Human activity as the decision-based queueing process: statistical data analysis of waiting times in scientific journals

TL;DR

This paper models the editorial process in scientific journals as a human decision-based queueing system, analyzing waiting times through statistical methods to understand human activity patterns and support scientometric applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of queueing theory and statistical analysis to model and interpret editorial processing times in scientific publishing.

Findings

Probability distributions of waiting times characterized

Human activity modeled as decision-based queueing process

Supports scientometric analysis with empirical data

Abstract

We consider the editorial processing of papers in scientific journals as a human activity process based on the decision making. A functional form of the probability distributions of random variables describing a human dynamics is studied using classical approaches of mass service systems theory, physics of critical phenomena and statistical methods of data analysis. Our additional goal is to corroborate the scientometrical application of the results obtained. Keywords: data analysis, statistics, mass service systems, human activity, scientometrics