bims-evares 2019-08-04 papers

bims-evares

Biomed News

on Evaluation of research

Issue of 2019‒08‒04
nineteen papers selected by
Thomas Krichel
Open Library Society

Increasing trend of scientists to switch between topics.
Bowling Together: Scientific Collaboration Networks of Demographers at European Population Conferences.
Assessing publication rate of abstracts presented in spine conferences as a quality benchmark: the example of the Canadian Spine Society Annual Meetings.
The contribution of nursing doctoral schools to the development of evidence 10 years after their establishment in Italy: An exploratory descriptive survey of former and current doctoral students' publications.
Use of the Journal Impact Factor in academic review, promotion, and tenure evaluations.
[Analysis on projects of ethnomedicine and ethnopharmacology funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China from 1986-2018].
Gender Differences in Academic Productivity and Advancement Among Dental School Faculty.
Top-cited articles in medical professionalism: a bibliometric analysis versus altmetric scores.
Keeping up Africa's science momentum.
The influence of first author sex on acceptance rates of submissions to Anaesthesia Cases.
Research in Integrated Health Care and Publication Trends from the Perspective of Global Informatics.
Importance of Authorship and Inappropriate Authorship Assignment in Pediatric Research in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.
Landmarks in Facial Rejuvenation Surgery: The Top 50 Most Cited Articles.
The Current Research Landscape of the Application of Artificial Intelligence in Managing Cerebrovascular and Heart Diseases: A Bibliometric and Content Analysis.
Analysis of Publication Interest on Preterm Birth Over Two Decades.
Research Performance in Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine in Iran: A National Comprehensive Observation.
Commentary on: Levels of Evidence in Plastic Surgery Research: A 10-Year Bibliometric Analysis of 18,889 Publications From 4 Major Journals.
Altmetric Analysis of Contemporary Iranian Medical Journals.
Research on Babesia: A bibliometric assessment of a neglected tick-borne parasite.

Nat Commun. 2019 Jul 31. 10(1): 3439

Increasing trend of scientists to switch between topics.

An Zeng, Zhesi Shen, Jianlin Zhou, Ying Fan, Zengru Di, Yougui Wang, H Eugene Stanley, Shlomo Havlin.

Despite persistent efforts in understanding the creativity of scientists over different career stages, little is known about the underlying dynamics of research topic switching that drives innovation. Here, we analyze the publication records of individual scientists, aiming to quantify their topic switching dynamics and its influence. We find that the co-citing network of papers of a scientist exhibits a clear community structure where each major community represents a research topic. Our analysis suggests that scientists have a narrow distribution of number of topics. However, researchers nowadays switch more frequently between topics than those in the early days. We also find that high switching probability in early career is associated with low overall productivity, yet with high overall productivity in latter career. Interestingly, the average citation per paper, however, is in all career stages negatively correlated with the switching probability. We propose a model that can explain the main observed features.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-11401-8
Eur J Popul. 2019 Jul;35(3): 543-562

Bowling Together: Scientific Collaboration Networks of Demographers at European Population Conferences.

Guy J Abel, Raya Muttarak, Valeria Bordone, Emilio Zagheni.

  Studies of collaborative networks of demographers are relatively scarce. Similar studies in other social sciences provide insight into scholarly trends of both the fields and characteristics of their successful scientists. Exploiting a unique database of metadata for papers presented at six European Population Conferences, this report explores factors explaining research collaboration among demographers. We find that (1) collaboration among demographers has increased over the past 10 years, however, among co-authored papers, collaboration across institutions remains relatively unchanged over the period, (2) papers based on core demographic subfields such as fertility, mortality, migration and data and methods are more likely to involve multiple authors and (3) multiple author teams that are all female are less likely to co-author with colleagues in different institutions. Potential explanations for these results are discussed alongside comparisons with similar studies of collaboration networks in other related social sciences.

Keywords:  Collaboration networks; Demography; Population studies; Scientific collaboration

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-018-9493-1
World Neurosurg. 2019 Jul 26. pii: S1878-8750(19)32052-2. [Epub ahead of print]

Assessing publication rate of abstracts presented in spine conferences as a quality benchmark: the example of the Canadian Spine Society Annual Meetings.

