Rigorous Peer Review Process Research Articles

Guest Editorial Special Section on Advances in NanoBioEngineering ICNBE 2018

The Engineering Sciences for Biology and Medicine (ESBM) is the world’s largest international society of biomedical engineers, which provides a platform for researchers all over the world to share ideas and knowledge regarding the development and applications of engineering concepts and methods toward the solution of biological, medical, and healthcare problems. In 2018, the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">IEEE EMBS R9 Monterrey Chapter</i> co-sponsored the first edition of the International Congress on NanoBioEngineering (ICNBE’18), organized by the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon through the School of Chemical Sciences, as the inaugural event of their new Research Center on Biotechnology and Nanotechnology (CIByN). This event was held at the Research Center on Biotechnology and Nanotechnology (CIByN), in Monterrey, Mexico, from the November 7–9, 2018. The ICNBE’18 served as an initial platform to foster interactions between scientists, engineers, and medical researchers and to discuss the advances and future applications of NanoBioEngineering Research. At the ICNBE’18, there were 10 plenary conferences imparted by globally recognized scientists in the fields of nanotechnology, biotechnology, and engineering; there was also a discussion forum on the relevance of interdisciplinary research between these three areas of knowledge and their contribution to solving the most important global problems. In addition, there were more than 70 scientific conferences in oral mode, three specialized workshops, and more than 50 scientific posters were presented; all of these with the aim to encourage discussions and exchange of ideas on the following areas: NanoBioMaterials, Nanotechnology Systems, Nanotechnology and Nanoscience, NanoBioChemistry, Environment and Sustainable Energy, NanoBioMedicine, and NanoBioEngineering. The editors thank all the participants for their appreciated contributions. This special issue selected peer-reviewed articles submitted from the ICNBE’18, and a total of six articles were selected for publication at the IEEE Transactions on Nanobioscience after the rigorous IEEE independent peer review process.

PIA19+MRSS19 – PHOTOGRAMMETRIC IMAGE ANALYSIS 2019 &amp; MUNICH REMOTE SENSING SYMPOSIUM 2019: PREFACE

Abstract. Automated extraction of objects from remotely sensed data is an important topic of research in Computer Vision, Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing, and Geoinformation Science. In order to discuss recent developments and future trends in research in automatic object extraction and their influence on sensors and processing techniques, the well-known ISPRS workshop "Photogrammetric Image Analysis" (PIA) and the "Munich Remote Sensing Symposium" (MRSS) are held as a common event for the first time.While in the past PIA specialised on the automatic exploitation of the image content, MRSS focuses on the geometric processing of aerial and in particular of space imagery. Realising that both areas - geometry and semantics - can significantly support each other when considered together in exploitation of images and point clouds, the two events, organised under a common roof, are held at Technische Universität München (TUM) in September 2019. At the same time, they keep their identity, as the meeting is organised as two parallel workshops with common plenary sessions and common proceedings.The aim of the common event is to seek, exploit and deepen the synergies between geometry and semantics, and to give the two scientific communities the possibility to discuss with and to learn from each other. Oral sessions with time slots of 25 min give space of 5 min for discussion of each presentation. Particular attention is also given to the poster sessions, which are supported by short oral presentations of the presenter before. The joint event addresses experts from research, government, and private industry. It consists of high quality papers, and provides an international forum for discussion of leading research and technological developments as well as applications in the field. It is worth mentioning that the ISPRS Foundation, Inc. (TIF) supports the event by providing six travel grants to qualified individuals especially from developing countries and regions.Prospective authors were invited to submit either full papers or abstracts. In total, we received 114 contributions from 28 countries.Full papers (max. eight pages) underwent a rigorous double blind peer review process. We received 48 full papers for review. Most papers were reviewed by three members of the program committee, 16 papers were reviewed by four members of the program committee. In total we received 157 full paper reviews from 35 reviewers. The maximum number of full papers per reviewer was eight. Altogether 31 papers were accepted based on the reviews for publication in the “ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences” which correspond to an acceptance rate of 65%. The fact that the full papers were peer reviewed is mentioned on each paper.Papers not passing the full paper peer review process were considered in the following abstract review process. In total 83 contributions were reviewed for publication in “The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences”. Finally 42 final papers (51%) were considered for publication.

