The Journal of Physiology Annual Report 2013–14:Another year of progress

We have just completed another busy and fruitful year for The Journal of Physiology as we continue our mission to promote excellence in the communication of physiology to the world. The Journal is without international boundaries, and below is a summary of where we have recently been, and where we plan to go in 2014–15. We value the support of our readers and those who publish their outstanding findings with us.

At the beginning of 2013, The Journal of Physiology Consulting Editor Carol Robinson FRS was made a Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (DBE) for Services to Science and Industry. She is widely recognised for her ground-breaking research in mass spectrometry and as a role model for women scientists.

In the 2014 New Year Honours list, Peter Ratcliffe FRS, another of The Journal's esteemed Consulting Editors, was awarded a knighthood for his services to clinical medicine. Sir Peter is Head of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine based at the Henry Wellcome Building for Molecular Physiology in Oxford. His laboratory works on understanding the mechanisms by which cells sense and signal hypoxia.

In 2013 we published a paper based on the Annual Review Prize Lecture which Peter delivered at Physiology 2012 (the annual meeting of The Physiological Society), Edinburgh, UK, 4 July 2012.

Oxygen sensing and hypoxia signalling pathways in animals: the implications of physiology for cancer Ratcliffe PJ (2013) J Physiol 591, 2027–2042 http://jp.physoc.org/content/591/8/2027.full

Sadly in 2013 we said goodbye to one of the legends in the field of physiology who had his Nobel Prize winning work in The Journal. David H. Hubel FRS passed away in October after a long and distinguished career in visual neuroscience. Physiology lost one of its giants. The Journal of Physiology lost one of its heroes.

David H. Hubel – A man of vision J Physiol 592, issue 1. http://jp.physoc.org/content/592/1.toc

Our impact

The Journal of Physiology remains the top-cited journal in the Physiology category with citations totalling 47,503 in 2012. The Journal ranks first in Cited Half-life (>10.0), second in Eigenfactor Score (0.07005), third in number of articles published (423), and fourth in Immediacy Index (1.307). These metrics show the growing popularity of The Journal, and also show that articles published in The Journal have sustained visibility and longevity. Although these metrics are healthy, we also share the view of David Miller, and many others, that the Impact Factor alone should not be used as a measure for research quality or personal achievement. David writes an interesting article in The Physiological Society's newsletter, Physiology News, that highlights the need for the scientific community to move away from using the Impact Factor alone as a measure of quality (Miller, 2013). Some key points of his report are as follows:

• The arbitrary value of Impact Factor = 5.000 should not be used as a minimum score for papers to be included in the UK's Research Excellence Score (REF);

• Historical papers, especially in The Journal of Physiology, continue to attract more citations year on year – see Hodgkin and Huxley's citation pattern since 1952, which is not accounted for in the Impact Factor calculation;

• Impact Factors are not influenced by the ‘average’ paper that tends to accumulate citations slowly over several years, rather than in the year or two immediately after publication;

• Some more clinically focused journals do not share the same longevity of citations as those covering general physiology with a focus on basic research; and

• It is up to the academic community to acknowledge that the Impact Factor is not an accurate representation of a journal's quality and for us to move away from using it as a means of gauging an academic's or a research institution's status.

Bearing that in mind, we'll be trying to move our focus away from worrying too much about the Impact Factor score, and working with our Publisher to implement more meaningful article-level metrics and spending more effort in boosting our online visibility, which can be measured by looking at download statistics in real time. The Society and its journal editors have signed the San Francisco Declaration On Research Assessment (DORA) that ‘recognises the need to improve the ways in which the outputs of scientific research are evaluated’ (http://am.ascb.org/dora/). We hope that this group's recommendations will result in improved ways in which the output of scientific research is evaluated. That is; accurately, fairly, timely and on its own merits, rather than on the basis of the journal in which it is published.

The number of full-text downloads exceeded 5 million for the first time in 2012, and we have achieved this once more in 2013 with full text downloads topping 5.7 million (Fig. 1). This shows the increasing demand for the online edition of The Journal, and the need for us to maintain our loyal readership by promoting The Journal and its content in new and engaging ways online. Due to the importance of having a prominent online presence, we have recently launched a mobile-optimized site and a new iPad app. Both of these initiatives will ensure that our readers can keep up-to-date with our ground-breaking research when they're on the move.

Figure 1.

