Kumi Okuwada

Quantitative analysis of collaborative and mobility networks

This study proposes a quantitative analysis of researcher mobility (i.e. transfer from one institution to another) and collaborative networks on the basis of author background data extracted from biographical notes in scientific articles to identify connections that are not revealed via simple co-authorship analysis. Using a top-ranked journal in the field of computer vision, we create a layered network that describes various aspects of author backgrounds, demonstrating a geographical distribution of institutions. We classify networks according to various dimensions including authors, institutions and countries. The results of the quantitative analysis indicate that mobility networks extend beyond the typical collaborative networks describing institutional and international relationships. We also discuss sectoral collaboration considering the mobility networks. Our findings indicate a limitation of collaborative analysis based on bibliometric data and the importance of tracing researcher mobility within potential networks to identify the true nature of scientific collaboration.

Identifying expected areas of future innovation by combining foresight outputs

Purpose – This paper attempts to examine the efficacy of combining outputs from a foresight exercise by different methods to get information for discussion on strategies of sustainable growth through science and technology. It seeks to address the combination of outputs in an objective manner to identify expected areas of future innovation toward the desired future as well as related areas that are supposed to play a key part.Design/methodology/approach – Three investigative studies using the Delphi method, scenario and workshop were conducted independently in consideration of four global or national challenges. The points of the studies are interdisciplinary or diversified discussion and a mission‐oriented approach. Information from the Delphi method and scenario is converged using text mining to position scientific and technological areas in a big picture.Findings – Combining outputs reveals the whole picture of scientific and technological areas, including specific areas and common factors to be promot...

International mobility of researchers in robotics, computer vision and electron devices: A quantitative and comparative analysis

We investigated author information in scientific articles by approximately 7,000 researchers for a quantitative analysis of researchers’ international mobility. From top journals, we traced the movements of more than 2,200 researchers in the research domains of robotics, computer vision and electron devices. We categorized countries’ characteristics for the balance between the inflow and the outflow of researchers moving internationally. Flow patterns of international mobility confirm that the United States, China and India exhibit the greatest global flows of researchers, with Singapore and Hong Kong attracting remarkable numbers of researchers from other countries. International mobility focusing on institutions reveals that universities in Singapore receive as many foreign researchers as do research universities in the United States. Furthermore, firms and international collaborative research institutes act as alternative receivers to the universities in the electron devices research domain.

Temporal network analysis of emerging technologies: Topic transition in World Wide Web (WWW) conferences

This paper proposes the use of temporal network analysis of conference sessions to examine the evolutionary process of emerging technologies as significant information for strategic R&D decision-making. This study examines the emerging processes of rapidly growing web-based technologies by analyzing World Wide Web (WWW) conferences over the latest decade. Temporal networks are demonstrated through scientific and technical streams relating Social Network and Monetization. In particular, the transition from E-community in 2006 to Social Networks in 2008 strongly affects later research. Monetization originates from the Auction and E-Commerce session in 2002 and is derived from Advertisements & Click Estimation and Sponsored Search. The conference session titles can be considered as conceptualized meta-knowledge created by the scientific community. The proposed method has the advantage of not requiring any prior knowledge in conceptualization compared to bottom-up clustering techniques used in citation analysis and text mining.

Global trends and the rapid growth of East Asia in IEEE publications

We organized a database of IEEE Periodicals from a period of over 15 years for quantitative and collective analysis. We found that the IEEE experienced globalization and more active international competition. East Asian countries and regions have grown dramatically and become major players in the IEEE during globalization over the last decade, and: 1) East Asia surpassed North America in research related to electrical and electronics fields; 2) China has the most balanced and rapidly increasing number of articles in all fields; 3) Taiwan specializes in circuits, systems, and electronic devices; 4) South Korea specializes in consumer electronics, broadcasting, and communications; and 5) Singapore owes much to the existence of two research universities.

