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Meet Science: What is "peer review"?
When the science you learned in school and the science you read in the newspaper don't quite match up, the Meet Science series is here to help, providing quick run-downs of oft-referenced concepts, controversies, and tools that aren't always well-explained by the media.
"According to a peer-reviewed journal article published this week ..."
How often have you read that phrase? How often have I written that phrase? If we tried to count, there would probably be some powers of 10 involved. It's clear from the context that "peer-reviewed journal articles" are the hard currency of science. But the context is less obliging on the whys and wherefores.
Who are these "peers" that do the reviewing? What, precisely, do they review? Does a peer-reviewed paper always deserve respect, and how much trust should we place in the process of peer review, itself? If you don't have a degree in the sciences, and you aren't particularly well-versed in self-taught science Inside Baseball, there's really no reason why you should know the answers to all those questions. You can't be an expert in everything, and this isn't something that's explicitly taught in most high schools or basic level college science courses. And yet, I and the rest of the science media continue to reference "peer review" like all our readers know exactly what we're talking about.
I think it's high time to rectify that mistake. Ladies and gentlemen, meet peer review:
What does the phrase "peer-reviewed journal article" really mean?
This part you've probably already figured out. Journal articles are like book reports, usually written to document the methodology and results of a single scientific experiment, or to provide evidence supporting a single theory. Another common type of paper that I talk about a lot are "meta analyses" or "reviews"—big-picture reports that compare the results of lots of individual experiments, usually done by compiling all the previously published papers about a very specific topic. No single journal article is meant to be the definitive last word on anything. Instead, we're supposed to improve our understanding of the world by looking at what the balance of evidence, from many experiments and many articles, tell us. That's why I think reviews are often more useful, for laypeople. A single experiment may be interesting, but it doesn't always tell you as much about how the world works as a review can.
Both individual reports and reviews are published in scientific journals. You can think of these as older, fancier, more heavily edited versions of 'zines. The same scientists who read the journals write the content that goes in the journals. There are hundreds of journals. Some publish lots of different types of papers on a very broad range of topics—"Science" and "Nature", for instance—while others are much, much more specific. "Acute Pain", say. Or "Sleep Medicine Reviews". Often, you have to pay a journal a fee per page to be published. And you—or the institution you work for—has to buy a subscription to the journal, or pay steep prices to read individual papers.
Peer review really just means that other scientists have been involved in helping the editors of these journals decide which papers to publish, and what changes need to be made to those papers before publication.
How does peer review work?
It may surprise you to learn that this is not a standardized thing. Peer review evolved out of the informal practice of sending research to friends and colleagues to be critiqued, and it's never really been codified as a single process. It's still done on a voluntary basis, in scientists' free time. Such as that is. And most journals do not pay scientists for the work of peer review. For the most part, scientists are not formally trained in how to do peer review, nor given continuing education in how to do it better. And they usually don't get direct feedback from the journals or other scientists about the quality of their peer reviewing.
Instead, young scientists learn from their advisors—often when that advisor delegates, to the grad students, papers he or she has been asked to review. Your peer-review education really depends on whether your advisor is good at it, and how much time they choose to spend training you. Meanwhile, feedback is usually indirect. Journals do show all the reviews to all of a paper's reviewers. So you can see how other scientists reviewed the same paper you reviewed. That gives you a chance to see what flaws you missed, and compare your work with others'. If you're a really incompetent peer reviewer, journals might just stop asking you to review, altogether.
Different journals have different guidelines they ask peer reviewers to follow. But there are some commonalities. First, most journals weed out a lot of the papers submitted to them before those papers are even put up for peer review. This is because different journals focus on publishing different things. No matter how cool your findings are, if they aren't on-topic, then "Acute Pain" won't publish them. Meanwhile, a journal like "Science" might prefer to publish papers that are likely to be very original, important to a field, or particularly interesting to the general public. In that case, if your results are accurate, but kind of dull, you probably will get shut out.
Second, peer reviews are normally done anonymously. The editors of the journal will often give the paper's author an opportunity to recommend, or caution against, a specific reviewer. But, otherwise, they pick who does the reviewing.
Reviewers are not the people who decide which papers will be published and which will not. Instead, reviewers look for flaws—like big errors in reasoning or methodology, and signs of plagiarism. Depending on the journal, they might also be asked to rate how novel the paper's findings are, or how important the paper is likely to be in its field. Finally, they make a recommendation on whether or not they think the specific paper is right for the specific journal.
After that, the paper goes back to the journal's editors, who make the final call.
If a paper is peer reviewed does that mean it's correct?
In a word: Nope.
Papers that have been peer reviewed turn out to be wrong all the time. That's the norm. Why? Frankly, peer reviewers are human. And they're humans trying to do very in-depth, time-consuming work in a limited number of hours, for no pay. They make mistakes. They rush through, while worrying about other things they're trying to get done. They once had to share a lab with the guy whose paper they're reviewing and they didn't like him. They get frustrated when a paper they're reviewing contradicts research they're working on. By sending every paper to several peer-reviewers, journals try to cancel out some of the inevitable slip-ups and biases, but it's an imperfect system. Especially when, as I said, there's not really any way to know whether or not you're a good peer reviewer, and no system for improving if you aren't. There's some evidence that, at least in the medical field, the quality and usefulness of reviews actually goes down as the reviewers get older. Nobody knows exactly why that is, but it could have to do with the lack of training and follow-up, the tendency to get more set in our ways as we age, and/or reviewers simply feeling burnt out and too busy.
It's also worth noting that peer review is really not set up to catch deliberate fraud. If you fake your results, and do it convincingly, there's not really any good reason why a peer reviewer would catch you. Instead, that's usually something that happens after a paper has been published—usually when other scientists try to replicate the fraudster's spectacular results, or find that his research contradicts their own in a way that makes no sense.
If a paper isn't peer-reviewed, does that mean it's incorrect?
Technically, no. But, here's the thing. Flawed as it is, peer review is useful. It's a first line of defense. It forces scientists to have some evidence to back up their claims, and it is likely to catch the most egregious biases and flaws. It even means that frauds can't be really obvious frauds.
Being peer reviewed doesn't mean your results are accurate. Not being peer reviewed doesn't mean you're a crank. But the fact that peer review exists does weed out a lot of cranks, simply by saying, "There is a standard." Journals that don't have peer review do tend to be ones with an obvious agenda. White papers, which are not peer reviewed, do tend to contain more bias and self-promotion than peer-reviewed journal articles.
You should think critically and skeptically about any paper—peer reviewed or otherwise—but the ones that haven't been submitted to peer review do tend to have more wrong with them.
What problems do scientists have with peer review, and how are they trying to change it?
Scientists do complain about peer review. But let me set one thing straight: The biggest complaints scientists have about peer review are not that it stifles unpopular ideas. You've heard this truthy factoid from countless climate-change deniers, and purveyors of quack medicine. And peer review is a convenient scapegoat for their conspiracy theories. There's just enough truth to make the claims sound plausible.
Peer review is flawed. Peer review can be biased. In fact, really new, unpopular ideas might well have a hard time getting published in the biggest journals right at first. You saw an example of that in my interview with sociologist Harry Collins. But those sort of findings will often published by smaller, more obscure journals. And, if a scientist keeps finding more evidence to support her claims, and keeps submitting her work to peer review, more often than not she's going to eventually convince people that she's right. Plenty of scientists, including Harry Collins, have seen their once-shunned ideas published widely.
So what do scientists complain about? This shouldn't be too much of a surprise. It's the lack of training, the lack of feedback, the time constraints, and the fact that, the more specific your research gets, the fewer people there are with the expertise to accurately and thoroughly review your work.
Scientists are frustrated that most journals don't like to publish research that is solid, but not ground-breaking. They're frustrated that most journals don't like to publish studies where the scientist's hypothesis turned out to be wrong.
Some scientists would prefer that peer review not be anonymous—though plenty of others like that feature. Journals like the British Medical Journal require reviewers to sign their comments, and have produced evidence that this practice doesn't diminish the quality of the reviews.
There are also scientists who want to see more crowd-sourced, post-publication review of research papers. Because peer review is flawed, they say, it would be helpful to have centralized places where scientists can go to find critiques of papers, written by scientists other than the official peer-reviewers. Maybe the crowd can catch things the reviewers miss. We certainly saw that happen earlier this year, when microbiologist Rosie Redfield took a high-profile peer-reviewed paper about arsenic-based life to task on her blog. The website Faculty of 1000 is attempting to do something like this. You can go to that site, look up a previously published peer-reviewed paper, and see what other scientists are saying about it. And the Astrophysics Archive has been doing this same basic thing for years.
So, what does all this mean for me?
Basically, you shouldn't canonize everything a peer-reviewed journal article says just because it is a peer-reviewed journal article. But, at the same time, being peer reviewed is a sign that the paper's author has done some level of due diligence in their work. Peer review is flawed, but it has value. There are improvements that could be made. But, like the old joke about democracy, peer review is the worst possible system except for every other system we've ever come up with.
