bims-evares Biomed News
on Evaluation of research
Issue of 2020‒11‒08
forty-two papers selected by
Thomas Krichel
Open Library Society


  1. Rev Bras Ginecol Obstet. 2020 Oct;42(10): 614-620
      OBJECTIVE:  To evaluate the global productivity regarding original articles on maternal near-miss (MNM).METHODS:  We conducted a bibliometric analysis of original articles published from 2008 to November 2019 in the journals indexed in the Scopus database. The averages of the number of articles by author, of the number of authors by article, of the number of citations by article, and the total number of documents with one or more authors were obtained. An analysis of the co-citation of authors and a co-occurrence analysis of the terms included in the titles and abstracts were performed and were presented as network visualization maps.
    RESULTS:  A total of 326 original articles were analyzed. There was an increase in the number of articles (p < 0.001; average annual growth rate = 12.54%). A total of 1,399 authors, an average number of articles per author of 4.29, with an index of authors per document of 0.23, and an index of co-authors per document of 8.16 were identified. A total of 85 countries contributed with original articles on MNM. Among the top ten countries regarding the contribution of articles, five were low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Brazil had the highest volume of production (31.1%), followed by the US (11.5%). Terms related to countries and the measurement of the rates and cases of MNM and the associated factors were found in recent years in the analysis of the co-occurrence of terms.
    CONCLUSION:  There was an increase in the production of original articles on MNM, with a significant participation of authors and institutions from LMICs, which reveals a growing interest in the use of MNM indicators to improve the quality of maternal health care.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0040-1715136
  2. Acad Radiol. 2020 Nov 03. pii: S1076-6332(20)30598-5. [Epub ahead of print]
      In this review article, we discuss the literature pertaining to the bibliometric analysis of academic radiologists' scholarly activity in order to identify current trends, knowledge gaps, and potential future directions. Current research provides cross-sectional analyses of bibliometrics on three main themes: academic ranking, gender disparity, and research funding. The most commonly used parameters are the publication and the citation counts, the h-index and the number of years in academia. The h-index correlates positively with academic ranking and, in the case of editorial board members, with the journal's impact factor. Scholars who have secured National Institutes of Health funding tend to have higher h-indexes than those who have not. Whereas gender balance has been achieved in medical school and in several medical specialties, women remain significantly fewer than men in most areas of radiology. The underrepresentation of women is particularly noticeable at higher academic ranks and in leadership positions, suggesting that significant barriers to female radiologists' career advancement exist. Scholarly productivity of radiology residents and the impact of research on academic productivity are subjects that have received less attention in the published literature. Future studies should focus on whether bibliometric parameters can be used as reliable measurements of scholarly activity to help determine appointments, promotions and grant allocations, and to assess interventions that promote gender parity.
    Keywords:  Academic radiology; Bibliometrics; Gender disparity; H-index; Impact factor; Publications; Research productivity
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acra.2020.10.011
  3. Arch Cardiol Mex. 2020 Nov 04.
      BACKGROUND: The outbreak of COVID-19 has created a landslide of publications, from different sources and unequal impact. We considered that the first 3 months are crucial to understand how knowledge has been generated by performing a bibliometric analysis, including the citations to these articles to guide researchers in exploring this field, and to evaluate the relationship between confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths with the number of papers per country.METHODS: Scientific publications were obtained from PubMed (January-March 2020) and their citations during the first 6 months retrieved from the Scopus database. An analysis of the number of papers by country, approach (type and category of publication), and impact was made. A multiple linear regression model was implemented to analyze the correlation between the number of publications and confirmed cases and deaths.
    RESULTS: A total of 2,530 publications were analyzed with 59,104 citations (23.4 citations/article), written by authors from 67 countries. China was the country with more publications (988, 39%) and more citations (36,416, 63%) followed by the United States with 423 articles (16.7%) and 7,458 citations (12.6%). The coauthorship network identified 10,756 authors. According to the multivariate analysis, both confirmed cases and deaths were significantly correlated with the number of publications per country (corrected by population size and gross domestic product).
    CONCLUSION: The correlation with the number of publications suggests that cases and deaths had some impact on the medical literature, reflecting how rapidly the scientific community has been on the frontline in the fight against COVID-19.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.24875/ACM.20000370
  4. World Neurosurg. 2020 Nov 02. pii: S1878-8750(20)32352-4. [Epub ahead of print]
      BACKGROUND: Flow diverters are novel, contemporary tools in treating intracranial aneurysms. There is rapid publication turnover with newer devices introduced and expanding indications. The bibliometric analysis measures the impact of particular articles and summarizes the chronological trends overall.METHODS: In July 2020, we performed a thorough search in the Scopus database using the word "flow diversion," "flow diverter," and "flow diverting stent.'' The top 100 most impactful articles were arranged based on citation count in descending order. The collected articles were then analyzed with an assessment of relevant factors.
    RESULTS: Almost 1671 articles were published between 2007 and 2020. The gathered top 100 most-cited articles amassed a total of 10,035 citations, with an average citation count (CC) of 100.35. An 8.8% self-citation rate was identified for all authors. The publication trends peaked in 2012, in which 24% of articles were published. Most prolific categories with top citations are on the pipeline embolization, followed by the silk flow diverter category. The United States published the highest number of articles. The University of Buffalo and Mayo Clinic published most of the articles among other institutions. The American Journal of Neuroradiology was the most productive journal by producing 28 articles.
    CONCLUSION: This bibliometric analysis reveals significant chronological trends, with a shift from utility and outcome to short and long-term complications. Areas to improve in flow diverter research can be addressed after this analysis of the most impactful articles on this topic.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric; Citation Analysis; Endovascular Stenting; Flow Diversion; Pipeline embolization device; Silk Flow Diverter
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wneu.2020.10.150
  5. Orthop Traumatol Surg Res. 2020 Oct 29. pii: S1877-0568(20)30292-9. [Epub ahead of print]
      BACKGROUND: France ranks 9th worldwide for scientific publication in orthopedics and the increase in both the quantity and the quality of its scientific production has been described in detail. On the other hand, publishing by French orthopedic surgeons in predatory journals is more obscure. The journals in question are difficult to identify but are based on an open-access model with article processing charges (APC), except in rare cases that are difficult to specify, as they are not stated at the time of submission. The increase in the number of predatory journals over the last 10 years led us to attempt to assess the rate at which French orthopedic surgeons publish in them, as revealed by investigation of the SIGAPS bibliometric database.HYPOTHESIS: Over the period 2008-2017, the rate of publications by French orthopedic surgeons in predatory journals was less than 5%.
    MATERIAL AND METHOD: The SIGAPS database contains the detail of publications by French orthopedic surgeons members of the French Society of Orthopedic Surgery and Traumatology (SoFCOT) and was used to analyse all such articles (journal article, review or editorial) so as to isolate articles with PubMed-Not-MEDLINE status falling in the SIGAPS non-classified (NC) category and to determine the predatory status of the journal using established lists, such as Beall's list or that drawn up by StopPredatoryJournals. In case of difficulty in determining predatory status, we applied the criteria defined by Beall and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
    RESULTS: Out of 6056 articles in the SIGAPS database published by French orthopedic surgeons between 2008 and 2017, 323 could be suspected of being published in a predatory journal, but only 33 were so confirmed: i.e., 0.55% of French orthopedic scientific output over the study period. Eleven appeared in journals whose publishers were listed as predatory by Beall, 21 appeared in journals whose publishers had been listed as predatory on Beall's list in 2012 with the dubious editorial practices defined by Beall, and one article appeared in a journal found to be predatory on analysis of its editorial board. More than half of these articles (58%) were subject to APCs averaging $400.
