Paolo Prosperi

How to read these numbers

Technical definitions of the indicators on this profile. They describe how papers circulate in the indexed literature: they do not measure their quality, originality or usefulness.

h-index

The largest h such that at least h papers have received at least h citations each. It grows slowly and never goes back; it rewards steady output more than a single highly cited paper.

g-index

The largest g such that the g most cited papers add up to at least g² citations. Unlike the h-index it accounts for how much the top papers are cited. Computed excluding reviews: a review collects citations because of its review function, and a single one can shift the result by several points.

i10-index

Number of papers with at least ten citations.

Career years

reference year − year of the first indexed paper + 1

They are counted from the first indexed paper, not from appointment: it measures activity in the literature, not seniority. Those who published during their PhD have a career longer than their position.

m-quotient

h-index ÷ career years

Relates the h-index to career length. It avoids comparing a newcomer with someone who has published for thirty years: an h of 12 after eight years and an h of 12 after thirty describe different trajectories. In the field the median is 0.79 and half of the researchers lie between 0.50 and 1.12. The bar below the value shows the gap from the median and stops at double: 42 people out of 494 are above that threshold.

It remains an indicator of citation volume divided by time. It does not distinguish those who changed field, had interruptions, or work on topics with slow citation cycles.

Topic diversity

H = −Σ p_k · ln p_k

Shannon entropy computed on keywords, where p_k is the share of the k-th keyword in the person's output. It is high for those who touch many subjects in a balanced way, low for those who focus. In the field it ranges from 0 to 6.15: half of the researchers lie between 3.88 and 4.97, the median is 4.57. The bar below the value shows the gap from the median, with the vertical tick marking it: it reads like the bar of the specialisation index, further down this page.

There is no good value. Focusing on a few topics and ranging over many are two legitimate ways of doing research, and this number does not decide which is better.

Autonomy

min(200 ; 100 ÷ mean co-authors)

Inverse index of the mean size of the author team. It is 100 for those who sign with one co-author on average, 50 with two, 33 with three; it rises above 100 for those who often sign alone, and the cap at 200 keeps a few single-author papers from dominating the scale. Co-authors are counted on Scopus identifiers, not names: two authors with the same surname and initial would appear as one.

It describes a disciplinary habit more than an individual choice. In experimental sciences twenty authors are the norm, in agricultural economics much less so: comparing the two worlds with this number would make no sense.

Co-authors in the field

People of the 07/AGRI-01 field with whom the person has signed at least one paper. External co-authors, who are the majority, are not counted.

Mean SJR and Q1 share

SJR is the outlet prestige indicator computed by SCImago; the quartile places the journal within its category. The Q1 share is the percentage of papers published in first-quartile journals. They concern the outlet, not the single paper: a rarely cited article in a Q1 journal remains rarely cited.

Papers in the top 5% most cited

The comparison is made within the publication year, because a 2010 paper has had fifteen years to collect citations and a 2024 one has not. For each year the papers of the corpus are taken, excluding reviews, and the threshold is the number of citations of the paper in position ⌈n × 5%⌉. Years not yet concluded are excluded.

Sources and limitations

Bibliographic data from Scopus (Elsevier), quartiles and SJR from SCImago. Each profile is built from a Scopus author identifier: a duplicate, incomplete or contaminated profile affects all indicators. If something looks wrong, it can be reported from the personal area.

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