The Impact of National Institutes of Health Funding on U.S. Cardiovascular Disease Research

Background

Intense interest surrounds the recent expansion of US National Institutes of Health (NIH) budgets as part of economic stimulus legislation. However, the relationship between NIH funding and cardiovascular disease research is poorly understood, making the likely impact of this policy change unclear.

Methods

The National Library of Medicine''s PubMed database was searched for articles published from 1996 to 2006, originating from U.S. institutions, and containing the phrases “cardiolog,” “cardiovascular,” or “cardiac,” in the first author''s department. Research methodology, journal of publication, journal impact factor, and receipt of NIH funding were recorded. Differences in means and trends were tested with t-tests and linear regression, respectively, with P≤0.05 for significance.

Results

Of 117,643 world cardiovascular articles, 36,684 (31.2%) originated from the U.S., of which 10,293 (28.1%) received NIH funding. The NIH funded 40.1% of U.S. basic science articles, 20.3% of overall clinical trials, 18.1% of randomized-controlled, and 12.2% of multicenter clinical trials. NIH-funded and total articles grew significantly (65 articles/year, P<0.001 and 218 articles/year, P<0.001, respectively). The proportion of articles receiving NIH funding was stable, but grew significantly for basic science and clinical trials (0.87%/year, P<0.001 and 0.67%/year, P = 0.029, respectively). NIH-funded articles had greater journal impact factors than non NIH-funded articles (5.76 vs. 3.71, P<0.001).

Conclusions

NIH influence on U.S. cardiovascular research expanded in the past decade, during the period of NIH budget doubling. A substantial fraction of research is now directly funded and thus likely sensitive to budget fluctuations, particularly in basic science research. NIH funding predicts greater journal impact.     

2000～2005年《生物化学与生物物理进展》载文被引分析

依据美国《科学引文索引(扩展版)》(ScienceCitationIndexExpanded,SCIE)和期刊引证报告(JournalCitationReports,JCR),采用文献计量方法对2000～2005年《生物化学与生物物理进展》载文被引用情况进行统计分析及评价.该刊论文平均单篇被引次数为1.70次,被引作者分布于国内23个省(直辖市)和部分国外作者,北京、湖南和广东发表在《生物化学与生物物理进展》上的论文被引比率较高.在被引机构中来自中南大学湘雅医学院的论文被引频次最高.共有115种期刊引用《生物化学与生物物理进展》.     

Increased recognition of the NHJ: go for the impact factor

Since its birth on 1 April 2001, several attempts have been made to achieve international recognition for the Netherlands Heart Journal. Over the past years, five major steps were taken. In the year 2005, the NHJ was accepted in EMBASE, in 2006 the NHJ became listed in PubMed Central, in 2007 the NHJ became cited in PubMed, and in 2008 indexed in the Web of Science (WOS). The NHJ articles published in 2007 and 2008 can be found in the various library digital archives (172 articles in PubMed, December 2008).     

Assessment of transparency indicators across the biomedical literature: How open is open?

Recent concerns about the reproducibility of science have led to several calls for more open and transparent research practices and for the monitoring of potential improvements over time. However, with tens of thousands of new biomedical articles published per week, manually mapping and monitoring changes in transparency is unrealistic. We present an open-source, automated approach to identify 5 indicators of transparency (data sharing, code sharing, conflicts of interest disclosures, funding disclosures, and protocol registration) and apply it across the entire open access biomedical literature of 2.75 million articles on PubMed Central (PMC). Our results indicate remarkable improvements in some (e.g., conflict of interest [COI] disclosures and funding disclosures), but not other (e.g., protocol registration and code sharing) areas of transparency over time, and map transparency across fields of science, countries, journals, and publishers. This work has enabled the creation of a large, integrated, and openly available database to expedite further efforts to monitor, understand, and promote transparency and reproducibility in science.

This study uses novel open source automated tools to monitor transparency across all 2.75 million open access articles on PubMed Central, discovering that different disciplines, journals and publishers abide by principles of transparency to varying degrees over time.     

Impact beyond the impact factor

The journal impact factor is an annually calculated number for each scientific journal, based on the average number of times its articles published in the two preceding years have been cited. It was originally devised as a tool for librarians and publishers to provide information about the citation performance of a journal as a whole, but over the last few decades it has increasingly been used to assess the quality of specific articles and the research performance of individual investigators, institutions, and countries. In addition to this clear abuse of the journal impact factor, several conceptual and technical issues limit its usability as a measure of journal reputation, especially when journals are compared across different fields. An author’s decision regarding the suitability of a scholarly journal for publication should, therefore, be based on the impact that this journal makes in the field of research, rather than on the journal impact factor.     

