Social Science Citation Index Research Articles

Adaptive water governance research in social sciences journals: a bibliometric analysis

Abstract Adaptive water governance plays an increasingly important role in sustainable urban development and water governance response to global climate change. To comprehensively understand the research situation and development trend of adaptive water management, this study conducts a systematic literature review of articles published in International Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) journals based on bibliometric analysis. The results show that adaptive water governance as an emerging topic of water governance has an overall growth trend in published articles. The articles on adaptive water governance mainly concentrated on the disciplines of environmental science and environmental studies. Developed countries are a hub for water governance research, and China has the sixth largest number of articles from around the world. The adaptive water governance research has formed a preliminary global collaborative network, but the authors' collaboration needs to be strengthened. The most popular topics of adaptive water governance include South Africa, adaptive management, groundwater, principal component analysis, scenario planning, the analytic hierarchy process, resources, basins, computer experiments, and technology development. This finding suggests that adaptive water governance is a critical driver for sustainable urban development and represents a critical direction in the future research of water governance.

A Bibliometric Analysis of the Use of Artificial Intelligence Technologies for Social Sciences

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data analysis algorithms is complementary to theory-driven analysis approaches and becoming more popular also in social sciences. This paper describes the use of Big Data and computational approaches in social sciences by bibliometric analyses of articles indexed between 2015 and 2020 in Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) of the Web of Science repository. We have analysed especially the recent research direction called Computational Social Sciences (CSS) that bridges computer analytical approaches with social science challenges, generating new methodologies of Big Data and AI analytics for social sciences. The results indicate that AI and Big Data practices are not confined to CSS only and are diffused in a wide variety of disciplines under Social Sciences and are made use of in many main research lines as well. Thus, the anticipated overlap between the Social Sciences & AI specialization and CSS has yet to be crystallised. Moreover, the impact of computational social science studies is not permeated to social science citation networks yet. Lastly, we demonstrate that the AI and Big Data publications that appear under the SSCI index are more oriented towards computational studies than addressing social science concepts, concerns, and challenges.

Using a theoretical framework to inform implementation of the patient-centred medical home (PCMH) model in primary care: protocol for a mixed-methods systematic review

BackgroundThe patient-centred medical home (PCMH) was conceived to address problems that primary care practices around the world are facing, particularly in managing the increasing numbers of patients with multiple chronic diseases. The problems include fragmentation, lack of access and poor coordination. The PCMH is a complex intervention combining high-quality primary care with evidence-based disease management. Becoming a PCMH takes time and resources, and there is a lack of empirically informed guidance for practices. Previous reviews of PCMH implementation have identified barriers and enablers but failed to analyse the complex relationships between factors involved in implementation. Using a theoretical framework can help with this, giving a better understanding of how and why interventions work or do not work. This review will aim to refine an existing theoretical framework for implementing organisational change — the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) — to apply to the implementation of the PCMH in primary care.MethodsWe will use the ‘best-fit’ framework approach to synthesise evidence for implementing the PCMH in primary care. We will analyse evidence from empirical studies against CFIR constructs. Where studies have identified barriers and enablers to implementing the PCMH not represented in the CFIR constructs, we will use thematic analysis to develop additional constructs to refine the CFIR. Searches will be undertaken in MEDLINE (Ovid), Embase (Ovid), Web of Science Core Collection (including Science Citation Index and Social Science Citation Index) and CINAHL. Gaps arising from the database search will be addressed through snowballing, citation tracking and review of reference lists of systematic reviews of the PCMH. We will accept qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods primary research studies published in peer-reviewed publications. A stakeholder group will provide input to the review.DiscussionThe review will result in a refined theoretical framework that can be used by primary care practices to guide implementation of the PCMH. Narrative accompanying the refined framework will explain how the constructs (existing and added) work together to successfully implement the PCMH in primary care. The unpopulated CFIR constructs will be used to identify where further primary research may be needed.Systematic review registrationPROSPERO CRD42021235960

Analysis of the Impact Factor and JCR Rankings in Conservation Science Journals: Why JCR Should Have a Heritage Category

ABSTRACT The scientific research output of individuals and institutions is commonly evaluated by the number of publications in journals with high impact factor and their corresponding citations. However, the interdisciplinary character of journals reporting advances in conservation science favors their spread over different categories of the Journal Citation Report (JCR). Here we report an analysis of the evolution of the impact factor, the percentile, and the citations on the JCR indexed conservation journals over the last ten years. Our analysis shows that of the 57 conservation journals indexed in the JCR, only eight of them have an impact factor. These journals are distributed across different categories in the Science Citation Index (SCI) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), and these categories are sometimes not suitable and decrease their metric impact. This analysis was complemented by a worldwide survey of conservation professionals on their opinions about publishing in these journals. The survey showed two different perspectives about conservation science journals in relation to the background and work of the responders. Conservators and restorers prefer conservation journals with case studies; while researchers prefer high-impact journals, even if they lie outside of the conservation area, so the overall impact factor of conservation journals remains low (low JIF, low Q values). This dichotomy could be fixed with the creation of a new category for heritage science journals in JCR.

