Retraction

Retraction : “MicroRNA-1271 functions as a potential tumor suppressor in hepatitis B virus–associated hepatocellular carcinoma through the AMPK signaling pathway by binding to CCNA1 ” by Yang Chen, Zhen-Xian Zhao, Fei Huang, Xiao-Wei Yuan, Liang Deng, and Di Tang, J Cell Physiol. 2019; 3555-3569: The above article, published online on 22 November 2018 in Wiley Online Library ( https://doi.org/10.1002/jcp.26955 ), has been retracted by agreement between the authors, the journal's Editor-in-Chief, Prof Dr Gregg Fields, and Wiley Periodicals LLC. The retraction has been agreed following an investigation based on allegations raised by a third party concerning similarities to images in a published article by different authors in another journal. The authors asked to retract their article and stated that unintentional errors occurred during the collation of the figures for publication. As a consequence, the editors consider the conclusions to be invalid.     

Bibliometric analysis of Helicobacter pylori resistance—from 2002 to 2022

Background

Drug resistance in Helicobacter pylori severely affects the efficacy of eradication therapy, and a number of studies have been conducted on this issue. The aim of this study was to assess the progress in this field using a bibliometric approach.

Materials and Methods

Publications related to H. pylori resistance from 2002 to 2022 were retrieved from the Web of Science database. Relevant information including titles, authors, countries, and keywords was extracted, and the data were processed using Excel, VOSviewer, and CiteSpace software for co-authorship, co-citation, and co-occurrence analysis.

Results

From 2002 to 2022 (as of 09/24/2022), the field of H. pylori–resistance research produced a total of 2677 publications with a total of 75217 citations, with an overall upward trend in the annual number of articles published, reaching a peak of 204 in 2019. Articles were mainly published in Q1 or Q2 journals, with Helicobacter (TP = 261) publishing the most literature, Baylor College of Medicine (TP = 68) and Deng-chyang wu (TP = 38) being the most prolific institutions and authors, respectively. China and the United States were the locations of most of the articles, accounting for 35.08% of the global publication volume. Keyword co-occurrence analysis divided H. pylori-resistance research into four clusters: “Therapeutic Strategies,” “Diseases,” “Mechanism Research and Epidemiology,” and “Drug Research.” “Drug research” and burst detection indicate that the current research hotspot involves the selection and analysis of treatment strategies.

Conclusions

H. pylori–resistance research has become a popular research field, and although there are significant contributions from Europe, the United States, and East Asia, there are significant imbalances between regions that cannot be ignored. In addition, the exploration of treatment strategies remains a key issue for research at the current stage.     

Retracted: Production,biochemical characterization,and kinetic/thermodynamic study of novel serine protease from Aspergillus avenaceus URM 6706

“Production, biochemical characterization, and kinetic/thermodynamic study of novel serine protease from Aspergillus avenaceus URM 6706“ (by da Silva A, et al.) Bio. Tech. Prog.; https://aiche.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/btpr.3091 The above listed article, from Biotechnology Progress, published online in Early View on October 16, 2020 in Wiley Online Library ( http://wileyonlinelibrary.com ), has been retracted by agreement between the authors, the journal's Editor-in-Chief, John A. Morgan and Wiley Periodicals LLC. The retraction has been agreed because the article was not accepted for publication by the Journal and subsequently published in error as an Early View article. The editorial team of this journal takes full responsibility and apologizes for the technical error that resulted in this article appearing in Early View.     

Les Annales de Paléontologie et les Dinosaures

During one century, the “Annales de Paléontologie” have published some articles on the Middle jurassic Dinosaurs from Madagascar, France and Argentina. The review has furnished to their readers' informations on Dinosaurs, which were less known, that the classic faunas from the Upper Jurassic or Upper Cretaceous faunas from North America and Asia. The centenary of the “Annales” give the opportunity to have a look on the discoveries of the past under the light of our modern knowledge.     

The “ethnographic surrealism” of Jean Rouch

Using James Clifford's notion of “ethnographic surrealism,” this paper focuses on the “surrealist” features of the film work of Jean Rouch. First, drawing extensively from an interview held with Rouch in May 1988, I outline the influence that the “ethnographic surrealism” of the 1930s had on Rouch. I then go on to discuss “surrealism” in Rouch's use of the camera, choice of subject matter, techniques of narration, and relationship to his subject. I conclude by demonstrating that Rouch's current work at the Cinémathèque Française and the Comité du Film Ethnographique offer excellent examples of his ability to cross disciplinary boundaries and thus extend the original spirit of “ethnographic surrealism” into the present.     