If you're interested in reading more about peer review, and how scientists are trying to change and improve it, I'd recommend checking out Nature's Peer to Peer blog. They recently stopped updating it, but there's lots of good information archived there that will help you dig deeper.
Journals have also commissioned studies of how peer review works, and how it could be better. The British Medical Journal is one publication that makes its research on open access, peer review, research ethics, and other issues, available online. Much of it can be read for free.
The following people were instrumental in putting this explainer together: Ivan Oransky, science journalist and editor of the Retraction Watch blog; John Moore, Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College; and Sara Schroter, senior researcher at the British Medical Journal.
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bwhahaha, love the 'man in the ape suit' meme.
My problem with peer review is that reviewers are anonymous, and as such there is significant politics behind the scenes.
A better system would be to publish the names of the reviewers alongside the paper. This would prevent anonymous reviewers from torpedoing good papers, and would expose conflicts of interest to the community. Transparency is greatly needed in science.
Good papers are killed by influential older scientists often. Science is ruled by the old guys, and the younger scientists that do the heavy lifting have no champion to defend them.
Revealing the identities of the reviewers wouldn't fix this problem (if it exists), it would make it worse. If, as you say, the old farts are calling the shots, why would a young reviewer point out the flaws in a older, more influential researcher's work if they don't have the cover of anonymity?
Is that supposed to be ironic Mr, "Anon"?
In reply to Anon in comment #2, Frontiers do exactly this. Reviewers remain anonymous through the review process, but once the paper is published, the reviewers names are on it. The review process also attempts to be a bit more interactive – after the reviewers write their initial comments, both reviewers and authors interact through a forum, discussing changes to the paper. This can be a pro and a con, depending on how 'chatty' your reviewers are!
Frontiers are an open-access outfit – you pay to have your article published, but then anyone can download it for free.
Full disclosure – my GF works for them, so I'm becoming slowly brainwashed by the 'revolutionary Frontiers process'. I'm also much more aware of why somebody has to pay to get an article published. Even when there is no printed journal, you still need an office full of people making sure the articles arrive, reviewers review, the website stays up, etc.
I've been a peer reviewer dozens of times for several journals and quite a few conferences. I would say that being able to see other reviewers' reviews is decidedly *not* the norm. It happens in my fields, but certainly less than half the time.
I second Bill Barth's comment about not usually being able to read other reviews. Most often this is simply not provided by the system (online platform). You log in, upload your feedback, and that's it. A colleague of mine once had to write to the editor and explicitly request the other reviews – and it was easier because it was an old-fashioned, non automated system, i.e. all files sent by email instead of online forms.
One positive change I'm seeing is that, while it's true that we don't get formal training, more and more peer-review forms include lists of guidelines or guiding questions to help the reviewers focus on the major aspects of the manuscript (such as coherence between goals and results, solid methodological information, originality, etc). That is quite useful for reviewers, especially "newbies".
Time constraints are a problem. After all, we do peer-review for free, in our spare time (not that we have much of it). And at least here in Argentina, CONICET, the state agency for scientific research that reads my reports, won't care that I've reviewed several papers, they only care that I publish my own work.
We've been talking about the "peer review paradox" at work. On the one hand, the editors seem to be giving less and less time for a review (i.e. 2 weeks when it used to be a month), with the system sending automatic reminders that add extra pressure for us to hurry… On the other hand, waiting times for authors seem to be getting longer. And it is quite frustrating to hear back from the editor *months* after submitting your ms only to learn that they can't find anyone to review your work and/or the reviewers didn't respond and/or they didn't provide a useful review (this actually happened to me).
I think this is the logical result of many researchers not wanting to spend their time reviewing when they can be doing something more productive for their careers. And as long as peer-reviewing doesn't get the recognition it deserves as part of the scientific activity, these problems will only keep growing.
Out of curiosity I wonder how the process at arxiv.org impacts on traditional peer-review?
That depends a lot on the article. For results that are very time-sensitive, people will post to the arXiv while their paper is still being refereed. So that means they stake a claim, but they also get additional feedback from the wider public during the refereeing process and can incorporate that in revised versions. For results that are less urgent or more uncertain, people will typically wait until they at least have a first referee report (indicating only small corrections) or have been accepted before posting. So arXiv does not have much impact in those cases.
Note that "informal" refereeing usually goes on too, where authors send papers to people they know and trust before they are published. Anonymous referees (which is usually the case with the ones coming from journals, unless the referee asks to be named) are good, but having more opinions can also help. Knowing the people makes it easier to weight the comments appropriately.
Had my first peer-reviewed paper published last year. Main thing I learned was how picky my peers could be.
The main conflict was comments by an academic reviewer asking for more algorithm description, really wanting something entirely reproducible. Since the work described was for a commercial company, I had to say no, my boss won't allow it to that extent, but we'll add as many references as I can get away with. Ironically, we were integrating a major software module that was supplied by a university research lab and paid for by the government, and the university's lawyers were as hard to get information out of as anyone….
It was a pain but I have no question that in this case responding to the the reviewer's comments made the paper much better in the end.
Great article, Maggie, and a wonderful topic for an ongoing series!
As an outsider to / fanboy of the scientific community, I have one question: typically peer review and claims of potential reproducibility by a third party are used in a defense of the scientific method, say, in arguments for evolutionary theory.
But just as peer-review is an opaque process to the outside world, the process of third party verification of lab results etc. is even more obscure.
I happen to have access to Science magazine as "casual lunchtime reading", and I am overwhelmed by the sheer amount of articles published. But out of all the published papers in all of the journals, how many of the results will be reproduced by peers, third parties, in other laboratories?
I expect the cost for most modern scientific experiments to be rather exorbitant — time, materials, equipment, staffing etc. I also understand that existing research is based on findings of earlier research, but in that case, how many scientists will first go back and verify the original findings, before going forward with their own research?
In my very limited experience as a first-year grad student, I've seen researchers go over other researchers' work for three reasons:
1- It's useful to their own work, but it would be even more useful if it can be verified.
2- They want to prove it wrong. Either it offends them, or it makes their own research more difficult,
3- It's a job requirement. Their institution requires them to spend a certain amount of time each year reviewing and interpreting outside research.
I'm sure there are more reasons than this, but these are the ones I've seen first-hand.
This is a good question but you have to remember that science and the technology created by the scientific process is cumulative. Say somebody publishes an idea and it's right but not completely right. The idea then becomes more of a tool to explore other questions. Now another researcher comes along and tries to use this tool but the tool doesn't work, then perhaps the original idea is flawed. However if the tool continues to perform well no one will question the original idea.
In science, ideas build on each other…sometimes it's a house of cards…and other times the ideas are solid no mater how many different ways they are tested by answering other related questions consistently. The problem is that bad ideas can get put into this system and persist for quite a while…though generally they do get disproved one way or another when people try to build upon a bad idea and are unable too.
A lot of the time, when an article is submitted and discussions are produced with data to support the hypothesis of the research being executed, other laboratories that are investigating the same topic will design research loosely based on the data presented. This means that in developing laboratory experiments, researchers often have to begin by reproducing parts of other people's experiments in order to proceed quantitatively with their own research. This is just one example of how results are reproduced. Hope that helps.
I love this article. More like it, please!
Before replying to jbldb, I just would add 2 points: 1) There are vast differences across disciplines in how peer review is conducted, as well as 2) across journals within a given discipline. I work in sociological social psychology. The turn around time for many (sadly, most) journals in my area, particularly the ones that are most prestigious and highly ranked, is 6 or more months. My brother works in computer science. He reports turn around times of a few weeks. My most recent accepted article was written with one a coauthor, contained 64 pages text, wherein we reviewed a huge literature and reported the results from a cross-national survey. His last paper was 8 pages, had 10 authors, and was mostly code.
Both went through peer review. All together, my paper was reviewed by 3 reviewers at one journal (which rejected it 8 months after I sent it in) and after a complete revision, by another 4 reviewers at a second journal. The second journal asked us to revise and resubmit that paper. We did, guided by the reviewers' critiques, and sent it back. It then went out for a second round of reviews. Two of these second round reviewers were among the three initial reviewers, and one was new. Paper came back with conditional acceptance, based on our making several changes that the new reviewer requested. We made the changes and received an acceptance decision. My brother often submits an abstract, a brief description of an algorithm, and code, which see two reviews before acceptance.
I am not complaining (In fact, my work, in every case, has been hugely improved by going through such rigorous peer reviews), just describing the variance across disciplines in how it works in practice.
@jbldb: Studies that replicate previously published work are difficult to get through peer review because a typical criteria reviewers are asked to consider is originality, or the potential for the article to contribute important new findings. Because replications are, by definition, not as original as the study being replicated, pure replication is often more difficult to get accepted by top journals, even if otherwise the research is well done. One good strategy for getting replications accepted is to include in a study some conditions that replicate those from previously published work, along with other new conditions that address other predictions. There are also one or two general journals that focus on publishing replications.
