Os periódicos brasileiros e a comunicação da pesquisa nacional

Brazilian journals occupy an important space and play an important role in imparting scientific research. Published mainly in open-access format, they enjoy high visibility and accessibility. Besides publishing over one third of the articles by authors affiliated to Brazilian institutions which are indexed in international databases, Brazilian journals contribute to balancing the multilingual communication of scientific production, mainly in leading knowledge areas in the country. Its future development emerges as a strategic agenda of policies geared towards supporting Brazilian research. Such noteworthy presence is contrasted by a poor average performance, much lower than that of journals in developed countries, measured by the number of citations each article receives. Such performance affects the impact of Brazilian research as a whole. Although that performance is due partially to the classical factors influencing the practice of citations, such as the language in which the article is published, theme area and international cooperation, improving Brazilian journals demands public policies to help overcome their limitations.Os periódicos brasileiros ocupam espaço e função importantes na comunicação da pesquisa científica nacional e são publicados majoritariamente em acesso aberto com alta visibilidade e acessibilidade. Além de publicarem mais de um terço dos artigos indexados internacionalmente com afiliação brasileira, os periódicos brasileiros contribuem para equacionar a comunicação multilíngue da produção científica particularmente nas áreas do conhecimento com centralidade nacional. O seu desenvolvimento futuro projeta-se como uma linha de ação estratégica nas políticas de apoio à pesquisa brasileira. Essa presença marcante é contrastada pelo desempenho médio muito inferior ao obtido pelos periódicos dos países desenvolvidos, medido em número de citações recebidas por artigo. Tal desempenho afeta o impacto da pesquisa brasileira como um todo. Embora parte desse desempenho seja devido aos fatores clássicos que influenciam a prática das citações, como idioma de publicação, área temática e colaboração internacional, o aperfeiçoamento dos periódicos brasileiros requer políticas públicas que contribuam para superar suas limitações

A eclosão dos periódicos do Brasil e cenários para o seu porvir

Quality journals in Brazil have achieved remarkable progress in recent years, with an increasing presence in international bibliographic indexes and on the Web. This is primarily due to Brazilian authors from different fields of knowledge, communicating the results of their research in English and/or Portuguese. At least 80% of their original and review articles that are internationally indexed have a Brazilian affiliation, representing approximately 30% of the total indexed scientific production from Brazil. However, this national centrality has a low impact when measured by the number of citations received in the indexes in comparison to that of journals from developed countries. Despite their performance being comparable to that of journals from emerging countries, and although open access publishing results in an extraordinary number of article downloads, most journals of Brazil face the challenge of becoming qualified to compete on a national and international level for better quality manuscripts, as well as of improving their performance in the international indexes. This sought-after qualification demands that these journals overcome the inherent limitations of institutional, management, and financing conditions in which they operate, while advancing professionalization, internationalization, and innovation in the editing, publishing, and dissemination processes, in order to be aligned with international state-of-the-art standards. This article presents an overview of the main bibliometric and editorial management characteristics of the 400 journals of Brazil indexed in Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), Scopus, and Web of Science (WoS). It also projects scenarios for changing the current framework by promoting journals considered as international benchmarks and the way journals are evaluated and funded.Os periódicos de qualidade do Brasil alcançaram, nos últimos anos, um notável avanço, com a crescente presença nos índices bibliográficos internacionais e na web, impulsionados principalmente pela comunicação de resultados de pesquisa de autores brasileiros das diferentes áreas do conhecimento e com uso diferenciado dos idiomas inglês e português. Pelo menos 80% dos seus artigos originais e de revisão indexados internacionalmente têm afiliação brasileira e representam cerca de 30% do total da produção científica indexada do Brasil. Porém, essa centralidade nacional é acompanhada de baixo impacto, medido pelo número de citações recebidas nos índices, em comparação ao que obtêm os periódicos dos países desenvolvidos. Embora o desempenho seja compatível com o dos periódicos de países emergentes e a publicação em acesso aberto resulte em cifras extraordinárias de downloads de artigos, boa parte dos periódicos do Brasil enfrenta o desafio de qualificar-se para, de modo concomitante, competir nacional e internacionalmente por manuscritos de melhor qualidade e melhorar o desempenho nos índices internacionais. Essa almejada qualificação requer a superação das limitações inerentes às condições institucionais, de gestão e financiamento nas quais operam e o avanço da profissionalização, internacionalização e inovações nos processos de editoração, publicação e disseminação, alinhados ao estado da arte internacional. Este artigo apresenta um panorama das principais características bibliométricas e de gestão editorial do conjunto dos 400 periódicos do Brasil indexados no SciELO, Scopus e WoS e projeta cenários de mudança na composição atual com a promoção de periódicos de referência internacional e na forma como são avaliados e financiados.Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP)UNIFESPSciEL

Articles by Latin American Authors in Prestigious Journals Have Fewer Citations

Background: the journal Impact factor (IF) is generally accepted to be a good measurement of the relevance/quality of articles that a journal publishes. in spite of an, apparently, homogenous peer-review process for a given journal, we hypothesize that the country affiliation of authors from developing Latin American (LA) countries affects the IF of a journal detrimentally.Methodology/Principal Findings: Seven prestigious international journals, one multidisciplinary journal and six serving specific branches of science, were examined in terms of their IF in the Web of Science. Two subsets of each journal were then selected to evaluate the influence of author's affiliation on the IF. They comprised contributions (i) with authorship from four Latin American (LA) countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico) and (ii) with authorship from five developed countries (England, France, Germany, Japan and USA). Both subsets were further subdivided into two groups: articles with authorship from one country only and collaborative articles with authorship from other countries. Articles from the five developed countries had IF close to the overall IF of the journals and the influence of collaboration on this value was minor. in the case of LA articles the effect of collaboration (virtually all with developed countries) was significant. the IFs for non-collaborative articles averaged 66% of the overall IF of the journals whereas the articles in collaboration raised the IFs to values close to the overall IF.Conclusion/Significance: the study shows a significantly lower IF in the group of the subsets of non-collaborative LA articles and thus that country affiliation of authors from non-developed LA countries does affect the IF of a journal detrimentally. There are no data to indicate whether the lower IFs of LA articles were due to their inherent inferior quality/relevance or psycho-social trend towards under-citation of articles from these countries. However, further study is required since there are foreseeable consequences of this trend as it may stimulate strategies by editors to turn down articles that tend to be under-cited.Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Latin Amer & Caribbean Ctr Hlth Sci Informat, BIREME PAHO WHO, São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, DIS Dept Informat Med, São Paulo, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, DIS Dept Informat Med, São Paulo, BrazilFAPESP: 05/57665-8CNPq: 2006-0919Web of Scienc

MAPK pathway activation in pilocytic astrocytoma

Pilocytic astrocytoma (PA) is the most common tumor of the pediatric central nervous system (CNS). A body of research over recent years has demonstrated a key role for mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway signaling in the development and behavior of PAs. Several mechanisms lead to activation of this pathway in PA, mostly in a mutually exclusive manner, with constitutive BRAF kinase activation subsequent to gene fusion being the most frequent. The high specificity of this fusion to PA when compared with other CNS tumors has diagnostic utility. In addition, the frequency of alteration of this key pathway provides an opportunity for molecularly targeted therapy in this tumor. Here, we review the current knowledge on mechanisms of MAPK activation in PA and some of the downstream consequences of this activation, which are now starting to be elucidated both in vitro and in vivo, as well as clinical considerations and possible future directions