1,720,973 research outputs found
Sustainable management of elasmobranchs in complex coastal fisheries
Full text linkGlobal trade and use of plants, animals and fungi forms one of the major drivers of biodiversity loss, but simultaneously support the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. Elasmobranchs (sharks and rays) are ecologically and socio-economically important, yet many species face extinction due to overfishing. In countries of the Global South like India, where there are high human populations and dependence on fisheries, the multi-species fisheries and complex socio-economic contexts create an urgent need for sustainable management of elasmobranch fisheries rather than exclusionary conservation measures. My DPhil aimed to understand how the sustainability of elasmobranch fisheries can be improved in such contexts, for the benefit of both biodiversity and people. I first conducted a scoping literature review of shark and ray research in India, identifying critical research gaps that need to be prioritised, such as the socio-economic dimensions of shark and ray fishing, trade and consumption. I examined fishing and trade motivations across the spectrum of elasmobranch catch, from low-value bycatch (like rhino rays) to high-value target species (like blacktip sharks) at two case study sites; Goa and Kakinada. My research uncovered diverse motivations and values underpinning people’s use of elasmobranchs, including instrumental (economic) benefits, food, culture and tradition, which were enabled by mechanisms such as access to capital, social identity and knowledge. I investigated the ecological sustainability of a small-scale blacktip shark fishery, combining data from multiple sources including knowledge from fishers, and found that harvest rates need to be reduced to at least half for sustainability. Finally, I used participatory methods to explore potential conservation strategies and found that voluntary live release measures may be promising for rhino rays, whereas for blacktip sharks a complete exit from the fishery, through a combination of community-based agreements and state enforcement, may be the only option. My work has led to further research and to the design of live release interventions for rhino rays in Goa, which could serve as a scalable conservation model. My research contributes to developing robust approaches for conservation science and practice in data- and resource-limited contexts, and particularly highlights the importance of diverse knowledge systems, such as Local Ecological Knowledge, in ethical and effective conservation planning. I demonstrate the value of local-scale studies to inform the design of nuanced interventions targeted at contextual drivers. My DPhil hence contributes to a better understanding of marine sustainability to support more effective conservation action across scales, towards delivering on global biodiversity targets
India: labour heading west
No full textThe difficult working conditions of migrant labourers in the fisheries of the Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra raise both social and human-rights issues that need to be solved
India: labour heading west
Full text linkThe difficult working conditions of migrant labourers in the fisheries of the Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra raise both social and human-rights issues that need to be solved
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
Bright Future for Olive Ridley Turtles?
No full text32-33The future of the olive
ridley turtles would be bright only if lights in the coastal areas were to be
dimmed by a shade. Bright lights in and around coastal areas are leading these
turtles to their death
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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