Related Articles

Plagiarism and inadequate citing appear to have reached epidemic proportions in research publication. This article discusses how plagiarism is defined and suggests some possible causes for the increase in the plagiarism disease. Most editors do not have much tolerance for text re-use with inadequate citation regardless of reasons why words are copied from other sources without correct attribution. However, there is now some awareness that re-use of words in research articles to improve the writing or “the English” (which has become a common practice) should be distinguished from intentional deceit for the purpose of stealing other authors’ ideas (which appears to remain a very rare practice). Although it has become almost as easy for editors to detect duplicate text as it is for authors to re-use text from other sources, editors often fail to consider the reasons why researchers resort to this strategy, and tend to consider any text duplication as a symptom of serious misconduct. As a result, some authors may be stigmatized unfairly by being labeled as plagiarists. The article concludes with practical advice for researchers on how to improve their writing and citing skills and thus avoid accusations of plagiarism.

Background

In an effort to identify previously unrecognized aspects of editorial decision-making, we explored the words and phrases that one group of editors used during their meetings.

Methods

We performed an observational study of discussions at manuscript meetings at JAMA, a major US general medical journal. One of us (KD) attended 12 editorial meetings in 2003 as a visitor and took notes recording phrases from discussion surrounding 102 manuscripts. In addition, editors attending the meetings completed a form for each manuscript considered, listing the reasons they were inclined to proceed to the next step in publication and reasons they were not (DR attended 4/12 meetings). We entered the spoken and written phrases into NVivo 2.0. We then developed a schema for classifying the editors' phrases, using an iterative approach.

Results

Our classification schema has three main themes: science, journalism, and writing. We considered 2,463 phrases, of which 87 related mainly to the manuscript topic and were not classified (total 2,376 classified). Phrases related to science predominated (1,274 or 54%). The editors, most of whom were physicians, also placed major weight on goals important to JAMA's mission (journalism goals) such as importance to medicine, strategic emphasis for the journal, interest to the readership, and results (729 or 31% of phrases). About 16% (n = 373) of the phrases used related to writing issues, such as clarity and responses to the referees' comments.

Conclusion

Classification of editorial discourse provides insight into editorial decision making and concepts that need exploration in future studies.

The lexical bias effect (the tendency for phonological speech errors to create words more often than nonwords) has been debated for over 30 years. One account attributes the effect to a lexical editor, a strategic component of the production system that examines each planned phonological string, and suppresses it if it is a nonword. The alternative explanation is that the effect occurs automatically as a result of phonological-lexical feedback. Using a new paradigm, we explicitly asked participants to do lexical editing on their planned speech and compared performance on this inner lexical decision task to results obtained from the standard lexical decision task in three subsequent experiments. Our experimentally created “lexical editor” needed 300 ms to recognize and suppress nonwords, as determined by comparing reaction times when editing was and was not required. Therefore, we concluded that even though strategic lexical editing can be done, any such editing that occurs in daily speech occurs sporadically, if at all.

Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying complex disorders requires the integration of data and knowledge from different sources including free text literature and various biomedical databases. To facilitate this process, we created the Biomedical Concept Diagram Editor (BCDE) to help researchers distill knowledge from data and literature and aid the process of hypothesis development. A key feature of BCDE is the ability to capture information with a simple drag-and-drop. This is a vast improvement over manual methods of knowledge and data recording and greatly increases the efficiency of the biomedical researcher. BCDE also provides a unique concept matching function to enforce consistent terminology, which enables conceptual relationships deposited by different researchers in the BCDE database to be mined and integrated for intelligible and useful results. We hope BCDE will promote the sharing and integration of knowledge from different researchers for effective hypothesis development.

Summary: Skyline is a Windows client application for targeted proteomics method creation and quantitative data analysis. It is open source and freely available for academic and commercial use. The Skyline user interface simplifies the development of mass spectrometer methods and the analysis of data from targeted proteomics experiments performed using selected reaction monitoring (SRM). Skyline supports using and creating MS/MS spectral libraries from a wide variety of sources to choose SRM filters and verify results based on previously observed ion trap data. Skyline exports transition lists to and imports the native output files from Agilent, Applied Biosystems, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Waters triple quadrupole instruments, seamlessly connecting mass spectrometer output back to the experimental design document. The fast and compact Skyline file format is easily shared, even for experiments requiring many sample injections. A rich array of graphs displays results and provides powerful tools for inspecting data integrity as data are acquired, helping instrument operators to identify problems early. The Skyline dynamic report designer exports tabular data from the Skyline document model for in-depth analysis with common statistical tools.

