Open Access Environment Research Articles

RoMEO Studies 8: self‐archiving

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to show how the self‐archiving of journal papers is a major step towards providing open access to research. However, copyright transfer agreements (CTAs) that are signed by an author prior to publication often indicate whether, and in what form, self‐archiving is allowed. The SHERPA/RoMEO database enables easy access to publishers' policies in this area and uses a colour‐coding scheme to classify publishers according to their self‐archiving status. The database is currently being redeveloped and renamed the Copyright Knowledge Bank. However, it will still assign a colour to individual publishers indicating whether pre‐prints can be self‐archived (yellow), post‐prints can be self‐archived (blue), both pre‐print and post‐print can be archived (green) or neither (white). The nature of CTAs means that these decisions are rarely as straightforward as they may seem, and this paper describes the thinking and considerations that were used in assigning these colours in the light of the underlying principles and definitions of open access.Design/methodology/approachDetailed analysis of a large number of CTAs led to the development of controlled vocabulary of terms which was carefully analysed to determine how these terms equate to the definition and “spirit” of open access.FindingsThe paper reports on how conditions outlined by publishers in their CTAs, such as how or where a paper can be self‐archived, affect the assignment of a self‐archiving colour to the publisher.Originality/valueThe colour assignment is widely used by authors and repository administrators in determining whether academic papers can be self‐archived. This paper provides a starting‐point for further discussion and development of publisher classification in the open access environment.

Open Access to Research Is in the Public Interest

With very little fanfare, American science will make a sizeable leap forward in the coming year—if Congress and the National Institutes of Health deliver on their promise for public access to medical research. As scientists—one of us a Nobel researcher in biomedical science and one of us a recently tenured faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—we may have much to celebrate for scientists of all generations. As scientists, scientific literature is our lifeblood, because only by reading our colleagues' work can we know where the cutting edge of knowledge currently lies and hence where our work should be directed. Yet increasingly, subscriptions to the very journals that we must read are becoming too expensive—often in the thousands of dollars. The availability of the information vital to our research is needlessly restricted by the publishers of the scientific literature, who are mainly large commercial entities for whom maximizing profits is their priority. Fortunately, help is at hand. The big “if” remains whether this will happen. The National Institutes of Health have championed their wish to maintain all federally funded medical research in a publicly accessible online archive maintained by the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central. It stands to reason that taxpayer-supported science should be available to all. The Pew Trust recently reported that 93 million Americans searched for medical knowledge on the Web to find the latest information for their health conditions, and more importantly, 58% actually took this information to their doctors. The public interest is clear. What about the interests of science? We know firsthand that faster, barrier-free access to scientific research findings is equally good if not more compelling for science and scientists—senior and early-career researchers alike. It's good for science because knowledge is cumulative—it advances by building on previous knowledge. Research in a vacuum has little or no value; it is infinitely more valuable when shared and used. Let's also be plain about the advancement of scientists, not just good science. When barriers to access are swept away, research is used more, and that equates to more citations. Scientific peers acknowledge our work more frequently, and as we all acknowledge, citations are the coin of the realm in all scientific fields. Citations demonstrate the significance of a scientist's research and thus advance our careers as well as our work itself. For younger scientists, being recognized is critical to our professional successes. Making our work openly available is a means of being recognized and emulated. Senior researchers also should be encouraging their graduate students and postdoctoral colleagues to use open access for career advancement. Even if the prestigious journals in our fields are not yet open access, young scientists always have opportunities to make our work available in an open archive like PubMed Central or at our universities' online institutional repositories. Academic institutions and the science community are forging new, innovative partnerships to advance science and to promote the best minds by harnessing an open-access environment. For those of us who have dedicated our lives to science, public access is a two-way street. We can more easily read other scientists' works (which helps our research), and they can read ours (making it far more likely to be cited). Younger researchers, educated and raised in the networked digital environment, are used to moving seamlessly from info source to info source. The scientific research environment should respond to and favor this effective work style. Knowledge itself is seamless, as ideas spark other ideas, or reject unworkable ones. Through public access to science, at last we will have the advantage of being able to move from primary literature to other data sources—and back. Finally, we will have the opportunity within our grasp to follow a research thread in the ideal way, without artificial barriers, gaps, and tariffs, regardless of the type of material or who owns and curates it—and to instantly make connections. In an age rife with the potential for infectious pandemics, bioterrorism, and toxic environmental calamity, and at a time when we need new ways to cure terrible illnesses, public access is our society's compelling answer to accelerating the best science possible. This advance is much needed, both by researchers working in academic settings and in the private sector. Indeed, we should demand no less. We invite our fellow scientists to join in the demand for open access to biomedical literature.

