scholarly journals Evolution of research in biomedical sciences - a network-based characterization based on PubMed

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karla Friedrichs ◽  
Michael Spranger ◽  
Sucheendra K. Palaniappan

AbstractThe rapid growth of scientific publications every year makes it infeasible to keep pace with and survey manually, even for a specific field. Keeping up with literature and gaining a birds-eye view in a timely manner is crucial to the pursuit of scientific discovery and innovation. To help gain a clearer understanding of the state and progress of science and the nature of discovery, one can encode key information from these publications and represent them as a network. Observations on the structural evolution of these graphs can offer valuable insights on the dynamics at play. This work describes the construction and analyses the temporal evolution of a knowledge network of keywords (specifically focusing on genes/proteins, diseases and chemicals) from publications in the biomedical sciences domain. We compare and contrast the representations and evolution of these keyword networks types and find significant differences in the network growth, largely corresponding to our intuition. Furthermore, we focus on the formation and evolution of new links, which we argue corresponds to new scientific discoveries. Our findings suggest that these links are progressively formed in short network distance, leading to clusters of extensively studied keywords. This strategy, however, seems to impede ground-breaking innovation, which could be beneficial for research progress.

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose Antonio Belso-Martinez ◽  
Isabel Diez-Vial

Purpose This paper aims to explain how the evolution of knowledge networks and firms’ strategic choices affect innovation. Endogenous factors associated with a path-dependent evolution of the knowledge network are jointly considered with a firm’s development of international relationships and increasing internal absorptive capacity over time. Design/methodology/approach In a biotech cluster, the authors gathered data on the firms’ characteristics and network relationships by asking about the technological knowledge they received in the cluster in 2007 and 2012 – “roster-recall” method. Estimation results were obtained using moderated regression analysis. Findings Firms that increase their involvement in knowledge networks over time also tend to increase their innovative capacity. However, efforts devoted to building international links or absorptive capacity negatively moderate the impact of network growth on innovation. Practical implications Practitioners have two alternative ways of increasing innovation inside knowledge networks: they can increase their centrality by developing their knowledge network interactions or invest in developing their internal absorptive capacity and new international sources of knowledge. Investing in both of these simultaneously does not seem to improve a firm’s innovative capacity. Originality/value Coupling firms’ strategic options with knowledge network dynamics provide a more complete way of explaining how firms can improve their innovative capacity.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keng Yang ◽  
Yekang Hu ◽  
Hanying Qi

BACKGROUND Digital health is growing at a rapid pace, and digital health literacy has tremendous potential to promote health outcomes, bridge the digital divide, and improve health inequalities. OBJECTIVE The purposes of this study are to conduct a systematic bibliometric analysis on the field of dig-ital health literacy and to understand the research context and trends in this field. METHODS A total of 1,955 scientific publications were collected from the Web of Science (WoS) core col-lection. Institutional cooperation, journal co-citation, theme bursting, keyword co-occurrence, author cooperation, author co-citation, literature co-citation and references in the field of digi-tal health literacy were analyzed using the VOSviewer and CiteSpace knowledge mapping tools. RESULTS The results demonstrated that the United States was the leader in number of publications and citations in this field. The University of California System was first in terms of institutional contributions. The Journal of Medical Internet Research led in number of publications, cita-tions and co-citations. Research areas in the field of digital health literacy mainly include the definition and scale of health literacy, health literacy and health outcomes, health literacy and the digital divide, and the influencing factors of health literacy. CONCLUSIONS We summarize research progress in the field of digital health literacy and reveal the context, trends, and trending topics of digital health literacy research through statistical analysis and network visualization. Our work can serve as a fundamental reference and directional guide for future research in this field.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 2015-2061 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Boy ◽  
Erik S. Thomson ◽  
Juan-C. Acosta Navarro ◽  
Olafur Arnalds ◽  
Ekaterina Batchvarova ◽  
...  

Abstract. The Nordic Centre of Excellence CRAICC (Cryosphere–Atmosphere Interactions in a Changing Arctic Climate), funded by NordForsk in the years 2011–2016, is the largest joint Nordic research and innovation initiative to date, aiming to strengthen research and innovation regarding climate change issues in the Nordic region. CRAICC gathered more than 100 scientists from all Nordic countries in a virtual centre with the objectives of identifying and quantifying the major processes controlling Arctic warming and related feedback mechanisms, outlining strategies to mitigate Arctic warming, and developing Nordic Earth system modelling with a focus on short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs), including natural and anthropogenic aerosols. The outcome of CRAICC is reflected in more than 150 peer-reviewed scientific publications, most of which are in the CRAICC special issue of the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. This paper presents an overview of the main scientific topics investigated in the centre and provides the reader with a state-of-the-art comprehensive summary of what has been achieved in CRAICC with links to the particular publications for further detail. Faced with a vast amount of scientific discovery, we do not claim to completely summarize the results from CRAICC within this paper, but rather concentrate here on the main results which are related to feedback loops in climate change–cryosphere interactions that affect Arctic amplification.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 465-489
Author(s):  
Christi J. Guerrini ◽  
Jorge L. Contreras

Citizen science encompasses activities with scientific objectives in which members of the public participate as more than passive research subjects from whom personal data or biospecimens are collected and analyzed by others. Citizen science is increasingly common in the biomedical sciences, including the fields of genetics and human genomics. Genomic citizen science initiatives are diverse and involve citizen scientists in collecting genetic data, solving genetic puzzles, and conducting experiments in community laboratories. At the same time that genomic citizen science is presenting new opportunities for individuals to participate in scientific discovery, it is also challenging norms regarding the manner in which scientific research outputs are managed. In this review, we present a typology of genomic citizen science initiatives, describe ethical and legal foundations for recognizing genomic citizen scientists’ claims of credit for and control of research outputs, and detail how such claims are or might be addressed in practice across a variety of initiatives.


