Ming-Huang Wang

Global stem cell research trend: Bibliometric analysis as a tool for mapping of trends from 1991 to 2006

In this study, we aim to evaluate the global scientific production of stem cell research for the past 16 years and provide insights into the characteristics of the stem cell research activities and identify patterns, tendencies, or regularities that may exist in the papers. Data are based on the online version of SCI, Web of Science from 1991 to 2006. Articles referring to stem cell were assessed by many aspects including exponential fitting the trend of publication outputs during 1991–2006, distribution of source title, author keyword, and keyword plus analysis. Based on the exponential fitting the yearly publicans of the last decade, it can also be calculated that, in 2,011, the number of scientific papers on the topic of stem-cell will be twice of the number of publications in 2006. Synthetically analyzing three kinds of keywords, it can be concluded that application of stem cell transplantation technology to human disease therapy, especially research related on “embryonic stem cell” and “mesenchymal stem cell” is the orientation of all the stem cell research in the 21st century. This new bibliometric method can help relevant researchers realize the panorama of global stem cell research, and establish the further research direction.

Mapping of drinking water research: A bibliometric analysis of research output during 1992–2011

A bibliometric analysis based on the Science Citation Index Expanded from the Web of Science was carried out to provide insights into research activities and tendencies of the global drinking water from 1992 to 2011. Study emphases included performance of publication covering annual outputs, mainstream journals, Web of Science categories, leading countries, institutions, research tendencies and hotspots. The results indicated that annual output of the related scientific articles increased steadily. Water Research, Environmental Science & Technology, and Journal American Water Works Association were the three most common journals in drinking water research. The USA took a leading position out of 168 countries/territories, followed by Japan and Germany. A summary of the most frequently used keywords obtained from words in paper title analysis, author keyword analysis and KeyWords Plus analysis provided the clues to discover the current research emphases. The mainstream research related to drinking water was water treatment methods and the related contaminants. Disinfection process and consequent disinfection by-products attracted much attention. Ozonation and chlorination in disinfection, and adsorption were common techniques and are getting popular. Commonly researched drinking water contaminants concerned arsenic, nitrate, fluoride, lead, and cadmium, and pharmaceuticals emerged as the frequently studied contaminants in recent years. Disease caused by contaminants strongly promoted the development of related research.

A bibliometric analysis of the performance of Water Research

This paper presents a detailed chronological survey of papers published in the journal titled Water Research which started publication since 1967. This current investigation reviews publication patterns between 1967 and 2008. An analysis of the research performance according to publication output, distribution of words in article title, author keywords, and keywords plus. Performances of countries, institutes, and authors, including total, single, collaborative, first author, and corresponding author publications were analyzed. The most-frequently cited articles each year and the articles of the highest impact in 2008 were also reported. Results showed that “activated sludge” was the most frequently used author keyword, followed by “adsorption,” and “drinking water.” Authors from 114 different countries/territories published in the journal, with the most articles submitted by authors from the USA.

A historical review and bibliometric analysis of research on estuary pollution

A bibliometric method based on Science Citation Index-Expanded published by the Thomson Reuters was used to quantitatively assess the global estuary pollution research from 1991 to 2010. The main results were as follows: there had been a notable growth trend in publication outputs. Marine Pollution Bulletin was the most active journal. Environmental sciences were top popular subject categories. USA produced the most single, internationally collaborative, first authored and corresponding authored articles. The Chinese Academy of Sciences was the most productive institute for the total articles. Sediment was the most active research topic, which ranked 1st in article title, article abstract, author keyword, and KeyWords Plus analysis, respectively. Heavy metals received stable focus on a high degree in the field of estuary pollution research. Mostly refractory organic compounds (e.g. PAHs) became more active. Biomarkers and bioaccumulation both were active issues. Eutrophication of estuarine waters receives increasing concern in estuary pollution research.

