International scientific collaboration in HIV and HPV: a network analysis

Strategic Analysis of Collaborative Networks in Spodoptera frugiperda (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) Research for Improved Pest Management Strategies

The fall armyworm (FAW) poses a significant global threat to food security, and economics. Timely detection is crucial, and this research explores innovative techniques like data analysis, remote sensing, satellite imagery, and AI with machine learning algorithms for predicting and managing outbreaks. Emphasizing the importance of community engagement and international collaboration, social network analysis (SNA) is employed to uncover collaborative networks in FAW management research. The study analyzes a decade of research, revealing trends, influential institutions, authors, and countries, providing insights for efficient FAW management strategies. The research highlights a growing interest in Spodoptera frugiperda (Smith and Abbott 1797) research, focusing on biological control, chemical insecticides, plant extracts, and pest resistance. Co-Citation analysis identifies key research concepts, while collaboration analysis emphasizes the contributions of actors and institutions, such as China, the USA, and Brazil, with international collaboration playing a vital role. Current research trends involve evolving resistance, insecticidal protein gene discovery, and bio-control investigations. Leveraging insights from collaborative networks is essential for formulating effective strategies to manage fall armyworm and ensure global food security. This comprehensive analysis serves as a valuable resource for researchers and stakeholders, guiding efforts to combat this pervasive agricultural pest.

Alcohol, cardiovascular disease and industry funding: A co-authorship network analysis of epidemiological studies

INTRODUCTION

Alcohol's effects on cardiovascular disease (CVD) are controversial. Alcohol industry actors have shown particular interest in this subject, and been extensively involved through research funding, and in other ways, generating concerns about bias, particularly in reviews.

MATERIAL & METHODS

We conducted a co-authorship network analysis of the primary studies included within a previous co-authorship study of 60 systematic reviews on the impact of alcohol on CVD. Additionally, we examined the relationships between declared alcohol industry funding and network structure.

RESULTS

There were 713 unique primary studies with 2832 authors published between 1969 and 2019 located within 229 co-authorship subnetworks. There was industry funding across subnetworks and approximately 8% of all papers declared industry funding. The largest subnetwork dominated, comprising 43% of all authors, with sparse evidence of substantial industry funding. The second largest subnetwork contained approximately 4% of all authors, with largely different industry funders involved. Harvard affiliated authors who at the review level formed co-authorship subnetworks with industry funded authors were seen at the primary study level to belong to the largest epidemiological subnetwork. A small number of key authors make extensive alcohol industry funding declarations.

CONCLUSIONS

There was no straightforward relationship between co-authorship network formation and alcohol industry funding of epidemiological studies on alcohol and CVD. More fine-grained attention to patterns of alcohol industry funding and to key nodes may shed further light on how far industry funding may be responsible for conflicting findings on alcohol and CVD.

Bibliometric and thematic characterization of the research on HIV-AIDS in Spain (2010-2019)

INTRODUCTION

The establishment of the Spanish AIDS Research Network (RIS) was a milestone for the promotion of HIV research in Spain. We analyse Spanish HIV research, assessing the role that RIS has played in it.

METHODS

We identified publications on HIV-AIDS with the participation of Spanish institutions in the Web of Science over the period 2010-2019, characterising research activity by means of bibliometrics and identifying the thematic areas of research through a cluster analysis.

RESULTS

A total of 3960 documents have been identified (average of 396 documents/year), 42% of which have been signed in international collaboration. RIS researchers have participated in 60% of the documents, presenting a scientific production and citation significantly higher than authors not linked to the RIS. Five thematic clusters articulate the research, focusing on the clinical and therapeutic approach to people living with HIV, co-infection and co-morbidity with other diseases, the genetic characterisation of the virus, the development of vaccines and the study of its transmission in specific groups or associated with sexual behaviour.

CONCLUSION

Spanish HIV research, largely driven by RIS groups, has reached a stage of maturity, with a notable increase in scientific production, participation in international cooperative networks and an outstanding impact and visibility.

