Manuel J. Cobo

Analyzing the Scientific Evolution of Social Work Using Science Mapping.

Objectives: This article reports the first science mapping analysis of the social work field, which shows its conceptual structure and scientific evolution. Methods: Science Mapping Analysis Software Tool, a bibliometric science mapping tool based on co-word analysis and h-index, is applied using a sample of 18,794 research articles published from 1930 to 2012 in 25 main social work journals indexed in the Journal Citation Reports of the Web of Science. Results: Published research social work field concentrated in eight main thematic areas: children, social services, health care, violence, women, HIV/AIDS, social workers, and education. HIV/AIDS and violence have recently attracted the interest of the social word scientific community, while the rest are classical thematic areas that still attract the interest and efforts of the researchers. Conclusion: This conceptual and empirical analysis shows how research themes have evolved in social work.

Analyzing Highly Cited Papers in Intelligent Transportation Systems

Citation classics offer an outlook on those papers that have attracted great and historical interest by a research community and that could be also considered the basis of the research field. A new approach, which is called H-Classics, has been developed to identify such highly cited papers. It is based on the H-index and is sensitive to both the own characteristics of the corresponding research discipline and its evolution. The present study provides a useful insight into the development of the intelligent transport systems research field, revealing those scientific actors (authors, countries, and institutions) that have made the biggest research contribution to its development.

Analysing the scientific evolution of e-Government using a science mapping approach

Abstract This study presents a science mapping approach to analysing the thematic evolution of the e-Government field. We combine different bibliometric tools to analyse the evolution of the cognitive structure of this research topic, allowing us to discover the dynamics over different years and detecting the most prominent, productive, and highest-impact subfields. Science mapping provides a novel perspective to reveal the scientific frontiers and dynamic structure with visualization methods. Findings indicate symptoms of a research field in constant evolution that has not yet reached a stage of maturity, and specially, in the following areas of study: smart cities (provision of public services), e-Participation (political area) and technologies used and citizens acceptance (technological tools).

Agreement Between Face-to-face and Free Software Video Analysis for Assessing Hamstring Flexibility in Adolescents

Abstract Moral-Muñoz, JA, Esteban-Moreno, B, Arroyo-Morales, M, Cobo, MJ, and Herrera-Viedma, E. Agreement between face-to-face and free software video analysis for assessing hamstring flexibility in adolescents. J Strength Cond Res 29(9): 2661–2665, 2015—The objective of this study was to determine the level of agreement between face-to-face hamstring flexibility measurements and free software video analysis in adolescents. Reduced hamstring flexibility is common in adolescents (75% of boys and 35% of girls aged 10). The length of the hamstring muscle has an important role in both the effectiveness and the efficiency of basic human movements, and reduced hamstring flexibility is related to various musculoskeletal conditions. There are various approaches to measuring hamstring flexibility with high reliability; the most commonly used approaches in the scientific literature are the sit-and-reach test, hip joint angle (HJA), and active knee extension. The assessment of hamstring flexibility using video analysis could help with adolescent flexibility follow-up. Fifty-four adolescents from a local school participated in a descriptive study of repeated measures using a crossover design. Active knee extension and HJA were measured with an inclinometer and were simultaneously recorded with a video camera. Each video was downloaded to a computer and subsequently analyzed using Kinovea 0.8.15, a free software application for movement analysis. All outcome measures showed reliability estimates with &agr; > 0.90. The lowest reliability was obtained for HJA (&agr; = 0.91). The preliminary findings support the use of a free software tool for assessing hamstring flexibility, offering health professionals a useful tool for adolescent flexibility follow-up.

An Overview of Thematic Evolution of Physical Therapy Research Area From 1951 to 2013

Physical Therapy is a profession which development and conceptual framework have been performed in the XX century. One of the major challenges of Physical Therapy in the XXI century is to identify the intellectual basis of its scientific domain. The aim of the present paper is to analyze the evolution of Physical Therapy research throughout scientific literature published in Web of Science and Scopus databases. In order to perform the analysis, Web of Science and Scopus bibliographic databases were used to download all records. A set of journals with overall topics in Physical Therapy discipline with the largest history in the Journal Citation Report were selected: Physiotherapy, Physical Therapy, and Australian Journal of Physiotherapy/Journal of Physiotherapy. The bibliometric tool SciMAT was employed to perform a science mapping analysis in order to detect and visualize the research themes and their evolution across three periods: 1951-1984, 1985-2000 and 2001-2013. The analysis carried out shows that Physical Therapy research field is mainly divided into nine thematic areas: Middle Aged People, Muscle Function Alterations and Recovery, Health Education, Gait and Biomechanics, Central Nervous System, Heart Rate and Exercise, Diagnosis, Low Back Pain, and Animals. In conclusion, Physical Therapy citations and production are primarily focused on two large thematic areas, diseases that involve middle-aged population and muscle function and its alterations. Results can be used to provide a historical perspective on research conducted in this emerging field and to provide a scientific evidence-based practice model on which future studies can be built.

