JSCIRES RESEARCH ARTICLE

Cahit Arf: Exploring his scientific influence using

social network analysis, author co‑citation maps and
single publication h index1
Yaşar Tonta*, A. Esra Özkan Çelik1

Department of Information Management, Faculty of Letters, Hacettepe University, 06800 Beytepe, Ankara, Turkey,
1
Registrar’s Office, Hacettepe University, 06800 Beytepe, Ankara, Turkey

ABSTRACT

Cahit Arf (1910-1997), a famous Turkish scientist whose picture is depicted in one of the Turkish banknotes, is a
well‑known figure in mathematics with his discoveries named after him (e.g., Arf invariant, Arf rings, the Hasse‑Arf
theorem). Although Arf may not be considered as a prolific scientist in terms of number of papers (he authored a total
of 23 papers), his influence on mathematics and related disciplines was profound. As he was active before, during,
and after World War II, Arf’s contributions are not properly listed in citation indexes, and thus did not generate many
citations even though several papers with “Arf” in their titles appeared in literature. This paper traces influence of Arf in
scientific world using citation analysis techniques first. It reviews scientific impact of Arf by analyzing both; the papers
authored by Arf and papers whose titles or keywords containing various combinations of “Arf invariant,” “Arf rings,” and
so on. The paper then goes on to study Arf’s contributions using social network analysis (SNA) and author co‑citation
analysis (ACA) techniques. CiteSpace and pennant diagrams are used to explore scientific impact of Arf by mapping his
cited references derived from Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science (WoS) database. The direct and indirect influences of
Arf’s highly cited paper on Arf invariant are assessed through ACA and single publication h index, respectively. The paper
ends with a discussion of whether data analysis techniques used in this study can be useful to study scientific impact
of researchers retrospectively.

Keywords: Author co‑citation analysis, Cahit Arf, CiteSpace, pennant diagrams, single publication h index, social
network analysis

INTRODUCTION his family migrated to Istanbul in 1912, then to Ankara,

and finally settled in Izmir. As a brilliant student, Arf
Cahit Arf is a world‑renowned Turkish mathematician successfully completed the École Normale Supérieure in
who has significant discoveries to his credit, which still Paris in 2 years and then worked as a teacher at Galatasaray
are in use today such as “Arf invariant”, “Arf rings”, and High School for a year with great willingness. In 1933, he
“Arf closure”. He was born in Selanik (Thessaloniki) on joined the Mathematics Department of Istanbul University
February 18, 1910. With the outbreak of Balkan Wars, as an assistant professor and finally began to work as
a mathematician for academic purposes. Starting from
*Address for correspondence: 1933, Istanbul University became home to many German
E‑mail: [email protected] emigrated scientists who fled the Nazi regime in Germany.
Access this article online
Among them were distinguished mathematicians such as
Quick Response Code:
Richard von Mises, William Prager, and Hilda Geiringer.[1,2]
Website: Reisman [3] provides more information on Turkey’s
www.jscires.org
1. This is a slightly revised version of the paper presented at COLLNET
DOI: 2011: 7th International Conference on Webometrics, Informetrics
10.4103/2320-0057.115890 and Scientometrics (WIS), September 20‑23, Istanbul, Turkey.
It appeared in the conference proceedings CD‑ROM (pp. 499‑521).

J Scientometric Res. | Jan–Apr 2013 | Vol 2 | Issue 1 37

 Tonta and Özkan Çelik: Cahit Arf and his influence in mathematics

modernization of its higher education system in 1933 and the

involvement of some 190 German scientists in this process.

In 1937, Arf went to Göttingen to have his PhD degree

under the supervision of Professor Helmut Hasse. He
completed his doctoral studies in 1.5 years (1938); the
Hasse‑Arf theorem was an outcome of his doctoral
thesis. After completing his PhD, he stayed in Göttingen
one more year at the request of Professor Hasse [4]
and began to study on quadratic forms over a field of Figure 1: Professor Cahit Arf ’s portrait graces the reverse of
characteristic two to improve the theory established by the 10 Turkish lira banknote
Ernst Witt (1937).[5] In 1941, Arf published the results of
bear Cahit Arf ’s name: “Cahit Arf Information Center”
his study and completed the theoretical gap by introducing
in Ankara (http://www.ulakbim.gov.tr/eng/cabim/) and
an important invariant of quadratic forms over a field of
“Cahit Arf Library” in Kocaeli nearby Istanbul (http://
characteristic two.[6] This invariant is known as the Arf
www.mam.gov.tr/kutuphane/).
invariant. It is the key to solution of several classical and
fundamental problems about topology of manifolds. For Within his 87 years life time, Arf was well known for
Arf, it was his introduction to the international world of the Arf invariant, Arf rings, Arf semi‑groups, and the
mathematics.[7,8] In 1948, Arf published another significant Hasse‑Arf theorem, among others. This paper aims to
contribution in the Proceedings of the London Mathematical study the influence of Cahit Arf ’s papers retrospectively
Society.[9] The most significant follow up to Arf ’s paper by means of a combination of citation and ACA, social
came from Lipman[10] who was the first mathematician to network analysis (SNA), and single publication h index.
mention “Arf rings” in the literature.[11] Papers that referred to Arf ’s contributions in their titles
and topics were identified, and an ACA was carried out.
Besides his many significant discoveries in mathematics,
CiteSpace was used to find out Arf ’s place in mathematics
Professor Arf worked in Istanbul University until
and his impact on the basis of bibliometric analysis, ACA,
his involvement, on invitation, in the foundation of
and pennant diagrams.[13,14] The indirect influence of
the Scientific and Technological Research Council of
Arf ’s seminal paper was calculated using Schubert’s single
Turkey (TUBITAK). He served as the head of TUBITAK’s publication h index.[15] We discuss the consequences of such
Science Council between 1963 and 1967. In 1963, he an approach and conclude that ACA, pennant diagrams,
joined the Mathematics Department of Robert College and single publication h index can shed further light on
in Istanbul and worked at the Institute for Advanced the influence of authors and help put their works in full
Studies in Princeton, New Jersey, for 2 years. While at perspective.
Princeton, he was invited to spend a year at the University
of California at Berkeley as a visiting scholar. Then, he LITERATURE REVIEW
made his final return to Turkey, joined the Mathematics
Department of the Middle East Technical University and SNA is used to study and visualize structures of social
continued his studies there until his retirement in 1980. He networks. Based on graph theory, SNA has been widely
received the prestigious Inonu Award in 1948, TUBITAK used to reveal relationships among documents, journals, and
Science Award in 1974, and Commandeur des Palmes authors.[16] Scientific and intellectual ties and collaboration
Académiques (France) in 1994. Arf was a member of the between researchers can be identified using bibliometric
Mainz Academy and the Turkish Academy of Sciences. He data (e.g., citations). The structure of scientific disciplines
served as the president of the Turkish Mathematical Society as social networks can be mapped by means of visualization
between 1985 and 1989. After his many contributions to software such as CiteSpace.[17]
the international mathematics society and the Turkish
scientific environment, he passed away on December Author co‑citation analysis (ACA) was first introduced
26, 1997 in Bebek, Istanbul, at the age of 87.[1] (See also by White and Griffith.[18] ACA assumes that the two
O’Connor and Robertson.[12]) In 2009, the banknote of 10 researchers being cited together in scientific literature
Turkish Lira was issued with Professor Cahit Arf ’s portrait are likely to share the same research interests and work
depicted on it [Figure 1]. The two libraries of TUBITAK in the same field. Researchers working in the same

