The president – who believes he has been treated unfairly by the press – is squeezing the media in different ways than his first term
On Tuesday 4 March, Donald Trump stood in the House of Representatives to issue a speech to a joint session of Congress, the first of his second term.
Near the beginning of what was to be a marathon address, the president declared: “I have stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in America. It’s back.”
Scientists who have been publicly accused of sexual misconduct see a significant and immediate decrease in the rate at which their work is cited, according to a study by behavioural scientists in the US. However, researchers who are publicly accused of scientific misconduct are found not to suffer the same drop in citations (PLOS One20 e0317736). Despite its flaws, citation rates are often seen a marker of impact and quality.
The study was carried by a team led by Giulia Maimone from the University of California, Los Angeles, who collected data from the Web of Science covering 31,941 scientific publications across 18 disciplines. They then analysed the citation rates for 5888 papers authored by 30 researchers accused of either sexual or scientific misconduct, the latter including data fabrication, falsification and plagiarism.
Maimone told Physics World that they used strict selection criteria to ensure that the two groups of academics were comparable and that the accusations against them were public. This meant her team only used scholars whose misconduct allegations have been reported in the media and had “detailed accounts of the allegations online”.
Maimone’s team concluded that papers by scientists accused of sexual misconduct experienced a significant drop in citations in the three years after allegations become public compared with a “control” group of academics of a similar professional standing. Those accused of scientific fraud, meanwhile, saw no statistically significant change in the citation rates of their papers.
Further work
To further explore attitudes towards sexual and scientific misconduct, the researchers surveyed 231 non-academics and 240 academics. The non-academics considered sexual misconduct more reprehensible than scientific misconduct and more deserving of punishment, while academics claimed that they would more likely continue to cite researchers accused of sexual misconduct as compared to scientific misconduct. “Exactly the opposite of what we observe in the real data,” adds Maimone.
According to the researchers, there are two possible explanations for this discrepancy. One is that academics, according to Maimone, “overestimate their ability to disentangle the scientists from the science”. Another is that scientists are aware that they would not cite sexual harassers, but they are unwilling to admit it because they feel they should take a harsher professional approach towards scientific misconduct.
Maimone says they would now like to explore the longer-term consequences of misconduct as well as the psychological mechanisms behind the citation drop for those accused of sexual misconduct. “Do [academics] simply want to distance themselves from these allegations or are they actively trying to punish these scholars?” she asks.
The integrity of science could be threatened by publishers changing scientific papers after they have been published – but without making any formal public notification. That’s the verdict of a new study by an international team of researchers, who coin such changes “stealth corrections”. They want publishers to publicly log all changes that are made to published scientific research (Learned Publishing 38 e1660).
When corrections are made to a paper after publication, it is standard practice for a notice to be added to the article explaining what has been changed and why. This transparent record keeping is designed to retain trust in the scientific record. But last year, René Aquarius, a neurosurgery researcher at Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands, noticed this does not always happen.
After spotting an issue with an image in a published paper, he raised concerns with the authors, who acknowledged the concerns and stated that they were “checking the original data to figure out the problem” and would keep him updated. However, Aquarius was surprised to see that the figure had been updated a month later, but without a correction notice stating that the paper had been changed.
Teaming up with colleagues from Belgium, France, the UK and the US, Aquarius began to identify and document similar stealth corrections. They did so by recording instances that they and other “science sleuths” had already found and by searching online for for terms such as “no erratum”, “no corrigendum” and “stealth” on PubPeer – an online platform where users discuss and review scientific publications.
Sustained vigilance
The researchers define a stealth correction as at least one post-publication change being made to a scientific article that does not provide a correction note or any other indicator that the publication has been temporarily or permanently altered. The researchers identified 131 stealth corrections spread across 10 scientific publishers and in different fields of research. In 92 of the cases, the stealth correction involved a change in the content of the article, such as to figures, data or text.
The remaining unrecorded changes covered three categories: “author information” such as the addition of authors or changes in affiliation; “additional information”, including edits to ethics and conflict of interest statements; and “the record of editorial process”, for instance alterations to editor details and publication dates. “For most cases, we think that the issue was big enough to have a correction notice that informs the readers what was happening,” Aquarius says.
After the authors began drawing attention to the stealth corrections, five of the papers received an official correction notice, nine were given expressions of concern, 17 reverted to the original version and 11 were retracted. Aquarius says he believes it is “important” that reader knows what has happened to a paper “so they can make up their own mind whether they want to trust [it] or not”.