The Journal of Physiology full-text downloads 2006–2013

Journal content

The Journal of Physiology continues to cover all areas of physiology, from molecular and cellular to whole-organism studies. Submissions remain steady, with one-third of our submissions coming from the neuroscience community (Fig. 2).

Figure 2.

Original research submissions in 2013

Our dedicated neuroscience issues are continuing to be a great service to our neuroscience readers and are gaining a loyal following. We have also expanded our neuroscience scope to include cognition, in vivo cortical function and sensory processing, optogenetics, structure/function (detailed anatomy linked to physiology) and integrative neurophysiology, whilst maintaining our focus on mechanism and function.

The Journal is committed to focusing its scope along clear academic themes. When considering where to submit, authors often choose a journal with a specific focus so they can be sure that their research is read by their peers, in addition to the wider scientific community. Indicating to authors our interest in all aspects of physiology has until now been difficult to communicate. The pictogram below (Fig. 3) therefore aims to visually define The Journal's scope for the benefit of authors. We hope that they can see where their research will fit within The Journal and how it will complement other research. As you will see, The Journal welcomes submissions across the range of tissues and systems (vertical bands), and also publishes papers that cut across these systems (horizontal bands). Computational Physiology and Modelling, one of The Journal's more recent focus areas, could cover any of the categories and is truly all-encompassing in its breadth of coverage. We hope that this visual representation will act to consolidate The Journal's current research priorities.

Figure 3.

Visual representation of The Journal's scope

Special issues and invited content

We are continually striving to secure invited content from world-renowned researchers. Invited Topical Reviews commissioned by our Reviews Editor, Ian Forsythe, with help from our Editorial Board, comprised about 10% of content in 2013 – a figure which we hope to increase in the coming years.

In 2013 we were pleased to be able to publish Symposium Reviews and related papers from several international events:

Howard Florey and neuroscience

In January 2013 we published a number of papers from the Florey Institute that show some representative work from scientists at ‘the Florey’ and which show the evolution of the Florey over its history from its birth as the Howard Florey Institute of Experimental Physiology and Medicine in the early 1960s, to its current form focused primarily on brain research. A wonderful overview of the evolution of the Florey and its earlier activities has been given as a contribution in this volume by its first director, Derek Denton (http://jp.physoc.org/content/591/1/35.full).

Arrhythmia: 100 years on from George Ralph Mines

As indicated in last year's Annual Report, 2013 saw us focus on the cardiovascular community by publishing a special issue entitled ‘Arrhythmia: 100 years on from George Ralph Mines’ (http://jp.physoc.org/content/591/17.toc). The issue has been very well received, and is composed of topical reviews, symposium reviews, rapid reports and research papers. We hope that this signals our particular interest in receiving top-quality ubmissions from the cardiovascular community. The issue builds upon the seminal observations published in The Journal by George Ralph Mines (1886–1914) 100 years ago and includes an Editorial written by Editor-in-Chief David Paterson (Paterson et al., 2013).

• Cardiac and respiratory physiology

Symposia held at a Themed Meeting of The Physiological Society, University of Manchester, UK on 4–6 September 2012. http://jp.physoc.org/content/591/17.toc

• Why do some brains seize? Molecular, cellular and network mechanisms

A symposium held at the Epilepsy Research UK Expert International Workshop, Oxford, UK on 15–16 March 2012. http://jp.physoc.org/content/591/4.toc

• Size matters: formation and function of GIANT synapses

A symposium held at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, New Orleans, LA, USA on 12 October 2012. http://jp.physoc.org/content/591/13.toc

• Muscle metabolism and fatigue – in memory of Eric Hultman

Journal of Physiology Symposium held at the 15th International Biochemistry of Exercise Conference (IBEC), Stockholm, Sweden, on 18 June 2012. http://jp.physoc.org/content/591/18.toc

• Organization and function of neuronal circuits in movement control

Reviews from a symposium which took place at Trolleholm Castle (Lund), Sweden on 27–28 May 2011. http://jp.physoc.org/content/591/22.toc

In order to recognize the huge effort made by Gordon Drummond in educating authors regarding the reporting of statistics, we collated together his Statistical Perspectives articles in an online collection. The hope is that by integrating these articles into our guidelines for authors, they will be better informed about how to present their data as simply and as accurately as possible.

