Scientometric Dilemma: Is H-index Adequate for Scientific Validity of Academic's Work?

The use of quantitative light-induced fluorescence in carious lesions research: A bibliometric review

OBJECTIVE

This bibliometric analysis evaluated the top 100 most-cited articles on the application of quantitative light-induced fluorescence (QLF) technology in caries research.

DATA

The following data were collected: title, authors, country, institution, citations count, title and year of article, study design, topic and keywords. Networks among authors and keywords were constructed by VOSviewer software.

SOURCES

Scopus database on April 25, 2024.

STUDY SELECTION

A global citation score of 4633 (average 46.33 citations) was calculated with publication years ranged from 1999 to 2020. Caries Research emerged as the top contributing journal. Pretty IA was the most prolific author (18 %). United Kingdom had the highest number of most-cited papers (32 %), followed by Netherlands and USA (20 % each). Laboratory studies constituted the predominant study design (45 %), followed by randomized clinical trials (20 %) and non-systematic reviews (11 %). The keywords "dental caries" and "fluorescence" had 81 and 79 occurrences, respectively. The main topic was QLF use for caries detection (45 %).

CONCLUSIONS

This paper provides an update summary of the scientific impact of QLF technology application in caries research. QLF has gained increasing attention worldwide, accompanied by a consistent rise in scientific investigations exploring its application in caries research.

CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE

The findings offer valuable insights into the most influential articles in QLF technology for caries assessment, serving as a critical resource for researchers, clinicians, and students. Understanding the trends in this field can aid in informed decision-making and the advancement of evidence-based practices in caries management and prevention.

Operation of Medical Journal Citation Databases Without Control. Dilemma: Are They What They Want to Be in the Eyes of Scientific Community

The decision of the citation database to include or not include a journal is not subject to the control of another entity, or the professional public, and there are no internationally established ethical standards that the citation database would have to apply. As a consequence of the absence of control, the already mentioned offensive reviews and arbitrary interpretation of the criteria for journal inclusion appear. Given that a journal's entry into the citation database is a condition for its long-term survival, people who make decisions in the citation databases gain the power to shut down or revive certain journals based on personal preferences. Any power that is not controlled is eventually abused. Therefore, our proposal is to urgently establish the principles of ethical behavior of citation databases at the global level and find ways to ensure compliance with such principles.

Depicting Developing Trend and Core Knowledge of Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma: A Bibliometric and Visualized Analysis

Objective

The prevalence of glaucoma is rising due to an increasing aging population. Because of its insidious and irreversible nature, glaucoma has gradually become the focus of attention. We assessed primary open angle glaucoma, the most common type of glaucoma, to study its present status, global trend, and state of clinical research.

Methods

Publications from 2000 to 2021 in Web of Science database were retrieved and analyzed by bibliometrics. VOSviewer and Citespace were used for analysis.

Results

A total of 6,401 publications were included in this review, and we found that the number of publications increased from 139 in 2000 to 563 in 2021. American researchers have published the most papers and had the highest h-index and the most citations, while the Journal of Glaucoma has published the most papers on this topic. Some key researchers, contributing institutions, their partnerships, and scientific masterpieces were identified. The publications we reviewed fall into seven categories: publications on intraocular pressure, normal tension glaucoma, risk factors, the trabecular meshwork, optical coherence tomography, surgery, and mutation. Clear study hotspots were described, which began with epidemiology and transitioned to pathogenesis and diagnosis and then to treatment.

Conclusion

Studies on primary open angle glaucoma extend well beyond ophthalmology to biochemistry molecular biology, general internal medicine, pharmacology, pharmacy, science technology, and other areas. Interest, research and publications on primary open angle glaucoma are on the rise.

Inflated Co-authorship Introduces Bias to Current Scientometric Indices

BACKGROUND

Although scientometry gradually became prevalent way of measuring one's research output, there are many inherent drawbacks in main indices that are used: impact factor, number of citations, number of published papers and Hirsch's index.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to analyze effects of inflated co-authorship on values of scientometric indices among authors in biomedicine who participated in published papers with more than 30 co-authors.

METHODS

The study was of cross-sectional type, based on 100 publications randomly extracted from the MEDLINE database. The inclusion criterion was publication with more than 30 authors. The studies with topics not related to humans were excluded from further analysis.

