1,721,074 research outputs found
Foresight scenario building and multi-criteria appraisal to inform sustainable development in small islands
Full text linkThis thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This thesis is the result of applying a novel methodology which I labelled ‘participative foresight scenario mapping’. This methodology couples participatory methods for building holistic foresight scenarios for sustainable development in Flores Island (Azores, Portugal) with a multi-criteria appraisal method, Multi-criteria mapping (Stirling, 1997), to assess these scenarios alongside five sector based regional scenarios (Secretaria Regional do Ambiente e do Mar, 2006). The main research question was to reflect on how small isolated societies, which have a distant relation with strategic decision-making centres, can define their transitions to sustainability. Small islands represent interesting cases to reflect on sustainability, these small territories distant from main decision-making centres challenge decision-making and require a consideration of the issues of scale. Islands have also been seen as small, manageable models of the world, providing the opportunity to explore innovative solutions at a scale that allows inclusion of as many different factors as possible. Small islands’ populations are especially linked to their island and they develop, by the effects of isolation, a strong particular relation to the place, the role of identity is then crucial in fostering sustainable practices adapted to the island.
A succession of individual scoping interviews with twenty four regional and local decision-makers and key informants and seven focus groups with a total of thirty local lay citizens gave me the opportunity to develop two differentiated multi-sector scenarios for Flores Island which were identified as Standard and Balanced development scenarios. The Balanced development scenario reflects a desire to develop an island that bases its economy on greater self-sufficiency for agricultural products, quality and certified products, and natural conservation and valorisation. The Standard development scenario is based on economic growth through tourism and primary sector intensification, and public investment in infrastructures; this scenario can be summarized as the continuation of the actual model of development. The appraisal of both holistic narratives allows in depth exploration of the complex issues related to sustainability, such as the preference between weak and strong sustainability, that otherwise would have been too difficult to assess by such a variety of research participants. Working with holistic scenarios raised the limits of the capacity to show proficiency in a wide variety of fields. The research demonstrated the feasibility of applying the multi-criteria mapping method to support the analysis of holistic non-technical scenarios. The combination of qualitative and quantitative data brought depth to the analysis and improved the understanding of the desired sustainable futures in islands. But the quantitative appraisal was overshadowed by strong uncertainties that made difficult the identification of a best scenario. Uncertainty was explained by the risks inherent to the scenarios, the limited expertise in all the criteria, the complexity of the holistic scenarios, the time horizon (20 years), doubts on the effective implementation of the chosen scenario, and the existence of potentially disrupting external factors. The process was also the opportunity to understand the role that social capital might play in the transition to the desired future for this island. It is shown in the thesis that a successful transition to sustainable development can only be reached if the objectives are understood and shared by the population.Brunel University Londo
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
Impact of Policy Scenarios in Irrigated Agriculture of River Guadalquivir Basin (Southern Spain)
Full text linkThis paper integrates indicators of environmental, social and economic impact of a range of policy scenarios through the use of Multicriteria and Multiperiod Programming. The case study is irrigated agriculture in the basin of the River Guadalquivir, and the policy scenarios combined Common Agricultural Policy and Water Framework Directive implementation in the period 2001-2010. The model is applied to a representative number of farming systems that attempt to offer a satisfactory description of the productive diversity of the basin. Results indicate that there are significant differences in the impact in the three dimensions (environmental, social and economic), according to the possible evolution of policy, market and technical futures. We believe that the integration of indicators into multicriteria models is a powerful system for building policy support tools for sounder decision making in the implementation of a future normative which will affect agricultural production in Europe, and that these tools can be used to deal with new questions that face agriculture (genetically modified organisms, new CAP, etc.)agricultural scenarios, indicators of sustainability, multicriteria models, multiperiod programming, Agricultural and Food Policy,
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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