bims-evares Biomed News
on Evaluation of research
Issue of 2020‒05‒31
twenty-five papers selected by
Thomas Krichel
Open Library Society


  1. BMC Cancer. 2020 May 29. 20(1): 486
      BACKGROUND: Thousands of research articles on neuroblastoma have been published over the past few decades; however, the heterogeneity and variable quality of scholarly data may challenge scientists or clinicians to survey all of the available information. Hence, holistic measurement and analyzation of neuroblastoma-related literature with the help of sophisticated mathematical tools could provide deep insights into global research performance and the collaborative architectonical structure within the neuroblastoma scientific community. In this scientometric study, we aim to determine the extent of the scientific output related to neuroblastoma research between 1980 and 2018.METHODS: We applied novel scientometric tools, including Bibliometrix R package, biblioshiny, VOSviewer, and CiteSpace IV for comprehensive science mapping analysis of extensive bibliographic metadata, which was retrieved from the Web of ScienceTM Core Collection database.
    RESULTS: We demonstrate the enormous proliferation of neuroblastoma research during last the 38 years, including 12,435 documents published in 1828 academic journals by 36,908 authors from 86 different countries. These documents received a total of 316,017 citations with an average citation per document of 28.35 ± 7.7. We determine the proportion of highly cited and never cited papers, "occasional" and prolific authors and journals. Further, we show 12 (13.9%) of 86 countries were responsible for 80.4% of neuroblastoma-related research output.
    CONCLUSIONS: These findings are crucial for researchers, clinicians, journal editors, and others working in neuroblastoma research to understand the strengths and potential gaps in the current literature and to plan future investments in data collection and science policy. This first scientometric study of global neuroblastoma research performance provides valuable insight into the scientific landscape, co-authorship network architecture, international collaboration, and interaction within the neuroblastoma community.
    Keywords:  Children; Network analysis; Neuroblastoma; Research performance; Scientometrics
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-020-06974-3
  2. Orthod Craniofac Res. 2020 May 25.
      OBJECTIVE: To perform a bibliometric analysis on the top-cited articles over the last three decades from 1989 to 2018, using a longitudinal set-up, in order to analyse how articles' features have evolved over time.SETTING AND SAMPLE POPULATION: A sample of 312 articles divided in three subgroups of 104 top-cited articles for each decade were included. The h-index value was used to determine the sample size MATERIALS AND METHODS: The articles were identified through a search in the category "dentistry oral surgery and medicine" of the Web of Science database. The information relative to the articles was collected. Descriptive statistics was used to describe the articles and the journals; selected parameters were analysed with the Kruskal Wallis and the U-Mann Whitney test at the .05 level of significance.
    RESULTS: The top-cited articles were published mainly by orthodontic journals. Along the last two decades the scientific contribution of Asian and South American countries rose significantly. The trending topics varied in each decade. Skeletal anchorage related articles dominated the production of the decade 1999-2008 while new technologies as CBCT displayed a higher prevalence in the last decade, where new topics such as Corticotomy assisted orthodontics started to appear. The number of multi-authored articles increased while, the articles from no university institutions decreased.
    CONCLUSION: The publications in the three studied decades were significantly different in terms of numbers and characteristics. A longitudinal set-up allows to study the evolution of the scientific production and how the area of interest has developed over time.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; Citation analysis; Orthodontics; top-cited
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/ocr.12396
  3. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 May 26. pii: E3781. [Epub ahead of print]17(11):
      Highly cited papers in the Essential Science Indicators database refer to papers with citations in the top 1% of all papers in a research field, and they are considered to be symbols of scientific excellence and top performance of the past ten years. This study provided an informetric analysis of 7791 highly cited papers in the environmental sciences category during 2009-2019. Informetric indicators and visualization tools were applied to evaluate and present the performances of journals, countries/territories, institutions, top cited papers, and research hotspots. The results showed that the cumulative number of publications has increased exponentially, suggesting strong development of the environmental sciences category. There were 211 journals publishing highly cited papers, with Energy & Environmental Science as the leading journal. The USA ranked first with the highest number of publications and occupied the core position in the collaboration network, while Mainland China took the first place in independent research output. Review articles have an obvious advantage in terms of achieving high citations. "Adsorption", "climate change", and "heavy metal" were the most frequent keywords, with "microplastic" rising rapidly as a new research frontier in recent years. Five research hotspots were visualized from highly cited papers via cluster analysis.
