1,720,965 research outputs found
Habitat use and diet of the Eurasian scops owl otus scops in the breeding and wintering periods in central Italy
No full textThe Eurasian scops owl is one of the least known European nocturnal raptors. The species is declining throughout its distributional range, thus giving concern for its conservation status. We investigated seasonal shifts in its habitat use and diet in central Italy, where scops owl is a resident species in Central Tuscany. The owls used grasslands and human settlements during the breeding period, while woodlands were mainly used during the winter. The main prey species in the diet during the warm period were grasshoppers (Orthoptera, Tettigoniidae), whereas shrews (Soricomorpha) constituted the main prey during the winter. Thus, protecting extensive grassland would not suffice to conserve resident populations of Eurasian scops owls and preservation of mature deciduous woodlands with trunk cavities is also recommended
Knowledge, management and optimization: the use of live traps in control of non-native squirrels
No full textThis study identifies techniques to maximize trap efficiency and minimize trapping effort when using live traps to capture the invasive alien Pallas’s squirrel (Callosciurus erythraeus), which was introduced in Italy near the Swiss borders. We explored the effects of time of day, season, number of checks in the capture session and type of live trap (single or multi-capture). Moreover, the vegetation around traps (characteristics of the tree supporting the trap, vegetation growth, vegetation cover, vegetation richness and similarity index) was tested. Squirrels were caught more frequently in the morning, but trapping success was not affected by the type of trap used. Squirrel trap response varied significantly in relation to the season, and a higher trapping success in the first days of the trapping session suggests the importance of prebaiting. We reject the hypothesis that vegetation around traps affected the capture success of Pallas’s squirrel in deciduous forests. Thus, recommendations to improve the trapping efficiency of this species are to (1) use single capture live traps with at least one week of prebaiting, (2) increase the capture effort in winter and (3) set traps where access is easy and where there are signs of high activity of individuals of the alien species
The masked invader strikes again: The conquest of Italy by the Northern raccoon
Full text linkThe Northern raccoon Procyon lotor is a species native to North and Central America, but alien populations have established in Europe, several Caribbean islands, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Japan, being introduced for fur farming, hunting, or as pets/attraction in animal parks. In the introduced range, raccoons may impact on breeding birds and amphibians, exert crop damages and transmit pathologies to wild species and humans. The species has been introduced also in Italy, where the only known reproductive population is observed since 2004 in Lombardy, along the Adda river. We reconstructed the current distribution range of the Northern raccoon in Italy, collecting information from scientific papers, articles in newspapers and books, as well from experts and local reporters. A total of 53 occurrence points were collected from observation sites. Since 2008, records from Lombardy increased, and sporadic observations were reported from seven other regions. A complete lack of records from the Northernmost provinces of Lombardy (Varese, Como and Sondrio) suggests that the only Italian population does not derive from a range expansion from Switzerland, but it should be considered as an independent, new introduction. Accidental observations of single individuals possibly escaped from captivity are often ignored, and only few animals were removed from the wild. An analysis of the potential distribution of the species was performed in a species distribution modeling framework (MaxEnt). A global model was built up considering the occurrences of reproductive populations from the native range and introduced areas in Europe and Japan and then projected to Italy. The model suggested a good suitability for the plains in Central-Northern Italy and a very low suitability of the Alpine region, thus providing support to the hypothesis that the Italian population did not derive from dispersal from Switzerland. If escapes or releases of raccoons will continue, there is a risk that the species could colonize other areas, making its containment more difficult
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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