All posts by VPInstitute

A hybrid similarity measure method for patent portfolio analysis

Data Type, Patents, Research Examples, ST&I indicators

Similarity measures are fundamental tools for identifying relationships within or across patent portfolios. Many bibliometric indicators are used to determine similarity measures; for example, bibliographic coupling, citation and co-citation, and co-word distribution. This paper aims to construct a hybrid similarity measure method based on multiple indicators to analyze patent portfolios. Two models are proposed: categorical similarity and semantic similarity. The categorical similarity model emphasizes international patent classifications (IPCs), while the semantic similarity model emphasizes textual elements. We introduce fuzzy set routines to translate the rough technical (sub-) categories of IPCs into defined numeric values, and we calculate the categorical similarities between patent portfolios using membership grade vectors. In parallel, we identify and highlight core terms in a 3-level tree structure and compute the semantic similarities by comparing the tree-based structures. A weighting model is designed to consider: 1) the bias that exists between the categorical and semantic similarities, and 2) the weighting or integrating strategy for a hybrid method. A case study to measure the technological similarities between selected firms in China’s medical device industry is used to demonstrate the reliability our method, and the results indicate the practical meaning of our method in a broad range of informetric applications.

Highlights

  • An application that introduces fuzzy sets to transform IPCs to numeric values.
  • A 3-level tree structure that arranges terms hierarchically for similarity measure.
  • A study that applies similarity measure for technology mergers and acquisitions.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157715302169

Author(s): Yi Zhang, Lining Shang, Lu Huang, Alan L. Porter, Guangquan Zhang, Jie Lu, Donghua Zhu
Organization(s): University of Technology Sydney, Beijing Institute of Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology
Source: Journal of Informetrics
Year: 2016

A Systematic Method for Technology Assessment: Illustrated for Big Data Analytics (full-text)

Future-oriented technology analysis, Research Examples, Research Type

Historically, Technology Assessment (TA) refers to studying the societal effects of the development and application of a technology. A key challenge for modern TA is to assess emerging technology fields as they are emerging – this is crucial for producing actionable strategic intelligence for use in decision-making.  To contribute to addressing this challenge, the aim of this research is to advance methods to generate effective technology assessment intelligence, and to showcase the approach with an application to the rapidly evolving field of “Big Data.”  The key contributions of this paper are twofold: 1) Methodological: To advance the Forecasting Innovation Pathway (FIP) methodology to identify potential impacts of an emerging technology, and to gauge their likelihood and magnitude of importance for further study; 2) Substantive: To estimate the likelihood and importance of potential impacts of big data analytics (BDA) more broadly, and to help inform U.S. policy considerations in particular.

Full-text of presentation

 

Author(s): Ying Guo, Jianhua Liu, Alan L. Porter
Organization(s): Beijing Institute of Technology, Chinese Academy of Science, Georgia Institute of Technology
Source: Annual Conference on Big Data and Business Analytics (Shanghai, China)
Year: 2017

Organizational Factors for Development of Sectoral Science, Technology and Innovation System: Venezuelan Experience in Biotechnology (full-text)

Research Examples, Research profiling, ST&I policy

Biotechnology is a millenary science, however, was in the last 60 years which reached its
“peak/top” with the advances in the techniques for manipulating living beings. About your multidisciplinary nature, in the countries where it was considered a strategic element for technological innovation, many systems of organization have been developed for their own development. In order to analyze preliminary organizational factors of developing a National Innovation System for Biotechnology in Venezuela, we conducted this study
using interviews and electronic questionnaires with different actors in the system of R&D: universities researchers, funding agencies, representatives of government and companies. This paper suggests some strength such as Venezuelan tradition in Biotechnology and high level of human capital qualification. Biotechnology in Venezuela was mainly developed in public research institutions such as universities and government centers, with two priority areas: agriculture and life science. However, there is a long way forward before Biotechnology is incorporated in the desired economic and social development, such as: the development of mechanisms for continued government funding and venture capital to create start-ups enterprises, strengthening strategies links between universities and companies and networking, and the development of a specific legislation for Biotechnology.

