1,720,965 research outputs found
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
Institutional Gridlock
No full textIn response to a number of recent high-profile policy questions, administrative agencies have discovered new applications for statutes that were not envisioned by the legislators who wrote them. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for example, has reinterpreted the Clean Air Act as authorizing regulations to limit greenhouse gas emissions, despite the law’s focus on localized air pollution. In addition, the Federal Communications Commission shoehorned its “open internet” order into a statutory scheme that has not been revised since 1996. In both cases, and in several others, agencies have relied upon existing grants of authority from previous Congresses rather than implementing the will of the current one. In addressing this phenomenon in their article, “Delegation and Time,” Jonathan Adler and Christopher Walker highlight important concerns about the democratic deficits in the administrative state. Statutes written generations ago are used for purposes that their enactors, and the constituents they represented, never envisioned when they enacted them. But where Adler and Walker see democratic deficits, I see the possibility that law and policy can evolve to reflect the preferences of those who are currently governed. Adler and Walker’s article focuses on an important theoretical question: the democratic implications of exploiting the ambiguity of old laws to address new circumstances. Theoretically, this raises a democratic deficit problem—in their words—because it uses the work of a previously existing coalition of voters and representatives to accomplish policies that may not have been supported, or even contemplated, when they enacted the law. The ideal way to make policy in a representative republic would be to enact new legislation, or amend existing legislation, to address new problems, thereby ensuring that the laws reflect the consent of the currently governed rather than the previously governed. The problem Adler and Walker seek to address resembles the problem Thomas Jefferson and James Madison confronted in their famous exchange about, in Jefferson’s words, “whether one generation of men has the right to bind another.” Jefferson famously proclaimed that “the earth belongs in usufruct to the living” and “the dead have neither powers nor rights over it.” For Jefferson, “no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law.” The implication, he concluded, was to make sure all laws and constitutions could expire every 19 years. Jefferson’s argument, although ably rebutted by Madison in response, suggests a different way of looking at the problem that Adler and Walker raise. Perhaps the reinterpretation of old laws to address new purposes is a way of avoiding democratic deficits rather than a source of democratic deficit. Using open-ended statutes for current purposes allows the law to be updated to reflect the wishes of the living, rather than the dead who first enacted them. When the Clean Air Act is used to deal with greenhouse gas emissions, it is being updated to reflect the wishes of those who matter—the currently governed. In short, Adler and Walker’s article assumes that the failure to update statutes produces democratic deficits, but they could offer a more robust theoretical argument in defense of their position. Further developing the theoretical premises concerning democratic deficits would strengthen their case and anticipate some of these objections. To solve the problem as they define it, Adler and Walker argue that Congress must return to its traditional practice of regular reauthorization of statutes. In a bygone era, Congress regularly reauthorized statutes and engaged in substantive amendment processes when statutes would be reshaped by new political coalitions reflecting changed wishes and views of the people. The 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act stand as perhaps the prototypical example of this process. Adler and Walker grant that Congress still engages in reauthorization efforts. But just as Congress’s ordinary legislative powers have eroded, so too has its reauthorization efforts. Adler and Walker make a forceful case that changing statutes’ sunset provisions in targeted and specific ways will encourage members of Congress to engage once again in the legislative process. This would, in their view, produce statutes that are updated to reflect the current wishes of the people, rather than simply reinterpreted by administrative bodies to meet current needs. Adler and Walker’s proposal simply seeks to change the external incentives that drive the internal dysfunction of Congress. If Congress had to reauthorize statutes, it would act. Right now, it does not act because it does not have to. This strategy resembles the approach Congress takes to fiscal matters. By setting government shutdown deadlines, members are forced by external pressures to act. Making this comparison, of course, points to a potential problem with it. Changing the external incentives of congressmembers has not always worked. The internal incentives in Congress’s structure also contribute to its inability to engage in regular reauthorization. These internal incentives are well chronicled and have been the subject of much scrutiny: the decline of policy committees and their chairs, the centralization of agenda control in House and Senate leaders, and the inability of ordinary members of Congress to participate in the legislative process. This has led to what James Wallner calls “the death of deliberation.” Without changes to Congress’s internal structure, the ability of Congress to reauthorize programs effectively will be highly limited. Scholars’ division over how Congress should be reformed poses the real challenge. In short, without major changes to Congress itself, it is difficult to envision Congress effectively changing and updating the statutes that grant responsibility to agencies. Adler and Walker tentatively suggest an intriguing method for weaving reauthorization into the administrative state by modifying the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Unauthorized appropriations, as Adler and Walker note, are common these days. The APA instructs courts to set aside agency action that is “not in accordance with law.” If courts ruled that unauthorized appropriations violate the APA, or Congress modified the APA to allow judicial challenges to unauthorized appropriations, it may provide the encouragement Congress needs. This would be a significant step, and one that should not be taken lightly. But given the current state of Congress, and its lack of engagement with the administrative state, it is worth considering. Adler and Walker raise serious considerations, and although their proposed solution is predicated on the need to reform Congress, it deserves serious attention. They should be applauded for drawing our attention to the problems that emerge when Congress ducks responsibility, and for advancing a serious proposal for addressing the issue
Recommended from our members
Reform Congress to Rein In the Administrative State
