The rivalry between Bernini and Borromini from a scientometric perspective

Scientometrics - From a historical point of view, Rome and especially the University of La Sapienza, are closely linked to two geniuses of Baroque art: Bernini and Borromini. In this study, we...     

Towards the discovery of scientific revolutions in scientometric data

Scientometrics - Paradigms and revolutions are popular concepts in science studies and beyond, yet their meaning is notoriously vague and their existence is widely disputed. Drawing on recent...     

The impact of behavioral principles on the design of the system of scientific communication

This paper¹ provides further evidence for the validity of the holography and maximum speed principles. Supportive examples stem from an attempt to measure speed indicators in scientific communication processes directly; from a new scientific communication channel launched by the Institute for Scientific Information, Philadelphia, USA; from a search for correlations between scientometric indicators and socio-economic indicators; and from a study of rank distribution, phenomena occurring in the transition from individual to collective parameters for ranking of scientific journals. Examples of this kind increase the reliability of the behavioral principles when these are imposed on the design, performance and use of both the formal and informal channels of the system of scientific communication.Dedicated to the memory of Michael J. Moravcsik     

Bibliometric features of some scientific subfields and the scientometric consequences therefrom

In the present work an attempt is made to select journal bases for some subfields in chemistry. Through the modification of the Hirst's discioline impact factor concept, theprimary information base for the selected subfields is detenained. Relating impact factors of citing and cited journals,citation strategy indicators are suggested. Determination of the mean impact factors for subfields enables the introduction ofsubfields factors that bring the impact factors of journals of various subfields on a comparavle level.     

The size and impact of the elite set of publications in scientometric assessments

Several scientometric impact indicators [total citations, h, g, and π-index, percentage rank position (PRP), weighted citation share (WCS)] of 190 elite papers of 15 members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences active in three different fields were calculated. From the indices the PRP indicator proved to be independent of the citation practices in the fields. The PRP index of a journal paper can be calculated in per cent as unity minus (the rank number of the paper by citation frequency within the publishing journal minus one divided with the total number of papers in the journal) times hundred. The sum of the PRP index of the elite papers of a scientist may characterize his or her total publication performance. The size of the elite set of journal papers within the total was calculated by different methods. The h-index and g-index corresponds to the size of the elite, i.e. number of the elite papers according to the h-statistics and g-statistics, respectively. The number of papers in the π-set is equal to the square root of total papers. The π-index equals to one hundredth of citations to the π-set papers. In the present paper the size of the elite set is determined as the number of papers in the h-set, g-set, or π-set, and as 10 % of total papers, or number of papers cited 2, 3, or 5 times the mean citation rate (MCR) of the publishing journal. The π-citation threshold model is presented for demonstrating how MCR and the distribution of citations over the papers may influence the size of the elite set and the corresponding π-index. It was found that the scientific performances concluded from the π-index obtained from elite sets of different size are in good agreement.     

Relations of relative scientometric impact indicators. The relative publication strategy index

Relations of three relative scientometric indicators (Relative Citation Rate, RCR, Relative Subfield Citedness, R_W, and Relative Publication Strategy, RP_S) are studied. R_W can be calculated by the percentage share of citations divided by that of publications. The findings indicate that publishing in journals with relatively high impact factor is a necessary but not sufficient condition for attaining a high R_W index.     

A scientometric model for the assessment of scientific research performance within public institutes

Summary Nowadays, the Italian science sector is undergoing a strategic reform due to budget cuts and there is a need for measuring and evaluating research performance of public research institutes. This research presents a new measure to assess the scientific research performance of public research institutes. The new model is successfully applied to 108 public research institutes belonging to the Italian National Research Council, using data from year 2003 and displays the laboratories with high/low performance. The results are substantially stronger and quicker to obtain than those calculated by using conventional indicators. This model supports the policy-makers, who must decide about the level and direction of public funding for research and technology transfer.     

Retraction of global scientific publications from 2001 to 2010

Retraction is a self-cleaning activity done in the global science community. In this study, the retraction of global scientific publications from 2001 to 2010 was quantitatively analyzed by using the Science Citation Index Expanded. The results indicated that the number of retractions increased faster compared to the number of global scientific publications. Three very different patterns of retraction existed in each field. In the multi-disciplinary category and in the life sciences, retraction was relatively active. The impact factor strongly correlated with the number of retractions, but did not significantly correlate with the rate of retraction. Although the increases in the number of publications in China, India, and South Korea were faster, their retraction activities were higher than the worldwide average level.     

