bims-evares Biomed News
on Evaluation of research
Issue of 2019–01–27
fourteen papers selected by
Thomas Krichel, Open Library Society



  1. J Med Internet Res. 2019 Jan 18. 21(1): e11429
       BACKGROUND: Wikipedia, the multilingual encyclopedia, was founded in 2001 and is the world's largest and most visited online general reference website. It is widely used by health care professionals and students. The inclusion of journal articles in Wikipedia is of scholarly interest, but the time taken for a journal article to be included in Wikipedia, from the moment of its publication to its incorporation into Wikipedia, is unclear.
    OBJECTIVE: We aimed to determine the ranking of the most cited journals by their representation in the English-language medical pages of Wikipedia. In addition, we evaluated the number of days between publication of journal articles and their citation in Wikipedia medical pages, treating this measure as a proxy for the information-diffusion rate.
    METHODS: We retrieved the dates when articles were included in Wikipedia and the date of journal publication from Crossref by using an application programming interface.
    RESULTS: From 11,325 Wikipedia medical articles, we identified citations to 137,889 journal articles from over 15,000 journals. There was a large spike in the number of journal articles published in or after 2002 that were cited by Wikipedia. The higher the importance of a Wikipedia article, the higher was the mean number of journal citations it contained (top article, 48.13 [SD 33.67]; lowest article, 6.44 [SD 9.33]). However, the importance of the Wikipedia article did not affect the speed of reference addition. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews was the most cited journal by Wikipedia, followed by The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet. The multidisciplinary journals Nature, Science, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences were among the top 10 journals with the highest Wikipedia medical article citations. For the top biomedical journal papers cited in Wikipedia's medical pages in 2016-2017, it took about 90 days (3 months) for the citation to be used in Wikipedia.
    CONCLUSIONS: We found evidence of "recentism," which refers to preferential citation of recently published journal articles in Wikipedia. Traditional high-impact medical and multidisciplinary journals were extensively cited by Wikipedia, suggesting that Wikipedia medical articles have robust underpinnings. In keeping with the Wikipedia policy of citing reviews/secondary sources in preference to primary sources, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews was the most referenced journal.
    Keywords:  Wikipedia; citizen science; journalology; knowledge translation; medical journals; medical publishing; open knowledge; scholarly publishing
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.2196/11429
  2. Acta Neurochir (Wien). 2019 Jan 23.
       BACKGROUND: Our previous studies suggest that the training history of an investigator, termed "medical academic genealogy", influences the outcomes of that investigator's research. Here, we use meta-analysis and quantitative statistical modeling to determine whether such effects contribute to systematic bias in published conclusions.
    METHODS: A total of 108 articles were identified through a comprehensive search of the high-grade glioma (HGG) surgical resection literature. Analysis was performed on the 70 articles with sufficient data for meta-analysis. Pooled estimates were generated for key academic genealogies. Monte Carlo simulations were performed to determine whether the effects attributed to genealogy alone can arise due to chance alone.
    RESULTS: Meta-analysis of the HGG literature without consideration for academic medical genealogy revealed that gross total resection (GTR) was associated with a significant decrease in the odds ratio (OR) for the hazard of death after surgery for both anaplastic astrocytoma (AA) and glioblastoma (AA: log [OR] = - 0.04, 95% CI [- 0.07 to - 0.01]; glioblastoma log [OR] = - 0.36, 95% CI [- 0.44 to - 0.29]). For the glioblastoma literature, meta-analysis of articles contributed by members of a genealogy consisting of mostly radiation oncologists revealed no reduction in the hazard of death after GTR [log [OR] = - 0.16, 95% CI [- 0.41 to 0.09]. In contrast, meta-analysis of published articles contributed by members of a genealogy consisting of mostly neurosurgeons revealed that GTR was associated with a significant reduction in the hazard of death [log [OR] = - 0.29, 95% CI [- 0.40 to 0.18]. Monte Carlo simulation revealed that the observed discrepancy between the articles contributed by the members of these two genealogies was unlikely to arise by chance alone (p < 0.006).
