Personal Research Database

Full Text: S\Scientometrics53, 21.pdf

Abstract: The biological arms race could have been considered a closed chapter in the Cold War history. However, the growth of different terrorist groups and organisations has increased the threat of biological weapon (BW) use. The goal of this pilot scientometric project was to trace changes in biodefense research and the activities of its main players, Russia and the US. Data were collected from the SCI via the Dialog information system for 1991-2000, the period covering the post-soviet era. In-depth content analysis was performed on selected papers from the 2870 publications identified as BW-related. During the period examined, the publication flow increased by 250 percent. The main contributors to this literature weir shown to be the US, Russia, UK France and Germany. The results presented in this paper are of interest to security analysis (follwing the attacks in the US of 11th September 200 1), to public health care policy researchers and to politicians,

de Arenas, J.L., Castaños-Lomnitz, H. and Arenas-Licea, J. (2002), Significant Mexican research in the health sciences: A bibliometric analysis. Scientometrics, 53 (1), 39-48.

Full Text: 2002\Scientometrics53, 39.pdf

Abstract: In the 1970s Mexico started to consolidate its S&T system by training human resources and actively preventing brain drain, mainly by motivating researchers through economic incentives. Considering Bradford’s Law, an analysis of significant Mexican research in the health sciences, i.e., papers published in journals with a high-impact factor which grant a degree of credibility and importance was carried out. Significant papers produced in Mexico show a measure of the country’s productivity, and these papers’ citations measure the country’s international impact.

Keywords: Bibliometric Analysis, Citations, Journals, Research

Kademani, B.S., Kalyane, V.L. and Kumar, V. (2002), A. H. Zewail: Research collaborator par excellence. Scientometrics, 53 (1), 113-121.

Full Text: S\Scientometrics53, 113.pdf

Abstract: Ahmed Hassan Zewail, the Nobel laureate (1999) in chemistry have collaborated with 103 colleagues and has published 246 papers during 1976 to 1994 in, femtochemistry (62), reaction rates and IVR (56), general reviews (49), coherence and optical dephasing phenomena (27), solids: magnetic resonance and optical studies (13), liquids and biological systems (9), local modes in large molecules (9), molecular structure from rotational coherence (8), solar energy concentrators (7), and other studies (6). This authorship pattern included: three authored papers (87) followed by two authored (78), four authored (38), one authored (30), five authored (8), and six authored (5). Highest collaborations were with P. M. Felker (39), M. Damns (19), and L. R. Khundkar (16). The core journals publishing his papers were: J. Chem. Phys. (77), Chem. Phys. Lett. (53), J. Phys. Chem. (33), and Nature (6) out of the 33 journal channels and 32 chapters in books.

Keywords: Scientometric Portrait, Chemistry

Leydesdorff, L. (2002), Indicators of structural change in the dynamics of science: Entropy statistics of the SCI Journal Citation Reports. Scientometrics, 53 (1), 131-159.

Full Text: S\Scientometrics53, 131.pdf

Abstract: Can change in citation patterns among journals be used as an indicator of structural change in the organization of the sciences? Aggregated journal-journal citations for 1999 are compared with similar data in the Journal Citation Reports 1998 of the Science Citation Index. In addition to indicating local change, probabilistic entropy measures enable us to analyze changes in distributions at different levels of aggregation. The results of various statistics are discussed and compared by elaborating the journal-journal mappings. The relevance of this indicator for science and technology policies is further specified.

Keywords: Communication, Intelligence, Performance, Technology, Knowledge, Impact, Areas

Gupta, B.M., Kumar, S., Sangam, S.L. and Karisiddappa, C.R. (2002), Modeling the growth of world social science literature. Scientometrics, 53 (1), 161-164.

Full Text: S\Scientometrics53, 161.pdf

Abstract: The main objectives of this study are: (a) to find the applicability of selected growth models to the growth of publications in six subdisciplines of social sciences, namely anthropology, economics, history, political science, psychology, and sociology in the world, and (b) to verify the criteria for selecting the most appropriate growth model suggested by Egghe and Rao (1992).

