Questions to the article: demonstrating the ascendancy of COVID-19 research using acronyms.

The article published on 16 May 2021, is well-written and of interest, but remains several questions that are required for clarifications, such as the presentations in Table 1 and Fig. 1 that should be improved further for providing more valuable information to readers. After viewing Table 1, measuring the strength of quantity (= 0.84) referred to the next two counterparts for the top one acronym (e.g., COVID) is demonstrated using the absolute advantage coefficient (AAC). Similarly, Traditional line charts on top-eight acronyms provide us with messages, including (i) DNA and RNA are popular over three decades; (ii) CT, MRI, HIV, SARS, and CoV start in 1972, 1985, 1986, 2003, and 2003, respectively; (iii) the number of COVID substantially surpasses over other seven acronyms in 2020 though the seven acronyms are almost equal in quantity in 2020. We are interested in producing similar Table 1 and Fig. 1 with a video MP4 provided to readers who can click on the link to manipulate the scenarios on their own. We found that the AAC and the traditional line charts on a dashboard make data clear for a better understanding of demonstrating the ascendancy of COVID-19 research using acronyms. The line charts are easily examined on Google Maps. © Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary 2021.

We read with great interest the study by Barnett and Doubleday on demonstrating the ascendancy of COVID-19 research using acronyms (Barnett & Doubleday, 2021). However, two major concerns were raised, such as how to (1) measure the strength of quantity referred to the next counterparts and (2) produce the traditional line charts on a dashboard that provides more valuable information to readers.

The absolute advantage coefficient(AAC) (Chang et al., 2020; Chien, 2012; Lee et al., 2020, 2021; Wang et al., 2021; Yang et al., 2021) to report the strength of quantity when compared to the next two counterparts using Eq. (1) and (2):

where Ratio is determined by the three consecutive numbers of acronyms(e.g., in 20,220; the top three have the most number of frequency in quantity, denoted by γ1, γ2, and γ3 in Eq. (1)). The ACC ranged from 0 to 1.0 stands for the strength of quantity in 2020 when compared to the next two acronyms.

We extracted the top eight acronyms involved in the article title shown in Table 1(Barnett & Doubleday, 2021) and downloaded them from PubMed since 1950. In comparison to the original counts shown in the study (Barnett & Doubleday, 2021), almost equal counts across the eight acronyms were found in Table 1. The AACs were particularly calculated for the two studies. We can see that the AACs in 2020(> 0.80) are substantially greater than those in 2019(. The higher ACC for the top one acronym means stronger in quantity when compared to the next two.

Table 1

Comparison of numbers of acronyms and AACs in two studies

Year	Acronyms in titles
	Barnett and Doubleday(2021)			This study
	Acronym	Number	AAC	Number	AAC
2019	DNA	10,873	0.51	11,860	0.52
	HIV	9,485		9,423
	RNA	8,636		8,019
	CT	4,686		5,590
	MRI	4,619		5,687
2020	COVID	57,074	0.82	64,692	0.84
	SARS	11,747		12,290
	DNA	11,189		12,210
	CoV	10,981		11,817
	RNA	10,476		9,482

Next, the line charts are shown in Fig. 1. More valuable information is provided to readers, including (i) DNA and RNA are popular over three decades; (ii) CT, MRI, HIV, SARS, and CoV start in 1972, 1985, 1986, 2003, and 2003, respectively; (iii) the number of COVID substantially surpasses over other seven acronyms in 2020 though the seven acronyms are almost equal in quantity in 2020.

Fig. 1

The most popular scientific acronyms in health and medical journals over the years

We provided a video MP4 with a link at the reference (Chien, 2021a). Readers are invited to scan the QR-code or click on the link (Chien, 2021b) to manipulate the line charts by using the zoom-in and zoom-out functions on a dashboard laid on Google Maps that is unique and modern, and easier to understand the features of frequencies in acronyms than the static line charts shown in the studied (Barnett & Doubleday, 2020, 2021).

We produced the improved Table 1 and Fig. 1 when compared to the previous study (Barnett & Doubleday, 2021). The abstract video is present in (Chien, 2021a) for readers who are interested in replicating Table 1 and Fig. 1 on their own in the future.