1,721,216 research outputs found
The Importance of a Food Systems Approach to Low and Middle Income Countries and Emerging Economies: A Review of Theories and Its Relevance for Disease Control and Malnutrition
Full text linkOur review explores the changing food production, distribution and consumption environment in low and middle-income countries and emerging economies as a basis for framing how to study food systems in order to address public health issues of food safety and nutrition. It presents the state of knowledge on existing food systems science and its use in terms of sustainable actions for food safety and public health. The review identifies a knowledge gap in food system mapping and governance, with value chain mapping of key commodities often missing. Despite a number of initiatives, the application of food systems methods is highly variable in scope and quality. Most analyses concentrate on specific commodities, rarely taking into account the need for a whole diet approach when looking at nutrition or the assessment of a range of infectious agents and their interactions when looking at food safety. Of the studies included in the review there is a growing observation of “informal” food systems, a term used inconsistently and one that requires revision. “Informal” food systems link to the formal sector to provide food security, yet with trade-offs between economic efficiencies and food safety. Efforts to improve food safety are hampered by inadequate food safety capacities and a lack of policy coherence leading to: inadequate investment; fragmented food quality control systems; weak or non-existent traceability mechanisms; weak foodborne disease surveillance; obsolete food regulation; and weak regulatory enforcement. In-depth food systems assessments can complement risk analysis to identify risky behaviors and understand institutional settings in order to improve codes of practice and enforcement. Methods for looking at food safety from a food systems perspective are emerging, yet existing nutrition and food systems science are not advancing sufficiently in response to nutritional public health problems. There is an urgency for improved understanding of the structure and drivers of the food systems, for better planning of changes that leads to nutrients access and healthy levels of eating. It is proposed that countries and international institutions provide an atlas of food system maps for the key commodities based on an agreed common methodology and developed by multidisciplinary teams.</jats:p
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
Burden estimates and zoonotic disease prioritisation: bridging the divide from local insights to national strategies
Full text linkZoonoses and emerging infectious diseases of animal origin have devastating consequences and pose critical challenges to global health security. Pastoral communities in Sub-Saharan Africa, alongside their livestock, bear an ongoing burden of endemic and neglected zoonotic and non-zoonotic livestock diseases. Yet, robust epidemiological and economic burden data in these regions are scarce or incomplete. Competing priorities and finite resources necessitate prioritisation of attention, efforts, and capital. Against such a backdrop, this thesis aims to examine the importance of equitable, transparent, and justifiable disease prioritisation with particular attention to inclusion of comprehensive economic burden estimates. These estimates are crucial in areas where the importance of livestock extends beyond market value. Specifically, this study explored the advantage of a qualitative approach to mixed output data collection in support of disease surveillance and burden estimates, which may in turn inform national disease prioritisation.
A scoping review of multi-sector economic burden studies, and a comprehensive analysis of livestock population and biomass mapping strategies were conducted, followed by an extensive field study with two Maasai pastoralist communities in southwestern Kenya. The field study adopted a mixed-methods approach which integrated syndromic surveillance and participatory epidemiology techniques paired with qualitative, ethnographic methods. Data collection centred around semi-structured, in-depth interviews, augmented by participatory exercises. Analyses were undertaken in MAXQDA and R.
The centrality of cattle in Maasai society drives management decisions and approaches within the bounds of structural and social factors. This study illustrated that the value of cattle – intrinsic, subsistence, and financial – extends beyond a purely monetary, production-centric framework, influencing herd composition, disease priority, and behaviour. Coupled with risk tolerance and aversion, as governed by the cardinal importance of cattle in livelihoods and culture, these factors shape the multi-dimensional impacts of disease. Such insights offer crucial context to increasing calls for integrated surveillance initiatives to address large gaps in knowledge of disease incidence and emergence in remote, rural areas. Forming a foundation on which to build a comprehensive epidemiological and economic assessment of disease burden, these findings highlight the value of incorporating local knowledge in the conception, design, and execution of identification, prevention and response activities, as well as in efforts to estimate disease burdens and prioritise resources at the local and national level.
In an age of heightened focus on emerging diseases of zoonotic origin, it is unclear whether national disease prioritisation strategies are equipped to capture and include the outsize impact that endemic and neglected diseases place on poor and rural communities dependent on livestock. This study demonstrated the efficacy and utility of a mixed-method, participant-driven approach to mapping livestock systems and identifying disease constraints. Specifically, it overcame challenges to generating functional data, as well as elucidating and contextualising issues faced by socially and economically marginalised communities whose livelihoods depend on small-scale and pastoralist livestock production in the Global South. Refined and scaled, this approach, supported by confirmatory diagnostics and serological analysis, could strengthen development of robust and defensible burden estimates and effective disease prioritisation strategies
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
Entrepreneurship in value chains of non-timber forest products
No full textEntrepreneurship and innovation by actors in the market for non-timber forest products (NTFPs) cannot be fully understood without a proper understanding of the position and behaviour of actors in the value chain of NTFPs. This paper places the market for NTFPs in the emerging literature on value chains which has, so far, lacked a detailed analysis of NTFPs. Our analysis reveals that certain key entrepreneurs are a driving force of success throughout several NTFP value chains in both Bolivia and Mexico. Where market information is scarce, e.g. where producers are distant from consumers, key entrepreneurs often govern entire value chains.We argue that certain entrepreneurs are key to spreading success throughout the value chains of selected NTFPs offsetting potential negative consequences such as exploitation of more upstream actors (e.g. collectors and processors) in the value chains. Typical examples include the shopkeeper/organisation in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, who sources woven palm products from and supports several producers, and the entrepreneur in Mexico who established links between mushroom pickers in rural communities and brokers and consumers in Japan. Rather than criticising the monopolistic position of individuals, it is important to understand how the activity of key entrepreneurs can be supported in spreading successful commercialisation further and where necessary control negative impacts of their role. Our analysis indicates that policies to support commercialisation of the case study NTFPs would also need to be tailored to each value chain.<br/
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