Diversity biases in terrestrial mammalian assemblages and quantifying the differences between museum collections and published accounts: A case study from the Miocene of Nevada

Understanding diversity through time in the fossil record has primarily relied on the raw count of species within a given time interval, or species richness. These estimates are often derived from published fossil data, and standardized for sample size or geographic area. However, most methods that standardize richness by sample size are sensitive to changes in evenness, which introduces a potential problem with relying on published records: published accounts could be more even than the museum collections from which they are drawn. We address this bias in the context of mammalian paleodiversity, comparing published and museum collections of the Hemphillian Thousand Creek fauna to those of the Barstovian Virgin Valley fauna. We rarified specimen data, both number of identified specimens (NISP) and minimum number of individuals (MNI), and presence/absence data to compare published and museum data within and between faunas. Within faunas, published numbers of specimens are more even than museum samples, but the difference for localities in Virgin Valley is not significant. Neither published nor museum numbers of specimens indicate a significant difference between faunas, but the diversity pattern is reversed between the two data sets. Presence/absence rarefactions show no differences between sources; here, published data adequately sample the underlying museum records. Specimen-based evenness is not accurate in the published sample, and therefore we suggest that future studies of diversity in terrestrial mammalian assemblages must assess unpublished collections. Additionally, NISP data for Thousand Creek are more even than MNI data, suggesting that relying solely on NISP for assessing species diversity can also be misleading. Because publication bias alters richness and evenness, diversity estimates using published data must be circumspect about data sources.     

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses on treatment of asthma: critical evaluation

ObjectiveTo evaluate the clinical, methodological, and reporting aspects of systematic reviews and meta-analyses on the treatment of asthma and to compare those published by the Cochrane Collaboration with those published in paper based journals.DesignAnalysis of studies identified from Medline, CINAHL, HealthSTAR, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, personal collections, and reference lists.StudiesArticles describing a systematic review or a meta-analysis of the treatment of asthma that were published as a full report, in any language or format, in a peer reviewed journal or the Cochrane Library.Results50 systematic reviews and meta-analyses were included. More than half were published in the past two years. Twelve reviews were published in the Cochrane Library and 38 were published in 22 peer reviewed journals. Forced expiratory volume in one second was the most frequently used outcome, but few reviews evaluated the effect of treatment on costs or patient preferences. Forty reviews were judged to have serious or extensive flaws. All six reviews associated with industry were in this group. Seven of the 10 most rigorous reviews were published in the Cochrane Library.ConclusionsMost reviews published in peer reviewed journals or funded by industry have serious methodological flaws that limit their value to guide decisions. Cochrane reviews are more rigorous and better reported than those published in peer reviewed journals.     

Correction to: Synthesis,protonation constants and biological activity determination of amino acid–salicylaldehyde‑derived Schiff bases

Amino Acids - Unfortunately in the online published article, the name of compound “L-salicylidenealanine” was published with incorrect spelling in the section “Synthesis of...     

2001-2010 年MEDLINE 收录福建省医疗机构科技论文文献计量学分析

目的:通过分析福建省医疗机构科技论文被国际权威检索工具MEDLINE收录情况,以评价福建省各医疗机构的科研水平和学术地位.方法:应用文献计量学和数理统计方法对2001-2010年MEDLINE收录的福建省医疗机构科技论文进行统计分析.结果:近10年MEDLINE一共收录福建省医疗机构科技论文1385篇,包括中文文献908篇,英文文献477篇,国内刊物发表文献1085篇,国外刊物发表文献300篇,其中美国、英格兰、荷兰位列国外出版刊物前三;发文机构中,福建医科大学附属协和医院、南京军区福州总医院、福建医科大学附属第一医院位列前三;发文地区分布主要集中在福厦泉漳医疗事业发达地区,地区分布不均衡;论文合作率达98.3％,论文合作度达5.21.结论:近10年来,福建省医疗机构科研水平发展总体处在上升的趋势,但地区分布不平衡,且外文文献和国外刊物发文文献所占比例较少.     

You wrote it; you own it!

Authors of papers published in Rockefeller University Press journals (The Journal of Cell Biology, The Journal of Experimental Medicine, or The Journal of General Physiology) now retain copyright to their published work. This permits authors to reuse their own work in any way, as long as they attribute it to the original publication. Third parties may use our published materials under a Creative Commons license, six months after publication.     

You wrote it; you own it!

Authors of papers published in Rockefeller University Press journals (The Journal of Cell Biology, The Journal of Experimental Medicine, or The Journal of General Physiology) now retain copyright to their published work. This permits authors to reuse their own work in any way, as long as they attribute it to the original publication. Third parties may use our published materials under a Creative Commons license, six months after publication.     

News pages

forthcoming meetings
Notices of future meetings are published free. Copy for inclusion must, however, be with the Editors at least 8 weeks before the issue in which the notice is to appear is published.     

