The article conceptualizes (post) authorship in the context of the development of contemporary network technologies. The development and specifics of contemporary information technologies are considered, and their impact on culture is determined. It is noted that contemporary technologies change people, social relations, and the nature of cultural production. It emphasizes the importance of cooperation, the network method of interaction, the importance of free access, the principles of freedom in the use and dissemination of information, technologies provided, in particular, by such (...) network systems as Peer-to-peer (P2P). It is from this technological perspective that P2P (post)authorship is conceptualized. The importance of separating the concepts of copyright and author is emphasized, the nature of the change in their functions is determined in the context of the distinction between autonomy and authority. Acceleration of technology development requires constant interaction, co-authorship, which can be implemented on the basis of free access to information. This requires a change in the concept of copyright, which was formed on the basis of private property, which today only inhibits the development of social relations. Along with this, it is important to review the figure of the author, focusing not only on the significance of co-authorship in the production of cultural products, but also on the conceptualization of a kind of multiple, decentralized author or (post)author. At the same time, it is about the significant role of change in the perception of time, emphasis on timeliness and simultaneity of interaction. In such a perspective, private property and copyright lose their usual meaning. The digital, intellectual, cultural author/product goes beyond material production, virtualized as a co-author. Peer-to-peer (post)author is realized through feeding the creativity of others. (shrink)

The nature of authority is shifting in online scholarly communication. This examination of the history and future of peer review argues that effective online communication requires the development of an open, community?oriented, post?publication system of peer?to?peer review, transforming peer review from a process focused on gatekeeping to one concerned with filtering the wealth of scholarly material made available via the Internet.

Traditional libraries will evolve to digital libraries which are clearly superior at: Dissemination, sharing, linking, storing, and information variety. Therefore, one can say that electronic libraries have specific needs in terms of content, services and long-term preservation. In contrast, digital libraries suffer from several inherent constraints: storage limitation, performance, relevancy, decentralization, lack of semantic, fault tolerance, scalability. The main intention of this paper is to present a design of an integrated digital library system based on peer-to-peer data (...) mining. This article aims also to prove that peer-to-peer mining, an emerging branch of distributed data mining, is a hot research area well suited to overcome intrinsic problems of digital libraries. (shrink)

Collectivisation, as a socio-innovation, is an incremental part of history that has much to teach on questions of asset commoning. Such notions can provide renewed perspectives in understanding today’s peer-to-peer (p2p) economy and its influence on housing ownership models, which are constituting new forms of domesticity. This study understands domesticity as processes of collectivisation and de-collectivisation, and questions its conceptualisation as universal and invariant. It compares the transitioning moments by which a new governing body is instituted within recent-historical (...) Chinese-Asian contexts, including mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. These moments were often postcolonial, full of changes, uncertainty, crisis, and anticipation; these contexts were unprecedented in scale, density, and cultural collision; in common, these were junctures of socio-innovation in land distribution that fashioned different forms of citizenry. By looking at these instances of innovation with situated thinking and against their historical–cultural backgrounds, the findings in this study reflect on the design of socio-technological systems, the potential consequences of our design interventions, and what “innovation” may mean given the complexity of transitional challenges. Putting together cosmopolitan and vernacular histories, the historiography presented is a collage of card game narratives, archived posters, news headlines, statistical figures, and literature. This journey through events of socio-innovation from the twentieth century till recent decades reveals how the history of governance has always been a question of cultivating collective actions, one way or another, and today’s p2p economy is simultaneously collectivising and fractionalising such socio-economic exchanges in digital citizenry. (shrink)

The present investigation challenges the traditional distinction between cohesion and coherence; i.e., the distinction between the syntactical rules governing the composition of lexical units within the scope of the clause and the semantic-pragmatic rules guiding the composition of text units beyond the scope of the clause. To this end it exposes two major principles of semantic combination that are active through all levels of linguistic composition: viz. frame-schematic structure and narrative structure. These principles are considered as being components of a (...) semantic combinatorial system to be determined in terms of dependency relations. (shrink)

The present investigation challenges the traditional distinction between cohesion and coherence; i.e., the distinction between the syntactical rules governing the composition of lexical units within the scope of the clause and the semantic-pragmatic rules guiding the composition of text units beyond the scope of the clause. To this end it exposes two major principles of semantic combination that are active through all levels of linguistic composition: viz. frame-schematic structure and narrative structure. These principles are considered as being components of a (...) semantic combinatorial system to be determined in terms of dependency relations. (shrink)

