title: Do scientists trace hot topics?
abstract: Do scientists follow hot topics in their scientific investigations? In this paper, by performing analysis to papers published in the American Physical Society (APS) Physical Review journals, it is found that papers are more likely to be attracted by hot fields, where the hotness of a field is measured by the number of papers belonging to the field. This indicates that scientists generally do follow hot topics. However, there are qualitative differences among scientists from various countries, among research works regarding different number of authors, different number of affiliations and different number of references. These observations could be valuable for policy makers when deciding research funding and also for individual researchers when searching for scientific projects.
authors.affiliation: School of Systems Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, P R China.
authors.forename: Tian
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.forename: Menghui
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Chensheng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Xiao-Yong
authors.initials: XY
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: Zengru
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Di
authors.forename: Jinshan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wu
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D011364:Professional Practice; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012106:Research / Q000639:trends*; D012108:Research Personnel