The present value of the "half-life'' In the citation-material of natural sciences' periodicals

Abstract

The trend of quantification gaining ground today vigorously in social sciences has made its entrance into the informatics too: results of the process are represented by the quantification-theory of obsolescence of special literature and by its indices.
The author is undertaking a general critical review of the theory of the informatics now in vogue and of its indices. The examination is directed by two aapects, a formal-statistical on the one hand and that concerning contents and theory on the other; it is carried out on three depth (macro-, meso- and micro-) levels. The present study gives the first results of the formal-statiatical examination of the "half-life" concept according Burton-Kebler and of the "novelty-factor" according Popilov, made on the macro-level.
The exsmination treats the citation-material of 1969 issue (in certain cases only of its significant part) of 46 periodicals in natural sciences selected according different points of view and containing primary information. Among them there are 3 furnishing quick publications in natural sciences in general, 22 are dealing with basic science, 17 with geo-sciences and 4 with cosmological sciences. Regarding the place of publication: 30 of them are European (resp. international periodicals published in Europe), 15 are American (USA) and 1 of them ia Asian (Japanese).
The dated and processed citation-material consists of 152.709 citations. In the course of processing the age of citations was stated - unlike earlier similar investigations - with an accuracy to the year, data were then arranged in group-intervals of 1 year and the indices expressed in years were computed arithmetically with full precision. Thus, they can not be compared immediately with the results of Brown, Burten and Kebler obtained from data-surveys of a decade-accuracy at best and with approximative numerical calculations.
Determination of the indices and their valuation was carried out on the level of periodicals, resp. on that of the sciences and groups of sciences. On that level a statistical analysis of the indices is already able to demonstrate some facts and tendencies, but it can not indicate factors lying in the depth under this level. The indices are displayed in Table III.
Main results of the statistical analysis are:
=A= Neither the factual values of "half-life" of the citation-material (FI), nor those of its "average-age" (ÁÉ) support the boldly sceptical and anxiously proud declarations being common in our days concerning high level knowledge-material, resp. special literature getting obsolescence in a few years.
=B= The "t-faktor" of Popilov and the reality of its valuetable were not verified by the citation-material under discussion. The "half-life value of Popilov" (2,5 years) as index of the mean speed or obsolescence of informations and of special literature is baselessly low, i.e. it is supposing a speedy rate of obsolescence which is completely lacking of reality.
=C= Both the FI-indices taken by periodicals and the ÁÉ-indices weighed by periodicals show a very wide scattering. The variance shows a very high value within the individual science-groups and even within single sciences.
=D= Neither the FI- and ÁÉ-indices, nor their variance does show any connection with the publication place of the periodicals, or with their publication-age, or with the mean length or articles, or with the average size of the citation-material of them. Moreover, the Fl-index taken by periodicals has neither a strong, nor an unequivocal connection with "the half value of the average-age" (AE) weighed by periodicals, though it is longer in general.
=E= The fact is that periodicals of the basic sciences of nature show lower values of FI- and ÁÉ-indices, than those of the geo-sciences. At the same time, there is a tendency wlthin the two great groups of nutural sciences for a strong increase of the values of these indices in the citation-materials, if we proceed from the sciences of movements of inanimate nature towards sciences of movements of lively nature on the one hand and from the planetary and atmospherical geo-sciences towards those of the lithosphere. At the same time - parallel to this increase - the variance of the valuea of these indices does also increase and that more intensely in the geo-sciences than in the basic ones.