Category Archives: Future-oriented technology analysis

A hybrid approach to identify and forecast technological opportunities based on topic modeling and sentiment analysis (Full-Text)

The spring up of new & emerging technologies brings a lot of innovation opportunities for society, which enables technology opportunities analysis attracts increasing attention by both industry and academia recently. This study proposes a hybrid approach which integrates topic modeling, sentiment analysis, patent mining and expert judgment to identify technological topics and the potential development opportunities. In order to illustrate how the approach is validated and optimized, and to present its potential to contribute technical intelligence for research and development management, we apply the hybrid approach to analyze a set of 9883 DII records that involved dye sensitized solar cell research. The main contributions of this study include three-fold. First, we distinguished the terms in the different parts of DII patent documents when utilizing them to recognize technical topics. Second, we utilized the terms extracted from the Advantage and the Use part to identify topics on technical problems and applications, and proposed a probability-based topic relation measurement method to identify the relationships of the technical problems and applications with the core sub-technologies. Third, we introduced both topic modeling and sentiment analysis to support technical topic analysis.

For FULL-TEXT of manuscript https://eeke-workshop.github.io/2022/submissions/EEKE2022_paper_8.pdf

Author(s): Tingting Ma, Ruiping Cheng, Hongshu Chen, XiaoZhou
Organization(s): Beijing Wuzi University, Beijing Institute of Technology, Xidian University
Source: 3rd Workshop on Extraction and Evaluation of Knowledge Entities from Scientific Documents (EEKE2022)
Year: 2022

Future of Bioprinted Tissues аnd Organs: A Two-Wave Global Survey (Full-Text)

Technologies of 3D- and 4D-bioprinting make it possible to restore or replace tissues and organs, solving the problem of the lack of donor resources and reducing the risks of implant rejection. This article presents the results of a two-stage global survey of specialists in tissue engineering on the prospects of bioprinting in preclinical studies and clinical practice. A picture of possible tracks and horizons upon which the implementation of the considered solutions is possible is presented. According to the results of the survey, in the next two decades it will be possible to recreate tissues and organs suitable for implantation and drug testing. There will be a market for bioprinted products, the problem of organ shortages and adverse reactions to drugs will be solved. These changes may significantly affect not only the practice of biomedical research, drug testing, and medicine, but also the healthcare sector in general, which implies the need for a preventive review of current policies. A practical and accessible tool for identifying (searching and collecting respondents in scientific publications) and interviewing a large number of experts around the world is proposed, which may be useful for new Foresight studies.

For FULL-TEXT 10.17323/2500-2597.2022.1.6.20

Author(s): Fabio Batista Mota, Luiza Amara Maciel Braga, LBernardo Pereira Cabral , Carlos Gilbert Conte Filho
Organization(s): Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), Fluminense Federal University, Federal University of Bahia
Source: Foresight and STI Governance
Year: 2022

Customer experience research: intellectual structure and future research opportunities

This article aims to synthesize and integrate current research on customer experience (CX), identifying the intellectual structure of the field, systematizing a conceptual framework and identifying future research opportunities. To analyze 629 articles published in peer-reviewed journals in almost four decades, this study employs both bibliometric co-keyword and thematic literature analysis in a complementary way.This article maps the CX literature by describing its intellectual structure in terms of three research domains (customer, organizational and technological), their corresponding most relevant research themes and topics. Moreover, this study develops a conceptual framework and research propositions to summarize and integrate the CX literature. This work recognizes technology as an important driver for the development of CX research. Lastly, this article provides future research opportunities for moving the field forward, considering an integrative view among domains. This paper complements other reviews on CX by using a novel methodological approach (co-keyword and thematic analysis) that enables the identification and visualization of the CX intellectual structure. In addition, the study explores the increasing connection between technology and CX research, by raising evidence that technology, by continuously modifying services and consequently CX, has become a transversal component in the research field. These outcomes may be useful for academics and practitioners.

https://doi.org/10.1108/JSTP-08-2020-0193

Author(s): Jorge H.O. Silva, Glauco H.S. Mendes, Paulo A. Cauchick Miguel, Marlene Amorim, Jorge Grenha Teixeira
Organization(s): Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Federal University of Santa Catarina, University of Porto, University of Aveiro
Source: Journal of Service Theory and Practice
Year: 2021

Technology Roadmapping Using Text Mining: A Foresight Study for the Retail Industry (FULL-TEXT)

Technology roadmapping is a widely accepted method for offering industry foresight as it supports strategic innovation management and identifies the potential application of emerging technologies. While roadmapping applications have been implemented across different technologies and industries, prior studies have not addressed the potential application of emerging technologies in the retail industry. Furthermore, few studies have examined service-oriented technologies by a roadmapping method. Methodologically, there are limited roadmapping studies that implement both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Hence, this article aims to offer a foresight for future technologies in the retailing industry using an integrated roadmapping method. To achieve this, we used a sequential method that consisted of both text mining and an expert review process. Our results show clear directions for the future of emerging technologies as the industry moves toward unmanned retail operations. We generate eight clusters of technologies and integrate them into a roadmapping model, illustrating their links to the market and business requirements. Our study has a number of implications and identifies potential bottlenecks between the integration of front- and back-end solutions for the future of unmanned retailing.