Reappraisal of the "Molecular phylogeny of Western Palaearctic Helicidae s.l. (Gastropoda: Stylommatophora)": when poor science meets GenBank

A paper on the 'Molecular phylogeny of Western Palaearctic Helicidae s.l.', published by Steinke et al. (2004) in this journal, is critically analysed. Several obvious errors are corrected and methodological weaknesses are revealed. BLAST searches on the sequences published in that paper and now in GenBank, showed high percentages of similarity of the alleged species with taxa that are considered only distantly related in the literature. Inspection of the so-called voucher specimens showed that some shells were misidentified, whereas others contained dirt or were bleached, indicating that these had been collected empty. Obviously the sequences published for those species could not have originated from those specimens, which cannot be considered vouchers therefore, even if they are from the same locality. In other instances, spurious sequences were published for correctly identified voucher specimens. For several species for which we collected specimens ourselves, the COI or the 16S sequence, or both, clearly differed from the results published by Steinke et al. The consequences of our results for the molecular data on helicid gastropods and their classification are listed.     

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Notices of future meetings are published free. Copy for inclusion must, however, be with the Editors at least 8 weeks before the issue in which the notice is to appear is published.     

CHROMOSOME NUMBERS IN UMBELLIFERAE. III

Chromosome numbers are reported for 156 collections representing 100 taxa of Umbelliferae. Approximately two thirds of the collections are from Mexico, Central and South America and indicate a high percentage of polyploid species in certain genera found in this area. Chromosome numbers for plants belonging to 78 taxa are published here for the first time, previously published chromosome numbers are verified for 18 taxa and chromosome numbers differing from those previously published are reported in seven instances. No chromosome counts have been previously published for nine of the genera included here. Further aneuploidy and polyploidy were found in Eryngium, and Lomatium columbianum has been found to be a high polyploid with 2n = 14x. Every chromosome count is referable to a cited herbarium specimen.     

News pages

forthcoming meetings
Notices of future meetings are published free. Copy for inclusion must, however, be with the Editors at least 8 weeks before the issue in which the notice is to appear is published.     

News pages

Forthcoming Meetings
Notices of future meetings are published free. Copy for inclusion must, however, be with the Editors at least 8 weeks before the issue in which the notice is to appear is published.     

Correction to: A study on the role of articular cartilage soft tissue constitutive form in models of whole knee biomechanics

Biomechanics and Modeling in Mechanobiology - Based on a reader comment, it has become clear that, in the originally published version of the article, Fig. 1 was published with incorrect...     

Fungal conservation in the United States: further notes

A recent commentary published in this journal outlines the state of fungal conservation in the US in a federal context. Here, an addendum is provided for that commentary, relating it to a proposed rulemaking published in the Federal Register in 2014.     

RECENT ORNITHOLOGICAL LITERATURE

Recent Ornithological Literature is a cooperative, volunteer project for the benefit of ornithologists the world over. The partnership began in 1983 ( Auk 100, Ibis 125) when the AOU and BOU combined their Recent Literature sections to publish a single supplement of or- mythological literature. The RAOU joined this partnership in 1987 ( Emu 87). The AOU covers journals published in the Americas and the Philippines. The BOU covers journals published in Europe, Africa, and mainland Asia. The RAOU covers journals published in Australasia and other island nations of the Pacific. More than 150 volunteers scan about 650 titles and contribute abstracts regularly. Authors' addresses are included, if the journal lists them, to facilitate communication between readers and authors.
Recent Ornithological Literature strives for comprehensive coverage of the world's periodical literature of interest to persons studying wild birds. Readers are encouraged to consult the "List of Journals Scanned published annually in the fourth supplement and to make recommendations for increasing journal coverage. Authors, editors, or publishers whose articles or journals are not covered by the ROL should send reprints, abstracts, or exchange issues to the editor responsible for covering the geographical area where the journal is published. Volunteer abstractors are welcomed.     

RECENT ORNITHOLOGIAL LITERATURE

Recent Ornithological Literature is a cooperative, volunteer project for the benefit of ornithologists the world over. The partnership began in 1983 (Auk 100, Ibis 125) when the AOU and BOU combined their Recent Literature sections to publish a single supplement of ornithological literature. The RAOU joined this partnership in 1987 (Emu 87). The AOU covers journals published in the Americas and the Philippines. The BOU covers journals published in Europe, Africa, and mainland Asia. The RAOU covers journals published in Australasia and other island nations of the Pacific. More than 150 volunteers scan about 650 titles and contribute abstracts regularly. Authors' addresses are included, if the journal lists them, to facilitate communication between readers and authors.
Recent Ornithological Literature strives for comprehensive coverage of the world's periodical literature of interest to persons studying wild birds. Readers are encouraged to consult the "List of Journals Scanned" published annually in the fourth supplement and to make recommendations for increasing journal coverage. Authors, editors, or publishers whose articles or journals are not covered by the ROL should send reprints, abstracts, or exchange issues to the editor responsible for covering the geographical area where the journal is published. Volunteer abstractors are welcomed.     