Availability: Single-click, self-updating web installation is available at http://proteome.gs.washington.edu/software/skyline. This web site also provides access to instructional videos, a support board, an issues list and a link to the source code project.

Contact: brendanx@u.washington.edu

Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Background

In plants, RNA editing is a process that converts specific cytidines to uridines and uridines to cytidines in transcripts from virtually all mitochondrial protein-coding genes. There are thousands of plant mitochondrial genes in the sequence databases, but sites of RNA editing have not been determined for most. Accurate methods of RNA editing site prediction will be important in filling in this information gap and could reduce or even eliminate the need for experimental determination of editing sites for many sequences. Because RNA editing tends to increase protein conservation across species by "correcting" codons that specify unconserved amino acids, this principle can be used to predict editing sites by identifying positions where an RNA editing event would increase the conservation of a protein to homologues from other plants. PREP-Mt takes this approach to predict editing sites for any protein-coding gene in plant mitochondria.

Results

To test the general applicability of the PREP-Mt methodology, RNA editing sites were predicted for 370 full-length or nearly full-length DNA sequences and then compared to the known sites of RNA editing for these sequences. Of 60,263 cytidines in this test set, PREP-Mt correctly classified 58,994 as either an edited or unedited site (accuracy = 97.9%). PREP-Mt properly identified 3,038 of the 3,698 known sites of RNA editing (sensitivity = 82.2%) and 55,956 of the 56,565 known unedited sites (specificity = 98.9%). Accuracy and sensitivity increased to 98.7% and 94.7%, respectively, after excluding the 489 silent editing sites (which have no effect on protein sequence or function) from the test set.

Conclusion

These results indicate that PREP-Mt is effective at identifying C to U RNA editing sites in plant mitochondrial protein-coding genes. Thus, PREP-Mt should be useful in predicting protein sequences for use in molecular, biochemical, and phylogenetic analyses. In addition, PREP-Mt could be used to determine functionality of a mitochondrial gene or to identify particular sequences with unusual editing properties. The PREP-Mt methodology should be applicable to any system where RNA editing increases protein conservation across species.

Background

Genomics research produces vast amounts of experimental data that needs to be integrated in order to understand, model, and interpret the underlying biological phenomena. Interpreting these large and complex data sets is challenging and different visualization methods are needed to help produce knowledge from the data.

Results

To help researchers to visualize and interpret integrated genomics data, we present a novel visualization method and bioinformatics software tool called FORG3D that is based on real-time three-dimensional force-directed graphs. FORG3D can be used to visualize integrated networks of genome scale data such as interactions between genes or gene products, signaling transduction, metabolic pathways, functional interactions and evolutionary relationships. Furthermore, we demonstrate its utility by exploring gene network relationships using integrated data sets from a Caenorhabditis elegans Parkinson's disease model.

Conclusion

We have created an open source software tool called FORG3D that can be used for visualizing and exploring integrated genome scale data.

Summary: Jalview Version 2 is a system for interactive WYSIWYG editing, analysis and annotation of multiple sequence alignments. Core features include keyboard and mouse-based editing, multiple views and alignment overviews, and linked structure display with Jmol. Jalview 2 is available in two forms: a lightweight Java applet for use in web applications, and a powerful desktop application that employs web services for sequence alignment, secondary structure prediction and the retrieval of alignments, sequences, annotation and structures from public databases and any DAS 1.53 compliant sequence or annotation server.

Availability: The Jalview 2 Desktop application and JalviewLite applet are made freely available under the GPL, and can be downloaded from www.jalview.org

Contact: g.j.barton@dundee.ac.uk

Background

Pathway models serve as the basis for much of systems biology. They are often built using programs designed for the purpose. Constructing new models generally requires simultaneous access to experimental data of diverse types, to databases of well-characterized biological compounds and molecular intermediates, and to reference model pathways. However, few if any software applications provide all such capabilities within a single user interface.

