1,720,972 research outputs found
Horses in the mirror
No full textThe study of animal cognition can no longer ignore the close relation between mind, body and
social context, without sounding anachronistic. This assumption is particularly true when
considering horses’ cognitive abilities. Despite their nature – as social and lazily dynamic
animals – domestic horses are often forced to live at the limit of their mental and physical needs
from an early age. The pet-like status imposes on horses extreme living conditions, where the
cognitive-emotional side of their equine essence remains overlooked, and their body is
compelled to endure heavy stress. Despite the many investigations over the past years, we still
cannot predict many factors influencing horse welfare and cognition in domestic settings. In
particular, we are not yet able to protect these animals from the various issues that can
undermine their psychological/health balance and also affect their athletic performance.
This chapter aims at providing readers (and riders) with the tools to manage horses respectfully,
both in terms of their physical (first section) and their mental well-being (second section).
However, we will consider here only some skills of horses that may be relevant in the context of
equitation, without claiming to have written a review of horse cognition to date. This chapter
talks directly to people working with horses and in horse facilities, and it aims at providing them
with extra scientific knowledge of the perceptual world of these animals thus developing higher
levels of competency in horses’ management
Traveling in a fragile world: the value of ecoturism
Full text linkWhat is ecotourism and why is it a current topic today more than ever? Tourism represents a significant economic sector and further forecasted to grow at a global level – exceeding even in the first few months of 2018 the most optimistic growth expectations according to WTTC (2018a)1.
According to the International Ecotourism society2, ecotourism can be defined as a form of responsible tourism that prefers natural areas and that focuses its attention and commitment to conserve the environment and sustain the well-being of local people through interpretation (of heritage, traditions) and education (habitats, animals, cultures).
Ecotourism has the potential to contribute, directly or indirectly, to all the objectives set by the 2030 Agenda3 for Sustainable Development4, which establishes ambitious global targets for people, planet, prosperity and peace through partnerships (UNWTO 2019; WCED 1987). Moreover, it provides the opportunity to preserve natural areas, through natural resources management and increasing environmental awareness and eco-friendly practices; provide sustainable economic growth of local communities in countries like Nepal, Costa Rica or Ecuador; preserve indigenous culture and tradition through educational programs; and reinvest money for conservation efforts like the protection of species or reforestation.
However, critics to Ecotourism claim the negative impacts that this industry has on local people and environments as consequence of long travel distances (like the pollution generated by planes) and the negative impacts deriving from the presence of tourists in delicate environments (and the related production of waste or pollution).
This paper aims to provide a general examination of the available data about the ecotourism activities on a global level, presenting examples from representative countries worldwide.
We consider both the qualitative and quantitative aspects of this industry, trying to focus on what it represents in terms of its impacts and benefits for the country’s natural resources, communities and economy.
In the first part of the manuscript, we compare ecotourism to other forms of natural resources’ use such as trophy hunting and mass tourism, trying to evaluate whether these represent a preferable alternative or not in terms of sustainability and economic benefits.
The next section is divided by regions: Africa, The Americas, Europe, and Australia.
For the study, we used statistics made available mainly by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) and the UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), together with information from specialized international literature
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
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