1. A Comparative Study of the Publication on Alzheimer’s Disease
in Asian Tigers
Cheuk-King Ng1, Wne-Ta Chiu1, Yi-Ling Lin2, Yi-Ting Wu2, Tien-Jen Lin1 and Yuh-Shan Ho3
1Department of Neurosurgery, Taipei Medical University - Wan-Fang Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan
2School of Public Health, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan
3Bibliometric Centre, Taipei Medical University - Wan-Fang Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan
Introduction
Alzheimer’s (AHLZ-high-merz) disease is a progressive brain disorder that gradually destroys a person’s memory and ability to learn, reason, make judgments, communicate and carry out daily activities. Bibliometrics is a type of research method that has been applied to evaluate the distributions of publications. One common way of conducting bibliometric research is to use the Science Citation Index (SCI). Evaluating the performance of each research topic is necessary in order to indicate the impact and contribution of authors in their respective fields. The purpose of this study, on the basis of bibliometric analysis, was to evaluate the research trend of the Alzheimer’s disease-related research by the Asian Tigers, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The data encompassed the period from 1991 to 2004 and were extracted from the Science Citation Index (SCI).
Methods
Documents used in this study were based on the databases of the SCI which was accessed from the ISI Web of Science, Philadelphia, PA, USA. Selected documents included ‘Alzheimer*’ as a part of its title, abstract, or keyword. Parameters analyzed included language, type of document, page count, publication output, country of publication, and authorship.
Results
Seven document types were found in the total of 1,079 documents that were published by the Asian Tigers, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. English was the dominant language, only one article was published by Korean.
Figure 1. Relationship between annual publication output and year for Asian Tigers
Table 1. Publication distribution by impact factor, No. of article (% articles)
Table 2. Five most used author keywords in the Alzheimer’s disease-related research
Conclusions
The yearly publications have increased from 1991 to 2004 for Asia Tigers. South Korea has high productivity and increasing sharply after 1996.
Neuroscience Letters was the most active journals with the number of articles.
The 3 most productive corresponding institutes were the Seoul National University at South Korea, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Veterans General Hospital at Taiwan.
The ranking of corresponding country was South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
The US was the most frequent partner to have the international collaborative publications.