bims-evares Biomed News
on Evaluation of research
Issue of 2019–06–09
24 papers selected by
Thomas Krichel, Open Library Society



  1. Neural Regen Res. 2019 Oct;14(10): 1823-1832
      Neural stem cells, which are capable of multi-potential differentiation and self-renewal, have recently been shown to have clinical potential for repairing central nervous system tissue damage. However, the theme trends and knowledge structures for human neural stem cells have not yet been studied bibliometrically. In this study, we retrieved 2742 articles from the PubMed database from 2013 to 2018 using "Neural Stem Cells" as the retrieval word. Co-word analysis was conducted to statistically quantify the characteristics and popular themes of human neural stem cell-related studies. Bibliographic data matrices were generated with the Bibliographic Item Co-Occurrence Matrix Builder. We identified 78 high-frequency Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) terms. A visual matrix was built with the repeated bisection method in gCLUTO software. A social network analysis network was generated with Ucinet 6.0 software and GraphPad Prism 5 software. The analyses demonstrated that in the 6-year period, hot topics were clustered into five categories. As suggested by the constructed strategic diagram, studies related to cytology and physiology were well-developed, whereas those related to neural stem cell applications, tissue engineering, metabolism and cell signaling, and neural stem cell pathology and virology remained immature. Neural stem cell therapy for stroke and Parkinson's disease, the genetics of microRNAs and brain neoplasms, as well as neuroprotective agents, Zika virus, Notch receptor, neural crest and embryonic stem cells were identified as emerging hot spots. These undeveloped themes and popular topics are potential points of focus for new studies on human neural stem cells.
    Keywords:  PubMed; bibliometric analysis; biclustering analysis; co-word analysis; hot research topics; human neural stem cells; knowledge structures; mapping theme trends; nerve regeneration; neural regeneration; social network analysis; strategic diagram analysis
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.4103/1673-5374.257535
  2. J Surg Res. 2019 May 30. pii: S0022-4804(19)30301-4. [Epub ahead of print]243 52-58
       BACKGROUND: The impact of a scientific article has traditionally been measured by the impact factor (IF) of the journal it is published in and the number of times it is cited. However, citations have a lag period before the true impact of an article can be determined. The Altmetric score has emerged as a measure of the digital dissemination of a scientific article across multiple platforms, including Tweets, Facebook likes, and other social and popular media mentions. We hypothesized that Altmetric score would correlate with citations and journal IF in pediatric surgery.
    METHODS: Using the previously identified 14 core journals of pediatric surgery, the top ten most-cited articles from each of these journals were identified for the year 2012, allowing for 5+ y of follow-up. For each article, we determined the number of times cited and the Altmetric score. For each journal, the 2012 IF and year in which the journal's Twitter account was established were determined. Bibliometric data were collected for the year 2015 to allow comparison of Altmetric scores across years. Descriptive statistics and Pearson's correlation coefficients were determined using the GraphPad PRISM software.
    RESULTS: Citation information for n = 140 articles from 2012 to 2015 was obtained. In 2012, articles were cited 56,159 times (median 192, range 21-5029), and the median Altmetric score was 8 (range 0-4261). Citations correlated strongly with journal IF (r = 0.82, P < 0.0001). Altmetric scores in 2012 showed weak positive correlation with citations (r = 0.1895, P = 0.0125) but did not correlate with IF (r = 0.0841, P = 0.1617). Altmetric scores in 2015 also showed weak positive correlation with citations (r = 0.238, P = 0.0023) but additionally weakly correlated with IF (r = 0.2027, P = 0.0082). Increasing age of a journal's Twitter account resulted in increasing correlation between Altmetric score and citations in both 2012 (r = 0.299, P = 0.169) and 2015 (r = 0.512, P = 0.037). Twitter was the primary social media contributor to Altmetric score in 2012 and 2015, with decreasing contribution from Facebook.
    CONCLUSIONS: This study is the first to link traditional bibliometric measures with newer measures of digital dissemination for publications in pediatric surgery. Although the Altmetric score of the top cited articles did not correlate with journal IF, it did weakly correlate with citations. Interestingly, this correlation was strongest for journals with well-established Twitter accounts, indicating that, over time, the Altmetric score may emerge as a tool to predict future citations. Currently, Altmetric and traditional bibliometric measures appear to have distinct but complementary roles in measuring dissemination and impact of scientific articles in pediatric surgery.
