bims-evares Biomed News
on Evaluation of research
Issue of 2021–01–10
37 papers selected by
Thomas Krichel, Open Library Society



  1. Syst Rev. 2021 Jan 02. 10(1): 1
       BACKGROUND: Population health (PH) research capacity and performance are essential pillars of evidence-based practice to help address health inequalities. Best evidence is provided by systematic reviews (SRs). None of the published bibliometric analysis specifically assess the production of SRs on PH in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). The aim of our study is to investigate publication patterns and time trends of SRs reporting PH in the MENA region to evaluate the state of PH research performance in the region.
    METHOD: The study protocol was developed a priori (protocol registration number: CRD42017076736). PubMed was searched. Two independent reviewers screened 5747 identified articles. We investigated author affiliation and collaboration, yearly citations of the SRs and journal information. Joinpoint regression was used to explore these characteristics overtime.
    RESULTS: Our meta-research included 387 SRs published between 2008 and 2016 which reported data on PH in 20 MENA countries. Publication of SRs increased over time in journals with impact factor < 4 and in the categories of yearly number of citations < 50 (p values ≤ 0.0024). Authors belonging to the region published increasingly (p value = 0.0001) over time. Thirty percent of the SRs were from authors solely from the region, while an additional 30% were from the region collaborating with Western country authors. Of these collaborative reviews, 79% were led by authors from the region. However, collaboration in the region (with the exclusion of collaboration with Western country authors) was rare (0.8%). These authors from the region published more in open-access journals while authors from Western countries collaborating or not with authors from the region published more in hybrid or non-open-access journals (p value < 0.0001). Collaboration between authors from MENA and Western countries led to published SRs in journals with impact factor ≥ 10. Systematic reviews with global coverage were published more by authors from Western countries, while SRs with country-level coverage were published by authors from the region (p value < 0.0001).
    CONCLUSION: The incremental trend of PH SR publications on MENA likely reflects the ongoing improvement in research performance in the region. Authors from the region appear to be taking a lead role in conducting and disseminating MENA PH research. Open-access journals are a major contributor in facilitating MENA research dissemination.
    SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO registration number CRD42017076736.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric; Gulf Cooperation Council; Middle East; Middle East and North Africa; North Africa; Population health; Research capacity; Systematic review
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-020-01552-x
  2. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2021 Jan 06.
      This study aims to provide a systematic literature review based on bibliometric analysis for scientific articles published between 1999 and 2019 extracted from Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science (WOS) database. The current research project provides an overview of scientific publications, influential authors, and research journals. Our analysis reveals that the USA leads the academic research contribution, whereas China has provided the most research publications in recent years. Environmental and Resource Economics, University of London, and Barcena-Ruiz are the most productive journal, academic institution, and author in the field of environmental taxes, respectively. The degree of research contribution among researchers, institutional and national level, has an upward trend in recent years; however, the research contribution at the author level is higher than the institutional and national level. Furthermore, cocitation analysis suggests that research articles in the dataset are closely related. Pigou's "The economics of welfare" published in 1920, is considered as the basic literature, and the "In defence of degrowth" authored by Giorgis Kallis is the most cited article. Our analysis of abstracts and keywords indicates that climate change, environmental taxes, double dividend, carbon tax, and environmental pollution are the hotspots within academic literature. We suggest that research collaboration between developed and developing nations and further coordination among environmental agencies such as IEA and IPCC will enhance the effectiveness of environmental reforms.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric analysis; Environmental tax; Frequency and cooccurrence analysis; Massive literature data; Research trends
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-12123-x
  3. BMJ Open. 2021 Jan 06. 11(1): e046002
       OBJECTIVE: Authorship and number of publications are important criteria used for making decisions about promotions and research funding awards. Given the increase in the number of author positions over the last few decades, this study sought to determine if there had been a shift in the distribution of authorship among those publishing in high-impact academic medical journals over the last 12 years.
    DESIGN: This study analysed the distribution of authorship across 312 222 original articles published in 134 medium-impact to high-impact academic medical journals between 1 January 2008 and 31 December 2019. Additionally, this study compared the trends in author distributions across nine medical specialties and a collection of cross-specialty high-impact journal articles.
    PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURES: The distribution of authorship was assessed using the Gini coefficient (GC), a widely used measure of economic inequality.
    RESULTS: The overall GC for all articles sampled across the 12-year study period was 0.49, and the GCs for the first and last authorship positions were 0.30 and 0.44, respectively. Since 2008, there was a significant positive correlation between year and GC for the overall authorship position (r=0.99, p<0.001) the first author position (r=0.75, p=0.007) and the last author position (r=0.85, p<0.001) indicating increasingly uneven distribution in authorship over time. The cross-specialty high-impact journals exhibited the greatest rate of increase in GC over the study period for the first and last author position of any specialty analysed.
    CONCLUSION: Overall, these data suggest a growing inequality in authorship across authors publishing in high-impact academic medical journals, especially among the highest impact journals. These findings may have implications for processes such as promotions and allocation of research funding that use authorship metrics as key criteria for making decisions.
    Keywords:  medical education & training; medical history; statistics & research methods
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2020-046002
  4. Rev Esp Cardiol (Engl Ed). 2020 Dec 31. pii: S1885-5857(20)30523-5. [Epub ahead of print]
       INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: We used bibliometric techniques to analyze the participation of Spanish institutions in research on major cardiovascular topics during the last 4 decades.
    METHODS: Bibliometric indicators of production, collaboration and impact were obtained from the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) database. Search strategies were used in major topics and institutional collaboration networks were identified, represented using the Kamada-Kawai algorithm.
    RESULTS: Global cardiovascular publications doubled from 2000 to 2018. In 2018, those by Spanish authors represented 2.33%, with a participation of between 7% and 1.84%, depending on the topics analyzed. The offset with respect to global production was between 0 and 7 years. Annual growth rates were higher in more recent topics. Revista Española de Cardiología published the largest number of articles from Spanish institutions. The journals generating the highest number of citations in the chosen topics were the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Europace, and the European Heart Journal. Analysis of collaboration revealed a close interrelation between Spanish and foreign institutions, as well as groups with high production publishing independently.
    CONCLUSIONS: The analysis disaggregated by subject showed the sustained growth of Spanish cardiovascular scientific production and more rapid growth in recently appearing topics. Collaboration networks showed a high degree of interrelation between Spanish and foreign institutions, including hospitals, universities, research institutes, and scientific societies.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; Bibliometría; Cardiovascular scientific production; Collaboration networks; Producción científica cardiovascular; Publicaciones; Publications; Redes de colaboración
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rec.2020.12.001
  5. Jpn J Nurs Sci. 2021 Jan 05. e12401
       OBJECTIVE: Family nursing is an essential component of nursing practice. The number of articles that researchers must be familiar with is increasing, along with the importance of selective searching and summarization. This study aims to explore the development trend and research spotlight through the analysis of literature related to family nursing from 1986 to 2018.
