1,720,954 research outputs found
Resurgence of coups in West Africa and Sahel Alliance implications
Get PDFThe paper, titled "Resurgence of Military Coups in the West African Sub-region and the Implications of the Emergence of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES)," focuses on the military coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger between 2020 and 2023. These coups constitute disturbing political events that raise serious concerns about political stability in the junta States and the region as a whole. Most importantly, it threatens the future of democratic governance in the West African Sub-region. The aftermath of sanctions on Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger by Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) and the threat of military intervention amongst other factors gave impetus to the formation of the contending bloc; Alliance of Sahel States (AES) in the region thus leading to fragmentation of the union of ECOWAS, divisive politics, regional economic sabotage by AES member States amongst other unfolding implications. The paper addresses this issue by setting two objectives for the study: to identify the factors underlying recent coups and to examine the impact of the AES on ECOWAS. The State fragility theory was adopted as a framework for the study. The research is qualitative; accordingly, a historical research design was adopted. Findings reveal that though the AES is founded on grounds of addressing rising insecurity amongst its members, the bloc also serves as a tool for legitimizing these junta governments. Also, existing regional cooperative security frameworks and trade liberalization are threatened. The paper recommends that the ruling elite prioritize a sincere and committed focus on enhancing democracy and, by extension, promoting good governance, and that ECOWAS adopt a systemic approach to curtail rising insecurity in the region to facilitate trade and investment. At the same time, continued diplomatic engagement should be used to win back estranged member
The Relevance of Information and Communication Technology in Enhancing Representative Democracy in Nigeria
Get PDFThe paper examines the concept of representative democracy and election as its foundational hallmark. It focuses on election in Nigeria and the role of information and communication Technology (ICT). Elections in Nigeria and the nature of the electoral process are usually fraught with sectarian conflicts between ethnic groups and the multivariate religions that exist thereby exposing the process to violence and fraud which consequently have led to perennial leadership failures. This paper therefore, aims to x-ray the role and relevance of ICT in affecting the outcomes of elections in Nigeria. In particular, it seeks to examine how the deployment of advanced technology in the form of introduction of card readers and permanent voters card (PVC) can enhance the electoral process and management. There is also the revolutionary impact of the social media on election and voters’ awareness with more engaging and participatory conversations through various social platforms that have helped to shape public opinions and reposition elections not only in Nigeria but also in other climes. Communication and diffusionist theories are adopted as the theoretical framework. The findings reveal that innovation in the management of elections especially by introducing ICT will lead to minimal electoral fraud and more credible elections that will be acceptable to both the contestants, electorate and the international community. The paper recommends that government must play the leading role to ensure ICT is fully deployed in the conduct of elections in Nigeria. It further recommends that government should create the enabling environment to investors both local and foreign to engender competitive innovation in the area of software and IT development. The Nigerian youth are ICT savvy and if given the opportunity, will develop more suitable technology that could be used to solve the perennial electoral conundrum. Keywords: Information & communication technology, New media, Representative democracy, Political participation, Diffusionist approach DOI: 10.7176/DCS/10-11-07 Publication date: November 30th 202
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
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe 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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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