1,720,960 research outputs found
Beyond DNA : an epigenetic approach to identical twin identification
Full text linkFor more than two decades, DNA analysis has helped forensic scientists link suspects to a crime. Often times, DNA evidence is one of the most impactful pieces of evidence available. However, there is still one thing that traditional DNA analysis cannot accomplish - differentiating DNA from identical twins. With identical twins becoming more common than in the past and with numerous examples of cases being dropped because an identical twin was implicated, it would benefit the forensic science community to find a solution to this problem. The goal of this project was to see if the conventional forensic science techniques of cycle sequencing and capillary electrophoresis could be used to distinguish twins via DNA methylation analysis. It was found that the use of cycle sequencing and capillary electrophoresis for the analysis of DNA methylation extracted from human cells was problematic. While small successes were achieved in analyzing the methylation, the results were not consistent. Thus, while cycle sequencing and capillary electrophoresis are convenient and cost efficient for the forensic science community, they may not the best instruments for this problem. The PRKCA locus was shown to be a strong candidate locus that could be targeted by cycle sequencing or high-throughput sequencing technology. Therefore, rather than using an expensive and time-consuming method such as ultra-deep next generation sequencing to differentiate identical twins, the forensic science community should identify several key loci, such as the PRKCA gene analyzed in this study, for DNA methylation analysis
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The Psychology of Morbid Curiosity
Full text linkThreats to survival from predators and hostile conspecifics have led all species to possess cognitive architecture for predator management. Some animals display a curiosity for predators, engaging in behaviors such as predator inspection. The costs associated with learning about predators and other threats are high in most of the animal kingdom. In humans, the ability to imaginatively simulate threatening situations has drastically reduced the cost of learning about threats. This cost reduction has resulted in an explosion of what I call morbid curiosity, or the motivation to learn about potential threats. Humans often engage in morbid curiosity for entertainment, deriving pleasure from safe exposure to hypothetical threats. Historically, scholars have referred to the popularity of frightening entertainment as the paradox of horror. In this dissertation, I provide a theoretical and empirical foundation for the psychological study of morbid curiosity. I argue that morbid curiosity derives from an evolved cognitive architecture for predator management, is powered by curiosity, and, in humans, is amplified by the capacity for imagination. After presenting a theoretical framework for morbid curiosity, I present a set of studies in which I develop and validate the Morbid Curiosity Scale, a measure of individual differences in morbid curiosity. I then present two studies looking at how individual differences in morbid curiosity predict information gathering and psychological resilience during a novel threat — the COVID-19 global pandemic. I conclude by discussing the implications of the present research, offering suggestions for future research, and proposing that a clear understanding of morbid curiosity can dissolve the paradox of horror
Vulnerability and the computational logic of fear: Insights from the horror genre
No full textInternational audienceFear is a universal feature of storytelling, yet the structural conditions that make fictional threats compelling remain poorly understood. Here, we propose the Protagonist Vulnerability Index (PVI), an evolutionarily grounded computational approach to explain why some narratives evoke stronger fear responses than others. PVI quantifies protagonist vulnerability by assessing the imbalance in formidability between protagonists and antagonists and the risk of attack faced by the protagonist. Across 691 films, higher PVI values predicted classification as horror, the presence of fear-related keywords in non-horror films, and stronger physiological fear responses indexed by heart rate. Linking film preferences to psychological and demographic data from more than 3.5 million individuals on Facebook, we found that preference for high-PVI films was associated with lower agreeableness, conscientiousness, and extraversion, and with higher openness. Openness moderated the negative association between neuroticism and engagement with fear-related content, indicating that curiosity can counteract threat avoidance in anxious individuals. These findings clarify the structural and psychological conditions that activate evolved threat-management systems. The results show how horror operates as a narrative simulation of extreme formidability asymmetry, and provide a framework for predicting, and potentially engineering, fear in fiction
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
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
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