Inappropriate social interactions of entrepreneurs can generate negative effects in the peer-to-peer lending market. To address this problem and assist peer-to-peer entrepreneurs in customizing their online interaction strategies, we used the cutting-edge cognitive-experiential self-system conceptual model and studied the relationship between peer-to-peer entrepreneurs’ interactions and financing levels. Online interactive information was categorized as emotional or cognitive, adding the moderator of entrepreneur popularity, and the effect of these interactions on individual investors was analyzed. We (...) found that the entrepreneurs’ online interactive information affected psychological perception of entrepreneurs and their corresponding brand image. The interaction between popularity and interactive information types was significant. The findings imply that less popular entrepreneurs should engage in emotional interactions, while more popular entrepreneurs should choose cognitive interactions. Online interaction created comparative advantages in the financing activities of peer-to-peer companies. These results expand understanding of the psychological facets of the consumer–brand relationship in the digital world, and extend the current literature. This study also highlights key areas of learning and application for both practitioners and scholars of organizational psychology. (shrink)

In two decisions delivered inFebruary and March 2001, the German FederalConstitutional Court voided the maritalagreements struck between a man and a pregnantwoman on the grounds that they were the productof an inequality of bargaining power betweenthe parties. These findings, involving anapplication of the fundamental rightsprovisions of the German Basic Law to privateagreements, demonstrate the creeping competenceof the F.C.C. into the sphere of contractualrelations and an ongoing questioning ofthe traditional public/private law divide. Exploring some of the implications of applyingpublic values and (...) constitutional reviewstandards to private agreements, this notecontextualises the decisions within the debateupon competing (and ultimately colliding)social systems of the family and the market. (shrink)

The way research is, and should be, funded by the public sphere is the subject of renewed interest for sociology, economics, management sciences, and more recently, for the philosophy of science. In this contribution, I propose a qualitative, epistemological criticism of the funding by lottery model, which is advocated by a growing number of scholars as an alternative to peer-review. This lottery scheme draws on the lack of efficiency and of robustness of the peer-review based evaluation to argue (...) that the majority of public resources for basic science should be allocated randomly. I first differentiate between two distinct arguments used to defend this alternative funding scheme based on considerations about the logic of scientific research. To assess their epistemological limits, I then present and develop a conceptual frame, grounded on the notion of “system of practice”, which can be used to understand what precisely it means, for a research project, to be interesting or significant. I use this epistemological analysis to show that the lottery model is not theoretically optimal, since it underestimates the integration of all scientific projects in densely interconnected systems of conceptual, experimental, or technical practices which confer their proper interest to them. I also apply these arguments in order to criticize the classical peer-review process. I finally suggest, as a discussion, that some recently proposed models that bring to the fore a principle of decentralization of the evaluation and selection process may constitute a better alternative, if the practical conditions of their implementation are adequately settled. (shrink)

In a situation of peer disagreement, peers are usually assumed to share the same evidence. However they might not share the same evidence for the epistemic system used to process the evidence. This synchronic complication of the peer disagreement debate suggested by Goldman (In Feldman R, Warfield T (eds) (2010) Disagreement. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 187–215) is elaborated diachronically by use of a simulation. The Hegselmann–Krause model is extended to multiple epistemic systems and used to investigate (...) the role of consensus and difference splitting in peer disagreement. I find that the very possibility of multiple epistemic systems downgrades the epistemic value of consensus and makes difference splitting a suboptimal strategy. (shrink)

One of the central issues in linguistics is whether or not language should be considered a self-contained, autonomous formal system, essentially reducible to the syntactic algorithms of meaning construction (as Chomskyan grammar would have it), or a holistic-functional system serving the means of expressing pre-organized intentional contents and thus accessible with respect to features and structures pertaining to other cognitive subsystems or to human experience as such (as Cognitive Linguistics would have it). The latter claim depends critically on (...) the existence of principles governing the composition of semantic contents. Husserl''s fourth Logical Investigation is well known as a genuine precursor for Chomskyan grammar. However, I will establish the heterogeneous character of the Investigation and show that the whole first part of it is devoted to the exposition of a semantic combinatorial system cognate to the one elaborated within Cognitive Linguistics. I will thus show how theoretical results in linguistics may serve to corroborate and shed light on those parts of Husserl''s Fourth Investigation that have traditionally been dismissed as vague or simply ignored. (shrink)

Traditional studies of literature have developed approaches ranging from historical, hermeneutic, critical, close reading and author studies perspectives. The present volume shows that there is much, much more to analysing literary texts, their readers, the literary system, movies, their structure and their effects. These diverse new ways of looking at literature are exemplified in this volume. The volume shows how these various approaches can be carried out in concrete projects in the area of literary studies. Twenty-three chapters encompass research (...) on literary studies from perspectives of psychology, linguistics, anthroplogy, history, sociology, computer science. The contributors demonstrate in non-technical language the amplitude of detail and insight that can be gained from such a wider perspective on the study of literary texts. The interdisciplinary diversity of the study of literature may launch itself as a New Beginnings in Literary Studies indeed. (shrink)