Results

The Pathway Editor is a program written in the Java programming language that allows de-novo pathway creation and downloading of LIPID MAPS (Lipid Metabolites and Pathways Strategy) and KEGG lipid metabolic pathways, and of measured time-dependent changes to lipid components of metabolism. Accessed through Java Web Start, the program downloads pathways from the LIPID MAPS Pathway database (Pathway) as well as from the LIPID MAPS web server . Data arises from metabolomic (lipidomic), microarray, and protein array experiments performed by the LIPID MAPS consortium of laboratories and is arranged by experiment. Facility is provided to create, connect, and annotate nodes and processes on a drawing panel with reference to database objects and time course data. Node and interaction layout as well as data display may be configured in pathway diagrams as desired. Users may extend diagrams, and may also read and write data and non-lipidomic KEGG pathways to and from files. Pathway diagrams in XML format, containing database identifiers referencing specific compounds and experiments, can be saved to a local file for subsequent use. The program is built upon a library of classes, referred to as the Biopathways Workbench, that convert between different file formats and database objects. An example of this feature is provided in the form of read/construct/write access to models in SBML (Systems Biology Markup Language) contained in the local file system.

Conclusion

Inclusion of access to multiple experimental data types and of pathway diagrams within a single interface, automatic updating through connectivity to an online database, and a focus on annotation, including reference to standardized lipid nomenclature as well as common lipid names, supports the view that the Pathway Editor represents a significant, practicable contribution to current pathway modeling tools.

Background

Publication of ethically uncertain research occurs despite well-published guidelines set forth in documents such as the Declaration of Helsinki. Such guidelines exist to aide editorial staff in making decisions regarding ethical acceptability of manuscripts submitted for publication, yet examples of ethically suspect and uncertain publication exist. Our objective was to survey journal editors regarding practices and attitudes surrounding such dilemmas.

Methods

The Editor-in-chief of each of the 103 English-language journals from the 2005 Abridged Index Medicus list publishing original research were asked to complete a survey sent to them by email between September-December 2007.

Results

A response rate of 33% (n = 34) was obtained from the survey. 18% (n = 6) of respondents had published ethically uncertain or suspect research within the last 10 years. 85% (n = 29) of respondents stated they would always reject ethically uncertain articles submitted for publication on ethical grounds alone. 12% (n = 4) of respondents stated they would approach each submission on a case-by-case basis. 3% (n = 1) stated they would be likely to publish such research, but only with accompanying editorial. Only 38% (n = 13) give reviewers explicit instruction to reject submissions on ethical grounds if found wanting.

Conclusions

Editorial compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki in rejecting research that is conducted unethically was difficult to ascertain because of a poor response rate despite multiple attempts using different modalities. Of those who did respond, the majority do reject ethically suspect research but few explicitly advise reviewers to do so. In this study editors did not take advantage of the opportunity to describe their support for the rejection of the publication of unethical research.

Background

BioMed Central (BMC) requires authors to suggest four reviewers when making a submission. Editors searching for reviewers use these suggestions as a source. The review process of the medical journals in the BMC series is open – authors and reviewers know each other's identity – although reviewers can make confidential comments to the editor. Reviews are published alongside accepted articles so readers may see the reviewers' names and recommendations.

Our objective was to compare the performance of author-nominated reviewers (ANR) with that of editor-chosen reviewers (ECR) in terms of review quality and recommendations about submissions in an online-only medical journal.

Methods

Pairs of reviews from 100 consecutive submissions to medical journals in the BMC series (with one author-nominated and one editor-chosen reviewer and a final decision) were assessed by two raters, blinded to reviewer type, using a validated review quality instrument (RQI) which rates 7 items on 5-point Likert scales. The raters discussed their ratings after the first 20 pairs (keeping reviewer type masked) and resolved major discrepancies in scoring and interpretation to improve inter-rater reliability. Reviewers' recommendations were also compared.

Results

Reviewer source had no impact on review quality (mean RQI score (± SD) 2.24 ± 0.55 for ANR, 2.34 ± 0.54 for ECR) or tone (mean scores on additional question 2.72 ANR vs 2.82 ECR) (maximum score = 5 in both cases). However author-nominated reviewers were significantly more likely to recommend acceptance (47 vs 35) and less likely to recommend rejection (10 vs 23) than editor-chosen reviewers after initial review (p < 0.001). However, by the final review stage (i.e. after authors had responded to reviewer comments) ANR and ECR recommendations were similar (65 vs 66 accept, 10 vs 14 reject, p = 0.47). The number of reviewers unable to decide about acceptance was similar in both groups at both review stages.

Conclusion

Author-nominated reviewers produced reviews of similar quality to editor-chosen reviewers but were more likely to recommend acceptance during the initial stages of peer review.