North-south scientific collaborations on research datasets: a longitudinal analysis of the division of labor on genomic datasets (1992-2021)

Collaborations between scientists from the global north and global south (N-S collaborations) are a key driver of the "fourth paradigm of science" and have proven crucial to addressing global crises like COVID-19 and climate change. However, despite their critical role, N-S collaborations on datasets are not well understood. Science of science studies tend to rely on publications and patents to examine N-S collaboration patterns. To this end, the rise of global crises requiring N-S collaborations to produce and share data presents an urgent need to understand the prevalence, dynamics, and political economy of N-S collaborations on research datasets. In this paper, we employ a mixed methods case study research approach to analyze the frequency of and division of labor in N-S collaborations on datasets submitted to GenBank over 29 years (1992-2021). We find: (1) there is a low representation of N-S collaborations over the 29-year period. When they do occur, N-S collaborations display "burstiness" patterns, suggesting that N-S collaborations on datasets are formed and maintained reactively in the wake of global health crises such as infectious disease outbreaks; (2) The division of labor between datasets and publications is disproportionate to the global south in the early years, but becomes more overlapping after 2003. An exception in the case of countries with lower S&T capacity but high income, where these countries have a higher prevalence on datasets (e.g., United Arab Emirates). We qualitatively inspect a sample of N-S dataset collaborations to identify leadership patterns in dataset and publication authorship. The findings lead us to argue there is a need to include N-S dataset collaborations in measures of research outputs to nuance the current models and assessment tools of equity in N-S collaborations. The paper contributes to the SGDs objectives to develop data-driven metrics that can inform scientific collaborations on research datasets.

Exploring high scientific productivity in international co-authorship of a small developing country based on collaboration patterns

The number of published scientific paper grows rapidly each year, totaling more than 2.9 million annually. New methodologies and systems have been developed to analyze scientific production and performance indicators from large quantities of data available from the scientific databases, such as Web of Science or Scopus. In this paper, we analyzed the international scientific production and co-authorship patterns for the most productive authors from Serbia based on the obtained Web of Science dataset in the period 2006-2013. We performed bibliometric and scientometric analyses together with statistical and collaboration network analysis, to reveal the causes of extraordinary publishing performance of some authors. For such authors, we found significant inequality in distribution of papers over journals and countries of co-authors, using Gini coefficient and Lorenz curves. Most of the papers belong to multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and the field of applied sciences. We have discovered three specific collaboration patterns that lead to high productivity in international collaboration. First pattern corresponds to mega-authorship papers with hundreds of co-authors gathered in specific research groups. The other two collaboration patterns were found in mathematics and multidisciplinary science, mainly application of graph theory and computational methods in physical chemistry. The former pattern results in a star-shaped collaboration network with mostly individual collaborators. The latter pattern includes multiple actors with high betweenness centrality measure and identified brokerage roles. The results are compared with the later period 2014-2023, where high scientific production has been observed in some other fields, such as biology and food science and technology.

HIVtat Alters Epithelial Differentiation State and Increases HPV16 Infectivity in Oral Keratinocytes

Human Papillomavirus (HPV)-associated oral disease has increased during the era of HIV antiretroviral therapy. HPV and HIV proteins may be co-present at mucosal surfaces. Recent published studies have determined that HIVtat is secreted in the saliva and has been detected in oral mucosa even in the context of antiretroviral therapy. We hypothesized that HIVtat promoted oral HPV pathogenesis. Clinical HPV16 cloned episomes were introduced into differentiated oral epithelial cells (OKF6tert1). HIVtat mediated transactivation, DNA damage, oxidative stress, and effects on cellular differentiation were assessed. Detection of keratin 10 and of loricrin confirmed terminal differentiation. Sodium butyrate-treated (NaB) cells demonstrated an eight-fold increase in cross-linked involucrin, suggesting full terminal differentiation. HIVtat modulated this differentiation both in the presence and absence of NaB. Later viral events, including E6* and E1^E4 gene expression were assessed. HIVtat mediated relief of repressed L1 expression that mapped to a known inhibitory region (nucleotides 5561-6820). Viruses from HIVtat co-expressing cells exhibited robust de novo HPV16 infection. In conclusion, a novel oral keratinocyte monolayer system supported replication of an HPV16 clinical isolate where direct HIVtat and oral HPV interactions enhanced HPV de novo infection.

