Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
7376646 | Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications | 2018 | 21 Pages |
Abstract
We introduce a new centrality index for bipartite networks of papers and authors that we call K-index. The K-index grows with the citation performance of the papers that cite a given researcher and can be seen as a measure of scientific social recognition. Indeed, the K-index measures the number of hubs, defined in a self-consistent way in the bipartite network, that cites a given author. We show that the K-index can be computed by simple inspection of the Web of Science platform and presents several advantages over other centrality indexes, in particular Hirsch h-index. The K-index is robust to self-citations, is not limited by the total number of papers published by a researcher as occurs for the h-index and can distinguish in a consistent way researchers that have the same h-index but very different scientific social recognition. The K-index easily detects a known case of a researcher with inflated number of papers, citations and h-index due to scientific misconduct. Finally, we show that, in a sample of twenty-eight physics Nobel laureates and twenty-eight highly cited non-Nobel-laureate physicists, the K-index correlates better to the achievement of the prize than the number of papers, citations, citations per paper, citing articles or the h-index. Clustering researchers in a K versus h plot reveals interesting outliers that suggest that these two indexes can present complementary independent information.
Keywords
Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering
Mathematics
Mathematical Physics
Authors
Osame Kinouchi, Leonardo D.H. Soares, George C. Cardoso,