Preface

The Conference took place virtually due to covid-19 outbreak and travel restrictions. The organisers were from different cities in Iraq but most of them from Basrah. There were five plenary speakers and these speakers were from UK, Australia, South Africa, Jordan and Iraq. Each speaker took approximately an hour with Q&A session. In overall, there were 11 sessions that were delivered by 82 speakers, who were from different countries, each speaker spent 15 min to deliver their talks. All the discussions and Q&A time were live through Zoom rooms and FCC. The overall attendance number was more than 500 people during 5 days. Laptops, phones, Zoom and free conference call were needed to deliver the meeting successfully. The only technical difficulty that we faced sometimes is the weak WiFi signals. The drawbacks in the delivery of the conference virtually, was we couldn’t welcome people in person and couldn’t have Gala dinner. Other than that everything went very well. The idea of the conference is for the chemist, scientists, scholars, engineers, and students from Iraq and all around the world and the industry to present ongoing research activities, and hence to foster research relations between the Universities and the industry. We think it an ideal platform for people to share views and experiences in different aspects of chemistry and its relation with other sciences. The conference program consists of invited sessions and technical workshops and discussions with eminent speakers covering a wide range of topics in chemistry. This rich program provides all attendees with the opportunities to meet online and interact with one another. We hope your experience with the 3rd VICC is a fruitful and long-lasting one. We would like to thank the organization staff, the members of the program committees, and reviewers. They have worked very hard in reviewing papers and making valuable suggestions for the authors to improve their work. We also would like to express our gratitude to the external reviewers, for providing extra help in the review process, and the authors for contributing their research results to the conference. Special thanks go to IOP Publishing-Journal of Physics Conference Series for their generous assistance and cooperation. List of Organizing Committee, Scientific Committee, Technical committee are available in this pdf.

Anchoring effects in the assessment of papers: The proposal for an empirical survey of citing authors

In our planned study, we shall empirically study the assessment of cited papers within the framework of the anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic. We are interested in the question whether citation decisions are (mainly) driven by the quality of cited references. The design of our study is oriented towards the study by Teplitskiy, Duede [10]. We shall undertake a survey of corresponding authors with an available email address in the Web of Science database. The authors are asked to assess the quality of papers that they cited in previous papers. Some authors will be assigned to three treatment groups that receive further information alongside the cited paper: citation information, information on the publishing journal (journal impact factor), or a numerical access code to enter the survey. The control group will not receive any further numerical information. In the statistical analyses, we estimate how (strongly) the quality assessments of the cited papers are adjusted by the respondents to the anchor value (citation, journal, or access code). Thus, we are interested in whether possible adjustments in the assessments can not only be produced by quality-related information (citation or journal), but also by numbers that are not related to quality, i.e. the access code. The results of the study may have important implications for quality assessments of papers by researchers and the role of numbers, citations, and journal metrics in assessment processes.

What are the variables associated with Altmetric scores?

Background Social media has been used to disseminate the contents of scientific articles. To measure the impact of this, a new tool called Altmetric was created. Altmetric aims to quantify the impact of each article through online media. This systematic review aims to describe the associations between the publishing journal and published article variables and Altmetric scores. Methods Searches on MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, CENTRAL, and Cochrane Library were conducted. We extracted data related to both the publishing article and the publishing journal associated with Altmetric scores. The methodological quality of included articles was analyzed by the Appraisal Tool for Cross-sectional Studies. Results A total of 19 articles were considered eligible. These articles summarized a total of 573,842 studies. Citation counts, journal impact factor, access counts, papers published as open access, and press releases generated by the publishing journal were associated with Altmetric scores. The magnitude of these associations ranged from weak to strong. Conclusion Citation counts and journal impact factor are the most common variables associated with Altmetric scores. Other variables such as access counts, papers published in open access journals, and the use of press releases are also likely to be associated with online media attention. Systematic review registration This review does not contain health-related outcomes. Therefore, it is not eligible for registration.

