[Scientometrics and bibliometrics of biomedical engineering periodicals and papers]

This investigation was made to reveal the current status, research trend and research level of biomedical engineering in Chinese mainland by means of scientometrics and to assess the quality of the four domestic publications by bibliometrics. We identified all articles of four related publications by searching Chinese and foreign databases from 1997 to 2001. All articles collected or cited by these databases were searched and statistically analyzed for finding out the relevant distributions, including databases, years, authors, institutions, subject headings and subheadings. The source of sustentation funds and the related articles were analyzed too. The results showed that two journals were cited by two foreign databases and five Chinese databases simultaneously. The output of Journal of Biomedical Engineering was the highest. Its quantity of original papers cited by EI, CA and the totality of papers sponsored by funds were higher than those of the others, but the quantity and percentage per year of biomedical articles cited by EI were decreased in all. Inland core authors and institutions had come into being in the field of biomedical engineering. Their research topics were mainly concentrated on ten subject headings which included biocompatible materials, computer-assisted signal processing, electrocardiography, computer-assisted image processing, biomechanics, algorithms, electroencephalography, automatic data processing, mechanical stress, hemodynamics, mathematical computing, microcomputers, theoretical models, etc. The main subheadings were concentrated on instrumentation, physiopathology, diagnosis, therapy, ultrasonography, physiology, analysis, surgery, pathology, method, etc.