Trends in scientific publishing: Dark clouds loom large

2016 ◽  
Vol 363 ◽  
pp. 119-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pulikottil Wilson Vinny ◽  
Venugopalan Y. Vishnu ◽  
Vivek Lal
Nature ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 582 (7811) ◽  
pp. 167-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewen Callaway

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milind Watve

Peer reviewed scientific publishing is critical for communicating important findings, interpretations and theories in any branch of science. While the value of peer review is rarely doubted, much concern is being raised about the possible biases in the process. I argue here that most of the biases originate in the evolved innate tendency of every player to optimize one’s own cost benefits. Different players in the scientific publishing game have different cost-benefit optima. There are multiple conflicts between individual optima and collective goals. An analysis of the cost-benefit optima of every player in the scientific publishing game shows how and why biases originate. In the current system of publishing, by optimization considerations, the probability of publishing a ‘bad’ manuscript is relatively small but the probability of rejecting a ‘good’ manuscript is very high. By continuing with the current publishing structure, the global distribution of the scientific community would be increasingly clustered. Publication biases by gender, ethnicity, reputation, conformation and conformity will be increasingly common and revolutionary concepts increasingly difficult to publish. Ultimately, I explore the possibility of designing a peer review publishing system in which the conflicts between individual optimization and collective goal can be minimized. In such a system, if everyone behaves with maximum selfishness, biases would be minimized and the progress towards the collective goal would be faster and smoother. Changing towards such a system might prove difficult unless a critical mass of authors take an active role to revolutionize scientific publishing.


2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans E Roosendaal ◽  
Kasia Zalewska-Kurek ◽  
Peter A.Th.M Geurts

Author(s):  
G. Elaiyaraja

The article entitled “Improved Level Set Segmentation Algorithm Based on Kernel Fuzzy Particles Swarm Optimization (KFPSO) Clustering for MRI Images”, by G. Elaiyaraja, P. Epsiba, N. Kumaratharan and G. Suresh, has been retracted. Kindly see Bentham Science Policy on Article retraction at the link given below: (https://www.benthamscience.com/journals/current-medical-imaging/author-guidelines/). This article has been retracted on the request of the Editor. The authors have plagiarized a paper that had already been published in the journal Current Medical Imaging (CMIM) (Formerly: Current Medical Imaging Reviews) 14(3), Page: 389-400. http://www.eurekaselect.com/149444. It is a pre-requisite for authors to declare explicitly that their work is original and has not been published elsewhere. Authors are advised to properly cite the original source to avoid plagiarism and copyright violation. As such this article represents a severe abuse of the scientific publishing system. Bentham Science Publishers takes a very strong view on this matter and apologizes to the readers of the journal for any inconvenience this may cause.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 484-488
Author(s):  
Philip D. Sloane ◽  
Sheryl Zimmerman

2021 ◽  
Vol 503 (4) ◽  
pp. 5274-5290
Author(s):  
A K Sen ◽  
V B Il’in ◽  
M S Prokopjeva ◽  
R Gupta

ABSTRACT We present the results of our BVR-band photometric and R-band polarimetric observations of ∼40 stars in the periphery of the dark cloud CB54. From different photometric data, we estimate E(B − V) and E(J − H). After involving data from other sources, we discuss the extinction variations towards CB54. We reveal two main dust layers: a foreground, E(B − V) ≈ 0.1 mag, at ∼200 pc and an extended layer, $E(B-V) \gtrsim 0.3$ mag, at ∼1.5 kpc. CB54 belongs to the latter. Based on these results, we consider the reason for the random polarization map that we have observed for CB54. We find that the foreground is characterized by low polarization ($P \lesssim 0.5$ per cent) and a magnetic field parallel to the Galactic plane. The extended layer shows high polarization (P up to 5–7 per cent). We suggest that the field in this layer is nearly perpendicular to the Galactic plane and both layers are essentially inhomogeneous. This allows us to explain the randomness of polarization vectors around CB54 generally. The data – primarily observed by us in this work for CB54, by A. K. Sen and colleagues in previous works for three dark clouds CB3, CB25 and CB39, and by other authors for a region including the B1 cloud – are analysed to explore any correlation between polarization, the near-infrared, E(J − H), and optical, E(B − V), excesses, and the distance to the background stars. If polarization and extinction are caused by the same set of dust particles, we should expect good correlations. However, we find that, for all the clouds, the correlations are not strong.


2020 ◽  
Vol 500 (3) ◽  
pp. 3414-3424
Author(s):  
Alec Paulive ◽  
Christopher N Shingledecker ◽  
Eric Herbst

ABSTRACT Complex organic molecules (COMs) have been detected in a variety of interstellar sources. The abundances of these COMs in warming sources can be explained by syntheses linked to increasing temperatures and densities, allowing quasi-thermal chemical reactions to occur rapidly enough to produce observable amounts of COMs, both in the gas phase, and upon dust grain ice mantles. The COMs produced on grains then become gaseous as the temperature increases sufficiently to allow their thermal desorption. The recent observation of gaseous COMs in cold sources has not been fully explained by these gas-phase and dust grain production routes. Radiolysis chemistry is a possible non-thermal method of producing COMs in cold dark clouds. This new method greatly increases the modelled abundance of selected COMs upon the ice surface and within the ice mantle due to excitation and ionization events from cosmic ray bombardment. We examine the effect of radiolysis on three C2H4O2 isomers – methyl formate (HCOOCH3), glycolaldehyde (HCOCH2OH), and acetic acid (CH3COOH) – and a chemically similar molecule, dimethyl ether (CH3OCH3), in cold dark clouds. We then compare our modelled gaseous abundances with observed abundances in TMC-1, L1689B, and B1-b.


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