Viticulture Data Journal

Pensoft collaborates with R Discovery to elevate research discoverability

Pensoft and R Discovery’s innovative connection aims to change the way researchers find academic articles.

Leading scholarly publisher Pensoft has announced a strategic collaboration with R Discovery, the AI-powered research discovery platform by Cactus Communications, a renowned science communications and technology company. This partnership aims to revolutionize the accessibility and discoverability of research articles published by Pensoft, making them more readily available on R Discovery to its over three million researchers across the globe.

R Discovery, acclaimed for its advanced algorithms and an extensive database boasting over 120 million scholarly articles, empowers researchers with intelligent search capabilities and personalized recommendations. Through its innovative Reading Feed feature, R Discovery delivers tailored suggestions in a format reminiscent of social media, identifying articles based on individual research interests. This not only saves time but also keeps researchers updated with the latest and most relevant studies in their field.

Open Science is much more than cost-free access to research output.
Lyubomir Penev

One of R Discovery’s standout features is its ability to provide paper summaries, audio readings, and language translation, enabling users to quickly assess a paper’s relevance and enhance their research reading experience significantly.

With over 2.5 million app downloads and upwards of 80 million journal articles featured, the R Discovery database is one of the largest scholarly content repositories.

“At Pensoft, we do realise that Open Science is much more than cost-free access to research outputs. It is also about easier discoverability and reusability, or, in other words, how likely it is for the reader to come across a particular scientific publication and, as a result, cite and build on those findings in his/her own studies. By feeding the content of our journals into R Discovery, we’re further facilitating the discoverability of the research done and shared by the authors who trust us with their work,” said ARPHA’s and Pensoft’s founder and CEO Prof. Lyubomir Penev.

Abhishek Goel, Co-Founder and CEO of Cactus Communications, commented on the collaboration, “We are delighted to work with Pensoft and offer researchers easy access to the publisher’s high-quality research articles on R Discovery. This is a milestone in our quest to support academia in advancing open science that can help researchers improve the world.”

So far, R Discovery has successfully established partnership with over 20 publishers, enhancing the platform’s extensive repository of scholarly content. By joining forces with R Discovery, Pensoft solidifies its dedication to making scholarly publications from its open-access, peer-reviewed journal portfolio easily discoverable and accessible.

Pensoft among the first 27 publishers to share prices & services via the Journal Comparison Service by Plan S

All journals published by Pensoft – each using the publisher’s self-developed ARPHA Platform – provide extensive and transparent information about their costs and services in line with the Plan S principles.

In support of transparency and openness in scholarly publishing and academia, the scientific publisher and technology provider Pensoft joined the Journal Comparison Service (JCS) initiative by cOAlition S, an alliance of national funders and charitable bodies working to increase the volume of free-to-read research.

As a result, all journals published by Pensoft – each using the publisher’s self-developed ARPHA Platform – provide extensive and transparent information about their costs and services in line with the Plan S principles.

The JCS was launched to aid libraries and library consortia – the ones negotiating and participating in Open Access agreements with publishers – by providing them with everything they need to know in order to determine whether the prices charged by a certain journal are fair and corresponding to the quality of the service.

According to cOAlition S, an increasing number of libraries and library consortia from Europe, Africa, North America, and Australia have registered with the JCS over the past year since the launch of the portal in September 2021.

While access to the JCS is only open to librarians, individual researchers may also make use of the data provided by the participating publishers and their journals.

This is possible through an integration with the Journal Checker Tool, where researchers can simply enter the name of the journal of interest, their funder and affiliation (if applicable) to check whether the scholarly outlet complies with the Open Access policy of the author’s funder. A full list of all academic titles that provide data to the JCS is also publicly available. By being on the list means a journal and its publisher do not only support cOAlition S, but they also demonstrate that they stand for openness and transparency in scholarly publishing.

“We are delighted that Pensoft, along with a number of other publishers, have shared their price and service data through the Journal Comparison Service. Not only are such publishers demonstrating their commitment to open business models and cultures but are also helping to build understanding and trust within the research community.”
said Robert Kiley, Head of Strategy at cOAlition S.

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About cOAlition S:

On 4 September 2018, a group of national research funding organisations, with the support of the European Commission and the European Research Council (ERC), announced the launch of cOAlition S, an initiative to make full and immediate Open Access to research publications a reality. It is built around Plan S, which consists of one target and 10 principles. Read more on the cOAlition S website.

About Plan S:

Plan S is an initiative for Open Access publishing that was launched in September 2018. The plan is supported by cOAlition S, an international consortium of research funding and performing organisations. Plan S requires that, from 2021, scientific publications that result from research funded by public grants must be published in compliant Open Access journals or platforms. Read more on the cOAlition S website.

Pensoft’s ARPHA Publishing Platform integrates with OA Switchboard to streamline reporting to funders of open research

By the time authors open their inboxes to the message their work is online, a similar notification will have also reached their research funder.

By the time authors – who have acknowledged third-party financial support in their research papers submitted to a journal using the Pensoft-developed publishing platform: ARPHA – open their inboxes to the congratulatory message that their work has just been published and made available to the wide world, a similar notification will have also reached their research funder.

This automated workflow is already in effect at all journals (co-)published by Pensoft and those published under their own imprint on the ARPHA Platform, as a result of the new partnership with the OA Switchboard: a community-driven initiative with the mission to serve as a central information exchange hub between stakeholders about open access publications, while making things simpler for everyone involved.