Validity of foresight derived from the evaluation of past activities in Japan

This study examines whether foresight exercises using the Delphi technique indicate future directions from a long-term standpoint, based on the assessment of past Delphi surveys in Japan. It discusses the efficacy and limitations of Delphi surveys by comparing the future perspectives made at the time of the surveys with the actual state. The result shows that Delphi surveys have significance in giving ideas for the directions of technological development for society in the distant future, though their effectiveness differs according to the characteristics of technological fields. Balanced emphasis on major/minor opinions and opportunities for consensus building towards the desired future among related persons should be discussed to improve the efficacy of the survey.

On global diffusion of electrical and electronics engineering research #x2014; An extensive quantitative analysis of IEEE publications (1980#x2013;2008)

To provide further insight into globalization of research and development (R&D) activities, this study examines the nature of electrical and electronics (E&E) and information communication technology (ICT) research, and identifies the global shifts that have occurred in publication activities under the assumption of a definite correlation between research activities and publication activities. This study analyzed the technical and publication activities of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE), the largest professional engineering association and the most influential academic publisher in engineering. We first constructed an original comprehensive database of periodical (journal and magazine) articles and conference proceedings published by IEEE between 1980 and 2008, which comprised approximately 355,000 periodical articles and 1.14 million conference proceedings. We analyzed the transitions in technical innovations from two perspectives: (1) trends within individual countries, specifically those within the country represented by the first author listed in each IEEE publication, and (2) trends within specialized fields represented in IEEE societies and technical councils. The number of published periodical articles increased fourfold between 1980 and 2008, while that of published conference proceedings increased more than tenfold since 1988. In particular, the number of conference proceedings published by China has increased dramatically since 2002, even exceeding the number published by the U.S. in 2008. As technologically emerging countries have increasingly contributed to article production, IEEE has increasingly moved away from its U.S.-centered origins to literally become the #x201C;electrical and electronics association of the world.#x201D; The proportion of articles published by authors in North America, Europe, and East Asia has become increasingly balanced, leading to the formation of a tri-polar structure of IEEE technological activities. Within this structure, North America focuses on the field of ICT, Europe focuses on the fields of ICT and E&E, and East Asia focuses on the field of E&E. This comprehensive analysis of IEEE publications over a period of almost 30 years revealed that with the emergence of more active international competition, glocalization is occurring among the publications and research activities of IEEE, and that the nature of E&E and ICT research is under a system in which the U.S. sets an agenda for technical innovation that stimulates research activities in each country.

Visualizing the evolution of bioinformatics: Chronological networks created by textual analysis of intelligent systems for molecular biology 1998-2006

This study aimed to uncover the evolutionary processes behind the developments in the field of bioinformatics by analyzing prestigious conference presentations reflecting the prominent research in the field. Bioinformatics was selected as a representative interdisciplinary research field. Textual analyses on the abstracts of proceedings papers produced chronological networks of conference sessions. In those networks, divergent session nodes corresponded to practical papers that proposed fundamental technologies promoting new research. Convergent session nodes corresponded to papers that combined various theories and methodologies proposed in the past. The convergent session nodes play a significant role in innovation, which brings together complementary knowledge derived from different backgrounds. A joint chronological network shows a differentiation between pure scientific research and applied research, contributed to the benefit of the general public. These findings were obtained by assessing the chronological networks that reflect future perspectives on session titles in scholarly communities.

Quantitative analysis of international mobility of robotics researchers and characteristics of domestic robotics research

The international mobility of robotics researchers is quantitatively evaluated by analyzing biographical notes accompanying journal papers. Mobility patterns illustrate that the United States, Canada, and Singapore attract robotics researchers from abroad as IQ magnets. Canada can be considered as an alternative to the United States for hosting Iranian robotics researchers. The relationship between the number of authors and bachelors degree holders categorizes countries as hosts or sources of researchers. The characteristics of active topics of robotics research in major countries are also mentioned.