Relative Citation Research Articles

Impact of COVID-19 on Children and Adults: A Bibliometric Assessment of Global Publications

International Journal of Medicine and Public Health,2021,11,3,139-145.DOI:10.5530/ijmedph.2021.3.25Published:August 2021Type:Original ArticleImpact of COVID-19 on Children and Adults: A Bibliometric Assessment of Global PublicationsBM Gupta, M Surulinathi, Ghouse Modin Nabeesab Mamdapur, Jivesh Bansal, and Madhu Bansal BM Gupta1, M Surulinathi2, Ghouse Modin Nabeesab Mamdapur3,*, Jivesh Bansal4, Madhu Bansal4 1Formerly with CSIR-NISTADS, New Delhi, INDIA. 2Department of Library and Information Science, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, INDIA. 3Synthite Industries (P) Ltd, Kolenchery, Kerala, INDIA. 4Panjab University, Central Library, Chandigarh, INDIA. Abstract:The paper presents a analysis of quantitative and qualitative dimensions of global research output (3488 records) on “Impact of COVID-19 on Children and Adolescents”, based on indexed publications in Scopus database. The global publications on this theme averaged 8.31 citations per paper. About 1.49% share of its total publications in this area received external funding support. The 145 countries partcipitated in global research output on “Impact of COVID-19 on Children and Adults”, of which the top 10 countries accounted for 85.21% and more than 100% share of global publications and citations. The USA, U.K. and Italy leads in global publications ranking and productivity as against China (3.16), U.K (1.28) and USA (1.27) leading in terms of relative of relative citation index. The 412 organizations and 661 authors participated in global research on this theme, with top 15 most productive organizations and authors contributing 21.07% and 4.30% global publications share and 38.05% and 12.98% global citations share. Harvard Medical School, USA, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China and Tongji Medical College, China leads the world as the most productive organizatons (with 480, 67 and 63 publications) and Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China (31.97 and 3.85), Tongji Medical College, China (19.92 and 2.40) and Children Hospital of Philadelphia, USA (19.30 and 2.32) leading as the most impactful organizations in the world in terms of citation per paper and relative citation index. D.Buonsensov, C.Calvo and X. Lu were the most productive authors (with 15, 12 and 12 papers) and X.Lu (103.83 and 12.49), A. Licari ( 40.11 and 4.83) and G.L. Marseglia( 34.09 and 4.1) were the most impactful authors. JAMA Pediatrics, Pediatrics Infectious Disease Journal and Acta Paediatrica International Journal of Pediatrics were the most productive journals (with 71, 60 and 58 papers) and Pediatrics (36.59, JAMA Pediatrics (19.49) and Acta Paediatrica International Journal of Pediatrics (14.93) were the most impactful journals. Keywords:Adolescents, Bibliometrics, Children, COVID-19, Global, Impact, publications, scientometricsView:PDF (214.36 KB)

A qualitative and quantitative analysis of open citations to retracted articles: the Wakefield 1998 et al.'s case

In this article, we show the results of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of open citations on a popular and highly cited retracted paper: “Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis and pervasive developmental disorder in children” by Wakefield et al., published in 1998. The main purpose of our study is to understand the behavior of the publications citing one retracted article and the characteristics of the citations the retracted article accumulated over time. Our analysis is based on a methodology which illustrates how we gathered the data, extracted the topics of the citing articles and visualized the results. The data and services used are all open and free to foster the reproducibility of the analysis. The outcomes concerned the analysis of the entities citing Wakefield et al.’s article and their related in-text citations. We observed a constant increasing number of citations in the last 20 years, accompanied with a constant increment in the percentage of those acknowledging its retraction. Citing articles have started either discussing or dealing with the retraction of Wakefield et al.’s article even before its full retraction happened in 2010. Articles in the social sciences domain citing the Wakefield et al.’s one were among those that have mostly discussed its retraction. In addition, when observing the in-text citations, we noticed that a large number of the citations received by Wakefield et al.’s article has focused on general discussions without recalling strictly medical details, especially after the full retraction. Medical studies did not hesitate in acknowledging the retraction of the Wakefield et al.’s article and often provided strong negative statements on it.

