bims-evares Biomed News
on Evaluation of research
Issue of 2021‒10‒31
thirty-six papers selected by
Thomas Krichel
Open Library Society


  1. Cardiol Res. 2021 Oct;12(5): 309-317
      Background: As novel cancer therapies continue to improve patient outcomes, there is an increased need for prevention and management of the cardiovascular side effects of these therapies. For this reason, the field of cardio-oncology has experienced significant scientific growth, particularly during the last decade. This study aims to assess the global publication trends and highlight the top-cited scientific articles related to cardio-oncology.Methods: A comprehensive bibliometric analysis of multiple scientific databases was performed to characterize global publication trends in cardio-oncology from 1864 to 2020 and to determine the top-cited papers addressing cardio-oncology as a field of study.
    Results: We identified 1,294 publications with 14,494 citations that describe cardio-oncology as a field. Cardio-oncology was the most prevalent term in the literature and was first mentioned in an article from Italy in 1996. There was no further mention of the term "cardio-oncology" until 2003, and later again in 2008. After 2010, there was a consistent increase in the number of publications and citations in cardio-oncology. Among the top 50 most cited papers, there was a noticeable trend of higher number of review articles (n = 28, 56%, with 3,208 citations), followed by guidelines and position papers (n = 9, 18%, with 2,299 citations) and original research articles (n = 9, 18%, with 1,451 citations). The most common specialty for the senior corresponding authors of the top 50 most cited papers was cardiology (n = 36; 72%), followed by oncology (n = 5; 10%); and the most prevalent countries of origin were the USA (n = 26; 52%), Italy (n = 8; 16%), and Canada (n = 6; 12%).
    Conclusion: Our quantitative analysis of publication trends in the field of cardio-oncology objectively showed the growing scientific interest in the field. To our knowledge, this is the first bibliometric analysis that determined the top 50 most cited articles in the field of cardio-oncology.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric analysis; Cardio-hemato-oncology; Cardio-oncology; Onco-cardiology; Research trends; Top articles
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.14740/cr1291
  2. J Chin Med Assoc. 2021 Oct 25.
      BACKGROUND: Studies of the 100 most-cited articles are reported for many subjects. However, none has analyzed the article characteristics associated with high citation frequency. This study aims to (1) graphically depict characteristics of the 100 top-cited articles addressing adult spinal deformity (ASD), (2) diagram the association between articles according to subject and major topic medical subject headings (MeSHs), and (3) investigate whether major topic MeSH correlates with article citation frequency.METHODS: The 100 top-cited ASD publications since 2011 were retrieved using a PubMed Central search on May 6, 2020. Using titles and abstracts, eight subject categories were identified: surgery, conservative treatment, normal values in spinopelvic alignment, review, cervical alignment, classification, compensatory mechanism, and spine-hip relationship. Sankey diagrams were used to organize the information. Network analysis was performed according to article subject and major topic MeSHs. Pearson's r was used to determine whether the weighted number of citations correlates with major topic MeSHs and the number of citations.
    RESULTS: The average number of citations per article was 34.8 (range, 19-156). The most represented country was the USA (n = 51). The most productive and highly-cited journal was Spine (Phila Pa 1976) (n = 34; average, 38.2 citations per article). The most frequent subject categories and major topic MeSHs were 'surgery' (n = 53) and 'scoliosis' (weighted count, 9.8), while articles with the subject 'compensatory' had the highest average number of citations (64.7). The most highly-cited article, by Dr. F. Schwab in 2012, had 156 citations. Network analysis revealed the relationships between these articles according to major topic MeSHs. The weighted number of citations according to major topic MeSHs correlated significantly with article citation frequency (Pearson's r, 0.57; p < 0.001).
    CONCLUSION: Multiple characteristics of the 100 top-cited ASD articles are presented in diagrams to guide evidence-based clinical decision-making in ASD.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1097/JCMA.0000000000000642
  3. Turk Arch Otorhinolaryngol. 2021 Sep;59(3): 193-202
      Objective: The rate of case report/series (CR/S) acceptance by the high impact journals is steadily declining mainly due to low citations. The aim of this study is primarily to investigate the bibliometric aspects of CR/S in the field of otorhinolaryngology (ORL) and secondarily to guide prospective authors as to which type of CR/S have better chances of acceptance and citation in the current publication climate.Methods: Bibliometric and citation analysis of CR/S published in Science Citation Index (SCI) journals of ORL covering the years of 2012-2016 was conducted.
    Results: There were 1332 (8.9%) CR/S among 14900 publications in 11 SCI ORL journals published between January 1st, 2012 and December 31st, 2016. The most common published field and subject were the 'pediatric ORL' (33.2%) and 'rare cases/conditions' (47.1%) respectively. 'General ORL' (5.13) and 'treatment' (4.93) categories had the highest citations. Only 10% of CR/S had ≥10 citations. The mean citation counts were positively correlated with impact factors of journals (r=0.131, p<0.001), mean number of authors (r=0.151, p<0.001), mean number of cases (r=0.192, p<0.001), mean number of references (r=0.315, p<0.001) and mean number of Web of Science visits (r=0.291, p<0.001).
    Conclusion: Although CR/S provides low citation rates in ORL SCI journals, they may serve important topics in terms of diagnosis, treatment, or complications. The findings and the main discussions of this study may direct the rationale for the consistent publication of CR/S in the evidence-based medicine era.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; abstracting and indexing; case report; case series; citation analysis; otorhinolaryngology
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.4274/tao.2021.2021-4-12
  4. Infect Drug Resist. 2021 ;14 4237-4247
      Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is ravaging the world. To date, there are no standard therapies available to cure the disease. Consequently, research on COVID-19 vaccines is booming. This report aimed to assess the research trends of the global COVID-19 vaccines.Methods: The relevant publications on the COVID-19 vaccines were searched in the Web of Science Core Collection Database (WOSCC) database from December 2019 to 11 August 2021. The VOSviewer1.6.16 was used to assess the co-authorship, co-occurrence, citation of countries, institutions, authors, journals, and hotspot keywords. The HistCiteTM (http://www.histcite.com/) software was used to calculate the total local citation score (TLCS) and total global citation score (TGCS) of each variable and generate the citation historiography graph of COVID-19 vaccine development using the citation time series analysis method.
    Results: A total of 5070 studies authored by 21,151 researchers and published by 1364 different journals were eventually included in this study. The bulk of the retrieved studies were original articles (n = 2401, 47.36%). Among these studies, 1204 (23.75%) were published in 2020. A total of 3863 (76.19%) were published in 2021 and 4295 (84.71%) were open access. The highest number of studies was conducted in the USA, followed by England, China, and Germany. The main partners of the USA were China, England, and Canada. The University of Maryland (TLCS: 1618, TGCS: 2991) and Prof. Ugur Sahin from the University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University (TLCS: 1397, TGCS: 2407) were the most cited institution and author, respectively. The vaccines featured the highest number of papers, with 294 publications (TLCS: 0, TGCS: 1226). The most cited journal was the New England Journal of Medicine (TLCS: 3310, TGCS: 5914), with an impact factor (IF) of 91.245. The related topics included the following six aspects: attitudes towards vaccination, immunoinformatics analysis, clinical research, effectiveness and side effects, and the public management of vaccines. The timing diagram revealed that the research hotspots focused on the side effects of vaccines and public attitude towards vaccination.