    CONCLUSIONS: Meta-analysis of articles contributed by authors belonging to the different medical academic genealogies yielded distinct and contradictory pooled point-estimates, suggesting that genealogy contributes to systematic bias in the published literature.
    Keywords:  Brain tumor; Medical academic genealogy; Meta-analysis; Scientific objectivity
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s00701-019-03804-9
  3. PLoS One. 2019 ;14(1): e0210994
       BACKGROUND: The consistent focus of 'Advances in Neuroblastoma Research' congresses on the topic neuroblastoma sets it as a model for a circumscribed scientific community.
    METHODS: The contributions of authors, institutions and countries to congress abstracts and their collaborations were compared to the Hirsch index (h-index) calculated from the Web of Science publication output on the topic 'neuroblastoma'.
    RESULTS: From 1975 to 2016, 18 congresses were held. 8459 authors affiliated to 553 institutions of 53 countries presented 3,993 abstracts. The number of coauthors increased over the years from 2 to 7. A considerable proportion of authors, institutions and countries presented only once (53.7%/25.7%/13.2%). Authors with a high number of abstracts and with a large local network were often among those with a higher publication rate and success (R2 = 0.508 for Pearson's correlation between weight and h-index, R2 = 0.474 for degree centrality, R2 = 0.364 for lobby-index). Closeness and betweenness centralities were less correlated (R2 = 0.127/R2 = 0.33, resp.). The institutions showed a similar impact of local interactions on publication success (degree centrality R2 = 0.417, weight R2 = 0.308), while countries demonstrated a higher correlation of betweenness centrality and h-Index (R2 = 0.704) emphasizing their brokerage role. Of 553 institutions, 520 collaborated within 13 communities and belonged to the large scientific network. 33 satellite institutions had no connections to the central network. They attended 1-4 congresses over a period of 1-16 years.
    CONCLUSION: A large scientific network has been developed during the recent 42 years. Growth and interaction at congresses were correlated to publication success. Weight is suggested as a useful and simple estimate.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0210994
  4. Vet Anaesth Analg. 2018 Dec 11. pii: S1467-2987(18)30298-8. [Epub ahead of print]
       OBJECTIVE: To define the relationship between journal impact factor (JIF) and citation distribution in veterinary journals. Citation distribution is a summary of the number of citations of individual papers published in a defined period, and JIF is said to represent the mean number of citations received by a paper published in a given journal. JIF is criticized for promoting unimportant differences between journals, exaggerating small differences in journal citation distributions by misrepresenting a skewed citation distribution. The hypothesis was that veterinary journals have a skewed citation distribution and that median citation rates between journals would be smaller than that indicated by JIF.
    STUDY DESIGN: Bibliometric study.
    ANIMALS: None.
    METHODS: A published method was used to generate journal citation reports from a commercial database, with search limits set for document ('article' and 'review') and the 2 year citation window of interest. Citation distributions [median (range)] and cumulative citations were calculated for Veterinary Anaesthesia and Analgesia (Vet Anaesth Analg, 2007-2017), 11 preselected subject- and species-specific and general veterinary journals (2016) and veterinary journals from the top (n = 10) and bottom (n = 10) of the Veterinary Sciences category ranking (2016) with a 10 year publication record.
    RESULTS: Citation distributions were right-skewed for all journals, with 15-20% of papers contributing approximately 50% of citations. For Vet Anaesth Analg, the median citation distribution [1 (0-2)] did not change despite JIF ranging from 1.044 to 2.064 between 2007 and 2017. Calculated median citation rates revealed minimal differences between journals, with only three groups identified: bottom (median citation 0), preselected (median citation 1) and top (median citation 2) journals. These groups represent over 100 places in the JIF (0.316-3.148) ranking.
    CONCLUSIONS: Ranking veterinary journals according to JIF is misleading, exaggerating differences while concealing minimally different citation distributions.
