Hermes-Lima Marcelo, Alencastro Antonieta C R, Santos Natacha C F, Navas Carlos A, Beleboni Rene O
Oxyradical Research Group, Departamento de Biologia Celular, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, DF, 70910-900, Brazil.
Oxyradical Research Group, Departamento de Biologia Celular, Universidade de Brasília, Brasília, DF, 70910-900, Brazil.
Comp Biochem Physiol C Toxicol Pharmacol. 2007 Jul-Aug;146(1-2):1-9. doi: 10.1016/j.cbpc.2007.05.005. Epub 2007 Jun 6.
Although the number of science and engineering (S&E) publications produced in Latin America grew exponentially over the past 15 years, the investment in science and the number of full time researchers did not grow at a comparable rate. Moreover, Latin American science is handicapped by constrained resources and access to information, higher costs of research, English-language barriers and brain-drain. One possible explanation for the observed rise in paper numbers, therefore, is that Latin American scientists have increased production, perhaps at the cost of quality. As an alternative, Latin America authors may have increased production while maintaining quality (e.g., through creativity, intense work and enhancement of international cooperation). Our aim is to verify which of these interpretations best applies for the field of comparative biochemistry and physiology (CBP). To achieve this goal, we compared the impact indicators of two randomly selected samples of authors (n=20; all with 8 to 30 years of scientific production), one from Latin America and another from developed countries. For additional comparison, we included also a group of twelve highly cited and recognized CBP researchers. We used Hirsch's indexes (h and m) as main indicators of performance, but compared also classical bibliometric indexes such as total number of citations, total number of papers and the ratio of citation per paper (CpP). The mean of most indexes were not significantly different between the two groups of regular CBP researchers, except for CpP, which was 1.7-fold higher in authors from developed countries. As expected, both groups had mean indicators well below those from the sample of highly cited researchers (average h values for top and regular CBP researchers were 37.3+/-3.0 and 11.4+/-0.9, respectively). Considering that Hirsch's indexes are more suitable indicators of performance than CpP, we conclude that Latin American CBP researchers, despite handicaps, perform similarly to those in developed countries. The forth special issue of Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology ("The Face of Latin American Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology") celebrates, with 24 new manuscripts from Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Chile, the diversity of biological science in Latin America.
尽管在过去15年里拉丁美洲产出的科学与工程（S&E）出版物数量呈指数级增长，但对科学的投资以及全职研究人员的数量却没有以可比的速度增长。此外，拉丁美洲的科学受到资源有限、信息获取受限、研究成本较高、英语语言障碍和人才外流的制约。因此，对于观察到的论文数量增长，一种可能的解释是拉丁美洲科学家提高了产量，或许是以质量为代价。另一种情况是，拉丁美洲的作者可能在保持质量的同时提高了产量（例如，通过创造力、高强度工作以及加强国际合作）。我们的目的是验证哪种解释最适用于比较生物化学与生理学（CBP）领域。为实现这一目标，我们比较了两组随机选取的作者（每组n = 20；所有作者都有8至30年的科研产出）的影响指标，一组来自拉丁美洲，另一组来自发达国家。为了进行额外比较，我们还纳入了一组12位被高度引用且知名的CBP研究人员。我们将赫希指数（h和m）用作主要的绩效指标，但也比较了经典的文献计量指标，如总被引次数、论文总数以及每篇论文的被引率（CpP）。除了CpP外，两组普通CBP研究人员的大多数指标均值没有显著差异，发达国家作者的CpP高出1.7倍。正如预期的那样，两组的平均指标都远低于高被引研究人员样本的指标（顶级和普通CBP研究人员的平均h值分别为37.3±3.0和11.4±0.9）。考虑到赫希指数比CpP更适合作为绩效指标，我们得出结论，尽管面临诸多不利因素，拉丁美洲的CBP研究人员的表现与发达国家的研究人员相似。《比较生物化学与生理学》的第四期特刊（“拉丁美洲比较生物化学与生理学的面貌”）收录了来自巴西、墨西哥、阿根廷和智利的24篇新稿件，颂扬了拉丁美洲生物科学的多样性。
