bims-evares Biomed News
on Evaluation of research
Issue of 2021‒01‒24
twenty-two papers selected by
Thomas Krichel
Open Library Society


  1. BMC Anesthesiol. 2021 Jan 21. 21(1): 24
      BACKGROUND: Scientometrics is used to assess the impact of research in several health fields, including Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine. The purpose of this study was to identify contributors to highly-cited African Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine research.METHODS: The authors searched Web of Science from inception to May 4, 2020, for articles on and about Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine in Africa with ≥2 citations. Quantitative (H-index) and qualitative (descriptive analysis of yearly publications and interpretation of document, co-authorship, author country, and keyword) bibliometric analyses were done.
    RESULTS: The search strategy returned 116 articles with a median of 5 (IQR: 3-12) citations on Web of Science. Articles were published in Anesthesia and Analgesia (18, 15.5%), World Journal of Surgery (13, 11.2%), and South African Medical Journal (8, 6.9%). Most (74, 63.8%) articles were published on or after 2013. Seven authors had more than 1 article in the top 116 articles: Epiu I (3, 2.6%), Elobu AE (2, 1.7%), Fenton PM (2, 1.7%), Kibwana S (2, 1.7%), Rukewe A (2, 1.7%), Sama HD (2, 1.7%), and Zoumenou E (2, 1.7%). The bibliometric coupling analysis of documents highlighted 10 clusters, with the most significant nodes being Biccard BM, 2018; Baker T, 2013; Llewellyn RL, 2009; Nigussie S, 2014; and Aziato L, 2015. Dubowitz G (5) and Ozgediz D (4) had the highest H-indices among the authors referenced by the most-cited African Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine articles. The U.S.A., England, and Uganda had the strongest collaboration links among the articles, and most articles focused on perioperative care.
    CONCLUSION: This study highlighted trends in top-cited African articles and African and non-African academic institutions' contributions to these articles.
    Keywords:  Africa; Anesthesia; Bibliometrics; Global anesthesia; Research
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12871-021-01246-4
  2. Mil Med Res. 2021 Jan 21. 8(1): 5
      BACKGROUND: Heat stroke (HS) is an acute physical disorder that is associated with a high risk of organ dysfunction and even death. HS patients are usually treated symptomatically and conservatively; however, there remains a lack of specific and effective drugs in clinical practice. An analysis of publication contributions from institutions, journals and authors in different countries/regions was used to study research progress and trends regarding HS.METHODS: We extracted all relevant publications on HS between 1989 and 2019 from Web of Science. Using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS, version 24) and the software GraphPad Prism 8, graphs were generated and statistical analyses were performed, while VOSviewer software was employed to visualize the research trends in HS from the perspectives of co-occurring keywords.
    RESULTS: As of April 14, 2020, we identified 1443 publications with a citation frequency of 5216. The United States accounted for the largest number of publications (36.2%) and the highest number of citations (14,410), as well as the highest H-index at 74. Although the sum of publications from China ranked second, there was a contradiction between the quantity and quality of publications. Furthermore, Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise published the most papers related to HS, with Lin MT publishing the most papers in this field (112), while the review by Knochel JP received the highest citation frequency at 969. The keyword heat-stress appeared most recently, with an average appearing year of 2015.5. In the clinical research cluster, exertional heat-stroke was determined to be the hotspot, while ambient-temperature and heat waves were the new trends in the epidemiological research cluster.
    CONCLUSIONS: Corresponding to this important field, while the contributions of the publications from the United States were significant, the mismatch between the quantity and quality of publications from China must be examined. Moreover, it is hypothesized that clinical and epidemiological studies may become hotspots in the near future.
    Keywords:  Citation frequency; Heat stroke; Publications
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s40779-021-00300-z
  3. Medicine (Baltimore). 2021 Jan 15. 100(2): e23944
      ABSTRACT: There has been a highly active area in the pain management of osteoarthritis (OA) over the past 2 decades. The study aims to unmask the global status and trends in this field.Publications on pain management of OA from 2000 to 2019 were retrieved from the Web of Science (WOS) database. The data were analyzed using bibliometric statistical methodology. The software VOS viewer was used for bibliographic coupling, co-authorship, co-citation, co-occurrence analysis and to investigate the publication trends in pain management of OA.A total of 8207 researches in amount were included. The relative research interests and number of publications indicated a rising trend. The USA made the greatest contribution to this field, with the most publications, total citations and the highest H-index, while Sweden had the highest average citation per publication. The most contributive organization was Boston University. The journal OA and Cartilage published the most relative articles. Researches could be grouped into 5 clusters based on co-occurrence network map: Health and Epidemiology; Sport Medicine; Clinical Study; Mechanism Research and Medical Technology and Science. Medical Technology and Science was predicted as the next research topic in this field.The number of publications about pain management of OA would be increasing based on current global trends. The USA made the largest contribution to this field. The development of Medical Technology and Science may be the next popular topics in the pain management of OA research.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1097/MD.0000000000023944
  4. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2021 Jan 17.