    Conclusion: This novel comprehensive bibliometric analysis can help researchers and non-researchers to rapidly identify the potential partners, landmark studies, and research topics within their domains of interest. Through this study, we hope to provide more data to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
    Keywords:  COVID-19; bibliometric analysis; vaccines
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.2147/IDR.S335745
  5. Turk Arch Otorhinolaryngol. 2021 Sep;59(3): 210-214
      Objective: To evaluate the prevalence and other characteristics of author self-citations in six Turkey-originated general otorhinolaryngology (ORL) journals of Turkish ORL literature.Methods: A total of 970 articles published in six Turkey-originated general ORL journals (ENT Updates, Journal of Ear Nose Throat and Head Neck Surgery, KBB-Forum, Praxis of Otorhinolaryngology, The Turkish Journal of Ear Nose and Throat, and Turkish Archives of Otorhinolaryngology) in 2016-2020 were analyzed for author self-citations. The association between author self-citations and journal types, study types, study topics, country of origin, and compatibility with the topic were also evaluated.
    Results: There were 265 author self-citations (0.273 per article) which corresponded to 1.36% of all citations. There was no significant difference between the journal types, study topics, and origin of the studies in terms of mean self-citation values per study, whereas case reports had significantly lower self-citations than review and original investigations. There were three citations (1.1%) that were irrelevant to the study topic.
    Conclusion: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that investigated the practice of author self-citation in Turkish ORL literature. Author self-citation rate in the Turkish-originated general ORL journals was found remarkably lower than the medical literature, whereas the self-citations were found compatible with the study topic to a very large extent. Members of the scientific community including authors, readers, and journal editors should be cautious regarding the unethical practices of self-citations.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric analysis; otorhinolaryngology; publication ethics; publications; self-citation
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.4274/tao.2021.2021-5-16
  6. Eur J Investig Health Psychol Educ. 2021 Jun 18. 11(2): 585-606
      Research on indoor wayfinding has increased in number and significance since the 1980s. Yet, the information on wayfinding literature is now difficult to manage given its vast scope and spread across journals, institutions, disciplines, and themes. While there is an increasing number of publications within this rapidly growing field of research, there are limited review studies in the field, and there is still missing an overall analysis of the current state of wayfinding literature and its evolution. The main objective of this study is to present a bibliometric analysis of about forty years of research on indoor wayfinding to provide an overview of the research landscape. The final database of the study contained 407 publications. VOSviewer was used as a science mapping software tool to identify major focus areas and to identify influential authors, publications, and journals using various network analysis techniques, such as term co-occurrence, co-citation, and bibliographic coupling. Similar co-occurrence analysis was used to understand how the intellectual base of the field has evolved over time and what the major themes are that have contributed to this evolution. The results show that this field has initially been mainly focused on few themes but has later become more diversified to acknowledge the multi-dimensional characteristics of indoor wayfinding. While spatial knowledge acquisition and cognitive maps are still dominant core areas, there are topics, such as signage, isovists, and the use of eye-tracking and virtual reality, that still need to be further investigated.
    Keywords:  bibliometric analysis; indoor environments; navigation; spatial orientations; wayfinding
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3390/ejihpe11020042
  7. Int J Nurs Knowl. 2021 Oct 24.
      BACKGROUND: Evidence-based nursing and its practices are increasing rapidly in the health and nursing literature. A holistic image of evidence-based nursing research is needed to address evidence-based studies and available information on nursing.AIM: The aim of this study was to evaluate evidence-based nursing-related research with bibliometric analysis in order to provide a structured macroscopic overview of its features and advances.
    METHODS: A bibliometric analysis of 4,159 publications from 1995 to 2021 was performed to map the literature of evidence-based nursing studies and assess the structure of the scientific community. The studies' publication output and growth trend, authors and collaborations, publishing journals, terms, current trends, subject categories, global distribution and collaboration, and the authors' average number of citations were all assessed.
    RESULTS: It was found that the number of evidence-based nursing publications increased until 2016, reaching the publication peak (n = 369), after which they began to decline. Most studies on the topic (n = 543) have been published in the journal Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing. Evidence-based knowledge, dissemination, implementation, implementation barriers, and implementation and training curricula in particular fields have all evolved over time as the key concepts of research. The United States (6,218), Australia (1,247), and England (790) are the three nations with the highest number of publications. On the other hand, it is seen that the subject has yet to be discussed in a few developing or underdeveloped countries.
    CONCLUSIONS: In the last 12 years, evidence-based nursing has been a comprehensive area of research. In comparison with the research areas in its field, it can be speculated that it has a more practical focus. It was determined that the authors' keywords primarily began with research implementation, practice development, and knowledge utilization over time, and then evolved to specific areas, educational areas, process applications, and important current topics such as Covid19.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; evidence-based nursing; evidence-based practice; nursing; nursing research
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/2047-3095.12347
  8. J Family Community Med. 2021 Sep-Dec;28(3):28(3): 164-174
      The Journal of Family and Community Medicine (JFCM) is a peer-reviewed open access journal published by the Saudi Society of Family and Community Medicine. This review is aimed to analyze the scientometric attributes of manuscripts published over 27 years from 1994 to 2020 using scientometric technique. The bibliographic records of manuscripts published from 1994 to 2020 were retrieved from the Web of Science and Medline-PubMed databases. The data were analyzed by using VOSviewer, CiteSpace, and Biblioshiny software. A total of 648 manuscripts were included; these were written by 1442 authors, with an average of 2.22 authors per manuscript and 24 manuscripts per year. All manuscripts gained 2,693 citations with a mean ratio of 4.15 citations per manuscript. All the top-20 contributing authors belonged to Saudi Arabia, and 48% of the manuscripts were in the single-author pattern; the multiauthored manuscripts received a higher ratio of citations. The review highlighted the most contributing institutions and countries.Bibliographic coupling of countries, institutions, keywords co-occurrence, and co-citation of journals were also presented. The JFCM is an important journal of Saudi Arabia that has provided a platform to family medicine researchers to share their scholarly and scientific communication for the past 27 years. Over the years, the frequency and number of publications in the journal have improved. Although the journal has received manuscripts from all over the world, most contributions were from Saudi Arabia.
    Keywords:  Citation analysis; Journal of Family and Community Medicine; databases; journals; publications; scientometrics
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.4103/jfcm.jfcm_289_21
  9. Ann Plast Surg. 2021 Oct 26.
      BACKGROUND: Liposuction is one of the most common cosmetic surgical procedures performed worldwide. Despite previous citation analyses in plastic surgery, the most-cited works in liposuction have not yet been qualitatively or quantitatively appraised. We hypothesized that use of validated outcome measures and levels of evidence would be low among these articles. Thus, we performed a bibliometric analysis aiming to comprehensively review the most-cited liposuction literature, evaluating characteristics and quality of the top 100 articles.METHODS: The 100 most-cited articles in liposuction were identified on Web of Science, across all available journals and years (1950-2020). Study details, including the citation count, main subject, and outcome measures, were extracted from each article by 2 independent reviewers. The level of evidence of each study was also assessed.
