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This paper reports the findings of a bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer on 392 Scopus database documents published from 2003 to 2022, aiming to understand the global landscape of the e-learning field and to identify the most prominent authors, institutions, countries and reference publications, as well as the research topics that have recently received the most attention in students' readiness for e-learning in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The findings indicate that there has been an upward trend in e-learning readiness among students in HEIs over time. Among the countries studied, the United States, Taiwan, Australia, and Malaysia were found to have the most effective approaches to addressing students' readiness for e-learning. The most highly cited author in this field is M-L. Hung. Based on the citations, the most recognised journal in this field was "Computers and Education" and the universities that were most persuasive were two Taiwan universities in the first position. The data also revealed relatively low levels of collaboration among authors, institutions and nations regarding students' readiness for e-learning.

The aim of this study was to compare bibliometric indicators of scientific productivity in physical activity (PA) in children and adolescents with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and Down syndrome (DS) in the PubMed database. A bibliometric study was conducted for the last 5 years (2017 to 2021). The data collected for each article were: year of publication, language of publication, country, journal name, and type of paper. The results showed that there was higher scientific productivity in the population with DS (20 studies) relative to their counterparts with ASD (31 studies). The language of publication in both cases was English. There were 10 countries that published on PA in ASD and 14 countries that published on DS. Overall, the greatest interest in publishing on PA in children and adolescents with ASD was in North America (6 studies), followed by Asia (5 studies) and Europe (4 studies). In the DS population it was in Europe (13 studies), North America (9 studies) and South America (4 studies). Nineteen journals were identified that published in the ASD population and 29 journals in DS. Six experimental studies were identified in ASD and 7 in DS. There was a higher scientific productivity with original studies. There was a positive trend of increasing scientific productivity over the years in both populations. We suggest the need to promote research on PA in both populations, regardless of the type of study, as it is an indicator of overall health status.

The importance of inclusive education receives global acceptance. The current paper presents a bibliometric analysis of 8398 papers dealing with inclusive education between 1980 and 2019. The research aim is to gain information on scientific productivity, international collaboration activities, and the conceptual structure of this research field. Descriptive analyses, co-authorship collaboration analysis and co-word analysis were conducted to obtain a comprehensive knowledge map of inclusive education research. The results show a fast growing body of research in inclusive education over the years with intensive international collaboration patterns. Six research clusters could be identified. Major and intensively studied research themes are disability issues, teacher professionalisation, teacher practices, attitudes towards inclusive education, social processes, support, curricular issues, student perspective, parent perspective, intercultural education, policy, etc. Research addressing inclusive education from a queer perspective, bullying, stigmatisation, digital education and emerging technologies in inclusive settings are under-represented and should be intensified in future studies.

Research on augmented reality (AR) in education is gaining momentum worldwide. This field has been actively growing over the past decades in terms of the research and development of new technologies. Reviews in the field of AR in education consist of systematic literature reviews and meta-analyses (around 45), surveys (around 33), and only one bibliometric analysis. However, these reviews do not provide a general synthesis of the research published in the field to depict its evolution over the years. This study used the metadata of articles from a 25-year period (1995-2020) to conduct a bibliometric analysis. A total of 3,475 studies were considered. In this study, we used tools such as the Scopus database, the bibliometrix R package, and the VOSviewer analysis tool. The analysis of the literature is based on the metadata, author, content, and citation information extracted from the dataset. In addition, we focus on comparing literature published mainly in journals (articles, articles in press, and reviews) and those published in other sources (conference papers, books, and book chapters). Practitioners could use the results of this study to make decisions about the adoption of AR technologies in education.

This systematic review was conducted to identify, evaluate and characterize the overall progress of health economics research conducted for Africa. Health economics studies carried out from 1991 to 2020 for Africa were retrieved from the EconLit database using relevant searching strategies. According to the methodology of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, qualified journal papers were included. Using bibliometrics, we ran a series of analyses on authorship, studied countries, affiliations, and countries of origin, journals, and research topics. A total of 2935 studies were screened, and 178 were included in this review. We observed that the determinants of illness is the most researched topics. The United States, World Bank, University of California Berkeley, are respectively the most influential countries, world organizations, and academic institutions in the field of health economics of Africa. HIV/AIDs is still the leading health issue in highly cited health economics studies in Africa. Health Policy and Planning is the most productive and academically influential journal, and Kenya is the most studied country by health economists among all African countries. African health systems are vulnerable compared to developed countries, as many of them are underfunded. The academic strength in Africa is much weaker than that of leading health economics counties. Even within the continent, the academic development and the attention it receives are uneven. More influential health economics studies of Africa should be published in addition to the disease focus of HIV/AIDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Nigeria has a relatively large scientific community that produces an adequate research output among African countries. Not many studies have analysed the research output in orthopaedics and sports medicine from Nigeria and Africa. Hence, we aimed to analyze the research output in orthopaedics and sports medicine from Nigeria and Africa. Methodology: We used the SCOPUS data from the Scimago Journal & Country Rank website. It allows us to draw various journal metrics for research. Results: Between 1996 and 2022, Nigerian research publications in orthopaedics and sports medicine had grown from 4 in 1996 to 39 in 2022 (a 10-fold growth) but overall is 62nd in the world representing 0.07% of publications in the period. In the same period, Africa published 8297 papers in orthopaedics and sports medicine representing only 1.24% of the global publications in this field. Conclusion: There is low research output in Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine from Nigeria and, the whole African continent. However, there has been a growth in the publications from Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early warning systems (EWS) facilitate societies' preparedness and effective response capabilities to climate risks. Climate risks embody hazards, exposure, and vulnerability associated with a particular geographical area. Building an effective EWS requires consideration of the factors above to help people with coping mechanisms. The objective of this paper is to propose an approach that can