1,721,053 research outputs found
Energy and land use in worldwide agriculture: an application of life cycle energy and cluster analysis
No full textAgriculture is expected to provide food in a sustainable manner while also partially contributing to the energy problem as well as to bio-material supply. Moreover, fossil fuels scarcity calls for an increase of energy efficiency in agricultural processes. This study evaluates patterns, trends, driving factors and trade-offs of energy use in selected agricultural systems and aims at grouping them into clusters with similar energy and social performances. Results show that in 2010 the highest power densities and energy intensities of production are found by crop sector of cluster 5 (China: 59.19 GJ/ha, 15.29 MJ/kg dm) and cluster 3 (Japan: 50.11 GJ/ha, 12.32 MJ/kg dm) as well as by livestock sector of cluster 3 (Japan: 328.47 GJ/ha, 103.08 MJ/kg dm), while the lowest values in clusters 2 and 4, including selected developing countries and USA. Cluster 3 (Japan) also shows the lowest energy intensity of economic value of crops (2.75 MJ/). Cluster analysis also sheds light on trends, identifying two groups: cluster 1*, gathering most European countries, USA and Japan, characterized by a decreasing trend of all energy indicators; and cluster 2*, including developing countries, the Netherlands and Spain, characterized by an increasing trend of indicators. Results highlight the importance of an integrated framework for evaluating energy use as well as of a multi-criteria approach to understand the trade-offs and interplay of performance indicators
Water governance under uncertainty: The case study of Users' Associations in Lebanon
Full text linkGovernance of water use for irrigation is a challenging topic, due to alteration in climatic patterns and the resulting resource scarcity in arid and semi-arid regions. Success stories can turn quickly into failures when significant disturbances occur. This contribution focuses on the institutional analysis to highlight factors which enable or constrain the role that Lebanese Water Users'Associations can play to tackle current and expected water shortage conditions. Furthermore, by integrating Ostrom's design principles and a dynamic game approach, the study examines the robustness of participative institutions and their operational rules when dealing with climate change generating uncertainty about availability of water resources at local level. Water governance can find a pivotal actor in local institutions (e.g. users' associations) not only if their organization is based on social cohesion, reciprocity, trust, information sharing and accountability concepts, but also and preliminarily, if higher-level external conditions like public recognition and control, inclusion in collective decisionmaking processes, and operative subsidiarity are met.La gouvernance de l’utilisation de l’eau d’irrigation représente un défi majeur alors que le changement climatique et la pénurie des ressources provoquée par ce dérèglement affectent les régions arides et semi-arides. Les bons exemples peuvent soudainement se transformer en des échecs quand des perturbations interviennent. Dans ce travail, nous proposons donc une analyse institutionnelle pour mettre en évidence les facteurs qui stimulent ou bien limitent le rôle que les Associations des usagers de l’eau peuvent jouer au Liban dans les conditions actuelles et futures de pénurie d’eau. En plus, en intégrant les principes d’Ostrom et l’approche des jeux dynamiques, nous allons évaluer la robustesse des institutions participatives et leurs règles opérationnelles face aux aléas climatiques qui génèrent une incertitude dans la disponibilité des ressources en eau à l’échelle locale. Les institutions locales (par exemple, les associations des usagers de l’eau) peuvent devenir un acteur incontournable pour la gouvernance de l’eau non seulement si elles réussissent à promouvoir dans leur organisation les principes de cohésion sociale, réciprocité, confiance, partage de l’information et responsabilité, mais aussi et avant tout, si d’autres importantes conditions externes interviennent telles la reconnaissance et le contrôle par les institutions publiques, l’inclusion dans des processus collectifs de prise de décision et de subsidiarité opérativ
Italian consumers’ income and food waste behavior
Full text linkPurpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide insights on the relationships between consumers’ income and household food waste behaviors. Design/methodology/approach – Attitude toward food waste is a paradigmatic (economic) non-standard decision making. Based on behavioral economics concepts and empirical evidences, the study analyzes the frequency of household food waste and its main drivers with a focus on individual income. Through a panel of 1,403 Italian consumers, food waste behavior and its determinants are modeled for five food typologies using proportional odds models that adopt stepwise procedures and genetic algorithms. Findings – Results suggest the existence of complex relationships between per capita income and household food waste behavior. When considering food typologies that include high value added products, this relation can be explained by an inverse U-shaped curve: mid-to-low income consumers purchase higher amounts of lower quality products and waste more food. Research limitations/implications – The research highlights the importance of understanding the main socio-economic and behavioral determinants of household food waste, and the need for further researches. Practical implications – The research motivates specific pricing, commercial and policy strategies as well as organizational technological, and educational solutions to prevent/reduce household food waste. Social implications – Lower income class consumers show a greater attitude to waste certain food typologies. In turn, this implies that food waste can further worse economic inequality and relative poverty. Originality/value – The study identifies different patterns of relationship among individual income and consumers’ food waste behavior, and describes the conditions that limit a household “Food Waste Kuznets Curve.
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
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