Database Tomography Applied to an Aircraft Science and Technology Investment Strategy

Data Base Tomography was used to obtain technical intelligence from aircraft data bases derived from the Science Citation Index and the Engineering Compendex, and phrase proximity analysis provided the relationships among the pervasive technical themes.

Abstract

Abstract : Data Base Tomography (DT) is a textual data base analysis system consisting of two major components: (1) algorithms for extracting multiword phrase frequencies and phrase proximities (physical closeness of the multiword technical phrases) from any type of large textual data base, and (2) applying interpretative capabilities of the expert human analyst. DT was used to obtain technical intelligence from aircraft data bases derived from the Science Citation Index and the Engineering Compendex. Phrase frequency analysis by the technical domain expert provided the pervasive technical themes of the aircraft data bases, and the phrase proximity analysis provided the relationships among the pervasive technical themes. Bibliometric analysis of the aircraft literature supplemented the DT results with author/journal/institution publication and citation data. Comparisons of the aircraft data base results with past analyses of similarly structured near-earth space, chemistry, and hypersonic/supersonic flow data bases are made.