A bibliometric analysis and visualization of global research on rural livelihood

Purpose

This study aims to explore the scientific research progress in the field of “Rural Livelihood” from 1991 to 2022.

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 2,122 documents were extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection using the key terms “Rural Livelihood” OR “Rural Livelihoods” in the “Title-Abstract-Keyword” field. The statistical analysis was performed through VOSviewer, Bibliometrix, Biblioshiney open-source package of R language environment, and MS Office software.

Findings

The results show that the first research article related to the field of rural livelihood was published in 1991, and the rapid growth in the publications of rural livelihood was observed since 2000, with a positive annual growth rate of 14.87%. Shackleton CM (n = 30 articles) and Belcher B (n = 1235 citations) are the most productive and highly cited authors in the field of rural livelihood, respectively. World Development is the most prolific and dominant journal, followed by Sustainability and Land Use Policy. The citation analysis disclosed that “Capitals and capabilities: a framework for analysing peasant viability, rural livelihoods and poverty” is the most cited research paper published in the field of rural livelihood by Anthony Bebbington. University of Copenhagen, Wageningen University and Rhodes University emerged as the topmost organizations engaged in rural livelihood research. The USA and the UK are the most productive and cited countries in rural livelihood. The keyword analysis revealed that most of the research published in the field of rural livelihood has focussed on rural livelihoods, management, conservation, poverty, strategies, climate change, etc.; however, the least emphasis is given on the subjects like food security, income diversification, biodiversity, deforestation, soil fertility management, bio-economy and environmental intervention. The thematic evolution reflects that the field of rural livelihood has been extensively researched and has undergone many dimensions, such as agriculture, management, conservation, climate change, households, policy and biodiversity.

Originality/value

The study’s findings provide an insight into global research trends, latest advances, hot issues, leading topics, and the thematic evolution of rural livelihood research over the last 31 years approximately. This study is quite useful to researchers and stakeholders to obtain rigorous bibliographic knowledge on literature related to the topic and work accordingly for R&D activities.

Low-carbon alcohol fuels for decarbonizing the road transportation industry: a bibliometric analysis 2000-2021

The application of low-carbon alcohols (LCA fuels) in internal combustion engines has become one of the most important topics in road transport decarbonization. This paper aims to identify the trends and characteristics of LCA combustion research for the period 2000-2021 through bibliometric analysis. Citation analysis is used to evaluate the influence of most productive journals, countries/regions, authors, institutions, and relevant literature, while collaborative network between various authors, countries/regions, institutions, and the co-occurrences among different keywords are discussed. A dataset of 2250 publications was extracted from the Web of Science Core database and analyzed with CiteSpace and Biblioshiny. The extracted documents involve 429 journals of publications by 4782 authors from 1434 institutions across 83 countries/regions. The results reveal that the research output in this field has undergone three main stages of development, i.e., initial development (2000-2007), slow development (2008-2015), and rapid development (2016-2021). Currently, the research field is growing at an annual growth rate of 9.24%, with most of the contributions by authors and institutions originating from China. The analysis from relevant keywords and literature suggests that the core of this research field centers on the combustion, performance, and emission characteristics of LCA-fueled engines. The current study helps keep the scientific community informed of the latest paradigms in the LCA combustion research field.

A Systematic Analysis of Research on Arcobacter: Public Health Implications from a Food-Environment Interphase Perspective

This review maps the global research landscape of the public health implications of Arcobacter from the food–environment interphase using content analytics and integrated science mapping. The search term “Arcobacter” was used to retrieve relevant articles published in Web of Science and Scopus between 1991 to 2019. The number of articles included in the review was 524, with 1304 authors, 172 journal sources, and a collaborative index of 2.55. The annual growth rate of the publications was 9.74%. The most contributing author in the field was Houf K., with 40 publications, 26 h-index, and 2020 total citations. The most productive country was the USA (13.33%). The majority of the articles were published in English (96%) and in the Journal of Food Protection (8.02%). The highest research outputs were in the field of Microbiology (264). The frequently occurred keywords were Arcobacter, poultry, shellfish, cattle, and chicken. This study revealed a fair increase in the growth rate of Arcobacter-related research—especially in the area of isolation and detection of the pathogen in foods and food environments, as well as the pathogenesis and genetic diversity of the pathogen. Research themes in the area of prevalence and epidemiology seem to be underexplored.