    METHODS: Science Citation Index literatures about family nursing in Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) were searched by subject terms. The function of database document statistics and analysis, cite space visualization software and Excel were used to measure and analyze the included documents and draw the visualization atlas. Each article was evaluated for the following characteristics: authors, institution, country, keyword, reference, cited-author, cited-journal, grant.
    RESULTS: A total of 1,224 literatures from 68 countries and regions as well as 1,749 research institutions, 331 journals, 833 funded institutions and 4,007 first authors and collaborators were included. There is an increasing trend in the amount of papers published in family nursing research. Among them, the United States (275, 22.47%), Brazil (196, 16.01%), and the University of São Paulo (63, 5.15%) share the highest number of publications. < JOURNAL OF FAMILY NURSING > (IF = 1.889) was the most published journal (126, 10.29%). BELL JM was the highest published author (29, 2.37%), SVAVARSDOTTIR EK was highly cited (181 citation). At present, the research spotlight in this field focus on the traditional research directions such as "NURSING", "FAMILY", "NURSE" and "CARE". But there are also new directions such as "QUALIFY OF LIFE", "PALLIATIVE", "CAREGIVER", "CHILD" and "DEMENTIA". The focus of research extends from "DRUGS, MEDICINE, CLINICAL, PSYCHOLIGY, EDUCATION, HEALTH" to "NURSING, SOCIETY".
    CONCLUSION: Family nursing started late, and its exploration was limited. Although family nursing was growing in certain countries, the fields involved in the research are still relatively narrow and lack interdisciplinary cross-fusion. The research field of family nursing needs to be further explored and refined in future practice.
    Keywords:  family nursing; literature metrology; visualized analysis
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/jjns.12401
  6. Mymensingh Med J. 2021 Jan;30(1): 243-256
      The citation count of an article plays a vital role to indicate its' impact on the particular specialty. The main aim of the study was to identify the top 100 cited articles published in relation to dental caries during last twenty years from January 2000 to December 2019. The Scopus database was searched to retrieve top 100 cited articles and ranked according to the number of citations. Further analysis was conducted to determine the altmetric score, study type, impact factor of the journals, year of publication, authors' name, affiliated institute and the country of origin. The authors agreed on two keywords 'Caries' and Dental caries' to perform online search. The data were analyzed using SPSS software version 20 (IBM, USA). The citation count for top 100 cited articles ranged between 560-123. The journals publishing highest number of articles on dental caries included Journal of Dental Research (n=25) and Caries Research (n=14). During the first five year interval 2000-2004 highest number of articles were published (n=51) majorly from various institutes of USA (n=35) and UK (n=14). In preponderance studies published included literature reviews (n=45) and randomized controlled trials (n=15). This bibliometric analysis helps to identify the trends and research progress in cariology in addition, serve as an aid for future researches.
  7. Prog Orthod. 2021 Jan 07. 22(1): 1
       BACKGROUND: The aims of this bibliometric study were to determine author self-citation trends in high-impact orthodontic literature and to investigate possible association between self-citation and publication characteristics.
    METHODS: Six orthodontic journals with the highest impact factor as ranked by 2017 Journal Citation Reports were screened for a full publication year (2018) for original research articles, reviews, and case reports. Eligible articles were scrutinized for article and author characteristics and citation metrics. Univariable and multivariable negative binomial regression was used to examine associations between self-citation incidence and publication characteristics.
    RESULTS: Medians for author self-citation rate of the most self-citing authors and self-citations were 3.03% (range 0-50) and 1 (range 0-19), respectively. In the univariable analysis, there was no association between self-citation counts and study type (P = 0.41), article topic (P = 0.61), number of authors (P = 0.62), and rank of authors (P = 0.56). Author origin (P = 0.001), gender (P = 0.001) and journal (P = 0.05) were associated with self-citation counts and in the multivariable analysis only origin and gender remained strong self-citation predictors. Asian authors and females self-cited significantly less often than all other regions and male authors.
    CONCLUSIONS: Authors in orthodontics do not self-cite at a frequency that suggests potential citation manipulation. Author origin and gender were the only variables associated with citations counts. More bibliometric research is necessary to draw solid conclusions about author self-citation trends in orthodontic literature.
    Keywords:  Author self-citation; Bibliometrics; Impact factor; Orthodontic journals
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s40510-020-00348-y
  8. Eur J Orthop Surg Traumatol. 2021 Jan 08.
       PURPOSE: This study identifies the most impactful papers on scapholunate reconstruction and provides a quantitative assessment of the impact of these papers in order to inform future clinical practice, education, and research of this condition.
    METHODS: The Scopus database was used in May 2020 to identify the 50 most cited clinical articles pertaining solely to chronic scapholunate reconstruction. Citation number and density, publication variables, and Altmetric Attention Scores (AASs) were collected and analyzed.
    RESULTS: The top 50 articles on chronic scapholunate reconstruction produced 1,868 total citations, with an average of 37.36 ± 39.90 citations per article (range 7-196) and an average citation density of 2.44 ± 2.27. US-based publications (n = 20) and articles published in Journal of Hand Surgery (n = 24) were associated with significantly higher citation number and density (p < 0.01 - p = 0.018). In addition, sample size was positively correlated with citation density (rho = 0.312, p = 0.029). Fourteen articles were associated with an AAS (mean score = 4.07 ± 4.70). There was no significant association between AAS and citation number or density, but AAS did significantly predict citation density (coefficient = 0.378, 95% CI: [0.013-0.741], p = 0.043).
    CONCLUSION: Numerous factors, such as journal of publication, location, and sample size, were significantly associated with citation number and/or citation density. Interestingly, AAS was predictive of, but not directly correlated with citation density, suggesting that the impact of scapholunate literature may not be adequately captured with a citation analysis.
    Keywords:  Chronic; Reconstruction; Scapho-lunate; Scapholunate
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s00590-020-02864-3
  9. Urology. 2021 Jan 04. pii: S0090-4295(20)31528-4. [Epub ahead of print]
       OBJECTIVES: To identify key papers in urology using a novel bibliometric index called the disruption score.
    METHODS: A PubMed search was conducted to identify papers published in Journal of Urology, European Urology, Urology, Urologic Oncology, Journal of Endourology, and BJU International, Nature Reviews Urology. Select urology papers published in other medical journals were also included. Using a validated dataset of disruption scores for all papers published in 1954-2014, the top 100 most disruptive urology papers were identified as well as the top 100 most cited papers. Comparisons between both lists and across journals were investigated.