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 Tonta and Özkan Çelik: Cahit Arf and his influence in mathematics

domain get clustered through ACA, thereby facilitating proved to be useful in discovering new relationships
discovery of social structure among researchers as well as between works, authors, and papers.
among research domains. The outcome of ACA studies
were used to map and visualize the structure of several Metrics such as citation indicators and h index originally
scientific disciplines including information science and proposed by Hirsch[25] measure the direct influence of
macroeconomics (e.g., see McCain[19,20] and White and authors and papers as well as journals, institutions, and so
McCain[21]). on; but usually ignore their indirect influences. Schubert[15]
proposed the single publication h index for highly cited
White recently combined ACA with infor mation papers, taking their indirect influence into account through
retrieval (IR) and relevance theory (RT) to study the citing papers. The higher the h index of the set of papers
influence of a seed work, author, or paper.[13,14,22,23]He used citing a particular paper in question, the higher its single
the weights of term frequency (tf) and inverse document publication h index score becomes even though the
frequency (idf) formula to draw pennant diagrams for works work in question is not cited directly. Recently, Thor and
co‑cited with a seed work, the authors co‑cited with a seed Bornmann[26] developed a web application2 to calculate
author or articles and books co‑cited with a seed article. single publication h index of a paper using Schubert’s
Originally, tf values are used in IR to determine relevance of definition and Google Scholar data.
a term within a given document (the more a term is used in
a single document, the higher its relevance to a given query) It is fitting to review works on Cahit Arf in this study
while idf values are used to determine its relevance within briefly. A detailed Turkish biography including his memoirs
the entire document collection (the more a term is used in as well as his colleagues’ views on his work and personality
different documents in a collection, the less discriminatory; was written by Terzioğlu and Yılmaz and published by
and therefore, topically less relevant it becomes). Sparck the Turkish Academy of Sciences in 2005.[1] The book
Jones[24] created idf as a measure for weighing “statistical also includes some of his papers on mathematics as well
specificity” of terms. The idf measure pushes related term’s as his writings on more general issues such as education.
weight down in rankings so that terms that occur relatively A scientific biography of Arf was written by Sertöz,[27] who
frequently in the document collection are considered less also maintains a website with pointers to papers (mostly in
relevant to a query. Turkish) about Arf as well as about other famous Turkish
mathematicians.3 A special issue on Arf was published after
Bibliometric data and IR techniques are used in pennant his death by TUBITAK’s science and technology magazine,
diagrams “to mimic a relevance theoretic model of Bilim ve Teknik.[28] The special issue comprises several
cognition on the user side”.[13] Pennant diagrams are articles about Arf by some of his colleagues who met him
scatterplots of tf values representing “cognitive effects” of or worked with him during his long career. To honor Arf ’s
works/authors/articles in context of a seed work/author/ 80th birthday, a monograph including all of his papers (along
article, and idf values representing the “processing effort” of with four papers written by his colleagues about his works)
the user. Cognitive effects (tf ) and ease of processing (idf ) was published by the Turkish Mathematical Society.[29] The
of works, authors, or articles determine their relevance to Mathematics Department of the Middle East Technical
a seed work, seed author, or seed article.[13] Whereas tf *idf University organizes “Cahit Arf Lectures” annually.4
formula multiplies the two to come up with a single score of
As for books and papers based on Cahit Arf ’s works, they
relevance; pennant diagrams plot tf values on the x axis and
are too numerous to review in this paper. For instance,
idf values on the y axis without multiplication.[13] See White[13]
there are books that are entirely or in large part on Arf
for a more comprehensive discussion of theoretical
invariant and its generalizations (e.g., Snaith,[30] Klaus,[31]
foundation of bibliometrics, IR, and RT along with their
Scorpan,[32] Kirby,[33] and Browder).[34] Recently, Lorenz and
use in three different types of pennant diagrams for a seed
Roquette[35] investigated the Arf invariant in its historical
work, a seed author, and a seed article. context based on letters exchanged between Cahit Arf
and his advisor, Professor Helmut Hasse, after Arf got
White used pennant diagrams innovatively to study the
his PhD from Göttingen University. Interested readers can
influence of a work (Moby Dick), an author (Howard D.
find further information on similar works by consulting the
White), and a paper (Stephen Harter’s “Psychological
Relevance and Information Science”) and interpreted his 2. Available freely at http://labs.dbs.uni‑leipzig.de/gsh.
findings based on ACA, IR, and RT.[13] Pennant diagrams 3. http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~sertoz/turkler.htm.
4. http://www3.iam.metu.edu.tr/matematikvakfi/arf.html.

