Tool to assess recognition and understanding of elements in Summary of Findings Table for health evidence synthesis: a cross-sectional study.

of Findings (SoF) tables concisely present the main findings of evidence synthesis of health evidence, but how users navigate it to understand and interpret the presented information is not clear. We quantified the interaction of medical students with an SoF table while answering a knowledge quiz. Read&Learn tool was used to measure the number of target and non-target table cells visited for each question and the time spent on these cells. Students positively identified target elements for quiz questions and answered simpler questions, but struggled with critical thinking and understanding study outcomes. The question on outcomes with the largest improvement post-intervention had the fewest correct answers, the longest interaction with table cells and the most opened cells before answering. Students spent a median of 72% of the time reading target table cells. A heatmap of the interactions showed that they were mostly answer-oriented. Further development of the tool and metrics is needed to use the tool and the metrics to study the cognitive processes during the assessment of health evidence.

Does peer review improve the statistical content of manuscripts? A study on 27 467 submissions to four journals.

Improving the methodological rigour and the quality of data analysis in manuscripts submitted to journals is key to ensure the validity of scientific claims. However, there is scant knowledge of how manuscripts change throughout the review process in academic journals. Here, we examined 27 467 manuscripts submitted to four journals from the Royal Society (2006-2017) and analysed the effect of peer review on the amount of statistical content of manuscripts, i.e. one of the most important aspects to assess the methodological rigour of manuscripts. We found that manuscripts with both initial low or high levels of statistical content increased their statistical content during peer review. The availability of guidelines on statistics in the review forms of journals was associated with an initial similarity of statistical content of manuscripts but did not have any relevant implications on manuscript change during peer review. We found that when reports were more concentrated on statistical content, there was a higher probability that these manuscripts were eventually rejected by editors.

Measuring the developmental function of peer review: a multi-dimensional, cross-disciplinary analysis of peer review reports from 740 academic journals.

Reviewers do not only help editors to screen manuscripts for publication in academic journals; they also serve to increase the rigor and value of manuscripts by constructive feedback. However, measuring this developmental function of peer review is difficult as it requires fine-grained data on reports and journals without any optimal benchmark. To fill this gap, we adapted a recently proposed quality assessment tool and tested it on a sample of 1.3 million reports submitted to 740 Elsevier journals in 2018-2020. Results showed that the developmental standards of peer review are shared across areas of research, yet with remarkable differences. Reports submitted to social science and economics journals show the highest developmental standards. Reports from junior reviewers, women and reviewers from Western Europe are generally more developmental than those from senior, men and reviewers working in academic institutions outside Western regions. Our findings suggest that increasing the standards of peer review at journals requires effort to assess interventions and measure practices with context-specific and multi-dimensional frameworks.

Embedded bleeding detector into a PMMA applicator for electron intraoperative radiotherapy.

PURPOSE: The aim of this work is to present a ready to industrialize low-cost and easy-to-install bleeding detector for use in intraoperative electron radiation therapy (IOERT). The detector works in stand-alone mode and is embedded into a translucent polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) applicator avoiding any contact with the patient, which represent a novelty compared to previous designs. The use of this detector will prevent dose misadministration during irradiation in the event of accumulation of fluids in the applicator. METHODS: The detector is based on capacitive sensor and wireless power-supply electronics. Both sensor and electronics have been embedded in the applicator, so that any contact with the patient would be avoided. Since access to the tumor can be done through different trajectories, the detector has been calibrated for different tilting angles. RESULTS: The result of the calibration provides us with a fit curve that allows the interpolation of the results at any angle. Comparison of estimated fluid height vs real height gives an error of 1 mm for tilting angles less than 10° and 2 mm for tilting angles greater than 15°. This accuracy is better than the one required by clinic. CONCLUSIONS: The performance of the bleeding detector was evaluated in situ. No interference was observed between the detector and the beam. In addition, a user-friendly mobile application has been developed to help the surgical team making decisions before and during irradiation. The measurement provided by the mobile application was stable during the irradiation process.

Gender gap in journal submissions and peer review during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. A study on 2329 Elsevier journals.

During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was an unusually high submission rate of scholarly articles. Given that most academics were forced to work from home, the competing demands for familial duties may have penalized the scientific productivity of women. To test this hypothesis, we looked at submitted manuscripts and peer review activities for all Elsevier journals between February and May 2018-2020, including data on over 5 million authors and referees. Results showed that during the first wave of the pandemic, women submitted proportionally fewer manuscripts than men. This deficit was especially pronounced among more junior cohorts of women academics. The rate of the peer-review invitation acceptance showed a less pronounced gender pattern with women taking on a greater service responsibility for journals, except for health & medicine, the field where the impact of COVID-19 research has been more prominent. Our findings suggest that the first wave of the pandemic has created potentially cumulative advantages for men.

Large-scale language analysis of peer review reports.

Peer review is often criticized for being flawed, subjective and biased, but research into peer review has been hindered by a lack of access to peer review reports. Here we report the results of a study in which text-analysis software was used to determine the linguistic characteristics of 472,449 peer review reports. A range of characteristics (including analytical tone, authenticity, clout, three measures of sentiment, and morality) were studied as a function of reviewer recommendation, area of research, type of peer review and reviewer gender. We found that reviewer recommendation had the biggest impact on the linguistic characteristics of reports, and that area of research, type of peer review and reviewer gender had little or no impact. The lack of influence of research area, type of review or reviewer gender on the linguistic characteristics is a sign of the robustness of peer review.