International Collaborative Research Project Research Articles

A Bibliometric Analysis Study of Global Academic Articles on Malaria and Contribution of Türkiye

Objective: Malaria is a parasitic infection that has a significant negative influence on public health around the world, including Türkiye in recent years with the prevalence of imported cases. This study was conducted to provide a bibliometric analysis of publications on malaria in Türkiye and worldwide, and to determine Türkiye's current position in malaria research.
 Methods: This study was observational, descriptive, and retrospective designed study and utilized scientometric technique and scientific mapping. The research was conducted in the Web of Science online database. The MESH keywords (malaria OR plasmodium) were used. The title (TI) field and only Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E) index was used for the search queries. The following inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied: The studies published after the end of 2022 were excluded and only the articles were chosen according to the document type.
 Results: On the basis of the defined search, 31376 articles were extracted from the WoS database indexed in the SCI-E category, for the period 1970-2022. The earliest article was published in 1970 and the most of the articles were published in 2021 (n=1274). There was a growth in publications number since end of the 1970s. A total 469 countries contributed the malaria literature. The United States of America (USA) (32.07%), England (18.56%) and France (9.90%) were the leading countries on the malaria literature according to the published article numbers. Türkiye ranked in 71st. A total of 80 articles were retrieved according to search criteria. The articles were cited 1347 times totally and 17.75 times per article. The mean of H index was 18. The earliest articles were published in 1987. The number of articles limited but since 2005 never dropped below two articles per year.
 Conclusion: Scientific production from Türkiye is low. This topic can be improved by increasing both the financial support for and the involvement of researchers in national and international collaborative research projects.

Youth activists from Khayelitsha, Cape Town, reflections on their experiences of activism for social justice

ABSTRACT This article will discuss reflections by six youth activists in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, who were interviewed for an international collaborative research project which explored civic forms of youth-led activism which could lead to social change. The aim was to investigate different forms of civic engagement and youth activism in situations where the youth had been traumatised due to past or ongoing structural violence. This article reflects on the findings of the study and makes connections between activism, learning and knowledge production. The research methodology was initiated as a participatory action research project and six activists were interviewed by youth researchers from the NGO Equal Education. Critical findings were that the activists felt that the youth were the entry point to building powerful communities and improving the quality of life in the townships. Personal experiences shaped their choice of activism and social justice projects; this study demonstrates as Choudry (2014) argues that young people gain critical awareness through their own education and cultural practices and in this process new knowledge is produced.

Challenges during the realization of an international research project on leishmaniasis in Colombia.

Leishmaniasis is an infectious disease that belongs to the top 10 neglected tropical diseases. It mainly affects the poor population from tropical and subtropical areas of the World, which lacks sufficient resources and means to fight against this disease. With this in mind, the European Commission has funded an international collaborative research project in which are participating various institutions from South America, North Africa and Europe. The main objective of this project is the development of a fast, less expensive, non-invasive and easy to use alternative method for leishmaniasis diagnosis in dogs, one of the main reservoirs of leishmaniasis spread to humans. In this perspective article, we present our personal insight and opinion regarding the challenges of realizing a joint international research project on leishmaniasis in Colombia, a country where leishmaniasis is endemic, as well as regarding the involvement of the Public Health institutions and the local population from this country.

A new vista on Asian families and intimacies: creating common foundations for knowledge production within and on Asia

A three-level project has been carried out to fulfil the mission of creating common foundations for international research collaboration within and on Asia. The first level is the collection, translation and sharing of important research findings from Asian insider perspectives that had been published or presented in the various languages in Asia. The second is to create a common basis for empirical research by building a database for international comparison. On the third level, effective international collaborative research projects focusing on various topics are made possible. Diversity in Asia has usually been taken to mean diversity of civilisations, but, at a deeper level is found the diversity rooted in kinship structure. This layer plays particularly important roles in constructing local forms of family, gender and intimacy. On top of these, modernisation created another layer. These layers influence each other at various times and to various degrees, constructing a dynamic diversity.

Challenges in evaluating treatments for COVID-19: The case of in-hospital anticoagulant use and the risk of adverse outcomes.