Consumption of trans fats is associated with an increase of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. To comply with regulatory policies and public health authorities recommendations, trans fats should be replaced in food products. The study by Sundram et al. (Nutrition & Metabolism 2007, 4:3) reporting the effect on CVD risk factors of interesterified fat (IE) and partially hydrogenated soybean oil (PHSO) compared to palm olein (POL) has been critically analyzed. The study design and in particular the composition of the tested fats was not suitable to properly answer the question raised regarding the effect of alternative ingredients to trans fats on plasma lipids. The observed effects are divergent with predicted data derived from the literature model consolidated using the individual results of 60 randomized clinical trials. The results of the study published by Sundram and co-workers have to be considered with awareness.

Objective To assess the current international representation of members of editorial and advisory boards and authors in the leading peer reviewed literature on tropical medicine.

Design Systematic review.

Main outcome measures Country affiliations, as classified by the human development index, of editorial and advisory board members of all tropical medicine journals referenced by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) as of late 2003 and of all contributing authors of full articles published in the six leading journals on tropical medicine in 2000-2.

Results Sixteen (5.1%) of the 315 editorial and advisory board members from the 12 ISI referenced journals on tropical medicine are affiliated to countries with a low human development index and 223 (70.8%) to countries with a high index. Examination of the 2384 full articles published in 2000-2 in the six highest ranking tropical medicine journals showed that 48.1% of contributing authors are affiliated to countries with a high human development index, whereas the percentage of authors from countries with a low index was 13.7%. Articles written exclusively by authors from low ranked countries accounted for 5.0%. Our data indicate that research collaborations between a country with a high human development index and one that has either a medium or a low index are common and account for 26.5% and 16.1% of all full articles, respectively.

Conclusion Current collaborations should be transformed into research partnerships, with the goals of mutual learning and institutional capacity strengthening in the developing world.

Objectives: To examine the perspectives of journal editors and authors on overlapping and redundant publications in clinical research.

Design: Pretested cross-sectional survey, containing both forced choice and open ended questions, administered by mail to the senior editors (N=99) and one randomly selected author (N=99) from all journals in the Abridged Index Medicus (1996) that published clinical research.

Main measurements: The views of editors and authors about the extent of redundant publications, why they occur, how to prevent and respond to cases, and when the publication of overlapping manuscripts is justified.

Results: Seventy two per cent (N=71) of editors and 65% (N=64) of authors completed the survey. There was consensus between both groups that redundant publications occur because authors feel the pressure to publish and journals do not do enough to publicise, criticise, and punish cases, and that the publication of most types of overlapping articles is unacceptable. Sixty seven per cent of authors but only 31% of editors felt, however, that it was justified to publish an overlapping article in a non-peer reviewed symposium supplement, and 68% of editors but 39% of authors supported imposing restrictions on guilty authors' future submissions. In written comments, 15% to 30% of both groups emphasised that it was justified to publish overlapping articles when there were different or non-English-speaking audiences, new data, strengthened methods, or disputed findings.

Conclusions: Editors, authors, and other academic leaders should together develop explicit guidelines that clarify points of contention and ambiguity regarding overlapping manuscripts.

RNA editing alters plant mitochondrial and chloroplast transcripts by converting specific cytidines to uridines, which usually results in a change in the amino acid sequence of the translated protein. Systematic studies have experimentally identified sites of RNA editing in organellar transcriptomes from several species, but these analyses have not kept pace with rate of genome sequencing. The PREP (predictive RNA editors for plants) suite was developed to computationally predict sites of RNA editing based on the well-known principle that editing in plant organelles increases the conservation of proteins across species. The PREP suite provides predictive RNA editors for plant mitochondrial genes (PREP-Mt), for chloroplast genes (PREP-Cp), and for alignments submitted by the user (PREP-Aln). These servers require minimal input, are very fast, and are highly accurate on all seed plants examined to date. PREP-Mt has proved useful in several research studies and the newly developed PREP-Cp and PREP-Aln servers should be of further assistance for analyses that require knowledge of the location of sites of RNA editing. The PREP suite is freely available at http://prep.unl.edu/.

Health research on race and ethnicity has been criticized for lacking rigor in conceptualization, terminology, and analysis. Scientific journals' editorial processes help determine research quality. This survey assessed editors' awareness of current debates, attitudes toward recent recommendations, and involvement in developing editorial policies. Twenty-nine editors of health journals with impact factors of > or = 1 (based on citation ratings) were sent a questionnaire including four key problems identified in research literature and recommendations from federal agencies; 23 (79%) responded. Seven editors relevant policies. Two had read the federal directive on racial and ethnic classification; one was aware of its current review. Most perceived the four key problems as uncommon. The majority agreed with Public Health Service recommendations on race and ethnicity research, except for analyzing effects of racism. Approximately 20% had discussed issues with co-editors, editorial boards, or reviewers. About 40% saw further discussion as beneficial; four planned to draft guidelines. Editors' potential for helping resolve problems in race/ethnicity research is not being realized. Greater participation would be beneficial to public health research and practice.

