Lifting the lid on impact and peer review.

Brain and Neuroscience Advances has grown in tandem with the British Neuroscience Association's campaign to build Credibility in Neuroscience, which encourages actions and initiatives aimed at improving reproducibility, reliability and openness. This commitment to credibility impacts not only what the Journal publishes, but also how it operates. With that in mind, the Editorial Board sought the views of the neuroscience community on the peer review process, and on how they should respond to the Journal Impact Factor that will be assigned to Brain and Neuroscience Advances. In this editorial, we present the results of a survey of neuroscience researchers conducted in the autumn of 2020 and discuss the broader implications of our findings for the Journal and the neuroscience community.

Risk Adjustment, Mode Adjustment, and Nonresponse Bias Analysis on Quality Measures From a Long-Term Care Hospital Experience of Care Survey.

OBJECTIVES: To develop a patient risk adjustment model for experience of care (EOC) quality measures for long-term care hospitals (LTCHs) that includes mode of survey administration. To assess presence of nonresponse bias in the adjusted facility-level scores. DESIGN: We tested 3 modes of collecting the EOC data: mail-only, mixed (ie, mail with telephone follow-up), and in-facility. This study used sequential modeling and impact analysis, specified a risk and mode adjustment model, and evaluated presence of nonresponse after adjustment. SETTING: LTCHs. PARTICIPANTS: Patients (N=1364) and 69 LTCHs. INTERVENTION: Not applicable. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Risk and mode adjusted responses to 28 survey questions and 6 facility-level scores derived from survey responses. RESULTS: Mode of data collection and patient risk variables (age, sex, overall health, overall mental health, marital status, education, race, and whether a proxy responded) were included in the model. Clinical variables were not significant. The in-facility mode was associated with significantly higher performance scores than the other modes. When the recommended risk and mode adjustment model was applied, nonresponse bias was not observed in any mode. CONCLUSIONS: LTCH EOC data should be adjusted for patient risk variables including mode of data collection.

Health care access and perceptions of provider care among individuals in same-sex couples: findings from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS).

We compared individuals in same-sex couples to those in different-sex married couples on various health care indicators using the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. Compared to individuals in different-sex married couples, individuals in same-sex couples were more likely to report difficulty seeing specialists, getting medical care when needed, and delays getting necessary prescription drugs. They were also more likely to report dissatisfaction with the level of respect shown by and time spent with providers. This study suggests that individuals in same-sex couples are more likely to face barriers to care and that individuals in same-sex couples have less positive perceptions of provider interactions.

Health literacy in adult education: a natural partnership for health equity.

Incorporating health literacy in adult education instruction is a promising approach to increasing the health equity of people who face racial/ethnic health disparities. Six adult education centers throughout a small Northeast state received 1-year Health Literacy Project grants from a local foundation to increase their capacity to teach health literacy through Study Circles. The evaluation of the project assessed changes in adult learners' skills needed to navigate health systems, manage chronic diseases, and engage in preventive behavior; learners' self-efficacy; and how the education centers increased their capacity to teach health literacy skills to adult learners of color. Quantitative and qualitative data indicated that students' knowledge about health issues and self-efficacy increased significantly as a result of the health literacy instruction. All six centers improved their capacity to teach health literacy. By the end of the Health Literacy Project, almost three quarters of classes included health literacy instruction. Almost half of the Study Circle teachers continued to attend professional development activities for health literacy and share their knowledge with other teachers. Each center also developed partnerships with health care providers and created an infrastructure to continue to teach health literacy. Implications of the identified strengths and challenges on future efforts to increase health literacy and equity are considered.

Print-and-peel fabricated passive micromixers.

Advection driven mixing is essential for microfluidics and poses challenges to the design of microdevices. Force transducers or complex channel configurations provide means for, respectively, active or passive disrupting of laminar flows and for homogenizing the composing fluids. Print-and-peel (PAP) is a nonlithographic fabrication technique that involves direct printing of masters for molding polymer components of microdevices. PAP, hence, allows for facile and expedient preparation of microfluidic devices, without requiring access to specialized microfabrication facilities. We utilized PAP for fabrication of microfluidic devices capable of turning, expanding, and contracting microflows. We examined the mixing capabilities of these devices under flow conditions of small Reynolds numbers (0.2-20) and large Peclet numbers (260-26 000), under which advection is the dominant mode of mass transfer. We focused on mixing channels with arched shapes and examined the dependence of the mixing performance on the turns and the expansions along the direction of the microflows. Three-dimensional expansion and contraction, along with an increase in the modes of twisting of the laminar currents, improved the quality of mixing. The simplicity in the described fabrication of the investigated passive micromixers makes PAP an attractive alternative for expedient device prototyping.

Print-and-peel fabrication for microfluidics: what's in it for biomedical applications?

This article reviews the development and the advances of print-and-peel (PAP) microfabrication. PAP techniques provide means for facile and expedient prototyping of microfluidic devices. Therefore, PAP has the potential for broadening the microfluidics technology by bringing it to researchers who lack regular or any accesses to specialized fabrication facilities and equipment. Microfluidics have, indeed, proven to be an indispensable toolkit for biological and biomedical research and development. Through accessibility to such methodologies for relatively fast and easy prototyping, PAP has the potential to considerably accelerate the impacts of microfluidics on the biological sciences and engineering. In summary, PAP encompasses: (1) direct printing of the masters for casting polymer device components; and (2) adding three-dimensional elements onto the masters for single-molding-step formation of channels and cavities within the bulk of the polymer slabs. Comparative discussions of the different PAP techniques, along with the current challenges and approaches for addressing them, outline the perspectives for PAP and how it can be readily adopted by a broad range of scientists and engineers.

Print-and-peel fabrication of microelectrodes.

We describe a facile and expedient approach for the fabrication of arrays of microelectrodes on smooth substrates. A sequence of print-and-peel procedures allowed for the microfabrication of capacitance microsensors using office equipment and relatively simple wet chemistry. Microfluidic assemblies with reversibly adhered elastomer components allowed for the transfer of patterns of metallic silver, deposited via Tollens' reaction, onto the substrate surfaces. Electroplating of the silver patterns produced an array of micrometer-thick copper electrodes. Capacitance sensors were assembled by placing nonlithographically fabricated flow chambers over the microelectrode arrays. Triangular-waveform current-voltage (I/V) measurements showed a linear correlation between the capacitance of the print-and-peel fabricated devices and the dielectric constant of the samples injected into their flow chambers.