Table 1.
Taxonomic divisions (number and percentage) of infectious agents used in the study and whether they cause an emerging (less than 20 years from first description in pig) or non-emerging associated diseases, with zoonotic potential or as OIE-listed disease (2015) according to sources described in “Selection and grouping of pathogens”.
Fig 1.
Frequency of the H-index scores for pig infectious agents according to taxonomic groups: Virus, Bacteria and Other (Helminthes, protozoa, external parasites and fungi).
Table 2.
Swine infectious agents with the top 20 H-index scores.
Rank according to the H-index, infectious agent name, taxonomic group, H-index, total number of citations and mean number of citations of papers ± standard deviation (SD) for the publications included in the H-index core, and mean quartile of the journals ± SD where papers were published as well as origin (country) of the first author affiliation for the papers included in the H-indices for each infectious agent (top three countries and rest).
Fig 2.
Box plot showing H-index score quartiles by taxonomic division.
+ Mean. a>b (P<0.001).
Fig 3.
Evolution of H-index scores by year from 1960 to March 2015 for the ten pig infectious agents with highest H-index, and mean of the percentage of increase by year from first paper published. PRRSV: Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus; PCV2: Porcine circovirus type 2; SIV: Swine influenza virus; CSFV: Classical swine fever virus; ADV: Aujeszky’s disease virus; FMDV: Foot-and-Mouth disease virus; E coli: Escherichia coli; App: Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae; S suis; Streptococcus suis; Salm ty; Salmonella Typhimurium.
Fig 4.
Distribution by continents (percentage) of papers included in the H-index scores.
Bars show percentage of origin of the first author affiliation for the papers included in the H-indices; total papers (n = 2,878) (black), Virus’ papers (n = 1,262) (red), Bacteria’s papers (n = 1,148) (blue) and Other’s papers (n = 468) (green). Above each bar, absolute numbers of publications.
Table 3.
Country (and continent) of origin of the first author affiliation (top ten).
Country (and continent) of origin of the first author affiliation (top ten) for the 2,878 papers included in the H-indices searched for 137 infectious agents; 1,262 papers for the 52 organisms comprising Virus, 1,148 for 39 organisms in Bacteria, and 468 for 46 in Other. Table summarizes total number of publications (TNP), as well as percentages (%) and ranking (RANK) for total publications included in the study and within each taxonomy group. A new index Dcos -Deciphering Citations Organized by Subject- to quantify individuals’, research institutes’ or countries’ scientific research output in a particular field is proposed (right side of the table). A detailed explanation of the Dcos index is provided in the corresponding section.
Table 4.
Comparison of H-index with other bibliometric indicators for the ten infectious agents with the highest H-indices.
Year: year of the oldest publication included in H-index; M quotient: H-index / years from publication of the oldest paper included in H-index; A-index: average number of citations of papers in the H core [19]; G-index [37,38]; HG-index (HG = sr (HxG) [20]; and G/H ratio [37,38].