RESULTS

On average about 10% of papers published by the surveyed authors had more than 30 co-authors, but these papers brought more than 40% of all citations and more than 40% of Hirsch's index attributed to these authors. The duration of scientific activity was well correlated to number of citations, Hirsch's index and the number of publications themselves with 30 or less co-authors, while the correlation did not exist with number of citations, Hirsch's index and the number of publications with more than 30 authors. In summary, publications with > 30 authors carry more scientometric points than publications with less co-authors, and the researchers with shorter scientific activity had larger scientometric benefit from publications with more than 30 authors than senior researchers.

CONCLUSION

Unjustified and prolific co-authorship is one of methods for inflation of scientometric indices that are not further reflecting true quality of research output of an individual. Further improvement of scientometric indicators may prevent unjustified co-authorship if it reflects the work invested in a research result.

Depicting developing trend and core knowledge of hip fracture research: a bibliometric and visualised analysis

Background

Hip fracture is common and carries high morbidity and mortality; thus, it has become a vital concern. We aim to analyse the present status, worldwide trends in hip fracture and state of clinical research.

Methods

Publications from 2000 to 2019 were retrieved from the Web of Science database and analysed using a bibliometric methodology. VOSviewer software was utilised for analysis.

Results

In total, 6139 publications were included, and publications increased annually from 152 in 2000 to 592 in 2019. U.S. researchers have produced the most publications, the highest H-index and the greatest number of citations. Osteoporosis International has published the most papers on the topic. Leading researchers, contributing institutions, their cooperative relationships and scientific masterpieces have been identified. The publications can be divided into five clusters: ‘mortality’, ‘surgical management’, ‘rehabilitation’, ‘osteoporosis’ and ‘epidemiology’. A clear developing trend was described, which began with fracture epidemiology and prevention, transitioned to perioperative management, orthogeriatric care and patient safety and then to functional recovery, disease burden and national audits in recent times.

Conclusions

Hip fractures result in conditions that extend far beyond orthopaedics concerning epidemiology and preventive medicine, internal medicine and endocrinology, as well as critical care and gerontology. Interest, research and publications are on the rise.

A bibliometric analysis of the 100 most cited articles on early childhood caries

BACKGROUND

Bibliometric analysis aids to quantify the research prolificacy. The citation count acquired by a scientific article is one of the measures of its influence within a field.

AIM

To employ bibliometrics to offer a quantitative-qualitative analysis of publications on early childhood caries (ECC) published between 1950 and 2019.

DESIGN

Two researchers independently read all the titles and abstracts of articles retrieved from Scopus database on 16 October 2019. The articles were categorized according to citation and study characteristics. Collaboration network amongst authors, countries, and keywords were generated using VOSviewer software.

RESULTS

Amongst a total of 10 578 articles published on ECC, 100 most cited articles were sorted. The top-cited articles appeared in 34 journals, with Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology journal (n = 18) contributing maximum number of articles. The papers originated from 25 countries, with the United States (n = 54) accounting for largest number. Amid the papers with high levels of evidence, 11 were systematic reviews and 8 were randomized clinical trials. The topic most commonly addressed was aetiology/associated factors (63%). Amongst a total of 990 keywords, 'dental caries' appeared 89 times.

CONCLUSION

The findings of this paper will help researchers, academicians, and students for appropriate article referrals for evidence-based clinical decision-making.

A Bibliometric Analysis of the Most Cited Articles in Neurocritical Care Research

Bibliometric analyses may indicate the most active journals, authors, countries, institutions and specialties by evaluating the most cited articles in a given research field. To the authors' knowledge, there is no bibliometric analysis regarding neurocritical care research. Thus, the aim of this study is to analyze and to provide a scope of the current scientific production in this area. The 100 most cited articles in the neurocritical care research were retrieved from the research "(neurocritical) AND (care)" in the Scopus database. The variables collected and included in this analysis were: number of citations, article title, first author's name, year and journal of publication and its impact factor (IF), specialty, affiliation and country of the corresponding author at the time of publication, and category of the article. Also, these variables were assessed for primary research only. The articles were published in 34 different journals from 1995 to 2017, with a mean citation number of 109.36, ranging from 44 to 540. Neurocritical Care (23 articles in top 100 and 2190 citations, IF = 3.163) and Critical Care Medicine (20 articles and 2896 citations in top 100, IF = 6.630) were the journals with the greatest number of articles and citations, respectively. Neurocritical Care also had the highest number of primary research papers (15 articles, accounting for 850 citations). Excepting one article from Asia (Singapore) and one from Oceania (Australia), all the other 98 papers were from North America (67) or Europe (31). United States was the country with most articles (60, 35 primary research) and citations (6115) among the top 100. Columbia University (11 articles, being 7 primary research, and 915 citations) was the institution with the highest number of articles and primary research articles in top 100, whereas University of Heidelberg (6 articles and 1220 citations) was the most cited institution. Neurology was the specialty with the greatest number of publications in top 100 and the most cited one (57 articles and 5983 citations). The first author with the greatest number of publications as well as primary research articles was A. I. Qureshi (5 articles, being 4 primary research, and 660 citations), while the most cited was K. H. Polderman (2 articles and 749 citations). Fifty-nine publications were primary and 41 secondary research. Among primary research, treatment/management was the most frequent and most cited topics (33 articles and 4172 citations). To the authors' knowledge, this is the first bibliometric analysis regarding neurocritical care research. Our findings suggest that the neurocritical care research field is more prominent in North America and Europe, more frequently published in specific critical care journals and after 1994. The most discussed topic was related to treatment and/or management within neurocritical care.