      This study explores the characteristics of the literature on microalgae-based wastewater treatment during the past 20 years, based on the Web of Science Core Collection database and its scientometric techniques. The results reveal that the literature on microalgae-based wastewater treatment has grown rapidly with 2621 publications and 54,388 citations in total. Most of the document types are journal articles, constituting 80.7% of the total records. China and the USA are the two most active countries, regarding the publications and cooperation in this filed from the viewpoint of the number of publishing papers, total number of citations, and the number of multinational author papers. The Chinese Academy of Sciences is the largest institutional contributor, publishing 2.3% of the papers, followed by the Indian Institute of Technology (2.2%) and Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (2.1%). The most publishing author is Ruan (35 papers) with the highest number of citation (2460 times). "Bioresource Technology" is the most publishing journal with 365 published papers, while 36.2% of the total sample is published in the subject area of "Environmental Sciences Ecology." The most cited paper in the past 20 years is a review of the status of phosphorus removal in wastewater by de-Bashan in 2004. Bibliometric analysis has systematically combed the development system of microalgae-based wastewater treatment in the past 20 years and has a great potential to gain valuable insights for the future development, which provides a supplement to the common content analysis.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric analysis; Biofuels; Microalgae; Publication; Wastewater treatment
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-12348-4
  5. Tunis Med. 2020 Oct;98(10): 693-704
      INTRODUCTION: La Tunisie Medicale (Tunis Med)  had a deep impact in nearly 100 years of publishing. A bibliometric study, which uses citation analyses to appraise the influence of articles, can be used to detect the most impactful articles in the Tunis Med's history.OBJECTIVE: To identify and characterize the profile of the top-cited articles (≥10 times in Scopus) published in Tunis Med since 1949.
    METHOD: Scopus database was used to classify, according to the frequency of citation, the articles published in Tunis Med from 1949 through 2019. Only articles cited ≥10 times were included in the analysis. Articles were evaluated for several characteristics including number of citations (in absolute) of annual citations, year of publication, article type, language of publication, country of origin and specialty of the first author.
    RESULTS: Among the 7555 articles classified in Scopus, only 105 (1.39%) were cited ≥10 times. The means±standard deviations of citations and annual citations were low, at 15.4±7.3 and 1.202±0.612, respectively. The profile of the most cited articles was an original article (92.38%), written in French (63.81%) and published between 2002 and 2011 (66.7%) by a first author specialist in community medicine (11.43%) or pediatrics (10.48%) who is affiliated to a research structure based in Tunisia (97.1%).
    CONCLUSION: This bibliometric analysis provides an overview of the Tunis Med publications that have shaped the scope and practice of medicine.
  6. Ann Gen Psychiatry. 2021 Jan 21. 20(1): 6
      BACKGROUND: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder in children or early adolescents with an estimated worldwide prevalence of 7.2%. Numerous articles related to ADHD have been published in the literature. However, which articles had ultimate influence is still unknown, and what factors affect the number of article citations remains unclear as well. This bibliometric analysis (1) visualizes the prominent entities with 1 picture using the top 100 most-cited articles, and (2) investigates whether medical subject headings (i.e., MeSH terms) can be used in predicting article citations.METHODS: By searching the PubMed Central® (PMC) database, the top 100 most-cited abstracts relevant to ADHD since 2014 were downloaded. Citation rank analysis was performed to compare the dominant roles of article types and topic categories using the pyramid plot. Social network analysis (SNA) was performed to highlight prominent entities for providing a quick look at the study result. The authors examined the MeSH prediction effect on article citations using its correlation coefficients (CC).
