most<\/em> cited of all ‘Danish’ papers.<\/p>\nSoftware set students off on new research path<\/h3>\n
To understand what the paper is about, you have to go back to the 1990s, when new software came via a floppy disk.<\/p>\n
Most of us now take for granted that you download software via the internet. But it was not always this way, and a floppy disk-based piece of software called \u2018PAST\u2019 that Professor David Harper and a colleague developed in the 1990s has had a lasting legacy on how scientists now do geology.<\/p>\n
The article from 2001, that describes the PAST software’s purpose and function, is the most cited, all-time, by a scientist affiliated to a Danish university. According to Professor David Harper, their article helped push the use of statistics and numerical methods in the study of rocks, fossils and the Earth.<\/p>\n
\u00bbIn the 19th and early 20th century geology was largely done subjectively, through observing specimens with little reference to numerical and statistical methods. Nowadays, by contrast, we use big samples, measure everything and base our analyses on this.\u00a0 When we are describing fossils, for example, and the distribution of fossils through time and space, we use numbers and statistical methods as a matter of course. Our software package helped students start their own research programmes using numerical and statistical methods in geology, so I think it has had lasting value since the time of its first release,\u00ab he says.
\n
\nHe himself was at the University of Copenhagen in the period 1998-2011. And his own fieldwork offered an example of how the software could be applied.<\/p>\n
\u00bbWhen I was working in the north of Greenland, and listing the fauna found in the rocks we could build up a list of all the species and compare it numerically to others in other areas across the globe of the same geological time period. We could then calculate the diversity of the set of species and map their global geographic distribution,\u00ab he explains.<\/p>\n
Nowadays scientists typically analyse their data via multi-purpose programming languages like \u2018Python\u2019 and \u2018R\u2019. Both the data and the software to analyse it can be hosted on servers elsewhere, or in the \u2018cloud\u2019.<\/p>\n
But not back then.<\/p>\n
\u00bbWhen I had my first teaching job in Galway in Ireland, a lot of the students did not have any background in statistics and numerical methods. All statistical work was done on mainframe computers, if at all. But a colleague Paul Ryan and I developed software for microcomputers, something called the ‘PALSTAT’ package for a large format floppy disc. It was cumbersome, but the students could experiment, and the interface was quite easy to use, but this was still just a standalone operation in the geology department. Then in the 1990s we started to migrate it to MS DOS platform, and people started using it on Amstrad computers.\u00ab<\/p>\n
Free, but asked people to cite the paper<\/h3>\n
It was when he moved to Copenhagen in 1998 that things really took off for David Harper\u2019s programme.<\/p>\n
\u00bbI met a mathematician and post doc, who was researching palaeontology called \u00d8yvind Hammer on a visit to the Palaeontological Museum in Oslo. I suggested that we migrate it to the Windows platform. All of a sudden it morphed into a real monster package. It was really exciting!\u00ab<\/p>\n
\u00bbBut what should we do with it? Should we sell the software? In the end our decision was to make it free, but we wanted people to cite our paper. So we published it for free, at the same time asking people to cite the paper if they used the package in their work,\u00ab David Harper explains.<\/p>\n
So this is where most of the 18,786 citations come from.
\n
\nThe original idea for the package was his, but his colleague \u00d8yvind Hammer was \u00bbthe brains behind expanding the scope of the software and its programming, and together we developed the textbook Paleontological Data Analysis (2006),\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n
As a geologist, David Harper has focussed on fossil brachiopods, which are animals with shells on the upper and lower surfaces, abundant as fossils, that were attached to the seafloor and were very common during the Paleozoic era 545-248 million years ago.<\/p>\n
Lasting legacy<\/h3>\n
But Brachiopods aside, David Harper still sees the software package as one of his most lasting legacies.<\/p>\n
\u00bbIt is strange in a way, because I have written many books, textbooks and papers, but some people are rather dismissive and say: It is only a software package and not fundamental science. But it has helped students and colleagues start and evolve their own research programmes using numerical and statistical methods in the field, so I think it has been of real value.\u00ab<\/p>\n
David T. Harper is emeritus professor at the University of Durham in England and chair of the International Commission for Stratigraphy<\/a> that has the last say in defining the Earth\u2019s geological time periods.<\/p>\nHe now lives just across the border in Scotland.
