bims-evares Biomed News
on Evaluation of research
Issue of 2020‒10‒18
thirty-four papers selected by
Thomas Krichel
Open Library Society


  1. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2020 Oct 13.
      This study aims to investigate a practical bibliometric analysis and discuss its trends to evaluate the global scientific production of vermicompost research from 1993 to 2017 and explain its several advantages to our environment and waste management. The data were from the database of the Science Citation Index (SCI) published by the ISI Web of Science and illustrated by Excel and VOS viewer. According to the 2174 publications, this article was conducted based on four significant aspects, including publications growth trends, countries/territories, categories and journals, and keywords co-occurrence network analysis. This study revealed remarkable positive growth trends of the research and the number of articles related to vermicompost over the last 24 years with more countries participating in this field. Although the USA has the most collaboration with other countries, developing countries such as India, which was the most productive one, made significant progress in sharing articles within the study period. Based on analyses of dominant categories, the most common subject category was Environmental Science, and the most productive journal was Bioresource Technology. Finally, we analyzed author keywords to the extracted research article emphasis. The results showed that mainstream research claim vermicomposting with the help of Eisenia fetida earthworms which converts several wastes such as sewage sludge to a soil improvement fertilizer. It is an essential approach to eliminate heavy metals from the wastes and provide essential nutrients to improve the growth and yield of plants.
    Keywords:  Research trend; VOS viewer; Vermicompost; Waste management; Web of Science
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11119-x
  2. Arq Neuropsiquiatr. 2020 Sep;pii: S0004-282X2020000900586. [Epub ahead of print]78(9): 586-592
      BACKGROUND: Dystonia is a heterogeneous disorder that, when refractory to medical treatment, may have a favorable response to deep brain stimulation (DBS). A practical way to have an overview of a research domain is through a bibliometric analysis, as it makes it more accessible for researchers and others outside the field to have an idea of its directions and needs.OBJECTIVE: To analyze the 100 most cited articles in the use of DBS for dystonia treatment in the last 30 years.
    METHODS: The research protocol was performed in June 2019 in Elsevier's Scopus database, by retrieving the most cited articles regarding DBS in dystonia. We analyzed authors, year of publication, country, affiliation, and targets of DBS.
    RESULTS: Articles are mainly published in Movement Disorders (19%), Journal of Neurosurgery (9%), and Neurology (9%). European countries offer significant contributions (57% of our sample). France (192.5 citations/paper) and Germany (144.1 citations/paper) have the highest citation rates of all countries. The United States contributes with 31% of the articles, with 129.8 citations/paper. The publications are focused on General outcomes (46%), followed by Long-term outcomes (12.5%), and Complications (11%), and the leading type of dystonia researched is idiopathic or inherited, isolated, segmental or generalized dystonia, with 27% of articles and 204.3 citations/paper.
    CONCLUSIONS: DBS in dystonia research is mainly published in a handful of scientific journals and focused on the outcomes of the surgery in idiopathic or inherited, isolated, segmental or generalized dystonia, and with globus pallidus internus as the main DBS target.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1590/0004-282X20200016
  3. J Matern Fetal Neonatal Med. 2020 Oct 11. 1-10
      BACKGROUND: In recent years, the number of women who are pregnant again with the history of cesarean section, has increased year by year in China. Scarred uterine attracts much attention due to its particularity. This study aimed to understand the knowledge domain and development trends of scarred uterus after cesarean section.METHODS: Data were obtained from the Web of Science Core Collection databases (WoSCCd) including SSCI and SCI-Expanded. We carried out a comprehensive literature retrieval using index words as follows: "TI=((((prior) OR (previous) OR (after) OR (post)) AND ((cesarean) OR (caesarean))) OR (scarred uterus) OR ((uterine) AND ((scar) OR (scarring) OR (wound))))". The time interval for the search was from 1999 to 2018, totally 20 years. A document type was only article and the language of article was English. All electronic searches were performed on 15 May 2019. CiteSpace, HistCite, and VOSviewer software were used to facilitate the analysis.
    RESULTS: The analysis included 1938 bibliographic records. The annual number of publications exhibited the solid increase. A total of 84 countries contributed to the overall published output during the study period. USA published the highest number of publications (n = 508, 26.2%), which also had the highest total global citation score (10,826). American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Journal of Maternal-fetal & Neonatal Medicine were the top three journals that published the articles. The top 10 productive institutions, such as Northwestern University, Tel Aviv University, and Karolinska Institute were located mainly in USA, Israel, and Sweden, and top 10 authors originated totally from USA. Vaginal birth after cesarean, uterine rupture, painless labor, and scar pregnancy were research hotspots and may be promising in the next few years.
