4,187,321 research outputs found
Variations on the Author
No full text“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
MeSH term explosion and author rank improve expert recommendations
No full textInformation overload is an often-cited phenomenon that reduces the productivity, efficiency and efficacy of scientists. One challenge for scientists is to find appropriate collaborators in their research. The literature describes various solutions to the problem of expertise location, but most current approaches do not appear to be very suitable for expert recommendations in biomedical research. In this study, we present the development and initial evaluation of a vector space model-based algorithm to calculate researcher similarity using four inputs: 1) MeSH terms of publications; 2) MeSH terms and author rank; 3) exploded MeSH terms; and 4) exploded MeSH terms and author rank. We developed and evaluated the algorithm using a data set of 17,525 authors and their 22,542 papers. On average, our algorithms correctly predicted 2.5 of the top 5/10 coauthors of individual scientists. Exploded MeSH and author rank outperformed all other algorithms in accuracy, followed closely by MeSH and author rank. Our results show that the accuracy of MeSH term-based matching can be enhanced with other metadata such as author rank
"Closing the R&D Gap, Evaluating the Sources of R&D Spending"
No full textBoth spending and tax policies have been implemented in the United States with the goal of stimulating private sector research and development (R&D). Karier questions whether current R&D policy, especially the research and experimentation tax credit, can contribute to closing the gap between nondefense expenditures on R&D in the United States and such expenditures in other countries, such as Japan and Germany. He also explores possible changes to our current R&D policy to make it more effective.
The construction of Karen Karnak: The multi-author-function
No full textThis thesis is situated within the comparatively recent developments of Web 2.0 and the emergence of interactive WikiMedia, and explores the mode of authorship within a Read/Write culture compared to that of a Read/Only tradition. The hypothesis of this study is that the role of the audience has become merged with the author, and as such, represents new functions and attributes, distinct from a more conventional concept of authorship, in which the roles of audience and author are more separate. Read/Write and participatory culture, as defined by this study, is focused on collaboration, and includes the influences of D.I.Y. culture, Open-Source practices and the production of text by multiple authors. Multi-authorship presents a re-thinking of several concepts which support the notion of the individual author, since the focus of multi-authorship is not on attribution and ownership of a finished text, but on the continued malleability of a text. Modes of multi-authorship, demonstrated in the use of the pseudonyms Alan Smithee and Karen Eliot, represent declarative authors whose names signify multiple origins, whilst concurrently indicating a distinct body of work. The function of these names form an important context to this study, since primary research involves the construction of an experimental mode of multi-authorship utilising WikiMedia technology and the interaction of thirty nine participants, who are invited to create a body of work under the collective pseudonym Karen Karnak. The data generated by this experiment is analysed using aspects of Michel Foucault's author-function to identify and determine power structures inherent in the WikiMedia context. The interplay of power structures, including concepts such as identity, ownership and the body of work, affect the resulting mode of authorship and contribute to the construction of Karen Karnak, suggesting further areas of research into the emerging multi-author
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
No full textWe 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
Vitamin D as changeable risk factor in relation with overweight and obesity
No full textNew researches suggest the importance of vitamin D in relation to different
diseases; moreover concentration of vitamin D is considered to be a
possible nutritional factor that can influence onset of type 2 diabetes. The
aim of this work is to investigate the correlation between diabetic risk factors
and levels of vitamin D in overweight and obese patients. This study
includes 104 patients with an age between 16 and 75 and with a Body
Mass Index (BMI)>25 selected by a program of nutritional education in
Medicina del Lavoro in Fondazione IRCCS Ca’ Granda Ospedale Maggiore
Policlinico Milano. For these studies, dietary information, anthropometric
measurements, impedance evaluation and blood tests were recorded.
The data were analyzed using linear regression for correlating different
parameters and statistical analysis was performed using GraphPad and ttest.
Concerning vitamin D levels is estimated that only 13.5% of patients
had optimal values, between the remaining 86.5% of patients that have
sub-optimal values, 14.4% had levels of deficiency (less than 10 ng/ml).