    RESULTS: The 100 most-cited articles in liposuction were cited by a total of 4809 articles. Citations per article ranged from 602 to 45 (mean, 92). Most articles were level of evidence 4 (n = 33) or 5 (n = 35), representative of the large number of case series, expert-opinion articles, and narrative reviews. Ten articles achieved level of evidence 3, 22 articles achieved level of evidence 2, and none reached level 1. The main subject was operative technique in 63 articles, followed by outcomes in 32 articles. Five articles assessed the metabolic effects of liposuction. Only 1 article used a validated objective cosmetic outcome measure, and none used validated patient-reported outcome measures.
    CONCLUSIONS: This analysis provides an overview of the top cited liposuction literature. Overall, level of evidence was low, and no articles achieved the highest level of evidence. Improving the quality of literature requires prioritization of better-designed studies and incorporation of validated outcome measures, which will increase patient satisfaction and ensure provision of excellent, reproducible clinical care.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1097/SAP.0000000000003030
  10. Sheng Wu Gong Cheng Xue Bao. 2021 Oct 25. 37(10): 3549-3564
      Bioremediation is regarded as one of the most promising methods for the remediation of the soil and groundwater contaminated with organic compounds, mainly due to its cost-effectiveness and environmental friendliness. Using VOSviewer and CiteSpace, we analyzed all publications in this area in core database of Web of Science from 1990 to 2020. The number of publications in this area showed an increasing trend worldwide. The country with the largest total number of publications was USA, followed by China and India. Since 2012, the number of annual publications of China exceeded USA and ranked the first. The top three journals which published papers in this area were Chemosphere, Environmental Science & Technology, and Science of the Total Environment. The Chinese Academy of Sciences published the largest number of papers among the research institutions globally, but the University of California in USA had the highest total citations and h-index. Bibliometric analysis indicated that it is important to develop biotechnologies of bioremediation coupled with chemical/physical remediation to overcome the challenge of low efficiency and long remediation duration associated with bioremediation. In addition, the bioremediation on the mixed contaminants, such as organic contaminants and heavy metals, or mixtures of different organic contaminants, is an important direction. Finally, the rapid development of microbiome technologies will further promote the exploration of mechanisms involved in bioremediation on the genetic and molecular level.
    Keywords:  bibliometric analysis; bioremediation; organic contaminants; soil and groundwater
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.13345/j.cjb.210385
  11. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2021 Oct 29.
      Electric vehicles (EVs) have proved capable of solving many of the environment's problems such as reducing harmful pollutants' emission along with having greater motor efficiency than gasoline vehicles. This study presents a bibliometric analysis of 10,426 publications from the year 1989 to 2020, obtained from Web of Science™ (WoS) core collection (CC). An initial citation analysis was done using Histcite to identity the leading nations, institutes, authors, and journals performing research related to EVs. Following this, a co-citation analysis was performed using VOSviewer, which generates clusters that are further analyzed to identify the key domains in EV research. A research overview in EVs over the last three decades is presented that can serve various stakeholders in this field of study. The results of this study will highlight the critical research areas in the field of EVs. Additionally, it will also provide various insights that may help the policymakers, practitioners and associations to accelerate EV adoption by the end-users.
    Keywords:  Battery vehicles; Bibliometric; Electric vehicles; Green transport; Hybrid electric vehicles; Literature review; Plug-in electric vehicles; Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles; Powertrains
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-17148-4
  12. J Craniofac Surg. 2021 Oct 01. 32(7): 2263-2265
      ABSTRACT: The aim of this study is to analyze the terms in the abstract section and keywords of articles published in the Journal of Craniofacial Surgery (J Craniofac Surg) bibliometrically. Using the advanced search section in the Web of Science database on February 26, 2021, all articles published in the J Craniofac Surg from 1995 to 2020 were listed. All records of the detected 11,888 articles were exported and both terms in the abstract and keywords used in the articles were determined through the VOSviewer (version 1.6.16) software. It was found that the 10 most common terms in the abstract were patient (n: 6820), study (n: 4729), surgery (n: 3422), case (n: 3230), year (n: 2585), treatment (n: 2430), author (n: 2303) complication (n: 2150), month (n: 2061), and technique (n: 2002), respectively. It was found that the 10 most common keywords were craniosynostosis (n: 408), distraction osteogenesis (n: 257), orthognathic surgery (n: 243), mandible (n: 225), cleft palate (n: 214), reconstruction (n: 206), surgery (n: 157), cranioplasty (n: 150), cleft lip (n: 133), and computed tomography (n: 132), respectively. To the best of our knowledge, the current study is the first bibliometric keyword and term analysis in the field of craniofacial surgery. This study will enable us to have an idea about the past and current trends and the visibility of the articles published in the J Craniofac Surg.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1097/SCS.0000000000007925
  13. Cancer Control. 2021 Jan-Dec;28:28 10732748211053464
      INTRODUCTION: The incidence of cancer and its prevalence are increasing in Indonesia. It is crucial to ensure national cancer policies are evidence-based and promote research. While cancer research is being conducted across Indonesia, the extent and focus of research activities are not known, with no existing synthesis of the cancer research landscape. We seek to address this gap by characterising trends in the extent and types of cancer research conducted in Indonesia.METHODS: Scientometric study using descriptive analyses to determine annual growth patterns in publications across all cancer research literature from Indonesia. We developed a classification system for both research type and study design which was applied to all included publications. A visualisation software tool (VOSviewer) was used to explore the geographical distribution of research activity. The Wilcoxon rank-sum test was used to determine the influence of international collaboration on the impact factor of journals in which articles were published.
    RESULTS: We retrieved 1773 cancer-related articles published by Indonesia-affiliated authors from 1961 to 2020, with notable year-on-year increases in the annual total number of published articles since 2015. Most articles (84.0%) were published by authors affiliated with institutions on Java Island. The most commonly published article type was basic research and discovery science (28.8%), using a one-group analytical study design (28.8%). International collaboration was significantly correlated with a higher h-index of the journal in which research was published (P < .0001, r = .317).
    CONCLUSION: An increase in the number and range of topics explored in cancer-related publications over time was identified. The summary of the current corpus of cancer-related research for Indonesia can be used to direct the development of the national cancer control plan alongside informing the national cancer research strategy. Our novel and feasible scientometric approach can be used to direct future national and regional mapping of cancer research.
    Keywords:  Indonesia; cancer epidemiology; cancer research; policy; scientometric analysis
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1177/10732748211053464
  14. Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2021 Oct 25.
