On the relationship between interdisciplinarity and scientific impact

This paper analyzes the effect of interdisciplinarity on the scientific impact of individual papers. Using all the papers published in Web of Science in 2000, we define the degree of interdisciplinarity of a given paper as the percentage of its cited references made to journals of other disciplines. We show that, although for all disciplines combined there is no clear correlation between the level of interdisciplinarity of papers and their citation rates, there are nonetheless some disciplines in which a higher level of interdisciplinarity is related to a higher citation rates. For other disciplines, citations decline as interdisciplinarity grows. One characteristic is visible in all disciplines: highly disciplinary and highly interdisciplinary papers have a low scientific impact. This suggests that there might be an optimum of interdisciplinarity beyond which the research is too dispersed to find its niche and under which it is too mainstream to have high impact. Finally, the relationship between interdisciplinarity and scientific impact is highly determined by the citation characteristics of the disciplines involved: papers citing citation intensive disciplines are more likely to be cited by those disciplines and, hence, obtain higher citation scores than papers citing non citation intensive disciplines.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Forthcoming in JASIS

Bibliometric Analysis of Research on Mental Health in the Workplace in Canada 1991-2002

This paper uses the Medline biomedical papers database to measure scientific production on mental health in the workplace (MHWP) during the 1991-2002 period at the world, Canadian, provincial, urban, institutional and researcher levels. The level of scientific output has doubled at the world level and tripled at the Canadian level during the last 12 years. At the provincial level, Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta are leading in absolute number of papers. Ontario largely dominates both in terms of output and on a per capita basis. At the level of cities, Toronto and Montreal are the largest producers of papers on MHWP. The most important institutions in terms of papers on MHWP are McMaster University, Université de Montréal, the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia and the University of Western Ontario. The universities with the largest number of active researchers in MHWP are McMaster University, Université Laval and York University

Duns Scot vs Thomas d’Aquin : Le moment québécois d’un conflit multi-séculaire

Cet article propose une analyse d’une controverse philosophique et théologique, survenue au Québec en novembre 1927, opposant le père Éphrem Longpré, franciscain, au père Rodrigue Villeneuve, oblat d’Ottawa et futur archevêque et cardinal de Québec. Dans ce débat, centré sur les figures de Duns Scot et de Thomas d’Aquin, le père Longpré met en cause le monopole de la doctrine thomiste comme unique discours légitime de la philosophie catholique. Contre l’idée que la signification de cette polémique s’épuise entièrement dans son caractère local, cet article défend la thèse que loin de n’être qu’un échange insignifiant dans un milieu intellectuel périphérique, la polémique entre Villeneuve et Longpré est en fait la forme locale d’un conflit multi-séculaire entre deux grandes doctrines philosophiques et théologiques qui s’affrontent depuis le xiiie siècle. Car cet échange ponctuel (la polémique durant quelques mois seulement) prend sa source et sa signification véritables dans une longue tradition. Après un bref rappel des sources de l’opposition entre les philosophies de Duns Scot et de Thomas d’Aquin, nous analyserons la querelle entre Villeneuve et Longpré pour suivre ensuite la piste de Duns Scot au Québec chez les ursulines de Trois-Rivières, en présentant les travaux de soeur Clotilde Lemieux, auteure d’une biographie importante de Duns Scot, pour terminer avec le Concile Vatican II, perçu par plusieurs comme la revanche de Duns Scot sur le monopole thomiste.This article analyses a philosophical and theological controversy which occurred in Quebec during November 1927, pitting Father Éphrem Longpré, a Franciscan, against Father Rodrigue Villeneuve, the Oblate of Ottawa and the future Archbishop and Cardinal of Quebec City. The debate, which centred on the figures of Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, saw Father Longpré challenge the monopoly of Thomism as the only legitimate discourse of Catholic philosophy. Contrary to the portrayal of this short-lived polemic as a superficial and insignificant debate among clerics working on the periphery of the intellectual world, this paper argues that the debate between Villeneuve and Longpré was actually a local manifestation of a multi-secular conflict between two major philosophical and theological doctrines which had been in conflict since the 18th century. In fact, this short-lived exchange (the debate lasted only a few short months), traces its origins to and finds its real significance within a much longer tradition. After a brief look at the origins of the opposition between the philosophies of Duns Scotus and Thomas Aquinas, the article analyzes the exchanges between Longpré and Villeneuve. It then traces the influence of Duns Scotus in Quebec with an emphasis on the work of Sister Clotilde Lemieux, of the Ursulines of Trois Rivières, who wrote an important biography of Scotus. The article concludes by looking at the Second Vatican Council, perceived by many as the triumph of Scotus over the Thomist monopoly