1,721,081 research outputs found
Preserving air pollution forest archives accessible through dendrochemistry
No full textPlants are continuously exposed to human air pollution, absorbing pollutants in their tissues. Trees can store pollutants in wood, in the annual growth rings, retaining traces of pollutants in the environment. Information on past pollution events are archived by trees, which dendrochemistry, a dendrochronological science combined with chemistry, is able to access. Many authors have suggested that trees could complement the conventional environmental monitoring: a forest archive of pollution events. However, the implications of trees occurrence in polluted areas on planning and management have not yet been discussed. In this article, we investigate whether forest archives exist and whether they should be integrated into the network of existing monitoring stations. We use a case study, the Veneto region of Italy, one of the most polluted areas in Europe, to examine the occurrence of trees around 28 industrial plants retrieved from a European pollution register. We propose planning actions to develop the latent potential of these forest archives for environmental monitoring, which society may benefit. We follow three steps: (a) assessing the cover and composition of tree canopies around the industrial plants, (b) inventorying the existing artificial air monitoring stations in order to discover whether pollutants around the industrial plants are already monitored, (c) assessing land use patterns in order to identify which are the receptors of air pollution and enhance the forest archive in the future. These spatial analyses are conducted in a 1-km radius buffer with the industrial plant as the centre. Results show that forest archives are available, with cover and composition suitable for dendrochemistry studies. Artificial monitoring stations are too far from industrial plants or have been installed recently, unable to provide historical data. Trees are an alternative source of pollution data. Receptors of air pollution include a diversity of urban, rural and agricultural lands, where forest archives can be managed and conserved through a variety of actions. Environmental protection agencies should value these trees, preserving them and accessing the records held in this forest archive. Similar inventories must be promoted in other industrialised regions of the world even at larger scales. Studies like this one should also be incorporated into landscape or urban planning processes
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
Integration of ecological indicators to assess a multitemporal impact of cement industries
Full text linkThe present study evaluated an integrated biomonitoring approach based on three different bioindicators: tree rings, lichens,
and beetles in a complex environment (urban-industrial-forest). In Central Italy, four sampling sites were selected to assess
the anthropogenic impact of cement plants taking into account (1) long-term exposure (1988–2020) through the analysis
of trace elements in tree rings of Quercus pubescens; (2) medium-term exposure (2020–2021) through the analysis of trace
elements in thalli (outermost portions) of the lichen Xanthoria parietina; (3) short-term exposure in spring 2021 through
the bioaccumulation and evaluation of sample vitality in transplants of the lichen Evernia prunastri and a periodic survey
of entomological biodiversity carried out during spring and summer 2021. Trace elements of industrial origin were found in
tree rings, with different levels of accumulation between 1988 and 2020 and a maximum in 2012. Native thalli of the lichen
X. parietina showed an overall low bioaccumulation of trace elements except for Cr, probably reflecting the influence of
national lockdown measures. The transplants of E. prunastri showed a weak stress response in the industrial and urban sites,
but not in the forest, and identified Tl and V as the main elements contributing to atmospheric contamination, with peaks at
the industrial sites. Concerning the beetles, a significantly lower number of species was found at the Semonte industrial site
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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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