The Relative Citation Ratio: Examining a Novel Measure of Research Productivity among Southern Academic Ophthalmologists

ABSTRACT Purpose To analyze research productivity, as assessed by the National Institutes of Health-supported relative citation ratio (RCR), for a cohort of Southern academic ophthalmologists. Design A descriptive and cross-sectional design was used. Data on gender, academic rank (assigned as an assistant professor, associate professor, professor, or “other”), degrees, and career duration were collected using online resources. Research yield was quantified using mean and weighted RCR data queried from the iCite database. Significant between-group differences were calculated using the Mann–Whitney U-test and the Kruskal–Wallis test. Settings Practicing academic ophthalmologists at Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education-accredited ophthalmology programs in the Southern United States (n = 1018). Results For all Southern academic ophthalmologists, median mean RCR was 0.90 (IQR 0.18–1.71) and median weighted RCR was 5.12 (IQR 0.34–33.18). Advanced academic rank and PhD acquisition were significantly associated with increased mean and weighted RCR. After exclusion of faculty within the “other” category, median mean RCR was 1.12 (IQR 0.54–1.80) and median weighted RCR was 11.65 (IQR 2.03–45.58). Furthermore, effects of career duration and gender emerged. Ophthalmologists with longer careers had significantly higher mean and weighted RCR than their younger counterparts. Males had significantly higher mean and weighted RCR than females. Conclusions Academic rank and attainment of a PhD degree were correlated with increased research productivity. When analyses focused exclusively on faculty not in the “other” subgroup, male gender, and lengthier career were associated with increased mean and weighted RCR, the former of which potentially highlights differences in professional advancement between genders.

Therapeutic Plants Used for Typhoid Fever Treatment in Kaduna State Nigeria

For ages, medicinal plants play a significant role in the effective, affordable, and safe healthcare system. Medicinal plants continue to play an important role in Nigeria's healthcare system, which serves more than 70% of the country's population. For pharmaceutical exploration and conservation, it is important to document the use of medicinal plants in a specific region across time. The study's goal was to find out which plants were used to treat typhoid illness in Kaduna state. The in-depth interview guide was utilized in conjunction with an expert method and non-random probability sampling. The study discovered and recorded 31 plant species from 25 families that are used by Kaduna residents to cure typhoid diseases. Plants with a 0.45 value of relative frequency citation were documented. The highest relative frequency of citation (0.9) and fidelity level (90%) are found in Garcinia mangostana, Senna alata, Moringa oleifera, and Hibiscus sabdariffa, respectively. In Nigeria, traditional medicinal knowledge is guarded by elderly people. The study discovered plant species that could be used as a potential source of anti typhoid in Nigeria.

Traditional Use of Medicinal Plants in Baturraden, Central Java

An ethnopharmacological study is an initial step for the development of jamu, which has been simultaneously conducted throughout Indonesia. This study aimed to explore the utilization of medicinal plants in Baturraden, a region with relatively rich plant biodiversity in Java. Our research is a quantitative ethnobotanical study reporting the utilization of medicinal plants as a single plant botanical preparation in the studied area. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 36 informants on the local names, indications, parts used, method of preparation, and application of the plants. The species use-value (SUV), relative frequency citation (RFC), and the fidelity level (FL) of each species were calculated accordingly. The study recorded the utilization of 47 species of medicinal plants, which were employed to treat 32 ailments. Leaves, decoctions, and oral were recorded as the most commonly used plant part, herbal preparation, and application. There were 24 botanical preparations with the FL value of 100%, which were indicated for the treatment of fourteen diseases/symptoms. Curcuma longa, Zingiber officinale, Piper betle, Cymbopogon citratus, Andrographis paniculata, Syzygium polyanthum, Citrus aurantiaca, and Zingiber montanum were considered as the most important and valuable plants by the local community. Hence, those plants should be evaluated further for their pharmacological activity and developed into standardized botanical preparations.

Ethnobotanical treatment of respiratory diseases in the central Middle Atlas (Morocco): Qualitative and quantitative approach