Trends in hepatitis A research indexed in the Web of Science: a bibliometric analysis over the period from 1985 to 2019

OBJECTIVE

A bibliometric analysis was conducted to build an all-inclusive view of the status of research on hepatitis A virus (HAV) for facilitating researchers, health professionals, and policymakers to understand the characteristics of research output in this particular domain.

METHODS

A comprehensive search was conducted in the Web of Science database. The obtained data were exported into Microsoft Excel 2019, OriginPro 2018 and VOSviewer software for windows.

RESULTS

From 1985 to 2019, a total of 5,950 studies on HAV were published, with an overall h-index of 105, and 90,350 total citations. The most cited article on HAV was "Classification of chronic viral hepatitis: a need for reassessment" authored by Scheuer in the Journal of Hepatology with a total of 1,121 citations. The most cited article on HAV vaccine was "A controlled trial of a formalin-inactivated hepatitis A vaccine in healthy children" by Werzberger et al. in the New England Journal of Medicine with 401 citations. The most frequent year of publication was 2019 (n = 250). The largest number of studies were funded by the United States Department of Health Human Services (n = 199). The organization with the highest number of publications was the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (n = 228). The United State of America (n = 1,500) was the country with the most publications. 'Vaccine' was the leading journal with 299 publications.

CONCLUSIONS

The highest numbers of studies were published in developed countries. There is a clear need for interdisciplinary research approaches to evaluate and intervene in HAV endemic areas.

Research productivity and collaboration of the NIH-funded HIV vaccine trials network: A bibliometric analysis

The HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) is the world's largest publicly funded, multi-disciplinary international collaboration facilitating the development of vaccines to prevent HIV/AIDS and has conducted the vast majority of HIV/AIDS clinical trials since its inception in 1999. Although scientific findings from the program have been published in scholarly journals, the impact of a large scientific research network such as the HVTN on the HIV/AIDS vaccine field has not been assessed. This paper describes and elucidates the productivity, influence, and collaboration among HVTN researchers over the last two decades. Our analyses indicate that the HVTN has funded a large number of HIV/AIDS vaccine safety and efficacy clinical trials through a strong global network of clinical sites. In addition, several metrics indicate HVTN researchers also published original research articles that are influential in the HIV vaccine field. Scientific research collaboration is critically important in a complex and multidisciplinary field such as HIV vaccine development as it allows improved sharing of knowledge and expertise as well as the pooling of resources and data. We found that collaboration in the HIV vaccine field increased during this time period and collaboration among HVTN authors increased even more. Combining these productivity, influence, and collaboration metrics with research outcomes can provide a comprehensive assessment of large complex programs such as the HVTN.

Global research trends on bioflocculant potentials in wastewater remediation from 1990 to 2019 using a bibliometric approach

The preference of biofloculants over chemical flocculants in water and wastewater remediation systems has gained wider attention due to their biodegradability, innocuousness, safety to human and environmental friendliness. The present study aimed to evaluate research outputs on bioflocculant potentials in wastewater remediation from 1990 to 2019 using bibliometric analyses. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first bibliometric report in bioflocculant research. The subject bibliometric dataset was extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) and Scopus using the Boolean, 'bioflocculant* and waste*' and analysed for indicators such as a yearly trend, productivity (authors, articles, country, institution and journal source), conceptual framework and collaboration network. We found 119 documents with 347 authors from 78 journal sources on the subject, an annual growth rate of 12·1%, and average citations/document of 15·08. Guo J. and Wang Y. were the top researchers with 15 and 12 outputs respectively. China (42%) and South Africa (9·24%) ranked the top two dominant countries in the field. The top journals were Bioresource Technology (9 papers, 506 citations), Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology (5 papers, 268 citations), whereas, the top institution was Chengdu University of Information and Technology (n = 9 documents) followed by Sichuan Univ. Sci. & Engn, China (n = 8 documents). This study found that lack of intercountry collaboration and research funding adversely affects research participants in the field.

