bims-evares Biomed News
on Evaluation of research
Issue of 2019–12–22
29 papers selected by
Thomas Krichel, Open Library Society



  1. Oral Dis. 2019 Dec 17.
       OBJECTIVES: To study whether specific recommendations aimed at reducing avoidable research waste were included in the author instructions of leading dental journals.
    METHOD: We identified 109 peer-reviewed and original research-oriented dental journals that were indexed in the MEDLINE and/or SCIE database in 2018. Two authors extracted independently information regarding the endorsement of reporting guidelines (RGs), ICMJE recommendations, trial or systematic review registration, as well as open access (OA) and data sharing policies.
    RESULT: All 109 journals provided online "instructions to authors", among which 64 journals (58.7%) mentioned RGs. The ICMJE recommendations were endorsed by 74 journals (67.9%), trial and systematic review registration were mentioned by 48 (44.0%) and 6 (5.5%) of the journals, respectively. In terms of open access, most journals stated they were Hybrid OA (82.0 %), Direct OA (15.4%); while data sharing policy was recommended by 32 (29.4%) journals. Statistical analyses suggest that these policies were more frequently mentioned by SCIE-indexed journals, higher-impact journals, and journals that endorsed the ICMJE recommendations.
    CONCLUSION: Reporting guidelines, OA and data sharing are important tools for enhancing research communication, translation and the reduction of avoidable research waste. However, currently they are not widely endorsed by dental journals.
    Keywords:  avoidable research waste; data sharing; open access; reporting guideline
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/odi.13257
  2. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2019 Nov 09. pii: S0022-5223(19)32489-4. [Epub ahead of print]
       BACKGROUND: Honorary authorship (HA) refers to enlisted authors who did not make sufficient contributions to a paper according to the guidelines, as defined by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). This study assessed the proportion of, and factors associated with, HA in cardiothoracic surgical literature in 2017.
    METHODS: Five cardiothoracic surgery journals were selected based on their impact factors in 2017 for evaluation of HA. Articles were included in the analysis if there was more than 1 listed author and if there was an available E-mail address of the corresponding author. All corresponding authors received an invitation to fill out our survey regarding their paper in 2017.
    RESULTS: In total, 1511 authors opened the invitation, resulting in a total of 590 respondents (28.9%); 77.1% of all authors were aware of the ICMJE guidelines and 47.0% were aware of the general issue of HA. A total of 367 (62.7%) authors stated that at least one of the coauthors had performed solely nonauthorship tasks, whereas 148 (25.3%) authors stated that they believed that their article contained at least one honorary author. Having a senior member who was automatically included on all submitted manuscripts and not being aware of the general issue of HA were associated with significantly greater odds of having HA.
    CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that, despite the high awareness of the ICMJE guidelines, there is a large discrepancy in perceived HA and guideline-based HA. The authors plead for a better understanding and implementation of the guidelines in a more transparent authorship system.
    Keywords:  ICMJE guidelines; authorship; honorary
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtcvs.2019.10.104
  3. Contraception. 2019 Dec 16. pii: S0010-7824(19)30483-4. [Epub ahead of print]
      The Society of Family Planning Research Fund (SFPRF) provides grants for research on abortion and contraception. In 2017, SFPRF conducted a retrospective evaluation of its investment in family planning research. Using a developmental evaluation approach, we created a framework for assessing research impact in family planning and applied it to an analysis of our grantmaking between 2007 and 2017. Our framework consists of 30 indicators of research impact, which span nine impact categories from building researchers' capacity to influencing individuals, communities, and systems. Through application of this framework to our grantmaking, we learned that our grantmaking has helped build the research capacity of emerging and established family planning scholars and advance the field of family planning by supporting the creation of a robust scholarly evidence base. At the same time, we identified less evidence of impact on policy and practice. The results of this analysis directed SFPRF towards more focused funding opportunities, including longer-term and larger investments, and to prioritize partnerships between researchers and knowledge brokers.
    Keywords:  abortion; contraception; evaluation; family planning; grantmaking; research impact
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.contraception.2019.11.007
  4. Medicina (Kaunas). 2019 Dec 15. pii: E785. [Epub ahead of print]55(12):
      Background and Objectives: Nanomedicine, a term coined by the American engineer Eric Drexler (1955) and Robert Freitas Jr. (1952) in the nineties, can be defined as a complex, multi-disciplinary branch of medicine, in which nano-technologies, molecular biotechnologies, and other nano-sciences are applied at every step of disease management, from diagnosis (nano-diagnostics) to treatment (nano-therapeutics), prognosis, and monitoring of biological parameters and biomarkers. Nanomedicine is a relatively young discipline, which is increasingly and exponentially growing, characterized by emerging ethical issues and implications. Nanomedicine has branched out in hundreds of different sub-fields. Materials and Methods: A bibliometrics-based analysis was applied mining the entire content of PubMed/MEDLINE, using "nanomedicine" as a Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) search term. Results: A sample of 6696 articles were extracted from PubMed/MEDLINE and analyzed. Articles had been published in the period from 2003 to 2019, showing an increasing trend throughout the time. Six thematic clusters emerged (first cluster: molecular methods; second cluster: molecular biology and nano-characterization; third cluster: nano-diagnostics and nano-theranostics; fourth cluster: clinical applications, in the sub-fields of nano-oncology, nano-immunology and nano-vaccinology; fifth cluster: clinical applications, in the sub-fields of nano-oncology and nano-infectiology; and sixth cluster: nanodrugs). The countries with the highest percentages of articles in the field of nanomedicine were the North America (38.3%) and Europe (35.1%). Conclusions: The present study showed that there is an increasing trend in publishing and performing research in the super-specialty of nanomedicine. Most productive countries were the USA and European countries, with China as an emerging region. Hot topics in the last years were nano-diagnostics and nano-theranostics and clinical applications in the sub-fields of nano-oncology and nano-infectiology.
