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Re: Snaith B. An evaluation of author productivity in international radiography journals 2004–2011. J Med Radiat Sci 2013; 60(3): 93–9. I read with interest this article which aims to evaluate productivity of radiographers and radiation therapists with regard to publications between 2004 and 2011 in four selected discipline-specific journals. The authors have provided a comprehensive analysis of author productivity and ranked the authors according to number of articles published in these journals within the given time period. While this approach may appear to showcase the productivity by some authors, overall it does, in my opinion, not accurately reflect publication and research activity by radiographers and radiation therapists, at least not in Australia. The predominant reason that underlies this belief is the fact that only three of the four journals selected for evaluation are indexed in any electronic search engines. (The author has stated that the journal Radiography is not listed on the ‘Scopus’ database. However, it does appear in Scopus, at least in 2013.) Most radiographers and radiation therapists select alternative journals and aim to publish in high-impact journals (relative to their discipline) and journals that can reach the most relevant readership efficiently. Radiography-specific journals commonly do not fulfil these criteria. Given the publication records of our radiography and radiation therapy collaborators, as well as our current and former research students, it is clear that the article by Snaith only delivers a very small snapshot within a highly selected group of journals that have no impact factors and are not disseminated widely. I acknowledge the difficulty in evaluating this topic; however, I am afraid that the conclusions of this article do not accurately convey the research contributions of an increasing number of research-active professionals in this field. In order to achieve due recognition and promote and disseminate the work of radiographers and radiation therapists, we need to ensure that these discipline-specific journals are indexed in electronic databases, have an impact factor, and are appropriately peer reviewed. Once we have achieved this, the quality of published work will improve, citations will increase and the h-indices will rise. All these will ultimately improve the profile of radiography and radiation therapy research.

Academic freedom—the freedom of professional persons to present unpopular views—can exist only when there is freedom from severe sanctions such as censorship of research proposals and papers. Peer reviews are invaluable to researchers struggling to improve their work. They are also invaluable to administrators who must allocate limited funds and journal pages among competing researchers. However, evidence indicates that some administrators use peer criticisms to justify the suppression in whole or part of unpopular proposals and papers. Such prior restraint is censorship unless the administrators can prove that it is justified because of gross incompetence or financial exigency.

Introduction and Aims The gender difference in alcohol use seems to have narrowed in the Nordic countries, but it is not clear to what extent this may have affected differences in levels of harm. We compared gender differences in all‐cause and cause‐specific alcohol‐attributed disease burden, as measured by disability‐adjusted life‐years (DALY), in four Nordic countries in 2000–2017, to find out if gender gaps in DALYs had narrowed. Design and Methods Alcohol‐attributed disease burden by DALYs per 100 000 population with 95% uncertainty intervals were extracted from the Global Burden of Disease database. Results In 2017, all‐cause DALYs in males varied between 2531 in Finland and 976 in Norway, and in females between 620 in Denmark and 270 in Norway. Finland had the largest gender differences and Norway the smallest, closely followed by Sweden. During 2000–2017, absolute gender differences in all‐cause DALYs declined by 31% in Denmark, 26% in Finland, 19% in Sweden and 18% in Norway. In Finland, this was driven by a larger relative decline in males than females; in Norway, it was due to increased burden in females. In Denmark, the burden in females declined slightly more than in males, in relative terms, while in Sweden the relative decline was similar in males and females. Discussion and Conclusions The gender gaps in harm narrowed to a different extent in the Nordic countries, with the differences driven by different conditions. Findings are informative about how inequality, policy and sociocultural differences affect levels of harm by gender. © 2020 The Authors. Drug and Alcohol Review published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Background The patient's right to be involved in treatment decisions is anchored in guidelines and legislation in many countries. Previous research suggests challenges in the implementation of user involvement across different areas of health care, including mental health. However, little is known about psychiatric outpatients’ experiences of being involved in their treatment. Objective To investigate how psychiatric outpatients after treatment rate the degree to which they were included in the treatment and explore the associations between perceived user involvement, demographic characteristics of the sample and patient satisfaction. Design Cross‐sectional. Setting and participants The sample consisted of 188 psychiatric outpatients (67% female, mean age 42.2 years) who were discharged in the two years prior to data collection. Main variables studied Perceived user involvement in psychiatric outpatient treatment and patient satisfaction as measured by the Psychiatric Out‐Patient Experiences Questionnaire. Results About half of the participants rated the overall degree of involvement in their treatment as high or very high. The lowest percentage of participants reporting high or very high involvement was found for sufficient information to contribute to treatment decisions (36%). Female gender, higher education and, to a small degree, younger age were associated with more involvement. Perceived user involvement was strongly associated with treatment satisfaction. Discussion and conclusion The findings suggest that user involvement in psychiatric outpatient treatment can be improved. Patient information that facilitates user involvement should be given more attention. Patient or Public Contribution The hospital's user panel was involved in the development of items assessing user involvement. © 2020 The Authors Health Expectations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Background To meet the challenges caused by non‐communicable diseases, Norway has established Healthy Life Centres within primary care to encourage a healthy lifestyle. To promote people's health and ensure high‐quality services, user involvement in contemporary health care is regarded as essential. Objective To explore the experience of user involvement among Healthy Life Centre users participating in individual health consultations, followed by physical activity groups and/or diet courses. Methods This was a qualitative study based on twenty semi‐structured individual interviews conducted between September 2015 and May 2016 at a Healthy Life Centre in Norway. Data were analysed using systematic text condensation. Results Being respected and having a trustworthy relationship with the professionals were found to be essential for the service users’ involvement. Building a trustworthy relationship was disrupted for some service users by a lack of relational continuity. This lack of continuity jeopardized the continuation of professionals’ awareness of the service users’ challenges and personal goals. The service users’ preferred levels of user involvement varied. Some service users did not always want to play an active part and instead wanted the professionals, as “experts,” to decide. Conclusions The findings imply that the professionals need to assess each service user's desires for involvement and consider how these can be met. Thus, user involvement cannot be understood without considering the particular setting and each individual service user's preferences for involvement. Relational continuity is needed to maintain the service users’ challenges and goals throughout the services and to promote health behaviour changes. © 2018 The Authors. Health Expectations published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Barbeito‐Caamaño, A, Chalmeta, R. Using big data to evaluate corporate social responsibility and sustainable development practices, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.2006. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This paper shows an alternative method to evaluate sustainable development and corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices based on the opinions of companies' stakeholders expressed on Twitter. An application of the method is performed with the Inditex textile group. This paper shows two important findings: (a) knowledge about companies' CSR practices and stakeholders opinions can be obtained using big data to analyse CSR information about the company on online social networks; and (b) there are important differences between the contents of the sustainability report of a company and the CSR opinions of its stakeholders on the internet. These findings have benefits for the company's stakeholders, who will be able to know the CSR practices of a company in a more objective way, and for the company, which will be able to improve its CSR performance and communication strategy, as well as the stakeholder engagement.