2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (34) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joao Ricardo Nickenig Vissoci ◽  
Aline Chotte de Oliveira ◽  
Nelly Moraes Gil ◽  
Paulo Calvo ◽  
Ney Stival ◽  
...  

Background: Quantity, quality, and impact of scientific publications are used to assess national, institutional, and individual levels of research productivity. While the importance of quality research is stressed among the medical research community, minimal research has been conducted on analyzing which factors affect research productivity. Current literature assesses the quality of research institutions rather than that of individual researchers; there is also no research on the difference between high-impact researchers and other researchers. This study, conducted in 2015, sought to investigate the underlying reason for high-throughput authors' success by understanding their similar habits and motivations leading to high productivity. Methods: The authors conducted a qualitative study via interviews of high-throughput researchers from around the world. Semi-structured interview scripts guided the interviews in accordance to the grounded theory method for qualitative studies. Broad themes from preliminary interviews were identified and explored in subsequent interviews. Results: Qualitative analysis of participant interviews identified eight major themes: “Writing habits,” “Writing strategy,” “Previous training and writing experience,” “Major driver,” “Balancing volume and impact of publications,” “Ideal and non-ideal conditions,” “Timelines,” and “Role of networking on high-throughput productivity.” These themes are not exclusive nor required qualities of high-throughput researchers but highlight similarities and broadly unifying characteristics of these researchers. Conclusion:This study identified the common qualities and attitudes of high-throughput researchers. We found common factors in most individuals that can be considered markers of high productivity.


2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 4656 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Pohle ◽  
Knut Blind ◽  
Dmitry Neustroev

Management standards serve as an effective knowledge diffusion channel, considering that they offer comprehensive scientific and practical knowledge for many different stakeholders. This research aims to study the potential of management standards to diffuse knowledge, especially within the scientific community. Therefore, it analyzes the relationship between management standards and the academic literature. It focuses on international management standards, namely ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 and their ‘European counterparts’ EMAS and the EFQM Excellence model. We tested whether scientific publications, which address these international and European management standards, are more likely to lead to follow-up research than comparable scientific publications measured by the impact on average forward citations. Hence, we applied a negative binominal regression model on bibliometric data. Findings show that publications addressing ISO 14001 alone or in combination with other standards lead to higher average forward citations than the comparison group. In conclusion, international management standards foster the academic research progress of the topics addressed by the respective standard. Our research implies the importance of monitoring standards for the scientific community and suggests Standard Setting Organizations to foster actively the research progress.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Perry Zurn ◽  
Danielle S. Bassett

AbstractHuman personality is reflected in patterns—or networks—of behavior, either in thought or action. Curiosity is an oft-treasured component of one’s personality, commonly associated with information-seeking proclivities with distinct neurophysiological correlates. The markers of curiosity can differ substantially across people, suggesting the possibility that personality also determines the architectural style of one’s curiosity. Yet progress in defining those styles, and marking their neurophysiological basis, has been hampered by fairly fundamental difficulties in defining curiosity itself. Here, we offer and exercise a definition of the practice of curiosity as knowledge network building, one particular pattern of thought behavior. To unpack this definition and motivate its utility, we begin with a short primer on network science and describe how the mathematical object of a network can be used to map items and relations that are characteristic of bodies of knowledge. Next, we turn to a discussion of how networks grow, how their growth can be modeled, and how the practice of curiosity can be formalized as a process of network growth. We pay particular attention to how individuals may differ in how they build their knowledge networks, and discuss how the sort, manner, and action of building can be modulated by experience. We discuss how this definition of the practice of curiosity motivates new experiments and theory development at the interdisciplinary intersection of network science, personality neuroscience, education, and curiosity studies. We close with a note on the potential of network science to inform studies of other domains of personality, and the patterns of thought– or action–behavior characteristic thereof.


foresight ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 229-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
James K.C. Chen ◽  
Van Kien Pham

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine the development and knowledge flows of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) via the use of patent inventor database. Moreover, this study aims to explore patentees and inventors’ companies to help readers and practitioners to be able to understand the patentees, technology development and activities of knowledge flows from four countries. DSSCs, which are known as one of the key technologies of green energy, have been applied ever more widely to many different industries, and their use has quickly grown with a number of scientific publications and patent applications. Design/methodology/approach – This paper was based on the US patent database collection of third-generation DSSCs in four typical countries such as USA, Japan, Germany and Taiwan to map the knowledge network of DSSC technology via the social network analysis method. Findings – The knowledge network of 132 DSSC patents was explored. Among the four countries, Japan leads, with the main patent number being H01G009. This paper also indicates the knowledge flow situation of Japanese inventors of DSSCs. For example, patented inventors Wariishi and Koji (JP) served the Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd. (JP) in 2002, and then in 2008, transferred to the Fuji Film Corporation (JP). This means that the knowledge of technology was transferred by people who moved to another company for a new job. Research limitations/implications – This study is based on US Patent and Trademark Office patent database to do exploration. Practical implications – This study was expected to provide information for the industry, government and academia, so that they will understand the trajectory of the technology inventor, specialist cultivation and technology development in the DSSC industry. Originality/value – This study provides useful information for the green energy industry, government and academia to understand the importance of the knowledge flows and future development of DSSC technology of the solar cell industry. Thereby, they can intensify industrial competence and innovation by externally collaborating in this field as well as to increase the industrial competence by reimbursing the funds from government and other research institutes.


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