bims-evares Biomed News
on Evaluation of research
Issue of 2022‒08‒07
fifty-four papers selected by
Thomas Krichel
Open Library Society


  1. Arch Osteoporos. 2022 08 01. 17(1): 106
      PURPOSE: To perform a bibliometric analysis of the top 100 (T100) most-cited articles on the treatment of osteoporosis published between 1980 and 2021 to reveal major developments and trends in the field and to contribute to the methodologies and hypotheses of future studies.METHODS: On 15.12.2021, a search was conducted on the Web of Science database using the keyword "osteoporosis treatment" to screen articles published between 1980 and 2021. The title of the article, year of publication, total number and names of the authors, total number of citations and citation index, name and Q index of the journals, H-index, impact factor, country of authors, types of articles, and sources of funding were recorded.
    RESULTS: The most-cited article was "Osteoporosis Prevention, Diagnosis, And Therapy." The article with the highest citation index was "Clinician's Guide to Prevention and Treatment of Osteoporosis.. The majority of the articles were randomized controlled clinical trials. The journal with the highest number of articles included in the T100 was The New England Journal of Medicine, with 19 articles. The USA had the highest number of articles. There was a strong correlation between the number of citations and citation index of articles (p < 0.001).
    CONCLUSIONS: This study, which examined the T100 most-cited articles on the treatment of osteoporosis, found that the articles primarily focused on the prevention, diagnosis, and follow-up of osteoporosis; search for antiresorptive and anabolic pharmacological agents; investigation of the efficacy and reliability of these agents on specific subpopulations; and surgical treatment options.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric analysis; Number of citations; Osteoporosis treatment
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11657-022-01141-6
  2. Front Psychiatry. 2022 ;13 936009
      Background: Premenstrual syndrome/premenstrual dysphoric disorder is a serious condition affecting women worldwide, causing clinically significant distress or interference. Therefore, solving these diseases has become the utmost concern worldwide, culminating in numerous studies. In this study, we performed bibliometric analysis on the 100 most cited papers with the aim of identifying research hot spots and trends in this field.Methods: We screened the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) of Web of Science (WOS) to identify the top 100 cited studies on PMS/PMDD. Next, we analyzed relevant literature from various journals, countries/regions, institutions, authors, and keywords. Finally, we used VOSviewer and Citespace software to generate knowledge maps and identify hot spots and trends.
    Results: The top 100 highly cited studies were published in 55 journals, between 1999 and 2017, across 24 countries/regions around the world. Most articles were published in Obstetrics and Gynecology, whereas Psych neuroendocrinology had the largest average number of citations per paper. The United States had the highest number of publications, followed by England, Canada, and Sweden. The top three institutions that published the highly cited literature were the University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, and National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Obstetrics, Gynecology, Psychiatry, and Reproductive Biology were the main research directions, whereas the top 10 Co-occurrence of Keywords included double-blind, fluoxetine, efficacy, prevalence, epidemiology, phase sertraline treatment, depression, progesterone, placebo, and placebo-controlled trial. Results from cluster analysis indicated that more comprehensive epidemiology and steroid pathogenesis have gradually become the hot spots and trends.
    Conclusion: These findings demonstrated that bibliometric analysis can intuitively and rapidly reveal the frontiers and hot spots of research in PMS/PMDD. Notably, epidemiology, steroid pathogenesis, GABAA receptor delta subunits, and double-blind placebo-controlled trials are potential areas of focus for future research.
    Keywords:  PMDD; bibliometric analysis; citations; premenstrual syndrome; trends
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.936009
  3. Rheumatol Int. 2022 Aug 03.
      BACKGROUND: Familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) is a disease of the innate immune system. The disease is prevalent in the Mediterranean region. A comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the published literature on FMF indexed in the SCI-Expanded is lacking.OBJECTIVE: To review the global research trend, developments, leading authors, journals, institutions, and countries, and visualization mapping of the published scientific literature on FMF.
    METHODS: The data were obtained from SCI-Expanded of the WoSCC database. The obtained data were analyzed using Bibliometrix: An R-tool and an online Bibliometric tool. P-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
    RESULTS: In this study, a total of 1665 publications (research article, 92% and review, 8%) on FMF were analyzed and characterized. These publications were authored by 5630 authors, and published in 465 journals. The scientific production in FMF research has been increasing over time (p < 0.0001), with scientific annual growth of 3.96%. The most frequent year of publications was 2021 (n = 98), while the most attractive and published journal in FMF research was Rheumatology International (n = 116). The leading institution was Hacettepe University. The top ranked and most cited country in FMF research was Turkey. In total, the authors' collaboration index was 3.47.
    CONCLUSION: Generally, FMF scientific research production has increased over the last two decades. The most studied research areas in FMF were rheumatology, general internal medicine and genetics heredity. The most studied recent trend topics in FMF research were validity, reliability, endothelial dysfunction, management, and recommendations. Moreover, regional collaboration between less active countries should be extended in order to expand FMF-related research and thus prevent and control the disease in the near future.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric analysis; Bibliometrix; Familial Mediterranean fever; SCI-Expanded
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s00296-022-05179-0
  4. Indian J Radiol Imaging. 2022 Jun;32(2): 166-181
      The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020 was paralleled by an equally overwhelming publication of scientific literature. This scientometric analysis was performed to evaluate the 100 most cited articles on COVID-19 imaging to highlight research trends and identify common characteristics of the most cited works. A search of the Web of Science database was performed using the keywords "COVID CT," "COVID Radiograph," and "COVID Imaging" on June 29, 2021. The 100 top cited articles found were arranged in descending order on the basis of citation counts and citations per year and relevant data were recorded. Our search revealed a total of 4,862 articles on COVID-19 imaging published in the years 2020 to 2021. The journal with maximum number of publications ( n  = 22), citation count ( n  = 8,788), and impact was Radiology . Citations for the top 100 articles ranged from 70 to 1,742 with the most cited article authored by A.I. Tao and published in Radiology . Two authors tied at first spot, having maximum impact, with both having 5 publications and a total of 3,638 citations among them. China was the leading country with both the maximum number of publications ( n  = 49) and total citations ( n  = 13,892), the United States coming second in both. This study evaluates publication and citation trends in literature and shows that the countries most affected by the pandemic early on have contributed to the majority of the literature. Furthermore, it will help radiologists to refer to the most popular and important article texts on which to base their unbiased and confident diagnoses.
    Keywords:  COVID CT; COVID-19 imaging; scientometric
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0042-1744140
  5. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2022 Aug 04.
      The purpose of this study was to explore the research hotspots and trends of Kinesio Taping in the last decade and provide new sights in future studies. Publications in the area of Kinesio Taping were searched from the Web of Science Core Collection database between 2011 and 2020. Citespace software was used to analyze data on countries/regions, institutions, authors, co-cited references, and keywords. A total of 677 publications were obtained in the last decade. We identified the most prolific countries, institutions, and authors in the field of Kinesio Taping from 2011 to 2020. The annual number of publications showed an upward trend. The most prolific country and institution were Turkey and Hacettepe University, respectively. The author with the biggest number of publications was Gul Baltaci from Turkey. The top 5 most frequent keywords were "pain", "tape", "strength", "exercise", and "reliability". The keywords with the highest centrality were "proprioception", followed by "reliability", "clinical trial", "ankle", and "pain". Ten clusters were found and the biggest one was "quadricep". The top 9 keywords with the strongest bursts were detected and "trial" had the highest burst strength. The results from the bibliometric analysis provide hotspots and trends in the field of Kinesio Taping. It is still in the development stage of the past decade. Pain relief, sports injury prevention and treatment, and proprioception enhancement to improve postural control were the hotspots from 2011 to 2020. High-quality trials and standardized criteria for applications are needed in the future.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric analysis; Citespace; Hotspots; Kinesio Taping; Visualization
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-22300-9
  6. Indian J Orthop. 2022 Aug;56(8): 1327-1338
      Background: Musculoskeletal conditions are the leading contributor to global healthcare expenditure and with an increase in ageing global population, this number is projected to rise further.Objectives: To determine the top 100 most-cited studies in field of musculoskeletal rehabilitation and to conduct their bibliometric analysis.
    Design: Scopus was used for identification of studies, published in the field of musculoskeletal rehabilitation over last five decades.
    Methods: Literature search was conducted in February 2021 with final Boolean search phrases being: [(musculoskeletal) and (rehabilitation) and (musculoskeletal rehabilitation)]. In addition to number of citations, data was also collected for other variables such as title of study, topic of discussion, subdivisions of clinical and applied science involved in conduction of study, study design, journal and its impact factor, year of publication, and country where study was conducted.
    Results: The top 100 most-cited articles in musculoskeletal rehabilitation over the last 50 years were published between 1973 and 2015. Total number of citations was 24,366, with an average of 243.66 citations per paper. Highest citation was reported by a paper on treatment of low back pain by Waddell G. The decade of 2000-2009 contributed maximum articles with highest number of publications from journal "Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation". Most of the publications were from United States and most common topic to feature among these articles was "Strength training".
    Conclusions: This study identifies the top 100 most-cited articles in musculoskeletal rehabilitation and provides insight into its historical trends while serving as a guide for future research.