You are correct that the huge number of journals, sub areas, and sub sub areas, means that even if replications were not difficult to publish, there are simply too many studies being published to easily ensure that third-party replications are conducted for most. Compounding this problem is publication bias. As mentioned in the article, it is also more difficult, all else equal, to get a paper successfully through peer review when its results fail to reject the null hypotheses (this means the findings are inconsistent with predictions derived from the theory under test) compared to an experiment where the null is rejected. Thus, a bias exists toward false positive results being accepted.
Both the difficulty in publishing replications and publication bias are serious problems for at least two reasons.
First, publication bias means that there is a preference for papers that reject the null simply because their results are consistent with the theory driving the study. The number of experiments that correctly failed to reject the null is unknown but could be large.
Second, the difficulty of getting replications published, combined with publication bias, means that one of the mechanisms by which science seeks to self correct is likely to be inefficient. If a replication, for example, fails reject the null, it has two strikes against it. First, it is a replication and there fore, not as original; second, it fails to support the theory be tested, so it less appealing to editors.
Finally, publication bias also leads to serious but almost universally ignored problems with meta analytic reviews of multiple studies. One of the statistical assumptions for meta analysis is that the sample of studies must contain both failures to reject the null and successes. In other words, the studies being analysed must include successes and failures. But because success are more likely to get published due to publication bias, they are typically over represented in meta analytic reviews, making them less powerful.
As a phd/scientist that's often been a reviewer and (often brutally) reviewed, I want to congratulate you on a very good summary of a very crufty, complex and often cryptic system – well done!. Peer review is old, political, fraught with resistance to the novel and greased skids for the established. However, I never observed anything superior that wouldn't require lots of money that simply isn't there, and would rapidly become even more corrupt. For instance, removing anonymity would only heighten the politics, (were that possible). The process of web-ifying it is under-way, albeit slowly, (as a humble aside, a grievous problem there is the prevailing stricture to use MSWordâ"¢)
As to another commenter that laments upon the "old guys" (aka "seniority") in the system, I think they'll find that that's an unfortunate outcome in every social division that depends upon training. I wish it were otherwise but it's a slow process and we have limited lifetimes and tend to age. I await their detailed proposal towards a Logan's Run concept of scientific publishing.
Thanks for the great article and explaining this so clearly. I taught a college class last autumn in psychology. Despite telling students that they had to have peer reviewed journal articles as sources, having the library do a demo on how to search and download them, at least 50% of my students didn't use them. I got references from the Bible, Brighthub (and the like), and blogs.
Hey, one thing Maggie: every time you define peer review you make it about science: "Peer review really just means that other scientists have been involved in helping the editors of these journals", etc.
Well, I know you know this, but just so someone has made the point here explicitly: the humanities have peer review too. As one who has done my share of keeping BS out of (humanities) journals, it would be great to reinforce for all BoingBoing readers that the sciences don't have a monopoly on rigour. (In fact, many times I've been on review committees with humanities and science professors, it's the historians and philosophers who have insisted the most on a certain kind of rigour.)
As an up and coming scientist I would be very uncomfortable having my name attached to a peer review. In fact, if I was asked to review a paper with that condition, I would likely respectfully decline.
First of all, I'm relatively inexperienced at reviewing. My future self would likely cringe at reviews done at the beginning of my career (with my name attached for all to see forever). And as someone else mentioned above, I would be very hesitant to be too critical of the work of a senior scientist in my field if they would know it was me being critical. Do that to the wrong person and you've just committed career suicide!
That said, the peer review process can be very frustrating. When I spend 4-6 months on a research project and the reviewer obviously just skimmed the abstract and says "not recommended for publishing" and nothing else …. I LOSE MY MIND!!
It's also worth remembering that many journals are peer-edited as well — while they may have an paid editorial staff to do things like handling actual editing per se, most of the decisions on who to send a paper out for peer review, whether it should be sent out to peer review at all (sometimes manuscripts are really that bad), and deciding whether to accept or reject in cases of conflicting peer review is up to an academic editor who is a (generally unpaid) volunteer in the relevent field.
Great post. I second the comment that it is not just hard science that uses peer review. Also, I feel it is important to say that if you read something in a newspaper, magazine, blog, or other mass media source, you can't call it "research" unless it has been published in a peer reviewed journal. Its not just about checking for fraud, its about methods. There are lots of people who weren't trained well and don't follow the rules of what is considered quality research methodology and those people don't get their stuff published because peer review stops them. People need to learn about the differences between "journalism" (which should include fact-checking and multiple corroborating sources) and research with all of its specific rules about methodology. I do think it was important for you to point out that only researchers read the journals, whereas it might help if lots of people read the research, instead of just staying in a closed system. Can we also discuss how long it takes from the moment you finish the research study to when it actually gets published? Many times it has been a year or more and the results are already out of date. We need a faster system, perhaps by having dedicated, full-time employee reviewers and editors instead of people procrastinating to do it for free.
Albert Einstein was a vocal critic of peer review and preferred "public review"; mainly seeing how peer review is such a fantastic way for science to collude with big business to build weapons of mass distraction. Science ought to serve the public, not the other way around.
Excellent point about remaining skeptical. I look at peer-review the way I look at double-blind studies – it's not a guarantee of accuracy or truth, but if someone is not willing to submit their work for peer review or for controlled studies, that raises a big red flag.
I also would read the words "peer-reviewed" and accept it without too much question. Very interesting look at the process – what a wonderful thing that science has people that are able to do this work in their spare time to advance the cause of knowledge. While obviously not perfect, it beats a lot of other things.
It depends. Very few experiments are started trying to exclusively replicate a previous result. This does happen occasionally, particularly if the result is very controversial or if it strikes someone as "obviously wrong." However, it'd be hard to run/fund a lab that only replicated others' work.
Instead, replication generally happens while trying to extend that result. For example, suppose a paper argues that a mutations in gene X confer susceptibility to some disease in adulthood. Subsequent papers (often by different researchers) might ask which, if any, of the proteins that gene X codes for, actually cause the pathology. Others might ask if there's a time course: is gene X always on or is it only expressed during particular stages of development. Others still might do experiments to see how different levels of X expression affect the severity of the disease, or if some other genes can ameliorate or exacerbate the effects of having a mutated copy of X.
All these experiments–and many more–necessarily involve replicating the initial findings as part of your later experiment. Suppose you decide to look at whether levels of X expression affect the disease's severity. Your results necessarily include the original result; you just have to collapse across expression levels. If that doesn't match the original result, something is wrong, either with your experiment or the original one.
So, in many cases, replication isn't really a matter of doing something before you get on with your own experiment. Instead, it's a necessary part of the future experiments too.
However, it'd be hard to run/fund a lab that only replicated others' work.
And almost impossible to ever get any articles accepted for publication. Most journals aren't interested in replication work (with either positive or negative outcomes, bizarrely) – they are much more keen on breaking new ground.
My limited experience with peer review has left me with two conclusions:
1. The current system of peer review is a clunky relic of the 19th century which is used mainly because the other alternatives seem to be worse.
2. The arXiv system is a big improvement, but has its own flaws. The best thing about arXiv, in fact, is that it proves that we can have high quality science without peer review.
Given the fact that journals are run by human beings, it is not likely that we will see perfection any time soon.
What jon_anon said–peer review is not limited to the sciences and medicine.
As far as the issue of anonymous reviewers goes, and the concerns people have about that–are the papers reviewed ever presented to reviewers anonymously, so to possibly avoid any biases that reviewers have about the researchers?
Hey Maggie, love your writing. Most of the peer reviewing I do (social sciences) is for conferences, where there are a ton of papers. It's a similar process in terms of using peer review to select papers, but getting reviewers can be hard since, like reviewing for a journal, all you get is brownie points from the editor or division chair (and the knowledge that you are helping your field). Conference reviewing is tough as you can get a ton of papers and the reviews are all due at the same time.
I was a little concerned and curious when you wrote, "Usually, you have to pay a journal a fee per page to be published." In my field, this is not true for any journal that I know of, and the only ones that would ask for payment are, as far as I know, scams — "pay to play" kind of things (there are conferences like this too), I don't know how they sucker people in in order to survive. When you're in a department, you know the journals and conferences that are respected in your field (and in your department, in your graduate school department, and probably the ones of the grad depts of your colleagues — there should be a lot of overlap).
Is a fee per page the norm in the natural sciences? Which fields are you talking about? If it is a norm as you say, why isn't it one in the social sciences? (Or, since it's the norm to not pay in the social sciences [or at least the ones I'm aware of], why is it the norm to pay in whichever natural science fields you are talking about?)
I don't know the answer to that question, anon. The sources I spoke with for this story (who are, in retrospect, centered around medical sciences) told me that was the case, and I've been told the same by sources in various fields of the natural sciences over the years. It's apparently part of the journals' business plans.
I don't know why that's the case. Or why it's not the case for social sciences. If there's anybody else who could weigh in, I'd be curious to find out.
he NIH and many other funding body rules require that any information obtained from their grants must be made available to Pubmed after 1 year. Since the journals are loosing some control over charging for access they are begining to push the cost of publication onto the researcher.
