A Bibliometric Profile of Research on Rough Sets

Abstract

Rough sets theory is a powerful mathematical tool for modelling various types of inexact, incomplete or uncertain information. Rough sets theory and its applications have attracted significant attention among researchers and extensive research has been carried out since it was first proposed by Pawlak in 1982. This paper presents a panorama of rough sets and quantitatively analyzes the developments of rough sets research by scientometrics approach. The bibliometric analysis is conducted based on 11833 Web of Science indexed papers published from 1982 to 2018. The science mapping tool, VOSviewer, is employed to cluster the documents and to assist in summarizing the important publications over the last ten years. The results are presented in the following aspects: development stages over the recent two decades, thematic structure of publications, citation distribution on subjects, core journals and conferences, international research collaboration profiles and top scholars. The results can benefit the scholars who want to go further in future research of rough sets.