    Keywords:  bibliometrics; nanomedicine; scientometrics
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3390/medicina55120785
  5. BMJ. 2019 12 16. 367 l6573
       OBJECTIVES: Women remain underrepresented on faculties of medicine and the life sciences more broadly. Whether gender differences in self presentation of clinical research exist and may contribute to this gender gap has been challenging to explore empirically. The objective of this study was to analyze whether men and women differ in how positively they frame their research findings and to analyze whether the positive framing of research is associated with higher downstream citations.
    DESIGN: Retrospective observational study.
    DATA SOURCES: Titles and abstracts from 101 720 clinical research articles and approximately 6.2 million general life science articles indexed in PubMed and published between 2002 and 2017.
    MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Analysis of article titles and abstracts to determine whether men and women differ in how positively they present their research through use of terms such as "novel" or "excellent." For a set of 25 positive terms, we estimated the relative probability of positive framing as a function of the gender composition of the first and last authors, adjusting for scientific journal, year of publication, journal impact, and scientific field.
    RESULTS: Articles in which both the first and last author were women used at least one of the 25 positive terms in 10.9% of titles or abstracts versus 12.2% for articles involving a male first or last author, corresponding to a 12.3% relative difference (95% CI 5.7% to 18.9%). Gender differences in positive presentation were greatest in high impact clinical journals (impact factor >10), in which women were 21.4% less likely to present research positively. Across all clinical journals, positive presentation was associated with 9.4% (6.6% to 12.2%) higher subsequent citations, and in high impact clinical journals 13.0% (9.5% to 16.5%) higher citations. Results were similar when broadened to general life science articles published in journals indexed by PubMed, suggesting that gender differences in positive word use generalize to broader samples.
    CONCLUSIONS: Clinical articles involving a male first or last author were more likely to present research findings positively in titles and abstracts compared with articles in which both the first and last author were women, particularly in the highest impact journals. Positive presentation of research findings was associated with higher downstream citations.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l6573
  6. Am J Nephrol. 2019 Dec 13. 1-13
       BACKGROUND: Nephrology research is expanding, and harnessing the much-needed information and data for the practice of evidence-based medicine is becoming more challenging. In this study, we used the natural language processing and text mining approach to mitigate some of these challenges.
    METHODS: We analyzed 17,412 abstracts from the top-10 nephrology journals over 10 years (2007-2017) by using latent semantic analysis and topic analysis.
    RESULTS: The analyses revealed 10 distinct topics (T) for nephrology research ranging from basic science studies, using animal modeling (T-1), to dialysis vascular access-related issues -(T-10). The trend analyses indicated that while the majority of topics stayed relatively stable, some of the research topics experienced increasing popularity over time such as studies focusing on mortality and survival (T-4) and Patient-related Outcomes and Perspectives of Clinicians (T-5). However, some research topics such as studies focusing on animal modeling (T-1), predictors of acute kidney injury, and dialysis access (T-10) exhibited a downward trend.
    CONCLUSION: Stakeholders of nephrology research may use these trends further to develop priorities and enrich the research agenda for the future.
    Keywords:  Kidney; Nephrology; Text mining; Themes; Trends
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1159/000504871
  7. PLoS One. 2019 ;14(12): e0225883
      This study estimates the effect of data sharing on the citations of academic articles, using journal policies as a natural experiment. We begin by examining 17 high-impact journals that have adopted the requirement that data from published articles be publicly posted. We match these 17 journals to 13 journals without policy changes and find that empirical articles published just before their change in editorial policy have citation rates with no statistically significant difference from those published shortly after the shift. We then ask whether this null result stems from poor compliance with data sharing policies, and use the data sharing policy changes as instrumental variables to examine more closely two leading journals in economics and political science with relatively strong enforcement of new data policies. We find that articles that make their data available receive 97 additional citations (estimate standard error of 34). We conclude that: a) authors who share data may be rewarded eventually with additional scholarly citations, and b) data-posting policies alone do not increase the impact of articles published in a journal unless those policies are enforced.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0225883
  8. Brain Res Bull. 2019 Dec 13. pii: S0361-9230(19)30935-9. [Epub ahead of print]
      Cerebral ischemia-reperfusion (IR) has attracted wide attention as a serious clinical problem. So far, the field has accumulated a large amount of scientific research literature. To clarify the temporal and spatial distribution characteristics of research resources, knowledge bases and research focuses, a visual analysis was performed on 5814 articles cited in the WoS databases from 2004 to 2019. This analysis was based on bibliometrics and mapping knowledge domain (MKD) analysis with VOSviewer, and CiteSpace 5.4.R4. The results can be elaborated from four aspects. First, the volume of publications in this area is on the rise. Second, the United States and China are the active regions. The USA is the central region of cerebral ischemia-reperfusion research. Third, the knowledge bases of IR have focused on five major areas of "Suitable small-animal models", "A framework with further study", "Molecular signaling targets by oxidative stress", "Finding new potential targets for therapy" and "Protective effect of multiple transient ischemia". Fourth, the research focuses consist of three representative areas: "Oxidative stress closelyd with cerebral ischemia-reperfusion", "Neuronal apoptosis and neuronal protection", and "Neuroprotective effect of the blood-brain barrier".
