1,720,978 research outputs found
Soil fertilisation contributes to mitigating forest fire hazard associated with Cistus monspeliensis L. (rock rose) shrublands
No full textCistus monspeliensis shrublands are strongly exposed to fire hazard and are rapidly expanding on oligotrophic soils as a consequence of the abandonment of silvopastoral activities. We hypothesised that nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) fertilisation could contribute to reduce Cistus cover and biomass and to direct the regeneration of the vegetation from seed bank after fire to grasslands able to prevent recurrent wildfires. Two experiments were performed to evaluate the effects of NP fertilisation on plant assemblage composition, diversity, grazing value, dry matter production and Cistus shrubland regeneration in (i) established shrublands, or (ii) recovering vegetation in burned areas. In the shrublands, NP fertilisation negatively affected Cistus cover, regeneration and biomass and significantly improved grazing value without significant effect on plant diversity. In burned areas, NP fertilisation significantly suppressed C. monspeliensis seedlings, increased the grazing value during the first 3 years since the last fire while it significantly reduced plant diversity. The increased grazing value following fertilisation in both burned and unburned areas is high enough to support silvopastoral activities. Soil fertilisation can be a key tool to support the conversion of shrublands in oligotrophic soils into productive grasslands, particularly when surrounding forests and urbanised areas, to reduce wildfire hazards through pastoral activities. Journal compilatio
Out of season sheep milk production in Sardinia
Full text linkSheep breeding in Sardinia is based on two lambing seasons: in autumn for adult and in late winter for primiparous ewes. The milk production is concentrated within the winter-spring period, determining a break in the cheese factories’ activities from the middle summer to the middle autumn. In order to have a continuous milk production over all the year an out-of-season sheep farming model was tested in Sardinian irrigated lowland. 52 Sarda dairy ewes, 20% of which primiparous, were mated in October with a lambing season in March. The experimental flock grazed rotationally a forage model based on 66% of irrigated surface. Flock fertility and prolificacy resulted 100% and 1.58, respectively. During the suckling period the average lamb growth rate was 255 + 0.08 g head d-1. The average milk yield resulted 279 l head-1in 180 milking days (290 and 258 l head-1for adult and primiparous ewes, respectively). Average milk fat and protein contents were 5.8% and 4.7% respectively. The study suggested that it is possible to integrate an out of season milk production with the traditional breeding system in Sardinian irrigated lowlands
Grazing cows in a forest restoration area in Sardinia: 25 years of experimental data
No full textGrazing in forested areas is very common in Sardinia as in most Mediterranean countries although it is frequently considered a non-sustainable practice, particularly in damaged areas. The paper presents data from an experimental trial set up in central Sardinia after a wildfire that damaged and partially destroyed existing mixed oak stands. In an area of circa 80 ha, 900 m a.s.l., 4 parcels have been fenced leaving 2 central stripes as no-grazing, control parcels. Since 1978 a herd of Sarda breed cows has been grazing in these parcels under experimentally controlled conditions. Grazing intensity was intentionally set at relatively low levels, between 0.5 and 0.9 cows per hectare. Grazing productivity, in biological as well as economic terms, is easily evidenced in available records. Scope of the trial is to study if, and eventually how much, did the forest suffer due to grazing. Permanent forestry plots have been set in 1988 and remesured in 2002, to evaluate forests evolution. Analysing existing aerial photos and mensurational data, forest expansion and growth is quantitatively evaluated. After 25 years of constant grazing it is quite evident that the cows did not prevent forest natural restoration
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
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