Journals like the PLoS have a fee associated with publishing which I think is around $3,000 per article (at least the last time I checked). They are predominately an online journal without a major print distribution. I think their model is to push the cost of publishing onto the researcher so that way the information can be distributed much for freely to the general public. Otherwise the cost of publication is pushed onto institutions that subscribe to the journal. For instance you can publish in a journal for no or a small cost but the distribution of the journal is much lower. These types of journals also restrict distributions of *.pdf to subscribers or charge to download the articles. I think as time goes on print journals are going to become less and less common.
In my experience, sociology journals, whether published by the ASA, regional professional organisations, university presses or private academic presses do not charge per page except for color or photographic figures. Most do, however, charge a submission fee or $25-$50.00 (whether or not the paper is eventually accepted). Depending on the journal, this might end up being ~ 1.00 a page if the article is accepted.
There are two reasons for page charges:
1) In traditional closed-access print journals, there is generally a page charge — for example the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (hardly a scam, but probably the most influential journal after Nature and Science), this is $70 per page, and $250 per page if you want color. This is because it's a non-trivial cost to print, especially in color, and the journal subscription costs would have to be higher if these charges weren't there.
2) In open access journals, which may or may not have a print version, there is a charge (generally $2K-$3K) to cover processing and typesetting of the manuscript, which in traditional journals is covered by the subscription costs — in order to make an open access journal free for all to read, this cost needs to come from somewhere.
In both cases, these charges are only charged if the paper is accepted — there is no "pay to play" going on.
You say:
"In open access journals, which may or may not have a print version, there is a charge (generally $2K-$3K) to cover processing and typesetting of the manuscript, which in traditional journals is covered by the subscription costs — in order to make an open access journal free for all to read, this cost needs to come from somewhere."
Well, your last statement is true, but as someone who runs an open access journal in social sciences and who knows many other people who also do, this is far from a universal truth, in fact none of the open access journals of my acquaintance do 'pay to publish'.
So where does the money come from?
Well, first of all, the free labour of volunteers like me and all the other editors and reviewers who are basically doing it because they think it's worthwhile. It's not about 'career' per se, because I am pretty sure I could advance my career better by carefully targeting a couple of articles a year to the 'top' conventional journals. It is about the love.
Second, we set up a charitable trust to run our journal and an association which you can join if you want to support the journal – and people do. You can also donate. Basically, this means we rely more on people's good will and their interest in the subject – their 'love' if you like.
Third, we run conferences which make a modest profit which also gets ploughed back into the journal.
And finally, we bid for whatever grants we can. I'm working on one such bid right now.
Sure, we could charge in all kinds of different ways, but we think that if you really believe in open access then it has to be truly open, and that means it is the quality if your work that should determine whether you get published not whether you can afford it (and this really matters to PhD students, post-docs and academics from poorer countries), as well as that it should be open to anyone to read. This philosophy means we reach far more people than most social science journals. We may not make any financial gain ourselves and we may take a lot of extra time to produce the journal, but it's worth it.
I'm not sure I understand your comment — are you saying the open access journal you are referring to has no author charges? Which one? Relying on volunteer effort of reviewers and editors is all good and well, but most journals do that — even bizarrely the commercial ones published by Springer and Elsevier, which you'd think wouldn't attract any volunteer effort.
Yes, that's exactly what I am saying.
Like over 9000 other journals, we run on the Open Journal System http://pkp.sfu.ca/?q=ojs, which makes a lot of the process easier. We're doing some work on the site right now, so the archiving is all messed up – we have been running since 2002 and the old site was not an OJS-powered one – but my journal is: http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/ojs/index.php/journal
Having sat on the committee that awards funds to journals in Canada, I can tell you that none of the open access journals we considered had author charges. I also know this lack is true of many other open access journals in the social sciences, particularly those that feel they have a more radical purpose beyond academia, like ACME in geography http://www.acme-journal.org/ or Ephemera in organisation studies http://www.ephemeraweb.org/ In fact, I regard this as a recent and rather unwelcome development, which is against the spirit of open access.
And yes, this is a challenge. But we get a large number of submissions, and are able to maintain a very high standard, our readership is much larger than if were were not open access and we have an impact factor – which of course we have to calculate ourselves because, like many non-publisher backed enterprizes, which do not fit their 'current priorities' Thomson Reuters won't give us the time of day – that is comparable to many journals that are supposedly 'more prestigious' – that's what makes running an open access journal worthwhile.
The Open Journal System sounds like an interesting idea, but I still don't see how it will work in practice without government subsidies (which might be more feasible in Canada than the US). In biology, (where the whole idea of open access started in the PLoS project), author charges are universal, although they can be waived in cases where the authors can't pay. There are real costs to producing a journal, especially if you want it to be professional enough to be indexed by Thompson and other services (The PLoS journals are, and at least in biology, that's pretty much a requirement for a publication to be counted as real, unfortunately)
We are indexed by several leading indexers including EBSCO and ProQuest. But for some reasons, Thomson Reuters have managed to convince a lot of people that their index means something more than most others, even though their criteria for selecting journals to appear in their lists are opaque to say the least. The one thing I do know having tried to get some sensible reason out of them as to their criteria, is that their 'commercial priorities' appear to be the biggest consideration – i.e. they aren't so interested in academic considerations. I guess biology is more within the range of their 'commercial priorities' than interdisciplinary social sciences.
In my experience papers are always presented anonymously, but it's usually very easy to find out who wrote them (in the humanities, papers usually get submitted long after the research is first presented at a conference; in the sciences the arXiv makes it easy to know who wrote what).
Also, some journals have the policy of not sending an article to any reviewers who are mentioned in the footnotes. So I have heard of authors deliberately citing a comment by so-and-so who they think would not review the article kindly!
One of the problems with peer-reviewing, and this stems from Kuhn's scientific paradigm where new paradigm's are decided upon by group consensus, is that it makes truth subjective and subject to a vote (and if truth is Truth, that should not be).
A couple of questions:
"Peer reviews are normally done anonymously. The editors of the journal will often give the paper's author an opportunity to recommend, or caution against, a specific reviewer. But, otherwise, they pick who does the reviewing."
–In a small field, however, doesn't the limited pool of practitioners mean that the anonymity is a fiction? If I'm the scientist who recommends reviewer A, B, and C, and there are only A-F practitioners, aren't I in practice able to pick the reviewers?
"You have to pay a journal a fee per page to be published."
–This seems like it deserves more reporting since it appears like an obvious financial conflict of interest. The more articles rejected, the more money the journal makes. And why wouldn't some researchers or institutions seek to influence journal editors by "buying" access?
"You have to pay a journal a fee per page to be published."
–This seems like it deserves more reporting since it appears like an obvious financial conflict of interest. The more articles rejected, the more money the journal makes. And why wouldn't some researchers or institutions seek to influence journal editors by "buying" access?
I don't think I explained the page fee system very well. You don't pay to submit your article to peer review. You only pay IF your article is accepted for publication. So the peer-review process is somewhat separate from the page fee.
Journals don't make money by rejecting articles, because scientists don't pay the page fee unless the article is accepted.
And I don't see a logical way that page fee could be used to influence editorial decisions, either, as it's the same fee no matter who gets published.
It does put a burden on scientists, especially if they are associated with institutions that have limited funding. But that's a different sort of problem.
Others seem to have given pretty accurate info about page charges. I think the short version answer to the "why" question is that the scientific publishing model is not self-sustaining. There has never been enough subscribers to fully support publication. Authors are asked to subsidize their own publications, and in turn, publication fees are built into their lab budgets.
It was easier to justify these charges when the publishers also had to ship print copies. Now that most journals are going online, there is pressure to reduce the fees. Publishers counter by arguing that they have to pay editorial overhead in order to provide good peer review…the debate continues.
Some journals charge a submission fee, but most charge a fee only at acceptance. There could be an argument made for financial conflict of interest—the more papers submitted/accepted, the more fees—however, almost every journal decision is made by academic editors (often volunteers) who have little if any connection to the business side of their own journal.
Publication page charges for journal submissions are a common expense request in grant budgets.
There's a wide range of possibilities and combinations when it comes to publishing and paying. Off the top of my head:
° Journals that demand payment for every page of an article
° Journals that demand payment only for color figures that will be printed (but color figures are free for electronic versions)
° Journals that publish on behalf of scientific/academic societies and only publish works by members of these societies. In this case the authors don't pay for publication, but they've already paid their membership fees which may be quite high.
° Those that ask the authors if they are willing to pay for their paper; one can choose how much to pay (any amount up to the full cost of each paper as given by the journal), or not to pay at all. This happens after acceptance.
° Journals that will publish it for free and offer the author a choice between, say, 25 offprints or one pdf version (we always choose the pdf version and make our own "home made" offprints).
° Journals that will publish it for free but won't give the author even the pdf version without payment
° At least one journal whose submission form includes a radio button that allows the author to apply for an automatic grant to cover the cost of publication, if they're not willing or able to pay for it.
