Insights into invasion and restoration ecology : time to collaborate towards a holistic approach to tackle biological invasions

The aim of our study is to provide an integrated framework for the management of alien plant invasions, combining insights and experiences from the fields of invasion and restoration ecology to enable more effective management of invasive species. To determine linkages between the scientific outputs of the two disciplines we used an existing data base on restoration studies between 2000 and 2008 and did a bibliometric analysis. We identified the type of restoration applied, determined by the aim of the study, and conducted a content analysis on 208 selected studies with a link to biological invasions (invasion-restoration studies). We found a total of 1075 articles on ecosystem restoration, with only eight percent of the studies having the main objective to control alien invasions. The content analysis of 208 invasion-restoration studies showed that the majority of the studies focused on causes of degradation other than alien invasions. If invaders were referred to as the main driver of degradation, the prevalent cause for degradation was invaders outcompeting and replacing native species. Mechanical control of alien plant invasions was by far the most common control method used. Measures that went beyond the removal of alien plants were implemented in sixty-five percent of the studies. Although invasion control was not as common as other types of restoration, a closer look at the sub-group of invasion-restoration studies shows a clear link between restoration and invasion ecology. Concerns, as identified in the literature review, are firstly that restoration activities mostly focus on controlling the invader while other underlying causes for degradation are neglected, and secondly that the current approach of dealing with alien invasions lacks a combination of theoretical and practical aspects. We suggest that closer collaboration between invasion and restoration ecologists can help to improve the management of alien plant invasions. We conclude with a framework and a case study from Perth Western Australia integrating the two disciplines, with the aim of informing restoration practice

The relationship between first language acquisition and dialect variation:Linking resources from distinct disciplines in a CLARIN-NL project

AbstractIt is remarkable that first language acquisition and historical dialectology should have remained strange bedfellows for so long considering the common assumption in historical linguistics that language change is due to the process of non-target transmission of linguistic features, forms and structures between generations, and thus between parents or adults and children. Both disciplines have remained isolated from each other due to, among other things, different research questions, methods of data-collection and types of empirical resources. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the common assumption in historical linguistics mentioned above can be examined with the help of Digital Humanities projects like CLARIN. CLARIN infrastructure makes it possible to carry out e-Humanities type research by combining datasets from distinct disciplines through tools for data processing. The outcome of the CLARIN-NL COAVA-project (acronym of: Cognition, Acquisition and Variation tool) allows researchers to access two datasets from two different sub disciplines simultaneously, namely Dutch first child language acquisition files located in Childes (MacWhinney, 2000) and historical Dutch Dialect Dictionaries through the development of a tool for easy exploration of nouns

A semiotic polyocular framework for multidisciplinary research in relation to multifunctional farming and rural development

The concept of multifunctional farming rises out of a problematization of the role of agriculture in society and, in particular, in relation to rural development. Hitherto multifunctional farming has primarily been used as a notion on the relationship between agriculture and society concerning the range of commodity and non-commodity goods that farms provide for society. But the agro-economic achievements together with societal development have led to a point where praxis is questioned and discourse potentially reopened. In an indirect way, the notion of multifunctionality reflects, that aspects not captured by the distinction between commodity and non-commodity need to be reintroduced. This paper offers a new framework (theoretical and methodical) suggesting a poly-ocular multidisciplinary approach and constructivist semiotic understanding of multifunctionality, which supports dialogue and interactions between the approaches, involved. Each research perspective has its own construction of the object of ‘farming’ and the ‘environment’ of farming; and thereby also its own perception of the functions and problems of farming. It therefore comes as no surprise that problems of communication are experienced between different perspectives, or that confusion on shared notions can cause frustrations and difficulties for multidisciplinary studies of multifunctionality. The present framework introduces a notion of multifunctionality, which enables the explicit handling of different perspectives by way of a distinction between the ‘immediate object’, as it appears to the observer, and the ‘dynamical object’, which represents the potentiality of the object in itself. From such semiotic point of view, the notion of multifunctionality becomes genuinely multidisciplinary. Multifunctionality cannot be reduced and included in one perspective, but has to be observed as a second order observation that involves reflexive communication between different perspectives and disciplines