Purpose Interdisciplinary linkage of information is an emerging topic to create knowledge by collaboration of experts in diverse domains. New insights can be found by using the combined techniques and information when people have the chance to discuss and communicate on a common basis. Design/methodology/approach This paper describes RMS Cloud, an information management system which allows distributed data sources to be searched using dynamic joins of results from heterogeneous data formats. It is based on the well-known Mediator architecture, but (...) reverses the connection of the data sources to grant data owners full control over the data. Findings Data owners and learners are enabled to retrieve information and to cross-connect domain-extrinsic knowledge and enhances collaborative learning with a search interface that is intuitive and easy to operate. Originality/value This novel architecture is able to connect to differently shaped data sources from interdisciplinary domains into one common retrieval interface. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “The Autopoiesis of Social Systems and its Criticisms” by Hugo Cadenas & Marcelo Arnold. Upshot: I reaffirm and extend the notion of social autopoiesis away from mere labels and descriptions to acting physical components of social systems and societies, ranging from subcellular to biological and human. All self-producing biological organisms are essentially societies of interacting components and therefore notions of autopoiesis and social systems are fundamentally, if not definitionally, interrelated. Some examples of real-life (...) applications of social autopoiesis are also given. Future generations of scientists might even find the qualifier “social” redundant because there is no other autopoiesis than “social.”. (shrink)

Systems biology is the rapidly growing and heavily funded successor science to genomics. Its mission is to integrate extensive bodies of molecular data into a detailed mathematical understanding of all life processes, with an ultimate view to their prediction and control. Despite its high profile and widespread practice, there has so far been almost no bioethical attention paid to systems biology and its potential social consequences. We outline some of systems biology's most important socioethical issues by contrasting the concept of (...) systems as dynamic processes against the common static interpretation of genomes. New issues arise around systems biology's capacities for in silico testing, changing cultural understandings of life, synthetic biology, and commercialization. We advocate an interdisciplinary and interactive approach that integrates social and philosophical analysis and engages closely with the science. Overall, we argue that systems biology socioethics could stimulate new ways of thinking about socioethical studies of life sciences. (shrink)

Peer review process helps in evaluating and validating of research that is published in the journals. U.S. Office of Research Integrity reported that data fraudulence was found to be involved in 94% cases of misconduct from 228 identified articles between 1994–2012. If fraud in published article are significantly as high as reported, the question arise in mind, were these articles peer reviewed? Another report said that the reviewers failed to detect 16 cases of fabricated article of Jan Hendrick (...) Schon. Superficial peer reviewing process does not reveals suspicion of misconduct. Lack of knowledge of systemic review process not only demolish the academic integrity in publication but also loss the trust of the people of the institution, the nation, and the world. The aim of this review article is to aware stakeholders specially novice reviewers about the peer review system. Beginners will understand how to review an article and they can justify better action choices in dealing with reviewing an article. (shrink)

Digitized information and network have made an enormous impact on the music and movie industries. Internet piracy is popular and has greatly threatened the companies in these industries. This study tests Hunt-Vitell’s ethical decision model and attempts to understand why and how people share unauthorized music files with others in the peer-to-peer (P2P) network. The norm of anti-piracy, the ideology of free software, the norm of reciprocity, and the ideology of consumer rights are proposed as four deontological norms (...) related to using P2P systems. The model is tested using a scenario survey with four alternatives; the results indicate that the deontological norm of anti-piracy is not a main factor in affecting P2P users’ ethical considerations regarding sharing files with others. This finding suggests that to protect their property rights, record companies should try to realize the consumer benefits brought via new digital and network technology, instead of simply declaring their intellectual property and resisting the innovations resulting from new technologies. (shrink)

The prevention of sexual violence is a major goal of sexual health. In cases of accused sexual offenders, the assessment of diminished criminal responsibility of the accused is one of the most important procedures undertaken by experts in the German legal system. This assessment follows a two-stage method assessing first the severity of a paraphilic disorder and then second criteria for or against diminished capacity. The present study examines the predictive validity of two different sets of criteria for the (...) assessment of criminal responsibility in the context of paraphilic disorders combined with sexual offending. Two exemplary case vignettes of two suspected sexual offenders were developed to assess the criteria. For each participant, one of the two exemplary case vignettes was randomly presented. The presentation of the two different sets of criteria was also randomized, so that each participant was assigned only one of the two criteria sets to rate one of the presented cases. N = 349 participants from different professional backgrounds completed their assessments and were included in the data analysis. The data were evaluated using logistic regression. Results show that the more recently published criteria set predicts both the severity of the disorder as well as the diminished capacity twice as good as the older criteria set of Boetticher et al. currently used regularly for forensic court reports. In preliminary conclusion, the new criteria of Briken and Müller form an empirically based assessment of criminal responsibility. However, the proposed criteria cannot replace an extensive exploration of the accused person and a careful file analysis. Validity and reliability of the results are also limited due to the methodical choice of a vignette study. (shrink)