    CONCLUSIONS: This bibliometrics provides a comprehensive analysis that delineates the scientific productivity, collaboration, and research hotspots about scarred uterus after cesarean section, which is very helpful to focus on the future research direction.
    Keywords:  Research trends; bibliometric analysis
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1080/14767058.2020.1830368
  4. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2020 Oct 01. 27(10): 1612-1624
      OBJECTIVE: The Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) is 1 of the most successful, collaborative efforts of terminology resource development in biomedicine. The present study aims to 1) survey historical footprints, emerging technologies, and the existing challenges in the use of UMLS resources and tools, and 2) present potential future directions.MATERIALS AND METHODS: We collected 10 469 bibliographic records published between 1986 and 2019, using a Web of Science database. graph analysis, data visualization, and text mining to analyze domain-level citations, subject categories, keyword co-occurrence and bursts, document co-citation networks, and landmark papers.
    RESULTS: The findings show that the development of UMLS resources and tools have been led by interdisciplinary collaboration among medicine, biology, and computer science. Efforts encompassing multiple disciplines, such as medical informatics, biochemical sciences, and genetics, were the driving forces behind the domain's growth. The following topics were found to be the dominant research themes from the early phases to mid-phases: 1) development and extension of ontologies and 2) enhancing the integrity and accessibility of these resources. Knowledge discovery using machine learning and natural language processing and applications in broader contexts such as drug safety surveillance have recently been receiving increasing attention.
    DISCUSSION: Our analysis confirms that while reaching its scientific maturity, UMLS research aims to boundary-span to more variety in the biomedical context. We also made some recommendations for editorship and authorship in the domain.
    CONCLUSION: The present study provides a systematic approach to map the intellectual growth of science, as well as a self-explanatory bibliometric profile of the published UMLS literature. It also suggests potential future directions. Using the findings of this study, the scientific community can better align the studies within the emerging agenda and current challenges.
    Keywords:  content analysis; science mapping; text mining; unified medical language system; visual analytics
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1093/jamia/ocaa107
  5. Front Pharmacol. 2020 ;11 561494
      Background: An increasing number of studies have shown that sodium glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors, initially used as antidiabetic agents, have cardiovascular (CV) benefits. However, few bibliometric analyses have examined this field systematically. Our study aimed to visualize the publications to determine the trends and hotspots in CV research on SGLT2 inhibitors.Methods: Publications on SGLT2 inhibitors in cardiovascular research were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection. Microsoft Excel 2019, VOSviewer, and CiteSpace V were used to analyze and plot the references.
    Results: On July 3, 2020, 1509 records of CV research on SGLT2 inhibitors published from 2013 to 2020 were retrieved. Nearly half were authored by American scholars, and most were published in Diabetes Obesity Metabolism, Cardiovascular Diabetology, and Diabetes Therapy. The USA was the leading driving force, with a strong academic reputation in this area. Inzucchi SE published the most related articles, while Neal B was cited the most frequently. All the top 10 co-cited references were in the leading co-cited journal, The New England Journal of Medicine. "Atherosclerotic cardiovascular event" was the leading research hotspot. The keywords "cardiac metabolism," "heart failure hospitalization," and "heart failure with preserved ejection fraction" appeared most recently as research frontiers.
    Conclusion: Most studies focused on clinical trial outcomes, such as cardiovascular death and heart failure (HF) hospitalization. The mechanisms of SGLT2 inhibitors, especially those related to cardiac metabolism, may soon become hotspots and should be closely monitored.
    Keywords:  bibliometrics; cardiovascular research; co-citation analysis; co-occurrence analysis; heart failure; publication trend; sodium glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitors
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2020.561494
  6. Med Arch. 2020 Aug;74(4): 252-264
      Introduction: The source of scientific information, methods for their evaluation, and methodology of their use are critical for serious scientific research and publishing of the scientific research results. Certain methodological principles should be inexcusably followed when designing clinical or observational research to avoid bias and presentation of results that do not reflect the truth about the phenomenon that is the object of the study.Aim: The aim of this study was to compare the methodological quality of clinical trials and observational studies published in medical journals from ex-Yugoslav countries indexed in Web of Science (WoS) and Pubmed/MEDLINE.
    Methods: Clinical studies published in medical journals of ex-Yugoslav countries were retrieved from the WoS and Pubmed database, and the sample for analysis was randomly chosen from the retrieved publications. The rate of the most common errors in the design of clinical/observational studies was established by a careful reading of the sampled publications and their checking against predefined criteria.