PIA19+MRSS19 – PHOTOGRAMMETRIC IMAGE ANALYSIS 2019 &amp; MUNICH REMOTE SENSING SYMPOSIUM 2019: PREFACE

Abstract. Automated extraction of objects from remotely sensed data is an important topic of research in Computer Vision, Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing, and Geoinformation Science. In order to discuss recent developments and future trends in research in automatic object extraction and their influence on sensors and processing techniques, the well-known ISPRS workshop "Photogrammetric Image Analysis" (PIA) and the "Munich Remote Sensing Symposium" (MRSS) are held as a common event for the first time.While in the past PIA specialised on the automatic exploitation of the image content, MRSS focuses on the geometric processing of aerial and in particular of space imagery. Realising that both areas - geometry and semantics - can significantly support each other when considered together in exploitation of images and point clouds, the two events, organised under a common roof, are held at Technische Universität München (TUM) in September 2019. At the same time, they keep their identity, as the meeting is organised as two parallel workshops with common plenary sessions and common proceedings.The aim of the common event is to seek, exploit and deepen the synergies between geometry and semantics, and to give the two scientific communities the possibility to discuss with and to learn from each other. Oral sessions with time slots of 25 min give space of 5 min for discussion of each presentation. Particular attention is also given to the poster sessions, which are supported by short oral presentations of the presenter before. The joint event addresses experts from research, government, and private industry. It consists of high quality papers, and provides an international forum for discussion of leading research and technological developments as well as applications in the field. It is worth mentioning that the ISPRS Foundation, Inc. (TIF) supports the event by providing six travel grants to qualified individuals especially from developing countries and regions.Prospective authors were invited to submit either full papers or abstracts. In total, we received 114 contributions from 28 countries.Full papers (max. eight pages) underwent a rigorous double blind peer review process. We received 48 full papers for review. Most papers were reviewed by three members of the program committee, 16 papers were reviewed by four members of the program committee. In total we received 157 full paper reviews from 35 reviewers. The maximum number of full papers per reviewer was eight. Altogether 31 papers were accepted based on the reviews for publication in the “ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences” which correspond to an acceptance rate of 65%. The fact that the full papers were peer reviewed is mentioned on each paper.Papers not passing the full paper peer review process were considered in the following abstract review process. In total 83 contributions were reviewed for publication in “The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences”. Finally 42 final papers (51%) were considered for publication.

National Toxicology Program Position Statement on Informed ("Nonblinded") Analysis in Toxicologic Pathology Evaluation.

The National Toxicology Program (NTP) uses histopathological evaluation of animal tissues as a key element in its toxicity and carcinogenicity studies. The initial histopathological evaluations are subjected to a rigorous peer review process involving several steps. The NTP peer review process is conducted by multiple, highly trained, and experienced toxicological pathologists employing standardized terminology. In addition, ancillary data, such as body and organ weights and clinical pathology findings, are used to corroborate the diagnoses. The NTP does employ masked analysis to confirm subtle lesions or severity scores, as needed, and during its Pathology Working Groups. The use of masked analysis can have a negative effect on histopathological evaluation because it is important for the pathologist to compare treated groups to the concurrent controls, which would not be possible in a blinded evaluation. Therefore, the NTP supports an informed approach to histopathological evaluation in its toxicity and carcinogenicity studies.

Preface

XVI International Conference of Students and Young Scientists “Prospects of Fundamental Sciences Development” (PFSD-2019) conf-prfn.org23-26 April, 2019Tomsk, RussiaThe XVI International Conference of Students and Young Scientists “Prospects of Fundamental Sciences Development” (PFSD-2019), held on 23-26 April, 2019 in Tomsk, Russia, is an annual multidisciplinary conference gathering together students, young researchers, post-docs, and experienced researchers working in the different research areas in order to facilitate aggregation and sharing interests and results for a better collaboration.The conference received more than 140 submissions. After a rigorous peer-review process, 80 papers were accepted. The accepted papers cover the following conference topics: (1) Chemistry: synthesis and properties of functional materials; physicochemical analysis methods for materials; nanomaterials; ecology; organic synthesis; catalysis and petrochemistry; (2) Construction methods and materials; (3) Physics: condensed matter physics; surface physics; accelerator physics; hydrogen energetic; geophysics; modeling of physical processes; (4) Fundamental Medicine: cell biology, biochemistry; microbiology, biophysics, biomaterials; (5) Mathematics & IT: mathematical modeling and data analysis; mathematical methods in physics, chemistry, medicine, computational mathematics, differential equations, automated data processing and control systems, electronics; optoelectronics and nanophotonics; plasma emission electronics.We are very grateful to all reviewers, both local and international, for their time and effort in reviewing the papers. Their feedback to the authors has been excellent and useful to ensure the high quality of papers for the conferences.The Organizing Committee of PFSD-2019 thanks Universities involved in the conference organizing and Sponsors for their financial support, as well as everyone who contributed to the organization of this event and to the Proceedings publication.Chair of the PFSD-2019 Organizing Committee: Prof. Irina KurzinaEditors of the PFSD-2019 Conference Proceedings: Dr. Mikhail Semenov and Anna Bogdan

