1,721,065 research outputs found
A cloud-based approach to dynamically manage service contracts for local public transportation
No full textPublic contracts regulate how public services are managed by the stakeholders. However, the current technological trend is creating a significant bias between the pace at which service data are produced and that at which contracts change. This increased availability of service data can be exploited in public procurement processes by fostering novel approaches to manage contracts, making them more dynamic and improving the Quality of Service (QoS) delivered to customers. In this paper, a cloud-based approach for assessing the QoS in Local Transportation Services (LTSs) in Apulia Region (Southern Italy) is proposed. Service Level Agreements (SLAs) between providers and the Regional Authority, as well as the minimal guaranteed QoS levels between providers and passengers, are modelled as contracts enacted via a cloud-based system, which gathers data from sensors and passengers. In this way, changes in contract conditions for improving the perceived and delivered QoS can be fastened and facilitated based on data. In order to validate the pilot case, a set of quality indicators and service levels grounded in European and Italian regulatory frameworks has been considered
Apollon project: A massive online open lab for citizen science driven environmental monitoring
No full textThe collaborative power of ICT systems is a key enabler of social and technological advances disclosing multiple opportunities for involving students and teachers in STEM, thanks to novel paradigms like citizen science and mobile crowd sensing These paradigms, if applied according to specific methodologies, promise to increase the pervasiveness of current environmental monitoring technological solutions. In this paper, we propose an approach, for enabling universities and schools to develop environmental monitoring experiments based on massive online open labs and citizen science concepts. The approach has been implemented and validated in an educational context, where students participate to scientific research activities. In the paper, we firstly describe the approach to produce successful experiments, the supporting platform and the results achieved in a real context. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is discussed in terms of compliance with a set of reference guidelines addressing the citizen science domain
OPE and a low-energy theorem in QCD-like theories
No full textAbstract We verify, both perturbatively and nonperturbatively asymptotically in the ultraviolet (UV), a special case of a low-energy theorem of the NSVZ type in QCD-like theories, recently derived in Phys. Rev. D 95 (2017) 054010, that relates the logarithmic derivative with respect to the gauge coupling, or the logarithmic derivative with respect to the renormalization-group (RG) invariant scale, of an n-point correlator of local operators in one side to an n + 1-point correlator with the insertion of TrF 2 at zero momentum in the other side. Our computation involves the operator product expansion (OPE) of the scalar glueball operator, TrF 2, in massless QCD, worked out perturbatively in JHEP 12 (2012) 119 — and in its RG-improved form in the present paper — by means of which we extract both the perturbative divergences and the nonperturbative UV asymptotics in both sides. We also discuss the role of the contact terms in the OPE, both finite and divergent, discovered some years ago in JHEP 12 (2012) 119, in relation to the low-energy theorem. Besides, working the other way around by assuming the low-energy theorem for any 2-point correlator of a multiplicatively renormalizable gauge-invariant operator, we compute in a massless QCD-like theory the corresponding perturbative OPE to the order of g 2 and nonperturbative asymptotics. The low-energy theorem has a number of applications: to the renormalization in asymptotically free QCD-like theories, both perturbatively and nonperturbatively in the large-N ’t Hooft and Veneziano expansions, and to the way the open/closed string duality may or may not be realized in the would-be solution by canonical string theories for QCD-like theories, both perturbatively and in the ’t Hooft large-N expansion. Our computations will also enter further developments based on the low-energy theorem
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
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