The researchers would now like to see publishers implementing online correction logs that make it impossible to change anything in a published article without it being transparently reported, however small the edit. They also say that clearer definitions and guidelines are required concerning what constitutes a correction and needs a correction notice.
“We need to have sustained vigilance in the scientific community to spot these stealth corrections and also register them publicly, for example on PubPeer,” Aquarius says.
Journal of Reliability Science and Engineering (Courtesy: IOP Publishing)
As our world becomes ever more dependent on technology, an important question emerges: how much can we truly rely on that technology? To help researchers explore this question, IOP Publishing (which publishes Physics World) is launching a new peer-reviewed, open-access publication called Journal of Reliability Science and Engineering (JRSE). The journal will operate in partnership with the Institute of Systems Engineering (part of the China Academy of Engineering Physics) and will benefit from the editorial and commissioning support of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Hunan University and the Beijing Institute of Structure and Environment Engineering.
“Today’s society relies much on sophisticated engineering systems to manufacture products and deliver services,” says JRSE’s co-editor-in-chief, Mingjian Zuo, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Alberta, Canada. “Such systems include power plants, vehicles, transportation and manufacturing. The safe, reliable and economical operation of all these requires the continuing advancement of reliability science and engineering.”
Defining reliability
The reliability of an object is commonly defined as the probability that it will perform its intended function adequately for a specified period of time. “The object in question may be a human being, product, system, or process,” Zuo explains. “Depending on its nature, corresponding sub-disciplines are human-, material-, structural-, equipment-, software- and system reliability.”
Key concepts in reliability science include failure modes, failure rates and reliability function and coherency, as well as measurements such as mean time-to-failure, mean time between failures, availability and maintainability. “Failure modes can be caused by effects like corrosion, cracking, creep, fracture, fatigue, delamination and oxidation,” Zuo explains.
To analyse such effects, researchers may use approaches such as fault tree analysis (FTA); failure modes, effects and criticality analysis (FMECA); and binary decomposition, he adds. These and many other techniques lie within the scope of JRSE, which aims to publish high-quality research on all aspects of reliability. This could, for example, include studies of failure modes and damage propagation as well as techniques for managing them and related risks through optimal design and reliability-centred maintenance.
A focus on extreme environments
To give the journal structure, Zuo and his colleagues identified six major topics: reliability theories and methods; physics of failure and degradation; reliability testing and simulation; prognostics and health management; reliability engineering applications; and emerging topics in reliability-related fields.
JRSE’s co-editor-in-chief, Mingjian Zuo, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Alberta, Canada. (Courtesy: IOP Publishing)
As well as regular issues published four times a year, JRSE will also produce special issues. A special issue on system reliability and safety in varying and extreme environments, for example, focuses on reliability and safety methods, physical/mathematical and data-driven models, reliability testing, system lifetime prediction and performance evaluation. Intelligent operation and maintenance of complex systems in varying and extreme environments are also covered.
Interest in extreme environments was one of the factors driving the journal’s development, Zuo says, due to the increasing need for modern engineering systems to operate reliably in highly demanding conditions. As examples, he cites wind farms being built further offshore; faster trains; and autonomous systems such as drones, driverless vehicles and social robots that must respond quickly and safely to ever-changing surroundings in close proximity to humans.
“As a society, we are setting ever higher requirements on critical systems such as the power grid and Internet, water distribution and transport networks,” he says. “All of these demand further advances in reliability science and engineering to develop tools for the design, manufacture and operation as well as the maintenance of today’s sophisticated engineering systems.”
The go-to platform for researchers and industrialists alike
Another factor behind the journal’s launch is that previously, there were no international journals focusing on reliability research by Chinese organizations. Since the discipline’s leaders include several such organizations, Zuo says the lack of international visibility has seriously limited scientific exchange and promotion of reliability research between China and the global community. He hopes the new journal will remedy this. “Notable features of the journal include gold open access (thanks to our partnership with IOP Publishing, a learned-society publisher that does not have shareholders) and a fast review process,” he says.
In general, the number of academic journals focusing on reliability science and engineering is limited, he adds. “JRSE will play a significant role in promoting the advances in reliability research by disseminating cutting-edge scientific discoveries and creative reliability assurance applications in a timely way.
“We are aiming that the journal will become the go-to platform for reliability researchers and industrialists alike.”