Preface of ISAI2019

The International Conference on Information Systems and Artificial Intelligence [ISAI] is an academic conference on the advancement of artificial intelligence and information systems. The conference includes the fields of machine vision, natural language processing, speech recognition and the industry application of AI, and is of great significance to the development of intelligent machines, intelligent human-computer interaction, and effective use of information, human health and social security.The primary goal of the conference is to promote research and developmental activities in information system and artificial intelligence and another goal is to promote scientific information interchange between researchers, developers, engineers, students, and practitioners working all around the world. The conference will be held every year to make it an ideal platform for people to share views and experiences in information system and artificial intelligence and related areas.The 2019 4th Annual International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Information Systems was held on May 17th-18th in Changsha, Hunan, China. The conference received 592 full-paper and abstract submissions from China and many other countries or regions over the world. Through a rigorous peer-review process, all submissions were refereed based on their quality of content, level of innovation, significance, originality and legibility. Papers were accepted, and their authors were invited to present their papers at the conference. We invited keynote speakers to deliver their recent research progress, who are internationally recognized leading experts in their own research areas. The proceedings are published by IOP Conference Series: Journal of Physics: Conference Series (JPCS)We would like to thank all the authors, speaker and participants for their great contributions to the success of ISAI2019 and to express our sincere gratitude to all the members of Technical Program Committee and organizers for their enthusiasm, time, and expertise.ISAI 2019 Organizing Committee

Preface

The organizing committee of ICAMTSL 2019 is proud to present the proceedings of the 2019 International Conference on Advanced Materials and Technology for Sustainable Life (ICAMTSL 2019: http://www.icamtsl.net/), held in Shanghai, China from 28 to 30 June 2019. We warmly welcomed prospective authors to submit new research papers to ICAMTSL 2019 and share their valuable experience with scientists and scholars around the world.The conference is an international forum for the presentation of technological advances and research results in the fields of sustainable aspects of materials science and technology such as fundamentals, applications and engineering of biomaterials, nanomaterials and composite materials. The conference will bring together leading researchers, engineers and scientists in the domain of interest from around the world.ICAMTSL 2019 received more than 50 manuscripts, and 17 submissions have been accepted by our reviewers. By submitting a paper to ICAMTSL 2019, the authors understood and agreed that papers would undergo a rigorous peer-review process. Manuscripts were reviewed by at least two independent, qualified experts in the field selected by the conference committee, who took detailed comments and the authors would submit a revised version in which the feedback was taken into consideration. All papers were reviewed using a double-blind review process: authors declared their names and affiliations in the manuscript for the reviewers to see, but reviewers did not know each other’s identities, nor did the authors receive information about who had reviewed their manuscript.The committees of ICAMTSL 2019 invested great efforts in reviewing the papers submitted to the conference and organizing the sessions to enable the participants to gain maximum benefit. We sincerely appreciate your participation and do believe our joint efforts would make our conference indeed fruitful and successful.With our warmest regards,Conference Organizing ChairShanghai, China

