1,720,993 research outputs found
Editorial Humusica 2
No full textHumusica 2 is dedicated to three different groups of humipedons:a) submersed in sweet or salt waters;b) atypical and made by aerobic and anaerobic microorganisms, fungi, algae, lichens, musses, roots, and degrading wood specific organisms;c) Anthropogenic Techno (man made) and Agro (modi fied for agricultural purposes).Articles 9, 10, 11 and 12 correspond to keys of classification of soil horizons and humus systems of wetlands, peats and sea-sides. The pre-sentation of Humusica 2 follows the same scheme used for Humusica 1 “Terrestrial humipedons ”: a short part of vocabulary, an illustrated list ofdiagnostic horizons and key of classifications individuating series of diagnostic horizons.Article 13 deals with the initial phases of soil construction, through pioneer humus systems, from thin Crusto to thicker Bryo, Rhizo or Lignohumus systems in terrestrial ecosystems, or Archaeo and Anaero of submersed ecosystems. It corresponds to a first attempt of classification, with theaim to dispose along a hypothetic evolutionary line, humipedons of increasing complexity. The target was also to provide a complete “living skin” toplanet Earth, by looking at poorly investigated mountain or desert areas and rivers or sea beds.Articles 14 was written by soil scientists in order to point out the conceptual difference between anthropogenic soils and humipedons. Threepoints of view (World Reference Base; Soil taxonomy; Humus systematics) are illustrated, explaining the not availability of a single standardreference for global soil classification.Natural and anthropogenic soil structures are compared in article 15. This allowed to distribute the agricultural soils along a gradient ofincreasing distance (in term of quality of soil aggregates) of them from corresponding original natural soil structures.Some examples of Techno humus systems are illustrated in article 16; it finishes with the study of the biological activity in South African minetailings.Articles 17, 18 and 19 are dedicated to anthropogenic humus systems and agriculture. These articles support a biological/ecological concept ofsoil and sustainable agricultural strategies, to preserve organic matter and soil organisms. Instead of focusing on soil properties and quantity ofproduced food, we preferred to show the relationship between soil and food quality (article 17). The principal aim of article 18 was to give anoverview of existing soil- and humus system maps at global level. This allowed to evidence that agriculture and grazing activities are established onparticular soils and humus systems. Finally, in article 19, we reconsidered the concept of soil proposed at the beginning of the Special Issue(Humusica 1, article 1), based on historical scientific field experiences by Masanobu Fukuoka, Marcel Bouché, Jeff Lowenfels and Allan Savory,suggesting/confirming that: a) soil functionality and carbon storage strongly depend on the biological soil structure; b) natural processes of soil-plantcoevolution are still poorly understood; c) animal populations interacting out and in the soil of grasslands are necessary to restore and maintain theseprecious ecosystems; d) drainage and cultivation of ancient wetlands destroy the original functioning and diminish the carbon storage in these areas;e) we should take advantage of the natural soil biological machineries (humus systems), which are specialised and ecologically connected to theenvironment; in this perspective, Mull (crops) and Rhizo (pasture) humus systems are crucial means for mitigating the consequences of climatechange on the global carbon dynamic
Editorial Humusica 1
No full textThe final goal of the ambitious Humusica project was to set up well illustrated and easy to use soil classification keys, so as to provide helpful field-manual-guides to farmers, soil scientists, but also to not (yet) experts interested in soil, for basic soil knowledge and sustainable agriculture, aiming at producing healthy, tasteful food, and to support forestry and green spaces management for maintaining/improving our planet biotopes. This is the reason why the majority of the Humusica-articles resemble to field manuals, very rich in pictures, illustrating, explaining and critically discussing how soil develops thanks to its living components. Humusica is based on and aims at further deepening basic soil knowledge and to generally sensitize our perception towards soil conservation also within the context of future climate scenarios. Covering all related aspects, phi- losophic as well as not strictly scientific reflections cannot be ignored
Editorial Humusica 3
No full textHumusica 3 corresponds to a supplementary collection of specific information. It collects 74 short reviews, case studies, research articles, examples of field/laboratory tools and of soil management practices. The overall goal is to further point out the crucial role of soil biodiversity in sustaining the functionality of natural or anthropogenic ecosystems. The authors of the articles are professors, researchers or students working on soil-related topics, and colleagues contacted in occasion of congresses or workshops or even authors of articles or books related to topsoil functioning and litter biodegradation. The target of these contributions is to furnish supplemental information involving a large number of scientific fields related to the soil considered as a mankind resource. Two main topics remained uncovered soil erosion, only touched in some articles (scheduled contributions were never provided), and soil education at elementary school level (examples of soil-based education, for teachers).
Generally, authors were asked for a paper at half way between poster and short review: “After a brief introduction, some figures illustrating your main results to students, farmers or soil lovers in general. Please report scientific references for more specialized information. Personal points of view/meanings are very appreciated”. These articles are addressed to people wanting to rapidly be informed about recent practical discoveries in the field of ecological soil management.
Scientifically, the articles complete and support the information reported in Humusica 1 and 2; they consist in practical material for field or laboratory investigations; they illustrate examples of humipedon classification; they open new horizons of research and try to promote a sustainable use of the soil.
The articles are summarized and grouped in five main topics:
Humus system and 1) biodiversity, 2) soil functioning, 3) chemical/physical properties, 4) functional classification principles, and 5) sustainable crop production.
We suggest a) to scroll through the titles of the articles and select the one you are most interested in; b) open the article and search for the main information as in a scientific poster presentation; c) eventually, pass through the article as a scientific paper; d) select another paper or search for basic information and field practice in Humusica 1 or 2 articles
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Get PDFWe 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
The molecular information about deadwood bacteriomes partly depends on the targeted environmental DNA
Get PDFMicrobiome studies mostly rely on total DNA extracts obtained directly from environmental samples. The total DNA consists of both intra- and extracellular DNA, which differ in terms of their ecological interpretation. In the present study, we have investigated for the first time the differences among the three DNA types using microbiome sequencing of Picea abies deadwood logs (Hunter decay classes I, III, and V). While the bacterial compositions of all DNA types were comparable in terms of more abundant organisms and mainly depended on the decay class, we found substantial differences between DNA types with regard to less abundant amplicon sequence variants (ASVs). The analysis of the sequentially extracted intra- and extracellular DNA fraction, respectively, increased the ecological depth of analysis compared to the directly extracted total DNA pool. Both DNA fractions were comparable in proportions and the extracellular DNA appeared to persist in the P. abies deadwood logs, thereby causing its masking effect. Indeed, the extracellular DNA masked the compositional dynamics of intact cells in the total DNA pool. Our results provide evidence that the choice of DNA type for analysis might benefit a study’s answer to its respective ecological question. In the deadwood environment researched here, the differential analysis of the DNA types underlined the relevance of Burkholderiales, Rhizobiales and other taxa for P. abies deadwood decomposition and revealed that the role of Acidobacteriota under this scenario might be underestimated, especially compared to Actinobacteriota.Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad | Ref. RYC-2016-2123
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