Open Research Repository

Recent Submissions

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    Impact factions : assessing the citation impact of different types of open access repositories
    (2022-08) Wheeler, Jonathan; Pham, Ngoc Minh; Arlitsch, Kenning; Shanks, Justin D.; Department of Public Policy
    Institutional repositories (IR) maintained by research libraries play a central role in providing open access to taxpayer-funded research products. It is difficult to measure the extent to which IR contribute to new scholarship because publisher self-archiving policies typically require researchers to cite the “version of record” of a manuscript even when an IR copy is accessed to conduct the research. While some studies report an open access (OA) citation advantage resulting from the availability of self-archived or “green” OA manuscripts, few have sought to measure an OA citation effect of IR separately from disciplinary repositories, including arXiv and PubMed Central. In this study, the authors present a bibliometric analysis examining correlations between search engine performance of items in IR, OA availability from different types of repositories, and citations. The analysis uses a novel, open dataset of IR access and usage derived from five months of Google search engine results pages (SERP) data, which were aggregated by the Repository Analytics and Metrics Portal (RAMP) web service. Findings indicate that making OA copies of manuscripts available in self-archiving or “green” repositories results in a positive citation effect, although the disciplinary repositories within the sample significantly outperform the other types of OA services analyzed. Also evident is an increase in citations when a single manuscript is available in multiple OA sources.
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    Quasi nani super humeros gigantum? Reusing Classical and Medieval Quotations in the Hagiographic Discourse in Tenth-Century Liège
    (2021-12-24) Vilfan, Sibil Gruntar; Gaşpar, Cristian Nicolae; Department of Medieval Studies
    The paper offers a detailed investigation of select passages from the Vita II Sancti Remacli, a hagiographic text produced in the diocese of Liège in the last decades of the tenth century. The purpose of this investigation is threefold. First, to illustrate the point that the tenth--century Latin hagiographic texts produced in the diocese of Liège did not display quotations from classical and patristic authors only as petrified forms of frozen ancient wisdom with a merely decorative function, but rather as raw gems which were polished and adjusted to fit seamlessly into a new framework. Thus, they could enhance both the form and contents of texts closely connected to their age’s political and intellectual realities. Second, to show that nineteenth-and twentieth-century editions of such texts can act as distorting mirrors to modern readers and researchers, since, due to an editorial strategy that privileged classical material over its medieval context, the editors sometimes completely neglected how quotations from ancient authors were re-worked by the tenth-century hagiographer following the stylistic requirements of rhymed prose. Third, to suggest as a necessary corrective to this distorting approach a new way of reading and consequently editing these types of texts, which places classical and patristic quotations in their proper context, by paying due attention to manuscript evidence, to the stylistic requirements of their new context, and to the complex functions they play in their new textual environment.
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    Darwinian 'blind' hypothesis formation revisited
    (2010) Kronfeldner, Maria E.
    Over the last four decades arguments for and against the claim that creative hypothesis formation is based on Darwinian 'blind' variation have been put forward. This paper offers a new and systematic route through this long-lasting debate. It distinguishes between undirected, random, and unjustified variation, to prevent widespread confusions regarding the meaning of undirected variation. These misunderstandings concern Lamarckism, equiprobability, developmental constraints, and creative hypothesis formation. The paper then introduces and develops the standard critique that creative hypothesis formation is guided rather than blind, integrating developments from contemporary research on creativity. On that basis, I discuss three compatibility arguments that have been used to answer the critique. These arguments do not deny guided variation but insist that an important analogy exists nonetheless. These compatibility arguments all fail, even though they do so for different reasons: trivialisation, conceptual confusion, and lack of evidence respectively. Revisiting the debate in this manner not only allows us to see where exactly a 'Darwinian' account of creative hypothesis formation goes wrong, but also to see that the debate is not about factual issues, but about the interpretation of these factual issues in Darwinian terms.
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    Recent work on human nature : Beyond traditional essences
    (2014) Kronfeldner, Maria; Roughley, Neil; Toepfer, Georg
    Recent philosophical work on the concept of human nature disagrees on how to respond to the Darwinian challenge, according to which biological species do not have traditional essences. Three broad kinds of reactions can be distinguished: (1) conservative intrinsic essentialism, which defends essences in the traditional sense, (2) eliminativism, which suggests dropping the concept of human nature altogether, and (3) constructive approaches, which argue that revisions can generate sensible concepts of human nature beyond traditional essences. The different constructive approaches pick out one or two of the three epistemic roles that are fused in traditional essentialist conceptions of human nature: Descriptive (descriptivism), explanatory (explanativism), definitional (taxonomic relationalism), or explanatory and definitional (property cluster essentialism). These turns towards diverging epistemic roles are best interpreted pluralistically: There is a plurality of concepts of human nature that have to be clearly distinguished, each with a legitimate role in respective scientific contexts.
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    External border control techniques in the EU as a challenge to the principle of non-refoulement
    (2021-09-20) Lang, Iris Goldner; Nagy, Boldizsár; Department of International Relations
    Principle of non-refoulement protected by EU law – National practices – Deterrence – Pushbacks – Border police deterrence – Reaction of EU institutions – Legal uncertainties – ‘Safe country of origin’ – ‘First country of asylum’ – ‘Safe third country’ – EU values – New Pact on Migration and Asylum

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