Rapid and Open Peer Review

Using preprints in evidence synthesis: Commentary on experience during the COVID-19 pandemic

[1] Throughout its history, Music Theory Online has leveraged new digital technologies to increase access to high-level scholarship and facilitate discussions of published materials inside the journal itself. (See, for example, the commentaries in Volumes 0.2, 1.1, 13.3, and 16.4.) New technologies and publishing practices have developed in the past few years that can carry these practices even further, in great service to the academic community. One such publishing practice is open peer review, exemplified by publications like the Journal of Digital Humanities, Digital Humanities Now, Digital Humanities This, American History Now, and the book Web Writing: Why and How for Liberal Arts Teaching and Learning (Dougherty et al. 2014). While multiple practices exist that can be considered manifestations of open peer review, open peer review in its fullest sense takes the scholarly discussion that traditionally follows publication-such as the discussion threads contained in the early issues of MTO-and moves it pre-publication, rendering them part of the review process. Open peer review ensures high visibility for the best work, extensive vetting by the scholarly community pre-publication, and a timely publication process, all the while maintaining high standards for peer-reviewed publication.[2] Music theorists would benefit from having an open peer-review journal, and MTO is best situated to be that journal. MTO is also well situated to experiment with open peer review without committing its entire future to such a model. In this article, I will explain open peer review in more detail by following an example article through the process of review and publication, commenting on the potential benefits of this process along the way. I conclude with a proposal for how MTO might experiment with the open peer-review model in order to gauge its potential for our field more precisely.Following the Process[3] One of the first articles to appear in the Journal of Digital Humanities is Trevor Owens's "Defining Data for Humanists: Text, Artifact, Information or Evidence?" This article began as a chapter for the book, Writing History in the Digital Age, itself an open peer-review project (Nawrotski and Dougherty, 2013). Writing History in the Digital Age was undertaken by co-editors Jack Dougherty (Trinity College, Connecticut) and Kristen Nawrotzki (Padagogische Hochschule Heidelberg), in collaboration with the University of Michigan Press. This project is available from UMP as a print book, a downloadable ebook, and an open-access web book as part of their series of digitalculturebooks that explore novel publication models like open peer review and simultaneous print and open-access publication. For that project, Owens co-authored a chapter with Frederick W. Gibbs called "The Hermeneutics of Data and Historical Writing." The first version of this chapter was posted to the project website in the fall of 2011. On this website, readers can comment on the chapter as a whole, or on specific paragraphs in the chapter. The chapter received 35 total comments-12 on the chapter as a whole, and 23 on specific passages. Some of these comments we would recognize as typical peer-review summaries (accept/reject/revise with comments on how best to revise); others were directed at improving specific elements in the chapter.[4] Owens and Gibbs replied to some comments directly, and ultimately composed a revision of this chapter, which appeared on the project website in the spring of 2012. At this stage in the publication process, the chapter moved from review mode to copyediting mode. The chapter on the website includes a link to a document in Google Drive where any reader can comment (though comments ended up limited to the two authors and two editors), but only the document owners can change the text in response to those comments. The final version of this document was submitted to the publisher for inclusion in the print and electronic book editions (Gibbs and Owens 2013). …

Background: “Open peer review” (OPR), despite being a major pillar of Open Science, has neither a standardized definition nor an agreed schema of its features and implementations. The literature reflects this, with a myriad of overlapping and often contradictory definitions. While the term is used by some to refer to peer review where the identities of both author and reviewer are disclosed to each other, for others it signifies systems where reviewer reports are published alongside articles. For others it signifies both of these conditions, and for yet others it describes systems where not only “invited experts” are able to comment. For still others, it includes a variety of combinations of these and other novel methods. Methods: Recognising the absence of a consensus view on what open peer review is, this article undertakes a systematic review of definitions of “open peer review” or “open review”, to create a corpus of 122 definitions. These definitions are then systematically analysed to build a coherent typology of the many different innovations in peer review signified by the term, and hence provide the precise technical definition currently lacking. Results: This quantifiable data yields rich information on the range and extent of differing definitions over time and by broad subject area. Quantifying definitions in this way allows us to accurately portray exactly how ambiguously the phrase “open peer review” has been used thus far, for the literature offers a total of 22 distinct configurations of seven traits, effectively meaning that there are 22 different definitions of OPR in the literature. Conclusions: Based on this work, I propose a pragmatic definition of open peer review as an umbrella term for a number of overlapping ways that peer review models can be adapted in line with the ethos of Open Science, including making reviewer and author identities open, publishing review reports and enabling greater participation in the peer review process.

