Safety assurance is of paramount importance across various domains, including automotive, aerospace, and nuclear energy, where the reliability and acceptability of mission-critical systems are imperative. This assurance is effectively realized through the utilization of Safety Assurance Cases. The use of safety assurance cases allows for verifying the correctness of the created systems capabilities, preventing system failure. The latter may result in loss of life, severe injuries, large-scale environmental damage, property destruction, and major economic loss. Still, the emergence of complex technologies such as cyber-physical systems (CPSs), characterized by their heterogeneity, autonomy, machine learning capabilities, and the uncertainty of their operational environments poses significant challenges for safety assurance activities. Several papers have tried to propose solutions to tackle these challenges, but to the best of our knowledge, no secondary study investigates the trends, patterns, and relationships characterizing the safety case scientific literature. This makes it difficult to have a holistic view of the safety case landscape and to identify the most promising future research directions. In this paper, we, therefore, rely on state-of-the-art bibliometric tools(e.g., VosViewer) to conduct a bibliometric analysis that allows us to generate valuable insights, identify key authors and venues, and gain a birds eye view of the current state of research in the safety assurance area. By revealing knowledge gaps and highlighting potential avenues for future research, our analysis provides an essential foundation for researchers, corporate safety analysts, and regulators seeking to embrace or enhance safety practices that align with their specific needs and objectives.

翻译：安全保证在汽车、航空航天及核能等多个领域具有至关重要的意义，这些领域中任务关键系统的可靠性与可接受性不可或缺。安全保证的有效实现依托于安全论证案例的运用。通过使用安全论证案例，可验证所构建系统功能的正确性，防止系统故障——后者可能导致人员伤亡、重伤、大规模环境破坏、财产损毁及重大经济损失。然而，以异构性、自主性、机器学习能力及运行环境不确定性为特征的信息物理系统等复杂技术的出现，给安全保证活动带来了重大挑战。尽管已有诸多论文尝试提出应对这些挑战的方案，但据我们所知，尚无二次研究系统探讨安全论证案例科学文献中的趋势、模式与关联特征。这使得难以全面把握安全论证案例的研究全局，并识别最具潜力的未来研究方向。为此，本文基于前沿文献计量工具（如VosViewer）开展文献计量分析，从而生成有价值的洞见，识别关键作者与学术平台，并鸟瞰安全保证领域的研究现状。通过揭示知识缺口并突显未来研究的潜在方向，我们的分析为研究人员、企业安全分析师及监管机构提供了重要基础，助力其采纳或优化契合自身需求与目标的安全实践。