    Keywords:  100 most-cited; Bibliometric analysis; Citation density; Citations; Impact factor; Musculoskeletal rehabilitation
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s43465-022-00672-x
  7. Front Public Health. 2022 ;10 856257
      Electronic cigarettes (E-cigarettes) use has increased rapidly in the past decades and has been widely studied by scholars worldwide, whereas the research topics and development trends in this field are still unclear. This study aimed to explore the landscape of research relating to e-cigarettes. The data outputted from the Web of Science Core Collection database was used for bibliometric analysis. Frequencies and percentages were used to describe the publications' characteristics. Visualizing maps were designed using VOSviewer 1.6.9 and CiteSpace 5.8 R2. Overall, a total of 7,979 records were identified in the database and the number of researches increased rapidly since 2010. All publications involved 19837 authors, with the top ten authors contributing to 8.71% (695) of all documents. The most productive country and institution were the United States of America and the University of California San Francisco, respectively. Nicotine & Tobacco Research was not only the journal with the most published papers but also the most co-cited journal. The main research domains in this field were the prevalence, awareness, reasons for using e-cigarettes; e-cigarettes use for tobacco harm reduction; exposure in the population; and the relationship between e-cigarettes and tobacco and nicotine. E-cigarettes researches have become a popular field for scholars. The hot topics on e-cigarette research were extensive and changed over the past decade.
    Keywords:  CiteSpace; VOSviewer; bibliometric analysis; electronic cigarettes; visualization
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.856257
  8. Front Hum Neurosci. 2022 ;16 945160
      Objectives: To review the current research status of the neuroimaging of aphasia, and reveal the hotspots and frontiers of research in this field.Methods: We searched articles related to the neuroimaging research on aphasia since Web of Science (WOS) database construction and extracted the data. CiteSpace and VOSviewer were used for the country/institution analysis, journal analysis, discipline analysis, burst keyword analysis and cited-reference cluster analysis.
    Results: Of the studies retrieved from WOS, 2922 studies that related to the neuroimaging of aphasia were screened and finally included 2799 articles for research. The United States of America and University of California San Francisco were the main countries and institutions in this field. Brain had the highest impact factor in both published and cited journals. Through the discipline and topic analysis of this field, the most common category was Neurosciences and Neurology. The keyword with the strongest citation strength was "functional connectivity," and the recent burst keywords were "functional connectivity" and "network." The co-citation network showed seven clusters greater than 100. Among the top 5 clusters, the most recently formed cluster, Cluster #2 (progressive supranuclear palsy), had an average year of 2017. The literature in the top 5 clusters mainly focused on 3 aspects, specifically, the discovery of language processing models, injury and recovery mechanisms of post-stroke aphasia (PSA), and diagnosis of primary progressive aphasia (PPA) variants.
    Conclusion: The results of this bibliometric study revealed the following three research hotspots in the neuroimaging of aphasia: clarifying the connotation of the most recognized language processing model, the dual-stream model, exploring the injury mechanism based on the dual-stream model and the recovery mechanism involving the left and right hemispheres of PSA, and determining the diagnostic criteria for PPA variants. A major research trend is to combine new neuroimaging technology, such as PET tracer technology, to realize the visual presentation of disease-specific proteins to improve the pathological diagnostic criteria of PPA variants. Accordingly, a visualized analysis of literature that uses CiteSpace provides a more rapid, repeatable and flexible method, which is more conducive to capturing research hotspots and emerging trends.
    Keywords:  aphasia; bibliometrics; frontiers; hotspots; neuroimaging; visualization analysis
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2022.945160
  9. Chemosphere. 2022 Jul 31. pii: S0045-6535(22)02267-6. [Epub ahead of print] 135774
      The objective of this study was to visualize trends and current research status of hydrothermal biochar research through a bibliometric analysis by using CiteSpace software. The original article data were collected from the Web of Science core database published between 2009 and 2020. A visual analysis network of national co-authored, institutional co-authored and author co-authored articles was created, countries, institutions and authors were classified accordingly. By visualizing the cited literature and journal co-citation networks, the main subject distribution and core journals were identified respectively. By visualizing journal co-citations, the main research content was identified. Further the cluster analysis revealed the key research directions of knowledge structure. Keyword co-occurrence analysis and key occurrence analysis demonstrate current research hotspots and new research frontiers. Through the above analysis, the cooperation and contributions of hydrothermal biochar research at different levels, from researchers to institutions to countries to macro levels, were explored, the disciplinary areas of knowledge and major knowledge sources of hydrothermal biochar were discovered, and the development lineage, current status, hotspots and trends of hydrothermal biochar were clarified. The results obtained from the study can provide a reference for scholars to gain a deeper understanding of hydrothermal biochar.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric; Biochar; CiteSpace; Hydrothermal; Visualization
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.135774
  10. F1000Res. 2021 ;10 1087
      Purpose: The primary objective of this research paper was to explore the current state-of-the-art research on autism spectrum disorder from a designer's perspective. An increasing number of scholarly publications in this discipline have urged researcher interest in this topic; however, there is still a lack of quantitative analysis. Therefore, this paper aims to analyze global research output on autism spectrum disorder from a designer's perspective during 1992-2021. Methodology: A bibliometric method was employed to analyze the published literature from 1992-2021. 812 papers were downloaded from the Web of Science core collection for analysis focused on annual growth of literature, prolific authors, authorship pattern, productive organizations, countries, international collaboration, literature trends by keyword analysis, and identifying the funding agencies. Various bibliometrics and scientometrics software were used to analyze the data, namely Bibexcel, Biblioshiny, and VOS viewer. Results: There were 812 research papers published in 405 sources during 1992-2021. 2019 was noted as the most productive year (NP=101), and 2014 received the highest number of citations (TC=6634). Researchers preferred to publish as journal articles (NP=538; TC=24922). The University of Toronto, Canada, was identified as a productive institution with 42 publications and 5358 citations. The USA was the leading producing country with 433 publications, and most of the researchers publish their work in the journal "Scientific Reports" (NP=16). The word "autism" (NP=257) and "architecture" (NP=165) were the most frequently used keywords in autism research.
    Keywords:  Autism; Autism Spectrum disorder; Bibliometrics; Scientometric; Architecture; Relevant source; Web of science.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.54437.1
  11. Front Public Health. 2022 ;10 949366
      Background: As a research hotspot, deep learning has been continuously combined with various research fields in medicine. Recently, there is a growing amount of deep learning-based researches in orthopedics. This bibliometric analysis aimed to identify the hotspots of deep learning applications in orthopedics in recent years and infer future research trends.Methods: We screened global publication on deep learning applications in orthopedics by accessing the Web of Science Core Collection. The articles and reviews were collected without language and time restrictions. Citespace was applied to conduct the bibliometric analysis of the publications.
    Results: A total of 822 articles and reviews were finally retrieved. The analysis showed that the application of deep learning in orthopedics has great prospects for development based on the annual publications. The most prolific country is the USA, followed by China. University of California San Francisco, and Skeletal Radiology are the most prolific institution and journal, respectively. LeCun Y is the most frequently cited author, and Nature has the highest impact factor in the cited journals. The current hot keywords are convolutional neural network, classification, segmentation, diagnosis, image, fracture, and osteoarthritis. The burst keywords are risk factor, identification, localization, and surgery. The timeline viewer showed two recent research directions for bone tumors and osteoporosis.
    Conclusion: Publications on deep learning applications in orthopedics have increased in recent years, with the USA being the most prolific. The current research mainly focused on classifying, diagnosing and risk predicting in osteoarthritis and fractures from medical images. Future research directions may put emphasis on reducing intraoperative risk, predicting the occurrence of postoperative complications, screening for osteoporosis, and identification and classification of bone tumors from conventional imaging.
    Keywords:  Citespace; bibliometric analysis; deep learning; orthopedics; research trends
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.949366
  12. J Neurotrauma. 2022 Aug 05.
      There is a national debate regarding the existence of a relationship between contact sport participation and future risk of neurodegenerative disease. We employed bibliometrics and altmetrics to quantify the academic, popular, and social media impact of published scientific articles which report an association between contact sports or military service with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE+) and compare to those scientific articles which report null or no association of contact sports or military service with CTE (CTE-). In this cross-sectional study, we extracted number of citations, total link strength, altmetric score, number of news stories, media outlets, and Twitter interaction, from published CTE articles. The top 10 most-cited articles were statistically compared on these outcomes using Mann-Whitney U tests. CTE+ publications had an average of 101 citations per article, Altmetric score of 272, 36 news stories in 26 media outlets, and upper-bound of Twitter users of 402,159. CTE- publications had an average of 29 citations per article, Altmetric score of 39, 2 news stories and media outlets, and upper-bound of Twitter users of 91,070. Top-10 CTE+ publications had, on average: 94% more citations (p<0.001), 95% higher Altmetric scores (p=0.01), 99% higher number of news stories (p=0.01), 98% higher number of media outlets (p=0.01) and reached 95% more Twitter users than top-10 CTE- publications (p=0.11). The bibliometric analysis indicates a significant inequality in media dissemination and popular consumption of scientific findings that do not support a relationship between contact sports or military service and future neurodegeneration.
    Keywords:  ADULT BRAIN INJURY; MILITARY INJURY; NEURODEGENERATIVE DISORDERS
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1089/neu.2022.0266
  13. Front Public Health. 2022 ;10 933555
      Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has significantly impacted healthcare, especially the nursing field. This study aims to explore the current status and hot topics of nursing-related research on COVID-19 using bibliometric analysis.Methods: Between 2019 and 2022, publications regarding nursing and COVID-19 were retrieved from the Web of Science core collection. We conducted an advanced search using the following search query string: TS = ("Novel coronavirus 2019" or "Coronavirus disease 2019" or "COVID 19" or "2019-nCOV" or "SARS-CoV-2" or "coronavirus-2") and TS = ("nursing" or "nurse" or "nursing-care" or "midwife"). Bibliometric parameters were extracted, and Microsoft Excel 2010 and VOSviewer were utilized to identify the largest contributors, including prolific authors, institutions, countries, and journals. VOSviewer and CiteSpace were used to analyze the knowledge network, collaborative maps, hotspots, and trends in this field.
