The writer’s number

Matthew E. Falagas, of the Alfa Institute of Biomedical Sciences (AIBS) in Athens, Greece, is frequently confused. Therefore, he wants you to have a number. His article called “Unique Author Identification Number in Scientific Databases: A Suggestion” (published in the May 2006 issue of PLOS Medicine) explains:

it is widely known that a considerable proportion of authors share the same last name and first initial. This seems to be the case for people of most ethnic heritages. In addition, authors of scientific publications do not frequently use their middle initial, which contributes to the confusion….

In order to decrease the problems arising from authors with identical names, I suggest the introduction of a unique author identification number (UAIN) in modern electronic databases of scientific information. I further suggest that such an identification number may be hidden in the electronic databases.

(Thanks to investigator Lissa Donner for bringing this to our attention.)