Challenges and opportunities of publishing supplements at <Emphasis Type="Italic">Arthritis Research &; Therapy</Emphasis>

Supplements are the cause of much debate in the world of journal publishing. Supplements are criticized for the fact that often they are funded by an external source, and journals have been known to shy away from their publication [1]. But is refusing to publish supplements the only answer? At Arthritis Research & Therapy, we feel that - if subjected to the full rigors of peer review - supplements can provide invaluable educational resources, exploring themes in a detailed and focused way that might not always be possible in the main journal.At Arthritis Research & Therapy, we have decided that the potential risk of a loss of objectivity in industry-sponsored supplements can be managed by scrupulous attention to the peer-review process. Therefore, in our experience, the benefit of publishing supplements greatly outweighs any perception of loss of objectivity. We should note that our colleagues in the pharmaceutical industry have embraced our approach with no efforts to circumvent our rules, as far as we know.We consider proceedings, review collections, and meeting abstracts for inclusion as supplements. Examples of recent supplements are easily accessed on the journal website. It will be apparent that the emphasis is on the molecular and cellular basis of immune and inflammatory mechanisms of disease. The underwriting by the sponsor of the cost of peer review and production ensures that the high-quality publication is freely available. Outlined below is the procedure that we follow when considering any potential supplements for the journal. We recognize the potential for competing interests to influence the content of articles where there is industry involvement, but we believe that by adhering to a stringent publication process we negate this risk with our supplement content.So, what is the procedure? First, in a change from the approach taken by many journals, we appoint an ''internal'' Supplement Editor (usually from the journal''s Editorial Board), whose role is to select peer reviewers and assess the suitability of the supplement articles for publication in the journal. This internal editor is selected by the Editors-in-Chief, and the sponsor''s approval is not sought in making this appointment. Before their appointment, internal editors are asked to declare any potential conflicts of interest, and full disclosures are included in both online and print versions of any supplements. In cases in which internal editors receive a stipend, this is paid for by the publisher - not the sponsor. All conflict of interest disclosures associated with supplement publications follow the National Library of Medicine policy for indexing supplement articles in MEDLINE [2].For some supplements, particularly where articles are commissioned externally, there may be an ''external'' Supplement Editor as well as the internal editor. Before their appointment, external supplement editors must be approved by the Editors-in-Chief. Their role is to identify the subject matter and propose suitable authors for the individual supplement articles, with the proviso that all content must be approved by the Editors-in-Chief. The external editor is not involved in the peer review of any of the articles once submitted. They are also asked for full conflict of interest disclosures, which are included in the supplement publication alongside those of the internal editor.One of the common criticisms levied against supplements is that the articles are not peer-reviewed to the journal''s normal standards. At Arthritis Research & Therapy, supplement articles go through the same thorough peer-review process as articles do in the main journal [3]. The Editors-in-Chief have full editorial control, including the ability to ask authors to make extensive revisions, and reserve the right to reject articles that do not meet the journal''s standards. And in accordance with the guidelines of the International Committee for Medical Journal Editors [4], all contracts clearly include information about editorial control and the role of the internal supplement editor.In addition to disclosures from the individual editors, sources of funding for a supplement are prominently displayed on the supplement title page, and funding is also acknowledged in each individual article. We ensure that supplements can be clearly distinguished as separate from the main journal content on the journal homepage. As with all of our articles, individual authors declare their conflicts of interest. This complies with the good publication practice (GPP2) guidelines [5]. We also adhere to the guidelines of the European Medical Writers Association [6] by ensuring that the involvement of any medical writers is disclosed in an article''s acknowledgments section along with their sources of funding.We hope that by ensuring that there is full transparency of disclosures from everyone involved in supplements and following strictly the peer-review procedure described above, we avoid the potential pitfalls of supplement publishing. The guidelines of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors themselves state that supplements ''serve useful purposes'' and it is our responsibility as editors to ensure that they continue to be useful without allowing ourselves to be subject to industry influence. By publicly disclosing our policy for supplement review here, we hope that other journals will be more open about their peer-review policies for supplements and that they adopt similarly stringent practices in the future.     