The 1st International Scientific Conference on Pure Science

PrefaceThe 1st International Scientific Conference on Pure Science (ISCPS2019) was held on 23 -24 January 2019 at the University of Al-Qadisiyah, College of Education, Diwaniyah, South of Iraq. The ISCPS2019 was the first forum to present the innovative results of the advanced topics in physics, mathematics, biology, and chemistry. The conference was jointly organised by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Iraq. The conference is an opportunity to achieve the strategic goals on the processes of activating the own capability to build (knowledge society), and keep abreast of scientific developments in the fields of science, and their applications and investments to serve the society. Thus, the conference aims is to bring together leading academics, scholars and students to discuss theoretical and practical issues to share their experiences and research findings, as well as ideas, problems and solutions related to the multifaceted aspects of Advanced Science.In this Conference, 300 technical papers were presented by local and international participants. The event included the contributions of large number of researchers, elite of universities and scientific institutions inside and outside Iraq. The contributions focused on the exchange of ideas and the dissemination of scientific knowledge.A number of reviewers assessed the quality of manuscripts. A rigorous peer-review process have implemented to evaluate the manuscripts. All accepted papers will be published in the conference proceeding. A booklet of abstracts was given to all participants on the registration day. The Committee have selected the high-quality manuscripts for publication in a special issue within a recognized international journal (with Clarivate and Scopus Indexing). The organised committee would like to thank the editors, Keynote speakers, reviewers and authors who have contributed to the Conference Proceedings. Our special thanks go to the Iraqi Higher Education and Scientific Research for their support towards the successful organization of the conference.The EDITORS OF THE WORK:Dr. Qusiy H. Al-Galiby Editor-in-ChiefQuantum Electronics & Nanoscience, member of Colin’s group in Quantum Nanotechnology Centre (c.lambert@lancaster.ac.uk), Lancaster University, UK Department of physics, University of Al-Qadisiyah, IraqEmails: qusiy.algaliby@qu.edu.iq qusiyalgaliby@gmail.comq.agaliby@lancaster.ac.ukFor Physics section:Solid State Physics EditorProf. Dr. Ahmed Abdul-Lettif University of Karbala, IraqEmail: Abdulateef1962@gmail.comNuclear physics, Radioactivity and Medical Physics EditorAssist. Prof. Dr. Murtadha Sh. Aswood University of Al-Qadisiyah, Iraq Email: murtadhababylon@gmail.comMolecular Electronics EditorAssist. Prof. Dr. Laith Algharagholy University of Sumer, IraqEmail: l.algharagholy@gmail.comPlasma Physics EditorProf. Dr. kadhim A. AadimUniversity of Baghdad, IraqEmail: hadhim_adem@Scbaghdad.edu.iqApplied Physics and Nanotechnology EditorAraa Mebdir Holi Alshabbani University of Al-Qadisiyah, Iraq Email: araa.holi@qu.edu.iqImage Processing EditorDr. Hayder Saad Abdulbaqi University of Al-Qadisiyah, Iraq Email: hayderhany@gmail.comLaser and Optics EditorAssist. Prof. Dr. Mustafa Al Musawi University of Al Mustansitya, Iraq Email: laser_mu@yahoo.comFor Biology sectionPlant Physiology EditorProf. Dr. Abdulameer Ali Yaseen AlharesDepartment of biology, University of Al-Qadisiyah, Iraq Email: Abdulameer.Alhares@qu.edu.iqParasitology EditorProf. Dr. Hadi M.H.Al_MayaliDepartment of biology, University of Al_Qadisiyah Email: Hadi.Hamza@qu.edu.iqMicrobiology EditorProf. Dr. Majid Kadhim Al-ShiblyDepartment of biology, University of Al-Qadisiyah, Iraq Email: Majid.shibly@qu.eduEcology EditorAssist. Prof. Dr. Raid Kadhim Abed Al-Asady Email: raid.al-asady@qu.edu.iqAnimal physiology EditorAssist. Prof. Dr. Ahmed Jassem Al-NaelyDepartment of biology, University of Al-Qadisiyah, Iraq Email: ahmed.jassem@qu.edu.iqPhycology EditorAssist. Prof.Dr. Haider A. AlghanmiDepartment of biology, University of Al-Qadisiyah, Iraq Email: haider.alghanmi@qu.edu.iqEditors for Mathematics section:Prof. Dr. Rahim Alhamzawi University of Al-Qadisiyah Email: Rahim.alhamzawi@qu.edu.iqProf. Dr. Nadia Mohammed Ghanim University of TechnologyEmail: nadiamg08@gmail.comProf. Dr. Raid Kamil Naji University of BaghdadEmail: rknaji@scbaghdad.edu.iqProf. Dr. Waggas Galib Atshan University of Al-Qadisiyah Email: waggas.galib@qu.edu.iqProf. Dr. Habeeb Mtashar Abood University of BusrahEmail: iraqsafwan2006@gmail.comFor chemistry section:Physical Chemistry EditorProf. Dr. Hassan A.Habeeb AlshamsiDepartment Of Chemistry, University of Al-Qadisiyah, Iraq Email: Hasanchem70@gmail.comAnalytical Chemistry EditorAssist. Prof. Dr. Layth Sameer Jasim Mohammed Department Of Chemistry, University of Al-Qadisiyah, IraqEmail: layth.alhayder@qu.edu.iqOrganic Chemistry EditorProf. Dr. Nabeel Abdul-RedaDepartment Of Chemistry, University of Al-Qadisiyah, Iraq Email: nabeel.a.alradha@qu.edu.iqInorganic Chemistry EditorProf. Dr Khalid Jawad AL-AdileeCollege of Education, University of Al-Qadisiyah, Iraq Email: Khalid.Jawad@qu.edu.iqBiochemistry EditorAssist. Prof. Dr. Anwar J. almzaielUniversity of Al-Qadisiyah,College of Medicine, Department Of Chemistry Email: anwar.almzaiel@qu.edu.iq