    Keywords:  Essential Science Indicators; environmental sciences; highly cited paper; informetric analysis
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17113781
  4. Placenta. 2020 Apr 14. pii: S0143-4004(20)30097-7. [Epub ahead of print]95 106-120
      Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) is not a new subject in pregnancy. Nevertheless, this concept has newly begun to be integrated into pregnancy studies. We recognized articles that were published in English from 1977 to 2019 through electronic searches of the Web of Science™ database. The WoS database was searched for all published articles that compared preeclampsia from 1977 to January 2020. About 1469 documents in obstetrics and gynecology areas were analyzed in WoS database. VOSviewer software was employed to visualize the networks. The survey resulted in a 1469 published documents from 1977 to 2020. 'Gratacos' from Spain and 'Cetin' from Italy contributed the most publications. The greatest contribution came from the 'USA' (n = 498), 'Italy' (n = 155), and 'England' (n = 147). Furthermore, our results found that among these journals, the 'AJOG' (n = 318) and the 'Reproductive Sciences' (n = 209) published the largest number of papers. The top 100 most cited papers showed that 30% were reported in the 'AJOG'. About half the articles were published in the last decade and the most common studies were research paper (77%). The co-occurrence and co-citation analysis showed that the study formed four clusters. Finally, the strategic map was designed. We found that there existed an increasing trend in the large amount of publication on IUGR from 1977 to 2020. The number of studies in IUGR has substantially improved in the last decade. Authors from the 'USA' appeared the most proactive in addressing the IUGR area. By studying these articles, we propose important to support not only for grinding the IUGR challenges field but also for designing a new trend in this area.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric; Intrauterine Growth Restriction; Web of Science (WoS) Database
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.placenta.2020.03.010
  5. Ultrasonography. 2020 Apr 27.
      PURPOSE: This study aimed to clarify the present position of Ultrasonography in the scholarly journal network with a variety of bibliometric indicators. Furthermore, developmental strategies for Ultrasonography to become a top-tier journal are suggested.METHODS: The following bibliometric indicators were analyzed: number of citable articles, countries of authors, total cites, impact factor, Hirsch index, authors' countries and source titles of citing articles, and the titles of sources cited by articles in Ultrasonography.
    RESULTS: The annual number of citable articles was consistently 40 from 2014 to 2019. The number of countries of authors increased to 22 in 2018-2019. The numbers of total cites reached 632 in Web of Science, 595 in Scopus, and 552 in the Crossref metadata in 2019. The estimated 2-year impact factor soared from 2.15 in 2016 to 3.20 in 2019. The Hirsch index was 20 in both Scopus and the Web of Science Core Collection. Authors from 76 countries cited Ultrasonography. The number of source titles of citing articles was 668, and the number of source titles cited by articles in Ultrasonography was 1,246.
    CONCLUSION: The above bibliometric results show that Ultrasonography has become a top-tier journal in its field. Ultrasonography furnishes an example of how after changing its language policy to English-only, a local society journal became a highly cited journal in a short period of time. For further development of the journal, adoption of a data-sharing policy is recommended. Furthermore, indexation in MEDLINE should be pursued in the near future.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; Journal impact factor; Language; Metadata; Republic of Korea
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.14366/usg.20045
  6. J Nurs Manag. 2020 May 27.
      OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to assess the overall trends in the development and impact of high-impact papers in nursing research worldwide to gain insight into the focus areas of nursing research.BACKGROUND: Bibliometric method is proved to be effective in analyzing the papers' characteristics, and it gained considerable interest from the scientific community in recent years. An analysis of the characteristics and intrinsic patterns of high-impact papers in nursing research will provide an objective reflection of the research hotspots. Nursing managers can pointedly increase funding amount and strength research cooperation in order to put the scientific results into management practice.
    METHODS: Bibliometric methods and visualization software were used to comprehensively analyze high-impact papers in nursing research in terms of development trends, countries/regions, distribution of subject areas, research institutes, collaboration networks, and subject terms.
    RESULTS: There were 6,886 papers between 2008 and 2018. The number of papers increased from 528 in 2008 to 723 in 2015, and then remained above 600 in 2016 and 2017. These papers were mainly distributed in nursing, oncology, pediatrics, gynecology, teaching and education, and cardiac and cardiovascular systems and were cited by 128,845 papers that came from 89 Web of Science subject areas. Papers in nursing research accounted for the largest share of these citations. The top five countries in the world in terms of the number of high-impact papers were the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Sweden. The research institutions with the highest number of high-impact papers worldwide were the University of California System, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of North Carolina, the University of London, and the University of Technology Sydney. In this dataset, it was shown that research collaboration circles have been formed in the United States, Australia, Canada, and Europe; The subject-term analysis indicated that "women" and "students" have always been high-interest populations for high-impact papers, and that cancer is still one of the greatest threats to human health. Furthermore, the subject terms of high-impact papers in nursing research have gradually evolved from "disease" and "therapy" to "symptom."
    CONCLUSION: In recent years, the number of high-impact papers published each year in nursing research has grown over time. Nursing has been shown to be a highly specialized subject, and the majority of its high-impact papers have been published by research institutions. Although cross-regional collaborations are beginning to emerge, there is much room for improvement in this regard. Finally, women, students, cancer, and symptomatic care are the current focus areas in nursing research.
