Related papers: Quantifying patterns of research interest evolutio…
The importance of research teams' diversity for the progress of science is highlighted extensively. Despite the seemingly hegemonic role of hypothesis testing in modern quantitative research, little attention has been devoted to the…
Understanding the heterogeneity of mechanisms that form public attitudes towards science and technology policymaking is essential to the establishment of an effective public engagement platform. Using the 2011 public opinion survey data…
A representative researcher has repeated opportunities for empirical research. To process findings, she must impose an "identifying assumption." She conducts research when the assumption is sufficiently plausible (taking into account both…
A primary difficulty with unsupervised discovery of structure in large data sets is a lack of quantitative evaluation criteria. In this work, we propose and investigate several metrics for evaluating and comparing generative models of…
During bouts of evolutionary diversification, such as adaptive radiations, the emerging species cluster around different locations in phenotype space, How such multimodal patterns in phenotype space can emerge from a single ancestral…
Selection, the tendency of some traits to become more frequent than others in a population under the influence of some (natural or artificial) agency, is a key component of Darwinian evolution and countless other natural and social…
Comparative and evolutive ecologists are interested in the distribution of quantitative traits among related species. The classical framework for these distributions consists of a random process running along the branches of a phylogenetic…
We study the evolution of preferences in multi-population settings that allow matches across distinct populations. Each individual has subjective preferences over potential outcomes, and chooses a best response based on his preferences and…
Phylogenetics uses alignments of molecular sequence data to learn about evolutionary trees relating species. Along branches, sequence evolution is modelled using a continuous-time Markov process characterised by an instantaneous rate…
Empirical evidence demonstrates that citations received by scholarly publications follow a pattern of preferential attachment, resulting in a power-law distribution. Such asymmetry has sparked significant debate regarding the use of…
The modelling of evolutionary game dynamics in finite populations requires microscopic processes that determine how strategies spread. The exact details of these processes are often chosen without much further consideration. Different types…
Religions are among the most consequential social institutions, shaping collective identities, moral norms, and political organization across societies and historical periods. Nevertheless, despite extensive scholarship describing…
We present empirical data on misprints in citations to twelve high-profile papers. The great majority of misprints are identical to misprints in articles that earlier cited the same paper. The distribution of the numbers of misprint…
A common concern with Bayesian methodology in scientific contexts is that inferences can be heavily influenced by subjective biases. As presented here, there are two types of bias for some quantity of interest: bias against and bias in…
The large amount of information contained in bibliographic databases has recently boosted the use of citations, and other indicators based on citation numbers, as tools for the quantitative assessment of scientific research. Citations…
Despite broad acclaim for basic research, science is undergoing an applied shift that marginalizes basic scientists. This gap reflects an incomplete understanding of their distinctive roles, which prevents translating philosophical…
Many natural and artificial networks evolve in time. Nodes and connections appear and disappear at various timescales, and their dynamics has profound consequences for any processes in which they are involved. The first empirical analysis…
Predicting the adaptation of populations to a changing environment is crucial to assess the impact of human activities on biodiversity. Many theoretical studies have tackled this issue by modeling the evolution of quantitative traits…
Reproducibility, the ability to recompute results, and replicability, the chances other experimenters will achieve a consistent result, are two foundational characteristics of successful scientific research. Consistent findings from…
Biological phenotypes are products of complex evolutionary processes in which selective forces influence multiple biological trait measurements in unknown ways. Phylogenetic factor analysis disentangles these relationships across the…