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 Tonta and Özkan Çelik: Cahit Arf and his influence in mathematics

basic reference sources or databases, some of which are was cited a total of 105 times.[6] Then, using Arf[6] as the seed
readily available through the web. work, we mapped ACA results onto a pennant diagram using
White’s approach.[13,14] To create Arf ’s pennant diagram, we
The present study is an attempt to explore scientific used the most highly cited 20% of references contained in
legacy of a world‑famous Turkish mathematician, Cahit 100 papers citing Arf.[6] Using Arf ’s pennant diagram, we
Arf. Since the scientific impact of Arf ’s works cannot be identified other influential authors in the author co‑citation
measured readily by using citation indexes, we use both network whose work was most relevant to those of Arf, and
SNA and White’s approach of ACA coupled with pennant more specifically, to Arf ’s seed work.[13] Finally, we calculated
diagrams. The indirect influence of Arf ’s highly cited paper, the single publication h index of Arf ’s highly cited work[6]
“Untersuchungen über quadratische Formen in Körpern on the basis of Google Scholar data and tried to ascertain
der Charakteristik 2 (Teil 1)”,[6] is also assessed through its its indirect influence based on its citing papers.[15,26] We
single publication h index. Results of SNA, ACA, and single used WoS to identify the top 50 mathematics papers that
publication h index are discussed along with the implications received highest number of citations and compared their
of using these methods and metrics to study scientific single publication h indexes with that of Arf.[6]
impact of authors directly, indirectly, and retrospectively.
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
MATERIALS AND METHODS
In this section, we first present the findings of citation
We think the scientific legacy of Cahit Arf is analysis of Arf ’s papers using Thomson Reuters’ citation
underrepresented in Thomson Reuters’ (formerly ISI’s) indexes. Our analysis includes results of both cited
citation indexes (1898-2011). Hence, we decided to address reference search under “Arf C*” and of an advanced
several research questions to paint a better picture of his search for papers that included “Arf ” in their titles and
accomplishments as a mathematician. For example, who keywords. We then present findings of ACA of papers of
were the authors being co‑cited most often with Arf ? How the latter group by means of an author co‑citation map,
high were their h index scores? Can we trace the scientific displaying pivotal authors whose work was co‑cited along
influence of Arf through paper titles and topics that contain with papers that indirectly cited Arf ’s papers. Our analysis
the terms “Arf invariant,” “Arf rings”, and so on? Which also includes Arf ’s seminal paper on quadratic forms
paper of Arf received the highest number of citations? Will over a field of characteristic two (Arf invariant). We trace
the pennant diagram of Arf ’s most frequently cited paper the direct influence of his paper by means of a pennant
provide further insight into his influence in mathematics as diagram based on ACA. Finally, we trace indirect influence
well as in other disciplines? What is the single publication of Arf ’s paper by calculating its single publication h index
h index of his most significant work? based on its citing papers and discuss our findings.
To address these research questions, we first searched Citation Analysis
for bibliographic records for Cahit Arf (“Arf C*”) in
the Web of Science (WoS). Search results were in no way Arf published a total of 23 papers between 1939 and
satisfactory (for the reasons explained before) to study 1966.[29] The distribution of these papers by language is
the influence of Arf ’s contributions. We then searched as follows: 12 in French, 6 in German, 4 in English, and
for records having “Arf*” in their titles and/or topics 1 in Italian. Two of his English papers (#1 and #2) were
and analyzed them using CiteSpace, which is a freely listed in Thomson Reuters’ citation indexes along with two
available application developed by Chen[17] to analyze English abstracts (#3 and #4), and two German papers (#5
scientific literature and visualize trends and patterns in and #6) whose titles were translated to English [Table 1].
the data.5 We studied the distribution of citations on the Listed as #5 in Table 1, Arf ’s paper (1941) on quadratic
co‑citation network derived from CiteSpace by time‑slicing forms over a field of characteristic 2 is his most prominent
them in 10‑year intervals, to identify other influential work (cited 88 times) and will be analyzed further in
mathematicians who were co‑cited with Arf. this study. His papers were cited a total of 96 times,6

We searched for cited references of Arf from WoS and

6. A cited reference search under “Arf C*” in Thomson Reuters’
found that his paper on what is later called “Arf invariant” citation indexes produced a total of 153 citations to Arf ’s papers.
Hisseminal work (Arf, 1941) was cited 105 times, not 88. Some
5. http://cluster.cis.drexel.edu/~cchen/citespace/ citations were wrongly attributed to Arf ’s other papers.

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 Tonta and Özkan Çelik: Cahit Arf and his influence in mathematics

