EQUATING RESEARCH PRODUCTION IN DIFFERENT SCIENTIFIC FIELDS

Diffusion in a scientific field is regarded as the dissemination of kn owledge, channeled through citations that are distributed over differe nt periods of time and propagated by means of scientific journals. Her e it is considered to be a latent variable defined by a particular Set of items (the citations made in different fields) and the Quantum Mea surement technique is used as an instrument for measuring that variabl e on an objective scale. The different scientific fields thereby equip arated according to their diffusion. The citations generated by articl es belonging to these fields were collected from the SCI/SSCI JCR of I SI (Science Citation Index/Social Science Citation Index Journal Citat ion Reports of Institute for Scientific Information). The final result is an equivalence table of citations between the areas of research. ( C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.