This paper discusses our experience in using system dynamics to facilitate resilience planning for food security in rural communities that are exposed to ever‐increasing climatic pressures in Guatemala. The social–ecological systems literature is rich in examples where policies to enhance resilience are deduced from factors generally accepted to be present in resilient systems (e.g. redundancy, connectivity and polycentrism). This deductive approach risks being overly simplistic. As an alternative, this paper explores how insights from analysing the structure–behaviour relationship of complex dynamic systems can be used to generate tailored policies. The results show that stability in food systems is mainly driven by key strategic resources that moderate the effects of environmental changes on food availability and affordability. Moreover, our experience highlights the importance of analysing mechanisms that determine a system's behaviour while and after the system is affected by a disturbance to formulate effective resilience policies. publishedVersion

This article attempts a comprehensive and multi‐disciplinary review of a scattered literature on the characteristics of successful investment managers. It considers nonpeer reviewed papers and reports written by organizations and human resource experts but also empirical papers from those in disciplines such as business studies, economics, finance, psychology, and psychiatry. It focuses on three issues: Ability, personality, and motivation. Most of the studies have concentrated on motivation and various themes are apparent suggesting that it is possible to profile successful investment managers. Full Text Available Here: https://doi.org/10.1002/cfp2.1071

Academic publishers purport to be arbiters of knowledge, aiming to publish studies that advance the frontiers of their research domain. Yet the effectiveness of journal editors at identifying novel and important research is generally unknown, in part because of the confidential nature of the editorial and peer review process. Using questionnaires, we evaluated the degree to which journals are effective arbiters of scientific impact on the domain of Ecology, quantified by three key criteria. First, journals discriminated against low‐impact manuscripts: The probability of rejection increased as the number of citations gained by the published paper decreased. Second, journals were more likely to publish high‐impact manuscripts (those that obtained citations in 90th percentile for their journal) than run‐of‐the‐mill manuscripts; editors were only 23% and 41% as likely to reject an eventual high‐impact paper (pre‐ versus postreview rejection) compared to a run‐of‐the‐mill paper. Third, editors did occasionally reject papers that went on to be highly cited. Error rates were low, however: Only 3.8% of rejected papers gained more citations than the median article in the journal that rejected them, and only 9.2% of rejected manuscripts went on to be high‐impact papers in the (generally lower impact factor) publishing journal. The effectiveness of scientific arbitration increased with journal prominence, although some highly prominent journals were no more effective than much less prominent ones. We conclude that the academic publishing system, founded on peer review, appropriately recognizes the significance of research contained in manuscripts, as measured by the number of citations that manuscripts obtain after publication, even though some errors are made. We therefore recommend that authors reduce publication delays by choosing journals appropriate to the significance of their research.

The successful publication of peer reviewed academic journal articles is an essential achievement for early career researchers (ECRs) seeking to establish themselves in their profession. However, this journey can pose several significant challenges for ECRs. We use an autoethnographic approach that draws deeply on our lived experience as ECRs to capture our recent and current experiences of negotiating the academic journal article publication journey to explore the tensions, contradictions, and benefits encountered in the journey. We critically examine challenges we experienced in choosing a target journal and negotiating the follow‐up process; undertaking revisions; and our experiences of limitations and possibilities in peer review and editorial support. While the peer review journal writing process has played a significant role in supporting us to become more effective ECRs, we also highlight challenges we faced negotiating ethical quandaries in this space, as well as illustrate how our preconceptions of a simple publication journey were confounded by subsequent experience of the complex realities of the space. We also suggest that educational interventions are indicated to provide ECRs support in foundational knowledge about what constitutes valuable revisions, an effective paper, and the scope of issues that can be addressed to make a paper more effective, with reference to the possibility of academic mentoring to support this need. Finally, we explore our findings in light of the tensions imposed by the relative inexperience and lack of power yielded by ECRs.

Since Hoggart and Mendoza's paper on ‘African immigrant workers in Spanish agriculture' in Sociologia Ruralis in 1999 there has been a proliferation of interest in labour migration to/ in rural Europe. It is now clear that the rural realm has been, and is being, transformed by immigration, and that low-wage migrant workers in the food production industry are playing a particularly prominent role in this transformation. This paper takes stock of the literature and identifies seven key issues associated with low-wage labour migration, contemporary food production, and rural change. Most notably, since the 1990s, there has been growing demand for migrants in the segmented, and sometimes exploitative, labour markets of the European food production industries. This demand has been met across a variety of contexts, with states and labour market intermediaries playing a largely supportive role. However, migrants' integration into rural communities has often been problematic, with the emphasis being on the need for, rather than needs of, low-wage migrant workers.

Purpose When evaluating safety signals, there is often interest in understanding safety in all patients for whom compared treatments are reasonable alternatives, as well as in specific subgroups of interest. There are numerous ways that propensity score (PS) matching can be implemented for subgroup analyses. Methods We conducted a systematic literature review of methods papers that compared the performance of alternative methods to implement PS matched subgroup analyses and examined how frequently different PS matching methods have been used for subgroup analyses in applied studies. Results We identified 5 methods papers reporting small improvements in covariate balance and bias with use of a subgroup-specific PS instead of a mis-specified overall PS within subgroups. Applied research papers frequently used PS for subgroups in ways not evaluated in methods papers. Thirty three percent used PS to match in the overall cohort and broke the matched sets for subgroup analysis without further adjustment. Conclusions While the performance of several alternative ways to use PS matching in subgroup analyses has been evaluated in methods literature, these evaluations do not include the most commonly used methods to implement PS matched subgroup analyses in applied studies. There is a need to better understand the relative performance of commonly used methods for PS matching in subgroup analyses, particularly within settings encountered during active surveillance, where there may be low exposure, infrequent outcomes, and multiple subgroups of interest.

