1,721,016 research outputs found
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
An Examination of Variations of Verbal Memory Performance in a Population of Children who have been Maltreated
Get PDFThis research examined the consequences of maltreatment on children's verbal memory, as measured by the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT-C). The data were collected through an NIMH funded study at Duke University titled Life Events & Childhood Brain Development (funded under the title PTSD & Childhood Sexual Abuse: Psychobiology, Principal Investigator: Michael De Bellis). The analytic sample for this study consisted of 96 children who served as controls, and 91 children who had been maltreated. This study addressed the following research questions: 1) Do children who have been maltreated differ significantly from a control group on an overall measure of verbal memory performance? 2) Do children who have been maltreated differ significantly from a control group across five verbal memory factors? 3) Within the group of children who have been maltreated, are the total numbers of PTSD symptoms manifested predictive of variation in performance across the five verbal memory factors? 4) Within the group of children who have been maltreated, is the diagnostic status of PTSD predictive of variation in performance across the five verbal memory factors? Structural equation modeling was used to analyze these questions. Covariates such as attention, intelligence, race, gender, age, socioeconomic status, and type of maltreatment were included as predictors in the models.Doctor of Philosoph
Predicting parenting stress by the symptomatology of children with high functioning autism spectrum disorder
Get PDFParents of children with disabilities often possess higher stress levels than parents of typically developing children. Much research has focused on parents of children with autism. However, we know little about parents of children with high functioning autism spectrum disorders (HFASD). In order to better understand how to serve this population, it is important to understand which specific child traits and behaviors affect parenting stress in these families. This study seeks to explore a number of questions regarding stress in parents of children with HFASD. The research questions explored in this dissertation are as follows: (1) Do parents of children with HFASD experience higher levels of stress than the normative population? (2) Do the social difficulties of children with HFASD predict higher parenting stress? (3) Do the communication difficulties of children with HFASD predict higher parenting stress? (4) Do the restricted, repetitive, and/or stereotyped behaviors, interests, and activities of children with HFASD predict higher parenting stress? (5) Is the total HFASD symptomatology of children with HFASD a significant predictor of parenting stress? (6) Are behavior problems of children with HFASD a significant predictor of parenting stress? (7) Does social support moderate the relationship between child characteristics and parenting stress? This study consisted of 55 children with HFASD and one of their parents. Parents completed self-report measures on parental stress levels and social support as well as measures on child characteristics related to behavior and the symptomatology of autism spectrum disorders. Scores on these measures were used as variables in hierarchical linear regression models. The results of these analyses suggest that: (1) parents of children with HFASD experience higher stress levels than parents in the normative population (2) greater difficulties with social skills and behavior problems among children with HFASD are associated with higher parenting stress (3) communication difficulties and stereotyped behavior do not predict higher parenting stress (4) higher levels of total HFASD symptomatology are associated with increased parenting stress (5) social support does not moderate any of the other variables' effects on parenting stress. Limitations of this dissertation and implications for practice are discussed
An Examination of Differences Between Instructional Consultation Teams and Traditional Student Assistance Teams in Evaluation and Identification of Minority Students for Special Education
Get PDFObjective: The purpose of this study was to examine differences between traditional student assistance teams and an innovative consultation-based assistance team in terms of the risk ratios for minority students for evaluation and eligibility for special education services. It was hypothesized that the innovative consultation-based assistance team would be associated with lower risk of evaluation for and placement in special education services. Participants: Twelve schools in North Carolina elected to receive training in the Instructional Consultation Team (IC-Team) model during the 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 academic years. Within each school, the IC-Team and traditional team operated concurrently, so 12 IC-Teams and 12 traditional teams were studied herein. Methods: Each of the 12 schools submitted year-end program evaluation data containing the number of students served, the ethnicity/race of students served, the number of students referred for psychoeducational evaluation, and the number of students considered eligible for special education. Based on these data, the relative risks (i.e., risk ratio) were calculated for African American and Hispanic students, respectively. For each ethnic group, two relative risk indexes were calculated; one for the risk for evaluation and a second for the risk for special education eligibility. Secondary analyses were also conducted to examine differences between teams in risk indexes for African American, Hispanic and White students. Results: There were no significant differences between teams