Background: "Open peer review" (OPR), despite being a major pillar of Open Science, has neither a standardized definition nor an agreed schema of its features and implementations. The literature reflects this, with numerous overlapping and contradictory definitions. While for some the term refers to peer review where the identities of both author and reviewer are disclosed to each other, for others it signifies systems where reviewer reports are published alongside articles. For others it signifies both of these conditions, and for yet others it describes systems where not only "invited experts" are able to comment. For still others, it includes a variety of combinations of these and other novel methods. Methods: Recognising the absence of a consensus view on what open peer review is, this article undertakes a systematic review of definitions of "open peer review" or "open review", to create a corpus of 122 definitions. These definitions are systematically analysed to build a coherent typology of the various innovations in peer review signified by the term, and hence provide the precise technical definition currently lacking. Results: This quantifiable data yields rich information on the range and extent of differing definitions over time and by broad subject area. Quantifying definitions in this way allows us to accurately portray exactly how ambiguously the phrase "open peer review" has been used thus far, for the literature offers 22 distinct configurations of seven traits, effectively meaning that there are 22 different definitions of OPR in the literature reviewed. Conclusions: I propose a pragmatic definition of open peer review as an umbrella term for a number of overlapping ways that peer review models can be adapted in line with the aims of Open Science, including making reviewer and author identities open, publishing review reports and enabling greater participation in the peer review process.

Theory of Change (ToC) has become an established approach to design and evaluate interventions. While ToC should-in line with the growing international focus on evidence-informed health decision-making-consider explicit approaches to incorporate evidence, there is limited guidance on how this should be done. This rapid review aims to identify and synthesize the available literature on how to systematically use research evidence when developing or adapting ToCs in the health sector. A rapid review methodology using a systematic approach, was designed. Eight electronic databases were consulted to search for peer-reviewed and gray publications detailing tools, methods, and recommendations promoting the systematic integration of research evidence in ToCs. The included studies were compared, and the findings summarized qualitatively into themes to identify key principles, stages, and procedures, guiding the systematic integration of research evidence when developing or revising a ToC. This review included 18 studies. The main sources from which evidence was retrieved in the ToC development process were institutional data, literature searches, and stakeholder consultation. There was a variety of ways of finding and using evidence in ToC. Firstly, the review provided an overview of existing definitions of ToC, methods applied in ToC development and the related ToC stages. Secondly, a typology of 7 stages relevant for evidence integration into ToCs was developed, outlining the types of evidence and research methods the included studies applied for each of the proposed stages. This rapid review adds to the existing literature in two ways. First, it provides an up-to-date and comprehensive review of the existing methods for incorporating evidence into ToC development in the health sector. Second, it offers a new typology guiding any future endeavors of incorporating evidence into ToCs.