Introduction Health professionals are frequently exposed to traumatic events due to the nature of their work. While traumatic and adverse labour and birth events experienced by women are well researched, less attention has been given to midwives’ and nurses’ experiences of these events and the impact it has on their lives. Aim To undertake a meta-ethnographic study of midwives’ and nurses’ experiences of adverse labour and birth events. Methods Scopus, CINHAL PLUS, MEDLINE and PUBMED databases were searched using subject headings and keywords. The search was limited to papers published in peer reviewed journals from 2004 to October 2016. Quality appraisal was undertaken using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) tool. Inclusion criteria Papers had to be qualitative or have a substantial qualitative component. Studies were included if they primarily focused on midwives’ or nurses’ perspectives or experiences of complicated, traumatic or adverse labour and birth events. Analytic strategy A meta-ethnographic approach was used incorporating methods of reciprocal translation guided by the work of Noblit and Hare (1988). Findings Eleven qualitative studies were included in the final sample. Four major themes 1) feeling the chaos 2) powerless, responsible and a failure 3) “It adds another scar to my soul” and 4) finding a way to deal with it. Conclusion Midwives and nurses feel relatively unprepared when faced with a real life labour and birth emergency event. While many of the midwives and nurses were traumatised by the experience, some were able to view their encounter as an opportunity to develop their emergency response skills. Relevance to clinical practice Witnessing and being involved in a complicated or adverse labour and birth event can be traumatic for nurses and midwives. Organisational and collegial support needs to be available to enable these health professionals to talk about their feelings and concerns. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

This paper presents selected findings from the first year of a 3-year longitudinal study of early career researchers (ECRs), which sought to ascertain current and changing habits in scholarly communication. Specifically, the aims of the paper are to show: (1) how much experience and knowledge ECRs had of peer review – both as authors and as reviewers; (2) what they felt the benefits were and what suggestions they had for improvement; (3) what they thought of open peer review (OPR); and (4) who they felt should organize peer review. Data were obtained from 116 science and social science ECRs, most of whom had published and were subject to in-depth interviews conducted face-to-face, via Skype, or over the telephone. An extensive literature review was also conducted to provide a context and supplementary data for the findings. The main findings were that: (1) most ECRS are well informed about peer review and generally like the experience, largely because of the learning experiences obtained; (2) they like blind double-peer review, but would like some improvements, especially with regards to reviewer quality; (3) most are uncomfortable with the idea of OPR; and (4) most would like publishers to continue organizing peer review because of their perceived independence.

Transparency in science is an increasingly important topic and it is clear that this is also important to our readers. Taking inspiration from the 2017 Peer Review Week (https://peerreviewweek.wordpress.com/) theme of transparency, in this editorial, we look at the different ways that we have introduced openness and transparency in the publication process and more widely in journal practices. In 2016, we introduced author contribution statements in all published papers and offered a new data sources section for papers containing meta-analyses to enable the data sources to receive proper citation credit within the main article. Our efforts in 2017 range from giving a clear and transparent breakdown of the peer review process for the Journal (http://bit.ly/BESReviewProcess) to larger initiatives such as an open call for new Associate Editors, more on this below.

Aims To provide an overview of the peer review process, its various types, selection of peer reviewers, the purpose and significance of the peer review with regard to the assessment and management of quality of publications in academic journals. Design Discussion paper. Methods This paper draws on information gained from literature on the peer review process and the authors' knowledge and experience of contributing as peer reviewers and editors in the field of health care, including nursing. Results There are various types of peer review: single blind; double blind; open; and post-publication review. The role of the reviewers in reviewing manuscripts and their contribution to the scientific and academic community remains important.

Responsive feeding has been identified as important in preventing overconsumption by infants. However, this is predicated on an assumption that parents recognise and respond to infant feeding cues. Despite this, relatively little is understood about how infants engage parental feeding responses. Therefore, the aim of this systematic review was to identify what is known about infant communication of hunger and satiation and what issues impact on the expression and perception of these states. A search of Medline, CINAHL, Web of Science, PsycINFO, Science Direct and Maternal and Infant care produced 27 papers. Eligibility criteria included peer reviewed qualitative and/or quantitative publications on feeding behaviours, hunger, and satiation/satiety cues of typically developing children in the first 2 years of life. Papers published between 1966 and 2013 were included in the review. The review revealed that feeding cues and behaviours are shaped by numerous issues, such as infants' physical attributes, individual psychological factors and environmental factors. Meanwhile, infant characteristics, external cues and mothers' own characteristics affect how feeding cues are perceived. The existing literature provides insights into many aspects of hunger and satiation in infancy; however, there are significant gaps in our knowledge. There is a lack of validated tools for measuring hunger and satiation, a need to understand how different infant characteristics impact on feeding behaviour and a need to extricate the respective contributions of infant and maternal characteristics to perceptions of hunger and satiation. Further research is also recommended to differentiate between feeding driven by liking and that driven by hunger.

It is a non‐trivial task for research‐centric courses in the software engineering curriculum to compete and engage students on the same level as the practical, software development courses. Practical software development courses and projects are inherently motivating to students, as they provide necessary elements such as agency, relatedness, and the strong sense of competence upon completing software engineering tasks. In contrast, reading research articles and technical white papers feels dry and non‐engaging. Nevertheless, a well‐balanced MSc programme curriculum covers both, learning through construction and practical courses as well as research courses. The main motivation for the development of game‐centric approaches to the research aspects of curriculum is to improve students’ interest and engagement with those courses. In this paper, we present the methodology and initial evaluations from three gamification strategies used in the Master's degree programme. These are: the game of reading and discussing research articles (GoRaD), the game of arguing and counter‐arguing, and combining research and practice. The paper presents our experimentation and initial evaluations of the use of those strategies, as well as plans for future development and enhancements. © 2018 The Authors. Computer Applications in Engineering Education Published by Wiley Periodicals Inc. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

The classical view of peer review is that it is our primary process for assessing and judging whether research results should be published in a scholarly journal. However, the increased pressure to publish and technological developments are transforming peer review such that it is becoming a system that judges where work is published rather than whether the research is publishable (a ‘where rather than if’ process). Ecology is a field in which publication numbers puts a particular pressure on the review system. In this forum piece, I summarize the issues with the current publication system and discuss how technology is changing it, while suggesting solutions for important prior and ongoing issues with the peer review system. The view explored here is that technological developments (e.g. ease of creating journals, internet sites, storage, data generation, sharing of data and analytical code) will not eliminate peer review per se but will allow for a new set of parameters in which ethics and the optimal use of public funding will play a vital role in the evolution of the review process. Synthesis The number of papers and journals in Ecology has increased dramatically in the past decade. I present a critical overview of our review system and proposes that pressure to publish and technological developments have transformed peer review into a system that decides “where rather than if” papers are publishable. While reviewing the current pressures and factors playing a vital role in the evolution of the review and publication systems, I propose potential solutions to deal with current and future challenges to the peer review and publication systems.