    Results: A total of 5,267 papers were published between 2020 and 2022. The findings are as follows: the USA, China, and the UK are the top three prolific countries; the University of Toronto, the Harvard Medical School, the Johns Hopkins University, and the Huazhong University of Science & Technology are the top four most productive institutions; Gravenstein, Stefan, and White, Elizabeth M. from Brown University (USA) are the most prolific authors; The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is the most productive journal; "COVID-19," "SARS-CoV-2," "nurse," "mental health," "nursing home," "nursing education," "telemedicine," "vaccine-related issues" are the central topics in the past 2 years.
    Conclusion: Nursing-related research on COVID-19 has gained considerable attention worldwide. In 2020, the major hot topics included "SARS-CoV-2," "knowledge," "information teaching," "mental health," "psychological problems," and "nursing home." In 2021 and 2022, researchers were also interested in topics such as "nursing students," "telemedicine," and "vaccine-related issues," which require further investigation.
    Keywords:  COVID-19; CiteSpace; VOSviewer; bibliometric analysis; hotspots; nursing
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.933555
  14. Curr Rheumatol Rev. 2022 Aug 04.
      Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disorder that affects the synovial joints, causing swelling and joint damage. RA has become a major public health concern, harming more than 1500 peoples per lakh of the world's population. This inflammatory disorder is more common in females in comparison to males (3:1). In the present work, a scientometric analysis of published articles on RA during the last five years [1st January 2016 to 2021] on 19/08/2021 in the Scopus database is performed and investigates the contribution of India. In this study, the top most productive countries and the contribution of India in this field were analyzed. The different journals, funding agencies, and productive authors from India who contributed to this field are also recognized. The average citation impact is 10 citations per paper. A total of 61% share was found for the International collaboration in India's publication on rheumatoid arthritis. In India's output on rheumatoid arthritis, medicine produced the largest percentage of paper (60 percent). The top 15 journals publishing the maximum number of Indian papers contribute 1% share in global rheumatoid arthritis research (The highest number of papers (95 papers) published by Indian Journal of Rheumatology). During the period 2016-2021, the top 10 highly cited papers got a total of 7045 citations, averaging 705 citations per publication. India was found to have a 5% (1974 publications) share of global output (42312 publications). In conclusion, it is a small number of researches on rheumatoid arthritis in a country which holds the 2nd position in population across the world. There is a need for more research on rheumatoid arthritis in India.
    Keywords:  Analysis; Bibliometrics; Indian publication.; Rheumatoid arthritis; Scientometrics; pathophysiology
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.2174/1573397118666220804162313
  15. Front Immunol. 2022 ;13 950641
      Objectives: The aim of this research is to discuss the research status, hotspots, frontiers and development trends in the field of adult-onset Still's disease (AOSD) based on bibliometrics and visual analysis by CiteSpace software.Methods: The relevant research articles on AOSD from 1921 to 2021 were retrieved from the Scopus database. CiteSpace software was used to form a visual knowledge map and conduct analysis for the countries/regions, journals, authors, keywords, clusters, research hotspots and frontiers of the included articles.
    Results: There were 2,373 articles included, and the number of articles published during 1921-2021 is increasing. The country with the highest number of articles published was Japan (355, 14.96%), followed by the United States (329, 13.86%) and France (215, 9.06%). The author with the highest number of publications is Ansell, Barbara M. (30, 1.26%), and the author with the highest co-citation frequency is Yamaguchi, Masaya (703). Clinical Rheumatology is the journal with the highest publication frequency. The top five cluster groups were "joint", "differential diagnosis", "prednisolone", "methotrexate" and "macrophage activation syndrome". The diagnosis, treatment and pathogenesis of AOSD form the main research fields, and prognosis and complications are the research hotspots and trends.
    Conclusions: The global research field in AOSD has expanded in the past 100 years. The complications and new pathogenesis of AOSD are hotspots in this field and need further study in the future.
    Keywords:  Still’s disease; adult-onset; bibliometrics [MeSH]; epidemiology; scopus; trends
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2022.950641
  16. Pan Afr Med J. 2022 ;42 31
      Introduction: research publications have a vital role in the scientific process, providing a strategic connection between the generation of new knowledge and its conversion into policy, practice, and positive health outcomes. There was a substantial increase in research funding in South Africa from the dawn of multi-party democracy in the mid-1990s to 2015. However, it is not known whether there was a corresponding increase in research publications from the country. Therefore, the objective of this bibliometric study was to assess trends and factors associated with health research publications from South Africa between 1996 and 2015.Methods: in July 2016, we searched Scopus for health science articles published between 01 January 1996 and 31 December 2015 with at least one author affiliated to an institution based in South Africa. We sought annual data on national-level indicators from Statistics South Africa and World Bank data. We used Poisson regression to examine trends in publication outputs and negative binomial regression to explore national-level factors associated with a change in the number of publications over time.
    Results: we identified 51,133 publications, with a mean of 2,557 publications per year. Four universities (University of Cape Town, University of the Witwatersrand, Stellenbosch University, and the University of Pretoria) contributed more than half of the publications. The top destination journals were the South African Medical Journal (14.57% of the articles), PLoS ONE (5.77%), South African Family Practice (4.68%), Journal of the South African Veterinary Association (2.48%), and The Lancet (2.37%). The annual number of publications increased five-fold from 1133 in 1996, with an upsurge after 2003, to 5820 in 2015. The average annual percentage growth in the number of publications rose from 3.31% in 1996-2000 to 13.63% in 2011-2015. Year of publication (incidence rate ratio 1.16, 95% confidence interval 1.14 to 1.18) and annual private expenditure on health (incidence rate ratio 1.08, 95% confidence interval 1.05 to 1.10) were independent predictors of publication output.
    Conclusion: the number of health research publications from South Africa grew substantially between 1996 and 2015, with wide variation in output among universities. Private expenditure on health may be a proxy of health research funding, which probably explains its association with publication output in this study.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric analysis; South Africa; research funding; research productivity; research publications
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.11604/pamj.2022.42.31.28968
  17. J Pain Res. 2022 ;15 2085-2104
      Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze and visualize the research trends on acupuncture therapy for postoperative pain over the past 20 years to identify hotspots and frontiers, and provide new research ideas.Methods: A search of the Web of Science database, with a time frame of 2001-01-01 to 2022-02-28, was conducted to collect literatures related to acupuncture therapy for postoperative pain. A bibliometric analysis and visualization of results was performed using CiteSpace software for the volume of annual publications, journals, countries, institutions, authors, keywords, and references.
    Results: A total of 840 literatures were eventually included in the analysis. The number of publications has fluctuated upwards each year over the past 20 years and reached a peak in the latest three years. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine was the journal with the most relevant publications and Pain was the most frequently cited journal. The country with the highest volume of publications was China, and the USA contributed most to the international collaboration. The most prolific and influential authors were Inhyunk Ha and Han JS respectively. The most frequent keyword was "acupuncture". References with highest frequency or centrality were both systematic evaluations focusing on different acupuncture therapies for postoperative pain relief.
    Conclusion: The field of acupuncture therapy for postoperative pain is currently in a period of high growth. China and the USA have made the largest contribution to the volume of publications. The most influential institutions and authors are mainly from China and South Korea. The overall collaborative network needs to be strengthened. Electroacupuncture and auricular acupuncture (therapeutic techniques), low back surgery (types of surgery), and "postoperative pain, nausea and vomiting" are research hotspots in this field. Improvement of postoperative life quality, proof of clinical efficacy and evidence-based evaluation are the current research trends and frontiers.
    Keywords:  CiteSpace; acupuncture analgesia; bibliometric analysis; pain after surgery
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.2147/JPR.S371399
  18. J Appl Toxicol. 2022 Aug 05.
      The purpose of this paper is to explore the current research status, hot topics, and future prospects in the field of graphene and its derivatives toxicity. In the article, the Web of Science Core Collection database was used as the data source, and the CiteSpace and VOSviewer were used to conduct a visual analysis of the last 10 years of research on graphene and its derivatives toxicity. A total of 8,573 literatures were obtained, and the literature characteristics of the research results in the field of graphene and its derivatives toxicity were analyzed, and the distribution of authors and co-cited authors; countries and institutions; co-cited references; journals and categories. The most prolific countries, institutions, journals and authors were China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, RSC Advances, and Wang, Dayong, respectively. The co-cited author with the most citations was Akhavan, Omid. The five research hotspot keywords in the field of graphene and its derivatives toxicity were "nanomaterials," "exposure," "biocompatibility," "adsorption," and "detection." Frontier topics were "facile synthesis," "antibacterial activity," and "carbon dots." Our study provides perspectives for the study of graphene and its derivatives toxicity and yields valuable information and suggestions for the development of graphene and its derivatives toxicity research in the future.
