Visualization and analysis of mapping knowledge domains for the global transition towards clean cooking: a bibliometric review of research output from 1990 to 2020

Research hotspots and trends of complementary and alternative therapy for neuropathic pain: A bibliometric analysis

BACKGROUND

Neuropathic pain (NP) is a common type of pain in clinic. Due to the limited effect of drug treatment, many patients with NP are still troubled by this disease. In recent years, complementary and alternative therapy (CAT) has shown good efficacy in the treatment of NP. As the interest in CAT for NP continues to grow, we conducted a bibliometric study of publications on CAT treatment for NP. The aim of this study is to analyze the development overview, research hotspots and future trends in the field of CAT and NP through bibliometric methodology, so as to provide a reference for subsequent researchers.

METHODS

Publications on CAT in the treatment of NP from 2002 to 2022 were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection. Relevant countries, institutions, authors, journals, keywords, and references were analyzed bibliometrically using Microsoft Excel 2021, bibliometric platform, VOSviewer, and CiteSpace.

RESULTS

A total of 898 articles from 46 countries were published in 324 journals, and they were contributed by 4455 authors from 1102 institutions. The most influential country and institution are China (n = 445) and Kyung Hee University (n = 63), respectively. Fang JQ (n = 27) and Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (n = 63) are the author and journal with the most publications in this field. The clinical efficacy, molecular biological mechanisms and safety of CAT for NP are currently hot directions. Low back pain, postherpetic neuralgia, acupuncture, and herbal are the hot topics in CAT and NP in recent years.

CONCLUSION

This study reveals the current status and hotspots of CAT for NP. The study also indicates that the effectiveness and effect mechanism of acupuncture or herbs for treating emotional problems caused by low back pain or postherpetic neuralgia may be a trend for future research.

Research trends of bio-application of major components in lignocellulosic biomass (cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin) in orthopedics fields based on the bibliometric analysis: A review

Cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin are the major bio-components in lignocellulosic biomass (BC-LB), which possess excellent biomechanical properties and biocompatibility to satisfy the demands of orthopedic applications. To understand the basis and trends in the development of major bio-components in BC-LB in orthopedics, the bibliometric technology was applied to get unique insights based on the published papers (741) in the Web of Science (WOS) database from January 1st, 2001, to February 14th, 2023. The analysis includes the annual distributions of publications, keywords co-linearity, research hotspots exploration, author collaboration networks, published journals, and clustering of co-cited literature. The results reveal a steady growth in publications focusing on the application of BC-LB in orthopedics, with China and the United States leading in research output. The "International Journal of Biological Macromolecules" was identified as the most cited journal for BC-LB research in orthopedics. The research hotspots encompassed bone tissue engineering, cartilage tissue engineering, and drug delivery systems, indicating the fundamental research and potential development in these areas. This study also highlights the challenges associated with the clinical application of BC-LB in orthopedics and provides valuable insights for future advancements in the field.

Household unclean fuel use, indoor pollution and self-rated health: risk assessment of environmental pollution caused by energy poverty from a public health perspective

The lack of access to clean energy remains one of the major challenges in the global energy sector. Access to clean, sustainable and affordable energy, outlined in the seventh Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 7) of the United Nations, plays a crucial role in advancing health (SDG 3), as unclean cooking energy may endanger people's health by causing air pollution. However, due to endogeneity problems such as reverse causality, the health consequences of environmental pollution caused by unclean fuel usage are difficult to be scientifically and accurately evaluated. This paper aims to systematically assess the health cost of unclean fuel usage based on tackling endogeneity, using the data from Chinese General Social Survey. The ordinary least squares model, ordered regression methods, instrumental variable approach, penalized machine learning methods, placebo test, and mediation models are applied in this research. Analytical results demonstrate that households' unclean fuel use significantly damages people's health. Specifically, the use of dirty fuel leads to an average of about a one-standard-deviation decline in self-rated health, demonstrating its notable negative effect. The findings are robust to a series of robustness and endogeneity tests. The impact mechanism is that unclean fuel usage reduces people's self-rated health through increasing indoor pollution. Meanwhile, the negative effect of dirty fuel use on health has significant heterogeneity among different subgroups. The consequences are more prominent for the vulnerable groups who are female, younger, living in rural areas and older buildings, with lower socio-economic status and uncovered by social security. Therefore, necessary measures should be taken to improve energy infrastructure to make clean cooking energy more affordable and accessible as well as to enhance people's health. Besides, more attention should be paid to the energy needs of the above specific vulnerable groups faced with energy poverty.

A review contribution to emission trading schemes and low carbon growth

In this study, the researchers focus on policy instruments that employ a market-based strategy to promote emission reduction, find the key spots and recent changing aspects in the field of Eemission Trading Systems (ETS) and Low Carbon Growth, and make suggestions for future studies. Making use of the bibliometric analysis, the researchers examine a sample of 1,390 research from the ISI Web of Science database to find research activity on ETS and low carbon growth between 2005 and 2022. Also, the researchers visualized the knowledge domains in this field using software like CiteSpace and R-Biblioshiny. The research unravels the most influential published articles and authors on their citations and publications and their location and significance within the network. The researchers further examined the recent themes, identified the barriers to developing literature in this field, and made recommendations for future research. Research on ETS and low carbon growth globally lack cross-border collaborations between emerging and developed economies. The researchers concluded the study by recommending three future research directions.