IntroductionRespiratory disorders are quite common in the Moroccan central Middle Atlas due to difficult climatic conditions and the difficulties in accessing health services. Therefore, the aim of the present work was to document the ancestral phytotherapeutic knowledge concerning the treatment of respiratory diseases in this region, using a qualitative and quantitative ethnobotanical approach. MethodsA questionnaire containing open and semi-structured questions was used to conduct the interviews with 58 practitioners of traditional medicine in order to collect the necessary ethnomedical information. Databases such as Web of Science, ScienceDirect, PubMed, and Scopus were used to analyze the inventoried plants, as well as their reported pharmacological activities. The data obtained were expressed by different quantitative indices: use value (UV), family use value (FUV), relative frequency of citation (RFC), level of fidelity (FL), informant consensus factor (ICF), relative importance (RI) and plant part value (PPV). ResultsA total of 35 plants distributed in 21 families were reported and categorized. The most represented family was Lamiaceae and the highest use value was for Scrophulariaceae (UVF=70.00). Of the plants listed, Marrubium vulgare L. has the highest use value (UVF=1.24). The highest relative citation frequency is recorded with Ruta montana L. (RFC=0.43). 24 species had a level of fidelity of 100% to treat various diseases. As for the highest value of informant consensus factor (ICF=1.00) was observed for the treatment of hoarseness and loss of voice. The leaves usually prepared by decoction and administered orally constituted the most used part (PPV=0.36). In addition, 24 plants among the 35 species studied (68.57%) have been the subject of scientific trials that have proven their pharmacological activities related to respiratory diseases. This is the case of Sambucus nigra L. which is effective in the treatment of influenza by direct effects through blocking viral glycoproteins, and indirect effects by increasing the expression of IL-6, IL-8 and TNF. Also, Hyssopus officinalis L. has an effect on chronic asthma by inhibiting eosinophil infiltration and reducing IgE levels in lung tissue. Finally, 69% of the plants used were declared toxic by the respondents. ConclusionThe population in the central Middle Atlas is still relying on herbal medicine for respiratory conditions. The documented plants can serve as a basis for further scientific studies. Promising species need to be studied phytochemically and pharmacologically. For its part, the toxicity of certain species requires great vigilance.

The research on COVID-19 and economy from 2019 to 2020: analysis from the perspective of bibliometrics

Research background: The outbreak and spread of COVID-19 brought disastrous influences to the development of human society, especially the development of economy.
 Purpose of the article: Considering that knowing about the situations of the existing studies about COVID-19 and economy is not only helpful to understand the research progress and the connections between COVID-19 and economy, but also provides effective suggestions for fighting against COVID-19 and protecting economy, this paper analyzes the existing studies on COVID-19 and economy from the perspective of bibliometrics.
 Methods: Firstly, the discussion starts from the statistical analysis, in which the basic distributions of the studies on different countries/regions, different publication sources, different publication years, etc., are presented. Then, the paper shows the cooperation situations of the researchers from analyzing the related citation networks, co-citation networks and cooperation networks. Further, the theme analysis of the related studies is presented, in which the related co-occurrence networks are shown, and then the detailed analyses of the studies are introduced. Based on these analyses, the discussions about future research are presented, and finally we draw a conclusion.
 Findings & value added: The analyses not only present the basic situation on the research about COVID-19 and Economy, but also show the future research trends, which can provide meaningful research expectations.

Biomarkers of cytokine storm as red flags for severe and fatal COVID-19 cases: A living systematic review and meta-analysis.

ObjectiveTo describe the laboratory parameters and biomarkers of the cytokine storm syndrome associated with severe and fatal COVID-19 cases.MethodsA search with standardized descriptors and synonyms was performed on November 28th, 2020 of the MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, ClinicalTrials.gov, LILACS, and IBECS to identify studies of interest. Grey literature searches and snowballing techniques were additionally utilized to identify yet-unpublished works and related citations. Two review authors independently screened the retrieved titles and abstracts, selected eligible studies for inclusion, extracted data from the included studies, and then assessed the risk of bias using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. Eligible studies were those including laboratory parameters—including serum interleukin-6 levels—from mild, moderate, or severe COVID-19 cases. Laboratory parameters, such as interleukin-6, ferritin, hematology, C-Reactive Protein, procalcitonin, lactate dehydrogenase, aspartate aminotransferase, creatinine, and D-dimer, were extracted from the studies. Meta-analyses were conducted using the laboratory data to estimate mean differences with associated 95% confidence intervals.Data synthesisThe database search yielded 9,620 records; 40 studies (containing a total of 9,542 patients) were included in the final analysis. Twenty-one studies (n = 4,313) assessed laboratory data related to severe COVID-19 cases, eighteen studies (n = 4,681) assessed predictors for fatal COVID-19 cases and one study (n = 548) assessed laboratory biomarkers related to severe and fatal COVID-19 cases. Lymphopenia, thrombocytopenia, and elevated levels of interleukin-6, ferritin, D-dimer, aspartate aminotransferase, C-Reactive-Protein, procalcitonin, creatinine, neutrophils and leucocytes were associated with severe and fatal COVID-19 cases.ConclusionsThis review points to interleukin-6, ferritin, leukocytes, neutrophils, lymphocytes, platelets, C-Reactive Protein, procalcitonin, lactate dehydrogenase, aspartate aminotransferase, creatinine, and D-dimer as important biomarkers of cytokine storm syndrome. Elevated levels of interleukin-6 and hyperferritinemia should be considered as red flags of systemic inflammation and poor prognosis in COVID-19.

