Abstract
So far all the formulas or equations for the bibliographic scattering have been derived or formulated through item approach. As such, the selection is not randomised and there can not be any empty source. A source approach has been presented here with minimum of assumptions and conditions. An equation of scattering distribution is derived. If there areM sources andN items, the probability or the relative frequency of the sources withith group items is given byW(i) KM −i=C M −i exp(γM+βM). Suggestions and procedures for experimental verifications have been sketched. Derivations from Bose-Einstein statistics with Gibrat's law1 2 have been discussed and compared.
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Such a formulation is not explicitely shown except in this present paper. However similar geometric forms are either assumed or discussed often in the literature e. g. S. K. SEN, R. KUNDRA, Bibliometrics of alcohol fuel literature in English a new equation of scatter,Scientometrics, 10 (1986) 43.
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Ifi is taken as the rank then a ranked order is established and a rank-frequency organisation is generated. Then there cannot be anyM i =0 to appear in the calculation and no saving clause is required.
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Sen, S.K. Bibliographic scattering: A generalised source approach. Scientometrics 17, 197–204 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02026409
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02026409