Summary Lack of diversity on editorial boards might generate disparities in editorial and peer review that contribute to gender and geographic disparities in scholarly publishing. We use a comprehensive data set of the peer review process for all papers submitted to the journal Functional Ecology from January 2004 to June 2014 to examine how gender, seniority and geographic location of editors and reviewers influence reviewer recruitment and scores given to papers by reviewers. The gender ratio of editors for Functional Ecology was majority male, but the proportion of female editors increased over time. The gender ratio of selected reviewers was also highly majority male, but the proportion of women selected as reviewers increased over the 10 years largely because the number of women on the editorial board increased and female editors invited more female reviewers than did male editors. Male editors selected

Aims and objectives This systematic review aims to synthesise the existing research on how patients participate in patient safety initiatives. Background Ambiguities remain about how patients participate in routine measures designed to promote patient safety. Design Systematic review using integrative methods. Methods Electronic databases were searched using keywords describing patient involvement, nursing input and patient safety initiatives to retrieve empirical research published between 2007 and 2013. Findings were synthesized using the theoretical domains of Vincent's framework for analysing risk and safety in clinical practice: “patient”, “healthcare provider”, “task”, “work environment”, “organisation & management”. Results We identified 17 empirical research papers: four qualitative, one mixed-method and 12 quantitative designs. All 17 papers indicated that patients can participate in safety initiatives. Conclusions Improving patient participation in patient safety necessitates considering the patient as a person, the nurse as healthcare provider, the task of participation and the clinical environment. Patients' knowledge, health conditions, beliefs and experiences influence their decisions to engage in patient safety initiatives. An important component of the management of long-term conditions is to ensure that patients have sufficient knowledge to participate. Healthcare providers may need further professional development in patient education and patient care management to promote patient involvement in patient safety, and ensure that patients understand that they are ‘allowed’ to inform nurses of adverse events or errors. A healthcare system characterised by patient-centredness and mutual acknowledgement will support patient participation in safety practices. Further research is required to improve international knowledge of patient participation in patient safety in different disciplines, contexts and cultures. Relevance to clinical practice Patients have a significant role to play in enhancing their own safety while receiving hospital care. This review offers a framework for clinicians to develop comprehensive practical guidelines to support patient involvement in patient safety.

This large-scale international study measures the attitudes of more than 4,000 researchers toward peer review. In 2009, 40,000 authors of research papers from across the globe were invited to complete an online survey. Researchers were asked to rate a number of general statements about peer review, and then a subset of respondents, who had themselves peer reviewed, rated a series of statements concerning their experience of peer review. The study found that the peer review process is highly regarded by the vast majority of researchers and considered by most to be essential to the communication of scholarly research. Nine out of 10 authors believe that peer review improved the last paper they published. Double-blind peer review is considered the most effective form of peer review. Nearly three quarters of researchers think that technological advances are making peer review more effective. Most researchers believe that although peer review should identify fraud, it is very difficult for it to do so. Reviewers are committed to conducting peer review in the future and believe that simple practical steps, such as training new reviewers would further improve peer review. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

What's known on the subject? and What does the study add? Minimally invasive approaches to radical prostatectomy have been touted to lead to superior surgical and functional outcomes with less potential complications despite scant and often conflicting reports in the peer reviewed literature. This review provides evidence that the minimally invasive prostatectomy literature still fails to meet the standards and critical benchmarks necessary for adequate complications reporting. Given our current release on observational studies. Increased effects should be made to standardize all complications and functional outcomes reporting for minimally invasive prostate cancer surgery. To query the minimally invasive urological literature from 2006 to the middle of 2010, focusing on complications and functional outcome reporting in laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LRP) and robot-assisted LRP (RALP), to see if there has been an improvement in the overall reporting of complications. We performed a Medline search using the Medical Subject Heading terms ‘prostatectomy’, ‘laparoscopy’, ‘robotics’, and ‘minimally invasive’. We then applied the Martin criteria for complications reporting to the selected articles. We identified 51 studies for a total of 32 680 patients. When excluding functional outcomes the outpatient complications reporting was 20/51 (39.2%). In all, 35% and 43% of papers did not list any method for recording continence and potency, respectively. A complication grading system was only used in 30 studies (58.8%). Of the 16 papers using a grading scale in 2006–2007, only 31.3% used the Clavien system, compared with 69% from 2008 to the first half of 2010. In all, 27% of papers used some form of risk-factor analysis for complications. Multivariate analysis was used in 43% of papers, 29% looked at body mass index, while one looked at prostate weight, and another age. There has been an overall improvement in complications reporting in the minimally invasive RP literature since 2005. However, most studies still do not fulfil many of the criteria necessary for standardised complication reporting. Functional outcome reporting remains poor and unstandardised. Given our current reliance on observational studies, increased efforts should be made to standardise all complication outcomes reporting.

Objective To critically appraise a recent study on the safety of home birth (Mori R, Dougherty M, Whittle M. BJOG 2008;115:554) and assess its contribution to the debate about risks and benefits of planned home birth for women at low risk of complications. Design Critical appraisal of a published paper. Setting England and Wales. Population or Sample Home births from 1994–2003 and all women giving birth in the same time period. Methods Six members of a multidisciplinary group appraised the paper independently. Comments were collated and synthesised. Main outcome measures Assessment of: overall methodology; assumptions used in estimating figures; methods used for calculations; conclusions drawn from the results and reliability and consistency of data. Results Although there were some positive aspects to the study, there were weaknesses in design and an inaccurate estimate of risk. Our evidence suggests that the conclusions drawn did not reflect the results and the methodological weaknesses found in the study rendered both the results and conclusions invalid. Conclusions On the basis of our critical appraisal, the study does not contribute to the existing evidence about the safety of home birth to inform decision-making or provision of care. The limitations could have been identified by the peer review process and the problems were compounded by an inaccurate press release. Great care needs to be taken by journals to ensure the accuracy of information before dissemination to the scientific community, clinicians and the public. These data should not have been used to inform national guidelines.

Although many professions practice some type of formal peer review, similar support for increasing the quality and efficiency of instructional design products is largely informal. Most designers develop solutions in professional eommunilies-of-practice, but formal design methodologies ordained by many corporations and instructional design schools do not account for the strong influence these communities have on design decisions. This paper describes an instructional design review process that is modeled after a widely accepted practice among software developers in which peers offer feedback through “structured walkthroughs.” The instructional design review helps the practitioner develop stronger designs more quickly. provides a means to scaffold the novice designer in the vagaries of the workplace, and improves organizational memory. An artifact of a design review as well as guidelines and success factors are presented. The paper provides a summary of a formal peer review structure that has been developed and tested over the past three years at a major corporation.

This review summarises nutrition and mental health research in Australia and New Zealand between 1986 and 2006. The method used to identify papers for inclusion was a search of computerised databases: Medline, Cinahl and Meditext 1986–2006, with subsequent bibliographical review. Key search words were nutrition, diet, mental disorder, mental illness, weight, physical health, Australia and New Zealand. Inclusion criteria included: English language, original data in peer reviewed journals, and examination of some component of nutrition in people with a mental illness. The review of thirteen papers found that the evidence base for dietetic practice in mental health has developed through small assessment and interventional research, often with multidisciplinary collaboration. Future research should include quality and outcome measures with intersectoral partnerships. Dietitians are well positioned to lead and participate in mental health research and to implement research findings to improve the nutritional status of this vulnerable group.

