GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: Your monthly update of news from BioMed Central

BioMed Central Update

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2016 Highlights

Thank you for your support

Thank you for continuing to support BioMed Central. We hope that you enjoy reading this monthly update, and if so would love to hear from you. Please share with us your favourite article or news story featured in the BMC Update this year. You can email them to us at: info@biomedcentral.com

Here are some of our highlights.

Clinical trial data and articles linked for the first time

Thanks to an initiative led by BioMed Central and CrossRef, it is now possible to link all published articles related to a clinical trial through the CrossMark dialogue box. Daniel Shanahan, Associate Publisher at BioMed Central, explained more about it in this blog, originally posted on the CrossRef website in May.

New data policies for BioMed Central journals

Research data is at the heart of all scientific research. In recognition of the growing importance of robustly linking publications to their data, our parent company Springer Nature launched a set of standardized research data policies. All BioMed Central journals have adopted one of the policies – helping lead the way in ensuring data sharing and accessibility.

Recognition for reviewers: Springer Nature partners with Publons

In a pilot project which started in September 2016, Springer Nature partnered with Publons to allow reviewers to track, verify and showcase their peer review contributions across 13 participating Springer Nature journals, including BioMed Central’s Genome Biology, GigaScience and BioData Mining.

Open Access Week 2016: Open in Action

BioMed Central celebrated Open Access Week, from 24^th to 30^th October this year, with a number of activities. All content relating to Open Access Week at BioMed Central can be found here.

SpotOn London 2016

SpotOn London 2016, a one-day conference organized by BioMed Central in cooperation with Digital Science and the Wellcome Trust, took place on November 5^th at the Wellcome Collection. Attendees gathered to discuss, debate and predict the future of peer review – and it was a great success.

December round-up

World AIDS Day

1^st December 2016 was World AIDS Day. As the original open access publisher, BioMed Central is proud to have made crucial HIV/AIDS research freely available to the public for more than 15 years.

Our World AIDS Day homepage gathers essential articles, relevant journals, thematic series, and other resources. We are also sharing a selection of hand-picked articles and an invitation to submit to a new series.

BMC Psychology launches results-free review pilot

BMC Psychology is launching a pilot to trial a new ‘results-free’ peer-review process. ‘Results-free’ means that editors and reviewers are blinded to the study’s results, initially assessing manuscripts on the scientific merits of the rationale and methods alone. The aim is to improve the reliability and quality of published research, by focusing editorial decisions on the rigour of the methods, and preventing impressive ends justifying poor means.

If you have any research you would like considered for results-free peer review please see our Results-free research article submission guidelines for details on how to prepare your manuscript.

BMC Series launches first video abstracts

This month, the BMC series presents a collection of brand new video abstracts from BMC Evolutionary Biology, BMC Zoology, and BMC Genomics, such as the above abstract which explores the effects of radiation that astronauts would be exposed to on a deep space mission to Mars.

Video abstracts are powerful tools for communicating research, recapping what the research is about, why it is important and what the key findings are. Offering authors a visually engaging way to tell their research story, video abstracts add value and visibility to published articles, reaching a wider audience of researchers and the general public alike. Catch all the latest video abstracts via our BioMed Central blog or the BioMed Central YouTube Channel.

BioMed Central in the news

Alcohol may increase risk of some types of stroke but not others

Light and moderate alcohol consumption of up to two drinks per day is associated with a lower risk of ischemic stroke but seems to have no effect on a person’s risk of hemorrhagic stroke, according to a study published in BMC Medicine. High-to-heavy drinking was found to be associated with increased risk of all stroke types.

This research was covered by Daily Mail and Scienmag.com in UK; aerzteblatt.de in Germany; FOX news, ABC news and NBC in US; Scimex, The Australian and Sky News in Australia; baomoi.com in Vietnam; ABC.es in Spain; and Times of India.

Pessimism associated with risk of death from coronary heart disease

The first study to examine coronary heart disease mortality and its association with optimism and pessimism as independent variables suggests pessimism to be a strong risk factor for death from coronary heart disease while optimism does not protect against it. The BMC Public Health study involved 2,267 middle-aged and older Finnish men and women.

The research was covered internationally with media interest from major outlets. It was reported in The Guardian and Daily Mail in the UK; New York Times and Washington Post in the US; Die Welt and Huffington Post in Germany; and widely syndicated in the US, Greece, Spain and Italy.

Urine of pregnant women could be used to predict fetal growth and birth weight

The urine of pregnant women could be used to help identify lifestyle interventions that help maintain a healthy birth weight for their babies. Abnormal fetal growth and birth weight are well-established risk factors for chronic diseases later in life, including the development of type-2 diabetes and obesity. The proof-of-principle study published in BMC Medicine highlights the value metabolic profiling of pregnant women could have on personalizing pregnancy plans to improve fetal growth outcomes.

The research was covered by The Express in UK; US News and World Report, CBS, and La Crosse Tribune in US; eleconomista.es, canarias7.es, infosalus.com and lavozlibre.com in Spain; and Deccan Chronicle, The Asian Age, and dnaindia.com in India.

First genome sequence of Amur leopard highlights the drawback of a meat-only diet

The first whole genome sequence of the Far Eastern Amur leopard published in Genome Biology, provides new insight into carnivory. By comparing 18 mammalian genomes the researchers found that carnivores share two genes that are not present in other genomes. These genes play an important role in bone development and repair, which could drive selection for a leopard’s diet specialized towards meat.

The research was reported in Nature, The Scientist and Genome Web. In Korea, it was broadcast on main national news channels and news sites at prime time. It was also reported on etnews.com, asiatoday.co.kr, newsis.com, Korea Daily and The Science Times. Other coverage includes strf.ru and gazeta.ru in Russia, Vocativ in US; and ebiotrade.com in China.

Does spinal manipulation of the neck cause strokes or is it just an “accident waiting to happen”?

The most popular blog across the BMC Blog Network in November picked up 1940 views, 165 Facebook shares and 1 Google+ share. It was based on two research articles published in Chiropractic & Manual Therapies, which fall on either side of the debate around whether spinal manipulation carries enough benefits to justify the potential risk of causing a stroke and whether the manipulation itself is the cause of the stroke.

Professor Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde DC, MPH, PhD, professor in Clinical Biomechanics at the University of Southern Denmark and a chiropractor with extensive research experience within the epidemiology of back pain and various clinical aspects of chiropractic, discusses the articles.

Recently published supplements

BMC Proceedings

published a report of three workshops on resource allocation for infectious disease R&D and the Research Investments in Global Health study.

Proceedings

Biology of Sex Differences

published proceedings from the 2015 Sex and Gender Education Summit.

Proceedings

Scoliosis and Spinal Disorders

published short research articles from the SOSORT 2015 meeting.

Research

BMC Genomics

published selected articles from the Sixth International Conference of the Iberoamerican Society for Bioinformatics on Bioinformatics and Computational Biology for Innovative Genomics.