Jeevan, V.K.J. and Gupta, B.M. (2002), A scientometric analysis of research output from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. Scientometrics, 53 (1), 165-168.

Full Text: S\Scientometrics53, 165.pdf

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to suggest a methodology for studying the quantitative profile of a research university, with a view to get idea about the performance and impact of research produced in each department, and the comparison of the impact of research in various departments.

? Glänzel, W. and Moed, H.F. (2002), Journal impact mmeasures: Their role in research policy and scientific information management - Selected papers of the Speical Day Session at the 8th International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics, held in Sydney (Australia) on 17 July, 2001. Preface. Scientometrics, 53 (2), 169-170.

Full Text: Scientometrics53, 169.pdf

Glänzel, W. and Moed, H.F. (2002), Journal impact measures in bibliometric research. Scientometrics, 53 (2), 171-193.

Full Text: S\Scientometrics53, 171.pdf

Abstract: The Impact Factor introduced by Eugene Garfield is a fundamental citation-based measure for significance and performance of scientific journals. It is perhaps the most popular bibliometric product used in bibliometrics itself, as well as outside the scientific community. First, a concise review of the background and history of the ISI impact factor and the basic ideas underlying it are given. A cross-citation matrix is used to visualise the construction of the Impact Factor and several related journal citation measures. Both strengths and flaws of the impact factor are discussed. Several attempts made by different authors to introduce more sophisticated journal citation measures and the reasons why many indicators aiming at a correction of methodological limitations of the Impact Factor were not successful are described.

The next section is devoted to the analysis of basic technical and methodological aspects. In this context, the most important sources of possible biases and distortions for calculation and use of journal citation measures are studied. Thereafter, main characteristics of application contexts are summarised.

The last section is concerned with questions of statistical reliability of journal citation measures. It is shown that in contrast to a common misbelief statistical methods can be applied to discrete ‘skewed’ distributions, and that the statistical reliability of these statistics can be used as a basis for application of journal impact measures in comparative analyses. Finally, the question of sufficiency or insufficiency of a single, howsoever complex measure for characterising the citation impact of scientific journals is discussed.

Butler, L. (2002), Identifying ‘highly-rated’ journals: An Australian case study. Scientometrics, 53 (2), 207-227.

Full Text: S\Scientometrics53, 207.pdf

Abstract: A study undertaken in 1996 of Australia’s performance in the high impact journals of a few selected fields of science has produced empirical data for examining the factors that influence peers in their choice of the ‘highly-rated’ journals in their field. A number of characteristics were used to compare the selected journals with those having the highest impact factor, as listed in ISI’s Journal Citation Reports. This paper ranked journals on three impact factors - ISI’s impact factor for two consecutive years, and one calculated for a five-year window. The data suggests that the type of impact measure was less important in journal selection than the long-term validity of the rankings. A group of experts was less likely to include journals that were only highly ranked for a short period in their ‘top 20’. Of the more descriptive journal characteristics analysed, the age of the journal appeared significant. Their selections also appeared biased against journals that were relatively new, regardless of how high their impact factor was.

Lewison, G. (2002), Researchers’ and users’ perceptions of the relative standing of biomedical papers in different journals. Scientometrics, 53 (2), 229-240.

Full Text: S\Scientometrics53, 229.pdf

Abstract: Journal citation impact factors, which are frequently used as a surrogate measure of research quality, do not correlate well with UK researchers’ subjective views of the relative importance of journals as media for communicating important biomedical research results. The correlation varies with the sub-field: it is almost zero in nursing research but is moderate in more ‘scientific’ subfields such as multiple sclerosis research, characterised by many authors per paper and appreciable foreign co-authorship. If research evaluation is to be based on journal-specific indicators, then these must cover different aspects of the process whereby research impacts on other researchers and on healthcare improvement.