Peer review reduces spin in PCORI research reports

BACKGROUNDThe Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) is obligated to peer review and to post publicly “Final Research Reports” of all funded projects. Peer review emphasizes adherence to PCORI’s Methodology Standards. As part of meeting these standards, reviewers and editors seek to minimize “spin,” defined elsewhere as “reporting practices that distort the interpretation of results and mislead readers.” METHODSTwo independent raters assessed the prevalence of spin in reports submitted for PCORI peer review by April 2018. We then assessed whether authors addressed comments about spin received during peer review. Because investigators who submit research reports before publishing journal articles might incorporate PCORI’s feedback in their journal articles, we also assessed whether spin identified during PCORI peer review was present in related journal articles.RESULTSWe included 64 projects funded by PCORI. Spin was identified during peer review in 55/64 (86%) submitted research reports. Types of spin included reporting bias (46/55; 84%), inappropriate interpretation (40/55; 73%), inappropriate extrapolation of results (15/55; 27%), and inappropriate attribution of causality (5/55; 9%). Authors addressed comments about spin in 47/55 (85%) of the revised and accepted research reports.Journal articles associated with 21/55 (38%) research reports contained spin that was also identified in the research report. PCORI comments about spin were potentially applicable to 44/110 journal articles with results. Of these, 27/44 (61%) contained spin that was also identified in the PCORI research report. The proportion of articles with spin was similar for those accepted before and after PCORI peer review.DISCUSSIONMost reports submitted to PCORI included spin, which was mitigated during peer review. We found no evidence that peer review of PCORI research reports affected spin in journal articles. Some journal articles contained spin even when authors removed spin from their PCORI research reports.When both are available, PCORI research reports might be more useful to systematic reviewers and other stakeholders compared with journal articles about the same study because they include less reporting bias and other types of spin.

Top 100 cited articles on ankylosing spondylitis

Ankylosing spondylitis is a global health problem. There are continuous innovations in terms of etiopathogenesis, diagnosis, and treatment. Here, the top 100 most cited articles on ankylosing spondylitis during the last three decades are analyzed. On April 6, 2020, the Web of Science was screened from 1984 to 2020 using the terms ankylosing spondylitis; the top 100 most cited articles were identified. For bibliometric analysis, the name of the article, year of publication, author information, number of citations, name of the publishing journal, H-index, impact factor, countries of the authors, types of articles, and funding sources were recorded. The Altmetric attention was recorded using a program that automatically calculates the score. The total number of citations of the articles in the list ranged from 176 to 3700. Arthritis and Rheumatism (n=31) and Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases (n=27) were the two leading journals in which the majority of the articles were published. Germany produced most of the articles; Braun J was the most cited author. Randomized controlled clinical trials were found to constitute most of the articles (n=35). According to the citation number, studies evaluating classification criteria and disease activity indices and, according to the Altmetric Attention Score, studies addressing the prevalence and biological agents were prominent. We present a perspective on the extent to which the most cited articles on ankylosing spondylitis draw interest in the scientific community and on social media platforms.

What Are the Variables Associated With Altmetric Scores? – An Overview of Methodological Reviews

Background: Currently, social media has been used to disseminate contents of scientific articles. In order to measure this type of impact a new tool named Altmetric was created. Altmetric aims to quantify the impact of each article through the media online. This overview of methodological reviews aims to describe the associations between the publishing journal and the publishing articles variables with Altmetric scores. Methods: Search strategies on MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, CENTRAL and Cochrane Library. We extracted data related to the publishing trial and the publishing journal associated with Altmetric scores. Results: A total of 11 studies were considered eligible. These studies summarized a total of 565,352 articles. The variables citation counts, journal impact factor, access counts, papers published as open access and press release generated by the publishing journal were associated with Altmetric scores. The magnitudes of these correlations ranged from weak to moderate. Conclusion: Citation counts and journal impact factor are the most common associators of high Altmetric scores. Other variables such as access counts, papers published in open access journals and the use of press releases are also likely to influence online media attention.Systematic Review registrations: Not applicable