On Fractional Approach to Analysis of Linked Networks

In this paper, we present the outer product decomposition of a product of compatible linked networks. It provides a foundation for the fractional approach in network analysis. We discuss the standard and Newman's normalization of networks. We propose some alternatives for fractional bibliographic coupling measures

First-mover advantage explains gender disparities in physics citations

Mounting evidence suggests that publications and citations of scholars in the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) suffer from gender biases. In this paper, we study the physics community, a core STEM field in which women are still largely underrepresented and where these gender disparities persist. To reveal such inequalities, we compare the citations received by papers led by men and women that cover the same topics in a comparable way. To do that, we devise a robust statistical measure of similarity between publications that enables us to detect pairs of similar papers. Our findings indicate that although papers written by women tend to have lower visibility in the citation network, pairs of similar papers written by men and women receive comparable attention when corrected for the time of publication. These analyses suggest that gender disparity is closely related to the first-mover and cumulative advantage that men have in physics, and is not an intentional act of discrimination towards women.Comment: 21 pages, 8 tables, 10 figure

Letter to the Editor: Comments on the paper of Batagelj—on fractional approach to analysis of linked networks

We examine the role of count conservation when derived network matrices are obtained from linked network matrices using an outer product decomposition. It is seen that a full counting operation conserves the count of pathways between nodal variables while a fractional counting operation conserves the count of the nodal variable. We use the cases of co-referencing (bibliographic coupling) and co-citation with a simple citation network to illustrate the ideas