Whereas in traditional, closed peer review (CPR) a few, selected scientists (peers) are included in the process of manuscript review, public peer review (PPR) includes, in addition to invited reviewers, a wider circle of scientists who are interested in a manuscript and wish to write a comment on it. In this study, using the data of two comprehensive evaluation studies on the CPR process at Angewandte Chemie--International Edition and the PPR process at Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, we examined the language characteristics in comments that were written by invited reviewers in CPR and by invited reviewers and interested members of the scientific community in PPR. We used Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC), a text analysis software program that counts words in meaningful categories (e.g., positive or negative emotions) using a standardized dictionary. We examined 599 comments from the reviews of 229 manuscripts. The results show that the comments in PPR are much longer than the comments in CPR. This is an indication that PPR reviewing has more of an improvement function and CPR reviewing has more of a selection function. The results also show that CPR is not, as might be expected, more susceptible to the expression of negative emotions than PPR is. On the contrary, positive emotion words are used statistically significantly more frequently in CPR than in PPR.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is twofold, first, to discuss the current and future issues around post-publication open peer review. Second, to highlight some of the main protagonists and platforms that encourages open peer review, pre-and post-publication.Design/methodology/approach– The first part of the paper aims to discuss the facilitators and barriers that will enable and prevent academics engaging with the new and established platforms of scholarly communication and review. These issues are covered with the intention of proposing further dialogue within the academic community that ultimately address researchers’ concerns, whilst continuing to nurture a progressive approach to scholarly communication and review. The paper will continue to look at the prominent open post-publication platforms and tools and discuss whether in the future it will become a standard model.Findings– The paper identifies several problems, not exclusive to open peer review that could inhibit academics from being open with their reviews and comments of other’s research. Whilst identifies opportunities to be had by embracing a new era of academic openness.Practical implications– The paper summarises key platforms and arguments for open peer review and will be of interest to researchers in different disciplines as well as the wider academic community wanting to know more about scholarly communications and measurement.Originality/value– This paper looks at many of the new platforms that have been previously ignored and discusses issues relating to open peer review that have only been touched on in brief by other published research.

BackgroundAlthough allied health clinicians play a key role in the provision of healthcare, embedding a culture of research within public and private health systems remains a challenge. In this rapid review we critically evaluate frameworks for embedding research into routine allied health practice, as the basis for high quality, safe, efficient and consumer-focused care.MethodsA rapid review (PROSPERO: CRD42017075699) was conducted to evaluate frameworks designed to create and embed research in the health sector. Included were full-text, English-language, peer-reviewed publications or Government reports of frameworks that could inform the implementation of an allied health research framework. Eight electronic databases and four government websites were searched, using search terms such as models, frameworks and research capacity-building. Two independent researchers conducted all review stages and used content and thematic analysis to interpret the results.ResultsSixteen framework papers were finally included. Content analysis identified 44 system and regulatory level items that informed the research frameworks, 125 healthcare organisation items and 76 items relating to individual clinicians. Thematic analysis identified four major themes. Firstly, sustainable change requires allied health research policies, regulation, governance and organisational structures that support and value evidence-based practice. Secondly, research capability, receptivity, advocacy and literacy of healthcare leaders and managers are key to successful research implementation. Third, organisational factors that facilitate a research culture include dedicated staff research positions, time allocated to research, mentoring, professional education and research infrastructure. When healthcare agencies had strong partnerships with universities and co-located research leaders, research implementation was strengthened. Finally, individual attributes of clinicians, such as their research skills and capabilities, motivation, and participation in research teams, are essential to embedding research into practice.ConclusionTheoretical frameworks were identified that informed processes to embed a culture of allied health research into healthcare services. Research-led and evidence-informed allied health practice enables optimisation of workforce capability and high-quality care.

