arXiv subjects

Anbang Du

Publications and source records attributed to Anbang Du.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Declines in research funding and science ecosystem fragility

Scientific knowledge advances through within-country and cross-border scientific activities and collaborations, influenced by funding and strength of research enterprise. Sudden declines in research funding, for example from Federal sources in the United States (US) 2024-25, adversely impact on scientific collaboration. How rapid declines in funding affect the science enterprise and the magnitude of impact need to be analysed. Past studies have modelled the global scientific system as complex collaborative networks of entities and studied its topology and dynamics. However, these studies have not undertaken compensation analysis to real-world shocks that have produced rapid declines in scientific research funding. In this study we examine the effect of the sharp declines in the US Federal funding on cancer science research enterprise globally. We model the cancer science ecosystem as a 5-layer multiplex network of collaborative linkages between 233 countries and territories in grants and clinical trial co-investigations, paper co-authorships, co-inventions and patent co-ownerships. We quantify information flow in the multiplex system through network efficiency. Proposing a framework for compensation analysis, we show that sharp declines in US Federal funding for research degrade global information exchange in science, imposing outsized compensatory burdens on country groups such as the European Union (EU) and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). However, we also show that if other countries provide more support for international collaborations, there is an opportunity to remodel the cancer science system to be more resilient to future shocks.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2025

Journal Publications in Medicine: Ranking vs. Interdisciplinarity

Interdisciplinary research is critical for innovation and addressing complex societal issues. We characterise the interdisciplinary knowledge structure of PubMed research articles in medicine as correlation networks of medical concepts and compare the interdisciplinarity of articles between high-ranking (impactful) and less high-ranking (less impactful) medical journals. We found that impactful medical journals tend to publish research that are less interdisciplinary than less impactful journals. Observing that they bridge distant knowledge clusters in the networks, we find that cancer-related research can be seen as one of the main drivers of interdisciplinarity in medical science. Using signed difference networks, we also investigate the clustering of deviations between high and low impact journal correlation networks. We generally find a mild tendency for strong link differences to be adjacent. Furthermore, we find topic clusters of deviations that shift over time. In contrast, topic clusters in the original networks are static over time and can be seen as the core knowledge structure in medicine. Overall, journals and policymakers should encourage initiatives to accommodate interdisciplinarity within the existing infrastructures to maximise the potential patient benefits from IDR.

cs.SI↗

arXiv2025

Prestigious but less interdisciplinary: a network analysis on top-rated journals in medicine

Interdisciplinary research, a process of knowledge integration, is vital for scientific advancements. It remains unclear whether prestigious journals that are highly impactful lead in disseminating interdisciplinary knowledge. In this paper, by constructing topic-level correlation networks based on publications, we evaluated the interdisciplinarity of more and less prestigious journals in medicine. We found research from prestigious medical journals tends to be less interdisciplinary than research from other medical journals. We also established that cancer-related research is the main driver of interdisciplinarity in medical science. Our results indicate a weak tendency for differences in topic correlations between more and less prestigious journals to be co-located. Accordingly, we identified that interdisciplinarity in prestigious journals mainly differs from interdisciplinarity in other journals in areas such as infections, nervous system diseases and cancer. Overall, our results suggest that interdisciplinarity in science could benefit from prestigious journals easing rigid disciplinary boundaries.

cs.SI↗

arXiv2024

Integration vs segregation: network analysis of interdisciplinarity in funded and unfunded research on infectious diseases

Interdisciplinary research fuels innovation. In this paper, we examine the interdisciplinarity of research output driven by funding. Considering 36 major infectious diseases, we model interdisciplinarity through temporal correlation networks based on funded and unfunded research from 1995-2022. Using hierarchical clustering, we identify coherent periods of time or regimes characterised by important research topics like vaccinations or the Zika outbreak. We establish that funded research is less interdisciplinary than unfunded research, but the effect has decreased markedly over time. In terms of network growth, we find a tendency of funded research to focus on readily established connections leading to compartmentalisation and conservatism. In contrast, unfunded research tends to be exploratory and bridge distant knowledge leading to knowledge integration. Our results show that interdisciplinary research on prominent infectious diseases like HIV and tuberculosis tends to have strong bridging effects facilitating global knowledge integration in the network. At the periphery of the network, we observe the emergence of vaccination-related and Zika-related knowledge clusters, both with limited systemic impact. We further show that despite the surge in publications related to COVID-19, its systematic impact on the disease network remains relatively low. Overall, this research provides a generalisable framework to examine the impact of funding in interdisciplinary knowledge creation. It can assist in priority setting, for example with horizon scanning for new and emerging threats to health, such as pandemic planning. Policymakers, funding agencies, and research institutions should consider revamping evaluation systems to reward interdisciplinary work and implement mechanisms that promote and support intelligent risk-taking.

cs.SI↗