enhance EWSs and ensure an effective climate risk resilience development. The paper focuses on the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region and highlights the issues with EWS, identifying weaknesses and characteristics of EWS to help in climate risk adaptation strategies. The SADC region was chosen as the context because it is a climate variability and change hotspot with many vulnerable populations residing in rural communities. Trending themes on building climate risk resilience were uncovered through scientific mapping and network analysis of published articles from 2008 to 2022. This paper contributes to on-going research on building climate risks resilience through early warning systems to identify hidden trends and emerging technologies from articles in order to enhance the operationalization and design of EWS. This review provides insight into technological interventions for assessing climate risks to build preparedness and resilience. From the review analysis, it is determined that there exists a plethora of evidence to support the argument that involving communities in the co-designing of EWS would improve risk knowledge, anticipation, and preparedness. Additionally, Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies provide effective tools to address existing EWS' weaknesses, such as lack of real-time data collection and automation. However, 4IR technology is still at a nascent stage in EWS applications in Africa. Furthermore, policy across societies, institutions, and technology industries ought to be coordinated and integrated to develop a strategy toward implementing climate resilient-based EWS to facilitate the operations of disaster risk managers. The Social, Institutional, and Technology model can potentially increase communities' resilience; therefore, it is recommended to develop EWS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mapping of research has become important across the world and any new technology requires a new institutional framework for mapping appropriate outcomes of research. It involves analyzing linkages between various actors, stakeholders, agencies, and institutions to map potential research domains. Over the years, Biotechnology Applied Microbiology has emerged as a niche area, and this sector is recognized as the key driver for economic growth and development. Biotechnology has emerged as a promising area of research in selected African countries but requires expanding its S&T base. To enhance S&T-based and capacity building Africa has initiated to expand its collaborative efforts with other countries including Europe, Asia, the US, the Middle East, and Africa with promising results in different areas like nanotechnology, biotechnology, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, etc. Biotechnology is one of the emerging areas and African biotechnology has the potential to transform the economy. Therefore, this paper presents an analysis of the emerging pattern of research areas in selected African countries and in particular biotechnology research activities in Africa. More than 56000 research articles were analyzed, using SPSS software, indicates that R&D collaboration and national as well as international networks could be helpful in enhancing publication output and research competency in the field of biotechnology research in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We look at Brazilian collaboration in Scientific papers based on SciVal and Incites regarding the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. Data were collected from InCites® and SciVal® (2012-2021). Groups of Global South countries were formed (ASEAN, Asia, Africa, BRICS, Caribbean, Central and Latin America). Analyses included Cluster (Author position, impact/citations, open access, journal quartil), principal component, path and analysis of variance to see the effect of region and SDGs in Brazilian publishing. Scopus data were analysed in Vosviewer® for creating country networks through publication, citation and bibliographic coupling, as well as keyword analysis. SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-Being) dominates all Brazilian scientific collaborations with the various country groups. While gender equality shows greater importance in ASEAN and African countries, Life Below Water (SDG14), on Land (SDG15), and Climate Action (SDG13), are important in all regions. SDGs 1, 8, 10, 12, and 16 show less importance in this collaboration overall. Brazil is relatively more active in Zero Hunger (SDG2) and Life on Land (SDG15) than worldwide. Brazil South-South collaboration in published documents shows higher impact than North South in some areas. Collaboration priorities vary by region and triangulation with countries is high depending on language and region.

Globally, indigenous knowledge (IK) has been shown to be a critical factor in economic growth and sustainable development and is as important as scientific knowledge. However, when it comes to the African narrative, IK research still seems to fall short, even with the great recognition and interest it is attracting. IK has always been underprivileged and marginalized, treated as an unsubstantiated type of knowledge that cannot provide any scientific solutions. Consequently, the aim of this paper is to provide an insight into the importance of IK research from a comparative African perspective from 1990 to 2020. The paper used a combination of bibliometric analysis and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) protocol to provide a comprehensive view of IK research. The VOSviewer software was used to provide a visualization of the bibliometric analysis through network maps. The findings suggest that while IK is a globally recognized concept, the African narrative is missing and not told by Africans. Most researched studies on IK in Africa are on ethnobotany, customs, traditions, agroforestry, and agriculture. Moreover, most of the IK research is from Southern Africa. There is a need for the integration of IK and scientific knowledge to develop well-informed approaches, methodologies, and frameworks that cater to indigenous communities and resilient ecological development. The research outcomes provide valuable insights for future research trends; they further highlight opportunities for building research partnerships for strengthening policy generation and implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change significantly impacts global agricultural productivity. Therefore, a more dynamic farming system is needed to enable farmers to better adapt to climate change while contributing to efforts to produce enough food to feed the growing world population. In the context of climate change, this study analyzed the empirical scientific literature on the link between climate-smart agriculture and farm productivity. To evaluate the relevant articles, the authors used the search term "climate-smart agriculture amidst climate change to enhance agricultural production (CSA-CCAP)" to find studies published between 2009 and March 2022 using innovative bibliometric techniques. One hundred and sixteen published papers in BibTeX format were downloaded for further analysis. The most successful selected CSA approaches in Africa, such as in the Congo Basin forest, including sustainable land management practices, water-efficient maize hybrids, and others, aim to counteract climate change with signs of 200 percent output gains. The findings showed an annual growth rate of about 19%, demonstrating that research on CSA-CCAP expanded over time during the study period. Nonetheless, the research output on CSA-CCAP varied, with 2021 accounting for 30%, followed by 2020 with 16% as of March 2022. The study concluded that boosting agricultural productivity in the face of climate change may be accomplished through CSA to end hunger, eradicate poverty, and improve people's well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the supply chain management of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Africa, aiming to demonstrate the patterns of publication in this field. An extensive examination of bibliometric analysis has been conducted using 338 published works obtained from the Dimensions database over the last 20 years. The study was conducted based on