Scientific journals have been called the ‘minutes of science’ [1]. Born out of the exchange of letters on scientific topics and results, publication is a way of documenting what was done and, particularly in the case of open-access journals, sharing the outcome. Journal publications are considered authoritative and are generally used to inform the work of others, be it further research or, in the case of biomedicine, in treatment decisions for patients. This makes some kind of quality control all the more important. The ‘gold standard’ for this quality control is peer review. Described as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession, it was first introduced by Henry Oldenburg, the founding editor of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, in 1665 as a means of vetting contributions to the Royal Society of London and has persisted in various forms ever since [2]. Peer review is the evaluation of a piece of work by two or more people of similar competence to the authors; but, assuming the reviewing process excludes all those involved in the direct research itself, the persons most qualified to judge the validity of a submitted research paper are precisely those who are the scientist’s closest competitors. This means that the review process can become adversarial, with referees seeming to see it as their responsibility to insist on time-consuming additions and revisions [3,4]. Moreover, under traditional, closed peer-review policies, the identity of the reviewer is withheld from the author, presenting them with a greater opportunity to act arbitrarily. It was in an effort to combat this bias that some journals introduced double-blind peer-review, whereby the author’s name was also concealed from the referee. However, research is a small world and maintaining that blinding often proved impossible. So how did peer review, with these intrinsic issues and biases, become the judicial system of the intellectual world? Simply put, peer review is to science what democracy was to Churchill – ‘the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.’ It has served science well, with a widely-held view that, while it may not be perfect, it is nonetheless far better than anything else we have been able to devise. Indeed, the fundamental idea of peer-review seems sound; the issues lie more with the execution. Under closed systems, such as that currently enforced by the Journal of Negative Results in BioMedicine, there is a lack of transparency of the peer-review process and a lack of availability of evaluative information about published articles to the public. Therefore, as of February 2014, the Journal of Negative Results in BioMedicine will adopt an open peer-review policy. Articles already published, or those manuscripts currently submitted, will not be affected by this change. However, for all manuscripts submitted during or after February 2014, authors will see the reviewers’ names and, if the article is published, the reading public will also see who reviewed the article and how the authors responded. This will be available as part of the pre-publication history of the published article. The peer review process will therefore be completely open and transparent, with the peer reviews being part of the record. Research into the effect of open peer review suggests numerous benefits, in particular accountability, fairness and crediting reviewers for their efforts [5-7]. Furthermore, in a recent study, Kowalczuk et al. revealed that reviewer reports operating under an open peer-review system were of overall higher quality than those under a closed system, with higher scores on questions relating to feedback on the methods (11% higher), constructiveness of the comments (5% higher), and the amount of evidence provided to substantiate the comments (9% higher) [8]. Despite this, we recognise that there are also negatives. Some (junior) reviewers may feel uncomfortable signing a critical report, especially when recommending rejection [9]. This reluctance also means that more potential referees may need to be invited to review a manuscript openly than under a closed peer-review system (Parkin EC et al. unpublished observations) [9-11]. Reviewing an article is no easy task and many of us will have faced the situation where it feels we have put more thought into our review of the article than the authors did in designing the study and writing the manuscript. The move towards an open peer-review policy will give credit where it is due, but moreover will provide valuable information to those reading the article, sharing the referees’ critique of the manuscript and presenting all the necessary information for them to make an objective evaluation for themselves.

The article deals with open peer reviewing as a new way of verifying results of researches in the scientific sector of digital media. The technological modernization of scientific publishers provides for solving some of the problems of the traditional peer reviewing. This explains the topicality of the study. The authors analyzed ten platforms with open peer review that are based in Europe, the USA and Canada. According to the results, a formally similar open peer review process may vary depending on the scope of authority a scientific community has, reviewers’ identification, authors’ opportunities to propose an expert, the degree of review openness, posting the revised versions, and involvement of the editorial board if any. The tools that the platforms use to encourage the scientific community to participate in commenting and reviewing the publications also matter. One of the key advantages of open peer reviewing is reducing the time required for publishing an article, which is crucial for some scientific fields.

