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Scientific production and citation impact: A bibliometric analysis in acupuncture over three decades
Abstract
Acupuncture, the most important nonpharmacological therapy in traditional Chinese medicine, has attracted significant attention since its introduction to the Western world. This study employs bibliometric analysis to examine the profile of publication activity related to it. The data are retrieved from the database of Science Citation Index Expanded during 1980–2009, and 7,592 papers are identified for analysis. This study finds that almost 20 % of papers are published in CAM journals, and the average cited times per acupuncture paper is 8.69. While the most cited article has been cited 2,109 times, however, 38.15 % of total publications have never been cited. Europe has the largest amount of authored papers with high h-index values; the USA has the largest number of publications on and citations of acupuncture based on country distribution, and this has continued as a significant rising trend. The proportion of collaborative papers shows this upward trend on the worldwide scale while the percentage shares of national collaborations are the highest. The USA produces the most international collaborative documents, although South Korea occupies the highest percentage figure for international collaborative papers. International collaborative papers are the most frequently cited. The average number of authors per paper is 3.69 in the top eight countries/regions. Papers contributed by South Korea are authored by the most people. International collaboration papers are authored by more people, except in Taiwan. South Korea’s Kyung Hee University is ranked first in terms of number of papers while Harvard University in the USA accounts for the largest proportion of citations. The University of Exeter, Harvard University and Karolinska Institute have the highest h-index values.
... A number of scientometric studies that focus on research productivity and scholarly impact of traditional medicine have been conducted across the globe. These include scientometric studies on complementary and alternative medicine (Danell & Danell, 2009;Fu, Zhang, Zhao, Huang, & Chen, 2011;Tam, Wong, Wong, & Cheung, 2012); medicinal plants (Al-Qallaf, 2009;Anwar, 2005Anwar, , 2006Dutt, Kumar, & Garg, 2009;Fu, Zhang, Zhao, & Tong, 2012); and Chinese traditional medicine (Fu, Zhang, Zhao, & Tong, 2012;Haiqi, 1994;Leung, Chan, & Song, 2006). However, there is paucity of scientometric studies demonstrating the productivity and impact of African traditional medicine research in science. ...
... A number of scientometric studies that focus on research productivity and scholarly impact of traditional medicine have been conducted across the globe. These include scientometric studies on complementary and alternative medicine (Danell & Danell, 2009;Fu, Zhang, Zhao, Huang, & Chen, 2011;Tam, Wong, Wong, & Cheung, 2012); medicinal plants (Al-Qallaf, 2009;Anwar, 2005Anwar, , 2006Dutt, Kumar, & Garg, 2009;Fu, Zhang, Zhao, & Tong, 2012); and Chinese traditional medicine (Fu, Zhang, Zhao, & Tong, 2012;Haiqi, 1994;Leung, Chan, & Song, 2006). However, there is paucity of scientometric studies demonstrating the productivity and impact of African traditional medicine research in science. ...
... Such studies include that of Punica granatum L (pomegranate) literature (Al-Qallaf, 2009), Nigella sativa (Habbat al-barakah or Black seed) literature (Anwar, 2005), Phoenix Dactylifera L (date palm) literature (Anwar, 2006), and medicinal plants research in India and China (Bharati & Singh, 2013;Dutt et al., 2009;Gupta, Sharma, & Mehrotra, 1990). Other studies on Chinese traditional medicine also reported a substantial increase of publications and citations beginning in the 1970s onwards (Fu et al., 2011;Fu, Zhang, Zhao, & Tong, 2012;Haiqi, 1994;Leung et al., 2006) Various studies have calculated h-indices and other metrics of individual researchers. For instance, a study of medicinal plants in India and China revealed that the h-index for India citations was 57, while for Chinese citations was 56 (Bharati & Singh, 2013). ...
Abstract
A scientometric analysis was conducted to map out the research productivity and scholarly impact of researchers at the Institute of Traditional Medicine (ITM) in Tanzania for the period between 1980 and 2013. The study analyzed the growth of the ITM's scholarly literature; ascertained the year-wise distribution of publications; determined the authorship pattern and degree of collaboration; and analyzed individual scholars' productivity and impact. Data were obtained using the Publish or Perish software that employs Google Scholar to retrieve scholars' publications and their citations. The findings show that there were a total of 381 publications published between 1980 and 2013, giving an average of 11.2 publications per year. The year 2012 had the most (12.3%) number of publications followed by 2007 and 2008 with 8.9% of all publications each. A vast majority (91.9%) of the publications were multiple-authored with 35.2% of the publications having six or more authors. The degree of collaboration was 0.92 and the ratio between team work and single author work was 11:1. Overall, M.J. Moshi and Z.H. Mbwambo were the top ranking scholars followed by R.L.A. Mahunnah and F.C. Uiso. All ITM researchers showed variation in their performance as no single scholar maintained the same rank in all nine metrics. The study findings call for scholars to recognize the importance of publishing in visible journals in order to receive large citation counts. Institutions are urged to employ scientometrics in evaluating the research performance of their scholars since such techniques take into account a combination of several measures.
... A number of scientometric studies that focus on research productivity and scholarly impact of traditional medicine have been conducted across the globe. These include scientometric studies on complementary and alternative medicine (Danell & Danell, 2009;Fu, Zhang, Zhao, Huang, & Chen, 2011;Tam, Wong, Wong, & Cheung, 2012); medicinal plants (Al-Qallaf, 2009;Anwar, 2005Anwar, , 2006Dutt, Kumar, & Garg, 2009;Fu, Zhang, Zhao, & Tong, 2012); and Chinese traditional medicine (Fu, Zhang, Zhao, & Tong, 2012;Haiqi, 1994;Leung, Chan, & Song, 2006). However, there is paucity of scientometric studies demonstrating the productivity and impact of African traditional medicine research in science. ...
... A number of scientometric studies that focus on research productivity and scholarly impact of traditional medicine have been conducted across the globe. These include scientometric studies on complementary and alternative medicine (Danell & Danell, 2009;Fu, Zhang, Zhao, Huang, & Chen, 2011;Tam, Wong, Wong, & Cheung, 2012); medicinal plants (Al-Qallaf, 2009;Anwar, 2005Anwar, , 2006Dutt, Kumar, & Garg, 2009;Fu, Zhang, Zhao, & Tong, 2012); and Chinese traditional medicine (Fu, Zhang, Zhao, & Tong, 2012;Haiqi, 1994;Leung, Chan, & Song, 2006). However, there is paucity of scientometric studies demonstrating the productivity and impact of African traditional medicine research in science. ...
... Such studies include that of Punica granatum L (pomegranate) literature (Al-Qallaf, 2009), Nigella sativa (Habbat al-barakah or Black seed) literature (Anwar, 2005), Phoenix Dactylifera L (date palm) literature (Anwar, 2006), and medicinal plants research in India and China (Bharati & Singh, 2013;Dutt et al., 2009;Gupta, Sharma, & Mehrotra, 1990). Other studies on Chinese traditional medicine also reported a substantial increase of publications and citations beginning in the 1970s onwards (Fu et al., 2011;Fu, Zhang, Zhao, & Tong, 2012;Haiqi, 1994;Leung et al., 2006) Various studies have calculated h-indices and other metrics of individual researchers. For instance, a study of medicinal plants in India and China revealed that the h-index for India citations was 57, while for Chinese citations was 56 (Bharati & Singh, 2013). ...
A scientometric analysis was conducted to map out the research productivity and scholarly impact of researchers at the Institute of Traditional Medicine (ITM) in Tanzania for the period between 1980 and 2013. The study analyzed the growth of the ITM's scholarly literature; ascertained the year-wise distribution of publications; determined the authorship pattern and degree of collaboration; and analyzed individual scholars' productivity and impact. Data were obtained using the Publish or Perish software that employs Google Scholar to retrieve scholars' publications and their citations. The findings show that there were a total of 381 publications published between 1980 and 2013, giving an average of 11.2 publications per year. The year 2012 had the most (12.3%) number of publications followed by 2007 and 2008 with 8.9% of all publications each. A vast majority (91.9%) of the publications were multiple-authored with 35.2% of the publications having six or more authors. The degree of collaboration was 0.92 and the ratio between team work and single author work was 11:1. Overall, M.J. Moshi and Z.H. Mbwambo were the top ranking scholars followed by R.L.A. Mahunnah and F.C. Uiso. All ITM researchers showed variation in their performance as no single scholar maintained the same rank in all nine metrics. The study findings call for scholars to recognize the importance of publishing in visible journals in order to receive large citation counts. Institutions are urged to employ scientometrics in evaluating the research performance of their scholars since such techniques take into account a combination of several measures.
... Despite the challenges that IRC can present, there are many benefits, including a wider network (Katz & Martin, 1997;Yemini, 2019) and an increased likelihood of collaborating with multiple authors in the future (Aksnes, Frølich, & Slipersaeter, 2008;Kumar & Ratnavelu, 2016). Articles involving international collaboration have been found to receive increased citations (Abramo et al., 2019;Adams, 2013;Fu et al., 2012), although an investigation into twenty years of Chemistry research did find that researchers with a mixture of domestic and international papers outperformed those with only international papers (Kato & Ando, 2013). Despite this, it has been found that the number of researchers collaborating domestically in Poland is higher than the percentage of those who only collaborate domestically (Kwiek, 2020a), thus indicating that the performance of researchers with only internationally authored papers may still be better off. ...
(International) research collaboration (IRC) is considered one of the most important aspects of academic careers and, although it is often linked to co-authorship, investigations of academic perceptions and practices are rare. Reflections on factors affecting IRC, as well as effective technology for use in IRC are also now particularly vital, due to the outbreak of COVID-19. The aim of this three-round Delphi study, conducted prior to the pandemic, was to explore why and how academics conduct IRC in the field of Education. The results indicate that the benefits of IRC are more relevant than the barriers, and that networking with and learning from others are two of the most important reasons for conducting IRC. Four stages of IRC were identified, alongside a range of influencing factors, which could inform future project management training. Suggestions for institutional IRC policy are provided, as well as considerations for early career researchers.
... In order to find the development trend of the total number of publications accurately, researchers divided it into two periods (2000-2009 and 2010-2019) 26 for comparative analysis, In Figure 1, we found an interesting phenomenon: Comparing the average total number of publications of the two-time nodes, it is found that the number of publications in 2000-2009 is 15.9 and that in 2010-2019 is 28.0. The number of outputs in the second period is higher than that in the first period. ...
Objective:
This study aims to explore the trend and knowledge mapping of acupuncture for migraine through bibliometrics.
Methods:
It retrieved the literature on acupuncture for migraine in the Web of Science database from 2000 to 2019, and then resorted to CiteSpace to conduct bibliometric analysis to attain the knowledge mapping.
