1,721,032 research outputs found
Domestic heating from forest logging residues: environmental risks and benefits
Full text linkThe European Union (EU) relies largely on bioenergy to achieve its climate and energy targets for 2020
and beyond. Special focus is placed on utilization of biomass residues, which are considered to cause low
environmental impacts.
We used the dataset from the latest European Commission document on the sustainability of solid and
gaseous biomass (SWD2014 259), complementing those results by: i) designing three pathways for
domestic-heat production using forest logging residues, with different combustion technologies; ii)
expanding the analysis to include forest carbon stock development with and without bioenergy; iii)
using absolute climate metrics to assess the surface temperature response by the end of the century to a
bioenergy and a reference fossil system; iv) including multiple climate forcers (well-mixed GHG, near
term climate forcers and surface albedo change); iv) quantifying life cycle impacts on acidification,
particulate matter emissions and photochemical ozone formation; v) reviewing potential risks for forest
ecosystem degradation due to increased removal of residues.
Supply-chain GHG savings of the three pathways analysed ranged between 80% and 96% compared to a
natural gas system, above the 70% threshold suggested by the EU. However, the climate impact of bioenergy
should be assessed by considering also the non-bioenergy uses of the biomass and by including
all climate forcers.
We calculate the Surface Temperature Response to bioenergy and fossil systems by means of Absolute
Global surface Temperature Potential (AGTP) metric. Domestic heating from logging residues is generally
beneficial to mitigate the surface temperature increase by 2100 compared to the use of natural gas and
other fossil sources. As long as residues with a decay rate in the forest higher than 2.7%*yr1 are
considered as feedstock, investing now in the mobilization of residues for heat production can reduce the
temperature increase by 2100 compared to all the fossil sources analysed, both in case of bioenergy as a
systemic change or in case of bioenergy as a transitory option.
Furthermore, several environmental risks are associated with the removal and use of forest logging
residues for bioenergy. These issues concern mostly local air pollution, biodiversity loss and, mainly for
stumps removal, physical damage to forest soils.
Forest logging residues are not free of environmental risks. Actions promoting their use should
consider: (i) that climate change mitigation depends mainly on the decay rate of biomass under natural
decomposition and time and rate of technology deployment, (ii) whether management guidelines aimed
at protecting long-term forest productivity are in place and (iii) whether proper actions for the management
of adverse effects on local air pollution are in place
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
Transforming Cities. An Exploratory Research Journey on the EU Green Transition
No full textThis report examines barriers and enablers shaping the role of cities in the EU green transition pathway. It presents the outcomes of an international expert workshop organised by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission in collaboration with Politecnico di Torino, Italy. The workshop is part of a series of JRC exploratory research activities applying innovative methods to co-create shared visions for system transitions across the EU food, urban, and green innovation domains. During the workshop, experts from academia, architectural and landscape firms, policymaking institutions, major urban networks, living
labs, the European Committee of the Regions, and non-governmental organisations identified enablers and local good practices to strengthen the implementation of selected European Green Deal targets at the urban level and to address structural challenges hampering transformative change.
Seven enabling conditions emerged as critical for advancing urban green transitions: strengthened and systematic community and citizen engagement; upgrading urban infrastructure and uptake of nature-based
solutions; innovative governance and policymaking; sustainability education and skills; coupled energy and digital transitions; adequate financial resources and public-private cooperation; and transparent communication
and information sharing.
A central element of the workshop was ShapeEUrbe, a science-based board game specifically designed for this event. Through the game, participants explored policy gaps, good practices, barriers and enablers for
achieving the European Green Deal targets and envisioning urban futures towards the EU’s 2050 climate neutrality ambition
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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
- …