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; Cerebral ischemia-reperfusion; CiteSpace; Mapping knowledge domain; VOSviewer; Visualization
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainresbull.2019.12.004
  9. J Surg Educ. 2019 Dec 16. pii: S1931-7204(19)30854-2. [Epub ahead of print]
       OBJECTIVE: As the competitiveness of matching to an orthopedic residency continues to increase, applicants attempt to bolster their application by participating in research activities. However, due to the brief duration of medical school, applicants' articles may not be published at the time of applying. The purpose of this study was to identify projects that were listed under "publications-other than published" within Electronic Residency Application System (ERAS) applications of prospective orthopedic surgery residents to determine the rate and time of these projects to future publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Program directors can use this information to help interpret the importance of such articles on the applications of future residency candidates.
    DESIGN: Retrospective study of prospective residents' applications to a single orthopedic residency program during the 2014 to 2015 application cycle were reviewed to identify articles designated as "other than published." Articles which advanced to official publication were confirmed using the Embase, PubMed, and Google Scholar databases. Applicant and article characteristics were recorded to identify variables associated with an increased proportion of articles that were able to be confirmed.
    PARTICIPANTS: Prospective residents to a single orthopedic residency program during the 2014 to 2015 application cycle.
    RESULTS: A total of 1957 article titles were listed amongst 563 applicants, with 48% of applicants (n = 271) having at least one peer-reviewed article listed as "other than published." Overall, 34.2% (709) of the articles were designated as being unpublished including 208 listed as accepted/in-press and 501 listed as submitted/under review. Of the accepted/in-press articles, 90.7% (n = 189) were able to be confirmed as successfully published papers, compared to 63.4% (n = 318) of articles designated as submitted/under review (p < 0.001). Factors predictive of articles which advanced to official publication were being accepted/in-press at the time of applying, a lower United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) Step 1 score, and articles on orthopedic topics.
    CONCLUSIONS: Nearly one-half of orthopedic residency applicants report unpublished research articles on their ERAS application. While 90.7% of the articles listed as being accepted/ in press were eventually published, less than two-thirds of the articles designated as being in submission/under-review progressed to official publication.
    Keywords:  ERAS; Interpersonal and Communication Skills; Practice-Based Learning and Improvement; Systems-Based Practice; application; orthopedics; publication; research; residency
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsurg.2019.11.005
  10. Reprod Biomed Online. 2019 Oct 30. pii: S1472-6483(19)30789-8. [Epub ahead of print]
       RESEARCH QUESTION: What are the current research trends in human assisted reproduction around the world?
    DESIGN: An analysis of 26,000+ scientific publications (articles, letters and reviews) produced worldwide between 2005 and 2016. The corpus of publications indexed in PubMed was obtained by combining the Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) terms: 'Reproductive techniques', 'Reproductive medicine', 'Reproductive health', 'Fertility', 'Infertility' and 'Germ cells'. An analysis was then carried out using text mining algorithms to obtain the main topics of interest.
    RESULTS: A total of 44 main topics were identified, which were then further grouped into 11 categories: 'Laboratory techniques', 'Male factor', 'Quality of ART, ethics and law', 'Female factor', 'Public health and infectious diseases', 'Basic research and genetics', 'Pregnancy complications and risks', 'General - infertility & ART', 'Psychosocial aspects', 'Cancer' and 'Research methodology'. The USA was the leading country in terms of number of publications, followed by the UK, China and France. Research content in high-income countries is fairly homogeneous across categories and it is dominated by 'Laboratory techniques' in Western-Southern Europe, and by 'Quality of ART, ethics and law' in North America, Australia and New Zealand. 'Laboratory techniques' is also the most abundant category on a yearly basis.
    CONCLUSIONS: This study identifies the current hot topics on human assisted reproduction worldwide and their temporal trends for 2005-2016. This provides an innovative picture of the current research that could help explore the areas where further research is needed.
    Keywords:  Assisted reproduction; IVF; Latent Dirichlet allocation; Temporal trends; Text mining; Topic modelling
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rbmo.2019.10.013
  11. J Med Internet Res. 2019 Dec 19. 21(12): e10477
       BACKGROUND: Digital health has become an advancing phenomenon in the health care systems of modern societies. Over the past two decades, various digital health options, technologies, and innovations have been introduced; many of them are still being investigated and evaluated by researchers all around the globe. However, the actual trends and visibility of peer-reviewed publications using "digital health" as a keyword to reflect the topic, published by major relevant journals, still remain to be quantified.
    OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to conduct a bibliographic-bibliometric analysis on articles published in JMIR Publications journals that used "digital health" as a keyword. We evaluated the trends, topics, and citations of these research publications to identify the important share and contribution of JMIR Publications journals in publishing articles on digital health.
