Ehsan Mohammadi

Mendeley readership altmetrics for the social sciences and humanities: Research evaluation and knowledge flows

Although there is evidence that counting the readers of an article in the social reference site, Mendeley, may help to capture its research impact, the extent to which this is true for different scientific fields is unknown. In this study, we compare Mendeley readership counts with citations for different social sciences and humanities disciplines. The overall correlation between Mendeley readership counts and citations for the social sciences was higher than for the humanities. Low and medium correlations between Mendeley bookmarks and citation counts in all the investigated disciplines suggest that these measures reflect different aspects of research impact. Mendeley data were also used to discover patterns of information flow between scientific fields. Comparing information flows based on Mendeley bookmarking data and cross‐disciplinary citation analysis for the disciplines revealed substantial similarities and some differences. Thus, the evidence from this study suggests that Mendeley readership data could be used to help capture knowledge transfer across scientific disciplines, especially for people that read but do not author articles, as well as giving impact evidence at an earlier stage than is possible with citation counts.

Who reads research articles? An altmetrics analysis of Mendeley user categories

Little detailed information is known about who reads research articles and the contexts in which research articles are read. Using data about people who register in Mendeley as readers of articles, this article explores different types of users of Clinical Medicine, Engineering and Technology, Social Science, Physics, and Chemistry articles inside and outside academia. The majority of readers for all disciplines were PhD students, postgraduates, and postdocs but other types of academics were also represented. In addition, many Clinical Medicine articles were read by medical professionals. The highest correlations between citations and Mendeley readership counts were found for types of users who often authored academic articles, except for associate professors in some sub‐disciplines. This suggests that Mendeley readership can reflect usage similar to traditional citation impact if the data are restricted to readers who are also authors without the delay of impact measured by citation counts. At the same time, Mendeley statistics can also reveal the hidden impact of some research articles, such as educational value for nonauthor users inside academia or the impact of research articles on practice for readers outside academia.

Can Mendeley bookmarks reflect readership? A survey of user motivations

Although Mendeley bookmarking counts appear to correlate moderately with conventional citation metrics, it is not known whether academic publications are bookmarked in Mendeley in order to be read or not. Without this information, it is not possible to give a confident interpretation of altmetrics derived from Mendeley. In response, a survey of 860 Mendeley users shows that it is reasonable to use Mendeley bookmarking counts as an indication of readership because most (55%) users with a Mendeley library had read or intended to read at least half of their bookmarked publications. This was true across all broad areas of scholarship except for the arts and humanities (42%). About 85% of the respondents also declared that they bookmarked articles in Mendeley to cite them in their publications, but some also bookmark articles for use in professional (50%), teaching (25%), and educational activities (13%). Of course, it is likely that most readers do not record articles in Mendeley and so these data do not represent all readers. In conclusion, Mendeley bookmark counts seem to be indicators of readership leading to a combination of scholarly impact and wider professional impact.

Assessing non-standard article impact using F1000 labels

Faculty of 1000 (F1000) is a post-publishing peer review web site where experts evaluate and rate biomedical publications. F1000 reviewers also assign labels to each paper from a standard list or article types. This research examines the relationship between article types, citation counts and F1000 article factors (FFa). For this purpose, a random sample of F1000 medical articles from the years 2007 and 2008 were studied. In seven out of the nine cases, there were no significant differences between the article types in terms of citation counts and FFa scores. Nevertheless, citation counts and FFa scores were significantly different for two article types: “New finding” and “Changes clinical practice”: FFa scores value the appropriateness of medical research for clinical practice and “New finding” articles are more highly cited. It seems that highlighting key features of medical articles alongside ratings by Faculty members of F1000 could help to reveal the hidden value of some medical papers.

Knowledge mapping of the Iranian nanoscience and technology: a text mining approach

Nanoscience and technology (NST) is a relatively new interdisciplinary scientific domain, and scholars from a broad range of different disciplines are contributing to it. However, there is an ambiguity in its structure and in the extent of multidisciplinary scientific collaboration of NST. This paper investigates the multidisciplinary patterns of Iranian research in NST based on a selection of 1,120 ISI—indexed articles published during 1974–2007. Using text mining techniques, 96 terms were identified as the main terms of the Iranian publications in NST. Then the scientific structure of the Iranian NST was mapped through multidimensional scaling, based upon the co-occurrence of the main terms in the academic publications. The results showed that the NST domain in Iranian publications has a multidisciplinary structure which is composed of different fields, such as pure physics, analytical chemistry, chemistry physics, material science and engineering, polymer science, biochemistry and new emerging topics.