10.1109/TEM.2021.3068310 or FULL-TEXT found HERE

Author(s): Sercan Ozcan; Amir Homayounfard; Christopher Simms; Jahangir Wasim
Organization(s): University of Portsmouth, University of Essex, Robert Gordon University
Source: IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management
Year: 2021

Measuring tech emergence: A contest

Highlights

  • Thirteen teams strive to distinguish emerging research topics in synthetic biology.
  • Analyses of ten years of article abstracts predict topics in the next two years.
  • Augmenting, consolidating, embedding, and clustering text help detect emergence.
  • Analyses of citation patterns and research networking also help discern emergence.

We conducted a contest to predict highly active research topics. Participants analyzed ten years of Web of Science abstract records in a target technological domain (synthetic biology) so as to indicate cutting edge sub-topics likely to be actively pursued in the following two years. We describe contest procedures and results provided by thirteen participating teams.

Contestants used various topical and other fields in the abstract records; some augmented with external data. They applied at least 19 diverse methods in deriving emerging topics predicted to be actively researched in the coming two years. Besides topical text analyses, contestants variously brought to bear both backward and forward citation analyses, and network analyses, to help identify topics apt to be highly researched in the near future. This communal exercise on forecasting near-future research activity using a wide array of text analytic and other bibliometric tools provides a stimulating resource.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120176

Author(s): Alan L. Porter, Denise Chiavetta, Nils C. Newman
Organization(s): Search Technology, Inc.
Source: Technological Forecasting and Social Change
Year: 2020

Exploring Technology Evolution Pathways to Facilitate Technology Management: From a Technology Life Cycle Perspective

Technological innovation is a dynamic process that spans the life cycle of an idea, from scientific research to production. Within this process, there are often a few key innovations that significantly impact a technology’s development, and the ability to identify and trace the development of these key innovations comes with a great payoff for researchers and technology managers. In this article, we present a framework for identifying the technology’s main evolutionary pathway. What is unique about this framework is that we introduce new indicators that reflect the connectivity and the modularity in the interior citation network to distinguish between the stages of a technology’s development. We also show how information about a family of patents can be used to build a comprehensive patent citation network. Finally, we apply integrated approaches of main path analysis (MPA)—namely global MPA and global key-route main analysis—for extracting technological trajectories at different technological stages. We illustrate this approach with dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), a low-cost solar cell belonging to the group of thin-film solar cells, contributing to the remarkable growth in the renewable energy industry. The results show how this approach can trace the main development trajectory of a research field and distinguish key technologies to help decision makers manage the technological stages of their innovation processes more effectively.

For source 10.1109/TEM.2020.2966171

Author(s): Ying Huang, Fujin Zhu, Alan L. Porter, Yi Zhang, Donghua Zhu, Ying Guo
Organization(s): Wuhan University, Beijing Institute of Technology, University of Technology Sydney, China University of Political Science and Law
Source: IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management
Year: 2020

Foresight through Strategic Technology Intelligence for Collaboration and Innovation Pathways (FULL-TEXT)

Formulating a strategic direction for long-term growth is critical to address the challenges of technological competitiveness in the globalisation era. This article presents a case study of the technology of shelf life extension for agricultural foods. We propose strategic technology intelligence (STI) as an approach that combines quantitative tools with a qualitative technique using technological experts to judge and strengthen the findings. Cases from the patents database were extracted for analysis using the text mining software. The results illustrate that this particular technology has potential for growth and related research has been increasing. In addition, collaboration among researchers and organisations is essential to foster the speed of R&D and boost knowledge exchange. The findings can be useful for policymakers, managers, and researchers as a decision-making tool for further implementation and execution.

