Keyword Cluster Analysis Research Articles

Mapping Knowledge Domain to Analyze the Building Information Modeling on Building Energy Saving Based on Visualized Analysis Method

Building information modeling (BIM), as a novel knowledge field of modern engineering management, is bringing different degrees of changes to the construction industry from engineering practice to management concept. In order to analyze the research status of BIM in the field of energy-saving transformation, find its research hotspots, and reveal its future development trend to guide the practice and application of building information model better, the mapping knowledge domain is constructed via the literature visualization analysis method based on the theory of cocitation analysis and the pathfinder algorithm This is to analyze the hot spots and reveal the frontier of building information modeling on building energy saving. This article lists journal articles and review articles included in the web of science database between 2012 and 2022, using the literature visualization analysis software Citespace to establish the knowledge graph of the collected literature, the scholars’ collaboration analysis, the research institutions’ collaboration analysis, the national collaboration analysis, the keyword co-occurrence analysis, the keyword cluster analysis, the time zone analysis, the keywords timeline analysis, and the literature cocitation analysis have been carried out and discussed. According to the analysis results, the research hotspots and future development trends are interpreted and discussed.

The interaction between microbiota and immune in intestinal inflammatory diseases: Global research status and trends.

This study aimed to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the relevant literature on the interaction between microbiota and immune in intestinal inflammatory diseases, and show its current status, hotspots, and development trends. The related literature was acquired from the Web of Science Core Collection on October 12, 2022. Co-occurrence and cooperation relationship analysis of authors, institutions, countries, references, and keywords in the literature were carried out through CiteSpace 6.1.R3 software and the Online Analysis platform of Literature Metrology. At the same time, the relevant knowledge maps were drawn, and the keywords cluster analysis and emergence analysis were performed. 3,608 related publications were included, showing that the number of articles in this field is increasing year by year. The results showed that Gasbarrini A and Sokol H were the authors with the highest cumulative number of articles with 25, and the institution with the most articles was Harvard University with 142 articles. The USA was far ahead in the article output, with 1,131 articles, and had a dominant role, followed by China with 707 articles. The journal Frontiers in Immunology contributed the most to this research field with 213 articles. In the cooperation network analysis, the USA, Harvard University, and Xavier RJ were the most widely collaborated country, institution, and author, respectively, which implied a high level of influence. Keywords analysis showed that there were 770 keywords, which were mainly classified as internal related diseases, such as "inflammatory bowel disease", "irritable bowel syndrome", "colorectal cancer", and the mechanism of interaction of microbiota and immune, such as "intestinal microbiota", "commensal microbiota", "regulatory T cell", "dendritic cell", "barrier function", "activation", "anti-inflammatory properties", "intestinal epithelium", and "diversity". Emerging analysis showed that future research hotspots and trends might be the short-chain fatty acid, gut dysbiosis, gut-liver axis, and fusobacterium nucleatum. This research was the first bibliometric analysis of publications in the field of interaction between microbiota and immune in intestinal inflammatory diseases using visualization software and data information mining, and obtained the current status, hotspots, and development of this field, which provides a theoretical basis for its scientific research.

Visual Analysis of Psychological Resilience Research Based on Web of Science Database.

The importance of psychological resilience that people show in coping with stress and adversity is prominent, but few studies have used rigorous bibliometric tools to analyze the knowledge structure and distribution of psychological resilience research. The purpose of this study was to sort out and summarize the previous studies on psychological resilience by using bibliometrics. Specifically, the time distribution of psychological resilience research was determined by publication trend, the power distribution was determined by the distribution of countries, authors, institutions and journals, the hot research spots were analyzed according to the results of keyword cluster analysis, and the research frontier was explored according to the results of burst keywords. CiteSpace5.8.R3 was used to analyze the literatures on psychological resilience collected in Web of Science core Collection database from January 1, 2010, to June 16, 2022. A total of 8462 literatures were included after screening. Research on psychological resilience has been on the rise in recent years. The United States had made a high contribution in this field. Robert H Pietrzak, George A Bonanno, Connor KM and others were highly influential. J Pers Soc Psychol has the highest citation frequency and centrality. The research hot spots focus on five aspects: study on psychological resilience related to COVID-19 pandemic, influencing factors of psychological resilience, psychological resilience related to PTSD, study on psychological resilience of special population, and the molecular biology and genetic basis of psychological resilience. Psychological resilience related to COVID-19 pandemic was the most cutting-edge research aspect. The current situation and trend of psychological resilience research were found in this study, which may be used to identify more hot issues and explore new research directions in this field.

