1,722,821 research outputs found

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

    Full text link
    The 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 link
    We 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

    Evaluation of ionic strength and salinity ofgroundwaters: effect of the ionic composition

    No full text
    An improved method has been used for rapid determination of the ionic strength (I) and the salinity of Apulian groundwaters. The parameters required are the electrolytic conductivity (EC) and the total solute concentration (C T) of the solutions. A simple empirical relation between I, EC and C T is presented. The relation holds over a wide concentration and composition range. The combined use of C T and of the ratio I C T is shown to be effective in defining the salinity of groundwater

    An iterative optimization-based approach to piecewise affine system identification

    No full text
    In this paper, we propose an iterative approach to PWA system identification. At each iteration, a single optimization problem is solved, performing simultaneously the estimation of the partition of the regressor domain, the assignment of data points to submodels, and the estimation of the submodel parameters. A nice feature of the proposed approach is that at each iteration it provides a classification of the data points that is linearly separable by construction, while guaranteeing that the value of the prediction error criterion is non-increasing along the iterations. The optimization problem solved at each iteration is a mixed integer program, where the classification involves only a fixed number of data points close to the boundaries of the partition estimated at the previous iteration. This number can be tuned to control the computational burden of the mixed integer program to be solved. The proposed technique can be applied to tackle an identification problem from scratch, or to refine the solution provided by other suboptimal techniques. This is shown through an application to the pick-and-place machine data set

    On the Molecular Mechanism of the Calcium-Induced Gelation of Pectate. Different Steps in the Binding of Calcium Ions by Pectate

    Full text link
    Pectic acid/sodium pectate is one of the most widespread hydrocolloid used in the food industry. It is able to form strong ionotropic gels by the addition of ions, in particular, calcium ions. The initial steps of binding Ca2+ ions to a sample of sodium pectate with a composition close to 90% of ideal Na+-poly(galacturonate) were investigated by means of circular dichroism (CD), microcalorimetry, dilatometry, viscosity, and membrane osmometry, as a function of increasing Rj, Rj being the ratio of the molar concentrations of Ca2+ and pectate repeating units. Data were collected in aqueous NaClO4 at 25 °C. The key instrument of interpretation has been the counterion condensation theory (CCT) of linear polyelectrolytes, modified to include the presence of both specific affinity of the divalent counterion for the polysaccharide ("territorial binding"), and, very importantly, strong chemical bonding (not a covalent bonding, though) of Ca2+ on conformationally well-defined sites on the polymer, with local charge annihilation. Intrinsic viscosity and number-average molar mass data as a function of Rj showed that calcium bonding brings about chain association right from the beginning of addition to pectate. The analysis of the microcalorimetric curve using the modified CCT revealed two types of bonding. In the order of development as a function of Rj, the first mode (type 1) could be reconciled with the "tilted egg-box"type, recently proposed for Ca2+ binding to alginate and the second mode (type 2) with the "shifted egg-box"proposed for calcium pectate on the basis of conformational analysis investigation. Likewise, the two types of bonding turned out to be superimposable with similar bonding categories proposed for alginate and low-methoxyl pectin (LMP), on the one side, and for the association of semiflexible polyelectrolytes, on the other. The analysis allowed us to obtain standard Gibbs free energy, enthalpy, entropy, and volume molar values both for the affinity and the chemical bonding processes. Interestingly, the analysis of the dependence of the gelation temperatures, Tg, of LMP upon increasing additions of calcium ions provided the values of Tg and standard Gibbs free-energy of calcium-to-pectate association coinciding with those obtained from calorimetry for the type-2 bonding process. This finding corroborated previously reported evidence on the enthalpic nature of the elasticity of Ca2+-pectate gels. Finally, comparative analysis of different techniques, but of CD in particular, enabled proposing a "loose-21-helix"as the starting conformation of sodium pectate in aqueous solution
    corecore