Miguel Bertelli Ramos, Asdrubal Falavigna, Fahad Abduljabbar, Oded Rabau, Catherine E Ferland, Michael H Weber, Jean A Ouellet, Alisson R Teles.

  INTRODUCTION: Publication rate can indirectly assess the quality of research presented in scientific meetings. Considering presentations at orthopedic surgery and neurosurgery meetings, 10.5-66% of abstracts are published in scientific journals. Publication rate of abstracts presented at CSS Meetings is unknown. The objective of this study was to evaluate the publication rate of abstracts presented at the Canadian Spine Society(CSS) Annual Meetings from 2005to2014.METHODS: In October2018, a systematic PubMed search was performed using title and authors of all abstracts presented at CSS Meetings from 2005 to 2014. The following information was retrieved from the articles and abstracts: year, type of presentation, publication in PubMed, time from presentation to final publication, journal and its impact factor(IF).
RESULTS: A total of 621 abstracts were presented at CSS meetings from 2005 to 2014. Publication rate in PubMed was 54.8%(N=340/621). Oral presentations were more likely to be published than poster presentations(63.8%vs44.0%; OR=1.45; CI95%=1.20-1.75; P<0.0001). The mean time from presentation to publication was 1.76 years(±1.93). The 340 identified articles were published in 87 different journals. Most common journals were Spine(N=75; 22.1%), The Spine Journal(N=40;11.8%), and Journal of Neurosurgery:Spine(N=28;8.2%). IF ranged from 0.18 to 47.66(mean=3.73±4.68). IF of articles presented orally were higher than those presented as poster(P=0.038).
CONCLUSIONS: The CSS scientific meeting maintain along the years a steady high quality research presentations as manifested by its significant publication rate(54.8%) in medical journals with mean IF of 3.73. In comparison with other spine scientific meetings, publication rates of abstracts presented at CSS meeting is amongst the highest.

Keywords:  Abstract; Neurosurgery; Orthopedics; PubMed; Publication Rate; Spine

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wneu.2019.07.146
Nurs Open. 2019 Jul;6(3): 745-753

The contribution of nursing doctoral schools to the development of evidence 10 years after their establishment in Italy: An exploratory descriptive survey of former and current doctoral students' publications.

Loredana Sasso, Roger Watson, Michela Barisone, Ramona Pellegrini, Fiona Timmins, Giuseppe Aleo, Valentina Bressan, Monica Bianchi, Lucia Cadorin, Nicoletta Dasso, Dario Valcarenghi, Gianluca Catania, Milko Zanini, Annamaria Bagnasco.

  Aim: To analyse through an exploratory descriptive survey how former and current doctoral students' publications have contributed to the development of evidence between the establishment of the doctoral schools of nursing in 2006-2015.Design: An exploratory descriptive survey.
Methods: We analysed the papers published in peer-reviewed journals by the four Italian PhD Schools of Nursing between 2006-2015. Additional missing information was retrieved from Web of Science.
Results: We identified 478 scientific papers. The papers increased from 12 in 2006-110 in 2015. Most are published in 29 journals, of which 15 had an impact factor ranging between 0.236-3.755. These results show the increasingly significant contribution of nursing doctoral programmes to the production of evidence, which can be used to improve the quality of nursing and inform health policies. Nursing doctoral schools deserve a greater recognition, especially by Italian funding agencies and political institutions.

Keywords:  competencies; decision‐making; doctoral nursing education; nursing research; policy; research knowledge; survey

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1002/nop2.262
Elife. 2019 Jul 31. pii: e47338. [Epub ahead of print]8

Use of the Journal Impact Factor in academic review, promotion, and tenure evaluations.

Erin C McKiernan, Lesley A Schimanski, Carol Muñoz Nieves, Lisa Matthias, Meredith T Niles, Juan P Alperin.

