1,721,187 research outputs found
Assessment of the 2021 summer flood in Central Europe
No full textAbstract
The flood event in July 2021 in the uplands of the Eifel-Ardennes mountains in Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands and their foreland was caused by heavy rainfall and resulted in one of the largest flood disasters in Western Europe for decades. Due to climate change, it can be assumed that such events will become more frequent in future. Even though such extreme flood can happen at any time, the consequences and impacts can be significantly reduced by appropriate technical and non-technical measures. However, such measures always require a comprehensive understanding and knowledge of previous events and comparable processes. Therefore, this special issue aims at collecting the scientific evaluation and its implications of the 2021 extreme summer flood. This editorial serves as an introduction for an article collection published in the journal
Environmental Sciences Europe
, providing an overview of the current state of integrative assessment of the 2021 summer flood in Central Europe.Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001659Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/50110000234
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
Management of information processes in the workplace : implications of contextual factors and decision makers’ individual factors
No full textThrough digitization, the information environment has changed massively along different stages of the information process in the workplace. Not only the amount of available information pieces, but also the range of information presentation formats as well as the availability of various information channels have increased noticeably. In addition to this, further contextual conditions of the information-based decision-making process have altered, such as the time available for making a decision. On the one hand, these changes can support decision-making and the solving of tasks. On the other hand, they can evoke negative consequences, such as a severe rise in workplace stress or a sharp increase in the number of interruptions during work. Within the decision-making process, these changes can considerably affect an individual’s cognitive load and can even lead to information overload, which describes the state when the information processing requirements exceed an individuals’ capacity to process information, with symptoms such as performance deterioration. From the topic of a strongly increased cognitive load and the presence of information overload originates to a great extent the need for an improvement of the information process. It can be differentiated between different categories of causes of an information overload, comprising contextual and individual factors, which lead to symptoms of information overload that are related mostly to the performance of an organization, measured, i.e., in terms of decision-making accuracy or of general performance. To reduce information overload and to improve the information process, the focus should be on symptoms of as well as on causes of information overload. Consequently, the present dissertation analyzes factors that address both of these aspects. It investigates the influences of contextual factors as well as decision makers’ individual factors that are assumed to influence an individual’s cognitive load and decision-making on measures of different stages of the information process in corporate decision-making in order to identify how this process can be improved. The investigated stages in this dissertation comprise those of information acquisition, information processing, and information management. The factors analyzed are measured through experiments and questionnaires. Regarding the increasing use of diverse communication channels, particularly email communication has become an integral part of the everyday communication at work, so that this dissertation targets not only the information overload phenomenon within the information process but also email overload, respectively. The relationship between contextual factors and decision makers’ individual factors and measures of different stages of the information process in corporate decision-making is depicted in an overarching research model. Its related superordinate research question is divided into more detailed research questions, which are examined in three individual research papers. Therefore, the dissertation at hand contains two parts: Part 1 gives a comprehensive overview. It provides the motivation for the research topic, the research model of the dissertation and related research questions, the relevant literature and hypotheses, the research methodologies used within the respective research paper, the summary of the three research papers, as well as the conclusion. Part 2 consists of the three research papers. Research Paper 1 ‘Effects of Time Pressure on the Amount of Information Acquired’ examines the influence of time pressure on the amount of information acquired non-sequentially, i.e. at one point in time. In addition to this, it researches in what way payoff schemes and information costs influence the amount of information used for decision-making when time pressure is present. Thus, Research Paper 1 considers the stage of information acquisition. Laboratory experiments were conducted to analyze these effects. The results reveal that under time pressure, individuals acquire fewer pieces of information in the decision-making task. While no effect is shown for the influence of time pressure in conjunction with a negative payoff scheme, the results reveal an effect of its interaction with the level of information costs for acquirable information. When relatively low information costs and time pressure are present, more information is acquired. Research Paper 2 ‘Presentation Format Choice and Choice Awareness: Experimental Studies Analyzing the Effects on Underlying Factors of Intrinsic Motivation and Task Performance’ focusses on the influences of presentation format choice (i.e., graphs versus tables) and choice awareness on underlying factors of intrinsic motivation, i.e. autonomy and competence, and subsequent decision makers’ performance in symbolic and spatial tasks. Within this context, aspects of cognitive effort and of cognitive fit are examined. Research Paper 2 addresses the stage of information processing and comprises online experiments. The results within symbolic tasks indicate that task performance decreases through the provision of choice by itself, but that it increases when the decision maker chooses tables to solve symbolic tasks. When the decision maker is allowed to choose the presentation format in symbolic tasks and perceives autonomy, performance increases as well. No important effects were found within spatial tasks. Further, choice in general was found to contribute to perceptions of autonomy and competence. By contrast, choice in conjunction with the awareness of having a choice increases perceptions of autonomy but decreases feelings of competence. Research Paper 3 ‘Email Management Strategies: Their Effects on Email Management Performance’ addresses different email management strategies (zero-inbox, to-do list, alertness, prioritization, folder organization) that can be applied by email users and their effects on email management performance. Research Paper 3 targets the stage of information management and its research methodology consists of an online survey. The results reveal that all investigated email management strategies are measurable constructs and that the strategies are applied more often with higher levels of email volume and of perceived usefulness of the email client. Of these strategies, especially the zero inbox, i.e. keeping the email inbox at zero, and the to-do list, i.e. using the email client as a to-do list, strategies increase the email management performance. Overall, the dissertation analyzes the influence of various contextual factors and decision makers’ individual factors, that are assumed to influence an individual’s cognitive load and decision-making, on measures of different stages of the information process in corporate decision making in order to identify how this process can be improved. With this, it provides a holistic analysis along the information process of how to improve this process, it extends information overload research, and it deepens and supports (newer) cognitive theories. Besides this, the dissertation provides managerial implications for the information behavior in the workplace and offers future research implications
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
Spillover Effects of Learning for Production Ramp-ups
No full textAbstractIn today's rapidly changing market environments with heterogeneous consumer needs, short product life cycles, and global competition, organizations must perform production ramp-ups more often and react quickly to external changes. This is only possible if the required knowledge is available at the respective organizational units and workplaces. Thus, a central question to answer is: How can spillover effects of learning improve future production ramp-ups?This paper provides an overview over the existing literature on spillover effects of learning for production ramp-ups. Specifically, the antecedents, control mechanisms and performance effects of these spillover effects are considered. While learning and knowledge management in general have received attention for quite some time, there is only little research on the specific means, tools, and methods of spillover learning that are useful for seemingly unrelated processes such as production ramp-ups in different time periods. The literature on spillover learning as well as on organizational learning in production ramp-up is extensive, but the combination of the two is still under-researched. For these reasons, further research in this area can generate insights in how to better ensure transfer of tacit and explicit knowledge in the context of production ramp-ups. In this paper, we first present the state of the art of spillover learning in production ramp-ups by reviewing the existing academic literature. After that, opportunities for future research are outlined. Identified research gaps include that little is known about the process and effectiveness of knowledge transfer between consecutive ramp-ups. Especially, an unanswered question is how deliberate learning as compared to learning by doing influences knowledge spillovers to subsequent ramp-ups. In terms of scientific methods, laboratory experiments have not yet been employed in the context of spillover learning for production ramp-ups. This opens up another interesting and promising direction
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