bims-evares Biomed News
on Evaluation of research
Issue of 2020–07–19
eightteen papers selected by
Thomas Krichel, Open Library Society
  1. The 100 Most-Cited Publications in Endoscopic Spine Surgery Research.
  2. Bibliometric analysis of calcium channel research (2010-2019).
  3. A citation study of earth science projects in citizen science.
  4. How do urogynecology and pelvic floor dysfunction terms used in female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery research relate to social media indicators?
  5. Trends in knee surgery research in the official journal of the Korean Knee Society during the period 1999-2018: a bibliometric review.
  6. Indian Publications on SARS-CoV-2: A bibliometric study of WHO COVID-19 database.
  7. Trends in the Gender Ratio of Authorship at the Robert Graham Center.
  8. Tanner Awards for the Most-Cited Articles of 2017.
  9. Quality Assessment of Randomized Clinical Trials in Periodontal Research from 2015-2018 - A Cross Sectional Analysis.
  10. Gender Authorship in the Field of Clinical Chemistry.
  11. PubMed-Indexed Research Productivity of Students Matching at Top Urology Programs: 2017-2020.
  12. Gender Representation at Conferences, Executive Boards, and Program Committees in Otolaryngology.
  13. Gender Disparity in Academic Rank and Productivity Among Public Health Physician Faculty in North America.
  14. Sample size evolution in neuroimaging research: an evaluation of highly-cited studies (1990-2012) and of latest practices (2017-2018) in high-impact journals.
  15. A Strategy for International Cooperation in the COVID-19 Pandemic Era: Focusing on National Scientific Funding Data.
  16. The wave of "opinion articles" in the coverage of COVID-19 in surgical literature.
  17. Race, gender, and scholarly impact: Disparities for women and faculty of color in clinical psychology.
  18. Characteristics and publication status of gastrointestinal endoscopy clinical trials registered in ClinicalTrials.gov.
  1. Global Spine J. 2020 Jun 25. 2192568220934740
    The 100 Most-Cited Publications in Endoscopic Spine Surgery Research.
    Tingxiao Zhao, Jianjian Shen, Biao Zheng, Yazeng Huang, Mengran Jin, Kazuaki Morizane, Haiyu Shao, Xinji Chen, Jun Zhang.
       STUDY DESIGN: A bibliometric review of the literature.
    OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to identify and analyze the 100 most-cited publications in the field of endoscopic spine surgery (ESS).
    METHODS: In order to determine the top cited 100 articles, a 3-step approach was employed. First, the 100 most-cited ESS studies were identified using the key phrase "endoscopic spine surgery." Then, 8 keywords were identified from the 100 studies of step 1 were used to conduct a second round searching in all databases of the Web of Science. Finally, when the results of the first and second steps were overlapped, duplicated studies were removed. The 100 top-cited articles were used for further analysis.
    RESULTS: The citation number of the top 100 most-cited articles ranged from 44 to 236 with a mean value of 84.4. The most productive periods were from 2001 to 2010. The majority of publications came from Spine and Neurosurgery, where Spine holds the largest number of 35 articles, followed by Neurosurgery with 13 articles. Overall, 10 countries contributed to the 100 articles, with the most productive country being the United States, followed by Germany and Korea.
    CONCLUSION: This bibliometric study is meant to produce a list of intellectual milestones in the field of ESS. This article's identification of the most influential articles in the field of ESS gives us a unique and comprehensive insight into the development of ESS in the past several decades.
    Keywords:  Web of Science; bibliometric study; citation analysis; endoscopic spine surgery; top cited
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1177/2192568220934740
  2. Channels (Austin). 2020 Dec;14(1): 193-202
    Bibliometric analysis of calcium channel research (2010-2019).
    Jingjing Shi, Huan Wang, Shuqing Shi, Guozhen Yuan, QiuLei Jia, Shuai Shi, Xuesong Zhang, Yuanhui Hu.