Table 1: Arf’s papers and abstracts listed in Thomson Although Arf ’s papers are not properly listed in ISI’s
Reuters’ citation indexes citation indexes and citations to them, therefore, did not
Arf C, Imre K, Ozizmir, E. On algebraic structure of cluster expansion
in statistical mechanics. J Math Phys 1965;6:1179‑and. (Times cited: 3) count towards Arf ’s h index score. Arf ’s influence can
Arf C. On methods of Rayleigh‑Ritz‑Weinstein. Proc Am Math Soc be observed further through paper titles that contain
1952;3:223‑32. (Times cited: 1) various references to Arf ’s works (e.g., “Arf invariant”,
Arf C. On Rayleigh‑Ritz‑Weinstein method. Bull Am Math Soc “Arf rings”, “Hasse‑Arf theorem”, and so on). We
1951;57:269‑70. (Times cited: 0)
Arf C. On a free boundary problem in elasticity. Bull Am Math Soc performed an advanced search in Thomson Reuters’
1951;57:136. (Times cited: 0) citation indexes (1898-2011)8 and found a total of 45
Arf C. Research on the quadratic form in the field of characteristics papers (37 articles, 3 proceedings paper, 3 book chapters,
2. (Teil I.). Journal für die Reine und Angewandte Mathematik
1941;183:148‑67. (Times cited: 88) 1 book, and 1 correction) with “Arf*” in their titles.9 Note
Arf C. Research into pure deriven (sic) enhancements of discrete that not all 45 papers contained references to Arf ’s works.
rated perfectcompunds (sic). Journal für die Reine und Angewandte In fact, only 15 of them did (a total of 16 citations).
Mathematik 1940;181:1‑44. (Times cited: 4)
The query “Arf C*” was run on Thomson Reuters’ databases Arf ’s classic papers[6,9] received eight and five citations,
SCI‑EXPANDED, SSCI, A and HCI, CPCI‑S, CPCI‑SSH, BKCI‑S, respectively. These 45 papers were mainly classified under
and BKCI‑SSH using the all years (1898-2011) time span
(on October 26, 2011)
Mathematics and were cited a total of 279 times (h index 9,
maximum citation per item: 97, average citation per
thereby making Arf ’s h index score 3. This is by no means item: 6.49).
commensurate with his fame, however.
We performed a topical search (TS) in Thomson Reuters’
In spite of his many prominent papers with significant citation indexes and found an additional 52 papers with
discoveries named after him, Arf ’s bibliometric profile is “Arf*” in their keywords (i.e., topics).10 Note that only
almost nonexistent. None of Arf ’s now‑classic papers that nine out of 52 papers cited Arf ’s two papers.[6,9] These
appeared in non‑English journals that influenced advanced 52 papers received a sum of 208 citations (h index 8,
mathematics profoundly was indexed in Thomson Reuters’ maximum citation per item: 25, average citation per
citation indexes up until recent years. Uncitedness among item: 4.00).
mathematicians with Fields Medal (considered to be the
Nobel Prize of mathematics) or even Nobel Laureates Altogether, 97 papers with “Arf*” in their titles or
is not uncommon.[36] Yet, this is not the case for Arf. topics (e.g., abstract keywords or keywords given by their
Even though his works were not listed in citation indexes authors) published between 1965 and 2011 were cited a
properly, a cited reference search under “Arf C*” produced total of 487 times (h index 11, average maximum citation
a total of 153 citations. Arf ’s one paper[6] alone received per item: 97, average citation per item: 5.13). It should be
a total of 105 citations.7 A paper written by Lipman on noted that 24 authors cited Arf ’s works 25 times, but the
“Stable ideals and Arf rings” in 1971 was cited a total of great majority of authors (69 out of 97) who referred to
100 times.[10] Lipman was referring to Arf ’s original paper Arf ’s works in titles or keywords of their papers did not
that appeared in Proceedings of the London Mathematical necessarily give due credit to Arf in their reference lists by
Society in 1948, which is not listed in ISI indexes.[9] Indirect properly citing Arf ’s papers. Apparently, they were either
citations to Arf ’s paper[9] did not contribute to Arf ’s h index
score. This is mainly due to the fact that Arf ’s significant 8. We used the following query: TI = (arf theorem) OR TI = (arf
invariant*) OR TI = (arf ring*) OR TI = (arf propert*) OR TI = (arf
contributions were published before the ISI’s citation filtration*) OR TI = (arf semigroup*) OR TI = (arf singularit*) OR
indexes came into being and a great majority of them were TI = (arf equivalence) OR TI = (arf closure*). Irrelevant items were
not written in English language journals, and therefore, not discarded.
indexed by ISI. One could only speculate as to how many 9. The terms used in the titles of these papers are as follows: Arf invariant*
(the most common one) or Arf ’s invariant, Hasse‑Arf filtrations, Arf
citations Arf ’s original papers would have generated had
rings, Arf numerical semigroups, Arf semigroups, Arf functions,
they been properly listed in ISI indexes. Arf characteristics of singularities, Arf closure, Arf equivalence,
Arf‑Kervaire invariant, Hasse‑Arf theorem, and Hasse‑Arf property.
7. American Mathematical Society’s Mathematical Reviews (MR) 10. Note that TS gets the keywords from titles, abstracts, and the
Citation Database on the Web (http://www.ams.org/mathscinet/) author‑assigned keywords. Therefore, we excluded the titles to find
provides 38 citations to Arf ’s six papers including 26 citations to the unique items that would be retrieved only through keywords
Arf.[6] The MR database covers relatively current citations (year that come from abstracts or author‑assigned keywords. In other
2000 to present) (http://www.ams.org/mathscinet/help/citation_ words, these 52 papers do not overlap with the previous 43 papers
database_understanding.html). that we identified through title search.

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 Tonta and Özkan Çelik: Cahit Arf and his influence in mathematics

unaware of the existence of Arf ’s papers or they did not citations to his works in paper titles and keywords were
cite them because Arf ’s papers became a part of “regular made explicit.12
scientific discourse”.[37] Indeed, as Terzioğlu[38] points
out, Arf ’s name is so intertwined with mathematics, Author Co‑citation Analysis
one needs to work hard to find citations to Arf ’s papers.
Some authors using Arf invariant in their works seem to We further analyzed the papers with “Arf*” in their titles
have referred to it as a mathematical symbol or notation and topics (i.e., keywords) using CiteSpace. We selected
without, perhaps, thinking that these three characters are the most frequently cited 20% of those papers and used
actually the last name of a Turkish mathematician (Tosun ACA to visualize them in 10‑year time slices starting
Terzioğlu, personal communication, August 16, 2011). from 1966 [Figure 2]. Clearly, Arf C is the centroid of
Papers on geometric, algebraic, or differential topology such an author co‑citation network with a large circle.
frequently refer to Arf invariant as Arf (X) or Arf (M), CiteSpace has a feature for identifying pivotal nodes based
(here X or M stands for a manifold), Arf (K) for a on Freeman’s betweenness centrality metric.[43,44] “In a
knot, and Arf (q) for a quadratic form. These various network, the betweenness centrality of a node measures
forms of use of Arf invariant in relevant papers the extent, to which the node plays a role in pulling the
are hardly reflected in papers’ titles, keywords, or rest of nodes in the network together (p. 235-236)”.[45]13
reference lists (Turgut Önder, personal communication, Kaufman LH, Robertello RA, Milnor J, Serre JP, Kervaire
August 24, 2011).11 MA, Browder W, Bass H, Adams JF, and Bourbaki N
are the pivotal nodes in the network (depicted as large
We know that ISI indexers tended to make “implicit” circles with dark rims). These pivotal nodes and many
citations to works of art or musical scores within the gray‑colored ones not labeled represent very important
arts and humanities papers “explicit” by indexing them mathematicians.
accordingly.[39‑41] Such citations count towards one’s cited
references and possibly towards his/her h index score. Yet, Dark‑colored clusters of network indicate works that are
we are not aware of any Thomson Reuters’s convention published most recently (from 2006 to 2011). Relatively
that makes implicit references in paper titles or topics speaking, they make up a considerable part of the
explicit, thereby giving credit to those whose works get network. Gray‑colored parts of network represent the
cited tacitly. An implicit reference made explicit by indexers time span from 1976 to 2005. In other words, Cahit Arf
within a paper is equal to one citation. But what about an is still cited heavily in papers with “Arf*” in their titles
implicit reference found in the title or topic of a paper? and/or keywords, along with the great mathematicians
It would certainly be worth more than one citation. For of today.
instance, Sertöz[42] in his article on Arf rings cites no fewer
As we indicated earlier, a cited reference search for “Arf
than eight papers that were clearly based, at least in part,
C*” generated 153 results. His h index based on citations to
on Arf ’s work and the two of those papers have “Arf*”
his works that are not listed in citation indexes would be 4.
in their titles (excluding Lipman’s oft‑cited paper that we
Table 2 provides the names of ten famous mathematicians
mentioned earlier).
who were co‑cited frequently with Arf along with their
Suppose that we decided to find out what would Arf ’s total h index scores.
influence be if we weighed the papers with “Arf*” in their
Names in Table 2 come from the most frequently cited 20%
titles (45) and keywords (52). Further, suppose that each
of Arf ’s co‑cited authors.14 For example, an award‑winning
paper with “Arf*” in its title and keywords list is worth
mathematician Jean‑Pierre Serre is on the top of the
10 and 5 citations, respectively. This would give us a total
of 710 citations to Arf ’s works. One would safely claim 12. For comparison, as of February 1, 2013, J Lipman wrote 35
that Arf ’s h index score would have been much higher if papers (including the one on Arf rings receiving 100 citations) and
were cited 679 times (h index 12).
his works were listed in Thomson Reuters indexes and
13. Betweenness centrality measure is “the number of shortest paths
that pass through a given node.… Betweenness gauges the extent,
11. We are most grateful to Professor Turgut Önder of the Middle to which a node facilitates the flow in the network.”[16] (p. 443)
East Technical University (Ankara, TR) who generously shared his 14. It should be noted that “Nicolas Bourbaki” (Bourbaki N) is
knowledge of Arf invariant and references to it in various forms actually a pseudonym referring to more than one author. For more
in the mathematics literature and provided pointers to the relevant information, see the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/
monographs mentioned earlier in the literature review. wiki/Nicolas_Bourbaki.