    Keywords:  CiteSpace; VOSviewer; Web of Science; graphene; toxicity
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1002/jat.4373
  19. Front Mol Biosci. 2022 ;9 851966
      Background: Autophagy is a highly regulated and evolutionarily conserved process in eukaryotes which is responsible for protein and organelle degradation. Although this process was described over 60 years ago, the selective autophagy of mitochondria (mitophagy) was recently coined in 2005. Research on the topic of mitophagy has made rapid progress in the past decade, which proposed to play critical roles in human health and disease. This study aimed to visualize the scientific outputs and research trends of mitophagy. Methods: Articles and reviews related to the topic of mitophagy were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection on 30 November 2021. Two kinds of software (CiteSpace and VOSviewer) were used to perform a visualized analysis of countries/regions, institutions, authors, journals, references, and keywords. Results: From 2005 to 2021, total 5844 publications on mitophagy were identified for final analysis. The annual number of publications grew yearly over the past 17 years. United States (N = 2025) and Chinese Academy of Sciences is the leading country and institute (N = 112) ranked by the number of publications, respectively. The most productive author was Jun Ren (N = 38) and Derek P. Narendra obtained the most co-cited times (2693 times). The journals with the highest output and the highest co-citation frequency were Autophagy (N = 208) and Journal of Biological Chemistry (co-citation: 17226), respectively. Analyses of references and keywords suggested that "mechanism of mitochondrial quality control", "molecule and signaling pathway in mitophagy", and "mitophagy related diseases" were research hotspots, and parkin-mediated mitophagy and its roles in skeletal muscle and inflammation-related diseases may be the frontiers of future research. Conclusion: Although mitophagy research has flourished and attracted attention from all over the world, the regional imbalance in the development of mitophagy research was observed. Our results provided a comprehensive global research landscape of mitophagy from 2005- 2021 from a perspective of bibliometrics, which may serve as a reference for future mitophagy studies.
    Keywords:  CiteSpace; VOSviewer; bibliometric analysis; mitophagy; visualization
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fmolb.2022.851966
  20. Front Psychol. 2022 ;13 947669
      Background and Aim: Psycho-oncology is a cross-disciplinary and collaborative sub-specialty of oncology that focuses on the psychological, behavioral, ethical, and social aspects of cancer in clinical settings. The aim of this bibliometric study was to analyze and characterize the research productivity and trends in psycho-oncology between 1980 and 2021.Methodology: In May 2022, the Scopus® database was searched for psycho-oncology-related publications using predetermined search keywords with specific restrictions. Lotka's law was applied to check the authors' productivity, while Bradford's law was used to assess the core journals in this field. The data was analyzed for different bibliometric indicators in the Biblioshiny package, an RStudio tool for bibliometric analysis.
    Results: The initial search resulted in a total of 2,906 publications. Of which, 1,832 publications were included in the final analysis, published between 1980 and 2021. The analyzed publications were written by 7,363 authors from 74 countries and published in 490 journals. There has been a significant increase in psycho-oncology-related publications after 2010. The most productive year was 2021 (n = 365). The annual scientific growth rate was found to be 13.9%. The most relevant leading author in terms of publications was Luigi Grassi from the University of Ferrara, Italy (n = 42). Lotka's law found that the number of authors declined as the number of papers written increased. The core journals were Psycho-Oncology, Supportive Care in Cancer, and Journal of Psychosocial Oncology. The most frequently used author's keywords other than searching keywords were cancer, oncology, quality of life, depression, and anxiety. Recent psycho-oncology-related topics included mental health, COVID-19 infection in humans, people, pandemic, and tumor. The University of Sydney was the top-ranked institution. The leading country in terms of publications, citations, corresponding author country, and international collaboration was the United States of America (United States). The United States had the strongest collaboration with Australia and Canada.
    Conclusion: The research hotspots include mental health conditions and interventions in cancer patients. We identified international collaboration and research expenditure to be strongly associated with psycho-oncology research productivity. Researchers' collaboration, which is visible among developed countries, should be extended to low-income countries in order to expand psycho-oncology-related research and understanding.
    Keywords:  Bradford’s law; Lotka’s law; Scopus® database; bibliometric study; psycho-oncology
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.947669
  21. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2022 Aug 03.
      Incineration ash stabilization in the pavement is an effective approach to reduce environmental impact and proper disposal. This study aimed to achieve a bibliometric analysis of "ash stabilization in pavement" research during 2002-2021, considering language, chronological trends, source types, subject areas, document types, affiliations, journals, countries, and author keywords. Also, social network analysis (SNA) was used for trends mapping and global collaboration determination among countries. The results exposed that the number of publications has been significantly increased by more than 14-fold over the studied period. Engineering (42%), material science (17%), and environmental science (10%) were three major subject areas. The USA, by 383 publications, was the leading country, followed by India (370) and China (288). The most independent rate of the publications belonged to India (93%), while Australia ranked 1st in cooperator publications (63.4%). The "Construction and Building Materials" published the most related articles, followed by "Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering" and "Road Materials and Pavement Design." Among the top ten productive institutes and organizations, four affiliations were from China, and three institutes were from the USA. Edil, T.B. (34) from the USA, Arulrajah, A. (29) from Australia, and Horpibulsuk, S. (24) from Thailand were the most productive authors. "Fly ash," "compressive strength," "durability," "geopolymer," "strength," and "resilient modulus" had the most growth rate in recent years, based on the author keywords analysis. Besides, the increase of emerging keywords, "pervious concrete," "reclaimed asphalt pavement," and "lateritic soil" are noteworthy in the second half period.
    Keywords:  Ash; Bibliometric; Incineration; Pavement; Stabilization
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-22250-2
  22. Front Neurol. 2022 ;13 848545
      Background: Early mobilization in the intensive care unit (ICU) is a hotspot. This study aims to provide a bibliometric perspective of the progress in this field.Methods: We extracted publications on ICU early mobilization published in the Web of Science Core Collection database from 2000 to 2021. VOSviewer was used to construct co-occurrence and co-citation relationships for authors, references, and keywords; Citespace was used to visualize knowledge mapping of subject categories, countries, and keywords with the strongest citation bursts.
    Results: A total of 4,570 publications were analyzed, with a steady increase in publications in the field of ICU early mobilization. From a macro perspective, research on ICU early mobilization involves multidisciplinary involvement, including critical care medicine, neurology, and nursing; as for the meso perspective, the United States is the major contributor. Needham DM and Schweickert WD are the key researchers in this field. Moreover, the core journal is Critical Care Medicine, with the most publications and citations. The microscopic level, dominated by references and keywords, illustrates that the hotspot and frontier of research on ICU early mobilization focus on ICU-acquired weakness, delirium, the prognosis of critical illness, and severe COVID-19.
    Conclusion: This study presents a research landscape of ICU early mobilization from different perspectives. These findings will contribute to a better understanding of the current state of research in critical care medicine and provide the available information for future research ideas.
    Keywords:  Citespace; ICU-AW; VOSviewer; bibliometric analysis; early mobilization; intensive care unit
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2022.848545
  23. Intell Med. 2022 Jul 26.
      Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is ravaging the world. Many therapies have been explored to treat COVID-19. This report aimed to assess the global research trends for the development of COVID-19 therapies.Methods: We searched the relevant articles on COVID-19 therapies published from January 1, 2020, to May 25, 2022, in the Web of Science Core Collection Database (WOSCC). VOSviewer 1.6.18 software was used to assess data on the countries, institutions, authors, collaborations, keywords, and journals that were most implicated in COVID-19 pharmacological research. The latest research and changing trends in COVID-19-relevant pharmacological research were analyzed.
    Results: After manually eliminating articles that do not meet the requirements, a total of 5,289 studies authored by 32,932 researchers were eventually included in the analyses, which comprised 95 randomized controlled trials. 3044 (57.6%) studies were published in 2021. The USA conducted the greatest number of studies, followed by China and India. The primary USA collaborators were China and England. The topics covered in the publications included: the general characteristics, the impact on pharmacists' work, the pharmacological research, broad-spectrum antiviral drug therapy and research, and promising targets or preventive measures, such as vaccine. The temporal diagram revealed that the current research hotspots focused on the vaccine, molecular docking, Mpro, and drug delivery keywords.
    Conclusion: Comprehensive bibliometric analysis can aid the rapid identification of the principal research topics, potential collaborators, and the direction of future research. Pharmacological research is critical for the development of therapeutic and preventive COVID-19-associated measures. This study may therefore provide valuable information for eradicating COVID-19.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric analysis; COVID-19; Pharmacological interventions; SARS-CoV-2; Vaccine
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.imed.2022.06.004
  24. J Surg Educ. 2022 Aug 02. pii: S1931-7204(22)00174-X. [Epub ahead of print]
      OBJECTIVES: The number of publications of prospective surgical residents has steadily increased over the past decade as the emphasis on research output has become paramount. However, the reported data from the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) does not discriminate amongst impact, author position, and region of matched residents. This study aimed to evaluate categorical general surgery postgraduate year 1 (PGY-1) residents' research productivity by programs' research impact and region of the United States and support the need for additional public data on research metrics of accepted applicants. We hypothesize that residents accepted to top quartile schools will have more total and first author publications and higher h-index compared to residents in the other quartiles, and research metrics would not differ amongst the regions.DESIGN: The Doximity Residency Navigator was used to sort general surgery programs based on research output, which was determined by the average h-index of residents. All 2021 matriculating PGY-1 categorical residents from the top two programs from each region and quartile that met study criteria were included in the analysis. Web of Science (WoS) citation database was used to collect prior to residency and current total publications, and the first, last, and corresponding author positions of these publications. Residents' h-index and various research metrics reported by WoS were recorded. Descriptive statistics were used to examine the association between quartile and region.
    SETTING: Categorical general surgery residency programs throughout the United States.
    PARTICIPANTS: Categorical PGY-1 general surgery residents.
    RESULTS: The median total number of publications prior to residency was 1 (IQR = 0-5). The median total number of first-author publications prior to residency was 0 (IQR = 0-1), and the current h-index was 0 (IQR = 0-2). The top quartile had more total and first author publications prior to residency, while the other quartiles had similar metrics. Each region had similar total publications and h-index.
