1,720,957 research outputs found
Intelligent evacuation guidance systems for improving fire safety of Italian-style historical theatres without altering their architectural characteristics
Full text linkFire risk in Architectural Heritage represents a fundamental problem for occupants’ safety. Italian-style historical theatres are one of the most interesting examples because of their historic and artistic value, high fire vulnerability, fire sources and occupants’ features (many people are not familiar with the architectural spaces). Current fire safety regulations approaches for similar Architectural Heritage generally suggest massive and irreversible interventions in order to improve the occupants’ level of safety: main related solutions concern with interventions on building layout (e.g. introduction of fire-proof elements; increasing dimension and number of evacuation paths and exits). This really implies a conflict in preserving original architectural characteristics. Besides, experiments demonstrate how these adopted solutions can be insufficient in improving the individuals’ safety level, especially in case of high occupants’ density and people who are unfamiliar with the building itself, because of individuals’ behaviours in emergency conditions. An efficient emergency evacuation layout has to be able to help evacuating occupants, especially in smoke or blackout conditions. “Intelligent Evacuation Guidance Systems” (IEGS) could monitor human behaviours (how people move) and related criticisms in the evacuation process (e.g. slowing down along paths, paths blockage). Then, they could elaborate these data through smart inducing algorithm so as to suggest dynamic evacuation paths to occupants. In this way, IEGS can effectively suggest the “best” evacuation path to occupants depending on the effective human behaviours. In this paper, an IEGS is firstly defined by introducing suggested low impact environmental components and their related requirements. In particular, occupants’ behaviours are associated to evacuees’ density along egress paths, doors and exits, by using indoor individuals’ tracking systems (e.g. RFID, Wireless localization). A density-based algorithm based on Level-of-Service conditions is adopted for evaluating possible overcrowding phenomena and identify the best evacuation paths. Directional electrically-illumined signs are used so as to indicate the proper direction to occupants. Wireless communication between the system elements is required. Each element is provided with backup power supply. Then, the proposed IEGS is evaluated by applying it to a significant case study (the “Gentile da Fabriano theatre” in Fabriano, AN). Interactions between occupants and IEGS are reproduced within a validated fire evacuation simulator (FDS + EVAC), and the system effectiveness is evaluated by performing evacuation simulation for the whole building. Comparisons of evacuation times between the original scenario and the IEGS-related one are proposed. Total maximum egress time is reduced down to 26% in the IEGS scenario (40% for levels with 3 or more different possible paths). The number of people using secondary paths (that are also the less crowded ones) raises to 88%. IEGS elements correctly and fully interact with people by understanding their evacuation behaviour and suggesting them the most appropriate (clearest) path: hence, the overall evacuation efficiency can be so increased by virtue of this “behavioural design” approach. Besides, it is strongly important to underline how IEGS elements provide no architectural modifications
MINERALOCORTICOID RECEPTOR ANTAGONISTS THERAPY IN RESISTANT HYPERTENSION: TIME TO IMPLEMENT NEW GUIDELINES?
Full text linkDespite the availability of anti-hypertensive medications with increasing efficacy up to 50% of hypertensive patients have blood pressure levels (BP) not at the goals set by international societies. Some of these patients are either not optimally treated or are non adherent to the prescribed drugs, however, a relevant proportion, despite adequate treatment, have resistant hypertension (RH), which represents an important problem in that is associated to an excess risk of cardiovascular events. Notwithstanding a complex pathogenesis, an abundance of data suggests a key contribution for the mineralocorticoid receptor in RH, thus fostering a potential role for its antagonists in this field. Based on these premises randomized clinical trials have been completed aimed at testing the efficacy of mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists (MRA)s in RH patients and demonstrated their efficacy in reducing BP and markers of target organ damage, such as microalbuminuria, compared to either placebo or other drugs. In summary, owing to the role of the mineralocorticoid receptors in the pathogenesis of RH and on their efficacy proved by randomized clinical trials we advocate the inclusion of MRAs as a forth line therapy in patients with RH
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
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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