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 Tonta and Özkan Çelik: Cahit Arf and his influence in mathematics

Figure 2: Author co‑citation network (co‑cited with authors of papers with “Arf*” in their titles/keywords)

Table 2: Co‑cited author distributions his name in citation indexes, either. Due to Kervaire’s later
Co‑cited authors Frequencies h index scores work,[46] the Arf invariant is sometimes referred to as the
Arf C 146 1 Arf‑Kervaire invariant because the Kervaire invariant itself
Serre JP 30 23 is a quadratic form of the Arf invariant. Incidentally, the
Witt E 23 (No ISI records under his name) longstanding Arf‑Kervaire problem about dimensions, in
Bourbaki N 21 (No ISI records under his name) which there are framed manifolds of non‑zero Kervaire
Milnor J 20 29 invariant in algebraic topology, has been solved by three
Dieudonne J 20 11
mathematicians in April 2009. [47]15 Neither Arf nor
Sah CH 20 14
Kervaire (who died in 2007) has lived long enough to see
Kervaire MA 18 9 (with respect to 10 papers)
the solution of the Arf‑Kervaire problem. A group of
Omeara OT 18 11
20th century mathematicians published nine important
Wall CTC 18 25
Kneser M 14 8
books under the pseudonym of Nicolas Bourbaki,
presenting an exposition of modern advanced mathematics
and receiving hundreds of citations to them. It should be
co‑cited authors list with an h index of 23. He won the Abel
pointed out that names that appeared in author co‑citation
Prize (2003), the Fields Medal (1954), the Wolf Prize in
network and top co‑cited author distributions such as Serre,
Mathematics (2000), and the Balzan Prize (1985). He also
Milnor, Dieudonne, Kervaire, Kneser, Bass, Adams, and
gave a speech about Cahit Arf in “Cahit Arf Seminars” in Witt are all well‑known mathematicians.
2006 at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara,
Turkey. J Milnor has an h index of 29 and appeared in We used co‑citation statistics to draw a pennant diagram
Arf ’s co‑cited authors list, too. Witt and Kervaire are also of Cahit Arf to trace his scientific influence further.
on the above list. Witt, too, worked in Göttingen and 15. We thank Professor Turgut Önder for drawing our attention to
is still being cited with his works on Witt algebra, Witt the solution of the Arf‑Kervaire invariant. Professor Önder points
decomposition, Witt design (Witt geometry), Witt group, out that the solution of this almost 50‑year‑old problem was one
Witt index, Witt polynomial, Witt ring, Witt scheme, of the few outstanding developments in the mathematics world in
2009 (Turgut Önder, personal communication, August 24, 2011).
Witt’s theorem, Witt vector, Bourbaki‑Witt theorem, and For more on this, see Douglas Ravenel’s web site at http://www.
Shirshov‑Witt theorem. However, he has no record with math.rochester.edu/u/faculty/doug/kervaire.html.

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 Tonta and Özkan Çelik: Cahit Arf and his influence in mathematics

What follows is a discussion of influence of Cahit Arf where, all term counts are greater than or equal to 1,
based on pennant diagram of his most significant work, logarithms are based 10, and N is the total number of
“Untersuchungen über quadratische Formen in Körpern items in the Thomson Reuters’ data collection.[13] 16 Values
der Charakteristik 2. (Teil I).”[6] for x and y axis in the pennant diagram in Figure 3 were
calculated according to equation (1).(Appendix 1 gives the
The outcome of cited reference search under “Arf C*” (as tf and idf values sorted by dfs and tfs).
of February 1, 2013) showed that his paper in which he
first described the “Arf invariant”[6] was cited 105 times, Arf with his most significant paper (1941) appears at
constituting more than two‑thirds of all citations to his the tip of the pennant [Figure 3] at the right hand side
works. We used Arf[6] as the seed paper and identified the as the seed term.[13] (The years next to authors’ names
most highly cited 20% of references contained in those 103
indicate publication years of relevant papers.) The seed
papers citing Arf.[6] We found that 234 papers were co‑cited
term generates a bibliometric distribution, which predicts
with Arf ’s seminal work (1941) at least once. To refine the
the relevance of any associated term with itself. Higher tf
resultant pennant diagram (otherwise it would be difficult
and idf scores of any associated term will produce greater
to read the labels of nodes), we used 34 (out of 234) papers
predicted relevance to the seed.
which were co‑cited with Arf (1941) at least four times.
Searching citation indexes, we found the tf (items ranked)
While the pennant diagram narrows through the right hand
and df (items in file) values and used the following tf *idf
side, papers represented by points in Figure 3 become
formula:[48]
increasingly more relevant to that of Arf.[6] Authors in
weight (i, j) = (1 + log (tfi, j )) log (N/dfi  )(1) 16. The number of items in ISI file is assumed to be 5 million.

