1,721,227 research outputs found

    Water use of Coffea arabica in open versus shaded systems under smallholder's farm conditions in Eastern Uganda

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    Coffee cultivation is a major source of income in East Africa. Increasing temperatures and water scarcity related to climate change are becoming major challenges for coffee production. Therefore, there is an urgent need for sound scientific understanding of the functioning of current coffee cultivation systems and the potential of agroforestry as an adaptation strategy to climate change. In a smallholder coffee farm on Mt Elgon, Uganda, we assessed the effect of three coffee cultivation systems (i.e., Coffee-Open, Coffee-Banana and Coffee-Cordia) on (i) the coffee cultivation environment (e.g. microclimate and soil moisture), (ii) water consumption of coffee, (iii) water consumption of banana (Musa sp.) and Cordia africana and (iv) water competition or complementary use between coffee and shade tree species. To this end, we monitored sap flux density (Js) (g cm−2 hour-1) of coffee, banana and C. africana from March 2015 to April 2016, using Granier thermal dissipation method, along with microclimate, soil moisture and rainfall. Shaded systems reduced irradiance by 70% in Coffee-Cordia system and 58% in Coffee-Banana system compared to Coffee-Open system. Maximum temperatures and daily temperature amplitude were on average reduced by 4 °C in both shaded systems compared to Coffee-Open system. Soil water content (SWC) in shaded systems was reduced by 59% in Coffee-Cordia and 6% in Coffee-Banana compared to Coffee-Open. Daily water consumption of coffee plants was 1.2 ± 0.64 l d-1 and did not differ between systems. Water use of banana was 3.1 ± 1.8 l d-1 and 42 ± 40 l d-1 by C. africana. Coffee-Banana system had the largest daily transpiration rate, 0.9 ± 0.4 mm d-1 per ground area and 0.6 ± 0.4 mm d-1 per unit leaf area, followed by Coffee-Cordia with 0.37 ± 0.1 mm d-1 (per ground area), 0.36 ± 0.1 mm d-1 (per leaf area) and Coffee-Open 0.24 ± 0.1 mm d-1 (per ground area), 0.27 ± 0.1 mm d-1 (per leaf area). Our results showed that differences in microclimate and SWC between cultivation systems did not influence coffee water use during the monitored year. However, water competition between coffee and shade trees could likely occur in drier years, due to the reduced SWC presently observed in shaded systems. Further research is needed to explore the performance of management practices (mulching, pruning and thinning) in interaction with seasonal weather forecast and appropriate selection of shade species (provision of extra products, reduced water use, fast growth and root zone below 80 cm depth) to match the systems' water requirements with expected soil water availability

    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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    Effect of cropping system, shade cover and altitudinal gradient on coffee yield components at Mt. Elgon, Uganda

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    Coffee is a key export commodity of East Africa, but average smallholders' yields are low. To guide sustainable yield improvements of smallholders' coffee systems, we investigated coffee yield components in three different types of coffee cropping systems along an altitude gradient (1100−2100 m.a.s.l.) during two production years (2015 and 2016). We selected 810 coffee trees distributed over 27 farms and monitored number of stems per tree, fruit load per branch, productive nodes per branch (on four branches of one stem per tree) and number of productive branches per stem (on one stem per selected tree) in both years. Additionally, we monitored productive stems per ha, coffee tree density and cherry weight in combination with pest and disease occurrence and management information from interviews. Coffee farms were classified as Coffee-Open (CO) (30 %. Additionally, the same yield components correlated negatively with number of stems per tree. Fertilizer and fungicide use were related to more productive branches and cherry weight respectively, and stem borer was identified as the most important pest in this area. Our results suggest that yield in the region could be increased, i) by maintaining shade at an intermediate level, particularly at low and mid altitude and by reducing the number of stems per coffee tree (< 4), and ii) by improving soil fertility and protection against pest and disease

    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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