A Comprehensive Survey of Retracted Articles from the Scholarly Literature

Background

The number of retracted scholarly articles has risen precipitously in recent years. Past surveys of the retracted literature each limited their scope to articles in PubMed, though many retracted articles are not indexed in PubMed. To understand the scope and characteristics of retracted articles across the full spectrum of scholarly disciplines, we surveyed 42 of the largest bibliographic databases for major scholarly fields and publisher websites to identify retracted articles. This study examines various trends among them.

Results

We found, 4,449 scholarly publications retracted from 1928–2011. Unlike Math, Physics, Engineering and Social Sciences, the percentages of retractions in Medicine, Life Science and Chemistry exceeded their percentages among Web of Science (WoS) records. Retractions due to alleged publishing misconduct (47%) outnumbered those due to alleged research misconduct (20%) or questionable data/interpretations (42%). This total exceeds 100% since multiple justifications were listed in some retraction notices. Retraction/WoS record ratios vary among author affiliation countries. Though widespread, only miniscule percentages of publications for individual years, countries, journals, or disciplines have been retracted. Fifteen prolific individuals accounted for more than half of all retractions due to alleged research misconduct, and strongly influenced all retraction characteristics. The number of articles retracted per year increased by a factor of 19.06 from 2001 to 2010, though excluding repeat offenders and adjusting for growth of the published literature decreases it to a factor of 11.36.

Conclusions

Retracted articles occur across the full spectrum of scholarly disciplines. Most retracted articles do not contain flawed data; and the authors of most retracted articles have not been accused of research misconduct. Despite recent increases, the proportion of published scholarly literature affected by retraction remains very small. Articles and editorials discussing retractions, or their relation to research integrity, should always consider individual cases in these broad contexts. However, better mechanisms are still needed for raising researchers’ awareness of the retracted literature in their field.     

Citability of Original Research and Reviews in Journals and Their Sponsored Supplements

Background

The contents of pharmaceutical industry sponsored supplements to medical journals are perceived to be less credible than the contents of their parent journals. It is unknown if their contents are cited as often. The objective of this study was to quantify the citability of original research and reviews contained in supplements and compare it with that for the parent journal.

Methodology/Principal Findings

This was a cohort study of 446 articles published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry (JCP) and its supplements for calendar years 2000 and 2005. The total citation counts for each article up to October 5, 2009 were retrieved from the ISI Web of Science database. The main outcome measure was the number of citations received by an article since publication. Regular journal articles included 114 from calendar year 2000 and 190 from 2005. Articles from supplements included 90 from 2000 and 52 from 2005. The median citation counts for the 3 years post-publication were 10 (interquartile range [IQR], 4–20), 14 (IQR, 8–20), 13.5 (IQR, 8–23), and 13.5 (IQR, 8–20), for the 2000 parent journal, 2000 supplements, 2005 parent journal, and 2005 supplements, respectively. Citation counts were higher for the articles in the supplements than the parent journal for the cohorts from 2000 (p = .02), and no different for the year 2005 cohorts (p = .88). The 2005 parent journal cohort had higher citation counts than the 2000 cohort (p = .007), in contrast to the supplements where citation counts remained the same (p = .94).

Conclusions/Significance

Articles published in JCP supplements are robustly cited and thus can be influential in guiding clinical and research practice, as well as shaping critical thinking. Because they are printed under the sponsorship of commercial interests, they may be perceived as less than objective. A reasonable step to help improve this perception would be to ensure that supplements are peer-reviewed in the same way as regular articles in the parent journal.     

基于文献计量学的《中国真菌学杂志》发展态势分析

目的对《中国真菌学杂志》创刊以来的刊发论文进行文献计量分析,了解期刊发展态势,为期刊发展提供决策依据。方法采用中国知网CNKI数据库对《中国真菌学杂志》创刊以来(2006～2012年)的刊发论文进行分析,主要观察指标包括:载文量、被引频次、基金论文比、网络传播趋势等,对相关指标进行统计分析。结果杂志创刊8年以来(2006～2012)共出版42期,共发表论文843篇,期均载文20篇,年均载文120篇,载文量基本稳定。论文被引频次逐渐上升,截止2013年6月9日,单篇论文最高被引频次42次,被引频次超过4次的文献达169篇,占总载文量的20.05%。杂志复合总被引及综合总被引均明显上升,综合影响因子也偏稳定,较创刊初期略有上升,但自引率有上升趋势。论文主要来源于主编、副主编及编委会成员所在单位,仍较局限。真菌疾病诊治基础医学及中医药学研究是未来的热点,值得重视。结论《中国真菌学杂志》创刊8 a来发展喜人,基本覆盖了国内重要的真菌学研究机构,期刊发展潜力较大,但期刊影响力有待进一步提高。     