Figure 3: Pennant diagram of items co‑cited with Arf ’s “Untersuchungen über quadratische Formen in Körpern der Charakteristik
2” (Arf, 1941). Only the first author’s name is given in the pennant diagram for co‑authored works

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 Tonta and Özkan Çelik: Cahit Arf and his influence in mathematics

the left‑most column were co‑cited at least four times depicted in Figure 3. They have higher tf and idf values in
with Arf ’s paper[6] while the ones to its right were co‑cited that they are both topically relevant to that of Arf[6] and
progressively more. For instance, Witt’s 1937 paper was their relevance can easily be discerned. Take, for instance,
co‑cited 12 times. (Figures in the x and y axis are both Arf ’s own work published in 1943 (“Untersuchungen über
logged.) This is not a coincidence as Arf developed and quadratische Formen in Körpern der Charakteristik 2.
completed Witt’s work, as we explained earlier. Similarly, II. Über aritmetische Äquivalenz quadratischer Formen in
O’Meara’s 1963 textbook Introduction to Quadratic Forms is Potenzreihenkörpern über einem vollkommenen Körper
the second highest co‑cited work with Arf[6] because it der Charakteristik 2”). It is shown at the top of the pennant
builds, at least in part, upon Arf ’s seminal work on the diagram because it is a sequel of and complements Arf ’s
subject.17 Thus, it is relatively easier to discern the increasing original 1941 paper. Papers by Riehm CR, Klingenberg W,
relevance of papers as we move to the tip of the pennant. Witt E, and Sah CH at the top of section A is specifically
about quadratic forms over a field of characteristic two,
White divided the pennant diagram into three (sections A, which is exactly the subject of Arf ’s paper.18 The topics
B, and C) and interpreted the results from various different of papers by remaining four authors (namely, Trojan A,
angles such as specificity of works (i.e., topicality), ease Riehm C, Springer TA, and Sah C) in section A are all about
of processing, age and authority, fame, and so on.[13] For quadratic forms (but not necessarily quadratic forms over
instance, co‑cited authors at the top (section A) of the a field of characteristic two) and, therefore, placed in the
pennant are topically more specific, and therefore, more relatively lower parts of section A.19 Note that Chih‑Han
relevant to that of Arf[6] compared to the ones at the Sah (entered in two different forms in citation indexes as
middle (section B) or bottom (section C) of the pennant. Sah CH 1960 and Sah C 1972 but corrected in the pennant
Similarly, co‑cited authors in section A are juniors of Arf diagram) is placed higher on top of the pennant diagram
while the ones in Section B and C are his peers and seniors, with his specific paper on quadratic forms over a field of
respectively. characteristic two, whereas he is placed relatively lower
with his more general paper on symmetric bilinear forms
We interpret Arf ’s pennant diagram based on figures given and quadratic forms. So, all nine papers (including Arf ’s
in Table 3, which show how the idf portion of the formula
affects ranking of term distribution. Since Thomson Reuters’
18. The titles of their papers are: “Integral representations of quadratic
cited reference strings combine both cited works and cited forms in characteristic 2” by Riehm CR (1965); “Über die Arfsche
authors, we can use them to make judgments about papers, Invariante quadratischer Formen mod 2” by Klingenberg W (1954);
works, and their authors.[13] Based on these judgments, we “Über eine Invariante quadratischer Formen mod 2” by Witt E
drew dividing lines between sections A, B, and C. (1954); and “Quadratic forms over fields of characteristic‑2” by
Sah CH (1960).
19. The titles of their papers are: “Integral extension of isometries of
Note that all but one (Cappell SE) author referred to in quadratic forms over local fields” by Trojan A (1966); “On integral
Table 3 are placed in section A of Arf ’s pennant diagram representations of quadratic forms over local fields” by Riehm C
(1964); “Quadratic forms over fields with a discrete valuation,” by
17. Note that references to authors and their works in the pennant Springer TA (1955), and “Symmetric bilinear forms and quadratic
diagram can be found in Appendix 1. forms” by Sah C (1972).

Table 3: Ranks of the first ten co‑cited items with Arf (1941) based on tf and idf
Reference Frequency Sector %
tf df N (tf/df) *100 tf *idf log (1+tf) log (5 mil/df)
Arf C 1943 5 5 5E+06 28,316 10,194 1,699 6,000
Riehm CR 1965 5 6 5E+06 28,694 10,059 1,699 5,921
Klingenberg W 1954 5 7 5E+06 29,023 9,946 1,699 5,854
Witt E 1954 5 7 5E+06 29,023 9,946 1,699 5,854
Sah CH 1960 9 13 5E+06 34,991 10,914 1,954 5,585
Trojan A 1966 4 16 5E+06 29,156 8,803 1,602 5,495
Riehm C 1964 5 33 5E+06 32,796 8,801 1,699 5,180
Springer Ta 1955 4 37 5E+06 31,225 8,220 1,602 5,131
Sah C 1972 7 40 5E+06 36,200 9,404 1,845 5,097
Cappell SE 1974 4 40 5E+06 31,432 8,166 1,602 5,097
tf=Term frequency, df=Document frequency; idf=Inverse document frequency