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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Most cited Danish article was about using statistics on rocks and fossils \u2014 University Post<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The most cited scientific article, of all-time, from a Danish university is a description of a software package developed and authored by a British paleontologist who used to work at the University of Copenhagen. 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","name":"dath_derbyshire","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":126665,"date":"2021-11-11 07:51:52","modified":"2021-11-11 07:53:37","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":2560,"height":1920,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/dath_derbyshire-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/dath_derbyshire-480x360.jpg","medium-width":480,"medium-height":360,"medium_large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/dath_derbyshire-768x576.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":576,"large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/dath_derbyshire-1280x960.jpg","large-width":1280,"large-height":960,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/dath_derbyshire-1536x1152.jpg","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":1152,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/dath_derbyshire-2048x1536.jpg","2048x2048-width":2048,"2048x2048-height":1536,"featured-soft":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/dath_derbyshire-290x218.jpg","featured-soft-width":290,"featured-soft-height":218,"featured-hard":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/dath_derbyshire-290x180.jpg","featured-hard-width":290,"featured-hard-height":180,"narrow":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/dath_derbyshire-700x525.jpg","narrow-width":700,"narrow-height":525,"extended":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/dath_derbyshire-990x743.jpg","extended-width":990,"extended-height":743}},"style":"extended","text_placement":"metadata-below","image_link_url":"","image_link_title":"","caption_prefix":"","enable_alternative_caption":false,"alternative_caption":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"Standfirst","subject":"Citations","text":"The most cited scientific article, of all-time, from a Danish university is a description of a software package developed and authored by a British paleontologist working at the University of Copenhagen. He has helped a generation of geology scientists and students analyse rocks and fossils.","use_post_excerpt":false},{"acf_fc_layout":"Byline","is_author":true,"contributors":false},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p>\u00bbI am happy to talk about this unusual publication!\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>This was the reply from the paleontologist Professor David Harper when the University Post emailed him a request for an interview about his article from 2001. His article has the<strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/the-top-10-most-cited-scientific-articles-from-denmark\/\">highest number of scholarly citations \u2014 among all articles from scientists affiliated to Danish universities \u2014 all-time<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Later, when the University Post reached him by phone, he said that he was aware that the paper was highly cited, but not that it was the <em>most<\/em> cited of all ‘Danish’ papers.<\/p>\n<h3>Software set students off on new research path<\/h3>\n<p>To understand what the paper is about, you have to go back to the 1990s, when new software came via a floppy disk.<\/p>\n<p>Most of us now take for granted that you download software via the internet. But it was not always this way, and a floppy disk-based piece of software called \u2018PAST\u2019 that Professor David Harper and a colleague developed in the 1990s has had a lasting legacy on how scientists now do geology.<\/p>\n<p>The article from 2001, that describes the PAST software’s purpose and function, is the most cited, all-time, by a scientist affiliated to a Danish university. According to Professor David Harper, their article helped push the use of statistics and numerical methods in the study of rocks, fossils and the Earth.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIn the 19th and early 20th century geology was largely done subjectively, through observing specimens with little reference to numerical and statistical methods. Nowadays, by contrast, we use big samples, measure everything and base our analyses on this.