1,721,383 research outputs found
Impact of data resolution on heat and drought stress simulated for winter wheat in Germany
No full textHeat and drought stress can reduce crop yields considerably which is increasingly assessed with crop models for larger areas. Applying these models originally developed for the field scale at large spatial extent typically implies the use of input data with coarse resolution. Little is known about the effect of data resolution on the simulated impact of extreme events like heat and drought on crops. Hence, in this study the effect of input and output data aggregation on simulated heat and drought stress and their impact on yield of winter wheat is systematically analyzed. The crop model SIMPLACE was applied for the period 1980–2011 across Germany at a resolution of 1 km × 1 km. Weather and soil input data and model output data were then aggregated to 10 km × 10 km, 25 km × 25 km, 50 km × 50 km and 100 km × 100 km resolution to analyze the aggregation effect on heat and drought stress and crop yield. We found that aggregation of model input and output data barely influenced the mean and median of heat and drought stress reduction factors and crop yields simulated across Germany. However, data aggregation resulted in less spatial variability of model results and a reduced severity of simulated stress events, particularly for regions with high heterogeneity in weather and soil conditions. Comparisons of simulations at coarse resolution with those at high resolution showed distinct patterns of positive and negative deviations which compensated each other so that aggregation effects for large regions were small for mean or median yields. Therefore, modelling at a resolution of 100 km × 100 km was sufficient to determine mean wheat yield as affected by heat and drought stress for Germany. Further research is required to clarify whether the results can be generalized across crop models differing in structure and detail. Attention should also be given to better understand the effect of data resolution on interactions between heat and drought impacts
Spatio-temporal patterns of phenological development in Germany in relation to temperature and day length
No full textPhenological development of crops has been extensively studied in field experiments but less so at larger scales for which data availability is often limited. To what extent the spatio-temporal variability of crop development can be explained by relationships derived from field studies such as the temperature sum concept used in many crop models is unclear but the question could entail the large scale application of these models. The aim of this study was to analyze the spatio-temporal patterns of crop phenological development in response to temperature and day length. We used a comprehensive dataset (656,234 phenological observations at 6019 observation sites) about the phenology of oat (Avena sativa L.) and related climate data from Germany for the period 1959–2009. Our results show that the statistically significant warming trend since 1959 resulted in an earlier onset of all phenological stages and a shortening of most phenological phases with a 17-day earlier onset of yellow ripeness and a shortening of the “sowing to yellow ripeness” phase by 14 days. There was also a distinct spatial pattern in phenological development, with differences among eco-regions in the occurrence of development stages of 15–26 days and the length of the phases between stages of 6 and 21 days. Most of this spatio-temporal variability could be explained through the effects of temperature and day length. However, temperature sums (thermal times) and day length corrected temperature sums (photo-thermal times) also varied in time and space, pointing to the use of different varieties over time and across eco-regions. A considerable part of this variability in temperature sums and photo-thermal times could be explained by the mean temperature during the development periods. This may provide a means of modelling farmers’ adaptation to climate change using varieties of different maturity types; but it requires further investigation. The good agreement of the thermal and photo-thermal requirements of oat computed in this study with relationships known from field experiments supports the use of the temperature sum concept for large scale application to simulate crop phenology in response to temperature and day length. The analysis should be extended to other crops and regions to further evaluate the observed spatio-temporal patterns in crop phenology and the relationships explaining these patterns
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
Adaptation of crop production to climate change by crop substitution
No full textResearch on the impact of climate change on agricultural production has mainly focused on the effect of climate and its variability on individual crops, while the potential for adapting to climate change through crop substitution has received less attention. This is surprising because the proportions of individual crops in the total crop area have changed considerably over periods of time much shorter than those typically investigated in climate change studies. The flexibility of farmers to adapt to changing socioeconomic and environmental conditions by changing crop type may therefore also represent an alternative option to adapt to climate change. The objective of this case study was to investigate the potential of crop substitution as an adaptation strategy to climate change. We compared biomass yield and water use efficiency (WUE) of maize (Zea mays L) and pearl millet (Pennisetum americanum L.) grown in the semi-arid northeast of Iran for fodder production under present and potential future climatic conditions. Climate change projections for the baseline period 1970–2005 and two future time periods (2011–2030 and 2080–2099) from two emission scenarios (A2 and B1) and four general circulation models were downscaled to daily time steps using the Long Ashton Research Station-Weather Generator (LARS-WG5). Above-ground biomass was simulated for seven research sites with the Decision Support System for Agrotechnology Transfer (DSSAT 4.5) model which was calibrated and tested with independent experimental data from different field experiments in the region. The analysis of observations across all study locations showed an inverse relationship between temperature and biomass yield for both pearl millet and maize. Biomass yield was most sensitive to the duration of the phenological phase from floral initiation to end of leaf growth. For this phase we also found the highest negative correlation between mean temperature and biomass yield, which was more pronounced for pearl millet than for maize. This relationship was well reproduced by the crop model, justifying its use for the assessment. Due to the higher sensitivity of pearl millet to temperature increase, simulations suggest that the maximum benefit of crop substitution for biomass yield and WUE is to be gained for present-day conditions and would decline under future warming. The simulated increase in biomass yield due to substitution of maize by pearl millet was nevertheless larger than the yield decrease from potential climate change. Therefore, substituting maize by pearl millet should be considered as a measure for increasing fodder production in the investigated region. Differences in yields of crops that may substitute for each other because of similar use have been shown for other regions under current and potential future climatic conditions as well, so that we suggest that our findings are of general importance for climate change research. More research is required to quantify the effects for other crop combinations, regions, and interactions with other adaptation measures
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
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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