    DISCUSSION: Despite a strong increase in the number of predatory journals over the last decade, very few French orthopedic surgeons resort to them to publish their work. Difficulty of identification and authors' lack of knowledge about this type of journals may account for some of these submissions. Scientific teams need to check certain criteria before submitting to a journal: short time to publication and low APC should be taken as warning signs, and any demand for payment after acceptance certainly raises the question of the journal's predatory nature.
    LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: IV; retrospective study without control group.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; France; Impact factor; Predatory journal; Scientific literature
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.otsr.2020.03.042
  6. Integr Cancer Ther. 2020 Jan-Dec;19:19 1534735420959442
      PURPOSE: Acupuncture has been used for managing cancer-related symptoms. However, there are still few studies concerning the overall trends in acupuncture therapy on cancer based on bibliometric analysis. This study aims to demonstrate the current status and trends in this field over the past 2 decades.METHODS: Articles were retrieved from the Web of Science from 2000 to 2019. CiteSpace was used for co-authorship network of countries/institutions, dual-map analysis, and detecting the keywords with citation bursts. VOSviewer was used to construct networks based on co-authorship and co-citation analysis of authors, and co-occurrence of keywords.
    RESULTS: A total of 927 articles and reviews were included in the final analysis. The number of publications has steadily increased with some fluctuations among years. The country and institution contributing most to this field are the USA and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Mao JJ was the most productive author and Molassiotis A ranked first in the cited authors. The co-occurrence analysis revealed 5 clusters (including "clinical trials," "clinical studies on chemotherapy/radiation-induced symptoms," "CAM therapy for cancer," "clinical studies on vasomotor symptoms," and "systematic reviews"). Most recent keyword bursts were "neuropathic pain," "arthralgia," "prevention," "supportive care," and "integrative medicine".
    CONCLUSIONS: The annual publication output would increase rapidly in the next decade, which shows a promising future in this research field. Future research hotspots would focus on the role of acupuncture in neuropathic pain, arthralgia, prevention, supportive care, and integrative medicine.
    Keywords:  CiteSpace; VOSviewer; acupuncture therapy; bibliometric analysis; cancer
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1177/1534735420959442
  7. Chirurgia (Bucur). 2020 Sept-Oct;115(5):pii: 10. [Epub ahead of print]115(5): 635-642
      Background: Liver transplantation (LT) has become a field with rich publication activity; however, there is a paucity of research regarding LT publications from southeastern European (SEE) countries. Understanding the factors that influence the publication output is essential to direct the research and to promote the publication of high-quality papers. Methods: A bibliometric analysis was performed in PubMed for articles published on LT-related clinical experience from 11 countries from the SEE region before 2020. Data included the number of publications, citations, journal (cumulative) impact factors (IFs) and first/senior author gender and profession. Results: 188 publications fitted the inclusion criteria. 25.5% of papers were published in journals without IFs. Most papers came from Greece (43.6%, 199.663 IFs), Romania (29.3%, 60.695 IFs) and Croatia (16%, 45.645 IFs). In the top three countries, first authors were dominantly male physicians. Senior authors were also mostly male (63.3-88%), with varying professions depending on the country (p=0.008). Conclusions: The overall LT publication activity from the SEE countries is modest. The authors of Greece are the most productive in the region. The high liver LT activity does not necessarily translate into high publication output. LT communities in the SEE countries should find solutions on how to increase research and publication output.
    Keywords:  bibliometricanalysis; livertransplantation; publication
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.21614/chirurgia.115.5.635
  8. Medicine (Baltimore). 2020 Nov 06. 99(45): e23067
      Bisphenol A (BPA) is a well-known endocrine-disrupting chemical which can cause potential health risks and interfere with thyroid hormones through multiple avenues. This study aimed to evaluate the hotspots and emerging trends on BPA and thyroid hormones by using a bibliometric method.Publications related on BPA and thyroid hormones were downloaded from Science Citation Index-Expanded database. Annual outputs, high yield journals, countries, institutions, authors and their cited times were summarized. In addition, keywords co-occurrence, burst references and citation networks were bibliometric analyzed.From 2000 to 2019, 418 articles were published. Both of the Environment International and Environmental Health Perspectives, United States, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Antonia M. Calafat were the most recorded journals, countries, institutions and authors, respectively. The main research area was Toxicology. In addition of the retrieve term "bisphenol-a" and "thyroid-hormone", "in-vitro", "exposure" and "endocrine disruptors", were the hotspot keywords and "triclosan", "oxidative stress" and "united-states" were the most recent trends keywords. "Thyroid hormone action is disrupted by Bisphenol A as an antagonist" published on The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism by Kenji Moriyama in 2002 got both the highest burst score and citation score. Six groups were clustered and the mechanism of BPA's effect on thyroid hormones, and the exposure of BPA and potential risks in children and pregnant women were the two main large fields.The number of publications in the field of BPA and thyroid hormones has increased tremendously since 2000. The research hotspot ranged from mechanism researches in animal models to epidemiological studies. "Thyroid hormone action is disrupted by bisphenol A as an antagonist" of Kenji Moriyama provided important building blocks in the field. The impact of BPA on thyroid hormones, especially pregnant women and children, was the latest research frontiers and might be the future direction of this filed in the following years.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1097/MD.0000000000023067
  9. Saudi Dent J. 2020 Nov;32(7): 321-329
      Objectives: Bibliometric analysis of best-cited papers brings awareness about the influential publications and trends in the literature on a particular topic. This will help not only the researchers and academicians but also the students for selecting quality landmark articles. With this view in mind a bibliometric analysis was performed to identify the 100 top-cited papers on Forensic Odontology (FO) in the literature.Materials and methods: A search was performed using Scopus database in August 2019. The articles were further reviewed and basic standard information related to bibliometric analysis was recorded.
    Results: The 100 most cited articles were published from 1985 to 2014 (77% published after 2001). The most frequently cited article received 259 citations, whereas the least received 31 (mean citations 58.78 ± 33.14). There were 16 different journals with Forensic Science International having the most number of articles (n = 36). One author had 16 articles while 8 authors had 4 or more articles published in the top 100 list. Belgium was the country with most number of articles (n = 17) followed by United States (n = 16). In terms of document type, 87 were original research, 7 conference papers and 6 reviews. Five organizations funded 5 of the top 100 articles. Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium affiliated the most documents (n = 16). Majority of the papers were related to age estimation (46) followed by victim identification (30), mass disaster (9), bite mark analysis (8), sex determination (5), race determination (4), dental DNA analysis (3), palatal rugae pattern (2) and lip prints (1).
