Annals of Library Science and Documentation 1986, 33(4), 143-149

INTERNATIONAL CHANNEL OFCOMMUNICATION OF BIOPHYSICSLITERATURE

Tracing the history of biophysics literaturepresents an analysis of 3515 citations publishedin 438 journals taking Annual Review of Bio-physics Vol. 7 (1978) - Vol. 8 (1979) as source.The analysis reveals that 82.3% citations (i.e.2893) are covered by first 100 journals and therest of 17.7% citations (i.e. 624) are coveredby the remaining 338 journals. Further analysisshows that primary journals account of 83.2%citations, non-primary serials cover 6.1% andnon-serial publications account for the remain-ing 10.7% citations. A ranked-list of first 100journals form the main communication channelsand amo,,!-gst other channels biochemistryjournals dominate over other subjects. Withregard to scatter 60% of significant literatureof biophysics is covered by the first 25 journalsonly and the rest by 413 periodicals. The find-ings thus prove the validity of Sengupta's Lawof Bibliometrics.

INTRODUCTION

Biophysics has a long history. Its ongm hasbeen dated with the origin of science. Thepioneering studies of Leonardo da Vinci on theflight mechanism of birds in 1487 may betreated as an identifiable beginning of bio-physical study. However, the origin of bio-physics antedates the division of natural sciencesinto separate disciplines. Bioluminescence wasamong the most ancient objects of biophysicalstudy. Athanasius Kircher, a 17th centuryGerman Jesuit priest, was perhaps the firstwho made scientific investigation on animalluminescence and devoted two chapters tobioluminescence in his book Ars Magna Luciset Umbrae. The relation between electricity andbiology attracted much attention in 17th

Vol 33 No 4 December 1986

LN. SENGUPTAIndian Institute of Chemical Biology4 Raja S.C. Mullick RoadCalcutta 700032

K.S. DESHPANDEKarnataka UniversityDharwad 580007

century and was intensely explored in the18th and 19th Century. Sir Isaac Newtonobserved in the Principia (1687) that "allsensation is excited and the members of animalbodies move at the command of the will, namely,by the variations of (a subtle) spirit, mutuallypropagated along the solid filaments of thenerves, from the outward organs of senses tothe brain, and from the brain into the muscles."John Walsh in 1773 wrote to Benjamin Franklinabout the details of his discovery of the electri-cal ray. It was characteristic of the unity ofscience then prevalent that advances in know-ledge of bioelectric phenomena were some-times made by professors of physics who wereinterested in biological phenomena or pro-fessors of anatomy, a subject that includedphysiology at that time.

These physicists and physiologists wereattracted to biophysical research because ofLuigi Galvani's remarkable discovery of bio-electricity where he showed excitability offrog muscle by application of electric current.Galvani's discovery may be considered asa landmark in the history of biophysicsas many pioneers would consider Galvani'sdiscovery of 1786 as the origin of bio-physics as a su~ject. Lavoisier, a contempo-rary of Galvani, set the stage ready for meta-bolic research through his experimental workwith animals. He showed that oxygen played avital role in respiration and oxygen combustionresembled very much to that of physical com-bustion. Darwin, the first biological theoreti-cian, put forward his theory on the origin andevolution of species which indirectly gave atremendous boost to biophysical research.Thereafter considerable work in biophysics

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followed one after another concerning elec-trical stimulation of muscle, conduction ofinformation by nerves by applying electricpulses, speculation on "nervous fluid" andthe identity of "electrical matter" and "animalspirits", generation of force by contractingmuscle etc. Considerable work in this directionwas done by Du Bios-Reyrnod, the Germanelectrophysiologist. Because of such biophysicalresearch, disciplines like neurophysiology, elec-trophysiology became prominent research arenaduring the 19th century. Another landmark forthe development of biophysical research was thestudy of diffusion gradients and osmotic pres-sure in the 19th century done by Abbe J ANollet, Rene Dutrochet, W F P Pfeiffer, AdolphFick, who wrote in 1856 Die medizinischePhys£k, probably the first complete biophysicstext, Jcobus Van't Hoff, Wilhelm Ostwald,Francois Raoult and Svante Arrhenius. Thiscentury is also noteworthy for the unique con-tributions of Faraday, Herman Ludwig, Ferdi-nand von Helmholtz, Mendel, Flemming, Rob-bert Mayer, Tyndall, Willard Gibbs, Sir JagadishChandra Bose, and Rontgen which have greatlyhelped the .growth of biophysical research.Faraday laid the foundation of modern elec-trochemistry and electrobiology. Helmholtz'smade significant contributions on sense organsmainly physics of colour vision and hearingwhich has formed the basis of modern colourperception.

