1,720,990 research outputs found
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
Experiencing Pain
No full textAlthough pain is one of the most fundamental and unique experiences we undergo in everyday life, it also constitutes one of the most enigmatic and frustrating subjects for many scientists. This book provides a detailed analysis of why this issue is grounded in the nature of pain itself. It also offers a philosophically driven solution of how we may still approach pain in a theoretically compelling and practically useful manner. Two main theses are defended: (i) Pain seems inscrutable because there exists no property that is commonly shared by all types of pain and that is at the same time particular to pain, setting it apart from other bodily sensations. This applies irrespective of whether we consider the psychological dimensions, neural networks, causal relations or biological functions of pain. Consequently, it is impossible to refer to ideal far-reaching and ideal distinct generalizations on the matter of pain. (ii) Despite this challenge, by focusing on the resemblance relations that hold across pains, we can generate scientific progress in explaining, predicting and treating pain. In doing so, the book aims to provide a clear conceptual basis for interdisciplinary communication and a useful heuristic for future research
Situating Emotions in Radicalization. Online-based Affectivity and Violent Extremism
Full text linkWhat is the role of emotions in the radicalization of violent extremists? This question has been neglected by traditional research approaches to the study of radicalization in favor of a focus on factors like ideological stances, socio-economic background, social ties, and personality traits. In my dissertation, I tackle this question head-on and try to show that:1) emotions and other affective states play a crucial role in the radicalization of different individuals; 2) situated affectivity is a refined theoretical framework to examine how emotions influence radicalization processes from which experts can elaborate implementable guidelines to bolster their counter-extremism interventions; 3) online radicalization offers situated affectivity an interesting testbed to probe and refine the robustness of its analytical toolkit by considering how internet-based relations and artifacts contribute to shaping human affectivity.
Radicalization is commonly defined as the process of embracing an extremist ideology and justifying or perpetrating violent actions in the name of such ideology. Most analyses of violent extremism concentrate on dissecting the tight-knit link between extremist beliefs and political violent behavior up to the point that some experts consider ideas the conveyor belt that leads to violent actions. This conception is detectable in the design of preventive and counter-extremism measures. Oftentimes, de-radicalization campaigns are centered on disproving the ideology underpinning jihadi and far-right propaganda. Although extremist ideas play a crucial role, the overzealous focus on beliefs does not sit well with empirical data. On the one hand, a lot of people holding radical beliefs never translate them into actions: it is estimated that roughly 1% of the people with extremist worldviews engage in terrorist attacks. On the other hand, some perpetrators are not driven by ideology. Hence, there has to be more to radicalization than just ideas.
Scholars have identified social ties and socio-economic backgrounds as powerful drivers of radicalization. Extremists radicalize in small cliques of trusted peers where friendship weighs in considerably. Most recently, social psychologists found out that – alongside ideology – a willingness for adventure, camaraderie, a sense of belonging and a quest for significance, defined as a desire to matter, impinge upon radicalization. As a result, the calls for analyzing the impact of emotions on radicalization kept growing. However, so far, little progress has been made in this direction. This is mainly due to two reasons. First, emotions have been studied according to psychological definitions used in most experimental set-ups i.e., as short-lived episodes in
response to external stimuli. In so doing, it seemed unlikely that second-long reactions could have any significant impact on a process like radicalization that takes up months or years. Second, emotional reactions have mostly been considered along cognitivist parameters as intracranial affairs involving only mental processes inside individuals. For instance, Intergroup Emotion Theory applied to violent extremism reduces emotions to appraisals carried out while a specific self-categorization is active. Overall, emotions in radicalization were relegated to a marginal (uninteresting) role dwarfed by their ideological counterpart.
My aim in this dissertation is to push emotions to the center stage of violent extremism and show how a situated take on affectivity helps both the examination of their role in radicalization processes and the design of affective counter-measures.
Situated affectivity can be described as a series of (4E) approaches according to which affective states are not a matter of brain-bound processes but incorporate our bodily makeup and environmental structures to varying degrees. In a nutshell, human affectivity is embodied and embedded: Were not our body and our environment structured the way they are, we would not experience the emotional reactions we do.
