1,721,008 research outputs found
Latent heat flux variability and response to drought stress of black poplar: A multi-platform multi-sensor remote and proximal sensing approach to relieve the data scarcity bottleneck
No full textHigh-throughput mapping of latent heat flux (λET) is critical to efforts to optimize water resources management and to accelerate forest tree breeding for improved drought tolerance. Ideally, investigation of the energy response at the tree level may promote tailored irrigation strategies and, thus, maximize crop biomass productivity. However, data availability is limited and planning experimental campaigns in the field can be highly operationally complex. To this end, a multi-platform multi-sensor observational approach is herein developed to dissect the λET signature of a black poplar (Populus nigra) breeding population (“POP6”) at the canopy level. POP6 comprised more than 4600 trees representing 503 replicated genotypes, whose parents were derived from contrasting environmental conditions. Trees were trialed in two adjacent plots where different irrigation treatments (moderate drought [mDr] and well-watered [WW]) were applied. Data collected from satellite and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) remote sensing as well as from ground-based proximal sensors were integrated at consistent spatial aggregation and combined to compute the surface energy balance of the trees through a modified Priestley-Taylor method. Here, we demonstrated that λET response was significantly different between WW and mDr trees, whereby genotypes in mDr conditions exhibited larger standard deviations. Importantly, genotypes classified as drought tolerant based on the stress susceptibility index (SSI) presented λET values significantly higher than the rest of the population. This study confirmed that water limitation in mDr settings led to reduced soil moisture in the tree root zone and, thus, to lower λET. These results pave the way to breeding poplar and other bioenergy crops with this underexploited trait for higher λET. Most notably, the illustrated work demonstrates a multi-platform multi-sensor data fusion approach to tackle the global challenge of monitoring landscape-scale ecosystem processes at fine resolution
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Web Platform and Corporate Welfare: An Inclusive Organizational Solution
No full textThe latest economic trend necessitates a reconsideration of welfare as a place where public authorities and private companies collaborate to satisfy social needs, that are growing in quantities and varieties. Enterprises have a pivotal role in this new welfare system, the so-called “Second Welfare”, by adopting for their workers a win-win model that combines their corporate social responsibility with a welfare society. By corporate welfare, indeed, the Government can meet citizens’ needs more efficiently and effectively, people can increase their well-being and companies can improve performances and productivity. Firstly, those practices seemed a privilege for bigger companies but recently also workers of smaller companies have been included. At this aim, a case of a welfare platform created by an Italian non-profit organization is presented. ICT has a fundamental role to coordinate the supply of corporate welfare services and include SMEs, allowing them to catch opportunities that otherwise would be a prerogative of big ones
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe 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
The Effect of ICT Usage on Employees’ Satisfaction: A Job Characteristics Perspective
No full textThe paper investigates employees’ job satisfaction, examining the relationship with 33 some job related variables and considering the impact of the use of Information and communication technologies (ICTs) at work. One job demand that is workload and one job resource that is work-life balance are included. On the basis of our analysis, carried out on a sample of 33,265 employees in Europe (data source: European Working Conditions Survey 2010, last at disposal), we conclude that ICT usage plays a controversial role. Indeed, on the one hand, we prove that ICT usage might weaken the negative relationship between workload and individual job satisfaction. On the other hand, while we hypothesize that ICT might increase the strength of the positive relationship between work-life balance and job satisfaction, the results demonstrate the opposite. Managerial implications are finally considered to underline how important a ‘good’ management of the ITCs is to improve of job satisfaction
Evaluating the potential of marginal lands available for sustainable cellulosic biofuel production in Italy
Get PDFThe European Union aims to provide as much as one quarter of its transportation fuels via biofuels derived from renewable sources by 2030. To put this into perspective, the Italian government has recently established an ambitious goal to support the wider uptake of advanced second-generation biofuels, including cellulosic biofuels for the transportation sector. A sustainable way forward is to grow perennial biomass crops on marginal lands, however the nationwide availability of those lands for lignocellulosic feedstock production remains uncertain. We identify and evaluate the potential of marginal lands in Italy to produce sizeable amounts of biomass for sustainable cellulosic biofuel production while limiting land use conflicts and negative ecological impacts. We applied spatial multi-criteria decision analysis techniques in geographic information systems to ultimately generate spatially-explicit national land suitability and availability maps at a fine resolution (250-m). We selected a broad range of leading cellulosic biomass crops that includes poplar (Populus × canadensis Moench), willow (Salix alba Linnaeus), black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia Linnaeus), giant reed (Arundo donax Linnaeus), and vetiver grass (Chrysopogon zizanioides Linnaeus). Based on marginality criteria, our results suggest that such biomass plantations of perennial grasses and short rotation trees may produce 3.1–27.4 billion liters of cellulosic ethanol per year from 462,265 to 2,811,064 million hectares of available marginal lands. This estimated production may fulfill 7.8–69.1% of Italy's current liquid transportation fuel consumption, constrained by the requirement that each modelled location be within 70 km of a potential cellulosic biorefinery. Collectively, this study provides the cornerstone of efforts to rationally meet Italy's need for renewable fuels in a sustainable low-carbon economy future
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