Abstract
We examine the role of count conservation when derived network matrices are obtained from linked network matrices using an outer product decomposition. It is seen that a full counting operation conserves the count of pathways between nodal variables while a fractional counting operation conserves the count of the nodal variable. We use the cases of co-referencing (bibliographic coupling) and co-citation with a simple citation network to illustrate the ideas.
References
Batagelj, V. (2020). On fractional approach to analysis of linked networks. Scientometrics,12, 621–633. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03383-y.
Batagelj, V., & Cerinsek, M. (2013). On bibliographic networks. Scientometrics,96(3), 845–864.
Cerinsek, M., & Batagelj, V. (2015). Network analysis of Zentralblatt MATH data. Scientometrics,102(1), 977–1001.
Griffith, B. C., Small, H. G., Stonehill, J. G., & Dey, S. (1974). The structure of scientific literatures: Toward a macro- and micro-structure for science. Science Studies,4, 339–365.
Kessler, M. M. (1963). Bibliographic coupling between scientific papers. American Documentation,14(1), 10–25.
Krauze, T. K., & McGinnis, R. (1979). A matric analysis of scientific specialities and careers in science. Scientometrics,1(5–6), 419–444.
Lempel, R., & Moran, S. (2001). SALSA: The stochastic approach for link-structure analysis. ACM Transactions on Information Systems,19(2), 131–160.
Leydesdorff, L., & Park, H. W. (2017). Full and fractional counting in bibliometric networks. Journal of Informetrics,11(1), 117–120.
Marshakova, I. (1973). System of documentation connections based on references. Nauchno-Tekhnicheskaya Informatsiya Seriya,2(6), 3–8.
Perianes-Rodriguez, A., Waltman, L., & Van Eck, N. J. (2016). Constructing bibliometric networks: a comparison between full and fractional counting. Journal of Informetrics,10(4), 1178–1195.
Prathap, G. & Mukherjee, S. (2016). A conservation rule for constructing bibliometric network matrices. arXiv:1611.08592
Small, H. (1973). Co-citation in the scientific literature: A new measure of the relationship between two documents. Journal of the American Society for Information Science,24(4), 265–269.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Prathap, G., Mukherjee, S. Letter to the Editor: Comments on the paper of Batagelj—on fractional approach to analysis of linked networks. Scientometrics 124, 2717–2722 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03541-2
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-020-03541-2