The final filter retrieved 124 out of 126 references from the reference set. From the search result, 227 cohort studies were selected and 147 of these were not cited in any of the systematic reviews on diagnostic tests for DVT. The search strategy had 98.8% sensitivity. The precision of 8.8%, although low, compares well with other strategies with high sensitivity. Most of the systematic reviews on diagnosing a DVT have omitted a number of high quality articles.

Reflections on the Hispanic American Historical Review

The University of Arizona editorship of the Hispanic American Historical Review terminates with this issue as the journal now passes into new editorial hands. This traditional changing of the guard affords me the opportunity to reflect briefly on the field to which we all belong and to indulge in a fleeting retrospective view of that exotic academic microcosm in which I have found myself during the last five years. When the Board of Editors accepted the University of Arizona bid and invited me to assume the Managing Editorship in December of 1974, I was somewhat cognizant of the responsibility I was about to assume but, in spite of the many hours of invaluable discussions with my predecessor, Stanley Ross, I did not comprehend fully the magnitude of the task nor the learning process that was about to ensue. At the suggestion of Professor Ross, I began by visiting Duke University to confer with the publishers and spend some time with a former Managing Editor, Professor John Tate Lanning. In a memorable late afternoon conversation in Professor Lanning's library office I learned of some of the problems he had encountered in the journal's more tender years. Without a full contingent of staff, without the security of a fixed budget, without released time, and with a university commitment that must be considered tenuous at best, he was able to keep the journal afloat during the difficult period between 1939 and 1944. His biggest problem was to find a sufficient number of high quality articles to fill the succeeding numbers published under his editorship. He recounted that during one particular dearth in 1940 he placed long distance calls to Arthur P. Whitaker, William Spence Robertson, Herbert Eugene Bolton, and J. Fred Rippy asking if any of them had anything they could possibly send. Whitaker had just finished a piece on Jose Silvestre Rebello, Brazil's first diplomatic representative to the United States, and promised to send it off the next day. The August 1940 issue was then complete.