    Results: Number and percent of the evaluated studies that failed to meet each of the methodological criteria tested, number of the evaluated criteria not satisfied per database and number of studies that satisfied more than 4 criteria were analyzed per database. When explanatory potential of journal impact factor, number of citations, time elapsed from publication and a database where a journal is referred were tested by linear regression in regard to the number of methodological criteria satisfied per study, the linear regression model was obtained by backward deletion method and achieved R2 adjusted of 0.166 (F=13.827, df1 = 2, df2 = 127, p=0.000). The methodological quality of studies was directly related to impact factor of the journals (B = 0.976, 95% confidence interval 0.539 - 1.413, p=0.000) and inversely with the database where a journal is referred (B =-0.444, 95% confidence interval-0.824 - -0.064, p = 0.022). Each additional unit of impact factor increased number of satisfied methodological criteria for about 1, while referring a journal only in WoS decreased number of satisfied criteria for 0.45 points in comparison with journals referred in both WoS and Pubmed/MEDLINE, and for 0.9 points in comparison to journals referred only in MEDLINE.
    Conclusion: Methodological and scientometric quality of clinical studies published in medical journals from ex-Yugoslav region varies significantly, and the variations are higher in journals referenced only in WoS than in journals referenced in Pubmed/MEDLINE only, or in both Pubmed and Web of Science databases.
    Keywords:  Clinical studies; Methodological errors; Research design; Statistical errors
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.5455/medarh.2020.74.252-264
  7. Fa Yi Xue Za Zhi. 2020 Aug;36(4): 461-469
      Abstract: Objective To conduct bibliometric analysis of the relevant literature in the environmental field published from 1982 to 2018 collected by the Web of Science citation database and further explore the frontier research dynamics and hotspots in the environmental field. Methods The word "oil spill*" was used as the subject term for retrieval. A knowledge map of hotspots in oil spill research was built through software VOSviewer and the clustering relations between them were explored. The frequency and relevance of the keywords in the corresponding literature were obtained by the matrix of keywords built through the Thomson Data Analyzer (TDA) software. Results The four main research hotspots of marine oil spill pollution were oil spill numerical simulation and model prediction, oil spill exposure toxicity and risk assessment, oil spill component and source analysis and oil spill pollution characteristics and treatment. Conclusion The study analyzes the main content of the four research hotspots and the current research progress and provides scientific basis for further understanding of the mechanism of marine oil spill occurrence, migration and transformation, implementation of oil spill treatment and repair as well as more accurate assessment of eco-environment damage.
    Keywords:  forensic medicine; judicial expertise; bibliometrics; environmental damage; marine pollution; oil spill; Web of Science
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.12116/j.issn.1004-5619.2020.04.005
  8. Encephale. 2020 Oct 09. pii: S0013-7006(20)30196-2. [Epub ahead of print]
      OBJECTIVES: To study the quantitative evolution of research in suicidology in France for 30 years.METHODS: Analysis of the Web of Science database; identification of publications between 1989 and 2018 with at least one author with an affiliation in France and focusing on suicidal behavior and self-inflicted acts.
    RESULTS: In total, 1188 publications were identified. Over 30 years, the number of publications has been multiplied by 8.8 (particularly since 2005), a growth higher than those published in psychiatry and science in France, and in suicidology worldwide. France has contributed 3.3% of global publications since 2014 (ranks 8th in the world, recently outnumbered by South Korea and China) and 10.6% of European publications (ranks 3rd after the United Kingdom and Germany). The number of international co-publications has risen sharply over the last 30 years (44.9% between 2014 and 2018), notably with the USA, Canada and Spain. Use of English has increased from 37 to 78% of publications. Inserm, and the Universities and Academic hospitals of Paris and Montpellier are among the first institutions in terms of number of publications. Twenty-one of the 30 most published authors are men. The mention of the origin of the financing of the publications is increasing but remains limited.
    CONCLUSION: Suicidology has been a dynamic field of research in France for the last fifteen years, with a growing international visibility, but there is also room for improvement. An effort remains to be made to improve women's place in these publications.
    Keywords:  Automutilation; Bibliometrics; Bibliométrie; Self-harm; Suicide; Suicide attempt; Tentative de suicide; Web Of science; Web of Science
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.encep.2020.06.008
  9. Drug Des Devel Ther. 2020 ;14 3899-3913
      Background: The treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has long been a challenge because the symptoms of PTSD are multifaceted. PTSD is primarily treated with psychotherapy and medication, or a combination of psychotherapy and medication. The present study was designed to analyze the literature on medications for PTSD and explore high-frequency common drugs and low-frequency burst drugs by burst detection algorithm combined with Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) and provide references for developing new drugs for PTSD.Methods: Publications related to medications for PTSD from 2010 to 2019 were identified through PubMed, Web of Science Core Collection, and BIOSIS Previews. SemRep and SemRep semantic result processing system were performed to extract the set of drug concepts with therapeutic relationship according to the semantic relationship of UMLS. Kleinberg's burst detection algorithm was applied to calculate the burst weight index of drug concepts by a Java-based program. These concepts were sorted according to the frequency and the burst weight index.
