Highly cited papers in rheumatology: identification and conceptual analysis

Scientometrics - Rheumatology is a broad research area with an extensive background in scientific publications. Thus, the present study aims to identify the highly cited papers in Rheumatology...     

Mining typical features for highly cited papers

In this paper, we discuss the application of the data mining tools to identify typical features for highly cited papers (HCPs). By integrating papers’ external features and quality features, the feature space used to model HCPs was established. Then, a series of predictor teams were extracted from the feature space with rough set reduction framework. Each predictor team was used to construct a base classifier. Then the five base classifiers with the highest classification performance and larger diversity on whole were selected to construct a multi-classifier system (MCS) for HCPs. The combination prediction model obtained better performance than models of a single predictor team. 11 typical prediction features for HCPs were extracted on the basis of the MCS. The findings show that both the papers’ inner quality and external features, mainly represented as the reputation of the authors and journals, contribute to generation of HCPs in future.     

Are highly cited papers more international?

Several bibliometric studies have shown that international or multicountry papers are generally more cited than domestic or single country papers. Does this also hold for the most cited papers? In this study, the citation impact of domestic versus international papers is analyzed by comparing the share of international papers among the hundred most cited papers in four research specialities, from three universities, four cities and two countries. It is concluded that international papers are not well represented among high impact papers in research specialities, but dominate highly cited papers from small countries, and from cities and institutions within them. The share of international papers among highly cited papers is considerably higher during 2001–2008 compared to earlier years for institutions, cities and countries, but somewhat less for two of the research fields and slightly higher for the other two. Above all, domestic papers from the USA comprise about half of the highly cited papers in the research specialities.     

Why authors think their papers are highly cited

A survey of authors of highly cited papers in 22 fields was undertaken in connection with a new bibliometric resource called Essential Science Indicators (ESI®). Authors were asked to give their opinions on why their papers are highly cited. They generally responded by describing specific internal, technical aspects of their work, relating them to external or social factors in their fields of study. These self-perceptions provide clues to the factors that lead to high citation rate, and the importance of the interaction between internal and external factors. Internal factors are revealed by the technical terminology used to describe the work, and how it is situated in the problem domain for the field. External factors are revealed by a different vocabulary describing how the work has been received within the field, or its implications for a wider audience. Each author's response regarding a highly cited work was analyzed on four dimensions: the author perception of its novelty, utility, significance, and interest. A co-occurrence analysis of the dimensions revealed that interest, the most socially based dimension, was most often paired with one of the other more internal dimensions, suggesting a synergy between internal and external factors.     

Highly cited researchers: a moving target

Scientometrics - Highly cited researchers are a category of researchers defined by scientometric rules relating to counts of citations to their scholarly articles. The designation often refers to...     

Highly cited old papers and the reasons why they continue to be cited. Part II., The 1953 Watson and Crick article on the structure of DNA

Reports the results of a citation study on Watson and Crick's 1953 paper announcing the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA. The paper has been cited more than 2,000 times since 1961, and there is no sign of any obsolescence to this article. An analysis was undertaken of the journals in which the citations appeared, and of mistakes in the bibliographic citations provided by citing articles. Watson and Crick themselves have only cited their own paper twice since 1961. An analysis was also undertaken of the reasons why the paper was cited; 100 citing articles were identified and read. The reasons for citing were then categorised using the Oppenheim and Renn method. Compared to earlier studies, it was found that a greater proportion of citations were for historical reasons, a smaller proportion of citing articles were actively using the Watson and Crick article, and a similar, but low proportion were criticising the Watson and Crick article. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The effect of highly cited papers on national citation indicators

Scientometrics - Citation distributions are extremely skewed. This paper addresses the following question: To what extent are national citation indicators influenced by a small minority of highly...     

Highly cited research papers and the evaluation of a research university: A case study: Peking University 1974–2003

The academic level and scientific reputation is the most important merit of a research university. Publication of the scientific achievement in the world leading scientific journals is the key to asses a university's overall performance. Peking University is a leading university among the Chinese research universities, and the number of papers published in Science Citation Index (SCI) indexed journals has been on the top of the national list. In this paper, based on our long-term experience and practice in scientific management, we use scientometrics and informetrics method to analyze the academic performance of the researchers, departments and schools of Peking University, mainly using the citations of publications. Highly cited papers are specially important to the reputation of our university. We compare those data with some selected world well-known universities, hence, some important information can be deduced for the policy decision of the university. The results presented here is not only an academic survey, but also a guideline for the future strategic development of Peking University. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Highly cited publications in World War II: a bibliometric analysis

In an earlier paper we identified three ‘sleeping beauties’ in Psychology, that is three important papers that were not cited by others for many years before becoming much later citation classics. In this paper we identify the ‘princes’ that alerted psychologists to these ‘sleeping beauties’, and we show how new computer-based techniques now help us to locate princes as well as sleeping beauties.     

The highly cited papers of professors as an indicator of a research group's scientific performance

In the first part of the paper the citations in 1986 and 1987 of 3938 papers published in 1985 by 324 research groups in the faculties of science and of medicine of eight universities in the Netherlands are analyzed. Because of the large statistical spread of (1) the number of short-term citations of papers cited equally frequently over a long period, and (2) the number of citations over a long period of papers by the same author, short-term citation scores appear to be an unreliable indicator of a research group's contribution to science. In the second part of the paper an alternative approach is presented, based on a subdivision of the 3938 papers in papers authored by professors with 0–2, 3–8, or 9 highly cited papers (HCPs, 25 citations) to their name. Very large citation score differences were found for the three categories. For example: for papers first-authored by a professor, the average number of citations per person in 1986 and 1987 for 1985 papers was for 161 professors with 9 HCPs a factor 14 larger than for 575 professors with only 0–2 HCPs; for papers co-authored by professors, this factor was 6.6. These findings justify the conclusion that the number of HCPs scored by the professors (and other senior scientists) during their entire career is a much more reliable predictor of the performance of a research group than the number of short-term citations of the articles published by the group within a short period. A research group's contribution to science is primarily determined by the individual scientifictalents of its members.     

