1,720,986 research outputs found
The role of the left to the path to a minimum income policy in Italy
Full text linkIn 2018, Italy became the last of the E.U. member states to introduce a minimum income policy. Our work helps explain why Italy was a laggard in this field by investigating the role the Italian left played, historically, in the evolution of policies to combat poverty. This is a surprisingly neglected topic. We argue that until the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Italian left focused on labour-market insiders – that is, full-time core workers – and appeared largely unconcerned about the most vulnerable individuals, the outsiders, thus accepting the lack of policies to combat poverty. The policy status quo, however, dovetailed with a lively debate among left-wing intellectuals and politicians. This debate paved the way for several attempts by left-wing governments in the 1990s to implement a national pilot scheme (called the Reddito Minimo di Inserimento [R.M.I.]) along with local minimum income policies. The electoral success in 2013 of a new populist movement, the Five-star Movement (M.5.s.), campaigning on the flagship project of the Reddito di Cittadinanza (R.d.C.), fuelled the political debate on anti-poverty policies. This electoral ‘threat’ finally convinced the centre-left government under Paolo Gentiloni to establish in 2018 the Reddito di Inclusione, the first minimum income scheme in Italy. Our work demonstrates the importance of political variables, such as the structure and dynamics of party competition, in the fight against poverty. It also highlights the role of the Italian left as a political innovator in this field
A proposal of new ocular items in Sjogren's syndrome classification criteria.
No full textOBJECTIVE: To verify whether ocular surface tests other than those included in primary Sjogren's syndrome (SS-I) classification criteria (Schirmer I, Break up Time, vital dye staining) may contribute to SS I diagnosis. METHODS: Two hundred and sixty-two patients (78 SS-1, 91 non-SS autoimmune diseases, 93 Sicca syndrome) filled a validated questionnaire on symptoms and were evaluated by Schirmer test without (Schirmer I) and with (Jones test) topical anaesthesia, Break Up Time (BUT), corneal aesthesiometry, tear clearance rate, vital dye (lissamine green) staining, impression conjunctival cytology, concentration of tear lysozyme and lactoferrin. Thresholds were selected from Receiver Operating Curves; sensitivity, specificity, likelihood ratio (LR+), predictive values were calculated for each test. A logistic regression model was constructed representing the best diagnostic index for SS. RESULTS: Data showed a poor diagnostic performance of Schirmer test I (LR+ 1.38) and BUT (LR+ 1.05); results from lissamine green staining may be unreliable due to incorporation bias. Tear lactoferrin (LR+ 4.52), Jones test (LR+ 6.24), tear lysozyme (LR+ 8.0), symptom questionnaire (LR+ 8.62), tear clearance rate (LR+ 18.73) and corneal aesthesiometry (LR+ 20.96) exhibited high diagnostic performance also taken together in the regression model. CONCLUSION: Because many of the tests we have screened in this study can be carried out by a trained ophthalmologist in any clinical setting, we recommend that ocular surface impairment is studied with the combination of tests proved to be helpful for the SS I diagnosis
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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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