A new algorithm for reactive power management and pricing in an open access environment

AbstractIn deregulated electricity markets, reactive power is one of the ancillary services that is provided by the Independent System Operator (ISO). In this paper we propose a new algorithm to ‘tune’ reactive power resources with the objectives of minimizing active power losses and optimizing system voltage profile and stability. In our solution, we assume that reactive power resources are either owned by or are under long‐term contracts with the ISO. The optimization problem is solved as an Extended Multi‐objective Optimal Power Flow (EMOPF) problem using Lexico Graphic Method (LGM). Thereafter, using the concept of Fair Resource Allocation (FRA), the cost of reactive power is allocated to existing transactions. The application of the algorithm to a test system is also presented. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Institutional journal costs in an open access environment

AbstractThis study investigates the potential impact of open access pricing on institutional journal expenditures in four subject fields at nine American colleges and universities. Three pricing models are evaluated: the conventional model (the current subscription model), the PLoS open access model (based on the fees currently charged by the Public Library of Science), and the equal‐revenue open access model (which maintains current levels of total aggregate spending within each subject field). Because institutional disparities in publishing productivity are far greater than institutional disparities in library holdings, the shift from a subscription‐based model to either open access model would bring dramatic cost savings for most colleges and universities. At the same time, a small number of institutions—the top research universities—would pay a far higher proportion of the total aggregate cost.

Open access for the medical librarian

In this article open access is defined, and the resources and issues of greatest relevance to the medical librarian are discussed. The economics of open access publishing is examined from the point of view of the university library. Open access resources, both journals and articles in repositories, are already significant and growing rapidly. There are close to 2300 fully open access, peer-reviewed journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) (320 health sciences titles are included). DOAJ is adding new titles at the rate of 1.5 per day. An OAIster search of resources in repositories includes more than 7.6 million items (a rough estimate of the number of articles in repositories, although not all items are full text), and this number will exceed one billion items before the end of 2007. Medical research funders, including the US National Institutes of Health, the Wellcome Trust, the UK Medical Research Council, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, either have implemented or are considering open access policies. This will drive greater growth in open access resources, particularly in the area of medicine. There are implications and leadership opportunities for librarians in the open access environment.

Delegating Infrastructure Projects with Open Access

This paper provides a simple model that examines a firm’s incentive to invest in a network infrastructure through coalition formation in an openaccess environment with a deregulated retail market. A regulator faces a dilemma between inducing an incentive for efficient investment and reducing the distortion generated by imperfect competition. We show that, in such a case, the degree of cost-reducing effect of the investment is crucial from a welfare point of view. In particular, when network investment through coalition formation creates a large (small) cost-reducing effect, the regulator can (should not) delegate an investment decision to fi rms with an appropriate level of access charge.

Determination of Optimal Total Transfer Capability Using a Probabilistic Approach

/sup I/n an open-access environment, available transfer capability (ATC) is a very important index indicating the transfer capability remaining in a physical power transmission network for further commercial trading. Total transfer capability (TTC), as a key component for determining ATC, is not deterministic, due to the random nature of transmission failures. This paper introduces a framework for determination of probabilistic TTC. An optimal power flow (OPF) technique based on the sequential quadratic programming is implemented to evaluate TTCs for different contingency states in an interconnected power system. A model for determining the optimal TTC is proposed based on maximizing transmission revenue. Different penalty cost models for the no-delivered TTC have been investigated. The bisection search method is used to reduce the computing time of searching the optimal TTC. The numerical results for the IEEE-RTS system are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed models and solution techniques.

