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Avoiding "conflicts of interest": a computational approach to scheduling parallel conference tracks and its human evaluation.

ABSTRACT: Conferences with contributed talks grouped into multiple concurrent sessions pose an interesting scheduling problem. From an attendee's perspective, choosing which talks to visit when there are many concurrent sessions is challenging since an individual may be interested in topics that are discussed in different sessions simultaneously. The frequency of topically similar talks in different concurrent sessions is, in fact, a common cause for complaint in post-conference surveys. Here, we introduce a practical solution to the conference scheduling problem by heuristic optimization of an objective function that weighs the occurrence of both topically similar talks in one session and topically different talks in concurrent sessions. Rather than clustering talks based on a limited number of preconceived topics, we employ a topic model to allow the topics to naturally emerge from the corpus of contributed talk titles and abstracts. We then measure the topical distance between all pairs of talks. Heuristic optimization of preliminary schedules seeks to balance the topical similarity of talks within a session and the dissimilarity between concurrent sessions. Using an ecology conference as a test case, we find that stochastic optimization dramatically improves the objective function relative to the schedule manually produced by the program committee. Approximate Integer Linear Programming can be used to provide a partially-optimized starting schedule, but the final value of the discrimination ratio (an objective function used to estimate coherence within a session and disparity between concurrent sessions) is surprisingly insensitive to the starting schedule. Furthermore, we show that, in contrast to the manual process, arbitrary scheduling constraints are straightforward to include. We applied our method to a second biology conference with over 1,000 contributed talks plus scheduling constraints. In a randomized experiment, biologists responded similarly to a machine-optimized schedule and a highly modified schedule produced by domain experts on the conference program committee.

SUBMITTER: Manda P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7924486 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundFinancial conflicts of interest (FCOI) are known to be prevalent in medicine. Authorship of pivotal trials reap non-financial benefits including publication productivity that can be used for assessment of tenure positions and promotion. The purpose of this investigation was to quantify the prevalence and discordance of academic trial author (authors) FCOI in industry-sponsored drug trials that were initially presented as oral abstracts and subsequently resulted in a peer-reviewed publication.MethodsOral abstracts from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2017 Annual Meeting that were subsequently published were identified. Studies that were non-industry sponsored, non-adult, or non-therapeutic trials were excluded. Studies that did not have a subsequent peer-reviewed publication or had a publication preceding the ASCO 2017 Annual Meeting were also excluded. FCOI was categorized and impact factor (IF) for the journal at the time of publication was retrieved. FCOI discordance between the oral abstract and publication was calculated based on geographic location and IF.ResultsA total of 22 paired abstract and publications met inclusion criteria for further analysis. A total of 384 authors were identified, of these 280 authors (74.1%) were included in both the oral abstract and subsequent publication. A total of 76% of these 280 authors had FCOI and 66.4% had FCOI discordance. There were statistically significant differences for the sum of FCOI discordance for U.S.-based authors (p = 0.0004) but not for journal IF. When analyzing the sum of absolute differences of FCOI discordance, statistical significance was reached for authors from any of the three geographic regions, as well as, low and high IF journals (all p-values < 0.0001).ConclusionsThis study draws attention to the lack of uniformity and vetting of FCOI reporting in abstracts and journals publishing solid tumor oncology trial results. This is particularly concerning, since FCOI is prevalent globally.

Project description:Background and objectivesRigorous and transparent management strategies for conflicts of interest and clinical practice guidelines with the best available evidence are necessary for the development of nephrology guidelines. However, there was no study assessing financial and nonfinancial conflicts of interest, quality of evidence underlying the Japanese guidelines for CKD, and conflict of interest policies for guideline development.Design, setting, participants, & measurementsThis cross-sectional study examined financial and nonfinancial conflicts of interest among all 142 authors of CKD guidelines issued by the Japanese Society of Nephrology using a personal payment database from all 92 major Japanese pharmaceutical companies between 2016 and 2019 and self-citations by guideline authors. Also, the quality of evidence and strength of recommendations underlying the guidelines and conflicts of interest policies of Japanese, US, and European nephrology societies were evaluated.ResultsAmong 142 authors, 125 authors (88%) received $6,742,889 in personal payments from 56 pharmaceutical companies between 2016 and 2019. Four-year combined median payment per author was $8258 (interquartile range, $2230‒$51,617). The amounts of payments and proportion of guideline authors with payments remained stable during and after guideline development. The chairperson, vice chairperson, and group leaders received higher personal payments than other guideline authors. Of 861 references in the guidelines, 69 (8%) references were self-cited by the guideline authors, and 76% of the recommendations were on the basis of low or very low quality of evidence. There were no fully rigorous and transparent conflicts of interest policies for nephrology guideline authors in the United States, Europe, and Japan.ConclusionsMost of the Japanese CKD guideline recommendations were on the basis of low quality of evidence by the guideline authors tied with pharmaceutical companies, suggesting the need for better financial conflicts of interest management.

