The need for transparency and good practices in the qPCR literature

Two surveys of over 1,700 publications whose authors use quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) reveal a lack of transparent and comprehensive reporting of essential technical information. Reporting standards are significantly improved in publications that cite the Minimum Information for Publication of Quantitative Real-Time PCR Experiments (MIQE) guidelines, although such publications are still vastly outnumbered by those that do not.

Online privacy concerns and legal assurance: a user perspective

Since the emergence of the Internet and Social Media, privacy concerns and need for regulation in this area have been a frequent subject on the agenda of numerous stakeholders and policy-makers worldwide. Contributing to this debate, this paper builds on the responses of 553 Internet users to uncover users’ current privacy concerns and their attitudes towards legal assurances in this context. Our findings suggest that users have a complex attitude towards these issues. While they express strong concerns about privacy when asked directly, they often have difficulties formulating the exact nature of these concerns. In the Facebook context, Facebook itself is often mentioned as the primary source of threat, closely followed by marketing organizations. Users feel ill-protected by existing legal framework, especially when using Social Networking Sites. Reasons include common beliefs that the law is unable to address complexities of the Internet; local character of laws; possibilities to disregard the law, particularly since enforcement is difficult. Overall, positive changes in legal framework are desirable, with many respondents willing to pay more in taxes to ensure progress in this area.