Comparison of academic impact between two real-world researchers. While Researcher 1 shows a higher h-index than Researcher 2 (41 vs 35) (Panel A), the fractional h-index (Panel B) reveals a more limited research contribution for Researcher 1 relative to Researcher 2 (fractional h-index 28 vs 32), reflecting the influence of each researcher’s authorship ranking within their publications. In Panel A, articles are ordered by total citation count, whereas in Panel B, they are ordered by fractional citation count