      Calcium channels are involved in pathologies across all the major therapeutic areas involving the cardiac, neurological, metabolic, and respiratory systems. Although calcium channels have been the hotspot of multidisciplinary research for decades, the hotspots and frontier trends of calcium channel research have not been comprehensively analyzed by bibliometrics. Here, we collected scientific publications on calcium channel research in the past decade to explore the hotspots and frontier directions of calcium channel research by bibliometric analysis. Publications were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection (WOSCC) database from 2010 to 2019. Citespace5.6 R5 was used to perform bibliometric analysis on the countries, institutions, authors, and related research areas. In total, 26,664 articles were analyzed. The United States and the University of California are the most productive country and institution for calcium channel research. The most productive researchers were Lang, Florian, Zamponi, Gerald W, and Jan, Chung-Ren. PLoS One had the most significant number of publications (986). Research hotspots can be summarized as the regulation mechanism of calcium channels, calcium channel blockers, and ryanodine receptor. The research frontiers were the effect of calcium channel on cell proliferation, gene mutation, calcium channels in neuropathic pain, and calcium-signaling pathway. This is the first report to visualize and analyze hotspots and emerging trends in calcium channel research.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric; calcium channel; citespace; visual analysis
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1080/19336950.2020.1788903
  3. PLoS One. 2020 ;15(7): e0235265
    A citation study of earth science projects in citizen science.
    Sten F Odenwald.
      A citation study of a sample of earth science projects in citizen science from the FedCats Catalog was undertaken to assess whether citizen science projects are as productive and as impactful as conventional research that does not employ volunteer participation as a part of their data gathering and analysis protocols. From the 783 peer-reviewed papers produced by 48 projects identified from project bibliographies, 12,380 citations were identified using the Web of Science archive and their citation search engine to the end of 2018. Various conventional productivity and impact measures were applied including the Impact Factor, H and M-indices, and entry into the Top-1000 papers in cited research. The earth science projects tend to under-perform in terms of Impact Factor (IF = 14-20) and the M-index (M<0.5) but perform at the level of a 'tenured professor' with <H> = 23. When compared to non-citizen science research in general, there is a ten-fold higher probability of the earth science papers reaching the Top-1000 threshold of most-cited papers in natural science research. Some of the reasons for the lower performance by some indicators may have to do with the down-turn in published papers after 2010 for the majority of the earth science projects, which itself could be related to the fact that 52% of these projects only became operational after 2010 compared to the more successful 'Top-3' projects, whose impacts resemble the general population of non-citizen science research.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235265
  4. Int Urogynecol J. 2020 Jul 18.
    How do urogynecology and pelvic floor dysfunction terms used in female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery research relate to social media indicators?
    Glaucia Miranda Varella Pereira, Samantha Condé Rocha, Helymar da Costa Machado, Luiz Gustavo Oliveira Brito.
       INTRODUCTION AND HYPOTHESIS: The association between social media (SoMe) indicators and citation metrics is still controversial. we aimed to evaluate the frequency of urogynecology-related terms ("urogynecology" [UG] and "pelvic floor/dysfunction" [PF/PFD]) mentioned by traditional databases (Web of Science [WOS]) and journal ranking indicators (SCImago), as well as their association with SoMe (Altmetric database).
    METHODS: In April 2019, two authors performed a search that was divided into three steps. The first one was to assess journals within the WOS Obstetrics/Gynecology and Urology categories updated to 2017 using UG and PF/PFD. The second step was to rank these studies in SCImago by the highest numbers of WOS and to correlate with journal h-index and SJR. The third step was to analyze SoMe indicators such as the Altmetric Attention Score (AAS) for each study and journal retrieved.
    RESULTS: The International Urogynecology Journal (IUJ) and Neurourology and Urodynamics (NAU) were the first (n = 1,394) and second (n = 974) most highly cited journals when using UG and PFD. IUJ also presented manuscripts with the highest AAS for UG and PF/PFD. Social media represented 74-93% of AAS calculated among the 20 top cited studies. For UG, SoMe presented 8,050 mentions, led by Twitter (n = 7,326). The same distribution was seen for PFD (8,493 mentions for SoMe, Twitter with 7,653). The higher the WOS citation, the higher the AAS (r = 0.483; p = 0.03).
    CONCLUSION: UG and PF/PFD terms are highly cited in databases and IUJ was the journal most frequently connected with them. Among SoMe tools, Twitter was the most frequently cited. WOS citations correlated with AAS.