Changing patterns in reporting and sharing of review data in systematic reviews with meta-analysis of the effects of interventions: cross sectional meta-research study

ObjectivesTo examine changes in completeness of reporting and frequency of sharing data, analytical code, and other review materials in systematic reviews over time; and factors associated with these changes.DesignCross sectional...

Research Status, Hotspots, and Evolutionary Trends of Global Digital Education via Knowledge Graph Analysis

With the rapid development of emerging technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, and blockchain and their wide application in education, digital education has received widespread attention in the international education field. The outbreak of COVID-19 in December 2019 further catalyzed the digitalization process in various industries, including education, and forced the education system to carry out digital reform and innovation. Digital education transformation has become a new hotspot of great interest in countries around the world and a major direction for education reform practices. Therefore, to better understand the status of global digital education research, this study uses CiteSpace (6.1.R2) visual analysis software to visualize and quantitatively analyze the literature on digital education research in the social science citation index (SSCI). First, the basic information of digital education was analyzed in terms of annual publication volume, authors, countries, and research institutions. Secondly, the main fields, basic contents, and research hotspots of digital education research were analyzed by keyword co-occurrence analysis mapping and keyword time zone mapping. Finally, the research frontiers and development trends of digital education between 2000 and 6 September 2022 were analyzed by cocitation clustering and citations. The results show that, based on the changes in annual publication volume, we can divide the development pulse of the digital education research field into three stages: the budding stage (2000–2006), the slow development stage (2007–2017), and the rapid development stage (6 September 2018–2022); there are 26 core authors in this field of research, among which Selwyn N has the highest number of publications; the USA, England, Spain, Australia, and Germany have the highest number of publications; Open Univ is the institution with the most publications; digital education’s research hotspots are mainly focused on interdisciplinary field practice research and adaptive education research based on big data support. The research frontiers are mainly related to five areas: interdisciplinary development, educational equity, digital education practice, digital education evaluation, and digital education governance. This paper systematically analyzes the latest developments in global digital education research, and objectively predicts that human–computer interdisciplinary teaching models and smart education may become a future development trend of digital education. The findings of this study are useful to readers for understanding the full picture of digital education research so that researchers can conduct more in-depth and targeted research to promote better development of digital education.

Characteristics and recovery methods of studies falsely excluded during literature screening—a systematic review

BackgroundDue to the growing need to provide evidence syntheses under time constraints, researchers have begun focusing on the exploration of rapid review methods, which often employ single-reviewer literature screening. However, single-reviewer screening misses, on average, 13% of relevant studies, compared to 3% with dual-reviewer screening. Little guidance exists regarding methods to recover studies falsely excluded during literature screening. Likewise, it is unclear whether specific study characteristics can predict an increased risk of false exclusion. This systematic review aimed to identify supplementary search methods that can be used to recover studies falsely excluded during literature screening. Moreover, it strove to identify study-level predictors that indicate an elevated risk of false exclusions of studies during literature screening.MethodsWe performed literature searches for eligible studies in MEDLINE, Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, Current Contents Connect, Embase, Epistemonikos.org, and Information Science & Technology s from 1999 to June 23, 2020. We searched for gray literature, checked reference lists, and conducted hand searches in two relevant journals and similar article searches current to January 28, 2021. Two investigators independently screened the literature; one investigator performed the data extraction, and a second investigator checked for correctness and completeness. Two reviewers assessed the risk of bias of eligible studies. We synthesized the results narratively.ResultsThree method studies, two with a case-study design and one with a case-series design, met the inclusion criteria. One study reported that all falsely excluded publications (8%) could be recovered through reference list checking compared to other supplementary search methods. No included methods study analyzed the impact of recovered studies on conclusions or meta-analyses. Two studies reported that up to 8% of studies were falsely excluded due to uninformative titles and abstracts, and one study showed that 11% of non-English studies were falsely excluded.ConclusionsDue to the limited evidence based on two case studies and one case series, we can draw no firm conclusion about the most reliable and most valid method to recover studies falsely excluded during literature screening or about the characteristics that might predict a higher risk of false exclusion.Systematic review registrationhttps://osf.io/v2pjr/

Single-shot regional anesthesia for laparoscopic cholecystectomies: a systematic review and network meta-analysis.

