All posts by VPInstitute

Facebook in educational research: a bibliometric analysis

Research Examples, Research profiling, Research Type

Facebook has become the object of research in different areas. The present study presents a bibliometric analysis of the scientific literature related to the use of this social network in educational research. To this end, bibliometric techniques were applied in the analysis of scientific articles indexed at the Web of Science Core Collection, from Thomson Reuters, and linked to the research areas of Education/Educational Research. This resulted in the identification of, among others, developments in scientific production, the most important journals that publish papers on the topic, the main authors and the main articles published in the area. The results indicate the growth of scientific production in the area from 2008 onwards, pointing to Computers and Education as the most relevant journal by number of publications (22) and impact factor and indicate that authors from the United States, Australia, Taiwan, United Kingdom and South Africa stand out in the construction of knowledge on educational research applying Facebook. Moreover, the ego-network of the Educational Research area shows that this area coexists with other areas of knowledge in the use of social networking, such as Computer Science, Linguistics and Health Sciences, indicating an interdisciplinary and transversal nature in different areas of research.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-017-2294-1

Author(s): Renato Matos Lopes, Daniel José Garcia dos Santos de Faria, Antonio Augusto Fidalgo-Neto, Fabio Batista Mota
Organization: Fundação Oswaldo Cruz
Source: Scientometrics
Year:  2017

The global objective of sustainable development up to 2030 and the BRICS: the analysis of the feasibility and effectiveness of the synergies

Biz lit, Data Type, Research Examples, Research Type, ST&I policy, Strategic planning

The article contains analysis of renewed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the period up to 2030, characteristic of the development of cooperation among BRICS countries during Russia’s chairmanship in the union. It also relates to specific features of interaction of BRICS countries on environmental SDGs. Special attention is paid to the issue of climate change and its consequences in light of the decisions of Paris summit of 2015. In particular the article focuses on goals and tasks of BRICS countries related to climate change and response to it, decreasing emissions of greenhouse gases. The authors also consider the issues of and prospects for using renewable energy sources by BRICS countries, development of cooperation within the framework of BRICS Initiative on research and innovation .Qualitative approach is based on the literature review and consultations with the experts, while quantitative analysis includes collecting the news from Factiva database and processing it in Vantage Point software using bibliometric analysis and natural language processing.

https://publications.hse.ru/en/chapters/193349639

Author(s): Korobov NL, Terentyev AA
Organization: National Research University Higher School of Economics
Source: BRICS Countries: development strategies and mechanisms for coordination and cooperation in a changing world. Proceedings of the First International Scientific and Practical Conference, INION, 2-3 November 2015
Year: 2016

The Diffusion of Military Technology

Research evaluation, Research Examples, Research Type, ST&I indicators

The impact of national defense research and development spending on overall innovation depends on the extent to which the knowledge and technologies generated by defense funding diffuse. This article uses an original data-set of patents assigned to defense-servicing organizations to investigate the diffusion of military technologies. Contrary to the predictions of the prevailing scholarship, I find no difference in the rate of diffusion between civilian and military technologies. Neither do military technologies assigned to government agencies diffuse at different rates than those assigned to firms. The overall technological experience of the patent assignee is found to be a positive predictor of the diffusion of military technologies. The effect of the prevailing intellectual property rights regime is ambivalent: when US patents are included in the sample, the effect of patent protection is positive, when the US is excluded, the effect is either non-significant or negative depending on the model specification that is utilized.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10242694.2017.1292203

Author(s): Jon Schmid
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
Source: Defence and Peace Economics
Year: 2017

Scientometric analysis of the emerging technology landscape (full-text)

Future-oriented technology analysis, Research Examples, Research Type

For researchers and decision makers in any technical domain, understanding the state of their area of interest is of critical importance. This “landscape‟ of emerging technologies is constantly evolving, and the sheer scale of research publication output in the modern era makes qualitative review increasingly difficult. Scientometric analysis is a valuable tool for the quantitative analysis of research output, and is employed by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) Knowledge and Information Services in support of our research activities, for applications including identifying opportunities for academic collaboration, and technology watching/forecasting to identify emerging technologies and opportunities that may have implications for UK Defence. This paper provides an overview of our approach to conducting scientometric analysis of research papers and patent submissions. The methods for extracting and disambiguating publications are described, and the qualitative inferences we seek to make, along with some of the associated limitations and potential pitfalls are also discussed.