    Conclusion: This is first of its kind citation analysis of the 100 most cited articles in the field of FO. The results of this paper will help the researchers, academicians and students for appropriate article referrals.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric analysis; Citation; Citation analysis; Forensic dentistry; Forensic odontology; Most cited articles
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sdentj.2020.04.005
  10. Orthop Traumatol Surg Res. 2020 Nov 02. pii: S1877-0568(20)30277-2. [Epub ahead of print]
      INTRODUCTION: Bibliometrics consists in quantitative and qualitative analysis of an individual's or group's communication (volume, visibility), and impacts research funding. There are a number of bibliometric data sources, functioning in different ways and liable to give rise to differing statistics. This point has not been investigated in relation to publication following presentation to a French congress. We therefore conducted a study comparing the main bibliometric instruments, aiming to assess: (1) publication rates following oral presentation to the 2013 and 2014 French Society of Arthroscopy (SFA) Congresses according to the database used, and (2) citation rates for these publications according to database.HYPOTHESIS: Publication and citation rates differ according to database. Material and method All 199 Abstracts of oral presentations to the 2013 and 2014 SFA Congresses were included. Based on author names and key-words, manual search was conducted in the Medline, Web of Science and Google Scholar databases. Publication characteristics (citation rate) were studied using the 3 databases and the French SIGAPS (Système d'Interrogation, de Gestion et d'Analyse des Publications Scientifiques: Scientific Publication Search, Management and Analysis System) website.
    RESULTS: Publication rates according to Medline and Google Scholar were the same (48.2%: 96 articles for 199 presentations), but significantly lower on Web of Science (44.7%: 89/199; p=0.002). Citation rates differed significantly (p<0.001) between sources, with Google Scholar listing a mean 1.5-3.4-fold more citations per article than the other 2 databases. Citation rates between the 3 databases correlated strongly (r=0.93).
    DISCUSSION: The example presented in this study illustrates the differences in bibliometrics found between different databases. There was a 4% difference (7/199 articles) in publication rates following oral presentation to an SFA Congress, and even greater differences in citation rates per article, with 1.5-3.4-fold more citations according to Google Scholar. Bibliometric studies need to acknowledge the database(s) being used, which should be as many as possible to enhance exhaustiveness.
    LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: IV; descriptive epidemiologic study.
    Keywords:  Bibliometry; Congress; Publication rate
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.otsr.2020.09.005
  11. Transplant Direct. 2020 Nov;6(11): e614
      Background: Over the past decades, there has been a rapid change in the gender ratio of medical doctors, whereas gender differences in academia remain apparent. In transplantation research, a field already understaffed with female doctors and researchers, there is little published data on the development in proportion, citations, and funding of female researchers over the past years.Methods: To evaluate the academic impact of female doctors in transplantation research, we conducted a bibliometric analysis (01 January 1999 to 31 December 2018) of high-impact scientific publications, subsequent citations, and funding in this field. Web of Science data was used in combination with software R-Package "Gender," to predict gender by first names.
    Results: For this study, 15 498 (36.2% female; 63.8% male) first and 13 345 (30.2% female; 69.8% male) last author gender matches were identified. An increase in the percentage of female first and last authors is seen in the period 1999-2018, with clear differences between countries (55.1% female authors in The Netherlands versus 13.1% in Japan, for example). When stratifying publications based on the number of citations, a decline was seen in the percentage of female authors, from 34.6%-30.7% in the first group (≤10 citations) to 20.8%-23.2% in the fifth group (>200 citations), for first (P < 0.001) and last (P = 0.014) authors, respectively. From all first author name-gender matches, 6574 (41.6% female; 58.4% male, P < 0.001) publications reported external funding, with 823 (35.5% female; 64.5% male, P = 0.701) reported funding by pharmaceutical companies and 1266 (36.6% female; 63.4% male, P < 0.001) reporting funding by the National Institutes of Health.
    Conclusions: This is the first analysis of gender bias in scientific publications, subsequent citations, and funding in transplantation research. We show ongoing differences between male and female authors in citation rates and rewarded funding in this field. This requires an active approach to increase female representation in research reporting and funding rewarding.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1097/TXD.0000000000001072
  12. Ann Med Surg (Lond). 2020 Dec;60 61-65
      Purpose: There was numerous articles that discussed about anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). There was no study that wrapped up all about ACL in South-east asia country. This study aims to apply bibliometric tools to orthopaedics publications on ACL in South-east asia country.Methods: We searched English full text with keyword "ACL" OR "Anterior Cruciate Ligament" AND "injury" OR "tear" OR "rupture" that published from January 1st, 2010 to December 31st, 2019 on PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library. We included article with at least has one author affiliation in the South-east asia country.
    Results: A total of 12,570 articles were analyzed, and 64 articles were included. Study type analysis revealed that clinical research (n = 28; 43.7%) was the most frequent study type. The journal of knee surgery, sports traumatology, arthroscopy (KSSTA) and Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine had the highest number of publications in general (n = 6; 9.4%). Sholahuddin Rhatomy (n = 4) was the top author with highest number in the first author order and Lingaraj Krishna (n = 12) was the top author with highest number of published article. Most of studies (n = 32; 50.0%) were published in high index journal with impact factor >1.0.
    Conclusion: ACL articles in South-east asia had high quality publication that proved by high impact journal publisher. There has been a steady increase in the article number since 2010 in South-east asia. This article quantifies the increased interest and could act as a baseline for future studies to compare.
    Keywords:  ACL; Anterior cruciate ligament; Bibliometric; Publication; South-east Asia
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amsu.2020.10.014
  13. Parkinsonism Relat Disord. 2020 Oct 31. pii: S1353-8020(20)30844-0. [Epub ahead of print]
      BACKGROUND: The number of scientific publications on movement disorders from Southeast Asia (SEA) is thought to be low. Thus, we looked at the movement disorders research productivity among SEA countries and its associations with country-specific socioeconomic factors.METHODS: We performed a systematic search for publications indexed in PubMed, Scopus, Embase and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials from January 2000 to December 2019 with at least one author from SEA. Bibliometric indices were used to evaluate research impact. The country-specific socioeconomic characteristics were also obtained.
    RESULTS: Of the 9488 identified articles, 1567 met the eligibility criteria. There was an increasing trend in the total number of publications on movement disorders during the last two decades. Singapore had the highest contribution in all aspects, which highlights the impact of knowledge-based economy type in research productivity. Parkinsonism remained the most studied condition, followed by dystonia, chorea, and tremor. Among the socioeconomic factors, only % gross domestic product (GDP) for research and development showed a positive correlation on the number of publications of a country. On the other hand, GDP per capita, population size and the number of neurologist size did not affect research productivity.
