(Press-News.org) The federal peer review system, by which research proposals are judged worthy for funding, may be "over stretched" and "susceptible to error," said Elmer Yglesias, a researcher at the Science and Technology Policy Institute and author of "Improving Peer Review in the Federal Government," published in the current issue of TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION, Proceedings of the National Academy of Inventors ™, (www.academyofinventors.org) now available on-line at: http://www.cognizantcommunication.com/filecabinet/Technology/techinnovation.html
According to Yglesias, the federal peer review system is awash in an increasing number of funding proposals, leaving him to wonder if the peer review system is up to the challenge.
"Indications are that the system is over stretched," said Yglesias. "In addition, the number of U.S. researchers qualified to perform these reviews is not only limited, but declining as well. With fewer reviewers, funding decisions are more susceptible to error."
Not unlike a systematic check might be instituted for an engineering quality issue, Yglesias recommends a system of "calibration" to mitigate undesired outcomes. Calibration, he suggested, might prevent three kinds of errors: errors occurring because a proposal is selected for funding when it should not have been because of the reviewers failing to get good instructions and, second, errors occurring because reviewers were biased and swayed the panel. A third kind of error comes from over confident reviewers.
"This error occurs because some reviewers are correct far less than they think," commented Yglesias.
For Yglesias, the peer review system can be improved and validated through "calibration," which he defines as the use of specific measurement techniques compared to a standard. Providing standard examples to reviewers and running mock reviews would help, he added.
"Unfortunately, not many program officers are trained to facilitate a calibration," said Yglesias. "Also, it requires extra time and resources."
For a calibration program, he recommends "Calibrated Peer Review" ™, a web-based program developed at UCLA through which student writing assignments are graded by student peers.
"It would not be difficult to conceive a similar system to calibrate the review of scientific proposals," he concluded.
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The National Academy of Inventors ™ recognizes and encourages inventors who have a patent issued from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, enhances the visibility of university technology and academic innovation, encourages the disclosure of intellectual property, educates and mentors innovative students, and encourages the translation of the inventions of its members to benefit society.
The editorial offices of TECHNOLOGY and INNOVATION are located at the University of South Florida, Office of Research and Innovation, 3702 Spectrum Blvd., Suite 175, Tampa, Florida, 33612. Tel: (813) 974-3181. Email jlowry@research.usf.edu
News Release by Randolph Fillmore, Florida Science Communications, www.sciencescribe.net
The number and scale of forest fires has increased dramatically in recent decades. Who can forget last summer's television images of blazing infernos devouring miles and miles of forest in Russia, Australia and California? In Germany, too, several regions are under threat precipitated by climate change – Brandenburg, for example, is one of the areas of Europe that are most at risk.
Often, fires can only be contained from the air. In order to fight them in a targeted way, firefighting planes need to be given precise information on where the flames are at their worst. Infrared ...
The so-called "superstreet" traffic design results in significantly faster travel times, and leads to a drastic reduction in automobile collisions and injuries, according to North Carolina State University researchers who have conducted the largest-ever study of superstreets and their impacts.
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Led by Charis Eng, M.D., Ph.D., Chair of the Genomic Medicine Institute at the Lerner Research Institute of Cleveland Clinic, the study – the largest clinical study to date on the identification ...
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A paper describing a dramatic change during the 20th century in England and Wales in the association between social class and mortality from liver cirrhosis features in Alcohol and Alcoholism. While deaths from cirrhosis were more common among higher social classes in the early part of the century, the pattern changed so that deaths from cirrhosis were much more common among the lower social classes by the end of the century. Data on male cirrhosis mortality by social class were obtained from the Registrar General's Decennial Supplements for the years 1921�.
The ...
PITTSBURGH, Jan. 10 – A researcher at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, in collaboration with scientists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has discovered that the deadly plaques of Alzheimer's disease interact with certain cellular proteins to inhibit normal signals that maintain blood flow to the brain. Their findings, which could lead to new approaches to treat the dementia, were recently published in Public Library of Science One.
Levels of nitric oxide (NO) – a signaling molecule that helps regulate blood flow, immune and neurological processes ...
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Research by engineers and cancer biologists at Virginia Tech indicate that using specific silicon microdevices might provide a new way to screen breast cancer cells' ability to metastasize.
An image of their work provided to Biomaterials was selected as one of the 12 best biomaterials-related images published in the journal's 2010 catalogue. http://www.elsevierscitech.com/pdfs/Biomaterials_2010.pdf
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LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 4, 2011) − Scientists at the University of Kentucky have discovered that plasminogen, a protein used by the body to break up blood clots, speeds up the progress of prion diseases such as mad cow disease.
This finding makes plasminogen a promising new target for the development of drugs to treat prion diseases in humans and animals, says study senior author Chongsuk Ryou, a researcher at the UK Sanders-Brown Center on Aging and professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics in the UK College of Medicine.
"I hope that our study ...
Alexandria, VA – Where to next in the search for oil and gas? EARTH examines several possible new frontiers - including the Arctic, the Falkland Islands, the Levant, Trinidad and Tobago and Sudan - where oil and gas exploration are starting to take hold. One of those places, Sudan, is in the news for other reasons: South Sudan voted yesterday on whether to secede from North Sudan.
But given that South Sudan holds more than 70 percent of Sudan's 5 billion to 6 billion barrels of proven reserves, a lot in this election hinges on oil. If South Sudan does secede, how will ...
