1,720,992 research outputs found
Dalla culla alla sella: un’analisi delle dimensioni d’attaccamento nelle relazioni con gli animali
Full text linkA considerable part of the literature has investigated the nature of the bonds that individuals establish with nonhuman beings. Several studies have evaluated the benefits that women and men seem to derive from interactions with different animal species, highlighting how this can contribute to increasing their quality of life. However, the processes underlying this effect are still not fully understood. Some authors have suggested that a more in-depth study of the human-animal relationship, using the “Attachment Theory” as a lens through which to observe its specific peculiarities, could provide useful insights to fill this gap.
Therefore, this thesis was motivated by the desire to explore the mechanisms behind the establishment of this particular bond, highlighting the similarities and differences with respect to the meaningful relationships we usually establish with other individuals.
In the first chapter, the key concepts of "Attachment Theory" are recalled, in order to delineate the boundaries of the theoretical framework through which it was chosen to explore the nature of human-animal bonds.
In the second chapter, a systematic literature review and meta-analytic study are presented, in which evidence from previous research comparing the quality of interpersonal attachment bonds with the quality of bonds with animals was collected. Specifically, the purpose of the study was to assess levels of anxiety and avoidance in interpersonal and animal bonds, with the aim of measuring their associations and differences. This work complies with the PRISMA guidelines and was pre-registered on PROSPERO. The literature search was conducted by consulting the PubMed, PsychInfo and PsycArticles databases using the following combined keywords: attachment or attachment theory and pets or animals and a human-animal relationship. Six manuscripts met the inclusion criteria for the systematic review, and four for the meta-analysis. The results of the systematic review showed that between the two relational domains (interpersonal and with animals), there was a clear positive association for the anxiety dimension and a more marginal positive association for the avoidance dimension. In addition, the results of the meta-analyses showed that the levels of anxiety and avoidance in animal bonds were lower than those in interpersonal bonds. These results are discussed and interpreted in light of the current knowledge on the topic, highlighting the strengths, limitations, and repercussions they might have in the clinical and applicative spheres.
In the third chapter, an empirical cross-sectional study was conducted to investigate the dimensions of insecure attachment (anxiety and avoidance) in the relational domain of bonding with the horse and compared with those in the interpersonal relational domains (bonds with family, friends, and romantic partners). This work is among the first to relate the nature of the bond established between horses and riders to other significant interpersonal bonds, assessing their quality in terms of anxiety and avoidance. In this regard, 403 horse riders (375 women and 28 men) voluntarily participated in the study. To measure and compare anxiety and avoidance levels in the four relational domains, four version of the Adult Attachment Questionnaire (AAQ) were administered through an online survey, each corresponding to a specific relational domain (family, friendship, partner and horse).
By conducting a confirmatory analysis (CFA), the associations of the horse bonding domain and the other interpersonal domains with the latent factors corresponding to the anxiety and avoidance dimensions were explored. In addition, dependent samples t-tests were conducted to assess the differences of the interpersonal relationship domains with the horse bonding domain. The CFA conducted showed that the horse bonding domain was positively associated with the latent factor of anxiety in a similar degree to the other interpersonal domains. With regard to the avoidance dimension, the association between the horse bonding domain and the latent factor was less consistent than for the interpersonal domains. Furthermore, lower levels of anxiety but particularly of avoidance were found in the horse relationship than in the interpersonal domains. The results that emerged in this preliminary study were discussed considering the peculiarities that characterise the way in which the horse and rider interact and underlining the important differences that exist with other significant relationships. These present findings suggest that the hyperactivation strategies that underpin the anxiety dimension could also be applied to the relationship with the horse, as opposed to avoidant strategies that seem to be adopted to a lesser extent
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
Phosphatidylethanolamine N-methyltransferase 2 and CTP-phosphocholine cytidylyltransferase expressions are related with protein kinase C isozymes in developmental liver growth
No full text
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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