Background: Access to oral care is a real public health challenge because dental pathologies affect all social strata, even the most disadvantaged. Knowing that the peripheral level in the health pyramid of Cameroon does not always benefit from oral services, this work proposed to present the offer of oral services in conventional medicine and traditional medicine in the Health District of Mbanga. Materials and methods: A mixed descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out in the Mbanga health district taking place from April 2021 to January 2022. All dentists and traditional therapists providing oral care were included in the study and having given their consent. To do this, a reading grid and an interview guide made it possible to obtain two types of variables. The qualitative variables were analyzed manually with the color code. While the quantitative variables were analyzed using SPSS version 26.0 software. Results: Total 13 traditional healers were found and two dental surgeons working in the community of Mbanga were interacted for this study. The dentists were only women with less than a year of experience. The technical platform consisted of a portable dental chair and a dental case. The benefits were essentially curative. The traditional therapists worked in counters or in their vehicles. The majority of the products were decoctions. They treated oral ailments and would refer to the hospital in case of complications. Only a few used products to perform dental extractions. Conclusion: The offer of services must be within the reach of every individual. However, this offer must be in line with the need. Peer Review History: Received: 1 March 2022; Revised: 9 April; Accepted: 26 April, Available online: 15 May 2022 Academic Editor: Dr. Asia Selman Abdullah, Pharmacy institute, University of Basrah, Iraq, asia_abdullah65@yahoo.com UJPR follows the most transparent and toughest ‘Advanced OPEN peer review’ system. The identity of the authors and, reviewers will be known to each other. This transparent process will help to eradicate any possible malicious/purposeful interference by any person (publishing staff, reviewer, editor, author, etc) during peer review. As a result of this unique system, all reviewers will get their due recognition and respect, once their names are published in the papers. We expect that, by publishing peer review reports with published papers, will be helpful to many authors for drafting their article according to the specifications. Auhors will remove any error of their article and they will improve their article(s) according to the previous reports displayed with published article(s). The main purpose of it is ‘to improve the quality of a candidate manuscript’. Our reviewers check the ‘strength and weakness of a manuscript honestly’. There will increase in the perfection, and transparency. Received file: Reviewer's Comments: Average Peer review marks at initial stage: 5.5/10 Average Peer review marks at publication stage: 7.0/10 Reviewers: Dr. A.A. Mgbahurike, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria, amaka_mgbahurike@yahoo.com Dr. Bilge Ahsen KARA, Ankara Gazi Mustafa Kemal Hospital, Turkey, ahsndkyc@gmail.com Dr. Peter Juma Ochieng, Biotech Research Center (BRC), Obuda University, Hungary, peter26juma@gmail.com Similar Articles: KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDE TOWARD CONE BEAM COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY: A QUESTIONNAIRE STUDY AMONG YEMENI DENTAL PRACTITIONERS KNOWLEDGE AND PERCEPTION OF MOLAR INCISOR HYPOMINERALIZATION AMONG DENTAL PRACTITIONERS IN SANA’A CITY- YEMEN

Background and Objective: Hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are highly contagious pathogens that threaten medical waste handlers who are highly exposed to these viruses due to the nature of their work. To date, little data is available on the prevalence of viral markers (HBV, HCV, and HIV) among medical waste handlers in Sana'a city, Yemen. Hence, this work was conducted to enhance knowledge of the prevalence of viral markers among medical waste handlers working in some hospitals in the capital, Sana'a. Methods: A cross-sectional prospective study was conducted on 120 randomly selected medical waste handlers from January to June 2022. A pretested and designed questionnaire was used to collect the required data. Total 5mL of venous blood was collected. Then blood was tested for