RE: [Fis] consilience of limited observers

From: Loet Leydesdorff <[email protected]>
Date: Wed 20 Oct 2004 - 10:15:31 CEST

> The normative side is not trying to *describe*
> connections, but to *transform* implied similarities into
> explicit connections, to establish new connections, to
> defragment, to get rid of the redundancy, to exploit the
> synergies. The goal is in getting rid of unnecessary complexity.

Dear Aleks,

"Data reduction" can be addressed with standard techniques like factor
analysis. The assumption of a normative starting point may obscure the
structure in the data. In the case of the sciences, the differentiation into
specialties is robust. Professional associations and journals, for example,
are firmly shielded against outsiders. General science journals (Nature,
Science, New England Journal of Medicine) have specific communication
functions across otherwise firmly delineated fields.

In sum: there is not much hierarchy in the data.

Bi-connected component are one among the many techniques for locating robust
clusters in such a network. Mappings of 82 bi-connected components (SCI
2001) can be found at http://www.leydesdorff.net/jcr01 or in the Journal of
Documentation 60(4), 2004, 371-427. A top-down analysis of the whole journal
set using factor analysis was hitherto not feasible given systems
limitation, but it can be found for the Social Science Citation Index 2001
at http://www.leydesdorff/net/sosci01/art (Scientometrics, 60(2), 2004,
159-180).

With kind regards,

Loet _____

Loet Leydesdorff
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam
Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681
[email protected] ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/

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Received on Wed Oct 20 10:16:52 2004

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