Archives: Questions

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Aline’s research, Nonunitary superconductivity in complex quantum materials was published open access in Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter under the transformative agreement with the Consortium of Swiss Academic Libraries.

How easy was it to publish open access under the transformative agreement?
To be honest, I do not remember the details. I think this means that there was no particular difficulty.

Why do you think it’s important to be able to publish open access?
I think open access is fundamental. Coming from a developing country, as a student I faced the pay-barrier multiple times while looking for scientific articles. I remember perceiving it as a strong message: “I am not part of the international scientific community.”

What are the next steps for your research?
My current research focuses on unconventional superconductors. We aim at a better understanding the behaviour of known materials and at the engineering of novel systems with useful properties for technological applications.

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Dr. Jane Emily Hill and her team of researchers from the University of British Columbia and in collaboration with National Jewish Health, is leading the development of a novel approach to diagnose nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary infections based on molecules found in breath.

Read Dr. Hill’s article: Breath biomarkers associated with nontuberculosis mycobacteria disease status in persons with cystic fibrosis: a pilot study in Journal of Breath Research.

This article is free to read as it was published open access through a transformative agreement between IOP Publishing and Canadian Research Knowledge Network.

Congratulations on your paper getting published. Could you explain what nontuberculosis mycobacteria are and why it’s hard to diagnose a pulmonary disease caused by them?

Nontuberculosis mycobacteria (NTM) are ubiquitous environmental bacteria commonly found in water and soil. These pathogens are increasingly recognized as serious causes of human morbidity and mortality and pose a significant threat to individuals with an underlying lung disease, such as people with cystic fibrosis (CF).

Reaching a diagnosis of pulmonary NTM disease in patients with CF is very complex. In addition to monitoring clinical symptoms, NTM screening, diagnosis, and treatment relies on traditional culture techniques. However, NTM cultures grow slowly, taking up to 8 weeks, and the majority of patients have only transient positive cultures or indolent infections. In simple terms, the isolation of NTM from a respiratory sample is not enough to confirm a pulmonary NTM disease diagnosis and initiate antibiotic treatment. The decision to treat is consequential, requiring daily antibiotics for several months.

It sounds like culture-based methods might be too slow and inconclusive on their own to diagnose pulmonary NTM disease. Did you and your team come up with a solution to this?

In our pilot study, we investigated whether biomarkers found in exhaled breath can be leveraged to differentiate between people with CF with active-NTM lung disease, those with an indolent NTM infection, and those without any history of a positive NTM culture.

After collecting and analyzing breath samples from 11 patients with CF, we putatively identified 17 breath molecules that could be used for the diagnosis of pulmonary NTM disease. We are following this work up in a much larger clinical study, screening a few hundred patients throughout North America.

What motivated you to delve into this alternative diagnostic approach based on breath samples?

Breath holds great potential as a source of information on an individual’s health status. If we could diagnose a lung infection non-invasively and quickly using exhaled breath, it would improve the quality of lives of many people around the world. Elevating the human condition through the development of next-generation diagnostics was a fundamental motivator of this work.

Your paper was published in the context of a transformative agreement with IOP Publishing. What was this process like?

It was simple and easy, as the process required to utilize the agreement was automated. I actually learned about the transformative agreement by accident; after enquiring about the cost of publishing, I found it was free for me.

What do you think are the advantages of publishing through a transformative agreement?

While I am not sure of the costs to my institution, there are substantial advantages to researchers publishing through this agreement. The cost of publishing, especially that of making a publication open access, can be prohibitive. Yet, for many of us, open access is a key goal so that our findings can be shared as widely as possible. This was easy to do with a transformative agreement, which ensured that this study is published open access.

Do you have any word of advice for other authors interested in publishing open access through a transformative agreement?

It could be worthwhile for authors to learn about these agreements in advance, as this might affect their decision on where to publish. In my case, IOPP’s Journal of Breath Research was my target journal, and I hoped it would accept our article. Finding out that not only could we publish in this journal, but also have our article be open access without incurring any fee, was terrific.