    RESULTS: The most frequent article types and topic categories were research support by institutes (56%) and epidemiology (28%). The most productive countries were the United States (42%), followed by the United Kingdom (13%), Germany (9%), and the Netherlands (9%). Most articles were published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (15%) and JAMA Psychiatry (9%). MeSH terms were evident in prediction power on the number of article citations (correlation coefficient = 0.39; t = 4.1; n = 94; 6 articles were excluded because they do not have MeSH terms).
    CONCLUSIONS: The breakthrough was made by developing 1 dashboard to display 100 top-cited articles on ADHD. MeSH terms can be used in predicting article citations on ADHD. These visualizations of the top 100 most-cited articles could be applied to future academic pursuits and other academic disciplines.
    Keywords:  Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder; Bibliometric; Citation analysis; Correlation coefficient; Medical subject heading; Social network analysis
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12991-021-00329-3
  7. Ir J Med Sci. 2021 Jan 18.
      OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to guide researchers in the COVID-19 pandemic by evaluating the 100 most cited articles of COVID-19 in terms of bibliometric analysis, Altmetric scores, and dimension badges.METHODS: "COVID-19" was entered as the search term in Thomson Reuter's Web of Science database. The 100 most cited articles (T100) were analyzed bibliometrically. Altmetric attention scores (AASs) and dimension badge scores of the articles were evaluated.
    RESULTS: T100 articles were published from January to September 2020. The average citation of the top 100 articles on COVID-19 was 320 ± 344.3 (143-2676). The language of all articles was English. The average Altmetric value of T100 is 3246 ± 3795 (85-16,548) and the mean dimension badge value was 670 ± 541.6 (176-4232). Epidemiological features (n = 22) and treatment (n = 21) were at the top of the main topics of T100 articles.
    CONCLUSION: The more citations an article is made, the more it indicates the contribution of that article to science. However, the number of citations is not always the only indicator of article quality. The existence of methods that measure the impact of the article outside the academia to measure the value of the article arises more in an issue that affects the whole world, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric analysis; COVID-19; Pandemic; Social attention
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11845-020-02460-8
  8. F1000Res. 2020 ;9 856
      Background: Colistin resistance is a major breach in our last line of defense and without urgent action, we are heading for a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries can once again kill. To the best of our knowledge, the use of the bibliometric analytical technique for examining colistin resistance-related research does not exist in the literature. Methods: Here, we analyze and present bibliometric indicators of the global literature in colistin resistance research. The Scopus database was searched for articles on colistin resistance. The articles retrieved were analyzed using the bibliometrix R-package. Results: A total of 1105 publications were retrieved. There was a noticeable increase in the number of publications on colistin resistance research in the past decade. Six journals made up the core zone in colistin research and produced 35.83% of the published articles. The analysis across time-intervals revealed several keywords that had increased or decreased in usage when comparing the interval between 1973-2009 and 2010-2019. Authors' keywords "Acinetobacter baumanii", and " Pseudomonas aeruginosa" were the most frequent encountered during the period of 1973-2009, while " mcr-1", " Enterobacteriaceae", " Escherichia coli", and " Klebsiella pneumoniae" emerged in the past decade. Conclusions: There has been a significant growth in publications on colistin resistance in the past decade, suggesting an urgent need for action by different stakeholders to contain this threat of colistin resistance. Keyword analysis revealed temporal changes in the types of keywords used across time-intervals. These findings summarize a general vision on colistin resistance research and will serve as baseline data for future comparative purposes.
    Keywords:  bibliometric analysis; colistin resistance; keywords; mcr-1
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.25124.1
  9. Cancer Med. 2021 Jan 21.
      BACKGROUND: The external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) applied for prostate cancer (PCa) has been one of the most important and hottest research fields over recent decades. This study aimed to explore the research hotspots of EBRT in PCa and help the researchers have a clear and intuitive reference basis for later researches.METHODS: The literature scientometric analysis related to "EBRT applied for PCa" was conducted via the Web of Science Core Collection from 2010 to 2019. The Microsoft Office Excel 2019 and CiteSpace V. 5.7.R1 software were introduced for visualizing and analyzing the data.
