A scientometric approach to psychological research during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, modern science demonstrated its ability to respond well to the health crisis by publishing useful and reliable information. This disease has also led to an increase in psychological publications in this field. However, most scientometric studies have focused on medical aspects, and social science research has been neglected. Therefore, to fill this research gap, we analyzed the research on COVID-19 in the field of psychology to provide an insight into the perspective, research fields, and international collaborations. Data were collected from the Web of Science database and analyzed using Citespace and Bibliometrix (Biblioshiny). The overall performance of the documents was described, and then keyword co-occurrence and co-authorship networks were visualized. Fifteen main clusters were formed by drawing document co-citation network. The result indicates that Anxiety, mental health, delirium, loneliness, and suicide were important topics for researchers. Considering the special conditions that COVID-19 created for human societies, perhaps one of the most important subjects in the field of health is psychological studies. Using the results of this study, psychology researchers can identify their potential colleagues and research gaps in the subject of Covid-19.

Socialization During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Social and Scientific Networks During Social Distancing.

In the COVID-19 era, while we are encouraged to be physically far away from each other, social and scientific networking is needed more than ever. The dire consequences of social distancing can be diminished by social networking. Social media, a quintessential component of social networking, facilitates the dissemination of reliable information and fighting against misinformation by health authorities. Distance learning, telemedicine, and telehealth are among the most prominent applications of networking during this pandemic. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the importance of collaborative scientific efforts. In this chapter, we summarize the advantages of harnessing both social and scientific networking in minimizing the harms of this pandemic. We also discuss the extra collaborative measures we can take in our fight against COVID-19, particularly in the scientific field.

Clues for improvement of research in objective structured clinical examination.

While objective clinical structured examination (OSCE) is a worldwide recognized and effective method to assess clinical skills of undergraduate medical students, the latest Ottawa conference on the assessment of competences raised vigorous debates regarding the future and innovations of OSCE. This study aimed to provide a comprehensive view of the global research activity on OSCE over the past decades and to identify clues for its improvement. We performed a bibliometric and scientometric analysis of OSCE papers published until March 2024. We included a description of the overall scientific productivity, as well as an unsupervised analysis of the main topics and the international scientific collaborations. A total of 3,224 items were identified from the Scopus database. There was a sudden spike in publications, especially related to virtual/remote OSCE, from 2020 to 2024. We identified leading journals and countries in terms of number of publications and citations. A co-occurrence term network identified three main clusters corresponding to different topics of research in OSCE. Two connected clusters related to OSCE performance and reliability, and a third cluster on student's experience, mental health (anxiety), and perception with few connections to the two previous clusters. Finally, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada were identified as leading countries in terms of scientific publications and collaborations in an international scientific network involving other European countries (the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy) as well as Saudi Arabia and Australia, and revealed the lack of important collaboration with Asian countries. Various avenues for improving OSCE research have been identified: i) developing remote OSCE with comparative studies between live and remote OSCE and issuing international recommendations for sharing remote OSCE between universities and countries; ii) fostering international collaborative studies with the support of key collaborating countries; iii) investigating the relationships between student performance and anxiety.

Education and Outreach in Physical Sciences in Oncology.

Physical sciences are often overlooked in the field of cancer research. The Physical Sciences in Oncology Initiative was launched to integrate physics, mathematics, chemistry, and engineering with cancer research and clinical oncology through education, outreach, and collaboration. Here, we provide a framework for education and outreach in emerging transdisciplinary fields.

Beliefs and preferences regarding biological treatments for severe asthma.