Diversity and knowledge of plants used in the treatment of snake bite envenomation in Benin

Background: Ophidian envenomation is a public health problem in the tropics and subtropics. Expensive cost of antivenoms forces most of the population to resort to medicinal plants as a first-line treatment. The present study aimed to contribute to a better knowledge of medicinal plants used in the treatment of snakebite envenomation in Benin.Methods: Ethnobotanical information was collected from 339 people (hunters and traditional healers) across various sociolinguistic groups using a structured interview and the snowball technique. Knowledge was quantitatively assessed using the Relative Citation Frequency. The R software (cran.r-project.org) and Microsoft Excel were used to produce graphs and/or charts.Results: A total of 109 plants species belonging to 51 botanical families were reported as being used in the treatment of snakebite envenomation. Distribution of these species by family showed that Leguminosae (20.18%), Euphorbiaceae (9.17%), Asteraceae (4.59%), Annonaceae (3.67%) were mentioned the most. The dominant life forms were herbs and shrubs collected mainly from savannas and fallows. Roots and leaves were the most used plant parts in the preparation of remedies.Conclusion: In-depth pharmacological and toxicological studies must be carried out to validate reported medicinal plants, to contribute to the well-being of local communities in developing countries.Keywords: Ethnobotanical survey, ophidian envenomation, antivenom, medicinal plants, well-being.

New Indicators of the Technological Impact of Scientific Production

Abstract Purpose Building upon pioneering work by Francis Narin and others, a new methodological approach to assessing the technological impact of scientific research is presented. Design/methodology/approach It is based on the analysis of citations made in patent families included in the PATSTAT database that is to scientific papers indexed in Scopus. Findings An advanced citation matching procedure is applied to the data in order to construct two indicators of technological impact: on the citing (patent) side, the country/region in which protection is sought and a patent family's propensity to cite scientific papers are taken into account, and on the cited (paper) side, a relative citation rate is defined for patent citations to papers that is similar to the scientific paper-to-paper citation rate in classical bibliometrics. Research limitations The results are limited by the available data, in our case Scopus and PATSTAT, and especially by the lack of standardization of references in patents. This required a matching procedure that is neither trivial nor exact. Practical implications Results at the country/region, document type, and publication age levels are presented. The country/region-level results in particular reveal features that have remained hidden in analyses of straight counts. Especially notable is that the rankings of some Asian countries/regions move upwards when the proposed normalized indicator of technological impact is applied as against the case with straight counts of patent citations to those countries/regions’ published papers. Originality/value In our opinion, the level of sophistication of the indicators proposed in the current paper is unparalleled in the scientific literature, and provides a solid basis for the assessment of the technological impact of scientific research in countries/regions and institutions.

Measuring academic entities\u2019 impact by content-based citation analysis in a heterogeneous academic network

Evaluating the impact of papers, researchers and venues objectively is of great significance to academia and beyond. This may help researchers, research organizations, and government agencies in various ways, such as helping researchers find valuable papers and authoritative venues and helping research organizations identify good researchers. A few studies find that rather than treating citations equally, differentiating them is a promising way for impact evaluation of academic entities. However, most of those methods are metadata-based only and do not consider contents of cited and citing papers; while a few content-based methods are not sophisticated, and further improvement is possible. In this paper, we study the citation relationships between entities by content-based approaches. Especially, an ensemble learning method is used to classify citations into different strength types, and a word-embedding based method is used to estimate topical similarity of the citing and cited papers. A heterogeneous network is constructed with the weighted citation links and several other features. Based on the heterogeneous network that consists of three types of entities, we apply an iterative PageRank-like method to rank the impact of papers, authors and venues at the same time through mutual reinforcement. Experiments are conducted on an ACL dataset, and the results demonstrate that our method greatly outperforms state-of-the art competitors in improving ranking effectiveness of papers, authors and venues, as well as in being robust against malicious manipulation of citations.