Results:
The total number of publications each year has increased year by year, and the average annual growth rate from 2000 to 2009 was 15.57%, while from 2010 to 2019 was 6.35%, with a faster growth rate from 2000 to 2009. According to the cluster analysis of institutions, authors, cited references, and keywords, 10, 7, 12, and 10 categories were gained from 2000 to 2019. The most productive countries, institutions, and authors are the USA and China, Technical University of Munich and Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Linde K and Liang FR from 2000 to 2019, whose frequency is 119/103, 28/24, and 28/24, respectively. However, the most important of them are Canada, Sichuan University, and Witt CM. Owing to their highest centrality, they are 0.86, 0.54, and 0.27 separately. Moreover, cited references that contributed to the most co-citations are Linde K (2005), yet, the most vital cited reference is Karst M (2001). Keywords such as migraine, acupuncture, headache, pain, and randomized controlled trial are the most frequently used. However, needle acupuncture is the crucial keyword. In the cluster analysis of institutions, authors, cited references, and keywords from 2000 to 2019, the largest cluster categories are #0 migraine prophylaxis, #1 randomized controlled trial, #0 episodic migraine, and #0 topiramate treatment. Then, randomized controlled trials of acupuncture prevention and treatment of migraine are the most important research content in this field.
Conclusion:
Through the bibliometric analysis of the research on acupuncture for migraine in the Web of Science database in the past 20 years, the trends and the Knowledge Graph of the country, institution, author, cited reference, and the keyword are acquired, which have an important guiding significance for quickly and accurately positioning the key information in the field.
... Despite the challenges that IRC can present, there are many benefits, including a wider network (Katz & Martin, 1997;Yemini, 2019) and an increased likelihood of collaborating with multiple authors in the future (Aksnes et al., 2019;Kumar & Ratnavelu, 2016). Articles involving international collaboration have been found to receive increased citations (Abramo et al., 2019;Adams, 2013;Fu et al., 2012), although an investigation into twenty years of Chemistry research did find that researchers with a mixture of domestic and international papers outperformed those with only international papers (Kato & Ando, 2013). Despite this, it has been found that the number of researchers collaborating domestically in Poland is higher than the percentage of those who only collaborate domestically (Kwiek, 2020a), thus indicating that the performance of researchers with only internationally authored papers may still be better off. ...
(International) research collaboration (IRC) is considered one of the most important aspects of academic careers and, although it is often linked to co-authorship, investigations of academic perceptions and practices are rare. Reflections on factors affecting IRC, as well as effective technology for use in IRC are also now particularly vital, due to the outbreak of COVID-19. The aim of this three-round Delphi study, conducted prior to the pandemic, was to explore why and how academics conduct IRC in the field of Education. The results indicate that the benefits of IRC are more relevant than the barriers, and that networking with and learning from others are two of the most important reasons for conducting IRC. Four stages of IRC were identified, alongside a range of influencing factors, which could inform future project management training. Suggestions for institutional IRC policy are provided, as well as considerations for early career researchers.
... Bibliometric studies of CAM indicate it is a growing research field internationally [16,17]. Two prominent areas of the field are medicinal plants and acupuncture. ...
Aim: The aim of this study is to analyse the development of Scandinavian research on complementary and alternative medicine in terms of publication pattern and general content. Furthermore we will map research networks. Methods and data: This study is based on bibliometric methods. The dataset consists of 1441 publications with at least one author with a Scandinavian address and/or organisational affiliation, from 2005–2017, in Medline and Web of Science. Results and conclusions: Complementary and alternative medicine is a small and moderately growing research field in Scandinavia, with an average of 120 publications per year. The largest sub-term is integrative and complementary medicine, but the majority of documents are classified as other medical sub-fields. A similar pattern is found regarding the sources. The Medical Subject Heading classifications of the documents and the author keywords indicate that much of the relevant research takes a general focus on complementary and alternative medicine. Regarding specific therapies, mind-body and sensory art therapies are particularly prominent in the material. Various aspects of pain, mental health and gynaecology are recurrent health issues. In total, 31.5% of the publications are classified as clinical trials. The organisations referenced most frequently in the material are Karolinska Institutet and UiT Tromsö and it is clear the research is based at large universities and university hospitals. The research networks have relatively different profiles and collaborate with both Scandinavian and international organisations.
... Participation in research collaboration (primarily international collaboration) increases the levels of citation of publications, the quality and the visibility of research (see e.g. Olmeda-Gómez et al. 2009;Fu et al. 2012;Chuang and Ho 2015;Gausia et al. 2015;Isiordia-Lachica et al. 2015;O'Leary et al. 2015;Khor and Yu 2016). An increase in international research collaboration can be set as one of the priorities of science policy [see e.g. ...
The aim of this paper is to investigate theoretically and empirically the impact of research col-laborations on the scientific performance of Italian academic institutions. Data are derived from the in-ternational Scopus and Web of Science databases. We consider both quantity (the number of publica-tions made in collaboration) and quality indicators from different databases (using indexes such as IF5Y (5-year impact factor of the journal, Web of Science), SJR (SCImago Journal Rank – key integral indicator of the quality of journals, Scopus), IPP (Impact per Publication, Scopus), AIS (Article Influ-ence Scores, Web of Science), H-index (Google Scholar Hirsch-index metric) to evaluate the Italian case of scientific research. To this end, we develop a theoretical and empirical model to consider en-dogeneity of explanatory variables, the generalized method of moment (GMM) estimation. The results suggest that internal collaborations have a higher impact on the research quality index in Italy.
... This process helps improve physical performance by suppressing molecules that cause blood cloths. Continuous application of pressure effectively improves relaxation, regional blood circulation, parasympathetic nerves activation, reduced tissue adhesion, and lower neuromuscular stimulus [15]. ...
Hypogalactia is one of the problems for breastfeeding mothers that accounts for 63%. Nowadays, efforts have been done to prevent hypogalactia pharmacologically. However, this approach often comes with side effects for the mothers. This research proposes the implementation of non-pharmacological electrical acupoint method via activation of neurological, bio-mechanical, and psychological systems. It is aimed at proving the method’s efficacy in improving breast milk volume and prolactin level. The model of electrical acupoint is carried out at 0. 5 watt frequency of scale 3 for 10 minutes at acupoints SI1, ST36 and SP6. Paired t-test statistical test was then conducted to differentiate the effects of electrical acupoint treatment on breastfeeding mothers. Results show significant differences (p
... from p. 311). Fu et al. (2012) analyzing the acupuncture research for 1980-2009 state that B… International collaborative papers are the most frequently cited.^(cited from p. 1061). ...
The objective of our paper is to explore the extent to which the research collaborations could be an impact on the scientific performance of academic institutions. The analysis is based on data for 241 universities in Russia for 2015-2016 obtained from different sources: Interfax (privately-held independent major news agency in Russia) National Ranking of Universities; Monitoring of efficiency of activity of educational organizations of higher education (launched by Information-computing Centre of Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation); Russian Science Citation Index (largest Russian information and analytical portal in science, technology, medicine and education and electronic library of scientific publications with 28 mlns of documents). In order to measure university performance in Russia, we choose the publications citations. To this end, we develop a non-overlapping generations model to evidence the theoretical idea of research externalities between academic institutions. Moreover, we implement different empirical models to test for the effect of external scientific collaborations on the institutional research quality by Federal District and Scientific Field. The findings evidence a positive effect of co-authoring process.
... " The average number of citations per paper (CPP) is an indicator that is often used to compare scientific impacts of publications among countries, institutions, and journals. CPP is defined as the number of citations divided by the number of publications " (Fu et al. 2012).The cites per document in total are highest for the year 1995 (Mean=5.44; St. Dev=4.58; ...
Purpose: The main aim of the study is to showcase the productivity and relative impact of research from the University of Kashmir in comparison to the rest of the world.
Methodology: The study is based on the application of various InCites indicators for the purpose of analysis.
Findings: Research output of the University of Kashmir has shown promising growth except with a negative impact for some years which can be attributed to the political instability in the Valley of Kashmir. The number of papers published from the University of Kashmir are less for the initial years with a promising
growth over the later years. Even the citation graph including the ones cited in international sources has also improved over the years. The relative impact of documents has also shown promising growth. Chemistry; Plant and Animal Sciences; Physics; Mathematics; Clinical Medicine and Environment/Ecology are the subjects having highest growth. The subject of Physics witnesses a majority of works published in international sources. The disciplines Chemistry; Plant & Animal Science; and Clinical Medicine receive higher citations. Relative impact in terms of subject area in total indicates that it is high for Engineering; Computer Science; Mathematics; Plant & Animal Science; and Clinical Medicine with Plant & Animal Science; Clinical Medicine; Space Science; and Social Sciences, General in lead in terms of relative impact to the subject area in international sources.
Research implications: The study is limited to the data available through InCites.
Future research: The study is first of its kind deciphering the research output and performance from a politically unstable region, Kashmir. The use of InCites as a comparison tool is also first of its kind.
... 2 was an increasing trend in the number of multi-authored papers. In general, research trend towards multi-authors (Fu et al., 2012;Sun et al., 2010;Behrens and Luksch 2010). According to Sahu and Panda (2014), there is no influence of multi-authorship to publish in core journals. ...
The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between the authorship and the citation impact. To illustrate this, articles in the field of tribology covered in Science Citation Index Expanded are used as sample. Authorship pattern, number of authors per article, percentage of authorships in decades, comparison of CPP and uncitedness has been studied in this article. The result shows that 345% increase in the number of authors per article has been observed from 1963 to 2014 and co-authored articles receive more citations than single authored articles. Since the tribology is a highly interdisciplinary field, the results of this study can be considered as a proxy.
... During diffusion, the initial hand acupuncture technique time, and reporting these can aid in understanding the overall situation of the acupuncture field and guide further research. Recent studies have mainly focused on specific conditions that can be managed using acupuncture, such as The trends in acupuncture publication activity have been explored using bibliometric analyses; (Danell and Danell 2009; Han and Ho 2011) our previous study further analyzed the intellectual impact of the research output in the acupuncture field (Fu et al. 2012). In the present study, we identified the research fronts of acupuncture worldwide and the special features of the six most productive countries in the acupuncture research domain through bibliometric analysis of related published papers. ...
Background
Considerable research has been conducted on acupuncture worldwide. This study chronologically examined the changing features and research fronts of acupuncture and elucidated the differences among the six most productive countries.
Methods
Bibliographic coupling is a powerful tool for identifying the research fronts of a field. Acupuncture-related publications worldwide and from the six most productive countries during 1983-2012 were retrieved from the Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Science Citation Index. To form the research fronts, the 100 most highly cited papers (HCPs) were clustered in terms of references shared.
Results
The United States had the highest proportion of HCPs. The effectiveness of acupuncture in areas such as relieving neck and back pain, migraines and headaches, and knee osteoarthritis symptoms was a predominant topic. Initially, the endogenous opioid peptide system was the primary research focus in the acupuncture mechanism research; however, during 1993-2012, researchers focused more on the functional magnetic resonance imaging of brain activity. In addition, acupuncture use and prevalence, the attitudes of health practitioners, and the effects of expectancy and belief were also major topics. Researches from Western countries, including the United States, England, and Germany, showed more interest in clinical trials and economic- and ethics-related studies, whereas those from East Asian countries including China, Japan, and South Korea focused more on mechanism research.
Conclusion
Western countries dominated the research fronts of acupuncture. The patterns of the research fronts varied worldwide, indicating continuity and innovation in research in each country.