    CONCLUSIONS: An increasing trend in the movement disorders research output over the last 20 years was seen. Singapore had the highest contribution in all aspects which highlights the impact of economy in research productivity. Among the socioeconomic factors, only % GDP for R&D showed a positive impact on the number of publications of a country.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric analysis; Movement disorders; Research productivity; Scientific impact; Southeast asia
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.parkreldis.2020.10.043
  14. PLoS One. 2020 ;15(11): e0241723
      In this study, it was investigated whether early tweets counts could differentially benefit female and male (first, last) authors in terms of the later citation counts received. The data for this study comprised 47,961 articles in the research area of Life Sciences & Biomedicine from 2014-2016, retrieved from Web of Science's Medline. For each article, the number of received citations per year was downloaded from WOS, while the number of received tweets per year was obtained from PlumX. Using the hurdle regression model, I compared the number of received citations by female and male (first, last) authored papers and then I investigated whether early tweet counts could predict the later citation counts received by female and male (first, last) authored papers. In the regression models, I controlled for several important factors that were investigated in previous research in relation to citation counts, gender or Altmetrics. These included journal impact (SNIP), number of authors, open access, research funding, topic of an article, international collaboration, lay summary, F1000 Score and mega journal. The findings showed that the percentage of papers with male authors in first or last authorship positions was higher than that for female authors. However, female first and last-authored papers had a small but significant citation advantage of 4.7% and 5.5% compared to male-authored papers. The findings also showed that irrespective of whether the factors were included in regression models or not, early tweet counts had a weak positive and significant association with the later citations counts (3.3%) and the probability of a paper being cited (21.1%). Regarding gender, the findings showed that when all variables were controlled, female (first, last) authored papers had a small citation advantage of 3.7% and 4.2% in comparison to the male authored papers for the same number of tweets.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0241723
  15. F1000Res. 2020 ;9 1188
      In academia, decisions on promotions are influenced by the citation impact of the works published by the candidates. The Medical Faculty of the University of Bern used a measure based on the journal impact factor (JIF) for this purpose: the JIF of the papers submitted for promotion should rank in the upper third of journals in the relevant discipline (JIF rank >0.66). The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) aims to eliminate the use of journal-based metrics in academic promotion. We examined whether the JIF rank could be replaced with the relative citation ratio (RCR), an article-level measure of citation impact developed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). An RCR percentile >0.66 corresponds to the upper third of citation impact of articles from NIH-sponsored research. We examined 1525 publications submitted by 64 candidates for academic promotion at University of Bern. There was only a moderate correlation between the JIF rank and RCR percentile (Pearson correlation coefficient 0.34, 95% CI 0.29-0.38). Among the 1,199 articles (78.6%) published in journals ranking >0.66 for the JIF, less than half (509, 42.5%) were in the upper third of the RCR percentile. Conversely, among the 326 articles published in journals ranking <0.66 regarding the JIF, 72 (22.1%) ranked in the upper third of the RCR percentile. Our study demonstrates that the rank of the JIF is a bad proxy measure for the actual citation impact of individual articles. The Medical Faculty of University of Bern has signed DORA and replaced the JIF rank with the RCR percentile to assess the citation impact of papers submitted for academic promotion.
    Keywords:  DORA Declaration; Journal Impact Factor; Relative Citation Ratio
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.26579.1
  16. Environ Res. 2020 Nov 03. pii: S0013-9351(20)31313-X. [Epub ahead of print] 110416
      The fight against COVID-19 since January 2020 has become the top priority of more than 200 countries. In order to offer solutions to eradicate this global pandemic, the scientific community has published hundreds of articles covering a wide range of areas of knowledge. With the aim of synthesizing these publications, academics are resorting to bibliometric analyses from the perspectives of the disciplines such as biology, medicine, socioeconomics and tourism. Yet no bibliometric analysis has explored the diffuse and little-known growth of COVID-19 scientific publications in the field of environmental studies. The current study is the first of this type to fill this research gap. It has resorted to SciMAT software to evaluate the main topics, authors and journals of publications on the subject of COVID-19 combined with environmental studies spanning the period between 1 December 2019 and 6 September 2020. The search yielded a collection of 440 articles published in scientific journals indexed on by Web of Science and Scopus databases. These publications can be broken down into six main themes: (i) a sharp reduction in air pollution and an improvement of the level of water pollution; (ii) the relationship of wind speed (positive), ultraviolet radiation (positive) and humidity (negative) with the rate of infections; (iii) the effect of the pandemic on the food supply chain and waste habits; (iv) wastewater monitoring offers a great potential as an early warning sign of COVID-19 transmission; (v) artificial intelligence and smart devices can be of great use in monitoring citizen mobilization; and (vi) the lessons gleaned from the pandemic that help define actions to mitigate climate change. The results of the current study therefore offer an agenda for future research and constitute a starting point for academics in the field of environmental studies to evaluate the effects of COVID-19.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric analysis; COVID-19; Communication; Coronavirus; Environmental studies; Journalism; Mass media; Pandemic; SciMAT
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2020.110416
  17. Health Policy. 2020 Oct 10. pii: S0168-8510(20)30255-4. [Epub ahead of print]
      BACKGROUND: In the healthcare system, Teaching Hospitals(THs) not only provide care, but also train healthcare professionals and carry out research activities. Research is a fundamental pillar of THs' mission and relevant for the healthcare system monitored by Performance Evaluation Systems. Research activities can be measured using citation index services and this paper highlights differences between two services based on bibliometrics, describes opportunities and risks when performance indicators rely on data collected, controlled and validated by external services and discusses the possible impact on health policy at a system and provider level.METHODS: A bibliometric analysis was done on data between 2014-2016 from ISI Web of Science and Scopus of 18.255 physicians working in 26 Italian THs. Quantity was defined as the number of publications and quality as Impact Factor or Field-Weighted Citation Impact.
    RESULTS: Overall, 41.233 and 66.409 documents were extracted from respectively ISI Web of Science and Scopus. While benchmarking results, significant differences in ranked position both in metrics emerged.
    DISCUSSION: Utilizing secondary data sources to measure research activities of THs allows benchmarking at an (inter)national level and overcoming self-referment. To utilize indicators for multiple governance purposes at the system and provider level, indicators need to be profoundly understood, require formalizations in data validation, internal analysis and a sharing process among health professionals, management and policymakers.
    Keywords:  Field-weighted citation impact; Impact factor; Performance evaluation; Research productivity; Teaching hospitals
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthpol.2020.10.002
  18. Antimicrob Resist Infect Control. 2020 Nov 04. 9(1): 178
      BACKGROUND: Though social sciences are expectedly instrumental in combating antimicrobial resistance (AMR), their research on AMR has been historically lacking.OBJECTIVES: This study aims to understand the current academic literature on AMR within the social science field by investigating international contributions, emerging topics, influential articles, and prominent outlets, to identify research gaps and future directions.
    METHODS: Bibliometric data of 787 peer-reviewed journal articles published in the period of 2010 to 2019 were extracted from the Social Science Citation Index in the Web of Science database. Bibliographic networks of the extracted articles were examined.
    RESULTS: Social science research on AMR has grown rapidly in the past 5 years. While western developed countries contributed the most to the field in the past decade, research within developing regions such as Asia and Africa have increased in the last 2 years. Social sciences have been contributing to AMR research in several different domains from surveillance and risk assessment of AMR, to promotions of appropriate use of antimicrobials in primary care and clinical settings. Though the idea of one health has been incorporated into research on AMR within the medical and microbial science fields, it has not been well recognized by social sciences.
    CONCLUSION: Social science research on AMR is a new, while rapidly developing, research area that requires continued and intense global efforts from an interdisciplinary and one health approach. Research on social issues surrounding AMR transmissions between human, animal, and environments should be emphasized in the future.
    Keywords:  Antibiotic resistance; Antimicrobial resistance; Bibliometrics; Interdisciplinary; One health; Social science
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s13756-020-00834-2
  19. Int J Public Health. 2020 Nov 07.
      OBJECTIVES: We previously reported that random assignment of scientific articles to a social media exposure intervention did not have an effect on article downloads and citations. In this paper, we investigate whether longer observation time after exposure to a social media intervention has altered the previously reported results.METHODS: For articles published in the International Journal of Public Health between December 2012 and December 2014, we updated article download and citation data for a minimum of 24-month follow-up. We re-analysed the effect of social media exposure on article downloads and citations.