Research Hotspot and Trends in Pre-Service Training for Inclusive Preschool Teachers in China — A Bibliometric Analysis Based on Cite Space

The purpose of this paper is to help better understand pre-service training for inclusive preschool teachers in China; to grasp the research context, evolution research hotspots and trends of pre-service training for inclusive preschool teachers in China. In this paper, we use the scientific quantitative knowledge graph method and using Cite Space visualization software to analyze 111 studies from 2009-2023 in CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure) databases, Such as literature publication trend graph and analysis, keyword co-occurrence analysis, keyword clustering analysis, research hotspot analysis and research prospects. The results show that the current hot research on pre-service training for inclusive education teachers is mainly focused on: pre-service training for inclusive education literacy of preschool teachers (it includes the research of the concept, connotation, status quo and pre-service training of preschool inclusive education teachers); pre-service talent cultivation models for inclusive early childhood education and design of inclusive early childhood education course; future research on inclusive education for pre-service preschool teachers can actively explore three aspects: First, according to the China’s policy requirements for the training of inclusive teachers in colleges and universities, the preschool education major must clarify the pre-service training plan for preschool inclusive teachers. Secondly, it should analyze the social needs for preschool inclusive teachers and develop and design pre-service preschool inclusive education courses. Finally, pay attention to pre-service practice inclusive education and improve the pre-school inclusive education pre-service curriculum system.

A Bibliometric Analysis of Carbon Dots in Sensors Application

The exponential increase in carbonaceous-based research has prompted the scientific community to apply it to numerous value-added applications. This paper aimed to systematically analyze the comprehensive contributions clusters of publications per year, country, institution, authors, and keywords-wise by using a quantitative review technique called bibliometric analysis. The data was retrieved from the Scopus database to identify the overall scientific trend results with the keyword "carbon dots as a sensor" from 2010 to 2020. The VOSviewer, WordItOut, and Datawrapper are selected as tools for bibliometric analysis and data visualization. In this work, the total citations from the Scopus Core Set and the total citations in the most recent year have only been used for the assessment of highly cited papers. The results showed that after 2014, the number of publications increased significantly with the work related to “carbon dots as sensors.” Thus, comprehensive journals like the Angewandte Chemie - International Edition were the most popular in publishing articles, contributing to almost 6.39% of the research area. The country-wise analysis revealed that China accounted for more than 67.18% of the articles published, followed by the United States and India, comprising 6.24% and 6.13%, respectively. Lastly, keyword cluster analysis revealed five major research hotspots for future discussion. Thus, this analysis provides an important starting point for further studies on research concerning the direction of "carbon dots as a sensor" for positive development in the research area.

Restoration strategies for water and salt transport in saline soils: A 20‐year bibliometric analysis

AbstractWorld Soil Day 2021 encouraged the prevention of soil salinization and improved land productivity. As research underpins this effort, we analysed trends in research on water and salt mobilization in saline soils and groundwater over the past 20 years. We found that the average studies have increased by 30%, from 110 in 2003–2015 to 143 in 2016–2022, with agriculture, water resources and environmental science being the main research fields. The most common research interests were anthropogenic impact (28.6%) and climate change (27.8%), followed by agricultural irrigation management (20%). A keyword clustering analysis revealed that the studies could be classified into four categories: “Agricultural production,” “Freshwater and groundwater salinization,” “Seawater intrusion,” and “Solute dynamic migration.” The most frequently used keyword was “transport” while the use of “freshwater,” “groundwater,” and “seawater intrusion” has increased sharply, suggesting that seawater intrusion and freshwater salinization are an area of increasing interest related to climate change. We identified comprehensive simulating systems for seawater intrusion as an important area for future research. We recommend that promoting a comprehensive and quantitative understanding of water and salt transport in saline soil is needed to ensure stakeholders are provided with science‐based information required for policymaking aimed towards sustainable development.

