Paul Hagenmuller's contribution to solid state chemistry: A scientometric analysis

Sleeping Beauties of Coronavirus Research

A "Sleeping Beauty" (SB) in science is a metaphor for a scholarly publication that remains relatively unnoticed by the related communities for a long time; - the publication is "sleeping". However, suddenly due to the appearance of some phenomenon, such a "forgotten" publication may become a center of scientific attention; - the SB is "awakened". Currently, there are specific scientific areas for which sleeping beauties (SBs) are awakened. For example, as the world is experiencing the COVID-19 global pandemic (triggered by SARS-CoV-2), publications on coronaviruses appear to be awakened. Thus, one can raise questions of scientific interest: are these publications coronavirus related SBs? Moreover, while much literature exists on other coronaviruses, there seems to be no comprehensive investigation on COVID-19, - in particular in the context of SBs. Nowadays, such SB papers can be even used for sustaining literature reviews and/or scientific claims about COVID-19. In our study, in order to pinpoint pertinent SBs, we use the "beauty score" (B-score) measure. The Activity Index (AI) and the Relative Specialization Index (RSI) are also calculated to compare countries where such SBs appear. Results show that most of these SBs were published previously to the present epidemic time (triggered by SARS-CoV or SARS-CoV-1), and are awakened in 2020. Besides outlining the most important SBs, we show from what countries and institutions they originate, and the most prolific author(s) of such SBs. The citation trend of SBs that have the highest B-score is also discussed.

Chemistry research in Europe: A publication analysis (2006–2016)

In this article, chemistry research in 51 different European countries between years 2006 and 2016 was studied using statistical methods. This study consists of two parts: In the first part, different economical, institutional and citation parameters were correlated with the number of publications, citations and chemical industry numbers using principal components analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis. The results of the first part indicated that economical and geographical parameters directly affect the chemistry research outcome. In the second part, research in branches of chemistry and related disciplines such as analytical chemistry, polymer science and physical chemistry were analysed using principal components analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis for each country. Publication data were collected as the number of chemistry publications (in Science Citation Index–Expanded (SCI-E)) between years 2006 and 2016 in different chemistry subdisciplines and related scientific areas. Results of the second part of the study produced geographical and economical clusters of countries, interestingly, without addition of any geographical data.

Delayed recognition: recent developments and a proposal to study this phenomenon as a fuzzy concept

Purpose

New developments in the study of delayed recognition are discussed.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on these new developments a method is proposed to characterize delayed recognition as a fuzzy concept.

Findings

A benchmark value of 0.333 corresponding with linear growth is obtained. Moreover, a case is discovered in which an expert found delayed recognition several years before citation analysis could discover this phenomenon.

Research limitations

As all citation studies also this one is database dependent.

Practical implications

Delayed recognition is turned into a fuzzy concept.

Originality/value

The article presents a new way of studying delayed recognition.