      Global assessment of vegetation response to climate change (VRCC) studies was conducted to reveal the research evolution, current research hotspots and better understanding of dominant themes in VRCC areas of research from 1992 to 2019 through the use of bibliometrics. A total of 186 articles with the search term "Vegetation response to Climate change" were retrieved using the Web of Science (WOS) database. The annual growth rate of 10.3% connotes that research on VRCC has been increasing over time during the survey period. Average citations per article experienced many fluctuations over the years rather than maintaining the same growth rate, which connotes that this field of research reached was unstable in terms of average total citation per document. Results show that China ranked first followed by the USA and the UK, and this shows the dominance of these countries on VRCC studies over the years in review. Results from corresponding authors' nationalities show that multiple-country publications are relatively low compared to articles from single-country publications which showed a dominant trend. Hence, we can infer that most studies on VRCC were sustained by single-country publications. Results from this study revealed top-cited articles, the top global distribution of documents, academic collaboration, most relevant keywords and Word TreeMap of high-frequency keywords. The findings of this study show that "temperature" is in a central position in all keywords with the largest significant appearance in the field. In conclusion, the findings from this study may be applicable for planning and managing vegetation and forest ecosystem research and provide hints for future development.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; Climate change; Precipitation; Temperature; Vegetation
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-16319-7
  15. BMJ Glob Health. 2021 Oct;pii: e006982. [Epub ahead of print]6(10):
      INTRODUCTION: Authorship parasitism (ie, no authors affiliated with the country in which the study took place) occurs frequently in research conducted in low-income and middle-income countries, despite published recommendations defining authorship criteria. The objective was to compare characteristics of articles exhibiting authorship parasitism in sub-Saharan Africa to articles with author representation from sub-Saharan African countries.METHODS: A bibliometric review of articles indexed in PubMed published from January 2014 through December 2018 reporting research conducted in sub-Saharan Africa was performed. Author affiliations were assigned to countries based on regular expression algorithms. Choropleth maps and network diagrams were created to determine where authorship parasitism occurred, and multivariable logistic regression was used to determine associated factors.
    RESULTS: Of 32 061 articles, 14.8% (n=4754) demonstrated authorship parasitism, which was most common among studies from Somalia (n=175/233, 75.1%) and Sao Tome and Principe (n=20/28, 71.4%). Authors affiliated with USA and UK institutions were most commonly involved in articles exhibiting authorship parasitism. Authorship parasitism was more common in articles: published in North American journals (adjusted OR (aOR) 1.26, 95% CI 1.07 to 1.50) than in sub-Saharan African journals, reporting work from multiple sub-Saharan African countries (aOR 8.41, 95% CI 7.30 to 9.68) compared with work from upper-middle income sub-Saharan African countries, with <5 authors (aOR 14.46, 95% CI 12.81 to 16.35) than >10 authors, and was less common in articles published in French (aOR 0.60, 95% CI 0.41 to 0.85) than English.
    CONCLUSIONS: Authorship parasitism was common in articles reporting research conducted in sub-Saharan Africa. There were reliable predictors of authorship parasitism. Investigators and institutions in high-income countries, as well as funding agencies and journals should promote research from sub-Saharan Africa, including its publication, in a collaborative and equitable manner.
    Keywords:  cross-sectional survey; public health
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2021-006982
  16. J Dent. 2021 Oct 21. pii: S0300-5712(21)00276-1. [Epub ahead of print] 103853
      OBJECTIVES: Increasing numbers of women are entering dentistry and medicine and it is anticipated that global leadership positions represent this demographic. In this study, the proportion of women editors of prominent medical and dental journals was compared.METHODS: A list of dental and medical journals, ranked by impact factor, were obtained through Web of Science Journal Citation Reports 2020. Chief and associate editors of these journals were identified as either a woman or a man.
    RESULTS: Ninety one dental journals had 100 editors, 15 of whom were women. There were significantly less women chief editors than men (p<0.0001) compared to the percentage expected (global proportion of women and men dental scientists [IADR] membership: 43.72% women). Of ninety one comparable medical journals ranked by impact factor, there were 103 chief editors, 41 of whom were women. There was no significant difference in the number of men and women chief editors for medical journals (p=0.242). There were significantly fewer women chief editors for dental journals compared to medical journals (p<0.0001). There was no significant difference between the mean impact factor for journals with women and men editors for dental (p=0.556) or medical (p=0.492) journals. For the 91 dental journals, there were a total of 828 associate editors, of whom 638 were men and 190 were women and this difference was significant (p<0.0001).
    CONCLUSIONS: The results demonstrate that women in dental research have attained editor positions with less frequency than men indicating the presence of barriers to progress in scientific dental publishing.
    Keywords:  (MeSH): Women; Binomial distribution; Editorial policy; Journal Impact Factor; Leadership; Social Responsibility
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdent.2021.103853
  17. BMJ Open. 2021 Oct 27. 11(10): e052856
      OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether the COVID-19 experts who appear most frequently in media have high citation impact for their research overall, and for their COVID-19 peer-reviewed publications in particular and to examine the representation of women among such experts.DESIGN: Cross-linking of data sets of most highly visible COVID-19 media experts with citation data on the impact of their published work (career-long publication record and COVID-19-specific work).
    SETTING: Cable news appearance in prime-time programming or overall media appearances.
    PARTICIPANTS: Most highly visible COVID-19 media experts in the USA, Switzerland, Greece and Denmark.
    INTERVENTIONS: None.
    OUTCOME MEASURES: Citation data from Scopus along with discipline-specific ranks of overall career-long and COVID-19-specific impact based on a previously validated composite citation indicator.
    RESULTS: We assessed 76 COVID-19 experts who were highly visible in US prime-time cable news, and 50, 12 and 2 highly visible experts in media in Denmark, Greece and Switzerland, respectively. Of those, 23/76, 10/50, 2/12 and 0/2 were among the top 2% of overall citation impact among scientists in the same discipline worldwide. Moreover, 37/76, 15/50, 7/12 and 2/2 had published anything on COVID-19 that was indexed in Scopus as of 30 August 2021. Only 18/76, 6/50, 2/12 and 0/2 of the highly visible COVID-19 media experts were women. 55 scientists in the USA, 5 in Denmark, 64 in Greece and 56 in Switzerland had a higher citation impact for their COVID-19 work than any of the evaluated highly visible media COVID-19 experts in the respective country; 10/55, 2/5, 22/64 and 14/56 of them were women.
    CONCLUSIONS: Despite notable exceptions, there is a worrisome disconnect between COVID-19 claimed media expertise and scholarship. Highly cited women COVID-19 experts are rarely included among highly visible media experts.
    Keywords:  COVID-19; medical journalism; public health
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2021-052856
  18. Sheng Wu Yi Xue Gong Cheng Xue Za Zhi. 2021 Oct 25. 38(5): 919-931
      This paper analyzed literatures on the specificity study of electroencephalogram (EEG) in the diagnosis of depression since 2010 to 2020, summarized the recent research directions in this field and prospected the future research hotspots at home and abroad. Based on databases of China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and the core collection of Web of Science (WOS), CiteSpace software was used to analyze the relevant literatures in this research field. The number of relevant literatures, countries, authors, research institutions, key words, cited literatures and periodicals related to this research were analyzed, respectively, to explore research hotspots and development trends in this field. A total of 2 155 articles were included in the WOS database. The most published institution was the University of Toronto, the most published country was the United States, China occupied the third place, and the hot keywords were anxiety, disorder, brain and so on. A total of 529 literatures were included and analyzed in CNKI database. The institution with the most publications was the Mental Health Center of West China Hospital of Sichuan University, and the hot keywords were EEG signal, event-related potential, convolutional neural network, schizophrenia, etc . This study finds that EEG study of depression is developing rapidly at home and abroad. Research directions in the world mainly focus on exploring the characteristics of spontaneous EEG rhythm and nonlinear dynamic parameters during sleep in depressed patients. In addition, synchronous transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and EEG technologies also attract much attention abroad, and the future research hotspot will be on the mechanism of EEG on patients with major depression. Domestic research directions mainly focus on the classification of resting EEG and the control study of resting EEG power spectrum entropy in patients with schizophrenia and depression, and future research hotspot is the basic and clinical EEG study of depressed patients complicated with anxiety.