publications, sources, authors, and institutions as the primary units of analysis. The study determined the leading journals, prolific authors, partnering countries, and organizations involved in research on supply chain management specifically focused on micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Africa. Furthermore, it has been uncovered that the investigation of supply chain management in MSMEs in Africa needs to be revised in comparison to that of larger organizations. Moreover, publications in the field are not only insufficiently accessible, but also authored by scholars who are not of African descent. Given the crucial role of MSMEs in the African economy, scholars in this field are encouraged to prioritize research on the supply chain management of MSMEs as a critical issue for the twenty-first century. Furthermore, researchers are recommended to do additional analyses utilizing alternative databases such as Web of Sciences and Scopus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2008 nine African Universities and four African research institutions, in partnership with non-African institutions started the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA) to strengthen doctoral training and research capacity on health in Africa. This study describes particular aspects of the CARTA program that promotes collaboration between the PhD fellows in the program, and determines the patterns of collaborative publications that resulted from the intervention. We reviewed program monitoring and evaluation documents and conducted a bibliometric analysis of 806 peer-reviewed publications by CARTA fellows published between 2011 and 2018. Results indicate that recruiting multidisciplinary fellows from various institutions, encouraging registration of doctoral-level fellows outside home institutions, and organizing joint research seminars stimulated collaborative research on health-related topics. Fellows collaborated among themselves and with non-CARTA researchers. Fellows co-authored 75 papers (10%) between themselves, of which 53 (71%) and 42 (56%) included fellows of different cohorts and different disciplines respectively, and 19 (25%) involved fellows of different institutions. CARTA graduates continued to publish with each other after graduating – 11% of the collaborative publications occurred post-graduation – indicating that the collaborative approach was maintained after exiting from the program. However, not all fellows contributed to publishing collaborative papers. The study recommends concerted effort towards enhancing collaborative publications among the CARTA fellows, both doctoral and post-doctoral, which can include holding research exchange forums and collaborative grant-writing workshops. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the visibility of African scholars in the literature of Bibliometrics, as it appears in the Library and Information Science Abstract (LISA) from 1982-2010. Analysis was conducted on a list of 75 papers generated from the Abstract. The year-wise growth of the literature shows that single authorship dominates the literature, scoring 52% and the average number of publication per year was found to be 2.7. On the productivity of authors, Lotka's formulation of inverse square law of scientific productivity was applied and found to be in harmony with the literature. Bradford-zipf Law for distribution of papers was also applied and found to be in conformity with the literature of Bibliometrics. Prolific authors were found to be 6 in number and their contributions falls between 3-16 papers within the 28 years period of the study. English language was found to be the dominant language with 91.3% score, and then followed by French with 8.7% score. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Operations Research Society of South Africa (ORSSA), the first Operations Research (OR) society in Africa, celebrated its 50th anniversary at its annual conference in 2019. To commemorate the occasion a book, covering the history of the society, was launched at the conference. One area that was not covered in this book was the contribution of South Africans to the international OR literature. This paper endeavors to fill that void through a bibliographic analysis of papers published by South Africans over the 50-year period. A list of over 100 journals were used for this analysis. General empirical results are derived while a visual analysis of top author research networks is presented. The analysis demonstrates the contribution to the international Operations Research/Management Science (OR/MS) knowledge base of a small but vibrant national OR society at the most southern point of Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the results of a bibliometric review of the study of real estate bubbles in the scientific literature indexed in Web of Science and Scopus, from 2007 to 2022. The analysis was developed using a sample of 2276 documents, which were reviewed in R software and analyzed with the assistance of the Bibliometrix package of the same software. The results indicate that there has been considerable productivity on the topic of real estate bubbles since 2007, with an emphasis on housing price formation processes and the social effects when bubbles burst. The authors found that there were not many case studies located in Latin America or Africa, nor were there approaches with advanced predictive modeling techniques using machine learning or artificial intelligence. The article provides an understanding of the state of the art in real estate bubble research and situates new research in front of the influential literature previously published. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to understand the development of good governance research worldwide covering the practices by the public and private institutions. Design/methodology/approach - A bibliometric study on 3,375 scientific papers from 1990 to 2018 was conducted, and the data was analyzed to examine the trends and challenges in the worldwide scientific productions for good governance. Findings - Most research comes from scholars in the high-income countries (70%) and has moved from classical socio-economic topics of good public governance to sustainable environmental development. Post-colonial politics and economy remain unending discussion on good governance in Africa and Asia. Exporting the implementation of good governance from wealthier countries attracts critics and arguments from the third countries. Practical implications - 3,375 scientific papers used in this research was collected from Scopus database. While it was not the only existing scientific research database, the collection could not guarantee the sample adequacy of the worldwide scientific knowledge on good governance. There are papers that are not Open Access (OA), written in other languages, published in regional/national journals, nor have significant academic impact. Originality/value - The authors recognize that this study is the first evaluation ever. The result provides the first scientific reference for probing the worldwide practices of good governance for public and private sectors. Under the changing world environment in the form of digital transformation, the rise of intangible economy, and the worldwide trend of coexistence between nationalism and globalism; this paper can provoke the policymakers to rethink good governance both for public and private institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Positive Psychology rapidly developed into an influential field of study and intervention, initially situated in Psychology, and later becoming multidisciplinary. Research interest in the study of (psychological) well-being has gained global popularity, with increasing salience in Africa. Although the global trends of these developments are relatively well-known, a bibliometric analysis of positive psychology research in Africa was necessary to shed light on the present hotspots and trends and future trajectories in this region of the world. The data source of the present bibliometric analysis study was Scopus, from which Positive Psychology and well-being research literature from Africa between 1983 and 2023 were searched. Using biblioshiny and VOSviewer, the 622 extracted articles were analysed, from