Main path analysis
Main path analysis was first proposed by Hummon and Doreian[1]. It is a mathematical tool to identify the major paths in a directed acyclic graph (DAG), typically citation network. The method begins by measuring the significance of all the links in a citation network through the concept of ‘traversal count’ and then sequentially chains the most significant links into a ‘main path’, which is deemed the most significant historical path in the target DAG. The method is applicable to any human activity that can be organized in the form of a DAG. The most common applications are tracing the knowledge flow paths or development trajectories of a science or technology field through bibliographic citations or patent citations[2][3][4]. It has also been applied to judicial decision to trace the evolving changes of legal opinion[5].
- ^ Hummon, Norman P.; Doreian, Patrick. "Connectivity in a citation network: The development of DNA theory". Social Networks. 11 (1): 39–63. doi:10.1016/0378-8733(89)90017-8.
- ^ Liu, John S.; Lu, Louis Y.Y.; Lu, Wen-Min; Lin, Bruce J.Y. "Data envelopment analysis 1978–2010: A citation-based literature survey". Omega. 41 (1): 3–15. doi:10.1016/j.omega.2010.12.006.
- ^ Verspagen, Bart (2007-03-01). "Mapping technological trajectories as patent citation networks: a study on the history of fuel cell research". Advances in Complex Systems. 10 (01): 93–115. doi:10.1142/S0219525907000945. ISSN 0219-5259.
- ^ Lucio-Arias, Diana; Leydesdorff, Loet (2008-10-01). "Main-path analysis and path-dependent transitions in HistCite™-based historiograms". Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. 59 (12): 1948–1962. doi:10.1002/asi.20903. ISSN 1532-2890.
- ^ Liu, John S.; Chen, Hsiao-Hui; Ho, Mei Hsiu-Ching; Li, Yu-Chen (2014-12-01). "Citations with different levels of relevancy: Tracing the main paths of legal opinions". Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. 65 (12): 2479–2488. doi:10.1002/asi.23135. ISSN 2330-1643.