    CONCLUSIONS: Research output is significant for applicants applying to top-quartile research programs compared to the other 3 quartiles and is relatively similar throughout all regions of the United States. Public data is limited to future applicants.
    Keywords:  education; internship and residency; professional competence; students, medical
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsurg.2022.07.013
  25. Ann Transl Med. 2022 May;10(9): 505
      Background: New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), Lancet, Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and British Medical Journal (BMJ) are collectively known as "the Top Four Medical Journals (TFMJ)" in China. Through the analysis of Chinese scholars' publications in the TFMJ in the recent 10 years, this study aimed to clarify the current situation of high-quality medical research conducted by Chinese scholars and institutions.Methods: Data were retrieved and downloaded manually from PubMed (2011-2020). Information on the publication year, journal, author, affiliation, and citation, etc. were extracted and analyzed using R software.
    Results: A total of 761 articles were involved in the final analysis. The number of articles published by Chinese scholars in the TFMJ was 135/29,942 (0.45%) in BMJ, 124/14,033 (0.88%) in JAMA, 314/16,117 (1.94%) in Lancet, and 188/15,242 (1.23%) in NEJM (P<0.001). Besides, the letter was the main research type, which was up to 44.54%, and the original research only accounted for 17.47%. The most popular subspecialty and subject were infectious diseases and COVID-19, respectively. The most productive researcher was Chen Wang, and Bin Cao was the most cited Chinese scholar. The most productive institute was Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College. The most cited study was "Clinical features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China".
    Conclusions: The presence of Chinese scholars in the TFMJ has grown, but there is still much room to improve. A Matthew effect in China's high-level scientific research was demonstrated.
    Keywords:  China; Medical research; bibliometric study
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.21037/atm-21-6793
  26. J Pain Res. 2022 ;15 2105-2122
      Neck pain and low back pain are major challenges in public health, and intervertebral disc (IVD) biomechanics is an important multidisciplinary field. To date, no bibliometric literature review of the relevant literature has been performed, so we explored the emerging trends, landmark studies, and major contributors to IVD biomechanics research. We searched the Web of Science core collection (1900-2022) using keywords mainly composed of "biomechanics" and "intervertebral disc" to conduct a bibliometric analysis of original papers and their references, focusing on citations, authors, journals, and countries/regions. A co-citation analysis and clustering of the references were also completed. A total of 3189 records met the inclusion criteria. In the co-citation network, cluster #0, labeled as "annulus fibrosus tissue engineering", and cluster #1, labeled as "micromechanical environment", were the biggest clusters. References by MacLean et al and Holzapfel et al were positioned exactly between them and had high betweenness centrality. There existed a research topic evolution between mechanobiology and mechanical repair strategies of IVDs, and the latter had been identified as an emerging trend in IVD biomechanics. Numerous landmark studies had contributed to several fields, including mechanical testing of normal and pathological IVDs, mechanical evaluation of new repair strategies and development of finite element model. Adams MA was the author most cited by IVD biomechanics papers. Spine, the European Spine Journal, and the Journal of Biomechanics were the three journals where the most original articles and their references have been published. The United States has contributed most to the literature (n = 1277 papers); however, the research output of China is increasing. In conclusion, the present study suggests that IVD repair is an emerging trend in IVD biomechanics.
    Keywords:  CiteSpace; annulus fibrosus; co-citation; emerging trend
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.2147/JPR.S361938
  27. SAGE Open Med. 2022 ;10 20503121221111694
      Objectives: To identify the top 100 most impactful anterior cruciate ligament articles in online media as measured by the Altmetric Attention Score and compare their characteristics to the most-cited anterior cruciate ligament articles in the scientific literature.Methods: The Altmetric database was queried to identify all published articles pertaining to the anterior cruciate ligament. The search yielded 9445 articles, which were stratified by highest to lowest Altmetric Attention Score. The top 100 articles were included. Collected data included article type, article topic, journal name, and online mentions in news, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, and other sources. The geographic origin of each article was also determined based on the institutional affiliation of the first author.
    Results: Altmetric Attention Score of the top 100 anterior cruciate ligament articles ranged from 109 to 2193 (median 172.0, interquartile range 137.5-271.5). Of the 100 articles, 65 were published in three journals: American Journal of Sports Medicine, British Journal of Sports Medicine, and Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy. The most prevalent article type was original research (60%), followed by systematic review/meta-analysis (18%). The most prevalent article topic was rehabilitation and return to play after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (22%), followed by epidemiology/risk factors (16%), injury prevention (14%), and biomechanics of anterior cruciate ligament injuries (14%). Of the top 100 articles, 54% were American, 31% were European, and 15% were published in other countries outside of the United States and Europe.
    Conclusion: This study used Altmetric Attention Score to identify the 100 most engaged anterior cruciate ligament articles in online media. The characteristics of these articles differed substantially from the most-cited anterior cruciate ligament articles in the literature with regard to article type, article topic, geographic origin, and publication journal. These findings suggest that alternative metrics measure distinct components of anterior cruciate ligament article engagement and add an important dimension to understanding the overall impact of published research on the anterior cruciate ligament.
    Keywords:  AAS; ACL; Orthopedics; altmetric attention score; altmetrics; anterior cruciate ligament; bibliometrics; citation rate; sports medicine
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1177/20503121221111694
  28. J Affect Disord. 2022 Jul 27. pii: S0165-0327(22)00814-X. [Epub ahead of print]
      BACKGROUND: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a major psychiatric disorder with increasing research intensity. However, papers written in languages other than English are less accessible to international readers. This study described the bibliometric features of English and Chinese language research papers about major depressive disorder in China.METHODS: The Web of Science (WoS) and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) databases were searched for eligible studies. Authorship collaboration networks and keyword co-occurrences were estimated and visualized.
    RESULTS: There were 2220 and 63,306 publications on MDD in the WoS and CNKI between 1990 and 2021, respectively. The number of papers increased annually during the period. For papers written in English, the Journal of Affective Disorders (201; 9.05 %) had the highest activity and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University had the most publications (232; 10.45 %). For papers in Chinese, the highest activity was with the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry (1025; 1.62 %) and the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine (1098; 1.73 %). Xiang YT (68; 3.06 %) and Yuan Y (179; 0.28 %) were the most productive authors in the English and Chinese languages, respectively. Keyword analysis showed that English and Chinese publications differed in emphasis (English: related psychiatric conditions, study design, clinical aspects, and assessment instruments; Chinese: somatic comorbidities, antidepressants, related psychiatric conditions, treatment of depression, and electrophysiological).
    CONCLUSIONS: The number of scientific papers on MDD increased yearly, and Chinese authors writing in English have an increasing influence. Except for a few authors, productivity and influence were dominated by national universities and specialized medical universities.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric analysis; China; Development trends; Hotspots; Major depressive disorder
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2022.07.046
  29. Ther Adv Gastrointest Endosc. 2022 Jan-Dec;15:15 26317745221111944
      Background: This study aimed to analyze the landscape of publications on bariatric metabolic surgery through machine learning and help experts and scholars from various disciplines better understand bariatric metabolic surgery's hot topics and trends.Methods: In January 2021, publications indexed in PubMed under the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) term 'Bariatric Surgery' from 1946 to 2020 were downloaded. Python was used to extract publication dates, abstracts, and research topics from the metadata of publications for bibliometric evaluation. Descriptive statistical analysis, social network analysis (SNA), and topic modeling with latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) were used to reveal bariatric metabolic surgery publication growth trends, landscape, and research topics.
    Results: A total of 21,798 records of bariatric metabolic surgery-related literature data were collected from PubMed. The number of publications indexed to bariatric metabolic surgery had expanded rapidly. Obesity Surgery and Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases are currently the most published journals in bariatric metabolic surgery. The bariatric metabolic surgery research mainly included five topics: bariatric surgery intervention, clinical case management, basic research, body contour, and surgical risk study.
    Conclusion: Despite a rapid increase in bariatric metabolic surgery-related publications, few studies were still on quality of life, psychological status, and long-term follow-up. In addition, basic research has gradually increased, but the mechanism of bariatric metabolic surgery remains to be further studied. It is predicted that the above research fields may become potential hot topics in the future.
    Keywords:  LDA analyses; bariatric metabolic surgery; bibliometrics; machine learning; social network analysis
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1177/26317745221111944
  30. Front Nutr. 2022 ;9 933211
      Glycolipid metabolic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and atherosclerosis, which have become a major public health concern worldwide, are mainly triggered by hepatic glycolipid metabolism disorder. Bibliometric analysis has provided a comprehensive review of developments in hepatic glycolipid metabolism research and changes in research hotspots over the past 20 years. The articles regarding hepatic glycolipid metabolism from 2002 to 2021 were identified from the Science Citation Index-Expanded of Web of Science Core Collection. Acquired data were then processed by the CiteSpace software and the Online Analysis Platform of Literature Metrology to analyze trends and predict hot spots in this field. A total of 4,856 articles regarding hepatic glycolipid metabolism published from 2002 to 2021 were selected. The leading country was China. The Chinese Academy of Sciences was the most productive institution. Co-citation cluster labels revealed characteristics of ten main clusters: non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, gut microbiota, adiponectin, fructose, fgf21, fatty acid, liver x receptor, nr4a, obese mice, and bile acids. Keyword bursts analysis indicated that management, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and modulation were the newly emerging research hot spots. We described the overall structure of scientific research on hepatic glycolipid metabolism and presented systematic information to other researchers. The current focus on NAFLD and gut microbiota is critical to further study and will help explore effective therapeutic strategy for aberrant glycolipid metabolism in liver.