    Keywords:  Academic medicine; Bibliometrics; Impact factor; Social media; Twitter
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2019.05.010
  3. J R Soc Med. 2019 Jun;112(6): 245-257
       OBJECTIVE: To investigate the relationship between biomedical researchers' collaborative and authorship practices and scientific success.
    DESIGN: Longitudinal quantitative analysis of individual researchers' careers over a nine-year period.
    SETTING: A leading biomedical research institution in the United Kingdom.
    PARTICIPANTS: Five hundred and twenty-five biomedical researchers who were in employment on 31 December 2009.
    MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: We constructed the co-authorship network in which nodes are the researchers, and links are established between any two researchers if they co-authored one or more articles. For each researcher, we recorded the position held in the co-authorship network and in the bylines of all articles published in each three-year interval and calculated the number of citations these articles accrued until January 2013. We estimated maximum likelihood negative binomial panel regression models.
    RESULTS: Our analysis suggests that collaboration sustained success, yet excessive co-authorship did not. Last positions in non-alphabetised bylines were beneficial for higher academic ranks but not for junior ones. A professor could witness a 20.57% increase in the expected citation count if last-listed non-alphabetically in one additional publication; yet, a lecturer suffered from a 13.04% reduction. First positions in alphabetised bylines were positively associated with performance for junior academics only. A lecturer could experience a 8.78% increase in the expected citation count if first-listed alphabetically in one additional publication. While junior researchers amplified success when brokering among otherwise disconnected collaborators, senior researchers prospered from socially cohesive networks, rich in third-party relationships.
    CONCLUSIONS: These results help biomedical scientists shape successful careers and research institutions develop effective assessment and recruitment policies that will ultimately sustain the quality of biomedical research and patient care.
    Keywords:  Medical careers; medical education; medical management
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1177/0141076819851666
  4. World Neurosurg. 2019 May 31. pii: S1878-8750(19)31503-7. [Epub ahead of print]
       BACKGROUND: The number of citations an article receives is an important measure of impact for published research. There is limited published data on predictors of citations in neurosurgery research.
    OBJECTIVE: To analyze predictors of citations for neurosurgical articles.
    METHODS: All articles published in 14 neurosurgical journals in the year 2015 were examined and data collected about their features. The number of citations for each article was tallied using both Web of Science (WoS) and Google Scholar (GS) 2.5 years after their publication in print. Negative binomial regression was then performed to determine the relationship between article features and citation counts for scientific articles.
    RESULTS: A total of 3,923 articles were analyzed comprising 2,867 scientific articles (72.6%) and 1,056 non-scientific (editorial, commentary, etc) articles (27.4%). At 2.5 years, scientific articles had a median[IQR] number of citations per article of 3.0[6.0] and 7.0[9.0] found in WoS and GS, respectively; non-scientific articles had accumulated median 0.0[2.0] in both WOS and GS. Articles with the study topic spine had the highest citation count at 4.0[5.0] and 8.0[10.0] in WoS and GS, respectively. Significant predictors of citation count in scientific articles were level of evidence (LOE), number of centers, number of authors and impact factor.
    CONCLUSION: This is the largest investigation analyzing predictors of citations in the neurosurgical literature. Factors found to be most influential on citation rates in scientific articles included the study's level of evidence, number of participating centers, number of authors, and the publishing journal's impact factor.
    Keywords:  bibliometrics; citation rate; collaboration; level of evidence; neurosurgery; publications
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wneu.2019.05.226
  5. Sci Eng Ethics. 2019 Jun 04.
      Authorship is commonly used as the basis for the measurement of research productivity. It influences career progression and rewards, making it a valued commodity in a competitive scientific environment. To better understand authorship practices amongst collaborative teams, this study surveyed authors on collaborative journal articles published between 2011 and 2015. Of the 8364 respondents, 1408 responded to the final open-ended question, which solicited additional comments or remarks regarding the fair distribution of authorship in research teams. This paper presents the analysis of these comments, categorized into four main themes: (1) disagreements, (2) questionable behavior, (3) external influences regarding authorship, and (4) values promoted by researchers. Results suggest that some respondents find ways to effectively manage disagreements in a collegial fashion. Conversely, others explain how distribution of authorship can become a "blood sport" or a "horror story" which can negatively affect researchers' wellbeing, scientific productivity and integrity. Researchers fear authorship discussions and often try to avoid openly discussing the situation which can strain team interactions. Unethical conduct is more likely to result from deceit, favoritism, and questionable mentorship and may become more egregious when there is constant bullying and discrimination. Although values of collegiality, transparency and fairness were promoted by researchers, rank and need for success often overpowered ethical decision-making. This research provides new insight into contextual specificities related to fair authorship distribution that can be instrumental in developing applicable training tools to identify, prevent, and mitigate authorship disagreement.
