1,721,398 research outputs found
Transgenic crops, production risk and agrobiodiversity
No full textDo transgenic crops cause agrobiodiversity erosion?We hypothesise that they increaseproductivity and reduce production risk and may therefore reduce farmers’ demand foron-farm varietal diversity, especially when only a few transgenic varieties are available.We also hypothesise that varietal diversity can be preserved when more transgenic varietiesare supplied. These hypotheses are tested and confirmed with panel data for thecase of transgenic cotton in India. Cotton varietal diversity in India, with over 90 percent adoption of transgenic technology, is now at the same level than it was beforethe introduction of this technology. Some policy implications are discussed
The Roman perspective on GMO
No full textThis paper studies the confusion surrounding GMOs among representative samples of consumers
in the area of Rome, analyses the degree of confusion of consumers, their characteristics, gender
differences and willingness to accept (WTA) GMOs despite confusion, using a semi-doublebounded
logistic regression model, and highlights possible sources of confusion for consumers.
By analyzing outcomes of a stratified two-stage survey designed to interview consumers in the
Area of Rome, conducted between April and May 2010 in local markets and big supermarket
chains we are able to undercover what most influences a consumer when he chooses between
GM and non GM Food products. In testing consumers' knowledge we discovered that they tend
to confound GM products with non GM products, treated with pesticides and chemicals, and
can't actually say which GM products are currently on sale on the market
Italian agriculture in the context of climate change: The role of irrigation for sustainable development of rural areas
No full textThe work starts from the analysis of the objectives of the new Common Agricultural Policy which provides a tight integration between the agricultural and the climate-environmental components and that identifies a proper and efficient management of water for irrigation as an important instrument for the protection of this resource and, at the same time, for the development of primary sector. After the evaluation of the importance of irrigation investments for the competitiveness of Italian agriculture, the report contains an overview of the impacts of climate change in agriculture and of the economic models to estimate such impact; than it reports an econometric analysis to estimate the role of irrigation for Italian agriculture. Data used came from the database FADN. They refer to observations at farms level for the period 1990-2010. The main results of the econometric analysis are that irrigation of fruit and vegetable crops is particularly relevant to the northeast of the country (with an increase in income estimated in the order of 14%), and, the relevance of the irrigation of arable crops is related to the whole country (even if the most important impact has been observed for the south of Italy and the islands where we observed an increase in income of about 12%). In the second part the paper analyzes irrigation management in the different river basin districts. The analysis, made by OTE, shows a different degree of efficiency of irrigation in relation to the main characteristics of crops areas: in the Padano district and in the district of Alpi Orientali, with reference to cereals and fruit, irrigation management seems to be characterized by a lower level of efficiency; same situation is presented in the district of Sicily with refers to the cultivation of cereals. A higher degree of efficiency and virtuous behaviors emerge with refer- ence to horticulture, floriculture and fruit in the districts Appenino Meridionale and Appennino e Settentrionale
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
Variations 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
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