... Some studies have analysed the use of MAC in specific diseases such as AIDS (Huber and Gullion, 2003) or have focused on specific areas such as yoga (Khalsa, 2004). The studies that are most similar to ours are those of Raschetti et al. (2005), who examined the scientific articles on MAC published during the period 1997-2002, and Fu et al. (2011, 2012b, who analysed the production of science, international collaboration and impact through citations. Therefore, it is appropriate to focus on the group of oriental mindbody techniques to show the most relevant data on the subject and the role of Spanish production in this field. ...
Global research on mind-body therapies is analysed, by focussing on scholarly articles on three Eastern disciplines (yoga, tai chi and qi gong) and three procedures (meditation, breathing exercises and relaxation). The bibliographic research was done using the Scopus database. The search was limited to the biomedical areas and to the years 2006-2010. We have analysed 2,363 articles published by 959 different journals. They were written by 6,583 authors from 2,162 institutions in 65 countries. Indicators of scientific productivity and impact were calculated for institutions, countries and subject areas, and the collaboration between authors and institutions was also determined. We have observed a progressive increase of publications, especially on yoga and meditation, particularly from universities in the US, India and China with a marked concentration in the areas of internal medicine, mental health and oncology.Se analiza la investigación mundial sobre terapias cuerpo-mente, a través de los artículos publicados en revistas científicas sobre tres disciplinas orientales: yoga, tai chi y qi gong, y tres prácticas o procedimientos: la meditación, los ejercicios respiratorios y la relajación. La búsqueda bibliográfica se realizó en la base de datos Scopus y se limitó a las áreas biomédicas y al periodo 2006-2010. Se examinaron 2.363 artículos de 959 revistas diferentes, publicados por 6.583 autores pertenecientes a 2.162 instituciones de 65 países. Se calcularon los indicadores de productividad e impacto científico de las instituciones, países y áreas temáticas, así como la colaboración entre autores e instituciones. Se observa un aumento progresivo de las publicaciones, especialmente sobre el yoga y la meditación, sobre todo de las universidades de los EE.UU., India y China con una marcada concentración en las áreas de medicina interna, salud mental y oncología.
... The 52% increase in collaboration of authors in nanotribology research can be seen as an expression of the field's development towards 'big science' [41]. The share of non-cited papers is 30% in nanotribology research which is lower than in Acupuncture [42] where it was 38%. Moreover, Meho [43] estimated that around 90% of the papers published in academic journals are never cited. ...
This study aims to assess the nanotribology research output at global level using scientometric tools. The SCOPUS database was used to retrieve records related to the nanotribology research for the period 1996-2010. Publications were counted on a fractional basis. The level of collaboration and its citation impact were examined. The performance of the most productive countries, institutes and most preferred journals is assessed. Various visualization tools such as the Sci(2) tool and Ucinet were employed. The USA ranked top in terms of number of publications, citations per paper and h-index, while Switzerland published a higher percentage of international collaborative papers. The most productive institution was Tsinghua University followed by Ohio State University and Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, CAS. The most preferred journals were Tribology Letters, Wear and Journal of Japanese Society of Tribologists. The result of author keywords analysis reveals that Molecular Dynamics, MEMS, Hard Disk and Diamond like Carbon are major research topics.
... From previous bibliometric studies on ICM research we know relatively a lot about the general publication pattern (Danell and Danell 2009;Fu et al. 2011;Barnes et al. 1999), different forms of publication biases (Pittler et al. 2000;Sood et al. 2007;Vickers et al. 1998), general content of top-cited articles (Tam et al. 2012), and geographical aspects (Fu et al. 2011;Tam et al. 2012). There are also informative studies on sub-fields, such as acupuncture (Danell and Danell 2011;Fu et al. 2012;Han and Ho 2011) and homeopathy (Chiu and Ho 2005). However, we know much less about ICM's reception. ...
Even if integrative and complementary medicine (ICM) is a growing scientific field, it is also a highly contested area in terms of scientific legitimacy. The aim of this article is to analyze the reception of ICM research in scientific journals. Is this kind of research acknowledged outside the ICM context, for example, in general or specialized medicine? What is the impact of ICM research? and Is it possible to identify any shift in content, from the original ICM research to the documents where it is acknowledged? The material consisted of two sets: documents published in 12 ICM journals in 2007; and all documents citing these documents during the years 2007–2012. These sets were analyzed with help from citation and co-word analysis. When analyzing the citation pattern, it was clear that a majority of the cited documents were acknowledged in journals and documents that could be related to research areas outside the ICM context, such as pharmacology & pharmacy and plant science—even if the most frequent singular journals and subject categories were connected to ICM. However, after analyzing the content of cited and citing documents, it was striking how similar the content was. It was also evident that much of this research was related to basic preclinical research, in fields such as cell biology, plant pharmacology, and animal experiments.
This study aims to evaluate the publications in Encephalitis journal during the year 2008-2017. The data were retrieved from the Web of Science database maintained by Thomson Reuters, analyzed using tools like HisCite and Microsoft Excel. The adopts various method like relative growth rate, exponential growth rate, doubling time, degree of collaboration, etc. Focusing on various aspect of the journal such as document types, year-wise distribution of publication, authorship pattern, institutions involved, country-wise, keyword wise distribution, etc. The study reveals that Encephalitis published 6,405 articles. The highest number of publications in terms of articles was in the year 2017 followed by 2016. The study shows that most of the papers (93.97%) were contributed jointly whereas 6.02% of papers were contributed by single authors. It reveals that Vincent A. is the most productive author contributing 65 (1.01%) of articles in Encephalitis. The country-wise distribution shows that the highest number of contribution comes from the USA: 2,331 (36.39%).
Modern computer technology sheds light on new ways of innovating Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). One method that gets increasing attention is the quantitative research method, which makes use of data mining and artificial intelligence technology as well as the mathematical principles in the research on rationales, academic viewpoints of famous doctors of TCM, dialectical treatment by TCM, clinical technology of TCM, the patterns of TCM prescriptions, clinical curative effects of TCM and other aspects. This paper reviews the methods, means, progress and achievements of quantitative research on TCM. In the core database of the Web of Science, "Traditional Chinese Medicine", "Computational Science" and "Mathematical Computational Biology" are selected as the main retrieval fields, and the retrieval time interval from 1999 to 2019 is used to collect relevant literature. It is found that researchers from China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Chinese Academy of Sciences and other institutes have opened up new methods of research on TCM since 2009, with quantitative methods and knowledge presentation models. The adopted tools mainly consist of text mining, knowledge discovery, technologies of the TCM database, data mining and drug discovery through TCM calculation, etc. In the future, research on quantitative models of TCM will focus on solving the heterogeneity and incompleteness of big data of TCM, establishing standardized treatment systems, and promoting the development of modernization and internationalization of TCM.
International cooperation in science, technology and innovation (STI) plays an increasingly significant role as it allows one to gain access to new knowledge, increase national competitiveness, jointly respond to Grand Challenges, and contribute to overall bilateral and multilateral political cooperation. International alliances aim to establish a win-win system of common STI priorities in order to coordinate their research efforts in a wider political context. Within such a system, individual countries have to use different policy instruments for achieving their own benefits via STI collaboration with foreign partners. The paper addresses the following research question: “How can quantitative analysis help better identify priorities for STI collaboration that provide additional benefits for a country participating in such work?”.
A set of common STI priorities for BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) has been identified based on the analysis of strategic, Foresight, and STI policy documents and expert consultations. It includes a number of STI areas with a wide range of practical applications. Additional quantitative analysis shows how an individual member country can build its cooperation strategy by selecting particular thematic areas and relevant instruments for STI collaboration.
Background:
Since Taiwan's national health insurance system provides residents with easy and affordable access to clinical acupuncture treatment, this study sought to analyze trends in the publication of acupuncture-related research in Taiwan from 1988 to 2017, using a bibliometric method.
Methods:
Data on the scholarly literature from 1988 to 2017 were retrieved through Web of Science searches for the keywords acupunct*, acupoint*, electroacupunct*, electro-acupunct*, acupre*, auricular acupunc*, and auricular needle* in study titles.
Results:
A total of 539 acupuncture-related articles published from 1988 to 2017 were identified and analyzed. The articles had an h-index of 38 and were cited in subsequent studies 7250 times, meaning that Taiwan ranked sixth in the production of such publications among countries/regions globally. Among those articles, 99 (18.4%) had no subsequent citations, six (1.1%) were highly cited (over 100 citations), and 141 (26.1%) were cited 4 to 10 times. The highly cited articles discussed the possible pathways of acupuncture stimulation and efficacy, and received 1103 (15.2%) of the citations.
Conclusion:
The China Medical University in Taichung, Taiwan, was the most active educational institution in Taiwan in terms of acupuncture-related research. Professor Lin Jaung-Geng was the leading acupuncture-related researcher, having the most publications, citations, and the highest h-index value. These results provided a context for analyzing the strengths of the existing research and informing prospective strategies for further studies.
The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of internal and external research collaborations on the scientific performance of academic institutions. The data are derived from the international SCOPUS database. We consider both quantity (the number of publications) and quality indicators (the field-weighted citation impact and the share of publications in the 10% most-cited articles) to evaluate universities’ performance in some European countries (Germany, France, Italy, the UK and Russia). To this end, we develop a non-overlapping generations model to evidence the theoretical idea of research externalities between academic institutions. Moreover, we implement an empirical model to determine the extent to which the impact of internal and external collaborations on universities’ performance is sensitive to the geographical dimension of the data.
The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of external research collaborations on the scientific performance of academic institutions. Data are derived from the international SCOPUS database. We consider the number of citations of publications to evaluate university performance in Russia. To this end, we develop a non-overlapping generations model to evidence the theoretical idea of research externalities between academic institutions. Moreover, we implement different empirical models to test for the effect of external scientific collaborations on the institutional research quality. The results confirm an important positive impact of co-authoring process.
Objective: This bibliometric study was designed to evaluate the scientific output of Brazilian acupuncture publications and compare that output to the global trends in the same area.
Methods: The analyzed data were retrieved from the online version of Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI- E) database and covered the period from 2000 to 2014. The documents were searched by using the topic filter to find acupuncture-related documents (ARDs) and the title filter for acupuncture-specific documents (ASDs). The analyzed categories included number of publications, type of documents, number of citations, universities/ institutions, research areas, and journals.
Results: A total of 9301 ARDs and 5974 ASDs were published in the past 15 years worldwide. The global average number of citations per document was 10.61 for ARDs and 9.24 for ASDs. Brazil has published 252 ARDs and 169 ASDs, which corresponds to the tenth and ninth positions on the global correspondent rankings. The United States is the most productive country, with 2503 ARD publications, followed by China with 2143 and South Korea with 925. Norway is in the first position for the ARD citation rank, with 25.77 citations per document; Switzerland is in the first position for the ASD citation rank, with 26.66. Brazil has 4.19 citations per document, which corresponds to the 20th position in the ASD citation rankings. Evidence-Based Com- plementary Medicine, Acupuncture in Medicine, and The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine are the leading journals in terms of numbers of ARDs and ASDs in Brazil and globally.
Conclusion: The bibliometric analysis of the SCI-E database shows that global numbers of ARDs and ASDs and citations have constantly increased from 2000 to 2014. Brazil is among the top 10 most productive countries in the world in terms of number of acupuncture publications. However, the number of citations of Brazilian documents is below the global average.