    Keywords:  bibliometrics; citation; journal impact factor; metrics
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaa.2018.11.004
  5. Front Plant Sci. 2018 ;9 1933
      Modern plant phenotyping, often using non-invasive technologies and digital technologies, is an emerging science and provides essential information on how genetics, epigenetics, environmental pressures, and crop management (farming) can guide selection toward productive plants suitable for their environment. Thus, phenotyping is at the forefront of future plant breeding. Bibliometric science mapping is a quantitative method that analyzes scientific publications throughout the terms present in their title, abstract, and keywords. The aim of this mapping exercise is to observe trends and identify research opportunities. This allows us to analyze the evolution of phenotyping research and to predict emerging topics of this discipline. A total of 1,827 scientific publications fitted our search method over the last 20 years. During the period 1997-2006, the total number of publications was only around 6.1%. The number of publications increased more steeply after 2010, boosted by the overcoming of technological bias and by a set of key developments at hard and software level (image analysis and data storage management, automation and robotics). Cluster analysis evidenced three main groups linked to genetics, physiology, and imaging. Mainly the model plant "Arabidopsis thaliana" and the crops "rice" and "triticum" species were investigated in the literature. The last two species were studied when addressing "plant breeding," and "genomic selection." However, currently the trend goes toward a higher diversity of phenotyped crops and research in the field. The application of plant phenotyping in the field is still under rapid development and this application has strong linkages with precision agriculture. EU co-authors were involved in 41.8% of the analyzed papers, followed by USA (15.4%), Australia (6.0%), and India (5.6%). Within the EU, coauthors were mainly affiliated in Germany (35.8%), France (23.7%), and United Kingdom (18.4%). Time seems right for new opportunities to incentivize research on more crops, in real field conditions, and to spread knowledge toward more countries, including emerging economies. Science mapping offers the possibility to get insights into a wide amount of bibliographic information, making them more manageable, attractive, and easy to serve science policy makers, stakeholders, and research managers.
    Keywords:  bibliometric analyses; growth; imaging; marker; phenotyping
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2018.01933
  6. PLoS One. 2019 ;14(1): e0206895
       BACKGROUND: Many systematic reviews (SRs) have been published about the various treatments for distal radius fractures (DRF). The heterogeneity of SRs results may come from the misuse of SR methods, and literature overviews have demonstrated that SRs should be considered with caution as they may not always be synonymous with high-quality standards. Our objective is to evaluate the quality of published SRs on the treatment of DRF through these tools.
    METHODS: The methods utilized in this review were previously published in the PROSPERO database. We considered SRs of surgical and nonsurgical interventions for acute DRF in adults. A comprehensive search strategy was performed in the MEDLINE database (inception to May 2017) and we manually searched the grey literature for non-indexed research. Data were independently extracted by two authors. We assessed SR internal validity and reporting using AMSTAR (Assessing the Methodological Quality of Systematic Reviews and PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyzes). Scores were calculated as the sum of reported items. We also extracted article characteristics and provided Spearman's correlation measurements.
    RESULTS: Forty-one articles fulfilled the eligibility criteria. The mean score for PRISMA was 15.90 (CI 95%, 13.9-17.89) and AMSTAR was 6.48 (CI 95% 5.72-7.23). SRs that considered only RCTs had better AMSTAR [7.56 (2.1) vs. 5.62 (2.3); p = 0.014] and PRISMA scores [18.61 (5.22) vs. 13.93 (6.47), p = 0.027]. The presence of meta-analysis on the SRs altered PRISMA scores [19.17 (4.75) vs. 10.21 (4.51), p = 0.001] and AMSTAR scores [7.68 (1.9) vs. 4.39 (1.66), p = 0.001]. Journal impact factor or declaration of conflict of interest did not change PRISMA and AMSTAR scores. We found substantial inter observer agreement for PRISMA (0.82, 95% CI 0.62-0.94; p = 0.01) and AMSTAR (0.65, 95% CI 0.43-0.81; p = 0.01), and moderate correlation between PRISMA and AMSTAR scores (0.83, 95% CI 0.62-0.92; p = 0.01).