ISCPS2019

ISCPS2019

The 1st International Conference on Mechanical Electronic and Biosystem Engineering

PrefaceThe 1st International Conference on Mechanical Electronic and Biosystem Engineering (MEBSE 2018) was held on 15-16 December 2018 in Bogor, Indonesia, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Indonesia. MEBSE 2018 was organized by Malaysian Society of Instrumentation and Control Technology (MSICT), School of Mechatronic Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP), Bogor Agricultural University (IPB), and Technopreneur At UniMAP Sdn. Bhd (TUSB).The MEBSE 2018 aims to provide a platform for participants from the diverse field of Mechanical, Mechatronics and Biosystem Engineering backgrounds to exchange ideas and findings to promote cooperation, networking as well as knowledge sharing in both engineering practice and research in higher education. The conference includes the fields of Mechatronics, Ergonomics and Biomedical Engineering, Fluid Thermal and Energy Conversion, Postharvest, Food and Biosystem Engineering, Network, Data and Automation, Non-Destructive Evaluation and Remote Sensing. The conference received more than 100 papers from Malaysia, Indonesia and other countries over the world. After a rigorous peer-review process, 89 papers were accepted. The accepted papers that focused on theory, applications, design and experimental studies relevant to mechanical, mechatronics, and biosystem engineering field were invited to present in this conference.I wish to record my gratitude to all reviewers, both local and international, for their time and effort in reviewing the papers. Their feedback to the authors has been excellent and useful to ensure the high quality of papers for the conferences. My sincere thanks also go to all sponsors for their generosity. Last but not least, I would like to thank also the organizing committee members for their hard work, cooperation and suggestions in ensuring the success of this conference.Ir. Dr. Zuradzman Mohamad RazlanHead EditorMEBSE 2018Photograph available in this PDF.

Civil Engineering and Symmetry

A topic of utmost importance in civil engineering is finding optimal solutions throughout the life cycle of buildings and infrastructural objects, including their design, manufacturing, use, and maintenance. Operational research, management science, and optimisation methods provide a consistent and applicable groundwork for engineering decision-making. These topics have received the interest of researchers, and, after a rigorous peer-review process, eight papers have been published in the current special issue. The articles in this issue demonstrate how solutions in civil engineering, which bring economic, social and environmental benefits, are obtained through a variety of methodologies and tools. Usually, decision-makers need to take into account not just a single criterion, but several different criteria and, therefore, multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approaches have been suggested for application in five of the published papers; the rest of the papers apply other research methods. The methods and application case studies are shortly described further in the editorial.