Aim Most consultants participating as referees in the peer review process of papers submitted to scholarly journals have had no training or tuition. This study attempted to evaluate the effect on reviewing of a half-day course held at the Royal Society of Medicine. Method Registered consultant delegates were sent two ‘doctored’ papers, a case report and an original paper, well before the meeting to review at home using the standard computerized score sheet issued with referee requests by Colorectal Disease. At the start of the meeting the scores were entered into a computer as ‘Before’. After each paper had been presented and then discussed, it was re-marked to give the ‘After’ score. The Before and After scores were compared with the post-meeting feedback forms. Results The Before and After scores provided by the participants for the two papers each reviewed were not significantly different for the questions relating to the publication/rejection decision. The Before score was higher than the After score for questions relating to the Abstract, Introduction and Method sections. Feedback forms regarding the tuition were universally positive and appreciative. Conclusion Consultants already have the expertise to decide whether a paper should be rejected. The study day appears to give an additional insight that may change an initial opinion. In general a paper scored before the meeting was scored lower after it was presented and discussed at the meeting (the tuition).

Among the many steps involved in publishing a professional paper, peer review of the submitted manuscript presents both a challenge and an opportunity. Peer review is essential to ensuring that published papers meet appropriate research, scholarship and journal criteria. Peer review is also a valuable resource, providing detailed, professional evaluations that help authors carry out and present scholarship of the highest quality. When combined with the commitment of the Journal of Genetic Counseling to encourage and mentor authors, it is also a resource for developing writing skills.

Those that follow the ins and outs of scientific publishing will be aware that there are periodic cries of ‘is peer review broken?’ Criticisms include that, by its very nature, it is biased, and that it maintains the status quo, making it difficult for those with unorthodox views or new researchers to get published. Another criticism is that the process takes too long and slows publication – and therefore the advancement – of science down. These criticisms were explored at the Eighth International Congress on Peer Review and Scientific Publication and the International Association of Veterinary Editors (IAVE) conference, both held in Chicago earlier this month. But what peer review is trying to achieve is challenging, and, as yet, no-one has come up with an alternative that is any better. The point of peer review is to evaluate, fairly and without bias, research papers for their contribution to the science base. It should assess each element of a paper and its suitability for inclusion in the journal. Reviewers give comments on the methodology and statistics used, highlight any ethical concerns and give constructive comments to improve the paper. They may also give an assessment, depending on the journal, of how significant the findings are – in our journals we ask that they grade manuscripts on this aspect. Each type of peer review, …

The purpose of this paper was to illustrate how to write a good peer review. The paper provided defintions of peer reviews and blind reviews. It also provides an understanding of what to include in a peer review. Moreover, it recommends how to write a qualitative and quantitative peer review and different factors to avoid. The paper also illustrates how to write a review for a conceptual article. The paper concludes on how the peer review process contributes to scholarship and how the process makes a difference.

The quality of the care provided to frail older people in aged care is a concern for all Australians and for the citizens of many other countries internationally. This paper summarizes the methods and findings from an Australian study commissioned by the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety to identify and synthesize international literature relating to the quality of care in aged care. A comprehensive literature review was undertaken to search and identify the literature (grey and peer reviewed) relating to quality of care and/or person-centered care in aged care. The review identified nine key themes as salient to the quality of care experience, which include treating the older person with respect and dignity; acknowledging and supporting their spiritual, cultural, religious and sexual identity; the skills and training of the aged care staff providing care; relationships between the older person and the aged care staff; social relationships and the community; supporting the older person to make informed choices; supporting the older person's health and well-being; ensuring the delivery of safe care in a comfortable service environment; and the ability to make complaints and provide feedback to the aged care organization. In practice, particularly in the context of residential care, quality of care has traditionally been measured using clinical indicators of care quality. These findings highlight the central importance of person-centered care and care experience as fundamental tenets of the quality of aged care service delivery in Australia and internationally. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2021; 21: 765-778.

Objectives The aim of the study was to investigate the proportion of publications arising from work presented at a regional surgical meeting. Design A list of all presentations to the Welsh Surgical Society 1983–95 was compiled and a detailed search made of the Medline Database. The surgical topic of each presentation, the date of presentation, the date of publication and the journal of publication were recorded. Setting University Hospital of Wales. Results Four hundred and ninety-six papers were presented to the society, of which 402 (81%) were by trainees. The most frequent topics of presentation were colorectal (15%), vascular (15%) and hepato–pancreatico–biliary (11%). Two hundred and thirty-three papers (47%) have been published in peer-reviewed journals. The most popular journals for publication were Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (19%), British Journal of Surgery (16%) and Journal of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (8%). The median time from presentation to publication was 17·0 months (interquartile range 10·0–27·5 months). Conclusions Regional surgical meetings have an important role in the annual surgical calendar and they are the ideal initial setting for presentation by trainees.

Background Scientific findings must withstand critical review if they are to be accepted as valid, and editorial peer review (critique, effort to disprove) is an essential element of the scientific process. We review the evidence of the editorial peer-review process of original research studies submitted for paper or electronic publication in biomedical journals. Objectives To estimate the effect of processes in editorial peer review. Search methods The following databases were searched to June 2004: CINAHL, Ovid, Cochrane Methodology Register, Dissertation abstracts, EMBASE, Evidence Based Medicine Reviews: ACP Journal Club, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, PubMed. Selection criteria We included prospective or retrospective comparative studies with two or more comparison groups, generated by random or other appropriate methods, and reporting original research, regardless of publication status. We hoped to find studies identifying good submissions on the basis of: importance of the topic dealt with, relevance of the topic to the journal, usefulness of the topic, soundness of methods, soundness of ethics, completeness and accuracy of reporting. Data collection and analysis Because of the diversity of study questions, viewpoints, methods, and outcomes, we carried out a descriptive review of included studies grouping them by broad study question. Main results We included 28 studies. We found no clear-cut evidence of effect of the well-researched practice of reviewer and/or author concealment on the outcome of the quality assessment process (9 studies). Checklists and other standardisation media have some evidence to support their use (2 studies). There is no evidence that referees' training has any effect on the quality of the outcome (1 study). Different methods of communicating with reviewers and means of dissemination do not appear to have an effect on quality (3 studies). On the basis of one study, little can be said about the ability of the peer-review process to detect bias against unconventional drugs. Validity of peer review was tested by only one small study in a specialist area. Editorial peer review appears to make papers more readable and improve the general quality of reporting (2 studies), but the evidence for this has very limited generalisability. Authors' conclusions At present, little empirical evidence is available to support the use of editorial peer review as a mechanism to ensure quality of biomedical research. However, the methodological problems in studying peer review are many and complex. At present, the absence of evidence on efficacy and effectiveness cannot be interpreted as evidence of their absence. A large, well-funded programme of research on the effects of editorial peer review should be urgently launched.