    CONCLUSIONS: DRF RCT-only SRs have better PRISMA and AMSTAR scores. These tools have substantial inter-observer agreement and moderate inter-tool correlation. We exposed the current research panorama and pointed out some factors that can contribute to improvements on the topic.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0206895
  7. J Laryngol Otol. 2018 Dec;132(12): 1097-1101
       OBJECTIVE: The top 100 physicians of otorhinolaryngology and head and neck surgery worldwide were investigated using the Google Scholar h-index.
    METHOD: Although there are various bibliometrics ranking systems that present the academic quantity and quality of scientists' published articles, the h-index is the most popular and widely accepted. In this study, Google Scholar was used to search all the keywords involving all the subspecialties of otorhinolaryngology and head and neck surgery, with the aim of identifying as many physicians as possible. Obtaining the Google Scholar h-index and citations is not possible for scientists who do not have Google Scholar accounts. Thus, only those with Google Scholar accounts were included.
    RESULTS: The average h-index of all 100 physicians enrolled in the study was 37.83, with a range of 25-81.
    CONCLUSION: The current study details the academic impact of otorhinolaryngology and head and neck surgery physicians worldwide based on the Google Scholar h-index.
    Keywords:  Academic Database; Bibliometrics; Otolaryngology; Specialists
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022215118002190
  8. JSES Open Access. 2017 Mar;1(1): 35-38
       Aim: The purpose of this study was to analyze the publication rate for abstracts presented at podium presentations from the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons (ASES) annual open and closed meetings from 2008 to 2012.
    Materials and methods: Abstracts accepted as podium presentations for the open and closed meetings from 2008 through 2012 were followed. A search was performed using Google Scholar and PubMed for all published manuscripts. This analysis looks at abstracts categorized based on annual meeting (open versus closed) and by meeting year (2008-2012). Data including publication journal, publication date, and level of evidence were recorded. Descriptive statistics, t-tests, and odds ratios were performed with p < 0.05 significance.
    Results: A total of 365 abstracts were accepted to the open and closed annual meetings from 2008 to 2012, with 49% and 51% presented in open and closed forums. A total of 222 (61%) were published within 3-years in peer-reviewed journals. No difference existed in 3-year publication rate between open and closed podium presentation meetings (112/178, 63% open; 110/187, 59% closed; p = 0.4229); however, presentations at closed meetings were more likely to be published after 3-years compared to open meetings (2/178, 2% open; 15/187, 12% closed; p = 0.002). Most common journal of publication was the Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery (JSES) (50%).
    Conclusions: Podium abstracts presented at the open and closed annual meetings have publication rates of 63% and 59% with overall combined publication rates of 61% from 2008 to 2012. The high publication rate and high impact of publications speak to the exemplary educational value of ASES annual meetings.
    Keywords:  ASES; Abstract; American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons; Annual meeting; Podium; Poster; Publication rates
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jses.2017.02.002
  9. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019 Jan 24. pii: E320. [Epub ahead of print]16(3):
      Electronic cigarettes are at the center of a public health policy debate which leverages scientific publications. This study characterizes e-cigarette publication trends over the past 15 years via a bibliometric analysis. Scopus was searched for "electronic cigarette", "e-cig", "e-cigarette", "vape", "vaping", "juul", or "electronic nicotine delivery system" between 2003⁻2018. Data included Hirsch index, document type and frequency, and publications by institution, journal, and country. VOSviewer was used to visualize authorship network maps. A total of 4490 e-cigarette publications were identified, most (62.8%) being articles. After 2009, the annual growth rate for e-cigarette publications was the largest in 2014. The annual growth rate was nearly flat in 2017 but increased in 2018. The U.S. produced 51.6% of publications. Annual National Institutes of Health NIH funding for tobacco research mapped closely with the annual volume of e-cigarette publications. Author network analyses illustrated investigator collaborative patterns. The frequency of e-cigarette publications increased significantly in the past decade. A strong relationship of NIH funding for tobacco research and e-cigarette publications demonstrates the importance of e-cigarettes in tobacco research.