    Keywords:  Authorship; Collaboration; Ethics; Misbehavior; Professional ethics
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-019-00113-3
  6. J Appl Behav Anal. 2019 Jun 04.
      We examined self- and cross-citations in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA) and the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (JEAB) from 2004 through 2018. Mean annual levels of self-citations for JABA and JEAB were 40.1% and 28.7%, respectively. Overall, 5.1% of JABA citations were JEAB articles, and 2.3% of JEAB citations were JABA articles. Although overall cross-citation levels were relatively low, 28.7% of the JABA articles reviewed had at least one JEAB citation, and 27.5% of the JEAB articles reviewed had at least one JABA citation. Authors in both journals cited articles addressing the topics of matching and motivating operations. The extent to which the basic and applied sectors of behavior analysis interact depends on how the interaction is measured. Nonetheless, the degree of interaction is growing, which is a good thing for the discipline.
    Keywords:  applied behavior analysis; applied research; basic research; citations; experimental analysis of behavior
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.585
  7. J Intell. 2018 Oct 15. pii: E46. [Epub ahead of print]6(4):
      An article's keywords are distinct because they represent what authors feel are the most important words in their papers. Combined, they can even shed light on which research topics in a field are popular (or less so). Here we conducted bibliometric keyword analyses of articles published in the journal, Intelligence (2000-2016). The article set comprised 916 keyword-containing papers. First, we analyzed frequencies to determine which keywords were most/least popular. Second, we analyzed Web of Science (WOS) citation counts for the articles listing each keyword and we ran regression analyses to examine the effect of keyword categories on citation counts. Third, we looked at how citation counts varied across time. For the frequency analysis, "g factor", "psychometrics/statistics", and "education" emerged as the keywords with the highest counts. Conversely, the WOS citation analysis showed that papers with the keywords "spatial ability", "factor analysis", and "executive function" had the highest mean citation values. We offer tentative explanations for the discrepant results across frequencies and citations. The analysis across time revealed several keywords that increased (or decreased) in frequency over 17 years. We end by discussing how bibliometric keyword analysis can detect research trends in the field, both now and in the past.
    Keywords:  Intelligence; bibliometrics; keywords
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence6040046
  8. BMC Med Educ. 2019 Jun 06. 19(1): 189
       BACKGROUND: Whether medical education research (MER) is primarily conducted in wealthy countries (in the "Realm of the Rich") is the subject of an ongoing debate. Previous studies of the geography of MER publication output have relied upon proprietary databases, have not compared MER with other fields of study, and have not studied the relationship between authorship geography and topics of study. This study was designed to evaluate the geographic distribution of MER authorship and to relate this to the topics studied in MER.
    METHODS: Authors' countries of affiliation were identified from PubMed records by parsing and cleaning the text of affiliations and submitting them to the google maps geocoding API. The geography of publication output in MER was compared to other fields using the chi-square goodness-of-fit test. Country income classifications and medical subject heading (MeSH) terms were used to evaluate the topical contributions of countries at different income levels, and simulation was used to compute significance of MeSH term enrichment in MER papers from low income and lower middle income countries.
    RESULTS: The vast majority of MER papers were contributed by authors based in high income countries. The top four countries were the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, with listed author affiliations in 80% of all MER papers. This percentage was greater in MER than in several other categories, including Biological Science Disciplines (48%), Medicine (69%) and Education (74%), which is a parent category of MER. Authors from low income countries contributed significantly to the topical diversity of MER. MeSH terms associated with government, community health, and health delivery were enriched in papers from low income countries, while terms associated with specialty and clinical training, technology in teaching, and professional obligations (such as workload, burnout, and empathy) were enriched in papers from high income countries.
    CONCLUSIONS: Geographic disparities in publication output are greater in MER than in any other field examined. The historical origins of MER in North America might explain disproportionate publication output by authors from this region. This study suggests that the MER field benefits from research contributed by authors from low income countries, and also points to potential gaps in MER (and medical education as a whole) in the developing world.
    Keywords:  Diversity; Income disparities; Low income countries; Medical education research; Research geography; Research productivity
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-019-1639-2
  9. J Laryngol Otol. 2019 Jun 03. 1-4
       OBJECTIVE: The ENT Scotland society (formerly known as the Scottish Otolaryngological Society) has two meetings a year and accepts oral presentations from trainees. This study aimed to identify publication rates from these meetings.