    RESULTS: A total of 7860 relevant papers were extracted and downloaded. A total of 7828 papers were extracted and analyzed after data cleansing by CiteSpace. The tendency of published papers was comprehensively increasing from 2010 to 2019. Among all 73 countries/regions, USA published the most papers, accounting for 39%, which was the most active contributor with most publications. Australia (Centrality: 0.18), England (Centrality: 0.12) were cooperating most cohesively with other countries. Univ Toronto was the most productive institute (229), while Harvard Univ (Centrality: 0.67) had extensive collaborations with other institutes. The International journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics had the largest number of publications and the highest number of co-citations. Briganti A had the largest volume of publications. D'Amico AV had the highest number of co-citations. Four latest and largest clusters were identified as oligometastases, salvage therapy (SRT), prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA), and hypofractionation. Thirteen references became strongest burst citations lasting until 2019. The studies of "oligometastases," "SRT," "PSMA," "hypofractionation," "postoperative radiotherapy," and "dose and fraction regimen changes" were prevailing in the recent years.
    CONCLUSION: The "oligometastases," "SRT," "PSMA," "hypofractionation," "postoperative radiotherapy," and "dose and fraction regimen changes" may be the state-of-art research frontiers, and related studies will advance in this field over time.
    Keywords:  EBRT; global trends; prostate cancer; scientometric analysis; visualization analysis
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1002/cam4.3700
  10. Sao Paulo Med J. 2021 Jan 15. pii: S1516-31802021005002103. [Epub ahead of print]
      BACKGROUND: The pandemic of the new coronavirus has culminated in a scientific race to seek knowledge about this virus and its treatments, vaccines and preventive strategies, in order to reduce its impact on healthcare and economics worldwide. Hence, it is important to recognize the efforts of researchers who are at the forefront of investigations relating to the new coronavirus.OBJECTIVE: The present study was carried out with the aim of analyzing the world scientific production relating to COVID-19.
    DESIGN AND SETTING: Exploratory and descriptive bibliometric study conducted in the city of Teresina (PI), Brazil.
    METHOD: ISI Web of Knowledge/Web of Science (WOS) was chosen as the database. Data-gathering was carried out in May 2020. The data analysis was performed using the HistCiteTM software, version 9.8.24, and the VOSviewer bibliometric analysis software, version 1.6.8.
    RESULTS: 2,625 published papers that included descriptors within the scope of this investigation were identified. These articles were published in 859 different journals that are indexed in WOS, by 9,791 authors who were linked to 3,365 research institutions, located in 105 countries.
    CONCLUSION: Ascertaining scientific production through a bibliometric analysis is important in order to guide researchers on what has already been produced and what is being researched, so as to be able to address gaps in knowledge through future research.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1590/1516-3180.2020.0449.R1.01102020
  11. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Jan 14. pii: E663. [Epub ahead of print]18(2):
      Nurses are a key workforce in the international health system, and as such maintaining optimal working conditions is critical for preserving their well-being and good performance. One of the psychosocial risks that can have a major impact on them is job insecurity. This study aimed to carry out a bibliometric analysis, mapping job insecurity in 128 articles in nursing, and to determine the most important findings in the literature. The search was conducted in the Web of Science Core Collection database using the Science Citation Index (SCI)-Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) indexes on 6 March 2020. This field of discipline has recently been established and has experienced significant growth since 2013. The most productive and widely cited authors are Denton and Zeytinoglu. The most productive universities are Toronto University, McMaster University, and Monash University. The most productive countries are the United States, Canada, Australia, Finland, and the United Kingdom. The most widely used measure was Karasek's Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ). The main findings report negative correlations with job satisfaction, mental well-being, and physical health. Job insecurity is a recent and little-discussed topic, and this paper provides an overview of the field. This will enable policies to reduce psychosocial risks among nurses to be implemented.