    Keywords:  author network; bibliometric; e-cigarettes; electronic cigarettes; electronic nicotine delivery system; publications
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16030320
  10. Int Endod J. 2019 Jan 22.
       AIM: To analyze the main characteristics of the top 50 most-cited articles published in the International Endodontic Journal from 1967 to 2018.
    METHODOLOGY: The Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science "All Databases", Elsevier's Scopus, Google Scholar and PubMed Central were searched to retrieve the 50 most-cited articles in the IEJ published from April 1967 to December 2018. The articles were analyzed and information including number of citations, year of publication, contributing authors, institutions and countries, study design, study topic, impact factor, and keywords was extracted.
    RESULTS: The number of citations of the 50 selected papers varied from 575 to 130 (Web of Science), 656 to164 (Elsevier's Scopus), 1354 to 199 (Google Scholar), and 123 to 3 (PubMed). The majority of papers were published in the year 2001 (n=7). Among 102 authors, the greatest contribution was made by four contributors that included Gulabivala K (n=4), Ng YL (n=4), Pitt Ford TR (n=4) and Wesselink PR (n=4). The majority of papers originated from the United Kingdom (n=8) with most contributions from King's College London Dental Institute (UK) and Eastman Dental Hospital, London. Reviews were the most common study design (n=19) followed by Clinical Research (n=16) and Basic Research (n=15). The majority of topics covered by the most-cited articles were Outcome Studies (n=9), Intracanal medicaments (n=8), Endodontic microbiology (n=7) and Canal instrumentation (n=7). Among 76 unique key words, Endodontics (n=7), Mineral Trioxide Aggregate (MTA) (n=7) and Root Canal Treatment (n=7) were the most frequently used.
    CONCLUSION: This is the first study to identify and analyze the top 50 most-cited articles in a specific professional journal within Dentistry. The analysis has revealed information regarding the development of the IEJ over time as well as scientific progress in the field of Endodontology. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
    Keywords:  Citations; Endodontics; Impact factor; International Endodontic Journal
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/iej.13083
  11. Medicine (Baltimore). 2019 Jan;98(4): e14132
       BACKGROUND: The interest in obesity has considerably increased in the scientific community in the last 2 decades. We present a bibliometric analysis to find out the future research hotspot and trends of obesity.
    METHODS: Data were based on the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E), from the Institute of Scientific Information Web of Science database and the 5-year impact factor of a journal were issued from the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) in 2017. Articles referring to obesity during 1999 to 2017 were concentrated on the analysis by scientific output characters and the frequency of author keywords used.
    RESULTS: Globally, 50,246 articles meet the inclusion criteria during 1999 to 2017. The cumulative number of publication about obesity followed exponential distribution (R = 0.9974) from 2008. USA was the most productive countries in both independent and international collaborative papers, the countries/regions with the highest average Times Cited scores for independent articles was France and The United Kingdom scored the highest in average Times Cited for international collaborative papers. Collaboration among countries, playing an ever-growing role in contemporary scientific research. The 2 most prolific journals are Obesity Surgery and International Journal of Obesity, responsible for 3.95% of the publication.
    CONCLUSION: Obesity has been a field of intense research in the last 19 years. By reasonably analyzing the author keywords and the distribution of journals, "bariatric surgery" (especially "sleeve gastrectomy") and "obese complications" (especially "diabetes mellitus," "metabolic syndrome," "depression," and "polycystic ovary syndrome") will undoubtedly maintain the hotspots of obesity research in the next few decades.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1097/MD.0000000000014132
  12. Brain Stimul. 2019 Jan 09. pii: S1935-861X(19)30030-0. [Epub ahead of print]
       BACKGROUND: Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive neuromodulatory technique that has broad diagnostic and therapeutic potential across a range of neurological and psychiatric diseases.
    OBJECTIVE: This study utilises a bibliometric approach to systematically and comprehensively evaluate the literature on TMS from the last three decades.
