Automatic term identification for bibliometric mapping

A term map is a map that visualizes the structure of a scientific field by showing the relations between important terms in the field. The terms shown in a term map are usually selected manually with the help of domain experts. Manual term selection has the disadvantages of being subjective and labor-intensive. To overcome these disadvantages, we propose a methodology for automatic term identification and we use this methodology to select the terms to be included in a term map. To evaluate the proposed methodology, we use it to construct a term map of the field of operations research. The quality of the map is assessed by a number of operations research experts. It turns out that in general the proposed methodology performs quite well

On the map: Nature and Science editorials

Bibliometric mapping of scientific articles based on keywords and technical terms in abstracts is now frequently used to chart scientific fields. In contrast, no significant mapping has been applied to the full texts of non-specialist documents. Editorials in Nature and Science are such non-specialist documents, reflecting the views of the two most read scientific journals on science, technology and policy issues. We use the VOSviewer mapping software to chart the topics of these editorials. A term map and a document map are constructed and clusters are distinguished in both of them. The validity of the document clustering is verified by a manual analysis of a sample of the editorials. This analysis confirms the homogeneity of the clusters obtained by mapping and augments the latter with further detail. As a result, the analysis provides reliable information on the distribution of the editorials over topics, and on differences between the journals. The most striking difference is that Nature devotes more attention to internal science policy issues and Science more to the political influence of scientists

Evaluating Research and Impact: A Bibliometric Analysis of Research by the NIH/NIAID HIV/AIDS Clinical Trials Networks

Evaluative bibliometrics uses advanced techniques to assess the impact of scholarly work in the context of other scientific work and usually compares the relative scientific contributions of research groups or institutions. Using publications from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) HIV/AIDS extramural clinical trials networks, we assessed the presence, performance, and impact of papers published in 2006–2008. Through this approach, we sought to expand traditional bibliometric analyses beyond citation counts to include normative comparisons across journals and fields, visualization of co-authorship across the networks, and assess the inclusion of publications in reviews and syntheses. Specifically, we examined the research output of the networks in terms of the a) presence of papers in the scientific journal hierarchy ranked on the basis of journal influence measures, b) performance of publications on traditional bibliometric measures, and c) impact of publications in comparisons with similar publications worldwide, adjusted for journals and fields. We also examined collaboration and interdisciplinarity across the initiative, through network analysis and modeling of co-authorship patterns. Finally, we explored the uptake of network produced publications in research reviews and syntheses. Overall, the results suggest the networks are producing highly recognized work, engaging in extensive interdisciplinary collaborations, and having an impact across several areas of HIV-related science. The strengths and limitations of the approach for evaluation and monitoring research initiatives are discussed

The 13th International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics - Preface

editorial materialstatus: publishe

Territorial vulnerability and local conflicts

In the last years the number and the magnitude of the oppositions to new public (and private) works have increased all over the World, but the reasons of the op-position are difficult to identify. There are several international examples of conflicts originating from environ-mental oppositions as the mobilization in Istanbul in defense of Gezi park, the toppling of the government in Madagascar over land-grabbing, and the aboriginal ‘Idle No More’ movement in Canada against fracking activities. In Italy the most famous environmental conflict is the opposition to High Speed Rail in Val di Susa, but recently the referendum on the drilling in the Mediterranean sea has seen a very huge opposition front which includes also influential member of Catholic Clergy. But at the same time similar works didn’t face any (or so hard) opposition in different areas and periods. So we can hypnotize that the conflict is site specific but what are the determinants of the conflict? Can we explain the relevance of the conflict with the territorial vulnerability? How can the vulnerability be measured? What are the main dimensions of vulnerability? Several scientists analysed the relationships between the oppositions, which can degenerate in conflict, even violent, and the vulnerability of the territories where the public works are planned. The aim of the present paper is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the recent ad most relevant scientific papers which study the relationship between vulnerability and conflict by means of a bibliographic approach. Bibliometric approaches analyze scholarly publications and scientific production through various quantitative techniques, with the main goal of revealing how different research topic and specific scientific domains are conceptually and intellectually structured. Bibliometrics borrows the information it needs directly from the bibliographic description of scientific documents, available for download on several databases. The bibliographical data gathered in this study was collected from 682 articles from a wide range of journals available in the Thomson Reuters’ ISI Web of Knowledge; the search criteria included the joint appearance of the terms “vulnerability” and “conflict”. For the purpose of this research different methods have been employed to map the scientific production and to gather information about this research topic. The results of the analysis show an increasing interest in studying the relationship between conflict and vulnerability and the extension of the semantic context including several scientific fields