Can epidemic models describe the diffusion of topics across disciplines?
Abstract
This paper introduces a new approach to describe the spread of research topics across disciplines using epidemic models. The approach is based on applying individual-based models from mathematical epidemiology to the diffusion of a research topic over a contact network that represents knowledge flows over the map of science -as obtained from citations between ISI Subject Categories. Using research publications on the protein class kinesin as a case study, we report a better fit between model and empirical data when using the citation-based contact network. Incubation periods on the order of 4 to 15.5 years support the view that, whilst research topics may grow very quickly, they face difficulties to overcome disciplinary boundaries.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0905.3585,
title = {Can epidemic models describe the diffusion of topics across disciplines?},
author = {Istvan Z. Kiss and Mark Broom and Paul Craze and Ismael Rafols},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0905.3585},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
15 pages, 4 figures, 1 table