° Entirely payment-free publication
In any case, as Maggie explained above, the financial intricacies are separate, and hopefully independent, from the peer review process.
I think as you progress through your career you will be exposed to many more reasons to do reviews.
Think of it as a social responsibility: for every paper you submit, three people have to give of their time to read it (more likely 6, because it will be rejected the first time, and three more will have to be found to review your revision if the first three are not available). That means for every manuscript you submit, you should personally do 3 reviews to "pay" for the time of the reviewers who read your own paper. Reviewing makes the world go round.
Also, if you are a good reviewer (diligent, constructive, and on time) it is likely the editors of the journals will get to know your name. You might be invited to give talks, submit papers, or even serve on the editorial board of the journal. These are all good things for your career.
Great article!
I'd like to draw your attention to an explicitly non-per review Journal, we have recently launched at http://www.cyborgsubjects.org/
All articles, we get will be published and we have editorial board members who then comment on the articles, so one thing traditional academia really lacks is triggered: constructive discussion.
We have just launched our second CFP on Wikileaks btw :)
Below, I quote in full a recent "peer review" we received for a paper on pattern recognition.
Reviewer #2: This paper examines how much various 'domain extension' methods for image representation (e.g. pyramids, spectral representations) enhance feature-based approaches for a variety of texture classification type tasks.
They show that either good textural features should be used or a spectral representation, and there is a very small added value for using both.
This took ~6 months to produce – the review, not the manuscript.
Besides being a blow-off, they completely missed the boat.
Doesn't this look like fun?
As an academic editor of a couple of journals, let me tell you how this sort of useless review happens. Basically, the first month or so is spent just trying to *find* a peer reviewer. You'd think that a paper that would be about, for example, an extension of Smith and Jones' algorithm would be properly reviewed by Smith or Jones. So I ask them. They take a week (or more) to get back to me, and then claim they are too busy to review it. If they are being generous, they will give a lead on another possible reviewer. If not, I have to try to find other reviewers myself. So I find authors of similar papers — who often then either say they are too busy also, or decline on the grounds that they aren't experts in the subject because their work differs in trivial way from that of the manuscript. The idea that nobody is doing exactly the same work as themselves never seems to occur to them. However, peer reviewers are finally found. And then the review deadline comes and no review is forthcoming. So I remind the reviewer. Multiple times. They often complain that they have a real job to do (as if I didn't have one besides being an academic editor) Finally they spend 15 minutes writing up a pointless review like the above to get me off their back. Of course, most reviewers take the process more seriously, but non-trivial percent don't.
Thank you Maggie! I was hoping you would speak to the 'dark side'.
IMHO, not only is the "quality" of peer reviewed papers inversely proportional to reviewer's age, but so to with how prestigious the University from whence it came.
In my yout' I had the opportunity to participate in bench research at UCSF and Rockeller, and clinical at Cornell. I was present at the latter two during this scandal:
There were even more hard to believe salacious details than what are stated in the wiki. Never knew what happened to him after he left Rockefeller. I was sadly surprised to see retractions happened again while at Caltech…
The weakness of validity of the research is not malicious, but neither is it harmless.
OK, reread. Sorry people. Re-University prestige, I meant the extent to which questioning research could negatively impact the representative academic institution.
Peer review exists not just for publishing of journal articles, but also for judging the merit of research grant applications submitted to agencies like the NIH.
Jonathan Badger: you wrote "even bizarrely the commercial ones published by Springer and Elsevier, which you'd think wouldn't attract any volunteer effort".
In fact, although the journals don't pay the reviewers, it's not volunteer effort. In my job as a professor, part of my job description apart from teaching and publishing my research is "service to the university and the discipline", which means among other things serving on editorial boards and reviewing journal and conference submissions. And I get to say, in my annual report, that I reviewed articles for publications x, y and z, and my chair takes that into account for my annual performance-based raise.
I hear you; I hear you. Yes, academic volunteerism is part of service and not entirely done out of good will — but people do have a choice on where to spend the service. I'm not entirely an open-access zealot in that I do review papers for closed-access journals as well as serve as an AE on a couple of open access ones, although I know people who have actually made the stance not to deal with closed access journals at all.
Since no one has mentioned this already: journals also vary tremendously in quality. There are dozens and dozens of journals out there. Some are top-notch, world-class journals. Others are obscure, local outfits that have very limited distribution beyond the immediate circle of their inceptor.
Researchers compete to get published in journals of the highest rank. If they keep getting rejected, they aim lower until they find a journal that accepts their work.
[Of course, due to the vagaries of the peer-review process, it is well possible that a higher ranked journal would accept a manuscript that would have been rejected by a lower ranked journal (due to the particular mix of referees it sends the manuscript to).]
If you really wanted to, you can get anything published in a peer-reviewed journal if you are willing to aim low enough. But the repeated submit-review-resubmit cycle inevitably improves the quality of the manuscript.
Rats, I think I missed most of the conversation. To add my point of view: I am an assistant prof (five years in the profession) and have both published in peer-reviewed journals and been a peer reviewer. My take home experience is profoundly positive. I love the process and my work was immensely improved by the high quality comments I got from two of my three anonymous reviewers. Those comments also enabled the journal editor to hone her comments and make my work better. Full disclosure: I am in History, and have not published in a science journal. But I have reviewed scientific papers for science journals (I have a science background) and the process was similarly rewarding.
I have been transitively threatened over scooping another work (I didn't know and they didn't publish).
Given my name was known the threat was levied against me. This individual was barred from his campus for making threats. Now this is with indirect interaction, imagine the amplification of this effect for review. I have to be able to say negative things about your work and still shake your hand at a conference.
Also graduate students, PhDs and profs are not all of a steady keel. I consider graduate studies to be an indicator of a potential for variable behaviour (read that in a mental health sense). Thus I would prefer if peer review was anonymous, otherwise I wouldn't feel safe as a reviewer in many cases.
Adding another ingredient to this mix, Hidde Ploegh just published a column in Nature critiquing the peer review system. http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110427/full/472391a.html?WT.mc_id=TWT_NatureNews
Specifically the tendency of reviewers to suggest additional experiments that are either do not add anything or are outside the scope of the paper, thus slowing down the progress of science. This really goes toward this article's point that there are varying guidelines and no formal training for scientists doing peer review.
At the risk of opening another box of worms (which has already been tangentially discussed here), there is also the matter of impact factor to consider (IF). I know this is controversial, and different methodologies exist which given different scores (and thus different journals use the impact factor which portrays their organs most favourably), but there are a number of journals which dominate using most any reasonable IF calculation (Nature, Science, Cell, NEJM, PNAS, The Lancet) and which can *usually* be relied upon to only publish the top-flight stuff. Of course, occasionally a stinker sneaks in (*cough cough* Hendrik Schön *cough cough*) but in general, their papers are world-class.
Secondly, Nature now insists that authors disclose any financial conflicts (funding from commercial concerns or fees paid by special interest groups etc). I'm not sure what Science et al's policies are, but I think there is a move towards encouraging full financial disclosure by authors, which, while it may not prevent bias, at least brings it into the open.
Comments are closed.


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Crimson center Merle McClung, who seems to be on the way to an all-time Harvard season scoring record, has been named Ivy Basketball Player of the Week for his brilliant performances against Princeton and Penn last weekend.
Against the Tigers McClung hit 12 of 13 field goal attempts and four of six free throws for 20 pints, as the Crimson registered a shocking 22-32 upset. The next night he connected for 10 of 17 from the floor and a torrid 9 of 10 foul shots for 29 points.
McClung specializes in short shots, hook shots, and over-the-head flips, near the basket; even opponents as tall as 6-9 haven't been able to stop him. The only way to contain McClung is a tight defense which prevents his teammates from working the ball into him. But even that isn't much of a defense since Big Merle is one of the best outside-shooting centers in the Ivy League.
Mcclung is not really a big man as centers go: he stands 6-5 and weights 200 pounds. But the combination of sheer physical strength and deceptive moves under the basket have given McClung a 21.9 Ivy average--third beat in the League--and a 20.7 points per game overall scoring mark. At that rate the hot-shooting Harvard junior will eclipse the Crimson scoring record of 432 points.
Read more in NewsCouncil Offers Formal For First Year Students

subset: commoncrawl


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The new maps may eventually funnel us each into different experiences of the same neighborhood. Is that a bad thing?
In L.A., private homeowners often erroneously believe the beach belongs to them.
In Buenos Aires, thousands of informal workers are ready to take on the task of improving the city's trash woes, if only the government would let them.
History's greatest journeys, now available in KML files.
Time for a cigarette break out on my balcony – AGGH!
Why is the Israeli mobile GPS startup drawing acquisition prices as high as Instagram and Tumblr?
The Downtown Eastside neighborhood had a rocky spring.
Researchers gave hundreds of computers to California students who didn't have them at home. Nothing changed.
Soon there will be a windmill for your exhale, too.
Turns out, it's hard to get a good picture of an eruption, which makes these shots all the more remarkable.