    METHODS: Abstracts of the presentations are published in The Journal of Laryngology and Otology. A structured search on PubMed and Google Scholar was undertaken to identify which presentations from the 2005 to 2014 meetings have been published.
    RESULTS: Of the 145 abstracts found, 60.7 per cent were presenting clinical research and 44.1 per cent were related to the head and neck subspecialty. Seventy-three abstracts (50.3 per cent) were associated with publication as a peer-reviewed article; otology papers were more likely to be published than those focusing on other subspecialties (64.3 per cent, p = 0.036). No correlation was found between publication and other factors.
    CONCLUSION: Presentations at the ENT Scotland meetings undergo unbiased peer review and are as likely to be published as those of other conferences.
    Keywords:   Medical; Abstracting And Indexing; Congresses; Organization And Administration; Otolaryngology; Publishing; Research Design; Societies; United Kingdom
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022215119001075
  10. BMC Nurs. 2019 ;18 21
       Background: Intensive care nurse wellbeing is essential to a healthy healthcare workforce. Enhanced wellbeing has widespread benefits for workers. Bibliometrics enables quantitative analysis of bourgeoning online data. Here, a new model is developed and applied to explore empirical knowledge underpinning wellbeing and intensive care nurse wellbeing in terms of size and impact, disciplinary reach, and semantics.
    Methods: Mixed methods bibliometric study. Firstly, a new model coined 'iAnalysis' was developed for the analysis of published data. Secondly, iAnalysis was applied in two studies to examine wellbeing and ICU nurse wellbeing. Study one explored data from a title search with search terms [wellbeing OR well-being], identifying 17,543 records with bibliographic data. This dataset included 20,526 keywords. Of the identified records, 10,715 full-text manuscripts were retrieved. Study two explored data from a topic search with search terms [(intensive OR critical) AND (nurs*) AND (wellbeing OR well-being)], identifying 383 records with bibliographic data. This dataset included 1223 author keywords. Of the identified records, 328 full-text manuscripts were retrieved.
    Results: Once data were collected, for size and impact, WoS Clarivate Analytics™ and RStudio™ were used to explore publication dates, frequencies, and citation performance. For disciplinary reach, RStudio™ (with the Bibliometrics™ package & Vosviewer™ plugin) was used to explore the records in terms of country of publication, journal presence, and mapping of authors. For semantics, once the bibliographic data was imported to RStudio™ (with the Bibliometrics™ package & Vosviewer™ plugin) keyword co-occurrences were identified and visualised. Full-text manuscripts were imported to NVivo™ to explore word frequencies of both the keywords and full-text manuscripts using the word frequency search. For both studies, records were predominantly published in the past 5 years, in English language, and from USA. The highest keyword co-occurrence for study one was "health and well-being", and for study two, "family and model".
    Conclusions: Terms commonly associated with 'illbeing', as opposed to 'wellbeing', were highly prevalent in both study datasets, but more so in intensive care nurse wellbeing data. Intensive care nurse wellbeing was virtually absent in this literature. The iAnalysis model provided a practice-friendly tool to explore a large source of online published literature.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; Critical care nurses; Intensive care unit; Text analytics; Wellbeing
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-019-0343-1
  11. Khirurgiia (Mosk). 2019 ; 120-127
      During 2012-2018 in the Russian Federation, pursuant to Presidential Decree No. 599 of 05.07.2012, a set of state support measures was implemented aimed at increasing the specific gravity of Russian publications indexed in international databases. The national project 'Science' (NPS) designed to realize the goals set by Presidential Decree No.204 of 05.07.2018 'On the National Goals and Strategic Tasks for Development of the Russian Federation until 2024' continues and develops the theme of increasing the publication activity of the Russian Federation in the internationalized space. One of the six NPS targets is 'The place of the Russian Federation in terms of specific gravity in the total number of articles in areas defined by the priorities of scientific and technological development in publications indexed in international databases'. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the basic value of this indicator for biomedical disciplines related to the priority direction (paragraph 20c) of the Strategy for Scientific and Technological Development of the Russian Federation. We compared volumes of publication flows of the Russian Federation in 20 biomedical disciplines with a similar indicator of countries ranked fifth in the number of publications on the subject area under consideration, indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection (WoS CC). A 5-10 fold lag of the Russian Federation was recorded for the most part of the priority areas in the field of biomedicine identified by the NTS passport. The impact of public policy measures aimed at increasing the national biomedical publication stream for the period of 2012-2018 was estimated as insufficient to meet the considered NTS target.
