PONE-D-25-11688Quantifying hot topic dynamics in scientific literature: an information-theoretical approachPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Chumachenko,

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: 1- Please explain the researcher's conclusions and what he addressed within the research gap of the work presented in the abstract.

2- Ensure that references are included for all equations in the research.

3- The research paper lacks tables and charts that reflect the researcher's reading and summary of the reviewed research, and does not highlight the strengths and weaknesses of previous research.

4- Add references published in 2025

Reviewer #2: The main objective of the study is to analyse the dynamics of research topics and the conceptual dependencies within the scientific discourse. This approach is presented as an alternative to traditional topic modeling methods (such as DTM or neural topic models). These either have difficulties in capturing dynamic relationships, require high computational resources or are based on weighting methods without metric properties. The core of the article is a complex and promising methodological development. It is not about an empirical study and the presentation of new empirical findings. Therefore, an explicit research question and a research design are also missing, which is understandable given the focus of the article. The methodological approach consists of constructing conceptual networks based on a mathematically founded distance metric (NVI). The temporal development of these distances is quantified using velocity matrices. The MST algorithm is used to identify the most important dynamic connections (convergence and divergence) in order to gain insights into the development of knowledge structures and to visualize them.

Overall, the article is very well written and sufficiently illustrates the complex methodological approach. The limitations of the work are also explained in detail. In my view, there are only three minor weaknesses, but these can be rectified relatively quickly.

1. Although the current state of research on topic modeling is discussed, important studies are missing. For example, the ‘Structural Topic Modeling (STM)’ developed by Roberts et al. (2014) is not taken into account, although it is used in science studies, sociology, political science and many other disciplines. The STM and exemplary studies should also be taken up and critically evaluated.

2. The temporal development of the topics, i.e. the results of the study, could be presented in a more differentiated way in some places and linked back to existing specialised discourses. This would facilitate the integration of the results within the existing research discourse, thereby enhancing the visibility of the added value of the novel methodological approach.

3. Although it is mentioned that the code is available on GitHub, there is no link to this page. My own research was also unsuccessful. The article should contain a GitHub link. The code should be sufficiently documented on GitHub. It would also be in the interest of the authors if their code could provide a basis for further studies.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Markus Eckl

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Quantifying hot topic dynamics in scientific literature: an information-theoretical approach

PONE-D-25-11688R1

Dear Dr. Chumachenko,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Malte Rehbein

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: All points of criticism were taken up by the authors and dealt with in an adequate manner.

I wish you every success with the publication of your article.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Markus Eckl

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