    Keywords:  Altmetrics; Pelvic floor dysfunction; Social media; Twitter; Urogynecology
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s00192-020-04438-7
  5. Knee Surg Relat Res. 2020 Jun 08. 32(1): 28
    Trends in knee surgery research in the official journal of the Korean Knee Society during the period 1999-2018: a bibliometric review.
    Seung-Hwan Park, Kwang-Hwan Jung, Sung-Who Chang, Sung-Min Jang, Ki-Bong Park.
       BACKGROUND: We applied bibliometric tools to original articles published in the official journal of the Korean Knee Society between 1999 and 2018 to identify their characteristics related to knee surgery and to examine the changes in research trends in the last 20 years.
    METHODS: Over a 20-year period, 579 original articles were published in the journal Knee Surgery and Related Research (KSRR). We analyzed the title, keywords, and abstract of the article to analyze the research topics and assigned original articles to seven surgical categories as follows: total knee arthroplasty (TKA), unicompartmental knee arthroplasty (UKA), high tibial osteotomy (HTO), arthroscopy, surgery for cruciate ligament, revision surgery, and other surgery. To analyze the trends in research, we divided the study period into two equal parts of 10 years each, examined the percentage of articles in each decade, and analyzed topic trends using the growth rate.
    RESULTS: Among the original articles, 86 on the topic of non-surgery were excluded, and 493 original articles related surgical research were included. Articles related to surgery accounted for 85.2% of the total original articles published annually. By period, this was 85.6% in the first half and 84.8% in the late half (p = 0.76). A total of 493 original articles related to surgery, with the largest number of TKA-related research at 52.1%. In the study period, the largest increase in the percentage of articles was on the topic of HTO surgery, by 149%. The topics of UKA and revision surgery increased by 95.3% and 33.9%. The topic of TKA increased by 5.9% and the topic of surgery for cruciate ligament decreased by 18.7%. The topic of arthroscopy showed the largest decrease, by 47.6%.
    CONCLUSIONS: The bibliometric findings of this study suggest that the majority of surgery-related original articles published in KSRR during the last 20 years involved research about TKA surgery, and the greatest relative increase over the study period involved research about HTO surgery. The authors expect that the analysis of characteristics and research trends of original articles published in KSRR will provide useful information about KSRR for future researchers.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; Korean Knee Society; Research trend; Surgery; Topic
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s43019-020-00046-3
  6. Diabetes Metab Syndr. 2020 Jul 10. pii: S1871-4021(20)30253-8. [Epub ahead of print]14(5): 1171-1178
    Indian Publications on SARS-CoV-2: A bibliometric study of WHO COVID-19 database.
    Vasantha Raju N, S B Patil.
       BACKGROUND & AIMS: Nowadays, the whole World is under threat of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many fatalities and forced scientific communities to foster their Research and Development (R&D) activities. As a result, there is an enormous growth of scholarly literature on the subject. We here in this study have assessed the Indian publications contributions on COVID-19.
    METHODS: WHO is curating global scientific literature on coronavirus since it declared COVID-19 a global pandemic through Global Research Database on COVID-19. The present study analyzed Indian publications on SARS-CoV-2 as found in WHO COVID-19 database. The research data was restricted for the period of March 2, 2020 to May 12, 2020.
    RESULTS: The study found that there is a considerable and constant growth of Indian publications on COVID-19 from mid-April. It is interesting to note that, the most prolific authors belong to either AIIMS or ICMR institutes. Delhi state contributed highest number of publications on COVID-19. The AIIMS, New Delhi was the most productive institution in terms of publications. The Indian Journal of Medical Research has emerged as the productive journal contributing highest number of the publications. In terms of research area, the majority of the publications were related to Epidemiology.
    CONCLUSIONS: The highly cited publications were of evidenced based studies. It is observed that the studies pertaining to virology, diagnosis and treatment, clinical features etc. have received highest citations than general studies on epidemiology or pandemic.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; COVID-19; India; SARS-CoV-2; WHO COVID-19 database
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsx.2020.07.007
  7. Ann Fam Med. 2020 Jul;18(4): 341-344
    Trends in the Gender Ratio of Authorship at the Robert Graham Center.
    Elizabeth Wilkinson, Megan Coffman, Alison Huffstetler, Andrew Bazemore, Yalda Jabbarpour.