  We analyzed how often and in what ways the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) is currently used in review, promotion, and tenure (RPT) documents of a representative sample of universities from the United States and Canada. 40% of research-intensive institutions and 18% of master's institutions mentioned the JIF, or closely related terms. Of the institutions that mentioned the JIF, 87% supported its use in at least one of their RPT documents, 13% expressed caution about its use, and none heavily criticized it or prohibited its use. Furthermore, 63% of institutions that mentioned the JIF associated the metric with quality, 40% with impact, importance, or significance, and 20% with prestige, reputation, or status. We conclude that use of the JIF is encouraged in RPT evaluations, especially at research-intensive universities, and that there is work to be done to avoid the potential misuse of metrics like the JIF.

Keywords:  academic careers; computational biology; higher education; impact factor; institutional policy; none; scholarly communications; systems biology

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.47338
Zhongguo Zhong Yao Za Zhi. 2019 Jul;44(13): 2886-2892

[Analysis on projects of ethnomedicine and ethnopharmacology funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China from 1986-2018].

Tian-Tian Zhu, Xue-Wei Liu, Li-Wei Han, Feng-Zhu Zhang.

  Through summarizing the applications and funding for research related to ethnomedicine and ethnopharmacology in the department of Health Sciences of the National Natural Science Foundation of China( NSFC) from 1986 to 2018,and analyzing the categories,numbers,funds and research contents of all funded projects including Mongolian,Uygur,Tibetan,Zhuang,Miao,the study is aimed to provide certain reference for the declaration of ethnic medicine project. The results showed that the national medicine project application numbers and the amount of funding growth after 2011 have increased significantly,but the overall level of research remained to be further promoted,and the lack of suitable for the study of ethnic medicine features and ways,has yet to mainland medical universities and research institutions to give more attention and jointly promote the development of basic research in the field of ethnic medicine.

Keywords:  National Natural Science Foundation of China; ethnic medicine; ethnicpharmacy; funded projects

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.19540/j.cnki.cjcmm.20190504.102
J Womens Health (Larchmt). 2019 Aug 02.

Gender Differences in Academic Productivity and Advancement Among Dental School Faculty.

Lisa Simon, Fiorella Candamo, Puhan He, Deepti Shroff Karhade, Yasameen Pirooz, Mary Katherine Spinella, Mindy K Truong, Xuan Wu, R Bruce Donoff.

  Background: An equal number of women and men are now graduating from dental school, but women dentists have lower income and are less likely to achieve positions of leadership, including within dental academia. Materials and Methods: Demographic information and academic rank were obtained for all faculty at the eight dental schools who received the most funding from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research in 2017. Years since dental school graduation, total number of PubMed-indexed citations, first- and last-author publications, and H-index were determined for each faculty member. Gender differences in productivity and advancement were evaluated. Results: Of 702 faculty members, 36.5% were female; only 24.4% of full professors were women. Men had significantly higher numbers of publications (30.2 [95% confidence interval [CI, 28.6-39.5] vs. 20.4 [95% CI 16.3-24.6], p = 0.02) and higher H-index (8.2 [95% CI 7.1-9.1] vs. 4.7 [95% CI 3.9-5.5], p < 0.0001). Women had graduated more recently than their male colleagues at all levels of academic advancement (overall 22.83 years [95% CI 21.29-24.39] vs. 30.19 years [95% CI 28.84-31.55], p < 0.0001). When corrected for academic productivity and years since graduation, the association between gender and academic rank was not significant. Conclusions: Women are underrepresented at each academic rank except instructor; however, women may advance more quickly than their male counterparts. Increasing scholarship and mentorship opportunities for female faculty members may help improve gender equity in dental academia.

Keywords:  academic careers; academic recruitment; dental; faculty; tenure; women faculty

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1089/jwh.2018.7619
BMJ Open. 2019 Jul 31. 9(7): e029433

Top-cited articles in medical professionalism: a bibliometric analysis versus altmetric scores.

Samy A Azer, Sarah Azer.

