On the prevalence and scientific impact of duplicate publications in different scientific fields (1980-2007)

The issue of duplicate publications has received a lot of attention in the medical literature, but much less in the information science community. This paper aims at analyzing the prevalence and scientific impact of duplicate publications across all fields of research between 1980 and 2007, using a definition of duplicate papers based on their metadata. It shows that in all fields combined, the prevalence of duplicates is one out of two-thousand papers, but is higher in the natural and medical sciences than in the social sciences and humanities. A very high proportion (>85%) of these papers are published the same year or one year apart, which suggest that most duplicate papers were submitted simultaneously. Furthermore, duplicate papers are generally published in journals with impact factors below the average of their field and obtain a lower number of citations. This paper provides clear evidence that the prevalence of duplicate papers is low and, more importantly, that the scientific impact of such papers is below average.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figure

Patent citation analysis with Google

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Wiley-Blackwell in Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology on 23/09/2015, available online: https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23608 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.Citations from patents to scientific publications provide useful evidence about the commercial impact of academic research, but automatically searchable databases are needed to exploit this connection for large-scale patent citation evaluations. Google covers multiple different international patent office databases but does not index patent citations or allow automatic searches. In response, this article introduces a semiautomatic indirect method via Bing to extract and filter patent citations from Google to academic papers with an overall precision of 98%. The method was evaluated with 322,192 science and engineering Scopus articles from every second year for the period 1996–2012. Although manual Google Patent searches give more results, especially for articles with many patent citations, the difference is not large enough to be a major problem. Within Biomedical Engineering, Biotechnology, and Pharmacology & Pharmaceutics, 7% to 10% of Scopus articles had at least one patent citation but other fields had far fewer, so patent citation analysis is only relevant for a minority of publications. Low but positive correlations between Google Patent citations and Scopus citations across all fields suggest that traditional citation counts cannot substitute for patent citations when evaluating research

The impact factor's Matthew effect: a natural experiment in bibliometrics

Since the publication of Robert K. Merton's theory of cumulative advantage in science (Matthew Effect), several empirical studies have tried to measure its presence at the level of papers, individual researchers, institutions or countries. However, these studies seldom control for the intrinsic "quality" of papers or of researchers--"better" (however defined) papers or researchers could receive higher citation rates because they are indeed of better quality. Using an original method for controlling the intrinsic value of papers--identical duplicate papers published in different journals with different impact factors--this paper shows that the journal in which papers are published have a strong influence on their citation rates, as duplicate papers published in high impact journals obtain, on average, twice as much citations as their identical counterparts published in journals with lower impact factors. The intrinsic value of a paper is thus not the only reason a given paper gets cited or not; there is a specific Matthew effect attached to journals and this gives to paper published there an added value over and above their intrinsic quality.Comment: 7 pages, 2 table

Epidemiology, impact and control of bovine cysticercosis in Europe : a systematic review

Background: Bovine cysticercosis in Europe has been known for centuries but the data showing the occurrence of this zoonosis are scarce. The aim of this paper is to review and present the current knowledge on bovine cysticercosis in Europe. Methods: We conducted a systematic review of studies published between 1990 and November 2014. Qualitative and quantitative data on prevalence, risk factors, burden and interventions were extracted and analysed. Results: Reports on prevalence were available for 23 European countries, mostly from western and central Europe; for a few of these only data before 1990 were available. Prevalence based on meat inspection was generally low (below 6.2 % in 95 % of the records) and varied between and within countries. Serology and detailed meat inspection provided a higher prevalence range (0.41–14 %). Only few studies analysing risk factors were identified. Reported factors related to access to pastures and risky waters, dairy production and uncontrolled human defecation in the proximity of the farm among others. Only one estimate of the economic impact of the disease could be identified. Recommended interventions were focused on increasing diagnostic tests sensitivity or the application of risk based surveillance strategies. Conclusions: There is a lack of complete and updated data on most countries, especially in eastern Europe. Further risk factor studies might be needed together with estimates on the burden of the disease in all European countries. Risk-based interventions are being encouraged but current data are limited to guide this approach