Statistical Reporting Guidelines

26 February 2013 Our set of Statistical Perspectives articles http://jp.physoc.org/site/misc/virtual_issues/StatisticalGuidelines_virtual_issue.xhtml

CrossTalk

The aim of CrossTalk articles is to provide readers with explicit accounts of both sides of a current controversy in physiology, allowing them to understand the arguments and arrive at an informed conclusion on the topic.

In December 2013 we published our 12th CrossTalk debate (Lang & Hoffman, 2013 and Orlov et al., 2013). CrossTalk Editor Jerome Dempsey has worked hard to ensure the success of these articles and to engender debate. The CrossTalk debates are usually formed of two sides of an argument, but we have also published a debate featuring three opposing views (http://jp.physoc.org/content/591/18.toc). Comments from readers that add another viewpoint are published online beside the articles.

We already have more debates lined up for publication in 2014, so the series looks set to continue for months to come.

All CrossTalk articles can be found at: http://jp.physoc.org/site/misc/summaries/CrossTalkSummaryPage.xhtml

Submissions, acceptance policy, review and publication times

Submissions to The Journal of Physiology in 2013 have remained steady over the year, with increased submissions from the alimentary and cardiovascular community when compared to 2012.

Decisions on original research papers in 2013 were similar to those reported for 2012, but also include a new ‘referral’ option that recommends that the paper would be better suited to either Physiological Reports, a recently launched Open Access journal jointly owned by The Physiological Society and the American Physiological Society, or our other sister journal Experimental Physiology. These statistics reflect the continuing commitment by the Editorial Board to publish only those papers that make a significant impact in the field and to save authors and Editors time by rejecting, without review, papers which in the opinion of both a Senior and a Reviewing Editor are unlikely to be acceptable without major revision (Fig. 4).

Figure 4.

Editorial decisions made in 2013 on original research submissions

The average time from submission to first decision for all research papers is currently 23.6 days – a great service to our authors – and well below our target of 4 weeks from submission. Papers that have been for review can expect a full evaluation of their submission within 35 days.

Papers are published online in accepted manuscript form within a week of acceptance on both our Highwire and Wiley Online Library sites. This is replaced with a fully copy-edited, formatted and corrected version of the paper within 10 working days of receipt of author proof corrections.

The Journal of Physiology continues have a focus on publishing top-quality original research papers, with two-thirds of papers published in 2013 being in this category. Rapid Reports and Techniques for Physiology represent another 5% of the overall total.

Reaching a wider audience

In addition to The Journal being of importance to the research communities it serves, we are also pleased to be able to reach a broader audience. In 2013 The Physiological Society issued the following press releases relating to articles accepted for publication in The Journal of Physiology:

• Inactive people can achieve major health and fitness gains in a fraction of the time

  Sprint interval and endurance training are equally effective in increasing muscle microvascular density and eNOS content in sedentary males. Matthew Cocks, Christopher S. Shaw, Sam O. Shepherd, James P. Fisher, Aaron M. Ranasinghe, Thomas A. Barker, Kevin D. Tipton and Anton J. M. Wagenmakers. 591, 641–656. Sprint interval and traditional endurance training increase net intramuscular triglyceride breakdown and expression of perilipin 2 and 5. S. O. Shepherd, M. Cocks, K. D. Tipton, A. M. Ranasinghe, T. A. Barker, J. G. Burniston, A. J. M. Wagenmakers and C. S. Shaw. 591, 657–675.

  Coverage: The Guardian, Daily Express and Science Daily.

• Could strategic exercise be the key to avoiding jet lag?

  Voluntary scheduled exercise alters diurnal rhythms of behaviour, physiology and gene expression in wild-type and vasoactive intestinal peptide-deficient mice. Analyne M. Schroeder, Danny Truong, Dawn H. Loh, Maria C. Jordan, Kenneth P. Roos and Christopher S. Colwell. 590, 6213–6226.

  Coverage: The Globe and Mail

• HRT improves muscle function

  Hormone replacement therapy improves contractile function and myonuclear organization of single muscle fibres from postmenopausal monozygotic female twin pairs. Rizwan Qaisar, Guillaume Renaud, Yvette Hedstrom, Eija Pöllänen, Paula Ronkainen, Jaakko Kaprio, Markku Alen, Sarianna Sipilä, Konstantin Artemenko, Jonas Bergquist, Vuokko Kovanen and Lars Larsson. 591, 2333–2344

  Coverage: Daily Mail and Science Daily

• Antioxidants – too much of a good thing?

