Letter to the editor: On plurality and authorship in science

Moffatt argues that the “plurality of distinct accounts of scientific authorship” necessitates caution in attempts to identify unethical authorship practices, and urges that considerations be given to establishing a “single consensus account of authorship.” The revised International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) criteria do capture the essential features of authorship in terms of “intellectual contribution” and “responsibility and accountability,” which would clearly demarcate academically legitimate authorship from the common misdemeanors of ghost writing and honorary authorship. However, plurality in the practice of science and credit-sharing culture at the ground would likely render universal adoption or compliance of a single consensus account of authorship untenable.     

Declaring Conflict of Interest – Current State of Affairs in the Ophthalmic Literature

The importance of transparency with financial ties in biomedical research is widely recognized, and most peer-reviewed journals require declarations of Conflicts of Interest (COI). Nonetheless, variability in the consistency of declarations of COI has been sparsely assessed. To assess consistency and rates of COI declarations in the ophthalmic literature and the effectiveness of journal COI policies. We analyzed consistency and completeness of declaration of COI in the ophthalmic literature and compared the levels of completeness to specific journal requirements. Six-hundred forty-two peer reviewed articles satisfied the inclusion criteria. In 64%, COIs were unreported, in 25% declaration of COI was incomplete, and 11% of the articles reviewed had complete declaration of COI. Of the 33 journals in which the most frequently published authors’ articles appeared, 10 required the authors to complete the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) form or an equivalent form, but this did not affect the rates of COI declaration. In a random sampling of the most frequently published authors in the field of ophthalmology, declaration of COI was low and highly inconsistent. Requiring a standardized COI form has no significant effect on the rate of accurate COI reporting. Our findings lend support to the growing body of literature that shows that journals and editors may need to take a more active role in ensuring accurate and consistent COI reporting.     

基于中国知网高被引期刊被引指标的相关性探讨

统计并分析了中国知网《引文数据库》高被引期刊被引频次最高的前30名期刊发文量、被引频次、下载频次、H指数、被引率等指标间的相关性,显示发文量与下载频次间呈显著正相关,与被引率和H指数均为显著负相关;被引率与H指数呈现高度正相关。结果表明不宜片面追求发文量,而应保持刊物适度容量,走精品期刊道路;另一方面,也反映出H指数作为新出现的期刊计量指标所具有的应用价值。     

地方高校学术期刊稿流控制及传播策略研究——以《唐都学刊》为例

稿流是学术期刊知识创新和传播的表征。期刊稿流分为出版前、出版后两个阶段。学术期刊编辑工作者应树立先进的科学理念,寻找新的办刊模式,将具有创新性的观点、信息传播出去,让更多的学者、读者所认知,进而产生广泛的学术影响力。若能将其成果与社会发展实践相结合,就会产生更大的社会效益。《唐都学刊》的编辑工作者在刊物稿流及传播策略方面积极探索,取得了显著成绩。     

Can self-regulation deliver an ethical commercial literature? A critical reading of the “Good Publication Practice” (GPP3) guidelines for industry-financed medical journal articles

Much medical journal literature is developed by the pharmaceutical and device industries, sometimes with assistance from marketing agencies, writers, and academics. This literature is vulnerable to commercial bias. The publications trade issues self-regulatory ethical guidelines for its production, called “Good Publication Practice” (GPP). I evaluated the most recent iteration, GPP3. The most progressive recommendations in GPP3 call for complete publication of all clinical trials, and full data sharing. GPP3 makes numerous further recommendations more directly concerning the publications trade. Many of these repeat existing editorial requirements, chiefly those of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, but readers are not adequately advised of this. Despite its emphasis on ethical and transparent reporting, the detail of GPP3 enables continued use of academic medical literature for drug marketing, on the basis of commercial steerage of content, coupled with the attribution of published articles to collaborating academic authors. As such, GPP3 provides a de facto manual for how marketing through academic journal content can be conducted in compliance with contemporary editorial standards. Consequently, the self-regulatory GPP3 guidelines are not a sound basis for the production of unbiased industry-financed medical journal literature. I suggest improvements for future iterations of these influential guidelines.     

Who Needs Music Patrols?

