Explains numerous informetric regularities based on a decreasing power law as size-frequency function, i.e. Lotka's law. It revives the historical formulation of Alfred Lotka of 1926 and shows the power of this power law, both in classical aspects of informetrics (libraries, bibliographies) and in 'new' applications such as social networks.

Scientometrics have become an essential element in the practice and evaluation of science and research, including both the evaluation of individuals and national assessment exercises. Yet, researchers and practitioners in this field have lacked clear theories to guide their work. As early as 1981, then doctoral student Blaise Cronin published "The need for a theory of citing" —a call to arms for the fledgling scientometric community to produce foundational theories upon which the work of the field could be based. More than three decades later, the time has come to reach out the field again and ask how they have responded to this call. This book compiles the foundational theories that guide informetrics and scholarly communication research. It is a much needed compilation by leading scholars in the field that gathers together the theories that guide our understanding of authorship, citing, and impact.

Through different theoretical and analyses glasses, this book critically examines the organization of knowledge as it is involved in matters of digital communication, the social, cultural, and political consequences of classifying, and how particular historical contexts shape ideas of information and what information to classify and record.

This book presents scientific metrics and its applications for approaching scientific findings in the field of Physics, Economics and Scientometrics. Based on a collection of the author’s publications in these fields, the book reveals the profound links between the measures and the findings in the natural laws, from micro-particles to macro-cosmos, in the economic rules of human society, and in the core knowledge among mass information. With this book the readers can gain insights or ideas on addressing the questions of how to measure the physical world, economics process and human knowledge, from the perspective of scientific metrics. The book is also useful to scientists, particularly to specialists in physics, economics and scientometrics, for promoting and stimulating their creative ideas based on scientific metrics.

"Bibliometrics and altmetrics are increasingly becoming the focus of interest in the context of research evaluation. The Handbook Bibliometrics provides a comprehensive introduction to quantifying scientific output in addition to a historical derivation, individual indicators, institutions, application perspectives and data bases. Furthermore, application scenarios, training and qualification on bibliometrics and their implications are considered"--Publisher's website.

What it takes to be a genius: nine essential and contradictory ingredients. What does it take to be a genius? A high score on an IQ test? Brilliant physicist Richard Feynman's IQ was too low for membership in Mensa. Suffering from varying degrees of mental illness? Creativity is often considered a marker of mental health. Be a child prodigy like Mozart, or a later bloomer like Beethoven? Die tragically young, like Keats, or live to a ripe old age like Goethe? In The Genius Checklist, Dean Keith Simonton examines the key factors in creative genius and finds that they are more than a little contradictory. Simonton, who has studied creativity and genius for more than four decades, draws on both scientific research and stories from the lives of famous creative geniuses that range from Isaac Newton to Vincent van Gogh to Virginia Woolf. He explains the origin of IQ tests and the art of estimating the IQ of long-dead historical figures (John Stuart Mill: 200; Charles Darwin: 160). He compares IQ scores with achieved eminence as measures of genius, and he draws a distinction between artistic and scientific genius. He rules out birth order as a determining factor (in the James family alone, three geniuses at three different birth-order positions: William James, firs-tborn; Henry James, second born; Alice James, born fifth and last); considers Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule; and describes how the “lone” genius gets enmeshed in social networks. Genius, Simonton explains, operates in ways so subtle that they seem contradictory. Genius is born and made, the domain of child prodigies and their elders. Simonton's checklist gives us a new, integrative way to understand geniuses—and perhaps even to nurture your own genius!

"This book explores the origin, structure, purpose, and function of socially interactive technologies known as social software"--Provided by publisher.