1,720,987 research outputs found
Misura e mitigazione dell’impatto ambientale da traffico veicolare in galleria
No full textThe volumes of a road tunnel including the tunnel exits, affected by the plume effect were analysed by an original numerical simulation model named RO.P.A.DY.M. (ROad Pollution Analysis DYnamic Model). This model was developed by taking into account the fluid-dynamic effects of road-vehicle motion in order to carry out the map of atmospheric pollutant concentrations within the foregoing volumes in near-to-real conditions. With the use of an innovative CFM method (Control Function Method) an objective measure of the environmental impact of road traffic for the foregoing volumes was obtained. The introduction of air-cleaning active systems in the tunnel and at the exits was considered. With the application of the ROPADYM model pollutant concentration maps were produced for the volumes considered in the tunnel, taking into account the cleansing systems. In conclusion, a quantitative evaluation of the effects obtained from the application of these active systems was formulated. This evaluation is expressed for the reduction in both pollutant concentrations and environmental impact
Clarifying the smokescreen of Russian protected areas
Full text linkAlthough in strictly protected areas no forest management and logging activities should be evident, a preliminary study detected that, even in the 200 areas with the highest protection of Russia, more than 2 Mha of trees have been lost between 2001 and 2018. Nonetheless, a relevant percentage of the actual drivers of tree loss in Russian strictly protected areas was surrounded by uncertainties due to several factors. Here, in an attempt to “clarify the smokescreen of Russian protected areas”, by validating previous remotely sensed data with new high-resolution satellite imagery and aerial images of land-use change, we shed more light on what has happened during the last 20 years. We used the same layer of tree loss from 2001 to 2020 but, instead of intersecting it with the MODIS data that could have been a source of underestimation of burned surfaces, we overlapped it to the layer of tree cover loss by dominant driver. We analysed the main drivers of tree loss in almost 200 strictly protected areas of Russia. We found that although fire is responsible for 75% of the loss in all strictly protected areas, forestry activities still account for 16%, and 9% is due to undefined causes. Therefore, uncontrolled wildfires (including those started before or after logging) and forestry activities are the main causes of 91% of the total tree loss. The combination of wildfires (often started intentionally) and forestry activities (illegally or barely legally put in place) caused a loss of an astonishing 3 million hectares. The fact that ≈10% of Russian tree cover was lost in two decades since 2001 only in strictly protected areas requires high attention by policymakers and important conservation actions to avoid losing other fundamental habitats and species during the next years when climate change and population growth can represent an additional trigger of an already dramatic situation. We call for an urgent response by national and local authorities that should start actively fighting wildfires, arsonists, and loggers even in inhabited remote areas and particularly in those included in strictly protected areas
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
Probabilistic modelling of a rotational energy harvester
No full textRelatively recently, many researchers in the field of energy harvesting have focused on the concept of harvesting electrical energy from relatively large-amplitude, low-frequency vibrations (such as the movement caused by walking motion or ocean waves). This has led to the development of ‘rotational energy harvesters’ which, through the use of a rackand-pinion or a ball-screw, are able to convert low-frequency translational motion into high-frequency rotational motion. A disadvantage of many rotational energy harvesters is that, as a result of friction effects in the motion transfer mechanism, they can exhibit large parasitic losses. This results in nonlinear behaviour, which can be difficult to predict using physical-law-based models. In the current article a rotational energy harvester is built and, through using experimental data in combination with a Bayesian approach to system identification, is modelled in a probabilistic manner. It is then shown that the model can be used to make predictions which are both accurate and robust against modelling uncertainties
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