How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected young people?-Mapping knowledge structure and research framework by scientometric analysis.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, there has been a large body of literature focusing on the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and young people. The purpose of this study is to explore the current research status and the specific mechanism of COVID-19's effects on young people based on related literature. This paper mainly used VOS viewer and CiteSpace software to conduct a scientometric analysis of 5,077 publications retrieved from the Web of Science database. The results show that the main contributors to the field were mainly from North America and Europe, and the trend of research focus was from shallow to deep. The five main research areas in the field were summarized by keyword clustering analysis as follows: lifestyle changes due to lockdown; changes in stress and emotions; psychological illness and trauma; risk perception and practice toward the epidemic; interventions and social support. Finally, they were linked by four pathways to form a framework that integrates the relationships between the five domains and between elements within each of them, revealing the mechanism of COVID-19's effect on young people. In addition, less studied but promising elements are also presented in the framework, such as research on special groups (disadvantaged socioeconomic groups and sexual minority youth) and extreme suicidal tendencies that deserve our further attention.

Quantitative Analysis of the Research Development Status and Trends of Tannery Wastewater Treatment Technology

In order to better grasp the development and trends of tannery wastewater (TWW) treatment research, this paper provides a review of the TWW treatment research dynamics based on the Web of Science (WoS) database and using CiteSpace software. The research dynamics, hot topics, evolutionary history and research trends in this field are revealed. The results showed that research related to TWW treatment has shown a high growth trend in the number of articles in recent years, and India was outstanding in terms of influence in this area. The keyword clustering analysis showed that the main research hotspots in the field of TWW treatment were biological treatment processes (phytoremediation, constructed wetlands, anaerobic treatment and biofilm reactors) and chemical treatment processes (coagulation and flocculation, and advanced oxidation processes). The analysis of new research frontiers showed that the bioremediation and the application of biofuel cells in TWW will become important research directions in the future.

Estimates of global research productivity in primary ovarian insufficiency from 2000 to 2021: Bibliometric analysis.

Primary ovarian insufficiency (POI) is a heterogeneous disease with diverse clinical phenotypes and etiologies, which is defined as ovarian dysfunction under the age of 40 years. The global prevalence of POI is approximately about 1.1%, and it severely affects female fertility. Nevertheless, bibliometric analysis in this field is extremely limited. We aimed to visualize the research hotspots and trends of POI using bibliometric analysis and tried to predict the future development of this field. The original articles regarding POI were culled from the Web of Science Core Collection. Countries, institutions, journals, authors, and keywords in this field were visually analyzed by employing CiteSpace software and Microsoft Excel 2021 software. A total of 2,999 publications were included for further bibliometric analysis after screening the titles and abstracts stringently. The number of literature regarding POI significantly increased yearly. These publications come from 78 countries. The USA was dominant in the field of POI in terms of the number of publications (865), average citations per item (57.36), and h-index (112). The Institut National De La Sante Et De La Recherche Medicale Inserm is the most high-yield institution in this field with 351 publications. Fertility and Sterility ranked first with the highest number of publications (152), followed by Human Reproduction (138). According to the keyword cluster analysis from 2000 to 2021, the eight keyword clusters encountered frequently were apoptosis, osteoporosis, fertility preservation, mutation, fragile x syndrome, adrenal insufficiency, DNA repair, ovarian reserve. Keyword citation burst analysis revealed that whole-exome sequencing, ovarian tissue cryopreservation, and DNA repair had a citation burst until 2021. Great progress has been made in POI research over the past 20 years, which is widely researched but unevenly developed in the world. In terms of influence, the United States may be in the lead. The research hotspots in POI are mainly pathogenesis and treatment, including genetic mutation, hormone therapy, fertility preservation, and stem cell transplantation.

Research hotspots and trends analysis of user experience: Knowledge maps visualization and theoretical framework construction.

This study focuses on user experience from the perspective of big data to complete the aggregation, clustering, and visual presentation of knowledge. Using a combination of sample literature review, visualization technologies, knowledge map analysis, Carrot2 clustering, and other methodologies, this study intends to examine user experience from three perspectives: research state, hotspots, and trends. First, based on the double-map overlay, core institutions, core countries, core authors, core journals, and core references distribution research, the knowledge flow, research power, and research subjects of user experience are analyzed. Secondly, through keyword clustering analysis, this research intuitively presents the research topics of user experience and reveals the research hotspots and the evolution path of research methods. Finally, with the help of the subject clustering algorithm, the emerging trends of user experience research are predicted: the immersive experience upgrade of multi-scenario integration, the innovative design of multi-role collaboration, and the cross-disciplinary interactive exploration of multi-discipline. Following this, the user experience knowledge map is constructed, providing a global view and macro-cognition for subsequent research.

