Objectives

• Duplicates problem
  • As mentioned in the previous week’s entry, I was dealing with issues in duplicates in the data. I solved this issue by removing any instance where A -> B and B -> A are present in the data. The best solution would be to include only one instance, either A -> B or B -> A, but the solution I came up with excludes both. This is computationally easier and the number of duplicates in the histone data was negligible (n= 13,000 out of 250,000). However, due to changes in the project, I am no longer using this data set and the duplication issue is no longer relevant (see Project below).
• Segmentation Faults
  • The code I was using to calculate the metrics was returning the error message “Segmentation 11,” which I discovered comes up when the code tries to retrieve an item from memory that cannot be accessed. Due to how vague the error message was, I was having a lot of issues figuring out what the exact issue was. I found the line the code was failing on, which was a line that retrieves the in-degree value of a node, but still was unable to determine why. Franklin Moy, the author of the code, was able to diagnose the issue as a failure to properly handle singleton clusters. Previous versions of the code operated on the assumption that singleton clusters had been removed from the data, which did not occur to me to do in advance. The issue is now resolved, and I am able to move forward with data analysis.

Project Updates

I am shifting the focus of my project so that I combine the metrics outlined in Bu et al. (2021) with the data utilized in Leng (2022). My research questions are a) How might breadth and depth change over time? and b) Can Bu et al.’s concepts of breadth and depth be used as a means to quantitatively assess Leng’s concept of inward-facing and outward-facing clusters?

Journal Articles

Strumia, A. (2021). Gender issues in fundamental physics: A bibliometric analysis. Quantitative Science Studies, 2(1), 225–253. https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00114

• Strumia aims to examine the gender gap in fundamental physics through a bibiometric analysis. He claims one of the objectives is to better understand why this gap occurs, though the evidence does not support his eventual conclusion that the gap is due to biological differences between men and women. He examines authorship and hiring practices in the field of fundamental physics and finds that women are likely to be hired at a younger age than men and with fewer publications and that women overall write few papers than men and are cited less frequently.
• My main critique of the paper is Strumia’s use of names as a means to identify gender. Names can between ambiguous both within and between nationalities, nor does Strumia address name changes, which may be important as women are more likely to change their surnames after marriage.
• Another critique includes the use of bibliometric data in the first place. I don’t believe citation counts or h-indices are going to explain the gender gap in STEM fields, nor are they particularly useful in examining the impact of a person’s career.

UIUC Seminar

This week’s UIUC seminar was focused on grad school, with Profs. Bill Kramer, Yongjoo Park, and Elahe Soltanaghai. Much of the talk seemed focused on PhD studies as opposed to professional Master’s programs, but the main take-away I got from the seminar is there are two main reasons to pursue grad school: curiosity in specific research topics and desire to expand your skill set. The three panelists seemed to have very different approaches to grad school: Dr. Kramer was taking classes relevant to his work when he accumulated enough credits to graduate, Dr. Park seemed to be primarily focused on career-advancement opportunities, and Dr. Soltanaghai found industry creatively stiffling and decided to pursue research instead. I think my approach to pursuing graduate school is driven less by intellectual curiosity and more by a desire to develop technical skills. However, I could see my path taking a form similar to Dr. Soltanaghai once I actually gained experience in industry.

Dr. Soltanaghai also gave the advice to take inventory of your passions and motivations while thinking about your direction for the future, which is something that I think would personally benefit me.