Emerging biotechnological potentials of DyP-type peroxidases in remediation of lignin wastes and phenolic pollutants: a global assessment (2007-2019)

Dye decolourizing peroxidase (DyP) is an emerging biocatalyst with enormous bioremediation and biotechnological potentials. This study examined the global trend of research related to DyP through a bibliometric analysis. The search term 'dye decolourizing peroxidase' or 'DyP-type peroxidase' was used to retrieve published articles between 2007 and 2019 from the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases. A total of 62 articles were published within the period, with an annual growth rate of 17·6%. The highest research output was observed in 2015, which accounted for about 13% of the total output in 12 years. Germany published the highest number of articles (n = 10, 16·1%) with a total citation of 478. However, the lowest number of published articles among the top 10 countries was observed in India and Korea (n = 2, 3·2%). Research collaboration was low (collaboration index = 4·08). In addition to dye decolourizing peroxidase(s) and DyP-type peroxidase(s) (n = 33, 53·23%), the top authors keywords and research focus included lignin and lignin degradation (n = 10, 16·1 %). More so, peroxidase (n = 59, 95·2%), amino acid sequence (n = 27, 46·8%), lignin (n = 24, 38·7%) and metabolism (n = 23, 37·1%) were highly represented in keywords-plus. The most common conceptual framework from this study include characterization, lignin degradation and environmental proteomics. Apart from the inherent efficient dye-decolourizing properties, this study showed that DyP has emerging biotechnological potentials in lignin degradation and remediation of phenolic environmental pollutants, which at the moment are under explored globally.

From cut-points to key players in co-authorship networks: a case study in ventilator-associated pneumonia research

In co-authorship networks, some nodes play the key role of cut-point, facilitating the integration of other authors and favoring connectivity among different research communities. The present study uses bibliometric and network embeddedness indicators to analyze the scientific activity on ventilator-associated pneumonia and the roles of 17 research communities and 30 cut-points therein. In addition to fostering network connectivity and cohesion, cut-points are characterized by other differential features compared to other authors, including a much higher level of productivity and greater participation in leadership positions, higher betweenness values, lower clustering coefficients and higher levels of constraint. The cut-points identified have different characteristics in terms of the connectivity they facilitate between research communities: some cut-points have established weak intercommunity ties in the form of bridges with a single author from a different community; in other cases, they serve as gatekeepers due to their connection with different authors of a community that they link with their own; cut-points may also act as structural folds, that is, actors with an overlapping role between two cohesive communities. The cut-points present very diverse connectivity degrees, with some cut-points whose elimination would provoke severe network fragmentation and others who are responsible for linking far fewer external authors to their network. The cut-points that present both the main mechanisms for obtaining social capital—that is, filling structural holes and participating in cohesive network structures—can be considered key actors/players because their participation is crucial for ensuring both integration into the main research focus of some communities with high research performance and the overall cohesion of a co-authorship network.

Analysis of Scientific Collaboration Networks among Authors, Institutions, and Countries Studying Adolescent Myopia Prevention and Control: A Review Article

BACKGROUND

Studies related to the prevention and control of myopia in adolescents have increased rapidly, but only a few have measured the levels of scientific collaboration among authors, institutions and countries in this field. Thus, in this study, we aimed to reveal the status and levels of scientific collaboration in this field.

METHODS

The research population included all published papers in the field of adolescent myopia prevention and control indexed in the Web of Science databases from 1997-2016. The co-authorship networks were drawn using SATI (Statistical Analysis Toolkit for Informetrics), Ucinet and VOS viewer (Visualisation of Similarities viewer). Active authors and some measures of co-author network, including degree centrality, closeness, betweenness, density and diameter, were also assessed.

RESULTS

Overall, 610 records were obtained, and a number of publications developed through an increase in different collaboration types, with cooperation among authors and institutions as the most apparent ones. The top ten active authors and institutions were identified. The density of cooperative networks of the top 70 authors and the first 69 institutions were 0.043 and 0.011, respectively, with corresponding diameters of five and six, respectively. Seven distinct clusters formed the cooperation network among 38 countries. The top three clusters were centered in China, the United States and Australia, also identified as the most productive countries.