    RESULTS: A total of 72,623 published articles were included. Journal of Urology had the most articles in the most-disruptive papers list (n=69) followed by BJU International (n=16). New England Journal of Medicine had the most papers in the most cited papers list (n=26) followed by Journal of Urology (n=23). Only seven papers were common to both the most-disruptive papers and most-cited papers lists. Oncology was highly represented amongst the most cited papers (n=60) whereas the most disruptive papers included a broader representation of urology. The most common study design amongst the most disruptive papers was small case-series/case reports whereas the most common study design amongst the most cited papers was randomized controlled trials.
    CONCLUSIONS: The disruption score identified landmark papers in urology that have introduced innovative ideas. Disruption score captures a unique profile of scientific impact that may be used in combination with other bibliometric indices to identify scholarly achievements in urology.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.urology.2020.10.073
  10. AMB Express. 2021 Jan 07. 11(1): 12
      Microbial keratinase research has been on an upward trajectory due to the robustness and efficiency of the enzyme toward various green technological processes that promote economic development and environmental sustainability. A compendium of research progression and advancement within the domain was achieved through a bibliometric study to understand the trend of research productivity, scientific impacts, authors' involvement, collaboration networks, and the advancement of knowledge gaps for future research endeavours. A three-decade (1990 to 2019) scholarly published articles were retrieved from the web of science database using a combination of terms "keratinas* or keratinolytic proteas* or keratinolytic enzym*", and subsequently analyzed for bibliometric indicators. A collection of 330 peer-reviewed, research, articles were retrieved for the survey period and authored by 1063 researchers with collaboration index of 3.27. Research productivity was most in 2013 with total research output of 28 articles. The top three authors' keywords were keratinase, keratin and protease with a respective frequency of 188, 26 and 22. India, China and Brazil ranked top in terms of keratinase research outputs and total citation with respective article productivity (total citations) of 85 (1533), 57 (826), and 36 (764). This study evaluated the trend of keratinase research outputs, scientific impact, collaboration networks and biotechnology innovations. It has the potentials to influence positively decision making on future research direction, collaborations and development of products for the bio-economy.
    Keywords:  Biomass valorization; Biotechnology innovation; Collaboration; Meta-analysis; Microbial keratinase; Sustainable production
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s13568-020-01155-8
  11. J Med Internet Res. 2020 Dec 12.
       BACKGROUND: The use of social media assists in the distribution of information about COVID-19 to the general public and health professionals. Alternative-level metrics (Altmetrics) and PlumX metrics are new methods that can assess the amount of sharing and spreading of a scientific article in social media platforms.
    OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to characterize and compare traditional bibliometrics (citation-count and impact factors) with newer metrics (Altmetric Attention Score and PlumX Score) of the top 100 Altmetric scored COVID-19 articles.
    METHODS: The 100 highest Altmetric Attention Score (AAS) articles were identified utilizing the Altmetric explorer in May 2020. AAS, journal name, and mentions from various social media databases of each article were collected. Citation-counts and PlumX Weighted Citation Impact scores were collected from the Scopus database. Additionally, AAS, PlumX scores, and citation-counts were log-transformed and adjusted by +1 for linear regression, and Spearman correlation coefficients were utilized to determine correlations.
    RESULTS: The median AAS, PlumX score, and citation-count were 4922.50, 37.92, and 24.00, respectively. Of 100 articles, New England Journal of Medicine published the most articles at 18% (18/100). Twitter was the most frequently used social media platform with 96.3% of the mentions (985,429/1,022,975). Positive correlations were seen between AAS and citation-count (r2=.0973; P=.002), and PlumX score and citation-count (r2=.8911; P<.001).
    CONCLUSIONS: Our research demonstrates that citation-count is weakly correlated with AAS, but strongly correlated with PlumX scores regarding COVID-19 articles at this point in time. Altmetrics and PlumX metrics should be utilized in complement with traditional citation-count when assessing the dissemination and impact of an article regarding COVID-19.
    CLINICALTRIAL:
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.2196/21408
  12. Quant Imaging Med Surg. 2021 Jan;11(1): 143-161
       Background: Since mammography belongs to the most important preventive techniques in modern medicine, this study maps the related worldwide research output, which encompasses quantitative and qualitative aspects of the scientific activity and socio-economic features.
    Methods: The New Quality and Quantity Indices in Science (NewQIS) computing platform identified all mammography-specific articles in the Web of Science within two time periods, from 1900 to 2014 (P1) and from 2015 to 2020 (P2), a combination of density-equalizing mapping projections (DEMP) and socio-economic benchmarking was applied for analysis.
    Results: A total of 13,629 articles were retrieved. 8,744 articles were identified in P1 and 4,885 in P2. More than 100 articles were published annually since the 1980s. Regarding productivity and collaborative efforts, the United States was the leading nation in both evaluation periods. In our socioeconomic analysis, it was also ranked at the first place in P1 [72.68 mammography-related publications per GDP/capita (RGDP)]. The US was followed by the UK and Germany in P1 and by UK and India in P2. When population sizes were related to mammography research activities, Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands showed the highest research activity in P1 (e.g., Sweden: 31.89 publications per 1 million inhabitants). Gender analysis illustrated a relative dominance of female researchers in most countries with the exception of Japan.
    Conclusions: The global mammography research activity over the last century is paralleled by strong international collaborative efforts and follows largely economic figures and prevalence rates but displays distinct differences in comparison to the research landscape of other biomedical entities.
    Keywords:  Density equalizing map; mammography; spatiotemporal analysis
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.21037/qims-19-774
  13. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2021 Jan 02.
      Green supply chain (GSC), one of the most vital sub-topics of sustainable development, indicates people provoking on the rationality of business practices and resource consumption patterns. Under the background of economy globalization, developing countries, especially China, severely affected by green barriers became the global focus. A systematic review of articles about GSC which published in leading journals of Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) and China Knowledge Resource Infrastructure (CNKI) is proposed for exploring publishing trends, the distribution of authors and journals, research topics, and hotspots and predicting frontiers by utilizing VOSviewer, Sci2, and CiteSpace. The results show that (1) there are differences in the attention of GSC between international and Chinese academia. (2) "Green" is referred to environmental friendly practices in international academia. Scholars advocate to promote management to strengthen cooperation among GSC members and boost technology investment to improve the comprehensive performance; however, specific practices such as "low-carbon," "emission reduction," "recycling," and "remanufacture" are referred to environmental friendly behaviors in Chinese academia. Scholars expect to avoid enterprises' short-term profit compression relying on government subsidies and make contracts to share environment protection cost equally out for ensuring GSC stable operation. (3) Exploring collaboration among GSC members using complex operation research and artificial intelligence will be international research frontier. Relevant papers are to provide Chinese research with merely innovation in methodology. Besides, the "government-enterprise-university-research institute-customer-economy" management mode proposed by development countries like China will enrich the international GSC research scope, leading international GSC knowledge structure to change. The contribution of this study is to afford reference for future research on GSC.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; Evolution of frontiers; Green supply chain; Mapping knowledge domain; Research hotspots; Visualization
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11947-x
  14. Global Health. 2021 Jan 04. 17(1): 1
       BACKGROUND: The World Health Organization recommended the implementation of antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) in the clinical settings to minimize the development and spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The current study aimed to assess global research activity on AMS as one measure for efforts dedicated to contain AMR.