For FULL-TEXT see http://www.qqml.net/papers/March_2016_Issue/511QQML_Journal_2016_I_Anson_1-10.pdf

Author(s): Ian I’Anson
Organization: Defence Science and Technology Laboratory
Source: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries
Year: 2016

Text mining to gain technical intelligence for acquired target selection: A case study for China’s computer numerical control machine tools industry

Research Examples, Research Type, Strategic planning, Tech mining

Technology strategy plays an increasingly important role in today’s Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) activities. Informing that strategy with empirical intelligence offers great potential value to R&D managers and technology policy makers. This paper proposes a methodology, based on patent analysis, to extract technical intelligence to identify M&A target technologies and evaluate relevant target companies to facilitate M&A target selection. We apply the term clumping process and a trend analysis together with policy and market information to profile present R&D status and capture future development signals and trends in order to grasp a range of significant domain-based technologies. Furthermore, a comparison between a selected acquirer and leading players is used to identify significant technologies and sub-technologies for specific strategy-oriented technology M&A activities. Finally, aiming to recommend appropriate M&A target companies, we set up an index-based system to evaluate the acquired target candidates from both firms-side perspective and target firm-side perspective and differentially weigh for specific M&A situations. We provide an empirical study in the field of computer numerical control machine tools (CNCMT) in China to identify technology M&A targets for an emerging Chinese CNCMT company — Estun Automation under different M&A strategies.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2016.10.061

Author(s): Tingting Ma, Yi Zhang, Lu Huang, Lining Shang, Kangrui Wang, Huizhu Yu, Donghua Zhu
Organization(s): Beijing Wuzi University, Beijing Institute of Technology, University of Technology Sydney
Source: Technological Forecasting and Social Change
Year: 2017

Evolutionary trend analysis of nanogenerator research based on a novel perspective of phased bibliographic coupling

Research Examples, Research profiling, ,

To evaluate the rapid growth of research on nanogenerators and the emergence of promising applications related to nanogenerators, evolutionary trends in the relevant research are analyzed based on phased bibliographic coupling (PBC). Through the novel method of PBC, the evolutionary trend of the relevant research on nanogenerators is roughly categorized into three phases, and the characteristic research topics, issues, articles and terms are discriminated and visualized. Beyond the traditional literature review of domain experts on nanotechnology, this article provides a novel means of visualizing more information about the evolution of the nanogenerator research over the past ten years, based on a more quantitative approach.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoen.2017.02.020

Author(s): Munan Li, Alan L. Porter, Zhong Lin Wang
Organization(s): South China University of Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology
Source: Nano Energy
Year: 2017

Mapping of the Use of Waste as Raw Materials for Biogas Production (full-text)

Future-oriented technology analysis, Research Examples, Research profiling, Research Type

Anthropic methane emissions can largely be prevented or minimized using
technologies that are already available. One such technology is anaerobic digestion
(AD), which is used commercially around the world, especially in Europe
and the United States, where some challenging targets have been set to
diversify the energy mix with more renewable energy. This foresight study was
designed to identify which technological solutions out of the many options
available for biogas production are attracting most interest, for which purpose
patent documents and scientific publications were analyzed. The aim is to
identify which raw materials are most attractive for AD and biogas production.
It was found that the raw materials that have attracted most research and
patenting activity are sludge, sewage, and wastewater, livestock waste, and
agriculture waste, which together account for 62% of all the patents filed and
74% of all the scientific publications. The countries most engaged in producing
biogas from AD plants are China, Germany, and the United States. We
also identified a rising trend in the use of biogas around the world, and a
steady increase in the number of patents filed on the subject, especially in Japan
and South Korea. This growth is driven, amongst other things, by strategic
governmental actions, global environmental pacts, and the realization on
the part of industry that anaerobic digestion can be used as an efficient method
for treating waste and effluents.

