902 research outputs found
Book review: El Sistema: orchestrating Venezuela’s youth, by Geoffrey Baker
No full textBook review of: El Sistema: orchestrating Venezuela’s youth, by Geoffrey Baker.
New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2014; ISBN: 9780199341559
($35.00)Publisher PD
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe 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
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe 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
STUDY OF LOW-FREQUENCY MOTIONS IN LIQUID BENZENE BY NEUTRON SCATTERING
No full textLogan and Trevino are guests at N.B.S. Gaithersburg, Maryland. Logan was an NRC-FRL Postdoctoral Research Associate. A. K. Agrawal, S. Yip, Nuclear Sci. Eng. 37, 368 (1969). M. Nakamura, T. Miyazawa, J. Chem. Phys. 51, 3146 (1969).""Author Institution: Boston College; Explosives Laboratory, Feltman Research LaboratoriesInclastic scattering of neutrons from liquid benzene has been observed at several angles by time-of-flight techniques. Effects of instrument resolution, multiple scattering, and coherent scattering have been estimated and accounted for, and the resulting incoherent scattering is analyzed in terms of the interpolation model of Yip for molecular liquids. The model describes intermolecular translations and rotations, and in the present case frequencies in the range from 0 to are considered. Frequencies which are required to fit these data will be compared to those in solid and to i.r. and Raman measurements on liquid benzene
Engineered ecologies: addressing energy infrastructure impacts on wildlife habitat & movement
No full textMaster of Landscape ArchitectureDepartment of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community PlanningTimothy D. KeaneAs the worldwide demand for energy continues to grow, vast amounts of energy infrastructure are required to support the expanding energy production industry. This infrastructure, taking the form of high-voltage transmission lines, pipelines, and wind farm installations, threatens the movement patterns and native habitat of many terrestrial and avian wildlife species. By utilizing the concepts of Public/Private Partnerships (P3s) and Social Capital, this study aims to address the energy infrastructure-induced habitat degradation and movement impacts experienced by wildlife within Kansas, Oklahoma, and Northern Texas.
Building upon the research, management strategies, and stakeholder structure of existing conservation-based public/private partnerships, this study asks two main questions:
how can wildlife habitat within existing and proposed energy corridors and installations be better conserved to prevent wildlife habitat degradation and barrier effects?
and how can public/private partnerships utilize stakeholders to form design guidelines and policies for the conservation of habitat within existing and proposed energy corridors and installations?
A review of literature on successful conservation-based public/private partnerships suggested that, while the concept of social capital has been successfully applied in P3s concerned with wildlife habitat preservation, there has not been a direct application of social capital or public/private partnerships to energy infrastructure and installation design and management. Case studies conducted on three conservation-based P3s, the Sage Grouse Initiative, the Lesser Prairie Chicken Initiative, and the Wyoming Migration Initiative, revealed that many of the same conservation planning policies and stakeholder composition strategies used in wildlife habitat conservation P3s could be easily adapted to existing and proposed energy infrastructure and installations.
Case study analysis of precedential P3s aimed at identifying stakeholder composition, structure, and innovative or successful use of conservation strategies led to the formation of a series of design guidelines and policies for existing and proposed energy infrastructure corridors and installations. In addition, conservation planning and management guidelines focused on education and training for design professionals, energy infrastructure maintenance personnel, and practicing ecologists, biologists, and conservationists were developed.
To test the effectiveness and applicability of the newly developed design guidelines and policies, two test sites were chosen that clearly exhibited signs of wildlife habitat degradation and barrier effects on wildlife movement resulting from the presence of energy infrastructure or installations. These two sites, located in Northeastern Texas and Western Kansas, served as testbeds for projective site designs, where design guidelines and policies for existing energy infrastructure corridors and installations were applied at two different site scales, and with two different types of energy infrastructure present (below-grade pipeline and wind turbine arrays, respectively).