hepatitis B surface antigen and anti-HCV, as well as HIV antibody, were detected using a qualitative by rapid test cassette and positive results were confirmed by ELIZA technique. Results: The overall positive rates for HBsAg, anti-HCV, and HIV were 9.17%, 5.0%, and 0.0%, respectively, based on the rapid test. No significant differences were detected between socio-demographic characteristics and hepatitis B and HCV infection. High rates of hepatitis B and C infection were found in the age group ≥41 years (9.17%) and 21-30 years (8.77%), respectively. These two viruses have also been detected among married people with a history of acute infection between 7-9 times. There was a significant correlation between HBsAg positivity and history of blood transfusion as well as between HBsAg and anti-HCV positivity and history of hepatitis B vaccination. ELISA confirmed that the rate of HBsAg was 4.17% and anti-HCV was 2.5%. Conclusion: Appropriate training, immunization against HBV, and regular motivation of medical waste handlers on the practices of universal standard precautions are recommended to reduce transmission of hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus, and HIV among medical waste handlers. Peer Review History: Received: 4 May 2022; Revised: 14 June; Accepted: 27 June, Available online: 15 July 2022 Academic Editor: Dr. Muhammad Zahid Iqbal, AIMST University, Malaysia, drmmziqbal@gmail.com UJPR follows the most transparent and toughest ‘Advanced OPEN peer review’ system. The identity of the authors and, reviewers will be known to each other. This transparent process will help to eradicate any possible malicious/purposeful interference by any person (publishing staff, reviewer, editor, author, etc) during peer review. As a result of this unique system, all reviewers will get their due recognition and respect, once their names are published in the papers. We expect that, by publishing peer review reports with published papers, will be helpful to many authors for drafting their article according to the specifications. Auhors will remove any error of their article and they will improve their article(s) according to the previous reports displayed with published article(s). The main purpose of it is ‘to improve the quality of a candidate manuscript’. Our reviewers check the ‘strength and weakness of a manuscript honestly’. There will increase in the perfection, and transparency. Received file: Reviewer's Comments: Average Peer review marks at initial stage: 6.0/10 Average Peer review marks at publication stage: 7.5/10 Reviewers: Rusmir Baljic, Clinic for infectious diseases, Clinical center University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. rusmir.baljic@gmail.com Dr. Bilge Ahsen KARA, Ankara Gazi Mustafa Kemal Hospital, Turkey, ahsndkyc@gmail.com Prof. Dr. Hassan A.H. Al-Shamahy, Sana'a University, Yemen, shmahe@yemen.net.ye Dr. Jucimary Vieira dos Santos, Hemonorte Dalton Barbosa Cunha, Brazil, jucimaryvieira@yahoo.com.br Dr. Bilge Ahsen KARA, Ankara Gazi Mustafa Kemal Hospital, Turkey, ahsndkyc@gmail.com Similar Articles: PREVALENCE OF HEPATITIS A VIRUS, HEPATITIS B VIRUS, AND HEPATITIS C VIRUS, AMONG PATIENTS WITH HEPATIC JAUNDICE IN SANA’A CITY, YEMEN: A HOSPITAL BASED STUDY SERO-EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY OF HEPATITIS B, C, HIV AND TREPONEMA PALLIDUM AMONG BLOOD DONORS IN HODEIDA CITY- YEMEN EXPLOSION OF HEPATITIS B AND C VIRUSES AMONG HEMODIALYSIS PATIENTS AS A RESULT OF HEMODIALYSIS CRISIS IN YEMEN

Objective: Present study aim for the purification of quantitative phytochemical compounds from roots of Caralluma quadrangula belongs to the family Asclepiadaceae. This type of plants can be use as folk medicine to take care of wide diversity of health and diseases situation. Methods: Preliminary phytochemical analysis for different type of chemical compounds by using various chromatographic techniques. The phytochemical characterizations were evaluated by nuclear magnetic resonance and mass spectrometry. Results: The quantitative phytochemical analysis of this species exhibited the presence four pure compounds, hydroxyoplopan-4-one (4.5 mg), dihydroxyeudesm-4(15)-ene (5.0 mg), and quercetin- rhamnopyranosyl-D-glucopyranose (Rutin) (7.0 mg). Conclusion: From this study, it can be concluded that the species found four pure compounds from C. quadrangula. Peer Review History: Received 25 July 2020; Revised 10 August; Accepted 28 