Anticoagulants are a potential treatment for the thrombotic complications resulting from COVID-19. We aimed to determine the association between anticoagulant use and adverse outcomes among hospitalized patients with COVID-19. We used data from the COVID-19 International Collaborative Research Project in South Korea from January to June 2020. We defined exposure using an intention-to-treat approach, with person-time classified as use or non-use of anticoagulants at cohort entry, and a time-varying approach. The primary outcome was all-cause, in-hospital mortality; the secondary outcome was a composite including respiratory outcomes, cardiovascular outcomes, venous thromboembolism, major bleeding, and intensive care unit admission. Cox proportional hazards models estimated adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) of the outcomes comparing use versus non-use of anticoagulants. Our cohort included 2,677 hospitalized COVID-19 patients, of whom 24 received anticoagulants at cohort entry. Users were older and had more comorbidities. The crude incidence rate (per 1,000 person-days) of mortality was 5.83 (95% CI: 2.80, 10.72) among anticoagulant users and 1.36 (95% CI: 1.14, 1.59) for non-users. Crude rates of the composite outcome were 3.20 (95% CI: 1.04, 7.47) and 1.80 (95% CI: 1.54, 2.08), respectively. Adjusted HRs for mortality (HR: 1.12, 95% CI: 0.48, 2.64) and the composite outcome (HR: 0.79, 95% CI: 0.28, 2.18) were inconclusive. Although our study was not able to draw conclusions on anticoagulant effectiveness for COVID-19 outcomes, these results can contribute to future knowledge syntheses of this important question. Our study demonstrated that the dynamic pandemic environment may have important implications for observational studies of COVID-19 treatment effectiveness.

Genitourinary cancers in the Arab world: A bibliometric study

BackgroundThe genitourinary cancer burden in the Arab region is rising at an increasing pace. The main objective of this study was to conduct a bibliometric analysis of scientific publications on genitourinary cancer to understand the growth, impact, trends, and flow of knowledge within GU cancer research in 22 Arab countries.MethodsThe Web of Science databases were searched for publications related to genitourinary cancer research in the 22 Arab countries from January 1, 2002, till December 31, 2021. The scientific research was evaluated based on productivity (number of published documents, authorships), impact (citation counts and journals impact factor), collaborations, and areas of interest for published papers.ResultsA total of 3,129 papers met the inclusion criteria in this research. After adjusting for the population power, Qatar (53.57) and Lebanon (46.83), Saudi Arabia (46.21), Jordan (41.58), and Tunisia (40.72) had the highest research productivity. The number of articles and average citations per year was generally increasing. Most Arab corresponding authors were from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia, and most Arab first authors were male researchers, highlighting gender inequality in genitourinary cancer research. Both regional and international collaborations are weak between authors in the field.ConclusionThis bibliometric research provided a framework for visual and quantitative research productivity on GU can in the Arab world. Research output is low in some countries, which can be improved by investing in more international and national collaborative research projects in the field of GU cancer.

A Scopus-Based Bibliometric Analysis of Global Tuberculosis Publications: 1849-2020.

OBJECTIVE: Tuberculosis continues to become a serious public-health concern in many countries despite efforts to prevent and control global tuberculosis infections.MATERIAL AND METHODS: This study aims to present bibliometric analysis of the period 1849-2020 tuberculosis publications that are published by global researchers and indexed in the Scopus database. Although many studies have been carried out on tuberculosis, there is no study that performs bibliometric analysis of publications in this field in such a wide range of dates. Tuberculosis publications searched in the Scopus database between the period 1849-2020 were analyzed. Data on tuberculosis were presented by analyzing the number of publications, the language of publication, the countries that contribute the most to the literature, the most active institutions, the most cited publications, active authors and active journals, using appropriate quantitative and qualitative bibliometric indicators.RESULTS: 263,234 articles, published between 1849 and 2020 and searched in the Scopus database, were evaluated. The most articles (n= 8.344) were published in 2020. A total of 112,121 articles were published between 2001 and 2020. The most used publication language in the articles was English (62.48%), followed by Russian (7.25%). The country that contributed the most to the literature was the United States (13.81%), followed by India (7.18%). 3.9% of the articles were published in the journal “Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases”.CONCLUSION: The results of the present bibliometric study are expected to shed light on the planning of future tuberculosis studies and the development of health policies toward tuberculosis. Research output is low in some countries, which should make larger investments in international and national collaborative research projects in the field of tuberculosis. If doing so, many countries of limited source will benefit from research that offer novel diagnostic and screening technology of tuberculosis.

