Department of Biology, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Department of Medicine, University of Udine, P.le Kolbe 4, 33100, Udine, Italy.
Eur J Appl Physiol. 2018 Sep;118(9):1869-1876. doi: 10.1007/s00421-018-3914-z. Epub 2018 Jun 25.
Several papers (algorithm papers) describe computational algorithms that assess alveolar breath-by-breath gas exchange by accounting for changes in lung gas stores. It is unclear, however, if the effects of the latter are actually considered in literature. We evaluated dissemination of algorithm papers and the relevant provided information.
The list of documents investigating exercise transients (in 1998-2017) was extracted from Scopus database. Documents citing the algorithm papers in the same period were analyzed in full text to check consistency of the relevant information provided.
Less than 8% (121/1522) of documents dealing with exercise transients cited at least one algorithm paper; the paper of Beaver et al. (J Appl Physiol 51:1662-1675, 1981) was cited most often, with others being cited tenfold less. Among the documents citing the algorithm paper of Beaver et al. (J Appl Physiol 51:1662-1675, 1981) (N = 251), only 176 cited it for the application of their algorithm/s; in turn, 61% (107/176) of them stated the alveolar breath-by-breath gas exchange measurement, but only 1% (1/107) of the latter also reported the assessment of volunteers' functional residual capacity, a crucial parameter for the application of the algorithm. Information related to gas exchange was provided consistently in the methods and in the results in 1 of the 107 documents.
Dissemination of algorithm papers in literature investigating exercise transients is by far narrower than expected. The information provided about the actual application of gas exchange algorithms is often inadequate and/or ambiguous. Some guidelines are provided that can help to improve the quality of future publications in the field.
有几篇论文（算法论文）描述了通过考虑肺部气体储存变化来评估肺泡逐口气体交换的计算算法。然而，目前尚不清楚文献中是否实际考虑了后者的影响。我们评估了算法论文的传播情况以及相关提供的信息。
从 Scopus 数据库中提取了 1998-2017 年期间调查运动瞬态的文献列表。对同一时期全文引用算法论文的文献进行了分析，以检查提供的相关信息是否一致。
不到 8%（121/1522）的处理运动瞬态的文献至少引用了一篇算法论文；引用最多的是 Beaver 等人的论文（J Appl Physiol 51:1662-1675, 1981），其他论文的引用率则低十倍。在引用 Beaver 等人的算法论文（J Appl Physiol 51:1662-1675, 1981）的文献中（N=251），只有 176 篇将其应用于他们的算法/方法；而其中 61%（107/176）的文献报道了肺泡逐口气体交换测量，但只有 1%（1/107）的文献报告了志愿者功能残气量的评估，这是应用算法的关键参数。在 107 篇文献中，有 1 篇在方法和结果中一致提供了气体交换相关信息。
文献中关于运动瞬态的算法论文的传播范围远窄于预期。提供的关于气体交换算法实际应用的信息往往不充分和/或模糊。提供了一些指南，可帮助提高该领域未来出版物的质量。
