Quantifying individual scientific output in terms of a new intuitionistic fuzzy sets based author-level metrics (IFALM)

The present paper proposes the idea of formulating a new author-level citation metrics, quantifying the individual’s scientific output, which uses the concept of intuitionistic fuzzy sets. This new metrics gives more visibility to the proportion of direct self-citations and hidden (co-author or collaborative) self-citations in the form of an intuitionistic fuzzy pair. Examples are given retrieving the necessary information from Scopus, one of the largest databases of peer-reviewed literature, which algorithmically enables retrieval of one’s citations including and excluding their own or their co-authors’ self-citations, as well as the calculation of three different values of one’s h-index with and without these respectively. Linear and triangular graphical representations are given, as well as comparisons with the concept proposed in 2005 by Jorge E. Hirsch, the now famous h-index, and ideas for future elaboration of the concept of the new intuitionistic fuzzy sets based author-level metrics, or shortly IFALM.