    Keywords:  Web of Science; articles; biomedicine; national project «Science»; priority areas of scientific and technological development; publication activity; specific gravity; targets
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.17116/hirurgia2019051120
  12. Adv J Emerg Med. 2019 ;3(2): e14
       Introduction: Policymaking in order to increase the quality of medical journals needs having accurate data from their current status.
    Objective: The present study was designed with the aim of introducing a demographic scheme of Iranian journals in the field of medical sciences.
    Method: This cross-sectional study was performed on all the medical journals being published in Iran in 2016. The list of all journal titles was extracted by referring to the medical journals databanks (ministry of health, Magiran, IranMedex, Irandoc and…), and the data required for the study were gathered using journals' homepages or by phone or in person, by attending the journal's office.
    Results: Totally, 521 journals were assessed. Publication language used was English in 297 (57%) journals and 515 (98.85%) were open access. 381 (73.1%) journals were published quarterly and the year of starting publication was 2010 onwards in case of 245 (48.0%) of journals. There were 29 (5.56%) journals, which were indexed in all 3 databases of ISI, PubMed and Scopus. Only 4.81% of the journals had an official impact factor announced by Thomson-Reuters or Clarivate Analytics Company. Mean time needed for review of articles was 1.89 ± 1.52 (0.5 - 12) months (n = 146) and mean time interval between accepting an article and its print or electronic publication was 3.63 ± 2.17 (0 - 12) months (n = 144). Rate of membership of these journals in COPE and ICMJE were 40% and 27%, respectively.
    Conclusion: Most medical journals being published in Iran were English quarterly journals that were regularly published in the fields of general medicine, open access, with university affiliations, centered in the capital, and more than 80% of them had started publishing from 2000 and afterwards.
    Keywords:  Abstracting and Indexing as Topic; Iran; Journalism; Medical; Medicine; Publications
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.22114/AJEM.v0i0.134
  13. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2019 May 30.
       BACKGROUND: Recent studies indicate that women are substantially underrepresented as orthopaedic surgeons and residents compared with other specialties in medicine and medical school. The reasons for this are multifactorial and not completely understood, but previous studies suggest that women may be attracted to fields in which they have female role models. Given that women interested in academia and research may use female editorship and authorship as a proxy for female representation in orthopaedic surgery, we wanted to examine the proportion of women represented in orthopaedic journals and determine if it reflects the distribution of women in orthopaedic surgery as a field. We further wanted to understand if this representation has changed over time in the setting of a slowly shifting gender landscape within orthopaedic surgery.
    QUESTIONS/PURPOSES: (1) How are women orthopaedic surgeons and residents represented in orthopaedic journals compared with men? (2) Have these proportions changed in the past two decades in light of relatively new efforts to recruit women to the field of orthopaedic surgery?
    METHODS: The gender composition of editorial boards and first and last authors were obtained from the 1997, 2007, and 2017 volumes of the following journals: The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery (JBJS), the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (JAAOS), and Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research® (CORR®). Gender neutral names were searched to obtain a picture to ensure proper tallies.
    RESULTS: The total combined amount of women first and last authors increased from 88 of 1450 (6%) in 1997 to 152 of 1912 (8%) in 2007 to 723 of 5391 (13%) in 2017. Similarly, three of 113 (3%) editorial board members were women in 1997, three of 105 (3%) were women in 2007 and 10 of 107 (9%) editors were women in 2017. Of note, 0 out of 9 editors-in-chief were women.
    CONCLUSIONS: Based on the current percentage of women orthopaedic surgeons and residents, women are represented equally or in greater numbers as editors and authors in JAAOS, JBJS, and CORR. This may be in part due to women orthopaedic surgeons entering academic medicine at a greater rate than males.
    CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Orthopaedic surgeons serving as mentors to prospective female applicants can cite female representation on editorial boards and as authors as an example of gender parity in the field. Additionally, active orthopaedic surgeons who are women interested in these leadership positions should be encouraged that these opportunities exist, regardless of gender.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1097/CORR.0000000000000824
  14. Rev Assoc Med Bras (1992). 2019 Jun 03. pii: S0104-42302019000500682. [Epub ahead of print]65(5): 682-690
       BACKGROUND.: This study aimed to evaluate the scientific production of researchers in the field of Medicine who receive a productivity grant from the CNPq.