For FULL-TEXT go to http://file.scirp.org/pdf/JEP_2017021016142340.pdf

Author(s): Rafaela Lora Grando, Fabiana Valeria da Fonseca, Adelaide Maria de Souza Antunes
Oganization(s): Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Instituto Nacional de Propriedade Industrial (INPI)
Source: Journal of Environmental Protection
Year: 2017

A hybrid method to trace technology evolution pathways: a case study of 3D printing

Future-oriented technology analysis, Research Examples, Strategic planning

Whether it be for countries to improve the ability to undertake independent innovation or for enterprises to enhance their international competitiveness, tracing historical progression and forecasting future trends of technology evolution is essential for formulating technology strategies and policies. In this paper, we apply co-classification analysis to reveal the technical evolution process of a certain technical field, use co-word analysis to extract implicit or unknown patterns and topics, and employ main path analysis to discover significant clues about technology hotspots and development prospects. We illustrate this hybrid approach with 3D printing, referring to various technologies and processes used to synthesize a three-dimensional object. Results show how our method offers technical insights and traces technology evolution pathways, and then helps decision-makers guide technology development.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-017-2271-8

Author(s): Ying Huang, Donghua Zhu, Yue Qian, Yi Zhang, Alan L. Porter, Yuqin Liu, Ying Guo
Organization(s): Beijing Institute of Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology
Source: Scientometrics
Year: 2017

TeknoRoadmap, an approach for depicting emerging technologies

Research Examples, Strategic planning

One of the biggest challenges for current enterprises is the adoption of emerging technologies as soon as these provide competitive improvements. In this sense, several types of technology forecasting and surveillance activities are present in their daily activity. From the academic point of view, technology forecasting activities involve the combination of methods of a diverse nature, with which the technology is depicted and its potential future paths are discussed. Within this conceptual framework, the present work aims at describing a novel approach, known as TeknoRoadmap, which combines bibliometrics and technology forecasting methods to depict emerging technologies. Thus, this contribution aims to widen the scope compared to those provided by previous works within the field, and to that end, the depiction of emerging technologies is provided based on two main elements, namely: the profile of the research activity; and a complete technology roadmap. The approach combines consolidated methods such as text mining and roadmapping, and novel ones such as web content mining, with special attention given to forecasting activities. The work provides a detailed description of the steps on which the approach is structured, as well as the results of one specific application to a cutting edge emerging technology: cloud computing.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162516304310

Author(s): Iñaki Bildosola,Rosa María Río-Bélver, Gaizka Garechana, Ernesto Cilleruelo
Organization(s): University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU))
Source: Technology Forecasting & Social Change
Year: 2017

Uncovering the structures and maturity of the new service development (NSD) research field through a bibliometric study (1984–2014)

Research Examples, Research profiling, Research Type

This study aims to develop a deeper understanding of the new service development (NSD) research field. It addresses its scientific production, social and intellectual structures, and maturity.

Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a bibliometric-based literature review. Quantitative and qualitative analyses are performed on a sample of 277 NSD articles (published from 1984 to 2014). These articles are organized into four periods to improve the analyses from an evolutionary perspective: Early Writings (1984–1995), Advancing of Literature (1996–2001), Progressive Literature (2002–2008), and Recent Works (2009–2014).

Findings
The scientific production in the NSD field has grown significantly over these four periods, and the entry of new authors has extended the social structure. However, collaboration networks seem disconnected from one another. Nonetheless, the intellectual structure has shown great progress, making NSD an independent area of research and discovery from the new product development domain, with its own foundations and expansions into new topics. Although the NSD research field has not yet reached maturity, it is consistently moving toward it.

Originality/value
This study delivers a multiperspective view of research on NSD using a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach. It provides new insights into the discussion of the field’s maturity and can be used as a roadmap for academics and practitioners who would like to understand the state of existing knowledge and are looking for research opportunities.

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1108/JOSM-07-2015-0230

Author(s): Glauco H.S. Mendes, Maicon Gouvea Oliveira, Eduardo H. Gomide, José Flávio Diniz Nantes
Organization(s): Federal University of Sao Carlos, Federal University of Alfenas
Source: Journal of Service Management
Year: 2017