which findings about the current condition, research hotspots, and thematic developmental patterns could be made. Africa experienced an initial slow growth period from 1983 until 2005, after which a rapid growth in research productivity, relevance and impact was experienced. In this regard, the results show that the focal point of scientific productivity is South Africa, with the dominance of South African institutions, particularly the North-West University, from where most positive psychology research is produced and cited. Even with potential access to international journal, African researchers seem to prefer to place their publications in the regional journals such as Journal of Psychology in Africa and South African Journal of Psychology. The research reviewed tends to be characterised by more dominant thematic clusters of positive psychology, psychological well-being, and subjective wellbeing, with a focus on human individuals. An increasing concern for contextual factors and potential antecedents and dynamics of well-being is also observed. The findings provide a good map from which identification of future research priorities can be deduced. As such, we speculate that future positive psychology research in Africa ought to be concerned with the following: greater distribution and intercountry collaborations across the continent, questions of conceptual clarity of terms, better understanding of contextual factors which influence well-being, and well-being research embracing the complexity of bio-psychosocial- ecological well-being, and science concerned with health-promotion interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assessment of ecosystem services (ESs) is important for Africa's sustainability and progress. Healthy ecosystems benefit humans in various forms; however, continuous anthropogenic activities have led to rapid alterations in their compositions, structures and functions worldwide. Due to the lack of understanding on the role of ES assessment in southern Africa, many ES assessment practices and methodologies have been widely debated Thus, a bibliometric analysis of ESs in southern Africa was conducted for the period of 1996–2021, to present the key features of ES assessment practices and methodologies and reveal evolutionary trends in this field. The results showed that in southern Africa, not many ES assessment studies have been published; however, South Africa was the most productive country in terms of author collaboration and publication output. Other leading countries in this field include the UK, USA, Germany and Australia. The most productive institutions in southern Africa are located in South Africa, and are the University of Cape Town, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Rhodes University, the University of KwaZulu Natal, and the University of Stellenbosch. The five funding institutions that are most active in supporting ES assessment in southern Africa are European. The main publishers of the research are either American or European and include the highly influential publishers Elsevier, Wiley, MDPI, Springer Nature and Resilience Alliance. VOS Viewer was employed as a visual analysis tool and CiteSpace as a graphic analysis tool to conduct the bibliometric analysis. A key conclusion is that most authors use qualitative methods to assess people's livelihoods and wellbeing as they relate to provisional and cultural services, while remotely sensed imagery is used as a key tool to assess the spatial extent of provisional and regulating services. Research recommendations include promoting a transdisciplinary approach in ES assessment in southern Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Africa has a lower proportion of urban areas compared to other continents, yet it is experiencing rapid urbanization, which is posing a significant threat to the urban ecosystem. This study presents the results of a bibliometric analysis from publications on urban green spaces (UGS) research in African cities. From the Web of Science, Science Direct, Google Scholar, and PubMed databases, 264 articles on UGS research in Africa were included in this study. This research topic experienced rapid growth, as more than 68% of all the articles were produced in the past five years, where about 63% of the studies included in this analysis were carried out in only four countries. Most of the studies were carried out at the intracity scale, with the main focus being on the ecosystem services provided by UGS. Change detection and overall UGS mapping studies show that high-income cities have a high percentage of UGS, while many African cities exhibited lower green coverage. We commend the work from researchers; however, there is still a gap to fill both in terms of high-quality datasets and state-of-the-art technology usage, and there is also a need for more comparative studies among cities and countries at the continental scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past seven years, the advancement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is gaining increasing attention in the African context. Consistent with this effort, the present study aims to review the existing literature systematically to document contribution and methodological gaps. Specifically, the review systematically explores, through bibliometric literature and systematic method reviews, authors, countries, cited papers, journals, author's keywords, topic dendrogram, and methodological choices of papers associated with Africa SDGs scholars. The R Studio software is used to analyze 200 papers on SDGs, authored by 606 scholars and published in 102 peer-reviewed leading sources between 2015 and 2022. The results reveal that SDGs literature in Africa is an imminent study area, and there are two main strands of literature advancing SDGs in Africa: (1) business growth, entrepreneurship, and poverty reduction, and (2) renewable energy, tourism, and ICT. Key findings from the analysis of the papers are discussed, and implications for future research directions consisting of research questions, research methods and designs, and SDGs research are provided. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cardiovascular research output and citations of publications from Africa have historically been low yet may be increasing. However, data from the continent are limited., Methods and Results: To evaluate the cardiovascular research output and citations from 52 African countries between 1999 and 2008, we created a bibliometric filter to capture cardiovascular research articles published in the Web of Knowledge based on specialist journals and title words. Two coauthors with expertise in cardiovascular medicine tested and refined this filter to achieve >90% precision and recall. We matched retrieved records with their associated citation reports and calculated the running 5-year citation count postpublication, including the year of publication. Publications from Africa were identified by author addresses. South Africa published 872 cardiovascular research papers, Egypt 393, Tunisia 264, and Nigeria 192 between 1999 and 2008. The number of publications increased over the time period for a small number of countries (range 0.1 to 4.8 more publications per year by fractional count). Most countries' citations were low (<50), but citations were greatest for South Africa (7063), Egypt (2557), Tunisia (903), and Nigeria (540). The same countries had the greatest annual increase in 5-year citation index values: 65 (95% CI: 30, 99) for South Africa, 46 (34, 58) for Egypt, 22 (15, 28) for Tunisia, and 8 (2, 14) for Nigeria. The burden of cardiovascular disease had a weak and inconsistent relationship to cardiovascular publications (r(2)=0.07, P=0.05). Greater gross domestic product was associated with more cardiovascular publications in 2008 (r(2)=0.53, P<0.0001)., Conclusions: The increases in cardiovascular research outputs from Africa are concentrated in a few countries. The reasons for regional differences in research outputs require further investigation, particularly relative to competing disease burdens. Higher prioritization of cardiovascular research funding from African countries is warranted., (© 2015 The Authors. Published on behalf of the American Heart Association, Inc., by Wiley Blackwell.)

