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Objective: To explore journal quality as perceived by clinicians and researchers in clinical neurology. Methods: A survey was conducted from August 2003 to January 2004. Ratings for 41 selected clinical neurology journals were obtained from 254 members of the World Federation of Neurology (1,500 solicited; response rate 17%). Participants provided demographic information and rated each journal on a 5-point Likert scale. Average ratings for all journals were compared with the ISI's journal impact factors. Ratings for each journal were also compared across geographic regions and respondent publication productivity. Results: The top 5 journals were rated much more highly than the others, with mean ratings greater than 4. Mean journal ratings were highly correlated with journal impact factors (r = 0.67). Most of the top 10 journal ratings were consistent across the subgroups of geographic regions and journal paper productivity. However, significant differences among the different geographical regions and respondent productivity groups were also found for a few journals. Conclusions: The results provide valuable insight on how neurological experts perceive journals in clinical neurology. These results will likely aid researchers and clinicians in identifying potentially desirable research outlets and indicate journal status for editors. Likewise, biomedical librarians may use these results for serials collection development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the relationship between the journal "impact factor" (IF) and the "immediacy index" (II) in the sciences, as well as the social sciences. It is found that there are highly positive correlations between the IF and the II in most sciences and social sciences disciplines although the correlation strengths vary across disciplines. Moreover, it is found that the II of year Y is also a good predictor for the IF of year Y + 1. These results are strongest for rapidly developing fields, such as biomedicine. Based on the assumption that the citation-age distribution has a Poisson distribution, our empirical data are clarified by a simulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indicators of science and technology (S&T) activity often disadvantage developing countries, due, in part, to incomplete compilation of statistics or to the examination of indicators in isolation. Among the major indicators of S&T activity are research and development (R&D) expenditures and their relationship to gross domestic product, numbers of personnel involved in S&T research, scientific publication output and rankings by scientific discipline, and numbers of patents registered in the international patent systems. A 'composite index of S&T capacity' developed by researchers at the Rand Corporation is described and applied comparatively. We have compiled data on Iranian S&T activity under the following headings: R&D expenditure, population and educational profile, academic personnel, R&D personnel. A scientometric analysis of Iranian S&T publications using the Science Citation Index is presented, and possible shortcomings of this approach discussed. All findings are reported, analysed, and discussed with reference to the various compilations of S&T indicators and to our earlier studies on Iranian scientific publications. In particular we analyse annual distributions of world and Iranian S&T publications, international collaboration of Iranian scientists, journals where Iranian scientists publish and journals they cite, the most productive Iranian scientists and the extent of their influence nationally and internationally, and S&T subject areas in which Iranian scientists excel. We conclude with comments and suggestions for the continued development of Iran's S&T capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]