1,721,040 research outputs found

    Development of multiphase bioceramics from a filler-containing preceramic polymer

    No full text
    Multiphase bioceramics based on wollastonite and wollastonite/hydroxylapatite (W/HAp) have been successfully prepared by the heat treatment of a filler-containing preceramic polymer. CaO-bearing precursors (Ca-carbonate, Ca-acetate, and CaO nano-particles) were dispersed in a solution of silicone resin, subsequently dried and pyrolysed in nitrogen. The reaction between silica, deriving from the oxycarbide (SiOC) residue of the silicone resin, and CaO “active filler” led to the formation of several calcium silicates, mainly consisting of wollastonite (CaSiO3), in both low and high temperature forms. The phase assemblage of the final ceramic varied with the pyrolysis temperature (varying from 1000 to 1200 °C). HAp was additionally inserted, as “passive filler” (i.e. not reacting with SiOC), for the preparation of bioceramics based on W/HAp mixtures. The use of a filler-containing preceramic polymer to obtain bioceramics is favourable, besides for the simplicity of the procedure, for the possibility of achieving complex shapes. In fact, we demonstrated the possibility of fabricating an open-celled microcellular foam, prepared by mixing the filler-containing preceramic polymer with sacrificial PMMA microbeads. The proposed approach, due to the well-known bioactivity of wollastonite, W/HAp composites, and secondary calcium silicates, could be profitable for manufacturing various ceramic components for medical use

    Nuovi dati sulla produzione locale di lucerne in età repubblicana a Pompei: materiali dagli scavi I.E. (Impianto Elettrico) presso il foro

    No full text
    Tra il materiale rinvenuto durante i saggi effettuati nel 1980-81 presso il foro di Pompei è emerso un gruppo consistente di lucerne, che costituiscono lo 0,96% della totalità del materiale rinvenuto e circa il 3,5% della ceramica fine. Si tratta nello specifico di circa quattrocento esemplari, nella grande maggioranza dei casi frammentari, provenienti dai saggi e dalle trincee che seguivano la posa dei cavi elettrici nell’area occidentale del Foro. Nonostante alcuni limiti legati alla mancanza di parte di documentazione, limiti che sono già stati altrove espressi, si ritiene che l’edizione di questo materiale possa aprire interessanti spunti. Fra le motivazioni che portarono all’attuazione del progetto di recupero dei materiali ceramici I.E. 1980-81 vi erano infatti sia considerazioni di carattere storico e topografico, connesse alla rilevanza dell’area indagata e alla possibilità di recuperare dati importanti sulle fasi più antiche di frequentazione del centro sacro, politico e commerciale di Pompei, sia considerazioni determinate dalla grande potenzialità informativa dei reperti al fine di apportare nuovi dati per uno studio integrato di paesaggio urbano e contesto socio-economico e culturale. Il corpus del materiale ceramico è infatti significativo dal punto di vista quantitativo ed è assai vario dal punto di vista tipologico, morfologico, funzionale e cronologico, permettendo dunque di monitorare per un ampio arco temporale (dal VI a.C. all’eruzione pliniana) le dinamiche di circolazione del vasellame ceramico. In quest’ottica di studio, che nella fase interpretativa pone una particolare attenzione alle implicazioni socio-economiche, nell’identificazione delle varie produzioni ceramiche non ci si è limitati alla tradizionale, seppur sistematica, analisi macroscopica degli impasti ma si è congiuntamente avviato un progetto di caratterizzazione archeometrica degli impasti, e specialmente di quelli che non trovavano sicuri riscontri nell’edito e che risultavano potenzialmente di grande interesse al fine di apportare nuove informazioni allo studio di produzione e scambio in ambito vesuviano. A tale scopo sono state svolte analisi di caratterizzazione archeometrica su alcuni esemplari, per definire in modo quanto più preciso le aree di produzione di lucerne che per anni sono state ritenute genericamente “di produzione italica” e che oggi possiamo invece definire “di produzione vesuviana” se non addirittura, in taluni casi, “di produzione locale”. Proprio di produzione locale si occupa il presente contributo, volto a offrire una seppur breve visione del quadro emerso dallo studio di un gruppo di lucerne prodotte in loco durante l’età repubblicana

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

    Full text link
    The 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 link
    We 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 link
    We 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
    corecore