    RESULTS: There was no difference between intervention and control group in terms of downloads (p = 0.72) and citations (p= 0.30) for all papers and when we stratified by open access status.
    CONCLUSIONS: Longer observation time did not increase the relative differences in the numbers of downloads and citations between papers in the social media intervention group and papers in the control group. Traditional impact metrics based on citations, such as impact factor, may not capture the added value of social media for scientific publications.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; Citations; Downloads; Facebook; Social media; Twitter
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-020-01519-8
  20. Malays J Med Sci. 2020 Oct;27(5): 1-4
      Once a year, we report the Malaysian Journal of Medical Sciences (MJMS)' performance as a journal, along with important changes in the administration and achievements of the journal itself. We report here its submission trends, rejection rates, manuscripts accepted based on submitting country/region and impact factor scores for calendar year 2019.
    Keywords:  impact factor; journal performance; submission trend
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.21315/mjms2020.27.5.1
  21. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Oct 30. pii: E8013. [Epub ahead of print]17(21):
      This article aims to provide a critical review of the scientific research on technostress. As such, global references in this field are identified and highlighted in order to manage pre-existing knowledge and establish future 'bridges' among researchers, and to enhance the presently dispersed understanding of this subject. A scientometric meta-analysis of publications on technostress was conducted to achieve this objective. Mainstream journals from the Web of Science (WoS) were used to identify current topics, relevant journals, prolific authors, institutions, and countries, 'schools of thought' and the thematic areas around which current technostress debate revolves. In this article a significant contribution comes from the use of the scientific activity itself, together with scientometric meta-analysis techniques and the application of this scientific activity, its impact and relational character, to discover relevant countries, research organizations and authors which can constitute a global reference to demarcate this knowledge frontier, and who lead the 'critical mass' of global technostress researchers. This study also distinguishes between the relevant themes studied, with co-keywords plus bibliographic coupling citation, and examines the kind of stress the most prolific authors have considered and, therefore, to discover those topics which should be studied further to deepen this research field, in search of a post-disciplinary knowledge that allows unity of focus in technology and psychology.
    Keywords:  dark side; information overload; information-technology; mental health; scientometrics; technostress; work
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17218013
  22. Laryngoscope Investig Otolaryngol. 2020 Oct;5(5): 819-823
      Objective: To determine if the quality of otolaryngology-related journal articles correlates with traditional measures of article impact.Methods: All articles published by Laryngoscope in 2011 were categorized according to level of evidence (LOE) according to the Oxford Center for Evidence Based Medicine rubric. Articles without a level of evidence assigned were alphabetically subcategorized type with letters A-D corresponding to Contemporary Reports, Case Reports, Basic Science or Animal Studies, and Other respectively. Citations per article were then recorded per article each year from 2012 to 2018.
    Results: A total of 494 articles were included for analysis, 315 had numerical LOE and 179 had alphabetical LOE. There was a strong negative correlation between numerical LOE and median and interquartile number of citations (R = -.9014, P = .037). Overall, numerical LOE had a significantly higher median number of citations per article compared with the non-number/alphabetical group (14 vs 6, P < .001).
    Conclusions: Higher quality research as determined by level of evidence is in fact being cited more frequently than lower quality articles. Although the scope of this study was relatively limited, these data suggest that better designed studies may exhibit greater impact by traditional measures. Such findings should serve as an impetus for (and validation of) continued pursuit of high LOE research.
    Level of Evidence: NA.
    Keywords:  bibliometrics; citation; impact; level of evidence; quality
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1002/lio2.444
  23. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2020 Nov 02.
      Advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) constitute a developing area of particular interest for researchers in different fields due to their broad range of applications. However, there are few studies dedicated to the bibliometric analysis of AOPs. Hence, a systematic literature review of research publications (research articles, review articles, and book chapters) from 1980 to 2018 was carried out to visualize and evaluate research trends on AOPs around the world and, especially in Ibero-America (IA), on the field of wastewater treatment. Using the most extensive databases in literature search, Scopus and Web of Science (WoS), which encompass 95% of the publications in the world, a total of 18,751 records were retrieved by limiting the search results to words associated with AOPs in the titles, keyword, and abstracts. Raw data were manually organized and filtered, standardizing authors and institution names, publication titles, and keywords for the purpose of eliminating double-counted entries. Similarly, homonymous authors and institutions were identified for all records retrieved. The bibliometric dataset was processed using the VantagePoint software. The research trends visualized about AOPs were as follows: number of publications per triennium, publications by country, participation by continent, most important journals and authors, most referenced institutions, global network of co-authors, and keywords network visualization, highlighting the Ibero-American contribution to global research.
    Keywords:  AOPs; Advanced oxidation processes; Bibliometric analysis; Scopus; VantagePoint; WoS
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11333-7
  24. Biomedica. 2020 10 30. 40(Supl. 2): 104-115
      Introduction: The propagation of COVID-19, an infectious disease caused by the novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, has become a pandemic which, along with its rapid dissemination worldwide, has brought about an exponential increase in the amount of research related to the subject to which Latin American researchers have contributed actively. Objective: To conduct a descriptive bibliometric study of the main trends in research on COVID-19 produced in Latin America. Materials and methods: We searched in the Web of Science, Scopus, and Pubmed databases to retrieve the Latin American scientific production on COVID-19. Bibliometric indicators of production, visibility, impact, and collaboration were analyzed to assess the regional participation in studies on the subject. Results: The analysis of 142 documents evidenced an exponential growth of scientific production in the period analyzed, an important level of international collaboration (51.4%) in scientific production, and the leadership of regional institutions (71%) in the research with publications in high-visibility jounals especially in Colombia, Brazil, and México. Conclusions: The results regarding the regional participation in the research on COVID-19 were relevant not only in relation to its quantity and exponential growth during the period analyzed but also in terms of its quality and excellence with a high rate of international collaboration and publications in important scientific journals, which besides their visibility, represent a considerable contribution to the research compared to the other geographical contexts.
    Keywords:  Coronavirus infections; bibliometrics; bibliometric indicators; information management; Latin America
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.7705/biomedica.5571
  25. Am J Pharm Educ. 2020 Oct;84(10): ajpe7314
      Objective. To characterize the veterinary pharmacy and pharmacology literature cited by veterinary drug monographs and journal articles and describe the database indexing and availability of this literature in libraries serving pharmacy schools. Methods. Citations in American Academy of Veterinary Pharmacology and Therapeutics monographs, Journal of Veterinary Pharmacology and Therapeutics (JVPT) articles, and Plumb's Veterinary Drug Handbook, Eighth Edition (Plumb's) were analyzed for publication type and age. Three zones of cited journals were determined by Bradford's Law of Scattering based on citation counts. Results. Monographs most often cited journal articles (1886 [64.7%]), unpublished "grey" literature (632 [21.7%]), and books (379 [13.0%]), but only a few cited proceedings (16 [0.5%]). In JVPT, articles predominated (9625 [91.9%]). Articles comprised 54.8% (1,959) of Plumb's citations; proceedings, 27.0%; books, 15.7%; and grey literature, 2.5%. The age of cited items varied, with 17.1% of monograph citations less than five years old, compared to 26.3% of cited items in JVPT and 40.5% of cited items in Plumb's being less than five years old. Zone 1 consisted of three veterinary journals for monographs, four veterinary journals for Plumb's, and 16 veterinary and human journals for JVPT. Indexing coverage was above 92% in Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed for zone 1 and 2 journals. Libraries serving both pharmacy and veterinary education programs subscribe to 95% of zone 1 journals, while libraries serving pharmacy education at institutions without a veterinary program subscribe to an average of 59% of zone 1 journals. Conclusion. Veterinary pharmacy and pharmacology literature relies on journals from human and veterinary practice, veterinary proceedings, and, less often, books and drug manufacturer information. Libraries supporting pharmacy programs could contribute to the education of future pharmacists who will be filling veterinary prescriptions by increasing access to this literature.