Although international business (IB) and international management (IM) research focusing on the African context has risen steadily in recent years, understanding of the genesis and evolution of this burgeoning corpus of literature is still limited. To address this gap, we quantify and evaluate 2 decades of Africa-focused research published in leading IB and IM journals by mapping publishing trends; offering insights into sample characteristics; and highlighting prominent theories, research design, and significant data analysis techniques employed in Africa-focused publications. We augment the insights gleaned from this systematic endeavor with a bibliometric analysis, which includes analyzing citation records, authorship patterns, and the underlying conceptual and intellectual evolution of this literature. The findings indicate that Africa-focused IB and IM research from 2002 to 2021 has coalesced around four major thematic clusters: (1) economic structures, institutional practices, and corporate social responsibility; (2) the Ubuntu philosophy and management strategies; (3) entrepreneurship; and (4) corporate governance. Building on these foundational themes, we propose distinct research directions for future researchers interested in studying the African context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The objective of this study was to estimate the research productivity of different world regions in the field of Parasitology., Methods: Using the PubMed database we retrieved articles from journals included in the "Parasitology" category of the "Journal Citation Reports" database of the Institute for Scientific Information for the period 1995-2003. Research productivity was evaluated based on a methodology we developed and used in other bibliometric studies by analysing: (1) the total number of publications, (2) the mean impact factor of all papers, and (3) the product of the above two parameters, (4) the research productivity in relation to gross domestic product of each region, and (5) the research productivity in relation to gross national income per capita and population of each region., Results: Data on the country of origin of the research was available for 18,110 out of 18,377 articles (98.6% of all articles from the included journals). Western Europe exceeds all world regions in research production for the period studied (34.8% of total articles), with USA ranking second (19.9%), and Latin America & the Caribbean ranking third (17.2%). The mean impact factor in articles published in Parasitology journals was highest for the USA (1.88). Oceania ranked first in research productivity when adjustments for both the gross national income per capita (GNIPC) and population were made. Eastern Europe almost tripled the production of articles from only 1.9% of total production in 1995 to 4.3% in 2003. Similarly, Latin America and the Caribbean and Asia doubled their production. However, the absolute and relative production by some developing areas, including Africa, is still very low, despite the fact that parasitic diseases are major public health problems in these areas., Conclusion: Our data suggest that more help should be provided by the developed nations to developing areas for improvement of the infrastructure of research.

The purpose of this paper is to review the trends in electronic journal publication in Africa in relation to geographical representation, subject spread and language of publication and number of open access journals. The approach adopted for this study was to download the list of journals from the African Journal Online (AJOL) database. These journals were analyzed using tables and charts in relationship to the objectives of the study. This study shows that medical journals are more represented in the database than any other discipline and equally have more open access journals. More than ninety percent of the journals are published in English language while very few journals are published in African languages. Findings from the study reveal that there are very few African countries represented in the AJOL database. Only twenty-six African countries have their journals in the database with so many of them having not more than two journals. Nigeria and South Africa dominate the list of journals in the database. When African sub-region is considered West Africa contributes slightly more than half of all the other regions put together. Medical journals are more represented. In the present electronic environment, it is critical that African journal publishers respond to the need of publishing their scholarly outputs electronically to improve access and impact of their authors. The paper recommends that in order to enhance the visibility of African research outputs more journals publishers should be encouraged to join AJOL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Metaproteomics is a subfield in meta-omics that is used to characterize the proteome of a microbial community. Despite its importance and the plethora of publications in different research area, scientists struggle to fully comprehend its functional impact on the study of microbiomes. In this study, bibliometric analyses are used to evaluate the current state of metaproteomic research globally as well as evaluate the specific contribution of Africa to this burgeoning research area. In this study, we use bibliometric analyses to evaluate the current state of metaproteomic research globally, identify research frontiers and hotspots, and further predict future trends in metaproteomics. The specific contribution of Africa to this research area was evaluated. Methods: Relevant documents from 2004 to 2022 were extracted from the Scopus database. The documents were subjected to bibliometric analyses and visualization using VOS viewer and Biblioshiny package in R. Factors such as the trends in publication, country and institutional cooperation networks, leading scientific journals, author's productivity, and keywords analyses were conducted. The African publications were ranked using Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI) scores. Results: A total of 1,138 documents were included and the number of publications increased drastically from 2004 to 2022 with more publications (170) reported in 2021. In terms of publishers, Frontiers in Microbiology had the highest number of total publications (62). The United States of America (USA), Germany, China, and Canada, together with other European countries were the most productive. Institution-wise, the Helmholtz Zentrum für Umweltforschung, Germany had more publications while Max Plank Institute had the highest total collaborative link strength. Jehmlich N. was the most productive author whereas Hettich RL had the highest h-index of 63. Regarding Africa, only 2.2% of the overall publications were from the continent with more publication outputs from South Africa. More than half of the publications from the continent had an FWCI score ≥ 1. Conclusion: The scientific outputs of metaproteomics are rapidly evolving with developed countries leading the way. Although Africa showed prospects for future progress, this could only be accelerated by providing funding, increased collaborations, and mentorship programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is known for depositing ultra-thin film materials that enable control of composition, highly conformal film, desirable thickness, self-saturating, and uniform deposition, and this review has established its evolvement in recent times. The ALD techniques have made more device applications possible in energy