    METHOD: A bibliometric method was applied using Scopus. A validated search query was implemented. Bibliometric indicators and mapping were generated. The study period was from 1990 to 2019. The search query utilized the keywords "antimicrobial stewardship" or "antibiotic stewardship" in the titles or abstracts. In addition, documents with the term "restrict" or "restriction" if used with the terms "antimicrobial" or "antibiotic" were retrieved.
    RESULTS: The search query returned 4402 documents. The keyword "antimicrobial stewardship" returned 2849 documents while the keyword "antibiotic stewardship" returned 1718 documents. The terms restrict/restriction and antimicrobial/antibiotics returned 209 documents. The number of publications and cumulative citations showed a steep and parallel increase in the last decade. The region of the Americas returned the most while the Eastern Mediterranean region returned the least. The United States (n = 1834, 41.7%) ranked first. Main research themes in the retrieved literature were the (1) impact of AMS on hospital length stay, (2) role of pharmacists, and (3) development of resistance of various pathogens. Clostridium difficile (n = 94) and Staphylococcus aureus (n = 76) were among the most frequently encountered author keywords. The Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology journal ranked first (n = 245, 5.6%, h-index = 134) while documents published in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal (h-index = 321) received the highest number of citations per document (70.7). At the institutional level, the US Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (n = 93, 2.1%) ranked first followed by the Imperial College London (n = 86, 2.0%). The main funding sponsors were the National Institute of Health. Pfizer, Merck, and Bayer pharmaceutical companies played a key role in funding AMS research. International research collaboration between developed (n = 3693, 83.9%) and developing countries (n = 759, 17.2%).
    CONCLUSION: The fight against AMR is a global responsibility and implementation of AMS need to be carried out across the globe. International research collaboration between developing and developed countries should be encouraged.
    Keywords:  Anti-microbial stewardship; Antimicrobial resistance; Bibliometric analysis; Infectious diseases; Outbreaks
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-020-00651-7
  15. J Cancer. 2021 ;12(2): 358-370
      Cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) is an essential second messenger that widely distributed among prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms. cAMP can regulate various biological processes, including cell proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis and immune functions. Any dysregulation or alteration of cAMP signaling may cause cell metabolic disorder, immune dysfunction and lead to disease or cancer. This study aimed to conduct a scientometric analysis of cAMP signaling system in cancer field, and explored the research trend, hotspots and frontiers from the past decade. Relevant literatures published from 2009 to 2019 were collected in the Web of Science Core Collection database. EndNote X9 was used to remove duplicate articles, and irrelevant articles were manually filtered. Bibliometric analyses were completed by CiteSpace V. A total of 4306 articles were included in this study. The number of related literatures published each year is gradually increasing. Most of them belong to "Biochemistry & Molecular Biology", "Oncology", "Cell Biology", "Pharmacology & Pharmacy" and "Endocrinology & Metabolism" areas. In the past decade, USA, China, and Japan contributed the most to the research of cAMP signaling system in cancer. The frontiers and hotspots of cAMP signaling pathway system related to cancer fields mainly focused on cancer cell apoptosis, metastasis, and multiple tumors occurrence in patients with Carney complex. Intervention of the cAMP metabolic pathway may be a potential and promising therapeutic strategy for controlling clinical cancer and tumor diseases.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; Cancer; CiteSpace; Hotspots; cAMP
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.7150/jca.47158
  16. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2021 Jan 07. 18(1): 5
       BACKGROUND: National, regional and global scientific production and research capacity for physical activity - PA may contribute to improving public health PA policies and programs. There is an uneven distribution of research productivity by region and country income group, where countries with the highest burden of non-communicable diseases attributable to physical inactivity having low research productivity. A first step towards improving global research capacity is to objectively quantify patterns, trends, and gaps in PA research. This study describes national, regional and global trends and patterns of PA research from 1950 to 2019.
    METHODS: A systematic review using searches in PubMed, SCOPUS and ISI Web of Knowledge databases was conducted in August 2017 and updated between January and May 2020. The review was registered at the PROSPERO database number CRD42017070153. PA publications per 100,000 inhabitants per country was the main variable of interest. Descriptive and time-trend analyses were conducted in STATA version 16.0.
    RESULTS: The search retrieved 555,468 articles of which 75,756 were duplicates, leaving 479,712 eligible articles. After reviewing inclusion and exclusion criteria, 23,860 were eligible for data extraction. Eighty-one percent of countries (n = 176) had at least one PA publication. The overall worldwide publication rate in the PA field was 0.46 articles per 100,000 inhabitants. Europe had the highest rate (1.44 articles per 100,000 inhabitants) and South East Asia had the lowest (0.04 articles per 100,000 inhabitants). A more than a 50-fold difference in publications per 100,000 inhabitants was identified between high and low-income countries. The least productive and poorest regions have rates resembling previous decades of the most productive and the richest.
    CONCLUSION: This study showed an increasing number of publications over the last 60 years with a growing number of disciplines and research methods over time. However, striking inequities were revealed and the knowledge gap across geographic regions and by country income groups was substantial over time. The need for regular global surveillance of PA research, particularly in countries with the largest data gaps is clear. A focus on the public health impact and global equity of research will be an important contribution to making the world more active.
    Keywords:  Epidemiology; Physical activity; Public health; Research; Surveillance
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-020-01071-x
  17. J Neuroophthalmol. 2021 Jan 04. Publish Ahead of Print
       BACKGROUND: Conference abstracts serve an important role in the timely dissemination of scientific and clinical advancements, but most fail to be published. The goal of this study was to investigate the publication rate and factors associated with publication of abstracts presented at the North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society (NANOS) Annual Meeting over a 10-year period.
    METHODS: NANOS Annual Meeting abstracts from 2008 to 2017 were extracted and categorized into Walsh presentations, scientific platforms, or poster presentations. An original automated web scraping program was validated to search PubMed, Embase, Medline, and Google Scholar for publications. Publication date, journal, authors, study type, multicenter involvement, and financial disclosures were retrieved.
