Bibliometric Analysis Asia-Pacific Research Area ... - JuSER

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2. Publication Analysis Based on Research Disciplines
2.1 Publication Activity of Selected Countries
In Chapter 2, we will no longer look at the nations as whole entities as we did in the previous
chapter. Instead, we will split the scientific publication output into individual disciplines 8 . The
disciplines are based on the classification of journals in the Science Citation Index on the basis
of what it has termed “subject categories”. Therefore, classification does not occur on the basis
of the content of each article, but rather on the basis of the publishing journal. A journal does
not have to be assigned to one single subject category; it can be assigned multiple categories.
The approximately 6,400 scientific journals in the Science Citation Index are assigned to around
170 subject categories.
The following evaluations use the disciplines as a basis and assume that thematically similar
categories are covered by the one discipline. Figures 35 to 38 illustrate the absolute number of
articles per discipline for the period 1998 to 2007. It is not possible to add the values of
individual disciplines for each country in the charts or tables that follow. As a result of multiple
classifications, there are overlaps between the disciplines that disallow a summation. For
example, publications in the journal “Chemical Physics – Physical Chemistry” are assigned to
both chemistry and physics, and would therefore be counted twice in a summation. From the
charts, we can see the key disciplines in which each country publishes, taking into account the
fact that the Science Citation Index has a different focus in terms of disciplines covered.
Publications by country according to research discipline 1998-2007
Multidisciplinary journals
350000
Physics
300000
Agricultural science
250000
Nanotechnology
200000
Biology and biotechnology
150000
100000
Medicine
50000
0
Chemistry
Japan
China
Mathematics
Energy
Materials science
Geosciences
Engineering
Information and computer science
Figure 35: Publications by the countries studied 1998 – 2007 according to research discipline
8 The disciplines are: agricultural science, biology and biotechnology, chemistry, energy, geosciences,
information and computer science, engineering, materials science, mathematics, medicine,
nanotechnology, physics and multidisciplinary journals. Multidisciplinary journals include journals such as
Science and Nature.
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