    METHODS: The curriculum Lattes of 542 researchers with active grants from 2012 to 2014 were included in the analysis. Grants categories/levels were stratified into three groups according to the CNPq database (1A-B, 1C-D, and 2).
    RESULTS.: There was a predominance of grants in category 2. During their academic career, Medicine researchers published 76512 articles, with a median of 119 articles per researcher (IQ, interquartile range, 77 to 174). Among the 76512 articles, 36584 (47.8%) were indexed in the Web of Science (WoS database). Researchers in Medicine were cited 643159 times in the WoS database, with a median of 754 citations (IQ, 356 to 1447). There were significant differences among the categories of grants concerning the number of citations in WoS (P <0.001). There was a significant difference in the number of times researchers were cited according to the specialty included in Medicine area. (P < 0.001).
    CONCLUSION.: Strategies to improve the scientific output qualitatively possibly can be enhanced by the knowledge of the profile of researchers in the field of Medicine.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9282.65.5.682
  15. Circ Res. 2019 Jun 07. 124(12): 1718-1724
      In this article, I show that the distribution of citations to papers published by the top 30 journals in the category Cardiac & Cardiovascular Systems of the Web of Science is extremely skewed. This skewness is to the right, which means that there is a long tail of papers that are cited much more frequently than the other papers of the same journal. The consequence is that there is a large difference between the mean and the median of the citation of the papers published by the journals. I further found that there are no differences between the citation distributions of the top 4 journals European Heart Journal, Circulation, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, and Circulation Research. Despite the fact that the journal impact factor (IF) varied between 23.425 for Eur Heart J and 15.211 for Circ Res with the other 2 journals in between, the median citation of their articles plus reviews (IF Median) was 10 for all 4 journals. Given the fact that their citation distributions were similar, it is obvious that an indicator (IF Median) that reflects this similarity must be superior to the classical journal impact factor, which may indicate a nonexisting difference. It is underscored that the IF Median is substantially lower than the journal impact factor for all 30 journals under consideration in this article. Finally, the IF Median has the additional advantage that there is no artificial ranking of 128 journals in the category but rather an attribution of journals to a limited number of classes with comparable impact.
    Keywords:  cardiology; journal impact factor; publications
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.119.315249
  16. Open Heart. 2019 ;6(1): e000882
       Background: Women are underrepresented in leading medical positions and academia. The gender-gap in authorship of congenital heart disease (CHD) publications remains unknown. As determinants of gender equity in this field are poorly characterised, we aimed to quantify and characterise publications in CHD and to assess factors associated with female representation in research.
    Methods and results: We identified 35 118 CHD publications between 2006 and 2015 for which author gender could be ascertained. Overall, 25.0% of all authors were female. Women accounted for 30.2% and 20.8% of all first and senior authorship positions with great geographic heterogeneity. While globally female first and senior authorship increased by 0.8% and 0.6%/year, some geographic regions showed no improvement in gender representation. Significant predictors of female first authorship on logistic regression analysis were country gross domestic product, human development index, gender inequality index and a female senior author (p<0.0001 for all). Publications with a female lead author tended to be published in journals with a higher impact factor (IF) and to attract more citations compared with those with a male author. Mixed gender authorship was associated with higher IF and number of citations. Women were less disadvantaged when the analysis was confined to original research.
    Conclusions: While modest improvement in female authorship over time was noted, women remain underrepresented in contemporary academic CHD. Manuscripts with mixed gender authorship had higher IF and more citations. The main predictor of female first authorship was a female senior author. These data should inform policy recommendations regarding gender parity.
    Keywords:  congenital heart disease; gender inequality; global; international; research
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1136/openhrt-2018-000882
  17. World Neurosurg. 2019 May 30. pii: S1878-8750(19)31489-5. [Epub ahead of print]
       BACKGROUND: Stroke is a leading cause of mortality and disability worldwide. Research activity in Latin American countries may be the key to solving, or at least improving the understanding of stroke related issues in the region. Our aim was to describe and analyze research output on stroke in Latin America.
    METHODS: We performed a bibliometric analysis using published articles about stroke in Latin America published from 2003 to 2017 in Scopus-indexed journals. We extracted the annual research, countries, journals, authors, institutions, citation frequency, and journal metrics. The data were quantitatively analyzed. Publication activity was adjusted to the countries by population size. Also, author and country co-occurrence analysis were presented as network visualization maps using VOSviewer.
