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Optimising Emotions, Incubating Falsehoods: How to Protect the Global Civic Body from Disinformation and Misinformation
Get PDFThis open access book deconstructs the core features of online misinformation and disinformation. It finds that the optimisation of emotions for commercial and political gain is a primary cause of false information online. The chapters distil societal harms, evaluate solutions, and consider what must be done to strengthen societies as new biometric forms of emotion profiling emerge. Based on a rich, empirical, and interdisciplinary literature that examines multiple countries, the book will be of interest to scholars and students of Communications, Journalism, Politics, Sociology, Science and Technology Studies, and Information Science, as well as global and local policymakers and ordinary citizens interested in how to prevent the spread of false information worldwide, both now and in the future
‘The oxygen of shared experience’: exploring social support processes within peer support groups for carers of people with non-memory-led and inherited dementias
Get PDFObjectives: To explore support processes and behaviours taking place during online peer support groups for family carers of people living with rare, non-memory-led and inherited dementias (PLWRD).Methods: Twenty-five family carers of PLWRD participated in a series of ongoing online peer support groups on the theme of ‘Independence and Identity’. Transcripts from 16 sessions were analysed using qualitative directed content analysis with a coding framework informed by Cutrona & Suhr’s (2004) Social Support Behaviour Code (SSBC).Results: Most of the social support behaviours outlined in the SSBC were identified within the sessions, along with two novel social support categories – ‘Experiential Support’ and ‘Community Support’ – and novel support behaviours including ‘Advocacy and Collective Action’ and ‘Uses Humour’. The SSBC code ‘Relationship’ appeared to be of central importance. Conclusions: This study sheds light on the unique challenges of the caring context for those affected by non-memory-led and inherited dementias and the significant contributions carers can offer to, and receive from, peers in similar situations. It highlights the importance of services which recognise the value of the informational and emotional expertise of carers of PLWRD and encourages the continued development and delivery of tailored support for these population
How chronic anthropogenic noise can affect wildlife communities
Get PDFAnthropogenic noise is a major pollutant in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Since the industrial revolution, human activities have become increasingly noisy, leading to both acute and chronic disturbance of a wide variety of animals. Chronic noise exposure can affect animals over their lifespan, leading to changes in species interactions and likely altering communities. However, the community-level impacts of chronic noise are not well-understood, which impairs our ability for effective mitigation. In this review, we address the effects of chronic noise exposure on communities and explore possible mechanisms underlying these effects. The limited studies on this topic suggest that noise can affect communities by changing the behavior and/or physiology of species in a community, which results in direct or knock-on consequences for other species in the ecosystem. Major knowledge gaps remain due to the logistically complex and financially expensive nature of the long-term studies needed to address these questions. By identifying these gaps and suggesting approaches to answer them, we provide a road map toward mitigating the effects of a noisy world.<br/
Low-complexity modulation format identification based on am- 2 plitude histogram distributions for digital coherent receivers
Get PDFA prior-training-free and low-complexity modulation format identification (MFI) scheme 14 based on amplitude histogram distributions is proposed and demonstrated, both numerically and 15 experimentally, for autonomous digital coherent receivers. In the proposed scheme, after having 16performed power normalization, incoming polarization division multiplexed (PDM) signals are 17 classified into QPSK, 8QAM, 16QAM, 32QAM and 64QAM signals according to their ratios defined 18 according to specific features of their amplitude histograms. The proposed MFI scheme uses ampli- 19 tude information only, thus it is insensitive to carrier phase noise. Furthermore, the proposed 20 scheme does not require any prior information such as optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR). The 21 performance of the proposed MFI scheme is numerically verified using 28GBaud PDM-QPSK/- 22 8QAM/-16QAM/-32QAM/-64QAM signals. The numerical simulation results show that the pro- 23posed scheme can achieve 100% of correct identification rate for all of the five modulation formats 24 when their OSNR values are higher than the thresholds corresponding to the 20% FEC correcting 25 bit error rate (BER) of2.4 10− .To further explore the effectiveness of the proposed MFI scheme, 26proof-of-concept experiments in 28GBaud PDM-QPSK/-8QAM/-16QAM, and 21.5GBaud PDM- 27 32QAM transmission systems are also undertaken, which show that the proposed scheme is robust 28 against fiber nonlinearities. To explore the scheme’s feasibility for use in practical transmission sys- 29tems, the computational complexity analysis of the proposed scheme is conducted, which shows 30 that, compared with relevant MFI scheme, the proposed MFI scheme can significantly reduce the 31 computational complexit
The presence of territorial damselfish predicts choosy client species richness at cleaning stations