Thematic Trends in Complementary and Alternative Medicine Applied in Cancer-Related Symptoms

Abstract Purpose The main goal of this study is to discover the scientific evolution of Cancer-Related Symptoms in Complementary and Alternative Medicine research area, analyzing the articles indexed in the Web of Science database from 1980 to 2013. Design/Methodology/Approach A co-word science mapping analysis is performed under a longitudinal framework (1980 to 2013). The documental corpus is divided into two subperiods, 1980–2008 and 2009–2013. Thus, the performance and impact rates, and conceptual evolution of the research field are shown. Findings According to the results, the co-word analysis allows us to identify 12 main thematic areas in this emerging research field: anxiety, survivors and palliative care, meditation, treatment, symptoms and cancer types, postmenopause, cancer pain, low back pain, herbal medicine, children, depression and insomnia, inflammation mediators, and lymphedema. The different research lines are identified according to the main thematic areas, centered fundamentally on anxiety and suffering prevention. The scientific community can use this information to identify where the interest is focused and make decisions in different ways. Research limitation Several limitations can be addressed: 1) some of the Complementary and Alternative Medicine therapies may not have been included; 2) only the documents indexed in Web of Science are analyzed; and 3) the thematic areas detected could change if another dataset was considered. Practical implications The results obtained in the present study could be considered as an evidence-based framework in which future studies could be built. Originality/value Currently, there are no studies that show the thematic evolution of this research area.

Analyzing the scientific evolution and impact of e-Participation research in JCR journals using science mapping

Abstract This study presents a science mapping approach to analysing the thematic evolution of e-Participation research. We combine different bibliometric tools to analyse the evolution of the cognitive structure of this research topic, allowing us to discover the most prominent, productive and highest-impact subfields. In addition, we are able to identify thematic areas and show their evolutionary behaviour, supported by different visualization tools to show a graphical and dynamic vision of the e-Participation field. Findings indicate an increase in e-Participation research in the last five years, and the evolution of this field of knowledge to a more techno-social system in order to engage the citizenry in public sector management.

Science Mapping Tools: their application to e-Government field

This study presents an approach to analyze the thematic evolution of e-Government field. We combine different bibliometric tools to analyze the evolution of the cognitive structure of this research topic, allowing us to discover important knowledge related to its themes and thematic areas. Also, we are able to identify thematic areas and show their evolutionary behavior, supported by different visualization tools to understand their evolution, importance and likely future tendencies. These findings are a contribution in e-Government field, detecting the most prominent productive and highest-impact subfields, offering symptoms of field in constant evolution.

Co-words Analysis of the Last Ten Years of the International Journal of Uncertainty, Fuzziness and Knowledge-Based Systems

The main aim of this contribution is to develop a co-words analysis of the International Journal of Uncertainty, Fuzziness and Knowledge-Based Systems in the last ten years (2008–2017). The software tool SciMAT is employed using an approach that allows us to uncover the main research themes and analyze them according to their performance measures (qualitative and quantitative). An amount of 562 documents were retrieved from the Web of Science. The corpus was divided into two consecutive periods (2008–2012 and 2013–2017). Our key findings are that the most important research themes in the first and second period were devoted with decision making process and its related aspects, techniques and methods.

Highly cited papers in rheumatology: identification and conceptual analysis

Rheumatology is a broad research area with an extensive background in scientific publications. Thus, the present study aims to identify the highly cited papers in Rheumatology research field, analyzing some aspects such as the documents distribution by years, journals, authors, institutions and countries. Furthermore, a conceptual evolution and a co-word analysis have been performed. In order to carry out this study, the H-Classics methodology, based on widely used H-index, has been used. A total of 317 highly cited papers have been detected from a total amount of 103.175 documents (articles and reviews) indexed in the Rheumatology category of the Web of Science database, from the period 1945–2016. As a result, it is obtained that Arthritis and Rheumatism is the journal with the highest number of documents, with more than half of detected documents. Professor Emery, from the University of Leeds (UK), and professor Felson, from the Boston University (USA), are the authors with more highly cited papers. The University of California (USA) and the University of Stanford (USA) are the main institutional contributors. USA is the leading producer, with more than half of the highly cited papers, but it is interesting to highlight the position reached by Peoples R. China, Mexico and, South Africa when an adjustment index based in the GDP per capita is applied. Osteo-arthritis and monoclonal antibody are the leader topics of this set of documents. The present study shows a useful insight into the development and evolution of the Rheumatology research field, revealing actors that have made the most significant research contribution to its development.