1,720,995 research outputs found
A Need For Change. Vienna, a Performative Beauty
Full text linkCities’ actual and future livability – including healthiness and life quality – depends on their preparedness to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss, crucial issues of the Anthropocene. Contemporary open spaces need design actions for new aesthetics capable of conveying values through architecture by combining spatial quality, environmental performance, and sociality.
The city of Vienna is one of the European best practices with a long pioneering tradition in promoting holistic planning and project design actions capable of guiding design choices with a multidisciplinary approach.
Esterházy-Park is representative of this city’s capability; it is a public park with a long history and a complex inclusive pro-gramme of uses, located in Mariahilf –in the sixth district
Acqua Viva e Corrente: Insights From Renaissance Fontanieri Mastery
No full textWhen peeking into a terrarium, the observer might be amused and surprised by its complexity in such a tiny space. This microcosm reveals an intricated layered ecosystem of life and inert elements, such as rocks, soil and water in its liquid, vapor, and condensing forms. Without water little or no life at all would thrive even in this small environment. The image of the terrarium is evocative of several concepts. An interesting one is of a controlled nature, or a third nature as John Dixon Hunt will call the garden villas: pleasant aesthetic landscapes. Both the terrarium and the garden villas befitted from the control of water in a man-made system.
The scarcity and abundance of water represents one of the oldest challenges in human history, intrinsic with evolving notions of nature and its representation over centuries. Until today, our relationship with water has not been resolved, mainly because of the invisibility of the water infrastructures below ground. Water is still the source of debate for several design disciplines, such as landscape, architecture, and urban design, and so the issue could be investigated though several lenses that are not in the scope of this article. Nevertheless, two lenses might be specially interesting to the discipline of design: the political and the technological. The political roots of the problem have been explored extensively in the works of Matthew Gandy, Eryk Swyngedouw, Maria Kaika and Bruno Latour. While recognizing the problem’s political dimensions this contribution focuses on the second thread: technology
Stolen land. Disappearing islands and the Maldivian paradox
Full text linkThe expansion of human activities has led to a critical extension of the human impact on the planetary environment, contributing to the emergence of the so-called “Technosphere”. In this context, the Anthropocene requires a rethinking of environmental management strategies, so that development activities are compatible with the conservation of ecosystems. This study analyzes the paradox of land reclamation in the Maldives, an archipelago characterized by high vulnerability to climate change and sea level rise. Although the creation of artificial land is promoted as a solution to habitat loss and urban expansion, it turns out to be one of the main factors of ecological degradation, with significant consequences on the stability of marine ecosystems and the integrity of coral reefs.
Through a comparative analysis of the cases of Hulhulé, Farukolhufushi and Hulhumalé, this work examines the socio-environmental implications of government strategies for resettlement and land reclamation, highlighting their limitations and contradictions. The research highlights how territorial development policies are often guided by economic and infrastructural interests rather than by real ecological sustainability, leading to a progressive compromise of essential ecosystem services.
In the face of these critical issues, alternative strategies are being explored, such as floating urbanization and the ecological restoration of coral reefs, assessing their feasibility and potential impact. The research proposes an integrated approach that combines the disciplines of ecology, architecture and urban planning, recognizing the central role of the ocean in regulating global ecosystem balances. The adoption of innovative strategies for land management is essential to ensure the environmental resilience and sustainability of island communities, contributing to a transition towards development models compatible with the protection of marine ecosystems
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
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
Differential Mucosal IL-17 Expression in Two Gliadin-Induced Disorders: Gluten Sensitivity and the Autoimmune Enteropathy Celiac Disease
No full textBACKGROUND:
The immune-mediated enteropathy, celiac disease (CD), and gluten sensitivity (GS) are two distinct clinical conditions that are both triggered by the ingestion of wheat gliadin. CD, but not GS, is associated with and possibly mediated by an autoimmune process. Recent studies show that gliadin may induce the activation of IL-17-producing T cells and that IL-17 expression in the CD mucosa correlates with gluten intake.
METHODS:
The small-intestinal mucosa of patients with CD and GS and dyspeptic controls was analyzed for expression of IL-17A mRNA by quantitative RT-PCR. The number of CD3+ and TCR-gammadelta lymphocytes and the proportion of CD3+ cells coexpressing the Th17 marker CCR6 were examined by in situ small-intestinal immunohistochemistry.
RESULTS:
Mucosal expression of IL-17A was significantly increased in CD but not in GS patients, compared to controls. This difference was due to enhanced IL-17A levels in >50% of CD patients, with the remainder expressing levels similar to GS patients or controls, and was paralleled by a trend toward increased proportions of CD3+CCR6+ cells in intestinal mucosal specimens from these subjects.
CONCLUSION:
We conclude that GS, albeit gluten-induced, is different from CD not only with respect to the genetic makeup and clinical and functional parameters, but also with respect to the nature of the immune response. Our findings also suggest that two subgroups of CD, IL-17-dependent and IL-17-independent, may be identified based on differential mucosal expression of this cytokine
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