1,720,956 research outputs found
Askesis and Politics: A Preliminary Look at the Impact of Christian Spiritual Practices on One’s Political Outlook
Is Christian spirituality systematically associated with patterns in people’s political attitudes and worldview? Are spiritually active Christians predominantly conservative or liberal? If so, does this imply anything about the correctness of their political views? Is greater spiritual involvement associated with a friendlier disposition towards those with whom one otherwise strongly disagrees on social and political matters? In my review of the Orthodox spiritual literature, as well as my survey analysis of Orthodox Christians throughout the United States, I make a preliminary effort to address these and other questions. I point to the importance of transcending the liberal-conservative ideological dichotomy when studying Christians’ political outlooks. Communitarians, in particular, merit greater attention, given their apparently large size and high level of spiritual commitment. I also presents findings that suggest that spiritual commitment can result in friendlier attitudes towards those viewed as sociopolitical threats
Interpreting UFO Events in a Post-Religious Culture
In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in unidentified flying objects (UFOs). Although we have increasingly assumed that UFO events are extraterrestrial in nature, there are alternative explanations for these extraordinary phenomena. Of these, the theory that UFOs manifest malevolent spiritual realities is often hastily dismissed because it violates modern society’s secular assumptions. As is explained, however, an a priori dismissal is arbitrary since it rests on similar evidential grounds. After the case is made that logical consistency demands that the spiritual theory be given a fair hearing, this article draws on U.S. data on reported UFO sightings to demonstrate that a state’s religious climate significantly determines the frequency of such sightings there. It is argued that these findings constitute circumstantial evidence that modern society is culturally induced – rather than led by the evidence – to embrace the interpretation that UFO phenomena are extraterrestrial in nature
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
The 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
“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
We 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
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
We 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
Terror, Oil and Repression in Algeria
This paper investigates the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on human rights in Algeria. No direct link is discovered between foreign investment and the repression of human rights. This is largely due to the peculiarities and, in the special case of Algeria, the location of the hydrocarbon sector, which together make repression less necessary. First, since the hydrocarbon sector uses relatively little labour, there are fewer occasions on which labour rights would be suppressed. Second, oil and gas reserves are concentrated in a thinly populated region of Algeria, where there are fewer people to protest the allegedly negative effects of foreign investment and, hence, fewer people to repress. Nevertheless, case study findings indicate that FDI has indirectly sustained repression in Algeria. Explanation is attributed to the centrality of the country\u27s hydrocarbon resources to the global economy. It is suggested that countries in demand of Algeria\u27s oil and gas have exercised restraint in criticising Algeria\u27s human rights record. Buttressed by the diplomatic support of their partners as well as by large arms transfers, the Algerian government has been able to choose repression over concession as its primary response to domestic unrest. This study also points to ways in which the Algerian experience provides the grist for theoretical refinement. Specifically, it suggests that repression is more likely in industries that are more labour-intensive and concentrated in densely populated regions
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
We have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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