    Keywords:  bibliometric analysis; job insecurity; nursing
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18020663
  12. Biopharm Drug Dispos. 2020 Dec 15.
      We assess the advancement of physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling and simulation (M&S) over the last 20 years (start of 2000 to end of 2019) focusing on the trends in each decade with the relative contributions from different organizations, areas of applications, and software tools used. Unlike many of the previous publications which focused on regulatory applications, our analysis is based on PBPK publications in peer-reviewed journals based on a large sample (>700 original articles). We estimated a rate of growth for PBPK (>40 fold/20 years) that was much steeper than the general pharmacokinetic modeling (<3 fold/20 years) or overall scientific publications (∼3 fold/20 years). The analyses demonstrated that contrary to commonly held belief, commercial specialized PBPK platforms with graphical-user interface were a much more popular choice than open-source alternatives even within academic organizations. These platforms constituted 81% of the whole set of the sample we assessed. The major PBPK applications (top 3) were associated with the study design, predicting formulation effects, and metabolic drug-drug interactions, while studying the fate of drugs in special populations, predicting kinetics in early drug development, and investigating transporter drug interactions have increased proportionally over the last decade. The proportions of application areas based on published research were distinctively different from those shown previously for the regulatory submissions and impact on labels. This may demonstrate the lag time between the research applications versus verified usage within the regulatory framework. The report showed the trend of overall PBPK publications in pharmacology drug development from the past 2 decades stratified by the organizations involved, software used, and area of applications. The analysis showed a more rapid increase in PBPK than that of the pharmacokinetic space itself with an equal contribution from academia and industry. By establishing and recording the journey of PBPK modeling in the past and looking at its current status, the analysis can be used for devising plans based on the anticipated trajectory of future regulatory applications.
    Keywords:  PBPK; in-silico modeling; modeling and simulation
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1002/bdd.2257
  13. Medicine (Baltimore). 2021 Jan 15. 100(2): e23540
      ABSTRACT: The independent plastic surgery pathway recruits candidates with 5 years of surgical training who are typically more advanced in research than their integrated counterparts. Research productivity helps to discriminate between applicants. However, no studies exist detailing the academic attributes of matched independent plastic surgery candidates.We performed a cohort study of 161 independent plastic surgery fellows from accredited residency programs from the 2015 to 2017 application cycles. We performed a bibliometric analysis utilizing Scopus, PubMed, and Google Scholar to identify research output measures at the time of application.The cohort was predominantly men (66%) with a median of 3 articles and a H-index of 1 at the time of application. Interestingly, 16% of successful candidates had no published articles at the time of application, and this did not change significantly over time (P = .0740). Although the H-index remained stable (R 0.13, P = .1095), the number of published journal articles per candidate significantly decreased over 3 consecutive application cycles (R -0.16, P = .0484). Analysis of article types demonstrated a significant increase in basic science articles (R 0.18, P = .0366) and a concurrent decrease in editorial-type publications (R = -0.18, P = .0374).Despite the decline in publication volume of matched independent plastic surgery fellows, the quality of their research portfolio has remained constant. Matched applicants appear to be shifting focus from faster-to-publish articles to longer but higher impact projects. In selecting a training route, applicants must weigh the highly competitive integrated path against the dwindling number of independent positions.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1097/MD.0000000000023540
  14. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2021 Jan 23.
      Development of bioenergy will be a key component for meeting increasing energy demands while mitigating global warming. With the intent of identifying current topics of major interest and development of research directions in the field of bioenergy under climate change, we conducted a bibliometric analysis and network analysis from a country perspective based on 3050 articles published since 1999 derived from the Scopus database. The results indicated that USA, UK, and Germany led other countries in terms of number of publications (1006, 366, and 280 articles, respectively) and h-index (greater than 50) in this research area. The USA has also produced a large number of articles in highly respected journals. Compared with developed countries, some developing countries (e.g., China, India, and Brazil) have a larger proportion of publications which are cited less than 10 times and researchers who have academic age of 1 year. The number of publications dealing with some of these research topics coming from developing countries has lagged behind the number of similar publications coming from developed countries. In spite of this, research on sustainable energy systems is still needed for developing countries to further establish feasible systems that can effectively promote global economic development and strengthen climate change mitigation efforts.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric analysis; Bioenergy; Climate change; Country perspective; Network analysis
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-12448-1
  15. HPB (Oxford). 2020 Dec 22. pii: S1365-182X(20)32397-2. [Epub ahead of print]
      BACKGROUND: While studies have explored the gender gap in scientific publications, no study has investigated surgical literature in much detail. We examined the gender gap in Hepato-pancreato-biliary publications over the last decade.METHODS: All physician authored original clinical science articles published in HPB, Annals of Surgery, Surgery, Annals of Surgical Oncology, and JAMA Surgery were reviewed from 2008 to 2017. Chi square analysis was used to compare the proportions of female and male authors and Cochrane-Armitage test was used for comparisons over time.
    RESULTS: Of the 1067 publications, 84.0% of all authorships were held by men. Women physicians made up 10.3% of senior and 21.4% of first authorships with increased representation from 2.13% in 2007 to 14.8% in 2017 (p = 0.001). Women physicians comprised 14.1% of senior authors in JAMA Surgery, but only 2.46% in Annals of Surgical Oncology. Male authors were five times more likely to publish multiple articles compared to their female counterparts. Female first authors progressed to senior authors at a rate of 1.13% versus 5.73% for male authors (p = 0.89).
