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The issue of research continuance in a scientific discipline was analyzed and applied to the field of terrorism. The growing amount of literature in this field is produced mostly by one-timers who "visit" the field, contribute one or two articles, and then move to another subject area. This research pattern does not contribute to the regularity and constancy of publication by which a scientific discipline is formed and theories and paradigms of the field are created.This study observed the research continuance and transience of scientific publications in terrorism by using obtainable "most prolific terrorism authors" lists at different points in time. These lists designed by several terrorism researchers, presented a few researchers who contributed to the field continuously and many others whose main research interest lay in another discipline. The four lists observed included authors who were continuants, transients, new-comers, and terminators (who left the field).The lack of continuous, full-time research in a research field is typical of many disciplines, but the influence of this research pattern on a field's growth and stability is different for older, established disciplines than for new and formative fields of study. With in the former, intellectual mobility could contribute to the rise of new topics and probably enrich the particular scientific field; with the latter, by contrast, it could hamper the formation and growth of the field.

In this study the evolution of Big Data (BD) and Data Science (DS) literatures and the relationship between the two are analyzed by bibliometric indicators that help establish the course taken by publications on these research areas before and after forming concepts. We observe a surge in BD publications along a gradual increase in DS publications. Interestingly, a new publications course emerges combining the BD and DS concepts. We evaluate the three literature streams using various bibliometric indicators including research areas and their origin, central journals, the countries producing and funding research and startup organizations, citation dynamics, dispersion and author commitment. We find that BD and DS have differing academic origin and different leading publications. Of the two terms, BD is more salient, possibly catalyzed by the strong acceptance of the pre-coordinated term by the research community, intensive citation activity, and also, we observe, by generous funding from Chinese sources. Overall, DS literature serves as a theory-base for BD publications.

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