    Results: Four hundred and fifty-nine treatment-related drug concepts were extracted. The drug with the highest burst weight index was "Psilocybine", a hallucinogen, which was more likely to be a hotspot for the pharmacotherapy of PTSD. The highest frequency concept was "prazosin", which was more likely to be the focus of research in the medications for PTSD.
    Conclusion: The present study assessed the medication-related literature on PTSD treatment, providing a framework of burst words detection-based method, a baseline of information for future research and the new attempt for the discovery of textual knowledge. The bibliometric analysis based on the burst detection algorithm combined with UMLS has shown certain feasibility in amplifying the microscopic changes of a specific research direction in a field, it can also be used in other aspects of disease and to explore the trends of various disciplines.
    Keywords:  Kleinberg’s algorithm; SemRep; Unified Medical Language System; burst detection; burst word; post-traumatic stress disorder
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.2147/DDDT.S270379
  10. J Card Surg. 2020 Oct;35(10): 2734-2736
      BACKGROUND AND AIM: To evaluate the publication rate of articles related to cardiac surgery in the four main cardiovascular journals over the last 5 years.METHODS: A bibliometric review of all full-length articles published between January 2014 and March 2020 in the top four cardiovascular journals (Circulation, European Heart Journal (EHJ), Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), and JAMA Cardiology) was conducted. For each eligible article in the four journals, the journal of publication, study design, area of interest, country of origin, and type of intervention tested (for cardiac surgery and interventional cardiology studies) were extracted. The affiliations of all editorial board members were identified from journal websites or from online searches and recorded as from cardiac surgery, cardiology, or another discipline. Correlations between variables were evaluated.
    RESULTS: A total of 4835 articles were reviewed. Cardiac surgery studies amounted to 6.2% (104) of total research publications in JACC, 4.4% (74) in Circulation, 3.6% (13) in JAMA Cardiology, and 2.0% (22) in EHJ (P < .001). The percentage of cardiac surgery publications was significantly less than interventional cardiology publications (P < .001).
    CONCLUSIONS: Cardiac surgery studies represent only a small minority of the articles published in the top cardiovascular journals over the last 5 years, with significant differences between individual journals. Cardiac surgery studies were more often observational and this may constitute one important reason for their under-representation.
    Keywords:  cardiac surgery; cardiology; impact factor; publication
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/jocs.14894
  11. Am J Emerg Med. 2020 Aug 28. pii: S0735-6757(20)30722-1. [Epub ahead of print]
      STUDY OBJECTIVE: Topic identification can facilitate knowledge curation, discover thematic relationships, trends, and predict future direction. We aimed to determine through an unsupervised, machine learning approach to topic modeling the most common research themes in emergency medicine over the last 40 years and summarize their trends and characteristics.METHODS: We retrieved the complete reference entries including article abstracts from Ovid for all original research articles from 1980 to 2019 within emergency medicine for six widely-cited journals. Abstracts were processed through a natural language pipeline and analyzed by a latent Dirichlet allocation topic modeling algorithm for unsupervised topic discovery. Topics were further examined through trend analysis, word associations, co-occurrence metrics, and two-dimensional embeddings.
    RESULTS: We retrieved 47,158 articles during the defined time period that were filtered to 20,528 articles for further analysis. Forty topics covering methodologic and clinical areas were discovered. These topics separated into distinct clusters when embedded in two-dimensional space and exhibited consistent patterns of interaction. We observed the greatest increase in popularity in research themes involving risk factors (0.4% to 5.2%), health utilization (1.2% to 5.0%), and ultrasound (0.7% to 3.3%), and a relative decline in research involving basic science (8.9% to 1.1%), cardiac arrest (6.5% to 2.2%), and vitals (6.3% to 1.3%) over the past 40 years. Our data show only very modest growth in mental health and substance abuse research (1.0% to 1.6%), despite ongoing crises.
