Assessment of knowledge, attitude, and practices of research among faculties in medical college

Medical research aims to advance knowledge, skills, and professionalism. Lack of research could lead to the demise of the profession as a viable discipline. Research orientation is a concept that incorporates four subscales and provides insight into faculties' overall perception of research. To assess the knowledge, attitude, and practices regarding research and to identify barriers for research among medical faculty. Our study is a questionnaire-based cross-sectional study covering 110 faculties of medical college. Data collection was done through the Edmonton research orientation survey (EROS), a pre-validated tool. EROS questionnaire consists of 50 questions in two sections –the first section containing demographic variables (12 questions) and the second section (consist of 38 items) asks the respondents to rate on a five-point Likert’s scale. A high response rate (90.9%) was achieved. Sixty-five percent of respondents achieved an overall medium EROS score and 33% of respondents achieved a high EROS score (mean Eros score 132.3+21.7) indicating high research orientation. Respondents showed high subscale scores: valuing research (63%) and being at the leading edge of the profession (66%). While involvement in research (47%) and evidence-based practice (53%) scored lower. The study highlighted important barriers like lack of time, skills and support. The results suggest that although faculties value research they engage less in carrying out and applying research. The positive research orientation provides an opportunity for the profession to use the available potential to increase research output.

Research Trends and Hotspots of Q Fever Research: A Bibliometric Analysis 1990-2019

Q fever is a worldwide distributed zoonosis caused by Coxiella burnetii, a Gram-negative bacterium. Despite existence of large amount of research data on the developments related to Q fever, no bibliometric analysis of this subject is available to our knowledge. Bibliometric studies are an essential resource to track scholarly trends and research output in a subject. This study is aimed at reporting a bibliometric analysis of publications related to Q fever (2,840 articles published in the period 1990-2019) retrieved from Science Citation Index Expanded, an online database of Clarivate Analytics Web of Science Core Collection. Data was retrieved using keywords “Q fever” or “Coxiella burnetii” in title, abstract, and author keywords to describe important research indicators such as the kind and language of articles, the most important publications, research journals and categories, authors, institutions, and the countries having the most significant contribution to this subject. Finally, the emerging areas in field of diagnosis, host range, and clinical presentation were identified. Word cluster analysis of research related to Q fever revealed that major focus of research has been on zoonosis, seroprevalence, laboratory diagnosis (mainly using ELISA and PCR), clinical manifestations (abortion and endocarditis), vectors (ticks), and hosts (sheep, goat, and cattle). This bibliometric study is intended to visualize the existing research landscape and future trends in Q fever to assist in future knowledge exchange and research collaborations.

Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Non-cardiac Vascular Diseases: A Bibliographic Analysis

Research output related to artificial intelligence (AI) in vascular diseases has been poorly investigated. The aim of this study was to evaluate scientific publications on AI in non-cardiac vascular diseases. A systematic literature search was conducted using the PubMed database and a combination of keywords and focused on three main vascular diseases (carotid, aortic and peripheral artery diseases). Original articles written in English and published between January 1995 and December 2020 were included. Data extracted included the date of publication, the journal, the identity, number, affiliated country of authors, the topics of research, and the fields of AI. Among 171 articles included, the three most productive countries were USA, China, and United Kingdom. The fields developed within AI included: machine learning (n = 90; 45.0%), vision (n = 45; 22.5%), robotics (n = 42; 21.0%), expert system (n = 15; 7.5%), and natural language processing (n = 8; 4.0%). The applications were mainly new tools for: the treatment (n = 52; 29.1%), prognosis (n = 45; 25.1%), the diagnosis and classification of vascular diseases (n = 38; 21.2%), and imaging segmentation (n = 38; 21.2%). By identifying the main techniques and applications, this study also pointed to the current limitations and may help to better foresee future applications for clinical practice.

Cancer Research in the Time of COVID-19: A Colombian Narrative

Cancer research is deficient in Colombia and efforts and resources diverted due to the COVID-19 pandemic could worsen the situation. We explore the impact of the pandemic on cancer research funding, output, and conduct. We sought information at national level and used the experience of an academic reference center to contrast the impact at institutional level. We searched databases and official documents of national governmental institutions, trial registries, hospital registries, and the Web of Science. We interviewed principal investigators (PIs) to retrieve information on the conduct of cancer research. A decline in resource availability and new proposals was observed at the national level with a shift to COVID-19 related research. However, at institutional level there was no decline in the number of cancer research proposals. The predominance of observational studies as opposed to the preponderance of clinical trials and basic science in high-income countries may be related to the lower impact at institutional level. Nevertheless, we found difficulties similar to previous reports for conducting research during the pandemic. PIs reported long recovery times and a great impact on research other than clinical trials, such as observational and qualitative studies. No significant impact on research output was observed. Alternatives to ensure research continuity such as telemedicine and remote data collection have scarcely been implemented given limited access and low technology literacy. In this middle-income setting the situation shows a notable dependency of international collaborations to develop research on COVID-19 and cancer and to overcome challenges for cancer research during the pandemic.

Enhancing Research Mechanisms and Institutional Processes in Malaysia: A Case Study of Universiti Malaya (UM)

Malaysia’s research and development landscape has grown tremendously over the last decade. The growth of scholarly output in Malaysia has also risen significantly compared to countries such as China, Singapore and Australia. Malaysia has made it a target that research output and quality will increase through an expenditure of 1.3% of the GDP allocated to Research and Development (R&D). Thus far, Malaysia has achieved phenomenal growth within the research sector, with a four-fold increase in the number of citations and has generated approximately RM1.25 billion through 11% yearly growth in the number of patents from Malaysian Universities. This case study aims to provide, firstly, an overview of research governance in Malaysia, and secondly, a discussion of research governance practices at Universiti Malaya (UM). Data is obtained from the 11th Malaysian Plan (2016-2020) and linked to the Malaysian Transformation Program. The Malaysian Education Blueprint for Higher Education (2015-2025) launched in 2015 also outlined a comprehensive transformation for research in higher education programmes. In addition, other published documents on research governance practices by agencies providing research funding were also reviewed. This case study highlights best practices in research management and governance to strengthen and further enhance the current research management and governance in support of the Malaysian government’s initiative towards achieving a high-income nation status.

