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Mapping interdisciplinary fields: efficiencies, gaps and redundancies in HIV/AIDS research.

ABSTRACT: While interdisciplinarity continues to increase in popularity among funders and other scientific organizations, its potential to promote scientific advances remains under-examined. For HIV/AIDS research, we examine the dynamics of disciplinary integration (or lack thereof) providing insight into a field's knowledge base and those questions that remain unresolved. Drawing on the complete histories of two interdisciplinary journals, we construct bibliographic coupling networks based on overlapping citations to identify segregation into research clusters and estimate topic models of research content. We then compare how readily those bibliographic coupling clusters account for the structuring of topics covered within the field as it evolves over two decades. These comparisons challenge one-dimensional and/or cross-sectional approaches to interdisciplinarity. Some topics are increasingly coordinated across disciplinary boundaries (e.g., vaccine development); others remain relatively segmented into disconnected disciplinary domains for the full period (e.g., drug resistance). This divergence indicates heterogeneity in interdisciplinarity and emphasizes the need for critical approaches to studying the organization of science.

SUBMITTER: Adams J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4266665 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Mapping interdisciplinary fields: efficiencies, gaps and redundancies in HIV/AIDS research.

Adams Jimi J Light Ryan R

PloS one 20141215 12

While interdisciplinarity continues to increase in popularity among funders and other scientific organizations, its potential to promote scientific advances remains under-examined. For HIV/AIDS research, we examine the dynamics of disciplinary integration (or lack thereof) providing insight into a field's knowledge base and those questions that remain unresolved. Drawing on the complete histories of two interdisciplinary journals, we construct bibliographic coupling networks based on overlapping ...[more]

PMID: 25506703

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Project description:BackgroundTo summarize global research trends and activities on multimorbidity; then to assess the knowledge gaps and to identify implications for knowledge exchange between high income countries (HICs) and low- and middle- income countries (LMICs).MethodsA comprehensive search was conducted to identify research publications on multimorbidity in the Web of ScienceTM, as well as diabetes, depression, hypertension, and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). The time frame for the search was from 1900 to June, 2016. Information (such as publication date, subject category, author, country of origin, title, abstract, and keywords) were extracted and the full texts were obtained for the co-citation analysis. Data were linked with the life expectancy at birth (years) and Gross National Income (GNI). Co-citation and hierarchal clustering analysis was used to map the trends and research networks with CiteSpace II (JAVA freeware, copyright Chaomei Chen, http://cluster.cis.drexel.edu/~cchen/citespace/).FindingsWe identified 2864 relevant publications as at June 2016, with the first paper on this topic indexed in 1974 from Germany, but 80% were published after 2010. Further analysis yielded two knowledge gaps: (1) compared with single conditions (diabetes, hypertension, depression, and COPD), there is a mismatch between the high prevalence of multimorbidity and its research outputs (ratio of articles on multimorbidity vs other four single conditions is 1:13-150); (2) although a total of 76 countries have contributed to this research area, only 5% of research originated from LMICs where 73% of non-communicable disease (NCD) related deaths had occurred. Additional analysis showed the median year of first publication occurred 15 years later in the LMICs compared with HICs (2010 vs 1995); and longer life expectancy was associated with exponentially higher publication outputs (Pearson correlation coefficient r?=?0.95) at the global level. The life expectancy at the median year (1994) of first publication was 66.1, with the gap between LMICs and HICs 7.9 (68.4 vs 76.3).ConclusionsThis study confirms substantial knowledge gaps in the research agenda on multimorbidity, with input urgently needed to move us forward worldwide, especially for and in LMICs. There is the possibility that LMICs can learn from and collaborate with HICs in this area.

Project description:BACKGROUND:"Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)" and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) are global health burden. Medication adherence in people living with HIV (PLWH) is a key element in reducing morbidity and mortality. Quantitative and qualitative assessment of research activity helps identify research gaps as well as efforts implemented to improve adherence behaviors in PLWH. The aim of the current study was to assess and analyze literature on HIV/AIDS-related medication adherence using bibliometric methods. METHODS:SciVerse Scopus was used to accomplish the purpose of the current study. The study period included all times up to 2017. The analysis was restricted to documents published in academic journals. RESULTS:Search strategy retrieved 3021 documents with an average of 32.5 citations per document, an h-index of 136, and an average of 4.4 authors per documents. The volume of literature on HIV/AIDS-related medication adherence constituted 1.3% of the overall HIV/AIDS literature. There was a significant (p?<?0.01; r?=?0.9) correlation between the growth of publications in AIDS-related stigma and medication adherence. The regions of America (567.9) had the highest research output per one million infected people (567.9) followed by the European region (314.3), Western Pacific Region (70.7), Eastern Mediterranean region (31.4), South East Asia (34.0), and Africa (19.3). Geographical distribution of publications showed an active contribution of certain countries in the Southern and Eastern region of Sub-Saharan Africa. Harvard University (8.4%; n?=?254) was the most active institution. The top cited documents focused on the impact of adherence on disease outcome and the impact of text messages on improving medication adherence. CONCLUSION:Research on medication adherence in PLWH showed regional variations. International research collaboration with high burden regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa needs to be strengthened to achieve the global target of ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.

Project description:This report summarizes a consultation meeting convened by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH), on 12 September 2017 to discuss the scientific rationale for selectively testing relevant HIV vaccine candidates in early life that are designed to initiate immune responses for lifelong protective immunity. The urgent need to develop interventions providing durable protective immunity to HIV before sexual debut coupled with the practicality of infant vaccine schedules supports optimizing infant HIV vaccines as a high priority. The panelists discussed the unique opportunities and challenges of testing candidate HIV vaccines in the context of distinct early-life immunity. Key developments providing rationale and grounds for cautious optimism regarding evaluation of early-life HIV vaccines include recent studies of early-life immune ontogeny, studies of HIV-infected infants demonstrating relatively rapid generation of broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs), discovery of novel adjuvants active in early life, and cutting-edge sample-sparing systems biology and immunologic assays promising deep insight into vaccine action in infants. Multidisciplinary efforts toward the goal of an infant HIV vaccine are under way and should be nurtured and amplified.IMPORTANCE Young adults represent one of the highest-risk groups for new HIV infections and the only group in which morbidity continues to increase. Therefore, an HIV vaccine to prevent HIV acquisition in adolescence is a top priority. The introduction of any vaccine during adolescence is challenging. This meeting discussed the opportunities and challenges of testing HIV vaccine candidates in the context of the infant immune system given recent advances in our knowledge of immune ontogeny and adjuvant design and studies demonstrating that HIV-infected infants generate broadly neutralizing antibodies, a main target of HIV vaccines, more rapidly than adults. Considering the global success of pediatric vaccines, the concept of an HIV vaccine introduced in early life holds merit and warrants testing.

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Mapping interdisciplinary fields: efficiencies, gaps and redundancies in HIV/AIDS research.

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Mapping interdisciplinary fields: efficiencies, gaps and redundancies in HIV/AIDS research.

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