\u00a0 When we are describing fossils, for example, and the distribution of fossils through time and space, we use numbers and statistical methods as a matter of course. Our software package helped students start their own research programmes using numerical and statistical methods in geology, so I think it has had lasting value since the time of its first release,\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p>He himself was at the University of Copenhagen in the period 1998-2011. And his own fieldwork offered an example of how the software could be applied.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbWhen I was working in the north of Greenland, and listing the fauna found in the rocks we could build up a list of all the species and compare it numerically to others in other areas across the globe of the same geological time period. We could then calculate the diversity of the set of species and map their global geographic distribution,\u00ab he explains.<\/p>\n<p>Nowadays scientists typically analyse their data via multi-purpose programming languages like \u2018Python\u2019 and \u2018R\u2019. Both the data and the software to analyse it can be hosted on servers elsewhere, or in the \u2018cloud\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>But not back then.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbWhen I had my first teaching job in Galway in Ireland, a lot of the students did not have any background in statistics and numerical methods. All statistical work was done on mainframe computers, if at all. But a colleague Paul Ryan and I developed software for microcomputers, something called the ‘PALSTAT’ package for a large format floppy disc. It was cumbersome, but the students could experiment, and the interface was quite easy to use, but this was still just a standalone operation in the geology department. Then in the 1990s we started to migrate it to MS DOS platform, and people started using it on Amstrad computers.\u00ab<\/p>\n<h3>Free, but asked people to cite the paper<\/h3>\n<p>It was when he moved to Copenhagen in 1998 that things really took off for David Harper\u2019s programme.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbI met a mathematician and post doc, who was researching palaeontology called \u00d8yvind Hammer on a visit to the Palaeontological Museum in Oslo. I suggested that we migrate it to the Windows platform. All of a sudden it morphed into a real monster package. It was really exciting!\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbBut what should we do with it? Should we sell the software? In the end our decision was to make it free, but we wanted people to cite our paper. So we published it for free, at the same time asking people to cite the paper if they used the package in their work,\u00ab David Harper explains.<\/p>\n<p>So this is where most of the 18,786 citations come from.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Quote","quote":"... some people are rather dismissive and say: It is only a software package and not fundamental science.","quotee":"David Harper","style":"extended"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p>The original idea for the package was his, but his colleague \u00d8yvind Hammer was \u00bbthe brains behind expanding the scope of the software and its programming, and together we developed the textbook Paleontological Data Analysis (2006),\u00ab he says.<\/p>\n<p>As a geologist, David Harper has focussed on fossil brachiopods, which are animals with shells on the upper and lower surfaces, abundant as fossils, that were attached to the seafloor and were very common during the Paleozoic era 545-248 million years ago.<\/p>\n<h3>Lasting legacy<\/h3>\n<p>But Brachiopods aside, David Harper still sees the software package as one of his most lasting legacies.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbIt is strange in a way, because I have written many books, textbooks and papers, but some people are rather dismissive and say: It is only a software package and not fundamental science. But it has helped students and colleagues start and evolve their own research programmes using numerical and statistical methods in the field, so I think it has been of real value.\u00ab<\/p>\n<p>David T. Harper is emeritus professor at the University of Durham in England and chair of the<a href=\"https:\/\/stratigraphy.org\/\"> International Commission for Stratigraphy<\/a> that has the last say in defining the Earth\u2019s geological time periods.<\/p>\n<p>He now lives just across the border in Scotland.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"ArticleEnd"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Newsletter","lang_select":"en","identifier":"Newsletter","headline":"Get an email with our top stories","button_text":"Sign up here","class":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"OtherStories","headline":"","hand_picked_posts":true,"references":[{"reference":{"ID":127061,"post_author":"9","post_date":"2021-12-20 10:08:45","post_date_gmt":"2021-12-20 09:08:45","post_content":"The list below shows the most cited articles, throughout recent history, by scientists who at the time of publishing were associated with a Danish university.