Project description:IntroductionThe tobacco control community has raised some concerns about whether studies on electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) published in scientific journals hide conflicts of interest (COI) and whether such reports are biased. This study assessed potential COI in the e-cigarette scientific literature.MethodsCross-sectional study was conducted on e-cigarette publications indexed in PubMed up to August 2014. We extracted information about the authors (affiliations, location, etc.), publication characteristics (type, topic, subject, etc.), results and conclusions, presence of a COI statement, and funding by and/or financial ties to pharmaceutical, tobacco, and/or e-cigarette companies. An algorithm to determine the COI disclosure status was created based on the information in the publication. Prevalence ratios (PRs) and confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to identify associations with COI disclosure, controlling for several independent variables.ResultsOf the 404 publications included in the analysis, 37.1% (n=150) had no COI disclosure statement, 38.6% declared no COI, 13.4% declared potential COI with pharmaceutical companies, 3.0% with tobacco companies, and 10.6% with e-cigarette companies. The conclusions in publications with COI, which were mainly tied to pharmaceutical companies, were more likely to be favourable to e-cigarette use (PR=2.23; 95% CI: 1.43-3.46). Publications that supported the use of e-cigarettes for both harm reduction (PR=1.81; 95%CI: 1.14-2.89) and smoking cessation (PR=2.02; 95% CI: 1.26-3.23) were more likely to have conclusions that were favourable to e-cigarettes.ConclusionsOne-third of the publications reporting studies on e-cigarettes did not have a COI disclosure statement, and this proportion was even higher in news articles, editorials and other types of publications. Papers with conclusions that were favourable to e-cigarette use were more likely to have COI. Journal editors and reviewers should consider evaluating publications, including funding sources, to determine whether the results and conclusions may be biased.

Project description:BackgroundPeer review is the most widely used method for evaluating grant applications in clinical research. Criticisms of peer review include lack of equity, suspicion of biases, and conflicts of interest (CoI). CoIs raise questions of fairness, transparency, and trust in grant allocation. Few observational studies have assessed these issues. We report the results of a qualitative study on reviewers' and applicants' perceptions and experiences of CoIs in reviews of French academic grant applications.Methodology and principal findingsWe designed a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews and direct observation. We asked members of assessment panels, external reviewers, and applicants to participate in semi-structured interviews. Two independent researchers conducted in-depth reviews and line-by-line coding of all transcribed interviews, which were also subjected to Tropes® software text analysis, to detect and qualify themes associated with CoIs. Most participants (73/98) spontaneously reported that non-financial CoIs predominated over financial CoIs. Non-financial CoIs mainly involved rivalry among disciplines, cronyism, and geographic and academic biases. However, none of the participants challenged the validity of peer review. Reviewers who felt they might be affected by CoIs said they reacted in a variety of ways: routine refusal to review, routine attempt to conduct an impartial review, or decision on a case-by-case basis. Multiple means of managing non-financial CoIs were suggested, including increased transparency throughout the review process, with public disclosure of non-financial CoIs, and careful selection of independent reviewers, including foreign experts and methodologists.ConclusionsOur study underscores the importance of considering non-financial CoIs when reviewing research grant applications, in addition to financial CoIs. Specific measures are needed to prevent a negative impact of non-financial CoIs on the fairness of resource allocation. Whether and how public disclosure of non-financial CoIs should be accomplished remains debatable.

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Avoiding "conflicts of interest": a computational approach to scheduling parallel conference tracks and its human evaluation.

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