BACKGROUND: Severe asthma is a serious condition with a significant burden on patients' morbidity, mortality, and quality of life. Some biological therapies targeting the IgE and interleukin-5 (IL5) mediated pathways are now available. Due to the lack of direct comparison studies, the choice of which medication to use varies. We aimed to explore the beliefs and practices in the use of biological therapies in severe asthma, hypothesizing that differences will occur depending on the prescribers' specialty and experience. METHODS: We conducted an online survey composed of 35 questions in English. The survey was circulated via the INterasma Scientific Network (INESNET) platform as well as through social media. Responses from allergists and pulmonologists, both those with experience of prescribing omalizumab with (OMA/IL5) and without (OMA) experience with anti-IL5 drugs, were compared. RESULTS: Two hundred eighty-five (285) valid questionnaires from 37 countries were analyzed. Seventy-on percent (71%) of respondents prescribed biologics instead of oral glucocorticoids and believed that their side effects are inferior to those of Prednisone 5 mg daily. Agreement with ATS/ERS guidelines for identifying severe asthma patients was less than 50%. Specifically, significant differences were found comparing responses between allergists and pulmonologists (Chi-square test, p < 0.05) and between OMA/IL5 and OMA groups (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Uncertainties and inconsistencies regarding the use of biological medications have been shown. The accuracy of prescribers to correctly identify asthma severity, according to guidelines criteria, is quite poor. Although a substantial majority of prescribers believe that biological drugs are safer than low dose long-term treatment with oral steroids, and that they must be used instead of oral steroids, every effort should be made to further increase awareness. Efficacy as disease modifiers, biomarkers for selecting responsive patients, timing for outcomes evaluation, and checks need to be addressed by further research. Practices and beliefs regarding the use of asthma biologics differ between the prescriber's specialty and experience; however, the latter seems more significant in determining beliefs and behavior. Tailored educational measures are needed to ensure research results are better integrated in daily practice.

[Strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities of French research in trophic ecology]. / Forces, failles et opportunités de la recherche française en écologie trophique.

The French National Institute of Ecology and Environment (INEE) aims at fostering pluridisciplinarity in Environmental Science and, for that purpose, funds ex muros research groups (GDR) on thematic topics. Trophic ecology has been identified as a scientific field in ecology that would greatly benefit from such networking activity, as being profoundly scattered. This has motivated the seeding of a GDR, entitled "GRET". The contours of the GRET's action, and its ability to fill these gaps within trophic ecology at the French national scale, will depend on the causes of this relative scattering. This study relied on a nationally broadcasted poll aiming at characterizing the field of trophic ecology in France. Amongst all the unique individuals that fulfilled the poll, over 300 belonged at least partly to the field of trophic ecology. The sample included all French public research institutes and career stages. Three main disruptions within the community of scientist in trophic ecology were identified. The first highlighted the lack of interfaces between microbial and trophic ecology. The second evidenced that research questions were strongly linked to single study fields or ecosystem type. Last, research activities are still quite restricted to the ecosystem boundaries. All three rupture points limit the conceptual and applied progression in the field of trophic ecology. Here we show that most of the disruptions within French Trophic Ecology are culturally inherited, rather than motivated by scientific reasons or justified by socio-economic stakes. Comparison with the current literature confirms that these disruptions are not necessarily typical of the French research landscape, but instead echo the general weaknesses of the international research in ecology. Thereby, communication and networking actions within and toward the community of trophic ecologists, as planned within the GRET's objectives, should contribute to fill these gaps, by reintegrating microbes within trophic concepts and setting the seeds for trans- and meta-ecosystemic research opportunities. Once the community of trophic ecologists is aware of the scientific benefit in pushing its boundaries forwards, turning words and good intentions into concrete research projects will depend on the opportunities to obtain research funding.

Conformación de la red de gestión de conocimiento, investigación e innovación en salud materna en Colombia

Objetivo: Establecer la metodología y los principales actores en la conformación de una red de gestión de conocimiento, investigación e innovación en salud materna en Colombia. Metodología: Enfoque triangular, cuyo componente principal es cualitativo con complemento cuantitativo, de alcance descriptivo, articulado en tres procesos centrales: levantamiento de información, sistemas de información y generación del conocimiento; dividido en dos etapas: planificación - conformación y madurez - sostenibilidad. Resultados: La información recolectada permitió identificar los actores que trabajan en áreas relacionadas a la salud materna en los territorios y los tipos de actividades que estos realizan: social, académica, investigativa, prestación de servicios de salud. Se delimitaron cinco regiones geográficas de influencia donde intervienen los actores, el 66,7% (97) se encuentran ubicados en la región andina, el 21,1% (31) se encuentran ubicados en la región caribe; el 6,1% (9) se encuentran ubicado en la región amazonia y el 2,7 % (4) se encuentra ubicados tanto en la región de la Orinoquia y 3,4% (5) de la región pacífica. Conclusiones: La conformación de esta red proporcionará una plataforma estratégica para la generación y gestión del conocimiento en salud materna que permitirá impulsar proyectos de investigación e innovación de manera colaborativa, apoyando la toma de decisiones para la intervención, desarrollo e implementación de políticas nacionales de salud pública en el marco del cumplimiento de los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible en Colombia

