Scientific Impact Research Articles

The ADNI Administrative Core: Ensuring ADNI's success and informing future AD clinical trials.

The Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) Administrative Core oversees and coordinates all ADNI activities, to ensure the success and maximize the impact of ADNI in advancing Alzheimer's disease (AD) research and clinical trials. It manages finances and develops policies for data sharing, publications using ADNI data, and access to ADNI biospecimens. The Core develops and executes pilot projects to guide future ADNI activities and identifies key innovative methods for inclusion in ADNI. For ADNI4, the Administrative Core collaborates with the Engagement, Clinical, and Biomarker Cores to develop and evaluate novel, digital methods and infrastructure for participant recruitment, screening, and assessment of participants. The goal of these efforts is to enroll 500 participants, including>50% from underrepresented populations, 40% with mild cognitive impairment, and 80% with elevated AD biomarkers. This new approach also provides a unique opportunity to validate novel methods. HIGHLIGHTS: The Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) Administrative Core oversees and coordinates all ADNI activities. The overall goal is to ensure ADNI's success and help design future Alzheimer's disease (AD) clinical trials. A key innovation is data sharing without embargo to maximize scientific impact. For ADNI4, novel, digital methods for recruitment and assessment were developed. New methods are designed to improve the participation of underrepresented populations.

Misconduct, Mishaps, and Misranking in Bibliometric Databases: Inflating the Production and Impact of Scientists

Misconduct, Mishaps, and Misranking in Bibliometric Databases: Inflating the Production and Impact of Scientists

Bibliometric Analysis of Spline Regression Model for Trend Mapping and Strategy Development Research Using Vosviewer

Bibliometric analysis is a quantitative method used to measure and analyze scientific literature. This technique involves the collection and analysis of publication data, such as journal articles, books, and conferences, to evaluate and understand patterns of scientific communication, research productivity, author collaboration, journal impact, and trends within a scientific field. Bibliometric analysis has a limitation in that it is challenging to visualize effectively, necessitating the use of software for proper visualization. Therefore, this article discusses bibliometric analysis on spline regression for trend mapping and strategy development using VOSviewer software. The research results show that the visualization of spline regression keywords with VOSviewer can help in understanding patterns of relationships between variables, research trends, and network structures in scientific literature. Based on the analysis results, bibliometric analysis on spline regression can be visualized in trend mapping, which can aid in planning further research strategies, including identifying collaboration opportunities and underexplored research areas.

GCM and gcType in 2024: comprehensive resources for microbial strains and genomic data.

Microbial culture collections play a crucial role in the collection, maintenance, and distribution of quality-assured living microbial strains, along with their associated phenotypic and omics data. To enhance the find-able, accessible, interoperable, and re-usable (FAIR) data utilization of microbial resources, the World Data Center for Microorganisms (WDCM) has developed the Global Catalogue of Microorganisms (GCM) and the Global Catalogue of Type Strains (gcType). These platforms provide interactive interfaces for cataloging the holdings of collections, along with detailed annotations of type strain genomes and curated metadata, including ecosystems, growth conditions, and collection locations. The system maximizes the scientific impact of microbial resources and culture collections through an integrated data mining tool that links strain- and species-related information from various public resources. Currently, the GCM and gcType include 574422 strains from 154 culture collections across 51 countries and regions, along with 25980 genomes from type species. Additionally, 2702655 articles and 103337 patents are integrated with these microbial resources.The system supports microbial taxonomic research and provides evidence for implementing the Nagoya Protocol in the field of microbial resources and their digital sequence information (DSI). Access is freely available at gcm.wdcm.org and gctype.wdcm.org.

How does Learning Differentiate with The Socio-Scientific Issue (SSI) Climate Change Improving Environmental Literacy?

Climate change is a complex global problem that requires understanding and action from students. Natural and Social Sciences projects can integrate climate change learning with social and scientific contexts. The preliminary study show that students do not yet have the environmental literacy skills needed to support science and technology projects learning. It also shows that students have difficulty understanding the concept of climate change and its implications for the environment. This research aims to determine the effect of differentiated learning with SSI to increase students ' understanding of climate change. The research method used is mixed methods research using the Exploratory Sequential Mixed Methods Design method. The research results show that implementing climate change differentiation learning with SSI can improve students ' environmental literacy skills. The results of the one-way ANOVA test have a significance value less than 0.05, where there is an increase after implementing differentiation learning. The findings of this research can integrate climate change learning with social and scientific contexts. SSI can help students understand complex issues that have significant social and scientific impact. This can motivate students to take action to overcome problems as an aspect of environmental literacy skills.