Mendel's rules of heredity and Flemming'sconcept on chromosomes have been in 1960sidentified with molecular structures and pro-cesses. Gibbs applied thermodynamics in bio-logical system, while Rontgen discovered X-raywhich later remarkably helped to the growth ofbiophysical research. Robert Mayer, world'sfirst real biophysicist, perceived that the processof metabolism involves a considerable turnoverin material from one chemical state to anotherand that some mechanical work is involved inthe process. He intuitively accepted the prin-ciple of the conservation of energy in bio-logical systems. Tyndall applied his discovery ofthe scattering of light by submicroscopic objectsto verify Pastuer's ideas of bacterial action.Physicist Sir J C Bose, is considered as the firstfulfledged biophysicist of the current century

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as most of his biophysical theories were de-veloped during the period 1902-1933. Thispioneer Indian biophysicist systematicallyapplied the concepts and techniques of physicsto study the responses of plants to externalstimuli. His book Electrophysiology: A physico-physiological study, London, 1907 is one of thefew books on biophysics that were publishedduring.the first decade of this century. Sir Bosedevised various inorganic models of biophysicalphenomena underlying mechanical and elec-trical response to stimulation, transmission ofexcitation in plant and animal tissues andmodels of vision and memory.

It is of interest to note that from the timeof these great earlier biophysicists till about1930 research interest in biophysics was at alow ebb, perhaps because of greater attractionof fundamental physics which was makinggreat strides during this period. However, in-terest in biophysical studies again revivedaround 1930 when A V Hill started his study ofthermal and energy effects in muscle. Contri-butions of Sir Henry and Sir Lawrence Braggpaved the way for research in molecular struc-ture of biological macromolecules in 1960s.Also Peter Debye and Irving Langmuir areoutstanding contributors in modern biophysicalchemistry and membrane problems. X-raydeffraction studies of biological macromole-cules pioneered by Astbury using simple X-raydiffraction analysis resulted in the discovery ofthe three forms of fibrous proteins. The followup research of Astbury led to fundamentaladvances in knowledge of the three dimensionalstructures and physical basis of the biologicalactivity of proteins, enzymes and hormoneslike insulin, haemoglobin, myoglobin lysozymeand ribo-nuclease. During this decade the studiesof Gates, Heclit, Lofbourow and Holiday andCaspersson respectively on biological actionspectra, sensitivity of the eye, adsorptionspectra of newly purified biological moleculesand differential absorption of protein andnucleic acid to show their inter-relationships inthe living cell are considered most significant.During 1940s War had its effects on biophysicalresearch, even though it was an active field ofresearch and' it again gained momentum duringmiddle of this decade.

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It may be relevant to mention here that theideas and techniques of chemistry were syste-matically applied to the study of living matterfor the first time in the 1870s with the con-sequent emergence of biochemistry as a separatescientific discipline. Similarly during the 1950sand 1960s the ideas and techniques of physicsbegan to be systematically applied in the field ofbiology setting off a rapid and large increase ofresearch activity in the field of biophysics andmolecular biology. As a result biophysics emerg-ed and matured as a distinctive discipline ofscience during the past few decades. During thisperiod new techniques and discoveries followedone another attracting more and more researchworkers to this new and prestigious area ofresearch. Among the outstanding researchersof this period mention must be made of theNobel laureates Sir Crick, Watson, Jacob,Monod, Pauling, Wilkins, von Bekesy, Calvin,Kendrew, Perutz, Huxley and Hodgkinwho arenoted for their epoch making interdisciplinarybiophysical contributions.

The sudden increase in research tempobrought out new concepts and ideas, and a floodof papers started pouring in for publication. Inany branch of science, journals begin to appearonly when that branch starts to get recognitionas a separate and distinctive discipline. Generallythe growth in the number of journals in anyarea of science accurately reflects the growthof knoledge in that area. However, the growth inthe number of scientific periodicals in anyscientific discipline takes place in three stagesnamely (i) increase in size and volume of exist-ing periodicals; (ii) inception of new journals forpublication of research result from new geo-graphical areas where interest in the new branchof science has become widespread; and (iii) es-tablishment of new periodicals to cover specialareas of the scientific discipline which assumeimportance as a result of increasing specialisa-tion.