    Keywords:  Web of Science; bibliometrics; high-impact papers; nursing research; scientific outputs; visual analysis
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/jonm.13038
  7. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2020 May 26.
      BACKGROUND: As in all fields of medicine, animal studies are widely performed in orthopaedics and have increased in number over time. However, it is not clear to what extent these studies provide a basis for future research or advancements in clinical science. Concerns about the reliability and translational ability of animal studies have been reported, and major orthopaedic journals and organizations are encouraging the reduction of unnecessary experiments on animals. QUESTION/PURPOSES: (1) What proportion of animal studies conducted for orthopaedic research in Turkey were never published? And of those that were published, how long did it take to publish? (2) What proportion of those studies were published in journals with an Impact Factor of 2 or more? (3) What proportion of those published papers were never cited or cited only once? (4) What was the contribution to science of an animal euthanized for orthopaedic research in Turkey?METHODS: We reviewed all oral and poster presentations at the Turkish National Congress of Orthopaedics and Traumatology from 2009 to 2017 (retrieved from the archives of Acta Orthopaedica et Traumatologica Turcica), as well as all postgraduate theses in orthopaedics from 1991 to 2017 (retrieved from the archives of the National Thesis Center of the Council of Higher Education) to identify all orthopaedic studies that involved animals. We searched the keywords "animal studies," "experimental studies," and "orthopaedics" in these archives. We defined animal research as orthopaedic studies based on animal models. From this search and using that definition, 252 studies were identified. Of those, 4% (9) were excluded as they were thesis studies with no abstract in the archives. Thus, a total of 243 animal studies performed in Turkey were included for analysis in this retrospective study. The abstracts of these studies were examined to determine the study model (such as bone fracture models, tendon healing models, cartilage models) and number of euthanized animals. Between 1991 and 2017, 9412 vertebrate animals were euthanized for these studies. We searched PubMed, Google Scholar, ResearchGate, and ORCID to determine whether these papers were subsequently published, in which journal, and how long after the initial presentation publication occurred. The Web of Science 2019 database was used to determine the Impact Factor of the journals, the total citation count of each study, and the mean annual citation for each study (citations per year). For purposes of this analysis, we divided journals into those with an Impact Factor of 2 or more, 4 or more, and those with an Impact Factor below 2. The mean annual citation per euthanized animal (citations per animal per year) was calculated to determine the contribution of a euthanized animal to science.
    RESULTS: A total of 42% (101 of 243) of the animal studies in Turkey were never published. For all published studies, the mean time to publication was 2.2 ± 2.6 years (95% CI 1.7 to 2.6). The proportion of studies published in orthopaedic journals with an Impact Factor of 2 or more was 14% (34 of 243). Among the 142 published papers, 38% (54) were either never cited or were cited only once, and the mean citations per year was 1.1 ± 1.7 (95% CI 0.7 to 1.3). The mean citations per animal/year among the 142 published studies was 0.03 ± 0.04 (95% CI 0.02 to 0.04).
    CONCLUSION: In the 243 theses and national congress presentations, 9412 animals were euthanized. Based on the low percentage of papers using animals that were euthanized and the very low proportion of studies published in higher-Impact Factor journals or garnering more than a single citation, in aggregate, little seems to have been gained from the loss of animal life. Future studies should try to replicate or refute our results in other countries.
    CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Orthopaedic researchers should try to reduce their use of unnecessary animal studies, for example, by reporting on the use of the "3Rs" (replacement, reduction, and refinement) in the development of an animal study design, as well as through following universal guidelines so that a study might have a clinical impact. Researchers should not conduct an animal study until they are convinced that the expected results are quite likely to deliver substantial benefit to people or to advance science in a meaningful way; although this seems intuitive, our results suggest that this may not be taking place. Ethics committees in Turkey should consider more detailed questioning before approving animal studies. If our results are replicated elsewhere, then a broader look at how these approvals are conducted should be performed.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1097/CORR.0000000000001335
  8. Turk J Pharm Sci. 2019 Mar;16(1): 115-118
      Scientific performance of researchers that translates into academic improvement, tenure position in universities and project grants are commonly evaluated by using some bibliometric indicators. These indicators can be calculated through total number of papers and citations, impact factors of publishing journals, impact of each paper or impact of total papers. In addition, scientific impact of individuals is also determined by some indexes such as Hirsch (h) index. All of these measures and indexes have several limitations. Scientific projects and publications are mostly collaborative and all collaborators do not contribute to these projects and publications equally. Thus, it is difficult to understand and analyze an individual's performance by the outputs coming from collaborative studies. Here, a new practice for evaluating individual scientific performance is proposed. U and U' factors are able to detect a qualified article production capacity of the scientists producing from their research projects and studies objectively. Although these factors may not give an idea about their exact contributions and solutions on the specific scientific problems, U factors will assist a more objective evaluation for individual scientific performance or productivity of the scientists than other tools such as h factor and impact factor alone. Because h factor excludes certain articles of researchers, in this paper, I propose to use U factor instead of h for a more objective evaluation. Especially the U' factor may also be helpful for an objective selection in scientific awards, project grants and in appointing academical staff.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric; grant; h index; impact factor; scientific performance; tenure
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.4274/tjps.35683
  9. J Orthop Surg Res. 2020 May 26. 15(1): 190
      BACKGROUND: The use of total knee arthroplasty (TKA) in treatment of chronic degenerative pathologies of the knee has boasted of an experience of 50 years. The aim of this bibliometric and visualized study is to comprehensively examine the current status and global trends of TKA research.METHODS: Publications related to TKA research from 2010 to 2019 were retrieved from Web of Science (WoS) and Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCIE) database and then analyzed through bibliometric methodology. As for the visualized study, the software VOS viewer was utilized for bibliographic coupling, coauthorship, cocitation, and co-occurrence analysis, along with further simulation of publication trends in this field.