Migration, Dignity, Fragility, and Pandemics: Overview of the Special Issue

This special issue presents the findings of an international collaborative research project conducted between 2019 and 2021. This study is a follow-up of a previous study conducted between 2016 and 2019. In both studies, we examined the livelihoods of future climate migrants, who may relocate from Pacific atoll countries to developed countries. The Maldives was also included in this study, as it developed a unique strategy to cope with anticipated sea-level rise. They have developed a new city on reclaimed land and elevated it, intending to move the majority of its population there. In our first research project, we learned of the challenges faced by Pacific Islanders when transitioning to their new lives in a foreign country. This included inter alia unemployment or lack of opportunities for upward mobility, limited access to healthcare and legal services, and discrimination. We thus developed a formal policy and legal framework for the concept of “Migration with Dignity,” built upon the phrase first coined by then-Kiribati President Anote Tong. Our framework represents the opportunity for migrants to live a life equal to or better than the one they left behind. We then applied our concept of the Migration with Dignity framework to the challenges faced by climate migrants in the real world. The global outbreak of COVID-19 occurred during the implementation of our new research project. This made field research almost impossible in both atoll and developed countries and led us to modify our survey methods to include tele-interviews and remote surveys through the Internet. The pandemic also revealed the exacerbated vulnerabilities of the people who migrated to developed countries, such as discrimination, poor or no translation of medical documents, and challenging healthcare processes. We decided to address these issues within the framework of our research. We leave it to the readers of this special issue to decide how far we were able to maintain the quality of our research despite the difficulties we faced due to the sudden pandemic. As we felt at the end of our last collaboration, we now know what we need to do in our next endeavor.

Performance evaluation of patch repairs on historic concrete structures (PEPS): a methodology for in situ and laboratory analyses

While there have been many studies on the performance criteria of concrete patch repairs, there are few specific studies on the long-term performance of patch repairs designed to preserve the aesthetic significance of the original fabric of culturally significant concrete structures. In order to address this issue, the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), Historic England (HE) and the Laboratoire de Recherche des Monuments Historiques (LRMH) commenced work on an international collaborative research project, ‘Performance Evaluation of Patch Repairs on Historic Concrete Structures’ (PEPS). Begun in 2018, the PEPS project aims to produce practical guidance that will help those repairing historic concrete through the assessment of case studies in the USA, England and France within a variety of climatic and environmental conditions, typologies and repair materials. The operational phases of the research project consist of in situ tests and laboratory analysis performed on both the original concrete and previous patch repairs. This paper provides an overview of the assessment methodology that has been developed by an inter-disciplinary team of professionals working in the field of concrete conservation, and includes a variety of traditional and non-traditional non-destructive, mechanical, chemical, and electro-chemical characterization and diagnostic techniques.

Performance evaluation of patch repairs on historic concrete structures (PEPS): preliminary results from an American case study

While there have been many studies on the performance criteria of concrete patch repairs, there are few specific studies on the long-term performance of patch repairs designed to preserve the aesthetic significance of the original fabric of culturally significant concrete structures. In order to address this issue, the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), Historic England (HE) and the Laboratoire de Recherche des Monuments Historiques (LRMH) commenced work on an international collaborative research project, ‘Performance Evaluation of Patch Repairs on Historic Concrete Structures’ (PEPS). Begun in 2018, the PEPS project aims to produce practical guidance that will help those repairing historic concrete through the assessment of case studies in the USA, England, and France within a variety of climatic and environmental conditions, typologies, and repair materials. The operational phases of the research project consist of in situ tests and laboratory analyses performed on both the original substrate and previous patch repairs. In this paper, preliminary results from the Phase II & III in-situ assessments of a single case study in the United States of America are presented, and the differences in aesthetic and technical performance between repairs from three different intervention campaigns are discussed.

Challenges of International Social Work Research During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons Learnt from A Bilateral Collaborative Study

The COVID-19 pandemic, which has had a profound impact on people’s lives around the world, has also affected international social work practice and research on social issues. This article explores how international social work research can draw lessons from bilateral research collaborations during the COVID-19 pandemic. In May 2021, an international collaborative research project was commenced to examine the practical experiences of social workers in Sri Lanka, with the overall purpose of contributing to development of socio-culturally relevant social work training. Trial semi-structured interviews were conducted using remote tools with five social workers in government or private organisations. The narratives of the interviewees were qualitatively analysed to identify their personal backgrounds of social work education and practice, their experiences of working during the pandemic and their perspectives and values as social workers. Lessons learnt were discussed focussing on the objectives and perspectives of the study, the preliminary arrangements for the research, the methods and considerations. In a context where it is important for social work researchers to promote international studies during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper provides an example of a feasible international cooperative study.

