Hossain Liaquat, Karimi Faezeh, Wigand Rolf T
1Division of Information and Technology Studies, Faculty of Education,The University of Hong Kong,Pokfulam,Hong Kong.
2Complex Systems Research and Project Management Program, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies,The University of Sydney,Sydney,Australia.
Disaster Med Public Health Prep. 2015 Oct;9(5):496-503. doi: 10.1017/dmp.2015.58. Epub 2015 Jul 27.
The increasing rate of outbreaks in humans of zoonotic diseases requires detailed examination of the education, research, and practice of animal health and its connection to human health. This study investigated the collaboration network of different fields engaged in conducting zoonotic research from a transdisciplinary perspective.
Examination of the dynamics of this network for a 33-year period from 1980 to 2012 is presented through the development of a large scientometric database from Scopus. In our analyses we compared several properties of these networks, including density, clustering coefficient, giant component, and centrality measures over time. We also elicited patterns in different fields of study collaborating with various other fields for zoonotic research.
We discovered that the strongest collaborations across disciplines are formed among the fields of medicine; biochemistry, genetics, and molecular biology; immunology and microbiology; veterinary; agricultural and biological sciences; and social sciences. Furthermore, the affiliation network is growing overall in terms of collaborative research among different fields of study such that more than two-thirds of all possible collaboration links among disciplines have already been formed.
Our findings indicate that zoonotic research scientists in different fields (human or animal health, social science, earth and environmental sciences, engineering) have been actively collaborating with each other over the past 11 years.
人畜共患病在人类中的爆发率不断上升，这就需要详细审视动物健康的教育、研究和实践及其与人类健康的联系。本研究从跨学科角度调查了从事人畜共患病研究的不同领域的合作网络。
通过从Scopus开发一个大型科学计量数据库，展示了1980年至2012年这33年期间该网络的动态变化。在我们的分析中，我们比较了这些网络的几个属性，包括密度、聚类系数、巨型组件和随时间变化的中心性度量。我们还梳理了不同研究领域与人畜共患病研究的其他各个领域合作的模式。
我们发现，医学领域、生物化学、遗传学和分子生物学领域、免疫学和微生物学领域、兽医学领域、农业和生物科学领域以及社会科学领域之间形成了最强的跨学科合作。此外，就不同研究领域之间的合作研究而言，隶属网络总体上在增长以致各学科之间所有可能的合作联系中有超过三分之二已经形成。
我们的研究结果表明，在过去11年里，不同领域（人类或动物健康、社会科学、地球和环境科学、工程学）的人畜共患病研究科学家一直在积极地相互合作。