    Keywords:  CiteSpace; bibliometric analysis; glycolipid metabolism; hot spots; liver
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.933211
  31. Photodiagnosis Photodyn Ther. 2022 Jul 27. pii: S1572-1000(22)00325-8. [Epub ahead of print] 103039
      BACKGROUND: Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is an adjunctive treatment that aims to inactivate microorganisms through an oxidative reaction produced by irradiating a photosensitizing agent. The never-ending quest for root canal disinfection predictability has always sought supplementary methods when performing chemomechanical procedures. From this perspective, PDT protocols were proposed as an auxiliary approach in endodontics. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate publication metrics and research trends related to this scope.METHODS: This review is reported in accordance with the PRISMA 2020 recommendations. Two blinded and independent reviewers systematically searched five electronic databases until December 2021. The acquired bibliometric parameters were analyzed through descriptive statistics and graphical mappings with VOSViewer software.
    RESULTS: The search retrieved 342 studies from 84 journals originating from 33 countries. About 85% of the included studies were published over the last decade. Most of the available evidence is laboratory-based (74.5%), and the main clinical outcomes evaluated were microbiological load reduction and postoperative pain. Mayram Pourhajibagher is the researcher with the most publications as the first author (n = 16). Tehran University of Medical Sciences carried out the highest number of studies (n = 29), and Photodiagnosis and Photodynamic Therapy is the journal that most published on the theme (n = 111).
    CONCLUSIONS: This bibliometric analysis mapped and discussed the scientific progress and publication metrics in PDT in endodontic research. Additionally, future perspectives were highlighted and should focus on discovering new photosensitizer agents, standardizing optimal photoactivation protocols, and conducting more clinical-oriented research.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; Endodontics; Photodynamic Therapy; Review; Root Canal Preparation
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pdpdt.2022.103039
  32. J Nucl Med. 2022 Aug;63(8): 18N
      
  33. Andrologia. 2022 Aug 03. e14537
      Varicocele is a common disease in men, with a global incidence of approximately 25%. A comprehensive and systematic analysis of the knowledge map on it will help in assessing frontier research and identify knowledge gaps. In total, 4103 articles published from 2002 to 2021 in 1066 journals were included. They represent the current research status worldwide, potential hotspots and future research directions. In the past decades, the number of publications and citations of varicocele-related studies have increased steadily. Academic institutions in the United States played a leading role in varicocele research. The country, institution, journal and author with the most publications were the United States (779), Cleveland Clinic Foundation (132), Andrologia (246) and Agarwal A (106), respectively. The most frequently used keywords were Varicocele (1620), Male Infertility (944), Varicocelectomy (288), Testis (245), Sperm (166), Oxidative Stress (144), Azoospermia (119), Semen Analysis (118), Laparoscopy (116) and Adolescent (97). Currently, the main focus of current varicocele research is its surgical treatment method and effect on sperm quality. The frontier research hotspot is the specific mechanism of varicocele-induced decrease in sperm quality.
    Keywords:  andrology; bibliometrics; infertility; varicocele
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/and.14537
  34. N Am Spine Soc J. 2022 Sep;11 100143
      Background: Publication metrics have been traditionally used to compare research productivity amongst academic faculty. However, traditional bibliometrics lack field-normalization and are often biased towards time-dependent publication factors. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has developed a new, field-normalized, article-level metric, known as the "relative citation ratio" (RCR), that can be used to make accurate self, departmental, and cross-specialty comparisons of research productivity. This study evaluates the use of the RCR amongst academic orthopedic spine surgery faculty and analyzes physician factors associated with RCR values.Methods: A retrospective data analysis was performed using the iCite database for all fellowship trained orthopedic spine surgery (OSS) faculty associated with Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)-accredited orthopedic surgery residency program. Mean RCR, weighted RCR, and total publication count were compared by sex, career duration, academic rank, and presence of additional degrees. A value of 1.0 is the NIH-funded field-normalized standard. Student t-tests were used for two-group analyses whereas the analysis of variance tests (ANOVA) was used for between-group comparisons of three or more subgroups. Statistical significance was achieved at P < 0.05.
    Results: A total of 502 academic OSS faculty members from 159 institutions were included in the analysis. Overall, OSS faculty were highly productive, with a median RCR of 1.62 (IQR 1.38-2.32) and a median weighted RCR of 68.98 (IQR 21.06-212.70). Advancing academic rank was associated with weighted RCR, career longevity was associated with mean RCR score, and male sex was associated with having increased mean and weighted RCR scores. All subgroups analyzed had an RCR value above 1.0.
    Conclusions: Academic orthopedic spine surgery faculty produce impactful research as evidenced by the high median RCR relative to the standard value set by the NIH of 1.0. Our data can be used to evaluate research productivity in the orthopedic spine community.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric; Orthopedic surgery; Relative citation ratio (RCR); Research productivity; Spine; Spine surgery
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xnsj.2022.100143
  35. Sci Data. 2022 08 01. 9(1): 461
      Acknowledgements represent scholars' relationships as part of the research contribution. While co-authors and citations are often provided as a well-formatted bibliometric database, acknowledged individuals are difficult to identify because they appear as part of the statements in the paper. We identify acknowledged scholars who appeared in papers published in open-access journals by referring to the co-author and citation relationships stored in the Microsoft Academic Graph (MAG). Therefore, the constructed dataset is compatible with MAG, which accelerates and expands the acknowledgements as a data source of scholarly relationships similar to collaboration and citation analysis. Moreover, the implemented code is publicly available; thus, it can be applied in other studies.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01585-y
  36. Adv Med Educ Pract. 2022 ;13 755-763
      Introduction: Increases in publication quantity and the onset of open access have increased the complexity of conducting a literature search. Bibliometric markers, like impact factor (IF), have traditionally been used to help identify high-quality research. These markers exist amongst a variety of other factors, which poses the following question: what factors are examined when considering articles for clinical and academic research?Objective: To determine what factors are involved when authors choose citations to include in their publications.
    Methods: A voluntary and anonymous questionnaire-based survey was distributed to medical students, residents, and faculty from multiple medical schools across Canada during the 2020/2021 academic year. Survey ratings were scored on a 5-point Likert scale and open word response.
    Results: The study collected 156 complete sets of responses including 78 trainees (61 medical students and 17 residents), and 78 faculty. Language of the article (3.93) and availability on PubMed/Medline (3.77) were found more important than country of origin (2.14), institution (2.26), and IF (2.97). Trainees found the following factors more important than faculty: year of publication (3.94 vs 3.47, p = 0.0016), availability on Google/Google Scholar (2.51 vs 1.88, p = 0.0013), Open-access (2.46 vs 1.87, p = 0.0011), and Free access (2.73 vs 2.31, p = 0.049).
    Conclusion: Our study identified differences in faculty and trainee literature search preferences, bias towards English language publications, and the movement towards online literature sources. This knowledge provides insight into what biases individuals may be exposed to based on their language and literature search preferences. Future areas of research include how trainees' opinions change over time, identifying trainee ability to recognize predatory journals, and the need for better online journal article translators to mitigate the language bias. We believe this will lead to higher quality evidence and optimal patient care amongst healthcare workers.
    Keywords:  evidence based medicine; medical education; research methodology; research priorities
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.2147/AMEP.S355465
  37. Biomed Res Int. 2022 ;2022 2239152
      One of the most widely used measures of scientific impact is the number of citations. However, due to its heavy-tailed distribution, citations are fundamentally difficult to predict but can be improved. This study was aimed at investigating the factors and parts influencing the citation number of a scientific paper in the otology field. Therefore, this work proposes a new solution that utilizes machine learning and natural language processing to process English text and provides a paper citation as the predicted results. Different algorithms are implemented in this solution, such as linear regression, boosted decision tree, decision forest, and neural networks. The application of neural network regression revealed that papers' abstracts have more influence on the citation numbers of otological articles. This new solution has been developed in visual programming using Microsoft Azure machine learning at the back end and Programming Without Coding Technology at the front end. We recommend using machine learning models to improve the abstracts of research articles to get more citations.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/2239152
  38. Front Psychol. 2022 ;13 911620
      Objective: No current model of consciousness is univocally accepted on either theoretical or empirical grounds, and the need for a solid unifying framework is evident. Special attention has been given to the premise that self-organized criticality (SOC) is a fundamental property of neural system. SOC provides a competitive model to describe the physical mechanisms underlying spontaneous brain activity, and thus, critical dynamics were proposed as general gauges of information processing representing a strong candidate for a surrogate measure of consciousness. As SOC could be a neurodynamical framework, which may be able to bring together existing theories and experimental evidence, the purpose of this work was to provide a comprehensive overview of progress of research on SOC in association with consciousness.Methods: A comprehensive search of publications on consciousness and SOC published between 1998 and 2021 was conducted. The Web of Science database was searched, and annual number of publications and citations, type of articles, and applied methods were determined.
    Results: A total of 71 publications were identified. The annual number of citations steadily increased over the years. Original articles comprised 50.7% and reviews/theoretical articles 43.6%. Sixteen studies reported on human data and in seven studies data were recorded in animals. Computational models were utilized in n = 12 studies. EcoG data were assessed in n = 4 articles, fMRI in n = 4 studies, and EEG/MEG in n = 10 studies. Notably, different analytical tools were applied in the EEG/MEG studies to assess a surrogate measure of criticality such as the detrended fluctuation analysis, the pair correlation function, parameters from the neuronal avalanche analysis and the spectral exponent.
