IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v119y2019i1d10.1007_s11192-019-03020-3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Balance: a thermodynamic perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Gangan Prathap

    (A P J Abdul Kalam Technological University)

Abstract

Balance (or evenness) as used in conventional approaches to measuring diversity needs careful definition. Nijssen et al. (Coenoses 13(1):33–38, 1998) used a mathematical approach to show that the Lorenz curve is an adequate representation of evenness and proposed that the Gini coefficient is a perfect indicator of balance. In this paper, we take an alternative thermodynamic perspective that leads to a very simple dimensionless measure of balance that ranges from 0 (perfect balance or evenness) to 1 (perfect unevenness or absolute concentration). It has the expected permutation invariance, scaling invariance, and replication invariance properties of a good evenness indicator and also has sensitivity to the transfer requirements (i.e. sensing the entropy changes correctly). It also has a naturalness property.

Suggested Citation

  • Gangan Prathap, 2019. "Balance: a thermodynamic perspective," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(1), pages 247-255, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:119:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-019-03020-3
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-019-03020-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-019-03020-3
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-019-03020-3?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gangan Prathap, 2011. "The Energy–Exergy–Entropy (or EEE) sequences in bibliometric assessment," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 87(3), pages 515-524, June.
    2. Andy Stirling, 2007. "A General Framework for Analysing Diversity in Science, Technology and Society," SPRU Working Paper Series 156, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    3. Qiuju Zhou & Ronald Rousseau & Liying Yang & Ting Yue & Guoliang Yang, 2012. "A general framework for describing diversity within systems and similarity between systems with applications in informetrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 93(3), pages 787-812, December.
    4. Lin Zhang & Ronald Rousseau & Wolfgang Glänzel, 2016. "Diversity of references as an indicator of the interdisciplinarity of journals: Taking similarity between subject fields into account," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 67(5), pages 1257-1265, May.
    5. Ismael Rafols & Martin Meyer, 2010. "Diversity and network coherence as indicators of interdisciplinarity: case studies in bionanoscience," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 82(2), pages 263-287, February.
    6. Ronald Rousseau, 2018. "The repeat rate: from Hirschman to Stirling," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(1), pages 645-653, July.
    7. Loet Leydesdorff & Dieter Franz Kogler & Bowen Yan, 2017. "Mapping patent classifications: portfolio and statistical analysis, and the comparison of strengths and weaknesses," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 112(3), pages 1573-1591, September.
    8. Loet Leydesdorff, 2018. "Diversity and interdisciplinarity: how can one distinguish and recombine disparity, variety, and balance?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(3), pages 2113-2121, September.
    9. Leo Egghe, 2004. "The source-item coverage of the Lotka function," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 61(1), pages 103-115, September.
    10. Gangan Prathap, 2014. "Quantity, quality, and consistency as bibliometric indicators," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 65(1), pages 214-214, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gangan Prathap, 2023. "Letter to the editor: Measure measure on the wall who is the fairest of them all?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(1), pages 871-872, January.
    2. Deming Lin & Tianhui Gong & Wenbin Liu & Martin Meyer, 2020. "An entropy-based measure for the evolution of h index research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2283-2298, December.
    3. Gangan Prathap, 2023. "Letter to the Editor: Comments on the paper of Safón and Docampo: what are you reading? From core journals to trendy journals in the Library and Information Science (LIS) field," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(7), pages 4137-4142, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Leydesdorff, Loet & Wagner, Caroline S. & Bornmann, Lutz, 2019. "Interdisciplinarity as diversity in citation patterns among journals: Rao-Stirling diversity, relative variety, and the Gini coefficient," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 255-269.
    2. Loet Leydesdorff, 2018. "Diversity and interdisciplinarity: how can one distinguish and recombine disparity, variety, and balance?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(3), pages 2113-2121, September.
    3. Kim, Hyeyoung & Park, Hyelin & Song, Min, 2022. "Developing a topic-driven method for interdisciplinarity analysis," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    4. Shiji Chen & Yanhui Song & Fei Shu & Vincent Larivière, 2022. "Interdisciplinarity and impact: the effects of the citation time window," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(5), pages 2621-2642, May.
    5. Giulio Giacomo Cantone, 2024. "How to measure interdisciplinary research? A systemic design for the model of measurement," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(8), pages 4937-4982, August.
    6. Andrea Zielinski, 2022. "Impact of model settings on the text-based Rao diversity index," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(12), pages 7751-7768, December.
    7. Xiaojing Cai & Xiaozan Lyu & Ping Zhou, 2023. "The relationship between interdisciplinarity and citation impact—a novel perspective on citation accumulation," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-12, December.
    8. Xuefeng Wang & Zhinan Wang & Ying Huang & Yun Chen & Yi Zhang & Huichao Ren & Rongrong Li & Jinhui Pang, 2017. "Measuring interdisciplinarity of a research system: detecting distinction between publication categories and citation categories," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(3), pages 2023-2039, June.
    9. Chen, Shiji & Qiu, Junping & Arsenault, Clément & Larivière, Vincent, 2021. "Exploring the interdisciplinarity patterns of highly cited papers," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1).
    10. Guoyang Rong & Changling Li & Zhijian Zhang & Shuaipu Chen & Yuxing Qian, 2024. "Investigating the application of work–energy metaphor in interdisciplinary citation analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(6), pages 3573-3591, June.
    11. Loet Leydesdorff & Inga Ivanova, 2021. "The measurement of “interdisciplinarity” and “synergy” in scientific and extra‐scientific collaborations," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 72(4), pages 387-402, April.
    12. Hou, Jianhua & Li, Hao & Zhang, Yang, 2024. "Influence of interdisciplinarity of scientific papers on the durability of citation diffusion: A perspective from citation discontinuance," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3).
    13. Ronald Rousseau, 2018. "The repeat rate: from Hirschman to Stirling," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(1), pages 645-653, July.
    14. Shiji Chen & Kaiqi Zhang & Junping Qiu & Jiaqi Chai, 2024. "Interdisciplinarity and expert rating: an analysis based on faculty opinions," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(11), pages 6597-6628, November.
    15. Jian Xu & Yi Bu & Ying Ding & Sinan Yang & Hongli Zhang & Chen Yu & Lin Sun, 2018. "Understanding the formation of interdisciplinary research from the perspective of keyword evolution: a case study on joint attention," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(2), pages 973-995, November.
    16. Loet Leydesdorff & Dieter Franz Kogler & Bowen Yan, 2017. "Mapping patent classifications: portfolio and statistical analysis, and the comparison of strengths and weaknesses," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 112(3), pages 1573-1591, September.
    17. Xian Li & Ronald Rousseau & Liming Liang & Fangjie Xi & Yushuang Lü & Yifan Yuan & Xiaojun Hu, 2022. "Is low interdisciplinarity of references an unexpected characteristic of Nobel Prize winning research?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(4), pages 2105-2122, April.
    18. Yury Dranev & Maxim Kotsemir & Boris Syomin, 2018. "Diversity of research publications: relation to agricultural productivity and possible implications for STI policy," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(3), pages 1565-1587, September.
    19. Xin Liu & Yi Bu & Ming Li & Jiang Li, 2024. "Monodisciplinary collaboration disrupts science more than multidisciplinary collaboration," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 75(1), pages 59-78, January.
    20. Alfonso Ávila-Robinson & Cristian Mejia & Shintaro Sengoku, 2021. "Are bibliometric measures consistent with scientists’ perceptions? The case of interdisciplinarity in research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(9), pages 7477-7502, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:119:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-019-03020-3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.