    Keywords:  abstracts and indexing; bibliometrics; drug monographs; pharmacy libraries; veterinary pharmacy
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.5688/ajpe7314
  26. Am J Emerg Med. 2020 Oct 28. pii: S0735-6757(20)30941-4. [Epub ahead of print]
      BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Recently, investigators reported that there remain substantial disparities in the proportion of women within emergency medicine (EM) who have achieved promotion to higher academic rankings, received grant funding, and attained departmental leadership positions. In 2007, women were first authors on 24% of EM-based peer-reviewed articles. Currently, 28% of the academic EM physician workforce is comprised of women. The goal of this study was to identify whether the proportion of female first authors of original research published in three U.S.-based EM journals increased in 2018 as compared to 2008.METHODS: This was a retrospective review of published original research articles during 2008 and 2018 in the journals Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM), American Journal of Emergency Medicine (AJEM), and Annals of Emergency Medicine (Annals). Review articles, opinion pieces, consensus statements, practice recommendations based on current guidelines, and case reports were excluded from analysis. Investigators conducted a review of each article to identify the gender of the study's first and last authors. A study author blinded to the previous author's data abstraction reviewed a sample of 25 articles to assess for inter-rater reliability (kappa). Categorical data are presented as frequency of occurrence and analyzed by chi-square.
    RESULTS: Overall for the study journals, there were 368 original research articles published in 2008 vs. 580 in 2018. There were no significant differences noted for the proportion of female first author publications during 2008 vs 2018 overall (28% vs 30%; p = 0.38), within AJEM (29% vs 28%; p = 0.85), and observed at Annals (25% vs 24%; p = 0.82) respectively. However, there was a significant increase in the number of first author publications by females between the two periods within AEM (28% vs 45%; p < 0.01). There were no significant differences noted for the proportion of female last author publications during 2008 vs. 2018 overall (21% vs 22%; p = 0.70) and within each respective journal: AEM 22%% vs 26% (p = 0.51), AJEM 22% vs 19% (p = 0.55), and Annals 19% vs 22% (p = 0.20). Inter-rater reliability for author gender within the sample articles was excellent (0.83).
    CONCLUSION: While female physicians make up a disproportionate 28% of the academic workforce, we found that they were proportionally represented as first authors within several of the most prominent U.S.-based EM journals. Female resident physicians remain underrepresented as first authors and women remain underrepresented as last authors in the same journals.
    Keywords:  Authorship; Emergency medicine; Gender
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajem.2020.10.045
  27. J Psychiatr Res. 2020 Oct 28. pii: S0022-3956(20)31021-9. [Epub ahead of print]
      INTRODUCTION: Both the COVID-19 pandemic and its management have had a negative impact on mental health worldwide. There is a growing body of research on mental health as it relates to the pandemic. The objective of this study is to use bibliometric analyses to assess the mental health research output related to the COVID-19 pandemic and compare it to that of the West Africa Ebola and H1N1 outbreaks.METHODOLOGY: We performed comprehensive searches in Embase, PubMed, and Scopus databases, and included all types of documents related to the three outbreaks published since the respective beginnings up to August 26, 2020.
    RESULTS: Despite the shorter time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, relative to Ebola and H1N1, we found a much greater number of mental health documents related to COVID-19 (n = 3070) compared to the two other outbreaks (127 for Ebola and 327 for H1N1). The proportion of documents in the top 10% journals was 31% for COVID-19, 24% for Ebola, and 40% for H1N1. Authors affiliated with institutions located in high-income countries published or contributed to 79% of all documents followed by authors from upper-middle-income countries (23%), lower-middle-income countries (10%), and low-income countries (2%). Approximately 19% of the documents reported receiving funding and 23% were the product of international collaboration.
    CONCLUSION: Mental health research output is already greater for COVID-19 compared to Ebola and H1N1 combined. A minority of documents reported funding, was the product of international collaboration, or was published by authors located in low-income countries during the three outbreaks in general, and the COVID-19 pandemic in particular.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; COVID-19; Ebola; H1N1; Mental health; Psychiatry
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2020.10.018
  28. J Craniofac Surg. 2020 Nov/Dec;31(8):31(8): 2136-2138
      INTRODUCTION: International medical graduates (IMGs) make up nearly 10% of plastic surgeons in the United States, yet there is little information regarding their relative contributions to the field of academic plastic surgery. This study compares the research productivity and academic rank of IMG academic plastic surgeons and their US medical graduate (USMG) counterparts.METHOD: A cross-sectional study was performed to include all IMG and USMG full-time academic plastic surgeons in the United States. For each IMG and USMG academic plastic surgeon, bibliometric variables such as the Hirsch index (h-index), i10-index, total number of publications, total number of citations, and greatest number of citations for a single published work were computed.
    RESULTS: One-hundred and forty-four full-time IMG and 828 USMG academic plastic surgeons met inclusion criteria. There were no significant differences between IMGs and USMGs regarding h-index, i10-index, total number of publications, and total number of citations. Both IMGs and USMGs have higher numbers of publications following graduation from a plastic surgery residency or fellowship as compared to pre-residency or fellowship (37.2 ± 71.5 versus 8.0 ± 19.2 and 45.0 ± 73.1 versus 9.1 ± 15.5, respectively).
    CONCLUSIONS: IMG and USMG plastic surgeons have nearly equivalent research productivity. Both cohorts continue to have high research outputs following graduation from a plastic surgery residency or fellowship.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1097/SCS.0000000000007040
  29. Foot Ankle Spec. 2020 Nov 06. 1938640020970101
      BACKGROUND: Contribution to literature is critical for progress in the field of orthopaedics. No previous study has yet examined the academic productivity of foot and ankle surgery fellowship faculty.PURPOSE: To evaluate the publishing productivity of foot and ankle fellowship faculty.
    METHODS: Faculty and program characteristics of orthopaedic foot and ankle fellowship programs across the United States and Canada were collected from American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society (AOFAS) and program websites. Faculty publication productivity measures, including publications, number of publications in specific journals, number of citations, and Hirsch index (h-index) were gathered using the Scopus database.