A bibliometric analysis of the impact of COVID-19 social lockdowns on air quality: research trends and future directions

Social lockdowns improved air quality during the COVID-19 pandemic. Governments had previously spent a lot of money addressing air pollution without success. This bibliometric study measured the influence of COVID-19 social lockdowns on air pollution, identified emerging issues, and discussed future perspectives. The researchers examined the contributions of countries, authors, and most productive journals to COVID-19 and air pollution research from January 1, 2020, to September 12, 2022, from the Web of Sciences Core Collection (WoS). The results showed that (a) publications on the COVID-19 pandemic and air pollution were 504 (research articles) with 7495 citations, (b) China ranked first in the number of publications (n = 151; 29.96% of the global output) and was the main country in international cooperation network, followed by India (n = 101; 20.04% of the total articles) and the USA (n = 41; 8.13% of the global output). Air pollution plagues China, India, and the USA, calling for many studies. After a high spike in 2020, research published in 2021 declined in 2022. The author's keywords have focused on "COVID-19," "air pollution," "lockdown," and "PM₂₅." These keywords suggest that research in this area is focused on understanding the health impacts of air pollution, developing policies to address air pollution, and improving air quality monitoring. The COVID-19 social lockdown served as a specified procedure to reduce air pollution in these countries. However, this paper provides practical recommendations for future research and a model for environmental and health scientists to examine the likely impact of COVID-19 social lockdowns on urban air pollution.

Contributions toward sustainable development: a bibliometric analysis of sustainability reporting research

The study determines the development of the sustainability reporting domain using a dataset of publications extracted from the Web of Science (WoS) core database and visualized with CiteSpace. This paper employs a bibliometric approach to review extant studies to present and describe the publication patterns from 2004 to 2021. The top 3 contributing journals are the Journal of Cleaner Production, Sustainability, and Accounting, Auditing, and Accountability Journal, whereas the author network depicts a low collaboration among authors. Many authors have autonomously conducted their research, and the regional contributions to the research domain have been uneven. The paper accentuates the need to bridge the uneven institutional and regional contributions toward the sustainability reporting domain, so more light is shed on environmental sustainability across regions through firm and institutional levels. The results will trigger the need for future studies and actions needed to improve reporting quality through extensive social, environmental, and governance disclosures.

Development, hotspots and trend directions of groundwater salinization research in both coastal and inland areas: a bibliometric and visualization analysis from 1970 to 2021

As a global concern, the issue of groundwater salinization refers to the phenomenon of an increase in the overall chemical content over background levels in the groundwater. It involves a long-term process that could degrade groundwater quality and restrict its availability for drinking, irrigation and industry. For the effective protection and further research of groundwater resources, policy strongly depends on understanding the development, hotspots and trend directions of groundwater salinization research, which involves the degree, sources and processes of global groundwater salinization. However, such a comprehensive and systematic analysis has not been performed, and it is difficult to have a deeper understanding of groundwater salinization. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the knowledge structure, hot topics and trends in the field of groundwater salinization based on 6651 Web of Science (WoS) publications combined with CiteSpace for in-depth bibliometric and visual analysis. The results showed that 292 institutions in 125 countries have published articles in this field from 1970 to 2021. The USA was one of the most prolific contributors, with the largest number of publications and active institutions. Cooperation among authors has become frequent in recent years, and they tend to cooperate in groups. According to the analysis of co-occurrence keywords and co-cited articles, "water resources", "sea level rise" and "variable density flow" were identified as three hot topics. A keyword burst analysis revealed the emerging trends of concerns about global climate change and the sustainable utilization of water resources. In addition, the possible opportunities and challenges were explored that may be faced in groundwater salinization research. The outcomes of this study are significant for future research on groundwater management and pollution control.

Investigating evolutionary trends and characteristics of renewable energy research in Africa: a bibliometric analysis from 1999 to 2021

Several countries across the African continent have been challenged with energy crises for decades. A growing number of studies have identified renewable energy as a sustainable way for Africa to address its persisting energy situation while combating climate change, as the continent has in abundance some of the common renewable energy resources. Little has been reported in the body of literature to quantitatively and qualitatively map the knowledge domain of this growing research field. In the current study, we conduct a bibliometric analysis on research documents extracted from the Web of Science Core Collection to identify trends and characteristics of the knowledge domain related to renewable energy in Africa from 1999 to 2021. Using two different software (VOSviewer and ITgInsight), we report the contribution of journals, countries, institutions, and authors and their collaboration patterns. We also perform co-citation and keyword analysis to identify the intellectual base and central themes of this research field. The results from the study revealed a growing interest in Africa's renewable energy, with about 90% of the total publication from within the last decade. Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews was identified as the most productive as well as the most influential journal in this field. The most contributing countries in this field were South Africa, USA, and Algeria. Centre de Developpement Des Energies Renouvelables, a research institute in Algeria, emerged as the most productive and influential institution. The analysis of research hotspots under different categories revealed that "solar energy," "CO2 emissions," and "rural electrification" are the topics that have gained maximum attention over the years. Keyword evolution analysis also identified "economic growth" and "green hydrogen production" as emerging topics that will play a major role in future studies. We conclude our work by providing specific suggestions and strategies to help bridge the gap which exists in the quantity and quality of renewable energy research between Africa and the rest of the world.