Both and are among the first three authors the paper

4. •        The system can manage the bibliography information and visualize the relationships among authors involved in co-authoring the papers.

Data collection

Major system functions

•        Bibliography information management

o   Demonstrate the relationship amongst authors in terms of co-authoring papers

o   Forms a graphical structure

Update function

• •        The system should allow insertions and deletions of bibliography entries into or from the database.

 •        where f(a1, a2) is defined as:

• •        f(a1, a2)=1 if both a1 and a2 are among the first three authors of the paper;

• •        The visualizer should be able to demonstrate relationships amongst authors for any particular year (e.g., in 2013) and a range of years (from 2000 to 2013).

• •        Besides utilizing the graphical presentation to display relationships amongst authors, the system can at the same time present in a tabular form the top k closest co-authors for a given author under the time condition specified. The value of k is specified by users.

•        Graphical User Interface (GUI). The system needs to have a graphical interface developed solely using Java for facilitating human users to interact with the system. The interface is supposed to be user-friendly and encompass the functionalities to be delivered.

•        Database. The system will need to use a database to store the bibliography information. The connection of the application program and the back-end database needs to be established using Java.