    RESULTS: A total of 195 Walsh presentations, 231 scientific platform presentations, and 1735 scientific posters were included in the study with an overall publication rate of 31.5% (681/2,161). This was stable over the study period. Publication was the highest for scientific platforms (67.1%), followed by Walsh abstracts (36.4%) and poster presentations (27.2%). Multivariable analysis identified 3-4 authors, 5 or more authors, basic science, and sample size of 100 or more significantly correlated with subsequent publication. The top 3 countries for NANOS submissions were the United States, Canada, and South Korea, and the most frequent journal of publication was the Journal of Neuro-Ophthalmology.
    CONCLUSIONS: Publication rate of NANOS abstracts is comparable to other conferences in ophthalmology and the neurological sciences. Conference attendees should be aware that more than two-thirds of abstracts fail to be published and publication rates vary widely by type of submission.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1097/WNO.0000000000001158
  18. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Jan 04. pii: E318. [Epub ahead of print]18(1):
      The escalated burden of diabetes on the population's health has catalyzed rigorous scientific research to produce appropriate evidence for treatment and control. Malaysia suffers from the leading diabetes epidemic within the Western Pacific region. It is crucial to map the scientific landscape of diabetes research for the country to identify trends in productivity and determine whether research efforts are directed toward the needs-gaps priority for evidence synthesis that could be used for the drafting of policies and guidelines. This systematic scientometrics study was conducted to map the scientific research output (trends and distribution, citation frequency, keywords link visualization, and thematic cluster conceptualization) related to diabetes between 2000-2018 in Malaysia. Using three international databases (PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus) and one local database (MyCite), scientific publication records related to diabetes in Malaysia between 2000 and 2018 were retrieved and analyzed using quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Microsoft Excel 2016, EndNote X9.2, BibExcel 2016, GraphPad Prism 8.0.1, VOS viewer software 1.6.13, and R software version 1.3.959 were used to analyze the trend and contents of diabetes publications. A total of 2094 publication records that accounted for 35,497 citations were analyzed. Kuala Lumpur was the most scientifically productive state in Malaysia, contributing 754 papers. Medical Journal of Malaysia had the highest number of publications. The inflection point of the Malaysian diabetes research output was in 2013, with most publications being non-collaborative research works. Most publications originated from academia, especially from local public universities. The overall publication productivity of diabetes research in Malaysia was conceptualized into eleven thematic clusters, with clinical and animal studies being the most prevalent themes. The diabetes literature in Malaysia has grown steadily over the past 19 years. However, the cumulative evidence remains inadequate and is insufficiently powered to guide policymaking and the control of diabetes. It does not yet seem feasible to direct the diabetes epidemic curve to a plateau for the Malaysian population based on Malaysian diabetes publications.
    Keywords:  Malaysia; diabetes mellitus; science mapping; scientific landscape; scientometrics
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18010318
  19. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2021 Jan 06.
      At the watershed scale, soil erosion is a cascading system that includes detachment-transport-deposition processes while sediment yield is the net balance of detachment and deposition at the watershed outlet. Due to the temporal-spatial variations of rainfall and landscapes, the relationships between soil erosion and sediment yield are complex and non-linear. Soil erosion processes and sediment yield at the watershed scale have attracted widespread attention; however, few systematic studies have been performed. In this study, a bibliometric analysis and visualization are used to understand the global research status of soil erosion and sediment yield at the watershed scale and provide a reference for researchers to establish future research directions. The USA and China were the most active contributors and had the most publications and active institutions, while Jean Poesen, D.E. Walling, and Xingmin Mu were the top three lead authors in this field. A keyword evolution analysis showed that determining the relationship between soil erosion and the watershed landscape and identifying the sediment source and off-site environmental and ecological effects caused by soil erosion have attracted considerable research attention. Additionally, significant progress has been made in the study of "connectivity," and future research should integrate connectivity and soil erosion models to explain the soil erosion, sediment transport, and deposition processes at the watershed scale.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric review; CiteSpace; Connectivity; Soil erosion
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11888-5
  20. Child Abuse Negl. 2021 Jan 01. pii: S0145-2134(20)30550-0. [Epub ahead of print]112 104895
       BACKGROUND: The relative health and robustness of a field of research can be approximated by assessing peer reviewed journal publication trends for articles pertinent to the field. To date, there have been no such assessments of the burgeoning research on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).
    OBJECTIVE: The overall goal of this study was to examine ACEs research trends using bibliometric methods. More specifically, we sought to describe observed publication trends of the ACEs literature from its inception in the late 1990s. We also analyzed the nature of ACEs publications with regard to key characteristics of main outcomes, levels of analysis, and populations of primary focus.
    METHODS: A search was conducted using Scopus to identify English language papers on ACEs published in peer-reviewed journals between 1998 and 2018. The primary field of research was determined by having independent raters code the title of the publishing journal into distinct categories. Main research outcomes were similarly coded.
    RESULTS: A total of 789 articles on ACEs appearing in 351 different academic journals were published between 1998 and 2018. There was considerable growth in the number of ACEs papers published over the past several years. General medicine and multidisciplinary research were the most frequent of 12 primary fields of research characterizing ACEs research. Of 16 primary outcomes on which ACEs research focused, the most common were mental health and physical health.
    CONCLUSION: Significant growth in ACEs research over the past several years suggest the field is thriving. Observed publication trends and publication characteristics are discussed briefly.
    Keywords:  ACEs; Adverse childhood experiences; Bibliometrics; Child abuse; Child maltreatment; Publishing trends
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2020.104895
  21. Med Hypotheses. 2021 Jan 02. pii: S0306-9877(20)33358-2. [Epub ahead of print]146 110467
       BACKGROUND: The outdated axiom that the dose of Folinic acid (FA) rescue used after high dose Methotrexate (HDMTX) should be kept to a minimum in order to prevent a reduction of prognosis ("over rescue") continues to be expressed even though the concept has been seriously challenged. Study aim The ways "problematic citations" are used to support an old theory, such as this, was examined.
    RESULTS: Ten patterns of "problematic citation" use were identified. In 8 of these patterns the articles used were scientifically sound and the problem was with the articles citing them. However in 2 other pattens, the articles and their conclusions were flawed and citing them, apparently, resulted from accepting the presented data or conclusions as sound and valid. The patterns were 1. Claims based on data that are not present in the cited article. 2. Selective inclusion of data from cited articles. 3. Citation of misleading data presented only in the abstract. 4. Reporting trends as statistically significant. 5. Copying the citations used by others without checking the article. 6. Acceptance of illusionary truth in spite of knowledge to the contrary. 7. Citation of reports not relevant to the population under discussion 8. Presenting opinions as facts without any citation. 9. Selective presentation of data sets that support the thesis while ignoring the data sets that show the opposite results. 10. Use of a title expressing what the authors intended to show but not what was found.
