Year: 2017
Type: editorial
Abstract: Article (MPDA) and proud to showcase the first such publication in this issue ("A longitudinal four-dimensional computed tomography and cone beam computed tomography dataset for image-guided radiation therapy research in lung cancer" by Hugo et al.).MPDAs describe scientifically or clinically valuable open-access datasets with high potential for contributing to the research of medical physicists working on problems related to such data.In contrast to Research Articles, MPDAs are not focused on hypothesis testing or data analyses supporting generalizable conclusions.Instead, MPDAs should provide detailed descriptions of high impact datasets, either from research or from clinical practice.MPDA manuscripts should address the data's value, scope, conditions of acquisition, known limitations, curation and quality assurance processes, and format.Some descriptive analysis and graphical visualizations are encouraged to better understand the dataset.A table should list the relevant data types available for all data instances, the range and other appropriate descriptive statistics, and, if applicable, the number of missing values.MPDAs should focus on helping others reuse data, rather than testing hypotheses, or presenting new interpretations, methods or in-depth analyses.A key point is that the authors must place the dataset in a recognized and stable data archive that makes the data available to other investigators with minimal restrictions.Making this service available to Medical Physics authors and readers recognizes that our field is dependent on experimental or computational datasets which are too expensive and difficult to reproduce in the laboratory of every researcher who needs such data.Using the same reference dataset also enables meaningful comparisons.Some examples of appropriate datasets include:
Source: Medical Physics
DOI: 10.1002/mp.12003
Language: English
Subfield: Radiation
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,360
OpenAlex ID: W2588754070