    METHODS: The Scopus citation database was used to identify all peer-reviewed journal articles concerning TMS over the period 1988-2017. Frequency-distribution, cross-tabulation and keyword analyses were performed to determine the most prolific researchers, institutions, nations, journals and the foremost studied disease entities within the TMS field. Given recent heightened awareness of gender bias across many fields of biomedicine, female representation among the most prolific authors was determined. Open-access publication rates and types of study design utilised were also quantified.
    RESULTS: 17,492 TMS-related articles were published during the study period 1988-2017. The annual TMS research output has increased dramatically over this time, despite a recent levelling-off of publications per year. The most prolific institutions were based in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. The top disease entities studied were stroke, depression and Parkinson's disease. Only 4/52 of the most productive researchers during the study period were female. A minority (4.81%) of publications were published as gold open-access.
    CONCLUSION: This study implemented a systematic, bibliometric approach to quantitively assess the breadth of the TMS literature base and identify temporal publication and authorship trends. Drawing on these insights may aid understanding of historical progress in TMS over the last 30 years and help identify into unmet needs and opportunities to improve scientific and publishing practices to contribute to the future health of the field. These findings are likely to be relevant to researchers, clinicians, funders, industry collaborators and other stakeholders.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; Brain mapping; Depression; Neurophysiology; Stroke; Transcranial magnetic stimulation
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brs.2019.01.002
  13. Orthop Rev (Pavia). 2018 Dec 06. 10(4): 7715
      The purpose was to establish a ranking of the 50 most cited articles about wrist surgery and analyse their features. Science Citation Index Expanded was used to identify the 50 most frequently cited orthopaedic journal articles written in English, searching for the topic "wrist surgery" in the subject category ''Orthopaedics''. Then, we analysed the number of citations, citation density, authorship, article institution, the year of publication, the country of origin of the article, name and impact factor of the journal, and publication type of the article. The 50 most cited articles were published in only 6 of the 74 journals included under the category "orthopaedics". Citation count ranged from 256 for the first one to 67 for the 50th article. Most of them were written by American authors. These articles were published between 1991 and 2011. "Distal Radius Fractures" was the most common issue. This type of bibliographic analysis could be particularly useful for other young Authors who would like to improve their research in wrist and hand surgery and make their publications more citable and appreciated by the scientific community.
    Keywords:  Wrist surgery; bibliographic analysis; citation density; impact factor; most cited article
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.4081/or.2018.7715
  14. Acta Stomatol Croat. 2018 Dec;52(4): 348-357
      Acta Stomatologica Croatica (ASCRO) citation analysis was made on the occasion of fifty years of publishing the journal (1966 to 2016). The aim of the study was to determine the impact of the changes that have been occurring over the last ten years on the visibility and citation of ASCRO by comparing the obtained results with the 2008 ASCRO citation analysis. Materials and Methods: The sample was obtained by searching the Web of Science Core Collection database, and the data were processed by descriptive statistics. Results: A total of 1,618 papers were published in ASCRO in which 477 papers were cited in 903 citations. Each published paper was cited on average 0.6 times, while each of the cited papers received 1.9 quotations on average. The largest number of citations per paper is 20, and the largest number of citations per year is 63 in 1991. According to age, 96 papers received the largest number of citations three years after they had been published, and the oldest cited papers are 45 years old. ASCRO was cited in 302 journals, and the largest number of citations (19%) was recorded in Collegium Antropologicum. Out of the total of 903 citations, 41% were made by Croatian authors. Croatian and foreign authors cited in 3.7% of papers, and in 55.3% of papers citations were made only by foreign authors. ASCRO is cited by authors from 73 countries, of which 33 are European, 19 are Asian, 10 American, 9 African and 2 authors come from Australia and Oceania. Conclusion: ASCRO's improvement in the quality has been recorded in all of the analyzed parameters over the past ten years with respect to the results obtained by citation analysis in 2008.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; Dental Journalism; Open Access Publishing; Periodicals as Topic
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.15644/asc52/4/9