1,721,050 research outputs found
Economic Analysis on Electrification of Rural Villages in Eastern Zambia
No full textA large proportion of Zambia’s population lives in rural areas and only 3 percent of them
have access to electricity. This means that they have to cook over open fire that requires
firewood, and with a growing population this usage will increase deforestation. The absence
of proper lighting possibilities make life hard during the nights and also increase unwanted
encounters with dangerous animals. The government of Zambia has began to realize that the
electrification issue needs to be solved and has therefore initiated the development of a
national power grid. But other alternatives are required to provide the vast majority of rural
villages due to slow progress and high costs associated with the power grid. Generator
powered electricity is an option but the question is whether it is sustainable or not? Jatropha
Curcas is a multipurpose crop and its seeds can be used for oil extraction. This oil can then be
used to produce biodiesel in a transesterification process, which can be conducted in the
villages. This integrated biodiesel production lets villagers take control over their own
electricity supply since they would grow it on their own land, and is a good alternative until
the power grid is available.
This paper deals with issues regarding what type of fuel that should be used and how to
conduct a process towards electrification in order for villages in the area to be financially and
environmentally sustainable. Interviews were conducted in the project village Kakoma,
Lundazi District area, and used for data and information collection. In the general case,
aiming at providing a general model for electrification in the area, a comparison between
fossil diesel import and Jatropha based biodiesel was made, where a part of each farmer’s
cultivation area is used for growing Jatropha instead of cash crops. In a case study, growing
Jatropha on a new land area in order to produce biodiesel is compared with diesel import.
Using a Cost-Benefit Analysis it can be shown that Jatropha based biodiesel is more
financially viable in both cases. However, large investment costs that are excluded from the
calculations would decrease its feasibility. To make a transition from cash crops to Jatropha
possible there are certain identified socioeconomic factors that need to be fulfilled. External
knowledge, villagers propensity to cooperate for the common good, woman involvement,
leadership and increased education levels are important for a transition to be successful. In
order for Jatropha cultivation to be sustainable, deforestation in favour for plantations cannot
be allowed and also efficient use of byproducts to complete the lifecycle of the plant needs to
be applied. A general case transition towards Jatropha based biodiesel is not recommended at
the moment due to high risks, mainly due to short-term thinking by villagers, absence of
NGOs and insufficient financial resources. The presence of an NGO in the Kakoma case, that
is monitoring projects along with strong leadership make this case more likely to succeed.
However, more research regarding seed yields in the area and the social dynamics of villages
is required in order to make a informed decision whether a transition should be conducted or
not
The Dallol Volcano.
No full textThe Dallol Volcano (14°14’13" N 40°17’53" E, 85m below sea level) is an explosion crater in the Danakil Depression in northern Ethiopia and is located in one of the hottest and most remote places on Earth. Surrounded by vast salt and sulphur plains and featuring geysers, puddles of boiling mud and bright acidic pools, the crater has become an important eco-tourism attraction of the Afar regional state. Exposure to extreme temperatures and the ceaseless wind, which the local Afar nomads call hahaita-harrur or fire-wind, triggers dehydration, high sweat salt losses and heat stress. Heat injuries and hyponatremia are potentially life-threatening in this hostile environment. On overnight stays in the Danakil, we used evaporation pans to chill our drinking water and oral rehydration salt to prevent dilutional hyponatremia. Photograph by Raf Aerts, MSc, PhDstatus: Publishe
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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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