The cost-effectiveness of the article-processing-charge-funded model across countries in different scientific blocks: the case of Elsevier's hybrid open access journals

Introduction. The present study investigated the cost-effectiveness of article-processing-charge-funded model across the world countries in terms of its citation value proportional to the article processing charges. Method. Using a comparative citation analysis method at the macro level, it explored a sample of articles in forty-seven Elsevier hybrid open access journals that had been following the model since 2007. Analysis. The contributing countries' open access citation advantages were calculated based on the percentage of their open access citation surplus proportional to that of their non-open access articles. Their relative open access citation cost-effectiveness was obtained based on their open access citation counts proportional to the article processing charges, normalised by those of non-open access papers. The countries were categorised into four scientific blocks using Rand's categorization of countries' scientific development. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data in SPSS. Results. The results supported the citation advantage of the article-processing-charge-funded papers, encompassing the majority of the contributing countries in the four scientific development blocks. The articles showed relative cost-effectiveness over the years and for most countries in all the scientific development blocks. Conclusions. Publishing article-processing-charge-funded papers is relatively cost-effective, implying higher visibility and influence in exchange for the money paid.

TIGA: target illumination GWAS analytics.

Genome-wide association studies can reveal important genotype-phenotype associations; however, data quality and interpretability issues must be addressed. For drug discovery scientists seeking to prioritize targets based on the available evidence, these issues go beyond the single study. Here, we describe rational ranking, filtering and interpretation of inferred gene-trait associations and data aggregation across studies by leveraging existing curation and harmonization efforts. Each gene-trait association is evaluated for confidence, with scores derived solely from aggregated statistics, linking a protein-coding gene and phenotype. We propose a method for assessing confidence in gene-trait associations from evidence aggregated across studies, including a bibliometric assessment of scientific consensus based on the iCite relative citation ratio, and meanRank scores, to aggregate multivariate evidence.This method, intended for drug target hypothesis generation, scoring and ranking, has been implemented as an analytical pipeline, available as open source, with public datasets of results, and a web application designed for usability by drug discovery scientists. Web application, datasets and source code via https://unmtid-shinyapps.net/tiga/. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

High-Impact Clinical Studies That Fomented New Developments in Anesthesia: History of Achievements, 1966-2015.

The aim of this work is to identify the most influential initial clinical studies that fomented important developments in anesthesiology over the past 50 years. Studies fomenting new development can be selected using vastly different approaches and, therefore, might provide diverse outcomes. In the present work, two basic aspects of study assessments – the stage of development (eg, generation of idea, preclinical studies, clinical trials) and the method of selection (eg, committee vote, various types of citation analysis, method of finding the invention disclosure) – were chosen according to the following model. The stage of development: the initial clinical studies demonstrating the basic advantage of an innovation for providing anesthesia. The method: a combination of two factors – the study priority in terms of the time of its publication and the degree of its acknowledgement in the form of citation impact; the time of study publication was regarded as a primary factor, but only if the study’s citation count was =/>20. The initial high-impact studies were selected for 16 drug-related topics (ketamine, isoflurane, etomidate, propofol, midazolam in anesthesia, vecuronium, alfentanil, atracurium, sevoflurane, sufentanil, rocuronium, desflurane, ropivacaine, remifentanil, dexmedetomidine in anesthesia, and sugammadex), and 9 technique-related topics (ultrasound-guided peripheral nerve block, capnography in anesthesia, target-controlled intravenous anesthesia, pulse oximetry in anesthesia, total intravenous anesthesia, transesophageal echocardiography in anesthesia, combined spinal-epidural anesthesia, and bispectral index). Twenty-five studies were designated the first high-impact studies (one for each topic); 16 are drug-related and 9 are technique-related. Half of the first high-impact studies had a citation count of =/>100, (range: 100 to 555). The citation count of the other half of high-impact studies did not reach the 100-citation threshold (range: 41 to 97). If a selected first high-impact study had a citation count <100, a next-on-timeline, additional study with citation count =/>100 was also selected; (range: 100 to 344). The present results show that an initial high-impact clinical study on a new development in anesthesiology can be determined and that related citations usually vary from one hundred to five hundred.

Assessment of the Diversity of Medico-Magic Knowledge on Four Herbaceous Species in Benin.