Rejoice, America: Researchers say the nation is equipped to produce "serious amounts" of algae biofuel.
The smell of your neighborhood pizzeria and the feel of a cracked sidewalk may be more important than researchers previously believed.
NASA announces the winners of its International Space Apps Challenge.
How has one of America's biggest cities resisted the medical establishment on fluoridation?
Hey, is that soybean field looking at me?
Even from space, the storm that dropped the Moore tornado looks chilling.
Yesterday's tornado was deadly not just because of the vagaries of the sky. It was deadly, too, because of the fickleness of the ground.
Bacterial infections are killing more people in some parts of country, but not others.


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Respite Night
Respite Night is a chance for the caregivers of children with special needs to get a break and some much needed time to themselves. This is held the first Saturday of each month, from 4:00pm - 7:30pm.
Children's Church
Children's Church is a class we offer for special needs children at the Cowboy Church of Ellis County. The class is at the 10:30 service only.
Nursing Home/Community Outreach
This is a program to reach out to those who are home bound or in a nursing home.
Support Groups
This is a chance for fellowship, friendship and the sharing of ideas with others who are the family or friends of someone with special needs.


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El Lupulo Libré
Light amber-hued hop monster brewed with Mosaic and other American hop varieties. Brewed Vienna malt and flaked corn for smooth malt flavor but a lighter body in this hop WAY forward brew.
8.8% ABV 88 IBUs
Click here for more details
All For One
A hop forward IPA without the bite! Big fruity / citrus flavor and aroma with the addition of the spicy character of rye malt
4.75% ABV 35 IBUs
One Eyed Jack
A full bodied and complex dark ale with flavor notes of coffee and chocolate complementing its big malty character.
6.6% Alc./Vol. 50 IBUs
Click here for more details
Jack Hammer Barley Wine
The biggest beer we brew! This beer is all about malt and it dominates the flavor with just enough hops to keep this malty beast in check.
11% Alc./Vol. 40 IBU
Click here for more information
Dark Helmet
A true TBK original, we kick this German-style black lager up a couple notches. Big clean malty flavor with just a hint of roasted malt. "May the Schwartz be with you!"
9.0% Alc./Vol. 45 IBUs
Click here for more details
Tunguska Imperial Stout
Thick and black as oil, this rich imperial stout is complex yet smooth. Rounded roastiness with flavor notes of coffee, chocolate and dark fruit dominate a intense explosion of flavor
10.8% Alc./Vol. 60 IBUs
White Rajah
A West Coast style IPA full of citrus-like and tropical fruit like hop flavor and aroma with an assertive yet smooth bitter finish....malt, take a back seat please.
6.8% Alc/ Vol. 70 IBUs
Click Here for more details
4 C's Pale Ale
A malty pale with Cascade, Centennial, Columbus and Chinook hops creating a citrus and piney flavor and assertive bitterness.
5.0% Alc./Vol. 55 IBUs
Click here for more details
Old 21 Imperial IPA
A Big, Bold, imperial IPA! The clean malt plays a supporting role to the straight up Simcoe hops through and through that give this varietal hop bomb its bang.
9.0% Alc./Vol. 90 IBUs
Click here for more details
Imperial Red Eye PA
Red Eye PA Combining the resiny, citrus hop character of Simcoe, Summit and Amarillo hops with the caramel/munich malt flavors typical of a red ale gives this IPA a different "look" compared to most.
7.0% Alc./Vol. 65 IBUs
Mac Daddy Scotch Ale
A traditional style Scotch ale or "Wee Heavy", This beer is big and malty with notes of kettle caramelization and just a wee more than a hint of smoke.
8.8% Alc./Vol. 24 IBUs
Winter Warmer
A Christmas Ale packed with the spices of the holidays; cinnamon, ginger, orange & lemon peel, and a sleigh load of honey. A beer thats loaded with holiday cheer!
8.2% Alc./Vol. 25 IBUs
Amber hued with a rich malty character from a blend of German malts with just a touch of German Tettnang hops for added complexity.
6% ABV 23 IBUs
Black Rajah
A Black IPA full of tropical fruit players and assertive bitterness and a hint of roasted malt. Featuring Citra hops.
6.8% ABV 70 IBUs
Strangeville Pumpkin Ale
A 150 pounds of pumpkin and butternut squash with all the traditional pumpkin pie spices give this spiced aale its smooth but not over the top classic fall flavor.
6.5% ABV 22 IBUs
Kitka Stout
A traditional Milk Stout with additions of milk sugar for added sweetness. We then add cocoa powder and melted belgian chocolate in the boil and "dry spiced" with an organic coconut flakes after fermentation
7.25% ABV 22 IBUs
Big Woody
A light and refreshing malty lager brewed in the Munich style and tradition.
5.0% ABV 18 IBUs
Ruddy Rye
An easy drinking Amber Pale Ale made with 30% rye malt, crystal malt and blend of hops to create a spicy, citrus-like flavor with hints of caramel and a medium bitter finish. (retired)
5.5% ABV 35 IBUs
Lake BeErie
A "sessionable" Pilsner with a large portion of malted wheat for a smooth mouth feel and easy drinkability. Generously hopped late in the kettle with a blend of German hops for a pleasantly hoppy flavor and aroma.
4.8% Alc./Vol. 21 IBUs
Click here for more details
Summer Rays
Our take on a Belgian style unfiltered wheat ale brewed with raw wheat and flaked oats and spiced with coriander and orange & lemon peel.
5.3% Alc./Vol. 25 IBUs
Click here for more details


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Selecting a long term care facility (i.e., nursing home) for an aging parent or relative can be a daunting task. In Illinois, there are facilities that specialize in assisted living (e.g., help with eating) while others focus on skilled nursing or health care (e.g., physical therapy). There are different long term care coverage plans under Medicare and Medicaid, with each plan requiring different qualifiers. Long term care facilities may also carry, or not carry, certain licenses and certificates.
The Illinois Department on Public Health, as well as the Illinois Department on Aging, offer valuable tools and advice on how to select a long term care facility in the state of Illinois. To begin with, consider the needs of the aging parent or relative. Does this person require basic assistance with paying bills, shopping, and so on? Alternately, is the person in the hospital with an injury and will he or she require 24-hour care and rehabilitation? Next, find out if this person has Medicare or Medicaid insurance coverage. Both of these insurance programs pay the bills for long term care facility residents, with Medicare covering the costs for residents over the age of 65, and Medicaid covering the costs for low-income residents.
Once this information is in hand, it is time to start making some phone calls. When calling nursing homes, be sure to find out if they are self-described as "intermediate care" or "skilled nursing" facilities. These terms are important because the Medicare and Medicaid programs cover each type of facility differently. An intermediate care facility provides basic assistance with personal care as well as some health and nursing services. Medicaid, but not Medicare, may cover the costs incurred at such a facility. A skilled nursing facility provides around-the-clock nursing care and is usually covered by Medicaid if the person's physician recommends such care. Medicare may also cover the costs incurred at a skilled nursing facility, but only if the person was first hospitalized for at least three days and his or her physician recommended skilled nursing care. Upon release from the hospital, that person is covered by Medicare for up to 100 days, after which Medicaid coverage begins if the person still requires such care.
Certification and licensing should also be considered when selecting a nursing home or assisted living facility. The Illinois Department of Public Health inspects and certifies facilities that are covered under the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Two important documents include the long term care facility license and the nursing home administrator license. Make sure that the nursing home being considered has both such licenses. Additionally, it may be helpful to check the facility's state survey (inspection) report and find out how it met the state standards for licensing.
Click on Skilled Nursing Facilities in Illinois for a listing of long term care facilities, assisted living, and nursing homes in the state of Illinois.
Tags: assisted living, Illinois, insurance, Licenses, long term care, long term care facility, Long Term Care Illinois, Medicaid, Medicare, nursing home, skilled nursing


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Critique Rocky!
Here is my boy rocky. He is a 3 year old Appaloosa gelding. Let me know what you all think!
He's pretty darn cute. He has a very nice shoulder, neck and pretty head. His back is a wee long, but appys tend to that. His hip is on the smallish side, rear gaskins are very upright and not very strudy, as is his hock. I would wish it had more bone to it. Pasterns are short and upright. He has good balance in his porportions, but is not the sturdiest looking horse I have seen. He is full appy? He looks very much a paint.
Yup full appy :)
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Super cute horse.
He looks like he toes out on the right front starting at the knee and a little base narrow, but it could be the way he is standing in the picture. And the 1st 2 side pics makes him look like he is camped under, but the last one doesn't. And I agree he is a bit long in the back (I'm going off the first picture because int he 2nd his hind end is tipped towards the camera making his back look shorter then I think it is and in the last one his hind end is tipped away making him look really long). It's hard to get good pics for conformation, but you did a really good job.
It's been quite a while since I worked my conformation skills. Thanks, I miss it.
No thank you for taking the time do do it for me :D
I had him posted on another forum and someone said he looked very sore in his croup area...does anyone else see this? I have checked him in person and he doesn't move away from any pressure...
