How Hard Is It to Impact the Impact of Your Paper?

2026-07-22

AI Summary

This study investigates the computational complexity of manipulating the consolidation–disruption (CD) index by strategically adding, removing, or merging publications. Addressing multiple realistic scenarios, the work provides the first systematic demonstration that such manipulation remains NP-hard even under typical constraints, and establishes a comprehensive framework for its parameterized complexity. By employing graph-theoretic modeling, reduction techniques, and parameterized algorithm analysis, the study delineates the boundaries of tractability with respect to key parameters, thereby clarifying the robustness limitations and inherent computational challenges of the CD index in practical applications.

Abstract

Consolidation-disruption index (CD index) is a metric for qualitatively measuring the contribution of a patent or a research paper. Since its inception, a plethora of experimental studies have been undertaken to explore this index. We embark on the study of the complexity of CD index manipulation problems, which model scenarios where a scholar aims to enhance the CD indices of their papers through merging, adding, or removing papers. We show that these problems are computationally hard, even when restricted to very realistic special cases. Additionally, we explore how different parameters influence the parameterized complexity of these problems.

Problem

• CD index
• manipulation
• computational complexity
• consolidation-disruption
• parameterized complexity

Innovation

• CD index
• computational hardness
• parameterized complexity
• manipulation problem
• scientific impact