Objective: To establish the methodology and the main actors to forming a knowledge management, research, and innovation network in maternal health in Colombia. Methods: A triangular approach, whose main component is qualitative with a quantitative complement, with a descriptive scope, articulated in three main processes: information gathering, information systems and knowledge generation; divided into two stages: planning - conformation and maturity - sustainability. Results: The information collected made it possible to identify the actors who work in areas related to maternal health in the territories and the types of activities they carry out: social, academic, research, provision of health services. Five geographical regions of influence where the actors intervene were delimited, 66.7% (97) are in the Andean region, 21.1% (31) are located in the Caribbean region; 6.1% (9) are located in the Amazon region and 2.7% (4) are located both in the Orinoquia region and 3.4% (5) in the Pacific region. Conclusions: The formation of this network will provide a strategic platform for the generation and management of knowledge in maternal health that allows promoting research and innovation projects in a collaborative manner, supporting decision-making for the intervention, development, and implementation of national health policies in the framework of compliance with the Sustainable Development Goals in Colombia

Photodynamic therapy: Progress toward a scientific and clinical network in Latin America.

Cancer is one of the major challenges for Latin America health services, since the skin cancer is the most frequent lesion. This manuscript addresses an initiative for the treatment of basal cell carcinomas (BCC) by photodynamic therapy (PDT) based on a government-funded national program in Brazil. The program provides clinical training and facilitates access to drugs/equipment and significantly reduces PDT costs. It also lays foundations for the establishment of a Latin American research network to improve prevention, early detection and treatment of diseases. Centers have been established by direct contact (conferences, visits to healthcare facilities and official departments). A local training was divided into complementary theoretical and practical parts. This is an ongoing project that has involved 10 countries: Brazil, Bolivia Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela, The initial results are encouraging and have provided assessment of Latin America patients relating, for example, the most common skin phototypes with incidence of BCC in such countries. The network is expected to produce relevant scientific information for PDT introduction in many countries. The experience acquired by local teams shall enable them to innovate PDT protocols and increase the number of skilled contributors/researchers to broaden knowledge on the ever-crescent PDT field in Latin America. The establishment of a collaboration network and introduction of other projects and experience exchange shall become an easier process with time. This PDT clinical research network is a start for the strengthening of Science in South Hemisphere countries.

Evolution of coauthorship networks: worldwide scientific production on leishmaniasis

Introduction Collaboration is one of the defining features of contemporary scientific research, and it is particularly important with regard to neglected diseases that primarily affect developing countries. Methods The present study has identified publications on leishmaniasis in the Medline database from 1945 to 2010, analyzing them according to bibliometric indicators and statistics from social network analysis. Examining aspects such as scientific production, diachronic evolution, and collaboration and configuration of the research groups in the field, we have considered the different types of Leishmania studied and the institutional affiliation and nationality of the authors. Results Seven-hundred and thirty-five authors participate in 154 prominent research clusters or groups. Although the most predominant and consolidated collaborations are characterized by members from the same country studying the same type of Leishmania, there are also notable links between authors from different countries or who study different clinical strains of the disease. Brazil took the lead in this research, with numerous Brazilian researchers heading different clusters in the center of the collaboration network. Investigators from the USA, India, and European countries, such as France, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Italy, also stand out within the network. Conclusions Research should be fostered in countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Sudan, and Ethiopia, where there is a high prevalence of different forms of the disease but limited research development with reference authors integrated into the collaboration networks. .