  Resveratrol blunts the positive effects of exercise training on cardiovascular health in aged men. Lasse Gliemann, Jakob Friis Schmidt, Jesper Olesen, Rasmus Sjørup Biensø, Sebastian Louis Peronard, Simon Udsen Grandjean, Stefan Peter Mortensen, Michael Nyberg, Jens Bangsbo, Henriette Pilegaard and Ylva Hellsten. 591, 5047–5059.

  Coverage: Daily Mail, Scotsman, Science Daily, CBS News, The Atlantic

• Harmonizing a broken heart: Stem cells keep cardiac beat in synchrony

  Induced pluripotent stem cell intervention rescues ventricular wall motion disparity, achieving biological cardiac resynchronization post-infarction. Satsuki Yamada, Timothy J. Nelson, Garvan C. Kane, Almudena Martinez-Fernandez, Ruben J. Crespo-Diaz, Yasuhiro Ikeda, Carmen Perez-Terzic and Andre Terzic. 591, 4335–4349.

  Coverage: Science Daily

• The brain cannot be fooled by artificial sweeteners

  Glucose utilization rates regulate intake levels of artificial sweeteners. Luis A Tellez Luis A Tellez, Xueying Ren, Wenfei Han, Sara Medina, Jozelia Ferreira, Catherine Yeckel and Ivan E de Araujo. 591, 5727–5744.

  Coverage: The Hindu, Daily Mail, Daily Express and Time.

• Sensory illusion study provides new insight for body representation brain disorders

  Is this my finger? Proprioceptive illusions of body ownership and representation. Martin E. Héroux, Martin E Héroux, Lee D Walsh, Annie A Butler and Simon C Gandevia.

  591, 5661–5670.

  Coverage: Science Daily, New Scientist and ABC News Australia.

• Brief exposure to performance-enhancing drugs may be permanently ‘remembered’ by muscles

  A cellular memory mechanism aids overload hypertrophy in muscle long after an episodic exposure to anabolic steroids. Ingrid M Egner, Jo C Bruusgaard, Einar Eftestøl and Kristian Gundersen. 591, 6221–6230.

  Coverage: Daily Mail, Science Daily and the BBC.

• Exercise counters the physiological effects of Christmas excess

  Exercise counteracts the effects of short-term overfeeding and reduced physical activity independent of energy imbalance in healthy young men. Jean-Philippe Walhin, Judith D. Richardson, James A. Betts and Dylan Thompson. 591, 6231–6243.

  Coverage: Daily Mail and ITV.com

We have a growing presence via social media channels, and are now pleased to report over 4,700 followers on Twitter and well over 1,000 ‘likes’ on Facebook.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/journalofphysiology

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jphysiol

Early Investigator Prize

We have had a great number of authors interested in entering our Early Investigator Prize competition, with winners of the inaugural prize announced at IUPS in 2013. We have already received an increased number of candidates for the 2013 prize.

http://jp.physoc.org/site/misc/earlyinvestigatorprize.xhtml

Consulting Editor films

We produced four more filmed interviews with our Consulting Editors in 2013 which highlighted the importance and excitement of physiology. These have been very well received and have been promoted via The Journal's social media channels and The Society's newsletters. We encourage you to watch and use these filmed interviews for outreach and education in schools, university physiology departments and careers advice centres. In 2014 we are hoping to continue with this new media initiative, but concentrating more on author-generated or technique/method-focused films to add value to our published content.

Kay Davies FRS describes how classical physiology and genetics have been used together to gain a better understanding of Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Carol Robinson FRS tells us how she solves complex physiological problems by using physical chemistry and mass spectrometry to study cellular protein interactions.

Denis Noble FRS describes how The Journal of Physiology has influenced his research and how historical, seminal papers have proved to have a renewed interest for systems physiologists today.

Jonathan Ashmore FRS The Physiological Society's President and The Journal of Physiology Consulting Editor, talks about the challenges facing auditory neuroscience researchers and the broad scope of physiology as a discipline.

New editors and Board achievements

During 2013 appointments to the Editorial Board were made to signal our interest in specific areas:

• Laura Bennet – neonatal and cerebral circulation.

• Julie Chan – brain stem cardiovascular regulatory mechanisms and oxidative stress.

• Wayne Giles – electrophysiology and cardiovascular control.

• Christian Hansel – synaptic and non-synaptic plasticity in the cerebellum, plus calcium imaging.

• Masanobu Kano – physiological function of synaptic transmission in the CNS and its underlying molecular mechanisms.