    Keywords:  CiteSpace; depressive disorder; electroencephalogram; visual analysis
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.7507/1001-5515.202101058
  19. Kidney Med. 2021 Sep-Oct;3(5):3(5): 762-767
      Rationale & Objectives: Artificial intelligence driven by machine learning algorithms is being increasingly employed for early detection, disease diagnosis, and clinical management. We explored the use of machine learning-driven advancements in kidney research compared with other organ-specific fields.Study Design: Cross-sectional bibliometric analysis.
    Setting & Participants: ISI Web of Science database was queried using specific Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms about the organ system, journal International Standard Serial Number, and research methodology. In parallel, we screened the National Institutes of Health (NIH) RePORTER website to explore funded grants that proposed the use of machine learning as a methodology.
    Predictors: Number of publications using machine learning as a research method.
    Outcome: Articles were characterized by research methodology among 5 organ systems (brain, heart, kidney, liver, and lung). Grants funded by NIH for machine learning were characterized by study sections.
    Analytical Approach: Percentages of articles using machine learning and other research methodologies were compared among 5 organ systems.
    Results: Machine learning-based articles that are focused on the kidney accounted for 3.2% of the total relevant articles from the 5 organ systems. Specifically, brain research published over 19-fold higher number of articles than kidney research. As compared with machine learning, conventional statistical approaches such as the Cox proportional hazard model were used 9-fold higher in articles related to kidney research. In general, a lower utilization of machine learning-based approaches was observed in organ-specific specialty journals than the broad interdisciplinary journals. The digestive disease, kidney, and urology study sections funded 122 applications proposing machine learning-based approaches compared to 265 applications from the neurology, neuropsychology, and neuropathology study sections.
    Limitations: Observational study.
    Conclusions: Our analysis suggests lowest use of machine learning as a research tool among kidney researchers compared with other organ-specific researchers, underscoring a need to better inform the kidney research community about this emerging data analytic tool.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric analysis; NIH funding; kidney; machine learning; research methods
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xkme.2021.04.012
  20. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2021 Nov 01. pii: S0360-3016(21)01569-8. [Epub ahead of print]111(3S): e192
      PURPOSE/OBJECTIVE(S): We aimed to examine how the rise of open access (OA) journals in biomedicine has impacted resident research in radiation oncology.MATERIALS/METHODS: We built a comprehensive database of first-author, PubMed-searchable articles published by US radiation oncology residents who graduated between 2015 and 2019. We then classified each journal in which these manuscripts appeared as either OA or non-OA, and obtained the current article processing charge (APC) for every publication that appeared in an OA journal. Lastly, we performed a secondary analysis to identify the factors associated with publishing an article in an OA journal.
    RESULTS: The US radiation oncology residents in this study published 2,637 first-author, PubMed-searchable manuscripts, 555 (21.0%) of which appeared in 138 OA journals. The number of publications in OA journals increased from 0.47 per resident for the class of 2015 to 0.79 per resident for the class of 2019. Likewise, the number of publications in OA journals with a 2019 impact factor of zero increased from 0.14 per resident for the class of 2015 to 0.43 per resident for the class of 2019. Publications in OA journals garnered fewer citations than those in non-OA journals (8.9 versus 14.9, P < 0.01). 90.6% of OA journals levy an APC for original research reports (median $1,896), which is positively correlated with their 2019 impact factor (r = 0.63, P < 0.01). Aggregate APCs totaled $900,319.21 for all US radiation oncology residency programs and appeared to increase over the study period.
    CONCLUSION: The number of first-author, PubMed-searchable manuscripts published by graduating US radiation oncology residents in OA journals rose significantly over the study period. US radiation oncology residency programs appear to be investing increasing and significant sums of money to publish the work of their residents in these journals. A more substantive discussion about the proper role of OA journals in resident research is needed.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrobp.2021.07.699
  21. J Urol. 2021 Oct 25. 101097JU0000000000002258
      PURPOSE: The American Urological Association (AUA) Annual Meeting serves as the premier platform for presenting unpublished research in urology. Among selected abstracts, podium presentations represent the most impactful submissions. While podium presentations receive a large audience through conference attendance and social media posts, it is unclear how often they manifest as publications in peer-reviewed journals.MATERIALS AND METHODS: Podium presentations from the 2017 AUA Annual Meeting were reviewed. Abstracts were assessed for publication between January 1, 2015 and May 31, 2020 allowing for a 3-year window of publication and accounting for publications prior to the submission deadline. Abstract authors were individually searched with key terms being added sequentially until <30 results were generated in PubMed. Abstracts were deemed published if at least 1 author and 1 conclusion matched a manuscript. Publication rate, time to publication, and 2019 journal impact factor were collected. Statistical analysis was performed by linear and logistic regression.
    RESULTS: Of 872 podium presentations, 453 (51.9%) were published within 3 years. Median time from submission to publication was 12.5 months (IQR:7.5-20.5). The number of articles published at 1-, 2- and 3-years from submission was 203, 368, and 430, respectively. The median journal impact factor of publications was 3.2 (IQR:2.0-5.8). Oncology studies (OR=1.21(95%CI:0.91-1.60), p=0.186) had similar rates of publication compared to non-oncology studies.
    CONCLUSIONS: While AUA podium presentations disseminate valuable data, approximately half were not published in peer-reviewed journals within 3 years. Therefore, care must be taken when promoting findings or adopting new practices based on these presentations alone.
    Keywords:  peer review; publications,
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1097/JU.0000000000002258
  22. World Neurosurg. 2021 Oct 25. pii: S1878-8750(21)01649-1. [Epub ahead of print]
      INTRODUCTION: Academic productivity, a key feature of academic neurosurgery, has been linked to academic rank, subspecialty, and institutional rank. Relative Citation Ratio (RCR) has emerged as a new metric of scholarly output that can make field-normalized comparisons between researchers, a feature unavailable in prior metrics such as h-index. Here we evaluate the influence of academic rank and neurosurgical subspecialties on RCR scores.METHODS: 1640 academic neurosurgeons from 115 ACGME accredited programs in the US were identified, along with their neurosurgical specialty and demographic information, using publicly available data. Mean RCR (m-RCR) and weighted RCR (w-RCR) for each neurosurgeon were queried from the iCite database, which included publications from 2002-2020. M-RCR and w-RCR scores were compared across subspecialties and academic rank using multivariable regression while controlling for demographic factors.
    RESULTS: Multivariable analysis indicated that academic neurosurgeons in general neurosurgery (p= 0.039) and pediatric neurosurgery (p= 0.003) had lower m-RCR scores than their peers in other subspecialties. w-RCR did not differ significantly among subspecialties. Higher academic rank was associated with increased m-RCR (p< 0.05)and w-RCR scores (p< 0.0001).
    CONCLUSIONS: Professors have a higher m-RCR score relative to assistant professors, while general and pediatric neurosurgery were linked to lower m-RCR values. Although neurosurgical subspecialty choice did not influence w-RCR, a higher w-RCR score corresponded to a higher academic rank. Overall, the RCR metric can be utilized for field-normalized comparisons of faculty who differ in academic rank and subspecialty.