For FULL-TEXT click HERE

Author(s): Jakkrit Thavorn, Nongnuj Muangsin, Chupun Gowanit, Veera Muangsin
Organization: Chulalongkorn University
Source: Proceedings: 2020 ISPIM Connects Bangkok – Partnering for an Innovative Community
Year: 2020

Exploring Technology Evolution Pathways to Facilitate Technology Management: From a Technology Life Cycle Perspective

Technological innovation is a dynamic process that spans the life cycle of an idea, from scientific research to production. Within this process, there are often a few key innovations that significantly impact a technology’s development, and the ability to identify and trace the development of these key innovations comes with a great payoff for researchers and technology managers. In this article, we present a framework for identifying the technology’s main evolutionary pathway. What is unique about this framework is that we introduce new indicators that reflect the connectivity and the modularity in the interior citation network to distinguish between the stages of a technology’s development. We also show how information about a family of patents can be used to build a comprehensive patent citation network. Finally, we apply integrated approaches of main path analysis (MPA)—namely global MPA and global key-route main analysis—for extracting technological trajectories at different technological stages. We illustrate this approach with dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), a low-cost solar cell belonging to the group of thin-film solar cells, contributing to the remarkable growth in the renewable energy industry. The results show how this approach can trace the main development trajectory of a research field and distinguish key technologies to help decision makers manage the technological stages of their innovation processes more effectively.

10.1109/TEM.2020.2966171

Author(s): Ying Huang, Fujin Zhu, Alan L. Porter, Yi Zhang, Donghua Zhu, Ying Guo
Organization(s): Wuhan University, Beijing Institute of Technology, Search Technology, University of Technology Sydney, China University of Political Science and Law
Source: IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management
Year: 2020

A hybrid approach to detecting technological recombination based on text mining and patent network analysis

Detecting promising technology groups for recombination holds the promise of great value for R&D managers and technology policymakers, especially if the technologies in question can be detected before they have been combined. However, predicting the future is always easier said than done. In this regard, Arthur’s theory (The nature of technology: what it is and how it evolves, Free Press, New York, 2009) on the nature of technologies and how science evolves, coupled with Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolutions (Kuhn in The structure of scientific revolutions, 1st edn, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, p 3, 1962), may serve as the basis of a shrewd methodological framework for forecasting recombinative innovation. These theories help us to set out quantifiable criteria and decomposable steps to identify research patterns at each stage of a scientific revolution. The first step in the framework is to construct a conceptual model of the target technology domain, which helps to refine a reasonable search strategy. With the model built, the landscape of a field—its communities, its technologies, and their interactions—is fleshed out through community detection and network analysis based on a set of quantifiable criteria. The aim is to map normal patterns of research in the domain under study so as to highlight which technologies might contribute to a structural deepening of technological recombinations. Probability analysis helps to detect and group candidate technologies for possible recombination and further manual analysis by experts. To demonstrate how the framework works in practice, we conducted an empirical study on AI research in China. We explored the development potential of recombinative technologies by zooming in on the top patent assignees in the field and their innovations. In conjunction with expert analysis, the results reveal the cooperative and competitive relationships among these technology holders and opportunities for future innovation through technological recombinations.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-019-03218-5

Author(s): Xiao Zhou, Lu Huang, Yi Zhang, Miaomiao Yu
Organization(s): Xidian University, Beijing Institute of Technology
Source: Scientometrics
Year: 2019

Tracing the system transformations and innovation pathways of an emerging technology: Solid lipid nanoparticles

Accurately evaluating opportunities in new and emerging science and technologies is a growing concern. This study proposes an integrated framework for identifying a range of potential innovation pathways and commercial applications for solid lipid nanoparticles – one particularly promising contender within the field of nano-enabled drug delivery. Several text mining techniques – term clumping, SAO technique, and net effect analysis – as well as technology roadmapping, are combined with expert judgment to identify the main areas of R&D in this field, and to track their evolution over time. Through analysis, data from multiple sources, including research publications, patents, and commercial press, reveal possible future applications and commercialization opportunities for this emerging technology. We find that research is moving away from materials and delivery outcomes toward clinical applications. The most promising markets are pharmaceuticals and cosmetics; however, the “time-to-market” is much shorter for cosmetics than it is for pharmaceuticals.

The most significant contributions of this paper have been highlighted as follows. One innovation is extracting the intelligence from three kinds of data sources after in-depth considering their characteristics and matching with the features of different technology development stages to identify innovative research topics. The second one is combining SAO technique with net effect analysis to identify what the evolutionary links between research topics are, and then to use TRM to visualize the evolution of the main areas of R&D over time.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2018.04.026

Author(s):Xiao Zhou, Lu Huang, Alan Porter, Jose M.Vicente-Gomila
Organization(s): Xidian University, Beijing Institute or Technology
Source: Technological Forecasting and Social Change
Year: 2018