Confidence intervals in dermatology

This study from the U.S.A. aimed to find out how often confidence intervals are used when reporting dermatology research. Confidence intervals relate to two values (‘intervals’) that the researchers, using data analysis, believe that the actual, true value will fall within. A 95% confidence interval indicates that if an experiment were repeated 100 times, and a 95% confidence interval was calculated each time, 95 of the intervals would contain the true value while five of the intervals would not contain the true value. A confidence interval might be used when you want to estimate something about a very large number of people, and can therefore only use a sample of those people. For example, if you want to know how many people in the UK have dry skin, you cannot ask every person, so you use a sample and then calculate a range for the mean number of people in your sample who have dry skin. As the sample is never going to be an exact representation of the whole population, you might say that you are 95% confident that the mean number of people in the UK with dry skin is, for example, between 20% and 30%. Confidence intervals help readers understand both the statistical significance and the clinical significance more easily. Most modern statistical software packages conveniently calculate confidence intervals and provide an intuitive way to understand study results. The authors collected dermatology articles from a variety of major dermatology journals as well as dermatology articles from the New England Journal of Medicine over the past decade. The authors found that reporting of this important metric is disappointingly low in dermatology journals, with only 1 in 5 articles containing confidence intervals, which was significantly lower than reporting in the New England Journal of Medicine. Articles published more recently were more likely to report confidence intervals. After controlling for factors like type of study and year of publication, the New England Journal of Medicine still reported confidence intervals more frequently. This is likely due to their extremely rigorous statistical peer review process. While such strict requirements cannot be adopted by all journals, increased awareness of this simple metric could significantly improve the statistical reporting of the dermatology literature. We urge dermatology researchers to include this important metric in their findings. Likewise, we recommend improved statistical training as part of dermatology residency training.

Editorial: Courses of Nature

Junctions: Graduate Journal of the Humanities is an interdisciplinary, peer reviewed and open access journal in the Humanities. The journal aims to connect the different disciplines of the Humanities by collecting disciplinary and interdisciplinary texts so that they are accessible to readers from across the Humanities. Junctions provides scholars at the start of their academic careers with the opportunity to disseminate their research to a diverse audience of peers and professionals, as well as providing graduate students with relevant practical experience of organizing and maintaining a peer-reviewed open access journal. Through a rigorous double blind peer review process, the journal seeks to maintain the highest academic standards possible. Check out our new promo video here.

Becoming Cross-Cultural Kids in K. J. Fowler’s 'We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves'

Junctions: Graduate Journal of the Humanities is an interdisciplinary, peer reviewed and open access journal in the Humanities. The journal aims to connect the different disciplines of the Humanities by collecting disciplinary and interdisciplinary texts so that they are accessible to readers from across the Humanities. Junctions provides scholars at the start of their academic careers with the opportunity to disseminate their research to a diverse audience of peers and professionals, as well as providing graduate students with relevant practical experience of organizing and maintaining a peer-reviewed open access journal. Through a rigorous double blind peer review process, the journal seeks to maintain the highest academic standards possible. Check out our new promo video here.

10th Malaysian Road Conference & Exhibition 2018

PrefaceThe Malaysian Road Conference & Exhibition 2018, currently tenth in its series, was held from 29th to 31st October 2018 at the Sunway Pyramid Convention Centre in the city of Petaling Jaya, located in the suburbs of Malaysia’s capital city of Kuala Lumpur. The conference was jointly organised by the Ministry of Works Malaysia, Public Works Department of Malaysia, Malaysian Highway Authority, World Road Association (PIARC) and the Road Engineering Association of Malaysia in collaboration with the Construction Industry Development Board Malaysia, International Road Federation Global and Road Engineering Association of Asia and Australasia. A World Road Association (PIARC) International Seminar on Asset Management was simultaneously hosted.Revolve around the main theme of Global Approaches to Advance Road Asset Management, 61 technical papers from local and international participants were presented, concerning new indicators and directions relating to the research, development, cutting-edge technologies, construction, management and maintenance of road, highway and related infrastructure assets. The conference has benefited those in the road industry, be they road concessionaires, expressway regulators, related government authorities, consultants, contractors, project managers and engineers from public and corporate sector organisations.Technical papers have undergone a rigorous peer-review process, based on initial Editors’ screening, anonymous refereeing by independent expert referees, and consequent revision by the article author(s) when required. Editors would like to thank the author(s) who have contributed to the Conference Proceedings, and also to all delegates for their support towards the successful organization of the conference. Our special thanks go to the Technical Program Committee for their devoted assistance and expertise towards the preparation of the conference proceedings. Also, the Editors would like to extend gratitude to the other Committee members as well as all the individual whom are directly and indirectly involved to make the conference possible.