    CONCLUSION: These findings elucidate the continued underrepresentation of women in senior research roles and the need to recruit and mentor women in all stages of their academic careers.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hpb.2020.11.1151
  16. Z Evid Fortbild Qual Gesundhwes. 2021 Jan 13. pii: S1865-9217(20)30203-8. [Epub ahead of print]
      AIM: The progress of a discipline depends on the knowledge widely shared, an aim fulfilled by publications. But which are the factors influencing publication? We examine predictors of a subsequent publication for abstracts submitted to the annual scientific conference of the German Society of Orthodontics (DGKFO).METHODS: For all 288 abstracts presented in 2014 and 2015 we recorded presentation format, number and gender of authors, study design and university affiliation. Subsequent publication as a peer-reviewed full-text article was researched over a period of more than three years.
    RESULTS: A total of 88 abstracts (30.6 %) were published in full-text after a mean time span of 1.2±1.6 years after the respective conference. In multivariate logistic regression, secondary studies (OR 9.27 [1.51-57.04]; p=0.016), a higher number of authors (OR 1.21 [1.02-1.43]; p=0.030), a higher percentage of female authors (OR 1.01 [1.00-1.03]; p=0.036) but male gender of the first author (OR 2.10 [1.11-3.98]; p=0.023) resulted in a higher probability of getting published as a journal paper.
    CONCLUSION: Our investigation shows that secondary studies, a higher number of authors, a higher percentage of women among the authors and male first authors are predictive factors of publication. After more than three years, only about one third of the abstracts presented at the DGKFO annual scientific conference have been published as a full-text journal article, meaning that a huge part of knowledge remains unshared.
    Keywords:  DGKFO scientific conference; DGKFO-Jahrestagung; Full-text publication; Kieferorthopädie; Knowledge transmission; Orthodontics; Publication parameters; Veröffentlichungsparameter; Volltext-Veröffentlichung; Wissensvermittlung
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.zefq.2020.12.003
  17. Manag Int Rev. 2021 Jan 12. 1-42
      This study measures and ranks the performance of nations and academic institutions based on a 45-year analysis of international business (IB) publications, including 5853 academic authors from 1542 affiliated institutions. Examining authors' academic origin and university of affiliation, and with a focus on the European nations that participated in the production of IB research, we make several novel contributions to the field: (1) identifying a unique internationalization process of IB research that consists of three distinct stages driven by international collaboration, (2) highlighting the role of international collaborations in overcoming publication barriers at the regional and country level, and (3) highlighting the role of both scale and scope of international collaborations in achieving a top-ranked position in the production of IB research.
    Keywords:  International business; International collaboration; Internationalization; Research; Resource dependency
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11575-020-00435-6
  18. Tex Heart Inst J. 2020 Aug 01. 47(4): 258-264
      Variables in cardiology fellowship applications have not been objectively analyzed against applicants' subsequent clinical performance. We investigated possible correlations in a retrospective cohort study of 65 cardiology fellows at the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minn) who began 2 years of clinical training from July 2007 through July 2013. Application variables included the strength of comparative statements in recommendation letters and the authors' academic ranks, membership status in the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, awards earned, volunteer activities, United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) scores, advanced degrees, publications, and completion of a residency program ranked in the top 6 in the United States. The outcome was clinical performance as measured by a mean of faculty evaluation scores during clinical training. The overall mean evaluation score was 4.07 ± 0.18 (scale, 1-5). After multivariable analysis, evaluation scores were associated with Alpha Omega Alpha designation (β=0.13; 95% CI, 0.01-0.25; P=0.03), residency program reputation (β=0.13; 95% CI, 0.05-0.21; P=0.004), and strength of comparative statements in recommendation letters (β=0.08; 95% CI, 0.01-0.15; P=0.02), particularly in letters from residency program directors (β=0.05; 95% CI, 0.01-0.08; P=0.009). Objective factors to consider in the cardiology fellowship application include Alpha Omega Alpha membership, residency program reputation, and comparative statements from residency program directors.