Negative grey relational model and measurement of the reverse incentive effect of fields medal

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to construct some negative grey relational analysis models to measure the relationship between reverse sequences.Design/methodology/approachThe definition of reverse sequence has been given at first based on analysis of relative position and change trend of sequences. Then, several different negative grey relational analysis models, such as the negative grey similarity relational analysis model, the negative grey absolute relational analysis model, the negative grey relative relational analysis model, the negative grey comprehensive relational analysis model and the negative Deng’s grey relational analysis model have been put forward based on the corresponding common grey relational analysis models. The properties of the new models have been studied.FindingsThe negative grey relational analysis models proposed in this paper can solve the problem of relationship measurement of reverse sequences effectively. All the new negative grey relational degree satisfying the requirements of normalization and reversibility.Practical implicationsThe proposed negative grey relational analysis models can be used to measure the relationship between reverse sequences. As a living example, the reverse incentive effect of winning Fields Medal on the research output of winners is measured based on the research output data of the medalists and the contenders using the proposed negative grey relational analysis model.Originality/valueThe definition of reverse sequence and the negative grey similarity relational analysis model, the negative grey absolute relational analysis model, the negative grey relative relational analysis model, the negative grey comprehensive relational analysis model and the negative Deng’s grey relational analysis model are first proposed in this paper.

Multimorbidity in the Elderly: A Systematic Bibliometric Analysis of Research Output

Objective: This study aimed to analyze the progression and trends of multimorbidity in the elderly in China and internationally from a bibliometric perspective, and compare their differences on hotspots and research fronts. Methods: Publications between January 2001 and August 2021 were retrieved from WOS and CNKI databases. Endnote 20 and VOSviewer 1.6.8 were used to summarize bibliometric features, including publication years, journals, and keywords, and the co-occurrence map of countries, institutions, and keywords was drawn. Results: 3857 research papers in English and 664 research papers in Chinese were included in this study. The development trends of multimorbidity in the elderly are fully synchronized in China and other countries. They were divided into germination period, development period, and prosperity period. Research literature in English was found to be mainly focused on public health, and the IF of the literature is high; In China, however, most research papers are in general medicine and geriatrics with fewer core journals. Co-occurrence analysis based on countries and institutions showed that the most productive areas were the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, while the Chinese researchers have made little contribution. The clustering analysis of high-frequency keywords in China and around the globe shows that the hotspots have shifted from individual multimorbidity to group multimorbidity management. Sorting out the top 10 highly cited articles and highly cited authors, Barnett, K’s article published in Lancet in 2012 is regarded as a milestone in the field. Conclusion: Multimorbidity in the elderly leads to more attention in the world. Although China lags behind global research the research fronts from disease-centered to patient-centered, and individual management to population management is consistent.

Citation Trend of Indian Physics and Astronomy Research during 2005 2020 through the Lens of Some New Indicators

The indicator Citation Swing Factor (CSF) has recently been developed to quantitatively measure the diffusion process from h-core zone to h-core excess zone. This paper calculated CSF for Indian physics and astronomy research output appeared in selective Indian journals since 2005 to 2020. The theoretical values of CSF are also calculated on the basis of its fundamental equation and same was compared it with the respective observed values. The average error over entire time span is found 2.26 per cent indicating close proximity between theoretically expected and practically observed values. Besides, three other scientometric indicators are introduced here, viz. Time-Normalised Total Cited Ratio (TC), Time-Normalised Cited Uncited Ratio (CU) and Time-Normalised Total Uncited Ratio (TU). Of these four indicators, the variation of TC is highest (1.76), followed by TU (0.53), CU (0.37) and CSF(E) (0.09), as evident from the values of respective Coefficients of Variations. The numerical values of these indicators are found out for the same sample and the temporal variations along with their mutual interrelationships are determined by regression analysis. It is observed that the three indicators, TC, CU and TU are mutually interrelated through the following linear regression equations, i.e. TC = -0.76 + 1.88*TU and CU = -0.201 + 0.34*TU.

Research Output of University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka during 2000 2019

Universities play a vital role in the research and development of a country. A scientometric analysis is an essential tool used by the administrators, funding agencies, government, and researchers to know the publication trend on a topic, institution, author, journal, etc. This study analyses pattern of articles published by the University of Jaffna (UoJ) during 2000-2019; identifies publication growth rate, most prolific authors and their citation impact, communication pattern in terms of type of documents, journal publishing country and impact factor of these journals and also the international collaboration. Analysis of the data indicates, there are 293 articles were published in WOS indexed journals. The publication growth rate indicates that there is a consistent growth in the number of publications after 2014. It was found that multi-authorship dominates among UoJ researchers. A high number of publications were on Multidisciplinary Sciences. The UoJ collaborated with different countries; among them 59 articles were published with United Kingdom. Among the highly cited top 10 publications, an article authored by Ravirajan P received a high number of citations of 480. Among the funding agencies National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka funded for 24 publications, while UoJ funded for 16 and among the international funding agencies UK Research Innovation (UKRI) funded for 7 publications during the study period.