Retraction: Citius,Altius, Fortius. J. Lange,G. Vriend. Proteins: Structure,Function, and Bioinformatics. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1002/prot.12345

The above article, published online on 12 June 2020 in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com ), has been retracted by agreement between the authors, the journal's Editor-in-Chief Dr. Nikolay Dokholyan, and John Wiley & Sons, Inc. The above article is a humorous editorial contribution surrounding a specialized topic, and was not intended for full online publication as part of the journal's scholarly content. Due to an editorial mistake, the above article was published online in Early View. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. takes full responsibility for the erroneous publication of this article.     

Retraction: “MiR-137 functions as a tumor suppressor in pancreatic cancer by targeting MRGBP”

Retraction: “MiR-137 functions as a tumor suppressor in pancreatic cancer by targeting MRGBP” by Feng Ding, Shuang Zhang, Shaoyang Gao, Jian Shang, Yanxia Li, Ning Cui, and Qiu Zhao, J Cell Biochem. 2018; 4799-4807: The above article, published online on 13 January 2018 in Wiley Online Library ( https://doi.org/10.1002/jcb.26676 ) has been retracted by agreement between the journal's Editor in Chief, Prof. Dr. Christian Behl, and Wiley Periodicals LLC. The retraction has been agreed after the authors stated that errors occurred during figure compilation, and that the experimental data in the article could not be verified. The investigation additionally revealed inconsistencies in several image elements. Thus, the editors consider the conclusions of this article to be invalid.     

Teilhard de Chardin,human evolution and “Piltdown Man”

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a French Jesuit paleontologist, priest, and philosopher. In the figures published in articles in 1943 and 1951, he attempted to draw a “plausible schematic reconstruction of the natural connections between fossil men” and a “phyletic composition of the human group”. I draw attention to Teilhard's reference to Eoanthropus (“Piltdown Man”) in small print in his figure that was first printed in 1943. Most suspiciously, there is no reference to this (supposedly important) genus in the associated text, nor is there any reference whatsoever to “Piltdown Man” in the article published in 1951. Even as early as January 1913, Teilhard may have been aware that “Piltdown Man” was a hoax or joke, artificially associating a human cranium with a modified orangutan mandible. A new suspect is Edgar Willett (rather than Charles Dawson). Teilhard may have been an advisory accomplice in a joke that went seriously wrong.     

Virtual special issue: Social-ecological systems research in tropical ecosystems

Biodiversity is declining globally, primarily due to anthropogenic threats. Therefore, effective conservation efforts must integrate human and environmental components. Social-ecological systems research is increasingly being adopted as a means of studying complex relationships between people and the environment. I assess how researchers are employing social-ecological systems approaches or frameworks to the study of tropical ecosystems. I reviewed articles published in Biotropica from 2010 through 2022 searching for research on social-ecological systems. A broad keyword search revealed only 2 articles using a variation of social-ecological systems, human-environment systems, or coupled human and natural systems. This contrasts with a growing number of articles published with these search terms in other conservation-related journals, primarily led by environmental scientists. After reviewing titles for all 1298 research articles published during this period, I selected 12 articles for inclusion in the virtual special issue “Social-Ecological Systems Research in Topical Ecosystems”. These articles cover a broad range of geographical locations, ecosystem types, species, and conservation themes. Social-ecological systems frameworks offer an integrated way to study complex relationships between humans and nature, yet this type of research appears under-utilized by authors in Biotropica. I offer seven guidelines for authors interested in pursuing this research such as developing collaborations between social and environmental scientists.     

Bulletin of mathematical biology—facts,figures and comparisons

The Society for Mathematical Biology (SMB) owns the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology (BMB). This is an international journal devoted to the interface of mathematics and biology. At the 2003 SMB annual meeting in Dundee the Society asked the editor of the BMB to produce an analysis of impact factor, subject matter of papers, submission rates etc. Other members of the society were interested in the handling times of articles and wanted comparisons with other (appropriate) journals. In this article we present a brief history of the journal and report on how the journal impact factor has grown substantially in the last few years. We also present an analysis of subject areas of published papers over the past two years. We finally present data on times from receipt of paper to acceptance, acceptance to print (and to online publication) and compare these data with some other journals. This is an expanded version of a report published in the Society for Mathematical Biology Newsletter, Volume 16, Number 3, pp. 9–12, 2003. These authors contributed equally.     

The biological effects upon the cardiovascular system consequent to exposure to particulates of less than 500 nm in size

Context: Ultrafine particulate matter contribution to cardiovascular disease is not known and not regulated. PM up to 500?nm are abundant in urban air and alveolar deposition is significant.

Objective: Effects beyond the alveolar barrier within the body or in vitro tissues exposed to particles?<500?nm.

