1,721,034 research outputs found
La Toscana medicea e la costituzione di uno spazio culturale scientifico nelle Selve di Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti
No full textA Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti (1712-1783), scienziato, naturalista ed erudito toscano, si deve il vasto progetto di raccolta di informazioni sulla storia della scienza toscana dall’età etrusca al XVIII secolo che prese il nome di Selva di Notizie spettante all’Origine, ai progressi e ai miglioramenti delle scienze fisiche. L’opera composta da diciassette volumi in forma manoscritta, è attualmente conservata presso il fondo Targioni Tozzetti della Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze. Obiettivo principale dell’autore era quello di
fornire un quadro unitario della cultura scientifica toscana e, nel far questo, non mancava di ricordare il suo impegno in qualità di cittadino toscano, rievocando il celebre motto di Plutarco: «Ti è toccata Sparta (per Patria) adornala». Infatti, il metodo erudito di Targioni Tozzetti mostrava la volontà di rendere omaggio al proprio territorio e di costruire un vero e proprio monumento alla tradizione scientifica Toscana, le cui radici egli faceva risalire all’età etrusca. Ancora più peculiare era la volontà dell’autore di stabilire un legame fortissimo tra la dinastia medicea e lo sviluppo delle scienze. Per questo motivo risulta interessante la posizione storiografica di cui Targioni Tozzetti si fece interprete in quanto, suddividendo i singoli volumi delle Selve nei periodi del governo mediceo, stabiliva come l’interessamento del potere, nelle persone dei granduchi, nei confronti della ricerca scientifica fosse un requisito essenziale per il miglioramento della società
La rappresentazione visuale della scienza sperimentale in Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti
No full textA Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti (1712-1783) si deve il vasto progetto di raccolta di informazioni sull’età galileiana e sull’Accademia del Cimento pubblicato col nome di Notizie degli Aggrandimenti delle Scienze Fisiche (1780), manifesto dell’eredità della cultura scientifica seicentesca voluto dal granduca lorenese Pietro Leopoldo. Scopo principale dell’opera era quello di sottolineare l’importanza del sostegno del potere politico alla ricerca scientifica e, per far ciò, si scelse di volgersi al passato. Si guardò all’esperienza dell’Accademia del Cimento, come prima istituzione scientifica ad essere stata patrocinata dal potere e ad aver posto lo sperimentalismo al centro delle proprie attività. Lo strumento utilizzato da Targioni Tozzetti per veicolare il carattere sperimentale della scienza seicentesca fu quello iconografico: le Notizie sono, infatti, corredate da un vasto corpus iconografico contenente la raffigurazione degli strumenti utilizzati dagli accademici del Cimento nelle loro attività scientifiche.
Targioni Tozzetti identificava nell’esperienza del Cimento e nel mecenatismo scientifico seicentesco il momento di svolta nella storia della scienza a cui era necessario rifarsi come proposta per il presente e per il futuro del granducato sotto la nuova veste
lorenese. Il riferimento al patronage seicentesco aveva dunque l’obiettivo di stimolare una maggiore considerazione della tradizione scientifica toscana e di sottolineare l’utilità del coinvolgimento del potere nel sostegno della scienza sperimentale
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
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus CC22-MRSA-IV as an agent of dairy cow intramammary infections
Full text linkMethicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) lineages have become major responsible of healthcare- and community-associated infections in human population. Bovine MRSA are sporadically detected in the dairy herd, but its presence enhances the risk of zoonosis. Some lineages are able to lose the specific host tropism, being easily transmitted from animals to humans and vice-versa. The present study aims at clarifying the epidemiology of MRSA intramammary infections in a closed dairy herd, which was running a mastitis control program since years. Quarter milk samples were collected from all lactating cows once a week for 9 weeks and bacteriologically tested. At the end of the follow-up period, also a self-taken nasal swab of the milker was analysed. Three cows (12.5%) were MRSA positive, a fourth showed a transient infection and MRSA was isolated also from the milker's nose. Somatic cell counts of infected quarters fluctuated from 1000 to 1,800,000 cells/mL. The isolates were genotyped using DNA microarrays and identified as the epidemic UK-EMRSA-15 grouping in CC22. All strains carried the genes for β-lactam and macrolide resistance. The milker isolate differed from cow isolates mainly for the absence of the untruncated β-haemolysin and the presence of the immune evasion cluster. The milker had been volunteering in a nursing home since months, thus playing the role of MRSA vector into the herd. Our results showed the adaptive capacity of such MRSA to the bovine host. Therefore, we suggest that CC22-MRSA should be regarded as a potential cause of reverse zoonosis in dairy cattle herds
APPLICATION OF A DYNAMIC COMPUTATIONAL GIS MODELLING METHODOLOGY FOR EXPOSURE AND DOSE RISK ASSESSMENT
No full textAn application of Dynamic Computational G.I.S methodology in an Exposure Risk Assessment and Dose Assessment based on numerical matrix interaction is here presented.
Dynamic Computational G.I.S. (DCGIS) is a methodology based on U.S E.P.A. Ecological Risk Assessment and Exposure Assessment Guidelines. Such a methodology is supported by a newly developed Java based software tool working by means of the setup of stressor-vulnerability maps correlations. In this framework it is possible to set several kinds of correlations between stressor matrixes and vulnerability maps in order to compute multi-level risk maps for any specific correlation frame. The software tool produces also technical reports with numerical data concerning the exposure surfaces and the specific dose distribution.
The domain of the assessed area can be characterized in a grid-matrix frame and several stressor matrixes can be set for each emission source. The software tool analyser produces comparative risk maps, which are useful for both assessors and managers, mainly when they need different information levels.
It is significant to say that the methodology is very appropriate for cumulative and/or interacting effects evaluation which are strategically important in planning activities involving also wide critical areas with ecological protected sites, population centres and industrial development
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