    RESULTS: A total of 2298 Latin American stroke-related documents were identified, most of them were original research articles (72%). The number of papers published increased from 2003 and 2017 (p<0.001). Brazil was the country with the highest production with 1273 (55.4%) documents, followed by Argentina and Mexico. There is no association between stroke prevalence and mortality with the scientific production of the country. Six universities and three hospitals were the most prolific institutions. It seems that there is a collaboration relationship between United States with Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico. The intra-regional collaboration of research on stroke was low among Latin American countries.
    CONCLUSIONS: Despite the continuous increase in research output from Latin American countries, more effort is needed to strengthen research capacity by developing networks and collaborative research projects, ideally between Latin American countries themselves.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; Biomedical Research; Latin America; Latin America and Caribbean; Research Output; Stroke
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wneu.2019.05.212
  18. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019 May 31. pii: E1928. [Epub ahead of print]16(11):
      Background: Malaria is one of the infectious diseases of greatest interest to the scientific community and of greatest concern to international health authorities. Traditionally, the focus has been on Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes the most severe form of the disease in Africa. However, in the last twenty years, the Plasmodium vivax parasite, responsible for a large number of cases in Latin America, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, the Horn of Africa, and Oceania, has also generated enormous interest due, among other things, to the published evidence that it can cause severe malaria. Methods: In this paper, the international scientific publication on malaria and P. vivax has been analyzed using the Scopus database to try to define global trends in this field of study. Results: It has been shown that events such as the emergence of resistance to certain drugs can break a trend. The important role of non-malaria-endemic countries such as the USA or Switzerland in malaria research is also evident. Conclusions: International cooperation will be essential for the eradication of the disease. Moreover, in this sense, the general vision given by the bibliometric analysis of malaria caused by P. vivax is fundamental to paint the picture regarding the current situation and encourage international cooperation and control efforts.
    Keywords:  Plasmodium falciparum; Plasmodium vivax; Scopus; chloroquine; malaria
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16111928
  19. Clin Orthop Surg. 2019 Jun;11(2): 237-243
       Background: Bibliometrics is increasingly used to assess the quantity and quality of scientific research output in many research fields worldwide. This study aims to update Korea's worldwide research productivity in the field of orthopedics using bibliometric methods and to provide Korean surgeons and researchers with insights into such research.
    Methods: Articles published in the top 15 orthopedic journals between 2008 and 2017 were retrieved using the Web of Science. The number of articles, citations and h-index (Hirsch index), funding sources, institutions, and journal patterns were analyzed.
    Results: Of the total 39,494 articles, Korea's contribution accounted for 5.6% (2,161 articles), ranking fifth in the world in the number of publications. Korea ranked sixth (with 29,456) for total citations worldwide but ranked 17th (13.64) in terms of average citation per item and 14th (55) in terms of h-index. Korea showed the most prolific productivity in the field of sports medicine and arthroscopy. The institution that produced the highest number of publications was Seoul National University (n = 386, 17.9%).
    Conclusions: Orthopedic research in South Korea demonstrated high productivity in terms of the number of publications in high-quality journals between 2008 and 2017. However, total citations and average citations per article were still relatively low. Efforts should be made to increase citation rates for further improvement in research productivity in the field of orthopedics.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; Journal Impact Factor; Korea; Orthopedics; Research
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.4055/cios.2019.11.2.237
  20. Rev Assoc Med Bras (1992). 2019 Jun 03. pii: S0104-42302019000500722. [Epub ahead of print]65(5): 722-729
       OBJECTIVE: To analyze the scientific production on Burnout Syndrome in physicians and nurses of ICU in Brazil.
    METHOD: Bibliometric study, documentary, with quantitative approach. We selected articles published in Brazil on Burnout Syndrome in the ICUs, in the VHL and Portal Capes, from 2000 to 2018.
    RESULTS: 40 articles were identified, predominantly from the Southeast. Prevalence of those published in the Brazilian Journal of Intensive Care and in the Journal of Nursing UFPE online. The B2 Qualis periodical is the most prominent. The most prevalent descriptors were: Intensive Care Units, Burnout Syndrome, Burnout and Professional Exhaustion.