Keywords: Biomedical, Biomedical Research, Citation, Co-Authorship, Coauthorship, Correlation, Evaluation, Impact, Impact Factors, Impacts, Improvement, Indicators, Journals, Measure, Media, Multiple Sclerosis, Nursing, Papers, Quality, Research, Research Evaluation, Research Quality, Research Results, Surrogate, UK

Rinia, E.J., Van Leeuwen, T.N. and Van Raan, A.F.J. (2002), Impact measures of interdisciplinary research in physics. Scientometrics, 53 (2), 241-248.

Full Text: S\Scientometrics53, 241.pdf

Abstract: In an evaluation of physics research programs in the Netherlands, held in 1996, assessments of research by expert panels were supplemented with bibliometric analysis. This latter analysis included the calculation of several bibliometric indicators, among which some taking journal impact measures as a baseline. Final outcomes of this evaluation provided an opportunity to re-examine the results of this assessment from the perspective of the degree of interdisciplinarity of programs involved. In this paper we discuss results of this latter analysis, in particular with respect to the relation between several citation based indicators and interdisciplinary research in Dutch physics

Keywords: Bibliometric, Bibliometric Analysis, Citation, Journal Impact, Research

van Leeuwen, T.N. and Moed, H.F. (2002), Development and application of journal impact measures in the Dutch science system. Scientometrics, 53 (2), 249-266.

Full Text: S\Scientometrics53, 249.pdf

Abstract: This paper discusses development and application of journal impact indicators in a number of bibliometric studies commissioned by Dutch organizations and institutions, and conducted in our institute during the past five years. An outline is given of the research questions addressed in these studies and their policy context. For each study the appropriateness of the use of journal impact indicators produced by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) is evaluated. Alternative journal impact measures were developed which are shown to be more appropriate in the particular research and policy contexts than the ISI measures. These measures were considered to be highly useful by the users. The studies have revealed methodological flaws of the ISI journal impact factors.

Vinkler, P. (2002), Subfield problems in applying the Garfield (Impact) Factors in practice. Scientometrics, 53 (2), 267-279.

Full Text: S\Scientometrics53, 267.pdf

Abstract: The assessment of the publications of research teams working on different subfields raises concerns because of the different scientometric features of the subfields. For equalizing the differences in the Garfield (Impact) Factors of journals, several methods applied in practice have been described. A new indicator - Specific Impact Contribution (SIC) relating the citation share of a respective team (or journal) in the total citations of the teams (or journals) evaluated to its share in publications - was introduced. It has been realized that the normalized Garfield Factors and the normalized SIC values are identical measures within any selected set of journals. Consequently, the Garfield Factor of a journal should be assumed as an indicator characterizing the contribution of the information channel as a whole, appropriately.

Keywords: Scientometric Indicators, Journals, Citation

Moed, H.F. (2002), Measuring China’s research performance using the Science Citation Index. Scientometrics, 53 (3), 281-296.

Full Text: S\Scientometrics53, 281.pdf

Abstract: This contribution focuses on the application of bibliometric techniques to research activities in China, based on data extracted from the Science Citation Index (SCI) and related Citation Indexes, produced by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI).

The main conclusion is that bibliometric analyses based on the ISI databases in principle provide useful and valid indicators of the international position of Chinese research activities, provided that these analyses deal properly with the relatively large number of national Chinese journals covered by the ISI indexes.

It is argued that it is important to distinguish between a national and an international point of view. In order to assess the Chinese research activities from a national perspective, it is appropriate to use the scientific literature databases with a good coverage of Chinese periodicals, such as the Chinese Science Citation Database (CSCD), produced at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Assessment of the position of Chinese research from an international perspective should be based on the ISI databases, but it is suggested to exclude national Chinese journals from this analysis.

In addition it is proposed to compute an indicator of international publication activity, defined as the percentage of articles in journals processed for the ISI indexes, with the national Chinese journals being removed, relative to the total number of articles published either in national Chinese or in other journals, regardless of whether these journals are processed for the ISI indexes or not. This indicator can only be calculated by properly combining CSCD and ISI indexes.

