1,721,013 research outputs found
Crime scene and body alterations caused by arthropods: implications in death investigation
No full textThe activity of arthropods on corpses has been largely investigated, since they can produce information to reconstruct the peri-mortem events. However, the feeding/movement activity of insects around the crime scene, among the clothes and on the body, can also cause some alterations that can lead to wrong reconstruction and misinterpretations. This article summarises all the post-mortem arthropods artefacts related to the scene (i.e. fly artefacts and floor stripes) and the body (i.e. skin and other soft tissue alterations, bone alterations and hair alterations) that can mislead the forensic pathologist, discussing macroscopic and microscopic findings derived from forensic casework and from experimental laboratory studies, in order to provide a useful instrument to avoid misinterpretations and evaluation errors. Finally, some procedural notes for the documentation and the interpretation of findings are proposed
Laser scanning-based recognition of rotational movements on a deep seated gravitational instability: The Cinque Torri case (North-Eastern Italian Alps)
No full textThe Cinque Torri group (Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy) is an articulated system of unstable carbonatic rock monoliths located in a very important tourism area and therefore characterized by a significant risk. The instability phenomena involved represent an example of lateral spreading developed over a larger deep seated gravitational slope deformation (DSGSD) area. After the recent fall of a monolith of more than 10000m3, a scientific study was initiated to monitor the more unstable sectors and to characterize the past movements as a fundamental tool for predicting future movements and hazard assessment. To achieve greater insight on the ongoing lateral spreading process, a method for a quantitative analysis of rotational movements associated with the lateral spreading has been developed, applied and validated. The method is based on: i) detailed geometrical characterization of the area by means of laser scanner techniques; ii) recognition of the discontinuity sets and definition of a reference frame for each set, iii) correlation between the obtained reference frames related to a specific sector and a stable external reference frame, and iv) determination of the 3D rotations in terms of Euler angles to describe the present settlement of the Cinque Torri system with respect to the surrounding stable areas. In this way, significant information on the processes involved in the fragmentation and spreading of a former dolomitic plateau into different rock cliffs has been gained. The method is suitable to be applied to similar case studies. © 2010 Elsevier B.V
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
FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT BETWEEN POLITICAL BALANCES AND MANAGERIAL NEEDS: STATING NEW RULES IN AN ITALIAN REGION
No full textThe paper examines the case of Friuli Venezia Giulia, an Italian Region which recently stated new rules for its financial management. The Italian Constitution regulates competencies and powers of Regions. Financial management is autonomously regulated by the local Authorities, with the only constrain of the respect of constitutional principles. Cash accounting is actually used by all Italian Local Governments and line item budgeting is the most common practice: accrual accounting is used in some cases as an additional source of information.
In this context, the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region has initiated a process of deep renovation of the financial management. The need for a new law on accounting methods and procedures in the institution arose from two main factors:
(a) managerial needs: the new administrators have put big efforts in the introduction of a long term strategic plan for the development of the Region. The new plan was introduced in the light of a SWOT analysis commissioned to a consulting company, but the accounting rules were not adequate to support it. Neither administrators nor citizens had the possibility to control the congruence between the short term line item budget and the new strategies. The lines of the budget simply didn’t fit the strategic plan: important information, like the total amount of resources aimed at financing innovation, was not available. Moreover, efficiency measures and cost control were almost unknown concepts.
(b) a diffused awareness that the existing rules were altering the balance between the roles of policy makers and managers: elected officials used to take short term choices on the destination of public funds, trying to satisfy local needs of each ones’ constituency instead of focusing on long term policies for the development of the whole region. The consequences were a fragmented political activity and a bureaucratic approach of managers in their work. The decisional power of managers was in fact very small: their attention was focused more on the lawfulness of choices and procedures instead of on the outcome of policies.
This case study represents an opportunity to investigate the relationships between accounting and politics, as well as between budget and strategic plans in Public Administration, and between the role and responsibility of elected officials and managers
Erratum to "Laser scanning-based recognition of rotational movements on a deep seated gravitational instability: The Cinque Torri case (North-Eastern Italian Alps)" [Geomorphology 122 (2010) 191-204]
No full textVariations 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
- …