\r\n\r\nThe list has been extracted from the<strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scopus.com\/\">Scopus database<\/a>.<\/strong>\r\n\r\nCitation numbers are often used to assess an article\u2019s impact and originality. But the counting of citations can, in itself, subtly change how science is practiced, according to Claus Emmeche, associate professor at the Research Group on History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Copenhagen. <a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/danish-numbers-reveal-how-scientists-get-cited-by-other-scientists\">You can read more about what we have done and what citations are here.<\/a>\r\n\r\nAt the top of the list is a paper co-authored by British palaeontologist David Harper, who worked at the University of Copenhagen at time of publishing in 2001. The University Post asked him <a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/most-cited-danish-article-was-about-using-statistics-on-rocks-and-fossils\">how his paper came about, and why it is so well-cited. You can read what he said here.<\/a>\r\n<h1>The Top 10 cited publications from Danish universities<\/h1>\r\n<em>[This list has been updated 4 January 2021. An astute reader made us aware that in a previous version of this list we delimited Scopus searches to 'articles'. This potentially missed scientific publications classified as 'letters'. This means minor changes at the bottom of the new list, so we have added the places 10 through 15. ]<\/em>\r\n\r\nAuthor with Danish university-affiliation is in bold.\r\n<h1>1.<\/h1>\r\n<strong>Article title and link:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/palaeo-electronica.org\/2001_1\/past\/past.pdf\">Past: Paleontological statistics software package for education and data analysis<\/a>\r\n<strong>Author\/s:<\/strong> Hammer, \u00d8., <strong>Harper, D.A.T.<\/strong>, Ryan, P.D.\r\n<strong>Date:<\/strong> 2001\r\n<strong>Journal:<\/strong> Palaeontologia Electronica 4(1), pp. XIX-XX\r\n<strong>Number of citations:<\/strong> 19,399\r\n<strong>Affiliation of author\/co-author at time of publication:<\/strong> University of Copenhagen.\r\n<h1>2.<\/h1>\r\n<strong>Article title and link:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bmj.com\/content\/343\/bmj.d5928\">The Cochrane Collaboration's tool for assessing risk of bias in randomised trials<\/a>\r\n<strong>Author\/s:<\/strong> Higgins J.P.T., Altman D.G., <strong>G\u00f8tzsche P.C.<\/strong>, J\u00fcni P., Moher D., Oxman A.D.,Savovi\u0107 J., Schulz K.F., Weeks L., Sterne J.A.C.\r\n<strong>Date:<\/strong> 2011\r\n<strong>Journal:<\/strong> BMJ (Online) 343(7829),d5928\r\n<strong>Number of citations:<\/strong> 14,588\r\n<strong>Affiliation of author\/co-author at time of publication:<\/strong> University of Copenhagen:\r\n<h1>3.<\/h1>\r\n<strong>Article title and link:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/15111519\/\">Global Prevalence of Diabetes: Estimates for the year 2000 and projections for 2030<\/a>\r\n<strong>Author\/s:<\/strong> Wild, S., Roglic, G., <strong>Green, A.<\/strong>, Sicree, R., King, H.\r\n<strong>Date:<\/strong> 2004\r\n<strong>Journal:<\/strong> Diabetes Care 27(5), pp. 1047-1053\r\n<strong>Number of citations:<\/strong> 11,422\r\n<strong>Affiliation of author\/co-author at time of publication:<\/strong> Aarhus university\r\n<h1>4.<\/h1>\r\n<strong>Article title and<\/strong> <strong>link<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/0304407686900631\">Generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity<\/a>\r\n<strong>Author\/s:<\/strong> <strong>Bollerslev, T.<\/strong>\r\n<strong>Date:<\/strong> 1986\r\n<strong>Journal:<\/strong> Journal of Econometrics 31(3), pp. 307-327\r\n<strong>Number of citations:<\/strong> 10,491\r\n<strong>Affiliation of author\/co-author at time of publication:<\/strong> Aarhus University\r\n<h1>5.<\/h1>\r\n<strong>Article title and<\/strong> <strong>link<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/erj.ersjournals.com\/content\/erj\/26\/2\/319.full.pdf\">Standardisation of spirometry<\/a>\r\n<strong>Author\/s:<\/strong> Multiple authors including <strong>Pedersen, O.F.\r\nDate:<\/strong> 2005\r\n<strong>Journal:<\/strong> European Respiratory Journal 26(2), pp. 319-338\r\n<strong>Number of citations:<\/strong> 10,374\r\n<strong>Affiliation of author\/co-author at time of publication:<\/strong> Aarhus University\r\n<h1>6.<\/h1>\r\n<strong>Article title and link:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/abs\/pii\/0165188988900413\">Statistical analysis of cointegration vectors<\/a>\r\n<strong>Author\/s:<\/strong> <strong>Johansen, S.