1,721,182 research outputs found
Evolution of the forest landscape in the Punic Eparchy area (West Sicily): the importance of cork oak in natural residual vegetation for the purposes in the restoration of the forest landscape
Full text linkThe natural forest vegetation in the territory of the western provinces of Sicily (Palermo, Trapani and Agrigento) has almost completely disappeared. This area coincides with the ancient administrative ter- ritorial unit that precedes the division into three "valleys" of the most inhabited island of the Mediterranean: it is the Val di Mazara, remembered by archaeologists as "Punic Eparchy". As a seat of important Greek cities (Himera, Solunto, Entella, Agrigento, Gela, Eraclea Minoa, Segesta, Selinunte, Erice, Lilibeo, Mozia, etc.), it was a Punic domain before being abandoned. Due to the lack of a marked relief and the benefit of climate, agriculture was practiced for three millennia. In the last centuries – first in extensive and then intensive way – this form of agriculture was progressively occupying all practicable spaces and the cultivation of woody plants replaced the natural vegetation - the scrub and the Mediterranean evergreen forest - thus determining a landscape with a strong agricultural imprint, devoid of forest formations; from almond groves, olive groves and vineyards of classic cultivations it has been passed to modern, more rational woody plants which mainly make up the two extreme provinces, the most important wine and olive cultivation area of Sicily. The study of the remains of the natural vegetation that have been reignored – almost always small surviving plant communities in the less suitable spaces for traditional agricultural activities – presently allows us to reconstruct the poten- tial vegetation of the area, partly referring to phytocoenosis of the Oleo-Ceratonion (Pistacia- Rhamnetalia alaterni) and Erico-Quercion ilicis (Quercetalia ilicis). In this scenery the cork oak (Quercus suber) plays an important role, considering its presence as isolated plants or rather open stands, mainly in the westernmost provinces of the Island. These elements of the local natural heritage can be assessed as important relics of the destroyed climatic vegetation of the extensive area stretching from the northern Tyrrhenian coast to the southern one, in contact with the African sea
NEAR ZERO ENERGY SYSTEMS: NATURAL PERFORMANCE BUILDINGS DESIGN
No full textThe current approach to energy efficiency and environmental sustainability for the design of new building needs a radical change. In the last few years, the increasing comfort demand has led to an incremental request of thermo-hygrometric properties, which are necessary for living spaces. These systems modify internal environment climate in adaptation to the external conditions. This paper introduces an innovative design strategy, which is based on the spontaneous building behavior rather than an excessive use of air-conditioning systems. In mild climate areas, the use of climatization systems can be minimized and the focus is on building surface design. The real design innovation aspires to develop new “building envelope solutions” for interpreting signals coming from the outside environment. A spontaneous building behavior can be designed taking into consideration the outside climatic conditions and corresponding building performance during the different seasons. In this way, air conditioning systems are used in external critical conditions. Building thermal performance can be improved through the design of the building envelope. New design techniques lead to modulate the natural building envelope behavior and to evaluate environmental reactivity as a primary measure of control of the living space conditions. This methodological approach requires the measurement of standard performance in order to improve it. Hence, it is possible to use iterative measurements and numerical models. In this manner, the building performance can be assessed, enhancing construction solutions and satisfying comfort conditions in the design of the building envelope. Comfort evaluation is carried out on the basis of mankind physiological and behavioral adaptive characteristics
Modulation performances in the building envelope: strategy and project
No full textThis paper focuses on the analysis of a strategy aimed at improving the thermal
performance of buildings thanks to the design of building envelope that could determine their
natural thermal behavior, instead of fostering an excessive use of air conditioning systems.
The true design innovation has the goal of conceiving envelope solutions capable of
modulating the signals coming from the outside, so that the various structural elements that
delimit the interior space could be able to re-emit them, strengthening or reducing them
according to performance targets.
In the design phase the site analysis is fundamental: it has to include both environmental and
climate factors in order to check the critical issues and those potentialities offered by the site
that could be useful to control the indoor environmental conditions.
A methodological approach also requires the measurement of the performance to improve it,
thanks to the use of iterative measurements and numerical models
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
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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