Blockchain breeding grounds: Asia's advance over the USA and Europe

Blockchain is argued to disrupt almost every industry and research field. Among other technologies, it contributes to the next fourth industrial revolution. While prominent technologies, such as AI and IoT, have already proven their potential and value in many applications, Blockchain applications have gathered only limited appeal. We ask, which countries drive inventive activity in Blockchain and to which magnitude and type. Using worldwide Blockchain patent applications from 2009 to 2020 as inventive outcome indicators the National Breeding Ground (NBG) index and the International Breeding Ground (IBG) index are calculated. The NBG index is related to the interest of a country to file Blockchain patents in its domestic market. The IBG index is related to the interest of a country to file and exploit Blockchain patents in foreign markets. We observe China and the USA as strong national and international breeding grounds. In particular, Asian countries drive Blockchain inventions. European countries contribute marginally to the Blockchain patent landscape and, together with the USA, are losing ground to Asia. Comparisons to prior work on Blockchain patenting and research patterns partially reflect our results. However, comparisons to AI suggest different patenting and exploitation strategies for Blockchain and AI in China.     

Assessing the impacts of digital transformation on internal auditing: A bibliometric analysis

During the last years, the impacts caused by digital transformation on companies have been disruptive. Contrarily to prior technological revolutions, the current scenario is characterized by the rapid growth of innovation that has impacted organizations differently. In particular, an increasing number of organizations revised their management control systems to adequate their business models to the external pressures made by competitors and regulators. The research aims consist of a bibliometric analysis about the impacts caused by digital transformation on managerial auditing. The research reveals the existence of four independent research area: continuous auditing (Green Cluster), fraud detection (Blue Cluster), data analytics (Yellow Cluster) and technological innovation (Red Cluster). Finally, we developed a research agenda in order to address future research.     

Blockchain patent landscaping: An expert based methodology and search query

The present study is concerned with the emergence of Blockchain related technologies in terms of patenting activity. Blockchain has captured the attention of the public and research has intensified in this field over the last few years, making it a highly interesting topic of study for a patent analysis in order to obtain insight into the developments of this emerging technology. In this paper we present a unique methodology and exhaustive search strategy for identifying Blockchain patent documents by using a combination of specific keywords and patent classifications. This query was built in cooperation with subject matter experts of the European Patent Office (EPO). Our keyword set was then analysed by relevance and was prioritised. The set of specific relevant patent classifications was furthermore combined with keywords in order to exclude false positives. With our methodology we present an exhaustive query for retrieving a highly relevant dataset of Blockchain related patents, extracted from the EPO databases that can be used for patent landscaping exercises or any other bibliometric analysis. In a case study we applied the search strategy to analyse worldwide Blockchain patenting from 2008 till 2018. The results are presented in this paper.     

The potential of emergent disruptive technologies for humanitarian supply chains: the integration of blockchain,Artificial Intelligence and 3D printing

The growing importance of humanitarian operations has created an imperative to overcome the complications currently recorded in the field. Challenges such as delays, congestion, poor communication and lack of accountability may represent opportunities to test the reported advantages of emergent disruptive technologies. Meanwhile, the literature on humanitarian supply chains looks at isolated applications of technology and lacks a framework for understanding challenges and solutions, a gap that this article aims to fill. Using a case study based on the flood of Tabasco of 2007 in Mexico, this research identifies solutions based on the use of emergent disruptive technologies. Furthermore, this article argues that the integration of different technologies is essential to deliver real benefits to the humanitarian supply chain. As a result, it proposes a framework to improve the flow of information, products and financial resources in humanitarian supply chains integrating three emergent disruptive technologies; Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and 3D Printing. The analysis presented shows the potential of the framework to reduce congestion in the supply chain, enhance simultaneous collaboration of different stakeholders, decrease lead times, increase transparency, traceability and accountability of material and financial resources, and allow victims to get involved in the fulfilment of their own needs.     

Using patent analyses to monitor the technological trends in an emerging field of technology: a case of carbon nanotube field emission display

Carbon nanotube field emission display (CNT-FED) represents both emerging application of nanotechnology and revolutionary invention of display. Therefore, it is an important subject to monitor the states and trends of CNT-FED technology before the next stage of development. The present paper uses patent bibliometric analysis and patent network analysis to monitor the technological trends in the field of CNT-FED. These results firstly reveal the different aspects of patenting activities in the field of CNT-FED. Then, patent network analysis indicates the developing tendency of worldwide FED production based on the synthesis of CNT materials. Furthermore, key technologies of three clusters can be identified as the depositing CNT on substrate, coating phosphor on screen and assembling process for whole device. Finally, emitter material is taken for the key factor in R&D work to improve the efficacy in CNT-FED technology.     

Patenting trends in biometric technology of the Big Five patent offices

We examined the overall trends in biometric technology based on patent documents. Using PATSTAT database, we extracted 37,462 patent documents applied at the Big Five patent offices between 1990 and 2016. Latent Dirichlet allocation was applied to their abstracts to observe annual trends by topic. Our results are as follows: Fingerprint-enabled car anti-theft systems have been undergoing rapid technological development since 2014. In response, biometric signal transmitting models are becoming popular owing to concerns about theft of biometric templates. While fingerprint, face, and iris authentication technologies continue to advance, finger vein, voice, and signature authentication technologies are lagging. Use of biometric technologies in financial transactions, server networks, and digital media content security are decreasing as well. A citation analysis discovered key topics and patent applicants: Surprisingly, the quantitative growth rate of topics and the effect on the knowledge network showed an inverse relationship. US firms had the most citations, but fewer backward citations of own work, unlike Japanese companies. We provide practical insights to stakeholders of biometric technology.     

Bibliometric analysis for development of research strategies in agricultural technology: the case of Taiwan

Due to rapid environmental change, policymakers no longer choose foresight issues based on their own experience. Instead, they need to consider all the possible factors that will influence new technological developments and formulate an appropriate future technological development strategy to the country through the technology foresight system. For the sake of gathering more objective evidence to convince stakeholders to support the foresight issues, researchers can employ bibliometric analysis to describe current scientific development and forecast possible future development trends. Through this process, a consensus is reached about the direction of future technology development. However, we believe that bibliometric analysis can do more for technology policy formulation, such as (1) offer quantitative data as evidence to support the results of qualitative analysis; (2) review the situations of literature publication in specific technological fields to seize the current stage of technology development; and (3) help us grasp the relative advantage of foresight issues development in Taiwan and the world and develop profound strategic planning in accordance with the concept of Revealed Comparative Advantage. For those reasons, our research will revisit the role that bibliometric analysis plays for nations while choosing the foresight issues. In addition, we will analyze the development of the technology policy in Taiwan based on bibliometric analysis, and complete the foresight issues selection by processing key issue integration, key word collection related to this field, the searching and confirmation of literature, development opportunities exploration, comparative development advantage analysis and the innovation-foresight matrix construction, etc.     

Does complementary technology within an ecosystem affect disruptive innovation? Evidence from Chinese electric vehicle listed firms

Complementary technologies are argued to be crucial elements for disruptive innovation. This is even truer in the consistent structure of ecosystems surrounding core disruptive innovations, where firms take interdependence as the premise to provide complementary technologies and create value jointly. Existing research at the disruptive innovation–ecosystem intersection spans a wide range of theoretical perspectives. However, it is still inconclusive about what types of complementary technology configurations might be most useful for the firms they collaborate with to create disruptive innovation. In an attempt to address these gaps, we consider diversity, quality, and novelty as distinguishing structural characteristics of complementary technologies. Empirical evidence from the Chinese electric vehicle listed firms from 2010 to 2019 reveals that the diversity, quality, and novelty of complementary technologies within ecosystems all contribute to subsequent disruptive innovation. Furthermore, we find an inverted U-shaped moderating effect of technological relatedness on the relationship between complementary technologies and disruptive innovation. At intermediate levels of technological relatedness, complementary technologies have greater benefits for disruptive innovation but are comparatively weaker when technological relatedness is low or high. Our findings crystallise a nuanced understanding of how firms orchestrate complementary activities within ecosystems in the disruptive innovation process, thus narrowing the gap with the technological frontier.     

An advanced diffusion model to identify emergent research issues: the case of optoelectronic devices

Scientific progress in technology oriented research fields is made by incremental or fundamental inventions concerning natural science effects, materials, methods, tools and applications. Therefore our approach focuses on research activities of such technological elements on the basis of keywords in published articles. In this paper we show how emerging topics in the field of optoelectronic devices based on scientific literature data from the PASCAL-database can be identified. We use Results from PROMTECH project, whose principal objective was to produce a methodology allowing the identification of promising emerging technologies. In this project, the study of the intersection of Applied Sciences as well as Life (Biological &; Medical) Sciences domains and Physics with bibliometric methods produced 45 candidate technological fields and the validation by expert panels led to a final selection of 10 most promising ones. These 45 technologies were used as reference fields. In order to detect the emerging research, we combine two methodological approaches. The first one introduces a new modelling of field terminology evolution based on bibliometric indicators: the diffusion model and the second one is a diachronic cluster analysis. With the diffusion model we identified single keywords that represent a high dynamic of the mentioned technology elements. The cluster analysis was used to recombine articles, where the identified keywords were used to technological topics in the field of optoelectronic devices. This methodology allows us to answer the following questions: Which technological aspects within our considered field can be detected? Which of them are already established and which of them are new? How are the topics linked to each other?     

Technology advances in sugarcane propagation: A patent citation study

Sugarcane propagation technologies have, in recent years, been the focus of interest of large corporations involved in the sugar and ethanol business. The objective of this study is to present the methodology used to identify the technology domain found in different sugarcane propagation technologies. The methodology was based on the bibliometric analysis of patents, including a meticulous selection of the most representative technologies used by the sugarcane market and the application of patent citation. The results report the process developed to identify a novel technology domain of high complexity involving different fields of science resulting in a set of sugar cane propagation technologies and show that the main technology advances have happened in the last decade (2005–2015), especially in seedling containers and the use of chemical compounds for seedling treatment. Further studies are recommended to help understand how these new technologies will impact the sugarcane production-chain in Brazil.     

颠覆性技术创新潜力评价与选择研究:TRIZ理论视角

通过对颠覆性技术产生动因的分析可知,新技术的颠覆性创新潜力可通过其在不同的创新轨迹上解决原技术与市场冲突、自身技术发展与市场冲突的能力进行评价。在建立评价体系基础上,通过专家打分,运用灰色模糊综合评价方法,较为客观和有效地评价了新技术的颠覆性创新潜力,为政府培育和企业选择颠覆性技术提供新思路。     

国外颠覆性技术识别方法浅析

颠覆性技术另辟蹊径,对已有传统或主流技术途径产生颠覆性效果,具有极大的应用前景,各国均积极对颠覆性技术进行识别与早期培育。本文梳理了一些国外政府机构、智库、情报机构、咨询公司、高校、专利分析机构等发布的典型技术识别研究报告,对其中的颠覆性技术识别方法进行了归纳、分析与评价,以期为我国开展相应的颠覆性技术识别方法研究提供借鉴。     

Online classified advertising: a review and bibliometric analysis

The study of online classified advertising has been evolving recently, with rapid growth in the quantity of publications. Many studies have focused on certain aspects of online classified advertising, such as its societal influence. However, an additional analysis of those studies using rigorous bibliometric tools, which are supposed to offer further research guidance, has not yet been performed. This paper therefore begins by identifying 105 published articles, of which 60 works of proven influence are selected. With the help of rigorous bibliometric and network techniques, established and potential research clusters are identified, together with the collaborative relationships among contributing authors and organizations. A systematic review of this field is helpful in graphically depicting the literature over time and identifying current research focuses as well as emerging trends for future research.     

Real Estate Management via a Decentralized Blockchain Platform

Blockchain technology is one of the key technological breakthroughs of the last decade. It has the ability to revolutionize numerous aspects of society, including financial systems, healthcare, e-government and many others. One such area that is able to reap the benefits of blockchain technology is the real estate industry. Like many other industries, real estate faces major administrative problems such as high transaction fees, a lack of transparency, fraud and the effects of a middleman including undue influence and commissions. Blockchain enables supporting technologies to overcome the obstacles inherent within the real estate investment market. These technologies include smart contracts, immutable record management and time-stamped storage. We utilize these key properties of blockchain technology in our work by proposing a system that has the ability to record real estate transactions in a private blockchain, using smart contracts. The immutability of the blockchain ledger and transactions can provide a safe space for the real estate business. Blockchain technology can also assist the authentication process by hastening background checks. Personal digital keys are provided to parties that are involved in a contract, thus minimizing the risk of fraud. We also discuss the rationale behind the advantages of using a blockchain in this manner, and how we selected the consensus mechanism for our proposed system.     

Dynamic patterns of technological convergence in printed electronics technologies: patent citation network

The importance of the convergent approach to technology development has increased recently. Therefore, understanding the characteristics of technology convergence, which refers to the combination of two or more technological elements in order to create a new system with new functions, is an important issue not only for researchers in technology development, but also for company directors for their successful management of product competitiveness. Therefore, in order to investigate the patterns and the mechanism of technological convergence, we examine the printed electronics technology which has typical characteristics of technology convergence. Based on the printed electronics-related patents registered between 1976 and 2012, we perform network analysis of the technology components in order to identify key technologies which played a central role among the groups of convergence technologies and to examine their dynamic role corresponding to the development of technology convergence. The results show that control technologies which control the role of other technologies over the technology convergence process play significant role. The centrality value is highest in the case of control technology, and devices related technologies have the largest number of patents quantitatively, thereby confirming the results. In addition, the trajectory analysis of the centrality value reveals a co-evolution pattern in technology convergence.     

Accepting financial transactions using blockchain technology and cryptocurrency: A customer perspective approach

Blockchain, and cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin, are innovative FinTech technologies that speedily invade the finance market and changing the power of the global economy. However, there was a low acceptance of these technologies among consumers. There is a clear gap in-between that has not yet been taken into consideration and has been misunderstood on many platforms. This paper intends to estimate the usability of blockchain technology by investigating behavioral elements that affect customers' intention towards blockchain-based cryptocurrency transactions. Given the complexity of the technology, this study proposes a new integration model: The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) together with new external variables regarding blockchain adoption characteristics such as trust, regulatory support, social influence, design, and experience. Surveys were conducted among international users to identify the impacts of these variables on their intention.Our findings indicate two powerful constructs (regulatory support and experience) that encourage customer trust towards blockchain-based applications. People surveyed agreed on a great sense of security and can trust the Blockchain-based applications when they are regulated and insured by the local government. Also, at a certain level of experience, users feel confident to use blockchain-based applications, a high level of trust supports technology adoption. As such, governments and businesses can dedicate efforts to enhance customers' trust and ultimately promote better acceptance of blockchain technology and its applications.     

A visualization tool of patent topic evolution using a growing cell structure neural network

This research used a cell structure map to visualize technological evolution and showed the developmental trend in a technological field. The basic concept was to organize patents into a map produced by growing cell structures. The map was then disassembled into clusters with similar contexts using the Girvan–Newman algorithm. Next, the continuity between clusters in two snapshots was identified and used as the base for establishing a trajectory in the technology. An analysis of patents in the flaw detection field found that the field was composed of several technological trajectories. Among them, ultrasonic flaw detection, wafer inspection and substrate inspection were relatively larger and more continuing technologies, while infrared thermography defect inspection has been an emerging topic in recent years. It is to be hoped that the map of technology constructed in this research provides insights into the history of technological evolution and helps explain the transition patterns through changes in cluster continuity. This can serve a reference point by experts who attempt to visualize the mapping of technological development or identify the latest focus of attention.     

Patent citation analysis: A policy analysis tool

Patent citation analysis is a recent development which uses bibliometric techniques to analyse the wealth of patent citation information. This paper describes the various facets of patent citations and patent citation studies, and their important applications. Construction of technology indicators being an important use of patent citations, various patent citation based technological indicators and their applications are also described.     

Cooperation and technological areas in the state universities of São Paulo: An analysis from the perspective of the triple helix model

This article analyzes the technological cooperation networks, and their respective areas, of the public universities of the State of São Paulo that resulted in patent. The cooperation networks were built from the assignee data and for the technology areas networks the International Patent Classification. It adopted the metrics of Social Network Analysis to characterize these partnerships and analyze it from the perspective of the Triple Helix. A total of 458 technology partnerships were identified that resulted in patents, 210 at USP, 173 at UNICAMP and 75 at UNESP. The main partners were companies and other universities, follow by research institutes, government support institutions and support foundations had low participation, except for FAPESP and EMBRAPA. Regarding technological areas, technologies with applications in the health sector and chemical were the most representative. It was found that the cooperation is still developed in an incipient way, especially regarding the continuity of technological development. In general, there is the multidisciplinary portfolio of patents from universities, but with strong guidance for the areas of health, indicating the search for expertise in this area of expertise.