    RESULTS: A total of 48 AOFAS foot and ankle surgery fellowship programs were identified with an associated 185 faculty members. The mean number of publications per faculty member was 44.9 (SD = 53.0; range = 0-323), with a mean h-index of 11.9 (SD = 10.6; range = 0-54). A total of 144 (77.8%) academic-affiliated faculty had a significantly greater number of publications (P < .01), total citations (P < .05), and publications in Foot and Ankle International (P < .05), Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (P < .05), Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research (P < .05), and Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (P < .05) compared to the 41 (22.2%) nonacademic faculty. There were no significant differences between measures of publication productivity between male and female faculty, except for maximum citations in a single article (67.1 vs 142.3; P < .05).
    CONCLUSIONS: Academic-affiliated foot and ankle fellowship faculty have higher research productivity than nonacademic surgeons. The mean h-index of foot and ankle fellowship faculty was 11.9, which is lower than that reported in sports, joints, and spine fellowship faculty but higher than that reported for hand fellowship faculty.
    LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level IV.
    Keywords:  academic; fellowship; foot and ankle; h-index; productivity; publications
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1177/1938640020970101
  30. Scientometrics. 2020 Oct 29. 1-27
      The article focuses on scientific disagreement about the use of statin-related drugs in the prevention of cardiovascular events. The study forms part of an exploration of the broader principle of research polarization, foremost in medicine. The hypothesis is that statin-positive and statin-critical researchers publish in different committed central journals, and that they are financially supported by different dedicated corporate sources. Methodologically we use Web of Science (WoS) analytic tools to perform publication analysis of a time series covering 1998-2018 in three seven-year windows. For each window data is captured based on sets of known statin-positive and statin-critical articles and researchers, and their primary and secondary co-authors. Standard deviation is used as a focused normalization and visual instrument together with Spearman's correlation coefficient in order to compare frequency distributions of statin-positive and critical journal and sponsor articles. Z-test p-values are used to assess the probability of error concerning the distributions. Findings at general topical level showed that a few journals consistently and significantly occupied top positions, 2 of which, American Journal of Cardiology and Circulation, published articles from both positions. Besides, Journal of the American College of Cardiology served as a major publisher of statin-positive research from 2005, as did European Heart Journal from 2012, replacing American Journal of Cardiology at the top. From 2012 Atherosclerosis and European Journal of Preventive Cardiology served as top-publishers of statin-critical articles. Two central US funding agencies, US Department of Health Human Services and National Institutes of Health (NIH), operated at general topical level across the time series, but the agencies played only a minor role in the divergent research positions. From 2005 statin-positive as well as statin-critical research was mainly sponsored by multinational pharmaceutical companies, predominantly Merck, AstraZeneca and Pfizer. In conclusion, the initial hypothesis about dedicated journals and sponsors was entirely substantiated at the general topical level and at the journal level of research disagreement, but not at sponsor level. Distinct dedicated journals were extracted separately from the 2 divergent statin positions. Since the WoS coverage of sponsor data 1998-2004 was sporadic sponsor data are analyzed from 2005. Only from 2012 the WoS sponsor coverage of the topic is consistently at 60%.
    Keywords:  Atorvastatin; Cardiovascular events; Frequency distributions; Publication analysis; Research disagreement; Scientometric analysis; Simvastatin; Statin critical journals; Statin positive journals; Statin sponsors
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03743-8
  31. J Athl Train. 2020 Nov 05.
      CONTEXT: There has been substantial growth over the past decade in sport-related concussion (SRC) research, yet no research to date has synthesized developments over this critical time period.OBJECTIVE: to apply a network analysis approach to evaluate trends in the sport-related concussion (SRC) literature using a comprehensive search of original, peer-reviewed research articles involving human participants published between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2019.
    DESIGN: Narrative review.
    MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Bibliometric maps were derived from a comprehensive search of all published, peer-reviewed SRC articles on the Web of Science database. A clustering algorithm was used to evaluate associations among journals, organizations/institutions, authors, and keywords. The online search yielded 6,130 articles, 528 journals, 7,598 authors, 1,966 organizations, and 3,293 keywords.
    RESULTS: The analysis supported five thematic clusters of journals: 1. Biomechanics/Sports medicine (n=15), 2. Pediatrics/Rehabilitation (n=15), 3. Neurotrauma/Neurology/Neurosurgery (n=11), 4. General Sports Medicine (n=11), 5. Neuropsychology (n=7). The analysis identified four organizational clusters with hub institutions: 1. University of North Carolina (n=19), 2. University of Toronto (n=19), 3. University of Michigan (n=11), 4. University of Pittsburgh (n=10). Network analysis revealed 8 clusters for SRC keywords, each with a central topic area: 1. Epidemiology (n=14), 2. Rehabilitation (n=12), 3. Biomechanics (n=11), 4. Imaging (n=10), 5. Assessment (n=9), 6. Mental health/Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (n=9), 7. Neurocognition (n=8), 8. Symptoms/impairments (n=5).
    CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that during the past decade SRC research has: 1) been published primarily in sports medicine, pediatric, and neuro-focused journals, 2) involved a select group of researchers from several key institutions, and 3) focused on new topic areas including treatment/rehabilitation and mental health.
    Keywords:  concussion; mild traumatic brain injury; network analysis; rehabilitation
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.4085/280-20
  32. Acad Radiol. 2020 Nov 03. pii: S1076-6332(20)30562-6. [Epub ahead of print]
      RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: Women remain underrepresented in leadership positions in radiology. We sought to determine if 1) women are equitably represented in the senior author positions in radiology journals and 2) if women's contributions to the radiology literature and their individual productivity are proportional to their representation at senior academic rank.MATERIALS AND METHODS: The gender of 3,702 first and last authors listed for manuscripts published in nine high-impact American radiology journals was assessed between 2002-2017. For the same years, the gender composition of academic faculty and ranks based on AAMC data was queried. Statistical tests were employed to detect discrepancies and changes over time.
    RESULTS: First authorship by women grew from 26.9% to 37.4% and from 15.7% to 23.9% as senior author between 2002-2017 (P<.0001). Although the index of manuscript productivity rate was nearly equal for men and women over the 16-year study period, women remained under-represented in senior radiology faculty rank over the same period.
    CONCLUSIONS: Although women have proportionally increased their contribution to the radiology literature over the years, commensurate increased representation of women in senior authorship and faculty positions was not observed. Despite increased involvement of women in research over time, they remain disproportionately at junior faculty positions.
    Keywords:  Authorship; Gender disparity; Gender equity; Productivity
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acra.2020.09.019
  33. Sheng Wu Yi Xue Gong Cheng Xue Za Zhi. 2020 Oct 25. 37(5): 741-748
      With the heavier burden of cardiovascular disease, an abundance of papers emerge every year in the research hotspots, which cover a wide range of types and content. In order to let readers interested in the cardiovascular field quickly understand the research hotspots and research frontier, it is necessary to sort out and summarize the research topic in time. According to the discipline classification, we screened papers in cardiovascular field from the Essential Science Indicators (ESI) hot papers published in 2019. Methods such as bibliometrics, statistical description, hierarchical induction, analysis and interpretation were used a step further to reveal the context and characteristics of research in the field of cardiovascular diseases, summarize the latest progress and development direction in this field, and provide information and hints for the expansion of future research directions. A total of 297 papers were finally included, which were mainly in the field of clinical medicine; The country with the most publications was the United States, while China ranked the fifth in terms of contribution; the research institution with the highest number of published papers was Harvard University; the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has published the most papers, with contribution also from journals such as Circulation, Europe Heart Journal, JAMA, and Lancet. All the papers were categorized into disease burden, disease risk, drug treatment, device treatment and surgical treatment, clinical diagnosis, basic research and others, so as to review and summarize the research front in the field of cardiovascular diseases.
