1,721,036 research outputs found
Recommended from our members
Multidisciplinary investigation of a ‘British big cat’: a lynx killed in southern England c. 1903
No full textThe alleged presence of non-native felid species in the British countryside – popularly, though in part erroneously, known as ‘British big cats’ or ‘alien big cats’ – is a long-standing and controversial topic, perennially of interest to both the mass media and amateur naturalists, and with little apparent acceptance from the technical zoological community. Nevertheless, a number of carcasses and captured live specimens have demonstrated the occasional presence within the region of escapees that potentially explain at least some ‘British big cat’ eyewitness records. We report here the existence of a probable Canada lynx, Lynx canadensis, shot in Newton Abbot, Devon, England, in or prior to 1903, and then accessioned to Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. The specimen (represented by extensive skeletal material and a stuffed taxidermy mount) is Bobcat-like in some respects but is identified as a Canada lynx on the basis of skeletal morphology with a high degree of support; attempts to extract DNA were unsuccessful. Stable strontium isotope analysis supports either a recent introduction from western Canada or long-term acclimation to the local area of Devon where it was collected. Although the specimen was undoubtedly an ‘alien’ (an escapee or release from a collection), it is significant as material evidence in demonstrating, for the first time, the presence of a wild-caught, feral, exotic felid dating to the early years of the twentieth century
From crustal protoliths to mantle garnet pyroxenites: insights from Os isotopes and highly siderophile elements
Full text linkRecycled pyroxenites are a key component of mantle heterogeneity, influencing magma generation and contributing to the radiogenic Os signature of oceanic basalts. However, natural examples of pyroxenites as proxies for crust-derived heterogeneities in the convective mantle are rare and recycling mechanisms remain debated. Here we report abundances of highly siderophile (HSE: Os, Ir, Pt, Pd, Re) and chalcogen (S, Se, Te) elements, along with Os isotope compositions, for garnet clinopyroxenites and websterites enclosed in fertile peridotites from the Jurassic Northern Apennine ophiolites. The pyroxenites provide fractionated HSE patterns—depleted in Os and Ir and enriched in Pt, Pd, and Re compared to host lherzolites. Present-day 187Os/188Os ratios range from moderately to highly radiogenic (0.154–2.475). Garnet clinopyroxenites have lower Os, higher Pd/Ir, and more radiogenic Os than websterites. Model calculations based on bulk HSE data indicate the garnet clinopyroxenites reflect sulfur saturation and base metal sulfide (BMS) crystallization from partial melts of eclogites derived from MORB-type gabbroic protoliths. Their Os isotope signature indicates long-term Re/Os enrichment and derivation from ancient mafic protoliths, likely older than 1.0 Ga. The HSE distribution and Os isotopic signature of the websterites, along with their sulfide mineralogy, support a hybrid origin involving contributions from both peridotite- and eclogite-derived components. The websterites may represent natural analogues of the second-stage pyroxenites involved in OIB magma genesis. Host lherzolites exhibit flat CI chondrite-normalized HSE patterns and near-chondritic Se/Te and Pd/Ir ratios, implying initial depletion of incompatible HSEs like Pd and Re, followed by BMS addition during melt percolation that also affected some pyroxenites. Se (78–539 ppb) and Te (13–44 ppb) are significantly enriched in the pyroxenites compared to the lherzolites. The low Se/Te ratios (6–15) in garnet clinopyroxenites could explain the Se–Te signature of plume-influenced E-MORB. We show that mantle pyroxenites with a crustal fingerprint display wide HSE and Os isotope variability, reflecting heterogeneity of crustal protoliths, melt–peridotite interactions, and late melt percolation during their decompression history
Combining dental calculus with isotope analysis in the Alps: New evidence from the Roman and medieval cemeteries of Lamon, Italy
Full text linkThis study presents the results of integrated isotopic and dental calculus analyses of a number of individuals buried in two cemeteries of Roman and medieval chronology in Lamon(Belluno), northern Italy. Eleven individuals from the Roman cemetery of San Donato and six from the medieval cemetery of San Pietro are presented and discussed. The results suggest a continuity of geographic residence for the two populations, with most of the analysed individuals showing a local or regional origin. Carbon and nitrogen isotopes are indicative of a diet based on a mixed C3/C4 plant consumption and rich in animal proteins, with no significant difference between the Roman and the medieval populations. The consumption of C4 plants, more resilient to the Alpine climate, is consistently documented both by isotopes and dental calculus. Dental calculus results permit the characterisation of the typology of the crop consumed, namely millet, barley/wheat and legumes and may also suggest differing cooking processes between the Roman and the medieval periods. Phytoliths, vascular elements, fungal spores and animal remains from dental calculus provide new insights into the diet of the analysed individuals but also, hypothetically, into possible medicinal treatments. The presence of birds such as fowls and ducks in the medieval diet of some individuals from San Pietro has also emerged. Overall, the results of this study open a new window into the biographies of the individuals analysed, their diet, mobility, habits, and environment, thus stimulating further and more systematic investigation on the populations occupying an Alpine sector which is still poorly understood from an archaeological perspective
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
- …