    CONCLUSIONS: Topic modeling via unsupervised machine learning applied to emergency medicine abstracts discovered coherent topics, trends, and patterns of interaction.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajem.2020.08.036
  12. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Oct 11. pii: E7395. [Epub ahead of print]17(20):
      In order to explore the development status, knowledge base, research hotspots, and future research directions related to the impacts of climate change on human health, a systematic bibliometric analysis of 6719 published articles from 2003 to 2018 in the Web of Science was performed. Using data analytics tools such as HistCite and CiteSpace, the time distribution, spatial distribution, citations, and research hotspots were analyzed and visualized. The analysis revealed the development status of the research on the impacts of climate change on human health and analyzed the research hotspots and future development trends in this field, providing important knowledge support for researchers in this field.
    Keywords:  climate change; hotspots; human health; knowledge evolution; public health; visual analysis
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17207395
  13. Acta Neurochir (Wien). 2020 Oct 16.
      BACKGROUND: As the volume of scientific publications increases, the rate of retraction of published papers is also likely to increase. In the present study, we report the characteristics of retracted papers from clinical neurosurgery and allied clinical and basic science specialties.METHODS: Retracted papers were identified using two separate search strategies on PubMed. Attributes of the retracted papers were collected from PubMed and the Retraction Watch database. The reasons for retraction were analyzed. The factors that correlated with time to retraction were identified. Detailed citation analysis for the retracted papers was performed. The retraction rates for neurosurgery journals were computed.
    RESULTS: A total of 191 retractions were identified; 55% pertained to clinical neurosurgery. The most common reasons for retraction were plagiarism, duplication, and compromised peer review. The countries associated with the highest number of retractions were China, USA, and Japan. The full text of the retraction notice was not available for 11% of the papers. A median of 50% of all citations received by the papers occurred after retraction. The factors that correlated with a longer time to retraction included basic science category, the number of collaborating departments, and the H-index of the journal. The overall rate of retractions in neurosurgery journals was 0.037%.
    CONCLUSIONS: The retraction notice needs to be freely available on all search engines. Plagiarism checks and reference checks prior to publication of papers (to ensure no retracted papers have been cited) must be mandatory. Mandatory data deposition would help overcome issues with data and results.
    Keywords:  Citations; Duplication; Google Scholar; Neurosurgery; Plagiarism; PubMed; Retraction Watch; Retractions
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s00701-020-04615-z
  14. BMC Med Educ. 2020 Oct 15. 20(1): 364
      BACKGROUND: Benchmarking across and within universities is a common tool to evaluate performance of a program and maintain accreditation requirements. While teaching remains a primary responsibility of many academics, academic research performance is a major contributor towards career advancement and standards in the medical laboratory science profession. While anecdotal evidence suggests academics are active contributors to the evidence base of the profession, there is a high variability in research output in relation to institution and level of appointment. The aim of the study was to benchmark the research track record of Australian medical laboratory science academics and provide insight into how research productivity informs the level of appointment of academics across their career pathway.METHODS: A bibliographic analysis of Australian medical laboratory science faculty websites and corresponding Scopus citation database profiles was conducted. A description of current research track record and relationships with holding a doctorate, academic appointment level, research and teaching interests, and institutional characteristics were explored. Quantitative data and frequencies were analysed using IBM SPSS version 26 to benchmark research track records by academic appointment level.
    RESULTS: There were 124 academics identified from 13 universities who had a teaching and research position in an undergraduate medical laboratory science program in Australia. Academics at the level of lecturer or higher typically held a doctorate (89%). Holding a doctorate strongly influenced the number of publications. The top 20% of researchers authored around half of the overall publications. The majority of academics did not have alignment of their major research and teaching areas however, alignment had no influence on number of publications. There was, however, an inconsistent relationship between metropolitan or regional university location and the number of publications.
    CONCLUSION: Data from this study provides academics with benchmarks for the research track record required at each level of appointment. When drawing conclusions on academic progression, promotion and tenure through research track record it would be mindful to assess each on a case by case basis. Institution (metropolitan versus regional) and research interest appears to influence publication number, h-index and citation scores.
    Keywords:  Academic; Benchmarking; Medical laboratory science; Universities
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-020-02298-9
  15. PLoS Biol. 2020 Oct;18(10): e3000918
      This Formal Comment presents an update to citation databases of top-cited scientists across all scientific fields, including more granular information on diverse indicators.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000918
  16. Clin Ophthalmol. 2020 ;14 2757-2772
      Purpose: To analyze the top 100 most-cited papers on pars intravitreal injections.Methods: Literature search using the bibliographic databases of the ISI Web of Knowledge for all types of publications on intravitreal injections published between 1965 and 2019 in peer-reviewed journals.
    Results: Eighty-three of the top 100 papers on intravitreal injections were published in ophthalmology journals, their majority in the top five Q1 leading journals in the field. They originated from 16 different countries, predominantly from the USA (n=52), and were all published in English. These manuscripts cover a wide spectrum of topics but were mostly focused on retinal diseases (n=60) and the use of anti-VEGF or steroid agents (n=75).
