12,107 research outputs found
Generalized h-index for Disclosing Latent Facts in Citation Networks
What is the value of a scientist and its impact upon the scientific thinking?
How can we measure the prestige of a journal or of a conference? The evaluation
of the scientific work of a scientist and the estimation of the quality of a
journal or conference has long attracted significant interest, due to the
benefits from obtaining an unbiased and fair criterion. Although it appears to
be simple, defining a quality metric is not an easy task. To overcome the
disadvantages of the present metrics used for ranking scientists and journals,
J.E. Hirsch proposed a pioneering metric, the now famous h-index. In this
article, we demonstrate several inefficiencies of this index and develop a pair
of generalizations and effective variants of it to deal with scientist ranking
and with publication forum ranking. The new citation indices are able to
disclose trendsetters in scientific research, as well as researchers that
constantly shape their field with their influential work, no matter how old
they are. We exhibit the effectiveness and the benefits of the new indices to
unfold the full potential of the h-index, with extensive experimental results
obtained from DBLP, a widely known on-line digital library.Comment: 19 pages, 17 tables, 27 figure
The inconsistency of the h-index
The h-index is a popular bibliometric indicator for assessing individual
scientists. We criticize the h-index from a theoretical point of view. We argue
that for the purpose of measuring the overall scientific impact of a scientist
(or some other unit of analysis) the h-index behaves in a counterintuitive way.
In certain cases, the mechanism used by the h-index to aggregate publication
and citation statistics into a single number leads to inconsistencies in the
way in which scientists are ranked. Our conclusion is that the h-index cannot
be considered an appropriate indicator of a scientist's overall scientific
impact. Based on recent theoretical insights, we discuss what kind of
indicators can be used as an alternative to the h-index. We pay special
attention to the highly cited publications indicator. This indicator has a lot
in common with the h-index, but unlike the h-index it does not produce
inconsistent rankings
Three Puzzles on Mathematics, Computation, and Games
In this lecture I will talk about three mathematical puzzles involving
mathematics and computation that have preoccupied me over the years. The first
puzzle is to understand the amazing success of the simplex algorithm for linear
programming. The second puzzle is about errors made when votes are counted
during elections. The third puzzle is: are quantum computers possible?Comment: ICM 2018 plenary lecture, Rio de Janeiro, 36 pages, 7 Figure
"Needless to Say My Proposal Was Turned Down": The Early Days of Commercial Citation Indexing, an "Error-making" Activity and Its Repercussions Till Today
In todayâs neoliberal audit cultures university rankings, quantitative evaluation of publications by JIF or researchers by h-index are believed to be indispensable instruments for âquality assuranceâ in the sciences. Yet there is increasing resistance against âimpactitisâ and âevaluitisâ. Usually overseen: Trivial errors in Thomson Reutersâ citation indexes produce severe non-trivial effects: Their victims are authors, institutions, journals with names beyond the ASCII-code and scholars of humanities and social sciences. Analysing the âJoshua Lederberg Papersâ I want to illuminate eventually successful âinventionâ of science citation indexing is a product of contingent factors. To overcome severe resistance Eugene Garfield, the âfatherâ of citation indexing, had to foster overoptimistic attitudes and to downplay the severe problems connected to global and multidisciplinary citation indexing. The difficulties to handle different formats of references and footnotes, non-Anglo-American names, and of publications in non-English languages were known to the pioneers of citation indexing. Nowadays the huge for-profit North-American media corporation Thomson Reuters is the owner of the citation databases founded by Garfield. Thomson Reutersâ influence on funding decisions, individual careers, departments, universities, disciplines and countries is immense and ambivalent. Huge technological systems show a heavy inertness. This insight of technology studies is applicable to the large citation indexes by Thomson Reuters, too
Ranking authors using fractional counting of citations : an axiomatic approach
This paper analyzes from an axiomatic point of view a recent proposal for counting citations: the value of a citation given by a paper is inversely proportional to the total number of papers it cites. This way of fractionally counting citations was suggested as a possible way to normalize citation counts between fields of research having different citation cultures. It belongs to the âciting-sideâ approach to normalization. We focus on the properties characterizing this way of counting citations when it comes to ranking authors. Our analysis is conducted within a formal framework that is more complex but also more realistic than the one usually adopted in most axiomatic analyses of this kind
A polymorphism at IGF1 locus is associated with anemia
In vitro and in vivo studies suggest that IGF-1 has a role in erythropoiesis. There is evidence that the rs35767 C/T polymorphism near IGF1 is associated with plasma IGF-1 levels. We investigated the effect of this polymorphism on hemoglobin (Hb) concentration and anemia. The study group comprised 3286 adult Whites. The rs35767 polymorphism was screened using a TaqMan allelic discrimination assay. The rs35767 polymorphism was not associated with age, gender, BMI, waist circumference, smoking, blood pressure, plasma glucose, HbA1c, type 2 diabetes, HOMA-IR, hsCRP, eGFR, and lipid profile. Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), fibrinogen, and fasting insulin levels were significantly lower in TT genotype carriers compared with C allele carriers. Hb concentration was significantly higher in carriers of the TT genotype compared with C allele carriers, and a lower proportion of TT carriers had anemia. As compared with TT genotype carriers, those bearing the CC genotype had a 2.4-fold higher risk of anemia (OR 2.40, 95%CI 1.19-4.82), and those with the CT genotype had a 2.0-fold higher risk of anemia (OR 2.06, 95%CI 1.04-4.11). The association remained significant when fasting insulin, eGFR, smoking, diabetes, ACE inhibitors, sartans or diuretics treatments, use of metformin and pioglitazone were added to the model, but its independence was not retained after inclusion of fibrinogen and ESR values into the model. In conclusion, rs35767 TT allele carriers exhibited significantly higher concentrations of Hb, and lower risk of anemia compared with C allele carriers supporting the idea that IGF-1 plays a role in erythropoiesis homeostasis
- âŠ