    RESULTS: A total of 8631 publications were eventually included. The number of publications tends to increase annually worldwide. The USA was the pioneer which has made tremendous contributions, with the most publications and citations, as well as the highest H-index. The Journal of Arthroplasty has published the most papers, while Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research has the highest citation frequency. The Hospital for Special Surgery has made the greatest contribution when total publication number and coauthorship were taken together. Studies could be divided into five clusters: "alignment study", "revision TKA study", "complication study", "rehabilitation study", and "perioperative management study", which have a trend of balanced development in this field.
    CONCLUSIONS: There will be an increasing number of publications on TKA research according to the current global trends, and the USA maintained the leadership in this area. Additionally, a trend of balanced development may exist in the field of TKA research, accompanied with inherent changes of hotspots in each cluster.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; Total knee arthroplasty; Visualized study
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s13018-020-01707-5
  10. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 May 21. pii: E3638. [Epub ahead of print]17(10):
      Investments in research and development (R&D) and innovation are expensive, and one wishes to be assured that there is positive feedback and to receive guidance on how to direct investments in the future. The social or economic benefits of investments in R&D are of particular interest to policymakers. In this regard, public expense in research, especially through universities, is sometimes being questioned. This paper establishes a measure of how research in Spain, and specifically in its universities, is involved. In this study, we have analyzed all the literature cited in the period 1998-2018 produced by Spanish institutions and which has been cited in at least one international patent, obtaining more than 40,000 publications from more than 160,000 different authors. The data have been surprisingly positive, showing that practically all public universities contribute to this subject and that there is a great deal of international collaboration, both in terms of the number of countries with which they collaborate and the prestige of the institutions involved. Regarding the specific scientific fields in which this collaboration is most relevant, biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology, and medicine together account for almost 40% of the total works. The topics most used by these publications were those of diseases or medical problems such as: Neoplams, Carcinoma, Alzheimer Disease, or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1). Oncology was according to the All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) the leading and central issue. Therefore, although the result of basic research is difficult to quantify, when it is observed that there is a return in fields such as medicine or global health, it can be said that it is well employed. In terms of journals from a purely bibliometric point of view, it has been observed that some journals do not have a great impact or relative position within their categories, but they do have a great relevance in this area of patent support. Therefore, it would be worthwhile to set up a rank for scientific journals based on the citations of patents, so the percentage of articles cited in patents with Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) >1, and as an indicator of scientific transfer from universities or research centres, the transference index in patents (TIP) is also proposed.
    Keywords:  D); Research and Development (R& Scival; Spain; bibliometrics; patents; social returns
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17103638
  11. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2020 May 28.
      Due to the environmental impact associated with the products' use, sustainable design has extended consideration of products' production to consumption. This study puts forward the concept of sustainable design for users (SDfUs). Using related keywords of sustainable design and user-centered design, we identify a total of 447 usable articles published during 1992-2019 from Scopus. Results of bibliometric analysis show that the number of SDfUs articles has generally continuously increased since 2007. The most productive scholars are from the USA, the UK, and China, while the top three organizations are Loughborough University, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and Delft University of Technology. Different focuses of SDfUs appear among developed and developing countries. Green building design has emerged as one key area that uses the concept of SDfUs in developed countries such as the USA and the UK. SDfUs studies in developing countries such as China focus on design for end-of-life products' treatment and disposal. Most SDfUs studies examine how design can contribute to environmental performance through emission reduction and energy saving during products' use, and articles in one of five clusters from co-word analysis explore users' behaviors for sustainable design in the textile industry. This paper is the first study that systematically reviews the literature on SDfUs. It provides valuable insights for scholars in the SDfUs-related fields to identify their research directions and partners. Results on clusters from network analysis also offer practical implications for enterprises to learn from the construction and textile industries.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric analysis; Co-citation analysis; Co-word analysis; Literature review; Sustainable design; Trend; User
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-09283-1
  12. J Affect Disord. 2020 May 11. pii: S0165-0327(20)30821-1. [Epub ahead of print]274 363-371
      OBJECTIVES: To describe the development process and structural relationships of scientific achievements on stigma over the past two decades and to provide insights for researchers and policy makers to drive policy decisions and identify future research needs.METHODS: Quantitative analysis of publications was directly interpreted and graphed through Web of Science and ORIGIN 2017. The co-occurrence and collaboration analysis between authors, countries and keywords were conducted through VOSviewer. Keyword burst was detected through CiteSpace.
