[Paper Review] Interdisciplinary Relationships Between Biological and Physical Sciences

Paulo E. P. Burke, Luciano da Fontoura Costa|arXiv (Cornell University)|May 8, 2019

Bioinformatics and Genomic NetworksBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology37 references3 citations

TL;DR

This paper proposes a complex network-based methodology to map interdisciplinary relationships between biological and physical sciences using Wikipedia data and literature reviews. It reveals stronger interconnections between interdisciplinary fields and biological sciences than with physical sciences, with high agreement between Wikipedia-derived networks and literature-based hypergraphs, though Wikipedia uncovers more intricate, interconnected relationships.

ABSTRACT

Several interdisciplinary areas have appeared at the interface between biological and physical sciences. In this work, we suggest a complex network-based methodology for analyzing the interrelationships between some of these interdisciplinary areas, including Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Biochemistry, among others. This approach has been applied over respective data derived from Wikipedia. Related reviews from the scientific literature are also considered as a reference, yielding a respective bipartite hypergraph which can be used to gain insights about the interrelationships underlying the considered interdisciplinary areas. Several interesting results are obtained, including greater interconnection between the considered interdisciplinary areas with biological than with physical sciences. A good agreement was also found between the network obtained from Wikipedia and the interrelationships revealed by the literature reviews. At the same time, the former network was found to exhibit more intricate relationships than in the hypergraph derived from the literature review.

Motivation & Objective

• To develop a data-driven methodology for quantifying interrelationships among interdisciplinary scientific areas at the intersection of biological and physical sciences.
• To compare knowledge networks derived from Wikipedia with those from traditional scientific literature reviews.
• To assess the structural complexity and connectivity patterns of interdisciplinary fields such as Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, and Biochemistry.
• To identify key hubs and bridges between biological and physical sciences in interdisciplinary knowledge networks.
• To evaluate the potential of Wikipedia as a proxy for scientific interdisciplinarity, contrasting it with curated literature reviews.

Proposed method

• Construct a citation network from Wikipedia articles categorized under biological, physical, and interdisciplinary sciences.
• Apply normalization techniques to account for unequal article counts across scientific areas, using data sampling.
• Generate a higher-level knowledge network by aggregating interconnections between scientific areas based on shared references and article linkages.
• Create a bipartite hypergraph from literature reviews to represent interdisciplinary areas as nodes connected to their constituent biological and physical science domains.
• Compare the Wikipedia-derived network with the literature review-based hypergraph to assess structural consistency and complexity.
• Use complex network analysis to quantify connectivity, centrality, and interdisciplinarity patterns across the resulting knowledge graphs.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 How do interdisciplinary scientific areas like Bioinformatics and Biochemistry interrelate with biological and physical sciences?
• RQ2 To what extent do Wikipedia-derived knowledge networks reflect the interrelationships identified in traditional scientific literature reviews?
• RQ3 Are interdisciplinary areas more strongly connected to biological or physical sciences, and what explains this pattern?
• RQ4 How does the structural complexity of the Wikipedia-based network compare to that of the literature review-based hypergraph?
• RQ5 Why is Biotechnology notably well-connected in the Wikipedia network but underrepresented in literature reviews?

Key findings

• The Wikipedia-derived network shows significantly greater interconnection among interdisciplinary areas compared to the literature review-based hypergraph, indicating more complex and integrated relationships.
• There is a stronger tendency for interdisciplinary areas to be connected with biological sciences than with physical sciences, suggesting a biological-primed development of these fields.
• Biochemistry emerges as a central hub in the network, exhibiting high centrality and strong interconnections with both biological and physical science domains.
• Chemistry serves as a key bridge between biological and physical sciences, facilitating the integration of interdisciplinary fields.
• Biotechnology is highly connected in the Wikipedia network but was not substantially covered in any of the selected literature reviews, indicating a gap in traditional review coverage.
• A strong agreement is observed between the Wikipedia network and literature-based hypergraphs, except for Biotechnology, which highlights the potential of Wikipedia to reveal underappreciated interdisciplinarity.