Identifying essential proteins in dynamic protein networks based on an improved h-index algorithm

BACKGROUND

The essential proteins in protein networks play an important role in complex cellular functions and in protein evolution. Therefore, the identification of essential proteins in a network can help to explain the structure, function, and dynamics of basic cellular networks. The existing dynamic protein networks regard the protein components as the same at all time points; however, the role of proteins can vary over time.

METHODS

To improve the accuracy of identifying essential proteins, an improved h-index algorithm based on the attenuation coefficient method is proposed in this paper. This method incorporates previously neglected node information to improve the accuracy of the essential protein search. Based on choosing the appropriate attenuation coefficient, the values, such as monotonicity, SN, SP, PPV and NPV of different essential protein search algorithms are tested.

RESULTS

The experimental results show that, the algorithm proposed in this paper can ensure the accuracy of the found proteins while identifying more essential proteins.

CONCLUSIONS

The described experiments show that this method is more effective than other similar methods in identifying essential proteins in dynamic protein networks. This study can better explain the mechanism of life activities and provide theoretical basis for the research and development of targeted drugs.

The primary total knee arthroplasty: a global analysis

Background

The use of total knee arthroplasty (TKA) in treatment of chronic degenerative pathologies of the knee has boasted of an experience of 50 years. The aim of this bibliometric and visualized study is to comprehensively examine the current status and global trends of TKA research.

Methods

Publications related to TKA research from 2010 to 2019 were retrieved from Web of Science (WoS) and Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCIE) database and then analyzed through bibliometric methodology. As for the visualized study, the software VOS viewer was utilized for bibliographic coupling, coauthorship, cocitation, and co-occurrence analysis, along with further simulation of publication trends in this field.

Results

A total of 8631 publications were eventually included. The number of publications tends to increase annually worldwide. The USA was the pioneer which has made tremendous contributions, with the most publications and citations, as well as the highest H-index. The Journal of Arthroplasty has published the most papers, while Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research has the highest citation frequency. The Hospital for Special Surgery has made the greatest contribution when total publication number and coauthorship were taken together. Studies could be divided into five clusters: “alignment study”, “revision TKA study”, “complication study”, “rehabilitation study”, and “perioperative management study”, which have a trend of balanced development in this field.

Conclusions

There will be an increasing number of publications on TKA research according to the current global trends, and the USA maintained the leadership in this area. Additionally, a trend of balanced development may exist in the field of TKA research, accompanied with inherent changes of hotspots in each cluster.

Disseminating Research Outputs: The CrowdHEALTH Project

INTRODUCTION

Dissemination benefits come from the outputs integration and implementation by the key audience, who will also determine the relevance and usability of the disseminated content.

AIM

One of the CrowdHEALTH project's objectives is the transition from patient health records towards the Holistic Health Records (HHRs) and Social HHR. The CrowdHEALTH project aims at integrating high volumes of health-related data collected from various sources to support policy-making decisions.

METHODS

The European Federation for Medical Informatics (EFMI) supports the development of an effective Communication and Collaboration Plan identifying the messages, the tools and channels in disseminating the project and its outcomes to the target audience based on the McGuire approach.

RESULTS

The process for defining the dissemination strategy is a cyclic one as shown in the following figure involving review of each step periodically The next step was to define the four dimension dissemination approach based on McGuire attributes of persuasive communication. The objectives, target groups, key messages, the tools and channels where defined at this stage.

CONCLUSION

The CrowdHEALTH project and its outcomes were disseminated with a variety of tools and channels such as scientific journals, conferences, exhibitions and social media communication.

