A mathematical theory of citing, Simkin, MV; Roychowdhury, VP, JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 58 (11). SEP 2007. p.1661-1673

[Chaomei Chen]

I agree with Steve. What is the value of this model? I wouldn't call it 
'explaining'. I am amazed that JASIST publishes it.

Chaomei Chen

ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics <SIGMETRICS at LISTSERV.UTK.EDU> 
wrote on 12/06/2007 03:20:15 PM:

> Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
> 
> Christina,
> 
> Blind copying of references by authors is not a valid assumption. 
> 
> Given that the basic assumption used in the model is wrong, it can't be
> used to explain propagation of errors - or anything else that follows
> from it. 
> 
> It's like the Ptolemaic model of the solar system.  It explains the
> position of the Sun and Moon and planets in the sky pretty well. But its
> basic assumption is that the Earth is at the center of the solar system.
> An invalid assumption makes the model meaningless, even if it correctly
> predicts empirical results. 
> 
> Steve Morris.
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
> [mailto:SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu] On Behalf Of Pikas, Christina K.
> Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 11:41 AM
> To: SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu
> Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] A mathematical theory of citing, Simkin, MV;
> Roychowdhury, VP, JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION
> SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 58 (11). SEP 2007. p.1661-1673
> 
> Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
> 
> Actually, that was in a paper a couple of years ago posted to ArXiv --
> it was the only way to explain the propagation of obvious critical
> errors; that is, errors that:
> - would prevent the easy retrieval of the article (switched page
> numbers)
> - were fairly uncommon or would be fairly unlikely to happen repeatedly
> by chance alone
> 
> Ah, but you're being tongue in cheek?
> 
> 
> Christina K. Pikas
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
> [mailto:SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu] On Behalf Of Morris, Steven (BA)
> Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 12:08 PM
> To: SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu
> Subject: Re: [SIGMETRICS] A mathematical theory of citing, Simkin, MV;
> Roychowdhury, VP, JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION
> SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 58 (11). SEP 2007. p.1661-1673
> 
> Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
> 
> Of all the airy-fairy network growth models that physicists have
> inflicted upon us, in my opinion this 'reference copying' model takes
> the cake. 
> 
> Does anyone out there really believe that researchers blindly copy
> references into their papers? 
> 
> 
> Steve Morris
> Houston
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ASIS&T Special Interest Group on Metrics
> [mailto:SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu] On Behalf Of Eugene Garfield
> Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 10:07 AM
> To: SIGMETRICS at listserv.utk.edu
> Subject: [SIGMETRICS] A mathematical theory of citing, Simkin, MV;
> Roychowdhury, VP, JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION
> SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 58 (11). SEP 2007. p.1661-1673
> 
> Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
> http://web.utk.edu/~gwhitney/sigmetrics.html
> 
> E-mail Address: simkin at ee.ucla.edu
> 
> Author(s): Simkin, MV (Simkin, Mikhail V.); Roychowdhury, VP
> (Roychowdhury, Vwani P.) 
> 
> Title: A mathematical theory of citing 
> 
> Source: JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND
> TECHNOLOGY, 58 (11): 1661-1673 SEP 2007 
> 
> Language: English
> Document Type: Article 
> 
> Keywords Plus: NETWORKS; EVOLUTION; MODEL; CRITICALITY; ALLELES; CHANCE
> 
> Cited Reference Count: 50
> Times Cited: 0 
> 
> Publisher: JOHN WILEY & SONS INC
> Publisher Address: 111 RIVER ST, HOBOKEN, NJ 07030 USA 
> 
> ISSN: 1532-2882 
> 
> Subject Category: Computer Science, Information Systems; Information
> Science & Library Science 
> 
> Abstract: Recently we proposed a model in which when a scientist writes
> a manuscript, he picks up several random papers, cites them, and also
> copies a fraction of their references. The model was stimulated by our
> finding that a majority of scientific citations are copied from the
> lists of references used in other papers. It accounted quantitatively
> for several
> 
> properties of empirically observed distribution of citations; however,
> important features such as power-law distributions of citations to
> papers published during the same year and the fact that the average rate
> of citing decreases with aging of a paper were not accounted for by that
> model. Here, we propose a modified model: When a scientist writes a
> manuscript, he picks up several random recent papers, cites them, and
> also copies some of their references. The difference with the original
> model is the word recent. We solve the model using methods of the theory
> of branching processes, and find that it can explain the aforementioned
> features of citation distribution, which our original model could not
> account for. The model also can explain "sleeping beauties in science;" 
> that is, papers that are little cited for a decade or so and later
> "awaken" and get many citations. Although much can be understood from
> purely random models, we find that to obtain a good quantitative
> agreement with empirical citation data, one must introduce Darwinian
> fitness parameter for the papers. 
> 
> Addresses: Univ Calif Los Angeles, Dept Elect Engn, Los Angeles, CA
> 90095
> USA 
> 
> Reprint Address: Simkin, MV, Univ Calif Los Angeles, Dept Elect Engn,
> Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA. 
> 
> E-mail Address: simkin at ee.ucla.edu; vwani at ee.ucla.edu 
> 
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> 
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