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Comparison of medical research performance by thermodynamic and citation analysis methods

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Abstract

Beside citation metrics, in recent years, the thermodynamic indicators have been introduced. So, we want to compare citation metrics like h-index to thermodynamic indicators such as the exergy for determining the best indicator to rank the scientific agents effectively. This study is the bibliometric research and analyzes the scientific performance of the best countries, institutions, and universities in medical fields based on the citation metrics and the thermodynamic indicators upon extracted data from Scopus and Scimago databases. The Excel software version 2016 was used for analyzing the research performance of these medical agents and descriptive statistics were reported. Among countries, the United States had the best research performance based on the highest number of P, C, h, X. But, it had the lower impact than some countries like the United Kingdom and Italy. Iran is ranked 17th among the countries of the world in terms of studying indicators. About the world medical institutions, the National Institutes of Health Bethesda had the best research performance based on h and X, but the most qualitative institution was the American Cancer Society. Iranian medical universities compared to their world peers had the lower P, C, i, h, X. But Tehran University of Medical Sciences ranked first upon h and X. Mashhad University of Medical Sciences had the best quality of the scientific publication. Results showed that the exergy as the thermodynamic indicator and research performance metric can rank better the academic units based on the total number of papers and citations than the citation metrics such as h-index.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by Iran University of Medical Sciences. We would like to thank our colleagues for contributing in this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Librarianship and Medical Information Department, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Rogheyeh Eskrootchi

  2. Medical Librarianship and Information Science, Student Research Committee, School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

    Nadia Sanee

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  1. Rogheyeh Eskrootchi
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  2. Nadia Sanee
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Correspondence to Nadia Sanee.

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Eskrootchi, R., Sanee, N. Comparison of medical research performance by thermodynamic and citation analysis methods. Scientometrics 117, 2159–2168 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2930-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2930-4

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