    Discussion: This bibliographic study provides a unique perspective on the evolution and assimilation of intravitreal injections, from their introduction, through their present role as the most common therapeutic procedure in ophthalmology, to future developments.
    Keywords:  bibliography; citation; historical; intravitreal injection
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.2147/OPTH.S267617
  17. J AAPOS. 2020 Oct 10. pii: S1091-8531(20)30211-1. [Epub ahead of print]
      PURPOSE: To investigate gender disparitie among pediatric ophthalmologists in academic rank, publication productivity, and National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding.METHODS: In this cross-sectional analysis of pediatric ophthalmologists at 113 US academic programs, data on gender, residency graduation year, and academic rank were obtained from institutional websites between January 2019 and March 2019. The Scopus database was used to calculate h-indices and m-quotients. The NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tool was used to determine NIH funding.
    RESULTS: We identified 389 pediatric ophthalmologists: 194 women (49.9%) and 195 men (50.1%). A binomial logistic regression model, which included career length as an independent variable, showed proportions of women to men were similar across all academic ranks (assistant professor, 64.4% vs 46.2% [P = 0.738]; associate professor, 21.7% vs 19.0% [P = 0.357]; full professor, 13.9 vs 34.9% [P = 0.119]). Women had a lower median h-index (5.0 vs 8.0 [P = 0.008]) and a shorter median career duration (12.5 vs 25.0 years [P < 0.001]), but a similar median m-quotient (0.5 vs. 0.5; P = 0.525). Among pediatric ophthalmologists who received NIH funding (20 women vs. 27 men; P = 0.826), the overall median grant-funding total for women was $804K (interquartile range (IQR) 5.0M, mean $3.8M) compared to men, $2.2M (IQR, 4.0M; mean, $3.7M; P = 0.328).
    CONCLUSIONS: The shorter career duration for women likely contributes to the difference in overall h-indices between genders, as m-quotients were similar. The m-quotient should be used over the h-index when comparing academic productivity across genders when disparities in career length exist.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaapos.2020.06.013
  18. J Transl Med. 2020 Oct 12. 18(1): 386
      BACKGROUND: From a global viewpoint, endometrial cancer belongs to the most common female cancers. Despite the heavy burden of diseases and numerous unanswered questions, no detailed pictures of the global structure of endometrial cancer research are available so far. Therefore, this malignancy was reviewed using the New Quality and Quantity Indices in Science (NewQIS) protocol.METHODS: Using NewQIS, we identified endometrial carcinoma related research published in the Web of Science from 1900-2015 (P1) and from 2016-2020 (P2). Item analysis was performed with regard to research activity. Also, semi-qualitative aspects and socio-economic benchmarks were visualized using density equalizing mapping.
    RESULTS: In total, 9,141 from 1900-2015 and 4,593 from 2016-2020 endometrial cancer related studies were identified with the USA having the largest numbers of publications, citations, institutions, as well as the highest country-specific h-Index concerning endometrial cancer research in both periods. In contrast to other fields of cancer research, the two East Asian countries Japan and China followed concerning total research activities until 2015. From 2016 until 2020, China was found in short distance to the USA and was ranked second. In the socio-economic analysis, European countries were in prominent positions. Greece published 579.83 endometrial carcinoma-related articles per billion US-$ GDP, Finland (527.29), Sweden (494.65), Israel (493.75), and Norway (367.85) followed in the ranking. Density equalizing mapping visualized that large parts of Africa, Asia and South America with a high burden of disease played almost no visible role in the endometrial cancer research activities.
    CONCLUSIONS: Endometrial cancer research activity is continuously increasing from a global viewpoint. However, the majority of original articles is published by authors based in high-income countries. Together with the finding that the research field of public health does only play a minimal role, our study points to the necessity that global health aspects should be introduced to endometrial cancer research.