Analysis of the trends of polypharmacy and high-dose prescriptions in Japan.

IntroductionAfter extensive research, this study explored whether high‐dose prescriptions and polypharmacy remain more frequent in Japan than elsewhere. If confirmed, we aimed to identify the factors that contributed to this unique trend.MethodsThe psychotropic drug prescription patterns for patients with schizophrenia in Japan were reviewed. This was based on a large sample collected from surveys of the Research on Asian Psychotropic Prescription Patterns, an international collaborative research project conducted by Asian psychiatrists to monitor prescriptions of psychotropic drugs for people with mental disorders, in 2001, 2004, 2008, and 2016.ResultsThe 2016 Research on Asian Psychotropic Prescription Patterns survey revealed that Japan continued to demonstrate the highest rate of polypharmacy and the highest dosages of psychotropic prescription drugs for patients with schizophrenia among the 15 countries and areas that participated in the survey.DiscussionThe Research on Asian Psychotropic Prescription Patterns surveys demonstrated that science plays a limited role in the decision‐making process for prescriptions of psychotropic medications. Such prescriptions are influenced by a wide range of factors, such as the national mental health policy, prescription‐financing systems, the history of psychiatry in each country, and the prevailing culture. Hospital‐based national mental health policies and mental health financing systems have been the primary obstacles to reducing polypharmacy in Japan.

Acoustic wireless communication based on parameter modulation and complex Lorenz chaotic systems with complex parameters and parametric attractors* *Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. U1806202, 61773010, and 61903207), the International Collaborative Research Project of Qilu University of Technology (Grant No. QLUTGJHZ2018020), and Major Scientific and Technological Innovation Projects of Shandong Province, China (Grant Nos.

As the competition for marine resources is increasingly fierce, the security of underwater acoustic communication has attracted a great deal of attention. The information and location of the communicating platform can be leaked during the traditional underwater acoustic communication technology. According to the unique advantages of chaos communication, we put forward a novel communication scheme using complex parameter modulation and the complex Lorenz system. Firstly, we design a feedback controller and parameter update laws in a complex-variable form with rigorous mathematical proofs (while many previous references on the real-variable form were only special cases in which the imaginary part was zero), which can be realized in practical engineering; then we design a new communication scheme employing parameter modulation. The main parameter spaces of the complex Lorenz system are discussed, then they are adopted in our communication scheme. We also find that there exist parametric attractors in the complex Lorenz system. We make numerical simulations in two channels for digital signals and the simulations verify our conclusions.

Varieties of collaboration: On the influence of funding schemes on forms and characteristics of international collaborative research projects (ICRPs)

AbstractThis article discusses characteristics and forms of international collaborative research projects (ICRPs) and provides conceptual considerations as well as initial empirical insights on the impact of funding conditions on ICRPs in the social sciences and external project funding. Specifically, by presenting a German case study of funding formats in two national funding institutions and the funding tools of the European Commission in Horizon 2020. The findings draw on desk‐research and a review of research on the relationship between funding and international research collaboration. The analysis used a conceptual perspective, that understands research projects as temporary organisations, to discuss characteristics of international collaborative research projects and to provide a descriptive analysis of the funding conditions for ICRPs. The article systematises different forms of ICRPs and suggest differentiating them along their variety by four ICRP attributes: size, geographical distance, funding structures and funding formats. The discussion section elaborates on implications for future research and practice​.

Community engagement and feedback of results in the H3Africa AWI-Gen project: Experiences from the Navrongo Demographic and Health Surveillance site in Northern Ghana.

Community and Public engagement (CE) have gained traction as an ethical best practice for the conduct of genomics research, particularly in the context of Africa. In the past 10 years, there has been growing scholarship on the value and practice of engaging key stakeholders including communities involved in genomics research. However, not much has been documented on how research teams, particularly in international collaborative research projects, are navigating the complex process of engagement including the return of key research findings. This paper is part of a series of papers describing the CE processes used in the AWI-Gen study sites. We describe the key processes of engagement, challenges encountered and the major lessons learned. We pay particular attention to the experiences in returning research results to participants and communities within the Demographic and Health Surveillance site in northern Ghana.

