Literature-Related Discovery (LRD): Introduction and background
Discovery in science is the generation of novel, interesting, plausible, and intelligible knowledge about the objects of study. Literature-related discovery (LRD) is the linking of two or more literature concepts that have heretofore not been linked (i.e., disjoint), in order to produce novel, inter...
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| Published in: | Technological forecasting & social change 2008-02, Vol.75 (2), p.165-185 |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | eng |
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| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Discovery in science is the generation of novel, interesting, plausible, and intelligible knowledge about the objects of study. Literature-related discovery (LRD) is the linking of two or more literature concepts that have heretofore not been linked (i.e., disjoint), in order to produce novel, interesting, plausible, and intelligible knowledge (i.e., potential discovery). LRD has two main components that differ in their methodological approach to discovery:
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Literature-based discovery (LBD) produces potential discovery through analysis of the technical literature alone.
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Literature-assisted discovery (LAD) produces potential discovery through both analysis of the technical literature and use of selected authors of that literature. These authors generate potential discovery as proposers, workshop/panel participants, or in other active roles.
LRD offers the promise of large amounts of potential discovery, for the following reasons:
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the burgeoning technical literature contains a very large pool of technical concepts in myriad technical areas;
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researchers spend full time trying to cover the literature in their own research fields and are relatively unfamiliar with research in other especially disparate fields of research;
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the large number of technical concepts (and disparate technical concepts) means that many combinations of especially disparate technical concepts exist
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by the laws of probability, some of these combinations will produce novel, interesting, plausible, and intelligible knowledge about the objects of study.
This Special Issue presents the LRD methodology and voluminous discovery results from five problem areas: four medical (treatments for Parkinson's Disease (PD), Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Raynaud's Phenomenon (RP), and Cataracts) and one non-medical (Water Purification (WP)). In particular, the open discovery systems (ODS) aspect of LRD (start with problem, generate potential solution(s), or vice versa) is addressed, rather than the closed discovery systems (CDS) aspect (start with problem and potential solution(s), generate linking mechanism(s)). In the presentation of potential discovery, a ‘vetting’ process is used that insures both requirements for ODS LBD are met: concepts are linked that have not been linked previously, and novel, interesting, plausible, and intelligible knowledge is produced.
The potential discoveries for the PD, MS, Cataracts, and WP problems are the first we have seen reported by this ODS LBD approach, and th |
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| ISSN: | 0040-1625 1873-5509 |