Publication patterns and citation analysis of APJTM during 2008 and June 2014

Objective:To draw on data about publication patterns and citation indicators oi Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Medicine(APJTM)during 2008 and June 2014 in order to know about the current state of the journal.Methods:Data used in this study were collected based on publications in APJTM from 2008 to June,2014.Information including publication issue,type of manuscript,country/region of corresponding author,funded research paper,and international collaboration were aggregated and analyzed with Excel software.Citation indicators including total cites,average cites of each manuscript,h-index,and impact factors were primarily drawn from Web of Science database on June 15,2014 and changes over the past six and half years were interpreted.The top 10 most cited papers in Web of Science^(TM) database were also analyzed.Results:Number of all submissions has arisen from less than 200 in 2008 to over 1 500 in 2013.manuscript acceptance rate has decreased to be less than 14.00%indicating its improvement in quality over this period of time.Out of the 1115 publiations.23.77%were fruits of funded projects or produced by funded co-authors.87.08%of all publications in APJTM were submited by authors from 10 most contributed countries.During the studied period,each published manuscript in the journal has received an average oi 1.05 cites,and at least 10 publications has been cited for more10 times.Conclusion:Detailed analysis shows APJTM has made great progress over the past six and half years,but authors' originating countries are still disproportionate.Efforts should be made to improve its citation indicators.

Mapping Diversity of Publication Patterns in the Social Sciences and Humanities: An Approach Making Use of Fuzzy Cluster Analysis

Purpose: To present a method for systematically mapping diversity of publication patterns at the author level in the social sciences and humanities in terms of publication type, publication language and co-authorship.Design/methodology/approach: In a follow-up to the hard partitioning clustering by Verleysen and Weeren in 2016, we now propose the complementary use of fuzzy cluster analysis, making use of a membership coefficient to study gradual differences between publication styles among authors within a scholarly discipline. The analysis of the probability density function of the membership coefficient allows to assess the distribution of publication styles within and between disciplines.Findings: As an illustration we analyze 1,828 productive authors affiliated in Flanders, Belgium. Whereas a hard partitioning previously identified two broad publication styles, an international one vs. a domestic one, fuzzy analysis now shows gradual differences among authors. Internal diversity also varies across disciplines and can be explained by researchers’ specialization and dissemination strategies.Research limitations: The dataset used is limited to one country for the years 2000–2011; a cognitive classification of authors may yield a different result from the affiliation-based classification used here.Practical implications: Our method is applicable to other bibliometric and research evaluation contexts, especially for the social sciences and humanities in non-Anglophone countries.Originality/value: The method proposed is a novel application of cluster analysis to the field of bibliometrics. Applied to publication patterns at the author level in the social sciences and humanities, for the first time it systematically documents intra-disciplinary diversity.