The frequencies of multinational papers in various sciences

Multinational papers are defined here as ones written by authors who reside in different countries during the course of research. For each of 16 fields of science, I scanned the first 200 papers in 2005 in four major journals publishing original research papers. Those journals produced 40% of all the citations among those journals with Impact Factors greater than 1.0. The frequencies of multinational papers ranged from 13% in surgery to 55% in astronomy. Although one can list a dozen factors which might contribute toward multinational papers, I lack the data to test most of those. There are only minor correlations with team sizes and Impact Factors, inadequate to explain the range. There is a larger, but not convincing, dependence upon the fractions of single-author papers and its cause, if real, is unclear. However, the most prominent factor seems to be the nature of the objects studied; if they are usually local (e.g. in one hospital or in one laboratory), the papers tend to be domestic but if most of the objects are available simultaneously to scientists in many countries (e.g. the sky in astronomy or the oceans and the Earth’s atmosphere in geosciences or widespread diseases in the area of infectious diseases or plants and animals widely distributed in biology), the papers are often international. Auxiliary results for 2005 are an average of 5.5 ± 0.3 authors per paper and 6.6 ± 1.0% one-author papers.     

Authorship patterns in life sciences,preclinical basic and clinical research papers

The present paper examines the multiple authorship in research papers in biomedical sciences from the more basic aspects to clinically oriented research. Seventeen journals were chosen for analysis — nine from the general and life sciences categories and eight from medical sciences group with clinical orientation. All these were high impact journals as per the Science Citation Index and come in the top ten journals in their respective desciplines. The average authors/paper was significantly higher (P<0.001) in medical journals –4.299 (range 3.21–5.35) as compared to general biomedical journals –3.298 (range 3.21–5.35). Data from highly cited papers (1961–78) also indicate that papers in clinical sciences have higher average authors (2.71) as compared to preclinical basic research (2.25: P<0.26) and more basic research areas like biochemistry and molecular biology (2.208; P<0.02). The team size in research in clinical subjects is therefore appreciably larger as compared to basic biomedical sciences. Also the general and biomedical sciences articles were relatively longer (average 7.75 pages; range 2.69–10.07) as compared to medical papers with a clinical orientation (avarage 4.24 pages; range 1.80–12.92; P<0.001).     

Evaluation index system for academic papers of humanities and social sciences

An index system for evaluating academic papers is constructed and verified based on the empirical analysis of papers that has gained the 6th Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Award for Outstanding Achievements. Some new index, such as paper discipline impact factor, discipline average cited rate per paper and discipline average downloaded rate per paper have been put forward in this paper. The empirical research results show that the ranking of papers calculated by this evaluation index system is in conformity with the awards determined by peer review in general, but still needs to be verified and improved in practice.     

Profiling institutes: Identifying high research performance and social relevance in the social and behavioral sciences

This study focuses on the identification of high output research and high impact research in the social and behavioral sciences. A second objective is to monitor developments in research that is related to societal needs and problems. For each topic, we identify institutes and authors that have contributed a considerable number of SSCI articles and/or several (relatively) highly cited articles on a topic. To identify papers with a (relatively) high impact, the present study used two citation thresholds, each based upon a combination of a statistically determined minimum number of ‘external’ citations (by others than the authors of a paper), and a statistical comparison with world average citation levels. Topics were categorised according to social relevance. Detailed profiles of both large and small institutes are obtained, showing strengths and weaknesses in research performance that tend to be obscured by standard indicators focusing on ‘average’ research performance. Socially relevant topics tend to be concentrated in multidisciplinary clusters, whereas clusters dominated by one or two disciplines contain more basis research. The results provide a first insight in the extent to which institutes and authors address socially relevant topics. Use of the results by policy bodies seems dependent upon which organisational level of research they tend to address.     

Effects of disciplines and countries on citation habits. An analysis of empirical papers in behavioural sciences

The theoretical introductions in empirical journal articles have been analyzed looking for factors determining citation habits. Own-country-biases and English-American predominance in citations were not regularly found. Preferred language of the cited publications and absolute citation frequencies were dependent upon both the disciplines and the countries where the journals are published. However, relative citation frequencies (citations related to the length of the text available) have been found to be rather constant across countries (within psychology and psychiatry, respectively) which indicates no such dependence.     