New journal: Algorithms for Molecular Biology

This editorial announces Algorithms for Molecular Biology, a new online open access journal published by BioMed Central. By launching the first open access journal on algorithmic bioinformatics, we provide a forum for fast publication of high-quality research articles in this rapidly evolving field. Our journal will publish thoroughly peer-reviewed papers without length limitations covering all aspects of algorithmic data analysis in computatioal biology. Publications in Algorithms for Molecular Biology are easy to find, highly visible and tracked by organisations such as PubMed. An established online submission system makes a fast reviewing procedure possible and enables us to publish accepted papers without delay. All articles published in our journal are permanently archived by PubMed Central and other scientific archives. We are looking forward to receiving your contributions.     

Reconceptualising the meaning of scientific communication: open access

The recent US law (H.R.2764) affecting NIH policy and the recent unanimous vote by the Arts and Science faculty of Harvard University in favour of a mandatory deposit of researchers' publications in a suitable repository have brought the Open Access movement into public light. After reviewing the historical background of Open Access, its evolution and extension in the United States, Great Britain, France and Canada are examined. Policies aiming at strengthening Open Access to scientific research are viewed as the direct consequence of treating scientific publishing as an integral part of the research cycle. It should, therefore, be wrapped into the financing of research. As the greater part of research is funded by public money, it appears legitimate to make its results as widely available as is possible. Open Access journals and repositories with strong deposit mandates form the backbone of the strategies to achieve the objective of Open Access. Despite the claims of some publishers, Open Access does not weaken or threaten the peer review process, and it does not conflict with copyright laws.     

Prediction of citation counts for clinical articles at two years using data available within three weeks of publication: retrospective cohort study

Objective To determine if citation counts at two years could be predicted for clinical articles that pass basic criteria for critical appraisal using data within three weeks of publication from external sources and an online article rating service.Design Retrospective cohort study.Setting Online rating service, Canada.Participants 1274 articles from 105 journals published from January to June 2005, randomly divided into a 60:40 split to provide derivation and validation datasets.Main outcome measures 20 article and journal features, including ratings of clinical relevance and newsworthiness, routinely collected by the McMaster online rating of evidence system, compared with citation counts at two years.Results The derivation analysis showed that the regression equation accounted for 60% of the variation (R²=0.60, 95% confidence interval 0.538 to 0.629). This model applied to the validation dataset gave a similar prediction (R²=0.56, 0.476 to 0.596, shrinkage 0.04; shrinkage measures how well the derived equation matches data from the validation dataset). Cited articles in the top half and top third were predicted with 83% and 61% sensitivity and 72% and 82% specificity. Higher citations were predicted by indexing in numerous databases; number of authors; abstraction in synoptic journals; clinical relevance scores; number of cited references; and original, multicentred, and therapy articles from journals with a greater proportion of articles abstracted.Conclusion Citation counts can be reliably predicted at two years using data within three weeks of publication.     

Three options for citation tracking: Google Scholar,Scopus and Web of Science

Background

Researchers turn to citation tracking to find the most influential articles for a particular topic and to see how often their own published papers are cited. For years researchers looking for this type of information had only one resource to consult: the Web of Science from Thomson Scientific. In 2004 two competitors emerged – Scopus from Elsevier and Google Scholar from Google. The research reported here uses citation analysis in an observational study examining these three databases; comparing citation counts for articles from two disciplines (oncology and condensed matter physics) and two years (1993 and 2003) to test the hypothesis that the different scholarly publication coverage provided by the three search tools will lead to different citation counts from each.

Methods

Eleven journal titles with varying impact factors were selected from each discipline (oncology and condensed matter physics) using the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). All articles published in the selected titles were retrieved for the years 1993 and 2003, and a stratified random sample of articles was chosen, resulting in four sets of articles. During the week of November 7–12, 2005, the citation counts for each research article were extracted from the three sources. The actual citing references for a subset of the articles published in 2003 were also gathered from each of the three sources.