Background Ethnobotanical knowledge on four herbaceous species, Acmella uliginosa (Sw.) Cass., Momordica charantia L., Phyllanthus amarus Schumach. & Thonn., and Scoparia dulcis L., in Benin was investigated. Methods Herbal medicine traders in six different markets were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. The linear regression test was performed to check for the influence of respondent's age on ethnobotanical uses they hold. Relative frequency citation, fidelity level, use value, and Rahman similarity index were calculated to assess the diversity of medico-magic knowledge. The Informant Consensus Factor is not applicable in this study since we are dealing neither with the diversity of medicinal plants used by a community of people nor with a great number of plant species used for medicinal purposes, nor the diversity of plant species used in the treatment of a specific or group of ailments. Results The respondent's age did not influence the ethnobotanical uses they hold on the species. All thirty-six informants surveyed traded Phyllanthus amarus Schumach. & Thonn., Momordica charantia L., and Scoparia dulcis L., and the majority traded Acmella uliginosa (Sw.) Cass. The respondent's age does not influence the diversity of ethnobotanical uses they hold on the study species. Purchase in traders' own markets was the predominant source of Phyllanthus amarus Schumach. & Thonn., Momordica charantia L., and Scoparia dulcis L. while Acmella uliginosa (Sw.) Cass. was mostly purchased in other more distant markets. A noticeable proportion of traders also collect Phyllanthus amarus Schumach. & Thonn. and Momordica charantia L. from wild populations. Phyllanthus amarus Schumach. & Thonn. was the species most demanded by customers followed by Momordica charantia L. Traders confirmed the scarcity of all species in recent years and climate change and destruction of natural habitats for logging were the most cited causes. The entire plant of Phyllanthus amarus Schumach. & Thonn. was used mainly to treat malaria, diabetes, and constipation, and decoction with oral administration was the most frequent preparation for malaria treatment. To treat diabetes, informants mixed Phyllanthus amarus Schumach. & Thonn. with Momordica charantia L. used as a decoction with oral administration. Momordica charantia L. was also used to treat measles and chicken pox. Acmella uliginosa (Sw.) Cass. and Scoparia dulcis L. were mostly used for their spiritual use for luck, predominantly by chewing fresh leaves or flowers, and by bathing with the ground plant mixed with soap, respectively. Overall, Momordica charantia L. had the greatest use value followed by Phyllanthus amarus Schumach. & Thonn. The majority of traders do not plant the species. Conclusions The harvesting and trade of the species threaten their natural populations and urgent tools, including in situ and ex situ conservation, are needed to ensure their long-term sustainable exploitation.

Enhancing Scientific Papers Summarization with Citation Graph

Previous work for text summarization in scientific domain mainly focused on the content of the input document, but seldom considering its citation network. However, scientific papers are full of uncommon domain-specific terms, making it almost impossible for the model to understand its true meaning without the help of the relevant research community. In this paper, we redefine the task of scientific papers summarization by utilizing their citation graph and propose a citation graph-based summarization model CGSum which can incorporate the information of both the source paper and its references. In addition, we construct a novel scientific papers summarization dataset Semantic Scholar Network (SSN) which contains 141K research papers in different domains and 661K citation relationships. The entire dataset constitutes a large connected citation graph. Extensive experiments show that our model can achieve competitive performance when compared with the pretrained models even with a simple architecture. The results also indicates the citation graph is crucial to better understand the content of papers and generate high-quality summaries.

UAB-UCSD O'Brien Center for Acute Kidney Injury Research.

Acute kidney injury (AKI) remains a significant clinical problem through its diverse etiologies, the challenges of robust measurements of injury and recovery, and its progression to chronic kidney disease (CKD). Bridging the gap in our knowledge of this disorder requires bringing together not only the technical resources for research but also the investigators currently endeavoring to expand our knowledge and those who might bring novel ideas and expertise to this important challenge. The University of Alabama at Birmingham-University of California-San Diego O'Brien Center for Acute Kidney Injury Research brings together technical expertise and programmatic and educational efforts to advance our knowledge in these diverse issues and the required infrastructure to develop areas of novel exploration. Since its inception in 2008, this O'Brien Center has grown its impact by providing state-of-the-art resources in clinical and preclinical modeling of AKI, a bioanalytical core that facilitates measurement of critical biomarkers, including serum creatinine via LC-MS/MS among others, and a biostatistical resource that assists from design to analysis. Through these core resources and with additional educational efforts, our center has grown its investigator base to include >200 members from 51 institutions. Importantly, this center has translated its pilot and catalyst funding program with a $37 return per dollar invested. Over 500 publications have resulted from the support provided with a relative citation ratio of 2.18 ± 0.12 (iCite). Through its efforts, this disease-centric O'Brien Center is providing the infrastructure and focus to help the development of the next generation of researchers in the basic and clinical science of AKI. This center creates the promise of the application at the bedside of the advances in AKI made by current and future investigators.