    CONCLUSIONS: Nurses are more interested in publishing this issue. Burnout Syndrome studied in intensive physicians would contribute to identifying its prevalence in these professionals.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9282.65.5.722
  21. J Allied Health. 2019 ;48(2): 88-94
      Although the value of research within schools of allied health professions is widely accepted, its practice is limited, and the means of achieving success is poorly understood. This project aimed to characterize schools that have achieved research success, to explore the activities that allow schools to become successful, and to evaluate the metrics by which research success may be monitored. Using data from the 2016 ASAHP Institutional Survey (n=83 schools) and interviews with leadership at top-funded schools, we examined the relationships between external research funding, publications, and program rank for ASAHP member schools and explored the characteristics of well-funded schools. The hallmarks of success include high and clear expectations of faculty, significant levels of institutional investment in research infrastructure, and protected time for faculty research. Institutional support for publishing, including support for pilot studies, statistical analysis, and writing, may be important first steps in achieving research success. While average program rank is higher among schools with research funding than schools without it, program standing alone is not highly correlated with overall research success among ASAHP member institutions.
  22. Work. 2019 May 28.
       BACKGROUND: In modern society, there is an increase both in the demand and the duration of computer work. Failure to correct body posture while using the computer has become a serious health hazard.
    OBJECTIVE: To identify global trends in research related to body posture and visual display terminals (VDTs) using a bibliometric approach.
    METHODS: In the search process, the keywords (posture  *) AND (computer * OR "visual display terminal") were used in the study title section, in the Wos, Scopus and Medline databases.
    RESULTS: 149 references published between 1970 and 2016 were analyzed. The studied variables were the years of publication, authorship and collaboration index, publication type, titles of journals, most used languages, impact of the publications, as well as content of the articles.
    CONCLUSIONS: In recent years, the studies on body posture in relation to VDT have been increased both in quantity and quality of publications. The analysis and/or design of the workplace, as well as the elements that make up the computer (keyboard and mouse) are the most researched topics in the area.
    Keywords:  Computer; ergonomics; scientific production; workplace
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3233/WOR-192931
  23. Artif Cells Nanomed Biotechnol. 2019 Dec;47(1): 2282-2292
      Objective: The objective of the current study was to identify the 100 top-cited studies in cancer immunotherapy. Materials and methods: A retrospective bibliometric analysis was performed in March 2019. Studies were searched on the Web of Science to identify the 100 top-cited studies in cancer immunotherapy. Studies were identified and analysed for authorship, journal, study type, year of publication and institution. Results: The 100 top-cited papers were cited from 591 to 5332 times and were published between 1986 and 2016. They were published in 27 journals, and New England Journal of Medicine published most of the studies (n = 14), followed by Nature (n = 11) and Journal of Clinical Oncology (n = 10). They were published from 10 countries, and the USA published most of the studies (n = 82), followed by France (n = 5) and Netherlands (n = 3). National Cancer Institute in USA was the leading institution and Rosenberg, SA was the most productive author. Conclusions: This study provides insights into development and most important papers in cancer immunotherapy and will provide evidence for future research in cancer immunotherapy.
    Keywords:  Cancer immunotherapy; bibliometric analysis; citation; citation analysis; top-cited
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1080/21691401.2019.1623234
  24. Glob Ment Health (Camb). 2019 ;6 e6
       Background: By 2030, the global Muslim population is expected to reach 2.2 billion people. The representations of Islam and Muslims in the media and academic literature may unconsciously impact how clinicians perceive and approach their Muslim patients. Our study focuses on the emerging Muslim mental health (MMH) literature using bibliometric analysis, specifically social network analysis of word co-occurrence and co-authorship networks of academic publications, to describe how the content of MMH discourse is evolving.
    Methods: We conducted an Ovid search (including Medline and PsycInfo databases) to identify articles written in English from 2000 to 2015 that had the terms 'Islam' and/or 'Muslim' in the abstract as well as research conducted in Muslim-majority countries and among Muslim minorities in the rest of the world.
    Results: Of the 2652 articles on MMH, the majority (65.6%) focused on describing psychopathology; the minority (11.2%) focused on issues around stigma, religiosity, spirituality, identity, or acculturation. Among the top 15 most frequent terms in abstracts were 'post-traumatic stress disorder', 'violence', 'fear', 'trauma', and 'war'. Social network analysis showed there was little collaborative work across regions.
    Conclusions: The challenges of producing MMH research are similar to the challenges faced across global mental health research. Much of the MMH research reflects regional challenges such as the impact of conflict and violence on mental health. Continued efforts to develop global mental health researchers through cross-cultural exchanges, academic journals' dedicated sections and programs for global mental health recruitment, and online training are needed to address the gap in research and collaborations.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric analysis; Islam; Muslims; mental Health; network analysis
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1017/gmh.2019.3