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    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

    Life cycle assessment of wood-energy supply chains in mediterranean forests

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    This paper tackles the issue of using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology as a decision making tool for the sustainable design of wood-energy supply chains in the Mediterranean area. This work is based on linking forest protection, its sustainable use to meet the local energy demand, efficiency and economic/environmental sustainability of plants. This study integrated the LCA and sustainable design of supply chains, by applying it to a public forest located in Southern Italy. Environmental impacts were estimated for each phase of the supply chain, to identify the most critical processes to be improved for an increased sustainability. The LCA allowed identifying the most impactful phases, as well as recognizing the most relevant environmental impact categories, by performing also an uncertainty analysis on the results. It emerged that the wood chipping is the most impactful phase of the designed supply chain, and the Climate Change is the most impactful environmental impact category on the Areas of Protection (AoP). This scenario is more sustainable than a similar one based on fossil fuels

    The Arborea plain (Sardinia - Italy) nitrate pollution evaluation

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    In this paper three different methods have been described and applied to evaluate the nitrate contamination from agricultural practices in a study area located in the Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ) of the Arborea plain (Sardinia - Italy). Potential risk of contamination and concentration of nitrate pollution in groundwater has been estimated by using respectively Parametric and both Numerical and Artificial Neural Networks methods. Parametric methods consider the combination of intrinsic aquifer vulnerability to contamination index (SINTACS) and agricultural nitrates hazard index (IPNOA). The transport numerical model is based on flow model, obtained with Three Dimensional Finite Difference Groundwater Flow Model (MODFLOW), and it is made applying 3D Multi Species Transport Model (MT3D). Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are used for the estimation of the nitrate concentration in monitoring well

    Comprensione del testo scritto e orale in seconda elementare: il contributo del vocabolario e della memoria di lavoro verbale

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    The aim of the current study is twofold : a) to analyse the relationship between listening and reading text comprehension ; b) to identify the relations between text comprehension and other linguistic and non-linguistic abilities, in particular verbal ability, assessed through the Vocabulary task of the WISC-R scale, and verbal working memory, assessed through direct and reverse word span tasks. The hypothesis is that listening and reading text comprehension are related in second grade children and they have the same relationship with verbal ability and verbal working memory. The study was conducted on second grade Italian children aged between 7 ;3 and 8 ;9 years. The results show a strong relation between listening and reading text comprehension, and between these and verbal ability. These correlations are coherent with existing results in literature (Cain, Oakhill 2006). No correlation was found between text comprehension, both listening and reading, and verbal working memory. This result is discussed in the light of the memory tasks employed
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