Author: ARPHA Editorial Team

Posted on

Natural History Museum of Berlin’s Fossil Record journal started publishing on ARPHA Platform

Fossil Record – the paleontological scholarly journal of the Natural History Museum of Berlin (Museum für Naturkunde Berlin) published its first articles after moving to the academic publisher Pensoft and its publishing platform ARPHA in late 2021. The renowned scientific outlet – launched in 1998 – joined two other historical journals owned by the Museum: Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift and Zoosystematics and Evolution, which moved to Pensoft back in 2014.

Published in two issues a year, the open-access scientific outlet covers research from all areas of palaeontology, including the taxonomy and systematics of fossil organisms, biostratigraphy, palaeoecology, and evolution. It deals with all taxonomic groups, including invertebrates, microfossils, plants, and vertebrates.

As a result of the move to ARPHA, Fossil Record utilises the whole package of ARPHA Platform’s services, including its fast-track, end-to-end publishing module, designed to appeal to readers, authors, reviewers and editors alike. A major advantage is that the whole editorial process, starting from the submission of a manuscript and continuing into peer review, editing, publication, dissemination, archiving and hosting, happens within the online ecosystem of ARPHA. 

As soon as they are published, the articles in Fossil Record are available in three formats: PDF, machine-readable JATS XML and semantically enriched HTML for better and mobile-friendly reader experience. 

The publications are equipped with real-time metrics on both article and sub-article level that allow easy access to the number of visitors, views and downloads for every article and each of it’s figures, tables or supplementary materials. In their turn, the semantic enhancements do not only allow for easy navigation throughout the text and quick access to cited literature and the article’s own citations, but also tag each taxon that appears in the paper to provide links to further information concerning its occurrences, genomics, nomenclature, treatments and more as available from various databases.      

The first five papers – now available on the brand new journal website powered by ARPHA – already demonstrate the breadth of topics covered by Fossil Record, including systematics, paleobiogeography, palaeodiversity and morphology, as well as the international appeal of the scholarly outlet. The articles are co-authored by collaborative research teams representing ten countries and spanning three continents: Europe, Asia and Africa.

***

About the Natural History Museum of Berlin:

The “Museum für Naturkunde – Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science” is an integrated research museum within the Leibniz Association. It is one of the most important research institutions worldwide in the areas of biological and geological evolution and biodiversity.

The Museum’s mission is to discover and describe life and earth – with people, through dialogue. As an excellent research museum and innovative communication platform, it wants to engage with and influence the scientific and societal discourse about the future of our planet, worldwide. Its vision, strategy and structure make the museum an excellent research museum. The Natural History Museum of Berlin has research partners in Berlin, Germany and approximately 60 other countries. Over 700,000 visitors per year as well as steadily increasing participation in educational and other events show that the Museum has become an innovative communication centre that helps shape the scientific and social dialogue about the future of our earth. 

Posted on

Second economics journal by Moscow State University migrates to ARPHA Platform

Two years ago the publishing platform, developed by the scholarly publisher and technology provider Pensoft, welcomed Moscow State University’s journal Population and Economics. Now, ARPHA announces the transfer of a second academic title published by the institution’s Faculty of Economics. The peer-reviewed, open-access BRICS Journal of Economics covers key economic issues of middle-income developing countries, primarily BRICS countries. 

BRICS Journal of Economics is a fairly new scientific outlet launched in 2020 with the aim to provide a better understanding of the specifics of the BRICS countries (China, Russia, Brazil, India, and South Africa), as well as a broader knowledge about the prospects emerging in those constantly growing economies. It publishes four issues per year, where all articles are submitted in English and undergo double-blind peer review. Thanks to sponsorship available from one of the leading universal banks of Russia: VTB Bank, it runs a Diamond Open Access policy, where neither reading, nor publishing incurs any costs to readers and authors.

With its move to ARPHA, BRICS Journal of Economics is to utilise the whole package of ARPHA Platform’s signature services, including a fast-track, end-to-end publishing module, designed to appeal to readers, authors, reviewers and editors alike. 