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Outstanding Reviewers

Dr Dan Batalu, Universitatea Politehnica din Bucuresti, Romania

Dr Feng Li, Nagoya Daigaku, Japan

Dr Paola Gentile, Istituto Superconduttori Materiali Innovativi e Dispositivi Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy

Dr Roberto Cristiano, Istituto Superconduttori Materiali Innovativi e Dispositivi Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Italy

Outstanding Reviewers

Mr Manas Pattnayak, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India

Dr Sanghamitro Chatterjee, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India

Dr Moinuddin Mohammed Quazi, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Malaysia

Dr Senad Dizdar, Hogskolan i Halmstad, Sweden

Dr Salil Bapat, Purdue University, United States of America

Dr Jinhua Zhao, Shandong Jianzhu University, China

Dr Grzegorz Szwachta, Akademia Gorniczo-Hutnicza im Stanislawa Staszica w Krakowie, Poland

Dr Brandon Karchewski, University of Calgary, Canada

Dr Cristiano Scheuer, Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Brazil

Dr Magdalena Valentina Lungu, Institutul National de Cercetare-Dezvoltare pentru Inginerie Electrica ICPE-CA, Romania

Dr Lu Ren, Sun Yat-Sen University, China

Dr Barry Twomey, National University of Ireland, Ireland

Dr ONUR Özbek, Duzce Universitesi, Turkey

Mr Aleksei Obrosov, Brandenburgische Technische Universitat Cottbus-Senftenberg, Germany

Dr Chiemela Victor Amaechi, Lancaster University, United Kingdom

Mr Debashis Puhan, Imperial College London, United Kingdom

Dr Farzin Ghadami, Tarbiat Modares University, Iran (Islamic Republic of)

Dr Jibin Philip, Amal Jyothi College of Engineering, India

Miss Seyma KORKMAZ, Karabuk Universitesi, Turkey

Dr Sami Franssila, Aalto-yliopisto, Finland

Dr Josef Daniel, Akademie ved Ceske republiky Oblast ved o nezive prirode, Czech Republic

Mr Mohammad Sayem Bin Abdullah, University of Washington, United States of America

Dr Anna Bazan, Politechnika Rzeszowska im Ignacego Lukasiewicza, Poland

Mr SANDIP ANASANE, Government College of Engineering and Research Avasari Khurd, India

Mr Krishnkant Sahu, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India

Dr Padmakumar Muthuswamy, Kennametal Inc India, India

Dr Teresa Werner, Tianjin University, China

Dr José Daniel de Mello, Universidade Federal de Uberlandia, Brazil

Mr Mohammad Aghajani Delavar, University of Tehran, Iran (Islamic Republic of)

Dr Suresh Babu adukamparai rajukrishnan, University of Calicut, India

Dr Noé Cheung, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil

Professor Dr Grzegorz Królczyk, Politechnika Opolska, Poland

Mr Jonty Mago, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India

Dr Marcel Kunrath, Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Dr Mukuna Mubiayi, University of South Africa, South Africa

Dr Seelam Pichi Reddy, Lakireddy Balireddy College of Engineering, India

Dr Saravanan Somasundaram, Annamalai University, India

Dr YiXiang Gan, The University of Sydney, Australia

Mr Nishant Verma, Indian Institute of Technology Mandi, India

Professor Guillaume Lombardi, Universite Sorbonne Paris Nord, France

Dr Sridhar TM, University of Madras, India

Professor Dr Maxence Bigerelle, Universite Polytechnique Hauts-de-France, France

Outstanding Reviewers

Dr Christopher Broderick, National University of Ireland, Ireland

Dr Delphine Morini, Universite Paris-Saclay, France

Dr Xun Zheng, University of California Santa Barbara, United States of America

Dr Vanik Shahnazaryan, Nacional’nyj issledovatel’skij universitet ITMO, Russian Federation

Dr Alba Arenas-Hernandez, Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica, Mexico

Mr Francesco Sgarbossa, Universita degli Studi di Padova, Italy

Professor Jesus Velazquez-Perez, Universidad de Salamanca, Spain

Dr Tomas Kozak, Zapadoceska univerzita v Plzni, Czech Republic

Dr Natarajan Chidhambaram, Rajah Serfoji Government College, India

Dr Marcelo Pavanello, Fundacao Educacional Inaciana Padre Saboia de Medeiros, Brazil