No full textThe emergence of the American administrative state is not a new or recent development, yet it currently faces a crisis of legitimacy. This crisis of legitimacy is itself not a recent development, either. James Freedman, a former professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, identified this crisis in 1980 in his important book, Crisis and Legitimacy: The Administrative Process and American Government. Just two years ago, Columbia Law School Professor Gillian Metzger noted the reemergence of this legitimacy crisis, dubbing the phenomenon the “1930s Redux” and tracing the resistance to bureaucracy back to the New Deal. Most of the scholars who point out this legitimacy crisis, however, do so with alarm, because they view the modern state and the administrative state as fundamentally intertwined. Any modern regulatory state, in this view, must be an administrative state, so to attack the legitimacy of the administrative state is to strike at the goals and purposes of modern government. “Anti-Administrativism,” as Professor Metzger calls it, is therefore a vehicle for “antiregulatory and antigovernment forces that lost the battle of the New Deal.” Professor Metzger rightly identifies a growing skepticism of the administrative state both in American politics generally and in judicial opinions specifically. However, I have offered a different assessment of the origins and effect of anti-administrativism. The core of my view is this: It is possible to have regulation without embracing the administrative state. In fact, that is how America was governed for over a century after the framing of the Constitution. Anti-administrativism can be traced back much further than the 1930s. It was present at the American Revolution, a fact which accounts for several aspects of American constitutionalism that limit administrative power, such as legislative representation, independent courts, and the separation of powers. Yet as scholars have long noted, states regulated their economies extensively from the very beginning of American history. They just used different institutional actors to do so—courts as well as legislators. When attempts were made to create new regulatory agencies and vest them with powers formerly entrusted to courts and legislators, especially in the 1880s with the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), anti-administrativism served to preserve the traditional regulatory institutions. This fact explains why administrative power was so weak in America prior to 1900. The creation of the ICC did not mark the birth of the administrative state because the ICC was not vested (at that time) with the powers typical of a modern regulatory agency today. It could not set rates through rulemaking, for example, and it was not authorized to render final decisions that were binding on parties. The prevalence of anti-administrativism during the 19th Century did not make America a laissez-faire country. As Alexis de Tocqueville observed, in antebellum America “authority is great and the official small, so that society would continue to be well regulated and remain free.” Decades later, the progressive political scientist Frank Goodnow offered a similar assessment, but with disapproval. He wrote that the American approach to administration—one that emphasized “a government of laws, and not of men”—held “unquestioned advantages, particularly in retarding the development of despotism and in preventing arbitrary administrative action; but it makes the development of the administrative function free from the influences of politics almost impossible, since it tends to promote interference by the legislature.” For Goodnow and other progressives, the traditional American approach to administration inhibited the emergence of an expert bureaucracy, and therefore had to be discarded. Progressives were successful in reducing the power of the legislature and increasing the power of the bureaucracy, and without the influence of anti-administrativism (whose legacy, in part, is the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act), we might have an even more powerful bureaucracy than the one we have today. Identifying the administrative state’s legitimacy gap, in short, does not entail a desire to get rid of regulation altogether. Reducing that legitimacy gap, moreover, would not require the abolition of regulatory agencies or the elimination of all regulatory programs. It would, however, entail restructuring the institutions of modern government. Most fundamentally, it would require a legislature capable of addressing the challenges of the 21st Century by amassing expertise, engaging in deliberation, and responding efficiently to the sense of the national majority. Our Congress is lacking in all three features, but it can be reformed to return to its former status as the central policymaking institution of our system. The modern Congress does not amass expertise because it has deprived its committee structure of the incentives to engage in thoughtful deliberation to address national problems. Thanks in large part to well-meaning transparency reforms, committee hearings today are not focused on fact-finding but on playing to electoral constituencies. Term limits on committee chairs, and other reforms, have served to weaken committee expertise, leaving the administrative state further removed from the people it is supposed to serve. Strengthening committee expertise can give Congress the confidence and the capacity needed to avoid ceding power to the bureaucracy. The modern Congress also does not engage in deliberation. Floor debate in Congress serves no useful purpose, except for making campaign speeches. This is why so few members are usually in attendance when the speeches are made. The capacity and the incentives for members to listen to each other have been diminished, thanks to a variety of factors, including (once again) well-meaning transparency reforms that keep members focused on their constituencies rather than each others’ arguments. Giving members the space and the encouragement to discuss matters with each other, rather than constantly communicating to constituents, can restore Congress’s capacity for deliberation. Finally, the modern Congress does not respond efficiently to national problems. It is a cumbersome, clunky institution without the necessary rules and procedures to operate effectively or to enable its leadership to assemble coalitions needed to legislate. In its golden age, Congress had leaders who had sufficient authority and allegiance to do the work of bargaining and compromise. Today, congressional leaders can barely manage the conflict within their own ranks. Returning power to party leaders will enable Congress to forge and maintain the coalitions necessary to legislate specifically on national issues once again. Anti-administrativism has played a significant, and in my view a salutary role, in limiting the potentially arbitrary power of government officials. The administrative state’s emergence was predicated upon reducing the power of traditional regulatory institutions such as courts and legislatures, in favor of a new model: the expert, independent regulatory agency. This is not the only way to structure a modern regulatory state, however. We can have regulation without the administrative state. But to accomplish that goal, we need to fix Congress by restoring its capacity to carry out its constitutional role
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
- …