  INTRODUCTION: Citation counts of articles have been used to measure scientific outcomes and assess suitability for grant applications. However, citation counts are not without limitations. With the rise of social media, altmetric scores may provide an alternative assessment tool.OBJECTIVES: The aims of the study were to assess the characteristics of highly cited articles in medical professionalism and their altmetric scores.
METHODS: The Web of Science was searched for top-cited articles in medical professionalism, and the characteristics of each article were identified. The altmetric database was searched to identify report for each identified article. A model to assess the relationship between the number of citations and each of the key characteristics as well as altmetric scores was developed.
RESULTS: No correlations were found between the number of citations and number of years since publication (p=0.192), number of institutes (p=0.081), number of authors (p=0.270), females in authorship (p=0.150) or number of grants (p=0.384). The altmetric scores varied from 0 to 155, total=806, median=5.0, (IQR=20). Twitter (54%) and Mendeley (62%) were the most popular altmetric resources. No correlation was found between the number of citations and the altmetric scores (p=0.661). However, a correlation was found for articles published in 2007 and after (n=17, p=0.023). To further assess these variables, a model was developed using multivariate analysis; did not show significant differences across subgroups. The topics covered were learning and teaching professionalism, curriculum issues, professional and unprofessional behaviour.
CONCLUSIONS: Altmetric scores of articles were significantly correlated with citations counts for articles published in 2007 and after. Highly cited articles were produced mainly by the USA, Canada and the UK. The study reflects the emerging role of social media in research dissemination. Future studies should investigate the specific features of highly cited articles and factors reinforcing distribution of research data among scholars and non-scholars.

Keywords:  altmetric scores; citation analysis; medical professionalism; professional behaviour; top-cited articles

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-029433
Nature. 2019 Aug;572(7767): 32

Keeping up Africa's science momentum.

Robert B Eiss, Francis S Collins.



Keywords:  Developing world; Funding

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02326-9
Anaesthesia. 2019 Aug 02.

The influence of first author sex on acceptance rates of submissions to Anaesthesia Cases.

H Laycock, C R Bailey.

  More than 50% of medical students and 45% of practising doctors are female in the UK. In the specialty of anaesthesia, 32% of consultants are female. However, compared with males, females are under-represented as authors of articles published in high-impact journals. We investigated the proportion of female first authors by examining the case reports submitted to Anaesthesia Cases since its inception in 2013. We defined authors by their sex (male or female), that is, biological characteristics, rather than their gender. There were a total of 802 submissions to Anaesthesia Cases over 4.5 years. Sixteen submissions were excluded and of the remaining 786 submissions, 279 were accepted and 507 rejected, an acceptance rate of 35.5%. Twenty (2.5%) authors' sex could not be identified. The overall proportion of female first authors was 37.1%. The proportion of female first authors of accepted case reports was 42.1% and females were first authors of rejected case reports in 34.4%. We found that, compared with previous studies on female sex and gender bias in publishing, there was a relatively high proportion of female first authors publishing in Anaesthesia Cases and female first authors were more likely to be accepted than male first authors. Authorship is considered to reflect career success and there continues to be sex/gender inequity that must be tackled at all levels, from application to medical school, through research funding, journals and Editorial Boards.

Keywords:  females; gender; publishing; sex

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/anae.14797
Gesundheitswesen. 2019 Aug 01.

Research in Integrated Health Care and Publication Trends from the Perspective of Global Informatics.

Zhong Li, Liang Zhang, Zijin Pan, Yan Zhang.

BACKGROUND: Integrated care has gained popularity in recent decades and is advocated by the World Health Organization. This study examined the global progress, current foci, and the future of integrated care.METHODS: We conducted a scientometric analysis of data exported from the Web of Science database. Publication number and citations, co-authorship between countries and institutions and cluster analysis were calculated and clustered using Histcite12.03.07 and VOS viewer1.6.4.
RESULTS: We retrieved 6127 articles from 1997 to 2016. We found the following. (1) The United States, United Kingdom, and Canada had the most publications, citations, and productive institutions. (2) The top 10 cited papers and journals were crucial for knowledge distribution. (3) The 50 author keywords were clustered into 6 groups: digital medicine and e-health, community health and chronic disease management, primary health care and mental health, healthcare system for infectious diseases, healthcare reform and qualitative research, and social care and health policy services.
CONCLUSIONS: This paper confirmed that integrated care is undergoing rapid development: more categories are involved and collaborative networks are being established. Various research foci have formed, such as economic incentive mechanisms for integration, e-health data mining, and quantitative studies. There is an urgent need to develop performance measurements for policies and models.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1055/a-0917-6861
Trop Med Int Health. 2019 Aug 02.

