Evaluating the academic trend of RFID technology based on SCI and SSCI publications from 2001 to 2014

Perceived usefulness of Internet of Things (IOT) in the quality of life of special needs and elderly individuals in Saudi Arabia

Smart home technologies (the Internet of Things [IoT]) are increasingly being implemented in human life, and a growing body of evidence demonstrates their usefulness for people with disabilities and elderly people. To fully benefit from their use, these individuals must know the different existing tools and their potential and be trained and motivated to use them. The current study aims to evaluate the factors that promote the use of smart home technologies (IoT) in people's lives. Data were gathered from 130 Saudi individuals via a survey questionnaire. Mean, standard deviation, and MANOVA were calculated. According to the results, the participants showed a moderate perception toward IoT technologies, with a mean score of (M = 2.06 and SD = 0.328). Moreover, no statistically significant differences were found in the perceived usefulness of the IoT and its dimensions (usage, skills, obstacles, and inclusion) among participants, based on gender, education level, category, experience, and devices used. While elder participants demonstrated higher perceived usefulness and perceived obstacles than the younger participants, as evidenced by the statistically significant differences in the results (MS = 0.432, F = 4.197, Sig0.017 < 0.05; MS = 0.545, F = 4.615, Sig0.012 < 0.05), the usage, skills, and inclusion dimensions showed no significant differences by participants' ages (MS = 1.080, F = 3.035, Sig0.052 > 0.05; MS = 0.584, F = 2.882, Sig0.060 > 0.05; MS = 0.255, F = 1.939, Sig0.148 > 0.05, respectively). The results support the relevance of providing knowledge and enhancing skills, thereby fostering a positive perception of IoT technologies. This study is one of the few addressing IoT technologies in special needs settings in the Middle East region. It has the potential to support evidence that IoT technologies are especially significant for people with special needs and elderly individuals.

Topic analysis of academic disciplines based on prolific and authoritative researchers

Purpose

The paper aims to explore whether topic analysis (identification of the core contents, trends and topic distribution in the target field) can be performed using a more low-cost and easily applicable method that relies on a small dataset, and how we can obtain this small dataset based on the features of the publications.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper proposes a topic analysis method based on prolific and authoritative researchers (PARs). First, the authors identify PARs in a specific discipline by considering the number of publications and citations of authors. Based on the research publications of PARs (small dataset), the authors then construct a keyword co-occurrence network and perform a topic analysis. Finally, the authors compare the method with the traditional method.

Findings

The authors found that using a small dataset (only 6.47% of the complete dataset in our experiment) for topic analysis yields relatively high-quality and reliable results. The comparison analysis reveals that the proposed method is quite similar to the results of traditional large dataset analysis in terms of publication time distribution, research areas, core keywords and keyword network density.

Research limitations/implications

Expert opinions are needed in determining the parameters of PARs identification algorithm. The proposed method may neglect the publications of junior researchers and its biases should be discussed.

Practical implications

This paper gives a practical way on how to implement disciplinary analysis based on a small dataset, and how to identify this dataset by proposing a PARs-based topic analysis method. The proposed method presents a useful view of the data based on PARs that can produce results comparable to traditional method, and thus will improve the effectiveness and cost of interdisciplinary topic analysis.

Originality/value

This paper proposes a PARs-based topic analysis method and verifies that topic analysis can be performed using a small dataset.