Data and reproducibility

提交了对相对新的药物群体有效性的系统审查。审查最初是为一个独立的机构，所以提交是销钉版本。审查人员指出，审查没有提及Cochrane审查和它引用的试验，该试验已在向期刊提交纸张之前已经出版了大约四个月。审稿人表明这不仅仅是无能为力：他知道作者意识到Cochrane审查的存在。他还质疑研究的咨询小组据称“为议定书，分析和解释提供了同行审查和建议。”他认为咨询小组未在整个项目中参与，并没有同行审查提交的稿件。咨询小组的另一个成员似乎确认了这些怀疑。现在应该做些什么？

In March 2000 author A submitted a research letter to journal X, on behalf of a national screening programme. He also submitted a commissioned editorial to journal Y, relating to the same subject. At the same time, author A sent copies of both articles to B, a recognised authority on the subject. He made it clear that they were confidential and in press and asked for some information on a test used by B which he could include in the editorial. He also suggested to B that he might wish to respond to the research letter if it were accepted. B did not reply, however, but at the end of March he submitted a paper to journal Z. This paper compared the screening programme run by B, with the suggested screening programmed detailed in the unpublished research letter by author A, and concluded that the former was greatly superior. The editor of journal Z in all innocence sent B’s paper to author A for review. Author A wasn’t too impressed by the paper. He was much less impressed by B taking an opportunity to write a paper specifically involving confidential material that he, A, had shown him. He was also concerned about B knowing he was the reviewer as he had only recently persuaded B to join him in a joint grant proposal and he did not want it prejudiced by bad feeling between the two of them. Perhaps it is not necessary to add that the arguments are all to do with which particular screening programme might be accepted by the NHS. Not only prestige but also possibly income from a patented testing tool may be involved. Should the editor accept A’s view that B’s paper is poor, or should he send it to another reviewer? Does it matter, since the ethical issue means that B’s paper would be unacceptable even if a new reviewer liked it? How should the editor deal with B, in pointing out the ethical issue, bearing in mind the delicacy of the situation?

A randomised controlled trial raised three aspects of concern: 1. The participants’ physical characteristics at entry to the study were listed in a table. For the two groups—intervention and control—one physical characteristic was given as a mean ± the standard deviations (SDs). However, the SDs for both groups were much smaller than they should have been. 2. The inclusion criteria were unusual. These excluded half of the eligible population. 3. The intervention was more successful than the control in managing the condition. The language of the paper adopted the style of an advertisement. The company manufacturing the intervention had assisted financially in the study. An independent statistical reviewer did not believe that the over stringent selection criteria could have explained the low SDs. Does COPE feel that these concerns might indicate research misconduct?

据称已经通过在期刊上发表的系统审查刺激了一项研究。新研究包括15名患者，在一项研究的一个手臂中受到治疗，15名已经在另一个手臂上治疗的人。同行评审员注意到原始系统审查包括来自同一作者的31名患者。编辑联系了作者要求他们清楚这是一项新的研究或展示现有数据。尽管提出了两次，作者从未发出明确的答案。因此，该机构的负责人被告知并要求提供一个，并考虑这是研究不当行为的一个例子。编辑是否完成了正确的事情？

After a randomised controlled trial from a single author had been published, a letter was received in which the correspondent suggested that the original trial might be fraudulent. Firstly, the writer claimed that it was highly unlikely that just one author could perform a prospective, randomised, double blind, placebo controlled trial, especially in a small district hospital. The correspondent was also worried that there was no mention of other standard treatments. Advice was sought from a statistician and a gastroenterologist, both of whom raised serious doubts about the paper. The editor asked the chief executive of the hospital to investigate. Initially, the medical director of the hospital wrote to say that it would be impossible for them to investigate unless the journal was willing to pay for the investigation. The editor replied, saying that he thought this absurd, on the grounds that if someone makes a serious complaint to the police, they don’t expect to be asked to pay for an investigation. The medical director eventually agreed with this and arranged for an experienced and independent researcher to examine the case. It emerged that the author had already been suspended for clinical reasons and that a university professor had been asked to look at the research when it was first published. An experienced statistician, he found no serious problems. Nor did the independent researcher find any serious problems. No further action has therefore been taken, but are there any conclusions to be drawn?