storage, solar cells, memory storage, catalysis, sensors, and many more. Its advantages and disadvantages for different modes were emphasized and the precursors used for several ALD processes were highlighted. The bibliometric approach used in this review has also revealed how ALD has evolved through the assessment of published documents, journals, authors, organizations, sponsors, and countries. The method also revealed that ALD research is limited in Africa, however, the first two ALD facilities were confirmed to be acquired by T.C. Jen at the University of Johannesburg, which will in turn burst ALD material research in Africa. The current study has provided researchers with a choice when considering using the ALD technique and in terms of research collaborations. It concluded by highlighting the challenges and future perspectives of ALD and bibliometric technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is little research-based evidence regarding the similarities and differences in urban plans and urban forms, regarding urban planning and design, between planned capital cities in Africa and Asia. In recognition of the establishment of planned capital cities on these continents, this article limited its case studies to six planned capital cities of the Global South, in the post-independence and post-crisis period. By using bibliometric analysis, snowballing technique, and content analysis approaches, this study determines data sources, including books, journals, city reports, and internet blogs. The results show that these planned capital cities are similar in their urban plans: geographical, socio-cultural and demographic dimensions (location, size, and population densities), historical context of societies, and their goals and aspirations. Meanwhile, urban forms have similarities and differences based on paradigms, organization and spatial formation, spatial arrangement of activities, and architectural artefacts. This study suggests a conceptual and phasal framework, which combines planning history and theory in the first phase, and urban planning and design implementations in the second phase. The results demonstrate how considering our framework can limit similarities in the urban plans and urban forms of planned capital cities. This framework can guide urban planners and designers in academia and professional practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, green finance has become a popular method for dealing with environmental issues. However, it remains to be seen whether green financing is effective in addressing current global environmental issues. In this article, we, therefore, analyze the diffusion patterns of green finance publications in the Global South and Global North to identify which section of the globe is under-researched from this perspective. The study tried to highlight the overall trends of research publications on green finance, continent, most contributing authors, countries, and journals. The study used a bibliometric approach with the help of R studio software. The Scopus database was used for extracting the resources and 522 documents utilized in this bibliometric analysis. The result demonstrates that the diffusion of green finance is more common in the Global North than in the Global South. However, the number of scientific studies produced over time, the number of active authors, and affiliations of the Global South have contributed more than the Global North. More specifically, at the continental level, Asia and the Pacific are playing a lion's share in providing scientific research publications on the green-finance-related issue. Meanwhile, the Arab states and Africa are the lowest contributing continent. China has the highest number of publications worldwide. However, this reality may be different if another approach (per capita contribution) is used to investigate the issue of green finance. Hence, we call for future studies to consider this fact in investigating the issue of green finance across the world. Furthermore, the study proposes further studies to be conducted on what are the factors that drive the Global South to lead. Finally, it is also better if the future studies take into account the status of each country in terms of green finance mobilization and capital contribution to share the specific experience of that country and lessons taken from that country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural certification standards establish critical sustainability principles which can deepen environmental and social responsibility within agri-food systems and increase compliant producers' competitiveness. However, African and Asian farmers' produce is rejected at the international markets due to non-compliance with certification schemes amid food safety and environmental and labour infractions. Meanwhile, there is a sparsity of a coherent review of the knowledge landscape related to certification standards compliance and its drivers' even though top-level insights are needed. Therefore, this study performs a comprehensive systematic review and bibliometric analysis of existing literature to provide insights into publication trends, critical articles, and research sponsorship contributors. It was revealed that, specific certification schemes and value chains are under-represented, with Germany being the most influential contributor to agricultural certification compliance-related studies. While the effect of most factors are mixed in the existing literature, wealth, female household membership, years of certification, subsidy, social influence, government and donor support show positive effects. The study recommends increased international research partnerships to propel the development of the compliance knowledge area, which appears to be suffering maturation challenges, plus progressive research on compliance within the underrepresented contexts. Policy responses to upgrade producers' financial capacity or lessen compliance cost are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Socio-hydrology research is concerned with the understanding of how humanity interacts with water resources. The purpose of this study was to assess the disparity between global and African trends as well as developments in the research domain of socio-hydrology. From the viewpoint of a multitude of research themes, multi-author collaborations between African and international researchers and the number of publications produced globally, the results reveal that the field of socio-hydrology is still underdeveloped and yet nascent. At a global level, the USA, China, and the Netherlands have the highest number of scientific publications, while in Africa, South Africa dominates, although these scientific publications are significantly much lower than the global output. The output of scientific publications on socio-hydrology research from Africa increased from 2016, with significant output reached in 2019. Water management and supply, hydrological modelling, flood monitoring as well as policies and decision-making, are some of the dominant themes found through keywords co-occurrence analysis. These main keywords may be considered as the foci of research in socio-hydrology. Although socio-hydrology research is still in the early stages of development in Africa, the cluster and emerging themes analysis provide opportunities for research in Africa that will underpin new frontiers of the research agenda encompassing topics such as the (1) impacts of climate change on socio-hydrology; (2) influence of socio-hydrology on water resources such as surface water and