    METHODS: All JMIR Publications journals were searched to find articles in English, published between January 2000 and August 2019, in which the authors focused on, utilized, or discussed digital health in their study and used "digital health" as a keyword. In addition, a bibliographic-bibliometric analysis was conducted using the freely available Profiles Research Networking Software by the Harvard Clinical and Translational Science Center.
    RESULTS: Out of 1797 articles having "digital health" as a keyword, published mostly between 2016 and 2019, 277 articles (32.3%) were published by JMIR Publications journals, mainly in the Journal of Medical Internet Research. The most frequently used keyword for the topic was "mHealth." The average number of times an article had been cited, including self-citations, was above 2.8.
    CONCLUSIONS: The reflection of "digital health" as a keyword in JMIR Publications journals has increased noticeably over the past few years. To maintain this momentum, more regular bibliographic and bibliometric analyses will be needed. This would encourage authors to consider publishing their articles in relevant, high-visibility journals and help these journals expand their supportive publication policies and become more inclusive of digital health.
    Keywords:  JMIR Publications; bibliometrics; review literature; telemedicine
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.2196/10477
  12. Einstein (Sao Paulo). 2020 ;pii: S1679-45082020000100223. [Epub ahead of print]18 eAO5043
       OBJECTIVE: To analyze the technical-scientific production of research productivity fellows of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, in Pediatrics, from 2013 to 2016.
    METHODS: First, data were obtained identifying fellowship researchers using the Lattes Platform, and subsequently calculating the indicators present in their Lattes curricula using scriptLattes software v8.10.
    RESULTS: In the period studied, 17 fellowship researchers were identified. They published a total of 524 articles in journals, most of them ranked as high and intermediate Qualis. In addition, fellowship researchers conducted 158 supervisions during the period, published 119 books or chapters and 465 papers in conference proceedings.
    CONCLUSION: The Brazilian scientific production in Pediatrics has shown to be significant and of good impact, both nationally and internationally. However, the distribution of research groups is concentrated in specific regions of Brazil.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.31744/einstein_journal/2020AO5043
  13. J Med Educ Curric Dev. 2019 Jan-Dec;6:6 2382120519893976
       Objective: To evaluate whether the standardized letter of recommendation (SLOR), commonly used for medical students applying to otolaryngology residency, correlates with objective data in the application.
    Background: Standardized letters of recommendation using Likert-type scales for different attributes are commonly used by evaluators because of their high interrater reliability and efficiency in preparation and interpretation. Given that these are subjectively scored, it is unknown how well these correlate with objective data.
    Methods: Applications to the University of Cincinnati otolaryngology residency were evaluated in the academic cycle of 2017-2018. Standardized letters of recommendation were scored to determine whether certain attributes were correlated with objective data (United States Medical Licensing Examination [USMLE] scores and number of presentations/publications) provided in their application. Spearman correlations were used to evaluate the strength of the relationship between the subjective score in certain attributes with objective data.
    Results: There were 217 applications to the University of Cincinnati that contained SLORs. Of these applications, 474 standardized letters were scored in categories of medical knowledge, research, and commitment to academic medicine. Total publications and presentations were weakly correlated with commitment to academic medicine (0.35, P < .0001, n = 369) and with research (0.44, P < .0001, n = 355). Medical knowledge was weakly correlated with Step 1 scores (0.20, P < .0001) and Step 2 scores (0.18, P = .0002).
    Conclusions: Subjective research and commitment to academic medicine rating scores were weakly correlated with greater academic productivity. Similarly, medical knowledge scores were weakly correlated with Step 1/2 scores. Further research may be needed to assess how to interpret SLOR scores in addition to the information available in an otolaryngology application.
    Level of Evidence: 4.
    Keywords:  LOR; Standardized letters of recommendations; otolaryngology residency
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1177/2382120519893976
  14. Schizophr Res. 2019 Dec 17. pii: S0920-9964(19)30493-1. [Epub ahead of print]
      In order to improve individual research achievements (IRA), this study investigates which affiliated countries and authors earn the most cited IRAs and whether those types of articles are associated with the number of cited papers on schizophrenia from a leading journal in the field. The Kano model was used for displaying the IRAs. Clusters of medical subject headings (MeSH) were applied to explore the core concepts of a given journal. This study aimed to apply social network analysis (SNA) and an authorship-weighted scheme (AWS) to inspect the association between MeSH terms and IRA. About 2,008 abstracts published between 2012 and 2016 in the journal Schizophrenia Research were downloaded from Pubmed Central using the keyword (Schizophr Res)[Journal] on September 20, 2018. The MeSH terms were clustered by using SNA to separate the core concepts and compare the differences in bibliometric indices (i.e., h, Ag, x and author impact factor or AIF). Visual dashboards were shown on Google Maps. Results indicate that (1) the US, the UK, and Canada earn the highest x-index; (2) the top one author from the US has the highest x-index (= 5.73 with x-core at cited = 16.44 and citable = 2); (3) the article type of schizophrenic psychology shows distinctly higher frequencies than others; and (4) article types are associated with the number of cited papers. Four approaches of the Kano model, SNA, MeSH terms, and AWS can be accommodated to display IRAs, classify article types, and quantify coauthor contributions in the article byline, respectively, and applied to other scientific disciplines in the future, not just in this specific journal.
