Benchmarking scientific performance by decomposing leadership of Cuban and Latin American institutions in Public Health

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Scientometrics. The final authenticated version is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11192-015-1831-z”.Comparative benchmarking with bibliometric indicators can be an aid in decision-making with regard to research management. This study aims to characterize scientific performance in a domain (Public Health) by the institutions of a country (Cuba), taking as reference world output and regional output (other Latin American centers) during the period 2003–2012. A new approach is used here to assess to what extent the leadership of a specific institution can change its citation impact. Cuba was found to have a high level of specialization and scientific leadership that does not match the low international visibility of Cuban institutions. This leading output appears mainly in non-collaborative papers, in national journals; publication in English is very scarce and the rate of international collaboration is very low. The Instituto de Medicina Tropical Pedro Kouri stands out, alone, as a national reference. Meanwhile, at the regional level, Latin American institutions deserving mention for their high autonomy in normalized citation would include Universidad de Buenos Aires (ARG), Universidade Federal de Pelotas (BRA), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientı´ficas y Te´cnicas (ARG), Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (BRA) and the Centro de Pesquisas Rene Rachou (BRA). We identify a crucial aspect that can give rise to misinterpretations of data: a high share of leadership cannot be considered positive for institutions when it is mainly associated with a high proportion of non-collaborative papers and a very low level of performance. Because leadership might be questionable in some cases, we propose future studies to ensure a better interpretation of findings.This work was made possible through financing by the scholarship funds for international mobility between Andalusian and IberoAmerican Universities and the SCImago GroupPeer reviewe

Cuban scientific production in Medicine and Public Health: Scopus 2003-2011

El objetivo de este trabajo fue analizar la evolución del volumen y la visibilidad de la producción científica cubana en Salud Pública y en Medicina para determinar si siguen los mismos patrones de comunicación, y recomendar buenas prácticas de publicación. Se aplicaron indicadores bibliométricos de volumen, visibilidad y colaboración extraídos del portal SCImago Institutions Rankings a partir de datos de Scopus, para el área temática Medicine y la categoría Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health, período 2003-2011. Cuba tiene una posición relativamente alta en los rankings de volumen de producción científica tanto en Medicina como en Salud Pública en los contextos internacionales y regionales, mientras que en impacto está entre los últimos países. La tendencia de la producción es al crecimiento, aunque en Salud Pública es más acelerado. El liderazgo es alto, pero la colaboración internacional está por debajo de lo esperado. La publicación en revistas de alto impacto (primer cuartil) y los artículos en el 10% más citado (excelencia) son escasos. Se concluye que el volumen y el impacto de la publicación no están acorde al potencial científico de salud cubana. Se recomienda incrementar la colaboración científica, la publicación de artículos en revistas de alto impacto, la preparación de los recursos humanos y seguir las recomendaciones internacionales sobre las buenas prácticas de edición y publicación científica.The aim of this study was to analyze the evolution of the quantity and visibility of Cuban scientific production in Public Health and Medicine to determine if they follow the same patterns of scientific communication and the recommended best practices for publication. Bibliometric indicators of quantity, visibility and cooperation were extracted from the SCImago Institutions Rankings website, which is based on Scopus data, in the field of Medicine and category of Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health from 2003 to 2011.Cubahas a relatively high position in the rankings of scientific production in both Medicine and Public Health within the international and regional contexts, but its impact is ranked among the last countries. The production trend of both fields has increased, but public health is increasing faster. Leadership is high, but international collaboration is below expectations. Publication in high impact journals (first quartile) and articles in the set 10% most cited documents (excellence) are scarce. Thus, it may be concluded that the volume and impact of publication are not in accordance with the scientific potential of Cuban health. We recommend increasing scientific cooperation, publishing articles in high impact journals, training human resources and following the international recommendations for good editorial and scientific publication practices

A super-Earth and a mini-Neptune near the 2:1 MMR straddling the radius valley around the nearby mid-M dwarf TOI-2096

Context. Several planetary formation models have been proposed to explain the observed abundance and variety of compositions of super-Earths and mini-Neptunes. In this context, multitransiting systems orbiting low-mass stars whose planets are close to the radius valley are benchmark systems, which help to elucidate which formation model dominates.Aims. We report the discovery, validation, and initial characterization of one such system, TOI-2096 (TIC 142748283), a two-planet system composed of a super-Earth and a mini-Neptune hosted by a mid-type M dwarf located 48 pc away.Methods. We characterized the host star by combining optical spectra, analyzing its broadband spectral energy distribution, and using evolutionary models for low-mass stars. Then, we derived the planetary properties by modeling the photometric data from TESS and ground-based facilities. In addition, we used archival data, high-resolution imaging, and statistical validation to support our planetary interpretation.Results. We found that the stellar properties of TOI-2096 correspond to a dwarf star of spectral type M4±0.5. It harbors a super-Earth (R = 1.24 ± 0.07 R⊕) and a mini-Neptune (R = 1.90 ± 0.09 R⊕) in likely slightly eccentric orbits with orbital periods of 3.12 d and 6.39 d, respectively. These orbital periods are close to the first-order 2:1 mean-motion resonance (MMR), a configuration that may lead to measurable transit timing variations (TTVs). We computed the expected TTVs amplitude for each planet and found that they might be measurable with high-precision photometry delivering mid-transit times with accuracies of ≲2 min. Moreover, we conclude that measuring the planetary masses via radial velocities (RVs) could also be possible. Lastly, we found that these planets are among the best in their class to conduct atmospheric studies using the NIRSpec/Prism onboard the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).Conclusions. The properties of this system make it a suitable candidate for further studies, particularly for mass determination using RVs and/or TTVs, decreasing the scarcity of systems that can be used to test planetary formation models around low-mass stars

