1,721,140 research outputs found
Heavy metals and organochlorine compounds in blood of a stranded Risso’s dolphins from Northern Adriatic Sea, Italy.
No full textPollutants play an important role in the crisis populations in dolphins. This long living mammals tend to accumulate contaminants because of the high lipidic composition of their tissues, their rank in the food chain and food preferences. Assessing pollutants concentrations can help to investigate the possible effect on the immune system and on the reproductive cycles of endangered species. Risso’s dolphin Grampus griseus is rarely present in shallow waters like Adriatic sea, where reprents about 4% of strandings (Mazzariol et al. 2007). Present work reports about the heavy metals and organochlorine compounds (organochlorine pesticides and PCBs) content in blood of a Risso’s dolphin stranded in summer 2007 in Northern Adriatic Sea. Samples were collected during rehabilitation cares and analysed with ICP-AOS and GC/MS techniques. Metals concentration found are close to those observed in a stranded Risso’s dolphin from Israel by Shohan et al. (2002) and are equal to 7.31 μg/ml for Hg, 0.05 μg/ml for Cd, 0.13 μg/ml for Pb and 0,40 for μg/ml for As. Interestingly Cu and Zn are below the limit of detection of the method. For organochlorine compounds, only some of the investigated organohalogen were detected: HCB (0.77 ng/ml), HCH (1.45 ng/ml), DDT (4.32 ng/ml). Concerning PCBs, congeners 118, 128, 157, 158, 167, 177, 180, 183, 192 and 201 were detected, always at the ng/ml level. Low levels of organochlorine compounds observed can be due to the poor conditions of the animal, who was starved and didn’t eat. This caused a loss of adipose tissue, a certain mobilisation of contaminants and their rapid excretion. The same consideration is valid for heavy metals. Actually there is a lack of comparing data and their interpretation can be speculative. Anyway, the combination of blood and tissues analysis will give more information and make these evaluation more easy
XXI Secolo : arte e architettura /
No full textProceedings from the international convention "21st Century" held at Silvi Marina, Italy, Sept. 1994, which brought together artists and architects as well as academics of various disciplines to debate the actual relationship between art and architecture and whether it would be possible to rejuvenate a cohesion between them."Progetto Caleidoscopio '93 della Commissione delle Comunità europee, numero di protocollo K. 93-I/I-176.""CARIPE, Cassa di risparmio di Pescara e di Loreto Apruntino"--Colophon
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
Trace element concentrations in the Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus) in the eastern Mediterranean Sea
No full textThe Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus) is one of the most endangered marine mammals in the world. The biggest sub-population of the species survives in Greece, where understanding the effects of pollution on the survival of the species has been identified as a national research and conservation priority. From 1990 to 2013 we collected tissue samples from 59 deceased monk seals in order to: (i) Define the concentration of trace elements (As, Pb, Cd, Hg, Se, Cr, Ni) in three different matrices (i.e., blubber, liver and kidney), (ii) Determine whether differences in trace element concentrations are age- or gender-related, (iii) Evaluate the potential effects of these pollutants. The study recorded differences in trace element concentrations among matrices, but in general, trace element exposure in Mediterranean monk seals in Greece was low and within the non-acutely toxic levels for Pinnipeds. Only arsenic concentrations were at the upper limit of the normal range observed in other marine mammals (0.69 ± 0.55 mg/kg w.w. in blubber, 0.79 ± 0.62 mg/kg w.w. in liver and 0.79 ± 0.59 mg/kg w.w. in kidney). We recorded also exceptionally high Hg concentrations in a single adult female (24.88 mg/kg w.w.). Age- and gender-related differences were also recorded and were due to various biological, ecological and chemical factors. Based on the results of the study, potentially adverse effects on the immune and endocrine system of the Mediterranean monk seal from some pollutants (e.g., As, Cd, Se, Ni, Cr) cannot be ruled out, which may expose the Mediterranean seal population in Greece to epizootics and stochastic phenomena of mass mortality. It is therefore of utmost importance that pollutant monitoring becomes an integral component of the standard monitoring protocol of the endangered Mediterranean monk seal in the eastern Mediterranean
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
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