    Keywords:  RCR; Relative Citation Ratio; academic productivity; academic rank; bibliometrics; neurosurgical subspecialties
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wneu.2021.10.148
  23. JMIR Cancer. 2021 Oct 28. 7(4): e26691
      BACKGROUND: One of the requirements for scientists and researchers to enter any field of science is to have a comprehensive and accurate understanding of that discipline.OBJECTIVE: This study aims to draw a science map, provide structural analysis, explore the evolution, and determine new trends in research articles published in the field of breast cancer.
    METHODS: This study comprised a descriptive survey with a scientometric approach. Data were collected from MEDLINE using a search strategy based on Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) terms. This study used science mapping, which provides a visual representation and a longitudinal evolution of possible interrelations between scientific areas, documents, or authors, thus reflecting the cognitive architecture of science mapping. For this scientometric evaluation of the topic of breast cancer research, a very long period was considered for data collection. Moreover, due to the availability of numerous publications in the database, the assessment was divided into three different periods ranging from 1988 to 2020.
    RESULTS: A total of 12,577 records related to scientometric studies were extracted. The field of breast cancer research demonstrated three diagrams containing the most relevant themes for the three chronological periods evaluated. Each diagram was plotted based on the centrality and density linked to each research topic. The research output in the field was observed to revolve around 8 areas or themes: radiation injury, cardiovascular disease, fibroadenoma, antineoplastic agent, estrogen antagonistic, immunohistochemistry, soybean, and epitopes, each represented with different colors.
    CONCLUSIONS: In the strategic diagrams, the themes were both well developed and important for the structuring of a research field. The first quadrant comprised motor themes of the specialty, which present strong centrality and high density (eg, corticosteroid antineoplastic age, stem cell, T-lymphocyte, protein tyrosine kinase, dietary, and phosphatidyl inositol-3-kinase). In the second quadrant of diagram, themes have well-developed internal ties but unimportant external ties, as they are of only marginal importance for the field. These themes are very specialized and peripheral (eg, DNA-binding). In the third quadrant, themes are both weakly developed and marginal. The themes in this quadrant have low density and centrality and mainly represent either emerging or declining themes (eg, ovarian neoplasm). Themes in the fourth quadrant of the strategic diagram are considered important for a research field but are not fully developed. This quadrant contains transversal and general, basic themes (eg, immunohistochemistry). Scientometric analysis of breast cancer research can be regarded as a roadmap for future research and policymaking for this important field.
    Keywords:  Scimat; breast cancer; co-word analysis; science mapping; scientometrics
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.2196/26691
  24. J Taibah Univ Med Sci. 2021 Oct 18.
      Objectives: In the wake of recent widespread interest in telemedicine during the COVID-19 era, many orthopaedic surgeons may be unfamiliar with clinical examination skills, patients' safety, data security, and implementation-related concerns in telemedicine. We present a bibliometric analysis and review of the telemedicine-related publications concerning orthopaedics care during the COVID-19 pandemic. Such analysis can help orthopaedic surgeons become acquainted with the recent developments in telemedicine and its usage in regular orthopaedics practice.Methods: We systematically searched the database of Thomson Reuters Web of Science for telemedicine-related articles in orthopaedics published during the COVID-19 pandemic. The selected articles were analysed for their source journals, corresponding authors, investigating institutions, countries of the corresponding authors, number of citations, study types, levels of evidence, and a qualitative review.
    Results: Fifty-nine articles meeting the inclusion criteria were published in 28 journals. Three hundred forty-two authors contributed to these research papers. The United States (US) contributed the most number of articles to the telemedicine-related orthopaedics research during the COVID-19 era. All articles combined had a total of 383 citations and 66.1% were related to the Economic and Decision-making Analyses of telemedicine implementation. By and large, level IV evidence was predominant in our review.
    Conclusion: Telemedicine can satisfactorily cover a major proportion of patients' visits to outpatient departments, thus limiting hospitals' physical workload. Telemedicine has a potential future role in emergency orthopaedics and inpatient care through virtual aids. The issues related to patient privacy, data security, medicolegal, and reimbursement-related aspects need to be addressed through precise national or regional guidelines. Lastly, the orthopaedic physical examination is a weak link in telemedicine and needs to be strengthened.
    Keywords:  Bibliometric analysis; COVID-19; Orthopaedics; Telemedicine; Trends
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtumed.2021.09.003
  25. J Appl Clin Med Phys. 2021 Oct 25.
      PURPOSE: Research productivity metrics are important for decisions regarding hiring, retention, and promotion in academic medicine, and these metrics can vary widely among different disciplines. This article examines productivity metrics for radiation therapy physicists (RTP) in the United States.METHODS AND MATERIALS: Database searches were performed for RTP faculty at US institutions that have RTP residencies accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Physics Education Programs (CAMPEP). Demographics, academic rank, number of publications, academic career length, Hirsch index (h-index), m-quotient, and history of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding as a principal investigator (PI) were collected for each RTP. Logistic regression was performed to determine the probability of academic rank as a function of h-index and m-quotient. Statistical tests used included the Wilcoxon ranked sum test and the Pearson χ2 test.
    RESULTS: A total of 1038 faculty and staff were identified at 78 institutions with CAMPEP-accredited residencies. The average RTP academic career duration is 13.5 years, with 46.7 total publications, h-index of 10.7, and m-quotient of 0.66. Additionally, 10.5% of RTP have a history of NIH funding as a PI. Large disparities were found in academic productivity of doctoral-prepared physicists compared to those with a terminal master's degree. For differences in junior and senior faculty, statistical tests yielded significance in career duration, number of publications, h-index, and m-quotient. Gender disparities were identified in the overall distribution of RTP consistent with the membership of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine. Further gender disparities were found in the number of doctoral-prepared RTP and physicists in senior faculty roles.
    CONCLUSIONS: This manuscript provides objective benchmark data regarding research productivity of academic RTP. These data may be of interest to faculty preparing for promotion, and also to institutional leadership.
    Keywords:  academic productivity; bibliometrics; h-index
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1002/acm2.13456
  26. PLoS One. 2021 ;16(10): e0258925
      INTRODUCTION: Authors of knowledge syntheses make many subjective decisions during their review process. Those decisions, which are guided in part by author characteristics, can impact the conduct and conclusions of knowledge syntheses, which assimilate much of the evidence base in medical education. To better understand the evidence base, this study describes the characteristics of knowledge synthesis authors, focusing on gender, geography, and institution.METHODS: In 2020, the authors conducted meta-research to examine authors of 963 knowledge syntheses published between 1999 and 2019 in 14 core medical education journals.
    RESULTS: The authors identified 4,110 manuscript authors across all authorship positions. On average there were 4.3 authors per knowledge synthesis (SD = 2.51, Median = 4, Range = 1-22); 79 knowledge syntheses (8%) were single-author publications. Over time, the average number of authors per synthesis increased (M = 1.80 in 1999; M = 5.34 in 2019). Knowledge syntheses were authored by slightly more females (n = 2047; 50.5%) than males (n = 2005; 49.5%) across all author positions. Authors listed affiliations in 58 countries, and 58 knowledge syntheses (6%) included authors from low- or middle-income countries. Authors from the United States (n = 366; 38%), Canada (n = 233; 24%), and the United Kingdom (n = 180; 19%) published the most knowledge syntheses. Authors listed affiliation at 617 unique institutions, and first authors represented 362 unique institutions with greatest representation from University of Toronto (n = 55, 6%). Across all authorship positions, the large majority of knowledge syntheses (n = 753; 78%) included authors from institutions ranked in the top 200 globally.
