1,720,962 research outputs found
A non-additive multiple criteria approach for the evaluation of international climate think tanks
No full textThis paper outlines the application of non-additive measures and Choquet integral in the construction of a composite indicator to assess the performance of international climate think tanks and evaluate their influence in shaping climate policies and raising awareness among the general public. The composite index consists of 15 carefully selected indicators according to the feedback provided by Experts within the field and structured into three main pillars: Activities, Publications and Dissemination. In order compare Think Tanks of different size and hence to measure their efficiency, the standardized ranking is also computed dividing the Think Tank outcome in each criterion by the number of its researchers. The application of fuzzy measures and Choquet integral, allowing to take into account potential interactions existing among criteria, increases substantially the model capability both in eliciting effectively Experts’ preferences and in aggregating indicators. Moreover, we present a novel technique for the aggregation of Experts’ preferences where Decision Makers’ weights have been set proportionally to their consistency in evaluating the specific questionnaire
A network approach for moving from planning to implementation in climate change adaptation: Evidence from southern Mexico
No full textCollaboration barriers have been reported among the most frequent institutional constraints to adaptation. Yet, the growing literature on the topic has been largely descriptive and little attention has been placed on how to transform barriers into enablers for action. By taking a fragile socio-ecological lagoon system in Southern Mexico as a case study, the paper applies a social network analytical approach to: i) reveal the actual web of connections tying stakeholders through local governance arrangements; ii) identify shortcomings in multi-actor collaboration networks; and iii) propose ways to tackle them so that the full potential of adaptation can be exploited. The paper employs a mixed-method approach combining both a quantitative and qualitative Social Network Analysis (SNA). The quantitative SNA is used to assess the quality and strength of relationships among formal public organisations working on climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction in the site. The qualitative SNA is employed to both assess linking ties between formal organizations and local coastal communities potentially targeted with adaptation interventions, and bonding ties connecting community members. The approach proves to be useful to map the relational architecture of the system of interest and to reveal network characteristics that are important for collective action including: network fragmentation in subgroups; density of relations; centralization around a few actors. The actual topology of the network, as revealed, can then be compared with what is required for achieving societally desired adaptation outcomes and for identifying agents that can promote change. The paper acknowledges that a social analytical approach might be limited in unveiling the interests and motives behind actors’ participation in the network, and that the latter ultimately determine actors’ contribution in defining and enacting a joint solution for a common problem. However, the mixed-methods approach presented in this paper allows for gaining first insights on the way a mismatch between formal and informal institutions might drive socio-ecological systems towards inadequate adaptation outcomes
Supporting the UN SDGs transition: Methodology for sustainability assessment and current worldwide ranking
Full text linkThe FEEM project APPS - Assessment, Projections and Policy of Sustainable Development Goals lies in the stream of research related to the quantitative assessment of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted by the United Nations at the end of September 2015. The project consists of two phases. The first, retrospective, derives a composite multi-dimensional index and a worldwide ranking of current sustainability. This allows informing on strengths and weaknesses of today socioeconomic development, as well as environmental criticalities, all around the world. The second phase, prospective, aims evaluating the future trends of sustainability in the world by 2030. The assessment is carried out by means of an extended version of the recursivedynamic computable general equilibrium ICES macro-economic model that includes social and environmental indicators. The final goal is to highlight future challenges left unsolved in next 15 years of socio-economic development and analyze costs and benefits of specific policies to support the achievement of proposed targets. The methodology goes through the following steps: screening of indicators eligible to address the UN SDGs; data collection from relevant sources; organization in the three pillars of sustainability (economy, society, and environment); normalization to a common metrics; aggregation of the 25 indicators in composite indices by pillars as well as in the multi-dimensional index. The final ranking includes 139 countries. North European countries are at top of the ranking (Sweden, Norway and Switzerland)
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
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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