Background: Papers on gastroenterology and hepatology that are written by Shanghai authors and published in journals cited at SCI is increasing in recent years. Aims: To evaluate the development and academic status of gastroenterology and hepatology in Shanghai. Methods: Based on the Web of Knowledge, a bibliometric analysis was conducted on the gastroenterology and hepatology SCI papers by Shanghai authors during 2008 to 2012. The number of papers, authors, affiliations, published journals, and cited frequencies were statistically analyzed. Results: A total of 1522 SCI papers by Shanghai authors in 'gastroenterology and hepatology' subfield were published during 2008 to 2012, and the first author was from Shanghai in 1278 papers. The TOP1 author was Li Zhaoshen from Department of Gastroenterology, Changhai Hospital, the Second Military Medical University. The TOP3 affiliations were Shanghai Jiaotong University, the Second Military Medical University and Fudan University. The TOP1 journal was WORLD JOURNAL OF GASTROENTEROLOGY. The TOP1 cited paper which was cited 75 times was focusing on hepatology. Conclusions: SCI papers on gastroenterology and hepatology by Shanghai authors have made a significant progress in quantity but still need to be strengthened in quality, especially in field of gastroenterology.
The miniaturized analytical device or ‘lab-on-a-chip’ (LOC) has been the subject of increasing interest over the past two decades, especially in the fields of chemical analysis and biological analysis, which has resulted in an increase in the quality and number of published papers related to this topic. In this paper, the Science Citation Index Expanded and the Social Sciences Citation Index databases from the Institute for Scientific Information Web of Science were searched to identify the LOC-related works published from 2001 to 2013. In total, 3746 documents were found during this period. All collated documents were analysed based on the following parameters: publication year, document type, language, country, institution, author, journal, research area, number of citations, and international collaboration. The majority of works published on LOC included ‘article’ and ‘review’ document types. The Lab on a Chip journal published the largest number of papers on this topic. The majority of LOC research was published in the English language and originated from the USA. University of California System was the most productive institution and ‘Chemistry’ was the most popular research area. According to the citation count of publications, the top 10 most-cited articles and the top 10 most-cited review papers were identified and the characteristics of these papers were described.
Pharmacology/pharmacy is an important scientific field and plays a pivotal role in new drug research and development. China has steadily increased investment in drug development. This study aimed to evaluate the productivity of China in the field pharmacology/pharmacy in the past decade in relation to ten representative countries. The publications in the field pharmacology/pharmacy of China and ten representative countries in the past decade (2001–2010) were retrieved from Web of Science database, and studies were conducted on the immediacy index of articles published in 2011. Multiple bibliometric indicators were obtained from the “InCites” analysis. Most of the bibliometric indicators for the developed countries including the USA and the European countries remained stable in the past decade. The number of publications by the Asian countries, especially China, increased dramatically in the past decade year by year; however, the Asian countries improved little in the indicators assessing the scientific quality of publications including the citation behaviors and the impact relative to either country and subject area. It may need a long time to fill in the gap, in terms of the scientific quality, between the developing countries and the developed countries. In view of the dramatic increase in the financial investment, our findings suggest that the development of the field pharmacology/pharmacy worldwide is not optimistic, which may partially explain the decreased R&D productivity of pharmaceutical industry since the last decade.
Acupuncture is commonly used to treat low-back pain (LBP) and clinical trials have demonstrated its efficacy. However, less is known about how the utilization of acupuncture impacts public health service utilization in the real world. This study investigates the association between acupuncture utilization for LBP and health care utilization by assessing whether patients who undergo acupuncture subsequently use fewer health care resources and whether those patients differ in their health care use from the general population with LBP.
This study employed the design of a two-group pre/post secondary data analysis.
There were two study populations. To identify patients who received acupuncture for LBP in 2000, patient charts at Alberta registered acupuncture clinics were reviewed. The comparison group was identified from the Alberta physician claims administrative database. Acupuncture group cases were matched with four comparison cases from the general population with LBP based on gender and age.
Number of physician visits and physician service cost for LBP-related services for 1 year pre- and postacupuncture treatment period were calculated from the physician claims data for both study groups.
For the 201 cases and 804 controls, the mean age was 48 years and 54% were female. The number of physician visits for the 1-year period postacupuncture decreased 49% for the acupuncture group (p<0.01) compared to the 1-year period preacupuncture. For the comparison there was a decrease of 2% in physician visits (p=0.59) for the same time periods. Corresponding to the decrease, physician services cost declined 37% for the case group (p=0.01) and 1% for the comparison (p=0.86).
Results suggest that patients with LBP were less likely to visit physicians for LBP after acupuncture treatment. This led to reduced health services spending on LBP.
This paper investigates the role of homophily and focus constraint in shaping collaborative scientific research. First, homophily
structures collaboration when scientists adhere to a norm of exclusivity in selecting similar partners at a higher rate than
dissimilar ones. Two dimensions on which similarity between scientists can be assessed are their research specialties and
status positions. Second, focus constraint shapes collaboration when connections among scientists depend on opportunities
for social contact. Constraint comes in two forms, depending on whether it originates in institutional or geographic space.
Institutional constraint refers to the tendency of scientists to select collaborators within rather than across institutional
boundaries. Geographic constraint is the principle that, when collaborations span different institutions, they are more likely
to involve scientists that are geographically co-located than dispersed. To study homophily and focus constraint, the paper
will argue in favour of an idea of collaboration that moves beyond formal co-authorship to include also other forms of informal
intellectual exchange that do not translate into the publication of joint work. A community-detection algorithm for formalising
this perspective will be proposed and applied to the co-authorship network of the scientists that submitted to the 2001 Research
Assessment Exercise in Business and Management in the UK. While results only partially support research-based homophily, they
indicate that scientists use status positions for discriminating between potential partners by selecting collaborators from
institutions with a rating similar to their own. Strong support is provided in favour of institutional and geographic constraints.
Scientists tend to forge intra-institutional collaborations; yet, when they seek collaborators outside their own institutions,
they tend to select those who are in geographic proximity. The implications of this analysis for tie creation in joint scientific
endeavours are discussed.
KeywordsCollaboration networks–Community structure–Intra- and inter-institutional collaborations–Geographic distance–Research specialty
Scientific collaboration is a complex phenomenon that improves the sharing of competences and the production of new scientific
knowledge. Social Network Analysis is often used to describe the scientific collaboration patterns defined by co-authorship
relationships. Different phases of the analysis of collaboration are related to: data collection, network boundary setting,
relational data matrix definition, data analysis and interpretation of results. The aim of this paper is to point out some
issues that arise in these different phases, highlighting: (i) the use of local archives versus international bibliographic
databases; (ii) the use of different approaches for setting boundaries in a whole-network; (iii) the definition of a co-authorship
data matrix (binary and weighted ties) and (iv) the analysis and the interpretation of network measures for co-authorship
data. We discuss the different choices that can be made in these phases within an illustrative example on real data which
is referred to scientific collaboration among researchers affiliated to an academic institution. In particular, we compare
global and actor-level network measures computed from binary and weighted co-authorship networks in different disciplines.
KeywordsBibliographic data–Scientific collaboration–Social Network Analysis–Weighted networks
Combining different data sets with information on grant and fellowship applications submitted to two renowned funding agencies, we are able to compare their funding decisions (award and rejection) with scientometric performance indicators across two fields of science (life sciences and social sciences). The data sets involve 671 applications in social sciences and 668 applications in life sciences. In both fields, awarded applicants perform on average better than all rejected applicants. If only the most preeminent rejected applicants are considered in both fields, they score better than the awardees on citation impact. With regard to productivity we find differences between the fields. While the awardees in life sciences outperform on average the most preeminent rejected applicants, the situation is reversed in social sciences.
Acupuncture is commonly used to treat low-back pain (LBP) and clinical trials have demonstrated its efficacy. However, less is known about how the utilization of acupuncture impacts public health service utilization in the real world. This study investigates the association between acupuncture utilization for LBP and health care utilization by assessing whether patients who undergo acupuncture subsequently use fewer health care resources and whether those patients differ in their health care use from the general population with LBP.
This study employed the design of a two-group pre/post secondary data analysis.
There were two study populations. To identify patients who received acupuncture for LBP in 2000, patient charts at Alberta registered acupuncture clinics were reviewed. The comparison group was identified from the Alberta physician claims administrative database. Acupuncture group cases were matched with four comparison cases from the general population with LBP based on gender and age.
Number of physician visits and physician service cost for LBP-related services for 1 year pre- and postacupuncture treatment period were calculated from the physician claims data for both study groups.
For the 201 cases and 804 controls, the mean age was 48 years and 54% were female. The number of physician visits for the 1-year period postacupuncture decreased 49% for the acupuncture group (p<0.01) compared to the 1-year period preacupuncture. For the comparison there was a decrease of 2% in physician visits (p=0.59) for the same time periods. Corresponding to the decrease, physician services cost declined 37% for the case group (p=0.01) and 1% for the comparison (p=0.86).
Results suggest that patients with LBP were less likely to visit physicians for LBP after acupuncture treatment. This led to reduced health services spending on LBP.
In reaction to a previous critique (Opthof and Leydesdorff, J Informetr 4(3):423-430, 2010), the Center for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) in Leiden proposed to change their old "crown" indicator in citation analysis into a new one. Waltman (Scientometrics 87:467-481, 2011a) argue that this change does not affect rankings at various aggregated levels. However, CWTS data is not publicly available for testing and criticism. Therefore, we comment by using previously published data of Van Raan (Scientometrics 67(3):491-502, 2006) to address the pivotal issue of how the results of citation analysis correlate with the results of peer review. A quality parameter based on peer review was neither significantly correlated with the two parameters developed by the CWTS in the past citations per paper/mean journal citation score (CPP/JCSm) or CPP/FCSm (citations per paper/mean field citation score) nor with the more recently proposed h-index (Hirsch, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102(46):16569-16572, 2005). Given the high correlations between the old and new "crown" indicators, one can expect that the lack of correlation with the peer-review based quality indicator applies equally to the newly developed ones.
We present an empirical comparison between two normalization mechanisms for citation-based indicators of research performance. These mechanisms aim to normalize citation counts for the field and the year in which a publication was published. One mechanism is applied in the current so-called crown indicator of our institute. The other mechanism is applied in the new crown indicator that our institute is currently exploring. We find that at high aggregation levels, such as at the level of large research institutions or at the level of countries, the differences between the two mechanisms are very small. At lower aggregation levels, such as at the level of research groups or at the level of journals, the differences between the two mechanisms are somewhat larger. We pay special attention to the way in which recent publications are handled. These publications typically have very low citation counts and should therefore be handled with special care.
Conventional scientometric predictors of research performance such as the number of papers, citations, and papers in the top 1% of highly cited papers cannot be validated in terms of the number of Nobel Prize achievements across countries and institutions. The purpose of this paper is to find a bibliometric indicator that correlates with the number of Nobel Prize achievements.
This study assumes that the high-citation tail of citation distribution holds most of the information about high scientific performance. Here I propose the x-index, which is calculated from the number of national articles in the top 1% and 0.1% of highly cited papers and has a subtractive term to discount highly cited papers that are not scientific breakthroughs. The x-index, the number of Nobel Prize achievements, and the number of national articles in Nature or Science are highly correlated. The high correlations among these independent parameters demonstrate that they are good measures of high scientific performance because scientific excellence is their only common characteristic. However, the x-index has superior features as compared to the other two parameters. Nobel Prize achievements are low frequency events and their number is an imprecise indicator, which in addition is zero in most institutions; the evaluation of research making use of the number of publications in prestigious journals is not advised.