Keywords: Scientific Journals, Internationalization, Database

Uzun, A. (2002), Productivity ratings of institutions based on publication in Scientometrics, Informetrics, and Bibliometrics, 1981-2000. Scientometrics, 53 (3), 297-307.

Full Text: S\Scientometrics53, 297.pdf

Abstract: The author surveyed a set of ten scholarly journals that publish the mainstream of papers in the field of Scientometrics, Informetrics, and Bibliometrics (SIB). The survey is limited only to the research articles published in the field for the two decades period 1981-2000. Each journal was examined issue by issue for the institutional affiliations of contributing authors. Institutional rankings for the total period and the two decade periods, 1981-1990 and 1991-2000 were determined by awarding credit to the authors’ institutions based on authorship. In the composite of ten journals, the University Sheffield (England), the University of North Carolina (USA), the University of Leiden (Netherlands), the City University of London (England), the National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies (India), the University of Sussex (England), the University of Illinois (USA), the University of Michigan (USA), the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Library (Hungary), and Indiana University (USA) emerged as the ten most productive institutions for the period 1981-2000.

Keywords: Scientists

Burrell, Q.L. (2002), The nth-citation distribution and obsolescence. Scientometrics, 53 (3), 309-323.

Full Text: S\Scientometrics53, 309.pdf

Abstract: The stochastic model proposed recently by the author to describe the citation process in the presence of obsolescence is further investigated to illustrate the nth-citation distribution and the distribution of the total number of citations. The particular case where the latent rate has a gamma distribution is analysed in detail and is shown to be able to agree well with empirical data.

Keywords: Library Circulation Model

Eto, H. (2002), Authorship and citation patterns in Management Science in comparison with operational research. Scientometrics, 53 (3), 337-349.

Full Text: S\Scientometrics53, 337.pdf

Abstract: The authorship and citation patterns in the journal titled Management Science (MS) are analysed. The purpose of the analysis is to examine the competitive relation of MS with OR (operational research or operations research). The analysis is focused on the use of mathematical methods, because MS entered the management research area by using mathematical methods developed by OR and because the use of mathematical methods in real management is facing difficulties. The relationship of MS with information systems (IS) and organisation research (Org) is analysed in regard to the competition of MS with OR. The analysis reveals the intermediate character of MS, that is, MS is less prone to mathematical methods and is more inclined towards IS and Org than OR is.

Ren, S. and Rousseau, R. (2002), International visibility of Chinese scientific journals. Scientometrics, 53 (3), 389-405.

Full Text: S\Scientometrics53, 389.pdf

Abstract: We discuss the internationalisation and the visibility of Chinese journals covered by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). Attention is focused on physics and chemistry journals. For these journals the country of origin of published papers and their citation patterns are analysed. As an indicator of internationality we further consider the composition of their editorial boards. It is concluded that even those Chinese journals that are covered by ISI are still rather ‘local’ and suffer from a low visibility in the world. Yet we are optimistic about the future of Chinese science and its scientific journals.

Macías-Chapula, C.A. (2002), Bibliometric and webometric analysis of health system reforms in Latin America and the Caribbean. Scientometrics, 53 (3), 407-427.

Full Text: S\Scientometrics53, 407.pdf

Abstract: Health systems are reforming their structures and services world-wide. Both, developed and developing countries are searching for better organisation and functioning schemes of their health systems. The social service delivery system in developing countries is severely limited in its ability to respond and adjust to changing circumstances by institutional, organisational, and structural factors. As a result, different countries of the Latin American and Caribbean regions have developed a diversity of reform models.

While international agencies and non-government academic organisations have been funding some of the health system reform initiatives among developing countries, no clear picture exists as to the results or impact of this support. Indicators related to knowledge administration, published results or shared experiences are needed to establish a diagnosis of the existing situation and to support decision making processes in ten-as of policy and research funding.