The significance of the number of highly cited papers as an indicator of scientific prolificacy

After presenting arguments that the number of highly cited papers (HCPs, 25 or more citations) has some advantages as an indicator of an author's scientific impact, the paper discusses citation data of 338 university professors in departments of medicine in the Netherlands. An analysis of the distribution of HCPs over the years provides support for the following conclusions: (1) prolific researchers with a large number of HCPs usually manifest themselves already in their Ph.D. work, apparently almost independent of the scientific setting; (2) it cannot be taken for granted that a successful Ph.D. student with some HCPs connected with his/her doctoral thesis will become a prolific successful researcher; (3) it is unlikely that an unsuccessful Ph.D. student without HCPs connected with his/her doctoral thesis will turn out to be a prolific successful researcher; and (4) for researchers, just as for artists, sportsmen, etc., talent is the most decisive factor in being successful.     

Altmetrics analysis of highly cited academic papers in the field of library and information science

Scientometrics - In this study, altmetrics for LIS research papers, and whether OA affects the altmetrics, were analyzed. In addition, by analyzing the differences in the altmetrics in 10 major...     

Highly cited non-journal publications in political science,economics and psychology: a first exploration

In this study we show that it is possible to identify top-cited publications other than Web of Science (WoS) publications, particularly non-journal publications, within fields in the social and behavioral sciences. We analyzed references in publications that were themselves highly cited, with at least one European address. Books represent between 62 (psychology) and 81% (political science) of the non-WoS references, journal articles 15–24%. Books (economics, political science) and manuals (psychology) account for the most highly cited publications. Between 50 (psychology, political science) and 71% (economics) of the top-ranked most cited publications originated from the US versus between 18 (economics) and 38% (psychology) from Europe. Finally, it is discussed how the methods and procedures of the study can be optimized.     

Highly oriented carbon nanotube papers made of aligned carbon nanotubes

Paper-like carbon nanotube (CNT) materials have many important applications such as in catalysts, in filtration, actuators, capacitor or battery electrodes, and so on. Up to now, the most popular way of preparing buckypapers has involved the procedures of dispersion and filtration of a suspension of CNTs. In this work, we present a simple and effective macroscopic manipulation of aligned CNT arrays called 'domino pushing' in the preparation of the aligned thick buckypapers with large areas. This simple method can efficiently ensure that most of the CNTs are well aligned tightly in the buckypaper. The initial measurements indicate that these buckypapers have better performance on thermal and electrical conductance. These buckypapers with controllable structure also have many potential applications, including supercapacitor electrodes.     

Highly conductive graphite/carbon fiber/cellulose composite papers

Papermaking techniques were used to produce graphite/carbon fiber/cellulose fiber composite papers with tunable electrical conductivity and good mechanical properties.     

Influence of researchers’ international mobilities on publication: a comparison of highly cited and uncited papers

Using curriculum vitae (CVs) or Short Bios in published resources such as the Internet enables us to analyze many issues concerning researchers’ careers. However, analysis of CVs or Short Bios concerning researchers’ life history, such as movement between countries, has rarely been conducted. In this paper, we pursue two purposes: to demonstrate which conditions (citation impact, countries or sectors) are favorable for the analysis, and to show structures of production of highly cited papers. To grasp more obvious tendencies, we compare two “extreme” samples: highly cited and uncited papers. First, we assess the identification rates of researchers’ origin broken down by researchers’ affiliation (countries and sectors). Then, we analyze the influence of these researchers’ international movement based on their origin. The results show the full landscape of the movement’s influence on national publication, the characteristics of each country in terms of researchers’ countries of origin and the research experience of both internationally moved and domestic researchers. Moreover, we analyze the contributions of researchers who returned from abroad to their home countries. Finally, we assess the limitations of our research method and the topic to be addressed concerning this method.     

Highly cited Soviet journals in the physical and life sciences: A study of the function of journals

The research developed from the identification of the most highly cited Soviet journals in the physical and life sciences. Several measures of growth and citedness were taken at the beginning and end of a recent five-year period, 1982–87, in order to generally assess the functions of these journals. The research involved making comparisons among these groupings of journals and control groupings of journals with similar content, but not published in the Soviet Union. Differences in citedness could be related, in the physical sciences, to the scale of Russophone science within world sciences, but not in the life sciences. In the physical sciences, there are increases in the citedness across Soviet and Western journals; but in the Soviet journals the increase is several times greater than in the control grouping. In sharp contrast, the largest, most cited, Western life sciences' journals have increased in citedness and other groupings, including Soviet journals, have declined. The measures on control groups show that the extreme levels of improvement in citedness on the part of Soviet physical sciences' journals reflect local, i.e. Soviet, developments. The decrease in citedness of Soviet life sciences' journals seems, instead, tied broadly to events in the world life sciences' literature. There has been, apparently a centralizing of attention within those discipline on those few journals publishing major findings while leaving the rest of the world literature behind. In addition, the research developed several findings on the formal properties of the measures used.