The Outlook for Sustainable Development Goals in Business and Management: A Systematic Literature Review and Keyword Cluster Analysis

Sustainability is imperative for many countries and organizations, thus, in 2015 the UN proposed its 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These concrete goals put pressure on businesses to initiate sustainability practices, depending on the nature and characteristics of the business. By understanding the current state of sustainability and SDG studies in the business and management disciplines, this study aims to anticipate the outlook of SDGs in these fields. Therefore, this study conducted a Systematic Literature Network Analysis (SLNA) using 237 publications between 2015 and 2021. Based on a keyword analysis, an overview of the trends in SDG studies in business and management emerged in five clusters: technology and innovation, education and human resource management, CSR and firm performance, supply chains and governance, and business strategies. This implies that the business and management disciplines recognize a need to adopt and consider all aspects of sustainability to achieve the UN’s 17 SDGs.

A bibliometric analysis of six decades of academic research on housing prices

PurposeThis paper aims to provide a comprehensive bibliometric study of housing prices according to the articles collected by the Web of Science (WOS).Design/methodology/approachThis paper studies 4,125 research papers on housing prices in the core collection database of WOS. Using VOSviewer, this paper makes a bibliometric and visual analysis of the housing prices research from 1960 to 2020 and probes into the housing prices research from five aspects: time, international cooperation, institutions author cooperation and research focuses.FindingsKeywords such as influencing factors of housing prices, analysis of supply and demand, policy and housing prices and regional cities appear frequently, which indicates the main direction of housing price research literature. Recent common keywords include regression analysis and house price forecast. Countries, like the USA started early in the study of housing prices, and the means and methods in the field of housing price research are mature, leading the forefront of housing price research. Compared with the USA and other Western developed countries, the housing price research in developing countries needs to use innovative research methods and put more effort on sustainability. Research shows that housing price is closely related to economy, and keyword cluster analysis shows that gross domestic product, interest rate, currency and other keywords related to economy are of high-frequency.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper only uses articles from one database (WOS), which does not represent all research papers published worldwide. Some studies have been published for a long time, and the reference value to the research focuses and future research might be limited. There are many kinds of journals included in the study with different publishing frequencies, time ranges and numbers of papers. These may have some influence on the research results.Originality/valueThe main theoretical contribution of this paper is to supplement the current academic research on housing prices. This paper reveals the key points of housing prices research and possible research problems that need attention. We can know from the future research direction and practice which can offer insights for future innovative direction.

Research hotspot and trend analysis in the diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease: A machine learning bibliometric analysis from 2012 to 2021.

AimsThis study aimed to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the relevant literature on the diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and show its current status, hot spots, and development trends.MethodsThe literature on IBD diagnosis was acquired from the Science Citation Index Expanded of the Web of Science Core Collection. Co-occurrence and cooperation relationship analysis of authors, institutions, countries, journals, references, and keywords in the literature were carried out through CiteSpace software and the Online Analysis platform of Literature Metrology. At the same time, the relevant knowledge maps were drawn, and the keywords cluster analysis and emergence analysis were performed.Results14,742 related articles were included, showing that the number of articles in this field has increased in recent years. The results showed that PEYRIN-BIROULET L from the University Hospital of Nancy-Brabois was the author with the most cumulative number of articles. The institution with the most articles was Mayo Clin, and the United States was far ahead in the article output and had a dominant role. Keywords analysis showed that there was a total of 818 keywords, which were mainly focused on the research of related diseases caused or coexisted by IBD, such as colorectal cancer and autoimmune diseases, and the diagnosis and treatment methods of IBD. Emerging analysis showed that future research hotspots and trends might be the treatment of IBD and precision medicine.ConclusionThis research was the first bibliometric analysis of publications in the field of IBD diagnosis using visualization software and data information mining, and obtained the current status, hotspots, and development of this field. The future research hotspot might be the precision medicine of IBD, and the mechanism needed to be explored in depth to provide a theoretical basis for its clinical application.

