1,721,013 research outputs found
Territorial vulnerability and local conflicts perspectives for waste disposals siting. A case study in Lombardy region (Italy)
No full textThe interactions between economic activities and environmental quality is a field of research deeply
explored since the second half of last century due to a growing public awareness about negative impacts
of human actions on landscape. As shown by the large number of local communities' oppositions to the
development of waste disposals, energy technologies and transport infrastructures, the loss in ecological
value of environmental resources and the resulting decrease of human wellbeing are the most relevant
concerns of opponents.
Within this context, the paper explores the existence of a relationship among territorial vulnerability
and local controversies emerged around the localization of new facilities, in order to provide decisionmakers
with an analytical tool for siting controversial facilities. The research has been developed according
to four different phases: 1) the assessment of territorial vulnerability and the development of a
Vulnerability Index (VI); 2) the introduction of supervised Artificial Neural Network (ANN) with the aim
of weighting the VI criteria; 3) the analysis of intensity and spatial distribution of local oppositions and
the development of the Local Conflict Index (LCI); 4) the investigation of oppositions against waste
disposals. The analysis has been carried on the Lombardy region (Italy) since it shows the highest
number of oppositions in the country.
The results show that the synthetic territorial vulnerability assessment combined with the analysis of
local conflicts could effectively be used for improving decisions about new facilities siting. The oppositions
against waste disposals are relevant but mostly not directly linked to the territorial vulnerability
ESIA (Environmental and Social Impact Assessment) : a tool to minimize territorial conflicts
Full text linkExploring the relationship among local conflicts and territorial vulnerability: The case study of Lombardy Region
No full textDuring the last 10 years, opposition by local communities against the development of industrial facilities, energy technologies and transport infrastructures has steadily grown. Negative externalities on the environment, quality of life and health are the most frequent motivations of the opponents. Disputes are typically grounded in environmental, social and economic concerns about the local impacts of new development proposals. Within this context, this paper aims to explore the existence of a potential relationship between the level of territorial vulnerability and the distribution of local conflicts surveyed by the local and national press in the Lombardy Region (Italy). This type of relationship is investigated using an empirical analysis based on an overlay mapping of different informative layers. The vulnerability index has been calculated according to the most recent conceptual and analytical frameworks developed in the scientific literature. It is a multidimensional index grounded in environmental, social and economic criteria. The outputs of the vulnerability assessment have been placed into thematic maps to provide a comprehensive overview of the environmental and socioeconomic state of the Lombardy Region. In addition to the general degree of vulnerability, the maps display the local conflicts surveyed by the NIMBY Forum, an Italian survey of territorial disputes managed by the Agency of Research and Information Society. The maps provide a means of i) putting forward some hypotheses about the oppositions that have emerged around the localization of new facilities, including mainly industrial facilities, waste disposals, energy plants and transport infrastructures, and the vulnerability of the Lombardy Region; ii) identifying the driving factors of territorial vulnerability; iii) investigating whether the local oppositions are directly proportional to territorial vulnerability. The first results indicate that a direct relationship among territorial vulnerability and conflicts does not exist. This outcome, even on a preliminary basis, provides a new analytical perspective for understanding the reasons behind local community protests
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Cost-benefit analysis and investment risk assessment. threshold values according to the alarp logic
No full textFor investments in the civil sector, the paper proposes a risk assessment model that introduces risk acceptability and tolerability thresholds according to the As Low As Reasonably Practicable (ALARP) logic. The idea is to use the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) because it is able to associate return limit values, and therefore risk, to the project. The joint use of the CAPM and statistical survey tools leads to the estimation of investment risk thresholds on objective data, depending on both the production sector and the reference territory. An application to the building construction sector in Campania Region (Italy) verifies the effectiveness of the model
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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