1,720,984 research outputs found
The Harbor Seal: The Most Ubiquitous Phocid in the Northern Hemisphere
No full textTrue to its name, the harbor (or common) seal (Phoca vitulina) is found in many coastal environments in the northern hemisphere and is perhaps the most wide-ranging pinniped in the world. Harbor seals haul out on many types of coastal or ice environments where they engage principally in resting but also come ashore for pupping and nursing, temperature maintenance, predator avoidance, digestion, and molting. Males may defend underwater territories near haulout sites or foraging areas and use acoustic displays to attract mates or ward off competing males. Mating occurs underwater, and females give birth to a single pup in the boreal spring/summer that is capable of swimming and diving within minutes of birth. Pups are weaned in three to six weeks of birth and often disperse more widely than adults. Although they begin their lives eating slower swimming prey, such as some invertebrates and smaller fish, they eventually become adept predators of fishes and cephalopods in many types of coastal environments. Foraging trips might be a day’s swim from the haulout site or may be two to three weeks duration. Due to their coastal distribution, harbor seals are more susceptible to anthropogenic impacts, such as contaminants, disturbance, human-made structures, and noise pollution. Harbor seals are perhaps the most adaptable phocid to deal with potential climate change issues, given their evolutionary history in the dynamic coastal environments near human populations
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
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
Breeding Behavior
No full textA successful breeding episode requires individuals to locate suitable mates, produce young, and rear them to independence within a suitable environment, time, and place. All this must be done while avoiding predators and competing for essential, finite resources, such as access to mates or breeding sites. Phocid seal species show great diversity in the behaviors that have evolved to overcome these challenges. Although all phocids forage in marine environments, they give birth on various substrate types, the temporal and spatial separation of which imposes significant energetic pressures on breeding individuals. Most existing detailed studies of phocid breeding behavior have been on species that breed in large, land-based colonies where most of their reproductive behavior is visible to observers. There are significant gaps in our knowledge of seals breeding in remote environments, small groups, and those that forage while breeding or display and mate underwater. Improvements in telemetry devices, ways of examining links between behavior and physiology in free-ranging seals, and remote surveying techniques will be essential for continuing to expand our understanding of breeding behavior in phocids and to predict how individuals or populations may respond to changing environments and anthropogenic activities
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
The Gray Seal: 80 Years of Insight into Intrinsic and Extrinsic Drivers of Phocid Behavior
Get PDFThe gray seal is a data-rich species with behavioral studies dating back to the 1940s. The reasons for the wealth of knowledge are partly fortuitous; pioneering naturalists ventured forth to remote island colonies around the UK and Canada to observe the ‘hook-nosed sea-pig’ during their annual breeding seasons. These early qualitative treatises on gray seal behavior ignited further, more quantitative, research interest, which has continued to expand to this day. Several gray seal traits enhance its suitability as a study system for understanding drivers of behavior, such as their ease of observation and site fidelity during breeding, and unique pelage patterns enabling the collection of long-term data on known individuals. Gray seals also inhabit a remarkable variety of habitats, both on land and at sea, facilitating comparative studies of environmental drivers of behavior. These traits have enabled pioneering behavioral research across a wide range of life-history stages. This chapter aims to capture the diversity of behavioral knowledge derived from gray seals, revealing how they interact with one another and their environment. We also highlight new research areas likely to present research opportunities and challenges in the near future, especially in the context of rapidly changing terrestrial and marine environments
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