The x-index is a simple and precise indicator for high research performance.
The aim of this study was to compare patients' experiences of public and private sector healthcare, using acupuncture as an example. In the UK, acupuncture is popular with patients, is recommended in official guidelines for low back pain, and is available in both the private sector and the public sector (NHS). Consumerism was used as a theoretical framework to explore patients' experiences.
Semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted in 2007-8 with a purposive sample of 27 patients who had recently used acupuncture for painful conditions in the private sector and/or in the NHS. Inductive thematic analysis was used to develop themes that summarised the bulk of the data and provided insights into consumerism in NHS- and private practice-based acupuncture.
Five main themes were identified: value for money and willingness to pay; free and fair access; individualised holistic care: feeling cared for; consequences of choice: empowerment and vulnerability; and "just added extras": physical environment. Patients who had received acupuncture in the private sector constructed detailed accounts of the benefits of private care. Patients who had not received acupuncture in the private sector expected minimal differences from NHS care, and those differences were seen as not integral to treatment. The private sector facilitated consumerist behaviour to a greater extent than did the NHS, but private consumers appeared to base their decisions on unreliable and incomplete information.
Patients used and experienced acupuncture differently in the NHS compared to the private sector. Eight different faces of consumerist behaviour were identified, but six were dominant: consumer as chooser, consumer as pragmatist, consumer as patient, consumer as earnest explorer, consumer as victim, and consumer as citizen. The decision to use acupuncture in either the private sector or the NHS was rarely well-informed: NHS and private patients both had misconceptions about acupuncture in the other sector. Future research should evaluate whether the differences we identified in patients' experiences across private and public healthcare are common, whether they translate into significant differences in clinical outcomes, and whether similar faces of consumerism characterise patients' experiences of other interventions in the private and public sectors.
Traditional acupuncture (TA) and ear acupuncture (EA) are used for treatment of headache, trigeminal neuralgia, and retro-auricular pain. The purpose of this study is to develop effective treatment using combined acupuncture (CA) which consists of TA and EA and to set clinical protocols for future trials. Participants were divided into TA (n = 15) control and CA (n = 34) experimental groups. Obligatory points among Korean Five Element Acupuncture and optional individual points along with symptom points were used in the TA group. The CA group was exposed to ear points of Fossion and TA. Acupuncture treatment consisted of six mandatory sessions per patient over 3 weeks and extended to 12 sessions. Pain was assessed using the visual analogue scale. We compared TA to CA and researched their relevant publications. No significant difference was observed between the two groups (p = 0.968) which showed pain-alleviating tendency. Pain alleviation was significantly different after the fifth and sixth sessions (p = 0.021, p = 0.025), with headache being the most significantly relieved (F = 4.399, p = 0.018) among the diseases. When assessing pain intensity, both the Headache Impact Test and the Migraine Disability Assessment Scale should be adopted for headache and the fractal electroencephalography method be used in pain diseases. In the future, studies should consist of TA, EA, and CA groups; each group having 20 patients. Treatment number should to be no less than 10 sessions. Korean Five Element Acupuncture should be a compulsory inclusion along with individual points being optional inclusion in TA. EA could be selected from Nogier, Fossion and so forth. In conclusion, acupuncture treatment, whether TA or CA, showed pain alleviation in headache, trigeminal neuralgia, and retro-auricular pain, but no significant difference was seen between groups. Prospective, well-controlled, and relevant protocols using multimodal strategies to define the role of TA, EA, and CA are needed.
Care from a general practitioner (GP) is one of the most frequently utilised healthcare services for people with low back pain and only a small proportion of those with low back pain who seek care from a GP are referred to other services. The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the evidence on cost-effectiveness of GP care in non-specific low back pain. We searched clinical and economic electronic databases, and the reference list of relevant systematic reviews and included studies to June 2010. Economic evaluations conducted alongside randomised controlled trials with at least one GP care arm were eligible for inclusion. Two reviewers independently screened search results and extracted data. Eleven studies were included; the majority of which conducted a cost-effectiveness or cost-utility analysis. Most studies investigated the cost-effectiveness of usual GP care. Adding advice, education and exercise, or exercise and behavioural counselling, to usual GP care was more cost-effective than usual GP care alone. Clinical rehabilitation and/or occupational intervention, and acupuncture were more cost-effective than usual GP care. One study investigated the cost-effectiveness of guideline-based GP care, and found that adding exercise and/or spinal manipulation was more cost-effective than guideline-based GP care alone. In conclusion, GP care alone did not appear to be the most cost-effective treatment option for low back pain. GPs can improve the cost-effectiveness of their treatment by referring their patients for additional services, such as advice and exercise, or by providing the services themselves.
This study compared the application of h-index, g-index, and A-index in institutional level research evaluation. 99 universities in Taiwan were ranked by the three indices. Most of the universities had relatively low publication and citation numbers at the time of this study. The analysis focused on the range of equal values resulted from the three different indices, the range of disparity, the order or rank, and the degree of correlation among the indices. The results showed that g-index and h-index were similar in that the use of the two indices produced similar values and rankings. Both had the problem of equal value in which multiple universities got the same index value, making it difficult to differentiate the universities’ performance. In contrast, A-index was able to rank the universities by emphasizing on the highly cited articles and at the same time avoided the problem of equal value. It was thus considered a better index for the institutional level research evaluation in Taiwan.
In this note some new fields of application of Hirsch-related statistics are presented. Furthermore, so far unrevealed properties of the h-index are analysed in the context of rank-frequency and extreme-value statistics.
Does past performance influence success in grant applications? We tested whether the decisions of the Netherlands Research
Council for the Economic and Social Sciences correlate with the past performances of applicants in publications and citations,
and with the results of the Council's peer reviews. The Council proves successful in distinguishing grant applicants with
above-average from below-average performance, but within the former group there was no correlation between past performance
and receiving a grant. When comparing the best-performing researchers who were denied funding with those who received it,
the rejected researchers significantly outperformed the funded ones. The best rejected proposals score on average as high
on the outcomes of the peer-review process as the accepted proposals. The Council successfully corrected for gender effects
during the selection process. We explain why these findings may apply beyond this case. However, if research councils are
not able to select the ‘best’ researchers, perhaps they should reconsider their mission. We discuss the role of research councils
in the science system in terms of variation, innovation and quality control.
Acupuncture, one of the primary methods of treatment in traditional Oriental medicine, is based on a system of meridians. Along the meridians lie acupuncture points or acupoints, which are stimulated by needling, pressure or heat to resolve a clinical problem. A number of methods have been used to identify meridians and to explain them anatomically. Thus, tendinomuscular structures, primo-vessels (Bonghan ducts), regions of increased temperature and low skin resistance have been suggested to represent meridians or as methods to identify them. However, none of these methods have met the criteria for a meridian, an entity that, when stimulated by acupuncture can result in clinical improvement. More recently, modern physiologists have put forward the "neural hypothesis" stating that the clinical influence of acupuncture is transmitted primarily through stimulation of sensory nerves that provide signals to the brain, which processes this information and then causes clinical changes associated with treatment. Although additional research is warranted to investigate the role of some of the structures identified, it seems clear that the peripheral and central nervous system can now be considered to be the most rational basis for defining meridians. The meridian maps and associated acupoints located along them are best viewed as road maps that can guide practitioners towards applying acupuncture to achieve optimal clinical results.
This narrative review examines the psychosocial factors that might predict clinical outcomes in acupuncture for pain. Given existing evidence concerning the clinical effectiveness and safety of acupuncture in painful conditions, it is important to consider how clinicians might further improve their effectiveness. The relevant theoretical frameworks focus primarily on the patient, suggesting that their background characteristics and their beliefs about pain and acupuncture should be considered as potential predictors of outcome. The self-regulation model within health psychology helps us understand how people manage their health and integrate interventions like acupuncture into the management of their illness. This model also implies that the therapeutic relationship, in particular patients' perceptions of that relationship, is likely to be related to outcome. The empirical literature in this area is sparse. However, the findings to date do suggest that a number of psychosocial factors, in particular patients' beliefs about acupuncture, are significant predictors of treatment outcomes from acupuncture for pain. Factors related to the therapeutic relationship are also likely to be important in facilitating good clinical outcomes. We discuss the limitations of the existing studies and make recommendations for future research in this area. If we can better understand the psychosocial factors involved in acupuncture, then we should be able to enhance acupuncture treatments and improve outcomes for patients. These observations will, therefore, have potential to allow us to develop techniques that may improve clinical outcomes in the treatment of pain.
A 66-year-old woman was referred with a typical TN pain on the left side of her face for 25 years. She was diagnosed with TN after evaluation and work-up by a neurologist. She used medications, including phenytoin (200 mg per day) and carbamazepine (600 mg per day). The pain was triggered by speaking, eating or touching. The pain was evaluated using a visual analog scale (VAS), which ranged from 0 (no pain) to 10 (worst pain imaginable). According to the VAS, the patient rated her pain as 10. She had, to date, experienced no beneficial effects from several therapeutic methods, including medication (carbamazepine, gabapentin and valproic acid), nerve block and radiofrequency rhizotomy of the infraorbital branch of the trigeminal nerve. Acupuncture treatment was initiated without making any change to her drug regime. Acupuncture needles (0.20 x 13 mm needles for the face and 0.25 x 25 mm needles for the other regions) were inserted on the typical areas that are used for trigeminal neuralgia (4). For facial neuralgia, the protocol utilized local points of TH 17 and 21, GB2, SI 18, ST 2, 3 and 7, GV 26 and LI 20; systemic points included TH 5, LI 4, ST 36, ST 44, ST 45 and LIV 3. Auricular acupuncture points were also used (Shen Men, neuro, face and lung points). Needles were not manipulated, and no attempt was made to elicit De-Qi. Every treatment session lasted about forty-five minutes, three times a week. After the fourth session, she reported that she had been relieved almost pain free. By the sixth week (14 sessions), the patient was completely free of pain (VAS = 0) and was still pain free at the end of sixth month.
To evaluate clinical trials and neurochemical mechanisms of the action of traditional herbal remedies and acupuncture for treating drug addiction.
We used computerized literature searches in English and Chinese and examined texts written before these computerized databases existed. We used search terms of treatment and neurobiology of herbal medicines, and acupuncture for drug abuse and dependence.
Acupuncture showed evidence for clinical efficacy and relevant neurobiological mechanisms in opiate withdrawal, but it showed poor efficacy for alcohol and nicotine withdrawal or relapse prevention, and no large studies supported its efficacy for cocaine in well-designed clinical trials. Clinical trials were rare for herbal remedies. Radix Puerariae showed the most promising efficacy for alcoholism by acting through daidzin, which inhibits mitocochondrial aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 and leads to disulfiram-like alcohol reactions. Peyote also has some evidence for alcoholism treatment among Native Americans. Ginseng and Kava lack efficacy data in addictions, and Kava can be hepatotoxic. Thunbergia laurifolia can protect against alcoholic liver toxicity. Withania somnifera and Salvia miltiorrhiza have no efficacy data, but can reduce morphine tolerance and alcohol intake, respectively, in animal models.
