{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,8,2]],"date-time":"2025-08-02T18:15:45Z","timestamp":1754158545932,"version":"3.41.2"},"reference-count":48,"publisher":"Emerald","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2017,8,7]],"date-time":"2017-08-07T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1502064000000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/site-policies"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["EL"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2017,8,7]]},"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Purpose<\/jats:title><jats:p>This study aims to analyse the geographical distribution of global research activities and to investigate the knowledge diffusion embodied in scientific papers.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Design\/methodology\/approach<\/jats:title><jats:p>The geographical summary of<jats:italic>Frontiers<\/jats:italic>articles displays the number of visits and categorizes where the visitors hail from. This study uses the records of 23,798 articles published in 16<jats:italic>Frontiers<\/jats:italic>journals from 2007 to 2015 to analyse the geographical distribution of article visits at both country and city levels. The process of knowledge diffusion is investigated on the basis of the different visiting patterns of new and old papers.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Findings<\/jats:title><jats:p>Most article visits are concentrated around major metropolitan areas and some high-tech clusters. The top \u201cvisiting countries\u201d include both developed countries and developing countries, and the USA and China are two major players. Publishing cities dominate article visits for new papers; as time passes, there is diffusion from the publishing cities to a broader area.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Research limitations\/implications<\/jats:title><jats:p>The data on visiting for open access articles may be generated from various repositories besides the publishers\u2019 websites; these data are ignored, as they are not significant enough to have much influence. There is also a lack of a basic theory in the data processing of outliers in the data set. In addition, only static results are given in this paper, as the data were collected on one day, for one time. A longer time period is necessary to track the dynamic diffusion process of the observations.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Practical implications<\/jats:title><jats:p>Introduction of usage data will propose a novel way to analyse research activities and track knowledge diffusion.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Social implications<\/jats:title><jats:p>The visiting data of articles offer a new way to investigate research activities at the city level in a detailed and timely manner, for the geographical distribution of research activities and the research resource allocation of a specific country to be explored.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Originality\/value<\/jats:title><jats:p>This study measured the research activities of scientific papers by examining the usage data. Compared with previous studies that focused on the geographical distribution of scientific activities using publication data, citation data and even altmetrics data, usage data are at the forefront of this research. Therefore, usage data offer a fresh perspective on methodology, providing more detailed and real-time information.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1108\/el-10-2016-0228","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2017,7,3]],"date-time":"2017-07-03T07:49:49Z","timestamp":1499068189000},"page":"822-838","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":5,"title":["Measuring global research activities using geographic data of scholarly article visits"],"prefix":"10.1108","volume":"35","author":[{"given":"Zhichao","family":"Fang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Xinhui","family":"Guo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yang","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Zhongkai","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Qingchun","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Zhigang","family":"Hu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7236-9267","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Xianwen","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"140","reference":[{"issue":"6285","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"508","DOI":"10.1126\/science.352.6285.508","article-title":"Who\u2019s downloading pirated papers? Everyone","volume":"352","year":"2016","journal-title":"Science"},{"issue":"10","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1954","DOI":"10.1002\/asi.21611","article-title":"Which cities produce more excellent papers than can be expected? A new mapping approach, using Google Maps, based on statistical significance testing","volume":"62","year":"2011","journal-title":"Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology"},{"issue":"4","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"547","DOI":"10.1016\/j.joi.2011.04.006","article-title":"The detection of \u2018hot regions\u2019 in the geography of science: a visualization approach by using density maps","volume":"5","year":"2011","journal-title":"Journal of Informetrics"},{"issue":"4","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"537","DOI":"10.1016\/j.joi.2011.05.005","article-title":"Mapping excellence in the geography of science: an approach based on Scopus data","volume":"5","year":"2011","journal-title":"Journal of Informetrics"},{"issue":"8","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1060","DOI":"10.1002\/asi.20373","article-title":"Earlier web usage statistics as predictors of later citation impact","volume":"57","year":"2006","journal-title":"Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology"},{"issue":"20","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref006","first-page":"253","article-title":"The diffusion of innovation among physicians","volume":"20","year":"1957","journal-title":"Sociometry"},{"issue":"2","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref007","first-page":"181","article-title":"Co-citation analysis of the scientific literature of innovation research traditions: diffusion of innovations and technology transfer","volume":"11","year":"1989","journal-title":"Science Communication"},{"issue":"8","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref008","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1557","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jedc.2003.04.002","article-title":"Network structure and the diffusion of knowledge","volume":"28","year":"2004","journal-title":"Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control"},{"issue":"4","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref009","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"467","DOI":"10.2307\/2575080","article-title":"Fluoridation: the diffusion of an innovation among cities","volume":"44","year":"1966","journal-title":"Social Forces"},{"issue":"9","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref010","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1243","DOI":"10.1002\/asi.20405","article-title":"eJournal interface can influence usage statistics: implications for libraries, publishers, and project counter","volume":"57","year":"2006","journal-title":"Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology"},{"issue":"11","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref011","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1062","DOI":"10.1002\/asi.10302","article-title":"An IP-level analysis of usage statistics for electronic journals in chemistry: making inferences about user behavior","volume":"54","year":"2003","journal-title":"Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology"},{"issue":"7665","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref012","first-page":"a568","article-title":"Open access publishing, article downloads, and citations: randomised controlled trial","volume":"337","year":"2008","journal-title":"British Medical Journal"},{"issue":"2","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref013","first-page":"303","article-title":"Diffusion, technology transfer, and implementation: thinking and talking about change","volume":"8","year":"1986","journal-title":"Science Communication"},{"issue":"3","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref014","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"222","DOI":"10.1016\/j.joi.2009.03.005","article-title":"Spatial scientometrics: towards a cumulative research program","volume":"3","year":"2009","journal-title":"Journal of Informetrics"},{"issue":"4","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref015","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"324","DOI":"10.1002\/(SICI)1097-4571(2000)51:4<324::AID-ASI3>3.0.CO;2-B","article-title":"Determining the publication impact of a digital library","volume":"51","year":"2000","journal-title":"Journal of the American Society for Information Science"},{"issue":"3","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref016","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"383","DOI":"10.1287\/orsc.3.3.383","article-title":"Knowledge of the firm, combinative capabilities, and the replication of technology","volume":"3","year":"1992","journal-title":"Organization Science"},{"unstructured":"Kotzeva, M., Brandm\u00fcller, T. and \u00d6nnerfors, \u00c5. (2015), \u201cEurostat regional yearbook 2015\u201d, available at: http:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/eurostat\/statistics-explained\/index.php\/Research_and_innovation_statistics_at_regional_level (accessed 28 February 2016).","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref017"},{"issue":"2","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref018","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"253","DOI":"10.1086\/260755","article-title":"A model of innovation, technology transfer, and the world distribution of income","volume":"87","year":"1979","journal-title":"Journal of Political Economy"},{"issue":"1","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref019","first-page":"3","article-title":"Usage bibliometrics","volume":"44","year":"2010","journal-title":"Annual Review of Information Science and Technology"},{"issue":"2","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref020","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"111","DOI":"10.1002\/asi.20096","article-title":"The bibliometric properties of article readership information","volume":"56","year":"2005","journal-title":"Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology"},{"issue":"8","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref021","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1622","DOI":"10.1002\/asi.21347","article-title":"Mapping the geography of science: distribution patterns and networks of relations among cities and institutes","volume":"61","year":"2010","journal-title":"Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology"},{"issue":"3","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref022","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"337","DOI":"10.1007\/s11051-006-9194-2","article-title":"Patent citation network in nanotechnology (1976-2004)","volume":"9","year":"2007","journal-title":"Journal of Nanoparticle Research"},{"issue":"3","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref023","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"473","DOI":"10.1016\/j.physa.2009.10.004","article-title":"Scale-free network provides an optimal pattern for knowledge transfer","volume":"389","year":"2010","journal-title":"Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications"},{"issue":"3","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref024","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e89746","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0089746","article-title":"A knowledge generation model via the hypernetwork","volume":"9","year":"2014","journal-title":"PLoS ONE"},{"issue":"3","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref025","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1953","DOI":"10.1007\/s11192-015-1761-9","article-title":"Modeling knowledge diffusion in scientific innovation networks: an institutional comparison between China and US with illustration for nanotechnology","volume":"105","year":"2015","journal-title":"Scientometrics"},{"issue":"7","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref026","first-page":"3619","article-title":"A study on coevolutionary dynamics of knowledge diffusion and social network structure","volume":"42","year":"2014","journal-title":"Expert Systems with Applications"},{"issue":"9","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref027","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1879","DOI":"10.1177\/0042098010372683","article-title":"World cities of scientific knowledge: systems, networks and potential dynamics: an analysis based on bibliometric indicators","volume":"47","year":"2010","journal-title":"Urban Studies"},{"unstructured":"Mazloumian, A., Helbing, D., Lozano, S., Light, R.P. and B\u00f6rner, K. (2013), \u201cGlobal multi-level analysis of the \u2018Scientific Food Web\u2019\u201d, Scientific Reports, Vol. 3, Article No. 1167.","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref028"},{"issue":"15","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref029","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3995","DOI":"10.1016\/j.physa.2012.02.005","article-title":"Diffusion of knowledge and globalization in the web of twentieth century