Soon, the journal will relaunch on its brand new ARPHA-powered website, where authors, editors and reviewers will find and track the progress of all of their tasks, files and correspondence, in addition to the infrastructure needed to complete every step along the editorial process. Put simply, once submitted, a manuscript has no need to leave the online, collaborative-friendly platform all the way to its publication, dissemination and archiving.

On their part, the readers of BRICS Journal of Economics will enjoy the publications in a conventional PDF format that allows easier storage, as well as semantically enriched HTML. The latter ensures a complete and mobile-friendly reading experience by relying on easier navigation and plenty of related additional linked information within the article’s text. Meanwhile, the third utilised format: the machine-readable JATS XML will make the publications much more visible and findable to both humans searching on the Internet and algorithms mining the web. 

Amongst the other advantages provided by the journal is a full suite of various metrics designed to track the usage of both articles and sub-article elements, such as figures and tables, at any time.

“We are delighted to extend our collaboration with the Moscow State University’s Faculty of Economics by taking care after the technological advancement of BRICS Journal of Economics. This particular journal is undoubtedly serving a fantastic role in the community by filling a niche in the study of Economics, and it is an honour for us at ARPHA and Pensoft to aid its reach to the international public,” 

says Prof. Dr Lyubomir Penev, founder and CEO at ARPHA and Pensoft.

Additional information:

About Faculty of Economics, Lomonosov Moscow State University:

Founded in 1941, the Faculty of Economics continues the centuries-old tradition of economic education in Russia, being one of the leading university-level centres in the field of Economics.

The faculty combines fundamental education and professional training in order to develop its students’ analytical skills and creative thinking, thereby helping its graduates to adapt quickly and successfully to the requirements of any job in the field of economics.

About Lomonosov Moscow State University:

Founded in 1755 by Russian polymath, scientist and writer Mikhail Lomonosov, the university is currently the highest-ranking Russian educational institution, according to the 2018 QS World University Rankings. It is also considered to be the most prestigious university in the former Soviet Union.

Every year Moscow University enrolls about 4 000 international students and postgraduates from all over the world.

Posted on

Fossil Record, a Natural History Museum of Berlin journal moves to ARPHA

Having been publishing its historically renowned scientific journals Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift (DEZ) and Zoosystematics and Evolution (ZSE) in partnership with the scholarly publisher Pensoft and its ARPHA Platform since 2014, the Natural History Museum of Berlin (Museum für Naturkunde Berlin) now extends the collaboration by moving a third signature journal: Fossil Record. 

Launched in 1998 under the name Mitteilungen aus dem Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, Geowissenschaftliche Reihe, Fossil Record is the Natural History Museum of Berlin’s palaeontological journal. Published in two issues a year, the open-access scientific outlet covers research from all areas of palaeontology, including the taxonomy and systematics of fossil organisms, biostratigraphy, palaeoecology, and evolution. It deals with all taxonomic groups, including invertebrates, microfossils, plants, and vertebrates.

Following its move to ARPHA, Fossil Record is to utilise the whole package of ARPHA Platform’s services, including its fast-track, end-to-end publishing module, designed to appeal to readers, authors, reviewers and editors alike. 

With ARPHA, each submitted manuscript is carried through the review, editing, publication, dissemination and archiving stages without leaving the platform’s collaboration-centred online environment. The articles are made available in PDF and machine-readable JATS XML formats, as well as semantically enriched HTML for better and mobile-friendly reader experience. 

As a result, the journal’s articles are as easy to discover, access, reuse and cite as possible. Once published, the content is indexed and archived instantaneously and its underlying data exported to relevant specialised databases. Simultaneously, a suite of various metrics is enabled to facilitate tracking the usage of articles and sub-article elements, such as figures and tables.

“We have deeply enjoyed our collaboration with the Natural History Museum of Berlin for the past seven years that started with two great journals moving to our scholarly portfolio and advanced open access. Now, I am delighted to strengthen this wonderful partnership by welcoming Fossil Record and its fantastic editorial team to the families of ARPHA and Pensoft. I am certain that together we will not only repeat the success we had with DEZ and ZSE, but will actually build on it,”

says Prof. Dr Lyubomir Penev, founder and CEO at ARPHA and Pensoft.