    Keywords:  bibliometric analysis; cardiovascular disease; research hotspot
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.7507/1001-5515.202008001
  34. Acta Med Port. 2020 Oct 01. 33(10): 633-634
      
    Keywords:  Journal Impact Factor; Periodicals as Topic
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.20344/amp.14773
  35. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2020 Nov 03.
      We read with interest the recently published report by Bagga et al,(1) which rigorously assessed gender disparities in high impact rheumatology publications from 2015 to 2019. In this analysis we sought to confirm and expand upon their findings by analyzing a broader scope of journals over a longer period of time.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1002/art.41573
  36. Nature. 2019 Nov 06.
      
    Keywords:  Publishing; Scientific community; Society
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03325-6
  37. Am J Crit Care. 2020 Nov 01. 29(6): 450-457
      BACKGROUND: Although clinical care is multidisciplinary, intensive care unit research commonly focuses on single-discipline themes. We sought to characterize intensive care unit research conducted by physicians and nurses.METHODS: One hundred randomly selected reports of clinical studies published in critical care medical and nursing journals were reviewed.
    RESULTS: Of the 100 articles reviewed, 50 were published in medical journals and 50 were published in nursing journals. Only 1 medical study (2%) used qualitative methods, compared with 9 nursing studies (18%) (P = .02). The distribution of quantitative study designs differed between medical and nursing journals (P < .001), with medical journals having a predominance of cohort studies (29 articles [58%]). Compared with medical journal articles, nursing journal articles had significantly fewer authors (median [interquartile range], 5 [3-6] vs 8 [6-10]; P < .001) and study participants (94 [51-237] vs 375 [86-4183]; P < .001) and a significantly lower proportion of male study participants (55% [26%-65%] vs 60% [51%-65%]; P = .02). Studies published in medical journals were much more likely than those published in nursing journals to exclusively involve patients as participants (47 [94%] vs 25 [50%]; P < .001). Coauthorship between physicians and nurses was evident in 14 articles (14%), with infrequent inclusion of authors from other health care disciplines.
    CONCLUSIONS: Physician research and nurse research differ in several important aspects and tend to occur within silos. Increased interprofessional collaboration is possible and worthwhile.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.4037/ajcc2020136
  38. PLoS One. 2020 ;15(11): e0241826
      BACKGROUND: A debate about the scientific quality of COVID-19 themed research has emerged. We explored whether the quality of evidence of COVID-19 publications is lower when compared to nonCOVID-19 publications in the three highest ranked scientific medical journals.METHODS: We searched the PubMed Database from March 12 to April 12, 2020 and identified 559 publications in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and The Lancet which were divided into COVID-19 (cases, n = 204) and nonCOVID-19 (controls, n = 355) associated content. After exclusion of secondary, unauthored, response letters and non-matching article types, 155 COVID-19 publications (including 13 original articles) and 130 nonCOVID-19 publications (including 52 original articles) were included in the comparative analysis. The hierarchical level of evidence was determined for each publication included and compared between cases and controls as the main outcome. A quantitative scoring of quality was carried out for the subgroup of original articles. The numbers of authors and citation rates were also compared between groups.
    RESULTS: The 130 nonCOVID-19 publications were associated with higher levels of evidence on the level of evidence pyramid, with a strong association measure (Cramer's V: 0.452, P <0.001). The 155 COVID-19 publications were 186-fold more likely to be of lower evidence (95% confidence interval [CI] for odds ratio, 7.0-47; P <0.001). The quantitative quality score (maximum possible score, 28) was significantly different in favor of nonCOVID-19 (mean difference, 11.1; 95% CI, 8.5-13.7; P <0.001). There was a significant difference in the early citation rate of the original articles that favored the COVID-19 original articles (median [interquartile range], 45 [30-244] vs. 2 [1-4] citations; P <0.001).
    CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that the quality of COVID-19 publications in the three highest ranked scientific medical journals is below the quality average of these journals. These findings need to be verified at a later stage of the pandemic.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0241826
  39. Am J Chin Med. 2020 Nov 05. 1-18
      Bufalin is an anticancer drug extract from traditional Chinese medicine. Several articles about bufalin have been published. However, the literature on bufalin has not yet been systematically studied. This study aimed to identify the study status and knowledge structures of bufalin and to summarize the antitumor mechanism. Data were retrieved and downloaded from the PubMed database. The softwares of BICOMB, gCLUTO, Ucinet 6.0, and NetDraw2.084 were used to analyze these publications. The bufalin related genes were recognized and tagged by ABNER software. Then these BF-related genes were performed by Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment analysis, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways analysis, and protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analysis. A total of 474 papers met the search criteria from 2000 to 2019. By biclustering clustering analysis, the 50 high-frequency main MeSH terms/subheadings were classified into 5 clusters. The clusters of drug therapy and the mechanism of bufalin were hotspot topics. A total of 50 genes were identified as BF-related genes. PPI network analysis showed that inducing apoptosis was the main effect of bufalin, and apoptosis-related gene Caspase 3 was the most reported by people. Bufalin could inhibit the proliferation, invasion, and metastasis of cancer cells through multiple signaling pathways, such as PI3K/AKT, Hedgehog, MAPK/JNK, Wnt/[Formula: see text]-catenin, TGF-[Formula: see text]/Smad, Integrin signaling pathway, and NF-KB signaling pathway via KEGG analysis. Through the quantitative analysis of bufalin literature, we revealed the research status and hot spots in this field and provided some guidance for further research.
    Keywords:  Anticancer Effect; Bibliometrics; Bioinformatics; Bufalin; Review; Signaling Pathway
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1142/S0192415X20500810
  40. Biotechnol Appl Biochem. 2020 Nov 04.
      Genome engineering and synthetic biology as an emerging interdisciplinary tool have opened a new era for energy research as well as life science. In this study, bibliometric and content analysis were conducted to clarify research characteristics and research trends in this field. Our result revealed that USA, China, UK, Germany and France were the main contributing countries, and USA was in a leading position in international cooperation. The CRISPR-Cas9 system has been manipulated to develop microorganisms with improved characteristics and tolerance, and is at the forefront of research and practice. In addition, design and construction of synthetic microbial communities and optimization of ecological models to meet industrial demands will become the next hotspot. Meanwhile, effective process configurations that can promote commercial-scale biofuel production should also be developed. Genome engineering and synthetic biology are expected to continue playing an important role in promoting the development of sustainable energy production. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
    Keywords:  bibliometric; biofuels; energy; genome engineering; synthetic biology
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1002/bab.2069
  41. Ann Rheum Dis. 2020 Nov 02. pii: annrheumdis-2020-218358. [Epub ahead of print]
      
    Keywords:  arthritis; autoimmune diseases; health services research
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1136/annrheumdis-2020-218358
  42. Biomedica. 2020 10 30. 40(Supl. 2): 205-208
      
    Keywords:  Coronavirus infections; bibliometrics; bibliometric indicators; information management; Latin America