    RESULTS: The retrieved 2,799 publications showed a trend of increasing annual publications between 1998 and 2018. The United States made the greatest contribution to global publications regarding stigma. Four keyword clusters indicating research hotspot were identified through the default clustering method in VOSviewer. Meta-analysis and internalized stigma were detected as keyword bursts in recent years.
    CONCLUSIONS: The growth trend of publications indicated increased research interest in stigma, especially common stigma types, including HIV stigma and obesity stigma. Future research should focus on other types of stigma and should include more elaborate intervention programs, mechanism exploration, and research on internalized stigma. Scientific research on stigma requires an extensive collaborative endeavor, both domestically and internationally, among diverse researchers, institutions, and countries.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric analysis; Mental health; Stigma
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.05.006
  13. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 May 26. pii: E3766. [Epub ahead of print]17(11):
      BACKGROUND: COVID-19 has become one of the most serious global epidemics in the 21st Century. This study aims to explore the distribution of research capabilities of countries, institutions, and researchers, and the hotspots and frontiers of coronavirus research in the past two decades. In it, references for funding support of urgent projects and international cooperation among research institutions are provided.METHOD: the Web of Science core collection database was used to retrieve the documents related to coronavirus published from 2003 to 2020. Citespace.5.6.R2, VOSviewer1.6.12, and Excel 2016 were used for bibliometric analysis.
    RESULTS: 11,036 documents were retrieved, of which China and the United States have contributed the most coronavirus studies, Hong Kong University being the top contributor. Regarding journals, the Journal of Virology has contributed the most, while in terms of researchers, Yuen Kwok Yung has made the most contributions. The proportion of documents published by international cooperation has been rising for decades. Vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 are under development, and clinical trials of several drugs are ongoing.
    CONCLUSIONS: international cooperation is an important way to accelerate research progress and achieve success. Developing corresponding vaccines and drugs are the current hotspots and research directions.
    Keywords:  COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; bibliometrics; coronavirus
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17113766
  14. Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2020 May 26. 194599820924621
      OBJECTIVE: To assess the methodological quality of intervention-focused systematic reviews (SRs) and meta-analyses (MAs) published in high-impact otolaryngology journals.DATA SOURCES: Ovid Medline, Embase, and Cochrane Library.
    REVIEW METHODS: A comprehensive search was performed for SR and MA citations from 2012 to 2017 in the 10 highest impact factor otolaryngology journals. Abstracts were screened to identify published manuscripts in which the authors indicated clearly that they were performing an SR or MA. Applying a modified typology of reviews, 4 reviewers characterized the review type as SR, MA, or another review type. A simplified version of the AMSTAR 2 (A MeaSurement Tool to Assess systematic Reviews 2) tool was used to assess the reporting and methodological quality of the SRs and MAs that were focused on interventions.
    RESULTS: Search and abstract screening generated 499 manuscripts that identified themselves as performing an SR or MA. A substantial number (85/499, 17%) were review types other than SRs or MAs, including 34 (7%) that were literature reviews. In total, 236 SRs and MAs focused on interventions. Over 50% of these SRs and MAs had weaknesses in at least 3 of the 16 items in the AMSTAR 2, and over 40% had weaknesses in at least 2 of the 7 critical domains. Ninety-nine percent of SRs and MAs provided critically low confidence in the results of the reviews.
    CONCLUSION: Intervention-focused SRs and MAs published in high-impact otolaryngology journals have important methodological limitations that diminish confidence in the results of these reviews.
