1,721,027 research outputs found
Material Balance. A Design Equation
Full text linkThe study is carried out by detecting and explaining the main areas of research and development of the experimental laboratory Material Balance Research within the Built Environment and Construction Engineering - ABC Department at the Politecnico di Milano, which hosts the analysis activities, both theoretical and applied, by researchers related to academic, production and construction realities in the international field. The laboratory's activities are determined through multidisciplinary studies (cognitive and conceptual, methodological and instrumental) of multiple areas related to technological evolution and the needs of environmental balance within the contemporary scenario. In this regard, the study on the scientific and disciplinary formulation of Material Balance is outlined according to the fundamentals of the "polytechnic culture", promoting the principles and procedures oriented to the needs of limiting non-renewable resources, reducing polluting emissions and "transformation" (of processes, technologies and materials) in order to limit the impacts on the environment: these ethical and cultural references contribute to establishing strategies, criteria and areas of analysis and application, through the development of themes and objectives aimed at supporting innovation within the technological culture of design and architectural technology. The study and research activity by the experimental laboratory Material Balance Research, considered within this first "manifesto", is determined through: • the analysis and application of the potentialities expressed by the evolution of technical, computer and productive supports, able to encourage the activities of information management and transformation (according to computational design practices), modeling and simulation aimed at architectural design, building systems and components (according to parametric architecture and driven design practices), up to testing and physical checking (through the use of soft robotic systems, 3D printing and CNC machines); • the analysis and application methods of new processes of transformation and operation of traditional materials, evolved or resulting from recycling processes, with the aim of identifying the perspectives for reuse within many different expressive and functional, productive and executive areas; • the investigation of socio-cultural and physical interactions with the anthropocene in the current context, through the examination of the different forms of incidence and action towards the environment, supporting the methodologies and modes of action aimed at establishing the conditions of balance between human activities and both living and natural cycles; • the analysis and methods of integration and interaction of biological organisms within the functioning and configuration of architecture, building systems and components for energy saving and production, air pollution reduction, improvement of environmental quality and biodiversity, biodegradable material production, alternatives to polluting construction materials and even food supply; • the analysis and procedures for the investigation and optimization of the internal and external spaces of the architecture, with the aim of determining forms and interventions of environmental and sensory calibration (thermal, lighting and acoustic), with the help of both modelling and digital simulation devices and specific physical, systemic and material applications. On this basis, the definition of the first "manifesto" assumes the objective to set the cultural and scientific fundamentals, to detect the main areas of research and the criteria of analysis and development. Therefore, with respect to the specificities of the topics examined, the theoretical and operational framework provided within this contribution is proposed as a conceptual, strategic and methodological reference to continue the studies around the Material Balance, in order to identify, articulate and develop further areas of theoretical and applicative study in line with the challenges and the environmental, expressive, functional and constructive needs of the contemporary and future design scenario
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
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