All the submitting author needs to do to ensure that their research funder receives a notification about the publication is to select the supporting agency or the scientific project (e.g. a project supported by Horizon Europe) in the manuscript submission form, using a handy drop-down menu. In either case, the message will be sent to the funding body as soon as the paper is published in the respective journal.

“At Pensoft, we are delighted to announce our integration with the OA Switchboard, as this workflow is yet another excellent practice in scholarly publishing that supports transparency in research. Needless to say, funding and financing are cornerstones in scientific work and scholarship, so it is equally important to ensure funding bodies are provided with full, prompt and convenient reports about their own input.”
comments Prof Lyubomir Penev, CEO and founder of Pensoft and ARPHA.

“Research funders are one of the three key stakeholder groups in OA Switchboard and are represented in our founding partners. They seek support in demonstrating the extent and impact of their research funding and delivering on their commitment to OA. It is great to see Pensoft has started their integration with OA Switchboard with a focus on this specific group, fulfilling an important need,”
adds Yvonne Campfens, Executive Director of the OA Switchboard.

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About the OA Switchboard:

A global not-for-profit and independent intermediary established in 2020, the OA Switchboard provides a central hub for research funders, institutions and publishers to exchange OA-related publication-level information. Connecting parties and systems, and streamlining communication and the neutral exchange of metadata, the OA Switchboard provides direct, indirect and community benefits: simplicity and transparency, collaboration and interoperability, and efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

About Pensoft:

Pensoft is an independent academic publishing company, well known worldwide for its novel cutting-edge publishing tools, workflows and methods for text and data publishing of journals, books and conference materials.

All journals (co-)published by Pensoft are hosted on Pensoft’s full-featured ARPHA Publishing Platform and published in a way that ensures their content is as FAIR as possible, meaning that it is effortlessly readable, discoverable, harvestable, citable and reusable by both humans and machines.

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Curvature values, a new aspect in the morphology of grapevine seeds

Guest blog post by Dr Emilio Cervantes

Grape seeds have a characteristic oval or pear-like shape. It has been long recognised that this form is variable, and that, in general, wild-type seeds are smaller and more rounded, while the seeds of cultivated varieties tend to be more elongated in one side, or pear-shaped.

Recently, seeds belonging to 38 cultivars stored in the collection of IMIDRA were classified in ten morphological groups, each corresponding to a new morphological model. The models are geometric figures defined by equations, and similarity to each model is evaluated by quantification of percent of the area shared by the two figures, the seed and the model (J index).

The groups thus defined were: Listán Prieto, Albillo Real, Moscatel, Doña Blanca, Hebén, Tortozón, Sylvestris, Teta de Vaca, Airén and de Cuerno.

A seed of *Vitis vinifera* and a graphic showing curvature values in the seed apex. Image by Dr Emilio Cervantes

An article just published in the open-access, peer-reviewed Viticulture Data Journal by the same research groups at IRNASA-CSIC, Department of Mathematics of Salamanca University and IMIDRA, presents an analysis of the curvature – the degree of variation in the points of a curve – in the apex of the cultivars. A set of points along the surface of the seed image are marked and used to obtain the Bézier curves corresponding to seed profiles. The curvature values along the curves are then calculated in Mathematica and represented. Then, the cultivars are classified according to the variation of their curvature and distribution of maximum curvature values. The groups formed based on the curvature analysis are related to the classification based on geometrical figures.

The process of obtaining the curvature values in the seed apex in the program Mathematica.
Vide by Dr Emilio Cervantes

The results show the peduncles of Vitis seeds can be ordered in three groups: 1) Acute, with a unique point of maximum curvature; 2) Plane, with two equivalent points of maximum curvature, and 3) Intermediate. According to this result, the groups based on geometric models are divided by the curvature analysis in two series:

The seeds in most of the cultivars had their pedicels flat at their apex. In consequence, representations of Bézier of their profiles had a plane form with two maximum curvature values. This type was observed in a total of 23 cultivars, including all but one of the 23 cultivars in four groups, and with the addition of Airén. The cultivars with a flat pedicel are predominant in groups Listán Prieto (Listán Prieto and Tortozona Tinta), Albillo Real (Alarije, Albillo Real, Cayetana Blanca, Graciano, Juan García and Tempranillo), eleven of the twelve cultivars of group Moscatel (all of them except Moscatel de grano menudo), the three cultivars of group Doña Blanca (Doña Blanca, Monastrell and Pedro Ximénez) and Airén.

The seeds with an acute apex belong to six cultivars in four groups: Hebén (Macabeo and Zalema, but not Hebén itself), Tortozón (Imperial and Tortozón), Airén (Mazuela) and de Cuerno.

The morphological difference between the seeds of wild grapes and cultivars of Vitis has been known for a long time, but biochemical and structural properties associated with these types remain to be investigated. Considering that lignin is an important component of the cell walls, it is possible that adaptation to agricultural conditions is associated with changes in lignin composition. Pedicel thickening and lignin synthesis may be increased in the cultivars that have their beaks plane in comparison with those varieties that present acute beaks.

Original source:

Cervantes E, Martín-Gómez JJ, Espinosa-Roldán FE, Muñoz-Organero G, Tocino Á, Cabello Sáenz de Santamaría F (2021) Seed apex curvature in key Spanish grapevine cultivars. Viticulture Data Journal 3: e66478. https://doi.org/10.3897/vdj.3.e66478