    IMPLICATIONS: The containing acceptance of this old insupportable conjecture, in part, because of "problematic citations" has resulted in unnecessary neurocognitive damage to patients and may have resulted in the misconception that it is the outcome of HDMTX that may have lead to its abandonment in favour of more toxic therapies. Realisation that this is a significant problem in data analysis should lead authors and reviewers to be even more carefully in checking all references. The importance of high-quality reviews is clearly evident. The effect of "Canonization of false facts" is a serious impairment to the acceptance of new hypotheses that better express reality and could lead to improved treatment results. Authors are advised only to cite articles they have read in entirety not relying on the title, abstract or previous use and to check the content of citations before submission.
    Keywords:  Folinic acid over rescue; High dose methotrexate; Problematic citations
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2020.110467
  22. Cureus. 2020 Nov 30. 12(11): e11814
      Background The control of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic depends on the profound investigation of the virus biology and its consequences. We aimed to analyze the COVID-19 research productivity of authors representing different countries and associations between the number of articles and COVID-19 spread. Methods We retrieved all articles on COVID-19 indexed in PubMed between 31 December 2019 and 30 June 2020. We identified the countries of individual authors' affiliations. We performed the R Spearman rank correlation test between the number of articles with at least one author from a country per one million citizens and Human Development Index (HDI), a number of COVID-19 cases and deaths per one million citizens before 1 July 2020. Results Overall, we identified 27,815 articles, including 18,225 original contributions, 2,449 reviews, and 69 meta-analyses on severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. The highest productivity characterized the authors coming from China (n = 11,519 articles with at least one author), followed by the United States of America (n = 9,666) and Italy (n = 7,261). The number of articles on COVID-19 associated with HDI (Rs = 0.79), the numbers of cases (Rs = 0.47), and deaths (Rs = 0.46) (all p < 0.001). Conclusions Early COVID-19 researches were most often authored by researchers from highly developed countries and those affected by the rapid initial spread of SARS-CoV-2.
    Keywords:  coronavirus; covid 19; medline; productivity; pubmed
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.11814
  23. BMC Neurol. 2021 Jan 08. 21(1): 11
       BACKGROUND: The status of research and scientific outputs with regards to bacterial central nervous system (CNS) infection in southeast Asia (SEA) is unknown. This study aimed to analyze and compare bacterial CNS infection research output of SEA countries in terms of bibliometric indices.
    METHODS: The major electronic databases (MEDLINE, Scopus, Embase, CENTRAL, Clinicaltrials.gov and WPRIM) were searched for studies on bacterial CNS infection in SEA until August 31, 2020. Frequencies, percentages and Spearman's rho correlations were used.
    RESULTS: There was a total of 648 unique studies on bacterial CNS infection in SEA and it was 657 when double-counted (collaborative studies between SEA countries). Thailand (n=148, 22.5%) and Vietnam (n=142, 21.6%) had the highest number of publications. The most common type of research publication was the case report / case series (n=160, 24.7%). Tuberculous meningitis/tuberculoma (n=176, 26.7%) was the most common topic. This study showed that the %GDP for research and development (R&D) was associated with a higher number of research output. However, the GDP per capita was not associated with any of the bibliometric indices. The total number of neurologists was associated with all of the bibliometric analysis.
    CONCLUSION: Bacterial CNS infection research output in SEA countries was low in terms of quantity. The %GDP for R&D was associated with the number of research publications. The total number of neurologists was associated with all of the bibliometric indices.
    Keywords:  Bacterial central nervous system infection; Bibliometric analysis; Southeast Asia
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12883-021-02042-w
  24. Endocrine. 2021 Jan 05.
       PURPOSE: The current study aimed to determine the publication outcome of abstracts presented at the 16th European Congress of Endocrinology (ECE 2014).
    METHODS: All presentations were collected with the web scraping - Python coding from the official website and converted into Google Scholar and PubMed search links with coding. A particular interface was coded to evaluate the results. An online survey was sent to the authors to assess the impact of congress on their publication.
    RESULTS: A total of 1205 abstracts from 71 countries were featured at the congress of which, 1145 (95%) were poster presentations (PP), and 60 (5%) were oral presentations. Subsequently, 341 abstracts (28.3%) were published as a full paper. There was no major change from the abstract in 73.3% of full articles whereas 68.9% had at least one minor change. OP had higher conversion rates to publication than PP (65% vs 26.4; p = 0.01) and a higher median number of citations than PP (12 vs 6; p = 0.01). The median time to publication was 12 months (IQR: 2-24 months). OP was published in journals with a higher median impact factor (IF) than PP (5 vs 2.94; p = 0.01). Multi-country collaborative studies turned into more publications than single-country studies (OR: 3.91 95% CI: 2.52-6.06; p < 0.01). The congress's potential IF was calculated as 3.18. Among the authors responded to survey, 95% indicated that presenting at the congress was valuable for preparation of their publication.
    CONCLUSIONS: This first study evaluating the publication outcome of an international endocrinology congress suggests a 28.3% publication ratio with low discrepancy and 3.18 IF for ECE 2014.
    Keywords:  Abstracts; Conference; European Congress of Endocrinology; Publication rate
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s12020-020-02567-z
  25. Cureus. 2020 Dec 02. 12(12): e11850
      Medical academic research done in various specialties shows sex disparity in terms of academic and leadership rank. Research shows that in many medical academic research fields, there are a greater number of men with higher academic and leadership ranks, as well as higher research productivity. This begs the question: What is the case for medical academic research specifically in physiology departments throughout North America? Upon review of the literature, we found that a knowledge gap still exists in North America regarding sex differences among the faculty of physiology. Our rationale for this study is that if a sex disparity among the faculty of physiology in North American academia is found, steps can be taken to lower this disparity. The very first step is identifying that a problem exists. Scopus was used to obtain the h-index, years of active research, and the number of publications and citations of each faculty member. The h-index was used as a metric of academic output and scholarly productivity. Univariate regression was run with the h-index as the outcome of interest and multiple linear regression analysis was used to determine factors associated with a higher h-index. The analysis showed that while the overall number of females holding academic positions in physiology departments throughout North America has increased over the years, a large sex disparity still exists between males and females in the field. This disparity exists not only in academic and leadership rank but also in research productivity, a key predictor of success in the field. This finding warrants that further work be done to find what is causing this disparity and how it can be addressed.
