1,722,064 research outputs found
The comfort of horror and the ambiguities of youth: contemporary gothic fiction and young readers
No full textContemporary young readers have not just derived comfort from their consumption of gothic texts, they have offered generative responses that indicate huge diversity in both content and format in their interrogation of the gothic. These generative responses, ranging from persuasive writing containing complex argument structures; parodies and satiric play, among other responses, indicate young readers’ confidence and comfort critiquing gothic texts. This is in contrast to well-documented adult fears and moral panic, past and present, about gothic texts’ perceived negative influence on young readers, such as having difficulty differentiating fact from fiction, or being easily misled by gothic’s compelling narratives. Borrowing research from sociology and psychology, in addition to literary theories, and data from neurological studies, this thesis offers a systematic investigation on young readers consuming gothic texts which are targeted at them, as opposed to the implied young reader of the gothic, or gothic texts targeted at adults. Using a historical case study of young adult readers, this study also demonstrates that the phenomenon of young readers avidly and comfortably interrogating the gothic, with no signs of being confused, is in fact, not new. Instead, having identified and defined two separate genres of gothic texts – romance gothic focusing on romance with the monster; and horror gothic which has explicit violence, and grotesque and disgusting elements – this investigation presents original data from fieldwork conducted at two local schools of 23 students (age eleven to thirteen) reading and discussing Darren Shan’s horror gothic text, Lord Loss. Data on reader reception for romance gothic is from young adult readers (age 25 and below), who have comfortably and confidently posted their responses online based on Stephenie Meyer’s romance gothic Twilight series of books and films. Evidence indicates that contemporary young readers are carving out their own unique (albeit transient) conceptual space, in which they have derived great comfort and enjoyment in consuming gothic texts of romance gothic or horror gothic. By sharing their opinions online, and in discussion groups, these young readers are discovering their own voice in passionately embracing or gleefully vanquishing the monster in the comfort of consuming horror
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Genome sequencing and in silico characterisation of cladosporium sphaerospermum / Yew Su Mei
Get PDFDematiaceous fungi are a taxonomically diverse group of heterogeneous fungi that
are present in the environment. Although rare, many species in this group are known to
cause diseases in humans and animals. In this study, a collection of 75 fungal isolates
were recovered from various clinical specimens. They were identified through
morphology and molecular methods using the internal transcribed spacer (ITS)-based
phylogenetic analysis. The complementation of the molecular approach enables the
identification of 73 isolates at the species level. The most common species isolated were
Cladosporium, Cochliobolus, and Neoscytalidium. Also, 16 isolates from the seven
species identified have not been reported to cause human infections. Among the
Cladosporium species that were isolated, the species C. sphaerospermum was most
frequently isolated. This study was proceeded by whole genome analysis of the C.
sphaerospermum, using the strain UM 843 as a study model to explore genetic
information and its basic biology. C. sphaerospermum is a ubiquitous saprophytic
fungus that has been documented to cause allergy and other opportunistic diseases in
humans. Detail characterisation of this isolate has affirmed the identity of UM 843 and
its ability to survive in high salt medium (up to 20% NaCl). The genome of UM 843
was generated by combining 500-bp and 5-kb insert libraries, containing 9,652
predicted gene models in the 26.89 Mb genome. Functional annotation of the predicted
genes suggests this fungus has the capability to degrade carbohydrate and protein
complexes. The abundance of carbohydrate active enzymes (CAZymes) assists in the
degradation of hemicellulose and pectin, thus suggesting the precedence of this fungus
towards soft plant tissues. Putative genes encoding peptidases from family A01, S09,
and M36 that share similarity with Aspergillus peptidases responsible for lung tissue
hydrolysis were also identified. UM 843 was also found to carry 16 putative secondary
iv
metabolite backbone genes, three of these are predicted to be responsible for the
synthesis of melanin, siderophores, and cladosins. Besides siderophores, UM 843
contains gene encoding proteins that are involved in iron homeostasis via the reductive
iron assimilation (RIA) process. In response to salinity, UM 843 was identified to
encode 29 ion transporters and the synthesis of various compatible solutes. The analysis
of sexual reproduction suggests that UM 843 is a heterothallic fungus. The genome of
UM 843 revealed 28 putative genes associated with C. sphaerospermum allergy.
Orthologous gene analysis on UM 843 with 22 other Dothideomycetes showed 125
genes uniquely present in UM 843. Of these, four genes were predicted to encode class
1 hydrophobins which may be allergens specific to Cladosporium. Further analysis
showed that the mRNA of the four genes were detected by reverse transcriptionpolymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The genomic analysis of C. sphaerospermum UM
843, can significantly contribute to the knowledge of the biology and allergenicity of
this species which has not been studied previousl
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe 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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