Different regional anesthesia (RA) techniques have been used for laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC), but there is no consensus on their comparative effectiveness. Our objective was to evaluate the effect of RA techniques on patients undergoing LC using a network meta-analysis approach. We conducted a systematic review and network meta-analysis. We searched PubMed, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), Scopus, and Web of Science (Science and Social Science Citation Index) using the following PICOS criteria: (P) adult patients undergoing LC; (I) any RA single-shot technique with injection of local anesthetics; (C) placebo or no intervention; (O) postoperative opioid consumption expressed as morphine milligram equivalents (MME), rest pain at 12 h and 24 h post-operation, postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV), length of stay; and (S) randomized controlled trials. A total of 84 studies were included. With the exception of the rectus sheath block (P = 0.301), the RA techniques were superior to placebo at reducing opioid consumption. Regarding postoperative pain, the transversus abdominis plane (TAP) block (-1.80 on an 11-point pain scale) and erector spinae plane (ESP) block (-1.33 on an 11-point pain scale) were the most effective at 12 and 24 h. The TAP block was also associated with the greatest reduction in PONV. RA techniques are effective at reducing intraoperative opioid use, postoperative pain, and PONV in patients undergoing LC. Patients benefit the most from the bilateral paravertebral, ESP, quadratus lumborum, and TAP blocks.

What Factors Affect Investment Efficiency? A Co-citation Analysis

Nowadays, in the context of a globalized economy, businesses have more and more opportunities to participate in investment projects, especially in developing countries. However, most enterprises, still have a lack of understanding and awareness of the potential and benefits that investment can bring to them, therefore they have been meeting underinvestment or overinvestment problem. How enterprises make investment efficiency decisions is a matter of great concern. The aim of this research is to investigate the factors that affect firm's investment efficiency. A total of 36 investment efficiency research articles from the leading Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) journals were cited. By using methods of citation analysis, statistical analyses including factor analysis, and multi-dimensional scaling, this study identifies four research trends on investment efficiency: financial reporting quality; board gender diversity; ownership structure; and corporate social responsibility (CSR). The findings of this study contribute to providing an overview of factors that influence investment efficiency. The results of this paper not only open more interesting future research topics but also may help policymakers establish effective strategies in investment projects as well as motivate the growth of economics, especially in emerging markets.

Titles in Chinese Literature from Academic Monthly 學術月刊 (Issues 1–12, 2021)

The Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture is pleased to feature select titles from Academic Monthly, a journal highly regarded in Chinese academia. Since its founding in Shanghai in January 1957, Academic Monthly has taken a prominent role in advancing research in China's humanities and social sciences. It publishes research articles in all disciplines of humanities and social sciences, including philosophy, literature, history, economics, politics and law, and others. It has won numerous awards at the national level and is a five-time winner of the Chinese Government Award of Publication for Journals. It is a core journal in the Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI) and is also listed as an authoritative academic journal by other indexing centers in China.

Dying in hospital or at home? a systematic review of the literature on the motivations for choosing the place of end of life for patients with chronic diseases

In many countries, palliative care is provided in hospitals and hospices. Over time, palliative care has developed outside general health care and is provided in the patient's home. We examine the motivations for preferences for place of care at the end of life, and the reasons for changes in these preferences in so-called developed and developing countries. Pubmed, Google Scholar and Social Sciences Citation Index databases were searched as of January 2021. Qualitative and mixed studies on terminal care, preferences for end-of-life care settings and palliative care settings were considered. The inclusion criteria were studies published between 1980 and 2021 in English or French and dealing with preferences for place of care at the end of life and negotiations around the choice of end-of-life location. Place of residence and environment motivated the choice of home, while the socioeconomic position of patients and families partly motivated the choice of hospital. The most important reasons for choosing to leave the hospital for the home were structural dysfunction in the delivery of palliative care (developed and developing countries), cultural and belief imprint (developed and developing countries), and the quest for a good death (developing countries). End-of-life care at home was the most common preference. Return to hospital was the second preference, especially for advanced diseases such as genetic diseases, cancer, chronic hepatitis, malignant neoplasm. Study designs in this area need to be improved, especially in French West Africa.

Exploring acceptable risk in engineering and operations research and management science by bibliometric analysis.