    Keywords:  meta-analysis; systematic review
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1177/0194599820924621
  15. Sci Total Environ. 2020 May 12. pii: S0048-9697(20)32501-8. [Epub ahead of print]733 138984
      Climate change and environmental management are issues of global concern. The advent of the era of Big Data has created a new research platform for the assessment of environmental governance and policies. However, little is known about Big Data application to climate change and environmental management research. This paper adopts bibliometric analysis in conjunction with network analysis to systematically evaluate the publications on carbon emissions and environmental management based on Big Data and Streaming Data using R package and VOSviewer software. The analysis involves 274 articles after rigorous screening and includes citation analysis, co-citation analysis, and co-word analysis. Main findings include (1) Carbon emissions and environmental management based on big data and streaming data is an emerging multidisciplinary research topic, which has been applied in the fields of computer science, supply chain design, transportation, carbon price assessment, environmental policy evaluation, and CO2 emissions reduction. (2) This field has attracted the attention of nations which are major contributors to the world economy. In particular, European and American scholars have made the main contributions to this topic, and Chinese researchers have also had great impact. (3) The research content of this topic is primarily divided into four categories, including empirical studies of specific industries, air pollution governance, technological innovation, and low-carbon transportation. Our findings suggest that future research should bring greater depth of practical and modeling analysis to environmental policy assessment based on Big Data.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric analysis; Big data; Carbon emission; Environmental management; Net-work analysis; Streaming data
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138984
  16. J Clin Periodontol. 2020 May 25.
      AIMS: To analyze the level of evidence (LOE) of clinical studies in the field of periodontology, and to investigate whether LOE is a predictor of scientific impact and social impact.MATERIALS AND METHODS: Clinical studies published in five leading periodontal journals during 2015 - 2019 were identified. The LOE of included studies were assessed with a modified LOE classification system based on Oxford 2009 LOE, Oxford 2011 LOE, and GRADE guidelines. Citation counts were harvested from Web of Science and Scopus. Altmetric Attention Scores (AAS) were obtained from Altmetric Explorer. Multivariable generalized estimation equation (GEE) analyses were used to investigate association between LOE and citation count, as well as between LOE and AAS.
    RESULTS: Among 768 studies included, the proportion of level-1, level-2, level-3, and level-4 was 10.4%, 44.8%, 13.7%, and 31.1%, respectively. In the multivariable GEE analyses, high LOE was a significant predictor of higher average citation count (P=0.010) and higher AAS (P<0.001).
    CONCLUSION: The LOE of clinical studies in the periodontal field is relatively high in general, although it varies significantly in different journals. Studies with high LOE tend to have greater scientific impact and social impact than low LOE studies.
    Keywords:  Altmetrics; Bibliometrics; Clinical studies; Level of evidence; Periodontology
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpe.13322
  17. Obes Surg. 2020 May 25.
      INTRODUCTION: In the last two decades, an impressive increase in the number of surgical interventions was recorded in bariatric surgery. Similarly, several bibliometric studies reported an increasing trend for scientific production. This study aims to compare these two trends.METHODS: This study focused on the period 2003-2016 and included the following procedures: adjustable gastric banding (AGB), bilio-pancreatic deviation (BPD), one-anastomosis gastric bypass (OAGB), Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB), sleeve gastrectomy (SG), and vertical banded gastroplasty (VBG). We retrieved the data on intervention from International Federation for the Surgery of Obesity and Metabolic Disorders (IFSO) surveys and data from publications from the Web of Science database. An analysis of the global trend and the trend per continent was performed.
    RESULTS: Over the study period, the most common procedure to be performed was RYGB (47.1%) followed by SG (33.5%) and AGB (14.8%). The percentage of publications was similar, with 48.3% studies on RYGB, 18.5% on AGB, and 18.4% on SG. In terms of evolution, SG has become the most common procedure to be performed in every continent but Latin America, while RYGB remains the most frequently discussed in scientific publications. Asia has the highest rate of publications per 1000 interventions (4.7), followed by Europe (3.0), the Pacific (2.0), and North America (1.6).
    CONCLUSION: This study found many similarities in the trend of publications and interventions in bariatric surgery: in particular with an important growth rate in the last 15 years and the progressive polarization toward two procedures (SG and RYGB). Nevertheless some important differences persist at a national level.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric; Cartography; Epidemiology; Obesity surgery; Publications; Worldwide
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11695-020-04703-0
  18. Health Policy. 2020 May 17. pii: S0168-8510(20)30093-2. [Epub ahead of print]
      This paper draws on 299 published articles from six databases, and utilizes a novel methodology combining elements of a systematic literature review, citation network analysis, and bibliometric analysis, to track the development of Lean Thinking (LT) in healthcare-a popular improvement methodology increasingly being adopted by healthcare organizations. A review of the LT literature in healthcare identifies that a piecemeal approach appears to have been taken regarding LT in health, with departmental focused implementations rather than LT's intended systems approach. In addition, tool-myopic thinking tends to be a prevalent practice and often governs implementations, with less attention provided to soft practices such as continuous improvement and employee empowerment, undermining the long-term sustainability of LT's improvements. To fully explore the scope of LT, a parallel analysis of the Healthcare Supply Chain Management (HSCM) literature was also undertaken to determine whether these same tendencies were present. This paper identified a substantial gap between the LT and the HSCM literatures as mirrored by the citation network analysis by uncovering almost no inter-disciplinary cross-citations. Bibliometric analysis identified the same divide in terms of authors, with only three publishing in both fields. It is crucial that LT is considered a system-wide approach and implementations move beyond departmental/functional boundaries and incorporate extended supply chains to ensure waste elimination rather than waste transference to other entities in supply chains.
