Do Social Bots Dream of Electric Sheep? A Categorisation of Social Media Bot Accounts

So-called 'social bots' have garnered a lot of attention lately. Previous research showed that they attempted to influence political events such as the Brexit referendum and the US presidential elections. It remains, however, somewhat unclear what exactly can be understood by the term 'social bot'. This paper addresses the need to better understand the intentions of bots on social media and to develop a shared understanding of how 'social' bots differ from other types of bots. We thus describe a systematic review of publications that researched bot accounts on social media. Based on the results of this literature review, we propose a scheme for categorising bot accounts on social media sites. Our scheme groups bot accounts by two dimensions - Imitation of human behaviour and Intent.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the Australasian Conference on Information Systems, 201

Designing Sports Leagues as Efficient Monopolists Rather Than Inefficient Cartels

An inherent conflict exists when clubs participating in a sports league control the way in which the competition is organized. This conflict leads to fewer franchises that may not be in the best locations, fewer broadcast rights sold with too many “black-outs,” inefficient marketing of merchandise and sponsorships, ineffective supervision of club management, labor market restrictions that do not enhance consumer appeal in the sport, and insufficient international competition. We suggest that sports leagues would be more profitable and fans’ welfare improved if sports leagues looked more like McDonald’s and less like the United Nations, by restructuring the leagues to create a separate company (NFL, Inc.) that would make key decisions and limit the club owners to participating in the competition

The “treatment gap” in global mental health reconsidered: sociotherapy for collective trauma in Rwanda

Background: The “treatment gap” (TG) for mental disorders refers to the difference that exists between the number of people who need care and those who receive care. The concept is strongly promoted by the World Health Organization and widely used in the context of low- and middle-income countries. Although accepting the many demonstrable benefits that flow from this approach, it is important to critically reflect on the limitations of the concept of the TG and its implications for building capacity for mental health services in Rwanda. Objective: The article highlights concerns that the evidence base for mental health interventions is not globally valid, and problematizes the preponderance of psychiatric approaches in international guidelines for mental health. Specifically, the risk of medicalization of social problems and the limited way in which “community” has been conceptualized in global mental health discourses are addressed. Rather than being used as a method for increasing economic efficiency (i.e., reducing healthcare costs), “community” should be promoted as a means of harnessing collective strengths and resources to help promote mental well-being. This may be particularly beneficial for contexts, like Rwanda, where community life has been disrupted by collective violence, and the resulting social isolation constitutes an important determinant of mental distress. Conclusions: Moving forward there is a need to consider alternative paradigms where individual distress is understood as a symptom of social distress, which extends beyond the more individually oriented TG paradigm. Sociotherapy, an intervention used in Rwanda over the past 10 years, is presented as an example of how communities of support can be built to promote mental health and psychosocial well-being

The Impact of Social Media on Social Cohesion: A Double‐Edged Sword

Social media plays a major role in public communication in many countries. Therefore, it has a large impact on societies and their cohesion. This thematic issue explores the impact social media has on social cohesion on a local or national level. The nine articles in this issue focus on both the potential of social media usage to foster social cohesion and the possible drawbacks of social media which could negatively influence the development and maintenance of social cohesion. In the articles, social cohesion is examined from different perspectives with or without the background of crisis, and on various social media platforms. The picture that emerges is that of social media as, to borrow a phrase used in one of the articles, a double-edged sword

Fractional integration operator of variable order in the holder spaces H

The fractional integrals Ia+α(x)φ of variable order α(x) are considered. A theorem on mapping properties of Ia+α(x)φ in Holder-type spaces Hλ(x) is proved, this being a generalization of the well known Hardy-Littlewood theorem

Sphinx: Monte Carlo Program for Polarised Nucleon-Nucleon Collisions

This program can be used to simulate polarised nucleon - nucleon collisions at high energies. Spins of colliding particles are taken into account. The program allows to calculate cross sections for various processes.Comment: 33pp, LaTe

Effects of traffic perturbations on bike sharing demand – a case study of public transport strikes and protests in Paris

This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the interactions between traffic perturbations and bike sharing use. More specifically we propose a framework for comparative spatial temporal analyses of public transport strikes and massive protests effects on bike sharing program in Paris. We find opposite effects on bike sharing demand due to public transport strikes and protests. The former causes a considerable rise in bike sharing demand particularly during the daily rush hours, while the latter precipitates a drop of activity constantly during the protest day. Our approach allows tracing bike sharing demand changes induced by traffic perturbations on an hourly level

Independent responsive behaviour and communication in hydrogel objects

In this work, we show the fabrication of soft hydrogel alginate-based objects, namely fibres and beads, that have an individually programmed time delay in their response to a shared environmental stimulus. We utilize the enzyme urease to programme a self-regulated change in pH, which in turn activates the designed response of gel fibre disintegration or a change in gel bead colour. This design allows for independent response behaviour of a collection of bodies in a single closed system, as well as inter-material communication on shorter length scales. The incorporation of responsive time control directly into soft matter objects demonstrates an advance in the field of autonomous materials

Breeding better malting barleys

Development of new barley cultivars in Western Australia has substantially improved the grain yield and quality of the State\u27s barley crop. This has increased returns to barley growers and enhanced Western Australia\u27s reputation in export markets as a major supplier of barley for malting and feed. The State exports more than 200, 000 t of malting barley, 60, 000 t of barley malt and 150, 000 t of feed barley each year. The major challenge for the future is to develop new, high yielding cultivars with improved malting quality. In this article, the authors discuss the achievements of the past; and strategies for achieving the current goals

Synthesis and properties of polyesters from waste grapeseed oil : comparison with soybean and rapeseed oils

The aim of this study was to investigate the application of grapeseed oil, a waste product from the wine industry, as a renewable feedstock to make polyesters and to compare the properties of these materials with those derived from soybean and rapeseed oils. All three oils were epoxidized to give renewable epoxy monomers containing between 3.8 and 4.7 epoxides per molecule. Polymerisation was achieved with cyclic anhydrides catalysed by 4-methyl imidazole at 170 and 210 °C. Polymers produced from methyl tetrahydrophthalic anhydride (Aradur917®) had greater tensile strength and Young’s Modulus (tensile strength = 12.8 MPa, Young’s Modulus = 1005 MPa for grapeseed) than methyl nadic anhydride (MNA) derived materials (5.6 and 468 MPa for grapeseed) due to increased volume of MNA decreasing crosslink density. Soybean and grapeseed oils produced materials with higher tensile strength (5.6–29.3 MPa) than rapeseed derived polyesters (2.5–3.9 MPa) due to a higher epoxide functionality increasing crosslinking. Tg’s of the polyesters ranged from −36 to 62 °C and mirrored the trend in epoxide functionality with grapeseed producing higher Tg polymers (−17 to 17 °C) than soybean (−25 to 6 °C) and rapeseed (−36 to −27 °C). Grapeseed oil showed similar properties to soybean oil in terms of Tg, thermal degradation and Young’s Modulus but produced polymers of lower tensile strength. Therefore grapeseed oil would only be a viable substitute for soybean for low stress applications or where thermal properties are more important