Data Delivery Indicators in EIDA: Designing a Consistent Metrics System in a Distributed Services Environment

The European Integrated Data Archive (EIDA) is a data service within Observatories and Research Facilities for European Seismology (ORFEUS) which distributes seismological waveform data across, presently, 12 federated data centres, so-called EIDA nodes. EIDA is also integrated into the European Research Infrastructure EPOS (European Plate Observing System). The increasing need of quantifying the scientific impact of such Research Infrastructures at all levels of operations has led EIDA to develop a unified system able to provide global indicators for data delivery across all EIDA nodes. To achieve this goal, EIDA implemented a system where the numbers are collected and aggregated by each EIDA node and ingested in a centralised database, accessible through an online API. The successful implementation of the system stems from carefully identifying the relevant indicators for well-defined groups of users. The implementation combines simplicity and robustness whilst respecting the distributed design of EIDA. The architecture and implementation choices may be of interest to other multi-site data distribution research infrastructures that face the challenge of providing meaningful key performance indicators.

Public attitudes towards social media field experiments.

The growing use of social media field experiments demands a rethink of current research ethics in computational social science and psychological research. Here, we provide an exploratory empirical account of key user concerns and outline a number of critical discussions that need to take place to protect participants and help researchers to make use of the novel opportunities of digital data collection and field studies. Our primary contention is that we need to elicit public perceptions to devise more up-to-date guidelines for review boards whilst also allowing and encouraging researchers to arrive at more ethical individual study design choices themselves. To ground our discussion in real-world examples of online experiments, we focus on recent social media studies in the field of misinformation, polarization, and hate speech research. We conclude by discussing how we can better strike a balance between meeting ethical guidelines and the concerns of social media users alongside maximizing scientific impact and credibility.

How far do oral lectures at European Orthodontic Society congresses reach? A comparison of abstract publication rates, article citations, and social media mentions.

This study investigated the scientific impact of oral abstracts presented in five consecutive European Orthodontic Society (EOS) congresses in terms of full-text publication rates as well as citations and social media metrics (altmetrics) of the resulting articles. PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed) and Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.nl/) were screened to identify published articles originally presented as lectures at EOS 2015-2019. EOS date, abstract title, subject, number of authors, authors' names, first author's country of origin, and type of affiliation were extracted from congress abstract books. Altmetric Attention Scores (AASs), number of X (formerly Twitter) posts, Mendeley reads, and citations of the articles were retrieved from Altmetric Explorer and Web of Science (WoS) databases, respectively. Abstract details, full publication rates and Altmetric mentions and WoS citations of the related articles were analysed using univariable and multivariable logistic regression. In total, 51.79 to 73.91% of the lectures presented at EOS 2015-2019 were converted into peer-reviewed articles. There was a median interval of 10.95 months (interquartile range 20.5 months) between conference and publication dates. EOS congress year (overall Wald test P-value = .04) and number of authors (overall Wald test P-value < .01) were significant predictors for full-text publication of oral lectures. There was no significant effect of EOS presentation on AASs, citations, X posts, and Mendeley readers (P > .05). Journal impact factors and quartile rankings were not considered to determine the impact of the journals that published articles originally presented as EOS oral abstracts. Overall, 61.30% of EOS 2015-2019 lectures were published as full-length articles. Multi-authored abstracts presented higher odds of publication, whereas oral abstracts presented at EOS 2015 and 2018 had the lowest probabilities to reach full publication. EOS abstract-based articles were assigned similar numbers of citations and AASs to articles not presented at EOS congresses.

