1,720,982 research outputs found
Long-term analysis (1863–2002) of environmental change in the Capo Feto area (Mediterranean sea)
No full textThe area of Capo Feto represents one of the few remaining salt-marshy zones in Sicily. It lies within a site of importance for the Community (defined as a “sito di importanza comunitaria” (SIC)), which also includes Margi Spanò and Margi Milo. The Capo Feto and Margi Spanò marshlands have also been identified by the Ministry for the Environment as an area deserving special protection (“zona a protezione speciale” (ZPS)). Moreover, in 1999, 150 ha of the Capo Feto area were included in a project for environmental rehabilitation as part of the European Union “Life-Nature 2000” programme (Comitato Tecnico-Scientifico Area di Capo Feto, 1997). Prior to this, the area had become somewhat degraded due to numerous natural and man-made changes that had profoundly modified and badly affected the environment over the previous decades. The aim of the present study was to define the main morphological and environmental changes that have occurred in the Capo Feto area over the last 150 years and to characterize the natural and anthropogenic factors that caused them (Perego, 1988). By means of surveys of the area, a comparative study of existing maps and an interpretation of a digital colour orthophotograph of 1998, this work was developed in a GIS environment and describes the Capo Feto environment and how it has changed with time, focusing particularly on variations in the shoreline and the marshy area (Zecchi et al., 2001)
Assessing Coastal Sustainability: A Bayesian Approach for Modeling and Estimating a Global Index for Measuring Risk
Full text linkIntegrated Coastal Zone Management is an emerg- ing research area. The aim is to provide a global view of dif- ferent and heterogeneous aspects interacting in a geographical area. Decision Support Systems, integrating Computational Intelligence methods, can be successfully used to estimate use- ful anthropic and environmental indexes. Bayesian Networks have been widely used in the environmental science domain. In this paper a Bayesian model for estimating the Sustainable Coastal Index is presented. The designed Bayesian Network consists of 17 nodes, hierarchically organized in 4 layers. The first layer is initialized with the season and the physiographic region information. In the second layer, the first-order in- dexes, depending on raw data, of physiographic regions are computed. The third layer estimates the second-order indexes of the analyzed physiographic regions. In the fourth layer, the global Sustainable Coastal Index is inferred. Processed data refers to 13 physiographic regions in the Province of Trapani, western Sicily, Italy. Gathered data describes the environ- mental information, the agricultural, fisheries, and economi- cal behaviors of the local population and land. The Bayesian Network was trained and tested using a real dataset acquired between 2000 and 2006. The developed system presents inter- esting results
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
BIODEGRADABLE POLYMER-BASED COMPOSITES FILLED WITH BIOCHAR FOR TUNABLE RELEASE OF CARVACROL
No full textBio-composites are commonly obtained by combining biodegradable polymers with
fillers collected from natural resources. In this context, biochar (BC) is attracting high interest as filler for polymer-based composites due to its challenging properties, including ecosustainability. This study aimed to prepare and characterize bio-composites with antimicrobial properties evaluating the role of the filler in the release kinetics. In particular, BC as filler and carvacrol (CRV) as antimicrobial agent, were incorporated via melt-compounding in poly(butylene adipate-co-terephthalate) (PBAT) samples. The rheological, tensile, and antimicrobial properties of the obtained bio-composites were evaluated paying particular attention to the influence of BC concentration, i.e., 5, 10, and 20 wt%, on the investigated properties. Moreover, the influence of BC content on the release kinetics of carvacrol was studied and mathematically modeled to evaluate the release mechanism. The results showed that the presence of biochar modified the carvacrol release in comparison with the unfilled system thus allowing to tune the release kinetics
Influence of Biochar on the Properties of Antibacterial PBAT/Carvacrol Films
Full text linkIn recent years, there has been an increasing interest in antibacterial biopolymeric films. Among the different approaches for tuning the release kinetic of antibacterial compounds, the use of natural fillers allows for this purpose while optimizing the processability and the mechanical properties of the products. In this work, the effect of three different concentrations of biochar (BC) was investigated on the morphological, rheological, mechanical, and thermal properties of Polybutylene adipate terephthalate/Carvacrol/BC (PBAT/CV/BC) ternary biocomposites. The films were fabricated by means of melt mixing and compression molding and compared to PBAT/BC samples. The carvacrol kinetic release was evaluated as a function of the BC concentration in the ternary system. Results highlighted that BC allows tuning the properties of PBAT and of PBAT/CV samples and modifying the release kinetic of CV. Finally, the antimicrobial analysis revealed that PBAT/CV films exhibited excellent antimicrobial properties against Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella Enteritidis, and Staphylococcus aureus
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
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