    Keywords:  sex differences; sex disaggregated data; sex disparity
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.11850
  26. Res Policy. 2021 Jan;50(1): 104069
      Synthesis centers are a form of scientific organization that catalyzes and supports research that integrates diverse theories, methods and data across spatial or temporal scales to increase the generality, parsimony, applicability, or empirical soundness of scientific explanations. Synthesis working groups are a distinctive form of scientific collaboration that produce consequential, high-impact publications. But no one has asked if synthesis working groups synthesize: are their publications substantially more diverse than others, and if so, in what ways and with what effect? We investigate these questions by using Latent Dirichlet Analysis to compare the topical diversity of papers published by synthesis center collaborations with that of papers in a reference corpus. Topical diversity was operationalized and measured in several ways, both to reflect aggregate diversity and to emphasize particular aspects of diversity (such as variety, evenness, and balance). Synthesis center publications have greater topical variety and evenness, but less disparity, than do papers in the reference corpus. The influence of synthesis center origins on aspects of diversity is only partly mediated by the size and heterogeneity of collaborations: when taking into account the numbers of authors, distinct institutions, and references, synthesis center origins retain a significant direct effect on diversity measures. Controlling for the size and heterogeneity of collaborative groups, synthesis center origins and diversity measures significantly influence the visibility of publications, as indicated by citation measures. We conclude by suggesting social processes within collaborations that might account for the observed effects, by inviting further exploration of what this novel textual analysis approach might reveal about interdisciplinary research, and by offering some practical implications of our results.
    Keywords:  Creativity; Diversity; Innovation; Interdisciplinary Research; Scientific Collaboration; Semantic Analysis; Synthesis
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2020.104069
  27. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Jan 01. pii: E273. [Epub ahead of print]18(1):
      The purpose of this paper is to summarize the research themes and hotspots of safety signs research between 1990 and 2019 through the scientometric analysis method. In total, 3102 articles of literature from the Web of Science core database were analyzed by the CiteSpace visualization tool and the results were displayed in mapping knowledge domains. The overall characteristics analysis showed that safety sign is an emerging research field in a rapid development stage-81.4% of the literature works were published in the past ten years, and the United States was in the leading position, followed by China and Canada. The keyword co-occurrence analysis indicated that traffic signs and driving safety were the most popular research topics and have been combined with simulation technology in recent years, whereby individual mental health has been added as an influential factor. The journals and category co-citation analysis showed that the safety signs research involved many subjects, mainly engineering, transportation and public safety. The results indicated that the safety signs research is multi-disciplinary, and it will continue to develop in various scientific domains in the future. The conclusions can provide help and reference for potential readers, as well as help with the sustainable development of safety signs research.
    Keywords:  CiteSpace; mapping knowledge domains; safety sign; scientometric
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18010273
  28. Acta Inform Med. 2020 Sep;28(3): 160-166
       Background: It is uncertain how different academic medical departments differ in academic productivity as assessed by commonly used bibliometric measures, eg, the h-index (the maximum value of h such that an author has published h papers that have each been cited at least h times).
    Aim: This project examined whether departments in the University of Iowa's Carver College of Medicine differed in h-indices of tenured faculty members.
    Methods: Based on 2020 data obtained from the College (and other University sources), the author compiled three data sets of Scopus h-indices of tenured faculty members identified by department, varying in size due to slightly different inclusion criteria (N's=334, 341, and 354). Analyses compared h-indices between ranks and among departments.
    Results: In the basic data set (N=334), h-indices of the 230 (69%) full and 104 (31%) associate professors differed based on a t-test, means (standard deviations)=37 (17) and 20 (7), respectively, p<0.0001. For both full and associate professors separately, departments differed in h-indices based on analyses of variance, p=0.04 and p=0.02, respectively. In the expanded data sets, departmental differences were significant for full and associate professors (with N=341) and full professors (with N=354).
    Conclusion: Departments differed in academic productivity of tenured faculty members as assessed by h-indices. This was not a powerful, monolithic effect, ie, relative departmental standings for full and associate professors were not consistent, and departmental differences for associate professors were nonsignificant in the largest (N=354) data set. Multiple factors probably contributed to departmental differences and should be further investigated.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; Medical Faculty; Publications
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.5455/aim.2020.28.160-166
  29. Trop Doct. 2021 Jan 06. 49475520982770
      Evidence-based decision-making is less common in low- and middle-income countries where the research capacity remains low. Nepal, a lower-middle-income country in Asia, is not an exception. We conducted a rapid review to identify the trend of health research in Nepal and found more than seven-fold increase in the number of published health-related articles between 2000 and 2018. The proportion of articles with Nepalese researchers as the first authors has also risen over the years, though they are still only in two-thirds of the articles in 2018.
    Keywords:  Health; Nepal; authorship; capacity; research
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1177/0049475520982770
  30. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2021 Jan 03.
      Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) is a statistical tool to examine the cointegration and causality nexus between economic growth and carbon emissions. The EKC is widely used in energy and environmental economics studies. Although a large number of researchers have analyzed the EKC by applying different statistical models, some review work has been summarized to draw a pictorial view of extending studies in this research field. However, still, the macroscopic overview needs to be considered. Therefore, this study aims to contribute to the literature for finding a new pathway for further research employing, and to facilitate this research, scientometric analysis is carried out by feature in CiteSpace. The dataset was screened and found 2384 records out of 59,225 Web of Science (WoS) references, and the records for the timespan 1999-2019 was used to visualize the knowledge map and outcome of the scientific enterprise. The visualization results reveal the most influencing studies, institutions, authors, countries, keywords, and category cloud, in the research field of EKC. This article reveals that the research on EKC in alignment with green and sustainable technology science requires more attention. Further, this article would help authors and publishers make their decisions for the research of EKC and planning for future perspectives to contribute to academic development and applied methodology.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric; CiteSpace; Co-citation; Environmental Kuznets curve (EKC); Scientometric analysis algorithm; Visualization
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-12199-5
  31. BMJ Health Care Inform. 2021 Jan;pii: e100254. [Epub ahead of print]28(1):
       INTRODUCTION: Numerous scientific journal articles related to COVID-19 have been rapidly published, making navigation and understanding of relationships difficult.
    METHODS: A graph network was constructed from the publicly available COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19) of COVID-19-related publications using an engine leveraging medical knowledge bases to identify discrete medical concepts and an open-source tool (Gephi) to visualise the network.
    RESULTS: The network shows connections between diseases, medications and procedures identified from the title and abstract of 195 958 COVID-19-related publications (CORD-19 Dataset). Connections between terms with few publications, those unconnected to the main network and those irrelevant were not displayed. Nodes were coloured by knowledge base and the size of the node related to the number of publications containing the term. The data set and visualisations were made publicly accessible via a webtool.
    CONCLUSION: Knowledge management approaches (text mining and graph networks) can effectively allow rapid navigation and exploration of entity inter-relationships to improve understanding of diseases such as COVID-19.