RECENT ORNITHOLOGIAL LITERATURE

Recent Ornithological Literature is a cooperative, volunteer project for the benefit of ornithologists the world over. The partnership began in 1983 (Auk 100, Ibis 125) when the AOU and BOU combined their Recent Literature sections to publish a single supplement of ornithological literature. The RAOU joined this partnership in 1987 (Emu 87). The AOU covers journals published in the Americas and the Philippines. The BOU covers journals published in Europe, Africa, and mainland Asia. The RAOU covers journals published in Australasia and other island nations of the Pacific. More than 150 volunteers scan about 650 titles and contribute abstracts regularly. Authors' addresses are included, if the journal lists them, to facilitate communication between readers and authors. Recent Ornithological Literature strives for comprehensive coverage of the world's periodical literature of interest to persons studying wild birds. Readers are encouraged to consult the “List of Journals Scanned” published annually in the fourth supplement and to make recommendations for increasing journal coverage. Authors, editors, or publishers whose articles or journals are not covered by the ROL should send reprints, abstracts, or exchange issues to the editor responsible for covering the geographical area where the journal is published. Volunteer abstractors are welcomed.     

Identifying relevant studies for systematic reviews.

OBJECTIVE--To examine the sensitivity and precision of Medline searching for randomised clinical trials. DESIGN--Comparison of results of Medline searches to a "gold standard" of known randomised clinical trials in ophthalmology published in 1988; systematic review (meta-analysis) of results of similar, but separate, studies from many fields of medicine. POPULATIONS--Randomised clinical trials published in 1988 in journals indexed in Medline, and those not indexed in Medline and identified by hand search, comprised the gold standard. Gold standards for the other studies combined in the meta-analysis were based on: randomised clinical trials published in any journal, whether indexed in Medline or not; those published in any journal indexed in Medline; or those published in a selected group of journals indexed in Medline. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE--Sensitivity (proportion of the total number of known randomised clinical trials identified by the search) and precision (proportion of publications retrieved by Medline that were actually randomised clinical trials) were calculated for each study and combined to obtain weighted means. Searches producing the "best" sensitivity were used for sensitivity and precision estimates when multiple searches were performed. RESULTS--The sensitivity of searching for ophthalmology randomised clinical trials published in 1988 was 82%, when the gold standard was for any journal, 87% for any journal indexed in Medline, and 88% for selected journals indexed in Medline. Weighted means for sensitivity across all studies were 51%, 77%, and 63%, respectively. The weighted mean for precision was 8% (median 32.5%). Most searchers seemed not to use freetext subject terms and truncation of those terms. CONCLUSION--Although the indexing terms available for searching Medline for randomised clinical trials have improved, sensitivity still remains unsatisfactory. A mechanism is needed to "''register" known trials, preferably by retrospective tagging of Medline entries, and incorporating trials published before 1966 and in journals not indexed by Medline into the system.     

Paléohistologie et paléobiochimie des vertébrés dans les Annales de Paléontologie

With the exception of one paper published in 1929, works in vertebrate paleohistology start to be published in the journal in 1968 and are published ever since. Similarly, the first paper in vertebrate paleobiochemistry is published in the journal in 1987 and the field is regularly covered ever since. The relatively late publication of paleohistological researches in the journal is all the more surprizing because there are evidences now that several laboratories at the Paris Museum heavily invested in paleohistology already in the 1870–1890th and gathered extensive collections of thin sections, but very few publications followed. The scientific and contextual causes of the late development of the paleohistological publications in the journal are briefly analyzed. It appears that its history is a fairly faithful reflection of several changing scientific and historical constraints which framed not only french paleontology (and notably the “Paris school”) but french biology as well during the XXth century.     

RECENT ORNITHOLOGICAL LITERATURE

Beginning in 1983 (Auk 100, Ibis 125) the AOU and BOU combined their Recent Literature sections, to publish a single supplement of ornithological literature to which members of both unions contribute. The RAOU joined this partnership in 1987 (Emu 87). The AOU covers journals published in the Americas and The Philippines. The BOU covers journals published in Europe, Africa, and mainland Asia. The RAOU covers journals published in Australasia and other island nations of the Pacific. More than 150 volunteers scan about 650 titles and contribute abstracts regularly. Authors' addresses are included, if the journal lists them, to facilitate communication between readers and authors.
Recent Ornithological Literature strives for comprehensive coverage of the world's periodical literature of interest to persons studying wild birds. Readers are encouraged to consult the "List of Journals Scanned" published annually in the October supplement and to make recommendations for increasing journal coverage.