On the Dynamics of the $h-$index in Complex Networks with Coexisting Communities

Abstract

This article investigates the evolution of the $h-$index in a complex network including two communities (in the sense of having different features) with the same number of authors whose yearly productions follow the Zipf's law. Models considering indiscriminate citations, as well as citations preferential to the fitness values of each community and/or the number of existing citations are proposed and numerically simulated. The $h-$indices of each type of author is estimated along a period of 20 years, while the number of authors remains constant. Interesting results are obtained including the fact that, for the model where citations are preferential to both community fitness and number of existing citations per article, the $h-$indices of the community with the largest fitness value are only moderately increased while the indices of the other community are severely and irreversibly limited to low values. Three possible strategies are discussed in order to change this situation. In addition, based on such findings, a new version of the $h-$index is proposed involving the automated identification of virtual citations which can provide complementary and unbiased quantification of the relevance of scientific works.