For full-text, https://www.arca.fiocruz.br/bitstream/icict/18172/3/MarcioOliveira_IJMSR_2017_v5n2.pdf

Author(s): Maria de Fátima Ebole Santana, Marcio Sacramento de Oliveira, Rosalba Gómez Martínez, Ângela Maria G. Martino, Nei Pereira Jr., Adelaide Maria de Souza
Antunes
Organization(s): Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), Polytechnic School of Health Joaquim Venancio, National Experimental University of Francisco de Miranda
Source: International Journal of Managerial Studies and Research
Year: 2017

Forecasting potential sensor applications of triboelectric nanogenerators through tech mining

Research Examples, Research profiling, Strategic planning

The Triboelectric Nanogenerator (TENG), invented in 2012, is an emerging energy harvesting technology that efficiently converts ambient mechanical energy into electricity. Much work has been done to develop this device and improve its performance. However, no systematic report about its applications through large-scale publication and patent data analysis is available. In this study, we use “Tech Mining,” a systematic analytical method based on structured texts applied to publication and patent abstract data, to analyze potential applications of TENGs. A series of applications from product scale to industry scale are identified. The findings show that when used as sensors, TENGs are mostly applicable in automation and energy-intensive industries such as automotive, medical or surgical devices, consumer electronics and household appliances. TENGs in the form of sensors can also be integrated with future-oriented and exponentially growing technologies such as robotics, drones, nanotechnology, and bioinformatics that will create enormous value for future economies. Moreover, applications of TENGs as sensors are also in line with current global trends of science and technology development, including the “Internet of Things,” big data, clean energy, and smart cities. Combined with those technologies and industries, TENGs can help in tackling challenges of global warming, environmental pollution and security systems. We suggest the TENG research community to widen interdisciplinary collaboration, pursue connections with industry, and file more patents as R&D progresses. In addition, research limitations and future development directions of TENG are pointed out.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211285517302069

Author(s): Haoshu Peng, Xudong Fang, Samira Ranaei, Zhen Wen, Alan L. Porter
Organization(s): Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Soochow University
Source: Scientometrics
Year: 2017

Mapping the dengue scientific landscape worldwide: a bibliometric and network analysis (full-text)

Network analysis, Research Examples, Research profiling, Science mapping

Despite the current global trend of reduction in the morbidity and mortality of neglected diseases, dengue’s incidence has increased and occurrence areas have expanded. Dengue also persists as a scientific and technological challenge since there is no effective treatment, vaccine, vector control or public health intervention. Combining bibliometrics and social network analysis methods can support the mapping of dengue research and development (R&D) activities worldwide.

We use scientific publication data from Web of Science Core Collection – articles indexed in Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) – and combine bibliometrics and social network analysis techniques to identify the most relevant journals, scientific references, research areas, countries and research organisations in the dengue scientific landscape.

Our results show a significant increase of dengue publications over time; tropical medicine and virology as the most frequent research areas and biochemistry and molecular biology as the most central area in the network; USA and Brazil as the most productive countries; and Mahidol University and Fundação Oswaldo Cruz as the main research organisations and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention as the most central organisation in the collaboration network.

For full-text, http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0074-02762017005005103&script=sci_arttext&tlng=en

Author(s): Fabio Batista Mota, Bruna de Paula Fonseca e Fonseca, Andréia Cristina Galina, Roseli Monteiro da Silva
Organization(s): Fundação Oswaldo Cruz-Fiocruz
Source: Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz
Year: 2017

Network analysis to support public health: evolution of collaboration among leishmaniasis researchers (full-text)

Network analysis, Research Examples

Databases on scientific publications are a well-known source for complex network analysis. The present work focuses on tracking evolution of collaboration
amongst researchers on leishmaniasis, a neglected disease associated with poverty and very common in Brazil, India and many other countries in Latin America, Asia and
Africa. Using SCOPUS and PubMed databases we have identified clusters of publications resulting from research areas and collaboration between countries. Based
on the collaboration patterns, areas of research and their evolution over the past 35 years, we combined different methods in order to understand evolution in science. The
methods took into consideration descriptive network analysis combined with lexical analysis of publications, and the collaboration patterns represented by links in network
structure. The methods used country of the authors’ publications, MeSH terms, and the collaboration patterns in seven five-year period collaboration network and publication
networks snapshots as attributes. The results show that network analysis metrics can bring evidences of evolution of collaboration between different research groups within a
specific research area and that those areas have subnetworks that influence collaboration structures and focus.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11192-017-2346-6

For full-text, https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ec2d/72caf565d297db3699953c9eceea25c81b17.pdf

Author(s): Ricardo B. Sampaio, Bruna P.F. Fonseca, Ashwin Bahulkar, Boleslaw K.
Szymanski
Organization(s): Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Społeczna Akademia Nauk
Source: Scientometrics
Year: 2017