Methods and results: Databases: MEDLINE; Ovid-MEDLINE PREM; Web of Science; PubMed (SciGlobe). 127 articles. Results in tables: “subject type exposed”, “exposure type”, “technique”.

Conclusion: Heart rate, vasoactivity, atherosclerotic advancement, oxidative stress, coagulability, inflammatory changes are affected. Production of reactive oxygen species is a useful target to limit outcomes associated with UFP exposure.     

Review of Non-coding RNAs and the epigenetic regulation of gene expression

Advances in sequencing and detection technology over the past two decades, highlighted by the data explosion brought about by the human genome project, have transformed what was previously assumed to be a relatively simple genetic landscape into a new picture where the so-called “dark matter” of the genome has stolen the spotlight from the not so hip protein-coding genes. The simplified central dogma of molecular biology, in which a gene encodes for a protein via a messenger RNA (mRNA), is still at the core of genetics but is now caught in a much more complex web of regulation by the genomic region previously known as “junk” DNA. Books such as Non-coding RNAs and epigenetic regulation of gene expression, published by Caister Academic Press, become essential guidelines to help us understand the current status of the very fast paced field of RNA research, which has only just started to uncover the roles of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) in the regulation of gene expression.     

OBAMA AND THE BIRACIAL FACTOR: THE BATTLE FOR A NEW AMERICAN MAJORITY

Written from a “critical perspective”, four new sociologies of Israel have recently been published. This article critically reviews the strengths and weaknesses of these new books, as well as the “new orthodoxy” that they propose with regard to Israel's past and present.     

On the future contents of a small journal of histochemistry

In the last three years, more than 70,000 scientific articles have been published in peer reviewed journals on the application of histochemistry in the biomedical field: most of them did not appear in strictly histochemical journals, but in others dealing with cell and molecular biology, medicine or biotechnology. This proves that histochemistry is still an active and innovative discipline with relevance in basic and applied biological research, but also demonstrates that especially the small histochemical journals should likely reconsider their scopes and strategies to preserve their authorship. A review of the last three years volumes of the European Journal of Histochemistry, taken as an example of a long-time established small journal, confirmed that the published articles were widely heterogeneous in their topics and experimental models, as in this journal''s tradition. This strongly suggests that a journal of histochemistry should keep its role as a forum open to an audience as broad as possible, publishing papers on cell and tissue biology in a wide variety of models. This will improve knowledge of the basic mechanisms of development and differentiation, while helping to increase the number of potential authors since scientists who generally do not use histochemistry in their research will find hints for the applications of histochemical techniques to novel still unexplored subjects.Key words: Basic and applied histochemistry     

Concept,Definition, Prevalence,and Host-Interactions of Xenosomes (Cytoplasmic and Nuclear Endosymbionts)1,2

ABSTRACT. In this paper the concept of “xenosome” is greatly expanded from its current usage, which has been based on its application during the past 10 years by Soldo and co-workers solely to certain bacterial invaders of the cytoplasm in species of a single genus of marine scuticociliales. The author proposes that the term now be considered to embrace all DNA-containing, membrane-bounded bodies or organelles—prokaryotic or eukaryotic in original nature—found within the cytoplasm or nucleus of eukaryotic cells of any or all kinds, whether the occupation (“colonization”) is temporary and transient or permanent and stable. Thus, virulent or pathogenically infectious organisms can be included as well as the commonly recognized cell endosymbionts sensu stricto, which are often mutualistic in nature. Of significance, such “normal” cell organelles as plastids, mitochondria, and even nuclei may also be embraced by this expanded definition of xenosome, based on the conjecture that these inclusions might have been “alien” or “foreign” extracellular, independent, free-living organisms in their own past evolutionary histories. The author's enlarged concept and unifying principle allows more meaningful comparative consideration of the numerous and diverse kinds of xenosome-host interrelationships, many of which involve species of protozoa and algae from a large number of the taxonomic groups comprising the kingdom Protista.     

Hommes et environnements au Paléolithique supérieur en Ukraine : introduction aux recherches interdisciplinaires menées sur le site de Mezhyrich

Research conducted under the ANR project “Mammouths”, about “the end of the mammoth steppe: Man/Environment relationship during late Pleniglacial in Eastern Europe”, is the subject of several contributions. A first part was published in the Volume 118 (issue 5, November–December 2014) in the journal L’Anthropologie. We present in this second volume seven articles dedicated to the Upper Paleolithic site of Mezhyrich in Ukraine.