1,720,978 research outputs found
Advances in Ecohydrology for Water Resources Optimization in Arid and Semi-Arid Areas
Full text linkConserving water resources is a current challenge that will become increasingly urgent in future due to climate change. The arid and semi-arid areas of the globe are expected to be particularly affected by changes in water availability. Consequently, advances in ecohydrology sciences, i.e., the interplay between ecological and hydrological processes, are necessary to enhance the understanding of the critical zone, optimize water resources’ usage in arid and semi-arid areas, and mitigate climate change. This Special Issue (SI) collected 10 original contributions on sustainable land management and the optimization of water resources in fragile environments that are at elevated risk due to climate change. In this context, the topics mainly concern transpiration, evapotranspiration, groundwater recharge, deep percolation, and related issues. The collection of manuscripts presented in this SI represents knowledge of ecohydrology. It is expected that ecohydrology will have increasing applications in the future. Therefore, it is realistic to assume that efforts to increase environmental sustainability and socio-economic development, with water as a central theme, will have a greater chance of success
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
Novel Measurements and Features for the Characterization of Soil Surface Roughness
No full textAgricultural soils provide a variety of ecological services, including nutrient cycling, water purification and storage, carbon sequestration, and flood protection. Soil Surface Roughness (SSR) represents a key parameter for evaluating the terrain quality structure, especially in the layers beneath the usual primary tillage depth, and therefore its estimation has been widely investigated over the years in many fields of science and engineering. This paper proposes the adoption of an innovative sensing approach that relies on contactless measurements provided by a depth camera in contrast to traditional contact measurements such as pin meter and roller chain. In addition, novel features are investigated to achieve a complete statistical description of the SSR with the least number of parameters. The proposed methods are validated in an experimental campaign performed on a vineyard plot. This research could be useful for many applications, including soil erosion prediction models, autonomous vehicle navigation in rural and agricultural settings, and controlled traffic farming
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
Evaluation of Erosion Intensity and Some of Its Consequences in Vineyards from Two Hilly Environments Under a Mediterranean Type of Climate, Italy
No full textViticulture is one of the most diffused cultivations in the world. It is present in five of the six continents (except Antarctica) and in the first decade of XXI century vineyards have covered about 7.8 million hectares. In the same period, the global surface used for arable land and under permanent crops amounted to about 1.5 billion hectares (Bruinsma, 2003). Viticulture accounts only for about 0.5% of the whole agricultural area, and it can be inferred that the impact of this cultivation might be negligible at a global scale. In contrast, in the year 2009, the market of both wine and grapes moved around 300 billion of dollars in the world (AA.VV., 2010; FAO, 2011), putting the products of the viticulture at the top of the agricultural market. Unfortunately, also disadvantages induced by viticulture are considerable as most of the soils planted with vines have a fine texture and a moderate to steep slope (5-30°), and are submitted to climates where dry and rain seasons are rather alternated. Because of this, most of the vineyard soils are subjected to erosion.
In this chapter we briefly analyse the situation of viticulture in the world in terms of surface covered, parent materials and soils used, and types and degree of erosion usually found in the vineyards. Thus, we present the results of two managing experiences made in two different environments of Italy, where grass covered and harrowed soil vineyards were contrasted to assess the capability of the grass to reduce erosion. In the general conclusions, taking advantage of the results obtained, we give suggestions to preserve soil resilience and productivity
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