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Memorias del Instituto de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Salud
On-line version ISSN 1812-9528
Abstract
CACERES-RUIZ DIAZ, Mariana. Scientific productivity of categorized researchers of the area of medical and health sciences: application of the Lotka’s mathematical model. Mem. Inst. Investig. Cienc. Salud [online]. 2019, vol.17, n.2, pp.44-55. ISSN 1812-9528. https://doi.org/10.18004/mem.iics/1812-9528/2019.017.02.44-055.
Lotka's mathematical model describes the relationship between authors and their productivity within an area of science. This study was carried out with the aim of verifying that the behavior of the scientific productivity of the researchers in the area of Medical Sciences and Health, categorized to 2016 in the National Program of Incentive to Researchers (PRONII), complies with the model mathematical of Lotka. To this purpose, the publications hosted in the Web of Science were considered in which they appear as the first author, applying the criterion of first authorship as the model's formulator did, and with affiliation to Paraguayan institutions. The model was applied to 236 publications generated by 77 researchers, observing that 21 of them had a single publication. It was found that the observed data did not conform to the model proposed by Lotka. This motivated the selection of 70 of the 77 researchers initially analyzed. The overall form of the Lotka's model was applied to the productivity of these 70 researchers and the data was found to fit the model. It was observed that out of every 10 researchers sampled only four had a single publication, fact that could suppose a limited existence of occasional authors. These findings are important because they show the behavior of the relationship between the researcher and his & her productivity. In addition, through the established model it is possible under certain conditions to make predictions of the number of researchers with a certain number of publications.
Keywords : Productivity of scientific authors; Lotka´s mathematical model; Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test; PRONII.