Purpose -Research with stem cells is a biomedical venture with great scientific impact, and whose development flows over into many other areas. This article presents a dual analysis of Spain´s scientific output in this field during the period 1997-2007.Design/methodology/approach -We used, on the one hand, bibliometric indicators of a basic nature, and on the other hand, techniques for the visualization and analysis of networks of scientific information based on a study of KeyWords Plus.
Findings -The Output is mainly concentrated in Cataluña and Madrid, and hospitals are the most productive centres (followed by health institutes), where the main authors are affiliated. Main categories are Hematology, Oncology and Biophysics. The outstanding areas of study we identified revolve around the therapeutic use of transplant of hematopoietic progenitors, the processes of generation, proliferation and differentiation of lines of cells, and the study of neurosciences.Originality/value -This study provides an overview of Spanish research involving stem cells, detecting and representing the main areas of research. We consider the potential of KeyWords Plus in combination with the proposed methodology as particularly useful for the analysis and delimitation of a scientific domain.
Gisela Cantos-Mateos es licenciada en historia y en documentación y máster en documentación. Becaria predoctoral (programa JAE-Predoc)
ResumenSe analiza la investigación española en células madre en el Science Citation Index (SCI) entre 1997 y 2010 con una división temporal en tres sub-períodos, mediante técnicas de visualización basadas en redes sociales. Se han utilizado los descriptores KeyWords Plus (KW+) como unidad de análisis, su coocurrencia como unidad de medida, y Pajek y VOSviewer como herramientas para la generación y visualización de redes sociales. Los resultados muestran dos imágenes complementarias de la investigación: la estructura estática, donde se distingue investigación clínica y básica, y la dinámica del análisis evolutivo, mostrando las líneas más consolidadas y las emergentes. Se plantea una propuesta metodológica para la visualización y detección de las principales líneas de investigación a lo largo del tiempo, su aplicabilidad y capacidad de predicción en dominios científicos y geográficos.
This paper shows the main lines of research concerning health and women, as registered in the Medline database, broken down into four 10-year periods: . The units of analysis used were the Medline ''MeSH'' major terms, processed by means of co-term analysis. For graphic representation, the social network approach was used, with pruning performed by Pathfinder Networks (PFNET), so as to concentrate the displays. Factor analysis was used to group the descriptors and identify the main lines of research involving health and women. The results show that research on Health and Women has increased and undergone significant changes over the past 40 years, yet such studies are not given due importance.
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