• Janet Taylor – neural motor control, particularly during muscle fatigue.

• Rowland Taylor – synaptic function and retinal image encoding.

• Zhuan Zhou – regulation mechanisms of intracellular calcium.

We are pleased to be welcoming the following new Reviewing Editors who start their tenure on the Board in 2014.

• Keith Buckler – peripheral chemoreception and the effects of hypoxia, acidosis and ischemia on neuronal function.

• Kim Dora – vascular endothelial cell function and communication.

• Mike Frenneaux – integrated physiology with a focus on clinical cardiology and cardiomyopathies.

• Kathy Griendling – NADPH oxidases, vascular biology and disease.

• Walter Marcotti – auditory physiology and mechano-electrical transduction.

• Harold Schultz – chemoreflex and baroreflex regulation of cardio-respiratory function in health, exercise and disease.

• Steve Segal – muscle blood flow, microcirculation and oxygen delivery.

• Katalin Toth – cellular mechanisms of synaptic transmission and plasticity in the hippocampus.

Simon Gandevia and Ole Paulsen have been selected to join our team of Senior Editors and we look forward to working with them more closely in the coming years.

We are also delighted to welcome to the Editorial Board Professor Bengt Saltin as a new Consulting Editor. Professor Saltin has a long publishing and reviewing history with The Journal and complements the existing group of Consulting Editors. He is a world leader in the field of muscle and exercise physiology and acts to strengthen our interest in this important area of research.

The Editorial Board of The Journal of Physiology can be found at:

http://jp.physoc.org/site/misc/edboard.xhtml

Conferences

In 2013 we have continued to have a presence at major international meetings in the USA: the Biophysical Society's annual meeting, Experimental Biology and the Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting. The Journal also had a significant presence at IUPS, hosted by The Physiological Society in Birmingham, UK. At each of these events we compiled virtual issues to highlight our best papers to the conferences delegates. All of these Virtual Issues are available online: http://jp.physoc.org/site/misc/virtualissues_archive.xhtml

January 2013

Biophysics and Discovery

Articles selected by Yoshihiro Kubo to coincide with the Biophysical Society's 57th Annual Meeting.

April 2013

Discovery in Physiology

A collection of articles selected by David Paterson to coincide with Experimental Biology 2013.

April 2013

Advances in Chemoreception and Respiration

A collection of articles to coincide with the annual meeting of the American Thoracic Society. Articles selected by Julian Paton, Alexander Gourine and Nanduri Prabhakar.

July 2013

IUPS Virtual Issue

Published to coincide with IUPS – hosted by The Physiological Society, Birmingham, UK.

October 2013

Virtual Issue for the SfN Meeting 2013

Recently published high-quality research papers and review articles selected by Deputy Editor-in-Chief Yoshihiro Kubo and Reviews Editor Ian Forsythe.

For the first time, we have targeted the cardiovascular community by attending the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions meeting in Dallas, TX. In addition to the issue dedicated to cardiac arrhythmia, we also compiled a virtual issue focusing on seminal papers published in The Journal over the past 100 years that hold particular significance for this community.

November 2013

Classic papers in cardiovascular physiology

Classic early articles, articles from the Century Citation Club and articles selected by David Eisner, Julian Paton and David Paterson. http://jp.physoc.org/site/misc/virtual_issues/AHA_virtiss_TOC.xhtml

Future plans

This year, to reach even more world-leading cardiovascular researchers, we will target the European Society of Cardiology's annual meeting in Barcelona, Spain, as well as their Frontiers in CardioVascular Biology meeting, which will enable us to engage basic science researchers in vascular physiology which is a priority area The Journal.

We are also looking forward to publishing a special issue devoted to the integration of evolutionary biology with physiological science which is being spearheaded by Consulting Editor Denis Noble in collaboration with former Reviewing Editor Mike Joyner and others.

Next year we will be producing two special issues dedicated to the theme of ‘Ageing and Degeneration’, which will coincide with The Society's topic meeting planned for 2015.

We look forward to another exciting year in which we continue to evolve and keep up-to-date with the most recent trends in scholarly publishing.

As always, we acknowledge the invaluable role of the many expert referees who provide us with constructive reports within our deadlines. We depend on their expertise and goodwill and thank them all for their work over the past year. And once again we invite and welcome feedback from readers, which should be directed to Managing Editor, Sally Howells showells@physoc.org.