Copyright Issues in Open Access Research Journals

This article presents results of a survey undertaken as part of a series of work packages under a joint initiative by JISC and SURF to explore the attitudes of authors in the UK and the Netherlands towards Open Access. The Open Access environment has created a number of entirely new copyright models, which stand in contrast to the traditional academic journals in which the copyright has to be transferred from the author(s) to the journal publisher. The following emerging copyright models in OA journals were identified: a model in which the author keeps the copyright: this was preferred by nearly half of the respondents two models in which the author shares the copyright (with Creative Commons licences): these were preferred by nearly a third of the respondents a model in which the author transfers only the exploitation rights to the journal publisher: this was preferred by a small minority. These and other results seem to reflect a desire on the part of academics to change the balance of rights within copyright between authors and publishers in scholarly communication journals. Libraries and academic institutes are already taking part in the scholarly communication copyright debate and could use these results to align their positions with the academics' views.

Perceptions of bioinformatics researchers regarding copyright issues under the open access environment

AbstractOpen access is considered an alternative model for the promotion of scholarly communication, and much research has been done for the introduction and implication of it. Open access, however, is a relatively a new concept and requires authors' voluntary participation such as transfer of copyrights and providing the public with his/her research outcomes. In terms that authors are the major stakeholders for the open access initiative, it is very important to investigate the researchers' perceptions on copyright issues in terms of the open access environment. The purpose of this study is to investigate researchers' perceptions on copyright issues which may be one of the primary issues for the open access initiatives. Through a literature review and a survey, this research portrays many issues surrounding copyright and open access. They may vary depending on the types of research outcomes such as preprints, research reports and postprints. It also surveys many conditions, especially in terms of copyright issues, that researchers demand when s/he decides to put their research outcomes to use by the public.

Benchmarking the Environmental Performances of Farms (4 pp)

The usual route for improvement of agricultural practice towards sustainability runs via labelling schemes for products or farm practices. In most approaches requirements are set in absolute terms, disregarding the variation in environmental performance of farms. Another approach for promoting sustainable farming concerns the concept of benchmarking, which takes into account competition among farmers. The individual agricultural performance is characterized by quantitative criteria and compared with scores of other relevant farms. Therefore, a pilot study has been conducted in the Netherlands concerning benchmarking among arable farmers in the Internet involving crop protection. A voluntary Dutch benchmark initiative in the Internet is described including farmers' perception regarding the tool. The results show that the benchmark tool in the Internet allows farmers to compare their environmental and economic performance anonymously and securely in a large-scale open-access environment. The pilot group of farmers responded positively to the instrument. An important factor in success is the ease and speed with which data can be entered into the benchmark tool. A benchmark tool for comparing the environmental performance among farmers can form the basis for agreements between farmers and their costumers. An application involving food industry and retailers is discussed.

Access pricing and investment with stochastically growing demand

This paper examines the effect of access charges on firms' incentives to invest in a network facility with a stochastically growing demand. An access-to-bypass equilibrium is characterized in terms of an access charge and a level of network investment cost. In the equilibrium, a leader first enters a market by building a new network. Then a follower makes a sequential investment for the construction of an additional network after accessing the incumbent's network. In an open access environment, we confirm that the incentive for preemption can be enhanced by an increase in the access charge.

Artículo: Acceso abierto a las publicaciones científicas: definición, recursos, copyright e impacto

The Open access movement has attracted increased support over the past few years from both institutions and members of the scientific community. There has also been a growing interest in projects linked to open access initiatives. This article analyses the significance of open access --in accordance with the BOAI, Bethesda and Berlin declarations-- to scientific publications on the internet. An overview is provided on issues related to the impact of open access resources and to the implications of copyright concessions in an open access environment. Finally, the future perspective of open access is evaluated from the standpoint of governmental policies.