    Keywords:  BMJ health informatics; health care; information science; medical informatics
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjhci-2020-100254
  32. J Robot Surg. 2021 Jan 03.
      Robot-assisted arthroplasty (RAA) is increasingly practised in orthopaedic surgery. The aim of this study was to perform a bibliometric analysis of all published primary research into RAA and to apply the Progressive Scholarly Acceptance (PSA) model to evaluate its acceptance as an orthopaedic surgical technique. A literature search was performed that included all peer-reviewed, primary, English language publications on RAA from its introduction in 1992 up to 2019. RAA was defined as robot-assisted hip or knee arthroplasty. A bibliometric analysis was performed to categorise articles by type of study and level of evidence. Studies were also categorised as initial investigations (II) or refining studies (RS). A PSA analysis was performed, with the end-point being defined as the point in time when the number of RS exceeded the number of II. Of the 199 studies originating from 19 countries and 101 institutions, only 16 (8.04%) were randomised-controlled trials. Fifty-one percent of studies had been published since 2015. Using PSA analysis, 161 (80.9%) studies were categorised as II and 38 (19.1%) were categorised as RS. This demonstrates that RAA has not yet reached the point of scholarly acceptance. Scholarly acceptance of RAA as an orthopaedic surgical technique has yet to be reached. However, there has been an exponential increase in the number of publications on RAA in the last 5 years, reflecting renewed interest this technique. We predict that, for the next 5 years, RAA will remain in the experimental phase due to the rapid development of new technology in this field.
    Keywords:  Literature review; Progressive scholarly acceptance; Robot-assisted arthroplasty; Total hip arthroplasty; Total knee arthroplasty; Unicompartmental knee arthroplasty
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11701-020-01173-5
  33. Res Q Exerc Sport. 2021 Jan 07. 1-11
      Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the reference accuracy of articles from a random sample of issues from 1999, 2009, and 2019 of Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport (RQES). Methods: Up to two issues each of RQES published in 1999, 2009, and 2019 were randomly sampled, and references for articles were verified for accuracy. A total of 1,341 references from 50 articles were verified: 1999 (439 references), 2009 (396 references), and 2019 (506 references). Results: The overall error rate was 40% across the three years (i.e., number of references with at least one error divided by the total number of references and multiplied by 100). Chi-square analyses indicated no significant differences between years for the overall error rate (p > .05): 44% (1999), 38% (2009), and 39% (2019). Chi-square analyses indicated significant differences between years for at least one reference with an error related to author(s) names (p > .05). Chi-square analyses indicated significant differences between years for at least one reference with an error related to the article title. Conclusions: In the author's opinion, an overall error rate of 40% across the three years for RQES is simply too high. Ultimately, it is authors' responsibility to ensure reference accuracy. However, given the unacceptable error rates across fields of study, journals, and publication years, it may be prudent to explore supplemental options to increase reference accuracy in peer-reviewed articles. Reference accuracy is an important issue for authors, editorial offices of journals, and the scientific community.
    Keywords:  Accuracy; bibliography; citations; references
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1080/02701367.2020.1853019
  34. Brain Sci. 2020 Dec 31. pii: E33. [Epub ahead of print]11(1):
      Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) cases have increased rapidly in recent decades, which is associated with various genetic abnormalities. To provide a better understanding of the genetic factors in ASD, we assessed the global scientific output of the related studies. A total of 2944 studies published between 1997 and 2018 were included by systematic retrieval from the Web of Science (WoS) database, whose scientific landscapes were drawn and the tendencies and research frontiers were explored through bibliometric methods. The United States has been acting as a leading explorer of the field worldwide in recent years. The rapid development of high-throughput technologies and bioinformatics transferred the research method from the traditional classic method to a big data-based pipeline. As a consequence, the focused research area and tendency were also changed, as the contribution of de novo mutations in ASD has been a research hotspot in the past several years and probably will remain one into the near future, which is consistent with the current opinions of the major etiology of ASD. Therefore, more attention and financial support should be paid to the deciphering of the de novo mutations in ASD. Meanwhile, the effective cooperation of multi-research centers and scientists in different fields should be advocated in the next step of scientific research undertaken.
    Keywords:  ASD; bibliometric; genetics; quantitative analysis; research frontiers
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11010033
  35. J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. 2021 Jan 08.
      Although various governmental entities in the USA are required to consider environmental justice (EJ) impacts of their actions during decision-making, socially vulnerable groups continue to be disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards. Tools and programs to quantify and mitigate environmental injustices are limited by existing data, which may not capture the full range of health disparities exacerbated by the complex interactions between environmental exposures and social stressors. In this study, we analyzed how the scientific literature approaches EJ issues in the USA. We searched PubMed for journal articles discussing at least one sociodemographic or environmental variable in the context of cumulative impacts and analyzed the relative frequency with which various EJ topics were studied. Our findings indicate that demographic variables are commonly used in epidemiologic studies, though some areas (e.g., age) are better studied than others. Similarly, occupational exposure and ambient air pollution were more studied than other types of exposures. Word frequency analyses revealed which toxicants and health outcomes are the most frequently studied. In addition, temporality analyses showed that the rate of occupational publications rose rapidly in the 1970-1980s and has since plateaued, while other publication rates increased two decades later and are still on the rise. Cumulative impacts are considered in a relatively small portion of journal articles across all topics; nevertheless, they have seen an exponential climb in the last decade. A more equitable distribution of scientific efforts might be needed for a better distribution of funding, policy-making efforts, and other resources to socially and environmentally vulnerable communities.
    Keywords:  Environmental hazards; Environmental justice; Health disparities; Social stressors
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-020-00949-7
  36. PLoS One. 2021 ;16(1): e0243514
      We apply event history analysis to analyze career and publication data of virtually all political scientists in German university departments, showing that each published refereed journal article increases a political scientist's chance for tenure by 9 percent, while other publications affect the odds for tenure only marginally and in some cases even negatively. Each received award and third party funding increases the odds for tenure by respectively 41 and 26 percent, while international experience, social capital and children hardly have a strong influence. Surprisingly, having degrees from a German university of excellence strongly decreases the odds for tenure. Women with similar credentials have at least 20 percent higher odds to get tenure than men. Our data therefore suggests that the lower factual hiring rates of women are better explained by a leaky pipeline, e.g. women leaving academia, rather than because women are not hired even when they are as productive as men. The article contributes to a better understanding of the role of meritocratic and non-meritocratic factors in achieving highly competitive job positions.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0243514
  37. Actas Esp Psiquiatr. 2020 Nov;48(6): 271-286
      To provide a bibliometric and contents analyses of the Spanish research in the field of gender dysphoria based on a literature review.