1,720,999 research outputs found
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
Linking value chain partnerships to entrepreneurial learning: implications for agrifood systems resilience
No full textIn today’s increasingly turbulent and rapidly changing agrifood systems, the role of collaborative institutional arrangements in tackling long-standing socio-ecological challenges of food insecurity, poverty, inequality, biodiversity loss and climate changes represents a topic of persistent and lively debate among policy makers, civil society and scientists. However, what remains controversial in this debate is the role governance mechanisms of these collaborative institutional arrangements play in supporting resilience in local agrifood systems. To contribute to this debate, this thesis provides insights on how value chain partnerships, as a form of collaborative institutional arrangements involving private companies, smallholder farmers and other stakeholders organise in ways that stimulate entrepreneurship and support outcomes of agrifood system resilience.Contributing towards this overarching research objective, this thesis addresses four key limitations in extant literature. First, literature on how governance mechanisms of value chain partnerships shape farmer entrepreneurship and support or hamper resilience in agrifood systems is poorly connected and scattered across several disciplines: lacking a coherent and parsimonious framework. Second, there is little empirical research on how governance mechanisms of value chain partnerships provide space for developing entrepreneurial behaviours overtime, and how entrepreneurial behaviours in turn influence outcomes of agrifood system resilience. Similarly, few studies have explored how governance mechanisms of value chain partnerships individually or collectively interplay with individual’s attributes to shape entrepreneurial behaviours. Along with these three limitations, there is limited research assessing farmer entrepreneurship in terms of effectuation and causation behaviours in resource constrained and turbulent rural contexts, either at one point in time, or their development over time.In order to address these four limitations, the first study involves the use of a theory synthesis approach to provide a conceptual framework on how value chain partnerships organise in ways that stimulate farmer entrepreneurship and support agrifood system resilience. Relying on searching for literature across search engines – google scholar, Scopus and Web of science – to explore how the three concepts: governance mechanisms, farmer entrepreneurship and resilience, relate with each other; this chapter results in an integrative framework, corroborated with illustrations. This framework suggests that the governance mechanisms of value chain partnerships in terms of intensity of resource pooling, distribution of decision-making rights and a combination of formal and informal coordination mechanisms influence farmer entrepreneurship. In turn, farmer entrepreneurship supports the resilience of agrifood systems through three outcomes: improved rural livelihoods, valorisation of socio-cultural services, ecological services.Given the lack of research in assessing farmer entrepreneurship in resource constrained and turbulent rural contexts of low-income markets, the second study explores farmer entrepreneurial behaviour in terms of effectuation and causation. Relying on data from 430 smallholder farmers involved in a seed multiplication business initiative, this chapter uses multivariate statistics in the form of exploratory factor analysis, Cluster analysis, Pearson’s chi-squared test and Analysis of Variance. Findings of this study touch upon our understanding of entrepreneurial behaviour in resource-constrained and turbulent rural contexts. Second, this chapter reveals that smallholder farmers are heterogenous in terms of their entrepreneurial behaviours. Four clusters were identified: non-entrepreneurial, goal-driven, means-driven and ambidextrous. Along with entrepreneurial behaviours, these clusters differ significantly in terms of demographics, education levels, farm size, distance to the market, social connections, seasonal sales and farm income.Relying on data from 96 interviews, the third study involves a multiple-case study design in the form of inductive data analysis to explore the processes and patterns of causality between the governance mechanisms of seven value chain partnerships and changes in causation and effectuation behaviours of smallholder farmers, and in turn how changes in these behaviours relate with their livelihood resilience. Contributing to addressing the overarching research question, this partnership-level analysis reveals three insights: first smallholder farmers sustain their livelihood resilience when they develop a combination of effectual and causal behaviours; second, smallholder farmers develop causal behaviours when value chain partnerships involve mandatory resource pooling, centralised decision making and formal coordination mechanism. Vice versa, smallholder farmers develop effectual behaviour when value chain partnerships configure voluntary resource pooling, decentralised decision making and informal coordination mechanisms. In addition, the chapter inductively reveals processes through which causal and effectual behaviours were shaped, and in turn how these behaviours influence their livelihood resilience.To understand how governance mechanisms of value chain partnerships individually or collectively interplay with the individual farmer’s attributes to shape the joint development of causal and effectual behaviours, the fourth study involves a configurational analysis in the form of Qualitative Comparative Analysis QCA – a set theoretic approach used to distil complex causality. The chapter relies on survey data from 423 smallholder farmers involved in seven value chain partnerships in Zimbabwe. The chapter reveals finer grained insights which speaks to our understanding of entrepreneurial learning in value chain partnerships. First the chapter reveals that entrepreneurial learning is complex, and a contingent process, where each causal factor does not exist in isolation but with interactions. In particular, the chapter demonstrates that participation in key decision-making processes over the use of resources and key activities of the partnership is a necessary but not always a sufficient condition for entrepreneurial learning. In addition, this chapter demonstrates that entrepreneurial learning is easier to fail for distant female entrepreneurs than their male counterparts.The four studies in this thesis challenge or at least extend existing debates in the scientific fields of entrepreneurship, organisation of value chain partnerships and international development . These findings have several have several policy and managerial implications, first, on how value chain partnerships communicate value creation in low-income markets; suggesting that leaders of value chain partnerships or external stakeholder such as donors or government may demonstrate legitimacy of a value chain partnership based on the potential to support farmer entrepreneurship. Second, findings of this thesis have implications on entrepreneurship development suggesting that fostering effectual and causal behaviours should be brought to the core of capacity-building among smallholder farmers. Third, rather than distributing resources to individual farmers, governments and donors might better support smallholder farmers by pooling resource on or strengthening institutions of existing value chain partnership they are part of
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
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
Economic impact of the composition of public expenditure on agricultural growth: case studies from selected SADC
No full textMSCAECDepartment of Agricultural Economics and AgribusinessDiabetes mellitus is a chronic disease affecting millions of people worldwide. Over 140 million people worldwide were estimated to have type 2 diabetes mellitus in the year 2000 and this prevalence is projected to rise to over 280 million by the year 2025. Diabetes mellitus is a progressive disease that can lead to debilitating complications and premature death if not effectively controlled. The study sought to assess the level of knowledge that diabetic patients have regarding diabetes mellitus and to describe beliefs and practices for diabetes management among such patients. A quantitative descriptive design was used to collect data. A self administered questionnaire was designed and translated into local spoken language (Tshivenda) by experts from the department of African Languages at the University of Venda. Data were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Content validity and reliability of the instrument were ensured. As many as 51 (51.0%) of the respondents reported that they knew what diabetes mellitus was, whereas 49 (49.0%) did not know. Knowledge of the role of obesity and physical inactivity in producing diabetes was very low, with only 4 (8.9%) and 7 (15.5%) of the respondents reporting these as risk factors for diabetes mellitus, as compared to 34 (75.5%) of the respondents who had the knowledge that heredity is also associated with being predisposed to diabetes mellitus. Almost 62 (62.0%) of the respondents believed that diabetes could cause complications. A majority of 93 (93%) of the respondents reported that they were able to monitor blood sugar levels regularly. Findings of this study revealed that the level of diabetes knowledge among the respondents was very good. However, knowledge of signs and symptoms of diabetes mellitus was very low, while the danger of blindness was also very low, since the respondents were never examined by eye specialists in
order to rule out eye complications. A comprehensive diabetes education programme is necessary to improve the knowledge of diabetes mellitus
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
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