August, Available online 15 September 2020 UJPR follows the most transparent and toughest ‘Advanced OPEN peer review’ system. The identity of the authors and, reviewers will be known to each other. This transparent process will help to eradicate any possible malicious/purposeful interference by any person (publishing staff, reviewer, editor, author, etc) during peer review. As a result of this unique system, all reviewers will get their due recognition and respect, once their names are published in the papers. We expect that, by publishing peer review reports with published papers, will be helpful to many authors for drafting their article according to the specifications. Auhors will remove any error of their article and they will improve their article(s) according to the previous reports displayed with published article(s). The main purpose of it is ‘to improve the quality of a candidate manuscript’. Our reviewers check the ‘strength and weakness of a manuscript honestly’. There will increase in the perfection, and transparency. Received file Average Peer review marks at initial stage: 5.0/10 Average Peer review marks at publication stage: 7.5/10 Reviewer(s) detail: Name: Marwa A. A. Fayed Affiliation: Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sadat City, Egypt E-mail: maafayed@gmail.com Name: Dr. Ali Gamal Ahmed Al-kaf Affiliation: Sana'a university, Yemen E-mail: alialkaf21@gmail.com Name: Ahmad Najib Affiliation: Department of Pharmacognosy-Phytochemystry Universitas Muslim Indonesia-Indonesia E-mail: ahmad.najib@umi.ac.id Comments of reviewer(s): Similar Articles: A STUDY OF PHYTOCHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS IN CARALLUMA QUADRANGULA PHARMACOGNOSTIC EVALUATION OF GOMPHRENA SERRATA ROOT

Objective: Wound healing is a complex process of biological events involving re-epithelialization and granulation that are mainly mediated by several endogenously released growth factors such as epidermal growth factor. This work was undertaken to study the effects of various doses of locally applied recombinant human epidermal growth factor (rhEGF) on wound healing in rats. Methods: Recombinant human EGF consists of 53 amino acids. In vitro, rhEGF promoted it’s obvious cell growth and proliferation when added to cultured 3T3 cells using MTT assay. In the test groups, in vivo, wound sites were given daily with a solution containing 2, 5, 10, 50ug of EGF spray and 40ug of EGF ointment, respectively. We presented evidence that a significant decreased healing time in wound was observed in all rhEGF groups when compared with the control, and reach to its maximal efficacy at 10ug/ml of rhEGF spray. Results: The rate of wound closure was over 50 per cent at initial 3 days of treatment. Treatment with rhEGF significantly decreased the length of time to over 50 per cent healing by approximately 4-5 days, and that to 70 per cent and 90 per cent healing by approximately 3-4 days and 3 days, respectively. A stimulatory, dose-dependent effect of EGF on wound healing was observed with increased hEGF concentration. In toxicological group, higher doses of 100ug/ml of rhEGF spray was applied by local dorsal incision in rats. Moreover, a dose of single 200ug, single 300ug or 300ug within 24 hours of subcutaneous and intramuscular rhEGF injection was given respectively. There were no significant adverse side effects.Conclusion: Current study recommended a proposal of clinical drug doses in wound at 2µg, 5 µg and 10 µg /ml of rhEGF spray, and 10 µg and even higher 40 µg rhEGF/g of ointment. The results indicated that prepared rhEGF by our genetic engineering is safe, and is emerging in clinical effective use in assisting wound healing time. Peer Review History: Received 8 January 2020; Revised 12 February; Accepted 2 March, Available online 15 March 2020 UJPR follows the most transparent and toughest ‘Advanced OPEN peer review’ system. The identity of the authors and, reviewers will be known to each other. This transparent process will help to eradicate any possible malicious/purposeful interference by any person (publishing staff, reviewer, editor, author, etc) during peer review. As a result of this unique system, all reviewers will get their due recognition and respect, once their names are published in the papers. We expect that, by publishing peer review reports with published papers, will be helpful to many authors for drafting their article according to the