“Information Theory” Research Trend: A Bibliometric Approach

One of the most controversial issues, in a multidisciplinary area, is information theory. The American Heritage Science Dictionary (2014) defines information theory as “a branch of mathematics that mathematically defines and analyzes the concept of information, statistics and probability theory, and applications include the design of systems that have to do with data transmission, encryption, compression, and information processing and deeply affected many fields.” It has a fundamental contribution to make in multiple disciplines, such as mathematics, statistics, computer science, physics, neurobiology, communication theory, information science, economics, and electrical engineering. Indeed, information theory played a crucial role to achieve many pertinent scientific missions and inventions such as Voyager, Mobile phone, and Internet

Scientometric Analysis of Research in Energy Efficiency and Citizen Science through Projects and Publications

Energy efficiency is part of the commitment to environmental sustainability made by the organizations that promote and finance research and by the researchers that make this field their subject of study. Although there is growing interest in the subject, it is worth asking whether the research has been approached considering citizens’ needs or citizens’ participation. The main objective of this study is to analyse whether energy efficiency research has adopted a citizen science perspective. Using scientometric methods, the SCOPUS and CORDIS databases were consulted and a document search strategy was developed to gather information on publications and projects. The analysis revealed that, out of 265 projects under the Seventh Framework Programme on Energy Efficiency, only seven (3%) were related to citizen science. Although there is a large volume of publications on energy efficiency (over 200,000) and a considerable number of publications on citizen science (>30,000 articles), only 336 documents were identified that deal with both topics. The number of projects and publications on these topics has increased in recent years, with universities being the institutions that have published the most. Content analysis found that the most frequent topics are public perception of the use of renewable energies; citizen participation in measures to address climate change and global warming; and the involvement of different stakeholders in the use and responsible consumption of energy. Finally, information was collected on the impact of these publications on social media and altmetric tools. It was revealed that 33% of the 336 papers have had a presence in different sources, especially Twitter. This is a high figure compared with the dissemination achieved by papers from other disciplines.This project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant 741657, SciShops.e

Retraction: the “other face” of research collaboration?

The last two decades have witnessed the rising prevalence of both co-publishing and retraction. Focusing on research collaboration, this paper utilizes a unique dataset to investigate factors contributing to retraction probability and elapsed time between publication and retraction. Data analysis reveals that the majority of retracted papers are multi-authored and that repeat offenders are collaboration prone. Yet, all things being equal, collaboration, in and of itself, does not increase the likelihood of producing flawed or fraudulent research, at least in the form of retraction. That holds for all retractions and also retractions due to falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism (FFP). The research also finds that publications with authors from elite universities are less likely to be retracted, which is particularly true for retractions due to FFP. China stands out with the fastest retracting speed compared to other countries. Possible explanations, limitations, and policy implications are also discussed

The use of bibliometrics for assessing research : possibilities, limitations and adverse effects

Researchers are used to being evaluated: publications, hiring, tenure and funding decisions are all based on the evaluation of research. Traditionally, this evaluation relied on judgement of peers but, in the light of limited resources and increased bureaucratization of science, peer review is getting more and more replaced or complemented with bibliometric methods. Central to the introduction of bibliometrics in research evaluation was the creation of the Science Citation Index (SCI)in the 1960s, a citation database initially developed for the retrieval of scientific information. Embedded in this database was the Impact Factor, first used as a tool for the selection of journals to cover in the SCI, which then became a synonym for journal quality and academic prestige. Over the last 10 years, this indicator became powerful enough to influence researchers’ publication patterns in so far as it became one of the most important criteria to select a publication venue. Regardless of its many flaws as a journal metric and its inadequacy as a predictor of citations on the paper level, it became the go-to indicator of research quality and was used and misused by authors, editors, publishers and research policy makers alike. The h-index, introduced as an indicator of both output and impact combined in one simple number, has experienced a similar fate, mainly due to simplicity and availability. Despite their massive use, these measures are too simple to capture the complexity and multiple dimensions of research output and impact. This chapter provides an overview of bibliometric methods, from the development of citation indexing as a tool for information retrieval to its application in research evaluation, and discusses their misuse and effects on researchers’ scholarly communication behavior

A bibliometric study of international scientific productivity in giardiasis covering the period 1971–2010

Despite years of relative neglect, interest in Giardia infection seems to be recently growing, perhaps in part due to its inclusion into the World Health Organization’s Neglected Diseases Initiative since 2004. The purpose of this study was to provide an overview of Giardia and giardiasis research over time, as represented by the quantity of published papers