Power-law distributions for the citation index of scientific publications and scientists
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Data
2005-12-01
Autores
Gupta, Hari M. [UNESP]
Campanha, José R. [UNESP]
Pesce, Rosana A. G. [UNESP]
Título da Revista
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Título de Volume
Editor
Sociedade Brasileira de Física
Resumo
The number of citations of a scientific publication or of an individual scientist has become an important factor of quality assessment in science. We report a study of the statistical distribution of the citation index of both scientific publications and scientists. We give numerical evidence that Tsallis (power law) statistics explains the entire distribution over eight orders of magnitude (10-4 to 10(4)). Also, we draw Zipf plots in order to analyze the statistical distribution of the citation index of Brazilian and international physicists and chemists. The relatively small group of Brazilian scientists seems more adequate to explain the dynamics of the citation index. In this case, we find that the distribution of the citation index can also be explained by a gradually truncated power law with similar parameters. We finally discuss possible mechanisms behind the citation index of scientists and scientific publications.
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Brazilian Journal of Physics. Sociedade Brasileira de Física, v. 35, n. 4a, p. 981-986, 2005.