Close Encounters of the Virtual Kind: Agents Simulating Copresence

ABSTRACT Results of a field study of an open-access collaborative virtual environment in actual use suggested that awareness of others significantly increases the level of presence experienced by participants. Given the importance of copresence, this paper argues that, in the absence of other human collaborators in a collaborative virtual environment, copresence can potentially be simulated using agent technology. A controlled experiment deploying a prototype embodied conversational agent was conducted to investigate the potential of such agents to simulate copresence. This paper briefly introduces the concepts of presence and copresence, summarizes experiences drawn from the field study, reports on the controlled experiment, and discusses its results. Results suggest that even limited copresence as provided by the current prototype agent is sufficient to help users feel presence in the environment.

Assessment of Transmission Congestion Cost and Locational Marginal Pricing in a Competitive Electricity Market

In an open-access environment, transmission constraints can result in different energy prices throughout the network. These prices are, in fact, dependent on a number of factors such as the generating unit bid, system load level, network topology and security limits imposed on the transmission network due to thermal, and voltage and stability considerations. Computing these energy prices at all buses in large transmission networks under given system operating conditions can be time-consuming. This paper describes a simple methodology based on the analysis performed by the Hydro One in-house computer program (PROCOSE) to calculate, for a given period of time, transmission congestion cost (TCC) in dollars per unit time and locational marginal pricing (LMP) in dollars per megawatt-hour (MWh) at any selected bus in the transmission system. In addition, the information provided by the program output on congested transmission elements is used to identify buses in the network whose LMPs are representative of the entire network. The computed LMPs at these buses are used to define zones in the network where each zone has its LMP. The proposed methodology can be used to carry out sensitivity studies to determine the impact of changes in system parameters and operating conditions on the LMPs. The proposed method is illustrated using the IEEE Reliability Test System (RTS) and the Hydro One network system.

Optimal power transaction matrix rescheduling under multilateral open access environment

This paper addresses a new concept for determining optimal transactions between different entities in a multilateral environment while benefits of both buyer and seller entities are taken into account with respect to the rules of the system. At the same time, constraints of the network are met, which leads to an optimal power flow problem. A modified power transaction matrix is proposed for modeling the environment. The optimization method in this paper is the continuation method, which is suited for complex situations of power system studies. This complexity will become more serious when dual interaction between financial and electrical subsystems of competitive power system are taken into account. The proposed approach is tested on a typical network with satisfactory results.

Water Development Strategy as a Driving Force for Sustained Rangeland Management by Local Communities in Sub-Saharan Africa

Water is the major food component for the maintenance of animals. Although Africa is endowed with diverse agricultural environments, the survival of animals in Sahelian and sub-Sahelian Africa is threatened by the lack of water. Animals need water as an essential nutrient, a component of the body, and for conductive or evaporative cooling. Water needs are met mainly through drinking free water and to a lesser extent by utilising water that forms part of the feed. However during the long dry season, surface water resources dwindle and the water content of available forage decreases, thereby increasing the animals' demand for water. Consequently animals have to walk for long distances to obtain adequate forage and water, which in turn raises the demand for these resources. Water can be used to direct and regulate rangeland management in this open access environment, to maintain range resources and to improve their quality. Water development, which takes into consideration usable forage, despite some intra- or inter-annual variability, plays an important role and its spatial distribution will affect the grazing intensity of forage resources. Sound water development and management strategies integrating local communities in the decision-making will set up a firm basis for sustained range management in the free and open access environment of sub-Saharan Africa where lack of financial input, social and cultural habits and above all the environmental condition do not permit large scale fencing as in other parts of the world.

