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The h-index is no longer an effective correlate of scientific reputation.

ABSTRACT: The impact of individual scientists is commonly quantified using citation-based measures. The most common such measure is the h-index. A scientist's h-index affects hiring, promotion, and funding decisions, and thus shapes the progress of science. Here we report a large-scale study of scientometric measures, analyzing millions of articles and hundreds of millions of citations across four scientific fields and two data platforms. We find that the correlation of the h-index with awards that indicate recognition by the scientific community has substantially declined. These trends are associated with changing authorship patterns. We show that these declines can be mitigated by fractional allocation of citations among authors, which has been discussed in the literature but not implemented at scale. We find that a fractional analogue of the h-index outperforms other measures as a correlate and predictor of scientific awards. Our results suggest that the use of the h-index in ranking scientists should be reconsidered, and that fractional allocation measures such as h-frac provide more robust alternatives.

SUBMITTER: Koltun V

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8238192 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:ImportanceSepsis survivors, defined as adult patients who survived to hospital discharge following a critical care unit admission for sepsis, are at increased risk of long-term mortality. Identifying factors independently associated with long-term mortality, known during critical care admission for sepsis, could inform targeted strategies to reduce this risk.ObjectiveTo assess, in adult sepsis survivors, factors independently associated with long-term mortality, known during their index critical care admission for sepsis, meeting Third International Consensus Definitions for Sepsis and Septic Shock criteria.Design, setting, and participantsThis cohort study included a nationally representative sample of 94 748 adult sepsis survivors from 192 critical care units in England. Participants were identified from consecutive critical care admissions between April 1, 2009, and March 31, 2014, with survival status ascertained as of March 31, 2015. Statistical analyses were completed in June 2017.ExposuresGeneric patient characteristics (age, sex, ethnicity, severe comorbidities [defined using the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II method], dependency, surgical status, and acute illness severity [scored using the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II acute physiology component]) and sepsis-specific patient characteristics (site of infection, number of organ dysfunctions, and septic shock status) known during index critical care admission for sepsis.Main outcomes and measuresLong-term mortality in adult sepsis survivors with maximum follow-up of 6 years. Adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) were estimated using Cox regression for both generic and sepsis-specific patient characteristics.ResultsSepsis survivors had a mean (SD) age of 61.3 (17.0) years, 43 584 (46.0%) were female, and 86 056 (90.8%) were white. A total of 46.3% had respiratory site of infection. By 1 year from hospital discharge, 15% of sepsis survivors had died, with 6% to 8% dying per year over the subsequent 5 years. Age, sex, race/ethnicity, severe comorbidities, dependency, nonsurgical status, and site of infection were independently associated with long-term mortality. Compared with single-organ dysfunction, having 2 or 3 organ dysfunctions was associated with increased risk of long-term mortality (adjusted HR, 1.07; 95% CI, 1.01-1.13; and adjusted HR, 1.18; 95% CI, 1.03-1.14, respectively), while having 4 organ dysfunctions or more was not associated with increased risk. Unexpectedly, the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation acute physiology component score had an incremental association with long-term mortality (adjusted HR, 1.11 for every 5-point increase; 95% CI, 1.08-1.13). The adjusted HR for septic shock was 0.89 (95% CI, 0.85-0.92).Conclusions and relevanceThis study suggests that generic and sepsis-specific risk factors, known during index critical care admission for sepsis, could identify a high-risk sepsis survivor population for biological characterization and designing interventions to reduce long-term mortality.

Project description:BackgroundEarly-onset breast cancer (EOBC) affects about one in 300 women aged 40 years or younger and is associated with worse outcomes than later onset breast cancer. This study explored novel serum proteins as surrogate markers of prognosis in patients with EOBC.MethodsSerum samples from EOBC patients (stages 1-3) were analysed using agnostic high-precision quantitative proteomics. Patients received anthracycline-based chemotherapy. The discovery cohort (n = 399) either had more than 5-year disease-free survival (DFS) (good outcome group, n = 203) or DFS of less than 2 years (poor outcome group, n = 196). Expressed proteins were assessed for differential expression between the two groups. Bioinformatics pathway and network analysis in combination with literature research were used to determine clinically relevant proteins. ELISA analysis against an independent sample set from the Prospective study of Outcomes in Sporadic versus Hereditary breast cancer (POSH) cohort (n = 181) was used to validate expression levels of the selected target. Linear and generalized linear modelling was applied to determine the effect of target markers, body mass index (BMI), lymph node involvement (LN), oestrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 status on patients' outcome.ResultsA total of 5346 unique proteins were analysed (peptide FDR p ≤ 0.05). Of these, 812 were differentially expressed in the good vs poor outcome groups and showed significant enrichment for the insulin signalling (p = 0.01) and the glycolysis/gluconeogenesis (p = 0.01) pathways. These proteins further correlated with interaction networks involving glucose and fatty acid metabolism. A consistent nodal protein to these metabolic networks was resistin (upregulated in the good outcome group, p = 0.009). ELISA validation demonstrated resistin to be upregulated in the good outcome group (p = 0.04), irrespective of BMI and ER status. LN involvement was the only covariate with a significant association with resistin measurements (p = 0.004). An ancillary in-silico observation was the induction of the inflammatory response, leucocyte infiltration, lymphocyte migration and recruitment of phagocytes (p < 0.0001, z-score > 2). Survival analysis showed that resistin overexpression was associated with improved DFS.ConclusionsHigher circulating resistin correlated with node-negative patients and longer DFS independent of BMI and ER status in women with EOBC. Overexpression of serum resistin in EOBC may be a surrogate indicator of improved prognosis.

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The h-index is no longer an effective correlate of scientific reputation.

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