The Congress Impact Factor: A proposal from board members of the World Society of Emergency Surgeons.it (WSES) and Academy of Emergency Medicine and Care (AcEMC)

Many scientific congresses and conferences are held every year around the world. The aim of the World Society of Emergency Surgeons.it (WSES) and Academy of Emergency Medicine and Care (AcEMC) was to develop a simple mathematical parameter as an indicator of academic quality and scientific validity of a congress. In this opinion article, a new metric, the Congress Impact Factor (IFc), is proposed taking into consideration the widely used Impact Factor as an indicator of journals’ prestige and using H-index analysis.

The IFc is derived from the mathematical ratio between the mean H-index of invited lecturers normalized for lecture topic and number of lectures in the conference. In case of multiple sessions, the mean of all IFc is calculated along with its standard deviation.  We conclude that the IFc can be a useful measure for evaluating and comparing congress prestige, and may also represent a potentially useful parameter for improving academic curriculum and helping participants to choose the more prestigious meetings for their education.

Study of Scientific Production of Community Medicines' Department Indexed in ISI Citation Databases

Background:

In the scientometric, the main criterion in determining the scientific position and ranking of the scientific centers, particularly the universities, is the rate of scientific production and innovation, and in all participations in the global scientific development. One of the subjects more involved in repeatedly dealt with science and technology and effective on the improvement of health is medical science fields. In this research using scientometric and citation analysis, we studied the rate of scientific productions in the field of community medicine, which is the numbers of articles published and indexed in ISI database from 2000 to 2010.

Methods:

This study is scientometric using the survey and analytical citation. The study samples included all of the articles in the ISI database from 2000 to 2010. For the data collection, the advance method of searching was used at the ISI database. The ISI analyses software and descriptive statistics were used for data analysis.

Results:

Results showed that among the five top universities in producing documents, Tehran University of Medical Sciences with 88 (22.22%) documents are allocated to the first rank of scientific products. M. Askarian with 36 (90/9%) published documents; most of the scientific outputs in Community medicine, in the international arena is the most active author in this field. In collaboration with other writers, Iranian departments of Community Medicine with 27 published articles have the greatest participation with scholars of English authors. In the process of scientific outputs, the results showed that the scientific process was in its lowest in the years 2000 to 2004, and while the department of Community medicine in 2009 allocated most of the production process to itself. Iranian Journal of Public Health and Saudi Medical Journal each of them had 16 articles which had most participation rate in the publishing of community medicine’s department. On the type of carrier, community medicine’s department by presentation of 340(85.86%) articles had presented most of their scientific productions in the format of article, also in the field of community medicine outputs, article entitled: “Iron loading and erythrophagocytosis increase ferroportin 1 (FPN1) expression in J774 macrophages”(1) with 81 citations ranked first in cited articles. Subject areas of occupational health with 70 articles and subject areas of general medicine with 69 articles ranked the most active research areas in the Production of community medicine’s department.

Conclusion:

the obtained data showed the much growth of scientific production. The Tehran University of medical Sciences ranked the first in publishing articles in community medicine’s department and with most collaboration with community medicine department of England writers in this field and most writers will present their works in paper format.

Making Use of H-index: the Shape of Science at the University of Sarajevo

Introduction

Quantifying science and scientific contribution has become one of the main tasks in evaluating researchers and their impact. How do we value research and science in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH)? Scientific community has mostly agreed upon that one of the best ways to value researchers is through their h-index value. However, there are many databases and services from which h-index can be retrieved.

Aim

To describe different databases and services such as Google Scholar, Web of Science, Scopus and Researchgate in evaluating the researcher. An additional aim of this paper is to present "the shape" of science at the University of Sarajevo and to examine what are the best predictors of h-index.

Materials and methods

We analyzed the data from 100 Google Scholar Profiles of researchers from University of Sarajevo.

Results

The study showed some benefits and shortcomings of mentioned databases and services. Most researchers in the sample were from natural sciences, in particular from the field of medicine. The mean value of h-index in relation to the researcher's gender was not statistically significant. We conclude the article with some ideas on how to improve the visibility of researchers from BIH.

Fairness in scientific publishing

Major changes are afoot in the world of academic publishing, exemplified by innovations in publishing platforms, new approaches to metrics, improvements in our approach to peer review, and a focus on developing and encouraging open access to scientific literature and data. The FAIR acronym recommends that authors and publishers should aim to make their output Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. In this opinion article, I explore the parallel view that we should take a collective stance on making the dissemination of scientific data fair in the conventional sense, by being mindful of equity and justice for patients, clinicians, academics, publishers, funders and academic institutions. The views I represent are founded on oral and written dialogue with clinicians, academics and the publishing industry. Further progress is needed to improve collaboration and dialogue between these groups, to reduce misinterpretation of metrics, to minimise inequity that arises as a consequence of geographic setting, to improve economic sustainability, and to broaden the spectrum, scope, and diversity of scientific publication.

