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Christophe,
This is very true, and there are storage DBs for images that are
starting to evolve, that if standardized, could be part of the solution
to some of these problems, i.e., the Open Microscopy Environment
(http://www.openmicroscopy.org/). I am not sure that journals will want
to take on the responsibility of data storage (maybe for the right
publication price). However, as in the past, it should probably be the
universities that shoulder the responsibility of being the "keepers of
the data" linked to appropriate publications, and not just in the labs.
This could be a library function of sorts possibly associated with the
storage and distribution of electronic thesis and dissertations (private
research... forgive me, I am viewing this from a university
perspective), and for private research... maybe they could contract with
universities for storage of raw data once the patent pending questions
have been laid to rest. Meta data in the form of raw digital information
is very important because meta data research based on a "modern" look at
old information holds great promise. The saying "hind sight is 20 20"
takes on real meaning in view of meta data analysis. Even if a data set
is completely acceptable today to peer review and detailed analysis does
not mean it will always be that way, or that with new ways of analysis,
additional future information can be realized. My 2 cents worth...
Larry
Christophe Leterrier wrote:
> Search the CONFOCAL archive at
> http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal
>
> The space limitation only applies to the article by itself. As someone
> said earlier, digital space is cheap, I see nothing impossible in
> joining a 140 pages pdf as a supplementary data to a 5 pages article,
> so anyone who wants to go deeper in the data can, whereas those who
> wants to see the refined and discussed stuff read the article...
>
> Christophe
>
> On Tue, Jul 1, 2008 at 14:22, Bill Oliver <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Search the CONFOCAL archive at
>> http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal
>>
>> Sure. There are lots of problems with the statistics in scientific papers
>> in many fields. That's not the point, though. The point is that you have
>> limited *space* to present your data in a peer-reviewed journal. I recently
>> did a survey on a professional practice issue in my primary medical
>> specialty as part of a Master's in Public Administration. For the project,
>> I did a full statistical analysis of 16 of the 50 hypotheses. The detailed
>> report that I turned into my research advisor was 140 pages long.
>>
>> When I publish the paper, I will have 5-8 pages to fit my results in. It
>> doesn't matter whether or not the readers want to see the original data and
>> evaluate the statistics on their own. They are going to get 5-8 pages of
>> summary results. You simply can't fit 140 pages of analysis into 6 pages.
>>
>> The same prinicple applies to imagery.
>>
>> billo
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 1 Jul 2008, ian gibbins wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Search the CONFOCAL archive at
>>> http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=confocal
>>>
>>> I agree, billo, but that does assume that the statistics are done
>>> properly.
>>>
>>> If we are talking about data integrity and reliable reporting, then a
>>> whole squirming bag of worms, leeches and various other unlikable beasts is
>>> opened when we bring up the "S" word. As one who does a lot of statistical
>>> analysis for folks around here, most people do not understand either the
>>> principles or practice of the statistics of data sampling and its subsequent
>>> investigation. There are plenty of excellent programs around, as well as a
>>> whole raft of texts at various levels, that allow sophisticated data
>>> analysis with relative ease these days. Nevertheless, most students, and
>>> most researchers, at least in my field, have only rudimentary knowledge.
>>>
>>> There have been studies done in the medical literature showing that a very
>>> high proportion of papers use the wrong stats, and that many of those papers
>>> came to the wrong conclusion as a consequence. I don't know if that applies
>>> equally in all fields, and in some journals at least, the standards of
>>> statistical analysis are now set pretty high. But there is still an awful
>>> lot done badly, if at all... So we get oversamp[ling, undersampling, biased
>>> sampling (not Nyqusit, but at the data level), we get inappropriate
>>> "normalisation", over-use of percentages, inappropriate use of simple tests
>>> (eg t-tests, or oneway ANOVAs) to deal with complex experimental designs,
>>> resulting in a tendency to get "significance" when none exists, and then the
>>> infamous phrase "... X and Y happened leading to Z, but it did not reach
>>> statistical significance ... "
>>>
>>>
>>> Unfortunately, there's plenty more where that came from...
>>>
>>> IAN
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> We live in a world in which we have a limited space to demonstrate
>>>> results. Most journal articles are there to demonstrate results, not provide
>>>> comprehensive data sets. Thus, the appropriate illustration is that which
>>>> best demonstrates the finding. If you have 1000 trials and of these 700
>>>> show a result and 300 show nothing, one is not obligated to provide 1000
>>>> images, or even 100 or even 10. It is more useful to provide an
>>>> illustration of the positive finding and note the statistics, assuming that
>>>> the appearance of the negative finding is intuitively clear (i.e. positive
>>>> shows staining and negative is dark). If the difference between positive
>>>> and negative is unclear, it may be useful to provide an image of each, but I
>>>> don't think that's usually necessry. I don't see any need to take up
>>>> multiple pages of images of negative results just to demonstrate statistics
>>>> that are more properly described succinctly in the text.
>>>>
>>>> There is simply no way to provide all of the data in most things in a
>>>> couple of pages.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> billo
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> * * * * * * * * * * *
>>> Prof Ian Gibbins
>>> Anatomy & Histology
>>> Flinders University
>>> GPO Box 2100
>>> Adelaide SA 5001
>>> AUSTRALIA
>>>
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>> voice: +61-8-8204 5271
>>> fax: +61-8-8277 0085
>>>
>>> http://som.flinders.edu.au/FUSA/Anatomy/
>>> http://www.flinders.edu.au/neuroscience
>>>
>>>
>> billo
>> http://www.billoblog.com/billoblog
>>
>>
--
Larry Tague
Co-Investigator BBHSL*
Co-Director of MECCA**
Research Associate (Dept. of Physiology)
University of Tennessee Health Science Center
894 Union Ave.
Memphis, TN 38163
Phone Bus.: 901-448-7152
Phone FAX: 901-448-7126
e-mail:[log in to unmask] or
[log in to unmask]
*BBHSL "Building Bridges to Health Science Literacy" URL: http://bbhsl.mecca.org, a Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA). Supported by the National Center of Research Resources (NCRR) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
**MECCA (Memphis Educational Computer Connectivity Alliance)
URL: http://www.mecca.org/. Originally support by the National Science Foundation's "Networking Infrastructure or Education" program.
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