1,720,997 research outputs found
Borders, violence and migrant subjectivities: a multi-sited study across the European Union.
No full textThe suffering of illegalized migrants and refugees travelling through irregular routes towards the European Union has amply circulated in media and humanitarian representations in the last years. What often has been lacking is a conceptualization of such suffering as the result of politically manufactured forms of border violence. In an attempt at exploring this apparent contradiction, this thesis investigates manifestations of border violence across different sites at the borders of the European Union. In order to do so, it draws on the testimonies of illegalized migrants who have travelled either through the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, the Central Mediterranean Sea via Libya, or the Balkan route. This work looks at the connections among different forms of border violence taking place in different border localities and explores the role and functions of such violence within the current European border regime. Building on the rich literature in critical migration and border studies and, to a lesser extent, on postcolonial theory, the thesis also looks at how processes of de-humanization of migrants racialized as ‘non-white’ play a role in violence at the border.
Given that the brutality of borders has become a fundamental aspect of our times, this work takes up the task of investigating not only different manifestations of border violence but also the logics and rationales that underpin it. It argues that different combinations of border violence are found in different border localities, and this involves the mobilization not only of human agents, but also of uncertain and anxiety-ridden temporalities, extreme weather conditions and natural forces and daunting and undecipherable bureaucratic procedures for border control purposes. Migrants and refugees en route deploy an array of individual and collective counter-tactics to resist, circumvent and contest border violence. Drawing on field observations and in-depth interviews with research participants, I describe some of these forms of individual and collective border struggles that are employed both in transit and beyond the geopolitical line. I also argue that border violence has both a symbolic function, and operational purposes, and contributes to the reproduction of the structural violence of the contemporary European border regime. The thesis also underscores that the contemporary de-humanization of migrant bodies racialized as ‘non-white’ is part of longer historical trajectories that have their roots in the European colonial past
Assessing the impact of RDP agri-environment measures on the use of nitrogen-based mineral fertilizers through spatial econometrics: The case study of Emilia-Romagna (Italy)
Full text linkAgriculture is the main source of nitrogen loading (EEA, 2012) and is the sector with the largest residual emission reduction potential (Sutton et al., 2011). Moreover, surpluses of nitrogen are forecast to grow in the next decade (FAO, 2012). The objective of this study is to evaluate the determinants of the use of N-based mineral fertilizers in agriculture and the effectiveness of Agri-Environmental Schemes (AES) implemented in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, in preventing nitrate pollution.
The indicator N mineral fertilizer application rate in agriculture was first estimated at the municipality level for the years 2000 and 2010. Thereafter, we performed a Moran's statistics and a LISA (Local Indicators of Spatial Association; Anselin, 1995) analysis to test the data for local spatial autocorrelations. Finally, in order to provide a quantitative evaluation of the impact of the agri-environmental measures on the application rate of N fertilizers, we constructed an aspatial model (Ordinary Least Square model) and two spatial models (spatial lag and error models). All of the models are able to explain more than 70% of the change in the N mineral fertilizer application rate between the years 2000 and 2010 (the dependent variable).
The results indicate that the observed decrease in the application rate of N mineral fertilizers in the considered decade was positively influenced by both the uptake of specific AES and the location in Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZ). Among the policy variables, the participation in AES is less important than the location in a NVZ for explaining the reduction in the N mineral fertilizer application rate in the municipalities of Emilia-Romagna. Other significant variables are farm size, population density and share of certified organic surface in the utilized agricultural area (UAA). The availability of finer scale data for the estimation of changes in nitrogen inputs would improve the robustness of the models
Do agri-environmental schemes contribute to high nature value farmland? A case study in Emilia-Romagna (Italy)
No full textThe objective of the paper is to determine whether the agri-environmental schemes included in the rural development programme of Emilia-Romagna (Italy) have played a role in enhancing the nature value of farmland in that region. An indicator is developed for biodiversity friendly farming practices (BFFP) and its level and distribution at the municipality level is measured, using data derived from the two last national agricultural censuses, year 2000 and 2010. Thereafter, the relationship between BFFP and participation in rural development measures is analysed by way of spatial econometric techniques. The main result of the paper are consistent with the expectation that RDPs have an impact on how BFFP changes. However, measures supporting organic farming contribute to the evolution of its distribution in a positive manner, whilst the other measures investigated, such as integrated production, do not. The paper also highlights the fact that these effects have significant spatial correlations. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
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
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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