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Natural History and Structural Functional Relationships in Fabry Renal Disease Treatment Outcomes(Changes)in Fabry Renal Disease Study (LDN6702)
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- No Study Results Posted
- Disclaimer
- How to Read a Study Record
The investigators will perform a study with two major components. The first is a natural history study of untreated Fabry patients. This study component will detail kidney microscopic structural changes in Fabry patients before starting enzyme replacement therapy and will correlate these changes with kidney function, including glomerular filtration rate and urinary albumin excretion rate. The investigators will perform studies on samples obtained at baseline, or before enzyme replacement therapy is initiated. The goal of our study is to find kidney microscopic changes in the biopsies that are associated with kidney disfunction. Our hypotheses for this study are:
- Much of the natural history of Fabry renal structural changes will occur without detectable renal functional alterations.
- Structural changes associated with the initial onset of proteinuria and those associated with the subsequent progressive loss of filtration function will differ and will be best described by non-linear models.
- There will be sufficient precision of Fabry renal structural-functional relationships to support renal structure as an acceptable clinical trial surrogate endpoint for later renal functional deterioration.
The second component examines the effects of age and gender at start of enzyme replacement therapy (ERT), as well as dosage levels of ERT on the renal cellular clearance of GL3 from Fabry patients by comparing baseline to follow-up kidney biopsies performed 5, 11, and 60 months later, with all comparisons matched for ERT treatment duration. Our hypotheses for this component of the study are as follows:
- Enzyme Replacement Therapy(ERT) instituted at younger ages is more effective in reducing podocytes(PC),distal tubular cells(DTC),and arterial smooth muscle cells (ASMC)GL-3 than in older Fabry patients.
- Earlier institution of ERT will stabilize PC numbers while later ERT institution, especially in proteinuric adults, may not prevent progressive decline in PC numbers and associated glomerular sclerosis, tubulointerstitial injury, and GFR loss.
- Whereas lower ERT dose may effectively clear GL-3 from endothelial and mesangial cells, it will be less effective in clearing GL-3 from PC and also from DTC and ASMC.
- Affected cells will be cleared of GL-3 equivalently in females and males.
Fabry Disease
|Study Type:
|Study Design:
|Observational Model: Cohort
Time Perspective: Prospective
|Official Title:
|Natural History and Structural Functional Relationships in Fabry Renal Disease Natural History, Structural Functional Relationships and Determinants of Renal Structural Responses (Changes) With Enzyme Replacement Therapy in Fabry Disease
- Natural History and Determinants of Renal Structural Responses (Changes) to Enzyme Replacement Therapy in Fabry Disease [ Time Frame: Natural history component, cross sectional; ERT component, 5, 11, and 60 months ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]Renal function measurements for the cross sectional natural history component will be urine protein excretion and measured/estimated GFR. Renal biopsies will provide estimates of the amount of GL-3 in various kidney structures. We will determine which structural parameter or composite of structural parameters is most closely associated with kidney function. For renal structural responses (changes) with ERT the primary outcome will the magnitude of reduction in podocyte GL-3 per glomerulus after (a)5 months, (b) 11 months, and (c) 60 months of ERT.
- Natural History and Determinants of Renal Structural Responses (Changes) to Enzyme Replacement Therapy in Fabry Disease [ Time Frame: Baseline, 5, 11 and 60 months ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]The secondary endpoint for the determinants of renal structural responses to ERT will be GL-3 reduction from baseline to 5, 11 and 60 months in a composite of structural parameters which will be determined in our natural history studies.
Biospecimen Retention: Samples Without DNA
Serum and Plasma samples as well as urine samples from an overnight collection.
|Estimated Enrollment:
|Study Start Date:
|October 2010
|Estimated Study Completion Date:
|September 2015
|Estimated Primary Completion Date:
|July 2015 (Final data collection date for primary outcome measure)
Fabry disease is a rare genetic disease with deficient activity of enzyme alpha-galactosidase A. Deficient activity of this enzyme leads to the accumulation of lipid-derived inclusions in different organs including kidney, heart and vessels. These inclusions can be found in the kidney even before birth. The earliest known clinical manifestation of Fabry kidney disease is the appearance of excess protein in the urine, which usually occurs in the second decade of life. However, our studies, as well as those of other investigators show evidence that kidney injury starts much earlier. Once excess protein is found in the urine, kidney function deterioration becomes progressive, and most Fabry patients require kidney transplantation or hemodialysis in the third to fifth decade of life. The lesion or composite of lesions responsible for functional deterioration of the kidney in Fabry disease are not well known. Their delineation using quantitative, unbiased, morphometric methods will help to understand this disease, and to develop surrogate structural outcomes for early intervention trials. Enzyme replacement therapy may stabilize kidney function. However, its long-term effect on kidney survival is not known. Moreover, there is no early known predictor of kidney dysfunction to adjust and evaluate effectiveness of enzyme replacement therapy. Our studies of renal GL-3 clearance comparing pre-and post-ERT renal biopsies using the above methods will allow us to determine whether age at institution of treatment and ERT dose affect ERT induced GL-3 cellular clearance, especially from those cells where ERT is less effective, i.e., podocytes, vascular smooth muscle cells and distal tubular cells. Finally, it is our hypothesis that mosaicism in Fabry disease females is such that cells such as podocytes are either affected or normal and that ERT clearance in the affected podocytes in females will, as in males, be dependant on age of institution of treatment and ERT dose.
|Ages Eligible for Study:
|1 Year to 75 Years
|Genders Eligible for Study:
|Accepts Healthy Volunteers:
|Sampling Method:
|Non-Probability Sample
50-60 male and female adults and children with Fabry disease who either have or have not been initiated on enzyme replacement therapy, and whose physicians have determined that a kidney biopsy and renal functional studies are clinically indicated before initiation of enzyme replacement therapy and as follow-up for this therapy or who have completed clinical trials of ERT, have baseline or baseline and and follow biopsies, and have consented to allow their tissues to be examined for research purposes. We are expecting to recruit patients from many different centers.
Inclusion Criteria:
- Patients diagnosed with Fabry disease who have/have not received enzyme replacement therapy where a clinical decision has been made to obtain a kidney biopsy, a GFR, and urinary albumin studies or where patients have previously completed clinical trials which included measures of renal function and renal biopsies.
Exclusion Criteria:
- Patients with serum creatinine more than 2.5 mg/dL or known to have a renal disease other than Fabry.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01581424
|Contact: Michael Mauer, MD
|United States, Minnesota
|University of Minnesota
|Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, 55455
|Contact: Michael Mauer, MD 612-626-2720 email@example.com
|Universtity of Minnesota, Department of Pediatric Nephrology
|Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, 55455
|Contact: Michael Mauer, MD 612-626-2720 firstname.lastname@example.com
|Sub-Investigator: Michael Mauer, MD
|Principal Investigator:
|Chet Whitley, MD
|University of Minnesota - Clinical and Translational Science Institute
|Principal Investigator:
|Michael Mauer, MD
|University of Minnesota - Clinical and Translational Science Institute
No publications provided
|Responsible Party:
|University of Minnesota - Clinical and Translational Science Institute
|ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier:
|NCT01581424 History of Changes
|Other Study ID Numbers:
|Study First Received:
|January 17, 2012
|Last Updated:
|January 21, 2015
|Health Authority:
|United States: Institutional Review Board
Keywords provided by University of Minnesota - Clinical and Translational Science Institute:
Fabry disease
kidney function
kidney structure morphometry
Fabry kidney disease
Additional relevant MeSH terms:
Fabry Disease
Kidney Diseases
Brain Diseases
Brain Diseases, Metabolic
Brain Diseases, Metabolic, Inborn
Cardiovascular Diseases
Central Nervous System Diseases
Cerebral Small Vessel Diseases
Cerebrovascular Disorders
Genetic Diseases, Inborn
Genetic Diseases, X-Linked
Lipid Metabolism Disorders
Lipid Metabolism, Inborn Errors
Lysosomal Storage Diseases
Lysosomal Storage Diseases, Nervous System
Metabolic Diseases
Metabolism, Inborn Errors
Nervous System Diseases
Urologic Diseases
Vascular Diseases
ClinicalTrials.gov processed this record on October 09, 2015


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Google has announced an update to its Music Manager software, which makes it easier for people to download the music stored in their Google Music locker.
January 27th, 2012 by Music Ally
December 14th, 2011 by Music Ally
We wrote about the launch of Juke in September this year, when 24-7 Entertainment's new D2C streaming service went live in Germany.
June 21st, 2011 by Music Ally
Apparently, this new-fangled cloud music thing brings some licensing complications. Who'd have thought it? RightsFlow is hoping to capitalise though, with new features in its licensing and royalty service...
June 13th, 2011 by Music Ally
By the end of 2011, consumers will be spoiled for choice when it comes to cloud music services. eMusic CEO Adam Klein has told Billboard that the company is hoping to launch its long-mooted cloud offering...
May 11th, 2011 by Music Ally
Google's Music Beta cloud locker service went live last night, following its official unveiling at the I/O conference. The details about licensing and features had already been revealed, but more information...