Traditional herbal treatments can compliment pharmacotherapies for drug withdrawal and possibly relapse prevention with less expense and perhaps fewer side effects with notable exceptions. Both acupuncture and herbal treatments need testing as adjuncts to reduce doses and durations of standard pharmacotherapies.
Acupuncture is increasingly used, so it is important to establish whether its benefits outweigh its risks. Numerous case reports of adverse events show that acupuncture is not free of risk, but accurate data from prospective investigations is scarce. A prospective survey was undertaken using intensive event monitoring. Forms were developed for reporting minor events each month and significant events as they occurred. The sample size was calculated to identify any adverse events that occurred more frequently than once in 10,000 consultations. Acupuncturists were recruited from two professional organisations in the UK. Seventy-eight acupuncturists, all doctors or physiotherapists, reported a total of 2178 events occurring in 31,822 consultations, an incidence of 684 per 10,000 consultations. The most common minor adverse events were bleeding, needling pain, and aggravation of symptoms; aggravation was followed by resolution of symptoms in 70% of cases. There were 43 significant minor adverse events reported, a rate of 14 per 10,000, of which 13 (30%) interfered with daily activities. One patient suffered a seizure (probably reflex anoxic) during acupuncture, but no adverse event was classified as serious. Avoidable events included forgotten patients, needles left in patients, cellulitis and moxa burns. In conclusion, the incidence of adverse events following acupuncture performed by doctors and physiotherapists can be classified as minimal; some avoidable events do occur. Acupuncture seems, in skilled hands, one of the safer forms of medical intervention.
Acupuncture has a reputation among the public of being safe. Although recently performed prospective studies on the frequency of adverse effects of acupuncture found no severe complication, since 1965 many case reports of serious or even life-threatening incidents caused by acupuncture have appeared in the scientific literature.
The most frequently reported complications are pneumothorax and lesions of the spinal cord. Severe injuries of peripheral nerves and blood vessels due to acupuncture seem to be very rare.
Although case reports do not produce reliable data on the frequency of adverse events, information on sources of application errors can be extracted to increase the quality of acupuncture in education and therapy.
All traumatic injuries described in this article could be avoided if practitioners had better anatomical knowledge, applied existing anatomical knowledge better, or both.
The purpose of this work was to assess the evidence for effectiveness of acupuncture (AC) treatment in gastrointestinal diseases. A systematic review of the Medline-cited literature for clinical trials was performed up to May 2006. Controlled trials assessing acupuncture point stimulation for patients with gastrointestinal diseases were considered for inclusion. The search identified 18 relevant trials meeting the inclusion criteria. Two irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) trials, 1 Crohn's disease and 1 colitis ulcerosa trial had a robust random controlled trial (RCT) design. In regard to other gastrointestinal disorders, study quality was poor. In all trials, quality of life (QoL) improved significantly independently from the kind of acupuncture, real or sham. Real AC was significantly superior to sham acupuncture with regard to disease activity scores in the Crohn and Colitis trials. Efficacy of acupuncture related to QoL in IBS may be explained by unspecific effects. This is the same for QoL in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), whereas specific acupuncture effects may be found in clinical scores. Further trials for IBDs and in particular for all other gastrointestinal disorders would be necessary to evaluate the efficacy of acupuncture treatment. However, it must be discussed on what terms patients benefit when this harmless and obviously powerful therapy with regard to QoL is demystified by further placebo controlled trials.
Objectives
Acupuncture is commonly used to treat low-back pain (LBP) and clinical trials have demonstrated its efficacy. However, less is known about how the utilization of acupuncture impacts public health service utilization in the real world. This study investigates the association between acupuncture utilization for LBP and health care utilization by assessing whether patients who undergo acupuncture subsequently use fewer health care resources and whether those patients differ in their health care use from the general population with LBP.
Design
This study employed the design of a two-group pre/post secondary data analysis.
Setting and Subjects
There were two study populations. To identify patients who received acupuncture for LBP in 2000, patient charts at Alberta registered acupuncture clinics were reviewed. The comparison group was identified from the Alberta physician claims administrative database. Acupuncture group cases were matched with four comparison cases from the general population with LBP based on gender and age.
Outcome Measures
Number of physician visits and physician service cost for LBP-related services for 1 year pre- and postacupuncture treatment period were calculated from the physician claims data for both study groups.
Results
For the 201 cases and 804 controls, the mean age was 48 years and 54 % were female. The number of physician visits for the 1-year period postacupuncture decreased 49 % for the acupuncture group (p < 0.01) compared to the 1-year period preacupuncture. For the comparison there was a decrease of 2 % in physician visits (p = 0.59) for the same time periods. Corresponding to the decrease, physician services cost declined 37 % for the case group (p = 0.01) and 1 % for the comparison (p = 0.86).
Conclusions
Results suggest that patients with LBP were less likely to visit physicians for LBP after acupuncture treatment. This led to reduced health services spending on LBP.
Collaboration in science is a process in which two or more authors share their ideas, resources and data to create a joint work. This research compares coauthorship networks of Iranian articles in library and information science (LIS), psychology (PSY), management (MNG), and economics (ECO) in the ISI Web of Knowledge database during 2000–2009, and uses network analysis for the visualization of coauthorship networks. Data include all articles with at least one Iranian author and indexed in ISI's Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) for the fields of LIS, PSY, MNG, and ECO. Indicators such as the Collaborative Index (CI), Degree of Collaboration (DC) and Collaboration Coefficient (CC) were calculated for each discipline. Results show that two or three authors were the most common number of authors per paper, and authors of PSY tended to have more multi-authored articles, compared to the other disciplines. LIS had the lowest rank regarding CC. MNG had the densest coauthorship network, and PSY had the sparsest. Iranian authors in the field of PSY mostly collaborated with those in the U.S., while LIS and MNG authors tended to collaborate with U.K. authors, and ECO authors tended to collaborate with Canadians.
Diversity is one of the important perspectives to characterize behaviors of individuals in social networks. It is intuitively believed that diversity of social ties accounts for competition advantage and idea innovation. However, quantitative evidences in a real large social network can be rarely found in the previous research. Thanks to the availability of scientific publication records on WWW; now we can construct a large scientific collaboration network, which provides us a chance to gain insight into the diversity of relationships in a real social network through statistical analysis. In this article, we dedicate our efforts to perform empirical analysis on a scientific collaboration network extracted from DBLP, an online bibliographic database in computer science, in a systematical way, finding the following: distributions of diversity indices tend to decay in an exponential or Gaussian way; diversity indices are not trivially correlated to existing vertex importance measures; authors of diverse social ties tend to connect to each other and these authors are generally more competitive than others.
Acupuncture, a relief procedure originating in East Asia, has become increasingly popular as a therapy for pain and chronic diseases that are difficult to manage with conventional treatments. The attributive effects of acupuncture have been investigated in various inflammatory disorders including asthma, allergic rhinitis, inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis, epicondylitis, complex regional pain syndrome type 1, and vasculitis. Japan is one of the countries that has done extensive research on the various effects of acupuncture on immunological functions. Recently, we studied acupuncture's effect on leukocyte and lymphocyte subpopulations in human peripheral blood. Based on research data and other findings previously published in the literature, this article reviews the ascribed immunomodulation of acupuncture on the immune system, which includes activities of macrophages, neutrophils, natural killer cells, and lymphocytes, immunoglobulin production, and complement systems.
International collaborative papers are increasingly common in journals of many disciplines. These types of papers are often cited more frequently. To identify the coauthorship trends within Library and Information Science (LIS), this study analyzed 7,489 papers published in six leading publications (ARIST, IP&M, JAMIA, JASIST, MISQ, and Scientometrics) over the last three decades. Logistic regression tested the relationships between citations received and seven factors: authorship type, author's subregion, country income level, publication year, number of authors, document type, and journal title. The main authorship type since 1995 was national collaboration. It was also the dominant type for all publications studied except ARIST, and for all regions except Africa. For citation counts, the logistic regression analysis found all seven factors were significant. Papers that included international collaboration, Northern European authors, and authors in high-income nations had higher odds of being cited more. Papers from East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Southern Europe had lower odds than North American papers. As discussed in the bibliometric literature, Merton's Matthew Effect sheds light on the differential citation counts based on the authors' subregion. This researcher proposes geographies of invisible colleagues and a geographic scope effect to further investigate the relationships between author geographic affiliation and citation impact.
In this article we analyse how research on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) break through into one established
scientific arena, namely academic journals. With help from bibliometric methods we analyse publication of CAM articles, in
the Medline database, during the period 1966–2007. We also analyse the general content of the articles and in what journals
they get published. We conclude that the publication activity of CAM articles increases rapidly, especially in the late 1990s,
and that the changing growth rate is not due to the general expansion of Medline. The character of CAM articles has changed
towards more clinical oriented research, especially in subfields such as acupuncture and musculoskeletal manipulations. CAM
articles are found both in core clinical journals and in specialized CAM journals. Even though a substantial part of the articles
are published in CAM journals, we conclude that the increasing publication activity is not restricted to the expansion of
these specialized journals.
H-index distinguishes differences in scholarly output across faculty ranks in anaesthesiologists, but whether h-index also identifies differences in other aspects of productivity is unknown. We tested the hypothesis that h-index is an indicator of not only publication record, but also grant funding and mentoring in highly productive US academic anaesthesiologists.
We conducted an internet analysis of the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research Academy of Research Mentors in Anesthesiology (n = 43). Publications, citations, citations per publication, and h-index for each investigator were obtained using the Scopus(®) . Total grants, active grants, years of funding, and duration of longest funded grant were recorded using the US National Institutes of Health Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools(®) . Members were surveyed to identify the number of their career trainees and those who obtained independent funding.
The median [IRQ (Interquartile range)] h-index of members was 23 [17-32 (8-50)]. Members published 136 [100-225 (39-461)] papers with 3573 [1832-5090 (150-11,601)] citations and 21 [15-32 (4-59)] citations per publication. Members received four [3-7 (0-10)] grants and were funded for 29 [17-45 (0-115)] grant-years. Survey respondents (79%) mentored 40 [26-69 (15-191)] trainees, three [2-6 (0-20)] of which subsequently received funding. Members with h-indices greater than the median had more publications, citations, citations per publication, grants, and years of funding compared with their counterparts. H-index was associated with total citations, active grants, and the number of trainees.
In addition to publication record, h-index sensitively indicates grant funding and mentoring in highly productive US academic anaesthesiologists.
This randomised controlled trial evaluates the immediate effects of acupuncture as an add-on therapy in in-patient rehabilitation of children and adolescents with bronchial asthma.
In a pre-post design, the severity of symptoms, lung function, illness-specific quality of life (Paediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire - PAQLQ) and general and asthma-specific level of anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children - STAIC) were investigated in 46 acupuncture and 47 control patients. In addition to asthma sports, climate therapy and behavioural training, the intervention group received acupuncture treatment with a standardised needle pattern (12 × 30 min.).