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 Tonta and Özkan Çelik: Cahit Arf and his influence in mathematics

sequel in 1943) in section A are highly relevant to Arf ’s Single Publication h Index
original paper.[49]
After the assessment of direct influence of Arf ’s seed work
One can easily see that authors in section A are juniors on Arf invariants[6] based on ACA, we wanted to ascertain
of Arf (not by age, perhaps, by the topic of their papers) indirect influence of same work based on its citing papers
in that they built on or they did further research on Arf using Schubert’s single publication h index (defined as “the
invariant. Note that Witt whose 1937 paper was developed set of papers citing the work in question”).[15] We used
by Arf[6] wrote a specific paper on Arf invariant later in Google Scholar database and Thor and Bornmann’s[26]
1954. readily available web application to calculate the h index
of Arf ’s paper. The application retrieved a total of 95
As we move down from section A to section B, the difference papers from Google Scholar citing Arf.[6] Figure 4 provides
between the subject of Arf ’s paper and those in section B the partial list of citing papers with their bibliographic
gets more difficult to discern because papers are no longer information (author, title, and the publication year) and the
specifically on quadratic forms. For instance, Cappell’s number of times they were cited. Citing papers were cited
1974 paper is not on quadratic forms (“Unitary Nilpotent between 1009 and 0 times. Thirty‑nine out of 95 citing
Groups and Hermitian K‑Theory 1”). We, therefore, drew papers (41.05%) were never cited at all. The rest (56) were
the line between section A and B just above Cappell SE cited a total of 3,346 times. The most current paper citing
1974 in Figure 3. In general, the relationship between Arf ’s Arf[6] is dated 2011.22 It is interesting to note that all but
original paper and those in sector B are not necessarily one citing papers were written in German, indicating the
obvious. Yet, authors in section B can be considered peers international coverage of Google Scholar database.
of Arf in mathematics, and they were usually co‑cited
with Arf [Table 2]. We have already mentioned Witt E It should be noted that not all papers citing Arf[6] are
1937 and Kervaire M 1960 earlier. Many of Arf ’s peers correctly identified by Google Scholar. Eleven papers in the
in section B are considered top mathematicians, some list citing Arf[6] were published before 1941. An additional
with high index scores,20 some (just like Arf himself) not 11 papers lacked publication year information. These 22
properly represented in indexes (e.g., Kervaire M),21 or not papers were cited a total of 811 times (more than one‑fifth
represented at all (e.g., Witt E). of all indirect citations). We have not checked the papers
with publication year information furnished to see if
White[13] considers cited authors in section C as “seniors, they are correctly identified by Google Scholar matching
culture heroes (p. 556),” cited works as serials, generic titles, algorithms.[50,51]23
and world classics; and cited references as books and classic
articles. The contributions of authors in section C of Arf ’s Notwithstanding the limitations of Google Scholar, single
pennant diagram validate White’s prediction in that they publication h index of Arf ’s paper[6] was calculated as 29
consist mostly of classic mathematics texts. Corps Locaux by Thor and Bornmann’s[26] web application. Figure 5
by Serre JP (1962), Algebre by Bourbaki N (1959), Linear provides citation distribution graph of 95 papers citing
Groups with an Exposition of the Galois Field Theory by Dickson Arf[6] excluding self‑citations.
LE (1958), Introduction to Quadratic Forms over Fields by Lam
TY (1973), Introduction to Quadratic Forms by O’Meara (1963), The graph plots the citing papers sorted by the number
La Géométrie Des Groupes Classiques by Dieudonne (1955), of times they were each cited in the x axis and number
and Algebraic Theory SPI by Chevalley C (1954) are all placed of citations in y axis. Note that the area plotted is divided
at the bottom of Arf ’s pennant diagram along with a into three sections (h2 upper, h2 center, and h2 lower)
highly cited article (cited a total of 449 times as of July 25, proposed by Bornmann et al.[52] These metrics and what
2011) by Kervaire MA (and Milnor J) entitled “Groups of
Homotopy Spheres: I”. These authors can be considered 22. Professor Turgut Önder points out that the solution of the
seniors of Arf as they authored highly regarded textbooks Arf‑Kervaire invariant has brought the Arf invariant into the fore
once again and will likely increase citations to Arf ’s original 1941
in mathematics.
paper as well as to current papers discussing the solution, thereby
increasing Arf ’s original paper’s single publication h index (Turgut
20. For example, Atiyah MF with h index 34, Milnor J with 29, Wall Önder, personal communication, August 24, 2011).
CTC with 25, Cappell SE with 17, and Frohlich A with 16. 23. The shortcomings of Google Scholar’s matching algorithms are
21. Kervaire M has an h index score of 9 with 10 of his papers being well documented in the literature. See, for example, Jacsó[50] and
listed in citation indexes. Bar‑Ilan.[51]

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 Tonta and Özkan Çelik: Cahit Arf and his influence in mathematics

Figure 4: Search results for Arf ’s seminal paper,“Untersuchungen über quadratische Formen in Körpern der Charakteristik 2” based
on Google Scholar data (February 1, 2013)

Figure 5: Single publication h index for Arf ’s seminal paper,“Untersuchungen über quadratische Formen in Körpern der
Charakteristik 2. (Teil 1)” (February 1, 2013)

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 Tonta and Özkan Çelik: Cahit Arf and his influence in mathematics