Research Trends on Greenhouse Engineering Using a Science Mapping Approach

Horticultural protected cultivation has spread throughout the world as it has proven to be extremely effective. In recent years, the greenhouse engineering research field has become one of the main research topics within greenhouse farming. The main objectives of the current study were to identify the major research topics and their trends during the last four decades by analyzing the co-occurrence network of keywords associated with greenhouse engineering publications. A total of 3804 pertinent documents published, in 1981–2021, were analyzed and discussed. China, the United States, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands have been the most active countries with more than 36% of the relevant literature. The keyword cluster analysis suggested the presence of five principal research topics: energy management and storage; monitoring and control of greenhouse climate parameters; automation of greenhouse operations through the internet of things (IoT) and wireless sensor network (WSN) applications; greenhouse covering materials and microclimate optimization in relation to plant growth; structural and functional design for improving greenhouse stability, ventilation and microclimate. Recent research trends are focused on real-time monitoring and automatic control systems based on the IoT and WSN technologies, multi-objective optimization approaches for greenhouse climate control, efficient artificial lighting and sustainable greenhouse crop cultivation using renewable energy.

A review on the remediation of microplastics using constructed wetlands: Bibliometric, co-occurrence, current trends, and future directions.

Massive prevalence of microplastics (MPs) in the environment has become one of the world's most serious environmental concerns. Human dependence on plastics has created a constant flow of MPs from different sources into natural environment, which has raised public concern regarding consequences of MPs coming into contact with the natural environment. Deploying constructed wetlands (CWs) to reduce MPs pollution is considered a promising method, however there are still barriers for breakthroughs in this technology, particularly knowledge gaps in the mechanisms affect removal process. Recognising this, we provide a comprehensive summary of current advances and theories regarding the mechanisms of occurrence in this research area. In this work, the bibliometric methods were first used to identify annual publication trends and topical topics of research interest. The selected documents were then statistically analyzed using VOSviewer and the 'bibliometrix' package in R to derive the annual productivity of countries or organizations, the most relevant affiliations, the most relevant authors, the most relevant sources, textual analysis, co-occurrence analysis, and cluster analysis of keywords. Finally, detailed information concerning the removal of MPs by CWs was summarised, covering the most common operational and design parameters (i.e., structure types, wetland plants, substrate materials, and microbial communities), to reveal how these parameters can be adjusted for more efficient MPs removal rate. Challenges and future directions were additionally proposed. It is hoped that the review will help identify current research trends, provide insight into the mechanisms of the removal process, and contribute further to the development of this important area.

Researches on Stem and Progenitor Cells in Intervertebral Discs: An Analysis of the Scientific Landscape.

Low back pain (LBP) is a common clinical symptom, and the prevalence is ranged from 60% to 70%. With the deepening of basic research, the development of intervertebral disc regeneration-oriented cell therapy, especially stem and progenitor cells therapy, showed good research prospects and was expected to become new methods of treatment for LBP. Our study is aimed at analyzing the scientific output of stem and progenitor cells in intervertebral discs and at driving future research into new publications. Researches focused on this file were searched from the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E) of the Web of Science (WOS) core collection database and were screened according to inclusion criteria. We evaluated and visualized the results, including annual publications, citations, authors, organizations, countries, research directions, funds, and journals by bibliometric website, VOSviewer, and Citespace softwares on May 27, 2022. A total of 450 original articles and reviews were included, and the overall trend of the number of publications rapidly increased. In worldwide, China and the USA were the leading countries for research production. The retrieved 450 publications received 14322 citations, with an average of 31.83 citations and an H-index of 62. The most high-yield author, organization, country, research directions, funds, and journals were Chen QX from Zhejiang University, Zhejiang University, China, Cell Biology, National Natural Science Foundation of China, and Spine, respectively. Keywords cluster analysis showed the research hotspots in the future, including “human intervertebral disc”, “adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cell”, “intervertebral disc degeneration”, “degenerative disc model”, “nucleus pulposus regeneration”, “human cartilage”, “3d culture”, “shrinkage-free preparation”, and “polylactide disc”. Furthermore, with accumulating evidence demonstrating the role of stem and progenitor cells in intervertebral discs, “microenvironment”, “activation”, “intervertebral disc degeneration”, and “oxidative stress” are becoming the research frontiers and trends.

