Quasity, when quantity has a quality all of its own—toward a theory of performance

Quality, Quantity, Performance,… An unresolved challenge in performance evaluation in a very general context that goes beyond scientometrics, has been to determine a single indicator that can combine quality and quantity of output or outcome. Toward this end, we start from metaphysical considerations and propose introducing a new name called Quasity to describe those quantity terms which incorporate a degree of quality and best measures the output. The product of quality and quasity then becomes an energy term which serves as a performance indicator. Lessons from kinetics, bibliometrics and sportometrics are used to build up this theme.