they represent are delineated in the single publication or “Arf rings”) indicate that Arf is still being cited
h index web application site (http://labs.dbs.uni‑leipzig. heavily, despite the fact that his last contribution was
de/gsh/) as follows: in 1960s. This is further confirmed by results of SNA
(1966-2011) as Arf continues to play a prominent role in
They allow quantification of three areas within a mathematics. Moreover, the pennant diagram and single
distribution of citing publications of one single publication: publication h index score based on Arf ’s seminal paper[6]
The low impact area (h2 lower), the area captured by the clearly shows his overarching influence on generations
h index (h2 center), and the area of publications with the of mathematicians. His paper on Arf invariants has been
highest visibility (h2 upper). The citing publications of among the top 15 papers having both direct and indirect
one single publication (with the same h index) may be influence in mathematics and related fields such as knot
dominated by low‑impact citing publications (reflected by theory.
a high percentage for h2 lower) or by high‑impact citing
publications (reflected by a high percentage for h2 upper). Findings obtained through SNA and the pennant diagram
The m index is the median number of citations received seemed to be similar in that, some pivotal authors on
by citing publications in the Hirsch core; this is the citing the co‑citation network appeared as peers of Arf in the
publications ranking smaller than or equal to h.[53] pennant diagram. However, further work is needed to
compare results of two methods more comprehensively. As
We then calculated the single publication h index for the first Arf ’s pennant diagram is based on a single article, we may
50 papers with the highest number of citations (ranging be missing some crucial authors or works. Further work
between 1,318 and 65). We located only 15 papers whose is also needed to find out if Arf ’s implicit citations (from
single publication h index scores were higher than that of titles and keywords of papers) can be incorporated in
Arf ’s 1941 paper.[6]24 The number of citations measures such analyses using a somewhat different approach.
the direct influence of his paper while single publication This may provide a fuller picture of Arf ’s scientific
h index measures its indirect influence. influence.
This small scale experiment shows that Arf ’s paper has been This study clearly shows that White’s[13] approach and
among the top 15 papers in terms of both total number of pennant diagrams can be used to study the impact of
citations it generated and its single publication h index score. authors who are no longer active or when their h index scores
This is a remarkable achievement for a scientist, especially cannot be calculated on the basis of available data. Once
when one considers the fact that Arf ’s paper has never been a proper method is developed in the future to incorporate
listed in Thomson Reuters’ citation indexes. implicit citations to pennant diagrams as co‑citations,
they can be used to calculate authors’ retrospective h
CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER RESEARCH
index scores. One can conjecture that explicit citations
in reference lists of papers would be placed in section A
Cahit Arf ’s contributions were not properly listed in citation
of a pennant diagram, while implicit citations contained
indexes, and his h index score or any other bibliometric
in paper titles and keywords be placed in section B and
indicator cannot, therefore, be calculated properly. In this
C, respectively. Further research is needed to validate this
study, we used SNA and author co‑citation network of
conjecture.
Arf to study his overall scientific influence retrospectively.
Using White’s approach, we drew Arf ’s pennant diagram Similarly, Schubert’s single publication h index[15] can
on the basis of his author co‑citation map to reveal his be used to study indirect influence of individual
scientific impact (despite the foggy retrospective data papers. Yet, we need cleaner data and better matching
that could be gathered from Thomson Reuters). We also algorithms to attribute the citations correctly to the seed
calculated the single publication h index score for his most paper and to improve the accuracy of scores of single
significant paper.[6] publication h index. Simple checks like the comparison of
publication years will certainly be of help in this respect.
Arf ’s cited references and paper titles or keywords with
Furthermore, the calculation of indirect influence of a
Arf ’s contributions to mathematics (e.g., “Arf invariant”
paper can further be refined by assigning weights to indirect
24. Note that rest of the papers are highly unlikely to produce single citations, as suggested by Rousseau[54] long before the h
publication h index scores over 29. index existed.

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 Tonta and Özkan Çelik: Cahit Arf and his influence in mathematics

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Source of Support: Nil, Conflict of Interest: None declared
characteristic 2. Mathematische Annalen 1968;179:63‑9.

Appendix 1: tf and idf values for authors in Arf’s pennant diagram

Weight log (tf) log (idf)
tf*idf log (1+tf) log (5 mil/df)
Arf C 1941, J Reine Angew Math, V 183, P 148 14.076 2.996 4.699
Sector A
Arf C 1943, Rfsui A, V 8, P 297 10.194 1.699 6.000
Riehm Cr 1965, Am J Math, V 87, P 32 10.059 1.699 5.921
Klingenberg W 1954, J Reine Angew Math, V 193, P 121 9.946 1.699 5.854
Witt E 1954, J Reine Angew Math, V 193, P 119 9.946 1.699 5.854
Sah Ch 1960, Am J Math, V 82, P 812 10.914 1.954 5.585
Trojan A 1966, Canadian J Math, V 18, P 920 8.803 1.602 5.495
Riehm C 1964, Am J Math, V 86, P 25 8.801 1.699 5.180
Springer Ta 1955, Indag Math, V 17, P 352 8.220 1.602 5.131
Sah C 1972, J Algebra, V 20, P 144 9.404 1.845 5.097
Sector B
Cappell Se 1974, B Am Math Soc, V 80, P 1117 8.166 1.602 5.097
Johnson D 1980, J Lond Math Soc, V 22, P 365 8.525 1.699 5.018
Rourke CP 1971, Ann Math, V 94, P 397 8.024 1.602 5.009
Kervaire M 1960, Comment Math Helv, V 34, P 257 8.803 1.778 4.951
Tits J 1968, Invent Math, V 5, P 19 8.790 1.778 4.943
Wall CTC 1970, Proc Camb Philos S‑M, V 67, P 243 7.919 1.602 4.943
Frohlich A 1969, J Algebra, V 12, P 79 7.839 1.602 4.893
Robertel RA 1965, Commun Pur Appl Math, V 18, P 543 8.676 1.778 4.879
Brown EH 1972, Ann Math, V 95, P 368 8.588 1.778 4.830
Baeza R 1976, Lect Notes Math, V 655, P 7.683 1.602 4.796
Atiyah MF 1971, Ann Sci Ecole Norm S, V 4, P 47 8.340 1.778 4.690
Browder W 1969, Ann Math, V 90, P 157 7.437 1.602 4.642
Mumford D 1971, Ann Sci Ecole Norm S, V 4, P 181 7.351 1.602 4.588
Witt E 1937, J Reine Angew Math, V 176, P 31 9.738 2.146 4.538
Eichler M 1952, Quadratische Formen, V, P 7.201 1.602 4.495
Milnor J 1973, Symmetric Bilinear F, V, P 6.768 1.602 4.225
Sector C
Chevalley CC, 1954, Algebraic Theory Spi, V, P 7.260 1.778 4.083
Kervaire Ma 1963, Ann Math, V 77, P 504 7.908 1.954 4.047
Dieudonne J 1955, Geometrie Groupes Cl, V, P 7.303 1.845 3.958
Omeara Ot 1963, Intro Quadratic Form, V, P 8.191 2.079 3.939
Lam Ty 1973, Algebraic Theory Qua, V, P 7.244 1.845 3.926

50 J Scientometric Res. | Jan–Apr 2013 | Vol 2 | Issue 1

 Tonta and Özkan Çelik: Cahit Arf and his influence in mathematics

Appendix 1: Contd/-
Weight log (tf) log (idf)
tf*idf log (1+tf) log (5 mil/df)
Dickson Le 1958, Linear Groups Exposi, V, P 6.749 1.778 3.795
Bourbaki N, 1959, Algebre, Ch 9, P 7.021 1.954 3.593
Serre JP 1962, Corps Locaux, V, P 6.492 1.845 3.518
For papers having more than one authors, only the first author’s name is provided above in the first column

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