With acupuncture, the peak expiratory flow variability differs significantly (p<0.01) from that of the control patients' group. Moreover, the acupuncture group differs significantly in their rehabilitation response at the time of discharge concerning perceived anxiety (STAIC-S). The lung function tests do not present differences between groups.
After additional acupuncture, amelioration of peak expiratory flow variability and anxiety can be shown, without any difference in objective lung function tests and quality of life between study groups. Further studies might evaluate the effects of acupuncture on childhood asthma in an outpatient setting.
Scientific contact lies at the heart of research and that between China and the U.K. is an important example of how it can come about. In 1911, when the Biochemical Society began, U.K. science was developing fast with profound discoveries in physics (the Rutherford atomic model) and biochemistry (the discovery of vitamins). In China, however, there was great social and political instability and a revolution. Since then, the turbulence of two world wars and a variety of deep global political tensions meant that the contacts between China and U.K. did not reflect the prodigious growth of biochemistry. There was, however, one particular and remarkable contact, that made by Joseph Needham, an outstanding biochemist. He visited China between 1943 and 1946, contacting many Chinese universities that were severely dislocated by war. Showing remarkable diplomatic abilities, Needham managed to arrange delivery of research and teaching equipment. His activities helped the universities to carry out their functions under near-impossible conditions and reminded them that they had friends abroad. Most remarkably, Joseph Needham developed an extraordinary grasp of Chinese culture, science and history and he opened the West to the extent and importance of Chinese science. Formal scientific and intellectual contacts between the scientific academic bodies in China and U.K., notably the Chinese Academy of Science and the Royal Society, resumed after British recognition of the Chinese Communist government in 1950. The delegations included outstanding scientists in biochemistry and related disciplines. Research activities, such as that concerning influenza, were soon established, whereas institutions, such as the Royal Society and the Wellcome Trust, acted a little later to support research. The outcomes have been long-term collaborations in such areas as insulin structure and function. There are now numerous joint activities in biochemistry and biomedicine supported by the MRC (Medical Research Council), BBSRC (Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council), NERC (Natural Environment Research Council), EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) and UKRC (UK Research Councils). The present contacts and the associated research are very considerable and growing. It is clear that biochemistry in both countries has much to offer each other, and there is every reason to believe that these contacts will continue to expand in the future.
To evaluate the effectiveness of acupuncture as a treatment for neurovascular headache and to analyze the current situation related to acupuncture treatment.
PubMed database (1966-2010), EMBASE database (1986-2010), Cochrane Library (Issue 1, 2010), Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (1979-2010), China HowNet Knowledge Database (1979-2010), VIP Journals Database (1989-2010), and Wanfang database (1998-2010) were retrieved. Randomized or quasi-randomized controlled studies were included. The priority was given to high-quality randomized, controlled trials. Statistical outcome indicators were measured using RevMan 5.0.20 software.
A total of 16 articles and 1 535 cases were included. Meta-analysis showed a significant difference between the acupuncture therapy and Western medicine therapy [combined RR (random efficacy model)=1.46, 95% CI (1.21, 1.75), Z=3.96, P<0.0001], indicating an obvious superior effect of the acupuncture therapy; significant difference also existed between the comprehensive acupuncture therapy and acupuncture therapy alone [combined RR (fixed efficacy model)=3.35, 95% CI (1.92, 5.82), Z=4.28, P<0.0001], indicating that acupuncture combined with other therapies, such as points injection, scalp acupuncture, auricular acupuncture, etc., were superior to the conventional body acupuncture therapy alone.
The inclusion of limited clinical studies had verified the efficacy of acupuncture in the treatment of neurovascular headache. Although acupuncture or its combined therapies provides certain advantages, most clinical studies are of small sample sizes. Large sample size, randomized, controlled trials are needed in the future for more definitive results.
The Latin American scientific community is becoming increasingly significant in many areas, particularly in the ceramic field because of its proximity to the processes of generation of infrastructure and housing demand in developing societies. The present study is devoted to determine the specific weight that each country, research institution and author have adquired. The thirty journals included in Journal Citation Reports, under the category “Materials Science, Ceramics” along 1997-2008 period, have been selected and articles from Latin America and Portugal, have been analyzed under a bibliometric approach. Thus, within the document type “Journal Article or Review” 1423 papers have been collected and studied from an institutional perspective; different bibliometric indicators (number of documents weighted impact factor, relative impact factor and the ratio between the number of citations and the number of documents) have been elaborated. Among the research centers showing a scientific highlight the most relevant is the University of Aveiro (Portugal) and the Universidade Federal de São Carlos (Brazil), followed by the Universidade Estadual Paulista and Universidade de São Paulo, both belonging to Brazil. The latter is also notable for its high weighted impact factor. Regarding publications, the Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids ranked first, by bringing together the 20.45% of scientific production in Latin America and Portugal published in the JCR (1423 items). However, if data from Spain were collected, the magazine Bulletin of the Spanish Society of Ceramics and Glass, it is the most relevant, taking into account the higher number of articles (524), that represents for 19.68% of total records founded (2663). It has also confirmed a remarkable international collaboration, mainly with Spain, France, Brazil, USA, England and Portugal, and highlighting the situation of the latter country, carrying out 49.11% of scientific production analyzed in international collaboration. Finally, it was found that the annual impact factor of scientific publications has been a growing trend in all countries and particularly, in Brazil.La comunidad científica latinoamericana viene adquiriendo progresivamente un peso significativo en numerosos ámbitos, y en particular en el cerámico, dada su cercanía a los procesos de generación de infraestructuras y vivienda que demandan las sociedades en desarrollo. Para estudiar su alcance dentro de la comunidad internacional, así como determinar el peso específico que ha adquirido cada país y entidad investigadora, se han seleccionado las treinta revistas incluidas en el Journal Citation Reports, dentro de la categoría “Materials Science, Ceramics”, analizándose, desde un punto de vista bibliométrico, los artículos procedentes de América Latina y Portugal durante el período 1997-2008. Dentro de la tipología documental “Journal Article o Review” y una vez eliminadas las duplicaciones, se encontraron 1423 documentos. Asimismo se han detallado, desde un punto de vista institucional, los diferentes indicadores bibliométricos (Número de Documentos, Factor de Impacto Ponderado, Factor de Impacto Relativo y ratio entre el Número de Citas y el Número de Documentos). Entre los centros de investigación que tienen una producción científica representativa destacan de forma sobresaliente la Universidad de Aveiro (Portugal) y la Universidade Federal de São Carlos (Brasil), y a continuación la Universidade Estadual Paulista y la Universidade de São Paulo, ambas también en Brasil. Esta última destaca también por su elevado Factor de Impacto Ponderado. En cuanto a las publicaciones, la revista Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids ocupa el primer lugar, al aglutinar el 20.45% de la producción científica de América Latina y Portugal publicada en el JCR (1423 artículos). No obstante, si se incluyen los datos relativos a España, recogidos por los autores en un trabajo previo, es la revista Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Cerámica y Vidrio, la que presenta un mayor número de artículos (524), que suponen el 19.68% del total de artículos encontrados (2663) y reflejan el peso determinante de las publicaciones españolas en el contexto cerámico iberoamericano. El Instituto de Cerámica y Vidrio del CSIC, es el centro iberoamericano con mayor producción científica, con 360 documentos. Asimismo, se ha confirmado una notable colaboración internacional, principalmente con España, Francia, Brasil, Estados Unidos, Inglaterra y Portugal, destacando la situación de este último país, que realiza el 49,11% de su producción científica analizada en colaboración internacional. Por último, se ha constatado que el Factor de Impacto Anual de las publicaciones científicas ha tenido una tendencia creciente en todos los países y, de manera especial, en Brasil.
In their article, entitled "Towards a new crown indicator: some theoretical considerations," Waltman et al. (2010; at arXiv:1003.2167) show that the "old crown indicator" of CWTS in Leiden was mathematically inconsistent and that one should move to the normalization as applied in the "new crown indicator." Although we now agree about the statistical normalization, the "new crown indicator" inherits the scientometric problems of the "old" one in treating subject categories of journals as a standard for normalizing differences in citation behavior among fields of science. We further note that the "mean" is not a proper statistics for measuring differences among skewed distributions. Without changing the acronym of "MNCS," one could define the "Median Normalized Citation Score." This would relate the new crown indicator directly to the percentile approach that is, for example, used in the Science and Engineering Indicators of US National Science Board (2010). The median is by definition equal to the 50th percentile. The indicator can thus easily be extended with the 1% (= 99th percentile) most highly-cited papers (Bornmann et al., in press). The seeming disadvantage of having to use non-parametric statistics is more than compensated by possible gains in the precision.
This study was designed to evaluate the global scientific output of acupuncture research in the Science Citation Index-Expanded and to assess the tendencies and research performances of leading countries/territories and institutes. Articles referring to acupuncture were assessed by distribution of document types, languages, journals, subject categories, source countries, and source institutes. Results showed that 15 languages were represented in articles from 65 countries/territories. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine published the most articles, followed by American Journal of Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture & Electro-Therapeutics Research which were listed in category of integrative & complementary medicine. In the study period of 1991-2009, USA was the top producing country, followed by China (mainland) with a sharply growth trend. In 2009, publication of China (mainland) ranked top one in the world. In addition, an acupuncture research trend was found in two phases in terms of the increase of number of SCI-expanded journals' articles. Among the acupuncture research, pain control has been the most prevalent direction of study, and brain imaging is attracting the most recent attention.
Ageing of publications, percentage of self-citations, and impact vary from journal to journal within fields of science. The assumption that citation and publication practices are homogenous within specialties and fields of science is invalid. Furthermore, the delineation of fields and among specialties is fuzzy. Institutional units of analysis and persons may move between fields or span different specialties. The match between the citation index and institutional profiles varies among institutional units and nations. The respective matches may heavily affect the representation of the units. Non-ISI journals are increasingly cornered into "transdisciplinary" Mode-2 functions with the exception of specialist journals publishing in languages other than English. An "externally cited impact factor" can be calculated for these journals. The citation impact of non-ISI journals will be demonstrated using Science and Public Policy as the example.
To study the clinical effificacy of electroacupuncture (EA) on treating knee osteoarthritis (KOA) of Shen ()-Sui () insuffificiency (SSI) syndrome type.
A total of 245 patients (279 knees) of KOA-SSI were randomly assigned to two groups by lottery: 141 knees in the treatment group and 138 knees in the control group. The treatment group was managed with EA at the dominant points of Neixiyan (Ex-LE4) and Waixiyan (Ex-LE5) as well as the conjugate points of Xuanzhong (GB39) and Taixi (KI3) for 30 min, once a day, with 15 days as one course; 2 courses were applied with a 5-day interval in between. The control group was treated with intra-articular injection of 2 mL hyaluronic acid into the affected joint every 7 days for 5 times in total. The clinical effects on the patients in different stages were observed, and their symptom scores of knee and contents of cytokines, including interleukin-1 (IL-1), interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), prostaglandin E(2alpha) (PGE(2alpha)) and matrix metalloproteinases-3 (MMP-3), in the knee joint fluid were measured before and after treatment.