Vital statistics: high speed and fewer laps to the finish line A unique feature of The EMBO Journal is that we publish data on the efficiency of the editorial process (find the latest analysis of manuscripts submitted in 2009 at http://www.nature.com/emboj/about/process.html). We accepted 12% of submitted manuscripts, 2% more than in the preceding year, with similar submission volumes. The journal is fast: editorial decisions were made, on average, in 2.3 days and post‐review decisions in 29 days . The majority of manuscripts went through only one major round of revision. Notably, we ensure that no new issues are raised that were not brought forward in the initial review (excluding points on data added in revision, of course). A total of 74% manuscripts were rejected before formal peer review, 21% of these with additional advice from the editorial advisory board. We have a relatively high ‘first cut’, so that only manuscripts that fit within the journal's scope, that present a sufficiently striking advance and that have a real chance of being published with realistic further revision continue to the more time‐intensive peer review process. As a result, 46% of the peer reviewed manuscripts end up being published. Remarkably, 97% of cases where a revision is invited are published. Thus, once a revision is invited, the odds for publication without delay are high. Are we selecting the right papers for publication? Our analysis of manuscripts rejected in 2008 shows that until now 1% appeared in journals with an impact factor two or more notches above this journal. 9% of the rejected manuscripts cite higher than the average EMBO Journal paper. ### Scooping protection Molecular cell biology is a rather competitive discipline. The next big open questions rarely occur to only one researcher. Technical and research advances, as well as funding priorities, encourage multiple laboratories to pursue similar directions. In contrast to other disciplines, experiments are quickly …

We estimated the seroprevalence of anti‐severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) antibodies in residents of African countries and explored its associated factors. We searched PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO, AMED, CINAHL, DOAJ and Google Scholar databases for peer reviewed articles and pre‐prints that reported anti‐SARS‐CoV‐2 antibody seroprevalence of general or specific human populations resident in Africa. The eligible studies were evaluated using Joana Briggs Institute prevalence critical appraisal tool. Twenty‐three studies involving 27,735 individuals were included in our paper. The pooled seroprevalence of anti‐SARS‐CoV‐2 antibodies in Africa was 22% (95%CI: 14–31) with very high heterogeneity (I 2 = 100%, p

OBJECTIVES Approximately 2½ billion people worldwide rely on solid/biomass fuel as fuel for cooking/heating the home. Environmental exposure to the smoke associated with biomass fuel burning has been associated respiratory diseases, cardiac disorders, and altered blood pressure. Therefore, a systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to study this relationship across multiple studies. METHODS Searches were performed using PRISMA guidelines for articles using Web of Science, PubMed, Toxline, and Web of Science of peer reviewed papers with no beginning time restriction until February 2017. The search yielded 10 manuscripts after application of inclusion criteria, which encompassed 93 724 participants. Outcomes included (a) the proportion of people with a clinical diagnosis of hypertension in an exposed (vs. unexposed) population or (b) correlation coefficients examining degree of exposure and systolic/diastolic blood pressure. RESULTS The four studies reporting effect sizes for hypertension (N = 92 042) had a weighted mean effect size of r = .12 [-0.02, 0.27], z = 1.66, p = 0.097. The six studies reporting effect sizes for systolic and diastolic blood pressure (N = 1682) had weighted mean effect sizes of r = .15 [0.06, 0.24], p = 0.001, and r = .09 [0.03, 0.15], p = 0.002, respectively. CONCLUSION These analyses revealed that there is a small-but-significant relationship between biomass fuel exposure and an increase in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure, but the relationship between biomass fuel and hypertension specifically remains unclear.

Health care is a complex system with multiprofessional staff and multiple patient care pathways. Time pressure and minimal margins for error make it challenging to implement new policies or procedures, no matter how desirable. Changes in health care also requires the participation of the staff. System dynamics (SD) simulations can lead to shared systems understanding and allows for the development and testing of new scenarios in silico before implementing solutions. However, research shows that the actual implementation rate of simulations is low. This paper presents a reanalysis of a successful change project in health care combining SD principles with basic action research (AR) premises. The analysis was done by a multidisciplinary research group using qualitative methodology and identifies that a fruitful combination of AR inquiry and SD modelling potentially can improve implementation rates. publishedVersion

Clinical guidance is often sought when prescribing drugs for patients with primary mitochondrial disease. Theoretical considerations concerning drug safety in patients with mitochondrial disease may lead to unnecessary withholding of a drug in a situation of clinical need. The aim of this study was to develop consensus on safe medication use in patients with a primary mitochondrial disease. A panel of 16 experts in mitochondrial medicine, pharmacology, and basic science from six different countries was established. A modified Delphi technique was used to allow the panellists to consider draft recommendations anonymously in two Delphi rounds with predetermined levels of agreement. This process was supported by a review of the available literature and a consensus conference that included the panellists and representatives of patient advocacy groups. A high level of consensus was reached regarding the safety of all 46 reviewed drugs, with the knowledge that the risk of adverse events is influenced both by individual patient risk factors and choice of drug or drug class. This paper details the consensus guidelines of an expert panel and provides an important update of previously established guidelines in safe medication use in patients with primary mitochondrial disease. Specific drugs, drug groups, and clinical or genetic conditions are described separately as they require special attention. It is important to emphasise that consensus‐based information is useful to provide guidance, but that decisions related to drug prescribing should always be tailored to the specific needs and risks of each individual patient. We aim to present what is current knowledge and plan to update this regularly both to include new drugs and to review those currently included. publishedVersion

PURPOSE To examine variables that affect publication of ACVO meeting abstracts in peer-reviewed journals and compare results to ECVO publication rate (PR). METHODS Published papers were identified via online searches for abstracts from 2008 to 2012 ACVO/ECVO meetings. Variables analyzed (via Pearson's chi-Squared test) included the following: oral presentation/poster, type of abstract (clinical/basic science/case report), species, ocular tissue, nationality, funding, first/last/any author a diplomate, resident as first author, and author affiliation (private practice/university). RESULTS One hundred and eighty-six of 577 ACVO abstracts were published within 608 ± 479 days, with 103 published in Veterinary Ophthalmology. Significant factors included the following: nationality of first/last authors (P = .005); English as first language (P < .001); presentation type (P < .001, oral 40% PR, poster 22% PR); type of study (P = .037, clinical study 35% PR, basic science 30% PR, case report 16% PR); resident as first author (P < .001); diplomate as any author except first/last (P < .001); first author affiliation (P = .001, university 37% PR, practice 21% PR); last author affiliation (P = .003, university 36% PR, practice 22% PR); and species (P < .001, horses 53% PR, multiple species 50% PR, cats 35% PR, food animals 31% PR, exotics/wildlife 31% PR, dogs 27% PR, laboratory animals/in vitro 24%). Nonsignificant factors were as follows: diplomate as first/last author, funding, and ocular tissue. Presentation type, resident as first author, university affiliation of first author, and species had the greatest effect on publication probability. For the same period, ECVO PR was 87 of 299, which was not significantly different from ACVO PR (P = .342). CONCLUSION At 32%, ACVO PR for the study years is similar to ECVO PR of 29%.

