Top-cited articles versus top Altmetric articles in nuclear medicine: a comparative bibliometric analysis

The bibliometric and altmetric analysis of chronic traumatic encephalopathy research: how great is the impact?

Background

The study of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) has received great attention from academia and the general public. This study aims to analyze the research productivity on CTE and investigate the most discussed articles in academia and the general public by conducting bibliometric and altmetric analyses.

Methods

Data of articles were obtained from the Web of Science Core Databases and Altmetric Explore. VOSviewer and CiteSpace software were used to analyze and visualize the articles. The correlation between Altmetric attention scores (AAS) and citation counts were assessed by Spearman correlation coefficient.

Results

788 publications of CTE were eventually gathered and analyzed, and 100 articles with highest citation counts (Top-cited) and 100 articles with highest AASs (Top-AAS) were then identified. The keywords density map showed both the general public and the scientists were particularly interested in the risk factors and pathology of CTE, and scientists were interested in the causes and characteristics of neurodegenerative diseases while the public became increasingly concerned about the detection and prevention of CTE. By examining the shared characteristics of the 44 articles (High-High articles) that overlapped between Top-cited and Top-AAS articles, we identified certain traits that may potentially contribute to their high citation rates and high AASs. Besides, significant positive correlations with varied strength between AAS and citation were observed in the 788 articles, Top-cited, Top-AAS and High-High datasets.

Conclusion

This study is the first to link bibliometric and altmetric analyses for CTE publications, which may provide deeper understanding of the attention of the scientists and the general public pay to the study of CTE, and offer some guidance and inspiration for future CTE in the selection of research topics and directions.

The 100 most-cited and 100 most-mentioned COVID-19-related radiological articles: a comparative bibliometric analysis

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed to identify the 100 most-cited and 100 most-mentioned coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19)-related radiological articles and compare their characteristics.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We searched the Web of Science and Altmetric.com using the search terms "COVID," "COVID-19," "Coronavirus," "SARS-CoV-2," "nCoV," and "pandemic" to identify the most-cited and most-mentioned COVID-19-related articles. We identified the top 100 most-cited and 100 most-mentioned articles in the field of radiology, regardless of their publication journal. We extracted the information from the listed articles and compared the characteristics between the most-cited and most-mentioned.

RESULTS

Thirty (30%) articles were featured in the lists of the most-cited and most-mentioned articles. The comparison of the 100 most-cited and most-mentioned articles on each list showed that the most frequently cited articles were published in November 2020 and before (p < .001), originated from China (p < .001), covered the topic of diagnosis of COVID-19 (p < .001), and were related to the subspecialty of pulmonary imaging (p < .001); the most frequently mentioned articles were published in December 2020 and after (p < .001), originated from the USA (p < .001), covered the topic of diagnosis of sequelae of COVID-19 (p = .013) and post-vaccination complications (p < .001), and were related to the subspecialties of cardiac imaging (p < .001) and neuroradiology (p < .013).

CONCLUSION

Significant differences were observed in publication date, country of origin, topic, and subspecialty of scientific knowledge related to COVID-19 in the field of radiology, between citation and public dissemination.

CLINICAL RELEVANCE STATEMENT

This bibliometric analysis compares the 100 most-cited and 100 most-mentioned COVID-19-related radiologic articles, aiming to provide valuable insights into the patterns of knowledge dissemination during the pandemic era.

KEY POINTS

• Thirty articles were featured on the lists of the 100 most-cited and 100 most-mentioned COVID-19-related articles. • The 70 unique most-cited articles more frequently originated from China (48.6%), while the unique most-mentioned articles more frequently originated from the USA (51.4%) (p < 0.001). • The 70 unique most-mentioned articles were more frequently related to cardiac imaging (25.7% vs.0%, p < 0.001) and neuroradiology (15.7% vs. 1.4%, p < 0.005) compared to the unique most-mentioned articles.