In a recent article in the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Heesen and Bright argue that prepublication peer review should be abolished and replaced with postpublication peer review (provided the matter is judged purely on epistemic grounds). In this article, I show that there are three problems with their argument. First, it fails to consider the epistemic cost of implementing the change to postpublication peer review. Second, it fails to consider some potential epistemic benefits of (...) prepublication peer review, which involve avoiding bias. Third, it fails to consider some potential epistemic disadvantages of postpublication peer review, which stem from the greater number of papers that would be published under that system. (shrink)

PurposeThe paper suggests overcoming the polarization of today's debate on peer‐to‐peer systems by defining a fair balance between the principle of precaution and the principle of openness. Threats arising from these file sharing applications‐systems should not be a pretext to limit freedom of research, speech or the right “freely to participate in the cultural life of the community”, as granted by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights from 1948. The paper aims to take sides in today's debate.Design/methodology/approachThe paper (...) adopts an interdisciplinary approach, including network theory, law and ethics. The method draws on both theoretical and empirical material so as to stress the paradox of the principle of precaution applied to P2P systems and why the burden of proof should fall on the party proposing that one refrain from action.FindingsCensors and opponents of P2P systems who propose to apply the principle of precaution to this case deny the premise upon which that principle rests. “Levels of evidence” required by the precautionary principle show that – in many cases in which the outcomes of technology are ignored – another principle is needed for orienting action, namely, the principle of openness.Social implicationsAlarm about how P2P systems undermine crucial elements of the societies often led to the ban of this technology. The paper illustrates why it should not be the case: rather than shutting these networks down, they should be further developed.Originality/valueThe paper provides the comprehensive picture of a far too often fragmented debate. (shrink)

In a diversity course for pre-service teachers, we explored coursework by students of color to uncover instances in which they resisted the existence systemic oppression in K12 schools. First, we examined the written responses from three students of color (Asian-Indian, Asian immigrant, and Latina) who were largely agreeable to the existence of different forms of oppression presented in the course content. Our work illuminated instances of what we have described as narrative-based resistance. Students initially referred to narratives of rugged individualism (...) or the American Dream to resist the existence of systemic barriers. As the course progressed, students shifted to deeply entrenched responses that rejected the course content to refute systemic oppression. Secondly, we developed a case study for one student, a biracial female that self-identified as White who consistently rejected systemic oppression during class interactions to the point of displaying openly defiant behaviors. The examples of resistance we encountered served as a reminder that students of color along with their White peers must be able to critically examine and understand systems of oppression that are pervasive throughout education. Furthermore, the underlying sources of the resistance were closely associated with indoctrination in Whiteness, limited understanding of systemic oppression, deeply held beliefs and understandings and the lived experiences of individuals. While we agree that teacher education must recruit and retain more teachers of color for an increasingly diverse US K12 student population, we add that preparation that meets the needs of teachers of color is essential. -/- . (shrink)

Problems in peer review, the backbone of maintaining high standards in scientific publishing, have led to wide spread discontent within the scientific community. Training in the peer review process and a simpler format to assist in decision making are possible courses to improve and expedite the process of peer review and scientific publishing. The authors discuss problems in the peer review process focusing on challenges related to major revisions and reviewer's wish list of experiments; this leads (...) to the loss of time and money. Major revisions rarely lead to significant improvements, while simultaneously delay the dissemination of knowledge. The authors propose simple solutions including training peer reviewers to improve the peer review system. (shrink)

Narrative analysis, creative writing, and interactive reflective writing have been identified as valuable for professional identity formation and resilience among medical and premedical students alike. This study proposes that medical student blogs are novel pedagogical tools for fostering peer-to-peer learning in academic medicine and are currently underutilized as a near-peer resource for premedical students to learn about the medical profession. To evaluate the pedagogical utility of medical student blogs for introducing core themes in the medical humanities, the (...) authors conducted qualitative analysis of one hundred seventy-six reflective essays by baccalaureate premedical students written in response to medical student-authored narrative blog posts. Using an iterative thematic approach, the authors identified common patterns in the reflective essays, distilled major themes, coded the essays, and conducted narrative analysis through close reading. Qualitative analysis identified three core themes and one overarching theme. The premedical students’ essays demonstrated significant self-reflection in response to near-peer works, discussed their perceptions of medical professionalism, and expressed concerns about their future progress through the medical education system. The essays consistently attributed the impact of the medical student narratives to the authors’ status as near-peers. The authors conclude that reading and engaging in reflective writing about near-peer blog posts encourages premedical students to develop an understanding of core concepts in the medical humanities and promotes their reflection on the profession of medicine. Thus, incorporating online blogs written by medical trainees as narrative works in medical humanities classrooms is a novel pedagogical method for fostering peer-to-peer learning in academic medicine. (shrink)