    Keywords:  Density equalizing mapping; Endometrial carcinoma; Socio-economic analysis
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12967-020-02554-y
  19. Environ Dev Sustain. 2020 Oct 06. 1-29
      A coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) caused by a novel coronavirus has appeared in China by the end of 2019 and later recognized as a global pandemic. This pandemic has evolved as a global public health menace. It has affected every aspect of human life. In line with these concerns, governments and the scientific community react promptly to the outbreak of this pandemic. These efforts are devoted to develop vaccine and curative medicines. Further efforts are dedicated to assessing the impacts of the pandemic in relation to socioeconomic, psychological, and environmental dimensions. In this regard, it is important to follow up developments and research activities on this global issue. The present work intended to tracking the current hotspots and research trends on COVID-19 in environmental fields. Bibliometric analysis and visualization mapping were utilized with the objective of revealing and evaluating the developments in knowledge on COVID-2019 and its impacts based on a collection of environmental sources. A sum of 729 documents were collected from Scopus database limiting to environmental sources only. Of all these publications, 563 (77.2%) were articles, 56 (7.7%) were reviews, and 110 (15.0%) were others. China has the highest share of publications (163; 22.4%). It is followed by the USA (139; 19.15), and Italy (110; 15.1%). Most publications on COVID-19 were in prestigious journals. The most productive institution at global level was Chinese Academy of Sciences, China (24 documents; 3.3%). The most prevalent topics are in relation to impacts of the pandemic on air quality, mental health, psychological, and economic aspects. The development of these topics is based on cross-sectional studies, evidence-based tools, remote sensing, satellite mapping, geographic information systems, market analysis and sampling. The progress of environmental research on COVID-19 will guide the development of global environmental strategies to control future global environmental risks.
    Keywords:  Air quality; Content analysis; Ecosystems; Green recovery; Pandemic; Sustainability
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-020-01004-5
  20. Hosp Pediatr. 2020 Oct 12. pii: hpeds.2020-0100. [Epub ahead of print]
      OBJECTIVES: Dissemination of rigorous, innovative educational research is key to inform best practices among the global medical education community. Although abstract presentation at professional conferences is often the first step, journal publication maximizes impact. The current state of pediatric hospital medicine (PHM) educational scholarship dissemination via journal publication has not been well described. To describe educational research dissemination after PHM conference abstract submission, we identified the publication rate, median time to publication, and median publishing journal impact factor of abstracts submitted over 4 years.METHODS: Abstract data were obtained from the 2014-2017 PHM conferences and organized by presentation type (oral, poster, rejected). PubMed, MedEdPORTAL, and Google Scholar were queried for abstract publication evidence. We used logistic regression models, Kaplan-Meier survival curves and Kruskal-Wallis tests to determine the association of presentation type with the odds of publication, time to publication, and publishing journal impact factors.
    RESULTS: Of 173 submitted educational research abstracts, 56 (32%) were published. Oral abstracts had threefold greater and fivefold greater odds of publication compared to poster and rejected abstracts, respectively (odds ratio 3.2; 95% confidence interval 1.3-8.0; P = .011; odds ratio 5.2; 95% confidence interval 1.6-16.7; P = .003). Median time to publication did not differ between presentation types. The median journal impact factor was >2 times higher for published oral and poster abstracts than published rejected abstracts.
    CONCLUSIONS: Because abstract acceptance and presentation type may be early indicators of publication success, abstract submission to the PHM conference is a reasonable first step in disseminating educational scholarship.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1542/hpeds.2020-0100
  21. Account Res. 2020 Oct 13.
      The literature on academic misconduct has seen unprecedented growth over the past twenty years. As the research into this vital topic has grown, there have been a few reviews attempting to consolidate the literature. While the extant reviews have been insightful, a careful analysis reveals that these have somewhat different emphases, methods and time interval. Our study employs a bibliometric analysis approach on a large set of studies (779) published between 2000 and 2020. The analysis uncovers the key clusters, countries' co-authorship and evolution of research over the past two decades. It enriches contemporary knowledge on multifaceted issues of academic misconduct and offers resonant insights for academics, students, and policymakers. The paper concludes with several promising opportunities for future research.
    Keywords:  academic misconduct; bibliometric analysis; cheating; plagiarism; review
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2020.1836620
  22. Curr Probl Diagn Radiol. 2020 Oct 13. pii: S0363-0188(20)30188-2. [Epub ahead of print]
      PURPOSE: To evaluate gender distribution in radiology professional society leadership positions. Our study intends to assess and compare the gender distribution among leadership roles and professional society committee memberships of the radiology societies and seek an understanding of potential associations between gender, academic research metrics, institutional academic rank, and leadership roles.METHODS: We identified radiology professional society committee members to assess relative gender composition in 28 radiology societies in North America, Europe, and Australia/New Zealand. The research metrics were obtained from the SCOPUS database and demographics and institutional affiliation through institutional websites' internet searches. Gender distribution by academic ranks and other discontinuous variables were analyzed using the Chi-Square test. Wallis tests.
