• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.227-240
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• 2011

New concepts and ideas often result from extensive recombination of existing concepts or ideas. Both researchers and developers build on existing concepts and ideas in published papers or registered patents to develop new theories and technologies that in turn serve as a basis for further development. As the importance of patent increases, so does that of patent analysis. Patent analysis is largely divided into network-based and keyword-based analyses. The former lacks its ability to analyze information technology in details while the letter is unable to identify the relationship between such technologies. In order to overcome the limitations of network-based and keyword-based analyses, this study, which blends those two methods, suggests the keyword network based analysis methodology. In this study, we collected significant technology information in each patent that is related to Light Emitting Diode (LED) through text mining, built a keyword network, and then executed a community network analysis on the collected data. The results of analysis are as the following. First, the patent keyword network indicated very low density and exceptionally high clustering coefficient. Technically, density is obtained by dividing the number of ties in a network by the number of all possible ties. The value ranges between 0 and 1, with higher values indicating denser networks and lower values indicating sparser networks. In real-world networks, the density varies depending on the size of a network; increasing the size of a network generally leads to a decrease in the density. The clustering coefficient is a network-level measure that illustrates the tendency of nodes to cluster in densely interconnected modules. This measure is to show the small-world property in which a network can be highly clustered even though it has a small average distance between nodes in spite of the large number of nodes. Therefore, high density in patent keyword network means that nodes in the patent keyword network are connected sporadically, and high clustering coefficient shows that nodes in the network are closely connected one another. Second, the cumulative degree distribution of the patent keyword network, as any other knowledge network like citation network or collaboration network, followed a clear power-law distribution. A well-known mechanism of this pattern is the preferential attachment mechanism, whereby a node with more links is likely to attain further new links in the evolution of the corresponding network. Unlike general normal distributions, the power-law distribution does not have a representative scale. This means that one cannot pick a representative or an average because there is always a considerable probability of finding much larger values. Networks with power-law distributions are therefore often referred to as scale-free networks. The presence of heavy-tailed scale-free distribution represents the fundamental signature of an emergent collective behavior of the actors who contribute to forming the network. In our context, the more frequently a patent keyword is used, the more often it is selected by researchers and is associated with other keywords or concepts to constitute and convey new patents or technologies. The evidence of power-law distribution implies that the preferential attachment mechanism suggests the origin of heavy-tailed distributions in a wide range of growing patent keyword network. Third, we found that among keywords that flew into a particular field, the vast majority of keywords with new links join existing keywords in the associated community in forming the concept of a new patent. This finding resulted in the same outcomes for both the short-term period (4-year) and long-term period (10-year) analyses. Furthermore, using the keyword combination information that was derived from the methodology suggested by our study enables one to forecast which concepts combine to form a new patent dimension and refer to those concepts when developing a new patent.

• Korean Journal of Child Education & Care
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.177-196
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• 2019

Objective: This study aims to analyze research trends related to software education for young children, focusing on studies published in Korea from 2016 to 2019 March. Methods: A total of 26 research publications on software education for young children, searched from Korea Citation Index and Research Information Sharing Service were identified for the analysis. The trend in these publications was classified and examined respectively by publication dates, types of publications, and the fields of study. To investigate a means of research, the analysis included key topics, types of research methods, and characteristics of the study variables. Results: The results of the analysis show that the number of publications on the topic of software education for young children has increased over the three years, of which most were published as a scholarly journal article. Among the 26 research studies analyzed, 16 (61.5%) are related to the field of early childhood education or child studies. Key topics and target subjects of the most research include the curriculum development of software education for young children or the effectiveness of software education on 4- and 5-year-old children. Most of the analyzed studies are experimental research designs or in the form of literature reviews. The most frequently studied research variable is young children's cognitive characteristics. For the studies that employ educational programs, the use of a physical computing environment is prevalent, and the most frequently used robot as a programming tool is "Albert". The duration of the program implementation varies, ranging from 5 weeks to 48 weeks. In the analyzed research studies, computational thinking is conceptualized as a problem-solving skill that can be improved by software education, and assessed by individual instruments measuring sub-factors of computational thinking. Conclusion/Implications: The present study reveals that, although the number of research publications in software education for young children has increased, the overall sufficiency of the accumulated research data and a variety of research methods are still lacking. An increased interest in software education for young children and more research activities in this area are needed to develop and implement developmentally appropriate software education programs in early childhood settings.