When we google, search Wikipedia, and share information on Mendeley, we obviously deal with complex networks of information. But also traditional information spaces – the collections of libraries for instance – and their classification systems are evolving complex systems. This talk explores the possibilities to use concepts and methods from statistical physics to analyze information dynamics. We depart from information dynamics in scholarly communication, and point to current encounters between physics and scientometrics. We discuss more in-depth the evolution of category systems in libraries (Universal Decimal Classification) in comparison to on-line spaces (Wikipedia). The talk closes with an introduction into a new European network – the COST Action KnowEscape – in which information professionals, sociologists, computer scientists, physicists and digital humanities scholars in an unique alliance seek for knowledge maps to better navigate through large information spaces. Talk on June 11, 2013 by Andrea Scharnhorst at the IMT in Lucca, Italy.

1. DANS is an institute of KNAW and NWO
Data Archiving and Networked ServicesData Archiving and Networked Services
Knowledge – dynamics –
landscape - navigation – what
have interfaces to digital
libraries to do with physics?
Andrea Scharnhorst
June 11, 2013
IMT Lucca, Italy

2. Andrea Scharnhorst – CV
•Head of eResearch at DANS and scientific coordinator of the Computational Humanities
programme at the eHumanities group of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and
Sciences (KNAW) – DANS=Data Archiving and Networked Services Institute (DANS)
Analyzing the dynamics of information and knowledge landscapes

3. Ilya Prigogine
Eugene Garfield
Werner Ebeling

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Scientific development based on competition between scientific fields
and fieldmobility of scientists
System-Umwelt-Grenze
Teilsystem 1 Teilsystem i
Teilsystem j
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1
Ai
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Aij
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Aij
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Physics
Economics
DataScience
Education
Scientific
schools
Retirement
Fieldmobility
Ebeling, W., Scharnhorst, A. (1986) Selforganization Models for Field Mobility of Physicists. Czechoslovak Journal of Physics B36 , pp. 43-46.
Bruckner, E., Ebeling, W., Scharnhorst, A. (1990) The Application of Evolution Models in Scientometrics. Scientometrics 18 (1-2), pp. 21-41

6. Bibliometrics
Scientometrics
Informetrics
Libraries
Science policy
General
information
sciences

7. Derek de Solla Price
Exponential growth of science
Price, D. de Solla 1963, Little Science, Big Science, Columbia Univ. Press, New York.
For an introduction into Scientometrics see: W. Glänzel, Scientometrics as a research
field, http://www.norslis.net/2004/Bib_Module_KUL.pdf
and F. Havemann (2009) Einführung in die Bibliometrie
(http://www.wissenschaftsforschung.de/Havemann2009Bibliometrie.pdf)

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9. Alfred James Lotka
Scientific productivity
A.J. Lotka, The frequency distribution of scientific productivity, J. Wash. Acad. Sci., 16, 317 (1926).
Figure taken from
Piotr Fronczak, Agata Fronczak, Janusz A. Holyst (2006) Publish or perish: analysis of scientific productivity using maximum entropy principle and
fluctuation-dissipation theorem. arXiv:physics/0606190v1

10. Samuel C. Bradford
Law of scattering
BRADFORD, S. C. (1934) Sources of information on specific subjects. Engineering, 137, 85-86. BRADFORD, S. C. (1948) Documentation,
London, Lockwood.
Figure from Eugen Garfield, Essays of an Information Scientist, Vol:4, p.476-483, 1979-80/ Current Contents, #19, p.5-12, May 12, 1980:
Bradford’s Law and Related Statistical Patterns.
http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/essays/v4p476y1979-80.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford%27s_law
“if scientific journals are arranged in order of
decreasing productivity on a given
subject, they may be divided into a nucleus of
journals more particularly devoted to the
subject and several groups or zones
containing the same number of articles as the
nucleus when the numbers of periodicals in
the nucleus and the succeeding zones will
be as 1: n : n² …”
2284 articles in 374 journals
Core C = 40 journals (1024 articles)
Bradford’s paradox -> Delineation of fields

11. Communication
Text Actors
words journals references authors institutions countries…
Co-word maps
Semantic maps
(Callon, Rip,
White)
Citation environments
of journals
(Leydesdorff)
Maps of science
(Boyack, Börner, Klavans;
Leydesdorff, Rafols)
Bibliographic coupling
Citation networks
Co-citation networks
(Marshokova, Small/Griffith)
Productivity
(Lotka)
Coauthorship
(…..)
Disciplinary profiles
Performance
Impact
(…..)
International
collaboration
(…..)
What is a topic?
What is a paradigm?
What are fields and
disciplines?
What are the hot areas and
research fronts?
What are the knowledge flows?
Core and periphery
of knowledge exchange in
a globalized economy
Biographies, key player,
Individual vs group dynamics
Key players, evaluation
Meaning of a citation, deeper understanding of knwoledge flows
Sentiment of citations Small, Thelwall, Boyack…

12. www.research-acumen.eu

13. The Matthew effect for countries

14. Physics and scientometrics
2010

15. Multipartite networks
• Researcher
– Has co-authors
– Has an affiliation
– Has publications
– Has citations
– Has Age
• Researcher/Institutions
Agent-based-modelling
• Epistemic landscape –
Weisbuch/Payette – DATA
• Research practices
– Peers and journals
– Time allocation
– Careers (building up while
travelling around)
FUTURE RESEARCH