Use of a cocktail of probe substrates for drug-metabolizing enzymes for the assessment of the metabolic capacity of hepatocyte preparations

1. A cocktail of the following probe substrates for human drug-metabolizing enzymes was used to characterize hepatocyte preparations: phenacetin (for CYP1A2), diclofenac (CYP2C9), diazepam (CYP2C19), bufuralol (CYP2D6), midazolam (CYP3A4/5) and 7-hydroxycoumarin (for glucuronidation and sulphation).2. The cocktail was incubated with cryopreserved human, dog or minipig hepatocytes or with freshly prepared rat hepatocytes. Sample analysis was performed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) in an Open Access environment that allowed less experienced MS operators to login, submit and analyse sample sets using predefined settings without the immediate attendance of an experienced analyst. Intrinsic clearances (CLint) were calculated from the disappearance of the compounds from the incubations.3. Initially, the cocktail used for human, rat and dog hepatocyte incubations contained 7-ethoxycoumarin instead of 7-hydroxycoumarin. However, 7-ethoxycoumarin had an inhibitory effect on the metabolism of phenacetin.4. The highest CLint estimated with human and dog hepatocytes was observed for 7-hydroxycoumarin. For rat and minipig hepatocytes, the highest CLint was observed for bufuralol. In incubations with dog and minipig hepatocytes, the lowest CLint was seen with diclofenac, whereas for human and rat hepatocytes, the lowest value was observed with diazepam and phenacetin, respectively.5. When the cocktail was incubated together with human hepatocytes and 1 μM ketoconazole, the CLint of midazolam was decreased to about 7.5% of the control value, whereas the metabolism of the other cocktail compounds was virtually unaffected by this CYP3A inhibitor.6. It is suggested that a cocktail of specific human probe substrates for drug-metabolizing enzymes can be used routinely for the determination of the metabolic capacity of hepatocyte preparations in order to ensure the quality and reproducibility of experiments. Moreover, a cocktail of specific probe substrates can also be a useful tool for studies on enzyme inhibition.

Fishing Behavior and Decision-Making in an Ecuadorian Community: A Scaled Approach

Debate over how people behave in an open access environment is ongoing in both the social sciences and natural resource management circles. Central to this debate is the question of driving forces behind decisions and behavior toward natural resources within a given area. Using data from an artisanal shrimping community in Ecuador, I demonstrate that behavior in an open access environment, measured in terms of fishing effort, is responsive to both economic and noneconomic factors, the nature of which depends on the temporal scale at which behavior is being measured—hourly, daily, or amount of gear over time. These findings suggest that much of the observed variation between previous studies and corresponding data sets may be a methodological artifact, and the ensuing debates ultimately a result of different methodologies and scales of analyses.

Reactive reserve-based contingency constrained optimal power flow (RCCOPF) for enhancement of voltage stability margins

This paper presents a new concept of reactive reserve-based contingency constrained optimal power flow (RCCOPF) for voltage stability enhancement. This concept is based on the fact that increase in reactive reserves is effective for enhancement of voltage stability margins of post-contingent states. In this paper, the proposed algorithm is applied to voltage stability margin of interface flow. Interface flow limit, in the open access environment, can be a main drawback. RCCOPF for enhancement of interface flow margin is composed of two modules, modified continuation power flow (MCPF) and optimal power flow (OPF). These modules are recursively performed until satisfying the required margin of interface flow in the given voltage stability criteria.

Application of Flow NMR to an Open-Access Pharmaceutical Environment

We present the application of flow NMR in an automated, open-access environment. The adjustment of parameters affecting the selection of the correct sample size, the elimination of carry-over, and the optimization of sample recovery are addressed. Advantages of this method include ease of use, elimination of NMR tubes, an delimination of handling errors that can result in the contamination of the probe. Sample throughput is similar to instruments using a conventional autosampler (for Bruker instruments, a BACS) although the time used for shimming the sample can be eliminated when the sample solvent does not change. The key feature of our methodology is that only one push solvent is used. This has major advantages over methods that switch solvents because there is no extensive flushing required between solvents and the deuterated push solvent, deuterium oxide, is economical. The disadvantage is the need to maintain the push and transfer solvents and usually the loss of the exchangeable protons that the sample may have. The protocol we present, using a single push solvent, contributes to the application of flow NMR in hands-on medicinal chemistry environments.