CONTEXT: Incorporation of research findings into clinical practice lags behind their dissemination in the medical literature. Arden Syntax is a standard that could be used to encode evidence in a clinical decision support system (CDSS). However, dissemination of knowledge is hampered by lack of standard linkages to clinical databases. OBJECTIVE: To create a knowledge editor that facilitates transfer of knowledge from the medical literature to clinical practice via a CDSS. METHODS: Using a Web browser-based application, we implemented linkages to MEDLINE to permit queries on demand and registration of queries to be executed periodically, with results copied into Arden Medical Logic Modules (MLMs). To facilitate standardization of MLMs, database linkages are encoded using emerging HL7 standards such as a data model (virtual medical record). CONCLUSIONS: A Web-based application can facilitate transfer of knowledge into clinical practice and knowledge base maintenance through periodic queries and deployment of standards for knowledge representation.

The Partners Computerized Algorithm Processor and Editor (P-CAPE) is a high-level tool intended to remove the programming bottleneck for implementing practice guidelines in our computer-based record system, and to integrate guideline-based advice into the clinician's workflow. P-CAPE has three major components: 1) An Editor that allows an analyst to enter the parameters of a guideline in the form of an algorithm; 2) A Navigator that processes the steps of the guideline and logs all transactions in a patient-specific file; and 3) A clinician Notifier that sends messages to a patient's covering clinician, seeking data or presenting recommendations and order sets that can be processed by the system. P-CAPE's guideline object model was adapted from the InterMed Collaboratory GuideLine Interface Format (GLIF).

Objective (1) To analyse trends in the journal impact factor (IF) of seven general medical journals (Ann Intern Med, BMJ, CMAJ, JAMA, Lancet, Med J Aust and N Engl J Med) over 12 years; and (2) to ascertain the views of these journals' past and present Editors on factors that had affected their journals' IFs during their tenure, including direct editorial policies.

Design Retrospective analysis of IF data from ISI Web of Knowledge Journal Citation Reports—Science Edition, 1994 to 2005, and interviews with Editors-in-Chief.

Setting Medical journal publishing.

Participants Ten Editors-in-Chief of the journals, except Med J Aust, who served between 1999 and 2004.

Main outcome measures IFs and component numerator and denominator data for the seven general medical journals (1994 to 2005) were collected. IFs are calculated using the formula: (Citations in year z to articles published in years x and y)/(Number of citable articles published in years x and y), where z is the current year and x and y are the previous two years. Editors' views on factors that had affected their journals' IFs were also obtained.

Results IFs generally rose over the 12-year period, with the N Engl J Med having the highest IF throughout. However, percentage rises in IF relative to the baseline year of 1994 were greatest for CMAJ (about 500%) and JAMA (260%). Numerators for most journals tended to rise over this period, while denominators tended to be stable or to fall, although not always in a linear fashion. Nine of ten eligible editors were interviewed. Possible reasons given for rises in citation counts included: active recruitment of high-impact articles by courting researchers; offering authors better services; boosting the journal's media profile; more careful article selection; and increases in article citations. Most felt that going online had not affected citations. Most had no deliberate policy to publish fewer articles (lowering the IF denominator), which was sometimes the unintended result of other editorial policies. The two Editors who deliberately published fewer articles did so as they realized IFs were important to authors. Concerns about the accuracy of ISI counting for the IF denominator prompted some to routinely check their IF data with ISI. All Editors had mixed feelings about using IFs to evaluate journals and academics, and mentioned the tension between aiming to improve IFs and ‘keeping their constituents [clinicians] happy.’

Conclusions IFs of the journals studied rose in the 12-year period due to rising numerators and/or falling denominators, to varying extents. Journal Editors perceived that this occurred for various reasons, including deliberate editorial practices. The vulnerability of the IF to editorial manipulation and Editors' dissatisfaction with it as the sole measure of journal quality lend weight to the need for complementary measures.