First of all we tested a statistical correlation between BMI, % of fat mass
and circulating levels of vitamin D, demonstrating that there is a significant
negative correlation between these factors. To support the hypothesis
of an association between vitamin D and type 2 diabetes, we studied specific
risk factors for diabetes, in particular we examined the relationship of
homeostasis model assessment index (HOMA) and concentration of
triglycerides and HDL cholesterol (TG/HDL), dividing patients in
4 groups according to BMI. Using linear regression there was a statistically
significant correlation of vitamin D with HOMA and with ratio
TG/HDL. In fact, within the group of patients in the study, as BMI values
increase there is a progressive decrease in vitamin D plasma levels and
a concomitant increase in HOMA index values or in ratio TG/HDL. Finally,
to estimate the daily intake of vitamin D we used questionnaires
created by “Osservatorio Grana Padano”. The intake of vitamin D (4.5
g/day) is much lower than the recommended dose, so not enough to ensure
adequate vitamin D requirements. The present study suggests a significant
effect of vitamin D on several players involved in the pathogenesis
of diabetes making vitamin D a potential target to interfere with this
important and growing health problem. For these reasons an useful approach
to reduce the risk of developing such disease could be a change in
lifestyle such as a correct vitamin D intake in addition to weight contro
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe 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
Evaluating the effectiveness of state R&D tax credits
No full textThis paper aimed to analyze the effectiveness of state R&D tax credit programs in the context of R&D-relevant policies and regional economic development policies. Although there were extensive theoretical recommendations for promoting private R&D, and state R&D tax credit programs have been one of the most popular regional economic development programs, only few evaluations of state R&D tax credit programs have been conducted. Inspired by this lack of previous study, this study provided an empirical finding for the effectiveness of these programs by applying a quasi-experimental approach, which means conducting experiments without randomness, for comparing states with tax credits and states with no credits.For dealing with the embedded non-randomness, plausible other explanations that weaken the causal relationship between the programs and the effects were examined and ruled out as much as possible. Rival hypotheses were selected using different tax and government policies, overall business and R&D-specific environments, and firm characteristics. They were eliminated by constructing valid control groups, using the difference-in-differences and matching methods, selecting covariates and matching variables as observable variables, and absorbing year-specific fixed effects and cross-sectional-fixed effects as unobservable variables. The decision was made based on multiple estimates and multiple datasets. The research analyzed two sets of industries: the all industry group and high-technology industy. The major findings are : 1) state R&D tax credits positively affect the increase in R&D spending and increase in employment; 2) positive effects on R&D spending are widespread across the all industry group while positive effects on employment are limited to high-technology industry overall; 3) positive effects on R&D spending are also spread out to different sized firms in both the all industry group and high-technology industry; and 4) positive effects on employment are found mainly in large firms in both the all industry group and high-technology industry.The above findings support the utilization of state R&D tax credits. As an indirect intervention, state R&D tax credit programs can increase productivity and encourage innovation by generating additional private R&D activities. State R&D tax credit programs can also make a positive contribution to regional economic growth through the growth of R&D-relevant and high-technology industries
Author Co-Citation Analysis (ACA): a powerful tool for representing implicit knowledge of scholar knowledge workers
No full textIn the last decade, knowledge has emerged as one of the most important and valuable organizational assets. Gradually this importance caused to emergence of new discipline entitled ―knowledge management‖. However one of the major challenges of knowledge management is conversion implicit or tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge. Thus Making knowledge visible so that it can be better accessed, discussed, valued or generally managed is a long-standing objective in knowledge management. Accordingly in this paper author co- citation analysis (ACA) will be proposed as an efficient technique of knowledge visualization in academia (Scholar knowledge workers)
Vitamin D: to test or not to test
No full textVitamin D deficiency has recently been linked to many chronic diseases such as MS (multiple sclerosis), cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes. It has been a topic of debate among healthcare providers on whether or not it is beneficial to test and treat patients who have vitamin D deficiency. This paper looks at the potential mechanism of vitamin D in these disease processes and evaluates the various studies in the literature focusing on vitamin D levels and chronic diseases. This paper concludes by recommending that physicians in Allegheny County, PA, test all their adult patients for vitamin D deficiency, especially during the winter months. Vitamin D deficiency and the link to chronic disease have vast significance in the field of public health both in Allegheny County, PA, and nationwide
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