1,720,975 research outputs found

    Friction- and inertia-dominated effluents in a lacustrine, river-dominated deltaic succession (Pliocene Upper Valdarno Basin, Italy)

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    Sediment transport and deposition at river-dominated river mouths are controlled by: i) outflow inertia, ii) turbulent bed friction, or iii) outflow buoyancy. In mouth-bar-type deltas, which typically form in shallow-water settings, friction-dominated effluents are prevailing, although inertia-dominated ones may develop depending on: i) bedload at the river mouth and ii) water depth immediately downstream of the outlet. This paper deals with lacustrine river-dominated deltaic sediments deposited in a Pliocene, small, and protected lake, where wave reworking was limited to absent, allowing the preservation of the primary sedimentary features and stratal architecture developed by river-mouth sedimentary dynamics. This study focuses on sedimentary facies and stratal architecture of these deltaic deposits and aims at detecting the role of river floods in shaping and distributing sediment in shoalwater deltaic bodies. A detailed facies analysis resulted in the identification of sedimentary ..

    Geomorphological Characterization, Monitoring and Modeling of the Monte Rotolon Complex Landslide (Recoaro Terme, Italy)

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    The Rotolon landslide, located in the upper Agno River valley (Vicenza, Italy), has threatened the valley for centuries. During November 2010, after 637 mm of rainfall in 12 days, a debris mass of about 225,000 m3 collapsed from the lowermost portion of the landslide and evolved into a debris flow that channeled in the Rotolon Creek riverbed, damaging the villages of Maltaure and Parlati in the Recoaro Terme municipality. On December 8th, 2010 the Department of Earth Sciences of the University of Firenze started a real-time monitoring using a GB-InSAR radar interferometer. The radar data are elaborated to obtain weekly, monthly and total cumulated 3D displacement maps and displacement time series of ten control points selected on the landslide mass. Accurate field surveys were carried out to analyze the landslide physiographic features and to validate the ground deformation retrieved from the radar data. The geomorphological features, supported by the radar data, led to an interpretation of the complex Rotolon landslide as a Deep Seated Gravitational Slope Deformation, whose detrital cover is often affected by detachments triggering debris flows. The November 2010 detachment area was modeled in order to: (i) calculate the main geotechnical properties of the collapsed material by means of a back analysis; (ii) define the residual risk; (iii) simulate new critical scenarios for the new topographic slope surface

    Enhancing the resilience of local communities threated by natural disaster: the experience of the Project "Shkoder", (Albania)

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    The vulnerability of Albanian population to natural disasters is due to poverty, inadequate infrastructures (e.g. communication network, basic public facilities and works of soil protection), an uncontrollable building boom and a range of environmental factors, both geomorphological and geological. The greatest disaster threats in Albania are those related to severe earthquakes and large-scale riverine floods. Geohazards assessment is a crucial point for Albania, which has been subject to a rapid development after the recent political changes, resulting in a general land degradation. Also the rate of migration from rural areas to the most urbanized areas currently represents a major problem for the National Civil Protection, since the urban sprawl in the suburbs are often located in high-risk areas, particularly vulnerable to natural hazards. The National Civil Protection system, in terms of subsidiary institutional and volunteer components, is relatively young in Albania. The progressive decentralization of the administrative competences triggered by the recent political changes is accompanied by the acquisition of new territorial information and the development of specific protocols for the emergency management, as well as the risk reduction. The management of natural disasters demands not only an early response to the criticalities, but also a correct mapping of the damage and the development of emergency plans for future events in order to protect lives, properties and the environment and moreover to spread the risk awareness in the population and to prepare it for such circumstances. The main purposes of the Pilot Project “Shkoder” is to enhance the resilience of a little community, located 9 kilometers south-west of Shkodra (Northern Albania), to flooding and earthquakes and to promote the subsidiarity principle by means of: a) demonstrating how basic information for the disaster planning (collected with a real demonstrative field survey) and the risk scenarios can be obtained using relatively simple and low-cost technologies and methods, whose easy accessibility is fundamental for government and academic institutions of poorly developed countries; b) training of the local community (public administrations and volunteers) on the themes of natural risk, disaster prevention and emergency management; c) creating an efficient Civil Protection volunteer system, able to cooperate with the local governmental and scientific institutions in case of natural disasters. The evaluation of the flooding risk in the study area has been carried out by means of HEC-RAS software, while the seismic vulnerability of strategic buildings has been estimated by microtremors analysis. A two-days course has been performed to expose the main results of the field survey and to train the beneficiaries on local vulnerabilities, emergency behaviours and roles. Finally the local authorities and the volunteers, by working together under the supervision of the Italian institutions (National Civil Protection Department and University of Firenze), promoted and realized the first national civil protection relief drill in Albania

    Geomorphology of the Rotolon landslide (Veneto Region, Italy)

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    <div><p>In this paper a geomorphological map of the Rotolon landslide is presented. This cartographic product was obtained using a combination of accurate field surveys together with airborne Lidar analysis, aerial photo interpretation and thermographic field surveys within a GIS. The map was prepared in order to analyze the morphological features of the landslide and therefore improve interpretation of the GB-InSAR data. This monitoring device was installed on the site after the detachment of a debris mass of 225,000 m<sup>3</sup> on 4 November 2010. The main purpose of the post-event activities, including the geomorphological characterization, was to detect the processes acting on the landslide, evaluate the hazard related to each phenomenon, understand the landslide kinematics and define the residual risk for the area.</p><p>The geomorphological map suggests that debris production and detachment are hazardous phenomena that involve the surficial detrital cover of a bigger and more complex landslide. The latter has the typical characteristics of a deep-seated gravitational slope deformation. The distinction between secondary processes, which appear to be the most hazardous in the short-term, and deep seated ones, demonstrates that accurate mapping provides important information for local administrations and decision makers, allowing them to prepare landslide susceptibility and hazard models.</p></div

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The 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

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    “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

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    We 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
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