specifications. Auhors will remove any error of their article and they will improve their article(s) according to the previous reports displayed with published article(s). The main purpose of it is ‘to improve the quality of a candidate manuscript’. Our reviewers check the ‘strength and weakness of a manuscript honestly’. There will increase in the perfection, and transparency. Received file Average Peer review marks at initial stage: 6.5/10 Average Peer review marks at publication stage: 8.5/10 Reviewer(s) detail: Name: Asmaa Ahmed Mohamed Ahmed Khalifa Affiliation: Pharos University, Alexandria, Egypt E-mail: asmaa.khalifa@pua.edu.eg Name: Dr. Sabah Hussien El-Ghaiesh Affiliation: Tanta University, Egypt E-mail: s.ghaiesh@gmail.com Comments of reviewer(s): Similar Articles: POTENTIAL OF SNAKEHEAD FISH (OPHIOCEPHALUS STRIATUS) IN ACCELERATING WOUND HEALING

Background and objectives: Knowledge of the pathogenicity of the primary etiological factor of root caries, the microbial biofilm, might provide important information for the development of diagnosis and treatment strategies. This study assessed the numbers and revealed the proportion of Mutans streptococci , which is potential important cariogenic organisms, in biofilms collected from lesions at root surfaces with active caries lesions (ARC), inactive caries lesions, and sound root surfaces (SRS). Material and methods: Samples were cultured in MSB agar for Mutans streptococci counts, and brain-heart infusion agar for total viable anaerobic counts. After incubation, the number of colony-forming units (CFUs) was determined and compared between groups by the Mann-Whitney U test with a significance level set at 95%. The proportion of counts of Mutans streptococci in the total viable microorganisms was also analyzed by Chi-square test. 108 samples (36 from each surface) from 36 patients were cultured and analyzed. Results: The mean±SD for the counts of active root caries lesions was 7.47±9.89 10, significantly higher than that of inactive root caries lesions (2.5±0.97) and sound root surfaces (3.03±0.71). In conclusion, a trend towards higher counts was evident for ARC. In the ARC lesions among the dominant oral anaerobic bacteria, we could not identify streptococcal colonies (unspecified) in 11% while in IRC lesions it occurred in 47%, and SRS it occurred in 47%. In addition, in ARC the samples were ≥0.1-≥10 (CFU x10) ≥0.1-≥10 colonies of Streptococcus mutans. Conclusion: In conclusion, a trend towards higher counts was evident for ARC and for most samples, the proportion of Streptococcus mutans was low relative to the viable number of total viable anaerobic microorganisms. Peer Review History: Received: 5 September 2021; Revised: 10 October; Accepted: 24 October, Available online: 15 November 2021 Academic Editor: Ahmad Najib, Universitas Muslim Indonesia, Indones UJPR follows the most transparent and toughest ‘Advanced OPEN peer review’ system. The identity of the authors and, reviewers will be known to each other. This transparent process will help to eradicate any possible malicious/purposeful interference by any person (publishing staff, reviewer, editor, author, etc) during peer review. As a result of this unique system, all reviewers will get their due recognition and respect, once their names are published in the papers. We expect that, by publishing peer review reports with published papers, will be helpful to many authors for drafting their article according to the specifications. Auhors will remove any error of their article and they will improve their article(s) according to the previous reports displayed with published article(s). The main purpose of it is ‘to improve the quality of a candidate manuscript’. Our reviewers check the ‘strength and weakness of a manuscript honestly’. There will increase in the perfection, and transparency. Received file: Reviewer's Comments: Average Peer review marks at initial stage: 6.0/10 Average Peer review marks at publication stage: 7.0/10 Reviewers: Dr. Rawaa Souhil Al-Kayali, Aleppo University, Syria, rawah67@hotmail.com Dr. Tamer Elhabibi, Suez Canal University, Egypt, tamer_hassan@pharm.suez.edu.eg Similar Articles: ASSOCIATION BETWEEN THE STREPTOCOCCUS MUTANS BIOFILM FORMATION AND DENTAL CARIES EXPERIENCE AND ANTIBIOTICS RESISTANCE IN ADULT FEMALES CLINICAL FEATURES, AGE AND SEX DISTRIBUTIONS, RISK FACTORS AND THE TYPE OF BACTERIA ISOLATED IN PERIODONTITIS PATIENTS IN SANA'A, YEMEN