    CONCLUSION: Knowledge synthesis author teams have grown over the past 20 years, and while there is near gender parity across all author positions, authorship has been dominated by North American researchers located at highly ranked institutions. This suggests a potential overrepresentation of certain authors with particular characteristics, which may impact the conduct and conclusions of medical education knowledge syntheses.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258925
  27. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2021 Nov 01. pii: S0360-3016(21)01133-0. [Epub ahead of print]111(3S): S115
      PURPOSE/OBJECTIVE(S): In fiscal year (FY) 2020, the NIH spent over $36B on grants, of which $508M went to radiation oncology and diagnostic radiology departments. Given the enormity of this expenditure, it is imperative to better understand the funding distribution of research topics to gain insight into funding appropriateness. Multiple studies have performed categorization of grants (including an ASTRO Grant Funding Portfolio Analysis in 2017) but these approaches have been limited to manual analysis of small corpora. Due to the high annual number of grants, there is a need for automatic and systematic extraction of research topics from grants to enable evaluation of trends, productivity, and geographic distribution.MATERIALS/METHODS: We analyzed 4346 R-type grants (excluding R25) awarded to Department of Radiation Oncology/Diagnostic Radiology funded by the National Cancer Institute and National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering from FY 2010-2020 using NIH ExPORTER. Preprocessing was done on 'Project Terms' to weight their importance using TF*IDF vectorization and principal component analysis. Spectral clustering was used to cluster the grants. The optimal cluster number was determined using scoring methods of intercluster distance. Manual validation was performed to verify cluster correctness.
    RESULTS: We found the optimal number of 12 clusters to best represent separation of the R-type grant research directions. These clusters represent clear topics such as oncogenesis, image reconstruction, and assay development. Notable trends include increased funding of radiation technology and hepatobiliary therapy clusters averaging +$1.2M and +$1.1M annual growth, respectively, over 10 years, and decreased funding of image reconstruction and MRI clusters averaging -$0.71M and -$0.67M annually. Further analysis shows that the DNA damage cluster is most geographically skewed, with 52% of the funding going to institutions in three cities (Dallas, Houston, New Haven). Prostate cancer is also heavily geographically skewed, with the most funded city (San Francisco) having triple the funds of the second highest (Baltimore). The number of published articles per grant also shows a bias, with the workshops/conferences and image reconstruction clusters having publication rates of 35.4 and 9.9, respectively. Radiation biology research is the biggest cluster and has a publication rate of 12.7, which is lower than average for NCI (16.3), and may reflect the pace of basic vs. applied research.
    CONCLUSION: We propose an unsupervised machine learning framework to categorize grants by area of investigation, which is more efficient and systematic than manual labeling and more holistic than keyword searching. This clustering example suggests a trend from imaging-based towards therapy-based research over the past 10 years. We also identify biases in publication rate and geographic distribution of funds.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrobp.2021.07.263
  28. Arthroscopy. 2021 Oct 26. pii: S0749-8063(21)00925-7. [Epub ahead of print]
      PURPOSE: The aims of the current study were 1) to compare the total number and dollar amount of industry funding and National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding to academic orthopedic sports medicine surgeons and 2) to examine the impact of academic influence on industry funding and NIH funding to academic orthopedic sports medicine surgeons.METHODS: Academic orthopedic sports medicine surgeons were identified using faculty webpages. Academic influence was approximated by a physician's h-index and number of publications and obtained from the Scopus database. Total industry payments were acquired through the Open Payments Database and NIH funding was determined from the NIH website. Statistical analysis was performed using Mann-Whitney U testing and Spearman correlations with significance set at p < 0.05.
    RESULTS: Physicians who received industry research payments and NIH funding had a significantly higher mean h-index and mean total publications than physicians that did not receive industry research payments and NIH funding. There were no significant differences in h-index (p= 0.374) or number of publications (p=0.126) between surgeons receiving industry non-research funding and those who did not. H-index and number of publications were both weakly correlated with the amount of industry research and non-research funding.
    CONCLUSION: While academic influence is associated with industry research funding and NIH funding, there is no association between measures of academic influence and total industry and industry non-research payments. Combined with the weak associations between academic influence and the amount of industry payments, academic influence does not appear to be a major determinant of industry funding to academic orthopedic sports medicine surgeons.
    CLINICAL RELEVANCE: While surgeons should be cognizant of potential conflicts with industry, the relationship between academic sports medicine surgeons and industry may be less subject to bias than previously believed.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.arthro.2021.10.017
  29. Front Digit Health. 2020 ;2 610837
      Background: The progress and innovation in telemedicine within the Middle Eastern countries have not been heavily monitored. Therefore, the present study aims to analyze the scholarly work conducted in the Arab world, using reproducible statistical and scientometric techniques. Methods: An electronic search of Web of Science (core database) had been conducted through use of an extensive search strategy comprising of keywords specific to the Arab region, EMRO countries, telehealth, medical conditions, and disorders. A total yield of 1,630 search results were processed, indexed through July 7, 2020. CiteSpace (5.7.R1, Drexel University, Pennsylvania, USA) is a Java-based application, a user-friendly tool for conducting scientometric analyses. Results: The present analyses found a lack of innovation in the field of digital health in the Arab countries. Many gaps in research were found in Arab countries, which will be discussed subsequently. Digital health research was clustered around themes of big data and artificial intelligence; a lack of progress was seen in telemedicine and digital health. Furthermore, only a small proportion of these publications had principal or corresponding authors from Arab countries. A clear disparity in digital health research in the Arab world was evident after comparing these insights with our previous investigation on telemedicine research in the global context. Conclusion: Telemedicine research is still in its infancy in the Middle Eastern countries. Recommendations include diversification of the research landscape and interdisciplinary collaborations in this area.
    Keywords:  Middle East; bibliometric; digital health; research policy; scientometric; telemedicine
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fdgth.2020.610837
  30. Iran J Nurs Midwifery Res. 2021 Sep-Oct;26(5):26(5): 417-424
      Background: Nursing is one of the most important areas of medical sciences whose developments including its scientific publications can influence health care. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate nursing articles published from 2013 to 2018, and to provide a comprehensive view of common topical clusters in this research area.Materials and Methods: In this practical research, bibliometrics method and co-word analysis technique are used. The study population included all the articles in nursing area indexed in Web of Science from 2013 to 2018. The bibliometrics software, including BibExcel, UCINET, and SPSS was used to analyze the data.
    Results: Results indicated that the most frequently used nursing words in nursing research articles were "Quality of life," "Aged," "Education," and "Nursing." Moreover, the pairs such as "Anxiety-Depression", "Education, Nursing-Students, Nursing" and "Depression--Quality of life" were the most frequent co-occurrences. The use of hierarchical clustering led to the formation of seven topical clusters in Nursing: "Nursing care for the Aged," "Self-care," "Physical, emotional, and social support, "Mother and child health," "Preventing nursing care," "Nursing profession Research," and "Quality of nursing care."