<\/strong>\r\n<strong>Date: <\/strong>1988\r\n<strong>Journal:<\/strong> Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 12(2-3), pp. 231-254\r\n<strong>Number of citations:<\/strong> 8,909\r\n<strong>Affiliation of author\/co-author at time of publication:<\/strong> University of Copenhagen\r\n<h1>7.<\/h1>\r\n<strong>Article title and link:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/11152613\/\">Predicting transmembrane protein topology with a hidden Markov model: Application to complete genomes<\/a>\r\n<strong>Author\/s:<\/strong> <strong>Krogh, A.<\/strong>, \u00a0<strong>Larsson, B.<\/strong>, Von Heijne, G., Sonnhammer, E.L.L.\r\n<strong>Date:<\/strong> 2001\r\n<strong>Journal:<\/strong> Journal of Molecular Biology 305(3), pp. 567-580\r\n<strong>Number of citations:<\/strong> 8,289\r\n<strong>Affiliation of author\/co-author at time of publication:<\/strong> DTU\r\n<h1>8.<\/h1>\r\n<strong>Article title and link:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S037026931200857X\">Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC<\/a>\r\n<strong>Author\/s:<\/strong> A total of 2,932 co-authors, including dozens of Danish-affiliated scientists\r\n<strong>Date:<\/strong> 2012\r\n<strong>Journal:<\/strong> Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics 716(1), pp. 1-29\r\n<strong>Number of citations:<\/strong> 6,978\r\n<strong>Affiliation of author\/co-author at time of publication:<\/strong> Multiple Danish universities\r\n<h1>9.<\/h1>\r\n<strong>Article title and link:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/j.1468-0084.1990.mp52002003.x\">Maximum likelihood estimation and inference on cointegration \u2014 with applications to the demand for money<\/a>\r\n<strong>Author\/s:<\/strong> <strong>Johansen, S.<\/strong>, <strong>Juselius, K<\/strong>.\r\n<strong>Date:<\/strong> 1990\r\n<strong>Journal:<\/strong> Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 52(2), pp. 169-210\r\n<strong>Number of citations: <\/strong>6,865\r\n<strong>Affiliation of author\/co-author at time of publication:<\/strong> University of Copenhagen:\r\n<h1>10.<\/h1>\r\n<strong>Article title and link:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/nature15393.pdf\">A global reference for human genetic variation<\/a>\r\n<strong>Author\/s:<\/strong> Multiple authors\r\n<strong>Date:<\/strong> 2015\r\n<strong>Journal:<\/strong> Nature 526(7571), pp. 68-74\r\n<strong>Number of citations:<\/strong> 6,738\r\n<strong>Affiliation of author\/co-author at time of publication: <\/strong>UCPH\/DTU\r\n<h1><\/h1>\r\n<h1>Top publications \u2014 11-15<\/h1>\r\n<h1><\/h1>\r\n<h1>11.<\/h1>\r\n<strong>Article title and link:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/soeg.kb.dk\/discovery\/openurl?institution=45KBDK_KGL&vid=45KBDK_KGL:KGL&%3Fsid=Elsevier:Scopus&_service_type=getFullTxt&issn=15487091&isbn=&volume=8&issue=10&spage=785&epage=786&pages=785-786&artnum=&date=2011&id=doi:10.1038%2Fnmeth.1701&title=Nature%20Methods&atitle=SignalP%204.0:%20Discriminating%20signal%20peptides%20from%20transmembrane%20regions&aufirst=T.N.&auinit=T.N.&auinit1=T&aulast=Petersen\">SignalP 4.0: Discriminating signal peptides from transmembrane regions<\/a>\r\n<strong>Author\/s:<\/strong> <strong>Petersen, T.N.<\/strong>, <strong>Brunak, S.<\/strong>, Von Heijne, G., <strong>Nielsen, H.<\/strong>\r\n<strong>Date:<\/strong> 2011\r\n<strong>Journal:<\/strong> Nature Methods 8(10), pp. 785-786\r\n<strong>Number of citations:<\/strong> 6,713\r\n<strong>Affiliation of author\/co-author at time of publication: <\/strong>UCPH\/DTU\r\n<h1>12.<\/h1>\r\n<strong>Article title and link:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/bib-pubdb1.desy.de\/record\/172097\/files\/PUBDB-2014-03548.pdf\">Review of particle physics<\/a>\r\n<strong>Author\/s:<\/strong> Multiple authors\r\n<strong>Date:<\/strong> 2014\r\n<strong>Journal:<\/strong> Chinese Physics C 38(9),090001\r\n<strong>Number of citations:<\/strong> 6,661\r\n<strong>Affiliation of author\/co-author at time of publication: <\/strong>UCPH\r\n<h1>13.<\/h1>\r\n<strong>Article title and link:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/nature08821\">A human gut microbial gene catalogue established by metagenomic sequencing<\/a>\r\n<strong>Author\/s:<\/strong> Multiple authors, including Danish affiliated co-authors <strong>Burgdorf K.S.<\/strong>, <strong>Brunak S.<\/strong>, <strong>Linneberg A.<\/strong>, <strong>Kristiansen K.<\/strong>, <strong>Pedersen O.<\/strong>\r\n<strong>Date:<\/strong> 2010\r\n<strong>Journal:<\/strong> Nature 464(7285), pp. 59-65\r\n<strong>Number of citations:<\/strong> 6,354\r\n<strong>Affiliation of author\/co-author at time of publication:<\/strong> Univ of Copenhagen\/DTU\/Aarhus\r\n<h1>14.