The size and impact of the elite set of publications in scientometric assessments

Abstract

Several scientometric impact indicators [total citations, h, g, and ź-index, percentage rank position (PRP), weighted citation share (WCS)] of 190 elite papers of 15 members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences active in three different fields were calculated. From the indices the PRP indicator proved to be independent of the citation practices in the fields. The PRP index of a journal paper can be calculated in per cent as unity minus (the rank number of the paper by citation frequency within the publishing journal minus one divided with the total number of papers in the journal) times hundred. The sum of the PRP index of the elite papers of a scientist may characterize his or her total publication performance. The size of the elite set of journal papers within the total was calculated by different methods. The h-index and g-index corresponds to the size of the elite, i.e. number of the elite papers according to the h-statistics and g-statistics, respectively. The number of papers in the ź-set is equal to the square root of total papers. The ź-index equals to one hundredth of citations to the ź-set papers. In the present paper the size of the elite set is determined as the number of papers in the h-set, g-set, or ź-set, and as 10 % of total papers, or number of papers cited 2, 3, or 5 times the mean citation rate (MCR) of the publishing journal. The ź-citation threshold model is presented for demonstrating how MCR and the distribution of citations over the papers may influence the size of the elite set and the corresponding ź-index. It was found that the scientific performances concluded from the ź-index obtained from elite sets of different size are in good agreement.