It is interesting to note that World List ofScientific Periodicals records BiophysikalischeZentralblatt as the oldest secondary periodicalin the field of biophysics. It was launched inBerlin in 1905 which later became Zentrablattfur Biochemic und Biophysik in 1910. Howeverthe first primary journal in the field was Bio-

Vol 33 No 4 December 1986

dynamica. It appeared from Monona Drive,Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.A. in the year 1934.Because of the historical interrelationship bet-ween the subjects of biophernistry and bio-physics, several titles figuring in the literature ofbiophysics are journals of combination typecovering both biochemistry and biophysics.The first journal of this type to be establishedwas Biochimica et Biophysica Acta publishedfrom The Netherlands since 1947.

Data compiled in the World List of Scienti-fic Periodicals (fourth ed. and 1968 supplement)and Ulrich's Periodicals Directory (21st ed.,1982) show that the number of primary bio-physical journals increased from one in 1934to eight in 1950, twenty-seven in 1960, fifty in1970 and seventy-eight in 1980. As a result ofthe accelerated growth of biophysics journals,working biophysicists find themselves buriedamidst pile of unread articles. To make matterworse, large number of important articles inthe field continue to appear in periodicals ofgeneral sciences (like Nature, Science, and Proc.Nat. Acad, Sci) and in specialist periodicals inareas like biochemistry, physiology, neurosci-ence, virology and physics.

METHODOLOGY

It has become necessary to have an objectivemeans of identifying the factors responsible forthe sudden growth of literature in the field ofbiophysics and to know the international chen-nel of communication of biophysics literatureand their relative importance from the point ofview of biophysicists, and librarians and infor-mation scientists attached to biophysics researchinstitutes. The enormous growth of literature inthe field and also wide scattering of biophysicsliterature in journals of different subjects hascreated. great problem in tracking the signi-ficant literature of the subject. To cope withthe unprecedented growth literature, a newbibliometric technique [1] developed and usedin Sengupta's work, has been followed toiden tify scientific periodicals in the field ofbiophysics which will not only help the con-cerned librarians to utilize their library budgetto the best advantage of their users, but alsosave the valuable time of the working research

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scientists in the 'field by discarding the relativelyless important journals from their regular read-ing list. With this object in mind we haveidentified 498 journals that cover the maximumsegment of contemporary biophysics literature.This quantitative evaluation is based on 3517citations collected from the source journal,Annual Review of Bio-Physics volumes 7and 8, 1978 and 1979. Advantage of usingAnnual Reviews as source journals has beenelaborately discussed by Sengupta [2] earlier.These 438 periodicals of different subjects,today act as the main channel of communicationof biophysics literature. However, we haveincluded the first 100 journals in Table 1 cover-ing 82.3% of total citations and excluded theremaining 338 journals as they only cover 17.7%of total citations. This has been done in orderto avoid making Table 1 unduly lengthy. Otherchannels of communication identified in ourstudy are non-primary serial publications, suchas books and monographs, theses and disserta-tions, and miscellaneous items, namely, per-sonal communications, unpublished experi-mental data and patents.

DISCUSSION

Primary journals accounted for 83.2% of allcitations counted, while non-primary serialpublications cover 6.1% and non-serial publi-cations accounted for 10.7%. This confirms theimportance of serial publications in the pre-sent-day biophysical research. Percentwise dis-tributions of different items of non-serial pub-lications are: books and monographs 7.4%,theses and dissertations 0.9%, and others 2.4%.Thus, among the non-serial publications, booksand monographs contribute maximum citations.But it is insignificant in comparison with pri-mary serial publications. This fact undoubtedlyreflects the comparatively lesser importance ofbooks and monographs to the research workersof biophysics. However, this statement needsto be qualified to some extent. The fact thatmacrodocuments become obsolete soon aftertheir publication may perhaps be the mainreason for their infrequent use among researchworkers in the field of biophysics.

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In this study 438 primary journals covering3517 citations were noted. Among these titlesthe first hundred titles are listed in Table 1.

The striking feature of our study is thehigh status of multidisciplinary science journalslike Proc. natn. Acad. Sci., Nature, Science inthe communication channel of biophysicsliterature. This may be evident from the factthat these journals have occupied the topmostpositions in Table 1 (vide ranks 1, 4 and 7).The reasons for this may be interpreted as theimportance and relevance of biophysical con-tributions in the overall growth of knowledgeof significance to science as a whole.