    Keywords:  Healthcare management; Lean thinking; Process improvement; Systematic review
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2020.04.008
  19. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2020 May 13.
      BACKGROUND: Privacy has always been a concern, especially in the health domain. The proliferation of mHealth applications (mHealth apps) has led to a large amount of sensitive data being generated. Some authors have performed privacy assessments of mHealth applications. They have evaluated diverse privacy components, however, and used different criteria for their assessments.OBJECTIVE: This scoping review aims to understand how privacy is assessed for mHealth apps, focusing on components, scales, criteria, and scoring methods used. A simple taxonomy to categorize mHealth apps privacy assessments based on component evaluation is also proposed.
    METHODS: We followed the methodology defined by Arksey and O'Malley to conduct a scoping review. Included studies were categorized based on the privacy component, which was assessed using the proposed taxonomy.
    RESULTS: The database searches retrieved a total of 710 citations-24 of them met the defined selection criteria, and data were extracted from them. Even though the inclusion criteria considered articles since 2009, all the studies that were ultimately included were published from 2014 onward. Although 12 papers analyzed only privacy, 8 also included security. Moreover, 4 papers analyzed full apps, with privacy being just part of the assessment. The evaluation criteria used by authors are heterogeneous, and they are based on their experience, the literature, and/or existing legal framework. Regarding the set of items used for the assessments, each article defined a different one, including items like app permissions, analysis of the destination and content of communications, study of the privacy policy, use of remote storage, and existence of a password to access the app, among many others. Most of the included studies provide a scoring method that enables the comparison of privacy among apps.
    CONCLUSIONS: The assessment of mHealth apps' privacy is a complex task, as the criteria used by different authors for their evaluations are very heterogeneous. Although some studies about privacy assessment have been conducted, a very large set of items to evaluate privacy have been used up until now. In-app information and privacy policies are primarily utilized by the scientific community to extract privacy information from the mHealth apps. The creation of a scale based on more objective criteria is a desirable step forward for privacy assessment in the future.
    CLINICALTRIAL:
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.2196/18868
  20. J Heart Lung Transplant. 2020 Apr;pii: S1053-2498(20)30102-9. [Epub ahead of print]39(4S): S497
      PURPOSE: Currently, there are leading centers in lung transplantation and emerging centers in developing nations, such as in Asia and South America. We perform a primary analysis on the developing trend across regions.METHODS: We identified publications and records of lung transplantation including adult and pediatric from 1946 onwards. Analysis mapping by VosViewer version 1.6.11.
    RESULTS: Lung transplantation publications increased to 2034 in 2018, 7.34% of total transplantation papers. There were two peaks of research volumes, in 1968-1970 and 1992-1994 (Fig. 1) with emerging centers. In average, it took 16.4±9.8 years for the clinical team to publish the case series study results. Moreover, it took 18.7±14 years for the developing a case-control or larger scale of clinical studies. Some centers established after 1980s have performed clinical studies based on experience gained from other centers or with transferring of team leaders. Top authors with publications showed in Fig.2, whose affiliation comparable with the development of prestigious centers. For the clinical research, there has been an increasing trend of focus on pulmonary artery disease from China and living-donor lobe lung transplantation from Japan. There have been more reports from Asian region on preoperative care and complication management but limited data of EVLP due to economical and practical concern.
