The Dynamic Interest in Topics within the Biomedical Scientific Community
Figure 3
The analysis of the dynamics in scientific output for a selection of keywords representing different biomedical topics.
In panel A, B and C the output in scientific publications and reviews, and the ratio of publications per review is depicted (source: PubMed). Three broad categories can be discriminated. Panel A shows the typical keywords cancer and stem cell which resemble the pattern of total scientific output (Fig. 2B), B shows the atypical keywords LSD and cholera which show highly variable patterns, and C shows the attractive topics HIV and Wnt which show rapid growth and a low publication per review ratio. The grey line in the publication review ratio figures represents the ratio for all scientific output (Fig. 2D). In D, E and F the topical growth rates (%) of the keywords subtracted by the growth rate of all scientific output is shown (averaged over a period of 2 years). A value of 0 therefore means that the growth rate of the topic is exactly the same as that of all scientific output. General topics as cancer remain close to the zero line, atypical topics such as cholera and LSD show highly variable pattens of mixed negative and positive growth rates. Attractive topics such as HIV, miRNA and Wnt start of with extremely high difference in growth rates which diminish over time. Insert D' shows that the variation within the topic of stem cell is greater than for cancer.