Female-led teams produce more innovative ideas yet receive less scientific impact

Abstract Despite longstanding concerns about gender bias in science, there remains a lack of understanding regarding the performance of female scientists as team leaders compared to their male counterparts. This study explores differences between female-led and male-led teams in terms of scientific impact, novelty, and disruption, utilizing a comprehensive dataset of journal articles spanning from 1980 to 2016 across STEM fields. We employed Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM) to match female and male scientists based on their characteristics. Subsequently, we applied multivariable logistic regression models to compare the outcomes of journal articles produced by female-led and male-led teams. Our analysis reveals that female-led teams generate more novel and disruptive ideas. However, they tend to produce articles with fewer scientific impact compared to their male-led counterparts. This suggests a systemic undervaluation of the contributions of female scientists. Further analysis indicates that this gender bias intensifies in later career stages and with larger team sizes. Additionally, significant field-specific heterogeneity is observed, with the most pronounced bias found in Biology and Medicine. These findings highlight the urgent need for policy adjustments to address these biases and promote a more equitable evaluation system in scientific research. Peer Review https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway/wos/peer-review/10.1162/qss_a_00335

Congenital Cytomegalovirus Infection: Update on Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment: Scientific Impact Paper No. 56.

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is the most common cause of viral infection in newborn babies, and affects 1 in 200 of all live born infants in high-income countries; and 1 in 71 in low- and middle-income countries. It is a major cause of hearing loss and brain damage. Women may get CMV infection for the first time during pregnancy (primary infection) or may experience 'non-primary' infection, either by reactivation of previous CMV infection or by a new infection with a different strain of the virus. The most common source of infection to pregnant women is the saliva and urine of young children. Therefore, all pregnant women, especially those in regular contact with young children, should be informed about hygiene-based measures to reduce the risks, e.g. handwashing. The UK National Screening Committee recommends against universal antenatal or newborn screening for CMV. Testing for CMV is usually offered only to women who develop symptoms of influenza, glandular fever or hepatitis (liver inflammation) during pregnancy, or for those whom a routine ultrasound scan detects fetal anomalies that suggests possible CMV infection. The risk of harm to the fetus is greatest following primary CMV infection of the woman in early pregnancy, and appears to be very low following infection after 12 weeks of pregnancy. Babies with CMV infection at birth may have jaundice, a rash, enlarged liver or spleen, a small brain, or be small for their gestational age. Around 1 in 8 babies born with CMV infection will have clinically detectable signs at birth. The rest will not have any features detectable by clinical examination alone. Therefore, all infants with CMV infection at birth should be followed up at a minimum of up to 2 years of age or later, depending upon the disease status, to check hearing and brain development. Following primary CMV infection in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, if the woman starts taking the antiviral medicine valaciclovir (valacyclovir) it reduces the risk of the baby becoming infected. Where CMV infection of the fetus in the womb has been confirmed (by amniocentesis, for example), regular ultrasound scans should be offered every 2-3 weeks until birth. Detailed assessment of the fetal brain is an essential part of these scans. Where maternal CMV infection occurs, but fetal infection is not confirmed, repeated ultrasound scans of the fetus should be offered every 2-3 weeks until birth. In infected fetuses, as well as ultrasound scans, an MRI scan of the brain should be offered at 28-32 weeks of gestation (and sometimes repeated 3-4 weeks later) to assess for any signs of harm to the fetal brain. All babies born to women with confirmed or suspected CMV infection should be tested for CMV with a urine or saliva sample within the first 21 days of life. In newborns with symptomatic CMV infection at birth, treatment with antiviral medicine (valganciclovir or ganciclovir) can reduce hearing loss in 5 out of 6 babies, and improve long-term brain development outcomes in some. There is no licensed vaccine for CMV.

Assessment of Public Health Impact of 20 Non-Research HIV Demonstration Projects by Use of the CDC Science Impact Framework, United States, 2018-2022.

Compared with traditional measures of scientific impact, the CDC Science Impact Framework more broadly, directly, and quickly assesses impact of public health science. For 20 CDC-funded HIV prevention projects that were conducted during 2018-2022, health departments documented impact, based on CDC Science Impact Framework domains: Disseminating Science, Creating Awareness, Catalyzing Action, Effecting Change, and Shaping the Future. Health departments reported 282 impacts: the most common were new partnerships (n=17, Catalyzing Action), capacity building (n=16, Effecting Change), new projects or initiatives begun (n=15, Shaping the Future), new collaborations (n=14, Catalyzing Action), improved program (n=13, Shaping the Future), new guidelines or practices (n=13, Effecting Change), and informed persons affected by work (n=13, Creating Awareness). Health departments documented substantial impact with a simple, timely, and broad approach. Demonstrating impact is important for community-based organizations, funders, and others interested in public health and helps them better understand the value of public health.

