1,720,974 research outputs found
Smallholder Peri-Urban Organic Farming in Nepal: A Comparative Analysis of Farming Systems
No full textFarming in the peri-urban areas of Nepal is increasingly characterized by monocropping and the imprudent use of agrochemicals. This intensification has raised questions about the sustainability of farming systems in the region. In this paper, we do a comparative assessment of these farming systems, focusing on organic production in the densely populated Kathmandu Valley. The relative inaccessibility of farming accessories and of modern farming technologies usually leads rural farmers to follow traditional farming methods, sometimes referred to as "default organic." In contrast, access to infrastructures opens avenues for further development of ecological farming in peri-urban areas. Gross margin analysis indicates that organic vegetable production is a lucrative endeavor in the area under study. Urbanites are willing to buy organic vegetables, but the higher price and lack of certification of organically produced vegetables are factors that should be taken into account by producers and organizations working in organic production. We suggest that nongovernmental bodies, along with government-run institutions, cooperatives, and community-based organizations, can play a facilitating role for a smallholder organic growers certification program. They should also support peri-urban farmers in their efforts to enhance the environment and agrobiodiversity
Biogas for climate justice: a story of change in Nepal
No full textSwitching from a wood-fuelled cooking fire to a biogas flame saves trees and time, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and prevents health problems. Community-based cooperatives in the Terai plains of Nepal are using carbon credits to fund micro-loans for families to install the technology
Spatial Distribution of Farm-Family Resources in the Mid-Hills of Nepal
Full text linkThe location of farm households along the spatial gradient affects resource availability and farmers’ livelihoods. Many socioeconomic variables have strong spatial affinity that would otherwise be overlooked by data aggregation at household levels. The Geographic Information System (GIS) displays and analyzes socioeconomic data that could aid many social researchers in understanding socioeconomic reality influenced by geographical positions. This paper aims to integrate socioeconomic data into a GIS environment. It examines spatial tendencies of farm-family resources in the mid-hills of Nepal using spatial and random sampling techniques. Farmers living in relatively flat lands and nearby urban centers have small families, higher level of education, farm and family income. In addition, they have small agricultural holdings and engage in commercial farming. Meanwhile, the opposite applies to farmers living in the hills. These spatial differences are related mainly to road, market, and other infrastructure that are crucial for agricultural development and livelihood enhancement. Strong spatial trend in socioeconomic aspects and farm-family resource availability infer the need to focus development activities spatially
Coping with weather adversity and adaptation to climatic variability: a cross-country study of smallholder farmers in South Asia
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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
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