About the Natural History Museum of Berlin:

The “Museum für Naturkunde – Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science” is an integrated research museum within the Leibniz Association. It is one of the most important research institutions worldwide in the areas of biological and geological evolution and biodiversity.

The Museum’s mission is to discover and describe life and earth – with people, through dialogue. As an excellent research museum and innovative communication platform, it wants to engage with and influence the scientific and societal discourse about the future of our planet, worldwide. Its vision, strategy and structure make the museum an excellent research museum. The Natural History Museum of Berlin has research partners in Berlin, Germany and approximately 60 other countries. Over 700,000 visitors per year as well as steadily increasing participation in educational and other events show that the Museum has become an innovative communication centre that helps shape the scientific and social dialogue about the future of our earth.

Posted on

Museum of New Zealand’s journal Tūhinga moves to Pensoft’s ARPHA Publishing Platform

Having decided to turn Tūhinga “into a 21st-century”, digital-native diamond open-access journal, the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa signed with scholarly publisher and technology provider Pensoft and its publishing platform ARPHA. As part of the agreement, not only is the journal to make its future content easy to read and discover by readers and computer algorithms, but will also do so for its legacy publications previously available solely in print. 

Tūhinga: Records of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is the successor of the Museum of New Zealand Records, the National Museum of New Zealand Records, and the Dominion Museum Records in Ethnology. Together, the outlets have acquired a nearly two century-worth of scientific knowledge provided by the museum’s curators, collection managers, and research associates across disciplines, from archaeology to zoology.

The renovated Tūhinga is to utilise the whole package of signature services provided by the platform, including ARPHA’s fast-track, end-to-end publishing system, which benefits readers, authors, reviewers and editors alike. 

This means that each submitted manuscript is to be carried through the review, editing, publication, dissemination and archiving stages without leaving the platform’s collaboration-centred online environment. The articles themselves are to be openly available in PDF, machine-readable JATS XML formats, and semantically enriched HTML for better reader experience. Thus, the journal’s articles will be as easy to discover, access, reuse and cite as possible. Once published, the content is to be indexed and archived instantaneously and its underlying data exported to relevant specialised databases. Simultaneously, a suite of various metrics is to be enabled to facilitate tracking the usage of articles and sub-article elements – like figures and tables – in real time.

The journal’s legacy content is to also become machine-discoverable and more user-friendly. Each of these papers will also be assigned with DOI and registered at CrossRef, while their metadata will be indexed at relevant databases. On the new journal website, they will be displayed as embedded PDF documents, while the reader will be able to do a full-text search of the article’s content.

Tūhinga welcomes original collections-based research in the natural sciences and humanities, including museological research, where its multidisciplinarity reflects the breadth and range of museum-based scholarship. The journal focuses primarily on New Zealand and the Pacific, but all contributions are considered. Having opted for a Diamond Open Access policy, the journal is to charge neither its readers, nor the authors.

“It’s a great honour to sign with the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and provide our publishing services to Tūhinga. Particularly, we take pride in letting the whole wide world straight into the holdings of Te Papa and the knowledge they have prompted in the distant past: something that would not typically be possible had they remained only on paper,”

says Prof. Dr Lyubomir Penev, founder and CEO at ARPHA and Pensoft.
Posted on

Herpetozoa renews contract with Pensoft for another 5 years

Herpetozoa, the peer-reviewed scientific journal of the Austrian Herpetological Society, renewed its contract with Pensoft, re-signing with the scholarly publisher for another five years. Published since 1988, the journal offers a venue for research articles, short contributions and reviews dealing with all aspects of the study of amphibians and reptiles.

Enticed by the opportunities that open access publishing offers, and looking to improve its visibility, Herpetozoa first came to Pensoft in 2019. The move equipped the journal with a brand new website and a full suite of publishing services tailored to the needs of biodiversity-themed academic publications available from ARPHA, Pensoft’s self-developed publishing platform. 

In ARPHA’s fast-track publishing system, each manuscript is carried through all stages, from submission and reviewing to dissemination and archiving, without ever leaving the platform’s collaboration-friendly online environment. In addition, semantic enhancements, automated data export to aggregators, web-service integrations with major indexing databases, and a variety of publishing formats ensure that all articles are easy to find, access, and use by both humans and machines.