    Conclusion: Recent studies pointed out agreements of critical dynamics with the current most influencing theories in the field of consciousness research, the global workspace theory and the integrated information theory. Thus, the framework of SOC as a neurodynamical parameter for consciousness seems promising. However, identified experimental work was small in numbers, and a heterogeneity of applied analytical tools as a surrogate measure of criticality was observable, which limits the generalizability of findings.
    Keywords:  complexity; neurodynamical model; phase transition; self-organized criticality (theory); theories of consciousness
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.911620
  39. Front Oncol. 2022 ;12 908487
      Capsaicin (8-methyl-N-vanillyl-6-nonenamide) is one of the most important natural products in the genus Capsicum. Due to its numerous biological effects, there has been extensive and increasing research interest in capsaicin, resulting in increased scientific publications in recent years. Therefore, an in-depth bibliometric analysis of published literature on capsaicin from 2001 to 2021 was performed to assess the global research status, thematic and emerging areas, and potential insights into future research. Furthermore, recent research advances of capsaicin and its combination therapy on human cancer as well as their potential mechanisms of action were described. In the last two decades, research outputs on capsaicin have increased by an estimated 18% per year and were dominated by research articles at 93% of the 3753 assessed literature. In addition, anti-cancer/pharmacokinetics, cytotoxicity, in vivo neurological and pain research studies were the keyword clusters generated and designated as thematic domains for capsaicin research. It was evident that the United States, China, and Japan accounted for about 42% of 3753 publications that met the inclusion criteria. Also, visibly dominant collaboration nodes and networks with most of the other identified countries were established. Assessment of the eligible literature revealed that the potential of capsaicin for mitigating cancer mainly entailed its chemo-preventive effects, which were often linked to its ability to exert multi-biological effects such as anti-mutagenic, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. However, clinical studies were limited, which may be related to some of the inherent challenges associated with capsaicin in the limited clinical trials. This review presents a novel approach to visualizing information about capsaicin research and a comprehensive perspective on the therapeutic significance and applications of capsaicin in the treatment of human cancer.
    Keywords:  TRPV 1; anticancer; bibliometrics; cytotoxicity; vanilloid
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fonc.2022.908487
  40. BMC Med Educ. 2022 Jul 30. 22(1): 586
      BACKGROUND: Medical student journals (MSJs) help to introduce the fundamentals of academic research and publication to future doctors. It has recently been shown that MSJs can influence doctors' future academic and professional success, however these findings have not been replicated in an Australian cohort. The aim of this study was to examine the association between publication in the Australian Medical Student Journal (AMSJ) and markers of a student's future academic trajectory, including future publication, attainment of higher academic degree or entry into specialist training.METHODS: Articles authored by medical students in the AMSJ from 2010 to 2015 were retrospectively identified. A list of these student authors was made, with university- and year- matched control students randomly selected from university graduation databases. For all students, data related to academic success were obtained from multiple sources including PubMed®, Google, university databases and author affiliation information from publications. A multivariable conditional logistic regression model was used to assess correlation between variables. The primary outcome measure was the number of postgraduate PubMed®-indexed publications. Secondary outcome measures included attainment of higher degree or faculty position. Clinical speciality was also recorded.
    RESULTS: Fifty-five AMSJ authors (14 case reports, 17 original research, 21 review articles) from 14 Australian universities were included. Publication in the AMSJ was associated with future PubMed® indexed publications (OR 3.43, 95% CI 1.74-6.77, P < 0.001) and higher degree attainment (OR 4.05, 95% CI 1.99-8.22, P = 0.0001). AMSJ authors were also significantly more likely to enter into surgical training (OR 2.53, 95% CI 1.10-5.84, P = 0.029). A multivariable conditional logistic regression model demonstrated that publication in the AMSJ was predictive of future PubMed indexed publication, independent of higher degree or faculty position attainment (OR 2.56, CI 1.22-5.39, P = 0.01).
    CONCLUSION: We have shown that publication in a MSJ is associated with markers of academic success in an Australian cohort. PubMed®-indexed publications, attainment of a Masters degree, and entry in to surgical training were all significantly correlated to AMSJ publication. A conditional logistic regression model demonstrated that medical student publication in the AMSJ influences the number of future PubMed®-indexed publications, independent of major academic confounding variables.
    Keywords:  Academic research; Medical student; Medical student journal; Undergraduate research
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-022-03607-0
  41. Ophthalmologie. 2022 Jun;119(6): 582-590
    das DOG Forschungslandkartenteam
      BACKGROUND: The German Ophthalmological Society (DOG) regularly records the scientific activities of ophthalmological research institutions in Germany.OBJECTIVE: With this publication the DOG wants to make the performance of scientific ophthalmology in Germany transparent and increase the options for future research cooperation with facilities of research institutions.
    METHODS: Systematic survey of German research centers in ophthalmology.
    RESULTS: The current research map records the data from 41 German research centers for the reporting period 2018-2020. Compared to previous editions of the research map, there has been a significant increase in scientific activity. The number of studies reported rose to 496. The number of government funded research projects (n = 121) and projects funded by foundations (n = 108) also increased. Furthermore, the number of scientific publications has almost doubled: while 1919 were published in the period from 2012 to 2014 and 2305 in the period from 2015 to 2017, there were 4215 in the current reporting period. The map also reports on a continuous increase in the number of young scientists in ophthalmology.
    CONCLUSION: The research map demonstrates the performance of German scientific ophthalmology. At the same time, the need for research in ophthalmology remains high because many diseases that affect the eyes are not yet or not yet completely curable.
    Keywords:  Efficiency of ophthalmology; Germany; Publications; Research; Research cooperation; Scientific activity
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s00347-022-01653-z
  42. Cureus. 2022 Jun;14(6): e26268
      Purpose This study aims to examine the demographic features, academic backgrounds, and scholarly achievements of ophthalmic plastic and reconstructive surgery (OPRS) fellowship program directors (PDs) in the United States. Methods In this cross-sectional analysis, publicly accessible sources were accessed in March 2022 to collate the demographic and academic profiles of PDs of American Society of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (ASOPRS)-accredited OPRS fellowships. Differences by gender and program rank were assessed using the Mann-Whitney Utest. Results Fifty-four PDs were identified, the majority of whom were males (88.89% (n = 48)). The average age was 58.48 years. Of the PDs, 96.3% (n = 53) obtained a medical degree, and all completed residency training in the United States. In addition, 9.26% (n = 5) had another degree, either a Doctor of Philosophy (n = 3) or master's degree (n = 2). A substantial proportion of individuals completed medical school (20.37% (n = 11)), residency (20.37% (n = 11)), or fellowship (31.48% (n = 17)) at an institution affiliated with the program where they were PDs. The most common additional fellowship obtained was neuro-ophthalmology (16.67% (n = 9)). The average h-index was 19.30 (range, 0-60), average five-year h-index was 4.85 (range, 0-36), and average m-quotient was 0.63 (range, 0-2.22). A significant difference in the median five-year h-index was observed between females and males (7 (range, 3-36) versus 4 (range, 0-10); p= 0.038). Conclusions This analysis indicated that OPRS PDs in the United States were principally males with extensive scholarly productivity. As women remain underrepresented in OPRS, increased gender parity at this leadership position should be encouraged in order to expand the recruitment of women into the field.
    Keywords:  h-index; leadership; national institutes of health; oculoplastic surgery; program director
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.26268
  43. J Clin Periodontol. 2022 Aug 04.
      AIMS: This meta-research study aimed to investigate the level of compliance with the Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) Guidelines for the inclusion, analysis, and reporting of sex/gender, in periodontitis-related randomized controlled trials (RCTs).MATERIALS AND METHODS: Following the inclusion of RCTs related to the treatment of periodontitis published between 2018-2019, we applied the SAGER checklist to assess the adherence to sex/gender reporting guidelines. We used non-parametric descriptive statistics and correlation models to test the association of the dependent outcome with other variables.
    RESULTS: 101 articles were included in the analysis. The female enrollment ranged between 30-94%. 26 studies enrolled less than 50% of female participants. The overall SAGER score (OSS) of item fulfillment ranged between 0-7 items with an average of 1.9 items signifying poor guideline adherence to the SAGER guidelines. These findings were not associated with the corresponding author gender (p= 0.623), publication year (p=0.947), and funding source (p=0.133). However, a significant but negative correlation with journal impact factor (r=-0.253, p=0.026) was observed.
    CONCLUSIONS: Sex and gender were frequently disregarded in clinical trial reporting. This oversight might limit the understanding of sex/gender differences in periodontitis-related clinical trials.
    Keywords:  clinical trial; gender; periodontal therapy; periodontitis; sex
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpe.13707
  44. Surg Endosc. 2022 Aug 03.
      BACKGROUND: The GERD-HRQL symptom severity instrument was developed and published 25 years ago. This seems like an apropos time to review how the instrument has been used in the "real-world."METHODS: Google Scholar, PubMed, and Web of Science websites search was done using the keywords "GERD-HRQL" or its author, "Velanovich." Once articles were identified, the following information was obtained from each article: first author name, country of origin, journal published, year of publications, type of study design, subject of study, category of study, disease type studied, purpose of the study, how the GERD-HRQL scores were reported, how the GERD-HRQL scores were statistically reported, and results of the study. The total and change of scores were analyzed for descriptive statistics based on disease process studied and intervention studied.