Get PDFMutualisms are driven by partners deciding to interact with one another to gain specific services or rewards. As predicted by biological market theory, partners should be selected based on the likelihood, quality, reward level, and or services each partner can offer. Third-party species that are not directly involved in the interaction, however, may indirectly affect the occurrence and or quality of the services provided, thereby affecting which partners are selected or avoided. We investigated how different clients of the sharknose goby (Elacatinus evelynae) cleaner fish were distributed across cleaning stations, and asked what characteristics, relating to biological market theory, affected this distribution. Through quantifying the visitation and cleaning patterns of client fish that can choose which cleaning station(s) to visit, we found that the relative species richness of visiting clients at stations was negatively associated with the presence of disruptive territorial damselfish at the station. Our study highlights, therefore, the need to consider the indirect effects of third-party species and their interactions (e.g., agonistic interactions) when attempting to understand mutualistic interactions between species. Moreover, we highlight how cooperative interactions may be indirectly governed by external partners
The genome of Roselle's flesh fly Sarcophaga (Helicophagella) rosellei (Böttcher, 1912)
Get PDFWe present a genome assembly from an individual male Sarcophaga rosellei (Roselle's flesh fly; Arthropoda; Insecta; Diptera; Sarcophagidae). The genome sequence is 541 megabases in span. Most of the assembly is scaffolded into six chromosomal pseudomolecules, with the X sex chromosome assembled. The mitochondrial genome has also been assembled and is 19.5 kilobases in length. Gene annotation of this assembly on Ensembl has identified 15,437 protein coding genes
Enzyme adaptation to habitat thermal legacy shapes the thermal plasticity of marine microbiomes
Get PDFMicrobial communities respond to temperature with physiological adaptation and compositional turnover. Whether thermal selection of enzymes explains marine microbiome plasticity in response to temperature remains unresolved. By quantifying the thermal behaviour of seven functionally-independent enzyme classes (esterase, extradiol dioxygenase, phosphatase, beta-galactosidase, nuclease, transaminase, and aldo-keto reductase) in native proteomes of marine sediment microbiomes from the Irish Sea to the southern Red Sea, we record a significant effect of the mean annual temperature (MAT) on enzyme response in all cases. Activity and stability profiles of 228 esterases and 5 extradiol dioxygenases from sediment and seawater across 70 locations worldwide validate this thermal pattern. Modelling the esterase phase transition temperature as a measure of structural flexibility confirms the observed relationship with MAT. Furthermore, when considering temperature variability in sites with non-significantly different MATs, the broadest range of enzyme thermal behaviour and the highest growth plasticity of the enriched heterotrophic bacteria occur in samples with the widest annual thermal variability. These results indicate that temperature-driven enzyme selection shapes microbiome thermal plasticity and that thermal variability finely tunes such processes and should be considered alongside MAT in forecasting microbial community thermal response
Ice Shelf Basal Melt Sensitivity to Tide-Induced Mixing Based on the Theory of Subglacial Plumes
Get PDFTidal currents are known to influence basal melting of Antarctic ice shelves through two types of mechanisms: local processes taking place within the boundary current adjacent to the ice shelf-ocean interface and far-field processes influencing the properties of water masses within the cavity. The separate effects of these processes are poorly understood, limiting our ability to parameterize tide-driven ice shelf-ocean interactions. Here we focus on the small-scale processes within the boundary current. We apply a one-dimensional plume model to a range of ice base geometries characteristic of Antarctic ice shelves to study the sensitivity of basal melt rates to different representations of tide-driven turbulent mixing processes. Our simulations demonstrate that tides can either increase or decrease melt rates depending on the approach chosen to parameterize entrainment of ambient water into the turbulent plume layer, a process not yet well constrained by observations. A theoretical assessment based on an analogy with tidal bottom boundary layers suggests that tide-driven shear at the ice shelf-ocean interface enhances mixing through the pycnocline. Under this assumption our simulations predict a tide-induced increase in melt and freeze rates along the base of the ice shelf, with the strongest plume path-integrated effects for cold cavities (up to +400% in the realistic set up). An approximation is provided to account for this response in basal melt rate parameterizations that neglect the effect of tide-induced turbulent mixing
The marked syntax in Gesualdo Bufalino's Lies of the Night : romantic heroes, fabulous tone and novella twists
Get PDFThe article intends to present a detailed study of the order of the sentence elements in Lies of the Night(1988) by Gesualdo Bufalino (1920–96). This contribution examines the methods and purposes that the marked syntax carries out within the novel project, which is characterized by experimentation of the complex narrative and linguistic device. Adopting a historical-linguistic cut, the postposition of the subject to the verb (rhematic subject and parenthetic thematic subject), the dislocation to the left and the suspended theme are examined. Through qualitative analyzes of selected textual samples, three key functions of the marked syntax useful for the interpretation of the novel are shown: the twists and turns of the short story; the characterization of romantic heroes and their language; the portrait technique and the fabulous tone. The study reveals that the use of marked syntax is aimed at creating a legendary and fabulous epic