The first issue of JRSE will be published in March 2025, and its editors welcome submissions of original research reports as well as review papers co-authored by experts. “There will also be space for perspectives, comments, replies, and news insightful to the reliability community,” says Zuo. In the future, the journal plans to sponsor reliability-related academic forums and international conferences.
With over 100 experts from around the world on its editorial board, Zuo describes JRSE as scientist-led, internationally-focused and highly interdisciplinary. “Reliability is a critical measure of performance of all engineering systems used in every corner of our society,” he says. “This journal will therefore be of interest to disciplines such as mechanical-, electrical-, chemical-, mining- and aerospace engineering as well as the mathematical and life sciences.”
The New Journal of Physics (NJP) has long been a flagship journal for IOP Publishing. The journal published its first volume in 1998 and was an early pioneer of open-access publishing. Co-owned by the Institute of Physics, which publishes Physics World, and the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft (DPG), after some 25 years the journal is now seeking to establish itself further as a journal that represents the entire range of physics disciplines.
A journal for all physics: the New Journal of Physics publishes research in a broad range of disciplines including quantum optics and quantum information, condensed-matter physics as well as high-energy physics. (Courtesy: IOP Publishing)
NJP publishes articles in pure, applied, theoretical and experimental research, as well as interdisciplinary topics. Research areas include optics, condensed-matter physics, quantum science and statistical physics, and the journal publishes a range of article types such as papers, topical reviews, fast-track communications, perspectives and special issues.
While NJP has been seen as a leading journal for quantum information, optics and condensed-matter physics, the journal is currently undergoing a significant transformation to broaden its scope to attract a wider array of physics disciplines. This shift aims to enhance the journal’s relevance, foster a broader audience and maintain NJP’s position as a leading publication in the global scientific community.
While quantum physics in general, and quantum optics and quantum information in particular, will remain crucial areas for the journal, researchers in other fields such as gravitational-wave research, condensed- and soft-matter physics, polymer physics, theoretical chemistry, statistical and mathematical physics are being encouraged to submit their articles to the journal. “It’s a reminder to the community that NJP is a journal for all kinds of physics and not just a select few,” says quantum physicist Andreas Buchleitner from the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg who is NJP’s editor-in-chief.
Historically, NJP has had a strong focus on theoretical physics, particularly in quantum information. Yet another significant aspect of NJP’s new strategy is the inclusion of more experimental research. Attracting high-quality experimental papers to balance its content and enhance its reputation as a comprehensive physics journal, will also allow it to compete with other leading physics journals. Part of this shift will also involve attracting a reliable and loyal group of authors who regularly publish their best work in NJP.
A broader scope
To aid this move, NJP has recently grown its editorial board to add expertise in subjects such as gravitational-wave physics. This diversity of capabilities is crucial to evaluate submissions from different areas of physics and maintain high standards of quality during the peer-review process. That point is particularly relevant for Buchleitner, who sees the expansion of the editorial board as helping to improve the journal’s handling of submissions to ensure that authors feel their work is being evaluated fairly and by knowledgeable and engaged individuals. “Increasing the editorial board was quite an important concept in terms of helping the journal expand,” adds Buchleitner. “What is important to me is that scientists who contact the journal feel that they are talking to people and not to artificial intelligence substitutes.”
While citation metrics such as impact factors are often debated in terms of their scientific value, they remain essential for a journal’s visibility and reputation. In the competitive landscape of scientific publishing, they can set a journal apart from its competitors. With that in mind, NJP, which has an impact factor of 2.8, is also focusing on improving its citation indices to compete with top-tier journals.
Yet that doesn’t only just include the impact factor but other metrics that ensure efficient and constructive handling of submissions that will encourage researchers to publish with the journal again. To set it apart from competitors, the time taken to first decision before peer review, for example, is only six days while the journal has a median of 50 days to first decision after peer review.
Society benefits
While NJP pioneered the open-access model of scientific publishing, that position is no longer unique given the huge increase in open-access journals over the past decade. Yet the publishing model continues to be an important aspect of the journal’s identity to ensure that the research it publishes is freely available to all. Another crucial factor to attract authors and set it apart from commercial entities is that NJP is published by learned societies – the IOP and DPG.
NJP has often been thought of as a “European journal”. Indeed, NJP’s role is significant in the context of the UK leaving the European Union, in that it serves as a bridge between the UK and mainland European research communities. “That’s one of the reasons why I like the journal,” says Buchleitner, who adds that with a wider scope NJP will not only publish the best research from around the world but also strengthen its identity as a leading European journal.
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