1,721,004 research outputs found
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
Volunteering and mental health: Benefits of engagement or social selection?
No full textWhile studies have focused exclusively on explicating the beneficial effects of volunteer work, little is known about whether social selection processes also influence the relationship between volunteering and health at different stages of the adulthood. Given the fact that people experience numerous life transitions over the life course, their social engagement and personal well-being are likely to be affected. Scarce research has explored whether stressful life event such as widowhood influences subsequent volunteer participation, and whether volunteering mitigates the negative impact of widowhood on well-being. This research uses 3-wave panel data from the Americans\u27 Changing Lives study to examine these broad aspects in the relationship between volunteer work and health. This is a multistage stratified area probability sample of persons 24 years of age or older who lived in the continental United States. The baseline data were collected in 1986 (N = 3,617) and include an over-sample of Black adults (n = 1,174) and persons 60 years of age or older (n = 1,669). The analyses entail three interrelated but distinct projects. The first project addresses whether social benefit and selection processes exist in the relationship between volunteer work and depressive symptoms in later life. The results show that formal volunteering exerts a beneficial effect on depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms are also associated with a subsequent increase in formal volunteer work (compensation effect). Functional impairment—-not depressive symptoms—emerged as an important barrier to volunteer participation. Project two extends the first project by examining the relationship among formal volunteering, depressive symptoms, and functional limitations over middle and late adulthood. The health benefits of volunteering are evident in the sample of older adults. While functional limitations are a barrier to volunteering in later life, depressive symptoms appear to be a barrier to volunteering in middle age. Depressive symptoms increase volunteer participation over time among older adults. The last project investigates the impacts of widowhood on volunteering and well-being in later life. The analyses show that widowhood increases subsequent volunteer participation. Widowhood exacerbates depressive symptoms and self-efficacy over time, but volunteering moderates these negative effects. The time elapsed since widowhood also influences psychosocial adjustments to spousal loss
Seeking help in illness and in health: Differences between African and white-Americans in health service use
No full textThis study examines the effect of social factors on medical care service use of African and white adults. The research question stems from an intriguing set of finding from health services research: African Americans have more health problems and are more frequently hospitalized, yet they visit physicians less often. By applying two theoretical frameworks in sociology, this study compares African and white Americans to gain a better conceptualization of ethnicity as a variable in studying health and medical care services use. The data are two-wave (1986 and 1989) longitudinal data from Americans\u27 Changing Lives, with 3497 African and white subjects. The analytical strategies include t-tests and logistic and multiple regression. Besides separate sample analyses, significant differences between the magnitudes of the regression coefficients in different samples were tested by creating interaction terms between race and independent factors. Effects of independent factors at baseline on three dependent factors (self-rated health, physician visits, and hospitalization) are assessed. Separate sample analyses show that self-rated health is a significant predictor of physician visits for white Americans while chronic conditions and functional health are significant predictors for African Americans. Health insurance does not predict physician visits for the African American sample while it does predict use in the white sample. African Americans with more chronic conditions and with worse functional health are more likely to have visited a physician. African Americans who drink more and who visited physicians more often at the baseline have reported more physician visits at the follow-up. Also, African Americans who seek religious comfort are more likely to have been hospitalized for a longer period of time. African Americans who get transportation help at baseline are more likely to have been hospitalized and for longer periods of time. Longitudinal data with two or more waves are necessary in order to assess and compare rates of change in health and use of service. Also, it is desirable to measure social support derived from religious involvement in order to achieve a better understanding in social support and religious involvement
The disability gap: Risk factors for life course disability trajectories for Black and White older adults
No full textResearch has shown that Black older adults tend have higher disability. However, previous studies have disagreed about the magnitude of this disability gap and whether it diverges, converges, or remains constant over time. Most explanations have concentrated on differences in socioeconomic status but this has not explained the entire disparity. Seven waves of panel data from the North Carolina Established Populations for the Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly (1986–1992) are used to examine possible mechanisms of the racial health disparity. The baseline sample is 4,162 adults ages 65 and older and more than half of the sample are Black respondents (54%). The first project addresses whether the racial disability gap exists and what happens to that gap over time by estimating the trajectory of disability separately for Black and White older adults with latent growth curves. Black older adults have a higher level and slope of disability than White adults, but after controlling for covariates, the slopes are no longer significantly different. Incident morbidity accounts for the remaining racial disability gap. The second project focuses on intra-individual differences in disability reports across data collection modes. Separate predicted trajectories of disability using only face-to-face interviews and then only telephone interviews indicate that older adults are significantly more likely to report higher disability in-person. Using only face-to-face interviews, Black and White adults have a level and trajectory of disability that is not significantly different. Using only telephone interviews, there is a racial disability gap and it continues to diverge over time. Conclusions about whether a racial disability gap even exists are dependent on the mode of data collection. The final project extends the conceptual model of the disablement process to include feedback mechanisms between morbidity, depression, and disability. These cycles of health decline are tested with lagged effects of depression and morbidity on disability while simultaneously estimating the opposite causal effect of disability on depression and morbidity. Cycles of health decline are evident: higher levels of morbidity and depression cause each other over time. No race differences in the process of health decline are evident
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