      Gender disparities in medical publication have been demonstrated in several specialties. This descriptive bibliometric analysis aims to determine the gender ratio of scholarly authorship at the Robert Graham Center (RGC) over an 11-year period. We examined publications by RGC researchers and assessed first, second, and last author gender. Of 229 publications, 65.5% had a male first author and 34.5% had a female first author. Of the 217 publications with a last author, 13.4% had a female last author. This study aims to inform the broader discussion about authorship gender parity in academic medicine using a one-site case-study approach.
    Keywords:  authorship; family medicine; gender
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1370/afm.2552
  8. J Food Sci. 2020 Jul;85(7): 1966-1968
    Tanner Awards for the Most-Cited Articles of 2017.
      
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-3841.14555
  9. J Int Acad Periodontol. 2020 Jul 01. 22(3): 100-108
    Quality Assessment of Randomized Clinical Trials in Periodontal Research from 2015-2018 - A Cross Sectional Analysis.
    Abdullah Saleh Al Mutairi, Ahmed Muzammil.
       OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to assess the quality of randomised clinical trials (RCT) published in the field of periodontology in compliance with CONSORT guidelines and also to identify any associated influencing factors.
    METHODS: Quality of reporting in accordance with the 2010 CONSORT checklist was assessed and scored for RCTs published between 2015-2018 in three major periodontal journals: Journal of Periodontology (JP), Journal of Periodontal Research (JPR) and Journal of Clinical Periodontology (JCP). Descriptive statistics and linear regression with univariate analysis were carried out to identify the variables associated with mean CONSORT score. Mean scores were compared between various variables.
    RESULTS: 177 RCTs were identified from1875 published scientific articles accounting for 9.4% of the total publications screened. Europe (54%) produced more than half of the RCTs followed by Asia (19.2%). A large number of RCTs failed to report satisfactorily many items from the CONSORT checklist with no significant difference between three journals. The mean CONSORT score for JCP was the highest, at 70.5% (95% CI: 68.8 to 72.1), followed by JOP, at 69.9% (95% CI: 68.1 to 71.7) and 68.8% (95% CI: 65.6 to 71.9) for the JPR at p=0.631. Though, the mean CONSORT score increased from 70.4% in 2015 to 71.0% in 2018 but differences were not significant at p=0.653. RCTs reported by more than six authors had better CONSORT score compared to RCTs reported by fewer than six authors at p=0.01.
    CONCLUSIONS: Inadequate reporting of several items of the CONSORT statement in published periodontal RCTs highlights the shared responsibility of researchers, journal reviewers and editors in maintaining the quality of reporting of RCTs.
    Keywords:  Evidence-based dentistry; Periodontics; Randomized clinical trials
  10. J Appl Lab Med. 2020 Jul 16. pii: jfaa096. [Epub ahead of print]
    Gender Authorship in the Field of Clinical Chemistry.
    Thomas M Annesley.
       BACKGROUND: Gender underrepresentation has long existed in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. While there are upward trends in many areas of the life and health sciences, some disciplines are underrepresented in female author numbers, including first and corresponding authors. This study evaluated the participation by women as authors in the field of clinical chemistry.
    METHODS: Clinical Chemistry and The Journal of Applied Laboratory Medicine were selected for data collection. Data were classified into four categories: total number of authors for each article, number of female authors for each article, whether the first author was female, and whether the corresponding author was female. From these data, the percentages of female authors, articles with female first authors, articles with female corresponding authors, and articles where a female was either first or corresponding author were calculated.
    RESULTS: Both journals had ≥40% total female authorship, ≥45% female first author, and 64% female first or corresponding author. The 40% female author number matched the percentage of female doctoral degree, board certified clinical chemists, and the 39% female PhDs and MDs in academic clinical pathology departments. Compared with a selected group of science or medicine journals and gender reports, Clinical Chemistry and The Journal of Applied Laboratory Medicine exceeded most journals and gender reports in female total authorship, first author, and corresponding author.
    CONCLUSIONS: Women are well represented as authors in these two clinical chemistry journals. Both journals compare favorably against other scientific/medical journals. Female authorship in these two journals also parallels gender composition of the field of clinical chemistry.
    Keywords:  authorship; gender; publishing
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1093/jalm/jfaa096
  11. Urology. 2020 Jul 08. pii: S0090-4295(20)30813-X. [Epub ahead of print]
    PubMed-Indexed Research Productivity of Students Matching at Top Urology Programs: 2017-2020.