The journal also makes use of ARPHA Preprints, another service developed by Pensoft to streamline public access to the latest scientific findings. The platform allows authors to submit a preprint in a matter of seconds along with their manuscript, with no need to upload any additional files. Following a quick in-house screening, the preprint is then made available on ARPHA Preprints in a few days’ time. Once the associated paper is published, a two-way link between the article and the preprint is established via CrossRef.

In the past three years, we saw Herpetozoa publish some quite peculiar discoveries that were quick to attract the attention of the global media. Such was the case of a set of first-of-their-kind observations of kukri snakes gutting toads and eating their organs while still alive. At the same time, the journal doesn’t fail to bring public attention to urgent conservation and biodiversity loss issues like reptile poaching in Pakistan, as well as innovative methods to monitor delicate amphibians in a non-invasive manner.

Posted on

Contributions to Entomology is the fourth Senckenberg journal to move to ARPHA Platform

By signing with the scholarly publisher and technology provider Pensoft, Contributions to Entomology – a journal by the Senckenberg German Entomological Institute – becomes the fourth Senckenberg academic title to transfer to the growing portfolio of the open-access scholarly publishing platform ARPHA. 

Earlier this year, the publisher came to similar agreements with Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny, Vertebrate Zoology and Geologica Saxonica, which have already been relaunched on ARPHA under the branding of the Senckenberg Natural History Collections Dresden.

Likewise, Contributions to Entomology is to continue as a journal published exclusively by Senckenberg, thanks to the white-label publishing solution designed by ARPHA to preserve the identity of historical journals. Still, the journal is to utilise the whole package of signature services provided by the platform, including ARPHA’s fast-track, end-to-end publishing system, which benefits readers, authors, reviewers and editors alike.

With ARPHA – the scholarly publishing platform initially developed by Pensoft to cater for the needs for academic journals – each submitted manuscript is carried through the review, editing, publication, dissemination and archiving stages without leaving the platform’s collaboration-centred online environment.

Thanks to ARPHA’s highly automated workflow, once published, the content is indexed and archived instantaneously and its underlying data exported to the relevant specialised databases. Simultaneously, a suite of various metrics is enabled to facilitate tracking the usage of articles and sub-article elements – like figures and tables – in real time .

The articles themselves are openly available in PDF, machine-readable JATS XML formats, and semantically enriched HTML for better reader experience. Thus, the journal’s content is made as easy to discover, access, reuse and cite as possible.

Founded back in 1951 under the title “Beiträge zur Entomologie”, Contribution to Entomology publishes original contributions on insect systematics, taxonomy, phylogeny, zoogeography, faunistics, ecology, applied entomology, entomological bibliography, and the history of entomology. The journal operates a Diamond Open Access policy, where neither access to content, nor publication incurs charges.

“We are delighted to welcome this particular journal on ARPHA Platform. While we’re publishing academic titles from across the sciences, Pensoft and ARPHA are still best known for their biodiversity- and ecology-themed journals and domain-specific innovations. This is why we are honoured to be able to share our experience and approach with Senckenberg and Contributions to Entomology,”

says Prof. Dr Lyubomir Penev, founder and CEO at ARPHA and Pensoft.

***

About Senckenberg:

Senckenberg, Research Institutes and Natural History Museums, conduct research in bio- and geoscience. Major research fields are biodiversity and ecosystem research and the research on the entire Earth-Human-Earth system. Senckenberg headquarters are located in Frankfurt am Main, but research on marine, terrestrial and climate systems is also housed at additional nine locations throughout Germany: in Dresden, Gelnhausen, Gorlitz, Hamburg, Messel, Muncheberg, Tubingen, Weimar and Wilhelmshaven. Senckenberg employs about 1,000 people, including 300 scientists. Senckenberg scientists are active in projects worldwide, most of which are international collaborations with universities and other research institutions. Senckenberg hosts biological and geological research collections with more than 35 million series.

