Uncertain research country rankings. Should we continue producing uncertain rankings?

Citation based country rankings consistently categorize Japan as a developing country, even in those from the most reputed institutions. This categorization challenges the credibility of such rankings, considering Japan elevated scientific standing. In most cases, these rankings use percentile indicators and are accurate if country citations fit an ideal model of distribution, but they can be misleading in cases of deviations. The ideal model implies a lognormal citation distribution and a power law citation based double rank: in the global and country lists. This report conducts a systematic examination of deviations from the ideal model and their consequential impact on evaluations. The study evaluates six selected countries across three scientifically relevant topics and utilizes Leiden Ranking assessments of over 300 universities. The findings reveal three types of deviations from the lognormal citation distribution: i deviations in the extreme upper tail; ii inflated lower tails; and iii deflated lower part of the distributions. These deviations stem from structural differences among research systems that are prevalent and have the potential to mislead evaluations across all research levels. Consequently, reliable evaluations must consider these deviations. Otherwise, while some countries and institutions will be correctly evaluated, failure to identify deviations in each specific country or institution will render uncertain evaluations. For reliable assessments, future research evaluations of countries and institutions must identify deviations from the ideal model.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figures, 5 table

Countries pushing the boundaries of knowledge: the US dominance, China rise, and the EU stagnation

Knowing which countries contribute the most to pushing the boundaries of knowledge in science and technology has social and political importance. However, common citation metrics do not adequately measure this contribution. This measure requires more stringent metrics appropriate for the highly influential breakthrough papers that push the boundaries of knowledge, which are very highly cited but very rare. Here I used the recently described Rk index, specifically designed to address this issue. I applied this index to 25 countries and the EU across 10 key research topics, five technological and five biomedical, studying domestic and international collaborative papers independently. In technological topics, the Rk indices of domestic papers show that overall, the USA, China, and the EU are leaders; other countries are clearly behind. The USA is notably ahead of China, and the EU is far behind China. The same approach to biomedical topics shows an overwhelming dominance of the USA and that the EU is ahead of China. The analysis of internationally collaborative papers further demonstrates the US dominance. These results conflict with current country rankings based on less stringent indicators.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figure, 6 table

Technological research in the EU is less efficient than the world average. EU research policy risks Europeans' future

We have studied the efficiency of research in the EU by a percentile-based citation approach that analyzes the distribution of country papers among the world papers. Going up in the citation scale, the frequency of papers from efficient countries increases while the frequency from inefficient countries decreases. In the percentile-based approach, this trend, which is permanent at any citation level, is measured by the ep index that equals the Ptop 1%/Ptop 10% ratio. By using the ep index we demonstrate that EU research on fast-evolving technological topics is less efficient than the world average and that the EU is far from being able to compete with the most advanced countries. The ep index also shows that the USA is well ahead of the EU in both fast- and slow-evolving technologies, which suggests that the advantage of the USA over the EU in innovation is due to low research efficiency in the EU. In accord with some previous studies, our results show that the European Commission's ongoing claims about the excellence of EU research are based on a wrong diagnosis. The EU must focus its research policy on the improvement of its inefficient research. Otherwise, the future of Europeans is at risk.Comment: 30 pages, 3 figures, 7 tables, in one single file. Version accepted in Journal of Informetric

Common bibliometric approaches fail to assess correctly the number of important scientific advances for most countries and institutions

Although not explicitly declared, most research rankings of countries and institutions are supposed to reveal their contribution to the advancement of knowledge. However, such advances are based on very highly cited publications with very low frequency, which can only very exceptionally be counted with statistical reliability. Percentile indicators enable calculations of the probability or frequency of such rare publications using counts of much more frequent publications; the general rule is that rankings based on the number of top 10% or 1% cited publications (Ptop 10%, Ptop 1%) will also be valid for the rare publications that push the boundaries of knowledge. Japan and its universities are exceptions, as their frequent Nobel Prizes contradicts their low Ptop 10% and Ptop 1%. We explain that this occurs because, in single research fields, the singularity of percentile indicators holds only for research groups that are homogeneous in their aims and efficiency. Correct calculations for ranking countries and institutions should add the results of their homogeneous groups, instead of considering all publications as a single set. Although based on Japan, our findings have a general character. Common predictions of scientific advances based on Ptop 10% might be severalfold lower than correct calculations.Comment: 30 pages, tables and figures embedded in a single pdf fil