As the decision-making basis for "safety" in risk management and risk assessment activities, acceptable risk has always been an important topic of risk-related research. Based on the records in the Science Citation Index Expanded database and Social Sciences Citation Index database via the Web of Science Core Collection, 1124 articles or reviews related to acceptable risk in engineering and operations research and management science were retrieved. These documents, published between 1961 and 2021, covered 3056 authors, 75 countries/territories, 1296 institutions, and 323 journals. In this study, bibliometric data such as annual growth trends were analyzed by using descriptive statistics. Through the co-occurrence maps created by CiteSpace and Gephi, the most productive and influential countries/territories, institutions, and authors as well as their cooperation networks were identified. Further analysis was conducted to determine the core publications and publication sources in this field through co-citation analysis. Insights into focus areas and research topics over time were obtained through keyword co-occurrence analysis. This study provides a macroscopic overview of acceptable risk research and may help researchers better understand this research field and predict its dynamic directions.

Do in-service training materials for midwifery care providers in sub-Saharan Africa meet international competency standards? A scoping review 2000–2020

BackgroundLevels of maternal and neonatal mortality remain high in sub-Saharan Africa, with an estimated 66% of global maternal deaths occurring in this region. Many deaths are linked to poor quality of care, which in turn has been linked to gaps in pre-service training programmes for midwifery care providers. In-service training packages have been developed and implemented across sub-Saharan Africa in an attempt to overcome the shortfalls in pre-service training. This scoping review has aimed to summarize in-service training materials used in sub-Saharan Africa for midwifery care providers between 2000 and 2020 and mapped their content to the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) Essential Competencies for Midwifery Practice.MethodsSearches were conducted for the years 2000–2020 in Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature, PubMed/MEDLINE, Social Science Citation Index, African Index Medicus and Google Scholar. A manual search of reference lists from identified studies and a search of grey literature from international organizations was also performed. Identified in-service training materials that were accessible freely on-line were mapped to the ICM Essential Competencies for midwifery practice.ResultsThe database searches identified 1884 articles after removing duplicates. After applying exclusion criteria, 87 articles were identified for data extraction. During data extraction, a further 66 articles were excluded, leaving 21 articles to be included in the review. From these 21 articles, six different training materials were identified. The grey literature yielded 35 training materials, bringing the total number of in-service training materials that were reviewed to 41. Identified in-service training materials mainly focused on emergency obstetric care in a limited number of sub-Saharan Africa countries. Results also indicate that a significant number of in-service training materials are not readily and/or freely accessible. However, the content of in-service training materials largely met the ICM Essential Competencies, with gaps noted in the aspect of woman-centred care and shared decision making.ConclusionTo reduce maternal and newborn morbidity and mortality midwifery care providers should have access to evidence-based in-service training materials that include antenatal care and routine intrapartum care, and places women at the centre of their care as shared decision makers.

Thirty years of educational research in Saudi Arabia: a bibliometric study

ABSTRACT This article performs bibliometric analysis to study the contributions of Saudi institutions in the education field in journals indexed in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED). Publications from 1991 to 2020 were assessed. Characteristics of document types, publication outputs, Web of Science categories and journals, and publication performances in terms of quantity for countries and institutes were investigated. To investigate performance quality, citation histories of the most frequently cited articles in the 30 years and the most frequently cited articles in 2020 were examined. The number of citations from the WoS Core Collection in the most recent year, total number of citations since the publication year 2020, and citations per publication were used to evaluate publication performances. Results showed that educational research articles were substantially published in the last decade. The most number of articles were published in the category of scientific disciplines education, followed by the education and educational research category. For international collaboration, Saudi Arabia had the most number of international collaborations with the US. However, articles that were collaborated with Germany had the highest impact. King Saud University was the most productive institution in terms of high-quantity and high-quality published articles.

Foster children's perspectives on participation in child welfare processes: A meta-synthesis of qualitative studies.

The objective of this meta-synthesis was to systematically synthesise qualitative research that explores foster children's perspectives on participation in child welfare processes. Searches were conducted in Medline (OVID), Embase, PsycINFO, and Social Science Citation Index. Children in non-kinship foster care in any setting (high-income, middle-income, low-income countries) who self-reported their experiences of care (removal from home, foster family processes, placement breakdown) were eligible for inclusion. Selected studies took place in 11 high-income countries. A total of 8436 citations were identified and 25 articles were included in this meta-synthesis. Studies summarized the views of 376 children. Children had been in foster care between two weeks and 17 years. Findings synthesize 'facets' of children's participation (e.g., being asked vs making decisions), as well as children's perceived barriers and facilitators to participation. A main priority for children was the quality of their relationships, especially in terms of values (e.g., fairness, honesty, inclusivity). No one way of participating in child welfare processes is better than another, as some children more clearly expressed a desire for passive listening roles and others indicated a desire for active roles in decision-making. However, meaningful adults in foster children's lives have a responsibility to act in a way that strengthens the emphasis on children's needs and voices.