Posted on

Moscow State Linguistic University’s journal Languages and Modalities launched on ARPHA Platform

Languages and Modalities, a new peer-reviewed international journal published by the Moscow State Linguistic University, now uses a high-end publishing infrastructure after moving to the technologically advanced ARPHA Platform and signing with scholarly publisher and technology provider Pensoft.

The journal encourages the exchange of ideas in the study of meaning at the intersection of various languages and modes and channels of communication. It explores the ways in which we create, express, or negotiate meaning using different languages and modes or channels of communication, how we borrow and adapt words and their meanings between languages, how meanings differ in different languages, and how they travel and change across languages and modalities.

Languages and Modalities publishes articles on the cross-lingual aspects of semantics, comparative and contrastive semantics, various types of bilingualism, and on the multimodality of human interaction. It especially encourages submissions that are interdisciplinary in content and methodology. The cutting-edge approaches and methods of cross-lingual and multimodal linguistic research it disseminates help improve our understanding of natural interaction across languages and contribute to more efficient communication. Providing an open-access platform for international audiences of scholars in cross-lingual and multimodal semantics, the journal contributes to building up the capacity of cross-disciplinary exchange of ideas worldwide.

After moving to Pensoft’s scholarly publishing platform ARPHA, and with a new user-friendly website, Languages and Modalities now takes full advantage of ARPHA’s signature fast-track, end-to-end publishing system, which significantly improves user experience for authors, reviewers and editors alike. The collaboration-focused platform supports manuscripts in all steps of the publishing process – submission, peer review, editing, publication, dissemination and archiving, all within its online environment. To the benefit of readers, published articles are then made available in PDF, machine-readable JATS XML formats, and semantically enriched HTML, which makes them much easier to discover, access, cite and reuse.

“ARPHA has proved to be the best solution for both commencing and experienced editorial teams, as it creates a very friendly environment from the point of view of publishing processes, as well as personal interaction,” commented the journal’s editor in chief, Olga Iriskhanova.

The journal’s first issue, focused on multimodal studies of co-speech gestures as well as sign languages, is already available open access on its new website. It is dedicated to the memory of Dominique Boutet (1966–2020), a French researcher who introduced a breakthrough method of analyzing co-speech gestures and sign language signs based on modern technology from the digital arts and a multidisciplinary approach to gesture annotation. His kinesiological approach offers a unique methodological system that changes a researcher’s perspective from an external (visual) to an internal (physiological) one, allowing for a more objective and digital-friendly analysis.

Other highlights in this pilot issue, which contains works are inspired, built on, or related to Boutet’s framework for multimodal kinesiological analysis of interlocutors’ bodily movements observed in various languages, include an investigation of the multimodal expression of irony in interaction and a discussion of the use of the question-answer pattern for relativisation across signed languages. 

With this new partnership, Pensoft steps into the field of linguistics and communication studies. The scholarly publisher, best known for its wide range of biodiversity journals, is constantly looking to expand its thematic scope – just recently it added computer studies to its portfolio after announcing a deal with the Journal of Universal Computer Science.

Posted on

Interventional Cardiology Forum to publish on ARPHA in two languages

The Bulgarian Society of Interventional Cardiology’s journal Interventional Cardiology Forum now boasts an improved publishing infrastructure after moving to the technologically advanced ARPHA Platform, developed by scholarly publisher and technology provider Pensoft. This is the second cardiology journal to move on to ARPHA, after Bulgarian Cardiologydid so last year.

The official organ of The Bulgarian Society of Interventional Cardiology (BulSIC), Interventional Cardiology Forum popularizes scientific achievements in the rapidly developing, highly innovative field of interventional cardiology, which deals specifically with catheter-based treatment of heart diseases and including diagnosis and treatment of coronary artery disease, vascular disease and acquired structural heart disease. The journal provides a platform for the presentation of personal experience, ideas, discussions, and new techniques, devices and materials for catheterization laboratories.