Importance of Authorship and Inappropriate Authorship Assignment in Pediatric Research in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.

Chris A Rees, Elizabeth M Keating, Kirk A Dearden, Heather Haq, Jeff A Robison, Peter N Kazembe, Florence T Bourgeois, Michelle Niescierenko.

  OBJECTIVE: To understand the importance of authorship and authorship position, and gauge perceptions of inappropriate authorship assignment, among authors publishing pediatric research conducted in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional, mixed methods study using an online survey of both corresponding and randomly selected, non-corresponding authors who published research conducted in LMICs from 2006 to 2015 in the top four pediatric journals by Eigenfactor score. We used chi-square tests to compare responses by authors living in LMICs to authors living in high-income countries (HICs). We analyzed qualitative responses using thematic analysis.
RESULTS: Of 1,420 potential respondents, 19.6% (n=279) completed the survey. 57% (n=159) lived in LMICs and 43% (n=120) in HICs. LMIC authors more commonly perceived first authorship as most important for their academic advancement than HIC authors (74.2% vs. 60.8%, p=0.017), while HIC authors reported last authorship as most important (25.1% vs. 38.3%, p=0.018). 65% (n=181) of respondents believed that their collaborators had been inappropriately assigned authorship positions (no difference in LMIC and HIC responses) and 32.6% (n=91) reported personally accepting inappropriate authorship positions (more common in HIC respondents, p=0.005). In qualitative data, respondents questioned the applicability of standard authorship guidelines for collaborative research conducted in LMICs.
CONCLUSIONS: LMIC and HIC authors held different perceptions about the importance of authorship position. Reported inappropriate authorship assignment was common among both LMIC and HIC respondents. Alternatives to standard authorship criteria for research conducted in LMICs merit further studies. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Keywords:  authorship; global health; pediatric; perceptions

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/tmi.13295
Aesthet Surg J. 2019 Jul 31. pii: sjz207. [Epub ahead of print]

Landmarks in Facial Rejuvenation Surgery: The Top 50 Most Cited Articles.

Lucas Kreutz-Rodrigues, Daniel Shapiro, Samir Mardini, Karim Bakri.

BACKGROUND: Facial rejuvenation procedures are common procedures in plastic surgery.OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to report the 50 most cited articles in the field of aesthetic facial rejuvenation surgery and to provide a simple educational resource for plastic surgeons.
METHODS: The Web of Science Citation Index was utilized to identify the 50 most cited articles related to surgery for facial rejuvenation published from 1950 to 2019. Articles were classified according to their level of evidence, type of study, country of publication, and topic of interest - facelift, blepharoplasty, brow lift, neck lift or combined areas.
RESULTS: The mean number of citations per article was 137, the majority of articles (n=19) were published between 1990 and 1999. Among the top 50 most cited articles, the most prevalent topic of interest was facelift surgery (n=24), followed by articles that addressed combined procedures (n=13), blepharoplasty (n=6), brow lift (n=4) and neck lift (n=3). Most of the articles were classified as clinical (n=26), followed by basic science studies (n=12), review articles (n=12). Among the articles amenable to grading level of evidence (n=26), the majority of studies (n=24) presented their findings using level IV evidence. The nation of origin for most of the articles (n=41) was the USA.
CONCLUSION: According to the citation index, articles addressing facelift surgery represented the largest proportion of peer-reviewed landmark publications in aesthetic facial surgery research. A simple educational resource is presented to encourage the appreciation of the research in this field.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/asj/sjz207
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019 Jul 29. pii: E2699. [Epub ahead of print]16(15):

The Current Research Landscape of the Application of Artificial Intelligence in Managing Cerebrovascular and Heart Diseases: A Bibliometric and Content Analysis.

Bach Xuan Tran, Carl A Latkin, Giang Thu Vu, Huong Lan Thi Nguyen, Son Nghiem, Ming-Xuan Tan, Zhi-Kai Lim, Cyrus S H Ho, Roger C M Ho.

