Levels of Evidence in the Voice Literature

Objective

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the levels of evidence in the voice literature.

Study Design

Retrospective literature review.

Methods

Retrospective review of all original articles published between January 2004 and December 2009 from four general otolaryngology journals and one subspecialty voice journal. All abstracts related to voice were evaluated and rated as to evidence-based medicine rating, graded levels A–D and 1a–5. Articles were also stratified by time over two consecutive 3-year intervals to assess changes over the time period.

Results

Of the 6052 articles published, 950 (15.6%) were related to voice. Six hundred seventy-three articles (10.2%) were clinical articles, and 277 (4.6%) were basic science. Only 1% of the clinical articles were level A, 17% were level B, 73% were level C, and 9% were level D. No noticeable changes occurred in the levels of evidence over the interval of the first 3 years of the study in comparison to the last 3 years, although there was an increase in the number of basic science articles from 24.4% to 32.4%.

Conclusion

Despite strong recent interest in improving the quality of the evidence in the literature, the voice literature remains primarily level C and D with no appreciable change over the past 6 years.     

Recent Advances in linear and nonlinear Raman spectroscopy I

Raman spectroscopy has advanced considerably in the last several years due to rapid developments in instrumentation and the availability of theoretical methods for accurate calculation of Raman spectra, thus enormously facilitating the interpretation of Raman data. This review is restricted to cover papers mainly published in the Journal of Raman Spectroscopy, which serve to give a fast overview of recent advances in this research field as well as to provide readers of this journal a quick introduction to the various subfields of Raman spectroscopy. It also reflects the current research interests of the Raman community. Similar reviews of highly active areas of Raman spectroscopy will appear in future issues of this journal. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Recent advances in linear and nonlinear Raman spectroscopy II

Following the first review on recent advances in linear and nonlinear Raman spectroscopy, the present review summarizes papers mainly published in the Journal of Raman Spectroscopy during 2007. This serves to give a fast overview of recent advances in this research field as well as to provide readers of this journal a quick introduction to the various subfields of Raman spectroscopy. It also reflects the current research interests of the Raman community. Similar reviews of highly active areas of Raman spectroscopy will appear in future issues of this journal. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Editorial

The Spring Meetings of the German Physical Society have long been an essential forum for physicists in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. These conferences, held at different universities, provide a lively and unique atmosphere for young researchers, in particular, in which to present their most recent results to a broad audience, establish new contacts and discuss future projects.This special issue of Applied Physics B – Lasers and Optics – features selected papers presented at the 1997 Spring Meeting of the Quantum Optics Section, held at the University of Mainz. Clearly, a selection of articles cannot provide exhaustive coverage of the scientific program of a conference. Nevertheless, the reader will hopefully get an impression of the broad range of the discussed topics, maybe even of the international spirit. The board of editors of the journal as well as the guest editors have planned this special issue as the beginning of a trend to highlight top-quality modern research presented at future meetings of the Quantum Optics Section by publication in Applied Physics B – Lasers and Optics.     

Max Born and his legacy to condensed matter physics

After a presentation of Max Born's most salient biographical data, we discuss his contributions to science and science policy, with special emphasis on those related to condensed matter physics. Our discussion includes journal articles as well as books. The methodology used is both qualitative and quantitative, including number of items, number of formal and informal citations, and other bibliometric indicators such as the recently proposed Hirsch index (h‐index). The data are mainly based on the Thomson/ISI Web of Science (WoS) which covers a carefully selected set of the more prestigious journals dating back to 1900. Born's books and articles not published in the journals covered by the WoS can also be evaluated, provided they are cited within the WoS journals. Some anecdotic and historical details, which have come to the fore in the course of our bibliometric investigations, are included.     

On the 40th anniversary of the journal X‐Ray Spectrometry

This journal, X‐Ray Spectrometry, celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. The state of the publications on X‐ray spectral analysis from 1972 onward is considered. The distribution of materials over countries is presented, as published in X‐Ray Spectrometry for 40 years, in 5‐year time intervals: 1972–1976, 1977–1981, and so on. The participation of Russian scientists contributing to the publications in this journal is discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Recent advances in linear and non‐linear Raman spectroscopy. Part III

Following the first two reviews on recent advances in linear and non‐linear Raman spectroscopy, the present review summarises papers mainly published in the Journal of Raman Spectroscopy during 2008. This again serves to give a brief overview of recent advances in this research field and to provide readers of this journal a quick introduction to the various sub‐fields of Raman spectroscopy. It also reflects the current research interests and trends in the Raman community. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

EPR of defects in semiconductors: Past, present, future

Important physical concepts learned from early EPR studies of defects in silicon are reviewed. Highlighted are the studies of shallow effective-mass-like donors and acceptors by Feher, of deep transition-element impurities by Ludwig and Woodbury, and of vacancies and interstitials by Watkins et al. It is shown that the concepts learned in silicon translate remarkably well to corresponding defects in the other elemental and compound semiconductors. The introduction of sensitive optical and electrical detection methods during the intervening years, and the recent progress in single-defect detection insure the continued vital role of EPR in the future. Fiz. Tverd. Tela (St. Petersburg) 41, 826–830 (May 1999) Published in English in the original Russian journal. Reproduced here with stylistic changes by the Translation Editor.     