groundwater; (3) benefits of socio-hydrological models on river basins and (4) role of socio-hydrology in economic sectors such as agriculture. Overall, this study points to a need to advance socio-hydrology research in Africa in a bid to address pressing water crises that affect sustainable development as well as to understand the feedback mechanisms and linkages between water resources and different sectors of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides evidence to show that the contributions of African researchers to the informetrics literature are minimal. The three main challenges identified as limiting the contributions of African scholars to the informetrics literature are lack of appropriate skills, inadequate data collection sources, and unaffordable analytical tools. To overcome these challenges, it is suggested that regular pre-conference workshops on informetrics should be organized, an African Citation Index should be developed, and the use of free analytical tools should be encouraged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Sustainable supply chain finance (SSCF) is a fascinated consideration for both academics and practitioners because the indicators are still underdeveloped in achieving SSCF. This study proposes a bibliometric data-driven analysis from the literature to illustrate a clear overall concept of SSCF that reveals hidden indicators for further improvement. Design/methodology/approach: A hybrid quantitative and qualitative approach combining data-driven analysis, fuzzy Delphi method (FDM), entropy weight method (EWM) and fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (FDEMATEL) is employed to address the uncertainty in the context. Findings: The results show that blockchain, cash flow shortage, reverse factoring, risk assessment and triple bottom line (TBL) play significant roles in SSCF. A comparison of the challenges and gaps among different geographic regions is provided in both advanced local perspective and a global state-of-the-art assessment. There are 35 countries/territories being categorized into five geographic regions. Of the five regions, two, Latin America and the Caribbean and Africa, show the needs for more improvement, exclusively in collaboration strategies and financial crisis. Exogenous impacts of wars, natural disasters and disease epidemics are implied as inevitable attributes for enhancing the sustainability. Originality/value: This study contributes to (1) boundary SSCF foundations by data driven, (2) identifying the critical SSCF indicators and providing the knowledge gaps and directions as references for further examination and (3) addressing the gaps and challenges in different geographic regions to provide advanced assessment from local viewpoint and to diagnose the comprehensive global state of the art of SSCF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents a bibliometric analysis of the publication patterns of indigenous knowledge in Africa. IK has always been subjected to prejudice, and the contributions made by Africa to the body of knowledge are conspicuously missing from text books for formal education and continue to remain unknown. Data for this study were collected from WoS and Scopus databases and saved into excel sheets for further analysis. The results suggest that the bulk pf IK research was done in medicinal and pharmaceutical sciences. When it comes to Library and Information Science, the researchers focus was more on the management of IK, which was motivated by the preservation role that Information science professionals must play as the custodians of knowledge generated in societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) is a common harmful traditional practice in many communities in Africa and to a lesser extent in Middle East and other regions in the world. In order to better understand publishing on this topic, we conducted a bibliometric study on FGM/C. Bibliometric analyses can be used as an indicator of the extent of interaction of researchers, health authorities, and communities with a particular health issue. Methods: Scopus database was used to retrieve data on FGM/C. Keywords used were "female genital mutilation", "female genital circumcision", "female genital cutting" and "female circumcision". Specifically, the number of publications, top productive countries and institutions, highly cited articles, citation analysis, co-authorships, international collaboration, role of African countries, top active authors, and journals involved in publishing articles on FGM/C were reviewed and analyzed. We indirectly assessed the impact of publications using total number of citations received, average number of citations per article, Hirsch-index, percentage of highly cited articles, and journal's impact factor. Results: One thousand and thirty-five publications on FGM/C were retrieved. The h-index of retrieved articles was 37. A steep rise in number of publications was noticed in mid-1990s and again in 2012. More than half of retrieved articles were published from 2006 - 2015. A total of 65 countries contributed. The top ten productive countries included ones from Northern America, Europe and Africa. Nigeria and Egypt were the most active African countries in FGM/C publications. At least nine African academic institutions were actively involved on FGM/C publications. Articles on FGM/C that received the highest number of citations were those that focused on negative physical and psychosexual consequences of FGM/C. Journal topic areas were obstetrics/gynecology, public health, and psychological sociology. Collaboration between African and European countries on FGM/C research was evident. Conclusion: Bibliometric analysis reveals that research publications on FGM/C have been increasing since the l970s, with collaboration between African and Western countries, and articles are being published in higher impact journals, not only obstetrics, but also public health and social sciences. FGM/C research can be helpful to international health agencies and governments not only to document negative outcomes, but also to identify best practices, and to note gaps in implementation and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The implementation of strategic immunization plans whose development is informed by available locally-relevant research evidence should improve immunization coverage and prevent disease, disability and death in Africa. In general, health research helps to answer questions, generate the evidence required to guide policy and identify new tools. However, factors that influence the publication of immunization research in Africa are not known. We, therefore, undertook this study to fill this research gap by providing insights into factors associated with childhood immunization research productivity on the continent. We postulated that research productivity influences immunization coverage. Methods: We conducted a bibliometric analysis of childhood immunization research output from Africa, using research articles indexed in PubMed as a surrogate for total research productivity. We used zero-truncated negative binomial regression models to explore the factors associated with research productivity. Results: We identified 1,641 articles on childhood immunization indexed in PubMed between 1974 and 2010 with authors from Africa, which represent only 8.9% of the global output. Five countries (South Africa, Nigeria, The Gambia, Egypt and Kenya) contributed 48% of the articles. After controlling for population and gross domestic product, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Sao