    Keywords:  Authorship-weighted scheme; Google maps; Individual academic achievement; Pubmed central; Schizophrenia; Social network analysis
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.schres.2019.10.058
  15. Eur J Orthop Surg Traumatol. 2019 Dec 20.
       BACKGROUND: The impact factor (IF) is the most commonly used bibliometric method for rating academic journals. However, the practice of journals' self-citation may artificially elevate the IF. Additional bibliometric methods including Eigenfactor scale, SCImago Journal Ranking (SJR), and corrected IF (cIF) have been created. Comparing general-interest and specialized orthopaedic journals, the aims of this study were to assess: (1) the effect of journal´s self-citation on IF; (2) differences in bibliometric analysis; and (3) to determine thresholds for monitoring self-citation practices by defining the self-citation in orthopaedic research (SCOR) Threshold.
    METHODS: The journal citation reports and SCImago Journal and Country Rank databases were queried for orthopaedic journals from 1997 to 2017. The following bibliometrics were compared between general-interest and specialized journals: IF, cIF, Eigenfactor, self-citation rates, and SJR. A novel metric, the cIF ratio, was proposed to represent the relationship between a journal's IF and cIF. Thresholds for cIF were based on statistical outliers of cIF ratio within general-interest and specialized journals were calculated. Outliers were defined as data points that were greater than the third quartile by 1.5 times the interquartile range using the last 10 years studied (2007-2017).
    RESULTS: Specialized orthopaedic journals had a higher median self-citation rates compared to general-interest journals (11.85% vs. 6.36%, p < 0.001). Overall, cIF ratio declined over study period, and general-interest journals had a lower cIF ratio than specialized journals (8.77% vs. 19.54%, p < 0.001). Overall, general-interest journals had more favourable values for the bibliometric indices studied compared to specialized journals The SCOR threshold for cIF ratio was determined as 25.4% for general-interest journals and 53.3% for specialized journals.
    CONCLUSION: Overall, self-citation occurs at a higher rate in specialized versus general-interest orthopaedic journals. We propose the use of a cIF ratio along with the SCOR threshold as a tool to evaluate and monitor journal self-citation practices in orthopaedic research.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; Ethics; Journal Impact factor; Orthopedics; Publishing; Self-citation
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s00590-019-02616-y
  16. J Oral Maxillofac Surg. 2019 Nov 20. pii: S0278-2391(19)31331-X. [Epub ahead of print]
       PURPOSE: We assessed the factors in reported oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMS) studies associated with the number of citations.
    MATERIALS AND METHODS: We identified all primary research studies reported from 1998 to 2008 in the International Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Journal of Oral Maxillofacial Surgery (JOMS), British Journal of Oral Maxillofacial Surgery (BJOMS), and Journal of Craniomaxillofacial Surgery. Of the identified studies, 66 had obtained only 0 to 3 citations in the 10 years after publication. We compared these lowest cited reports with the 66 highest cited reports. The characteristics of the lowest and highest cited studies were compared using bivariate analysis. Logistic regression analysis using generalized estimating equations was conducted to examine the association between the selected article-, author-, and journal-level characteristics and high citations.
    RESULTS: On the initial bivariate analysis, highly cited studies were associated with greater abstract and manuscript word counts (P < .0001), manuscript pages (P < .0001), figures (P = .0482), sample sizes (P = .0149), and references (P < .0001). They were also more likely to have reported a significant result (P = .0202), been published in JOMS (P = .0405), and covered topics such as dentoalveolar/implantology and trauma/reconstruction (P = .0002). Lowly cited articles were more likely to have been published in BJOMS (P = .0405) and addressed topics unrelated to core OMS procedures (P = .0002). The H-indexes of the first and corresponding authors were greater in the high-citation group (P < .0001). After multivariate analysis, a greater number of manuscript pages (P = .0015) and classification as dentoalveolar/implantology (P = .0017) or trauma/reconstruction (P = .0368) had greater odds of high citations. In addition, a higher H-index for the first author made it more likely to be in the high-citation group (P = .0397).
    CONCLUSIONS: Relatively few studies in the OMS literature failed to produce citations in the 10 years after publication, indicating that most studies accepted for publication provide meaningful contributions. Significant differences were found between the highest and lowest cited publications, suggesting that study design and article structure might influence the articles' audience and effect.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joms.2019.11.004
  17. Accid Anal Prev. 2019 Dec 12. pii: S0001-4575(19)30410-5. [Epub ahead of print]135 105387
      The objective of this paper is to examine the safety climate knowledge epistemology using bibliometric and systematic literature network analysis. For this purpose, bibliometric information of research article published on safety climate topic was retrieved from Scopus databases. In total, 494 articles published between 1980 and 2018 were retrieved. These articles cover 1373 authors, 203 journals and 2511 keywords. Information collected was analyzed employing bibliometric and network analysis approach using an open source computer program R and VOSviewer. The main findings of the study reveal the publication trends in safety climate literature since 1980 to present, identifies most productive authors, and most influential research work. Our findings suggest that Haung and Zohar are the top publishing authors in safety climate domain. Zohar's work has the highest citations. The most influential articles have been published in Journals such as Accident Analysis and Prevention, Journal of Applied Psychology, Safety Science and Journal of Safety Research. Network analysis of these articles yielded co-citation networks of most influential works, bibliographical coupling network and keywords co-occurrence network. These networks yielded the structure of safety climate knowledge. Findings of our research have theoretical and practical implications in the area of safety climate.