Performance measures for the socio-economic impact of government spending on R&D

Summary The aims of this paper are to summarize Canadian government programs pertaining to research and development (R&D) and R&D support programs, and to propose a method for analyzing their socio-economic impact. The programs under investigation include: • Canada Research Chairs • Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation • Canada Foundation for Innovation • Technology Partnerships Canada (TPC) • Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) • Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) • Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) • Canada Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) • Canadian Institute of Advanced Research (CIAR) • Pre-Competitive Advanced Research Networks (PRECARN) • Networks of Centres of Excellence     

Correlation between the structure of scientific research,scientometric indicators and GDP in EU and non-EU countries

Significant discrepancies were found in the ratio and relative impact of the journal papers of several scientific fields of some Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries compared to the European Community member states, the US and Japan (EUJ countries). A new indicator, characterizing the Mean Structural Difference of scientific fields between countries has been introduced and calculated for CEE countries. For EUJ countries correlation between the GDP and number of publications of a given year proved to be non-significant. Longitudinal studies showed, however, significant correlations between the yearly values of GDP and number of papers published. Studying data referring to consecutive time periods revealed that there is no direct relationship between the GDP and information production of countries. It may be assumed that grants for R&D do not actually depend on real needs, but the fact is that rich countries can afford to spend more whilst poor countries only less money on scientific research.     

The impact of geographical bias when judging scientific studies

Scientometrics - The beauty of science lies within its core assumption that it seeks to identify the truth, and as such, the truth stands alone and does not depend on the person who proclaims it....     

The impact of maintainability on the manufacturing system architecture

The rapid development of big data technologies can improve the maintainability of machines and equipment in manufacturing systems, which could impact the selection of the optimal system architecture. In this paper, two typical architectures for large manufacturing systems ? serial lines in parallel and reconfigurable manufacturing systems ? are considered, and their productivities are compared. A decision locus is calculated that divides the configuration space into two areas; in each area, one of the architectures is the preferred one. It is also investigated how the locus is affected by different parameters, such as system size, buffer capacity and machine or gantry maintainability. The analysis provides valuable managerial insights for designing the architecture of large manufacturing systems.     

Measuring the impact of scientific publications. The case of the biomedical sciences

The bibliometric indicators currently used to assess scientific production have a serious flaw: a notable bias is produced when different subfields are compared. In this paper we demonstrate the existence of this bias using the impact factor (IF) indicator. The impact factor is related to the quality of a published article, but only when each specific subfield is taken separately: only 15.6% of the subfields we studied were found to have homogeneous means. The bias involved can be very misleading when bibliometric estimators are used as a basis for assigning research funds. To improve this situation, we propose a new estimator, the RPU, based on a normalization of the impact factor that minimizes bias and permits comparison among subfields. The RPU of a journal is calculated with the formula: RPU=10(1-exp (-IF/x)), where IF is the impact factor of the journal and x the mean IF for the subfield in which the journal belongs. The RPU retains the advantages of the impact factor: simplicity of calculation, immediacy and objectivity, and increases homogeneous subfields from 15.6% to 93.7%.     

The self-cited rate of scientific journals and the manipulation of their impact factors

Owing to some discussions about manipulating impact factor by requesting authors to increase their citations to the publication journal, we theoretically establish a mathematical expression of a relation between the journal self-citation rate and its impact factor by the single-factor method in this paper. Based on self-citation data of some journals in JCR and the observed relation between journal impact factor and the self-cited rate, we analyze the possibility that journal editors manipulate impact factors of their journals by raising the self-cited rate. Finally, we make some suggestions for supervising this crude way of active manipulating the impact factor.     

The application of scientometric indicators to the Spanish Scientific Research Council

The assessment of the research performance of the Spanish Scientific Research Council using scientometric indicators was done. Number of scientists and budget involved in research projects were used as input measures while articles published in foreign journals, patent applications and citations received provided output figures. The time period studied was 1984–1987. Target of the analysis were wide research areas and the research Institutes included in them. The obtained results point out that very often costs, productivity and impact do not go in the same direction. Most likely, other activities no measurable by scientometric indicators may have played an important role in some Institutes. Besides, the presence of highly cited articles at Institutes with low productivity scores indicates not correspondence of quantity with impact. It is suggested that the research group level would be a more reliable unit for analysis than the aggregated level of Institute or research area.     

Statistical reliability of comparisons based on the citation impact of scientific publications

A method for estimating the standard error of mean citation rates per publication is proposed and examplified on journal impact factors. The use of the standard error values in statistical tests is also illustrated.     

The evaluation of scientific production: Towards a neutral impact factor

Measurement of research activity still remains a controversial question. The use of the impact factor from the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) is quite widespread nowadays to carry out evaluations of all kinds; however, the calculation formula employed by ISI in order to construct its impact factors biases the results in favour of knowledge fields which are better represented in the sample, cite more in average and whose citations are concentrated in the early years of the articles. In the present work, we put forward a theoretical proposal regarding how aggregated normalization should be carried out with these biases, which allows comparing scientific production between fields, institutions and/or authors in a neutral manner. The technical complexity of such work, together with data limitations, lead us to propose some adjustments on the impact factor proposed by ISI which — although they do not completely solve the problem — reduce it and allow glimpsing the path towards more neutral evaluations. The proposal is empirically applied to three analysis levels: single journals, knowledge fields and the set of journals from the Journal Citation Report.     

A new family of scientific impact measures: The generalized Kosmulski-indices

This article introduces the generalized Kosmulski-indices as a new family of scientific impact measures for ranking the output of scientific researchers. As special cases, this family contains the well-known Hirsch-index h and the Kosmulski-index h ⁽²⁾. The main contribution is an axiomatic characterization that characterizes every generalized Kosmulski-index in terms of three axioms.