Given that health systems research involves different aims, approaches, and methodologies as compared to more traditional clinical trials, the ethical issues present in HSR may be unique or particularly nuanced. This article outlines eight pertinent ethical issues that are particularly salient in HSR and argues that the ethical review process should be better tailored to ensure more efficient and appropriate oversight of HSR with adequate human protections, especially in low- and middle-income countries. The eight ethical areas we discuss include the (...) nature of intervention, types of research subjects, units of intervention and observation, informed consent, controls and comparisons, risk assessment, inclusion of vulnerable groups, and benefits of research. HSR involving human participants is necessary to ensure health systems strengthening and quality of care and to guide public policy intelligently. Health systems researchers must carefully define their intent and goals and openly clarify the values that may influence the premises and design of protocols. As new types of population-level research activities become more commonplace, it is critical that institutional review board and research ethics committee review processes evolve to evaluate these research protocols in ways that address the nuanced features of these studies. (shrink)

Personhood is a foundational concept in ethics, yet defining criteria have been elusive. In this article we summarize attempts to define personhood in psychological and neurological terms and conclude that none manage to be both specific and non-arbitrary. We propose that this is because the concept does not correspond to any real category of objects in the world. Rather, it is the product of an evolved brain system that develops innately and projects itself automatically and irrepressibly onto the world (...) whenever triggered by stimulus features such as a human-like face, body, or contingent patterns of behavior. We review the evidence for the existence of an autonomous person network in the brain and discuss its implications for the field of ethics and for the implicit morality of everyday behavior. (shrink)

The documented low levels of reliability of the peer review process present a serious challenge to editors who must often base their publication decisions on conflicting referee recommendations. The purpose of this article is to discuss this process and examine ways to produce a more reliable and useful peer review system.

As part of a continuous process to explore the factors that might weaken or corrupt traditional peer review, in this paper, we query the ethics, fairness and validity of the request, by editors, of authors to suggest peer reviewers during the submission process. One of the reasons for the current crisis in science pertains to a loss in trust as a result of a flawed peer review which is by nature biased unless it is open peer (...) review. As we indicate, the fact that some editors and journals rely on authors’ suggestions in terms of who should peer review their paper already instills a potential way to abuse the trust of the submission and publishing system. An author-suggested peer reviewer choice might also tempt authors to seek reviewers who might be more receptive or sympathetic to the authors’ message or results, and thus favor the outcome of that paper. Authors should thus not be placed in such a potentially ethically compromising situation, especially as a mandatory condition for submission. However, the fact that they do not have an opt-out choice during the submission process—especially when using an online submission system that makes such a suggestion compulsory—may constitute a violation of authors’ rights. (shrink)

Research involving human subjects is much more stringently regulated than many other nonresearch activities that appear to be at least as risky. A number of prominent figures now argue that research is overregulated. We argue that the reasons typically offered to justify the present system of research regulation fail to show that research should be subject to more stringent regulation than other equally risky activities. However, there are three often overlooked reasons for thinking that research should be treated as (...) a special case. First, research typically involves the imposition of risk on people who do not benefit from this risk imposition. Second, research depends on public trust. Third, the complexity of the moral decision making required favors ethics committees as a regulative solution for research. (shrink)

Each year individuals are required to execute millions of authorizations for the release of their health records as a condition of employment, applying for various types of insurance, and submitting claims for benefits. Generally, there are no restrictions on the scope of information released pursuant to these compelled authorizations, and the development of a nationwide system of interoperable electronic health records will increase the amount of health information released. After quantifying the extent of these disclosures, this article discusses why (...) it is important to limit disclosures of health information for nonmedical purposes as well as how it may be possible to do so. (shrink)

Emotional peer support systems have benefits for student-student relationships and allow for children and adolescents' participation in schools. For students with specific educational needs and disabilities, positive relationships seem to be more difficult to attain and these students are more vulnerable to suffer negative peer experiences such as bullying and social exclusion. Systems in which peers can show helpful behavior are beneficial for schools in order to create a positive, supportive climate. Emotional peer support entails social interaction (...) through emotional or practical help based on what these peers have in common and many times with benefits for both. This systematic review identified interventions of emotional peer support in schools for students with SEND. Twenty-three studies were identified that involved four types of befriending: circle of friends, peer buddying, peer networks, and social lunch clubs. Studies reported mainly positive outcomes for both focus students and peer supporters in terms of increased social interaction and social acceptance, as well as enhanced self-esteem and empathy on the individual level. Further bonding of the students by friendship was also perceived, but more precise data is required to draw further conclusions. Support by the school as an institution, the specific role of the teacher, and family participation are important factors related to the impact of peer support systems. Information on these aspects was scarce, and it is recommended to include variables of this nature in future research. Intervention descriptions revealed students' active participation through suggestions for activities, however their involvement in organizing the systems was limited. More research is needed to learn about the opportunities of emotional peer support to improve student-student relationships including the active involvement of the peers themselves in this support. (shrink)