    Keywords:  Accident analysis and prevention; Bibliometric analysis; Keywords co-occurrence network; Safety climate; Systematic literature network analysis co-citation networks
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2019.105387
  18. Einstein (Sao Paulo). 2020 ;pii: S1679-45082020000100219. [Epub ahead of print]18 eAO4723
       OBJECTIVE: To identify interventions aimed to improve adherence to medical and non-medical antihypertensive and antidiabetic therapy.
    METHODS: Scientometric study conducted in February and March 2018, based on data collected on PubMed ® and SciELO databases, using the following search terms: "interventions to improve adherence to diabetes therapy", "interventions to improve adherence to hypertension therapy" and "interventions to improve adherence to therapy for hypertension and diabetes".
    RESULTS: A total of 95 articles were selected. Scientific production increased as of 2009, with a higher number of studies published between 2015 and 2017. Most interventions described in literature were aimed at diabetic patients (46.31%). Face-to-face interventions were more common (46.31%), followed by telephone-based (31.58%) and digital (26.31%) interventions. North America stood out as the continent with the highest number of publications (68.42%), followed by Europe (14.74%). Most studies (63.16%) were based on a single type of intervention.
    CONCLUSION: Traditional intervention methods were more widely used to promote adherence to antihypertensive and antidiabetic therapy; digital technology emerged as a trend in interventions aimed to improve hypertension and diabetes-related health behaviors.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.31744/einstein_journal/2020AO4723
  19. J Eval Clin Pract. 2019 Dec 17.
       RATIONALE, AIMS, AND OBJECTIVES: Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) is a valuable reliability management tool that can preemptively identify the potential failures of a system and assess their causes and effects, thereby preventing them from occurring. The use of FMEA in the healthcare setting has become increasingly popular over the last decade, being applied to a multitude of different areas. The objective of this study is to review comprehensively the literature regarding the application of FMEA for healthcare risk analysis.
    METHODS: An extensive search was carried out in the scholarly databases of Scopus and PubMed, and we only chose the academic articles which used the FMEA technique to solve healthcare risk analysis problems. Furthermore, a bibliometric analysis was performed based on the number of citations, publication year, appeared journals, authors, and country of origin.
    RESULTS: A total of 158 journal papers published over the period of 1998 to 2018 were extracted and reviewed. These publications were classified into four categories (ie, healthcare process, hospital management, hospital informatization, and medical equipment and production) according to the healthcare issues to be solved, and analyzed regarding the application fields and the utilized FMEA methods.
    CONCLUSION: FMEA has high practicality for healthcare quality improvement and error reduction and has been prevalently employed to improve healthcare processes in hospitals. This research supports academics and practitioners in effectively adopting the FMEA tool to proactively reduce healthcare risks and increase patient safety, and provides an insight into its state-of-the-art.
    Keywords:  failure mode and effects analysis; healthcare risk analysis; literature review; reliability management
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/jep.13317
  20. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2019 Dec 14.
      Biochar has been paid great attentions during the last two decades, because of its resources potentials and environmental benefits. A bibliometric analysis was applied to assess the publications regarding the keyword biochar from the Web of Science database during the period of 1999 to 2018. A total of 8629 publications were obtained with a rapid increase of annual citations and number of papers. The research topics were diversified, which were mainly divided into "Environmental Sciences and Ecology," "Agriculture," and "Engineering." Bioresource Technology was the journal which published most of the relevant papers. China ranked first in the number of published papers, followed by the USA, Australia, UK, and Germany. Especially, China established close collaboration with the USA in joint publication. Analysis of the keywords indicated that biochar production, comparative sorption, soil-applied black carbon, and soil management were the main research hotspots of biochar. The burst detection reflected that the innovation of biochar production and the new application field of biochar was the future research trends. These results can provide insight into the research progress regarding biochar.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric; Biochar; Hotspots; Research trend
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-06870-9
  21. Acta Dermatovenerol Alp Pannonica Adriat. 2019 Dec;28(4): 153-157
       INTRODUCTION: Journal bibliometric indicators are useful tools in assessing the characteristics, development history, and future trending of a particular medical journal. Moreover, they can help potential authors when deciding which journal to submit their work to in order to achieve the highest visibility.
    METHODS: A single journal study of the medical journal Acta Dermatovenerologica Alpina, Pannonica et Adriatica (ADAPA) from January 1994 to July 2019 was performed. The corpus was harvested from the bibliographical database Scopus (Elsevier, Netherlands) for the period between 1994 and 2019 (inclusive), and the bibliometric analysis was performed using Scopus built-in services and MS Excel (Microsoft, USA). The historical, cooperation, and hot topic analysis was performed on scientific landscapes induced by VOSviewer software (Leiden University, Netherlands).
    RESULTS: From 1994 to 2019, a total of 759 publications were published in ADAPA. The trend in the number of publications has varied; it increased somewhat until 2009, then decreased until 2015, when the number of articles began to rise again, reaching a peak in 2018 (46 articles annually). A small decline in source normalized impact per paper (SNIP) was observed from 1.2 in 2010 to 0.46 in 2018. Slovenia ranked first (n = 210) in the number of publications among 55 countries. Authors from 44 out of 55 countries published their articles through co-authorships.