CONCLUSION

The flow of information is slow and the collaboration among authors and institutions in the network are not close enough. Thus, multiple collaboration types should be encouraged in this field, especially among countries.

A global bibliometric analysis of Plesiomonas-related research (1990 - 2017)

Plesiomonas shigelloides is an emerging pathogen with damaging effects on human health such as gastroenteritis and extraintestinal infections. Here, we carried out a bibliometric survey that aimed to examine publication trends in Plesiomonas-related research by time and place, international collaborative works, identify gaps and suggest directions for future research. The search term "Plesiomonas shigelloides" was used to retrieve articles published between 1990 and 2017 from the Web of Science database. Only primary research articles were included in the analysis. A total of 155 articles were published within the survey period, with an average of 5.54±2.66 articles per year and an annual growth rate of -0.8%. Research output peaked in 2000 and 2006 (each accounting for 7.7% of the total). The United States ranked first in terms of numbers of articles (n = 29, 18.1%) and total citations (n = 451). Cameroon, Canada, Cuba, Switzerland and Turkey co-shared the 10th position each with 2 articles (1.3%). Research collaboration was low (collaboration index = 3. 32). In addition to Plesiomonas shigelloides (n = 82, 52.9%), the top Authors Keywords and research focus included lipopolysaccharide and nuclear magnetic resonance (n = 13, 8.4%). Diarrhea (n = 43, 27.7%), Aeromonas species (n = 41, 26.5%) and infections (n = 31, 20.0%) were also highly represented in Keywords-Plus. Authors' collaborations and coupling networks formed two mega-clusters which nodes were shared solely by authors from high-income countries. The common conceptual framework in retrieved articles determined by K-means clustering revealed three clusters with sizes of 7, 16, and 29, representing research responses focused on extraintestinal and gastroenteritis, P. shigelloides lipopolysaccharide structure, and co-infections, respectively. Our bibliometric analysis revealed a global diminishing research in Plesiomonas; greater research outcomes from high-income countries compared to others and low collaboration with developing countries.

Examining word association networks: A cross-country comparison of women's perceptions of HPV testing and vaccination

In this study, we examined the perceptual associations women hold with regard to cervical cancer testing and vaccination across two countries, the U.S. and Australia. In a large-scale online survey, we presented participants with 'trigger' words, and asked them to state sequentially other words that came to mind. We used this data to construct detailed term co-occurrence network graphs, which we analyzed using basic topological ranking techniques. The results showed that women hold divergent perceptual associations regarding trigger words relating to cervical cancer screening tools, i.e. human papillomavirus (HPV) testing and vaccination, which indicate health knowledge deficiencies with non-HPV related associations emerging from the data. This result was found to be consistent across the country groups studied. Our findings are critical in optimizing consumer education and public service announcements to minimize misperceptions relating to HPV testing and vaccination in order to maximize adoption of cervical cancer prevention tools.

Standard Area Diagrams for Aiding Severity Estimation: Scientometrics, Pathosystems, and Methodological Trends in the Last 25 Years

Standard area diagrams (SAD) have long been used as a tool to aid the estimation of plant disease severity, an essential variable in phytopathometry. Formal validation of SAD was not considered prior to the early 1990s, when considerable effort began to be invested developing SAD and assessing their value for improving accuracy of estimates of disease severity in many pathosystems. Peer-reviewed literature post-1990 was identified, selected, and cataloged in bibliographic software for further scrutiny and extraction of scientometric, pathosystem-related, and methodological-related data. In total, 105 studies (127 SAD) were found and authored by 327 researchers from 10 countries, mainly from Brazil. The six most prolific authors published at least seven studies. The scientific impact of a SAD article, based on annual citations after publication year, was affected by disease significance, the journal's impact factor, and methodological innovation. The reviewed SAD encompassed 48 crops and 103 unique diseases across a range of plant organs. Severity was quantified largely by image analysis software such as QUANT, APS-Assess, or a LI-COR leaf area meter. The most typical SAD comprised five to eight black-and-white drawings of leaf diagrams, with severity increasing nonlinearly. However, there was a trend toward using true-color photographs or stylized representations in a range of color combinations and more linear (equally spaced) increments of severity. A two-step SAD validation approach was used in 78 of 105 studies for which linear regression was the preferred method but a trend toward using Lin's correlation concordance analysis and hypothesis tests to detect the effect of SAD on accuracy was apparent. Reliability measures, when obtained, mainly considered variation among rather than within raters. The implications of the findings and knowledge gaps are discussed. A list of best practices for designing and implementing SAD and a website called SADBank for hosting SAD research data are proposed.