Several widely publicized incidents of academic research misconduct, combined with the politicization of the role of science in public health and policy discourse (e.g., COVID, immunizations) threaten to undermine faith in the integrity of empirical research. Researchers often maintain that peer-review and study replication allow the field to self-police and self-correct; however, stark disparities between official reports of academic research misconduct and self-reports of academic researchers, specifically with regard to data fabrication, belie this argument. Further, systemic imperatives in academic (...) settings often incentivize institutional responses that focus on minimizing reputational harm rather than the impact of fabricated data on the integrity of extant and future research. (shrink)

While there is a growing body of work on moral issues and global governance in the fields of global justice and international relations, little work has connected principles of global health justice with those of global health governance for a theory of global health. Such a theory would enable analysis and evaluation of the current global health system and would ethically and empirically ground proposals for reforming it to more closely align with moral values. Global health governance has been (...) framed as an issue of national security, human security, human rights, and global public goods. The global health governance literature is essentially untethered to a theorized framework to illuminate or evaluate governance. This article ties global health justice and ethics to principles for governing the global health realm, developing a theoretical framework for global and domestic institutions and actors. (shrink)

Peer review facilitates quality control and integrity of scientific research. Although publishing policies have adapted to include the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, such as Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT), in the preparation of manuscripts by authors, there is a lack of guidelines or policies on whether peer reviewers can use such tools. The present article highlights the lack of policies on the use of AI tools in the peer review process (PRP) and argues that we (...) need to go beyond policies by creating transparent procedures that will enable journals to investigate allegations of non-compliance and take decisions that will protect the integrity of the peer review system. Reviewers found to violate relevant policies must be excluded from the process to safeguard the integrity of the peer review system. (shrink)

Peer review and publication is one of the factors proposed in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. as indicia of the reliability of scientific testimony. This Article traces the origins of the peer-review system, the process by which it became standard at scientific and medical journals, and the many roles it now plays. Additionally, the Author articulates the epistemological rationale for pre-publication peer-review and the inherent limitations of the system as a scientific quality-control mechanism. The (...) Article explores recent changes in science, in scientific publishing, and in the academy that have put the system under strain. The Author argues that Justice Blackmun's advice to courts - that peer-reviewed publication is relevant, but is not dispositive - is of little practical help. Instead, the Author suggests questions that courts should ask in assessing the significance of the fact that testimony is, or is not, based on peer-reviewed publication and illustrates with reference to another Bendectin case, Blum v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where some of these questions were asked. (shrink)

This paper aims to explore whether the usage of credit cards has peer effects in rural areas of China. The results suggest that the usage of credit cards will be affected by the behavior of other farmers; namely, the usage of credit cards has peer effects in rural areas. We also verify that women, older, and low-academic farmers show stronger peer effects. The results emphasize that, compared with the mass farmers and vulnerable farmers, the usage of elite (...) farmers is more likely to affect the same behaviors of other farmers. Our study contributes to prior literature by giving empirical insights into the consequences of peer effects on the credit card usage of farmers, which conduces to a better understanding of the financial decision-making of farmers. The research may provide a practical implication for the optimal design of policy interventions. On the one hand, banks and other financial institutions can promote innovative financial products in rural areas with the help of peer effects; on the other hand, regulators can regulate farmers’ wrong financial behaviors by the social multiplier of peer effects to reduce systemic risks in rural finance. (shrink)

Background: Poor mental health affects adolescent development and is associated with health and social outcomes in later life. The current study uses cross-sectional data to explore the understudied aspects of peer relationships as a predictor of depressive symptom severity of adolescents in Germany.Method: Data from the German BELLA study were analyzed. We focused on the most recent measurement point of the BELLA study and analyzed data of 446 adolescents. Peer relationship was measured using four items from the internationally (...) established Patient-Reported Outcome Measurement Information System. Depressive symptoms were assessed via seven items of the German version of the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Short Depression Scale. Hierarchical linear regression models were computed to explore the association between depressive symptoms and peer relationships. Hierarchical linear regression models served to determine the added predictive effects of each aspect of peer relationships.Result: The regression model showed that 22% of the variance of the severity of depressive symptoms could be explained by the quality of adolescents’ peer relationships = 125.65, p < 0.001). Peer acceptance has the most substantial unique contribution to peer relationship as a predictor of depressive symptom severity. The gender-specific analysis shows different trends for boys and girls.Conclusion: The quality of peer relationships is a significant predictor of adolescents’ depressive symptoms severity. Improved peer acceptance, dependability, and ease of making new friends are significantly associated with reduced depression symptoms for Germany’s adolescent population. (shrink)