    CONCLUSIONS: Whereas it was initially considered a primarily regional journal, ADAPA's influence has gradually broadened and the journal has become truly international. The number of articles published increased significantly during the last few years, with ADAPA strongly supporting international collaboration, resulting in a high proportion of international co-authorships.
  22. JAMA Netw Open. 2019 Dec 02. 2(12): e1918007
       Importance: Citation analysis is a bibliometric method that uses citation rates to evaluate research performance. This type of analysis can identify the articles that have shaped the modern history of obstetrics and gynecology (OBGYN).
    Objectives: To identify and characterize top-cited OBGYN articles in the Institute for Scientific Information Web of Science's Science Citation Index Expanded and to compare top-cited OBGYN articles published in specialty OBGYN journals with those published in nonspecialty journals.
    Design, Setting, and Participants: Cross-sectional bibliometric analysis of top-cited articles that were indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded from 1980 to 2018. The Science Citation Index Expanded was queried using search terms from the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology's 2018 certifying examination topics list. The top 100 articles from all journals and the top 100 articles from OBGYN journals were evaluated for specific characteristics. Data were analyzed in March 2019.
    Main Outcomes and Measures: The articles were characterized by citation number, publication year, topic, study design, and authorship. After excluding articles that featured on both lists, top-cited articles were compared.
    Results: The query identified 3 767 874 articles, of which 278 846 (7.4%) were published in OBGYN journals. The top-cited article was published by Rossouw and colleagues in JAMA (2002). Top-cited articles published in nonspecialty journals were more frequently cited than those in OBGYN journals (median [interquartile range], 1738 [1490-2077] citations vs 666 [580-843] citations, respectively; P < .001) and were more likely to be randomized trials (25.0% vs 2.2%, respectively; difference, 22.8%; 95% CI, 13.5%-32.2%; P < .001). Whereas articles from nonspecialty journals focused on broad topics like osteoporosis, articles from OBGYN journal focused on topics like preeclampsia and endometriosis.
    Conclusions and Relevance: This study found substantial differences between top-cited OBGYN articles published in nonspecialty vs OBGYN journals. These differences may reflect the different goals of the journals, which work together to ensure optimal dissemination of impactful articles.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.18007
  23. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2019 Dec 19.
      The oxidation of sulfide ores is a common phenomenon. To better understand the current development and status of oxidation studies of sulfide ores (OSSO), a bibliometric analysis of OSSO was conducted by mapping the spatiotemporal distribution of the knowledge domain and the research focus using VOSviewer and Citespace tools. The data were derived from the Web of Science (WOS) core collection database from 2000 to 2018. Study emphases covered publication outputs, countries/regions, organizations, top journals, research focus and keyword co-occurrence network, and theme development. The results include the following findings: (1) The line of the 3-year moving average of publications (3-year MAP), h-index (3-year MAH), and authors (3-year MAA) increased from 2001 to 2018. Conversely, the h-index continuously declined. (2) Asia had the most publications, with 1052, followed by Europe, with 923, and America, with 767. China, the USA, and Australia are the most active countries. (3) The top 10 organizations with the most publications are five Chinese organizations and one organization from each of the following countries: Russia, Australia, France, and India. (4) Hydrometallurgy, Minerals Engineering, Ore Geology Reviews, Geochimica Et Cosmochimica Acta, and Economic Geology are among the top 10 journals that researchers are most concerned about. (5) Cooperation among different organization or different countries is the most effective way to produce the most influential papers. (6) The OSSO is still focused on the process of oxidation by using different methods and techniques. In future work, it is necessary to progress new methods to understand the process of self-heating and prevent spontaneous combustion disaster of sulfide ore which result from OSSO.
    Keywords:  Knowledge structure; Mapping knowledge domain; Oxidation; Research trends; Sulfide ore
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-07226-z
  24. Channels (Austin). 2020 Dec;14(1): 18-27
       OBJECTIVE: To explore the research status, hotspots, and trends in research on potassium channel.
    METHODS: The Web of Science core collection database was used as the data source and the visual analysis software Citespace5.4 R3 was used to visualize the studies of potassium channel in the past 10 years. The national/institutional distribution, journal distribution, authors, and related research were discussed. Results 17,392 articles were obtained. The USA, Peoples R China, Germany, England, and Japan were the main countries in the field and University of California was the most important institution for the study of potassium channel. PLoS One was the most productive journal and proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america was the most frequently cited journal in potassium channel research. The author with the highest number was Colin G Nichols and the author with the highest co- cited frequency was Sanguinetti MC. The three hot spots of potassium channel research were gene expression, Ca2+ activated k+ channel and nitric oxide. The top four research frontiers of potassium channel research were bk channel,blood pressure,oxidative stress and electrophysiology. Conclusion The study provides a perspective for understanding the potassium channel research and provides valuable information for potassium channel researchers to identify potential collaborators, partner institutions, hot topics and research frontiers.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric; potassium channel; visual analysis; CiteSpace
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1080/19336950.2019.1705055
  25. Periodontol 2000. 2020 Feb;82(1): 286-297
      The continually high impact factor of Periodontology 2000 (7.861 for 2018), the level of which is unprecedented among dental journals, prompted the present bibliometric analysis of the Journal. Since the inception of Periodontology 2000 in 1993 and until July 2019, the top 100 most-cited articles have received a total of 21,276 (Web of Science), 23,009 (Elsevier's Scopus), and 43,518 (Google Scholar) citations. The citations of the 100 most-cited articles were found to vary from 118 to 827 (Web of Science), 10 to 1069 (Scopus), and 15 to 2028 (Google Scholar). Three articles had more than 600 (Web of Science) citations, 5 had between 400 and 600 citations, 25 had between 200 and 400 citations, and 67 had between 100 and 200 citations. The first authors of the 100 most-cited articles were based in the USA (51%), Switzerland (14%), and Australia (10%). The 5 dental institutions with the most frequently cited articles were The Forsyth Institute, USA (9 articles), The University of Queensland, Australia (8 articles), University of Bern, Switzerland (7), University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, USA (6 articles), and University of Washington, USA, and Temple University School of Dentistry, USA (5 articles each). The likely reason for the high impact factor of Periodontology 2000 is publication of insightful and timely review articles produced by eminent researchers and clinicians from a wide range of dental institutions and countries.