Professor Syed Major, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India

Dr Umit Ozgur, Virginia Commonwealth University, United States of America

Dr Prafful Golani, University of Minnesota Twin Cities, United States of America

Mr Luiz Felipe Aguinsky, Technische Universitat Wien, Austria

Mr Zeheng Wang, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia

Professor Vladimir Kulbachinskii, Moskovskij gosudarstvennyj universitet imeni M V Lomonosova, Russian Federation

Outstanding Reviewers

Reviewer of the Year: Dr Simon Hoell, Johannes Kepler Universitat Linz, Austria

Dr Rahman Mahdi, Universiti Malaya, Malaysia

Dr Sushruta Surappa, Stanford University, United States of America

Dr Wennian Yu, Queen’s University, Canada

Dr Yasemin Ozkan-Aydin, University of Notre Dame, United States of America

Dr Hélène Debéda, Bordeaux Sciences Agro, France

Mr Muhammad Istiaque Haider, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, United States of America

Dr Emily McCarthy, Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc, United States of America

Professor Tiantian Xu, Chinese Academy of Sciences Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, China

Dr Chun-Ching Hsiao, National Formosa University, Taiwan

Dr gael Sebald, Razi University, Iran (Islamic Republic of)

Dr Prakash Karipoth, University of Leeds, United Kingdom

Dr Jun xi, Yantai University, China

Dr Dmitry Borin, Technische Universitat Dresden, Germany

Dr Mohammad Hosseini, University of Tehran, Iran (Islamic Republic of)

Dr Michal Sedlacik, Univerzita Tomase Bati ve Zline, Czech Republic

Dr Sonia Freddi, Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy

Dr Hong Hu, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong

Professor Tyler Tallman, Purdue University, United States of America

Dr Alejandro Yawny, Centro Atomico Bariloche, Argentina

Dr Francesco Giorgio-Serchi, The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Dr Kaushik Jayaram, Harvard University, United States of America

Dr Rosana Martinez-Castro, Reynolds, Smith & Hills (RS&H), United States of America

Dr Kejie Wang, Chongqing University, China

Dr Christophe Giraud-Audine, Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Arts et Metiers, France

Dr Natalia Resnina, Sankt-Peterburgskij gosudarstvennyj universitet, Russian Federation

Professor Zishun Liu, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China

Dr Angel Morales, Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Spain

Mr H Soul, Centro Atomico Bariloche, Argentina

Professor Yu-Hsiang Hsu, National Taiwan University, Taiwan

Dr Yogita Parulekar, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, India

Dr Ahmad Serjouei, Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore

Outstanding Reviewers

Professor Ernesto Migliore, Universita degli Studi di Torino, Italy

Dr Horst Machguth, Universite de Fribourg, Switzerland

Dr Paul Wiggins, University of Washington, United States of America

Outstanding Reviewers

Professor Wen-Cong Chen, Qingdao University of Technology, China

Professor Jian-Ning Fu, Department of Astronomy, Beijing Normal University, China

professor Ali Luo, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

Professor Kejun Li, Yunnan Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

Professor Jianguo Yan, State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping, and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, China

Professor Linghua Wang, Peking University, China

Dr. Ning Jiang, University of Science and Technology of China, China

Dr Wei Sun, Purple Mountain Observatory, CAS, China

Dr Jinyuan Liao, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

Dr Xin Huang, National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

Dr Thomas Kotoulas, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, Greece

Outstanding Reviewers

Mr Andrew Jena, University of Waterloo, Canada

Professor Joonwoo Bae, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea (Republic of)

Dr Priyanka Mukhopadhyay, University of Waterloo, Canada

Dr Mingxing Luo, Southwest Jiaotong University, China

Dr Sahel Ashhab, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japan

Dr Yu-Bo Sheng, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China

Ms Christa Zoufal, Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule Zurich, Switzerland

Dr Jonathan lau, Centre for Quantum Technologies, Singapore

Dr Yongcheng Ding, Shanghai University, China

Dr J Kestner, University of Maryland, United States of America