    CONCLUSION: Centers in Asian are emerging and developing in 1990s referenced from western accumulated experience. However, distinct characters have also been recognized in Asian region, which calls for cooperation across centers and regions.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healun.2020.01.085
  21. PLoS One. 2020 ;15(5): e0233765
      Researchers contribute to the frontiers of knowledge by establishing facts and reaching new conclusions through systematic investigations, and by subsequently publishing the outcomes of their research findings in the form of research papers. These research publications are indicative of researchers' scientific impact. Different bibliometric indices have been proposed to measure the impact or productivity of a researcher. These indices include publication count, citation count, number of coauthors, h-index, etc. The h-index, since its inception, has been ranked as the foremost impact indicator by many studies. However, as a consequence of the various short comings identified in h-index, some variants of h-index have been proposed. For instance, one dimension which requires significant attention is determining the ability of exceptional performers in a particular research area. In our study, we have compared effectiveness of h-index and some of its recent variants in identifying the exceptional performers of a field. We have also found correlation of h-index with recently proposed indices. A high correlation indicates same effect of these indices as of h-index and low correlation means these indices make non-redundant contribution while ranking potential researchers of a field of study. So far, effectiveness of these indices has not been explored/validated on real data sets of same field. We have considered these variants/modifications of h-index along with h-index and tested on comprehensive data set for the field of Computer Science. The Award winners' data set is considered as the benchmark for the evaluation of these indices for individual researchers. Results show that there is a low correlation of these indices with h-index, and in identifying exceptional performers of a field these indices perform better than h-index.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0233765
  22. Sci Total Environ. 2020 May 12. pii: S0048-9697(20)32876-X. [Epub ahead of print]733 139359
      Glyphosate (Gly) is a broad-spectrum herbicide and currently one of the most studied pesticides. New Gly-related data are published daily worldwide. Despite the large number of publications, there is no published scientometric revision that presently addresses this issue systematically. We aimed to scientometrically analyze the publication patterns of main topics related to Gly research. Web of Science data was obtained searching the topic "Glyphosate" (10,069 publications). Toxicology was the most influential area, and a subset was delimited containing the categories "Environmental Sciences", "Toxicology" and "Ecology" (2077 publications). The datasets were analyzed using Citespace. The publications number presented a high correlation with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in both datasets. USA was the leader of general publication about Gly, followed by Brazil, Canada and China. USA, Canada, Argentina, China and Brazil were the main countries in Gly toxicology. This subset was related with data of the GDP spending on Research & Developing and with the number of researchers by country. Thus, we ranked the main countries interested in the Gly and its toxicology and that invest their economic and human resources in these researches. Based on a keyword analysis by CiteSpace of the Gly toxicology, it was highlighted the "glyphosate-induced habitat alteration", that reflected the concern about Gly impact on agricultural and natural ecosystems. The researchers are also focused in studies involving AMPA (aminomethylphosphonic acid), the main Gly degradation product, the genotoxicity, herbicides mixture and in its presence in drinking water. More researches about Gly genotoxicity and carcinogenicity to humans are needed and more studies to compile the results of independent researches, such as meta-analytical reviews. Our study can support decisions and future efforts about Gly impacts and use, since more sustainable agriculture with less environment impact is important to the maintenance of ecosystem services and consequently the human health.
    Keywords:  AMPA; CiteSpace; Gross Domestic Product; Organophosphate; Pesticides; Toxicity
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.139359
  23. J Appl Behav Anal. 2020 May 25.
      The Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA) is considered the flagship journal for the discipline of applied behavior analysis. Thus, popular research topics and other publication trends within JABA reflect the current cultural and scientific contingencies governing the field of behavior analysis. Researchers have previously quantified a number of authorship trends in JABA (and other behavior-analytic journals) across a number of variables, such as gender identity and sex of author, country of origin, or seniority within the field (Dunlap et al., 1998) to examine demographic and organizational factors associated with successful publication in JABA. These analyses ought to be conducted continuously to monitor trends and detect any potential biases (e.g., sexism). Accordingly, the purpose of the present investigation was to replicate previous research in this area (e.g., Dymond et al., 2000) and provide an update of current publication trends within JABA. Implications for future research and publishing practices are discussed.
    Keywords:  authorship; men; publication history; seniority; women
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.726
  24. Spine (Phila Pa 1976). 2020 May 21.
      STUDY DESIGN: Prospective observational study.OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to identify correlates of search ranking among academic pedigree, online ratings, and social media following.
    SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA: Patients increasingly rely on online search in selecting healthcare providers. When choosing a spine surgeon, patients typically value surgical skill and experience as well as demeanor/bedside manner. It is unclear whether current search engine ranking algorithms reflect these preferences.
    METHODS: A Google.com search for the top 25 spine surgeon websites by search ranking was conducted for each of the largest 25 American cities. Resulting websites were then perused for academic pedigree, experience, and practice characteristics. Surgeons' research output and impact were then quantified via number of publications and H-index. Online ratings and followers in various social media outlets were also noted. These variables were assessed as possible correlates of search ranking via linear regression and multivariate analyses of variance.
    RESULTS: A total of 625 surgeons were included. Three categorical variables were identified as significant correlates of higher mean Google search ranking-orthopaedics (vs. neurosurgery) as a surgical specialty (p = 0.023), board certification (p = 0.024), and graduation from a top 40 residency program (p = 0.046). Although the majority of the identified surgeons received an allopathic medical education, there was no significant difference in the mean rank of surgeons who had an MD vs. DO medical degree (p = 0.530). Additionally, none of the continuous variables collected, including years in practice (p = 0.947), publications (p = 0.527), H-index (p = 0.278), social media following such as on Facebook (p = 0.105), or online ratings such as on Healthgrades (p = 0.080), were significant correlates of Google search ranking.
    CONCLUSIONS: Google search rankings do not always align with patient preferences, currently promoting orthopaedic over neurosurgical specialists, graduation from top residency programs and board certification, while largely ignoring academic pedigree, research, social media presence, and online ratings.
    LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 3.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1097/BRS.0000000000003567