PLoS Computational Biology

Top Research Topics at PLOS Computational Biology?

The journal was organized to reinforce research efforts on Computational biology, Genetics, Artificial intelligence, Neuroscience and Biophysics. While Computational biology is the focus of PLOS Computational Biology, it also provided insights into the studies of Sequence alignment and Genomics. Topics like Gene, Genome, Regulation of gene expression, Gene regulatory network and Transcription factor are tackled as part of the discussions on Genetics.

The main emphasis of PLOS Computational Biology is the subject of Gene, focusing on Gene expression. In PLOS Computational Biology, Machine learning, Computer vision and Pattern recognition are investigated in conjunction with one another to address concerns in Artificial intelligence research. In addition to Biophysics research, the journal aims to explore topics under Biochemistry and Molecular dynamics.

The majority of Biochemistry studies are focused on the issues of Protein structure.

• Computational biology (16.84%)
• Genetics (13.65%)
• Artificial intelligence (13.65%)

What are the most cited papers published in the journal?

• BEAST 2: A Software Platform for Bayesian Evolutionary Analysis (3884 citations)
• The Human Connectome: A Structural Description of the Human Brain (2217 citations)
• Unicycler: Resolving bacterial genome assemblies from short and long sequencing reads. (2066 citations)

Research areas of the most cited articles at PLOS Computational Biology:

The journal papers mainly deal with areas of study such as Genetics, Computational biology, Artificial intelligence, Gene and Protein structure. In addition to Computational biology research, the journal publications aim to explore topics under Bioinformatics, Gene expression profiling, Transcription factor, Sequence analysis and Gene regulatory network. The published papers explore issues in Artificial intelligence which can be linked to other research areas like Machine learning, Neuroscience and Pattern recognition.

Papers citation over time

A key indicator for each journal is its effectiveness in reaching other researchers with the papers published at that venue.

The chart below presents the interquartile range (first quartile 25%, median 50% and third quartile 75%) of the number of citations of articles over time.

Top authors and change over time

The top authors publishing in PLOS Computational Biology (based on the number of publications) are:

• Philip E. Bourne (70 papers) published 1 paper at the last edition, 3 less than at the previous edition,
• Moritz Helias (42 papers) absent at the last edition,
• Markus Diesmann (41 papers) absent at the last edition,
• Stefan Rotter (40 papers) absent at the last edition,
• Moritz Deger (37 papers) absent at the last edition.

The overall trend for top authors publishing in this journal is outlined below. The chart shows the number of publications at each edition of the journal for top authors.

Top affiliations and change over time

Only papers with recognized affiliations are considered

The top affiliations publishing in PLOS Computational Biology (based on the number of publications) are:

• Max Planck Society (303 papers) published 26 papers at the last edition, 1 less than at the previous edition,
• Harvard University (301 papers) published 24 papers at the last edition, 7 less than at the previous edition,
• University of California, San Diego (271 papers) published 23 papers at the last edition, 3 more than at the previous edition,
• University of Oxford (196 papers) published 25 papers at the last edition, 3 more than at the previous edition,
• University of Cambridge (185 papers) published 9 papers at the last edition, 9 less than at the previous edition.

The overall trend for top affiliations publishing in this journal is outlined below. The chart shows the number of publications at each edition of the journal for top affiliations.

Publication chance based on affiliation

The publication chance index shows the ratio of articles published by the best research institutions in the journal edition to all articles published within that journal. The best research institutions were selected based on the largest number of articles published during all editions of the journal.

The chart below presents the percentage ratio of articles from top institutions (based on their ranking of total papers).Top affiliations were grouped by their rank into the following tiers: top 1-10, top 11-20, top 21-50, and top 51+. Only articles with a recognized affiliation are considered.

During the most recent 2021 edition, 2.03% of publications had an unrecognized affiliation. Out of the publications with recognized affiliations, 19.12% were posted by at least one author from the top 10 institutions publishing in the journal. Another 9.99% included authors affiliated with research institutions from the top 11-20 affiliations. Institutions from the 21-50 range included 18.64% of all publications and 52.25% were from other institutions.

Returning Authors Index

A very common phenomenon observed among researchers publishing scientific articles is the intentional selection of journals they have already attended in the past. In particular, it is worth analyzing the case when the authors participate in the same journal from year to year.

The Returning Authors Index presented below illustrates the ratio of authors who participated in both a given as well as the previous edition of the journal in relation to all participants in a given year.

Returning Institution Index

The graph below shows the Returning Institution Index, illustrating the ratio of institutions that participated in both a given and the previous edition of the conference in relation to all affiliations present in a given year.

The experience to innovation index

Our experience to innovation index was created to show a cross-section of the experience level of authors publishing in a journal. The index includes the authors publishing at the last edition of a journal, grouped by total number of publications throughout their academic career (P) and the total number of citations of these publications ever received (C).

The group intervals were selected empirically to best show the diversity of the authors' experiences, their labels were selected as a convenience, not as judgment. The authors were divided into the following groups:

• Novice - P < 5 or C < 25 (the number of publications less than 5 or the number of citations less than 25),
• Competent - P < 10 or C < 100 (the number of publications less than 10 or the number of citations less than 100),
• Experienced - P < 25 or C < 625 (the number of publications less than 25 or the number of citations less than 625),
• Master - P < 50 or C < 2500 (the number of publications less than 50 or the number of citations less than 2500),
• Star - P ≥ 50 and C ≥ 2500 (both the number of publications greater than 50 and the number of citations greater than 2500).

The chart below illustrates experience levels of first authors in cases of publications with multiple authors.