Mapping the Growing Discipline of Dissemination and Implementation Science in Health

Background

The field of dissemination and implementation (D&I) research in health has grown considerably in the past decade. Despite the potential for advancing the science, limited research has focused on mapping the field.

Methods

We administered an online survey to individuals in the D&I field to assess participants' demographics and expertise, as well as engagement with journals and conferences, publications, and grants. A combined roster-nomination method was used to collect data on participants' advice networks and collaboration networks; participants' motivations for choosing collaborators was also assessed. Frequency and descriptive statistics were used to characterize the overall sample; network metrics were used to characterize both networks. Among a sub-sample of respondents who were researchers, regression analyses identified predictors of two metrics of academic performance (i.e., publications and funded grants).

Results

A total of 421 individuals completed the survey, representing a 30.75% response rate of eligible individuals. Most participants were White (n = 343), female (n = 284, 67.4%), and identified as a researcher (n = 340, 81%). Both the advice and the collaboration networks displayed characteristics of a small world network. The most important motivations for selecting collaborators were aligned with advancing the science (i.e., prior collaborators, strong reputation, and good collaborators) rather than relying on human proclivities for homophily, proximity, and friendship. Among a sub-sample of 295 researchers, expertise (individual predictor), status (advice network), and connectedness (collaboration network) were significant predictors of both metrics of academic performance.

Conclusions

Network-based interventions can enhance collaboration and productivity; future research is needed to leverage these data to advance the field.

An Examination of Not-For-Profit Stakeholder Networks for Relationship Management: A Small-Scale Analysis on Social Media

Using a small-scale descriptive network analysis approach, this study highlights the importance of stakeholder networks for identifying valuable stakeholders and the management of existing stakeholders in the context of mental health not-for-profit services. We extract network data from the social media brand pages of three health service organizations from the U.S., U.K., and Australia, to visually map networks of 579 social media brand pages (represented by nodes), connected by 5,600 edges. This network data is analyzed using a collection of popular graph analysis techniques to assess the differences in the way each of the service organizations manage stakeholder networks. We also compare node meta-information against basic topology measures to emphasize the importance of effectively managing relationships with stakeholders who have large external audiences. Implications and future research directions are also discussed.

Evolution of Cooperation Patterns in Psoriasis Research: Co-Authorship Network Analysis of Papers in Medline (1942-2013)

Background

Although researchers have worked in collaboration since the origins of modern science and the publication of the first scientific journals in the eighteenth century, this phenomenon has acquired exceptional importance in the last several decades. Since the mid-twentieth century, new knowledge has been generated from within an ever-growing network of investigators, working cooperatively in research groups across countries and institutions. Cooperation is a crucial determinant of academic success.

Objective

The aim of the present paper is to analyze the evolution of scientific collaboration at the micro level, with regard to the scientific production generated on psoriasis research.

Methods

A bibliographic search in the Medline database containing the MeSH terms “psoriasis” or “psoriatic arthritis” was carried out. The search results were limited to articles, reviews and letters. After identifying the co-authorships of documents on psoriasis indexed in the Medline database (1942–2013), various bibliometric indicators were obtained, including the average number of authors per document and degree of multi-authorship over time. In addition, we performed a network analysis to study the evolution of certain features of the co-authorship network as a whole: average degree, size of the largest component, clustering coefficient, density and average distance. We also analyzed the evolution of the giant component to characterize the changing research patterns in the field, and we calculated social network indicators for the nodes, namely betweenness and closeness.

