Scientific Collaboration In Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Research

Purpose This study aimed to investigate the multiple collaboration types,quantitatively evaluate the publication trends and analysis the co-authors,co-institutions,co-areas and co-countries(regions)network in COPD research.In addition,collaboration network centricity indicators,collaboration degree,papers production and academic impact indicators were used to identify high academic impact researchers,institutions and countries(regions),as well as to access the cooperative degree of these institutions and countries(regions).Subjects COPD-related bibliographic records were chosen for this study.Data(1)Chinese data All the bibliographic records related to COPD from the year 1973 through the year 2015 were collected from Wanfang database and China National Knowledge Infrastructure(CNKI)database.(2)International data We collected all the documents related with COPD from Web of Science during from 1998 to 2015.Method 1.Literature analysis: including books,papers and information from the web.2.Scientometrics: collaboration degree indicators were used to access the situation of domestic and international scientific collaboration in COPD research.In addition,TC and average citation per paper(ACPP)were used to access the academic impact of institutions or countries(regions),while the percentage of distinguished papers and ACPP were used to compare the academic impact of different collaboration types.3.Social Network Analysis: network centrality analysis,cluster analysis and visualization analysis.Results 1.Domestic COPD study(1)General status of research collaboration in domestic COPD study There has been a substantial increase in the total number of papers in COPD research in China from 1973 to 2015.In general,the COPD research in our country have a low collaboration degree level,with only 64.91% of its publications having been produced by more than one author in our COPD datasets.(2)The status quo of co-author in COPD research Based on the centrality analysis,we find Cai Yingyun,Xu Yongjian and Chen Ping top the ranking of productivity and centrality.Although different central indicators have different ideas for access researcher in collaboration network,we find researchers in the COPD dataset based on at least one of three measures of centrality: degree centrality,betweenness centrality and closeness centrality have a strong academic influence in fact.(3)The institutional cooperation situation in COPD research According to the centrality analysis,the most active institutions in COPD cooperation research are Guangzhou institute of Respiratory Disease,West China Hospital of Sichuan University,Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences,Zhongshan Hospital of Fudan University,Xinqiao Hospital of Third Military Medical University,First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University,Beijing Chaoyang Hospital and Peoples Liberation Army General Hospital.These institutions local in the core of co-institution network in our country.However,through analysis the percentage of different collaboration types of these institutions,we found that those institutions are rarely involved in participate in cooperation across provinces.(4)Across regional cooperation in COPD research By the visualization analysis and scientometrics analysis,we find that both the amount of papers produced and the amount of cooperation that occurs in each study are disproportionally distributed among the different reginal in our country.A large proportion of papers are mainly distributed in Beijing,Henan,Zhejiang,Jiangsu,Guangdong and Sichuan.From the respectively of across regional cooperation,the amount of cooperation are mainly distributed Beijing,Shanghai,Guangdong,Jiangsu,Hubei.2.International COPD study(1)Research cooperation becoming increasingly frequent The number of publications in the COPD field has been growing,especially after 2004.Co-authorship on publications has also been growing.Overall,the COPD research can be classified as an area of research that has a high amount of author collaboration,with 95% of its publications having been produced by more than one author all over the world during the past 18 years.The trends analysis of the average number of entities per paper shows that the average number of authors,institutions and countries(regions)in COPD has increased,especially,the average number of authors increased markedly.(2)Research on the academic impact of papers produced by different collaboration types The analytic results showed that papers produced in each of the different collaboration types have resulted in different citation frequencies.The multi-national collaboration papers have the highest cited frequency,the following is domestic multi-institutional collaboration papers,the lowest are single-authored ones.(3)Prominent institutions are found in COPD field According to the centrality analysis,the most active institutions in COPD cooperation research are Harvard University,Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine,University of Groningen,INSERM,University of Barcelona,University of British Columbia and Washington University.They are playing a critical role in cooperating with different institutions and are involved in ideological exchange in global COPD research.Applying method of clustering,we find 13 clusters in institutions collaboration network.Most of institutions in the same cluster come from the same or neighboring countries(regions).It means that geographic distance can be the major limiting factor in COPD cooperation research.Highly ranked institutions in academic impact and scientific collaboration indicators also include Harvard University,Imperial College London and University of Groningen.The most prolific 35 institutions' research output is greater than or equal 200.A large portion of these publications produced are through domestic multi-institutional collaboration and multi-national collaboration.These institutions not only take the leading role in the development of their own countries(regions),but also playing a critical role in international research cooperation in COPD.(4)Collaboration and performance of countries(regions)in COPD According to the analysis of the cooperation network,52 countries(regions)have frequently collaborated in COPD study.Cooperating between countries(regions)USA,England,Canada and Australia are in the center of the network and play leading roles in the information dissemination and resources control in COPD.However,when it comes to research paper production and total citations,the USA has absolute advantages in COPD study.(5)Increasingly extensive collaboration in various fields in COPD Both domestic multi-institutional collaboration and multi-national collaboration are mainly concentrated in Respiratory System and Critical Care Medicine.Looking at the overall trends,we see that the percentage of papers with regard to these two major disciplines has been reduced,especially the percentage of Critical Care Medicine,from 28% in domestic multi-institutional collaboration and multi-national collaboration in 1998 reduce to 9% and 6% in 2015,respectively.In addition,the major other five disciplines in including,Medicine General & Internal,Cardiac & Cardiovascular Systems,Pharmacology& Pharmacy,Public Environmental & Occupational Health and Immunology,in domestic multi-institutional collaboration and multi-national collaboration are range from 0 to 15%.The highest percentage of the disciplines have been constantly decreasing,while the percentage of other top ten disciplines have stayed at a stable level.From the study we deduced that there will be increasingly extensive disciplines are involved with COPD.Both domestic multiinstitutional collaboration and multi-national collaboration papers show that an increasing attention has been aroused towards the research on COPD from more and more different academic domains.Conclusions 1.The global COPD research can be classified as an area of research that has a high amount of author collaboration,however,COPD research in China has a low research collaboration level.2.Both the amount of papers produced and the amount of cooperation that occurs in each study are disproportionally distributed in domestic and international COPD research.3.There is a big gap between domestic research institutions and international well-known organizations the contribution of scientific research cooperation in COPD study.Suggestions 1.Researchers in COPD study should strengthen scientific cooperation each other in a bid to improve the academic influence of research papers.2.Time span of the impact factor calculation should be moderately extended.3.Give full play to the leading role of the prolific institutions,strengthen the research cooperation in our country.4.Collaboration indexes can be regarded as useful supplement to cooperation network indicators in the assessment institutions or countries(regionals)cooperation level.Innovation point The innovation of this study is: to integrate scientometrics and social network analysis to analyze the cooperation situation of scientific papers in COPD research.We find that both the amount of papers produced and the amount of cooperation that occurs in each study are disproportionally distributed in domestic and international COPD research.In addition,by searching the database,we found that few scientific publications about scientific collaboration in COPD research were reported.Conceptions for making further study This paper focuses upon research papers as a measurement of the academic collaboration between different institutions and countries(regions).However,there is much more to consider in academic collaboration.Something to consider for the future is the value of collaboration in patents or monographs.How do these compare in terms of academic impact versus that of a research paper,and how can this be quantified to be directly compared? These are questions that need to be investigated in future studies.