    RESULTS: Of the 3011 members of society committees, 67.9% were male, and 32.1% female. Among all the society members, the data showed that the proportion of committee members holding leadership positions was comparable between males (25.7%) and females (22.5%). However, when we did a subgroup analysis and disaggregated the data by leadership positions, we noted that among those who held the leadership positions, the proportion of males was more significant (n = 526, 70.7%) compared to females (n = 218, 29.3%). Overall, males had higher median publications, citations, H-indices, and active years of research (P< 0.0001). At all university academic ranks, men outnumbered females (P = 0.0015, Chi-square 15.38), with the most considerable disparity at the rank of professor (71.9% male, 28.1% female, P = 0.0003).
    CONCLUSION: There was male predominance amongst committee members in radiology societies. Our study found no significant differences between those in leadership positions, suggesting that once a member of a committee, females are equally likely as males to attain leadership positions. Analysis of committee members' academic rank and committee leaders demonstrated underrepresentation of females at higher academic ranks, and males overall had higher research metrics than females.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1067/j.cpradiol.2020.09.011
  23. J Thromb Thrombolysis. 2020 Oct 17.
      Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are the gold standard research in evaluating healthcare interventions. The CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) statement improves the quality of RCTs in an evidence-based approach. To evaluate the reporting quality of published RCTs concerning the use of anticoagulants versus antiplatelet agents for venous thromboembolism prophylaxis according to the CONSORT statement. Electronic databases were searched for English-language RCTs involving patients who received either anticoagulant or antiplatelet medication for prophylaxis of deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism published from 2000 to 2019. Trials were considered eligible when the included patients received either anticoagulant or antiplatelet medication for primary and secondary prevention of deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism and were randomly assigned to at least two treatment arms. Quality of reporting was assessed using a 37-item questionnaire based on the CONSORT 2010 checklist. Reporting was assessed in 2 publication periods (2000-2009) and (2010-2019). The effect of CONSORT statement in high- and low-ranked medical journals, according to their impact factor, has also been evaluated. The search identified 13 eligible articles for analysis. Only 12 of the 37 items of the checklist were addressed in 75% or more of the studies. Most items concerning the methodological issues were reported by fewer than 50% of the studies. Improvements over time were seen for items that assessed the methodological quality with no statistically significant difference. RCTs published in high-ranked journals showed better quality of reporting. Quality of reporting in RCTs focusing on the use of anticoagulants versus antiplatelet agents for venous thromboembolism prophylaxis remains unsatisfactory. Further improvement of reporting is necessary to assess the validity of clinical research.
    Keywords:  Anticoagulants; Antiplatelet medication; CONSORT; Deep vein thrombosis; Pulmonary embolism; Randomized controlled trials
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11239-020-02315-0
  24. J Rheumatol. 2020 Oct 15. pii: jrheum.200593. [Epub ahead of print]
      The growth of systematic reviews and metaanalyses (SRMA) has outpaced the growth of randomized clinical trials (RCT) in many medicine subspecialties1 This may reflect technological advances in SRMA production, fewer barriers to publish, or academic pressure to produce citations2.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3899/jrheum.200593
  25. Encephale. 2020 Oct 08. pii: S0013-7006(20)30194-9. [Epub ahead of print]
      
    Keywords:  Auteur; Author; Equity; Feminism; Féminisme; Gender; Genre; Parity; Parité; Équité
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.encep.2020.06.006
  26. Med Arch. 2020 Aug;74(4): 318-322
      Introduction: Pseudo journals, hijacked journals, fraudulent journals, fake journals, and predatory journals waste valuable research when authors publish their studies in them.Aim: This article described novel suggested features for the identification of fraudulent journals and aimed to explain this issue to help inexperienced scientists avoid publishing in predatory journals.
    Methods: The articles related to this topic in were retrieved from PubMed and trustable Internet sources.
    Results: Unfortunately, some fake journals have made their way into reputable databases, such as PubMed, PubMed Central, MEDLINE, SCOPUS, and Web of Science; thus, the serious question has been raised regarding how we should address this problematic phenomenon. We recommended 28 suggested characteristics of predatory journals for readers to take into consideration.
    Conclusion: Unaware of the detrimental effects associated with publishing in disreputable journals, inexperienced researchers can fall victim to them. Together, as both readers and writers, we should completely boycott predatory journals.
    Keywords:  Medline; Predatory journals; Pubmed; Pubmed Central; SCOPUS; Web of Science
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.5455/medarh.2020.74.318-322
  27. J Chem Inf Model. 2020 Oct 15.
      Modern scientometric techniques, applied at scale, can provide valuable information that complements qualitative investigation of the accumulation of knowledge in a field. We discuss a trio of articles from computational chemistry selected from an analysis of 181 million tri-cited articles.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jcim.0c01098
  28. Nature. 2020 Oct;586(7829): S16-S17
      
    Keywords:  Medical research; Neuroscience
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02867-4