    Christopher J Warren, John Wisener, Chrystal Chang, George Abdelmalek, Bishoy Gad, Shree Nadkarni, Vishal Dhruva, Brittany Ward, Nitin Patel, Hossein Sadeghi-Nejad, Robert Weiss.
       OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the number of PubMed-indexed research projects of medical students matching at top-ranked urology programs as compared to the average publications reported in the Electronic Residency Applicant Service (ERAS).
    METHODS: Doximity Residency Navigator was used to generate the top 50 residency programs when sorted by reputation. Residents were then found using program websites. PubMed was queried for peer-reviewed publications of incoming interns (2020 match) up until current PGY3s. All PubMed-indexed research was recorded before September 15th of the residents' fourth year of medical school. We recorded the number of publications, first/last author publications, and urology-specific publications.
    RESULTS: The average number of publications across all four years was 2.38 ± 4.19. The average for urology-specific publications was 1.05 ± 3.19 and for first/last author publications was 0.80 ± 1.77. Most matched applicants had at least one PubMed-indexed publication (61.2%) and having over three placed them in the 75th percentile. It is uncommon for students to have urology specific or first/last author publications (34.0%, 36.5%). Top 10 programs matched applicants with significantly more research in each of the aforementioned categories and as program reputation declined, so did the publications of the applicants they matched.
    CONCLUSIONS: Most research that matched urology applicant's report in ERAS is not PubMed Indexed. Most had at least one PubMed-indexed publication by the time they submitted ERAS and those at top programs had more. It would be helpful to students and faculty advisors if ERAS published research metrics for matched and unmatched applicants separating PubMed-indexed work from posters and presentations.
    Keywords:  Education; Match; Research; Residency; Training
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.urology.2020.06.049
  12. Laryngoscope. 2020 Jul 16.
    Gender Representation at Conferences, Executive Boards, and Program Committees in Otolaryngology.
    Gregory L Barinsky, Deborah Daoud, Didem Tan, Samantha Y Cerasiello, Nicole A Silva, Jordon G Grube, Soly Baredes, Stacey T Gray, Jean Anderson Eloy.
       OBJECTIVE: Women represent approximately 28.0% of academic otolaryngologists. Previous studies have shown that women in academic medicine, including surgical subspecialties, have disparate career advancement opportunities and grant funding compared to male counterparts. Representation at major academic meetings is an important career advancement opportunity. In this study, we assess the representation of women at otolaryngology conferences.
    STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional analysis of otolaryngology conference programs.
    METHODS: All publicly available scientific programs from The American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation Annual Meeting (AAO-HNSF), the Triological Society Annual Combined Sections Meeting (TS), and the Triological Society Annual Meeting at Combined Otolaryngology Spring Meetings (TS-COSM) were obtained and analyzed. Name and gender were collected, along with the type of role: speaker, panelist, oral session moderator, and other leadership positions. Yearly trends were analyzed and compared between the conferences and in aggregate.
    RESULTS: AAO-HNSF had available scientific programs from 2012-2017, while TS and TS-COSM had programs available from 2003-2018. Across all conferences and years, 16.9% of recorded opportunities were occupied by women, with an upward trend from 2005 to 2018. Program committees had the highest proportion of women (21.4%) and presidential citation and guest of honor recipients had the lowest (9.1%). Of all panels, 87.5% did not have any women panelists in 2003, but by 2018 only 24.0% panels were male-only. There was marked repetition among women occupying roles, with only 423 unique women occupying a total of 1,733 filled spots.
    CONCLUSION: Measured representation of women in academic otolaryngology conferences has improved from 2003-2018. Despite this improvement, gender disparity still exists.
    LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 5 Laryngoscope, 2020.
    Keywords:  Gender disparity; conferences; gender gap; gender representation; otolaryngology surgery conferences; women in otolaryngology
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1002/lary.28823
  13. Cureus. 2020 Jun 10. 12(6): e8553
    Gender Disparity in Academic Rank and Productivity Among Public Health Physician Faculty in North America.
    Donna Lee, Sabeena Jalal, Muazzam Nasrullah, Jeffrey Ding, Pina Sanelli, Faisal Khosa.
