Article downloads trends on PubMed Central

From: Nature news

I wondered why the available articles in the bottom graph is a steady increase, while the download counts in the top graph is a periodic zigzag. To explore the cause of the periodic fluctuations in the download counts, I matched the peak and valley points down to the time scale and found a trend. The low points of downloads repeatedly correlates with Augusts and Decembers, suggesting an association with summer and Christmas vacations. We thus hypothesize that the majority of paper downloads are from students who download for class use.

(Oh no, the grant proposal writing style is sneaking into my blogging, too...... I guess I'm having a little prelim overdosage)