Peer review of grant applications, it has been suggested, might be distorted by what is popularly termed old boyism, cronyism, or particularism. We argue that the existing debate emphasizes the more uninteresting aspects of the peer review system and that the operation of old boyism, as currently understood would have little effect on the overall direction of science. We identify a phenomenon of cognitive particularism, which we consider to be more important than the institutional cronyism analyzed in (...) previous studies. We illustrate with material drawn from observation of grant-awarding commit tees of the Science and Engineering Research CounciL In the concluding discussion, we explore some of the possible implications for the peer review system. (shrink)

Our recent paper reported that 43% of reviewer comment sets shared with authors contained at least one unprofessional comment or an incomplete, inaccurate of unsubstantiated critique. Publication of this work sparked an online conversation surrounding professionalism in peer review. We collected and analyzed these social media comments as they offered real-time responses to our work and provided insight into the views held by commenters and potential peer-reviewers that would be difficult to quantify using existing empirical tools. Overall, 75% (...) of comments were positive, of which 59% were supportive and 16% shared similar personal experiences. However, a subset of negative comments emerged, that provided potential insight into the reasons underlying unprofessional comments were made during the peer-review process. These comments were classified into three main themes: forced niceness will adversely impact the peer-review process and allow for publication of poor-quality science ; dismissing comments as not offensive to another person because they were not deemed personally offensive to the reader ; and authors brought unprofessional comments upon themselves as they submitted substandard work. Here, we argue against these themes as justifications for directing unprofessional comments towards authors during the peer review process. We argue that it is possible to be both critical and professional, and that no author deserves to be the recipient of demeaning ad hominem attacks regardless of supposed provocation. Suggesting otherwise only serves to propagate a toxic culture within peer review. While we previously postulated that establishing a peer-reviewer code of conduct could help improve the peer-review system, we now posit that priority should be given to repairing the negative cultural zeitgeist that exists in peer-review. (shrink)

Peer review is embedded in the core of our knowledge generation systems, perceived as a method for establishing quality or scholarly legitimacy for research, while also often distributing academic prestige and standing on individuals. Despite its critical importance, it curiously remains poorly understood in a number of dimensions. In order to address this, we have analysed peer review to assess where the major gaps in our theoretical and empirical understanding of it lie. We identify core themes including editorial (...) responsibility, the subjectivity and bias of reviewers, the function and quality of peer review, and the social and epistemic implications of peer review. The high-priority gaps are focused around increased accountability and justification in decision-making processes for editors and developing a deeper, empirical understanding of the social impact of peer review. Addressing this at the bare minimum will require the design of a consensus for a minimal set of standards for what constitutes peer review, and the development of a shared data infrastructure to support this. Such a field requires sustained funding and commitment from publishers and research funders, who both have a commitment to uphold the integrity of the published scholarly record. We use this to present a guide for the future of peer review, and the development of a new research discipline based on the study of peer review. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Second-Order Science of Interdisciplinary Research: A Polyocular Framework for Wicked Problems” by Hugo F. Alrøe & Egon Noe. Upshot: Contrary to Alrøe and Noe, problems are wicked not because they escape the technical expertise of the special sciences but because they reawaken the sciences’ totalizing impulse, which then leads to conflicting cross-disciplinary claims, on the basis of which the state must intervene. This situation is understandable against the backdrop of an “open systems” perspective, (...) in which the sort of second-order perspective presupposed by wicked problems is spontaneously generated. (shrink)

The questions of scientific choice which were left unresolved when the rapid expansion of academic science in the United States began in the early 1960s have come back to trouble the scientific community. There is now widespread dissatisfaction with the process of review by peers as one of the major systems for the allocation of public funds for research. While earlier criticisms had been brushed off by the assertion—unsupported by facts—that no other systems existed, the present situation cannot be so (...) easily dismissed.A serious examination of other national and international arrangements shows that a wide variety of procedures are in use and there is no research which shows that one system is either more productive scientifically, or more cost-effective in bringing about valuable scientific research. New systems which may be considered should avoid the major defects of the system of peer review as now practised: the enormous waste of scientists' time, the great potential for conflicts of interest, and the inherent bias against innovation.The principal system which I have proposed here combines the best elements of peer review with the simplicity and efficiency of the use of a formula. Moreover, this formula based on peer review of performance incorporates all the elements for which the academic scientific establishment should be accountable to its patron, which is the public treasury. A final virtue of the proposed system is that it provides simple and convenient procedures through the use of numerical weighting factors for the policy-maker to guide the support of scientific research as a whole. (shrink)