science","volume":"391","year":"2012","journal-title":"Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications"},{"issue":"3","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref030","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"657","DOI":"10.1007\/s11192-008-2099-3","article-title":"35 years and 160,000 articles: a bibliometric exploration of the evolution of ecology","volume":"80","year":"2009","journal-title":"Scientometrics"},{"volume-title":"Diffusion of Innovations","year":"1962","edition":"1st ed.","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref031"},{"issue":"11","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref032","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e47523","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0047523","article-title":"How the scientific community reacts to newly submitted preprints: article downloads, Twitter mentions, and citations","volume":"7","year":"2012","journal-title":"PLoS ONE"},{"issue":"4","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref033","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"796","DOI":"10.1016\/j.eswa.2005.07.039","article-title":"Estimating the effect of organizational structure on knowledge transfer: a neural network approach","volume":"30","year":"2006","journal-title":"Expert Systems with Applications"},{"issue":"6","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref034","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1124","DOI":"10.1002\/asi.23252","article-title":"Are scholarly articles disproportionately read in their own country? An analysis of Mendeley readers","volume":"66","year":"2015","journal-title":"Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology"},{"issue":"7318","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref035","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"906","DOI":"10.1038\/467906a","article-title":"Cities: building the best cities for science","volume":"467","year":"2010","journal-title":"Nature"},{"issue":"2","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref042","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1365","DOI":"10.1007\/s11192-016-2086-z","article-title":"Tracking the digital footprints to scholarly articles from social media","volume":"109","year":"2016","journal-title":"Scientometrics"},{"issue":"2","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref037","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"717","DOI":"10.1007\/s11192-012-0884-5","article-title":"Tracing scientist\u2019s research trends realtimely","volume":"95","year":"2013","journal-title":"Scientometrics"},{"year":"2016","article-title":"Tracing digital footprints to academic articles: an investigation of PeerJ publication referral data","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref043"},{"doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Wang, X.W., Fang, Z.C., Li, Q.C. and Guo, X.H. (2016a), \u201cThe poor altmetric performance of publications authored by researchers in mainland China\u201d, Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics, Vol. 1 No. 1, available at: http:\/\/10.3389\/frma.2016.00008 (accessed 24 May 2017).","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref041","DOI":"10.3389\/frma.2016.00008"},{"issue":"2","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref050","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"555","DOI":"10.1007\/s11192-015-1547-0","article-title":"The open access advantage considering citation, article usage and social media attention","volume":"103","year":"2015","journal-title":"Scientometrics"},{"issue":"3","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref039","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1923","DOI":"10.1007\/s11192-013-1167-5","article-title":"Usage history of scientific literature: nature metrics and metrics of nature publications","volume":"98","year":"2014","journal-title":"Scientometrics"},{"issue":"3","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref040","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"562","DOI":"10.1016\/j.joi.2014.04.009","article-title":"How far does scientific community look back?","volume":"8","year":"2014","journal-title":"Journal of Informetrics"},{"issue":"3","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref038","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"665","DOI":"10.1016\/j.joi.2013.04.003","article-title":"Exploring scientists\u2019 working timetable: a global survey","volume":"7","year":"2013","journal-title":"Journal of Informetrics"},{"issue":"4","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref036","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"655","DOI":"10.1016\/j.joi.2012.07.003","article-title":"Exploring scientists\u2019 working timetable: do scientists often work overtime?","volume":"6","year":"2012","journal-title":"Journal of Informetrics"},{"issue":"4","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref044","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"384","DOI":"10.2307\/2785920","article-title":"The diffusion of an innovation among physicians in a large city","volume":"24","year":"1961","journal-title":"Sociometry"},{"issue":"1","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref045","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"181","DOI":"10.1007\/s11192-012-0715-8","article-title":"Geographical knowledge diffusion and spatial diversity citation rank","volume":"94","year":"2013","journal-title":"Scientometrics"},{"key":"key2020120607194598400_ref046","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"429","DOI":"10.1016\/j.physa.2014.10.012","article-title":"Knowledge diffusion in the collaboration hypernetwork","volume":"419","year":"2015","journal-title":"Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications"},{"unstructured":"Zhang, Q., Perra, N., Gon\u00e7alves, B., Ciulla, F. and Vespignani, A. (2013), \u201cCharacterizing scientific production and consumption in physics\u201d, Scientific Reports, Vol. 3, Article No. 1640.","key":"key2020120607194598400_ref047"}],"container-title":["The Electronic Library"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/content\/doi\/10.1108\/EL-10-2016-0228\/full\/xml","content-type":"application\/xml","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/content\/doi\/10.1108\/EL-10-2016-0228\/full\/html","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,25]],"date-time":"2025-07-25T01:08:11Z","timestamp":1753405691000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"http:\/\/www.emerald.com\/el\/article\/35\/4\/822-838\/32604"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2017,8,7]]},"references-count":48,"journal-issue":{"issue":"4","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2017,8,7]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1108\/EL-10-2016-0228"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1108\/el-10-2016-0228","relation":{},"ISSN":["0264-0473"],"issn-type":[{"type":"print","value":"0264-0473"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2017,8,7]]}}}