Abstract :
Like most activities in the world, scientific evolution has
its own rhythm. How can this evolutionary rhythm be described
and made visible? Do different fields have different
rhythms, and how can they be measured? In order to
answer these questions a relative indicator, called R-sequence,
was designed. This indicator is time dependent,
derived from publication and citation data, but
independent of the absolute number of publications, as
well as the absolute number of citations, and can therefore
be used in a comparison of different scientific fields,
nations, institutes, or journals. Two calculation methods
of the R-sequence—the triangle method and the parallelogram
method—are introduced. As a case study
JASIS(T)’s R-sequence has been obtained.
