The fourth industrial revolution in South America: a bibliometric study with data mining tools

The fourth industrial revolution has boosted theory and technology up to the point of replicating human intelligence. Humankind generates enormous amounts of data that need to be stored, systematized, and applied to solve problems that improve daily life. This industrial revolution, also known as Industry 4.0, meets said need through practical applications in numerous fields such as medicine, commerce, robotics, transportation, tourism, and others. This study used the methodology of bibliometric analysis by using the Scopus database, aiming to evaluate the use of Industry 4.0 in South American countries in the last decade and its contribution to physics through the application of data mining tools. RStudio’s Biblioshiny software and VOSviewer were used to categorize and evaluate the contributions of some authors and countries. As a result, the use of remote sensing and machine learning technologies was found to be the most relevant. This bibliometric study provides a recent vision of Industry 4.0 to encourage its use for future research in South American countries.


Introduction
The fourth industrial revolution has impacted the entire productive system, revolutionized new methods and tools, and established connections through the Internet of Services, the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, cloud computing, cybersecurity, and other technologies.Industry 4.0 technologies have the potential to transform conventional factories into intelligent factories, which would greatly contribute to the development of a circular economy that generates significant economic, social, and environmental advantages, thus also contributing to sustainable development [1].On the other hand, additive manufacturing offers multiple benefits, such as time and cost savings [2].The intelligent IoT facilitates wireless connectivity, which is highly useful in industry and daily life [3].Despite all these worldwide applications, Latin American countries still need help adopting these innovative technologies, possibly due to their limited resources, among other reasons [4].In this regard, Colombia, Argentina, Cuba, and Ecuador have Spain as a strategic partner in this endeavor [5].
The use of bibliometrics is of paramount importance in the retrospective evaluation of achievements in knowledge generation and the dissemination of scientific advances.However, it has yet to receive full attention in South American countries.Therefore, this study aims to contribute by collecting and analyzing historical information regarding the application of Industry 4.0 in South America, addressing the following research questions: (i) Q1: What is the annual publication trend of scientific articles in South America between 2013 and 2022 regarding the use of fourth industrial revolution technologies?(ii) Q2: Which are the most cited articles in studies on fourth industrial revolution technologies in South America?(iii) Q3: What are the most used keywords regarding this topic, and what do they represent?In this bibliometric analysis, we describe the results of the scientific search for the most utilized technologies during the period from 2013 to 2022.

Methodology
The methodological steps of this research follow the recent works developed by Alviz-Meza, et al. [6,7].The following subsections replicate some of their procedures.

Study design
This research utilized bibliometric analysis as a computational tool to identify various academic fields involving statistics and mathematical algorithms to describe the scientific activity and the obtained results.

Data source
The data was obtained from the most renowned source, Scopus [8], which is recognized for its highquality research literature database.Accessing this database allowed us to carry out the necessary data downloads for our study.

Bibliometric analysis
To create the tables and graphs, information was extracted from the Scopus database [8], and then it was individually processed and analyzed using BibTeX files.The web application Biblioshiny from RStudio [9] was used to obtain and organize the information.It is important to note that this application provides information regarding authors, countries, institutions, journals, keywords, citations, h-index, etc.

Limitations
When using the Scopus source [8], some difficulties were observed in the bibliometric study due to the inability to have free access to a significant number of articles, which prevents obtaining the desired information for a more comprehensive understanding of the publications on the topic.As a result, some data may need to be completed, leading to potential inaccuracies in making generalizations.

Search strategy
For the information search, the study's timeframe was set between 2013 and 2022.A search equation was designed, including words related to South American countries: Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Venezuela, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Brazil, and Ecuador.Additionally, words related to the application of Fourth Industrial Revolution Technologies were considered, such as artificial intelligence, data science, data analysis, Industry 4.0, generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) chat, big data, additive manufacturing, augmented reality, remote sensing, internet of things, IoT, computer science, machine learning, deep learning, digital twin, cloud computing, cyber-physical systems, cybersecurity, collaborative robots; these words were iteratively processed, with additional specific topic-related words found in each search.
The search was limited to titles and keywords to enhance the precision of the search equation.The search equation used was as follows: (("South America" OR Peru OR Argentina OR Colombia OR Chile OR Venezuela OR Uruguay OR Paraguay OR Bolivia OR Brazil OR Ecuador) AND ("artificial intelligence" OR "data science" OR "data analytics" OR "industry 4.0" OR "chatGTP" OR "big data" OR "data mining" OR "data visualization" OR "additive manufacturing" OR "IoT" OR "augmented reality" OR "Remote sensing" OR "internet of things" OR "computer science" OR "machine learning " OR "deep learning" OR "Digital Twin" OR "Cloud Computing" OR "Cyber-Physical Systems" OR "Cybersecurity" OR "Blockchain" OR "Collaborative Robots")); it is important to mention that only original articles were considered.The search was conducted on April 6th, 2023 (see Figure 1).