Tome and Principe were the most productive countries. In univariable analyses, the country's gross domestic product, total health expenditure, private health expenditure, and research and development expenditure had a significant positive association with increased research productivity. Immunization coverage, adult literacy rate, human development index and physician density had no significant association. In the multivarable model, only private health expenditure maintained significant statistical association with the number of immunization articles Conclusions: Immunization research productivity in Africa is highly skewed, with private health expenditure having a significant positive association. However, the current contribution of authors from Africa to global childhood immunization research output is minimal. The lack of association between research productivity and immunization coverage may be an indication of lack of interactive communication between health decision-makers, program managers and researchers; to ensure that immunization policies and plans are always informed by the best available evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many diseases in Africa can be prevented with appropriate public health interventions. This study aimed to assess the bibliometric characteristics of public health related research articles published by researchers in African institutions from 1991 to 2005. Data used in this study were obtained from the online version of the 1ST Web of Science: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-Expanded). Articles published between 1991 and 2005 that had the phrase 'public health' in the title, author keywords or abstract, and had at least one author whose contact address was in an African country, were selected for analysis. The annual number of public health related articles published by African researchers significantly increased from 28 articles in 1991 to 135 articles in 2005, a 382% increase. International collaboration also increased: from 45% of articles having international collaborators during 1991-1995, to 52% duringl996-2000, and to 67% during 2001-2005. Collaborations were mostly with European and North American countries. Keywords, subject categories and collaboration patterns of articles varied across regions, reflecting differences in needs and collaboration networks. Public health related research output, as well as international collaborations, have been increasing in Africa. Regional variation observed in this study may assist policymakers to facilitate the advancement of public health research in different regions of Africa, and could be useful for international organisations in identifying needs and to allocate research funding. Future bibliometric analyses of articles published by African researchers, can consider conducting regional comparisons using standardised methods, as well as describing the overall patterns, in order to provide a more comprehensive view of their bibliometric characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tuberculosis is one of the oldest known diseases and the leading communicable cause of deaths worldwide. Although several studies have been carried out on tuberculosis, no research has examined the publication trends in this area. Hence, this study aimed to fill the gap by conducting a bibliometric study in publications trends on tuberculosis and tuberculosis-related studies in Africa from 2010–2019 and explore the hotspots. Information in published documents on tuberculosis and its related studies from 2010 to 2019 were retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS) database. The bibliometric tool biblioshiny and Microsoft Excel 2016 were used to analyse the top leading journals, top cited documents, authors' country production, country collaboration networks, most relevant authors, authors' impacts, most relevant authors by corresponding author, most cited countries, university collaborations, most relevant affiliations, conceptual structural maps, title word co-occurrence networks, collaboration and significance of individual sources, university, country and keyword relations. A total of 3945 published documents were retrieved. The analyses showed that European Respiratory Journal was the leading journal in publications on tuberculosis studies with a total of 452 published articles, the WHO 2012 report was the most cited document with 2485 total citations while South Africa was the most productive country in tuberculosis publications as well as the leading country with the highest co-authorship collaboration. Analysis of top relevant authors revealed that Anonymous (133) and Dheda (44) were the two topmost relevant authors of tuberculosis publications, South Africa was the most relevant country by corresponding authors and the topmost cited country for tuberculosis publications. Furthermore, analysis of the university collaborations network showed that the University of Cape Town was the topmost university in Africa with the highest collaboration network, tuberculosis as a word had the highest co-occurrence network while the Three Field Plot diagram revealed the relations between universities, keywords and countries. This study provides a quantitative and qualitative analyses of the leading journals, most cited published articles, title word occurrences, and most relevant authors in published documents on tuberculosis and tuberculosis related studies from 2010–2019. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Research is an essential component of Anesthesia, and the contributions of researchers and institutions can be appreciated from the analysis of scholarly outputs. Such analyses help identify major contributors and trends in publication. Little is known about the state of Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine (A.C.C.M.) research in Africa. We aimed to describe African A.C.C.M. research's current landscape by determining its productivity per country and point towards possible ideas for improvement. Methods: The authors searched PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) from inception to May 4, 2020, for articles on or about A.C.C.M. in Africa. Studies were selected based on their titles and abstracts. Rayyan software was later on used for data management in the review selection process. Then, the full-text of eligible articles were screened. Data were extracted, and the number of articles per physician anesthesia providers and provider density were calculated. Kruskal Wallis test and Spearman's correlation were used, and a P-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Of the 4690 articles, only 886 (18.9%) were included in the analysis. The articles were published between 1946 and 2020 in 278 target journals. 55 (6.2%) articles were published in the South African Journal of Surgery, 51 (5.8%) in Anesthesia and Analgesia, and 46 (5.2%) in Anaesthesia. 291 (32.8%) studies were cross-sectional. 195 (22.0%) first authors were from Nigeria, 118 (13.3%) from South Africa, and 88 (9.9%) from the U.S.A. Malawi (1.67), Togo (1.06), and Sierra Leone (1.00) had the highest number of articles per provider. Whereas Ethiopia (580.00), Nigeria (336.21), and Malawi (333.33) had the highest number of articles per provider density. Conclusion: We identified the most and least productive African countries in A.C.C.M. research and a low-quality hierarchy of evidence in these publications. Hence, the study's findings may aid in driving the A.C.C.M. research agenda and capacity building in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]