Nostoc cyanobacteria species: a new and rich source of novel bioactive compounds with pharmaceutical potential

The cyanobacteria and predominantly the genus Nostoc are known as producers of dozens pharmacologically active compounds, composed of abnormal amino acids, which have aided them to survive in varied and highly competitive ecological niches. Their function as antiviral, antitumour, antibacterial, anti‐HIV and a food additive has been well set up. This high degree of chemical diversity in bioactive compounds of cyanobacterial Nostoc species may thus create a prolific source of new entities leading to the development of new pharmaceuticals. This review provides the comprehensive overview of metabolites and novel bioactive natural products produced by cyanobacteria of the genus Nostoc, which present biological activity and can be used for the treatment of various human and animal disorders.

Investigating Singapore's altmetric landscape

Altmetrics is an emerging measure for academic impact and it is gaining in global importance. In this paper, we analyse the altmetric landscape of Singapore, a young nation with a fast growing international research sector. We aim to find out if the coverage of altmetrics across the different disciplines is increasing along with the fast increase in the amount of research publications in recent years. We also look into how altmetrics relate to traditional citation counts as a measure of research impact. From our results, we see that there is overall an 18% coverage of altmetrics of Singapore publications from 2009 to 2013. The number of publications with available altmetric data has also been increasing over the years for most disciplines. Correlation results between citation counts and altmetrics show medium to low correlations with distinct differences amongst the various disciplines. A high coverage of altmetrics however does not seem to lead to larger correlations with citation counts. Singapore thus remains an intriguing case study to watch in the coming years.

Academic information on Twitter: A user survey

Although counts of tweets citing academic papers are used as an informal indicator of interest, little is known about who tweets academic papers and who uses Twitter to find scholarly information. Without knowing this, it is difficult to draw useful conclusions from a publication being frequently tweeted. This study surveyed 1,912 users that have tweeted journal articles to ask about their scholarly-related Twitter uses. Almost half of the respondents (45%) did not work in academia, despite the sample probably being biased towards academics. Twitter was used most by people with a social science or humanities background. People tend to leverage social ties on Twitter to find information rather than searching for relevant tweets. Twitter is used in academia to acquire and share real-time information and to develop connections with others. Motivations for using Twitter vary by discipline, occupation, and employment sector, but not much by gender. These factors also influence the sharing of different types of academic information. This study provides evidence that Twitter plays a significant role in the discovery of scholarly information and cross-disciplinary knowledge spreading. Most importantly, the large numbers of non-academic users support the claims of those using tweet counts as evidence for the non-academic impacts of scholarly research.

Effect of food simulating liquids on the flexural strength of a methacrylate and silorane-based composite

Objective The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of food-simulating liquids on the flexural strength of a methacrylate-based and a silorane-based resin composite. Materials and methods In this in vitro study, sixty specimens of Filtek P90 and Filtek Z350 composite were prepared in a customized mold (2 × 2 × 25 mm). The specimens of each composite were divided into five subgroups as follows: one as a control group and the other four groups included distilled water, heptane, 2% citric acid, and 50% aqueous ethanol. The specimens were stored in the solutions for one week at 37°C, and the control group was stored at room temperature for the same period of time. Then, flexural strength values were measured. The statistical analysis was performed by One-Way ANOVA, Paired T test and post hoc LSD at a significance level of 0.05. Results In the control group, the mean flexural strength of Filtek P90 and Filtek Z350 were 155.1 MPa and 147.3 MPa, respectively, and there was no significant difference (P-value>0.05). The mean flexural strength of Filtek P90 and Filtek Z350 significantly decreased in ethanol (P-value <0.05). Immersion in 0.02 N citric acid and heptane had no significant effect on the flexural strength of Filtek P90 and Filtek Z350. The maximum flexural strength of Filtek P90 was in the heptane group (192.6 MPa) and minimum flexural strength was in ethanol group (92.7 MPa) the maximum flexural strength of Filtek Z350 was in the heptane group (163.2 MPa) and minimum flexural strength was in the ethanol group (104.7 MPa). Conclusion The flexural strength of tested resin composites significantly affected by ethanol solution. The flexural strength of resin composites was not affected by other food simulating liquids.