Characteristics of research in China assessed with Essential Science Indicators

To provide an overview of the characteristics of research in China, a bibliometric evaluation of highly cited papers with high-level representation was conducted during the period from 1999 to 2009 based on the Essential Science Indicators (ESI) database. A comprehensive assessment covered overall performance, journals, subject categories, internationally collaborative countries, national inter-institutionally collaborative institutions, and most-cited papers in 22 scientific fields. China saw a strong growth in scientific publications in the last decade, to some extent due to increasing research and development expenditure. China has been more active in ESI fields of chemistry and physics, but more excellent in materials science, engineering and mathematics. Most publications were concerned with the common Science Citation Index subject categories of multidisciplinary chemistry, multidisciplinary materials and science, and physical chemistry. About one half China’s ESC papers were internationally collaborative and the eight major industrialized countries (the USA, Germany, the UK, Japan, France, Canada, Russia, and Italy) played a prominent role in scientific collaboration with China, especially the USA. The Chinese Academy of Sciences took the leading position of institutions with many branches. The “985 Project” stimulated the most productive institutions for academic research with a huge funding injection and the universities in Hong Kong showed good scientific performance. The citation impact of internationally collaborative papers differed among fields and international collaborations made positive contributions to academic research in China.

A bibliometric analysis of research papers published on photosynthesis: 1992–2009

We present here a bibliometric analysis of publications on photosynthesis research from 1992 to 2009 in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-Expanded) Web of Science. This has allowed us to examine the growing trends and the key topics on this subject. We have assessed the document type, language of the publications, publication output, subject category, journal distribution, countries and territories of these publications, institutions involved, hot topics and highly cited papers. The top 30 countries/territories were ranked according to their total number of articles (TA), single country articles (SCA), internationally collaborative articles (ICA), first author articles (FAA) and corresponding author articles (CAA). Research directions on the subject of photosynthesis were also investigated and evaluated by statistically analyzing the distribution of author keywords in the database. Our analysis indicates that “water”, “stress”, “carbon dioxide”, “nitrogen” and “climate change” are hot topics of research on photosynthesis during this period.

Bibliometric analysis of aerosol research in meteorology and atmospheric sciences

A bibliometric method was developed to investigate the aerosol research based on the papers from 1991 to 2009 in Science Citation Index Expanded, the Thomson Reuters. The analysed aspects covered scientific output and citation tracking on the basis of journal patterns; country; institute and author research performances. Improved indicators Peak-Year Citation per Publication and Relative Peak-Year Rate were applied. A significant share of the citation impact and the most cited articles distribution were identified. Lotka’s law held good in author performance. Finally, the paper discusses the imperfect nature of the indicators and proposes complementary methods for research evaluation procedures.

BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF CATARACT RESEARCH FROM 1991 THROUGH 2006, ANALYZED WITH THE SCIENCE CITATION INDEX

A cataract is an opacifying process of the lens of the eye that causes disturbance of vision. The major risk factor for lens opacification is aging. Previous studies had focused on genetic factors, environmental influences, metabolic and biochemical changes in the crystalline lens (West and Valmadrid, 1995). It is a common disease in ophthalmology field. Etiology and treatment of cataract had been extensively studied in the past several dacades. Before 1960, cataract study was confined to etiology and pidemiology. Since microsurgery advanced after microscope developed, cataract research was began almost simultaneously after the demonstration of ocular microsurgery since 1970 (Shugar, 1997). More systemic study and review was developed since cataract surgery had advanced a lot over the years. ECCE was introduced in 1970 and many papers were explosively published. During the past two decades, the scientific output from medical institutions has been increasingly subjected to phacoemulsification which made it possible to establish vision after surgery. In these years, more sophisticated surgical skills were developed, and more documents were published in these years. In private clinic or hospital related to cataract re- search have expanded considerably and today encompasses many of the important areas of cataract study. Later sections will describe the main features of cataract studies in these years. This part of the paper is not concerned to give full technical details of the studies, most of which are described in accompanying reference. Rather, it gives an account of the way the future trend in cataract study. In spite of significant expansion of literatures for cataract in ophthalmology, little is known about how future trends will be without gathering statistics. This information is of crucial importance, since researcher can have more direction to the future study. Besides, various academic study based on fund assistance needs more information to make more accurate decision. The purpose of the present study was to gain insight into the trends of various contributing factors to the advancement of cataract-related research in the subject categories of ophthalmology. Data from SCI were analyzed to determine the quantitative impacts of cataractrelated research, based on year of publication, authorship, international collaborations, and keyword trends.