Science and Technology Text Mining: Origins of Database Tomography and Multi-Word Phrase Clustering

Abstract

A. ABSTRACTThis report initially describes the motivations for co-word analysis in support of research policy formulation and research implementation evaluation. It places coword analysis in perspective to other co-occurrence techniques such as cocitation and co-nomination analyses. It then traces the origins of co-word analysis in computational linguistics, describes in detail the development of co-word analysis for research evaluation, and concludes by presenting a new approach to co-word analysis for research evaluation (Database Tomography). The report shows that this new approach to co-word analysis, which requires no index or key words but deals with text directly, is a useful tool for scanning large bodies of text. It can identify pervasive thrust areas and their interrelationships, and serve as a starting point for further in-depth analysis of the text. Its value increases as: 1) the size of text increases and 2) the breadth of topical areas covered by the text increases beyond the expertise of a moderate number of panels of experts. A single link clustering example is shown that represents the first use of multi-word technical phrases in modern clustering.(The views in this report are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of the Department of the Navy or any of its components)