1,720,952 research outputs found
A statistical approach to guide the management of the anterior part of the sewer system
No full textThe anterior part of the sewer system consists of a system of gully pots and lateral (house) connections that drain to main sewers. The total length of lateral house connections can be similar to the total length of the sewers they drain to. In addition, there are 7 million gully pots with corresponding lateral connections in the Netherlands alone. Considering the potential consequences of a lateral house connection blockage, proper functioning of these system components is essential. Analysis of literature on main sewer infrastructure strongly related to lateral (house) connections indicate these components to be more susceptible to shared failure mechanisms. Both incorrect use by citizens and the structural condition seem to influence the blockage propensity. Furthermore, recent research has revealed gully pot blockages to make larger contributions to flooding in public spaces than intense storm events and main sewer blockages. Gully pots are equipped with a sand trap to prevent solids from being transported to the downstream water infrastructure. The continuous trapping of solids may eventually impair the hydraulic performance. Lack of knowledge on the condition of the anterior part of a sewer system has led to the prevalence of reactive strategies, where activities are undertaken after the consequences of an operational failure becomes apparent. Next to being more costly, these strategies expose citizens to the consequences of a failure such as tangible damages and health risks. Alternatively, proactive strategies are characterised by activities that are undertaken before a failure occurs. Preserving the functionality of lateral (house) connections and gully pots, given the available resources, calls for knowledge on the effectiveness of proactive strategies and information on blockage prone components to balance proactive and reactive activities. To this end, the general objective of this thesis is to provide a methodology that supports the optimisation of management strategies for the anterior part of the sewer system
Analysing spatial patterns in lateral house connection blockages to support management strategies
Get PDFThe performance of lateral house connections has a direct impact on sewer serviceability. Despite the potential consequences of a blockage, these components are generally maintained with a reactive approach. As inspection data on the condition of lateral house connections are scarce, this study adopts a statistical procedure to support proactive strategies by analysing spatial blockage patterns to identify system parts with higher blockage incidences. First, a Monte Carlo simulation test provides insight into whether the spatial variation of the blockage likelihood is significant. This justifies the identification of explanatory factors by means of a bootstrapped generalised additive model. Application of the procedure to two databases containing 10 years of lateral house connection blockage data, revealed factors such as building age, sewer system type and ground settlement rate to explain spatial differences in the blockage likelihood. Furthermore, a likelihood ratio test demonstrated that the addition of a spatial smoother improved model performance. This smoother was able to account for additional spatial variation caused by explaining factors for which no data were available. The procedure provides key information for inspection and rehabilitation strategies by taking into account the model performance in assessing the trade-off between costs and benefits in terms of serviceability.Sanitary Engineerin
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Get PDFWe 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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
- …