Three papers concerning one hospital problem had been submitted to three different journals. Before publication the three editors of the journals became aware of the three different papers and the substantial overlap between them. The three editors communicated with each other and realised that they had four concerns: 1. There was very considerable overlap among the three papers. There didn’t seem to be any justification for publishing three papers rather than one or two. 2. The authors of the papers had not disclosed the existence of the other papers to any of the editors. 3. The three papers all had different sets of authors, and it seemed most unlikely that all authors met the definition of authorship devised by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. It also subsequently emerged that at least one author was unaware that he had been listed as an author on one of these papers. 4. There were inconsistencies among the papers. One particular patient was described in all three papers, and there were inconsistencies in the nationality of the patient, the readmission date, the results of a particular test, and the final diagnosis. The three editors took a very long time to decide what action to take, and in the end differed in their responses. One editor decided simply to notify the authors that she would not publish the paper and that she was concerned about the circumstances of the paper. The two other editors decided to ask for an investigation. One editor wrote to the chief executive of the institution where the authors had worked some ten months ago, but no explanation of what happened had been received. What should the editor do now?

审查并驳回了提交给X杂志的纸张，并拒绝了将其提交给更临床杂志的建议。本文正式提交给日志Y.作者是A，B，C，D和E，E是相应的作者将两个研究小组联系在一起，在不同的城市，但在同一个国家。y期刊y将此论文发给审稿人，并在讨论后，他们的决定是开放谈判。然后，合作机构的高级作者作者C写信给y的编辑，说e已在未经许可的情况下使用他的数据。他现在想要从Y中取出的纸张。然后这些数据将与其他数据结合在于Z轴颈Z.联系人的编辑，据称令人震惊的是令人惊叹的-C没有告诉他他的信。E声称数据是他的，并不属于C。C是政府补助金的主要调查员，涵盖了一个特定的研究。与Y的论文是一个子学习，不包括在政府补助金中。因此，根据e，C对这些数据没有管辖权。作者C正在越来越生气。

差不多五年前，两个外人接近了一个编辑，表明来自特定研究员的一大编论文，包括一些在高调的期刊上发表的部分，可能是欺诈性的。联系编辑的人认为，研究中描述的患者可能根本从未存在过。圆形大约同时，这位作者的几篇论文是在期刊的同行评审系统中传播。编辑要求外界顾问流行病学家和统计顾问审查我们系统中的公布文件和论文。流行病学家迅速制作了一份报告，表明许多研究可能是欺诈性的。统计学家开始了他的工作，并经过一段时间，提交人被要求生产他的原始数据。这些数据需要很长时间才能到达，他们最终到达了一个大盒子，用铅笔写。这些数据输入了计算机，但这证明了非常耗时和昂贵的过程。统计学家有许多其他需要考虑的人被陷入困境。最终几个月后，统计学家在一份关于特定论文中制作了一份报告，非常强烈地争论数据可能是欺诈性的。 The author resides abroad and seems to be the head of the institution in which he works. Because there was no formally appointed head of institution the editor wrote to him asking for a response and said that if none was provided, he would write to the national body. If this body cannot produce a response, then the editor will consider publishing a piece explaining the doubts about the 30 or so studies, most of which have appeared in prestigious journals on both sides of the Atlantic. The editor feels that he has been desperately slow, but is this what he should now be doing?

一项研究通过同行审查过程使得其中一个统计顾问表示，结果似乎“太好了”。提交人被要求在统计学家分析的原始数据中发送。他仍然非常关注这些数据。提交人被通知，国家要求大学调查。编辑是否完成了正确的事情？

一些两个月后出版质量ative research about health behaviour in an ethnic minority group, an anonymous letter suggested that the work might be fraudulent. The letter was in very poor English, but made two main points. Firstly, the original study did not make clear how many women were included, and secondly, the anonymous respondent could not understand who could have done the interviews. These women would have to have been interviewed by another woman for cultural reasons, and yet the only woman included as an author was British and clearly would not have been able to speak the language of the women interviewed. These two questions raised doubts in the mind of the anonymous respondent about the genuineness of the study. These concerns were made known to the authors, who responded by saying that the paper did not specify how many women were included and that the interviews had been done by the wife of one of the authors. The original manuscript was checked to reveal that the number of women in the study had been edited out, although this was supposed to have been included in a longer version published on the web. In fact, the longer version had never been posted. What general lessons does the committee draw from this episode?