1,720,956 research outputs found
Strengthening parliaments in the pacific region
No full textThis qualitative study of five Pacific parliaments reports an investigation of the relationship between training and parliamentary performance. It draws on the theories from political science, adult education and training and human resources fields in an attempt to explain that relationship. The first part of the study identifies types of training programs available in the case parliaments. Then the study evaluates the impact of training on the performance of case MPs and their parliaments. It also conducts an across-case performance assessment. The results show that training programs provided to case parliaments are generally too didactic and have failed to produce a significant and positive impact on performance of case MPs and their parliaments. Parliamentary stakeholders interviewed in this study associate this failure with the manner in which training programs provided in the case parliaments are poorly designed and delivered. It is in this context that this study highlights the need for reforms and identifies approaches that could assist in reforming the way training programs for Pacific parliaments are designed, delivered and evaluated. In the case of Tonga, the need for training programs to be accompanied by other parliamentary strengthening techniques, such as embarking on relevant constitutional reforms, is examined. The thesis contributes to theory and practice by providing empirical evidence on the effectiveness or otherwise of previously published training models. Specifically, while it supports the applicability of the training model proposed in the adult education and training field, it raises questions on the compatibility of the training model suggested in the human resources field. The final chapter of the thesis provides donors and parliamentary practitioners with an education and training model that could be used to improve the effectiveness of parliaments in the Pacific region and beyond
Strengthening parliaments in the pacific region
No full textThis qualitative study of five Pacific parliaments reports an investigation of the relationship between training and parliamentary performance. It draws on the theories from political science, adult education and training and human resources fields in an attempt to explain that relationship. The first part of the study identifies types of training programs available in the case parliaments. Then the study evaluates the impact of training on the performance of case MPs and their parliaments. It also conducts an across-case performance assessment. The results show that training programs provided to case parliaments are generally too didactic and have failed to produce a significant and positive impact on performance of case MPs and their parliaments. Parliamentary stakeholders interviewed in this study associate this failure with the manner in which training programs provided in the case parliaments are poorly designed and delivered. It is in this context that this study highlights the need for reforms and identifies approaches that could assist in reforming the way training programs for Pacific parliaments are designed, delivered and evaluated. In the case of Tonga, the need for training programs to be accompanied by other parliamentary strengthening techniques, such as embarking on relevant constitutional reforms, is examined. The thesis contributes to theory and practice by providing empirical evidence on the effectiveness or otherwise of previously published training models. Specifically, while it supports the applicability of the training model proposed in the adult education and training field, it raises questions on the compatibility of the training model suggested in the human resources field. The final chapter of the thesis provides donors and parliamentary practitioners with an education and training model that could be used to improve the effectiveness of parliaments in the Pacific region and beyond
Can Smallholders benefit from the new market opportunities from the extractive industry in Tanzania?
Get PDFThe recent discovery of huge oil and gas reserves in Tanzania has created a new opportunity for economic growth and development of the country. Tanzania is expected to be one of the leading producers and exporters of natural gas in the coming decade. However, 88 percent of poor Tanzanians live in rural areas and two-third of the labour force is engaged in agriculture. For the extractive industry to serve as a catalyst for economic growth and poverty reduction, it has to be integrated with the rest of the economy through forward and backward linkages. One such linkage is food supply from agriculture. The projected boom in the extractive industry will open up new market opportunities for farmers to supply food items for high value buyers such as caterers, restaurants, supermarkets and processors. However, to benefit from rapidly expanding high-end food markets, farmers need to have both the capacity and the incentives to supply their produce at the desired quantity and quality. Currently significant portion of the new demand is already being filled by imported goods. This report discusses the opportunities for and challenges of integrating farmers into high-end food markets
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
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
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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