An increasing number of people is currently living under poor conditions in enclaves of rapidly growing urban areas. Many of them are of indigenous origin. They are in urgent need of basic equipment for living a healthy and decent life. The products have to be simple, cheap and acceptable to people with different cultural and geographical backgrounds. Methods to realize the design, production and implementation of such appliances is a matter of urgency. Therefore, the ideas of the Austrian-American designer Victor Papanek (1923-98) have gained new actuality. During the 1960s and 1970s Papanek played a significant role in the international design community. His ideal was the less polluting design traditions of indigenous people, made by simple methods in local materials. He had many supporters among design students in Scandinavia and Finland. Some of them tried to adapt their work practice to his ideology. The aim of the paper is to investigate what impact his ideas had on the Nordic design community, and in particular, whether it was followed up by stakeholders and eventually reached the target groups in the third world. Success factors and failures are uncovered and discussed to clarify how the ideas might be utilized in today’s situation. The empiric study is based on literary reviews, and of interviews with designers in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. The investigation shows that Papanek’s ideas made a tremendous and lasting impact on designers in the Nordic countries including some of their work. Still, design and production for indigenous people in least developed countries seldom occurred, due to lack of contact with stakeholders. One of the few exceptions was the foundation of the Norwegian organization “Design without Borders”, which was mainly financed by the government, i.e.by ways of political decisions. In conclusion, without contact and cooperation with stakeholders, particularly the political and commercial sector, and users in the local communities on the other hand, it is not possible to realize ideas of this kind in the form of products and their use. The work of “Design without Borders” constitutes a good example of success, and should be used as a model for further work.

In this paper, I present findings concerning the effect of examination scheduling on high‐stakes exam scores and longer‐run outcomes. I show that random variations in examination schedules, which increase the time students have to prepare, have positive effects on exam scores. The effect is highly concave, and stronger for females and in quantitative subjects. I trace the effects of preparation time into tertiary education outcomes, finding significant effects for female students on the extensive and intensive margins. I show how easily exam scores and, consequently, longer‐run outcomes are affected by a random institutional factor unrelated to student ability.

Perhaps nothing arouses scientists' professional passions as much as peer review. After all, this process a gatekeeping and quality-control system run by journal editors, independent referees and research program directors determines which projects receive funding and which studies get published in what journals. When institutional bouncers rough up your cherished theory and dump your career aspirations on the doorstep, the wounds go deep. And even if the bouncers show respect, they may still inspire fear and doubt with each new grant proposal or manuscript submission. Despite its crucial role in this era of "publish or perish," scientific peer review today limps along with its own disabling wounds, asserts Domenic V Cicchetti, a psychologist with the Veterans Administration Medical Center in West Haven, Conn. In his comparative review of peerreview studies conducted over the past 20 years by various researchers, Cicchetti finds consistently low agreement among referees about the quality of manuscript submissions and grant proposals in psychology, sociology, medicine and physics. These rampant reviewer rifts represent more than an inevitable clash of perspectives on the worth of any particular study, Cicchetti maintains. Scientists must act quickly to improve the quality of peer review, particularly "the rather arbitrary rejection of grant submissions [that] may prevent or seriously delay the implementation of worthy research endeavors," he argues. Cicchetti examined studies of peer recommendations and publication decisions made by 18 scientific journals, including the JOURNAL OF ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY, AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW, NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE and PHYSICAL REVIEW. Additional data came from grant reviews in chemistry economics and physics conducted during the 1970s and 1980s at the National Science Foundation and the National Academy of Sciences. Cicchetti's findings and his recommendations for pumping fresh life into peer review appear in the March BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES, along with 34 responses solicited from researchers and editorial decision-makers. Many support Cicchetti's proposed reforms, although they differ in their interpretations of the Cicchetti remains undaunted. In addition to noting generally poor reliability among referees, he finds them more likely to agree about which grant proposals do not deserve support than about which proposals have scientific value. The same pattern applies to manuscript submissions in disciplines with a general focus, such as general physics, cultural anthropology, social psychology and broad fields of medicine such as cardiology and psychiatry, he says. Conversely, in disciplines with a specific focus including nuclear physics, physical anthropology, experimental psychology and biological specialty areas such as physiological zoology Cicchetti finds that reviewers agree more often about worthy manuscript submissions and less often about rejects. Journals dealing with specific areas of scientific inquiry have higher article acceptance rates and use fewer referees than journals covering general disciplines, Cicchetti points out. Editors of the more specialized publications usually rely on only one initial reviewer; a "thumbs up" review sparks publication approval from the editor, pending suggested revisions, while a "thumbs down" leads to solicitation of one or more additional reviews. General-focus journals often solicit two independent reviews; editors reject a manuscript with two negative reviews, solicit a third evaluation for split reviews and accept papers with two favorable reviews, pending revisions. Grant proposals receive at least two independent reviews, and sometimes five or more evaluations. Reviewers rate the quality of a proposal on a numerical scale that varies from one funding outlet to another. All the scales contain a strict cutoff score for grants worthy of funding. Scores often cluster just above or below the cutoff, Cicchetti notes. The inability of referees to agree on the relative quality of these borderline proposals justifies concerns that many worthy projects never win funding, victimized by the draw of reviewers or the proposal's emphasis on a relatively new or unfashionable realm of research, he says. As for publishing research results, Cicchetti harbors less concern for rebuffed manuscript authors in both general and specific areas of social and medical science, since these researchers invariably succeed in publishing their rejected articles in other journals, often with few or no changes. In contrast, authors in the physical sciences usually do not submit rejected articles elsewhere, apparently regarding the initial peer verdict as decisive, Cicchetti says. To improve the peer review process, he offers the following suggestions to editors and funding organizations: * Send manuscripts to at least three independent reviewers carefully chosen for their area of expertise, such as content specialists or biostatisticians. * Allow authors to request anonymity from reviewers. * Encourage referees to take more responsibility for their comments by signing their names to each review * Solicit author reviews of referees for periodic evaluation by the editor or program director. * Reward referees who provide consistently high-quality evaluations by inviting them to serve as consulting editors or members of key funding panels. * Develop systems for peer-review appeals, particularly for grant submissions. *Train reviewers by distributing guidelines for what constitutes a good paper, by showing them other reviewers' remarks on previously evaluated papers and by organizing practice sessions with feedback on reviews of sample articles. may need an overhaul

This paper reports a survey on citation behaviour of Malaysian researchers. It is part of a wider study gauging quality and trustworthiness in scholarly communication in the emerging digital environment. The survey questionnaire was distributed between 1 October 2014 and 31 January 2015. A total of 391 respondents, from four research areas (humanities, life sciences, physical sciences, and social sciences) completed the questionnaire. The finding indicated that motivations for citing were complex and multi-faceted, but in all four disciplines, researchers cite a work because they regard it as an authoritative and trustworthy source, which provides a context or building block to their own research. Although researchers have moved from a print-based system to a digital one, it has not significantly changed the way they decide what to trust. Peer reviewed journals are still the most influential. Open access journals will be cited if they have been peer reviewed. Citing on the basis of high altmetrics and other social judgements, such as mentions, likes, and use, was not prevalent. Measures of establishing trust and authority do not seem to have changed profoundly in Malaysia.

