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Record W3175903833 · doi:10.1162/qss_a_00142

Uncited papers are not useless

2021· article· en· W3175903833 on OpenAlexaff
M. Golosovsky, Vincent Larivière

Bibliographic record

VenueQuantitative Science Studies · 2021
Typearticle
Languageen
FieldDecision Sciences
Topicscientometrics and bibliometrics research
Canadian institutionsUniversité de Montréal
Fundersnot available
KeywordsFraction (chemistry)CitationPoisson processMeasure (data warehouse)Poisson distributionThe artsComputer scienceMathematical economicsMathematicsStatisticsLibrary sciencePolitical scienceLaw

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Abstract We study the citation dynamics of the papers published in three scientific disciplines (Physics, Economics, and Mathematics) and four broad scientific categories (Medical, Natural, Social Sciences, and Arts & Humanities). We measure the uncitedness ratio, namely, the fraction of uncited papers in these data sets and its dependence on the time following publication. These measurements are compared with a model of citation dynamics that considers acquiring citations as an inhomogeneous Poisson process. The model captures the fraction of uncited papers in our collections fairly well, suggesting that uncitedness is an inevitable consequence of the Poisson statistics.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.007
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.148
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesMetaresearch, Bibliometrics
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: Evaluation · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Observational · Consensus signal: none
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: Empirical
Teacher disagreement score0.993
Threshold uncertainty score0.037

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0070.148
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0000.001
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0010.001
Bibliometrics0.0080.011
Science and technology studies0.0020.004
Scholarly communication0.0070.008
Open science0.0020.002
Research integrity0.0020.002
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0070.002

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.891
GPT teacher head0.693
Teacher spread0.198 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

Study designObservational
DomainEvaluation
GenreEmpirical

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations9
Published2021
Admission routes1
Has abstractyes

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