    Conclusions: The growth of nursing scientific productions is an indicative of the importance of this subject area in healthcare services; however, there is no balanced growth in various subjects.
    Keywords:  Bibliometrics; nursing research; publishing
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.4103/ijnmr.IJNMR_41_20
  31. Front Med (Lausanne). 2021 ;8 756870
      Background: The mission of medicines regulatory agencies is to ensure the timely access of innovative products for patients to improve public health. Thus, regulators should foresee evolving technologies and build expertise prior to reviewing innovative products. Novel modalities and new classes of therapeutics in biological or cell-based products represent a regulatory challenge because of knowledge gaps, as exemplified by the unexpected cytokine release syndrome in the first-in-human clinical trial of the CD28 super-agonist. Meanwhile, recent treatments harnessing T cell co-signaling pathways provide an opportunity for investigation. Therefore, this study aimed to systematically identify and evaluate novel modalities for T cell immunity to assess the need for regulatory guidance. Methods: A PubMed search was carried out using the query, "immun* AND t lymph*" to select publications. Subsequently, a citation network was created, followed by clustering and text mining to identify the modalities and classes of therapeutics under development. Results and Discussion: Analysis of the top 20 clusters revealed research domains characterized by keywords such as immune checkpoint antibody, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells, microbiota, exosome, regulatory T cells, unconventional T cells, and vaccines. After reviewing the pharmacological concepts, clinical trial information, and available guidance, we presented a perspective on the future development of guidance for these domains. Conclusion: Bibliometric analyses identified a set of innovative modalities targeted for drug development with which regulatory guidance is going to catch up. This strategy could help in the successful development of upcoming modalities to ensure readiness for clinical application as part of horizon scanning.
    Keywords:  T cell therapy; citation network; drug development; horizon scanning; immunotherapy; novel modality; regulatory guidance; regulatory science
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2021.756870
  32. J Neurosurg. 2021 Oct 29. pii: 2021.7.JNS2128. [Epub ahead of print] 1-8
      OBJECTIVE: Abstracts act as short, efficient sources of new information. This intentional brevity potentially diminishes scientific reliability of described findings. The authors' objective was to 1) determine the proportion of abstracts submitted to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) annual meeting that subsequently are published in peer-reviewed journals, 2) assess AANS abstract publications for publication bias, and 3) assess AANS abstract publications for differing results.METHODS: The authors screened all abstracts from the annual 2012 AANS meeting and identified their corresponding full-text publication, if applicable, by searching PubMed/MEDLINE. The abstract and subsequent publication were analyzed for result type (positive or negative) and differences in results.
    RESULTS: Overall, 49.3% of abstracts were published as papers. Many (18.1%) of these published papers differed in message from their original abstract. Publication bias exists, with positive abstracts being 40% more likely to be published than negative abstracts. The top journals in which the full-text articles were published were Journal of Neurosurgery (13.1%), Neurosurgery (7.3%), and World Neurosurgery (5.4%).
    CONCLUSIONS: Here, the authors demonstrate that alone, abstracts are not reliable sources of information. Many abstracts ultimately remain unpublished; therefore, they do not attain a level of scientific scrutiny that merits alteration of clinical care. Furthermore, many that are published have differing results or conclusions. In addition, positive publication bias exists, as positive abstracts are more likely to be published than negative abstracts.
    Keywords:  American Association of Neurological Surgeons; abstract; annual meeting; national meeting; neurosurgery; oral presentation; poster; publication outcomes; scientific meeting
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3171/2021.7.JNS2128
  33. Environ Monit Assess. 2021 Oct 28. 193(11): 752
      Building dams for hydroelectric use causes several negative effects on the aquatic fauna with special attention to fish communities. In fact, among other impacts, dams act as a barrier for migratory fish, causing discontinuities in rivers and not allowing fish to move to the headwaters to breed and back to the lower portions of rivers, to grow. For more than 300 years, fishways have been used to minimize the impact of dams. Here, we assess the worldwide knowledge about fishways, identifying the temporal and spatial pattern and the situation of Brazil in this global pattern. For this, we conducted scientometric research on the Web of Science repository with the following words: weir, fish, facilities, ladder, pass, dam, fish ladder, fish pass, fishway, hydropower, Petromyzon, and salmon between 1985 and 2019. Initially, we obtained 1282 articles. After a selection, 324 articles aimed to describe fishway efficiency and the relationship with the fish fauna remained. Most of the articles on dams, fishways, and fish are from North America and Europe. Among the articles in South America, most are from Brazil. Nonetheless, information on the topic is incipient in Brazil, since the country has one of the biggest hydropower in the world and 42 scientific articles about fishways published in the international scientific database. Ecology is the area of knowledge with most articles, with continuous growth in the last 10 years. Studies in the field of ecology are strategical, as this field can integrate different areas of knowledge to test the efficiency of fishways in fish conservation and may be able to answer the question: "Are fishways an ecological trap?" Research focusing on this question is important to understand the efficiency of fishways to better evaluate solutions to minimize the negative effects of dams on fish and increase the effectiveness of fishways.
    Keywords:  Connectivity; Fish conservation; Fishway; Hydroelectric; Migratory fish
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-021-09360-z
  34. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2021 Nov 01. pii: S0360-3016(21)01890-3. [Epub ahead of print]111(3S): e335
      PURPOSE/OBJECTIVE(S): The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) clinical practice guidelines are a consensus generated from the fields' experts and are an established resource in determining the standard(s) of care for disease sites. Representation of female experts on radiation oncology clinical guidelines is unknown. As women are underrepresented in the radiation oncology workforce, we hypothesize that female experts are underrepresented in authorship of clinical guidelines for radiation oncology.MATERIALS/METHODS: Publicly available information of authors on ASTRO guidelines and consensus paper, including gender, degree, medical specialty, academic rank, years in training (at time of guideline or consensus publication), order of authorship, and institution was collected. Statistical analysis was performed using chi-square and odds ratio tests to test for association.
    RESULTS: Thirty-four ASTRO guideline and consensus documents, including clinical practice guidelines (65%), consensus guidance (15%), and white papers (21%), were reviewed. Of 449 non-unique authors identified, the most commonly represented specialties were radiation oncology (59%), surgery (11%), physics (9%), medical oncology (5%), and cardiology (5%). Among all authors, 33% were female. No association between female gender and specialization in radiation oncology was found (P = 0.5). Of 70 total first and last authors, 32% and 33% were female, respectively. When considering academic rank, male authors were more likely to hold full professorship compared to female authors (51% vs 17%, P = 0.001). Male authors were more likely to have 20+ years of training at guideline publication compared to female authors (34% vs 11%, P = 0.009).
    CONCLUSION: Women comprise 1/3rd of expert panelists who author the ASTRO clinical practice guidelines and consensus documents which is similar to the gender breakdown of the radiation oncology workforce. Male authors were more likely to hold full professor rank and have 20+ years of training. As more women enter the radiation oncology workforce, continued conscientious efforts to promote females as senior leaders and academic rank and leadership will be important especially in guideline papers.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrobp.2021.07.1020