    RESULTS: A total of 767 articles by 562 different first authors were identified in 193 different journals from 53 different countries of study origin. After a period of steady usages, the number of publication employing the GERD-HRQL has rapidly increase over the last 5 years. There have been 8 validated translations into other languages, although there appears to be numerous, non-validated ad hoc translations. Most commonly used or studied: observational cohort study design, surgical treatment study category, GERD disease process, treatment effect study purpose, total GERD-HRQL scores reported as means or medians. However, there were a wide variety of other study designs, study categories, disease processes, and study purposes. In general, GERD and laryngopharyngeal reflux had the high pre-treatment scores (i.e., more severe symptoms), and surgical and endoscopic interventions the lowest post-treatment score (i.e., least severe symptoms) with the largest change in score (i.e., treatment impact.
    CONCLUSIONS: The GERD-HRQL has proven to be a reliable, responsive and versatile symptom severity instrument for studies involving GERD as a subject.
    Keywords:  Antireflux treatments; Gastroesophageal reflux disease; Patient-reported outcomes; Quality-of-life instrument; The GERD-HRQL symptom severity instrument
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s00464-022-09463-9
  45. Front Psychiatry. 2022 ;13 884600
      Background: The prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) increased rapidly in the last 20 years. Although related research has developed rapidly, little is known about its etiology, diagnostic marker, or drug treatment, which forces researchers to review and summarize its development process and look for the future development direction.Methods: We used bibliometrics to analyze papers of ASD in the Web of Science from 1998 to 2021, to draw the network of authors, institutions, countries, and keywords in the ASD field, and visualize the results.
    Results: A total of 40,597 papers were included with a continually increasing trend. It turns out that the research on ASD is mainly concentrated in universities. The United States has the largest number of ASD studies, followed by England and Canada. The quality of papers related to ASD is generally high, which shows that ASD research has become a hot spot of scientific research. The keywords of ASD etiology and diagnostic markers can be classified into at least 7 aspects. The detection of keywords shows that ASD research is mostly based on its subtypes, takes children as the study population, focuses on neurodevelopmental imaging or genetics, and pays attention to individual differences. And ASD research has changed greatly under the impact of Corona Virus Disease 2019 in the past 2 years.
    Conclusion: We consider the future development direction should be based on the improvement of case identification, accurate clinical phenotype, large-scale cohort study, the discovery of ASD etiology and diagnostic markers, drug randomized controlled trials, and telehealth.
    Keywords:  COVID-19; CiteSpace; VOSviewer; autism spectrum disorder; bibliometrics; data visualization
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.884600
  46. Front Res Metr Anal. 2022 ;7 898818
      Central America science production on biodiversity topics is important in planning future adaptive and conservation policies in a climate-related risk region that is considered a biodiversity hotspot but has the lowest Human Development Index of Latin America. Science production on biodiversity is related to geo-referenced species occurrence records, but the accessibility depends on political frameworks and science funding. This paper aims at foregrounding how the democratic shifts throughout the years have had an impact on science production on biodiversity research, and species records. For this exploration we developed a novel systematic scientometric analysis of science production on biodiversity topics, we used Bio-Dem (open-source software of biodiversity records and socio-political variables) and briefly analyzed the history-from 1980 to 2020-of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. With a data set of 16,304 documents, our analysis shows the significant discrepancies between the low science production of Central American Northern countries (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua), the prolific production from the Southern (Costa Rica and Panama), and how this relates to democratic stability. Scientific production tends to be more abundant when democratic conditions are guaranteed. The state capture phenomenon and colonial-rooted interactions worldwide have an effect on the conditions under which science is being produced in Central America. Democracy, science production, funding, and conservation are core elements that go hand in hand, and that need to be nourished in a region that struggles with the protection of life and extractive activities in a climate change scenario.
    Keywords:  GBIF; Latin America; biological diversity; climate change; political corruption; science mapping; species records; state capture
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/frma.2022.898818
  47. Semin Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2022 Aug 02. pii: S1043-0679(22)00189-7. [Epub ahead of print]
      The match rate for traditional thoracic surgery fellowships decreased from 97.5% in 2012 to 59.1% in 2021, reflecting an increase in applications. We queried whether characteristics of applicants and matriculants to traditional thoracic surgery fellowships changed during this time period. Applicant data from the 2008 through 2018 application cycles were extracted from the Electronic Residency Application System (ERAS) and Graduate Medical Education (GME) Track Resident Survey and stratified by period of application (2008-2014 vs. 2015-2018). Characteristics of applicants and matriculants were analyzed. There were 697 applicant records in the early period and 530 in the recent period (application rate 99.6/year vs 132.5/year; p=0.0005), and 607 matriculant records in the early period and 383 in the recent period (matriculation rate 87% vs 72%; p<0.0001). There was no difference in representation of University Affiliated versus Community Based general surgery residency programs among applicants comparing the periods. Higher proportions of applicants and matriculants in the early period trained in general surgery programs affiliated with a comprehensive cancer center or a thoracic surgery fellowship. Applicants and matriculants of the recent period had higher median numbers of journal publications and had higher impact factor journal publications. The increase in applicants for thoracic surgery training is primarily from general surgery trainees in residency programs not affiliated with a comprehensive cancer center or a thoracic surgery fellowship. The increased interest in thoracic surgery training was accompanied by overall enhanced scholarship production among the applicants and matriculants regardless of their residency characteristics.
    Keywords:  Fellowship application; General surgery residency; Medical school; NCI Cancer Center; Peer-reviewed publication; Thoracic surgery fellowship
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1053/j.semtcvs.2022.07.010
  48. Hist Philos Life Sci. 2022 Aug 02. 44(3): 33
      The purpose of this study is to examine how trends in the use of images in modern life science journals have changed since the spread of computer-based visual and imaging technology. To this end, a new classification system was constructed to analyze how the graphics of a scientific journal have changed over the years. The focus was on one international peer-reviewed journal in life sciences, Cell, which was founded in 1974, whereby 1725 figures and 160 tables from the research articles in Cell were sampled. The unit of classification was defined as a graphic and the figures and tables were divided into 5952 graphics. These graphics were further classified into hierarchical categories, and the data in each category were aggregated every five years. The following categories were observed: (1) data graphics, (2) explanation graphics, and (3) hybrid graphics. Data graphics increased by more than sixfold between 1974 and 2014, and some types of data graphics including mechanical reproduction images and bar charts displayed notable changes. The representation of explanatory graphics changed from hand-painted illustrations to diagrams of Bezier-curves. It is suggested that in addition to the development of experimental technologies such as fluorescent microscopy and big data analysis, continuously evolving application software for image creation and researchers' motivation to convince reviewers and editors have influenced these changes.
    Keywords:  Diagram; Figure; Illustration; Scientific visualization; Visual culture; Visual representation
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-022-00516-9
  49. Acad Emerg Med. 2022 Aug 01.
      OBJECTIVES: Since its founding in 1989, the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) has accepted thousands of abstracts for presentation at its Annual Meeting. We reviewed abstracts to characterize temporal changes in study design, abstract topics, quality scores, and proportion of abstracts published as manuscripts.METHODS: In this serial cross-sectional study, we compiled accepted SAEM abstracts at 5-year intervals (1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020), and then randomly selected 100 abstracts from each year for review by two investigators. We documented each abstract's study design, sample size, and whether it was a single-center or multicenter study. We assigned each abstract to the most appropriate topic category. Applying SAEM's abstract scoring system from 2020, we calculated the mean overall quality score per year. Finally, we searched PubMed to determine if abstracts from 1990-2015 meetings were published as manuscripts.
    RESULTS: The number of accepted abstracts increased from 180 in 1990 to 879 in 2020 (+388%). The most common study design changed from laboratory study in 1990 (22%) to cohort study in 2020 (44%; p<0.001). The median study sample size increased over time, from 105 (Interquartile range [IQR] 25-389) in 1990, to 544 (IQR 102-2,067) in 2020 (p<0.001). Multicenter studies have become more common (19% in 1990 versus 40% in 2020; p=0.001). The most common topic categories also changed from cardiology/pulmonary/airway (40%) and orthopedic/trauma/burn (17%) in 1990, to health services research/health policy/operations (25%) and cardiology/pulmonary/airway (22%) in 2020. There was a 20% increase in overall quality scores (p<0.001). Between 37% and 49% of the abstracts reviewed from each year were later published as manuscripts, with no significant change over time (p=0.33).
    CONCLUSIONS: Over the past 30 years, there have been significant changes to the study designs, topics, and quality scores of SAEM meeting abstracts. However, conversion of abstracts to published manuscripts remains a challenge.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/acem.14576
  50. Am J Clin Pathol. 2022 Aug 06. pii: aqac076. [Epub ahead of print]
      OBJECTIVES: Recognition awards build physician reputation and facilitate career advancement. We hypothesize women physicians are underrepresented as award recipients by pathology medical societies compared with representation in the specialty.METHODS: We analyzed publicly available online information about physician recipients (January 2015 to December 2021) from three general pathology society websites. Recipient gender was determined by pronoun use, first name, and photograph. Representation was compared with Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) specialty data from 2015 and 2019, which showed a minimum of 36.7% women pathologists in 2015 and up to 43.4% in 2019.
    RESULTS: Twenty-six awards and 230 physician recipients were included in the analysis. A total of 159 (69.1%) men physicians and 71 (30.9%) women physicians received awards. Overall, women physicians were underrepresented in recognition awards compared with AAMC benchmarks. Prestigious awards (defined as those that recognize a person's body of work over time) showed a similar disparity with 22 (30.1%) of 73 recipients being women. Men physicians were more likely to receive multiple awards.
    CONCLUSIONS: Women physicians are underrepresented overall for recognition awards by pathology medical societies. Disparities are greater for prestigious awards. Further research is needed to better understand the reasons for these findings and how they affect women physicians' careers.
    Keywords:  Diversity; Equity; Gender bias; Inclusion; Recognition awards; Workforce
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcp/aqac076