<\/h1>\r\n<strong>Article title and link:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/31159\">Deciphering the biology of mycobacterium tuberculosis from the complete genome sequence<\/a>\r\n<strong>Author\/s:<\/strong> Multiple authors\r\n<strong>Date:<\/strong> 1998\r\n<strong>Journal:<\/strong> Nature 393(6685), pp. 537-544\r\n<strong>Number of citations:<\/strong> 6,314\r\n<strong>Affiliation of author\/co-author at time of publication: <\/strong>DTU - Technical University of Denmark\r\n<h1>15.<\/h1>\r\n<strong>Article title and link:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/journals.aps.org\/prb\/abstract\/10.1103\/PhysRevB.12.3060\">Linear methods in band theory<\/a>\r\n<strong>Author\/s:<\/strong> <strong>Andersen, O.K.<\/strong>\r\n<strong>Date:<\/strong> 1975\r\n<strong>Journal:<\/strong> Physical Review B 12(8), pp. 3060-3083\r\n<strong>Number of citations:<\/strong> 5,957\r\n<strong>Affiliation of author\/co-author at time of publication:<\/strong> DTU- Technical University of Denmark\n<!-- end of module 1 -->\n","post_title":"The top 10 most cited scientific articles from Denmark","post_excerpt":"The University Post has extracted the most cited articles \u2014 all time \u2014 by scientists associated with Danish universities from a key citation database. The names and articles at the top of this list might surprise you.","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"the-top-10-most-cited-scientific-articles-from-denmark","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2022-01-05 09:19:36","post_modified_gmt":"2022-01-05 08:19:36","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/?p=127061","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}},{"reference":{"ID":127192,"post_author":"9","post_date":"2021-12-20 10:10:00","post_date_gmt":"2021-12-20 09:10:00","post_content":"The most cited articles coming out of Danish universities were written by scientists you probably don\u2019t know \u2014 in fields of scientific research you may not know existed. The University Post has released <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/the-top-10-most-cited-scientific-articles-from-denmark\">a top 10 list of the most cited articles coming out of Danish universities throughout recent history<\/a>.<\/strong>\r\n\r\nWhen a scientist references another scientists\u2019 work in an article it is called a \u2018citation\u2019. A minority of scientific articles get a huge number of citations from other scientists, and the number of citations is often used as a proxy to assess an article\u2019s impact and originality.\r\n<div class=\"factbox\">\r\n<p class=\"factbox-header feature-color\">5 things IN highly cited papers<\/p>\r\n<strong>Mohamed Elgendi<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.natureindex.com\/news-blog\/five-features-highly-cited-scientific-article\">identified in 2019<\/a> five features of highly cited articles:\r\n\r\n<strong>1.<\/strong> A title of 7-13 words\r\n<strong>2.<\/strong> Common words in the titles of highly cited papers\r\n<strong>3.<\/strong> Six authors or more\r\n<strong>4.<\/strong> 35,000 characters (no spaces) at a minimum\r\n<strong>5.<\/strong> Six figures and two tables at a minimum\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n\u00bbThese lists are fascinating. But they are also interesting in terms of seeing what it is that characterises a paper with a lot of citations,\u00ab says Claus Emmeche, who is an associate professor at the Research Group on History and Philosophy of Science \u00a0at the Faculty of Science. He adds that the lists \u00bbhelp answer the question: 'Why do scientists cite papers?'\u00ab\r\n<h3>Cite for many different reasons<\/h3>\r\nWhen scientists apply for funding \u2014 and when government agencies and foundations assess scientists \u2014\u00a0 it can be with reference to the number and quality of their citations, sometimes expressed as their \u2018h-index\u2019. But not all of the reasons for citing another paper have to do with the article\u2019s originality in a field, according to Claus Emmeche.\r\n\r\nThe pioneer in counting citations as a method, Eugene Garfield, mentioned a few of them in his own (see fact box lower right) seminal paper.\r\n\r\n\u00bbScientists cite to do a number of things. To pay homage to pioneers, to give credit for work, to provide background reading, to correct the work of others, to substantiate the work of others, and even to disclaim the work of others, just to mention a few of them,\u00ab says Claus Emmeche.\r\n\r\nThe University Post's list extracted and analysed the top 10 list of articles with high citation numbers from the<strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scopus.com\/\">Scopus database<\/a>.<\/strong> It shows the most cited articles, all-time, and throughout recent history, by scientists who at the time of publishing were associated with a Danish university.\r\n<h3>Reveals how scientists cite<\/h3>\r\nThe list renders a surprising overview of the research coming out of Denmark that was \u2014 and is \u2014 hot among the international scientific community.