Telling Our Own Story: A Bibliometrics Analysis of Mainland China’s Influence on Chinese Politics Research, 2001–2020

ABSTRACTThis study conducted a bibliometric analysis of Chinese politics research from 2001 to 2020 (N = 11,285) using Social Sciences Citation Index data. The number of publications in the field by scholars from Mainland China surged in the past 20 years; however, their influence on academia remained limited. Chinese institutions serve as the major hubs of collaborative networks. Using structural topic models, we identified 25 research topics that can be categorized in three clusters. In the past 20 years, scholars from Mainland China steered the focus of Chinese politics by causing a reduction in the proportion of international relation topics and an increase in the proportion of political economy topics. Domestic politics topics had the most citations. Scholars from Mainland China have made contributions to better research methods in the field. This article is a comprehensive view of Chinese politics research using a tool that is rarely used by political scientists. It depicts how studies of Chinese politics influence academia from a bibliometrics perspective.

Three Decades of Fuzzy AHP: A Bibliometric Analysis

For decades, Fuzzy Sets Theory (FST) has been consistently developed, and its use has spread across multiple disciplines. In this process of knowledge transfer, fuzzy applications have experienced great diffusion. Among them, Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (fuzzy AHP) is one of the most widely used methodologies today. This study performs a systematic review following the PRISMA statement and addresses a bibliometric analysis of all articles published on fuzzy AHP in journals indexed in Web of Science, specifically in Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). The analyzed database includes 2086 articles published between 1994 and 2022. The results show the thematic clusters, the evolution of the academic conversation and the main collaboration networks. The main contribution of this article is to clarify the research agenda on fuzzy AHP. The results of the study allow academics to detect publication opportunities. In addition, the evidence found allows researchers and academics setting the field’s agenda to advise the editors of high-impact journals on gaps and new research trends.

Effects of reducing sedentary behaviour duration by increasing physical activity, on cognitive function, brain function and structure across the lifespan: a systematic review protocol

IntroductionGreater engagement in sedentary behaviours has been related to poorer cognitive functions in epidemiological research. However, the effects of reducing sedentary behaviour duration on cognitive function, brain function, and structure...

Depressive Symptoms of Chinese Rural-to-Urban Migrant Children: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

There are many contradictions in previous studies of the status of depressive symptoms among Chinese migrant children, the number of which in the compulsory education stage is about 13.9 million. This systematic review and meta-analysis were designed to compare depressive symptoms among migrant children and their urban children. Around 2,710 papers were retrieved from PubMed, OVID, the Web of Knowledge, CNKI, Wan Fang, Chongqing VIP, and Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index on January 27, 2020. Thirty-Two studies met study criteria with 14,906 migrant children and 10,792 urban children. Migrant children scored significantly higher for depressive symptoms score (SMD = 0.307, 95% CI [0.222, 0.393]). Region significantly influenced the difference of depressive symptoms between migrant children and urban children. Large effect sizes came from studies using scales that focus on depressive mood while studies using scales that focus on depressive behavioural symptoms had small effect sizes. Future research should focus on treatments to decrease depressive mood of migrant children. Future studies can add information about the length of their current stay in the urban location to improve the quality of study. PROSPERO registry: Systematic review registration no. CRD42018090676.

Research Agenda on Multiple-Criteria Decision-Making: New Academic Debates in Business and Management

Systemic disruptions are becoming more continuous, intense, and persistent. Their effects have a severe impact on the economy in volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environments that are increasingly transversal to productive sectors and activities. Researchers have intensified their academic production of multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) in recent years. This article analyzes the research agenda through a systematic review of scientific articles in the Web of Science Core Collection according to the Journal Citation Report (JCR), both in the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE). According to the selected search criteria, 909 articles on MCDM published between 1979 and 2022 in Web of Science journals in the business and management categories were located. A bibliometric analysis of the main thematic clusters, the international collaboration networks, and the bibliographic coupling of articles was carried out. In addition, the analysis period is divided into two subperiods (1979–2008 and 2009–2022), establishing 2008 as the threshold, the year of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), to assess the evolution of the research agenda at the beginning of systemic disruptions. The bibliometric analysis allows the identification of the motor, basic, specialized, and emerging themes of each subperiod. The results show the similarities and differences between the academic debate before and after the GFC. The evidence found allows academics to be guided in their high-impact research in business and management using MCDM methodologies to address contemporary challenges. An important contribution of this study is to detect gaps in the literature, highlighting unclosed gaps and emerging trends in the field of study for journal editors.