Co-word analysis of the trends in stem cells field based on subject heading weighting

• Published in: Scientometrics Vol. 88; no. 1; pp. 133 - 144
• Main Authors: An, Xin Ying, Wu, Qing Qiang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.07.2011; Springer
• Subjects: Bibliometrics. Scientometrics; Bibliometrics. Scientometrics. Evaluation; Biotechnology; Computer Science; Exact sciences and technology; Information and communication sciences; Information science. Documentation; Information Storage and Retrieval; Library and information science. General aspects; Library Science; Sciences and techniques of general use; Subject heading schemes; Terms; Text analysis; Weighting; Co-word analysis; Strategic diagram; Subject heading weighting; Information entropy; Research front; Cluster analysis; Cluster; Periodical; Coword analysis
• ISSN: 0138-9130; 1588-2861
• DOI: 10.1007/s11192-011-0374-1

In this paper, co-word analysis is used to analyze the evolvement in stem cell field. Articles in the stem cell journals are downloaded from PubMed for analysis. Terms selection is one of the most important steps in co-word analysis, so the useless and the general subject headings are removed firstly, and then the major subject headings and minor subject headings are weighted respectively. Then, improved information entropy is exploited to select the subject headings with the experts consulting. Hierarchical cluster analysis is used to cluster the subject headings and the strategic diagram is formed to analyze the evolutionary trends in the stem cell field.