1,721,328 research outputs found
Supplemental Material - Agglomeration v<i>s</i> amenities? Unraveling the latent engine of growth in metropolitan Greece
No full textSupplemental Material for Agglomeration vs amenities? Unraveling the latent engine of growth in metropolitan Greece by Margherita Carlucci, Gloria Polinesi, and Luca Salvati in Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science.</p
Supplemental material for Diversification in urban functions as a measure of metropolitan complexity
No full textSupplemental Material for Diversification in urban functions as a measure of metropolitan complexity by Margherita Carlucci, Ilaria Zambon and Luca Salvati in Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science</p
‘Sub-Optimal’ by Chance: Insights from a Long-term Analysis of Municipal Areas and Population Size
No full textIn the search of a better administrative efficiency, change in municipal boundaries and creation (or suppression) of local administrative units reflect a progressive adjustment to an increasingly variable spatial distribution of population. With intense population growth, municipal size is regarded as a proxy for amount (and spatial concentration) of services and infrastructures, being functionally related with agglomeration factors, land availability to building, and specific socioeconomic contexts. Based on these premises, the intrinsic relationship between settlement expansion, population growth, and municipal size in a metropolitan region of Southern Europe was investigated extensively in this study. A quantitative analysis of the relationship between population density and municipal area provides a pivotal knowledge to policy and planning adjustments toward a more balanced spatial distribution of population and administered land among local government units. Descriptive statistics, mapping, correlation analysis and linear regressions were used to assess the evolution of this relationship over a long time spam. Average municipal size in Athens decreased moderately over time with increasing spatial heterogeneity. Conversely, average population density per municipality increased even more rapidly with a considerable reduction in spatial heterogeneity. The observed goodness-of-fit of the linear relationship between population density and municipal area increased significantly over time. Empirical results of our study indicate that municipal size has progressively adjusted to population density across metropolitan areas, determining a more balanced spatial distribution of resident population, which was consolidated by the recent administrative reform of local authorities in Greece (the so called ‘Kallikratis’ law). Such conditions represent a base for informed analysis of the spatial structure of local administrative units and contribute to the debate on optimal size of municipalities and other administrative districts with relevant impact on both urban and metropolitan scales of governance
Zero Net Land Degradation in Italy: The role of socioeconomic and agro-forest factors.
No full textIn 2012, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification has launched a policy strategy called 'Zero Net Land Degradation' (ZNLD), which aims to prevent the degradation of productive land and restore already degraded land. In Europe, and especially in Mediterranean Europe, land degradation is a complex phenomenon affecting both depopulated, marginal agro-forest regions and affluent agricultural areas. In an effort to develop a ZNLD strategy in Italy we identified the socioeconomic variables associated with environmental conditions leading to a long-term (1960-2010) reduction in land sensitivity to degradation. Our results show an increase in ZNLD areas in the last ten years. Rural municipalities classified at ZNLD showed an economy based on services, an agriculture sector oriented towards quality productions and more sustainable cultivation practices, a balanced population structure and the prevalence of a mixed farmland/woodland land-use structure. These results may inform a country-scale ZNLD strategy targeting complex human-natural degradation processes in ecologically-fragile Mediterranean areas. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd
Introduction: Regional Analysis of Complex Socioeconomic Processes. The Role of Local Districts
No full textThis book proposes an articulated and multidisciplinary research path that introduces to the potential of adopting territorial statistics, namely those elaborated at the level of Local Labour Systems, for carrying out spatial analysis of apparent and latent interactions between socioeconomic phenomena and environmental dynamics at a sufficiently broad and efficient geographical unit of analysis. This allows to examine in a more exhaustive manner the complexity and non-linearity of several socio-economic and territorial processes and to address the multidimensional concept of sustainability from below. Studies included in this book contribute to an integrated, multidisciplinary reading that covers the three pillars of sustainability. Italy is a relevant case study in this sense and can be assumed as a paradigmatic country also for other advanced European nations that undertook territorial analysis at a very disaggregated spatial level (i.e., UK, Spain, Germany and France among others)
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
In-between Environmental Sustainability and Economic Viability: An Analysis of the State, Regulations, and Future of Italian Forestry Sector
No full textForest management is a complex topic at the interface between sustainability and the resilience of socioeconomic and environmental systems. The influence of market forces, supranational, country and regional policies, as well as climate change, on forest goods and services, is expected to increase in the near future. Such a complex interplay between economic and environmental forces is common to most European countries. The aim of this study is to operationally delineate and discuss the transition of the environmental sustainability and economic viability of forestry in Italy. This country encompasses the typical Mediterranean ecosystems with broad forest coverage in mountainous and hilly areas, where expanding woodland areas have been observed in the last decades mainly as a consequence of the decline of agropastoral activities, especially in disadvantaged and marginal areas. The consequent increase in wood biomass was frequently conceived as an element of environmental criticality, exposing woods to high vulnerability to wildfires and a consequent reduction in their economic value, possibly exacerbated by local warming. These dynamics usually took place in contexts where only a part of the overall forest heritage was subjected to regular management, despite the efforts made through various policies such as the Constitutional Law 3/2001 and the recent Law on Forests and Forestry Supply Chains. The latter policy tool, enhancing the concept of “active forest management” aimed to establish a sustainable approach to forest resources, leading to a broader forest area for formal planning and controlled harvesting. These dynamics took place in parallel with the inherent expansion in forest certification schemes formally promoting long-term environmental sustainability and a wider spectrum of forest ecosystems. Timber and non-wood materials and products are key elements from the perspective of achieving sustainable (climate-neutral) development in advanced economies
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
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