Dear Editors: I was deeply shocked by your article in the July 1st issue entitled "A Music Patrol." We all know that music has never mixed with politics: musicians are neutral on such matters. Every country has all types of orchestras-symphonic, chamber and jazz—which perform all manner of music. This is especially so in restaurants, where a person goes to have supper, relax and listen to tunes of his choosing. Let us assume the band is playing American songs (in response to the listeners' demands) such as Lullabye, St. Louis Blues and so on. What now? Will Komsomol members interfere here too? Let them rather look to order in the streets and not try to butt in and offer their absurd advice in matters musical! Is it your idea that they are to forbid Eddie Rozner from performing Duke Ellington's Caravan and Mood Indigo?     

Unnecessary Tutelage

Respected Editors! As a deputy and a woman reading your journal, I would like to relate an episode in my experience as a deputy which disturbed me greatly.     

新农合“病有所医”有无增进农村居民健康？——对住院患者医疗服务利用、健康和收入影响的再审视

中国新型农村合作医疗制度已基本实现农村居民“病有所医”,但其有无明显增进农村居民健康一直存在争议。以往研究多基于2009年之前的数据,忽视不同群体受益程度异质性,本文研究发现,新农合实施有改善农村居民身体健康的作用,但难说能全面增进农村居民健康。即便对健康状况较差、医疗需求较大的住院或被建议住院的人,新农合的影响也比较有限。其中,患病重、年龄大和收入较低的人受益稍大,新农合能显著增进其健康还不增加住院自付支出,且参合时间越长,作用越明显,但健康增进只是缓解病痛。对患病轻和年龄较小者,新农合仅有助于其增加医疗服务的利用。     

Statistical Errors in Papers in the British Journal of Social Work (Volumes 1-14)

Summary This paper examines the statistical error rate in the BritishJournal of Social Work (BJSW), volumes 1–14. Half of thepapers (n=175) contain empirical data and half do not. Fifty-nineof the empirical articles are quantitative with statisticalanalysis; they account for 17% of the papers in the first 14volumes. Thirty-nine of these papers (66%) make 57 errors, arate which is comparable to that reported in the British Journalof Psychiatry. Nineteen papers (32%) make serious errors. Examplesof the type of errors are described. The wider use of reliablestatistical advice, prior to undertaking data collection, isrecommended.     

发现亮点：编辑工作者的首要职责

发现亮点是编辑工作者的神圣职责,是其工作的首要价值,它昭示着编辑工作者之为传播者的社会意义。对编辑工作的热爱和责任、对前沿的了解和掌握、具有勤奋的人格品质及深厚的文化积淀等是编辑工作者发现亮点的内在素养。为此,要培养编辑工作者发现亮点的慧眼,一要善于思考,增强创新思维能力;二要善于发现新的思想观点;三要大量翻阅来稿,捕捉亮点并准确把握亮点,做到游刃有余,从而担负起精神文化产品鉴定者和传播者的职责。     

Foster mothers: Successful and unsuccessful 1

Social Work Issues in Health Care. Rosalind S. Miller and Helen Rehr, Editors. (New Jersey: Prentice‐Hall, Inc., 1983.)

The Process of Change. Maxwell Jones. (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982.)

Social Policy and the Rural Setting. Julia M. Watkins and Dennis A. Watkins. (New York: Springer Publishing Company, 1984.)

Child Abuse and Neglect: A Guide with Case Studies for Treating the Child and Family. Nancy B. Ebeling and Deborah A. Hill, Editors. (Littleton, MA: John Wright, PSG, Inc., 1983.)

When Bonding Fails: Clinical Assessment of High‐Risk Families. Frank G. Bolton, Jr. (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Library of Social Research, 1983.)

Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia: The Treatment of Choice. Bertram P. Karon and Gary R. VandenBos. (New York: Jason Aronson, 1981.) and The Regressed Patient. L. Bryce Boyer. (New York: Jason Aronson, 1983.)     

Impossibility theorems for normal form games

Two recent papers (Cubitt and Sugden, 1994; Samuelson, 1992) have established impossibility results which cast doubt on the coherence of the assumption of common knowledge of rationality'. It is shown that the Cubitt–Sugden result is the more powerful of the two impossibilities. Second, it is proved that the existence of a quasi-strict equilibrium is sufficient to construct sets which satisfy the Cubitt–Sugden axioms. This fact is used to establish that their impossibility result cannot arise in 2-player games. Finally, it is shown that if a weak symmetry postulate is added, a new impossibility result arises for this class of games.     