Results

For oncology 1993 Web of Science returned the highest average number of citations, 45.3. Scopus returned the highest average number of citations (8.9) for oncology 2003. Web of Science returned the highest number of citations for condensed matter physics 1993 and 2003 (22.5 and 3.9 respectively). The data showed a significant difference in the mean citation rates between all pairs of resources except between Google Scholar and Scopus for condensed matter physics 2003. For articles published in 2003 Google Scholar returned the largest amount of unique citing material for oncology and Web of Science returned the most for condensed matter physics.

Conclusion

This study did not identify any one of these three resources as the answer to all citation tracking needs. Scopus showed strength in providing citing literature for current (2003) oncology articles, while Web of Science produced more citing material for 2003 and 1993 condensed matter physics, and 1993 oncology articles. All three tools returned some unique material. Our data indicate that the question of which tool provides the most complete set of citing literature may depend on the subject and publication year of a given article.

     

Informe: análisis de las publicaciones de socios de la Sociedad Española de Geriatría y Gerontología del año 2006 al 2011

Data is presented from the survey conducted by the Sociedad Española de Geriatría y Gerontología (SEGG) (Spanish Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology) among its members in order to assess their scientific production between 2006 and 2011, specifically articles in journals that are indexed in the Science Citation Index. The scientific quality of the publications was quantified using the number of times every article was cited and the journal's impact factor. A total of 162 out of the 2450 members responded (6.6%), reporting a total of 903 individual articles, 335 (37%) of them in geriatrics-specific journals, and 568 (63%) in other journals of other specialties. The number of publications increased yearly from 128 in 2006 to 201 in 2010. The scientific quality could be calculated for 530 articles. On average, publications have been cited 8.2 times (median: 2), with the range of citations being from 0 to 242. The average impact factor was 3.1 (median 2.4), ranging from 0 to 53.5. A number of articles have been published in some of the largest impact factor journals, in those of general-interest, as well as geriatrics-specific and basic science journals.     

Fifty-Year Fate and Impact of General Medical Journals

Background

Influential medical journals shape medical science and practice and their prestige is usually appraised by citation impact metrics, such as the journal impact factor. However, how permanent are medical journals and how stable is their impact over time?

Methods and Results

We evaluated what happened to general medical journals that were publishing papers half a century ago, in 1959. Data were retrieved from ISI Web of Science for citations and PubMed (Journals function) for journal history. Of 27 eligible journals publishing in 1959, 4 have stopped circulation (including two of the most prestigious journals in 1959) and another 7 changed name between 1959 and 2009. Only 6 of these 27 journals have been published continuously with their initial name since they started circulation. The citation impact of papers published in 1959 gives a very different picture from the current journal impact factor; the correlation between the two is non-significant and very close to zero. Only 13 of the 5,223 papers published in 1959 received at least 5 citations in 2009.

Conclusions

Journals are more permanent entities than single papers, but they are also subject to major change and their relative prominence can change markedly over time.     

Academic Impact of Qualitative Studies in Healthcare: Bibliometric Analysis

Context

Although qualitative studies are becoming more appreciated in healthcare, the number of publications of quality studies remains low. Little is known about the frequency and characteristics of citation in qualitative studies.

Objective

To compare the academic impact of qualitative studies to that of two quantitative studies: systematic reviews and randomized controlled trials.

Methods

Publications in BMJ between 1997 and 2006 (BMJ’s median impact factor was 7.04 during this period) employing qualitative methods were matched to two quantitative studies appearing the same year using PubMed. Using Web of Science, citations within a 24-month publication period were determined. Additionally, three hypotheses were examined: qualitative studies are 1) infrequently cited in original articles or reviews; 2) rarely cited by authors in non-English-speaking countries; and 3) more frequently cited in non-medical disciplines (e.g., psychology or sociology).

Results

A total of 121 qualitative studies, 270 systematic reviews, and 515 randomised controlled trials were retrieved. Qualitative studies were cited a total of 1,089 times, with a median of 7.00 times (range, 0–34) for each study. Matched systematic reviews and randomized controlled trials were cited 2,411times and 1,600 times, respectively. With respect to citing documents, original articles and reviews exceeded 60% for each study design. Relative to quantitative studies, qualitative studies were cited more often by authors in English-speaking countries. With respect to subject area, medical disciplines were more frequently cited than non-medical disciplines for all three study designs (>80%).

Conclusion

The median number of citations for qualitative studies was almost the same as the median of BMJ’s impact factor during the survey period. For a suitable evaluation of qualitative studies in healthcare, it will be necessary to develop a reporting framework and include explicit discussions of clinical implications when reporting findings. Coordination between researchers and editors will be needed to achieve this goal.