1,720,974 research outputs found
Fine-Tuned Ecological Niche Models Unveil Climatic Suitability and Association with Vegetation Groups for Selected Chaetocnema Species in South Africa (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae)
Get PDFDespite beetles (Coleoptera) representing most existing animal species, the ecological and biogeographical factors shaping their distribution are still unclear in many regions. We implemented state-of-the-art Ecological Niche Models (ENMs) and niche overlap analysis to investigate climate-occurrence patterns for five flea beetle species of the genus Chaetocnema in South Africa (C. brincki, C. danielssoni, C. darwini, C. gahani and C. natalensis). ENMs were fitted through Maxent and Random Forests, testing various parameterizations. For each species, tuned ENMs attaining good discrimination on spatially independent test data were selected to predict suitability across the study region and individuate its main climatic drivers. Percent coverage of climatically suitable areas by seventeen Afrotropical vegetation formations was also computed. Predicted suitable areas do not extend far away from known presence localities, except for C. brincki and C. gahani in northeastern South Africa. Temperate grasslands and shrublands cover most of suitable areas for C. brincki and C. gahani, along with warm temperate forests, as well as for C. danielssoni, in this case being followed by tropical flooded and swamp forests. Climatic suitability for C. darwini mainly relates to the Mediterranean grasslands and scrublands of the southern coastal region, while suitable areas for C. natalensis encompass various vegetation formations, coherently with its wide distribution. The environmental niche of C. danielssoni significantly overlaps with those of the wide-ranging C. darwini and C. natalensis, suggesting that historical factors, rather than low climatic tolerance, has determined its restricted distribution in the Western Cape Province. Maxent and Random Forests were confirmed to be of great help in disentangling the environment – occurrence relationships and predict suitability for the target species outside their known range, but they need to be properly tuned to perform at their best
Between the hammer and the anvil: How the combined effect of global warming and the non-native common slider could threaten the european pond turtle
No full textThe European pond turtle Emys orbicularis is seriously threatened across Europe by the non-native common slider, Trachemys scripta, which is included among the 100 most invasive species worldwide. Using ensemble forecast techniques, we analysed the influence of climatic factors on the current distribution of these two species, subsequently projecting the obtained models under two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) to 2050 and 2070, to investigate if global warming would boost direct competition within our study region. We implemented a gap analysis in GIS environment to assess how protected areas (PAs) may be affected by a loss of suitable area for E. orbicularis and by an expansion of T. scripta. An analysis of attitudinal range shift was evaluated, based on obtained projections. We found that both species may gain suitable area in the future, possibly because of the positive effect of increasing temperatures, and are predicted to shift from plain-to-hilly areas towards higher altitudes. These trends result in an increasing overlap of potentially suitable areas for both species, particularly within PAs; moreover, a niche analysis highlights that the results obtained are linked to the environmental niches of the two species. Our findings suggest the necessity, particularly for PAs' authorities, of field monitoring of T. scripta and further research to more comprehensively assess biotic and abiotic factors influencing the invasiveness of this species
Surveying and Restoration of St. Basilio Monastery in L’Aquila
No full textThe monastery of St. Basilio is in the northern of the historic center of L’Aquila, near the town walls. The
complex has a medieval origin, and the church and the buildings have a system dating from the fifteenth
century. In the eighteen century an expansion was realized, made by a long building on the homonymous
square; at the same time the church was reconfigured in late baroque style.
This intervention – attributed to Cipriani – has significant importance according to typological
experimentation and architectural quality, with particular reference to the solution of the facade. The
earthquake of 2009 caused significant damage. The eighteenth century building, together with a part of the
medieval cloister, homes the convention center of the L'Aquila University.
The paper, after an overview of the monastic complex, deals with the issue of the restoration and re-use of
the portion owned by the University. The topics are: integrated surveying; 3D modeling; metrical and
proportional study; the historical-critical analysis with the expression of the aesthetical and historical value’s
judgment; the analysis of the constructive system and of degradation; the project of reparation and mitigation
of seismic vulnerability; the architectural restoration project according to the guidelines of the critical
conservative restoration; the theme of urban restoration that necessarily involves the square, seriously
compromised in its perception of space-square by the interventions of the twentieth century
Il rilievo del tessuto edilizio storico: tradizione e innovazione
No full textArises a theoretical-methodological question: according to the traditional subdivision between urban survey and architectural survey, whether there might be a third dimension represented by the relief of the building fabric. Without prejudice to the essential uniqueness of the method, it can be said that the survey of the building fabric poses on a intermediate dimension – not only physical but conceptual and logical – between architectural and urban survey, with a precise connotation regarding the urban block and its historical and typological values
A European perspective of the conservation status of the threatened meadow viper Vipera ursinii (Bonaparte, 1835) (Reptilia, Viperidae)
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Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Get PDFWe 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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