Results

The main active research clusters in the area were identified, along with their authors of reference. Our analysis of 28,670 documents sheds light on different aspects related to the evolution of scientific collaboration in the field, including the progressive increase in the mean number of co-authors (which stood at 5.17 in the 2004–2013 decade), and the rise in multi-authored papers signed by many different authors (in the same decade, 25.77% of the documents had between 6 and 9 co-authors, and 10.28% had 10 or more). With regard to the network indicators, the average degree gradually increased up to 10.97 in the study period. The percentage of authors pertaining to the largest component also rose to 73.02% of the authors. The clustering coefficient, on the other hand, remained stable throughout the entire 70-year period, with values hovering around 0.9. Finally, the average distance peaked in the decades 1974–1983 (8.29) and 1984–2003 (8.12) then fell over the next two decades, down to 5.25 in 2004–2013. The construction of the co-authorship network (threshold of collaboration ≥ 10 co-authored works) revealed a giant component of 161 researchers, containing 6 highly cohesive sub-components.

Conclusions

Our study reveals the existence of a growing research community in which collaboration is increasingly important. We can highlight an essential feature associated with scientific collaboration: multi-authored papers, with growing numbers of collaborators contributing to them, are becoming more and more common, therefore the formation of research groups of increasing depth (specialization) and breadth (multidisciplinarity) is now a cornerstone of research success.

A cross-sectional study of high-risk human papillomavirus clustering and cervical outcomes in HIV-infected women in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Background

In Brazil, the rate of cervical cancer remains high despite the availability of screening programs. With ongoing vaccine development and implementation, information on the prevalence of specific HPV types is needed, particularly among high-risk populations, such as HIV-infected women.

Methods

We performed a study of HIV-infected women in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, who underwent cervical HPV genotype testing between 2005-2013. We examined the prevalence of high-risk HPV types and the patterns of high-risk HPV type clustering. Using logarithmic binomial regression, we estimated the risk of abnormal cytology by HPV genotype result.

Results

Of the 562 women included, 498 (89 %) had at least one HPV type detected. 364 women (65 %) had at least one high-risk HPV type detected and 181 (32 %) had more than one high-risk type detected. HPV 58 was the most frequent HPV type detected overall (prevalence 19.8 % [95 % confidence interval 16.4–23.1]), followed by HPV 53 (prevalence 15.5 % [12.5–18.5]) and HPV 16 (prevalence 13 % [10.2–15.8]). Women infected with more than one high-risk HPV type were younger, had lower CD4+ lymphocyte counts, and were more likely to be infected with HPV 16 or 18. In adjusted analyses, presence of more than one high-risk HPV type was associated with a two-fold increased risk of abnormal cytology after adjusting for presence of individual high-risk type, age, and CD4+ lymphocyte count (adjusted prevalence ratios 1.88–2.07, all p <0.001). No single high-risk HPV type was statistically associated with abnormal cytology after adjusting for the presence of more than one high-risk HPV type.

Conclusions

In the largest study of cervical HPV genotypes among HIV-infected women in Latin America, infection by high-risk HPV types other than 16 or 18 and infection by more than one high-risk HPV types were common. Infection by more than one high-risk type was more strongly associated with abnormal cervical cytology than any individual high-risk HPV type, highlighting the need for multi-valent HPV vaccines.

Energy Spectral Behaviors of Communication Networks of Open-Source Communities

Large-scale online collaborative production activities in open-source communities must be accompanied by large-scale communication activities. Nowadays, the production activities of open-source communities, especially their communication activities, have been more and more concerned. Take CodePlex C # community for example, this paper constructs the complex network models of 12 periods of communication structures of the community based on real data; then discusses the basic concepts of quantum mapping of complex networks, and points out that the purpose of the mapping is to study the structures of complex networks according to the idea of quantum mechanism in studying the structures of large molecules; finally, according to this idea, analyzes and compares the fractal features of the spectra in different quantum mappings of the networks, and concludes that there are multiple self-similarity and criticality in the communication structures of the community. In addition, this paper discusses the insights and application conditions of different quantum mappings in revealing the characteristics of the structures. The proposed quantum mapping method can also be applied to the structural studies of other large-scale organizations.