The First Mediterranean Seminar on Science Writing, Editing and Publishing, Sarajevo, December 2-3, 2016

The First Mediterranean Seminar on Science Writing, Editing & Publishing (SWEP 2016) was held in Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina from 2nd to 3rd December 2016. It was organized by Academy of Medical Sciences of Bosnia and Herzegovina, running concurrent sessions as part of its Annual Meeting titled " "Days of AMNuBiH - Theory and Practice in Science Communication and Scientometrics". Hotel Bosnia in the city centre was the chosen venue. On the first day, nineteen presentations on various issues of science writing and publication ethics were delivered by speakers from Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina and the UK (Asim Kurjak, Milivoj Boranić, Doncho Donev, Osman Sinanović, Miro Jakovljević, Enver Zerem, Dejan Milošević, Silva Dobrić, Srećko Gajović, Izet Mašić, Armen Yuri Gasparyan, Šekib Sokolović, Nermin Salkić, Selma Uzunović, Admir Kurtčehajić, Edin Begić and Floreta Kurti). Each presentation had a take-home message for novice and seasoned authors, encountering numerous problems in non-Anglophone research environment. Lecturers, who were internationally recognized editors of regional journals, generously shared their experience of adhering to the best ethical guidance. Elegant presentations by Srećko Gajović (Editor-in-Chief of the Croatian Medical Journal) and Armen Yuri Gasparyan (past Chief Editor of the European Science Editing) showcased their accomplishments that strengthened ties between authors from all over the world. Gasparyan reflected on educational resources of editorial associations, such as the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), and called not just to declare the adherence to, but also to enforce their ethical guidance in daily practice. Editors of Medical Archives, Croatian Medica Journal, Vojnosanitetski Pregled, Psychiatria Danubina, Acta Informatica Medica, Materia Socio-Medica, The Donald School Journal of Ultrasound in Obstretics and Gynecology, Acta Medica Saliniana and Medicinski Glasnik presented their editorial strategies aimed at attracting best authors and resolving problems with authorship, conflicts of interest, and plagiarism. Topical education on science writing and editing was considered as an inseparable part of continuing professional development in biomedicine. Armen Yuri Gasparyan (UK) was offered an opportunity to interact with more than 70 participants, attending the SWEP 2016 on the second day. The lecturer talked about author contributions, disclosures of conflicts of interests, plagiarism of ideas and words, research performance and impact indicators, and targeting ethical journals. Topics were presented in a way to help non-Anglophone authors, reviewers and editors avoid common ethical problems. Dr Gasparyan stressed the importance of regularly arranging such meetings across Balkan and Mediterranean countries to eradicate plagiarism and other forms research misconduct. The organizers of the SWEP 2016 awarded selected keynote speakers with certificates of lifetime achievement in journal editing, and decided to run the Seminar annually with support of Balkan and Mediterranean editors and publishers. The SWEP 2016 marked a turning point in the process of regional developments since all attending editors opted for nurturing enthusiasm of the organizers and launching the Mediterranean Association of Science Editors and Publishers (MASEP). The Seminar was a great success with its impressive scientific and social activities. It attracted more than 100 students, researchers, editors, and publishers from Bosnia & Herzegovina and neighbouring countries. Proceedings, in the form of short reports, were published in Acta Informatica Medica and archived in PubMed Central. New friendships were forged between regional experts in editing and young specialists during those unforgettable two days of intensive discussions and informal interactions (a-y).

Biomedical Scientific and Professional Social Networks in the Service of the Development of Modern Scientific Publishing

Information technologies have found their application in virtually every branch of health care. In recent years they have demonstrated their potential in the development of online library, where scientists and researchers can share their latest findings. Academia.edu, ResearchGate, Mendeley, Kudos, with the support of platform GoogleScholar, have indeed increased the visibility of scientific work of one author, and enable a much greater availability of the scientific work to the broader audience. Online libraries have allowed free access to the scientific content to the countries that could not follow the economic costs of getting access to certain scientific bases. Especially great benefit occurred in countries in transition and developing countries. Online libraries have great potential in terms of expanding knowledge, but they also present a major problem for many publishers, because their rights can be violated, which are signed by the author when publishing the paper. In the future it will lead to a major conflict of the author, the editorial board and online database, about the right to scientific content This question certainly represents one of the most pressing issues of publishing, whose future in printed form is already in the past, and the future of the online editions will be a problem of large-scale.