\r\n<div class=\"factbox\">\r\n<p class=\"factbox-header feature-color\">Why do scientists, really, cite other scientists?<\/p>\r\nEugene Garfield, a pioneer in citation indices, listed 15 reasons why scientists cite other scientists. Not all of them are simply giving credit to original work. <strong>When scientists cite they may also be:<\/strong>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Identifying methodology, equipment, etc.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Providing leads to poorly disseminated, poorly indexed, or uncited work<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Disclaiming the work or ideas of others (negative claims)<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Disputing priority claims of others (negative homage)<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n \r\n\r\nSource: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.garfield.library.upenn.edu\/essays\/V1p084y1962-73.pdf\">'Can Citation Indexing Be Automated?'<\/a>, <strong>E. Garfield<\/strong> in Statistical Association Methods for Mechanized Documentation (1964)\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nAll of the articles have had a large scientific impact. But they also reveal something about how scientists cite.\r\n\r\nTop of the list, for example, is a paper co-authored by British geologist David Harper, <a href=\"https:\/\/palaeo-electronica.org\/2001_1\/past\/past.pdf\">'Past: Paleontological statistics software package for education and data analysis'<\/a>. He was working at the University of Copenhagen 20 years ago when this paper was released.\r\n<blockquote>Highly quoted papers have brief titles, use common words in the title, have six authors or more, are relatively long papers, and have six figures and two tables as a minimum\r\n<p class=\"quotee\">Claus Emmeche, associate professor, summarising the work of Mohammed Elgendi<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\nDavid Harper, now retired and an emeritus professor in the UK, was a pioneer in introducing numerical and statistical methods into the field of geology. He freely <a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/most-cited-danish-article-was-about-using-statistics-on-rocks-and-fossils\">admits in this interview with the University Post<\/a> that the high number of citations has a lot to do with the fact that users of his free software package were asked to cite his paper when they used the software in their own research.\r\n\r\nFurther down the list is the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S037026931200857X\">2012 scientific paper announcing the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle at the CERN facility<\/a>. \u00a0It had 2,932 \u2014 yes that is right, two-thousand-nine-hundred-and-thirty-two \u2014 co-authors, some of them associated with Danish universities. It was a huge scientific achievement, and the paper announcing the discovery is no doubt on the top 10 list for good reason. But citation practices in the natural sciences play a part in it being at the top also.\r\n\r\nAnother question is what it is that characterizes highly cited papers.\r\n\r\nMohammed Elgendi, a postdoc at the University of British Columbia in Canada, recently found, according to Claus Emmeche, that \u00bbhighly quoted papers have brief titles, use common words in the title, have six authors or more, are relatively long papers, and have six figures and two tables as a minimum.\u00ab (see fact box top right).\r\n\r\nThis last point has to do with the fact that the figures and tables somehow correlate with the paper showing new work being done in the field.\r\n<h3>Different citation culture in humanities<\/h3>\r\nHighly cited papers tend to be ones that report discoveries, according to Claus Emmeche. But they are also ones that \u2018map\u2019 a field, or ones that do metaanalysis \u2014 examining a number of other studies on the same subject.\r\n\r\nThese papers will be widely read. And widely cited.\r\n\r\nIf you want to top the citation rankings as a scientist you have to do papers with many co-authors.\r\n\r\nThis is one of the reasons why humanities scholars hardly ever fare well in citation databases. Humanities and non-empirical social scientists have fewer authors, write more often books compared to articles, and have a different culture of citation. <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.lse.ac.uk\/impactofsocialsciences\/2014\/04\/23\/academic-papers-citation-rates-remler\/\">82 per cent of humanities articles, for example, are never cited. The numbers are 27 per cent for the natural sciences and 32 per cent for the social sciences.<\/a>\r\n<h3>Multiple fields, multiple citations<\/h3>\r\nIn the natural or empirical sciences, having multiple authors on a paper has become more common in recent history. This is not just because scientists are trying to game the citation system, according to Claus Emmeche.