16. Landscape idea
Knowledge production as search in an unknown landscape
A. Scharnhorst, W. Ebeling (2005): Evolutionary Search Agents in Complex Landscapes. A New Model for the Role of Competence and
Meta-competence (EVOLINO and other simulation tools). arxiv.org/abs/physics/0511232
W. Ebeling, L. Schimansky-Geier, A. Neiman, A. Scharnhorst (2005) Stochastic dynamics of Active Agents in External Fields. Fluctuation
and Noise Letters 5(2), L185-L192

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Occupation, observation
Fitness, value
evaluation
See: Scharnhorst, A. (2001) Constructing Knowledge Landscapes within the Framework of Geometrically Oriented Evolutionary Theories. In: Integrative Systems
Approaches to Natural and Social Sciences. Ed. by M. Matthies, H. Malchow, J. Kriz. Springer, Berlin, pp. 505-515

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Characteristics
Occupation density
function
Valuation or Evaluation-
landscape
Mutation operator
Comparison Diffusion
Mathematical apparatus
Feistel, R. Ebeling, W. (1990) Evolution of complex systems.

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Source: Places and Spaces – scimaps.org – Klavans/Boyack

20. Visualizing knowldge spaces and landscapes – landscapes
based on networks: Katy Börner, Chaomei Chen, & Kevin Boyack: Visualizing
Knowledge Domains. In Blaise Cronin (Ed.), Annual Review of Information Science &
Technology, Volume 37, Medford, NJ: Information Today, Inc./American Society for
Information Science and Technology, chapter 5, pp. 179-255, 2003.

21. Bibliometrics
Visualization
Semantic analysis
On-line: http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/%7Ekaty/paper/arist02.pdf

22. Paul Otlet, Mundaneum, http://www.mundaneum.be/
“Alle Kennis van de Wereld” http://www.archive.org/details/paulotlet
Courtesy of Charles van den Heuvel
Epistemic spaces and libraries

23. Knowledge Space Lab
Almila Akdag Sahal, Cheng Gao, Krzysztof Suchecki,
Andrea Scharnhorst
Different knowledge representations

24. Dynamic Phenomena
time
time
How do changes in
classification influence
relational data ?
How do changes in
relations change
the classification?
Courtesy K. Suchecki

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Almila Akdag Sahal, Cheng Gao, Krzysztof Suckecki, Andrea Scharnhorst;
Places and Spaces, 7th Iteration, see http://www.scimaps.org/flat/exhibit_info/#7

26. Evolution of the Wikipedia
category level –
top topical level
http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.0788
Advances in Complex Systems

27. ! !
Complexity insights as pointers where to look !

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Lambiotte, Ausloos, 2005!, PhysRefE, Physics World

29. ANALYZING THE DYNAMICS OF INFORMATION
AND KNOWLEDGE LANDSCAPES
Possible use-cases
Browse a collection
or a database
Map size, structure, composition
and evolution of the collection
Locate your search on such an
interactive knowledge map
• Domain overview for students, interdisciplinary
teams, lay experts and funding agencies
• Tools for scholars of history and philosophy of
science and bibliometrics
• Overview of BigData collections (incl. social media)
Given the explosion of information how to navigate to find what is
needed?

30. Informa on Professionals/
Informa on Scien sts
Social Scien sts
Computer Scien sts
Physics/Mathema cs
Digital Humani es
Information professionals
• Collections, Information retrieval
• WG 1 Phenomenology of knowledge
spaces
• WG 4 Data curation & navigation
Social scientists
• Simulating user behavior
• WG 2 Theory of knowledge
spaces
• WG 4 Data curation &
navigation
Computer scientists
• Semantic web, data models
• WG 1 Phenomenology of Knowledge Spaces
• WG 4 Data curation &navigation
Physicists, mathematicians
Digital humanities scholars
•Collections, interactive design
•WG 3 Visual analytics – knowledge maps
•WG 4 Data curation & navigation
Participating communities
• Structure & evolution of
complex knowledge
spaces, big data mining
• WG 2 Theory of
knowledge spaces
• WG 3 Visual analytics –
knowledge maps

31. NARCIS

32. www.knowescape.org TD1201
Chair: A. Scharnhorst
ViceChair: S. Fortunato
WG 1: Phenomenology
A.Slavic/S. Thurner
WG 2: Theory
P. Ahrweiler/P. Richmond
WG 3: Visual analytics
A. Akdag/R. Lambiotte
WG 4: Data curation
C. Gueret/P.Mutschke

33. Pointers
• LinkedIn
• Academia.edu
• ResearchGate
• Mendeley -> KnowEscape
• Arxiv.org
• Slideshare
• www.knowescape.org
• www.easy.dans.nl -> wikipedia link networks

34. eResearch DANS
Thank you for your attention!
For more information please contact
Andrea.scharnhorst@dans.knaw.nl
Leen Breure
Enhanced publications,
eHistory
Dirk Roorda
Queries as annotations,
CLARIN, Circulation of
knowledge
Peter Doorn
eHistory, Clarin, Dariah,
Clariah
Director of DANS
Rene van Horik
Sustainability and
permanence, multi-media
sources, APARSEN, NEDIMAH
Frank van der Most
Scientific careers and cultures
of data sharing, ACUMEN
Albert Moroño Peñuela
Semantic web, CEDAR
Linda Reijnhoudt
NARCIS, Visualizations
Katy Börner
Indiana University
Visiting fellow DANS-KNAW
Christophe Guéret
Semantic web,
complex networks
CEDAR,
PI: WikiReg
Ashkan Askpour
History, information sciences,
IISH
CEDAR
Cristian Dinu
WikiReg
Marat Charlaganov
WikiReg