1,720,955 research outputs found
Validation and Evaluation of an Alternative Sampling Technique for Corticosterone Measurements in Feathers
No full textZiel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es, eine alternative und schmerzfreie Federprobenentnahmemethode zu validieren. Zukünftig können die Federn, die zur späteren CORTf-Analyse gesammelt werden, bei lebenden Vögeln nahe der Haut abgeschnitten werden, anstatt sie zu rupfen. Hintergrund dieser Studie bildet die wissenschaftlich tierbasierte Untersuchung des Wohlbefindens von in Menschenobhut gehaltenen Vögeln mit unterschiedlichem Flugstatus. Das Studiendesign wird diesbezüglich durch eine Kombination aus der Messung und Interpretation von CORTf und Verhaltensbeobachtungen aufgebaut.
Der bisherige Standard der Probenentnahme zur CORTf-Bestimmung stellt das Federrupfen dar, das in Deutschland und anderen europäischen Ländern als Tierversuch eingestuft wird. Diese Arbeit handelt im Sinne des Tierschutzes, um die Belastung der Tiere zu vermindern, die Verfahren zu verfeinern und letztlich die Anzahl der Tierversuche zu reduzieren. Zur Bestätigung der Hypothese, dass die Entnahmemethode selbst keinen relevanten Einfluss auf gemessene CORTf-Spiegel hat, wurden von jedem zu untersuchenden Vogel sowohl gerupfte als auch geschnittene Federn gesammelt. Insgesamt sind zwei Vogelarten aus einer konventionellen Freilandhaltung, die beide die gleichen Lebensbedingungen hatten, und zwei Wildvogelarten aus unterschiedlichen Lebensräumen untersucht worden. Erstere Gruppe bildeten die Hausgänse (Anser anser domseticus) und die Mularden-Enten (Anas sterilis bzw. Cairina moschata domestica x Anas platyrhynchos domesticus), ein Hybrid aus der Moschusente (Cairina moschata domestica) und der Pekingente (Anas platyrhynchos domesticus). Die zweite Gruppe wurden durch eine Population von Großen Flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus) aus Spanien und Stockenten (Anas platyrhynchos) aus Deutschland verkörpert.
Die CORTf-Werte wurden mithilfe eines ELISA gemessen. Die ermittelten Werte wurden in ihren Mittelwert, ihrer Standardabweichung und ihren durchschnittlichen Unterschieden verglichen. Anschließend wurden die CORTf-Werte je nach Probeentnahmeverfahren mit dem Konkordanz-Korrelationskoeffizienten (CCC) analysiert. Eine Gegenüberstellung der Unterschiede der beiden Methoden mit den jeweiligen Mittelwerten fand mit der Erstellung des Bland-Altmann-Plots statt. Das Geschlecht als möglicher Einflussfaktor auf CORTf wurde mit dem Mann-Whitney U Test bei den Großen Flamingos und Stockenten untersucht. Der CCC-Wert zeigte keine gute Übereinstimmung, wohingegen seine Grafik, der Pearsons Korrelationskoeffizient und der Bland-Altmann-Plot eindeutig waren. Die durchschnittlichen Unterschiede zwischen den Methoden waren für alle vier Arten marginal. Zusammenfassend lässt sich sagen, dass jegliche Abweichungen oder Unterschiede zwischen den beiden Entnahmetechniken vernachlässigbar waren. Daher erscheint die alternative, weniger invasive Federprobenentnahmemethode ebenso geeignet zu sein wie die bisherige Standardmethode. Ein signifikanter Unterschied zwischen weiblichen und männlichen Tieren konnte nicht festgestellt werden. Dennoch verdeutlichen die Ergebnisse, dass eine alleinige Interpretation der CORTf-Werte nicht sinnvoll ist, sondern diese in Zusammenhang mit anderen Parametern, wie biologischen Daten und Verhaltensbeobachtungen, analysiert werden sollten. Es sind weitere Studien empfohlen, um eine größere Basis an Daten zu erschaffen.The aim of this work is to validate an alternative, non-painful and therefore less-invasive feather sampling method. In the future, feathers collected for subsequent CORTf analysis can be cut near the skin of living birds instead of plucking them. The background of this study is a science and animal based investigation on the welfare of birds under human care with different flight status. In this regard, the study design is built by a combination of measurement and interpretation of CORTf and behavioral observations.
The previous standard sampling method for CORTf measurements is feather plucking, which is considered as an animal experiment in Germany and other European countries. This work acts in the sense of animal welfare to reduce the number of animal experiments and refinement of procedures. To confirm the hypothesis that the sampling method itself has no effect on measured CORTf levels, both plucked and cut feathers were collected from each bird being examined. A total of two bird species from a conventional free-range poultry farming, which had the same living conditions, and two wild bird species from different habitats were studied. The former group consisted of domestic geese (Anser anser domseticus) and Muscovy ducks (Anas sterilis or Cairina moschata domestica x Anas platyrhynchos domesticus), a hybrid of Muscovy duck (Cairina moschata domestica) and Peking duck (Anas platyrhynchos domesticus). The second group were represented by a population of Greater Flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus) from Spain and Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) from Germany.
CORTf levels were measured using an ELISA. The values obtained have been compared for their mean, standard deviation, and average differences. Subsequently, the CORTf values were analyzed with the concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) depending on their sampling method. A comparison of the differences of the two methods with their respective mean values took place with the creation of the Bland-Altmann plot. Sex as a possible influencing factor to CORTf was examined using the Mann-Whitney U test in Greater Flamingos and Mallards. The CCC value did not show good agreement, whereas its graph, the Pearson's correlation coefficient, and the Bland-Altmann plot were acceptable. The average differences between the methods were marginal for all four species. In summary, any deviations, or differences between the two sampling techniques were negligible. Therefore, the alternative, less invasive sampling method appears to be as suitable as the previous standard method. No significant difference between females and males was found. Nevertheless, the results illustrate that a single interpretation of CORTf values is not useful, they should rather be analyzed in combination with other parameters, such as biological data and behavioral observations. Therefore, further studies are recommended to create a larger pool of data
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Get PDF“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
Get PDFWe 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
Get PDFWe 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
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
Author Under Sail The Imagination of Jack London, 1893-1902
No full textIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Spirit Truth -- 2. From Absorption to Theatricality and Back Again -- 3. "I Will Build a New Present" -- 4. Sons as Authors -- 5. Fathers as Publishers -- 6. The Daughter as Author -- 7. Lovers as Authors -- 8. At Sea with the Family -- 9. Yellow News, Yellow Stories -- 10. The Return Home -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About Jay WilliamsIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, YYYY. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries
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