Is Citation Count a Legitimate Indicator of Scientific Impact? A Case Study of Upper (1974) “The Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case of Writer’s Block” and Its Derivatives

The work by Upper (1974) was a blank paper. Multiple replication studies were published. This work examined the number of citations received by these papers, and manually checked the citing papers to determine why they made the citations. The Dimensions literature database was queried with the search string: (unsuccessful treatment writer’s block). The search yielded 14 articles, two of which were irrelevant and excluded. The 12 papers remained after screening included the original study by Upper (1974), nine replication studies, one review, and one meta-analysis. The original work received 43 citations, but related works had fewer than 10 citations each. One fourth of citations of Upper (1974) were being satiric on “nothing” or “precise” from papers dealing with unrelated concepts, and five citations were deemed erroneous/digressed. One citation was made to acknowledge the reviewer’s comments to Upper (1974), which did not involve Upper’s own ideas. This work exposed a scenario where there were limitations of using citation count as the only metric to gauge scientific impact of journal articles.

Global Trends and Scientific Impact of Topical Probiotics in Dermatological Treatment and Skincare.

The skin plays a crucial role in maintaining homeostasis and protecting against external aggressors. Recent research has highlighted the potential of probiotics and postbiotics in dermatological treatments and skincare. These beneficial microorganisms interact with the skin microbiota, modulate the immune response, and enhance the skin barrier, offering a promising therapeutic avenue for various skin conditions, such as acne, dermatitis, eczema, and psoriasis. This bibliometric study aims to analyze the global trends and scientific impact of topical probiotics in dermatology. By reviewing 106 articles published between 2013 and 2023, the study categorizes the applications of probiotics in wound healing, inflammatory skin diseases, and general skincare. The findings indicate a significant increase in publications from 2021 onwards, attributed to the heightened focus on medical research during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study also identifies the most productive countries, institutions, and authors in this field, highlighting the importance of international collaborations. The results underscore the efficacy of probiotic-based topical formulations in improving skin health, reducing inflammation, and enhancing wound healing. This comprehensive analysis supports the development of new therapeutic strategies based on topical probiotics and encourages high-quality research in this promising area.

Developed Countries Dominate Leading Roles in International Scientific Collaborations: Evidence from Scholars' Self‐Reported Contribution in Publications

ABSTRACTThis study investigates the inequality of roles in international scientific collaboration, revealing that scholars from developed countries dominate leadership positions. Using data from high‐impact journals, we find significant underrepresentation of scholars from developing countries who often occupy supporting roles. After controlling authors' seniority, productivity, and scientific impact, developed country scholars are still more likely to lead research teams, perhaps because of the North–South disparity in academic resource distribution.

From TIGER to WST: scientific impact of four decades of developments in integral field spectroscopy

From TIGER to WST: scientific impact of four decades of developments in integral field spectroscopy

Analysis of Effects on Scientific Impact Indicators Based on Coevolution of Coauthorship and Citation Networks

This study investigates the coevolution of coauthorship and citation networks and their influence on scientific metrics such as the h-index and journal impact factors. Using a preferential attachment mechanism, we developed a model that integrated these networks and validated it with data from the American Physical Society (APS). While the correlations between reference counts, paper lifetime, and team sizes with scientific impact metrics are well-known, our findings demonstrate how these relationships vary depending on specific model parameters. For instance, increasing reference counts or reducing paper lifetime significantly boosts both journal impact factors and h-indexes, while expanding team sizes without adding new authors can artificially inflate h-indexes. These results highlight potential vulnerabilities in commonly used metrics and emphasize the value of modeling and simulation for improving bibliometric evaluations.

What's new in guidance? Scientific Impact Paper summary

What's new in guidance? Scientific Impact Paper summary

The Use of Diversified Tools and Methodologies in The Process of Preparing Course Completion Work in Distance Education

