Structure of the nanoscience and nanotechnology applications literature

The Applications literature associated with nanoscience and nanotechnology research was examined. About 65,000 nanotechnology records for 2005 were retrieved from the Science Citation Index/Social Science Citation Index (SCI/SSCI) (SCI (2006). Certain data included herein are derived from the Science Citation Index/Social Science Citation Index prepared by the Thomson Scientific®, Inc. (Thomson®), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) Through visual inspection of the Abstract phrases, all the diverse non-medical Applications were identified, and the relationships among the Applications, both direct and indirect, were obtained. The medical applications were identified through a fuzzy clustering process. Metrics associated with research literatures for specific Applications/Applications groups were generated.