    Keywords:  Cardiology/education; educational measurement/methods/standards; fellowships and scholarships/standards; personnel selection methods; predictive value of tests; professional practice/standards; retrospective studies; school admission criteria/statistics & numerical data; schools, medical
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.14503/THIJ-18-6851
  19. PLoS One. 2021 ;16(1): e0245795
      Microscopy is the main technique to visualize and study the structure and function of cells. The impact of optical and electron microscopy techniques is enormous in all fields of biomedical research. It is possible that different research areas rely on microscopy in diverse ways. Here, we analyzed comparatively the use of microscopy in pharmacology and cell biology, among other biomedical sciences fields. We collected data from articles published in several major journals in these fields. We analyzed the frequency of use of different optical and electron microscopy techniques: bright field, phase contrast, differential interference contrast, polarization, conventional fluorescence, confocal, live cell imaging, super resolution, transmission and scanning electron microscopy, and cryoelectron microscopy. Our analysis showed that the use of microscopy has a distinctive pattern in each research area, and that nearly half of the articles from pharmacology journals did not use any microscopy method, compared to the use of microscopy in almost all the articles from cell biology journals. The most frequent microscopy methods in all the journals in all areas were bright field and fluorescence (conventional and confocal). Again, the pattern of use was different: while the most used microscopy methods in pharmacology were bright field and conventional fluorescence, in cell biology the most used methods were conventional and confocal fluorescence, and live cell imaging. We observed that the combination of different microscopy techniques was more frequent in cell biology, with up to 6 methods in the same article. To correlate the use of microscopy with the research theme of each article, we analyzed the proportion of microscopy figures with the use of cell culture. We analyzed comparatively the vocabulary of each biomedical sciences field, by the identification of the most frequent words in the articles. The collection of data described here shows a vast difference in the use of microscopy among different fields of biomedical sciences. The data presented here could be valuable in other scientific and educational contexts.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245795
  20. J Texture Stud. 2021 Jan 19.
      Cohesiveness is a widely used term in the food texture literature. Authors of this literature employ divergent methodologies, and can be divided into those who assess texture through sensory evaluation and those who use instrumental techniques. Within each of these disciplines there are some specialized uses of the word, creating discipline specific terms such as "cohesiveness of mass". The fact that many researchers attempt to (re)define cohesiveness, does suggest that the term is not universally understood. This blurring arises partly from the abstract nature of what it describes and also from ill matching measurements being used to quantify it. A widely agreed definition is that cohesiveness is "the strength of the internal bonds making up the body of the product", yet a challenge continues to be how we can measure it. Using the Sketch Engine corpus analysis interface to examine a corpus of articles from the food texture literature in the period 2002-2017, the contexts in which the word stem 'cohes*' is used were explored. Collocation analysis suggests that in addition to considerable commonality in the way that 'cohesiveness' combines with other terms, differences reflect the foci of the disciplines with the instrumental community predominantly dealing with physical measurement while the sensory community relate 'cohesiveness' more to oral processing and texture perception.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/jtxs.12586
  21. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2021 Jan;73(1): 168-172
      OBJECTIVE: To determine the potential association between physician gender and academic advancement among US rheumatologists.METHODS: We performed a nationwide, cross-sectional study of all rheumatologists practicing in the US in 2014 using a comprehensive database of all licensed physicians. Among academic rheumatologists, we estimated gender differences in faculty rank, adjusting for differences in physician age, years since residency graduation, publications, National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants, registered clinical trials, and appointment at a top 20 medical school using a multivariate logistic regression model. We also estimated gender differences in leadership positions (i.e., division director and fellowship program director).
    RESULTS: Among 6,125 total practicing rheumatologists, 941 (15%) had academic faculty appointments in 2014. Women academic rheumatologists (41.4%) were younger and had completed residency more recently than men. Women had fewer total publications, publications on which they were the first or last author, and NIH grants. In fully adjusted analyses, women were less likely to be full or associate professors than men, with an adjusted odds ratio (OR) of 0.78 (95% confidence interval [95% CI] 0.62-0.99]). Women in rheumatology had similar odds as men of being a fellowship program director or division director (adjusted OR 0.99 [95% CI 0.69-1.43] and adjusted OR 0.96 [95% CI 0.66-1.41], respectively).
    CONCLUSION: Among academic rheumatologists, women are less likely than men to be full or associate professors but have similar odds of being fellowship program directors or division directors, when adjusting for several factors known to influence faculty promotion. These differences suggest barriers to academic promotion despite representation in leadership positions within rheumatology divisions.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1002/art.41492