The occurrence of 'Sleeping Beauty' publications in medical research: Their scientific impact and technological relevance.

ABSTRACT: We investigate publications in medical research that have gone unnoticed for a number of years after being published and then suddenly become cited to a significant degree. Such publications are called Sleeping Beauties (SBs). This study focuses on SBs that are cited in patents. We find that the increasing trend of the relative number of SBs comes to an end around 1998. However, still a constant fraction of publications becomes an SB. Many SBs become highly cited publications, they even belong to the top-10 to 20% most cited publications in their field. We measured the scaling of the number of SBs in relation to the sleeping period length, during-sleep citation-intensity, and with awakening citation-intensity. We determined the Grand Sleeping Beauty Equation for these medical SBs which sho

SUBMITTER: van Raan AFJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6799932 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature