Research On Measuring S&T Frontiers Based On The Theoretical Framework Of Knowledge Flow

With the coming of knowledge economy, the study of knowledge measurement plays a more and more important role towards S&T decision making and management. Under the modern information technology circumstances, both of the type of S&T literatures and the classification of S&T knowledge have been greatly enriched and developed, which requires the exploring of new research system and analysis approaches should be put forward by S&T information researchers so as to meet the practical demands. Both of the theoretical and empirical studies are demonstrated in this dissertation based on the exsiting research results at home and abroad.First, this dissertation constructs knolwdge flow theory frame of S&T frontiers based on the citation analysis theory, knowledge network theory and knowledge evolutionary theory. Moreover, the mechanisms and the main paths from intellectual base to research frontiers of S&T are analyzed. Then, research frontiers identification model based on S&T literatures is established, following research framework of knowmetrics above-mentioned. Meanwhile, systematic analysis indicators and quantitative methods are put forward against the concepts concerning knowledge units, knowledge chains and knowledge clusters.Second, the scientific literatures and patent data, in the case of solar cell, are used to construct Article-Article and Patent-Patent knowledge maps by the means of co-cited network analysis method. The S&T frontiers are detected and analyzed temporally with aiming at the knowledge units, knowledge chains and knowledge clusters. Main results show that the relationship between intellectual base and research frontier are inheritable and the knowledge flow path can effectively identify the S&T research frontier and its evolution trend. Meanwhile, knowledge units supported by core patent data are not only playing a role of intellectual base toward a certain application technology, but also they can adcance the intercrosses on different technology study directions.Last, Article-Patent and Patent-Patent co-citation networks are extracted by using the same dataset mentioned above. Through comparing the knowledge units, knowledge chains and knowledge cluster within these two different knowledge networks, applied frontiers under the two knowledge flow paths are identified and analyzed. Furthermore, co-words analysis is used to reveal the positive effects of scientific knowledge towards application techonology development and the knowledge connections between both of them. The results show that knowledge transfer from science to technology is mainly reflected in the fields of theoretical interpretations and characterizations etc. While knowledge transfer among technologies is mainly presented in semiconductor materials and semiconductor composite structures, and it demonstrates the obvious features of "Generic Technology"In summary, this dissertation indicates that, from the perspective of knowledge flow theory, the S&T frontiers detecting methods and knowledge discovery theory based on the scientific and technological literatures are quite effective and practical to provide data supports in decision-making and supportive means in S&T management.