May 3rd, 2011 by Music Ally
MP3tunes boss Michael Robertson has tossed another rock into the bubbling pool around Amazon's new cloud music service, writing a column for TechCrunch outlining what he claims are the major labels' demands
February 23rd, 2011 by Music Ally
At MidemNet this year, Catch Media UK boss Harry Maloney tore into mSpot and other unlicensed cloud music services on-stage.


text:
Meanwhile, check out the great tips you've been missing:
January 17, 2013
It's great to sell a sign, but it's even better to sell a package that includes the sign. In so many cases, there's something you can sell in addition to the sign the client came to you for. A logo design, T-shirts, caps, site signs, vehicle lettering, business cards… what else do they need to help further their image with their prospective customers?


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Latin America Security and Surveillance Radar Market
The main purpose of security and surveillance radar systems is to detect and locate hostile targets in military actions, as well as in commercial aviation. The application of radar is also used in military purposes, such as weather detection and navigation.The South American security and surveillance radar market was estimated at $250.0 million in the year 2013, to grow at 7.2% annually. It is projected to reach $360.0 million by the end of 2018. The potential of civil security is not limited to defense, as companies are now spending on UAVs, civil helicopters, and multi-mission aircraft which are used for civil security air surveillance. Border and coastal security has now become the most important and significant field of investment to enhance the national security infrastructure.
The South American security and surveillance radar market can be segmented on the basis of platform and country. The platform segment is further classified into airborne and maritime surveillance radar, ground penetrating radar, coastal security radar, and weather and navigation radar. Among the application segment, the defense platform dominates the market with a high market value. Key players in Security and Surveillance Radar market include ATC Global, Northrop Grumman, Exelis, SAAB, Scanter, Rockwell Collins, Honeywell International, Thales Group, and Lockheed Martin.
|Source: PRWeb
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All rights reserved


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About the Cafe
Sicilian Cafe is located at 1020 Main Street.
Phone: 530-345-CAFE (530-345-2233)
Open for dinner seven nights a week.
Open for lunch Wednesday through Friday.
Reservations recommended.
Extensive wine list featuring many of the best California and Italian wines to complement your dining experience.
Wine Spectator Award of Excellence.


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Newport News's Pam Lewis Takes The Cake as a Top Finalist in Sam's Club National Cake-Decorating Contest
Lewis Competed for Top Cake-Decorating Honors in Kansas City
Bentonville, Ark. – Pam Lewis, a Newport News resident and Newport News Sam's Club bakery associate, was named runner up in the warehouse club's national cake-decorating contest held in Kansas City, Missouri, earlier this month. Lewis earned a spot at the national contest after beating out about a dozen of her peers at the regional finals held in Atlanta, Georgia. Kathy Hodel, a bakery associate at an Arkansas Sam's Club was named the national cake-decorating champion.
"This cake contest was a great way for me to practice my cake decorating skills," said Lewis. "The competition was tough, but it allowed me to learn invaluable tips from the other associates from all over the country, making this a great and educational experience."
During the final event, held during the Sam's Club's Fall Managers Meeting in Kansas City, Lewis and four other top bakery associates competed in two different contests – including both a creative and a speed round. During the creative round, contestants designed and decorated a three-tiered Halloween cake in just an hour. In the speed round, contestants were given only 10 minutes to decorate a birthday cake, following specific guidelines. Lewis finished her cake in only 5 minutes, 23 seconds.
Warren Brown, host of the Food Network's "Sugar Rush," served as a celebrity judge for the event.
"The Sam's Club bakery associates have demonstrated talent and creativity throughout the competitions around the country," said Brown, a lawyer-turned-baker who founded the nationally acclaimed CakeLove Bakery and the Love Café in Washington, D.C. "I am impressed and it's clear that all of the bakery associates are dedicated to providing Sam's Club members with great-looking, quality cakes that are perfect for any occasion."
The cakes the finalists decorated during the national finals were displayed for others at Sam's Club's Fall Managers Meeting to see.
To find the nearest Sam's Club where you can get a uniquely decorated cake of your own, visit samsclub.com.
About Sam's Club
Sam's Club is a division of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., The first Sam's Club opened its doors in Midwest City, Oklahoma in 1983 and serves more than 47 million U.S. Members. Sam's Club offers exceptional values on merchandise and services for business owners and consumers. Online merchandise and club information is available at samsclub.com.


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Today, E*Trade, Datek, and ZDNet added their names to the list of sites that have been hit since Monday by Denial of Service (DoS) attacks.
The attacks left each of the sites out of commission for about two hours apiece. It appears that response times from sites being attacked have become shorter, as more people are aware, and hopefully planning against, additional attacks.
The attacks started on Monday with a three hour outage of Yahoo, and continued Tuesday, affecting Buy.com on the day of its IPO, as well as CNN, Amazon, and eBay.
Read about DoS attacks at CNet and a summary of the attacks at Wired.
There's some interesting data floating around about these attacks. Let's take a look at it.
Yahoo! reported that at least 50 computers launched an attack that ate up an impressive 1 Gbps of bandwidth. Doing the division, these computers would each have to contribute an average of 20 Mbps to the attack. For some perspective: an entire T1 line can only handle 1.5 Mbps.
The attacks used have been guessed to be ICMP flood attacks. As far as I can tell, to flood something you have to be able to send enough bandwidth over your own connection. Thus, how did someone get 50 computers to send 20 Mbps worth of bandwidth to Yahoo? That has to be some group of fast Internet connections. A more likely scenario is that there were a lot more computers involved than 50. I'd say it would have to be 1000 or more to push that type of bandwidth, and that's assuming at least cable modem or T1 speeds on every computer.
Also, interestingly, a couple of high profile hackers (whose names I'd rather not drag into this) were released from jail not too long ago. Is this some sort of tribute to them by a group of twisted crackers? Or is it just a coincidence that their release dates were just a few weeks away from massive Internet attacks?
One rumor I've pieced together is that these attacks may be perpetrated by a group of young crackers–loosely affiliated, if at all–that decided on Monday to test a new toy on Yahoo.com. The results were so successful that they decided to try it out on some other big companies as well, laughing all the way.
Unfortunately for them, a lot of people aren't laughing at their antics, and they will be facing serious jail time pretty soon. You can't just keep doing something like that and expect not to get caught. The repercussions for Geeks and Hackers everywhere will already be a lot more scrutiny from government agencies in the coming months, and perhaps laws and funding for dangerous anti-privacy legislation. So, my take is that this person or group of people should cut out while it's ahead and stop doing weak, played out DoS attacks to prove how l33t they are.
What do you think of all of this? Let us know in the Message Parlor.
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If you like this, Harlequin recommends
- Unforgettable Faith
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- Undercover Angel
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- Nov 2011
- Redeeming Claire
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- The Marrying Kind
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- Nov 2011
Lori Loveland knew her faith would help her achieve her goals. And when she' d completed a six-month stint as nanny to Drew McCashlin' s girls, she was determined to start her own adventure. But once she set eyes on the handsome single dad, she knew she was in trouble. Soon she was wishing that the six months could last a lifetime!
After dealing with tragedy, Drew saw Lori as a ray of sunshine. With each day, he grew closer to loving her and to rediscovering his long-lost faith. His girls blossomed under Lori' s watchful eye and soon they were a family. He knew that Lori had other plans, but the closer she got to leaving, the more he hoped for the strength to ask her to stay.


text:
Signing up could earn you gear and it helps to keep offensive content off of our site.
Olympic medalist and World Cup leader Shannon Bahrke won her second moguls contest of the season. Defending World Cup champ Jeremy Bloom earned his first podium of the season, finishing second.
Americans Travis Cabral and Shannon Bahrke clinched moguls titles Saturday at the final World Cup meet of the season.
Defending World Cup champion Jeremy Bloom won his second his second contest of the season on Sunday.
Final results of the U.S. Freestyle Grand National mogul competition from Steamboat, Colo.
Jeremy Bloom blew into Steamboat, Colo., Saturday, and took home the gold at the U.S. Freestyle Grand National mogul competition.
Colorado football player Jeremy Bloom qualified for the moguls finals at the World Freestyle Championship.
Defending moguls champ Jeremy Bloom returned impressively to World Cup skiing Thursday, finishing fourth while Tapio Luusua of Finland won and Travis Mayer finished second.
Olympic medalist Shannon Bahrke and Toby Dawson pulled off an American sweep of a World Cup moguls events Saturday night as seven U.S. skiers made the finals.
When the Weather Channel makes its annual stakeout of western New York to tell the country lake-effect tales of woe, skiers at the east end of Lake Erie grin in anticipation. They know one of those prodigious snow bands is likely to lash Holiday Valley, perhaps the best ski area between the Adirondacks and the Rockies.
The American favorites disappoint as Jonny Moseley takes fourth, while Jeremy Bloom nabs ninth.
Go to skiingmag.com
Go to nastar.com
Go to warrenmiller.com
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