February 20, 2025
Zohreh Zahedi

Zohreh Zahedi

Academic Rank: Assistant professor
Address: Persian Gulf University, Faculty of Humanities, Ground floor
Degree: Ph.D in Information Science/Social media metrics (Altmetrics)
Phone: -
Faculty: Faculty of Humanities

Research

Title
Investigating the frontiers between science and technology in the field of breast cancer and providing a solution to reduce the gap between them using scenario-based approach
Type Thesis
Keywords
تعامل علم و فناوري، ارتباط دانشگاه و صنعت، انتقال دانش، انتقال فناوري، تخصيص پنهان ديريكله، مدل سازي موضوعي، سرطان پستان، برنامه ريزي سناريو
Researchers Homa Arshadi (Student) , Maryam Okhovati (Primary advisor) , Maryam Ashrafi (Advisor) , Zohreh Zahedi (Advisor)

Abstract

Introduction: The convergence of scientific research and technological advancements plays a vital role in public health. However, scientific and technological outputs, such as publications and patents, may grow at different rates, leading to gaps in critical areas like breast cancer. Due to its high prevalence and significant social impact, breast cancer has garnered considerable global attention. This study aims to identify and bridge the gap between science and technology in breast cancer research and propose strategies through scenario planning. Methods: This study employs a multi-methods approach with an applied and exploratory nature, utilizing topic modeling techniques. Additionally, it adopts a foresight perspective by integrating exploratory approaches with the scenario-technique method. The study population includes metadata and textual data from breast cancer-related articles and patents over a 10-year period (2012–2021) extracted from the Web of Science and PatStat databases to determine the thematic focus of researchers and inventors. The latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) algorithm was used to identify thematic clusters and synchronous or asynchronous areas of science and technology. Scenario techniques were applied to identify strategies for reducing the gap. In the scenario phase, various experts, including science and technology policymakers, inventors, patent examiners, futurists, and specialists familiar with breast cancer and oncology, participated in five stages: identifying key factors, ranking factors and determining key drivers, quantifying key indicators, validating scenarios, and ranking proposed actions. Results: The findings revealed thematic gaps between scientific and technological outputs in certain areas of breast cancer. Patents often addressed less-known areas such as herbal medicines, medical devices, protective clothing, and microRNA therapies, whereas researchers focused on the complexities of breast cancer, including genetic mutat