Analysis and categorization of studies of digital marketing in small and medium enterprises

Purpose: To analyze and categorize the scientific production in the field of digital marketing in small and medium enterprises.Design/methodology/approach: We retrieved the bibliographic information of 294 publications in this field indexed in Scopus and employed technology-mining techniques and cluster analysis of keywords to gain insight into the most relevant trends in this research area. We conducted a keyword cleaning process to remove ambiguity, synonyms, and obvious results and employed our own Python scripts and the Bibliometrix package in the R programming language for the calculations.Findings: Our results paint a broad picture of this research area, highlighting its most important journals, countries, researchers, and keywords, as well as their interactions. We also identified and explained five thematic clusters: electronic commerce, social media, specific social media, internationalization, and brand. We found that social media, big data, search engine optimization, advertisement, internationalization, websites, and Facebook are hot research topics in this field. Originality/value: This study offers updated information on the trends of the scientific production in said research field, covering a time window that goes up to the year 2021. This is beyond any traditional bibliometric analysis, and it reveals the structure of the knowledge in the field. This paper can be used as a reference point to define a future research agenda in this area.

Visualising the Knowledge Domain of Linguistic Landscape Research: A Scientometric Review (1994-2021)

Linguistic landscape (LL) is a prism that reflects the linguistic dynamics, language policies, and power relations in given territories. By utilising the scientometric software, CiteSpace 5.8.R3, this paper provides a visualised overview of 654 records and 19746 references (1994-2021) on LL selected from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC). The scientific network analysis, keyword network analysis, and co-citation analysis were undertaken. The leading authors, institutions, and countries in the LL field were identified through scientific network analysis. Analyses of high-frequency keywords and the cluster analysis of keywords identified the hot topics within the LL domain. Document co-citation analysis and co-cited reference clusters were determined to examine influential works and LL research frontiers. The findings indicated that LL research had been expanded from the initial focus on identity and language policy to today’s in-depth explorations of language, multilingualism, and English in the globalisation context. In addition, the research object and research approach have made a critical turn to a highly interdisciplinary way.

Knowledge Mapping of the Phytoremediation of Cadmium-Contaminated Soil: A Bibliometric Analysis from 1994 to 2021.

Cadmium pollution of soil threatens the environmental quality and human health. Phytoremediation of cadmium-contaminated soil has attracted global attention in recent decades. This study aimed to conduct a comprehensive and systematic review of the literature on phytoremediation of cadmium-contaminated soil based on bibliometric analysis. A total of 5494 articles published between 1994 and 2021 were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection. Our knowledge mapping presented the authors, journals, countries, institutions, and other basic information to understand the development status of phytoremediation of cadmium-contaminated soil. Based on a keyword cluster analysis, the identified major research domains were “biochar”, “Thlaspi caerulescens”, “endophytic bacteria”, “oxidative stress”, “EDTA”, and “bioconcentration factor”. Overall, this study provided a detailed summary of research trends and hotspots. Based on the keyword co-occurrence and burst analysis, the core concepts and basic theories of this field were completed in 2011. However, the pace of theoretical development has been relatively slow. Finally, future research trends/frontiers were proposed, such as biochar addition, rhizosphere bacterial community manipulation, cadmium subcellular distribution, and health risk assessment.

Bibliometric and visualized analysis of electroacupuncture in the past 10 years

BackgroundThere are many studies that have interrogated the evolution and use of electroacupuncture (EA). We aimed to evaluate the research status, cooperation and development of EA in the past 10 years. MethodsWe obtained data on the EA from the Web of Science core collection database. CiteSpace 5.7. R1 software was used to assess research cooperation through analysis of authors, institutions and countries. In addition, keyword cluster analysis, references and burst detection were analyzed to explore research hotspots and trends in the field of EA. ResultsWe included a total of 3019 citing literature and 78,235 cited literature for analysis. The data showed that there has been a rise in the global number of EA studies in the past decade. Besides, the data demonstrated that China has made outstanding contribution in the development of EA. Whereas there is inter-agency cooperation in China, there is less cooperation with other countries. In addition, we showed frequent use of keywords such as “expression”, “stimulation”, or “pain”. Besides, neuroscience was the main research area, followed by general medicine and oncology. Furthermore, with the improved research methods and technologies, there is enhanced overall quality of the studies. ConclusionTaken together, our findings demonstrate a steady increase in the studies involving EA. However, the studies are unevenly distributed among countries and thus there is need for closer international cooperation.