1,721,027 research outputs found
Cryptochromes in the field: how blue light influences crop development
No full textLight is a pivotal environmental element capable of influencing multiple physiological processes across the entire plant life cycle. Over the course of their evolution, plants have developed several families of photoreceptors such as phytochromes, phototropins, ultraviolet (UV) resistance locus 8 and cryptochromes (crys), in order to sense light stimuli and respond to their changes. Numerous genetic studies have demonstrated that functional alterations to these photoreceptors cause a change in important agronomical traits. In particular, crys, which absorb UVA/blue light, can influence seed germination, flowering induction, plant architecture, fruit metabolic content and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. In the years to come, the rising temperatures and alterations to precipitation patterns generated by climate change will present a dramatic challenge for our agricultural system, with its few varieties characterized by a narrow genetic pool derived from artificial selection. Here, we review the main roles of crys in determining important agronomic traits in crops, we discuss the opportunities of using these photoreceptors as genetic targets for tuning plant physiological responses to environmental change, and the molecular strategies used so far to manipulate this family of photoreceptors
DROP SIZE DISTRIBUTION IN SPRAYS BY IMAGE-PROCESSING
No full textAn automatic analysis system has been developed and used to analyze photographs obtained by high-speed microphotography, the final aim being to derive spatial resolved size distributions of drops in sprays. The problem of determining whether photographic images of particles are in focus or not is solved by obtaining a calibration of geometric parameters of particle images as functions both of the particle position in the camera's field of view and of the particle diameter. On the basis of the results of this calibration on the particular photographic system being used, the drops are automatically rejected or sized and counted. This is done through a procedure based on the geometrical characterization of drop images at different ranges of gray levels. The main body of such procedure is constituted by an algorithm of original design (connected components detection algorithm) which allows for the simultaneous detection of the boundaries of drop images at different gray levels and generates a hierarchical structure among them. Size distributions obtained by means of the procedure described in the paper offer significant reduction in experimental time as well as improvement in experimental accuracy, in relation to manual sizing and counting techniques
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
IMAGINING CULTURES OF COOPERATION: UNIVERSITIES NETWORKING TO FACE THE NEW DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES
Full text linkThe Proceedings of the CUCS Torino 2013 Congress (19-21 September 2013) represent the final step of a scientific project and of an organisational and relational process that have proved challenging, engaging and ultimately rewording. At the same time the Proceedings testify the growing contribution by the Italian universities to the debate on international development and set a new beginning towards the next CUCS Congress to be held in 2015 in Brescia, as well as towards a more tight and effective cooperation between Politecnico di Torino, University of Turin and all the other actors involved in international development cooperation within the territory of Turin and Piedmont (international organisations, local institutions, NGOs, foundations, private companies...)
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
“Causalité médicale et déterminants de la santé”
Full text linkThe contribution - appearing in a volume which is meant to continue the series "Histoire de la pensée médicale en Occident" (directed by Mirko D. Grmek, three previous volumes published in 1995, 1997 e 1999) – presents and critically discusses the meanings and uses of the notion of “cause” in the health sciences in the second half of the Twentieth century. Among the issues addressed, the relationships between different conceptions of causation, and causal inference criteria; reductionist and anti-reductionist stances; complex disorders and the identification of social determinants of health and disease
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
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