1,720,995 research outputs found
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
COMPOSTING OF STARCH-BASED BIOPLASTIC BAGS: SMALL SCALE TEST OF DEGRADATION AND SIZE REDUCTION TREND
Full text linkIn Italy, the majority of bioplastic bags used in food waste collection is made of starch-based biopolymer. The compostability of this material in a full-scale plant remains to be demonstrated, largely due to the fact that bioplastic bags are screened and removed together with conventional plastic bags during pre-treatment steps. The present research was performed on a small scale to study the degradation of starch-based bioplastics during composting. Evolution of the physical and chemical parameters of the material was evaluated by means of Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR), experimental mass loss and granulometric trend. The results obtained suggested that fragmentation (physical size reduction of the material) occurred mainly during the thermophilic phase, while biodegradation (breakdown by microorganisms of an organic chemical into simpler, innocuous compounds) occurred during the curing phase. Based on the monitored parameters (TS, VS, pH, C/N and RI4), the composting process of the waste matrix ended after 55 days, but the degradation of bioplastics failed to achieve the regulatory standards for assessment of compostability (≤ 10% sized > 2 mm). Experimental data revealed a linear trend for the fragmentation process and a duration of 100 days would be required to meet regulatory requirement
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
Waste management education: from kindergarten to higher education
No full textThe paper presents an innovative waste management education framework named ‘Greenopoli’ that has involved around 300 schools and more than 50,000 students, mainly in Southern Italy, from December 2014 up to now. The basic idea of Greenopoli is that children and youth are able to pick up and understand environmental issues (better than adults) and can be encouraged to act as agents of change for promoting and enabling change to happen within their extended family. Childhood and youth education about waste management is a key means not only to make children and youth fully aware of their active role in the society but also to make those messages understandable for everyone. Greenopoli identifies three aspects of educational activities (contents, methods, and times) that have to be differentiated according to age of students, from kindergarten to higher education, and develops effective methods to achieving its goals
Optimizing the cost of separate collection systems: the case study of Salerno
No full textThree were the main aims of the study: 1) modelling a kerbside separate collection system for the case study of Salerno in Southern Italy; 2) using the developed model to simulate alternative scenarios to optimize management costs; 3) evaluating the total costs for an increased level of separate collection able to reach the minimum Italian target of 65%. The city of Salerno has only one day per week for the collection of the residual waste, and the personnel were not able to collect all the quantity in the normal working hours. Therefore, overtime hours are needed with consequential additional costs. In order to optimize the management costs, alternative scenarios were simulated dividing the city into two parts, starting from a 50-50 percentage population division and considering different steps (60-40, 70-30, 80-20). The simulator was developed in Excel with a total enumeration algorithm. The aim of the simulator was to search, for different evaluation scenarios, the optimum size and the resource balance (number of vehicles and personnel) to find the optimum solution, which minimizes the total management costs. The optimum solution was obtained for the fifty-fifty solution minimizing the changing in the collection calendar
Is it a NiMBY or WhyMBY case of locally unwanted land use?
No full textNiMBY is the acronym of Not in My Back Yard, a form of protest by a group of people who see the security of their area of residence threatened by the siting of unwanted facilities such as municipal solid waste (MSW) treatment or disposal plants. In the paper the new concept of ‘WhyMBY’ is introduced as a pro-justice-based approach, where citizens want to be convinced that their backyard is the best location compared with many, or even all, other possible locations. Two proposed localizations for the treatment of putrescibles from MSW, in the Campania region of Southern Italy, are examined in order to understand if they are cases of NiMBY or WhyMBY: one in the province of Avellino, in the municipality of Chianche, another in the province of Salerno, in the municipality of Fisciano. The analysis performed suggests that the first case study seems a NiMBY case, while the second one seems an intermediate NiMBY/WhyMBY case. The adoption of a different localization process from the optimal one, also due to emergency reasons, generated inevitable opposition from citizens. For the future, it will be necessary to adopt siting procedures capable of implementing al the required phases: macro-siting, micro-siting and evaluation of potentially suitable alternatives. Finally, in these procedures, information and awareness campaigns must play a fundamental role
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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