The results of these projective site designs indicated that the design guidelines and policies developed during the course of this study were successful in creating additional wildlife habitat for two target avian species, the Lesser Prairie Chicken and Northern Bobwhite. Umbrella species, specifically Mule Deer, were able to indirectly benefit from habitat creation as well. Additionally, it was determined that the design guidelines and policies developed within this report were infinitely scalable, allowing many of the same guidelines and policies to be adapted to industries as large as worldwide transportation, or as small as the horizontal directional drilling utilities installation industry. It is suggested that additional future research be conducted toward developing design guidelines and policies specific to the extreme Eastern and Western portions of the United States, as many of the guidelines and policies within this report are best suited for the Midwestern grasslands of the U.S
Health Centres A Report and Discussion
No full textThis is a report (originally issued in February 1971) of the first phase of work, carried out at the Centre for Research in the Social Sciences of the University of Kent, into health centres and related aspects of primary medical care organisation. It presents the background in terms of
the state of knowledge about health centres for the later studies which were being developed by the group at the University of Kent and became part of the programme of the Health Services Research Unit. Since final reports on these studies are now being completed it seemed useful to
reissue the original (1971) report. The issues discussed remain relevant to policy decisions about health centres
An evaluation of image segmentation techniques for MRI scans
No full textIn this thesis, several image segmentation techniques will be tested that eventually will be applied to MRI brain scans in order to detect hydrocephalus. The meth- ods include Sobel edge detection, Canny edge detection, active contour model (also known as snakes), k-means clustering and region growing. Furthermore two exten- sions are discussed. We propose a method to complete disconnected edges and, as an extension to the k-means clustering algorithm, we suggest a manner to reassign pixels to different clusters. The focus of the first part of the research lies on explaining and illustrating these methods and extensions. Two test images are used, namely the Shepp-Logan Phan- tom and an MRI scan of a recreated Shepp-Logan Phantom. In the second part, we evaluate each method by applying the methods to two independent images, that is an MRI scan of an apple and a CT scan of a brain with hydrocephalus. We discuss whether methods are useful and behave as expected. Additionally, we investigate ways to combine methods.Applied Mathematic
A study of the toxic effects of an estrogenic chemical: Bisphenol A using invertebrate and plant-based bioassays, 2016
No full textGetting a handle on rat familiarization: The impact of handling protocols on classic tests of stress in Rattus norvegicus
No full textExperimenter familiarization with laboratory rodents through handling prior to experimentation is an important practice in neurobehavioral research and is implicated in stress, study variability, and replicability. Unfortunately, different handling protocols have not been thoroughly examined. Determining optimal experimenter familiarization protocols is expected to reduce animal stress and thus improve welfare and data consistency. The impact of different handling protocols was determined through behavioral assessments (i.e. elevated plus maze, light/dark box, open field) as well as via analysis of fecal boli counts, ultrasonic vocalizations, and blood corticosterone. Male and female Sprague Dawley rats were distributed among three groups: never handled, picked-up, and handled for 5 min once daily over five days. Handled and picked-up rats spent more time in open arms and less time in closed arms of the elevated plus maze and more time in the center and less time at the perimeter of the open field compared to rats that were never handled, indicating that handled and picked-up rats were less anxious than those that were never handled. Male rats consistently defecated more frequently throughout the handling process and throughout behavioral testing, whereas females showed greater concentrations of blood corticosterone. Female rats were found to emit more 50-kHz calls and fewer 22-kHz calls compared to males. The results observed suggest that picking animals up may suffice as a handling method compared to time-intensive handling procedures, and that there are significant sex differences in response to handling.Sir James Dunn Animal Welfare CentreAtlantic Veterinary College at the University of Prince Edward Islan
The effect of rearing in a shelved environment on behavioral and physiological markers of welfare in rats (Rattus norvegicus)
No full textEarly-life experiences are critical modifiers of development. An important component of early-life experience is the nature of maternal interactions, which can be modified by stress. During rearing, mothers are typically allocated to single-level cages where they are readily accessible to pups, a potentially stressful scenario not reflective of nature. Accordingly, mothers regularly removed from the rearing environment interact differently with their offspring, leading to long-term changes in offspring physiology and behavior. Such changes commonly include modifications within the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, of which corticosterone is a major component. Modifications in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis may also be manifested through changes in affective behavior and assessed via tests such as the open field and elevated plus maze as well as via ultrasonic vocalization (USV) analysis. As a means of assessing the impact of rearing in a shelved environment, we allocated mothers to standard single-level cages or cages with an integrated shelf, which allowed the mother to temporarily escape pups. While there were no differences in fecal corticosterone, behavior in the elevated plus maze, or USVs, male rats reared in standard cages weighed more, and all standard single-level housed rats spent more time in the center of the open field. The observed differences indicate that allocating nursing mothers to shelved environments throughout the postnatal period has long-lasting effects on offspring behavior that must be considered when establishing dam enrichment protocols
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