The study was completed in 235 patients (263 knees); four patients (7 knees) in the treatment group and six patients (9 knees) in the control group dropped out. Comparison of therapeutic effects (excellent and effective rates) between the two groups showed insignificant differences (P>0.05). Symptom scores of knee and contents of cytokines in the knee flfluid after treatment were lowered signifificantly in the patients of stage I-III in both groups (P<0.05 or P<0.01). However, the lowering of the total symptom score of knee in the patients of stage III in the treatment group was more signifificant (P<0.05).
EA could effectively alleviate the clinical symptoms in KOA patients of stage III, showing an effect superior to that of hyaluronic acid. EA also shows action in suppressing the secretion of IL-1, IL-6, TNF-alpha, PGE(2alpha) and MMP-3 in the knee flfluid.
In general, allergic rhinitis can be divided into seasonal allergic rhinitis (SAR) and perennial allergic rhinitis (PAR). In the following sections a summary of efficacy and effectiveness studies is presented. For this narrative review we selected studies based on the following parameters: publication in English, sample size ≥30 patients, and at least 6 acupuncture sessions. Most studies aimed to evaluate the specific effects of acupuncture treatment. Only one study evaluated effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of additional acupuncture treatment. The studies which compared acupuncture with sham acupuncture always used a penetrating sham control. A medication control group was used in only two studies and one study combined acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine. This overview shows that the trials on efficacy and on effectiveness of acupuncture are very heterogeneous. Although penetrating sham controls were used predominantly, these also varied from superficial penetration at acupuncture points to superficial insertion at non-acupuncture points. Although there is some evidence that acupuncture as additional treatment is beneficial and relatively cost-effective, there is insufficient evidence for an acupuncture specific effect in SAR. In contrast, there is some evidence that acupuncture might have specific effects in patients with PAR. However, all of the published efficacy studies are small and conclusions should be made with care. Further studies with a larger sample size are urgently needed to draw more rigorous conclusions and the results of the ongoing trials will provide us with further information within the next two years.
The goal of this study was to determine whether acupuncture would relieve the vasomotor symptoms of post-menopausal women.
A randomized, single-blind trial.
A small city in a rural area of Eastern Oregon.
Women were recruited into the study from the community by advertising or physician referral. All study subjects were in non-surgical menopause and medically stable. Study subjects were randomly assigned to receive 12 weeks of treatment with either Chinese Traditional Medicine (TCM) acupuncture (n=27) or shallow needle (sham) acupuncture (n=24).
Study participants kept a diary recording their hot flashes each day. At baseline, study participants filled out Greene Climacteric Scales and the Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories. These same outcomes were also measured at week 4 of treatment and at 1 week and 12 weeks after treatment. The number of hot flashes and the numeric scores on the Climacteric Scales and the Beck inventories were compared between the verum and shallow needling groups using two-way repeated measures.
Both groups of women showed statistically significant improvement on all study parameters. However, there was no difference between the improvement in the shallow needle and verum acupuncture groups. Study subjects were not able to guess which group they had been assigned to.
This study showed that both shallow needling and verum acupuncture were effective treatments of post-menopausal vasomotor symptoms. Study subjects were not able to distinguish shallow needling from real TCM acupuncture. Shallow needling may have therapeutic effects in itself reducing its utility as a "placebo" control for verum acupuncture. This result is consistent with other published studies.
Acupuncture, an ancient traditional Chinese medical therapy, is used widely around the world. When practiced by a certified provider, it is safe and patients often find it calming and relaxing. Animal and human studies have found a physiologic basis for acupuncture needling in that it affects the complex central and peripheral neurohormonal network. Although it is unclear whether acupuncture is beneficial over sham/placebo acupuncture, acupuncture care yields clinically relevant short- and long-term benefits for low back pain, knee osteoarthritis, chronic neck pain, and headache. The integration of acupuncture into a primary care setting also appears to be cost-effective. The practice of acupuncture in primary care requires rigorous training, financial discipline, and good communication skills. When done correctly, acupuncture is beneficial for both patients and providers.
it is not known how acupuncture is used in midwifery care in Sweden and what kind of requirements health-care providers have for midwives and acupuncture training programmes. The aims of this study were to survey indications for the use of acupuncture in midwifery care in Sweden, and to examine the criteria and requirements used for purchase of acupuncture education programmes.
a postal survey using a structured questionnaire.
45 maternity units in Sweden.
the midwife-in-charge of the units.
the most common indications for the use of acupuncture were relaxation, pain relief, retained placenta, after pains, milk stasis during lactation, hyperemesis and pelvic instability. Specific requirement for acupuncture education were provision of a short course during weekdays including a follow-up course.
acupuncture is widely used for many indications in Swedish maternity units despite weak or no evidence to support effectiveness in midwifery care. Requirements for acupuncture education did not seem to be in accordance with what might be expected for this type of qualified intervention.
the use of acupuncture in midwifery care should not persist until systematic evaluation of the effect of this method is carried through.
To systematically review Chinese literature on the effectiveness of acupuncture for treating patients with spinal cord injury (SCI).
The Chinese electronic databases (China National Knowledge Infrastructure) were searched from their inceptions to May 2008.
Trials reporting randomized controlled trials (RCTs) where patients with SCI (with or without operation) were treated with acupuncture including electroacupuncture.
Methodological quality was assessed with the PEDro scale. Discrepancies were resolved through discussions and arbitration by two co-authors.
The searches identified 236 potentially relevant studies, of which 7 RCTs met the inclusion criteria. Five studies assessed functional recovery, and two bladder dysfunction. All the studies reported favourable effects of acupuncture on functional recovery or urinary function; however methodological quality of studies is poor in general. Meanwhile, pooled analysis of two trials assessing bladder dysfunction showed positive effectiveness compared with conventional treatment (n = 128, RR 1.51 [1.21, 1.90], P = 0.0004, heterogeneity Tau(2) < 0.01, Chi(2) = 0.01, P = 0.94, I(2) = 0%).
Based on 7 RCTs done in China, the effectiveness of acupuncture for functional recovery and bladder dysfunction in SCI is suggestive. With the methodological quality of the included studies on functional recovery and the small number of studies on bladder dysfunction taken into consideration, further rigorous studies prove needed.
To evaluate the utilization, financial costs, and benefits of incorporating acupuncture into a university-based family medicine center.
Retrospective billing records review.
An academic family medicine center located within a university-based medical center.
The entire population of consecutive patients seen in an acupuncture clinic from April, 2002 through October, 2006.
Patient characteristics, number and types of visits, and charges and collections.
Analysis of de-identified, electronic billing records.
During the 4(1/2)-year study period, 788 unique patients were seen, accounting for a total of 4953 visits. The most common clinical conditions treated were back pain, headache, and neck pain. Mean charge and collection per visit was $82 and $53, respectively. Mean annual clinic revenues and expenses were $58,653 and $74,223, respectively.
The authors' experience with an acupuncture clinic within an academic medical center has been generally positive, but we have not been able to turn a profit within the first 4(1/2) years of operation. Advantages of including physician-acupuncturists include improved patient access to third-party payers for clinical services, and possibly better acceptance by physician colleagues and the larger medical center system. Physician-acupuncturists, however, tend to have higher salary and liability costs associated with their services. Incorporating licensed acupuncturists allows for improved access to patients as well as lower operating expenses. We postulate that patients are generally more willing to pay cash for acupuncture services provided by a licensed acupuncturist compared to a physician, whose services are generally expected to be covered by medical insurance. Our findings suggest that incorporating acupuncture into existing medical practices may benefit patients, providers, the clinic as a whole, and the larger community, but the profit margin associated with providing acupuncture in these settings is likely to be negative or slim.
To examine the extent to which research supports the use of acupuncture in treating insomnia, a systematic review was conducted that included not only clinical trials, but also case series in both English and Chinese literature. Thirty studies were included in the review, 93% of which showed positive treatment effects of acupuncture in improving various aspects of sleep. Although acupuncture has been demonstrated to be safe and holds great potential to be an effective treatment modality for insomnia, the evidence is limited by the quality of these studies and mixed results from those with sham (or unreal treatment) controls. Of the thirty studies, twelve were clinical trials with only three double-blinded. Only five used sham controls, and of these, four showed statistically significant differences favoring real treatments; however, none evaluated the adequacy of sham assignment. Three studies used actigraphy or polysomnography as objective outcome measures. The considerable heterogeneity of acupuncture techniques and acupoint selections among all studies made the results difficult to compare and integrate. High-quality randomized clinical trials of acupuncture in treating insomnia, with proper sham and blinding procedures will be required in the future. This review highlights aspects of acupuncture treatments important to guide future research and clinical practice.
In our previous study we demonstrated that acupuncture at Shenmen (HT7) points suppressed a decrease of accumbal dopamine (DA) release in ethanol-withdrawn rats. Furthermore, here we found that it inhibited behavioral withdrawal signs of ethanol. In an effort to better understand the mechanisms underlying this inhibition, the potential role of GABA receptor system in acupuncture was investigated. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were treated with 3g/kg/day of ethanol (20%, w/v) or saline by intraperitoneal injection for 21 days. Following 48 or 72h of ethanol withdrawal, acupuncture was applied at bilateral HT7 for 1min. The selective GABA(A) antagonist bicuculline and the selective GABA(B) antagonist SCH 50911 were injected intraperitoneally 20min before acupuncture, respectively. Importantly, suppressive effects of acupuncture on DA deficiency were completely abolished by SCH 50911, but not by bicuculline, whereas ameliorating effects of acupuncture on ethanol withdrawal syndrome were completely blocked either by SCH 50911 or bicuculline. These results suggest that acupuncture at specific acupoint HT7 may normalize the DA release in the mesolimbic system and attenuate withdrawal syndrome through the GABA(B) receptor system in ethanol-withdrawn rats.
We report two patients who presented to the emergency department with pneumothorax related to acupuncture. The first patient developed pleuritic chest pain and shortness of breath while undergoing acupuncture therapy, and the second patient developed similar symptoms 10 min after acupuncture therapy. Neither patient had a previous history of pneumothorax, and both were undergoing acupuncture along the spine, paraspinal region, and shoulders. A review of the literature follows.
Traditionally, acupuncture is embedded in naturalistic theories that are compatible with Confucianism and Taoism. Such ideas as yin-yang, qi, dampness, and wind represent East Asian conceptual frameworks that emphasize the reliability of ordinary, human sensory awareness. Many physicians who practice acupuncture reject such prescientific notions. Numerous randomized, controlled trials and more than 25 systematic reviews and meta-analyses have evaluated the clinical efficacy of acupuncture. Evidence from these trials indicates that acupuncture is effective for emesis developing after surgery or chemotherapy in adults and for nausea associated with pregnancy. Good evidence exists that acupuncture is also effective for relieving dental pain. For such conditions as chronic pain, back pain, and headache, the data are equivocal or contradictory. Clinical research on acupuncture poses unique methodologic challenges. Properly performed acupuncture seems to be a safe procedure. Basic-science research provides evidence that begins to offer plausible mechanisms for the presumed physiologic effects of acupuncture. Multiple research approaches have shown that acupuncture activates endogenous opioid mechanisms. Recent data, obtained by using functional magnetic resonance imaging, suggest that acupuncture has regionally specific, quantifiable effects on relevant brain structures. Acupuncture may stimulate gene expression of neuropeptides. The training and provision of acupuncture care in the United States are rapidly expanding.