Summary: Computational methods designed to discover transcription factor binding sites in DNA sequences often have a tendency to make a lot of false predictions. One way to improve accuracy in motif discovery is to rely on positional priors to focus the search to parts of a sequence that are considered more likely to contain functional binding sites. We present here a program called PriorsEditor that can be used to create such positional priors tracks based on a combination of several features, including phylogenetic conservation, nucleosome occupancy, histone modifications, physical properties of the DNA helix and many more.

Availability: PriorsEditor is available as a web start application and downloadable archive from http://tare.medisin.ntnu.no/priorseditor (requires Java 1.6). The web site also provides tutorials, screenshots and example protocol scripts.

Contact: kjetil.klepper@ntnu.no

Harvey Marcovitch discusses new research findings from Andreas Lundh and colleagues that examined the effect of publishing industry-funded clinical trials on journal citations and reprint income at six major medical journals.

Background

So far, there have been no Flash-based web tools available for chemical structure input. The authors herein present a feasibility study, aiming at the development of a compact and easy-to-use 2D structure editor, using Adobe's Flash technology and its programming language, ActionScript. As a reference model application from the Java world, we selected the Java Molecular Editor (JME). In this feasibility study, we made an attempt to realize a subset of JME's functionality in the Flash Molecular Editor (FlaME) utility. These basic capabilities are: structure input, editing and depiction of single molecules, data import and export in molfile format.

Implementation

The result of molecular diagram sketching in FlaME is accessible in V2000 molfile format. By integrating the molecular editor into a web page, its communication with the HTML elements on this page is established using the two JavaScript functions, getMol() and setMol(). In addition, structures can be copied to the system clipboard.

Conclusion

A first attempt was made to create a compact single-file application for 2D molecular structure input/editing on the web, based on Flash technology. With the application examples presented in this article, it could be demonstrated that the Flash methods are principally well-suited to provide the requisite communication between the Flash object (application) and the HTML elements on a web page, using JavaScript functions.

Summary: The explosion of interest in non-coding RNAs, together with improvements in RNA X-ray crystallography, has led to a rapid increase in RNA structures at atomic resolution from 847 in 2005 to 1900 in 2010. The success of whole-genome sequencing has led to an explosive growth of unaligned homologous sequences. Consequently, there is a compelling and urgent need for user-friendly tools for producing structure-informed RNA alignments. Most alignment software considers the primary sequence alone; some specialized alignment software can also include Watson–Crick base pairs, but none adequately addresses the needs introduced by the rapid influx of both sequence and structural data. Therefore, we have developed the Boulder ALignment Editor (ALE), which is a web-based RNA alignment editor, designed for editing and assessing alignments using structural information. Some features of BoulderALE include the annotation and evaluation of an alignment based on isostericity of Watson–Crick and non-Watson–Crick base pairs, along with the collapsing (horizontally and vertically) of the alignment, while maintaining the ability to edit the alignment.

Availability: http://www.microbio.me/boulderale.

Contact: jesse.stombaugh@colorado.edu

Modern imaging techniques are able to generate high-resolution multimodal angiographic scans. The analysis of vasculature using numerous 2D tomographic images is time consuming and tedious, while 3D modeling and visualization enable presentation of the vasculature in a more convenient and intuitive way. This calls for development of interactive tools facilitating processing of angiographic scans and enabling creation, editing, and manipulation of 3D vascular models. Our objective is to develop a vascular editor (VE) which provides a suitable environment for experts to create and manipulate 3D vascular models correlated with surrounding anatomy. The architecture, functionality, and user interface of the VE are presented. The VE includes numerous interactive tools for building a vascular model from multimodal angiographic scans, editing, labeling, and manipulation of the resulting 3D model. It also provides comprehensive tools for vessel visualization, correlation of 2D and 3D representations, and tracing of small vessels of subpixel size. Education, research, and clinical applications of the VE are discussed, including the atlas of cerebral vasculature. To our best knowledge, there are no other systems offering similar functionality as the VE does.

The role for prehospital thrombolysis for ST-elevation acute myocardial infarction and time-critical stroke transfers in the northern Norway aeromedical retrieval system as well as the aero-evacuation impact of increased Arctic expedition tourism could benefit from further discussion by Norum and Elsbak. Close ECG surveillance for ST elevation and retrieval thrombolysis en route to the accepting hospital could be of benefit for acute coronary syndrome patients in northern Norway who require prolonged aeromedical transfer. For patients who remain within a reasonable time frame for stroke thrombolysis (up to 4.5 h after symptom onset), expedited transfer for neuroimaging to determine eligibility is recommended.