Statistics of the journal “Kvantovaya Élektronika”

Summary statistical data on the journal Kvantovaya Élektronika (English translation — Soviet Journal of Quantum Electronics) for the first 15 years of its publication from 1974 through 1988. They include the number of articles published, their distribution by subject, statistics on the authors of the papers, questions dealing with the size of the journal and with the effective utilization of the paper. Relative estimates are made of the contributions of different journals to the common flow of information. The shares of different topics in the sum total of the articles are given.Translated from Preprint No. 166 of the Lebedev Physics Institute, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow, 1990.     

From effective BCS action to vortex dynamics

The topological term in the effective action for the electrically neutral BCS system is discussed. It is applied for the calculation of the transverse force acting on a vortex in the limit of a smooth vortex core and vanishing interlevel distance in the vortex core. The controversy between the topological terms in the articles by I. J. R. Aitchison et al., Phys. Rev. B 51, 6531 (1995) and A. van Otterlo et al., cond-mat/9703124 is resolved. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 65, No. 8, 641–646 (25 April 1997) Published in English in the original Russian journal. Edited by Steve Torstveit.     

Comments on “Did Godel Surprise Einstein with a Rotating Universe and Time Travel?” by Giora Hon

A comparison of a recent paper by Giora Hon in this journal with a book I wrote several years ago, on Gödel's philosophy of time, reveals that the substance, and indeed many of the words themselves, appearing in Hon's essay are in fact original to my book—the ideas of which he sadly failed to understand.     

Empirical analysis on a keyword-based semantic system

Keywords in scientific articles have found their significance in information filtering and classification. In this article, we empirically investigated statistical characteristics and evolutionary properties of keywords in a very famous journal, namely Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America (PNAS), including frequency distribution, temporal scaling behavior, and decay factor. The empirical results indicate that the keyword frequency in PNAS approximately follows a Zipf’s law with exponent 0.86. In addition, there is a power-low correlation between the cumulative number of distinct keywords and the cumulative number of keyword occurrences. Extensive empirical analysis on some other journals’ data is also presented, with decaying trends of most popular keywords being monitored. Interestingly, top journals from various subjects share very similar decaying tendency, while the journals of low impact factors exhibit completely different behavior. Those empirical characters may shed some light on the in-depth understanding of semantic evolutionary behaviors. In addition, the analysis of keyword-based system is helpful for the design of corresponding recommender systems.     

漫谈惯性力

作者对在本刊发表的多篇与惯性力有关文章的梳理.     

Wave processes in film ferrite laminar structures. Physical principles of spin-wave electronics

The theme of the present issue of the journal is spin-wave processes and interaction in ferromagnetic films and laminar structures based on them. The theoretical and experimental investigations of spin-wave phenomena in films experience a significant rise in recent years.Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Fizika, No. 11, pp. 3–5, November, 1988.     

Life at the end of the universe?

Tipler has claimed in a recent scientific paper [1] that life could exist until the very end of a universe that recollapses to a final fireball in the future—including the Planck era when quantum gravity dominates. His article is one of a number that have excited general interest because of some strong claims made on the basis of this type of argument about life in the future (indeed it has even been claimed [2,3] that this type of mathematical-physical argument can prove that Resurrection of the Dead will take place!). We point out that the underlying argument of Tipler's paper runs into problems on two quite different grounds. Firstly, it assumes a flat space information theory result and makes other technical assumptions about information processing, which invalidate the immediate technical argument. However at least as important is the fact that the argument is unsustainable because physical mechanisms required to make coherent information processing possible would not be able to operate under the extreme physical conditions that would occur towards the end of the universe.Editor's note: This paper, although related to cosmology, does not fall within the scope of material generally published in theG.R.G. Journal. It is a direct rebuttal of an article that appeared inPhysics Letters B. The editors of that journal felt that their journal was an inappropriate place for the rebuttal. A second journal, for reasons which remain unclear, after having the article in their possession for many months, still had not decided whether to publish or not, so it was withdrawn. The editorial board of theG.R.G. Journal felt that a scientific answer to the original article should appear, and so have offered the authors space in this journal.     

Electrochemical Reactions in Dye Lasers

In recent years a considerable success has been achieved in the development of tunable dye-lasers and their applications. The information on this topic is presented in a series of the review articles.^1-3     

A scaling between Impact Factor and uncitedness

The Impact Factor has become a well-known measure of the average citation number of articles published in a scientific journal. A journal with a high Impact Factor is assumed to have a low percentage of uncited articles. We show that the scaling relation between the Impact Factor and the uncited percentage can be understood by a simple mechanism. The empirical data can be reproduced by a random mechanism with the cumulative advantage. To further explore the robustness of such a mechanism, we investigate the relation between the average citation number and the uncited percentage from different perspectives. We apply the idea of Impact Factor to the publications of an institute in addition to its general application to the publications of a journal. We find that the same scaling relation can be obtained. We also show that a static relation can be applied to describe the time evolution of a dynamical process. These results provide further justification for the same citation mechanism behind different research fields.