The Marxist-Leninist Theory of Art and Its Bourgeois Critics

From the Editors. November 1980 marked the seventieth birthday of the prominent Soviet estheticist, Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, and Honored Scholar of the RSFSR Avner Iakovlevich Zis'. In publishing his article, the editors take the opportunity to congratulate the author on this occasion and to wish him health, good spirits, and further creative successes.     

From probability to proof: The respective roles of scientific reviews and the non‐scientific press in the publicizing of medical research and its clinical applications

Can and should clearly denned distinctions between probability and proof be offered to the public by the mass media in response to popular demand for the latest medical information? Isn't the need to know both legitimate and ever‐more pronounced?

The pressure for prompt public disclosure of clinical trial or medical research results emanates from a variety of highly vocal sources (the patients themselves, the investigators, the business world, the new academic commentators, the mass media, the healthy population and its requirement for “healthful”; life styles). And yet in spite of all this pressure, clinical research but rarely moves forward with a giant leap. Reasonable solutions in view of balanced and equitable release of information both to and by mass media have been proposed in editorials highlighted by the best‐known medical journals. On the one hand, the critical importance of the mass media in transmission of medical knowledge to the scientific community has been stressed. On the other hand, the highly decisive role of the best‐known medical journals in the furthering of objective release of clinical research or trial results has been corroborated by several recent initiatives of best‐known medical journal editors. A great step forward in dealings between medical journals and the mass media was approved in London in 1993 by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, by dint of four main recommendations. These balanced and equitable recommendations may at one and the same time: stimulate legitimate public demand for access to important medical information without unreasonable delay; and prevent that media reports on scientific research lead to wide‐spread dissemination of premature and inaccurate conclusions.     

EU regional convergence and policy: Does the concept of region matter?

Regional convergence has become a heated topic in the last decades. To address it, most papers define regions on the base of normative/administrative criteria, although some consider that it could lead to misleading conclusions. In view of that, this article explores, over the period 1995–2006, the per capita income distribution of two sets of European regions: administrative (NUTS2) and functional (Metropolitan) regions. From a methodological point of view, a distribution dynamics approach – examining the external shape and movements within these distributions – is applied to analyse the issue of convergence. The study does reveal the presence of a process of convergence across both types of regions; however, this seems to be more rapid with Metropolitan than NUTS2 regions, which prompt us to proposing some relative major changes in the EU regional policy.     

Policing the Borderlands: White- and Black-American Newspaper Perceptions of Multiracial Heritage and the Idea of Race, 1996–2006

By employing a new policy of "check all that apply," the Census Bureau accommodated a mushrooming multiracial lobby demanding that its members be allowed a right to self-identification. With its implied shifting meaning of race, newspapers portrayed the reaction to this change as a firestorm of debate along racial fault lines, highlighted by Black-American inferences that this was a perilous decision. Using textual analysis, I examine from 1996 to 2006 how five Black-American and three White-American newspapers characterized multiracial people. White-American papers framed the discussion in two ways: (a) multiracial people epitomize a new era in which race has lost its bite, and (b) Black America stands in the way of their gaining their civil rights. There were also two frames for the Black-American papers: (a) The lobby advocates individual identity and is undergirded by denial or distancing from Blackness, and (b) that focus undermines Black America's future by playing into the misguided notion that race is socially insignificant.     

Allowing Family to be Family: End-of-Life Care in Veterans Affairs Medical Foster Homes

The Medical Foster Home program is a unique long-term care program coordinated by the Veterans Health Administration. The program pairs Veterans with private, 24-hour a day community-based caregivers who often care for Veterans until the end of life. This qualitative study explored the experiences of care coordination for Medical Foster Home Veterans at the end of life with eight Veterans’ family members, five Medical Foster Home caregivers, and seven Veterans Health Administration Home-Based Primary Care team members. A case study, qualitative content analysis identified these themes addressing care coordination and impact of the Medical Foster Home model on those involved: (a) Medical Foster Home program supports Veterans’ families; (b) Medical Foster Home program supports the caregiver as family; (c) Veterans’ needs are met socially and culturally at the end of life; and (d) the changing needs of Veterans, families, and caregivers at Veterans’ end of life are addressed. Insights into how to best support Medical Foster Home caregivers caring for Veterans at the end of life were gained including the need for more and better respite options and how caregivers are compensated in the month of the Veteran’s death, as well as suggestions to navigate end-of-life care coordination with multiple stakeholders involved.