  The applications of artificial intelligence (AI) in aiding clinical decision-making and management of stroke and heart diseases have become increasingly common in recent years, thanks in part to technological advancements and the heightened interest of the research and medical community. This study aims to provide a comprehensive picture of global trends and developments of AI applications relating to stroke and heart diseases, identifying research gaps and suggesting future directions for research and policy-making. A novel analysis approach that combined bibliometrics analysis with a more complex analysis of abstract content using exploratory factor analysis and Latent Dirichlet allocation, which uncovered emerging research domains and topics, was adopted. Data were extracted from the Web of Science database. Results showed topics with the most compelling growth to be AI for big data analysis, robotic prosthesis, robotics-assisted stroke rehabilitation, and minimally invasive surgery. The study also found an emerging landscape of research that was centered on population-specific and early detection of stroke and heart disease. Application of AI in health behavior tracking and improvement as well as the use of robotics in medical diagnostics and prognostication have also been found to attract significant research attention. In light of these findings, it is suggested that the currently under-researched issues of data management, AI model reliability, as well as validation of its clinical utility, need to be further explored in future research and policy decisions to maximize the benefits of AI applications in stroke and heart diseases.

Keywords:  artificial intelligence; bibliometrics; cerebrovascular; heart diseases; scientometrics

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16152699
Matern Child Health J. 2019 Aug 02.

Analysis of Publication Interest on Preterm Birth Over Two Decades.

Laura Visser, Marjon A de Boer, Christianne J M de Groot.

  INTRODUCTION: Preterm birth (PTB) is one of the greatest challenges in obstetric and children's healthcare. PTB remains the most important cause of perinatal morbidity and mortality worldwide. We studied the number of publications concerning PTB over the last two decades using advanced bibliometric visualization methodology. We put the number of publications in perspective of growing awareness of PTB as a major health problem.METHODS: We analyzed publications over time and performed bibliometric analysis of publications on PTB in the Web of Science from 1997 to 2016. The subjects of publications were visualized using a term map showing the relevant terms occurring in titles and abstracts.
RESULTS: We identified 47,811 publications. The annual number of publications on PTB increased significantly by 443% in 2016 (n = 5027) compared to 1997 (n = 1135). Obstetrics & Gynecology is the leading research field (with 10.4% on the subject PTB in 2016) followed closely by Pediatrics (7.6% on the subject PTB in 2016), within the field Public, Environmental & Occupational Health minimal increase was observed (only 1% was published on the subject PTB in 2016). The publications on PTB have increased at higher rates than the overall increase of publications. In recent years we found more publications on PTB describing epidemiology and clinical characteristics/outcomes whereas in earlier years publications focused more on translational, basic research.
CONCLUSION: A significant increase in research concerning PTB was observed over the last two decades. This increase of publications is in line with the growing global awareness of the need to reduce PTB by clinical research.

Keywords:  Bibliometric analysis; Fourth millennium development goal; Perinatal mortality; Preterm birth; Preterm labour; Publications

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10995-019-02772-x
Arch Iran Med. 2019 Jun 01. 22(6): 318-327

Research Performance in Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine in Iran: A National Comprehensive Observation.

Samaneh Saberi, Razieh Karamzadeh, Parisa Moghadam, Morteza Kadivari, Bahareh Eghbal Behbahani, Zahra Heydari, Hossein Baharvand, Farzaneh Aminpour, Massoud Vosough.

