1,720,970 research outputs found

    Eliciting expert judgement for the probability of AUV loss in contrasting operational environments

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    Each time an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) is used in the sea there is a non-zero probability of loss. Quantifying probability of loss is not an exact science; therefore much depends on the fault history of the vehicle, the operational environment and the complex relationships between the consequences of faults or incidents and the environment. While this problem may be stated in scientific terms, in practice, there is no solution through scientific means alone. This is an example of ‘trans-science’. We suggest that an approach based on the formal process of eliciting expert judgement may be an effective means of approaching this problem, as the process has been used successfully for other trans-scientific questions. The paper provides an introduction to the process of eliciting expert judgement, outlines four exemplar environments: coastal, open water, under sea ice and under shelf ice, and gives a worked example of one expert’s judgement on the probability of loss in the four environments arising from a real fault with the Autosub1 AUV. Using the fault history of the Autosub3 AUV, included in the Annex, we ask experts from among UUST attendees (and others) to take part in this expert judgement elicitation. Based on the results of this elicitation we aim to publish a paper in the peer-reviewed literature

    Multi-month sedimentological characterization of the backshore of an artificial coarse-clastic beach in Italy

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    In this paper, a sedimentologic characterization of an artificial coarse-clastic beach at Marina di Pisa (Tuscany, Italy) is carried out within a 5 month timespan (October 2018–February 2019). The beach was built in 2007 as a form of coastal protection due to severe erosion processes occurred along this sector of the coast in the past 150 years. The grain-size characterization was performed using pyDGS, a digital grain-size analysis software developed by Buscombe (2013). It is an open-source Python framework that uses a continuous wavelet transform method to calculate grain-size parameters (e.g., mean grain size, sorting) from images. By matching grain-size data with the topographic evolution of the beach provided by DGPS surveys of the backshore, we pointed out a seaward shift of coarser pebbles after medium-energy events (max significant wave height about 3 m). This trend suggests that wave reflection processes onto the seawall are generated during those events, producing a significant cross-shore transport of pebbles along the backshore. Such reflection processes had already been reported in the scientific literature during higher energy wave states though, which means that the artificial beach had decreased the protection level over time. These observations might be useful for coastal managers to optimize future coarse-clastic beach fill interventions. Digital grain-size analysis proved to be reliable and less time-consuming compared to traditional techniques, such as dry-sieving grain-size analysis and caliper measurements. Further improvements are still required specially to extend the survey in the underwater environment. Graphic abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    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

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    “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

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    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

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    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

    Author Index

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    koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist

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    We 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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