A Typographic Dilemma: Reconciling the old with the new using a new cross-disciplinary typographic framework

Current theory and vocabulary used to describe typographic practice and scholarship are based on a historically print-derived framework. As yet, no new paradigm has emerged to address the divergent path that screen-based typography is taking from its traditional print medium. Screen-based typography is becoming as common and widely used as its print counterpart. It is now timely to re-evaluate current typographic references and practices under these environments, which introduces a new visual language and form. This paper will attempt to present an alternate typographic framework to address these growing changes by appropriating concepts and knowledge from different disciplines. This alternate typographic framework has been informed through a study conducted as part of a research Doctorate in the School of Design at Northumbria University, UK. This paper posits that the current typographic framework derived from the print medium is no longer sufficient to address the growing differences between the print and screen media. In its place, an alternate cross-disciplinary typographic framework should be adopted for the successful integration and application of typography in screen-based interactive media. The development of this framework will focus mainly on three key characteristics of screen-based interactive media ¬¬– hypertext, interactivity and time-based motion – and will draw influences from disciplines such as film, computer gaming, interactive digital arts and hypertext fictions

Reasons stated by commencing students for studying engineering and technology

Responses were collected from commencing engineering students and an inventory of reasons stated for electing to study engineering was developed. Commencing engineering students were strongly career oriented; they believed that engineering would be an interesting and rewarding career that would offer enjoyment and career options. No difference was found in the principal reasons stated by respondents based on gender or course of study. On-campus students nominated principally career-related reasons for their choice of study (71 percent). While career-related reasons were still important for off-campus students, the most frequent type of responses were related to career upgrading (43.9 percent).<br /

Interdisciplinarity and research on local issues: evidence from a developing country

This paper explores the relationship between interdisciplinarity and research pertaining to local issues. Using Colombian publications from 1991 until 2011 in the Web of Science, we investigate the relationship between the degree of interdisciplinarity and the local orientation of the articles. We find that a higher degree of interdisciplinarity in a publication is associated with a greater emphasis on Colombian issues. In particular, our results suggest that research that combines cognitively disparate disciplines, what we refer to as distal interdisciplinarity, tends to be associated with more local focus of research. We discuss the implications of these results in the context of policies aiming to foster the local socio-economic impact of research in developing countries.Comment: 24 page

A Systematic Identification and Analysis of Scientists on Twitter

Metrics derived from Twitter and other social media---often referred to as altmetrics---are increasingly used to estimate the broader social impacts of scholarship. Such efforts, however, may produce highly misleading results, as the entities that participate in conversations about science on these platforms are largely unknown. For instance, if altmetric activities are generated mainly by scientists, does it really capture broader social impacts of science? Here we present a systematic approach to identifying and analyzing scientists on Twitter. Our method can identify scientists across many disciplines, without relying on external bibliographic data, and be easily adapted to identify other stakeholder groups in science. We investigate the demographics, sharing behaviors, and interconnectivity of the identified scientists. We find that Twitter has been employed by scholars across the disciplinary spectrum, with an over-representation of social and computer and information scientists; under-representation of mathematical, physical, and life scientists; and a better representation of women compared to scholarly publishing. Analysis of the sharing of URLs reveals a distinct imprint of scholarly sites, yet only a small fraction of shared URLs are science-related. We find an assortative mixing with respect to disciplines in the networks between scientists, suggesting the maintenance of disciplinary walls in social media. Our work contributes to the literature both methodologically and conceptually---we provide new methods for disambiguating and identifying particular actors on social media and describing the behaviors of scientists, thus providing foundational information for the construction and use of indicators on the basis of social media metrics