BACKGROUND: Accomplishments in stem cell science and tissue engineering have resulted in a remarkable revolution in the context of future medicine. However, a general insight over the progress of stem cell research in Iran is still lacking. A better understanding of current needs in this field is required to design a better national roadmap.METHODS: In this study, we defined the geographical regions based on the significance of their contribution to stem cell research; then, using the Scopus database, we retrieved reports from Iran and other countries concerning stem cell science and regenerative medicine published from 1994 until the end of 2016.
RESULTS: A significant number of citations belong to North America (6554029 citations equal to 49% of the total citations) and Europe (4425465 citations equal to 33% of the total citations) and the rest of citations were related to Asia (2423352 citations equal to 18% of the total citations). East Asian (2168472 citations equal to 76% of the total citations related to Asia) documents were cited more than those from the Middle East (ME) (494141 citations equal to 17% of the total citations related to Asia) and North and Central Asia (196382 citations equal to 7% of the total citations related to Asia). Iran as a country in the ME attracted 17% of the total citations related to the Asian countries winning the second position in this regard. The overview of total number of citations showed a sharp increase and upward trend in citation numbers for all the Iranian institutes from 2007 that resulted in the expansion of stem cell science in all major cities of Iran such as Shiraz (8%), Mashhad (5%), Isfahan (5%) and Ahvaz (5%). H-index of Tehran University of Medical Science, which has the highest total citations and document numbers, is the highest among all Iranian research institutes. Citation per paper of Royan Institute (RI) is the highest among the top 10 Iranian institutes, by 13 citations per paper.
CONCLUSION: Stem cell research in Iran is rapidly developing. Since 2007, the number of published documents in major research institutes increased; thus, there is necessity for analysis of the status of publications in this field and choosing a better direction based on needs. Furthermore, it is necessary to expand and organize international collaborations to enrich our research and benefit from different team experiences.

Keywords: Bibliometrics; Iran; Regenerative Medicine; Research Assessment; Scientometrics; Stem Cells
Aesthet Surg J. 2019 Aug 03. pii: sjz175. [Epub ahead of print]

Commentary on: Levels of Evidence in Plastic Surgery Research: A 10-Year Bibliometric Analysis of 18,889 Publications From 4 Major Journals.

Achilleas Thoma, Jessica Murphy.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/asj/sjz175
Int J Prev Med. 2019 ;10 112

Altmetric Analysis of Contemporary Iranian Medical Journals.

Jafar Kolahi, Saber Khazaei, Elham Bidram, Roya Kelishadi.

  Background: Altmetrics is a newly emerging scholarly tool measuring online attention surrounding scientific research outputs. With respect to increasing demand of disseminating research findings on the World Wide Web, this study aims to analyze the altmetric statues of Iranian medical journals.Methods: On February 27, 2019, the list of Iranian medical journals extracted from http://journals.research.ac.ir/ and consequently altmetric data token out from Altmetric database (Altmetric LLP, London, UK). The science mapping done via keyword co-occurrence, co-citation and co-authorship, network analysis using the VOSviewer. The Pearson coefficient was then employed for the correlation analysis using R.
Results: Among a total of 104 journals, 7518 articles were mentioned in Altmetric data resources (Mean: 72.28, Confidence Level (95.0%): 16.8), total mentions were 27577 (Mean: 265.16, Confidence Level (95.0%): 79.9). Considering the total mentions of articles, International Journal of Preventive Medicine achieved the first rank, followed by Journal of Research in Medical Sciences and Iranian Journal of Public Health. Notably, Twitter was the most popular altmetric resource followed by Facebook and news outlets. Tweets were generally from the United States and United Kingdom. Among top 5% popular Iranian medical articles multiple sclerosis, cancer, and anxiety was hot topics.
Conclusions: Iranian biomedical journal editors and research scientists needs to be more dynamic in World Wide Web using social media, post-publication peer review tools, Stack Exchange (Q and A) sites, research highlight tools, Wikipedia, and etc. In spite, more attention to the concept of evidence-based policymaking, by Iranian government along with the health policymakers seems necessary.

Keywords:  Altmetrics; Facebook; Iran; Twitter; medical journal; social media

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.4103/ijpvm.IJPVM_134_19
F1000Res. 2018 ;7 1987

Research on Babesia: A bibliometric assessment of a neglected tick-borne parasite.

Alfonso J Rodriguez-Morales, D Katterine Bonilla-Aldana, Juan Pablo Escalera-Antezana, Lucia Elena Alvarado-Arnez.

  Given the emergence and reemergence of tick-borne diseases, here we assessed the publishing patterns of research focused on Babesia. We also discuss the implications for the articles published in the last decade, and how more clinical and epidemiological information concerning Babesia is still required. The findings of this article would be useful to define research priorities about Babesia and diagnose the important of scientific production on this pathogen.

Keywords:  Babesia; bibliometric; epidemiology; public health; tick-borne disease

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.17581.1