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Talk:Publication efficiency

From Bioblast

Current

It seems only fair that compromises are made by supportive supervisors when pushing some publications of a PhD student into press, as a responsibility of the teacher and mentor for completion of the student's graduation. Journals should request at least a disclosure such as "The first and last authors declare conflicts of direct and indirect financial interests in obtaining a PhD and managing a PhD, respectively". This may be seen as either an advertisement for an excellent publication of a PhD project, or as a cautionary note to make the reader alert of the circumstances.
After publication, individual communications should be marked with a reproducibility factor. Proof of irreproducibility is a difficult task, but science is not easy after all. To simplify, a publication as the elementary Up may be rated as irreproducible. Proof of irreproducibility is a valuable task which needs to be honoured. To do so, any non-predatory journal would have to promote solid proof of irreproducibility by (1) publication of this proof, (2) downgrading the individual irreproducible publication with a visible tag, and (3) implementing a reproducibility factor for the journal and authors. Thus attention can be diverted away from downgraded publications, which should be banned from further citation in the literature or be tagged as citable only for specific reasons.


Materials

(Eq. 6.9) Na° = Fa/p° · Np° = Na/(Np-Nz) · (Np-Nz) = Na
(Eq. 6.8) Fr/p* = Nr*/Np* = 0.15 / (0.15+Nz*/Np)


(Eq. 6.9) Fr/p* = Fr/p(max) / (Fr/p(max) + Nz*/Nr*)
where Fr/p(max) = 1; and Fr/p* = 0.5 at Nz*/Nr*=1.


OLD

The fraction of potentially 'true' innovations per publication is Fi = Ni/Np. This is the potential innovation efficiency, which is very low to start with.
  1. The fraction of of publications realized by actual decoding the publication media into meaning in one's mind is

Fa = Na/Np,

or the number of meaningfully studied and understood publications is reduced from Np (realization level 1) to Nm = Fm·Np (realization level 2)

These are the three variables determining the level-2 innovation efficiency Fm,i and number of studied and understood publications containing 'true' innovations Nm,i,
Eq. 6.1a. Innovation efficiency level 2: Fm,i = Nm,i/Np = Fm·Fi
Eq. 6.1b: Innovation realization level 2: Nm,i = Fm,i·Np = Fi·(Fm·Np)
Control on innovation efficiency resides partially in the innovator, partially in the scientific community, and partially in the public. Control of Fi is largely in the hands of the innovator; but it is not that simple. How is — an undesirable goal — Fi minimized? The largest documented factor responsible for a low Fi is the high fraction of irreproducible results. As a simplification we take irreproducible results as irreproducible publications Nz of zero value, versus potentially valuable reprodicible publications Nr. Then the reproducibility efficiency Fr is:
Eq. 6.2a. Reproducible versus zero-value publications: Np = Nr+Nz 
Eq. 6.2b. Reproducibility efficiency: Fr = Nr / Np ≈ 0.2
## The potential number of innovations per publication is strongly controlled by Fr, since Ni/Nz = 0,
Eq. 6.3a. Innovation effect of reproducibility efficiency: Ni = Fr·Fi·Np
Eq. 6.3b. Realization level-2 effect of reproducibility efficiency: Nm,i = Fz·Fi·(Fm·Np)
Nm,i is a simple elementary quantity (not to be confused with an elementary entity) or a count. It's numerical value can neither be measured nor counted, it can only be calculated mathematically. The strategy of calculation is defined in Eq. 6.1. Nm,i is a physical potential number of m,i-publications, since it has a defined maximum value found in the real world of publications, which is obtained when setting all fractions in Eq. 6.1 as equal to one, which is a theoretical standard state of maximum efficiency Fm,i° = 1:
Eq. 6.2. Standard state: Nm,i° = Np
As defined above, in the idealistic standard state, all efficiencies are 1, including Fz° = 1. This reduces the number of publications 'Nz of zero value but with a high count 'Nz = (1-'Fz)·'Np ≈ 0.8·'Np to 'Nz° = 0 x in the standard state. The present reproducibility efficience Fz ≈ 0.2 would have to be increased by a factor r° = 5.
Strategies to maximize Nm,i are complex and depend on baseline conditions. Every spending of public funds, donations, company investments, and personal resources should reflect and disclose the MiP strategy persued, even in the face of a high probability that there may exist multiple optimization strategies leading to similarly low maximum values of Nm,i.
Consequently, there are two opposite strategies to increase Nm,i to a higher value Nm,i* in a new reference state, (1) to increase the real-world standard number of publications Np at high costs to Np*, or (2) optimize the efficiency on all levels expressed as fractions in Eq. 6.1. to the new values of Fi* and Fm*. It is an affordable simplification to restrict the analysis to efficiencies with maximum values of one, while ignoring efficacies of Fi which can theoretically assume a value Fi > 1, if there are multiple innovations i per number of publications Np. This is not fair to the supergenius, but rare enough to justify the simplification.
First, a static MiP model of innovation values is analyzed, where the capacity of publication media and the investments into R&D are fixed. The dynamic MiP model acknowledges the fact, that the capacity of the publication media increases over-exponentially, leading to a super-exponential increase of the number of publications.


The static MiP model

The present capacity of the publication media is saturated, which means that more manuscripts are submitted than are published. The number of publications Np is fixed, therefore, in the static MiP model, where no additional publication media are opened.
A realistic target for measures to be taken to increase reproducibility may be r* = 2, to double 'Fz to a reference efficiency of 'Fz* = 0.4. Then the present number of zero-value publications would decrease by Nz-Nz* = (r*-1)·Fz·Np. For Fz = 0.2 and r* = 2, 20 % of total publication costs would be saved.
The number of publications Nm that are read and understood (mentally realized) is the term in parentheses in Eq. 6.4b (Fm·Np). If the time available for critically reading, understanding and evaluating the available publications is limiting, i.e., if the availability of publications is not limiting, then Nm is constant at a maximum value Nm = Nm(max).