arXiv subjects

Daniel W Hook

Publications and source records attributed to Daniel W Hook.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

The Rise and Fall of the Initial Era

Bibliographic data is a rich source of information that goes beyond the use cases of location and citation -- it also encodes both cultural and technological context. For most of its existence, the scholarly record has changed slowly and hence provides an opportunity to gain insight through its reflection of the cultural norms of the research community over the last four centuries. While it is often difficult to distinguish the originating driver of change, it is still valuable to consider the motivating influences that have led to changes in the structure of the scholarly record. An "initial era" is identified during which initials were used in preference to full names by authors on scholarly communications. Causes of the emergence and demise of this era are considered as well as the implications of this era on research culture and practice.

cs.DL↗

arXiv2023

Recategorising research: Mapping from FoR 2008 to FoR 2020 in Dimensions

In 2020 the Australia New Zealand Standard Research Classification Fields of Research Codes (ANZSRC FoR codes) were updated by their owners. This has led the sector to need to update their systems of reference and has caused suppliers working in the research information sphere to need to update both systems and data. This paper describes the approach developed by Digital Science's Dimensions team to the creation of an improved machine learning training set, and the mapping of that set from FoR 2008 codes to FoR 2020 codes so that Dimensions classification approach for the ANZSRC codes could be improved and updated.

cs.DL↗

arXiv2021

Connecting Scientometrics: Dimensions as a route to broadening context for analyses

Modern cloud-based data infrastructures open new vistas for the deployment of scientometric data into the hands of practitioners. These infrastructures lower barriers to entry by making data more available and compute capacity more affordable. In addition, if data are prepared appropriately, with unique identifiers, it is possible to connect many different types of data. Bringing broader world data into the hands of practitioners (policymakers, strategists and others) who use scientometrics as a tool can extend their capabilities. These ideas are explored through connecting Dimensions and World Bank data on Google BigQuery to study international collaboration between countries of different economic classification.

cs.DL↗

arXiv2021

Scaling Scientometrics: Dimensions on Google BigQuery as an infrastructure for large-scale analysis

Cloud computing has the capacity to transform many parts of the research ecosystem, from particular research areas to overall strategic decision making and policy. Scientometrics sits at the boundary between research and the decision making and evaluation processes of research. One of the biggest challenges in research policy and strategy is having access to data that allows iterative analysis to inform decisions. Many of these decisions are based on "global" measures such as benchmark metrics that are hard to source. In this article, Cloud technologies are explored in this context. A novel visualisation technique is presented and used as a means to explore the potential for scaling scientometrics by democratising both access to data and compute capacity using the Cloud.

cs.DL↗

arXiv2019

Perception, Prestige and PageRank

Academic esteem is difficult to quantify in objective terms. Network theory offers the opportunity to use a mathematical formalism to model both the esteem associated with an academic and the relationships between academic colleagues. Early attempts using this line of reasoning have focused on intellectual genealogy as constituted by supervisor student networks. The process of examination is critical in many areas of study but has not played a part in existing models. A network theoretical "social" model is proposed as a tool to explore and understand the dynamics of esteem in the academic hierarchy. It is observed that such a model naturally gives rise to the idea that the esteem associated with a node in the graph (the esteem of an individual academic) can be viewed as a dynamic quantity that evolves with time based on both local and non-local changes in the properties in the network. The toy model studied here includes both supervisor-student and examiner-student relationships. This gives an insight into some of the key features of academic genealogies and naturally leads to a proposed model for "esteem propagation" on academic networks. This propagation is not solely directed forward in time (from teacher to progeny) but sometimes also flows in the other direction. As collaborators do well, this reflects well on those with whom they choose to collaborate and those that taught them. Furthermore, esteem as a quantity continues to be dynamic even after the end of a relationship or career. In other words, esteem can be thought of as flowing both forward and backward in time.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2008

Conjecture on the analyticity of PT-symmetric potentials and the reality of their spectra

The spectrum of the Hermitian Hamiltonian $H=p^2+V(x)$ is real and discrete if the potential $V(x)\to\infty$ as $x\to\pm\infty$. However, if $V(x)$ is complex and PT-symmetric, it is conjectured that, except in rare special cases, $V(x)$ must be analytic in order to have a real spectrum. This conjecture is demonstrated by using the potential $V(x)=(ix)^a|x|^b$, where $a,b$ are real.

math-ph↗

arXiv2005

Solvable model of quantum microcanonical states

This letter examines the consequences of a recently proposed modification of the postulate of equal {\it a priori} probability in quantum statistical mechanics. This modification, called the {\it quantum microcanonical postulate} (QMP), asserts that for a system in microcanonical equilibrium all pure quantum states having the same energy expectation value are realised with equal probability. A simple model of a quantum system that obeys the QMP and that has a nondegenerate spectrum with equally spaced energy eigenvalues is studied. This model admits a closed-form expression for the density of states in terms of the energy eigenvalues. It is shown that in the limit as the number of energy levels approaches infinity, the expression for the density of states converges to a $δ$ function centred at the intermediate value $(E_{\rm max}+E_{\rm min})/ 2$ of the energy. Determining this limit requires an elaborate asymptotic study of an infinite sum whose terms alternate in sign.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2005

Microcanonical distributions for quantum systems

The standard assumption for the equilibrium microcanonical state in quantum mechanics, that the system must be in one of the energy eigenstates, is weakened so as to allow superpositions of states. The weakened form of the microcanonical postulate thus asserts that all quantum states giving rise to the same energy expectation value must be realised with equal probability. The consequences that follow from this assertion are investigated. In particular, a closed-form expression for the density of states associated with any system having a nondegenerate energy spectrum is obtained. The result is applied to a variety of examples, for which the behaviour of the state density, as well as the relation between energy and temperature, are determined. Numerical studies indicate that the density of states converges to a distribution when the number of energy levels approaches infinity.

quant-ph↗