This work presents the results of a bibliometric and webometric analysis on the production and distribution of the literature generated on health system reforms, as produced in or about Latin America and the Caribbean, for the period 1980-1999.

Results indicated the limitations and low quality of local and regional databases to represent the productivity in the field. Data was obtained regarding the patterns of production and distribution of documents over time, the main countries and areas involved in health system reform processes, and the institutions behind the initiatives. The implications of the results derived from this research to health policy makers, researchers, librarians, database producers, and information scientists are discussed by the author.

? Egghe, L. and Rousseau, R. (2002), A proposal to define a core of a scientific subject: A definition using concentration and fuzzy sets. Scientometrics, 54 (1), 51-62.

Full Text: 2002\Scientometrics54, 51.pdf

Abstract: Determining the core of a field’s literature, i.e. its ‘most important’ sources, has been and still is an important problem in bibliometrics. In this article an exact definition of a core of a bibliography or a conglomerate is presented. The main ingredients for this definition are: fuzzy set theory, Lorenz curves and concentration measures. If one prefers a strict delineation, the fuzzy core can easily be defuzzified. The method we propose does not depend on the subjective notion of ‘importance’. It is, moreover, completely reproducible. The method and the resulting core is also independent of the mathematical function (Lotka, Zipf, Bradford, etc.) that may be used to describe the relation between the set of sources and that of items.

Glänzel, W. and de Lange, C. (2002), A distributional approach to multinationality measures of international scientific collaboration. Scientometrics, 54 (1), 75-89.

Full Text: S\Scientometrics54, 75.pdf

Abstract: In a recent study, de Lange and Glänzel introduced a model for the bibliometric analysis of the extent of multinational co-authorship links. They showed that this model can be considered a generalisation of the ‘fractionation approach’ by Nederhof and Moed. The authors analysed international collaboration links (the Multilateral Collaboration Index) as a function of the share of internationally co-authored papers. The measurement of the deviation of individual countries from (sub-)field peculiarities proved, however, complicated. The intensifying international collaboration and, in several fields, the substantial growth of number of multinational papers (involving three or more countries) in the 90s necessitates a detailed analysis of co-publication distributions, that is, of the distributions of partner countries in a given country’s publication output. The main objective of the study is to elaborate such a measure to be used in addition to the share of international publications and the Multilateral Collaboration Index. In addition, a detailed analysis of national citation impact of domestic, bilateral and multilateral papers in the major science fields is conducted.

The model, we develop and the statistical analysis that it allows, support the practical conclusion that the ratio of the number of international links and international papers turns out to be roughly proportional to the ratio of full and fractional publication counts.

Keywords: Multilateral Co-Authorship, Publication, Indicators, Science

Haritash, N. and Gupta, B.M. (2002), Mapping of S&T issues in the Indian Parliament: A scientometric analysis of questions raised in both Houses of the Parliament. Scientometrics, 54 (1), 91-102.

Full Text: S\Scientometrics54, 91.pdf

Abstract: The Parliament, the highest legislative body in India, plays a significant role in formulating national policies. It is, therefore, pertinent to find the concern the Members of Parliament and different political parties show and the priorities they accord to the S&T related issues. They can judge it statistically through the number of questions raised/asked on the floor of the House. The study presents such an analysis taking the example from the S&T questions raised in the year 1992 during the Tenth Parliament. The analysis has been done by dividing the S&T related issues into 14 socio- economic areas, such as environmental sciences, biotechnology, energy, food and agriculture, health, natural resources, telecommunications, human resource development, etc. and eight policy areas such as technology policy, international collaborations in S&T, etc. The raising of S&T questions jointly by MPs and different political parties through inter- party and intra-party sponsorships has also been studied. Such an analysis may provide an important basis to the managers and policy makers in formulating the S&T policy of a country.

Jin, B.H., Zhang, J.G., Chen, D.Q. and Zhu, X.Y. (2002), Development of the Chinese Scientometric Indicators (CSI). Scientometrics,