International nosocomial infection control consortium (INICC) report, data summary of 36 countries, for 2004-2009

The results of a surveillance study conducted by the International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC) from January 2004 through December 2009 in 422 intensive care units (ICUs) of 36 countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe are reported. During the 6-year study period, using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN; formerly the National Nosocomial Infection Surveillance system [NNIS]) definitions for device-associated health care-associated infections, we gathered prospective data from 313,008 patients hospitalized in the consortium's ICUs for an aggregate of 2,194,897 ICU bed-days. Despite the fact that the use of devices in the developing countries' ICUs was remarkably similar to that reported in US ICUs in the CDC's NHSN, rates of device-associated nosocomial infection were significantly higher in the ICUs of the INICC hospitals; the pooled rate of central line-associated bloodstream infection in the INICC ICUs of 6.8 per 1,000 central line-days was more than 3-fold higher than the 2.0 per 1,000 central line-days reported in comparable US ICUs. The overall rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia also was far higher (15.8 vs 3.3 per 1,000 ventilator-days), as was the rate of catheter-associated urinary tract infection (6.3 vs. 3.3 per 1,000 catheter-days). Notably, the frequencies of resistance of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates to imipenem (47.2% vs 23.0%), Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates to ceftazidime (76.3% vs 27.1%), Escherichia coli isolates to ceftazidime (66.7% vs 8.1%), Staphylococcus aureus isolates to methicillin (84.4% vs 56.8%), were also higher in the consortium's ICUs, and the crude unadjusted excess mortalities of device-related infections ranged from 7.3% (for catheter-associated urinary tract infection) to 15.2% (for ventilator-associated pneumonia). Copyright © 2012 by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Building ties across countries: International collaboration, field specialization, and global leadership

We analyze the role of leadership and scientific collaborative relationships in constituting the disciplinary specialization between countries and its research performance. Authorship order provides critical information for the allocation of reward, while collaboration enables researchers to expand the network of co-authors, institutions, and countries involved in the research. Along with these factors, a country’s profile orientation within the global scientific market become of great importance to the development of countries. As bibliographic data embedded such important information about the changes in the position of authors in the byline of publications and the disciplines involved in the research, we analyze these changes over time—using a Web of Science dataset—to explore the extent to which collaboration relationships impact leadership and specialization on the scientific workforce. Using this data, we discern the importance of domestic and international outputs in determining the disciplinary structure in scientific relationships in terms of publications and citations. We found that different types of leadership translate in different results in terms of relative specialization and citations. Overall results show that non-leading internationally collaborative papers reach higher values than leading international and domestic papers especially remarkable in terms of citations. Although in general, all regions increase their performance when collaborating with leading partners, the largest differences in research performance by leadership are located in countries with the lowest investment in R&D. Countries with the highest research investment are more likely to serve as leaders and garner higher specialization and citations when they lead (domestic and lead authorship). Comparative analyses of the role of specialization between countries can be useful for informing policies and motivating further collaboration relationships in the definitions of research agendas

Building ties across countries: International collaboration, field specialization, and global leadership

We analyze the role of leadership and scientific collaborative relationships in constituting the disciplinary specialization between countries and its research performance. Authorship order provides critical information for the allocation of reward, while collaboration enables researchers to expand the network of co-authors, institutions, and countries involved in the research. Along with these factors, a country’s profile orientation within the global scientific market become of great importance to the development of countries. As bibliographic data embedded such important information about the changes in the position of authors in the byline of publications and the disciplines involved in the research, we analyze these changes over time—using a Web of Science dataset—to explore the extent to which collaboration relationships impact leadership and specialization on the scientific workforce. Using this data, we discern the importance of domestic and international outputs in determining the disciplinary structure in scientific relationships in terms of publications and citations. We found that different types of leadership translate in different results in terms of relative specialization and citations. Overall results show that non-leading internationally collaborative papers reach higher values than leading international and domestic papers especially remarkable in terms of citations. Although in general, all regions increase their performance when collaborating with leading partners, the largest differences in research performance by leadership are located in countries with the lowest investment in R&D. Countries with the highest research investment are more likely to serve as leaders and garner higher specialization and citations when they lead (domestic and lead authorship). Comparative analyses of the role of specialization between countries can be useful for informing policies and motivating further collaboration relationships in the definitions of research agendas.