From Fragments to Functions: Evidence-Linked Trajectories for Tracing Scientific Recombination

Scientific designs often combine functional relations first reported in separate papers, yet literature extraction rarely distinguishes a new local mechanism from a new arrangement of established ones. We ask how such recombination appears in the scientific record and whether historically supported but unreported paths precede later complete reports. To study these questions, we construct source-linked Material–Sensor–Signal–System trajectories from full-text conductive-fibre flexible-sensor papers. A paper-disjoint evaluation on 200 gold papers assesses source fidelity and record coverage. Of 1,302 complete trajectories first observed in 2022–2025, 78.4% combine three relations already observed before 2022. In four rolling-origin tests, a source-linked relation-support score places 29–36 future complete reports among its top 100 candidates, versus 19–29 for term popularity and 2.5–3.0 expected under random ranking. These temporal analyses make functional recombination observable and test whether local precedent anticipates complete-path reports.