Publication practices in various sciences

From a study of Papers published in 1990 in major journals in eight sciences (astrophysics, biology, chemistry, geophysics, mathematics, physics, psychiatry, and radiology) we learn the following. The median numbers of authors per paper range from 1.0 (in mathematics) to 3.7 (in the medical fields). Only a few percent (0–5%) of the papers have more than eight authors. Nearly half (30–55%) of the papers in American journals are partly or totally from abroad, except in the medicinal fields (10%). The fractions of papers with authors from two or more countries are as high as 26% (in astrophysics and geophysics). Mean paper lengths range from 4.6 1000-word pages in the medical fields to 8–13 pages in the observational sciences (astrophysics, biology, geophysics) and mathematics. The fraction of papers revised range from 8% in mathematics to 100% in geophysics. The mean publication times (submission to publication) range from 200 days in physics to 600 days in mathematics.     

Trace-element analysis in environmental sciences

The use of charged-particle accelerators in trace-element analysis in the field of environmental sciences is described in this article. Nuclear reactions, charged-particle-induced X-ray emission as well as other nuclear and atomic processes can be used individually, or combined, in developing adequate analytical systems. In addition to concentration levels, concentration profiles can be measured, resulting in unique information. Some examples of experiments performed are described together with the suggestions for future measurements.     

Life sciences research in Venezuela

The development, current status and dynamics of research in biology related domains in Venezuela is examined through the study of demographic, academic distribution, scientific output and productivity, for two sets of investigators that fit a profile outlined for life sciences researchers or scientists. The first group corresponds to biologists extracted from the ranks of the official Program for the Promotion of Researchers (PPI), the other, pulled out from those that publish in biologically oriented journals, indexed by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI). Both sets of biology scientists, PPI researchers or Web of Science/ISI scientists, show similar characteristics. The number (absolute and relative) of PPI member that are supposedly dedicated to biological research but do not publish in ISI indexed journals was found to be very similar to the number of supposedly non biologist members of the PPI Program that do publish biological articles in ISI indexed journals. There is also an ongoing feminization process, of academic hierarchies. Female biologists predominate in lower academic ranks and in research cadres, as many as 70% in some areas of biology. This contrasts with the pattern of male predominance observed during the second half of twentieth century in the country. Productivity of Venezuelan biologists seems to depend on gender; men are more productive that their female counterparts. From the bibliometric standpoint, it is found that, on average, 30% of all publications produced in the country are related to biology (or life sciences). The Venezuelan biologists network qualifies neither as a ‘Small World’ nor it follows the ‘Scale Free’ model. Finally, in a country rich in renewable natural resources, it seems that the Venezuelan community of researchers in biology is in decline, despite the fact that they constitute its most productive group of investigators.     

Journal self-citation rates in ecological sciences

Impact factors are a widely accepted means for the assessment of journal quality. However, journal editors have possibilities to influence the impact factor of their journals, for example, by requesting authors to cite additional papers published recently in that journal thus increasing the self-citation rate. I calculated self-citation rates of journals ranked in the Journal Citation Reports of ISI in the subject category “Ecology” (n = 107). On average, self citation was responsible for 16.2 ± 1.3% (mean ± SE) of the impact factor in 2004. The self-citation rates decrease with increasing journal impact, but even high impact journals show large variation. Six journals suspected to request for additional citations showed high self-citation rates, which increased over the last seven years. To avoid further deliberate increases in self-citation rates, I suggest to take journal-specific self-citation rates into account for journal rankings.     

Research activities in life sciences in Japan

The purpose of this survey is to study the present state and an evaluation of research activities in the field of life sciences in Japan. Based on the 5,107 papers from Japan in 1989 CD-ROM ofExcerpta Medica, a quantitative analysis to determine the present state of research activities in life sciences was conducted. There were 7 journals in which more than 50 papers by Japanese authors were published.Brain Research stood first. The ranking list of contributed papers demonstrates a preference of Japanese researchers' interest in international journals from commerical publishers rather than in society journals for the publication of their papers overseas. In view of the number of papers and the paper output per head, research activities of organizations were evaluated. The three national medical schools in Kyushu, Osaka, and Kyoto hold ranked high. A comparison between national medical schools and private medical schools shows that the former have higher productivities. Private medical schools were generally inactive, and they emphasized clinical activities more than research activites.