Objective: This article proposes to reflect on the process of elaboration of the Course Completion Work (CBT) in the Distance Education (RBS) modality, from the experience experienced by the authors, so that its objective is to contribute to the development of the field in question. Theoretical Reference: In EAD, there are different pedagogical strategies in the achievement of student training in professionals, and CBT is a relevant practice whose methodological design must be constructed in order to contemplate dialogical moments with a view to the best performance of the academics in terms of learning (Oliveira; Flores, 2019). The relevance of CBT as an activity and experience is relevant (Richartz, 2019), so that studying from an EAD Bachelor's course allows us to establish insights both into performing such activity specifically and to think about distance learning in a general way with regard to the development of skills and competencies (Ordones, 2022). Method: Bibliographic review was used to illustrate the processes of a CBT followed by presentation of the report of the experience with the use of diversified tools. Results and discussion: Considering both the advances and the challenges of distance education, among the results discussed in the manuscript stands out its contribution to the discussion about the importance of proposing efficient methodologies in dealing with the strategic use of different educational technologies in order to provide a meaningful learning. Implications of Research: The relevance of the experience exposed in relation to EAD's commitment to academic research is highlighted. Originality/Value: Originality in the field of studies on CBTs in Bachelor's degree courses at EAD, expressing scientific rigor and impact on training, contributing to the strengthening of the professional competences of the academics.

Is there a ubiquitous spectrolaminar motif of local field potential power across primate neocortex?

Mendoza-Halliday, Major et al., 2024 ("The Paper")1 advocates a local field potential (LFP)-based approach to functional identification of cortical layers during "laminar" (simultaneous recordings from all cortical layers) multielectrode recordings in nonhuman primates (NHPs). The Paper describes a "ubiquitous spectrolaminar motif" in the primate neocortex: 1) 75-150 Hz power peaks in the supragranular layers, 2) 10-19 Hz power peaks in the infragranular layers and 3) the crossing point of their laminar power gradients identifies Layer 4 (L4). Identification of L4 is critical in general, but especially for The Paper as the "motif" discovery is couched within a framework whose central hypothesis is that gamma activity originates in the supragranular layers and reflects feedforward activity, while alpha-beta activity originates in the infragranular layers and reflects feedback activity. In an impressive scientific effort, The Paper analyzed laminar data from 14 cortical areas in 2 prior macaque studies and compared them to marmoset, mouse, and human data to further bolster the canonical nature of the motif. Identification of such canonical principles of brain operation is clearly a topic of broad scientific interest. Similarly, a reliable online method for L4 identification would be of broad scientific value for the rapidly increasing use of laminar recordings using numerous evolving technologies. Despite The Paper's strengths, and its potential for scientific impact, a series of concerns that are fundamental to the analysis and interpretation of laminar activity profile data in general, and local field potential (LFP) signals in particular, led us to question its conclusions. We thus evaluated the generality of The Paper's methods and findings using new sets of data comprised of stimulus-evoked laminar response profiles from primary and higher-order auditory cortices (A1 and belt cortex), and primary visual cortex (V1). The rationale for using these areas as a test bed for new methods is that their laminar anatomy and physiology have already been extensively characterized by prior studies, and there is general agreement across laboratories on key matters like L4 identification. Our analyses indicate that The Paper's findings do not generalize well to any of these cortical areas. In particular, we find The Paper's methods for L4 identification to be unreliable. Moreover, both methodological and statistical concerns, outlined below and in the supplement, question the stated prevalence of the motif in The Paper's published dataset. After summarizing our findings and related broader concerns, we briefly critique the evidence from biophysical modeling studies cited to support The Paper's conclusions. While our findings are at odds with the proposition of a ubiquitous spectrolaminar motif in the primate neocortex, The Paper already has, and will continue to spark debate and further experimentation. Hopefully this countervailing presentation will lead to robust collegial efforts to define optimal strategies for applying laminar recording methods in future studies.

Archetypes of Open Science Partnerships: connecting aims and means in open biomedical research collaborations

Open Science Partnerships (OSPs) are gaining attention as alternatives to university–industry collaborations with restrictive IPR and knowledge sharing policies. OSPs have different expected outcomes and deploy varying means to reach them. Appreciating these differences is crucial to understanding their scientific and socio-economic impact, and yet these differences have never been systematically investigated. This exploratory study draws on qualitative case studies of five biomedical OSPs involving academic partners and pharmaceutical companies. It identifies key elements—purpose, activities and structure—that can be used to describe how OSPs are designed. We identify two key aspects of purpose—predominant intent and research aims—which we argue affect the activities and structure of an OSP. Based on these two aspects, we propose four ideal types of OSPs that are designed to provide a starting point for researchers who explore the nature and impact of OSPs and for practitioners who are developing OSPs and wish to ensure that they deploy appropriate means to meet the intended outcomes of their partnership.