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Agent-based model for the h-index – exact solution

The European Physical Journal B volume 89, Article number: 21 (2016) Cite this article

Abstract

Hirsch’s h-index is perhaps the most popular citation-based measure of scientific excellence. In 2013, Ionescu and Chopard proposed an agent-based model describing a process for generating publications and citations in an abstract scientific community [G. Ionescu, B. Chopard, Eur. Phys. J. B 86, 426 (2013)]. Within such a framework, one may simulate a scientist’s activity, and – by extension – investigate the whole community of researchers. Even though the Ionescu and Chopard model predicts the h-index quite well, the authors provided a solution based solely on simulations. In this paper, we complete their results with exact, analytic formulas. What is more, by considering a simplified version of the Ionescu-Chopard model, we obtained a compact, easy to compute formula for the h-index. The derived approximate and exact solutions are investigated on a simulated and real-world data sets.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Newelska 6, 01-447, Warsaw, Poland

    Barbara Żogała-Siudem, Anna Cena & Marek Gagolewski

  2. Institute of Computer Science, Polish Academy of Sciences,, International Ph.D. Studies Program, 01-248, Warsaw, Poland

    Barbara Żogała-Siudem & Anna Cena

  3. Faculty of Physics, Warsaw University of Technology, ul. Koszykowa 75, 00-662, Warsaw, Poland

    Grzegorz Siudem

  4. Faculty of Mathematics and Information Science, Warsaw University of Technology, ul. Koszykowa 75, 00-662, Warsaw, Poland

    Marek Gagolewski

Authors
  1. Barbara Żogała-Siudem
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  2. Grzegorz Siudem
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  3. Anna Cena
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  4. Marek Gagolewski
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Grzegorz Siudem.

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Żogała-Siudem, B., Siudem, G., Cena, A. et al. Agent-based model for the h-index – exact solution. Eur. Phys. J. B 89, 21 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2015-60757-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2015-60757-1

Keywords

  • Statistical and Nonlinear Physics