Opting for ARPHA’s white-label solution, Interventional Cardiology Forum will benefit from ARPHA’s services while publishing under BulSIC’s branding and imprint. The journal is already enjoying a brand-new, user-friendly website under Pensoft’s scholarly publishing platform. Furthermore, it takes advantage of ARPHA’s signature fast-track publishing system, which offers an end-to-end solution from submission to publication, distribution and archiving. Providing a synergic online space for submission, reviewing, editing, production and archiving, ARPHA ensures a seamlessly integrated workflow at every step of the publishing process.

Interventional Cardiology Forum is the third journal in ARPHA’s universe to opt for bilingual publishing after Bulgaria’s National Cardiac Society’s Bulgarian Cardiology and Moscow State University’s Population and Economics. At Interventional Cardiology Forum, authors can publish their papers in either Bulgarian or both Bulgarian and English, where bilingual papers are displayed in both languages side by side.

Posted on

NeoBiota invites risk analysis studies in a new Special Issue on advancements in the screening of freshwater and terrestrial non-native species

The “Recent advancements in the risk screening of freshwater and terrestrial non-native species” Special Issue in the open-access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal NeoBiota is now open for submissions.

The issue is managed by the international team of guest editors of Dr Daniela Giannetto (Mugla Sitki Kocman University, Turkey), Prof. Marina Piria (University of Zagreb, Croatia), Prof. Ali Serhan Tarkan (Mugla Sitki Kocman University, Turkey) and Dr Grzegorz Zięba (University of Lodz, Poland).

The deadline for submission is 28 February 2022, with the issue scheduled for publication in August 2022. 

The new special issue is expected to collate prominent contributors from the field of invasive ecology, thereby addressing existing gaps in the knowledge about both freshwater and terrestrial non-native species and their management.

The editors note that despite the current efforts and measures to monitor and tackle the spread of non-native species, and especially those posing imminent threat to local biodiversity and ecosystems, further expansion of such populations has increasingly been recorded in recent years. Of special concern are developing countries, where legislation for controlling non-native species is still lacking.

A major problem is that – as of today – we are still missing on risk screening studies needed to provide evidence for the invasiveness potential of many non-native species across several taxonomic groups, which would then be used to support specific conservation efforts. Unfortunately, this is particularly true for species inhabiting the world’s biodiversity hotspots, point out the editors.

Risk-based identification of non-native species is an essential process to inform policy and actions for conservation and management of biodiversity. Previously published papers on risk screening of aquatic non-native species, and especially those using the most widely-employed ‘-ISK’ decision-support toolkits, have attracted mounting interest from the wider scientific community.

***

Visit NeoBiota’s journal website at: https://neobiota.pensoft.net/ 

Follow NeoBiota on Twitter and Facebook.

Posted on

Journal Alpine Entomology calls for contributions in a new topical collection

“Trends in Arthropods of Alpine Aquatic Ecosystems” is the first topical collection for the journal of the Swiss Entomological Society

The open-access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal Alpine Entomology, published by Pensoft on behalf of the Swiss Entomological Society, announced its very first topical collection of articles, which will be focusing on arthropods associated with aquatic ecosystems in mountainous regions.

The journal is currently inviting scientists, working on aquatic fauna from alpine habitats, to openly publish their research articles and short notices that provide evidence how arthropods’ biogeography, species communities, distribution, behaviour and morphology have changed in recent times. 

The aim of the “Trends in Arthropods of Alpine Aquatic Ecosystems” collection is to bring together data and findings about what many agree is the most impacted type of environment on Earth: aquatic ecosystems, especially running waters.

“Aquatic invertebrates are key indicators of global or local changes. Furthermore, many aquatic ecosystems are closely linked to mountains because they originate in them. Many valuable unpublished datasets on aquatic arthropod fauna may therefore be available from mountainous regions,”

explain the rationale behind the newly opened topical article collection guest editors Dr. Jean-Luc Gattolliat (Museum of Zoology, Lausanne and University of Lausanne, Switzerland) and Dr. David Muranyi (Eszterházy Károly Catholic University, Hungary).

The collection will remain open for submissions for the next two years. In the meantime, the accepted manuscripts will be published on a rolling basis, as soon as they are ready for publication.

***

Visit the journal’s website at: https://alpineentomology.pensoft.net/ 
Follow Alpine Entomology on Twitter and Facebook.