Benefits, Motivations, and Challenges of International Collaborative Research: A Sociology of Science Case Study

AbstractContemporary science is marked by expanding and diverse forms of teamwork. Collaboration across organizational and cultural boundaries extends the possibilities of discovery. International collaborative research projects often provide findings beyond what one team could achieve alone. Motivated to maintain existing relationships and grow their scientific network, researchers increasingly collaborate, despite often unrecognized or underappreciated costs, since such projects are challenging to manage and carry out. Rarely studied in-depth and longitudinally, the perspectives of scientific team members are crucial to better understand the dynamics of durable collaboration networks. Thus, this retrospective case study of a sociology of science project applies the novel method of autoethnography to examine teamwork benefits, motivations, and challenges. Key challenges found include spatial distance and differences of culture, language, and career stage. This study, spanning North America, Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, focused on collaborators’ characteristics and evolving perceptions of team dynamics over a decade.

COVID-19 International Collaborative Research by the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service Using Its Nationwide Real-world Data: Database, Outcomes, and Implications.

This article aims to introduce the inception and operation of the COVID-19 International Collaborative Research Project, the world’s first coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) open data project for research, along with its dataset and research method, and to discuss relevant considerations for collaborative research using nationwide real-world data (RWD). COVID-19 has spread across the world since early 2020, becoming a serious global health threat to life, safety, and social and economic activities. However, insufficient RWD from patients was available to help clinicians efficiently diagnose and treat patients with COVID-19, or to provide necessary information to the government for policy-making. Countries that saw a rapid surge of infections had to focus on leveraging medical professionals to treat patients, and the circumstances made it even more difficult to promptly use COVID-19 RWD. Against this backdrop, the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) of Korea decided to open its COVID-19 RWD collected through Korea’s universal health insurance program, under the title of the COVID-19 International Collaborative Research Project. The dataset, consisting of 476 508 claim statements from 234 427 patients (7590 confirmed cases) and 18 691 318 claim statements of the same patients for the previous 3 years, was established and hosted on HIRA’s in-house server. Researchers who applied to participate in the project uploaded analysis code on the platform prepared by HIRA, and HIRA conducted the analysis and provided outcome values. As of November 2020, analyses have been completed for 129 research projects, which have been published or are in the process of being published in prestigious journals.

Cohort profile: protocol and baseline survey for the Shanghai Suburban Adult Cohort and Biobank (SSACB) study

PurposeThe Shanghai Suburban Adult Cohort and Biobank (SSACB) was established to identify environmental, lifestyle and genetic risk factors for non-communicable chronic diseases (NCDs) in adults (20–74 years old) living in...

The first instrument for complex PTSD assessment: psychometric properties of the ICD-11 Trauma Questionnaire.

Objective:The ICD-11 Trauma Questionnaire (ITQ) was developed as a joint effort by researchers from several countries to evaluate post-traumatic stress (PTSD) and complex-PTSD (C-PTSD) symptoms. This study is part of a multi-center international collaborative research project that aims to provide psychometric support for this initial instrument in different languages, considering the specific contexts related to complex traumatization. This study verified the psychometric characteristics of the Portuguese version of the ITQ, evaluating symptoms beyond those described the existing literature.Methods:We examined the results of a convenience sample totaling 268 Portuguese and Angolan participants. Two instruments were applied: the ITQ, which evaluates symptoms resulting from a traumatic life event, and the Life Events Checklist (LEC), which evaluates stressful life events. The general characteristics of the scales are described, and reliability analysis and validity studies were performed.Results:Cronbach’s alpha varied between 0.84 and 0.88, and the exploratory factorial analysis results were consistent with the concept of C-PTSD, with five components explaining 61.58% of scale variance.Conclusion:The results suggest good psychometric characteristics for the Portuguese version of the ITQ, and thus it can be included in protocols intended evaluating complex traumatic symptoms.

Indian Council of Medical Research's International Collaboration & Partnerships; Health Ministry's Screening Committee: Facts, figures & procedures.

There is a great interest among various international agencies/countries in developing partnership with Indian research organizations, particularly with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for biomedical research. The ICMR is actively involved in governance and co-ordination of partnerships with several international organizations and agencies. Various MoUs (Memorandum of Understanding)/agreements of ICMR with international partners bring together the researchers and resources towards progression through shared research and innovation agenda. Growing collaboration during recent years is reflected through increased number of internationally funded/technically coordinated research projects in health research. However, for any international collaborative research study to be undertaken in India, certain regulatory requirements are to be fulfilled. This article summarizes the international partnerships of ICMR as well as the details of guidelines regarding submission of international collaborative research projects for the Health Ministry's Screening Committee (HMSC), which is a mandatory requirement before undertaking such projects.