Withdrawn: How to investigate an accused serial sexual harasser.

Withdrawal: Shuster, JJ, Handler, M. How to investigate an accused serial sexual harasser. Statistics in Medicine. 2019; 1-4. https://doi.org/10.1002/sim.8145. The above article from Statistics in Medicine, published online on 21 March 2019 in Wiley Online Library (http://wileyonlinelibrary.com) has been withdrawn by agreement of the authors, the Journal Editors (Ralph D'Agostino, Simon Day, Els Goetghebeur and Joel Greenhouse) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. The editors acknowledge that the original manuscript did not undergo the rigorous peer-review process that is customarily expected of a scholarly journal.

Ruthless Sharing of Information

Ruthless Sharing of Information

Online "Versus" Print: No More an Either/Or.

One of the roles of the co–editors-in-chief is to dialogue with clinicians about the publishing process as well as topics and trends of interest for our specialty. We have realized that some readers may not be familiar with our “published ahead-of-print” and “online-only” modalities. With this prompt, our editorial was born. When the journal was first published in 1988, each subscriber received a printed copy of the journal four times a year. There was no online presence for the journal; clinicians eagerly awaited their “hard copy.” Content was static and unchangeable after press time, barring a retraction or correction in a future issue.1 Nowadays, online publication has enabled us to be much more agile and deliver content in multiple timely ways. As Marshall McLuhan,2 a Canadian professor, philosopher, and public intellectual stated, “The medium is the message.” McLuhan2 believes that each new medium is a potential extension of ourselves (eg, speech leads to writing, and writing leads to the printed word) that adds a new scale into our affairs (eg, the introduction of online publishing increases agility). Advances in Skin and Wound Care is dedicated to taking full advantage of new opportunities to inform our readers, beyond simply publishing online versions of content alongside print. In 2019, skin and wound health professionals still eagerly await each new issue, but they do not want to wait; they want the latest research as quickly as possible. The advent of the internet and our journal’s website provides a platform to electronically publish selected manuscripts so that our subscribers can read an article before it appears in the printed journal. Called “published ahead-of-print,” this category comprises articles that will appear in an upcoming printed issue. They can be found on www.woundcarejournal.com. (Under the Issues tab, in the dropdown menu, click “Published Ahead-of-Print.” You can also subscribe to the journal’s Published Ahead-of-Print Alerts.) This gives our readers the opportunity to access cutting-edge material prior to the hard copy of the journal reaching them in the mail. For example, a commentary by Dr Jeffrey Levine entitled Historical Perspective on Pressure Injury Classification: The Legacy of J. Darrel Shea will be published ahead-of-print before the end of the month. It will also appear in print as part of the special focus on pressure injuries in the March issue. Be assured that these papers have undergone the same rigorous peer-review process as all of our manuscripts and have been formally accepted for publication in Advances. Each of these articles, available in PDF, has its own unique DOI (digital object identifier) number that carries over into print publication and can be cited using the date of access. However, it is important to note that there may still be edits and changes made to the final printed version of the journal manuscript as well as the final electronic version. Articles published ahead-of-print are not the same as the Online Exclusives that we wrote about in our December editorial.3 Given the number of quality manuscripts we receive every year and the printed page constraints with which we contend, publishing important research online is another valuable solution we implement to ensure clinicians and researchers have access to the very latest information. Once again, all of these online-only manuscripts are peer reviewed, accepted for publication, edited, formatted, and indexed in PubMed and other databases. The difference is that they are only published electronically on the Advances website. The next time you are exploring our website, you may notice another tab called “Collections.” Here you will find key articles published in the journal organized by topic. These include a Best of 2018 collection and other content on burn wounds, deep tissue injury, diabetic foot ulcers, palliative care, scars, skin integrity, skin imaging, venous leg ulcers, wound infection, wound pain, and more. Clinicians are welcome to request a collection or search our archives (dating back to our very first issue) for a specific topic. All of these resources are approaches to facilitating access to the latest evidence and information. Take a moment to reflect on your current professional development and how you can use these new modalities to enhance patient care outcomes.FigureElizabeth A. Ayello, PhD, RN, CWON, ETN, MAPWCA, FAANFigureR. Gary Sibbald, MD, DSc (Hons), MEd, BSc, FRCPC (Med Derm), FAAD, MAPWCA, JM