From the table it will also be seen thatjournals in the field of biochemistry predomi-nate over journals of other fields. This isindicative of the fact that biophysicists oftoday prefer biochemistry periodicals as agood channel of communication for their ex-perimental results. Absence of many biophysicsperiodicals, exclusively devoted to this subject,in the communication channel of biophysicsliterature is somewhat unexpected. Manybiophysics journals established in the sixties,following the sudden efflorescence of interestin the subject triggered by Watson [3] andCrick's discovery of the structure of DNA onthe one hand and the X-ray crystallographicstudies of Kendrew [4] and Perutz [5] leadingto the elucidation of the three-dimensionalstructure of biologically active proteins on theother. From the predominant position of bio-chemical journals in Table 1, it seems evidentthat the techniques and concepts of biophysicshave become integrated with the general bodyof biochemical knowledge and methodology,and biophysics, instead of growing as an inde-pendent discipline, is gradually merging into thediscipline of biochemistry. Moreover, the pre-dominance of biochemical periodicals in thecommunication channel of biophysics bringsout a fact which may be of special interest tothe scientometrists who are interested in thestudy of history of science. The rapid accumu-lation of knowledge in the field of biophysicshas catalysed a change in the infrastructureand direction of growth of biochemistry to sucheffective purpose that biochemistry has becomeestablished as a viable tool for the study of

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Thbkl -----------------------------. .. Rank Name of J ournal No. of

Communication Channel of Biophysics Literature citation----------------------------- -----------------------------

Rank Name of Journal

123456789

10111213141516171819202l.

222224252626262929313131313536

363639

No. of 39citation 41

414141

Proc.natn.Acad.Sci., U.S.A. 243J. Physiol., Lond. 237Biochemistry, N.Y. 164Nature, Lond. 150Biochim. biophys. Acta 142J. bioI. Chern. 110Science, N.Y. 100J. molec. BioI. 98J. Cell BioI. 83J. gen. Physiol. 76J. Virol. 66Virology 63Brain Res. 60J. Am. chern. Soc 58F E B S Lett. 56J. Histochem. Cytochem. 55Biophys.J. 53Biochem. biophys. Res. Commun. 51Expl. Cell. Res. 37Eur. J. Biochem. 33Photochem. Photobiol. 32J. Neurochem. 27Proc, R. Soc. Lond. Ser. B. 27Ann. hum. Genet. 25Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 22A. Rev. Biophys. Bioengng 21Cold Spring Harb.Symp. quant.Biol. 21J. expo BioI. 21J. compo Physiol. 20J. Neurobiol. 20A. Rev. Biochem. 18Am. J. hum. Genet. 18Chern Phys, Lett. 18Fedn.Proc.Fedn. Am. Socs.exp.Biol. 18Protoplasma 17Inst. elect. Electron. Engrs. Trans.Biomed. Engng.J. cell. Physiol.J. Member. BioI.Biochem.J.

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16161615

565660606060606565656565657171717171717171717181

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J. phys. Chern.Am. J. Physiol.Devl. BioI.J. gen. Virol.J. Neurophysiol.J. supramolec. Struct.J. theor. BioI.Nucleic Acids Res.BioI. Bull. mar. bioI. Lab. WoodsHoleCellJ. compo Neurol.Vision Res.J. Biochem., TokyoJ. chern. Phys.J. Protozool.PlantaBiochem. Soc. Trans.Electroencephalogr. clin.Neurophysiol.Phil. Trans. R. Soc., Lond.Proc. Inst. elect. Electron Engrs.BiometricsBiopolyrnersCancer Res.J. Ultrastruct. Res.Rev. sci. Instru.Acta. cytol.J. din. Invest.J. Neurosurg.Physiol. Rev.Proc. J ap. Acad.Q. Rev. Biophys.Acta Protozool.Archs Microbiol.Cell Tissue Res.Compo Biochem. Physiol.Dev. Growth Diff.J. Cell Sci.J. expo Zool.Life Sci.Ncurosci. Abstr.Phys, Rev.A. Rev. PI. Physiol.

414141

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141313131212121211

111111101010101099999988888888887

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Rank Name of] ournal No. ofcitation

81818181818181819090909090909090909090

Acct. chern. Res.Acta physioI. scand.Archs Biochem. Biophys.Biomed. Sci. Instru.Comput.].Expl Neurol.Meth. Enzym.Syrnp. Soc. expo BioI.Analyt. Biochem.BiofizicaBot. Maq,Brain Behav. Evol.Brookhaven Symp. Biol.Comput. Biomed. Res.Hum. Hered.]. nucl. Med.Math. Biosci.Med. bioI. Engng. Comput.Pflugers Archs; Euro.]. Physiol.

First 100 journals cover 2893 (82.3%) oftotal citations

Other 338 journals cover 624 (17.7%) oftotal citations

G.T. 438 journals altogether cover 3517

biophysical phenomena at the molecular andsubmolecular level equally employing thetechniques of chemistry and physics. This trendis further evident from the emergence of specialareas of research like molecular genetics, mole-cular medicine and molecular pathology whichare cognate to biochemistry rather than bio-physics.

