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Potential Conflict of Interest of Academic Editor

Posted by PLOS_ONE_Group on 24 Oct 2013 at 12:12 GMT

It has come to our attention that the Academic Editor who handled this manuscript, Dr Jim van Os, shares an affiliation with one of the authors of the article.

In line with the PLOS ONE competing interests policy (http://www.plosone.org/st...), we consider this as a potential conflict of interest. Dr van Os was invited by PLOS ONE to act as Academic Editor for this manuscript and we acknowledge that the journal should not have approached him to handle this manuscript.

We have therefore asked an independent Academic Editor, Professor Keith Laws, to carefully evaluate the peer review process of this article. Professor Laws has confirmed that he is satisfied that the decision for publication was adequate.

Competing interests declared: PLOS ONE Staff