What happens when a journal converts to open access? A bibliometric analysis

In recent years, increased stakeholder pressure to transition research to Open Access has led to many journals converting, or ‘flipping’, from a closed access (CA) to an open access (OA) publishing model. Changing the publishing model can influence the decision of authors to submit their papers to a journal, and increased article accessibility may influence citation behaviour. In this paper we aimed to understand how flipping a journal to an OA model influences the journal’s future publication volumes and citation impact. We analysed two independent sets of journals that had flipped to an OA model, one from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and one from the Open Access Directory (OAD), and compared their development with two respective control groups of similar journals. For bibliometric analyses, journals were matched to the Scopus database. We assessed changes in the number of articles published over time, as well as two citation metrics at the journal and article level: the normalised impact factor (IF) and the average relative citations (ARC), respectively. Our results show that overall, journals that flipped to an OA model increased their publication output compared to journals that remained closed. Mean normalised IF and ARC also generally increased following the flip to an OA model, at a greater rate than was observed in the control groups. However, the changes appear to vary largely by scientific discipline. Overall, these results indicate that flipping to an OA publishing model can bring positive changes to a journal.

Ethnobotanical Survey of Medicinal Plants Used by Traditional Healers to Treat Diabetes in the Taza Region of Morocco.

Type 2 diabetes is one of the noncommunicable diseases that is becoming a pandemic in Africa. In Morocco, traditional healers have started to use herbal medicines for the treatment of diabetes either individually or in combination with food. The current study aimed to perform an ethnobiological survey of antidiabetic plants use in the Taza region of Morocco. A total of 193 traditional healers were interviewed using a semistructured questionnaire. Data collected were analyzed utilizing the use value (UV), fidelity level (FL), and relative frequency citation (RFC) indices. Forty-six plant species belonging to 28 families were recorded for the treatment of diabetes in the Taza region of Morocco. The most frequently cited plant species are Salvia officinalis, Marrubium vulgare, and Ajuga iva. Lamiaceae, Asteraceae, and Fabaceae were the most reported families. Leaves are the most used part of plants to prepare drugs, the decoction is the preferred mode of preparation, and remedies are often administered orally. Interestingly, Cytisus battandieri, Urginea maritima, Plantago ovata, and Ziziphus jujuba were reported as new medicinal plants used to treat diabetes in the Taza region of Morocco. People in the Taza region still rely on indigenous plants for their basic healthcare needs. Further research should be carried out to validate the antidiabetic effect of the newly reported plant species. This validation can be investigated by the determination of bioactive compounds and evaluation of their in vitro and in vivo antidiabetic effects.

Research output of Indian universities in sciences (2015–2019): a scientometric analysis

PurposeThe present study aims to trace out the science research output of top Indian universities from 2015 to 2019, as reflected in the Web of Science (WOS) database.Design/methodology/approachThe present study has selected the Science Citation Index (SCI) of WOS core collection for selecting top Indian universities in terms of total publications in the last five years (2015–2019). The University of Delhi (DU), Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Anna University (AU), Jadavpur University (JU) and Punjab University (PU) have been selected. The study identified the most prolific authors, collaborating countries, collaborating institutions and the impact of their output in terms of citations per paper (CPP) and relative citation impact (RCI). For visualizing purposes, VOSviewer was used. The study also identified frequently used keywords and channels used for communicating research results.FindingsThe authors retrieved 26,173 documents consisting of journal articles, review papers and proceeding papers. The consistent growth of science research output has been observed. The University of Delhi (DU) has the maximum science publications. The study reflects that multi-authored papers have more research impact in terms of citation received. The USA, South Korea and Germany are the most collaborating countries. The top Indian Universities have a major collaboration with Anna University, Indian Institute of Technology, Center for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) of India.Originality/valueThe present study reveals how the science research output of top Indian universities has grown in the last few years. The findings of the study can be used for identifying specific science research areas where special attention can be given.