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Probing the h-core: an investigation of the tail–core ratio for rank distributions

Scientometrics volume 84, pages 431–439 (2010)Cite this article

Abstract

The set of citations received by a set of publications consists of citations received by articles in the h-core and citations received by articles in the h-tail. Denoting the cardinalities of these fours sets as C, P, C H and C T we introduce the tail-core ratio (C T/C H) and show that in practical cases this ratio tends to increase. Introducing further the k-index, defined as k = (C/P)/(C T/C H), we show that this index decreases in most practical cases. A power law model is in accordance with these practical observations.

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Acknowledgements

Fred Y. Ye’s work is supported by a grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC Grant No. 70773101), while Ronald Rousseau’s work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China Grant No. 70673019. The authors thank graduate student Jianhui Tang for assistance in data collection and Leo Egghe for checking the power law calculations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Resources Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Fred Y. Ye

  2. Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China, Beijing, China

    Fred Y. Ye

  3. Department of Industrial Sciences and Technology, KHBO (Association K.U.Leuven), Zeedijk 101, 8400, Oostende, Belgium

    Ronald Rousseau

  4. Department of Mathematics, K.U.Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200B, 3001, Heverlee, Leuven, Belgium

    Ronald Rousseau

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  1. Fred Y. Ye
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  2. Ronald Rousseau
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Correspondence to Ronald Rousseau.

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Ye, F.Y., Rousseau, R. Probing the h-core: an investigation of the tail–core ratio for rank distributions. Scientometrics 84, 431–439 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-009-0099-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-009-0099-6

Keywords

  • h-Index
  • h-Core
  • h-Tail
  • Tail–core ratio
  • v-Index
  • k-Index