In my dissertation, I focus majorly on environment-structured emotions, i.e., scaffolded affectivity, and point out how individuals in radical online environments are prone to experience certain affective states conducive to radicalization. To do so, I leverage Jan Slaby’s work in which the author peruses two opposite directions of fit. On the one hand, we have user-resource interactions which describe cases in which affective experiences are initiated by individuals “reaching out” and manipulating a vast host of environmental structures to feel a particular way. Typical examples of user-resource interactions comprise visiting a friend to cheer one’s mood, listening to music to sustain one’s workout or arranging one’s office so as to create a calm study-oriented atmosphere. On the other hand, he introduces mind invasion to analyze cases in which affectivity is molded by aspects of the infrastructures and institutional contexts individuals inhabit. For instance, a new intern will gradually (and unconsciously) adapt to the affective interactions sanctioned by the company. My aim is to show how these two directions of fit can be fruitfully applied to describe the radicalization of different individuals. Alongside Slaby’s considerations, I will also integrate keen insights from other authors who recently elaborated on the ways in which human affectivity can be situated. Particular relevance will be granted to the diachronic development of people’s
affectivity. Simply put, the ways in which individuals structure their affective experiences are not attributable just to the local layout and available resources at that particular moment. Rather, individuals are also the result of a complex history of interaction with their environment along which they have internalized specific habits and practices. In other words, one’s affective repertoire plays a major role in determining which kind of affective experiences individuals are likely to have. I will devote particular attention to examining how far-right and jihadist online groups – the two strands of extremism on which my analysis focuses – set up digital environments to promote the acquisition of radicalizing affective habits.
As mentioned above one aim of my dissertation is to refine the analytical toolbox of situated affectivity. So far, researchers have concentrated on offline scenarios like religious places, concerts, marital couples and a vast gamut of physical objects. How affectivity is situated online has remained and still is uncharted territory. Only a few authors have made brilliant inroads in the analysis of internet-based affectivity. I contribute to these initial efforts and describe how internet-based affectivity is situated along different spatiotemporal parameters. First, online environments are characterized by hypersociality: the default scenario online comprises large amounts of users that cooperate in building affective experiences. Whether it is a “like”, a comment or a “share”, I argue that online affectivity involves small incremental contributions of loosely coordinated users thereby making the resulting experience highly distributed. Second, portable artifacts like smartphones render internet environments always available. Importantly, such availability is bidirectional. On the one hand, via smartphones, users can continuously manipulate a series of online resources and micromanage the contours of their affective life. On the other hand, social media platforms are equipped with intrusive personalization algorithms and notification systems that keep modulating the affective interactions of users. As a result, I maintain that online affective experiences keep switching between user-resource interaction and mind invasion moments. Third, in carving the frames of our online environment, personalization algorithms mine a great deal of data from our offline experiences. Put differently, what users see online is also the result of their geolocation, phone calls and purchases. Consequently, these algorithmic working mechanisms have in-depth effects on the ontological status of both affective experiences and radicalization processes.
The cumulative thesis is composed of an introduction a conclusion and four chapters.
Chapter 2 takes issue with existing approaches that promote a dichotomy between online and offline radicalization processes. In light of the personalization algorithms regulating users’ interactions on social media, the chapter proposes an integration of online and offline radicalization dynamics (and the consequent affective experiences) and claims that radicalization is better analyzed as an onlife phenomenon.
Chapter 3 examines disgust promoted by online far-right groups as a radicalizing mind invading experience fueled by supposedly “funny” in-group affective practices (e.g., meme-making) on anonymous online platforms
Chapter 4 uses far-right radicalization processes as a case study to argue that smartphone-based affectivity comprises a complex and continuous switch between user-resource interactions, mind shaping and mind invading moments.
Chapter 5 argues for a reshaping in the design of counter-narrative campaigns. Instead of tackling the ideological stances of extremist propaganda, the chapter claims that experts should design affective counter-narratives pivoted on: 1) an embodied empathic engagement with former extremists; and 2) smartphone-based affective habits
A multidimensional phenomenal space for pain:Structure, primitiveness, and utility
Full text linkPain is often used as the paradigmatic example of a phenomenal kind with a phenomenal quality common and unique to its instantiations. Philosophers haveintensely discussed the relation between the subjective feeling, which unites pains and distinguishes them from other experiences, and the phenomenal properties of sensory, affective, and evaluative character along which pains typically vary. At the center of this discussion is the question whether the phenomenal properties prove necessary and/or sufficient for pain. In the empirical literature, sensory, affective, and evaluative properties have played a decisive role in the investigation of psychophysical correspondence and clinical diagnostics. This paper addresses the outlined philosophical and empirical issues from a new perspective by constructing a multidimensional phenomenal space for pain. First, the paper will construe the phenomenal properties of pains in terms of a property space whose structure reflects phenomenal similarities and dissimilarities by means of spatial distance. Second, philosophical debates on necessary and sufficient properties are reconsidered in terms of whether there is a phenomenal space formed of dimensions along which all and only pains vary. It is concluded that there is no space of this kind and, thus, that pain constitutes a primitive phenomenal kind that cannot be analyzed entirely in terms of its varying phenomenal properties. Third, the paper addresses the utility of continued reference to pain and its phenomenal properties in philosophical and scientific discourses. It is argued that numerous insights into the phenomenal structure of pain can be gained that have thus far received insufficient attention
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
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