Quantifying risk associated with clinical trial termination: A text mining approach

Clinical trials that terminate prematurely without reaching conclusions raise financial, ethical, and scientific concerns. Scientific studies in all disciplines are initiated with extensive planning and deliberation, often by a team of highly trained scientists. To assure that the quality, integrity, and feasibility of funded research projects meet the required standards, research-funding agencies such as the National Institute of Health and the National Science Foundation, pass proposed research plans through a rigorous peer review process before making funding decisions. Yet, some study proposals successfully pass through all the rigorous scrutiny of the scientific peer review process, but the proposed investigations end up being terminated before yielding results. This study demonstrates an algorithm that quantifies the risk associated with a study being terminated based on the analysis of patterns in the language used to describe the study prior to its implementation. To quantify the risk of termination, we use data from the clinicialTrials.gov repository, from which we extracted structured data that flagged study characteristics, and unstructured text data that described the study goals, objectives and methods in a standard narrative form. We propose an algorithm to extract distinctive words from this unstructured text data that are most frequently used to describe trials that were completed successfully vs. those that were terminated. Binary variables indicating the presence of these distinctive words in trial proposals are used as input in a random forest, along with standard structured data fields. In this paper, we demonstrate that this combined modeling approach yields robust predictive probabilities in terms of both sensitivity (0.56) and specificity (0.71), relative to a model that utilizes the structured data alone (sensitivity = 0.03, specificity = 0.97). These predictive probabilities can be applied to make judgements about a trial's feasibility using information that is available before any funding is granted.

Special Section: 2018 Copper Mountain Conference

The Eighteenth Copper Mountain Conference on Iterative Methods was held March 25--30, 2018, in Copper Mountain, Colorado. The meeting featured more than 170 presentations on a broad range of topics in scientific computing, such as optimization, randomized algorithms, asynchronous solvers, inverse-problem solvers, saddle-point and indefinite problems, multigrid and multilevel solvers, nonlinear solvers, uncertainty quantification, rank structured solvers, parallel solvers in time and space, advanced architectures, and applications in physics and fluid mechanics, Earth sciences, imaging, data science, and other areas. The number of attendees was a record-high 210, including 73 (35%) graduate students. Michele Benzi of Emory University (currently at Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa) and Ray Tuminaro of Sandia National Laboratories served as conference co-chairs. This was Ray's last Copper Mountain Conference as co-chair after having served since 2010. On behalf of the scientific committee, we are truly grateful to Ray for his exceptional leadership and service. Management services were provided by Annette Anthony of Front Range Scientific Computations, Inc. We gratefully acknowledge financial support for the conference from Argonne National Laboratory, the Department of Energy, IBM, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories. The Copper Mountain Conference is organized in cooperation with the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). Submissions to this special section were open to the scientific community, as advertised in advance on websites of the SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing (SISC) and the Copper Mountain Conference. The 20 papers in this section all center on iterative methods, and yet they cover a broad range of topics and include theoretical developments, algorithms and applications. Some of the papers are extensions of manuscripts which appeared in the student paper competition of the conference, continuing a long tradition of strong participation and contribution of talented graduate students in the field. We are grateful to SIAM and SISC for hosting this special section and to the editorial board and the referees, who worked hard to ensure a rigorous peer-review process while meeting the deadlines. Special thanks are extended to Brittni Holland (SIAM Editorial Associate) and Mitch Chernoff (SIAM Publications Manager) for their efforts. We hope that the diverse and high-quality research reported in this special section will encourage further exciting developments in this important field. Irad Yavneh Guest Editor Guest Associate Editors: Michele Benzi, Xiao-Chuan Cai, Luis Chacon, Iain Duff, Howard Elman, Kirk Jordan, Tim Kelley, Misha Kilmer, Sven Leyffer, Xiaoye Sherry Li, Tom Manteuffel, James Nagy, Kengo Nakajima, Luke Olson, Geoff Sanders, Robert Scheichl, John Shadid, David Silvester, Andreas Stathopoulos, Ray Tuminaro, Karen Willcox, Carol Woodward