The allocation of scarce health care resources such as flu treatment or organs for transplant presents stark problems of distributive justice. Persad, Wertheimer, and Emanuel have recently proposed a novel system for such allocation. Their “complete lives system” incorporates several principles, including ones that prescribe saving the most lives, preserving the most life-years, and giving priority to persons between 15 and 40 years old. This paper argues that the system lacks adequate moral foundations. Persad and colleagues' defense (...) of giving priority to those between 15 and 40 leaves them open to the charge that they discriminate unfairly against children. Second, the paper contends that the complete lives system fails to provide meaningful practical guidance in central cases, since it contains no method for balancing its principles when they conflict. Finally, the paper proposes a new method for balancing principles of saving the most lives and maximizing life-years. (shrink)

As part of a continuous process to explore the factors that might weaken or corrupt traditional peer review, in this paper, we query the ethics, fairness and validity of the request, by editors, of authors to suggest peer reviewers during the submission process. One of the reasons for the current crisis in science pertains to a loss in trust as a result of a flawed peer review which is by nature biased unless it is open peer (...) review. As we indicate, the fact that some editors and journals rely on authors’ suggestions in terms of who should peer review their paper already instills a potential way to abuse the trust of the submission and publishing system. An author-suggested peer reviewer choice might also tempt authors to seek reviewers who might be more receptive or sympathetic to the authors’ message or results, and thus favor the outcome of that paper. Authors should thus not be placed in such a potentially ethically compromising situation, especially as a mandatory condition for submission. However, the fact that they do not have an opt-out choice during the submission process—especially when using an online submission system that makes such a suggestion compulsory—may constitute a violation of authors’ rights. (shrink)

Peer review of journal submissions has become one of the most important pillars of quality management in academic publishing. Because of growing concerns with the quality and effectiveness of the system, a host of enthusiastic innovators has proposed and experimented with new procedures and technologies. However, little is known about whether these innovations manage to convince other journal editors. This paper will address open questions regarding the implementation of new review procedures, the occurrence rate of various peer (...) review procedures and their distribution over scientific disciplines or academic publishers, as well as the motivations for editors or publishers to engage in novel review procedures. It shows that in spite of enthusiastic innovation, the adoption of new peer review procedures is in fact very slow, with the exception of text similarity scanners. For now, peer review innovations appear to be restricted to specific niches in academic publishing. Analysing these niches, the article concludes with a reflection on the circumstances in which innovations might be more widely implemented. (shrink)

Industrial agriculture has extensive environmental and social costs, and efforts to create alternative farming systems are widespread if not yet widely successful. This study explored how a set of grain farmers and rotational graziers in Iowa transitioned to agroecological management practices. Our focus on the resources and strategies that farmers mobilized to develop opportunities for, and overcome barriers to, transitioning to alternative practices allows us to go beyond the existing literature focused on why farmers transition. We attend to both the (...) ecological and socioeconomic context of innovation by comparing processes of technical change in two contrasting regions of Iowa. Farmers cultivated farm-level biodiversity and enterprise diversity, developed new cognitive and psychological competencies, and overcame barriers to innovation by developing external network linkages with peers, knowledge organizations, and federal policies. Our research provides insights into how biophysical, cognitive, structural and market considerations can be integrated into research efforts that aim to make sense of innovation toward sustainable agriculture. (shrink)

A relatively high incidence of unsatisfactory review decisions is widely recognised and acknowledged as ‘the peer review problem’. Factors contributing to this problem are identified and examined. Specific examples of unreasonable rejection are considered. It is concluded that weaknesses of the ‘peer review’ system are significant and that they are well known or readily recognisable but that necessary counter-measures are not always enforced. Careful management is necessary to discount hollow opinion or error in review comment. Review and (...) referee functions should be quite separate. (shrink)

This chapter addresses an ambiguity in some of the literature on rational peer disagreement about the use of the term 'rational'. In the literature 'rational' is used to describe a variety of normative statuses related to reasons, justification, and reasoning. This chapter focuses most closely on the upshot of peer disagreement for what is rationally required of parties to a peer disagreement. This follows recent work in theoretical reason which treats rationality as a system of requirements (...) among an agent's mental states. It is argued that peer disagreement has either no, or a very limited, affect on what rationality requires of an agent in a given circumstance. This is in part because of difficulties generated by a novel example of evidence of evidence of p being evidence against p. This example calls into question the mechanisms whereby peer disagreement might affect what is rationally required of an agent. The chapter also reevaluates the importance of actual peer disagreement against the backdrop of prior expectations about whether disagreement is believed to be likely, arguing that peer disagreement is most likely to change what is rationally required of an agent when it is believed to be unlikely. (shrink)