\r\n\r\nTake an article that is well cited, and which has multiple authors like, for example, <a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/25352553\/\">\u2018STRING v10: Protein-protein interaction networks, integrated over the tree of life\u2019<\/a>. This article is just outside the all time top 10 list for Denmark, but on the top 10 for the University of Copenhagen.\r\n<blockquote>The citation indices are not only measuring the field, they are ... changing the game.\r\n<p class=\"quotee\">Claus Emmeche, associate professor<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\u00bbNew findings nowadays need to integrate different tools and competences and this can be seen in the titles. \u2018The protein-protein\u2019 article is not only chemistry but also network science, and each of these scientific communities will gain from the work, and scientists from each of the fields will cite the article,\u00ab Claus Emmeche says.\r\n\r\nThe Higgs Boson paper with the thousands of authors is another example of multiple authorship, in this case to an extreme degree.\r\n\r\n\u00bbThere again you have fundamental physics, but also communities of applied physicists, engineers building the machinery, computer scientists analysing the data,\u00ab says Claus Emmeche.\r\n<h3>Changes the focus of science<\/h3>\r\nThere may be a correlation between a paper\u2019s \u2018impact\u2019 on a scientific field and its high numbers of citations. But of course there are other ways to measure impact, and a paper may have been important even though it does not score high on the citation rankings.\r\n\r\nAnd the measuring, indexing and ranking \u2014like what the University Post is doing with this article \u2014 subtly changes how science is practiced, according to Claus Emmeche.\r\n\r\n\u00bbIt becomes problematic when you install these indices to evaluate science. When scientists ask for funding, they are checked for their \u2018h-index\u2019 and their citation numbers. Scientists in turn then attempt to manipulate their publishing practices to boost their own h-index scores. So the citation indices are not only measuring the field, they are ever so slightly changing the game. It changes the focus of science. It becomes a part of the competition game for scientists.\u00ab\r\n\r\n<em>You can see the University Post <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/the-top-10-most-cited-scientific-articles-from-denmark\">top 10 list here.<\/a><\/strong><\/em>\n<!-- end of module 1 -->\n","post_title":"Danish numbers reveal how scientists get cited by other scientists","post_excerpt":"The scientific articles that are cited by many other scientists are seen as having a high 'impact'. But articles are not just cited by other scientists because they are important for their field and for society. And citation counts subtly change the 'competition of science,' says a professor in the history of science.","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"danish-numbers-reveal-how-scientists-get-cited-by-other-scientists","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2021-12-20 14:33:33","post_modified_gmt":"2021-12-20 13:33:33","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/?p=127192","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}}],"category":false,"theme":false,"number_of_posts":"4","style":"default"}]},"taxonomyData":{"category":[{"term_id":46,"name":"Science","slug":"science","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":46,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":831,"filter":"raw"}],"post_tag":[{"term_id":2686,"name":"bibliometry","slug":"bibliometry","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":2686,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":4,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":5112,"name":"citations","slug":"citations","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5112,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":3,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":1722,"name":"Geology","slug":"geology","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1722,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":4,"filter":"raw"}],"post_format":[],"expression":[{"term_id":15,"name":"News Article","slug":"news_article","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":15,"taxonomy":"expression","description":"","parent":0,"count":11488,"filter":"raw"}],"translation_priority":[]},"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/dath_derbyshire-1280x960.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126665"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128417,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126665\/revisions\/128417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}