] ournals of virology (vide ranks 11 and 12)also form a high communication channel forbiophysics literature. This is obviously due tothe importance of viruses as research tools inthe experimental approach to the study ofmolecular biology.

Physiology journals (vide rank nos. 2 and10) also appear as another potential mediumlo r the dissemination of biophysics research

7777777766666666666

results. This is perhaps due to increasing trendof research in electrophysiology, harnessingnew developments in electrical and electronictechnology. To some extent for a similar reasonneuroscience journals (vide rank nos. 13,22,26)are chosen as one of the preferred media forcommunication by the biophysicists of theworld. Today a good deal of research at mole-cular level is done by the biophysicists with thehelp of sophisticated instruments like electronmicroscope. The results of such microscopicstudies are preferably communicated throughjournals devoted to biological sciences (micro-scopy). This explains high ranking of journalslike J.Histochem. Cytochem. (rank 16), Expl.Cell Res. (rank 19), J. supramolec. Struct.(rank 41) and J. Ultrastruct. Res. (rank 60).Another striking feature of this study is that thesignificant literature of biophysics appears tobe more widely scattered in journals devotedto different disciplines as compared to otherbiomedical. disciplines. The wide scatter ofthe literature of biophysics is remarkable, ex-tending as it does from psychology to agricul-ture. This is but proof of the premise of thebiophysical approach for the solution of hither-to intractable problems of the diverse disciplinesof biology, pure and applied. Analysis of all the438 periodicals which we have identified asthe media for dissemination of present-daybiophysical knowledge, show that the maincommunication channels rest on journals ineight broad disciplines namely

(a) biochemistry (21.2%)(b) science,general (15.8%)(c) biological sciences : microscopy, general

and experimental (8.1% + 3.7% + 1.6%respectively, i.e. i3.4%)

(d) physiology (11.3%)(e) biophysics (7.2%)(f) neuroscience (6.4%)(g) chemistry (4.6%) and(h) virology (4.1 %).

Journals belonging to these eight disciplines arethe main channels of communication of bio-physics literature. They altogether cover 84% oftotal literature published in serial publications.Remaining 16% literature arc disseminated

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through journals of 16 other disciplines, namely,psychology, mathematics, statistics, computerscience, physics, geophysics, genetics, micro-biology, bioengineering, botany, plant physio-logy, zoology, pharmacology, medicine (general),medicine (specialities) and agriculture. Thus thisseemingly formidable scatter is not of muchconsequence to the research workers of bio-physics or to concerned information scientists,because nearly 60% of the significant literatureof biophysics is covered by the first 25 journalsonly. Remaining 40% literature is covered by413 periodicals. Further analysis reveals that50 and 100 journals nearly cover 70% and 82%of total biophysics literature. If we analyse thesubject affiliations of the journals of the mostproductive nuclear zone and that of other lessproductive zones, it will be seen that our find-ings again forcefully prove the validity ofSengupta's Law of Bibliometrics, i.e., 'Duringphases of rapid and vigorous growth of know-ledge in a scientific discipline, articles of interestto that discipline appear in increasing numbersin periodicals, distant from that field'[1]. Thatis, during such phases, the small group of jour-nals accounting for the large part of significantliterature in the subject contain a relativelylarger proportion of unrelated journals. Thisis evident from the fact that only 3.7% of thetotal journals of the communication channel of

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biophysics relate exclusively to biophysicsand cover only 7.3% of the total literature ofbiophysics which is a rapidly growing subjectbecause of its direct involvement and rele-vance to molecular biology research.

REFERENCES

1. Sengupta IN: Growth of the biochemical litera-ture. Nature 1973,244,75-76.

2. Sengupta IN: Impact of scientific serials in theadvancement of medical knowledge. An objectivemethod of analysis. Int. Lib. Rev 1972, 4, 169-195.

3. Watson J D, Crick F H C : Molecular structure ofnucleic acids: A structure for deoxyribose nucleicacid. Nature 1953,171,737-738.

4. Kendrew J C : The three-dimensional structure ofa protein molecule. Scient. Am. 1961,205(6),96-111.

5. Perutz M : The hemoglobin molecule. Scient.Am. 1964,211(5),64-80.

6. Bradford S C : Documentation, Public AffairsPress, Washington, D.C. 1950, p. 156.

7. Sengupta IN: Recent growth of the literature ofbiochemistry and changes in ranking of periodi-cals. J. Doc. 1973,29,192-211.

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