Diabetic nephropathy is the most common cause of kidney failure. It accounts for more than half of all cases of end-stage renal disease. Kidney diseases will affect between 20-40% of diabetics in their lifetime. Diabetic nephropathy is involved steadily in increasing proteinuria, accompanied by elevated blood pressure, with a progressive decline in Glomerular Filtration Rate. There is also a greatly increased risk of cardiovascular disease.
Open access to the scientific literature means the removal of barriers (including price barriers) from accessing scholarly work. There are two parallel ââ¬Åroadsââ¬Â towards open access: Open Access articles and self-archiving. Open Access articles are immediately, freely available on their Web site, a model mostly funded by charges paid by the author (usually through a research grant). The alternative for a researcher is ââ¬Åself-archivingââ¬Â (i.e., to publish in a traditional journal, where only subscribers have immediate access, but to make the article available on their personal and/or institutional Web sites (including so-called repositories or archives)), which is a practice allowed by many scholarly journals.
Open Access raises practical and policy questions for scholars, publishers, funders, and policymakers alike, including what the return on investment is when paying an article processing fee to publish in an Open Access articles, or whether investments into institutional repositories should be made and whether self-archiving should be made mandatory, as contemplated by some funders.
Last date updated on September, 2024