1,720,977 research outputs found
Overall feasibility and sustainability assessment of vertical farming in emerging economies
No full textVertical farming is gaining attention from investors and international organizations as a new sector of agri-food business that can ensure elevate urban food production while consuming less resources such as land and water. While the technology is mostly spreading in richer countries, it is currently debated whether this form of agriculture may represent an opportunity also in emerging economies. The study aims to assess the feasibility and sustainability of vertical farming investment in countries characterized by emerging economy, through the integration of a tool for analysis of environmental, economic and social indicators. In particular, the study was based on a sample of countries identified by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), a financial institution using investments to build market economies, mostly located in East European and Southern or Eastern Mediterranean regions. Among targeted countries, the tool identified Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia and Turkey as the best options for vertical farming feasibility and sustainability
Can cities provide food in the XXI century? A review on the role of building-integrated agriculture
No full textAgricultural food production will face important challenges in the coming decades, mainly associated with climate change and resources’ scarcity. The growing population rates and the expansion of urban areas require alternative solutions to ensure food security and social stability. In this context, the identification of innovative production techniques resilient to climate change, featuring efficient use of resources and adaptability to densely populated areas, assume considerable relevance. Urban agriculture initiatives are blooming worldwide as a response to these needs, also thanks to the evolution of building integrated technologies that allow to move from more traditional urban farming systems (e.g., community and allotment gardens) toward the colonization of the built landscape (e.g., indoor vertical farming systems and rooftop farms). However, to achieve a significant sector development, new building integrated farming technologies still need to be validated in experimental conditions, both in terms of the potential production of a wide range of crops, and in the quantification and optimization of resources use and savings. Governmental and nongovernmental institutions are already starting to move toward this direction, supporting projects and research. The European project H2020 “FoodE - Food Systems in European Cities” (www.foode.eu) represents one the examples, promoting the sustainability assessment of City-Region Food Systems initiatives with a key eye on urban farming systems. The present paper elaborates on strengths and weaknesses, as well as on potentialities and risks associated with these innovative urban farming systems, toward the definition of their role on city food security in the upcoming years
Understanding the complexities of Building-Integrated Agriculture. Can food shape the future built environment?
Full text linkOur food system is facing an unprecedented challenge: feeding a fast growing population without depleting precious resources like energy, soil, and water.Furthermore, the increasing urbanization has rapidly exacerbated the gap between farm to plate, leaving cities vulnerable to changes in the production and supply chain, as demonstrated by recent pandemics and wars. In this context, emerging technologies that allow plants to grow in absence of soil, permit to produce food in high densely built-up areas, bringing food production right were most consumers live. These initiatives enter within the so called Building-Integrated Agriculture (BIA), which is referred as the practice of locating greenhouses and soilless plant cultivation technologies on top and inside mixed-use buildings to exploit the synergies between the building environment and agriculture, involving resource recovery such as water, energy and nutrient flows. This paper aims at determining strategies, objectives, and best practices of BIA projects through the review of 21 case studies, to understand how a new advanced and future-oriented agriculture applied within the cities borders, can possibly shape the urban built environment and food systems of the future
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
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