1,720,956 research outputs found
DECODING COASTAL PARADOX. The transdisciplinary approach as a research method for an ever-changing landscape
No full textOver the last hundred years, a complex plurality of natural and anthropogenic tensions has characterized the coastline, making it somehow a “landscape par excellence” (Bellmunt, 2007). What makes the coastal landscape emblematic is its extreme instability, due to the dynamic interaction between processes constantly changing in space and time, whose origin and impacts vary from the global to the local scale, in a cyclic continuum of cause-effect. In the Anthropocene, this instability has grown exponentially: oceanic, atmospheric and terrestrial transformations due to climate change are evolving with increasing speed, causing extremely intense and significantly visible effects on the coastal zone (Alterman and Pellach, 2020), further pressed by socio-economic and geopolitical processes.
It seems clear that such a complex and dynamic landscape cannot be studied, designed and managed through linear tools and static solutions, and that the strategies developed so far in the framework of Integrated Coastal Zone Management, although multidisciplinary, are not effective if disciplinary boundaries remain impermeable.
The coast needs a flexible, highly experimental, transdisciplinary approach, capable of addressing what may appear to be a paradox: decoding an ever-changing landscape, which is apparently unmeasurable as its physical extension.
Within an international reference framework, the proposed contribution brings together the analysis of projects and experiences operating at the intersection between art, environmental and social science, architecture, cultural activism and citizen science, with the experiences of action-research developed by the author in the port city of Genoa and on San Pietro Island in Sardinia (Italy), in order to outline the potential of the transdisciplinary approach as a strategic methodological tool in the development of new critical paradigms and design solutions to address the multifaceted challenges of coastal sustainability
From Landscape to Interior: a design studio experience in Monesteroli, Italy
No full textMonesteroli is a small semi-abandoned village situated on a cliff on the coast of Liguria, Italy. The challenges of the site cut across all project scales, from infrastructural (the village can only be reached on foot) to landscape (the steep terrain has been modelled over the centuries by human labour, which has carved out cultivable terraces) to interior design (there are several abandoned traditional stone houses). In addition, there are collateral themes such as tourism enhancement, strategic planning and economic management of the project. In the MSc of Architecture, Built Environment and Interiors of the Politecnico di Milan, we proposed a classroom organized as a unique research and innovation design unit, where the students faced the case study without simplifying the complexity of the problems. The adopted approach is that of 'Design by Research' (DbR). This formula inverts the traditional relation between the two terms, turning design into the purpose and research into the method. We acknowledge that particularly complex or urgent design issues cannot be simply solved by applying a set of predetermined strategies. On the contrary, they require a tactical form of investigation that can individuate the most effective and locally relevant solutions by means of innovation. Therefore, DbR also indicates a format that looks after real and actual design issues, by focusing on the renewal and hybridization of design processes, elements and imaginaries: in particular, the case study bring the attention on the possible ways of living the wilderness without domesticating it and conceiving architectural design for post human scenarios. The theoretical contributions included in the course provided several inputs ranging from the philosophical to the practical/technical field. The experience of the studio opens to a wider reflection about introducing multi-scale approach in the teaching practice and provide a successful example of managing complexity
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
Small matters: Explaining the city through a medieval wall
Full text linkIn the city of Kranj, Slovenia, three former medieval defence towers were redesigned as public spaces. The three interventions are positioned and discussed within the frame of small-scale interventions, specifically as urban acupuncture. First, small-scale interventions are looked at as an approach to designing open space, and parallels with landscape approach are presented. Second, the Three Towers project is discussed, focussing on the relationship it establishes between the city and its context. As the city is built on top of a conglomerate canyon, the interventions open up the slopes and offer distinct views of the surrounding landscape. In this way, they rediscover and emphasise the relationships between the existing contextual amenities and the city itself. The experience of the site grounds the visitor in a physical and historical context and thus fulfils the mental map one might create of Kranj. In this way, the three small interventions influence the perception of the whole city
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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