Key words of Brazilian science Word clouds formed by the 50 most frequent words in the titles of the 87 thousand doctorate dissertations approved in Brazil between 1996 and 2008 Roberto Dantas de Pinho Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation Eduardo Viotti University of Brasilia, Center for Sustainable Development

1. Key words of Brazilian science
Word clouds formed by the 50 most frequent words in
the titles of the 87 thousand doctorate dissertations
approved in Brazil between 1996 and 2008
Roberto Dantas de Pinho
Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation
Eduardo Viotti
University of Brasilia, Center for Sustainable Development
Development Challenges in Brazil and the Role of the Universities
Columbia University, New York, November 18, 2011
Viotti 1

2. • The size of the font is proportional to how
frequent and particular to a field a word is
• The most frequent words in all fields received
relatively smaller weights in the analysis of each
field in particular.
• Words without semantic meaning were naturally
suppressed (e.g., the, and, for, study and
analysis).
• This filter was not applied in the multidisciplinary
field.
• Source of data: Coleta Capes.
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3. Fields’ weight = (A/B)β
Frequency adjusted by fields’ weight = (A/B) β x
A
Where:
A = word’s frequency in the field;
B = word’s frequency in all fields;
β set to 2. Viotti 3

4. Exact and earth sciences
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5. Biological sciences
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6. Engineering and computer sciences
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7. Health sciences
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8. Agricultural sciences
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9. Applied social sciences
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10. Human sciences
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11. Linguistics, literature and arts
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12. Multidisciplinary
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13. All fields
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14. Viotti 14