1,720,956 research outputs found
A combined citizen science-modelling approach for NO2 assessment in Torino urban agglomeration
Full text linkThe #CHEARIATIRA citizen science campaign was developed in February 2019 in Torino (western part of the Po Valley megacity region). The aim of the campaign was public engagement with measuringNO2 concentrations in an urban area that often exceeds air quality standards. NO2 diffusion tubes were employed by citizens under our supervision. In this paper, we present the main outcomes of a combined approach between the #CHEARIATIRA campaign and the urban dispersion model SIRANE. The results were validated against the available public Air Quality Monitoring Stations (AQMS). The citizens' passive samplers and the modelled data show a good response in central districts both during the campaign interval and by annual projection. Traffic hotspots and sensitive receptors (schools, hospital) have high concentrations of NO2. Most of the study area (83% of the tubes) is subject to an increased risk of premature death according to epidemiological literature
Forest yard's safety: a methodological approach for the analysis of occupational risk
Full text linkIn the realization of wood biomass thermal plants, environmental sustainability is best achieved through the small-scale plant's adoption. Their needs can be ensured by the surrounding forest resources. This involves, at equal output power, for the environmental and safety control systems a greater economic burden compared to large-scale systems based on massive financial investments. The aim of this study is to define a methodology analysis for the identification of safe and environmentally sustainable work's practices. The methodology will be applied initially to the forest yards, corresponding to the first phase of the forest - wood - energy cycle, i.e. the raw material procurement. The different steps of Hazard Identification, Risk Analysis and Risk Assessment have been applied to the occupational safety of a case study representative of an alpine valley's wooded area. In this analysis have been taken into account the standard operating conditions. The presence of functional anomalies was, instead, analysed by applying a Design FMECA to a forestry plant of timber's handlin
Urban air quality and meteorology on opposite sides of the Alps: The Lyon and Torino case studies
Full text linkSeveral European urban areas are characterised by low air quality due to high local emission per unit surface. A further key feature can be related to the pollutant load due to adverse local meteo-climatic conditions. This study aims to compare the two urban agglomerations of Torino and Lyon – located on opposite sides of the Alps and characterised by similar size and population – to enlighten the role of meteorology on local pollutant dispersion. The assessment of air quality has been developed by monitoring network data, emissions analysis and the SIRANE urban dispersion model. Although the two agglomerations have similar NOX and PM10 emissions, the simulation results show higher ground level concentrations in Torino. To quantify the effect of meteorology on this excess of concentrations, we run simulations in Torino imposing the meteorological conditions of Lyon and vice versa. This implies an overall reduction of ground level concentrations in the city centre of Torino between 20% and 40% (analogously, Lyon concentrations increase by a similar amount). These results show the peculiar difficulties faced by Po valley's cities in maintaining pollution levels below regulatory thresholds and highlight the need of systemic policies and site-specific mitigation to reduce air pollution health risks
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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