      Background The issue of gender disparity is particularly important in the domain of public health where the tone of its leadership is pivotal in bringing about impactful change to research, policies, and the wellbeing of our various populations. Our aim is to explore the gender disparity of author metrics and academic rankings of public health physician faculty through a cross-sectional study. Methods Data collection for this retrospective cross-sectional study took place during June and July of 2017. Public health and preventive medicine residency training programs in the United States and Canada were to compiled and all faculty members that met the inclusion criteria were recorded (n = 973). Variables of interest include gender, h-index, years of active research, and academic appointments. SCOPUS database (Elsevier, Amsterdam, the Netherlands) was used to generate author metrics, and all statistical tests were performed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 20 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY). Results Overall, 31.14% (n = 303) of faculty members we studied were from Canada, and 68.86% (n = 670) were from the United States. In both countries, males made up the majority of all faculty members. Female faculty comprised most of the early career positions, and their proportions tapered off with higher academic rank, whereas male faculty trended in the opposite direction. Males generally were higher in all academic measures across all appointments.  Conclusions  Gender disparity exists within the North American public health and preventive medicine discipline. There are underlying factors preventing women from moving beyond early career positions or engaging in academic research.
    Keywords:  academic rank; canada; gender disparity; h-index; public health; research productivity; usa
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.8553
  14. Neuroimage. 2020 Jul 14. pii: S1053-8119(20)30650-9. [Epub ahead of print] 117164
    Sample size evolution in neuroimaging research: an evaluation of highly-cited studies (1990-2012) and of latest practices (2017-2018) in high-impact journals.
    Denes Szucs, John Pa Ioannidis.
      We evaluated 1038 of the most cited structural and functional (fMRI) magnetic resonance brain imaging papers (1161 studies) published during 1990-2012 and 270 papers (300 studies) published in top neuroimaging journals in 2017 and 2018. 96% of highly cited experimental fMRI studies had a single group of participants and these studies had median sample size of 12, highly cited clinical fMRI studies (with patient participants) had median sample size of 14.5, and clinical structural MRI studies had median sample size of 50. The sample size of highly cited experimental fMRI studies increased at a rate of 0.74 participant/year and this rate of increase was commensurate with the median sample sizes of neuroimaging studies published in top neuroimaging journals in 2017 (23 participants) and 2018 (24 participants). Only 4 of 131 papers in 2017 and 5 of 142 papers in 2018 had pre-study power calculations, most for single t-tests and correlations. Only 14% of highly cited papers reported the number of excluded participants whereas 49% of papers with their own data in 2017 and 2018 reported excluded participants. Publishers and funders should require pre-study power calculations necessitating the specification of effect sizes. The field should agree on universally required reporting standards. Reporting formats should be standardized so that crucial study parameters could be identified unequivocally.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117164
  15. Healthcare (Basel). 2020 Jul 09. pii: E204. [Epub ahead of print]8(3):
    A Strategy for International Cooperation in the COVID-19 Pandemic Era: Focusing on National Scientific Funding Data.
    Doyeon Lee, Yoseob Heo, Keunhwan Kim.
      The coronavirus crisis may lead to a deeper understanding of international collaborations for developing antivirals and vaccines that are essential to protect us from current and future health security threats. Beyond technical solutions, the government of South Korea needs to establish a timely strategic investment in coronavirus-related research and development (R&D) in order to enhance the capabilities for managing this new uncertainty in regard to the domestic health crisis. Thus, this study aims to provide useful information about the status of global coronavirus-related research from the South Korean government's perspective. National funded projects stemmed from leading nations such as the United States, countries of the European Union, and Japan between 2012 and 2018. Six research fields were derived by clustering analysis and an expert-based approach, and then matched to those of South Korea. The comparative analysis among them allowed for the identification of the nations' strengths and weaknesses, thereby laying the groundwork for strategic international research collaborations.
    Keywords:  cluster analysis; coronavirus; health policy; international cooperation; national scientific funds; pandemic
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare8030204
  16. Langenbecks Arch Surg. 2020 Jul 17.
    The wave of "opinion articles" in the coverage of COVID-19 in surgical literature.
    Karem Slim, Catherine Mattevi, Flora Badon, Camille Lecomte, Marie Selvy.
       INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 pandemic is having a deep impact on our surgical practice and scientific publishing output.