Research assessment by percentile-based double rank analysis

In the double rank analysis of research publications, the local rank position of a country or institution publication is expressed as a function of the world rank position. Excluding some highly or lowly cited publications, the double rank plot fits well with a power law, which can be explained because citations for local and world publications follow lognormal distributions. We report here that the distribution of the number of country or institution publications in world percentiles is a double rank distribution that can be fitted to a power law. Only the data points in high percentiles deviate from it when the local and world $\mu$ parameters of the lognormal distributions are very different. The likelihood of publishing very highly cited papers can be calculated from the power law that can be fitted either to the upper tail of the citation distribution or to the percentile-based double rank distribution. The great advantage of the latter method is that it has universal application, because it is based on all publications and not just on highly cited publications. Furthermore, this method extends the application of the well-established percentile approach to very low percentiles where breakthroughs are reported but paper counts cannot be performed.Comment: A pdf file containing text, 9 figures and 4 tables. Accepted in Journal of Informetric

Rank analysis of most cited publications, a new approach for research assessments

Citation metrics are the best tools for research assessments. However, current metrics are misleading in research systems that pursue simultaneously different goals, such as the advance of science and incremental innovations, because their publications have different citation distributions. We estimate the contribution to the progress of knowledge by studying only a limited number of the most cited papers, which are dominated by publications pursuing this progress. To field-normalize the metrics, we substitute the number of citations by the rank position of papers from one country in the global list of papers. Using synthetic series of lognormally distributed numbers, we developed the Rk-index, which is calculated from the global ranks of the 10 highest numbers in each series, and demonstrate its equivalence to the number of papers in top percentiles, P top 0.1% and P top 0.01% . In real cases, the Rk-index is simple and easy to calculate, and evaluates the contribution to the progress of knowledge much better than commonly used metrics. Although further research is needed, rank analysis of the most cited papers is a promising approach for research evaluation. It is also demonstrated that, for this purpose, domestic and collaborative papers should be studied independently.Comment: One PDF file, including figures and tables (31 pages

En defensa de Norman Borlaug

El artículo de Xavier Pastor, director de Greenpeace España, titulado "La ingeniería genética incrementará el hambre" y publicado en EL PAÍS el pasado 1 de noviembre, representa una agresión inadmisible a la persona y la obra de Norman Borlaug, quien es sin duda el agrónomo más insigne de este siglo. Este tipo de ataque personal -en el que se sustituye el argumento racional y el debate sosegado de problemas complejos por la manipulación de los hechos y la difamación, incluida la insinuación de criminalidad- debe ser rechazado por la sociedad.Pobre debe estar el arsenal de argumentos a favor de los objetivos ideológicos de su organización, cuando Xavier Pastor apela a medios tan inaceptables para defenderlos. Tal es el cúmulo de disparatadas acusaciones que contiene cada párrafo de su artículo que desistimos de abordar una clarificación sistemática de éste y nos limitaremos a hacer algunas consideraciones generales en defensa de Borlau

HAK transporters from Physcomitrella patens and Yarrowia lipolytica mediate sodium uptake

The widespread presence of Na+ specific uptake systems across plants and fungi is a controversial topic. In this study we identify two HAK genes, one in the moss Physcomitrella patens and the other in the yeast Yarrowia lipolytica, that encode Na+ specific transporters. Because HAK genes are numerous in plants and are duplicated in many fungi, our findings suggest that some HAK genes encode Na+ transporters and that Na+ might play physiological functions in plants and fungi more extensively than is currently thought

Age-dependent defective TGF-beta1 signaling in patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting

Background: Transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta 1) is a pleiotropic cytokine, which is deregulated in atherosclerosis; however the role of age in this process is unknown. We aimed to assess whether TGF-beta 1 signaling is affected by age. Methods: Vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) were obtained from patients undergoing abdominal surgery. Levels of TGF-beta 1 were measured by ELISA in sera from 169 patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). The p27 expression was determined by Western blot from internal mammary arteries (IMA) obtained from CABG patients (n = 13). In VSMC from these patients undergoing abdominal surgery, secretion of TGF-beta 1 was determined by ELISA of cell-conditioned media. Results: In VSMC from aged patients we observed a lower TGF-beta 1 secretion, measured as TGF-beta 1 concentration in cell conditioned medium (p < 0.001). This effect was correlated to an age-dependent decrease of p27 expression in IMA from aged CABG patients. In a similar manner, there was an age-dependent decrease of serum TGF-beta 1 levels in CABG patients (p = 0.0195). Conclusions: VSMC from aged patients showed a higher degree of cellular senescence and it was associated to a lower TGF-beta 1 secretion and signaling.S