A measure of staying power: Is the persistence of emergent concepts more significantly influenced by technical domain or scale? (full-text)

Research Examples, ST&I indicators

This study advances a four-part indicator for technical emergence. While doing so it focuses on a particular class of emergent concepts—those which display the ability to repeatedly maintain an emergent status over multiple time periods. The authors refer to this quality as staying power and argue that those concepts which maintain this ability are deserving of greater attention. The case study we consider consists of 15 subdatatsets within the dye-sensitized solar cell framework. In this study the authors consider the impact technical domain and scale have on the behavior of persistently emergent concepts and test which of these has a greater influence.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11192-017-2342-x

For full-text view, http://rdcu.be/qfTB

Author(s): Stephen F. Carley, Nils C. Newman, Alan L. Porter, Jon G. Garner
Organization(s): Georgia Tech, Search Technology
Source: Scientometrics
Year: 2017

Effects of innovation management system standardization on firms: evidence from text mining annual reports

Data Type, novel source, Research evaluation, Research Examples, Research Type, ST&I policy

Using a management formula to standardize innovation management can be thought of as deeply contradictory, however, several successful firms in Spain have been certified under the pioneer innovation management standard UNE 166002. This paper analyzes the effects that standardization has in the attitudes and values as regard to innovation for a sample of firms by text-mining their corporate disclosures. Changes in the relevance of the concepts, co-word networks and emotion analysis have been employed to conclude that the effects of certification on the corporate behavior about innovation are coincident with the open innovation and transversalization concepts that UNE 166002 promotes.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-017-2345-7

Author(s): Gaizka Garechana, Rosa Río-Belver, Iñaki Bildosola, Marisela Rodríguez Salvador
Organization(s): University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Tecnológico de Monterrey
Source: Scientometrics
Year: 2017

Annual reports have been text-mined using the NLP tools provided by Vantage Point software to capture the concepts occurring in the vicinity of SI terms and the changes in concepts and their relationships, in addition to emotions, have been analyzed.

Patent information retrieval: approaching a method and analysing nanotechnology patent collaborations

Data Type, Patents, Research Examples, Research Type, ST&I indicators

Many challenges still remain in the processing of explicit technological knowledge documents such as patents. Given the limitations and drawbacks of the existing approaches, this research sets out to develop an improved method for searching patent databases and extracting patent information to increase the efficiency and reliability of nanotechnology patent information retrieval process and to empirically analyse patent collaboration. A tech-mining method was applied and the subsequent analysis was performed using Thomson data analyser software. The findings show that nations such as Korea and Japan are highly collaborative in sharing technological knowledge across academic and corporate organisations within their national boundaries, and China presents, in some cases, a great illustration of effective patent collaboration and co-inventorship. This study also analyses key patent strengths by country, organisation and technology.

OPEN ACCESS article. For Full-text, go to https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-017-2325-y

Author(s): Sercan Ozcan, Nazrul Islam
Organization(s): University of Portsmouth, University of Exeter
Source: Scientometrics
Year: 2017

Science-technology-industry correlative indicators for policy targeting on emerging technologies: exploring the core competencies and promising industries of aspirant economies

Research Examples, Research Type, ST&I indicators, ST&I policy, Strategic planning

This paper seeks to contemplate a sequence of steps in connecting the fields of science, technology and industrial products. A method for linking different classifications (WoS–IPC–ISIC concordance) is proposed. The ensuing concordance tables inherit the roots of Grupp’s perspective on science, technology, product and market. The study contextualized the linking process as it can be instrumental for policy planning and technology targeting. The presented method allows us to postulate the potential development of technology in science and industrial products. The proposed method and organized concordance tables are intended as a guiding tool for policy makers to study the prospects of a technology or industry of interest. Two perceived high potential technologies—traditional medicine and ICT—that were sought by two aspirant economies—Hong Kong and Malaysia—are considered as case studies for the proposed method. The selected cases provide us the context of what technological research is being pursued for both fundamental knowledge and new industries. They enable us to understand the context of policy planning and targeting for sectoral and regional innovation systems. While we note the constraints of using joint-publishing and joint-patenting data to study the core competencies of developing economies and their potential for development, we realize that the proposed method enables us to highlight the gaps between science and technology and the core competencies of the selected economies, as well as their prospects in terms of technology and product development. The findings provide useful policy implications for further development of the respective cases.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-017-2319-9

Author(s): Chan-Yuan Wong, Hon-Ngen Fung
Organization(s): University of Malaya
Source: Scientometrics
Year: 2017