in terms of relative risk for evaluation for special education services for either ethnic group. Instructional Consultation Teams were associated with a significantly lower relative risk of eligibility for special education services for both the Hispanic and African American student groups. Risk indexes considered independent of the risk of White students indicated that IC-Teams were associated with lower risk for placement in special education for each racial/ethnic group. Descriptive statistics also revealed significant differences in patterns based on race between teams in terms of the proportion of students referred for evaluation and placed in special education. Conclusions: IC-Teams were associated with more equitable practices of referral and identification for special education services, while traditional assistance teams were associated with proportionally higher referral rates for White students
Predicting North Carolina third grade end-of-grade test of reading comprehension scores from first, second, and third grade variables
Get PDFA significant body of research exists on the development of early literacy skills and their relationship to the development of literacy as a whole. Phonological awareness, orthographic processing, rapid automatized naming, phonological memory, and receptive vocabulary have all been shown to be predictive of early reading outcome measures. What is unknown, however, is whether or not these variables are predictive of the North Carolina third grade End of Grade Test of Reading Comprehension, a major outcome measure used in North Carolina to determine student, teacher, school, and district academic performance. This study addressed the following research questions: 1) Do the variables identified through a review of the literature as being predictors of reading achievement in first, second, and third grade contribute to scores on the reading EOG? 2) Does growth on measures of these variables, identified through a review of the literature as being predictors of reading achievement in first, second, and third grade contribute to scores on the reading EOG? Linear regressions were conducted on data consisting of 111 children. After controlling for age, IQ, and inherent characteristics of the data set, five predictor variables in grades one, two, and three were found to be significantly predictive of the outcome measure. A significant portion of variance was accounted for by receptive vocabulary at time point one; phonological awareness, RAN and receptive vocabulary at time point two; and orthographic processing and RAN at time point three. Further examination indicated phonological awareness and RAN were most predictive and time point two and orthographic processing was most predictive at time point three. Phonological memory was never significantly predictive at any given time point but contributed the most to outcome measure prediction at time point two. Findings suggest scores on the reading EOG are predicted by a child's development on skills key to the development of early literacy. An individual's literacy skills can be used to estimate later performance on this high stakes test of reading ability. The results of this study suggest students can be screened for potential EOG failure and interventions can be implemented to remediate key skills. This study also suggests a model for the evaluation of other high stakes outcome measures
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
A Responsive Teaching Intervention for Parents of Children Identified as at Risk for an Autism Spectrum Disorder at 12 Months
Get PDFThis study evaluated the novel application of an early intervention, Responsive Teaching (RT), with 14-18 month olds who have been identified as being at risk for an eventual diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at 12 months. Children falling in the 95th percentile and above as indicated by overall risk status on the First Year Inventory (FYI), a screener, were invited to come in for a Time 1 evaluation (n=23). Children who met the criteria for the highest risk for ASD after this extensive assessment were randomized into treatment (n=9) and control (n=4) conditions. Parent-child dyads in the treatment group received 6 months of modified RT intervention, while the control group was referred for community services. The aim of this study was twofold. The first goal was to determine whether there is evidence that RT is an appropriate intervention for this specific population, parents of 12-month-olds at risk for ASD. Research has suggested a more intrusively directive interactional style employed by caregivers forces children to shift their focus of attention and may result in negative developmental outcomes. Level of caregiver directiveness was found to be positively correlated with the degree of autism displayed by the child (r=.458, p<.05), which suggests an intervention (such as RT) aiming to reduce directiveness to a more optimal, less intrusive level, would be appropriate for families of children at risk for ASD. The second goal of the study was to evaluate whether the intervention was achieving one of its aims, that is, to increase responsiveness and decrease directiveness displayed by caregivers when interacting with their children. Two two-sample t-tests were conducted to compare the mean change in responsiveness and directiveness between the treatment and control groups. Likely due to the small sample size (n=13), results were not statistically significant, but the results were in the expected direction, and confirmed the trend that members of the experimental group increased responsiveness and decreased directiveness more than members of the control group. These findings suggest that parental interactional styles may potentially become more productive through intervention
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