    METHODS: The 100 best-ranked "surgery journals" were selected. The contents of the March, April, May, and June 2020 issues and ahead-of-print articles were screened. The retrieved articles on COVID-19 were separated into two categories: "opinion articles" and "scientific articles," i.e., randomized trials and original articles with structured methods and results. The number of COVID articles published in the TOP-10 journals was compared with that of COVID articles published elsewhere.
    RESULTS: There were 59 COVID original articles (8%). The great majority of articles were opinion articles (83.4%). Almost 40% of COVID articles were published in the TOP-10 journals.
    CONCLUSION: Original COVID articles (the core of our knowledge) are scant. Faced with a novel disease, neither the authors nor the editors should be criticized regarding this situation. The future step should be to publish high-quality papers in the setting of a major health crisis.
    Keywords:  Covid-19; Journals; Original article; Surgery
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s00423-020-01932-w
  17. J Clin Psychol. 2020 Jul 17.
    Race, gender, and scholarly impact: Disparities for women and faculty of color in clinical psychology.
    Susan W White, Mengya Xia, Gabrielle Edwards.
       OBJECTIVE: We sought to determine if gender and race are associated with scientific impact, scholarly productivity, career advancement, and prestige.
    METHODS: Publicly available data on publications, h-index, advancement, and prestige were assessed across core faculty in all American Psychological Association-accredited clinical psychology programs at R1 institutions in the United States (87 programs, 918 scientists).
    RESULTS: There were significant effects of both gender and race on productivity and impact, which were most apparent among the most senior faculty. Men and white faculty in associate and full professor ranks had higher scholarly productivity and impact. Among associate professors, men were more likely to get tenure earlier, even when controlling for scientific impact (h-index). Neither gender nor race was associated with prestige among full professors.
    CONCLUSION: These findings, along with under-representation of non-White faculty across levels (11.2%) and women at the full professor level (42.8%), suggest disparities in academic clinical psychology that must be addressed.
    Keywords:  diversity; gender; inequity; race; scientific impact
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.23029
  18. Surg Endosc. 2020 Jul 13.
    Characteristics and publication status of gastrointestinal endoscopy clinical trials registered in ClinicalTrials.gov.
    Shali Tan, Yusha Chen, Li Dai, Chunyu Zhong, Ningli Chai, Xujuan Luo, Jin Xu, Xiangsheng Fu, Yan Peng, Enqiang Linghu, Xiaowei Tang.
       BACKGROUND AND AIMS: This study aimed to examine the fundamental characteristics of gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy trials and evaluate their publication status.
    METHODS: A cross-sectional analysis was performed in the ClinicalTrials.gov database, and then the PubMed, Medline, Google Scholar, and Embase databases were searched. A dataset containing GI endoscopy clinical studies from ClinicalTrials.gov registered until November 24, 2017, was downloaded. Data of observational and interventional studies were extracted and analyzed. Publications in peer-reviewed journals were examined for completed trials, and factors associated with publication were identified.
    RESULTS: A total of 1338 of 253,777 clinical trials were assigned into GI endoscopy, of which 1018 were interventional and 320 were observational studies. Of all the trials, those from the USA comprised the largest percentage (n = 377, 28.18%). The most common field for registered trials was gastroscopy (n = 436, 32.6%), followed by colonoscopy (n = 215, 16.1%), endoscopic ultrasound (n = 186, 13.9%), endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (n = 176, 13.1%), and novel endoscopic procedure (n = 103, 7.7%). A total of 501 trials were completed before November 25, 2015, 281 (56.1%) of which were published. The median time from study completion to publication was 21 months (interquartile range, 12-32 months). Trials that were comprised of medium sample sizes (150-1000 subjects), conducted in Europe or Asia and other countries, and single or quadruple blinded were more likely to be published.
    CONCLUSIONS: GI endoscopy is rapidly evolving in clinical applications. Most clinical trials in GI endoscopy are published promptly. These findings demonstrated that investigators are active in performing and communicating the results of clinical trials in the field of GI endoscopy. In the future, the sample size calculation should be presented in detail in the registration system to maintain trial reporting transparency.
    Keywords:  Clinicaltrials.gov; Gastrointestinal endoscopy; Publication; Trial registration
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s00464-020-07786-z
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