    Keywords:  'classic' citations; bibliometrics; periodontology 2000
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/prd.12328
  26. World Neurosurg. 2019 Dec 11. pii: S1878-8750(19)33042-6. [Epub ahead of print]
       INTRODUCTION: Over the last several decades, both kyphoplasty (PKP) and vertebroplasty (PVP) have been used for pain relief in patients with osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures (OVCF). The purpose of our study was to use citation analysis to identify and review the top 100 most-cited publications regarding PKP and PVP.
    METHODS: All databases of the Web of Science were searched using the keywords "kyphoplasty" and "vertebroplasty". All publications with greater than 100 citations were identified and the results were ranked in descending order of citations. The 100 most-cited publications were included for analysis.
    RESULTS: A total of 6,271 publications on PKP and PVP were identified. The number of citations of the 100 most-cited studies ranged from 735 to 109, with a mean of 225.3 citations per study. The most productive period was 2001-2010, which produced 79 out of the top 100 publications. Thirteen journals published these 100 studies, with the journal Spine publishing the largest number (23) of studies. Most of the identified papers originated in the United States, with France and Switzerland found to be the next most heavily represented countries of origin out of the eleven countries that produced them. Most of the studies focused on treatment of OVCF, followed by pathologic fractures caused by tumors.
    CONCLUSION: We identified the 100 most-cited publications on PKP and PVP and performed a bibliometric analysis characterizing distinguishing features of these studies. This list can help guide clinical decision-making and future research directions as clinicians and researchers continue to explore these controversial therapeutic techniques.
    Keywords:  Kyphoplasty; Web of Science; bibliometric study; citation analysis; top cited; vertebroplasty
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wneu.2019.12.014
  27. Medicine (Baltimore). 2019 Dec;98(50): e18221
       BACKGROUND: Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a subtype of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) with a potentially progressive course to liver fibrosis, cirrhosis with its complications, or even hepatocellular carcinoma. NAFLD is a rapidly growing chronic liver disease, with a global prevalence of about 25%, with a significant increase in the last 2 decades, changing the landscape of hepatology. This study aimed to undertake a bibliometric global analysis of research literature focusing on NASH.
    METHODS: We searched the Scopus database to identify all articles pertaining to "non-alcoholic steatohepatitis" or "NASH" - the 2 keywords used to search in the title or abstract within the time period 1980 to 2018. The collected data included document type, author, journal, publication year, citation reports, country, and were analyzed using Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word.
    RESULTS: A total number of 6632 articles published in 1355 journals were retrieved. English was the predominant language of publication, USA being the most productive with 1937 articles published (29.2% of the total number of publications), followed by Japan with 909, representing 13.7% of publications. Hepatology, Journal of Hepatology and World Journal of Gastroenterology were the most active journals. Research articles were the most common type of publications (4524; 68.22%), followed by review articles (1359; 20.49%). The total number of citations received by all publications was 274,041, with an average of 41.32 per article (range: 0-4384). The average number of authors per article has increased in the last 2 decades, whereas the trend of single- (or few) authored publications has decreased.
    CONCLUSION: This study indicates that NASH is a significant topic in the hepatology research, as proved by the huge number of publications, recording an exponential growth in the last 2 decades. The USA stands out as by far the most productive country.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1097/MD.0000000000018221
  28. J Pak Med Assoc. 2019 Dec;69(12): 1883-1888
      Coeliac disease is a common disorder worldwide but its impact in Pakistan is unknown. We reviewed the literature to investigate what is published on coeliac disease and gluten-free diet in Pakistan. Search engines including Medline, Embase, Google were used to retrieve information. Only articles published in a medical journal were included. A total of 34 articles were retrieved, 28 of which were clinical. Of these, 14 pertained to adults and 14 described paediatric patients. Most consisted of descriptions of small series of patients or individual case reports. Five articles addressed treatment issues including gluten-free diet. Most (65%) were from Pakistani journals. All publications were from Sindh or Punjab. For a common disorder, there is a paucity of high quality scientific literature on coeliac disease from Pakistan. Systematic, prospective research studies are needed to investigate the impact of coeliac disease in Pakistan including prevalence, clinical presentations and challenges of gluten-free diet.
    Keywords:  Coeliac disease, Gluten-free diet.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.5455/JPMA.286805