Community-driven governance of FAIRness assessment: an open issue, an open discussion

Although FAIR Research Data Principles are targeted at and implemented by different communities, research disciplines, and research stakeholders (data stewards, curators, etc.), there is no conclusive way to determine the level of FAIRness intended or required to make research artefacts (including, but not limited to, research data) Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. The FAIR Principles cover all types of digital objects, metadata, and infrastructures. However, they focus their narrative on data features that support their reusability. FAIR defines principles, not standards, and therefore they do not propose a mechanism to achieve the behaviours they describe in an attempt to be technology/implementation neutral. Various FAIR assessment metrics and tools have been designed to measure FAIRness. Unfortunately, the same digital objects assessed by different tools often exhibit widely different outcomes because of these independent interpretations of FAIR. This results in confusion among the publishers, the funders, and the users of digital research objects. Moreover, in the absence of a standard and transparent definition of what constitutes FAIR behaviours, there is a temptation to define existing approaches as being FAIR-compliant rather than having FAIR define the expected behaviours. This whitepaper identifies three high-level stakeholder categories -FAIR decision and policymakers, FAIR custodians, and FAIR practitioners - and provides examples outlining specific stakeholders' (hypothetical but anticipated) needs. It also examines possible models for governance based on the existing peer efforts, standardisation bodies, and other ways to acknowledge specifications and potential benefits. This whitepaper can serve as a starting point to foster an open discussion around FAIRness governance and the mechanism(s) that could be used to implement it, to be trusted, broadly representative, appropriately scoped, and sustainable. We invite engagement in this conversation in an open Google Group fair-assessment-governance@googlegroups.com.

Total hip arthroplasty in rapidly progressive osteoarthritis of the hip: clinical and radiological outcome of a consecutive series of patients

Rapidly progressive osteoarthritis (RPOA) is an uncommon subset of osteoarthritis (OA) characterized by rapid joint degeneration and destruction. The treatment of choice for these patients has traditionally been total hip arthroplasty (THA) because nonoperative treatments modalities are not effective. RPOA can lead to acetabular bone loss and consequently intraoperative technical difficulties making joint reconstruction in such patients a challenge for the surgeon. The purpose of this study was to determine the clinical and radiological results of patients suffering from RPOA and treated with hybrid or cementless THA at a single institution. We retrospectively review of all patients who underwent THA for RPOA from January 2011 to December 2016. Twenty-three hips in twenty-one patients were included in this study, with a mean age at surgery of 74 years (range, 41-82) and a mean follow-up of 30 months (range, 24-60). In all patients an uncemented cup, either plasma-spray or trabecular titanium, was implanted. In eighteen cases a cemented femoral stem was used. In eight cases autologous bone graft was used to replace the acetabular defect. Radiographic and clinical follow-up was performed at six months postoperatively, twelve months and yearly thereafter. At radiographic follow-up, no signs of prosthetic loosening or migration were seen. Harris Hip Score improved from 65.3 preoperatively to 89.2 at latest follow-up. The use of both hybrid and uncemented THA in the treatment of RPOA was found to be successful in our patients with a mean 30 months follow-up. Hemispherical cementless cups with both plasma spray and high porosity outer surface (used in the worse cases) were effective in getting primary stability and bone ingrowth.