1,354,822 research outputs found
Benchmarking Workflow Discovery: A Case Study From Bioinformatics
No full textAutomation in science is increasingly marked by the use of workflow technology. The sharing of workflows through repositories supports the verifability, reproducibility and extensibility of computational experiments. However, the subsequent discovery of workflows remains a challenge, both from a sociological and technological viewpoint. Based on a survey with participants from 19 laboratories, we investigate current practices in workflow sharing, re-use and discovery amongst life scientists chiefly using the Taverna workflow management system. To address their perceived lack of effective workflow discovery tools, we go on to develop benchmarks for the evaluation of discovery tools, drawing on a series of practical exercises. We demonstrate the value of the benchmarks on two tools: one using graph matching, the other relying on text clustering
Discovering Scientific Workflows: The myExperiment Benchmarks
No full textAutomation in science is increasingly marked by the use of workflow technology. The sharing of workflows through publication mechanisms or repositories supports the verifiability, reproducibility and extensibility of computational experiments. However, the subsequent discovery of workflows remains a challenge, both from a technological and sociological viewpoint. We investigate current practices in workflow sharing, re-use and discovery amongst life scientists chiefly using the Taverna workflow management system. The study draws on two key sources: (i) a survey of researchers drawn from 19 research labs and (ii) an analysis of scientists’ behaviour on the myExperiment social network site, designed to encourage workflow exchange. The results reveal a multi-modal approach to workflow discovery, based on a mix of search on the content of the workflow and its situated context. We go on to develop a benchmark specifically for the evaluation of workflow discovery and to demonstrate it on two example approaches
myExperiment: Defining the Social Virtual Research Environment
No full textThe myExperiment Virtual Research Environment supports the sharing of research objects used by scientists, such as scientific workflows. For researchers it is both a social infrastructure that encourages sharing and a platform for conducting research, through familiar user interfaces. For developers it provides an open, extensible and participative environment. We describe the design, implementation and deployment of myExperiment and suggest that its four capabilities - research objects, social model, open environment and actioning research - are necessary characteristics of an effective Virtual Research Environment for e-research and open science
Hard X-ray techniques suitable for polymer experiments
No full textPolymers have been studied since 1979 with 8-12 keV synchrotron radiation X-ray scattering methods and the number and sophistication of the experiments have rapidly grown ever since. More recently, new experimental techniques have been developed that use softer or harder X rays in less conventional ways. This article provides a brief overview of the possibilities of hard X-ray techniques and indicates some areas that might gain from further developments
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe 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
No full text“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
No full textWe 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
Does aid mitigate external shocks?
No full textThis paper investigates the role of aid in mitigating the adverse effects of commodity export price shocks on growth in commodity-dependent countries. Using a large cross-country dataset, we find that negative shocks matter for short-term growth, while the ex ante risk of shocks does not seem to matter. We also find that both the level of aid and the flexibility of the exchange rate substantially lower the adverse growth effect of shocks. While the mitigating effect of aid is significant in both countries with pegs and countries with floats, the effect seems to be smaller for the latter, suggesting that aid and exchange rate flexibility are partly substitutes. We investigate whether aid has historically been targeted at shock-prone countries, but find no evidence that this is the case. This suggests that donors could increase aid effectiveness by redirecting aid towards countries with a high incidence of commodity export price shocks.commodity prices; aid; growth; external shocks
Structural policies for shock-prone developing countries
No full textDeveloping countries frequently face large adverse shocks to their economies. We study two distinct types of such shocks: large declines in the price of a country’s commodity exports and severe natural disasters. Unsurprisingly, adverse shocks reduce the short-term growth of constant-price GDP and we analyse which structural policies help to minimize these losses. Structural policies are incentives and regulations that are maintained for long periods, contrasting with policy responses to shocks, the analysis of which has dominated the literature. We show that some previously neglected structural policies have large effects that are specific to particular types of shock. In particular, regulations which reduce the speed of firm exit substantially increase the short-term growth loss from adverse non-agricultural export price shocks and so are particularly ill-suited to mineral exporting economies. Natural disasters appear to be better accommodated by labour market policies, perhaps because such shocks directly dislocate the population.commodity price shocks; natural disasters; growth, policies
- …