Recent trends in the use of social media in parasitology and the application of alternative metrics

In recent times, the use of social media for the dissemination of “news and views” in parasitology has increased in popularity. News, Twitter and Blogs have emerged as commonplace vehicles in the knowledge dissemination and transfer process. Alternative metrics (“altmetrics”), based on social media mentions have been proposed as a measure of societal impact, although firm evidence for this relationship is yet to be found. Nevertheless, increasing amounts of data on “altmetrics” are being analysed to identify the nature of the unknown impact that social media is generating. Here, we examine the recent, and increasing use of social media in the field of parasitology and the relationship of “altmetrics” with more traditional bibliometric indicators, such as article citations and journal metrics. The analyses document the rise and dominance of Twitter as the main form of social media occurring in the discipline of parasitology and note the contribution to this trend of Twitter bots that automatically tweet about publications. We also report on the use of the social referencing platform Mendeley and its correlation to article citations; Mendeley reader numbers are now considered to provide firm evidence on the early impact of research. Finally, we consider the Twitter profile of 31 journals publishing parasitology research articles (by volume of papers published); we show that 13 journals are associated with prolific Twitter activity about parasitology. We hope this study will stimulate not only the continued and responsible use of social media to disseminate knowledge about parasitology for the greater good, but also encourage others to further investigate the impact and benefits that altmetrics may bring to this discipline.

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We highlight and document the rise of social media and its use in parasitology.

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Twitter activity within the parasitology community has increased significantly over the last 10 years.

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Mendeley reader activity is strongly correlated with an article's citations.

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Thirteen journals are associated with prolific Twitter activity about parasitology.

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A Journalʼs social media strategy is important to authors.

Climate change/global warming/climate emergency versus general climate research: comparative bibliometric trends of publications

This article presents and discusses the scientific publication record from 1910 to 2020 on two topics: "climate" (CL) and "climate change/global warming/climate emergency" (CC/GW/CE). The goal is to comparatively visualize how these two distinct publication records have evolved over time, from different classification perspectives, using publication ratios as the key indicator. It is found that research output related to the Earth's contemporary changing climate overtook that of general climate research in 2010, and the publication ratio (CC/GW/CE)/(CL) has been expanding in the last decade. There are significant differences in the publication countries and sources between the two topics. Differentiation factors that affect the level of research output and engagement on the climate challenge include island versus landlocked nations, specialized versus general scientific journals, academic versus institutional organizations. The future of the publication records is discussed, such as the emergence of new terms to refer to the climate challenge, such as "climate emergency".

Six Sigma in Health Literature, What Matters?

Six Sigma has been widely used in the health field for process or quality improvement, constituting a quite profusely investigated topic. This paper aims at exploring why some studies have more academic and societal impact, attracting more attention from academics and health professionals. Academic and societal impact was addressed using traditional academic metrics and alternative metrics, often known as altmetrics. We conducted a systematic search following the PRISMA statement through three well-known databases, and identified 212 papers published during 1998–2019. We conducted zero-inflated negative binomial regressions to explore the influence of bibliometric and content determinants on traditional academic and alternative metrics. We observe that the factors influencing alternative metrics are more varied and difficult to apprehend than those explaining traditional impact metrics. We also conclude that, independently of how the impact is measured, the paper’s content, rather than bibliometric characteristics, better explains its impact. In the specific case of research on Six Sigma applied to health, the papers with more impact address process improvement focusing on time and waste reduction. This study sheds light on the aspects that better explain publications’ impact in the field of Six Sigma application in health, either from an academic or a societal point of view.

A critical review on altmetrics: can we measure the social impact factor?

Altmetrics measure the digital attention received by a research output. They allow us to gauge the immediate social impact of an article by taking real-time measurements of how it circulates in the Internet. While there are several companies offering attention scores, the most extensive are Altmetric.com (Altmetric Attention Score—AAS) and Plum X (Plum Print). As this is an emerging topic, many medical specialities have tried to establish if there is a relationship between an article’s altmetric data and the citations it subsequently receives. The results have varied depending on the research field. In radiology, the social network most used is Twitter and the subspeciality with the highest AAS is neuroimaging. This article will review the process involved from the start when an article is published through to finally obtaining its altmetric score. It will also address the relationship between altmetrics and more traditional approaches focusing on citations in radiology and will discuss the advantages and limitations of these new impact indicators.