Results and discussion
Three main topics are related to applied bibliometric searching, as shown below.

Trends in annual research article publications
Scopus [8] was found to be an important database for exploring the scientific dissemination of technologies from Industry 4.0 in South America (see Figure 2) [10].Figure 2 shows that the number of published documents has been irregularly increasing from 2013 to 2022.It can be observed that from 2014 to 2019, there was a considerable increase in scientific production, possibly motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which increased the implementation of digitalization and technology use.From this point, significant growth is expected for the coming years, together with the massive worldwide introduction of artificial intelligence [11].

Most cited research articles
As can be seen in Table 1, an assessment of the most cited articles on the use of Industry 4.0 in South America from 2013 to 2022, shows that the article of Khosravi, et al. [12] in 2018 is the one with more citations.This paper indicates that the discharge of sediment into the water as a result of environmental fluctuations has become an increasing concern regarding the need for clean water.The use of data mining through artificial intelligence makes now possible to predict and take action to prevent water contamination by sediments.The second highly cited work was developed in Peru by Carrino, et al. [13], also in 2018, based on the use of remote sensing in the mining sector.Companies use remote sensing with reflectance spectroscopy to obtain data from the earth's surface through sensors installed on space platforms, which allows them to identify the stages of minerals and hydrothermal location, improving productivity.In 2019, Moreira, et al. [14] employed remote sensing to estimate water balances of hydrological events in the Amazon and for dating the driest seasons.Remote sensing is also performed in optical images for the detection of peat bogs in the Ecuadorian mountains, leading to more sustainable controls [17].Meanwhile, deep learning is used in Peru to diagnose tuberculosis by utilizing mobile technologies and a database of X-ray images, combined with the symptomatology data delivered by sick persons [15,18,19].

Author's keywords
These data provide information about the topics of greatest interest to readers and researchers [20,21].The most used keywords were found to be remote sensing and machine learning, as the most disruptive technologies used in South America.Figure 3 and Figure 4 show that the most used keywords are "remote sensing" and "machine learning" regarding Industry 4.0, while environmental monitoring is one of the main concerns.Moreover, Peru and Chile were pointed out as the leading countries in the application of Industry 4.0 (see Table 2).Argentina, Colombia, and Ecuador are countries that initiated their participation in these issues in 2019 while Chile and Peru in 2017.It is also revealed that in South America, remote sensing is of great interest to explore vast environmental ecosystems such as the Amazon.For instance, it is used for hail predictions to estimate and control damages [22].Also, to enhance fishery productivity by mapping water reservoirs [21], and so forth.Today, it is possible to project crop growth for large-scale production according to multispectral, hyperspectral, and thermal infrared sensors, as well as through the use of unmanned aerial equipment to monitor agricultural areas [23].

Conclusions
The bibliometric study shows South American researchers have a consistent interest in Industry 4.0 technologies, reflected by the number of publications and current exponential growth.Other conclusions related to the research question established in the introduction section are the following: (i) the insights provided by physics through the implementation of data mining allow us to explore the scientific use of Industry 4.0 in South America; (ii) the leading technologies researchers use in this regard are remote sensing and machine learning.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Flowchart of the bibliometric methodology used in the research.

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Word clouds of the keywords used by South American authors on the use of technologies of the fourth industrial revolution.

Figure 4 .
Figure 4. Preferences for the use of keywords on the use of technologies of the fourth industrial revolution by South American authors.

Table 1 .
Top 5most cited articles on the use of Industry 4.0 technologies in South America.

Table 2 .
Keywords used by authors.