Summary This issue comprises the fourth IRIOP Annual Review Issue, following the incorporation of the International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (IRIOP) into the Journal of Organizational Behavior (JOB). In this, the final editorial of our 12-year period of office, we celebrate the achievements of our authors and anonymous peer reviewers, each of whom has played a major role in transforming the highly successful invitation only IRIOP book series into the leading peer reviewed outlet for the publication of critical state-of-the-art overviews and commentary on established knowledge and developments at the forefront of the field that the IRIOP Annual Review Issue has become, exemplified by the six papers appearing in this issue.

This article develops and analyzes patient register-based measures of quality for the major Nordic countries. Previous studies show that Finnish hospitals have significantly higher average productivity than hospitals in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway and also a substantial variation within each country. This paper examines whether quality differences can form part of the explanation and attempts to uncover quality-cost trade-offs. Data on costs and discharges in each diagnosis-related group for 160 acute hospitals in 2008-2009 were collected. Patient register-based measures of quality such as readmissions, mortality (in hospital or outside), and patient safety indices were developed and case-mix adjusted. Productivity is estimated using bootstrapped data envelopment analysis. Results indicate that case-mix adjustment is important, and there are significant differences in the case-mix adjusted performance measures as well as in productivity both at the national and hospital levels. For most quality indicators, the performance measures reveal room for improvement. There is a weak but statistical significant trade-off between productivity and inpatient readmissions within 30 days but a tendency that hospitals with high 30-day mortality also have higher costs. Hence, no clear cost-quality trade-off pattern was discovered. Patient registers can be used and developed to improve future quality and cost comparisons.

Aims and objectives To identify sources of interruptions and distractions to medicine administration rounds in hospitals. Background Nurses are frequently interrupted during medicine administration. There is no systematic description of nurses' behaviours and interruptions during administration of medicines to patients. Design Exploratory nonparticipant observational study. Methods Three hundred and fifty-one episodes of medicine administration with 32 nurses from three hospitals in Norway were observed using paper-based observation grids between December 2013 and March 2014. Results Nurses were frequently interrupted and distracted, mainly by nurses and other healthcare professionals. One-third of the nurses interrupted their medicine administration: They prioritised helping patients with direct patient care. When the nurses were interrupted, they left the round and re-entered the procedure. Even so, they managed to refocus and continue to administer the medicines: Interruptions and disturbances made little difference to most behaviours and actions, possibly because nurses double-checked more frequently. Some differences were seen in behaviours potentially affecting the safety of the medicine administration, such as leaving medicines at the bedside and not helping patients take their medicines. Some interruptions were avoidable, such as those by other nurses and professionals. Conclusions This study offers insights into nurses' behaviours and actions when they are interrupted and distracted during medicine administration. The findings highlight a conflict for nurses administering medicines. Nurses are forced to prioritise between two important activities: direct patient care and medicine administration. Management and education providers need to recognise that nurse interrupting each other is a potential threat to patient safety. Relevance to clinical practice Our data indicate that nurses and other healthcare professionals should be warned not to interrupt colleague administering medicines and managers should ensure other staff are available to respond to patients' immediate needs during medicine rounds.

The paper reviews the current state of knowledge on peer assessment of performance with special reference to industrial R&D organisations. The authors define the term “peer” and discuss briefly various techniques for assessment (nomination, ranking and rating). The authors review the literature of peer review to show that it can add to the value of assessment and that certain obvious objections to peer rating apply also to supervisory review. Their conclusion is that peer review is a useful adjunct to appraisal, but only if it is completely acceptable to all involved. The conditions for achieving this acceptance are discussed. The paper concludes by showing how peer rating can be used for team development.

Effective and rigorous technical peer reviews provide quality to a product realization process. This paper proposes a five-step peer review process based on survey of the literature, experience with peer reviews, and pilot trials. Feedback was collected and integrated as lessons learned, resulting in a process that addresses key attributes of a peer review: roles & responsibilities; requirements; rigor; peer identification, independence, and external engagement; and follow-up actions. An idea for a tool is provided to assist with rigor level determination and scoping of the peer review. Use of this peer review process can yield consistent peer review practices surrounding peer review practices for product realization teams.

Objective There is a large gap between evidence and practice within health care, particularly within the field of chronic disease. To reduce this gap and improve the management of chronic disease, a collaborative partnership between two schools within a large university and two industry partners (a large regional rural hospital and a rural community health center) in rural Victoria, Australia, was developed. The aim of the collaboration was to promote the development of translation science and the implementation of evidence-based health care in chronic disease with a specific focus on developing evidence-based resources that are easily accessed by clinicians. Methods A working group consisting of members of the collaborating organizations and an internationally renowned expert reference group was formed. The group acted as a steering committee and was tasked with developing a taxonomy of the resources. In addition, a peer review process of all resources was established. A corresponding reference group consisting of researchers and clinicians who are clinical experts in various fields was involved in the review process. The resources developed by the group include evidence summaries and recommended practices made available on a web-based database, which can be accessed via subscription by clinicians and researchers worldwide. Results As of mid-2014, there were 109 new evidence summaries and 25 recommended practices detailing the best available evidence on topics related to chronic disease management including asthma, diabetes, heart failure, dementia, and others. Training sessions and a newsletter were developed for clinicians within the node to enable them to use the content effectively. Linking Evidence to Action This paper describes the processes involved in the successful development of the collaborative partnership and its evolution into producing a valuable resource for the translation of evidence into practice in the areas of chronic disease management. The resource developed is being used by clinicians to inform practice and support their clinical decision making.

Physical therapists increasingly are contributing clinical case reports to the health literature, which form the basis for higher quality evidence that has been incorporated into clinical practice guidelines. Yet, few resources exist to assist physical therapists with the basic mechanics and quality standards of producing a clinical case report. This situation is further complicated by the absence of uniform standards for quality in case reporting. The importance of including a concise yet comprehensive description of patient functioning in all physical therapy case reports suggest the potential appropriateness of basing quality guidelines on the World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning Disability and Health (ICF) model. The purpose of this paper is to assist physical therapists in creating high-quality clinical case reports for the peer-reviewed literature using the ICF model as a guiding framework. Along these lines, current recommendations related to the basic mechanics of writing a successful clinical case report are reviewed, as well and a proposal for uniform clinical case reporting requirements is introduced with the aim to improve the quality and feasibility of clinical case reporting in physical therapy that are informed by the ICF model.