"Anti-Regime Influentials" Across Platforms: A Case Study of the Free Navalny Protests in Russia

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022 has put the future of the Russian opposition further at stake. The new limitations towards political, internet, and press freedoms have led to a severe disintegration of the anti-regime movement in Russia, including its leaders like Alexey Navalny. Digital platforms had previously hosted anti-Kremlin narratives online and played a role in the facilitation of Russian anti-regime protests. The latest scalable anti-regime rallies to date were the Free Navalny protests, caused by the imprisonment of Navalny in 2021. Digital platforms strengthened the voice of the Russian regime critics; however, their growing visibility online caused further suppression in the country. To understand this paradox, we ask which main anti-regime communicators were influential in the protests’ discussions on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, and how platform features have facilitated their influence during the Free Navalny protests. We develop a multi-platform methodological workflow comprising network analysis, social media analytics, and qualitative methods to map the Russian anti-regime publics and identify its opinion leaders. We also evaluate the cultures of use of platforms and their features by various Russian anti-regime communicators seeking high visibility online. We distinguish between contextual and feature cultures of platform use that potentially aid the popularity of such actors and propose to cautiously confer the mobilisation and democratisation potential to digital platforms under growing authoritarianism

Understanding Socio-cognitive Sensemaking of Digital Innovations in Twitter

With digital innovations increasingly being introduced and adopted at a rapid rate, it becomes ever more challenging to make sense of these innovations for aspiring practitioners. The success of a digital innovation in terms of its adoption and diffusion depends on how well it is understood and this understanding is shared amongst interested parties. As such socio-cognitive sensemaking is seen as one of the key conceptual elements theorizing about digital innovation. In this paper, we examined the socio-cognitive sensemaking of digital innovations through the lens of organizing vision theory. We studied the career dynamics and innovation community of blockchain in Twitter by analyzing the discourse over a seven year period of time using a data science approach. In particular, we used structural topic modeling to extract topics and topic prevalence over time. Our findings revealed that the discourse about blockchain consists of references to personal use as well as organizational applications. Furthermore, the discourse community consists of a mix of personal actors and organizational actors with social bots as additional actors. Based on our findings, we propose that digital innovations can first obtain early momentum through the discourse around personal use and next through the discourse around organizational applications while being mutually enhancing. In addition, we propose that institutional bots can engage in institutional entrepreneurship activities to increase momentum for a digital innovation

Coconut shell biomass gasification with waste heat recovery technology to dry pulverized kernel for virgin coconut oil extraction

In this study, a dryer with a waste heat recovery unit, using coconut shells as the base material for gasification was compared with electric and kerosene dryers in terms of drying curve pattern, rate of dying, cost of drying and quality of fresh dried pulverized kernel under the dry processing method of virgin coconut oil production. Dried pulverized kernel samples from each dryer were tested for basic quality parameters, taking desiccated coconut samples as the control according to Sri Lankan standards. Storability of dried pulverized kernel samples was carried out by taking desiccated coconut samples as the control under the standard packaging material. Basic quality parameters of charcoal obtained from the gasifier were tested with charcoal made using pit method as the control according to Sri Lankan standards. The basic quality was same in all fresh dried pulverized kernel samples. Aerobic plate counts of fresh dried pulverized kernel samples exceeded the critical limit. During storage, moisture absorption was same in all samples while free fatty acid content and aerobic plate count of dried pulverized kernel samples were greater than desiccated coconut. Quality parameters of all charcoal samples were within the standard limits except particle size of charcoal made using the gasifier. Coconut shell biomass gasification with waste heat recovery technology can be used in dry processing method of virgin coconut oil production as a renewable, low cost and environmental friendly energy alternative and to minimize the drawbacks of pit method of charcoal production

Red flags for the early detection of spinal infection in back pain patients

© 2019 The Author(s). Background: Red flags are signs and symptoms that are possible indicators of serious spinal pathology. There is limited evidence or guidance on how red flags should be used in practice. Due to the lack of robust evidence for many red flags their use has been questioned. The aim was to conduct a systematic review specifically reporting on studies that evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of red flags for Spinal Infection in patients with low back pain. Methods: Searches were carried out to identify the literature from inception to March 2019. The databases searched were Medline, CINHAL Plus, Web of Science, Embase, Cochrane, Pedro, OpenGrey and Grey Literature Report. Two reviewers screened article texts, one reviewer extracted data and details of each study, a second reviewer independently checked a random sample of the data extracted. Results: Forty papers met the eligibility criteria. A total of 2224 cases of spinal infection were identified, of which 1385 (62%) were men and 773 (38%) were women mean age of 55 (± 8) years. In total there were 46 items, 23 determinants and 23 clinical features. Spinal pain (72%) and fever (55%) were the most common clinical features, Diabetes (18%) and IV drug use (9%) were the most occurring determinants. MRI was the most used radiological test and Staphylococcus aureus (27%), Mycobacterium tuberculosis (12%) were the most common microorganisms detected in cases. Conclusion: The current evidence surrounding red flags for spinal infection remains small, it was not possible to assess the diagnostic accuracy of red flags for spinal infection, as such, a descriptive review reporting the characteristics of those presenting with spinal infection was carried out. In our review, spinal infection was common in those who had conditions associated with immunosuppression. Additionally, the most frequently reported clinical feature was the classic triad of spinal pain, fever and neurological dysfunction. This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

The organizing visions of digital innovations: The case of Blockchain using the Twitter discourse

This thesis examines the community discourse on new digital technologies, which influences how they are adopted and diffused over time. It investigates the Blockchain discourse on Twitter using both computational and qualitative methods. The thesis presents a life cycle model that explains the different phases of the community discourse and an evolutionary process model that explains the underlying generative mechanism of how community ideas about a digital technology evolve. It also highlights the emerging role of social bots in the diffusion of new technologies. In doing so, the thesis shows the importance of social media for learning about new technologies

Organizing Visions in the Digital World: The Case of the Blockchain Discourse on Twitter

Organizations are increasingly embracing digital technologies to seize new business opportunities. Organizing visions help organizations to identify opportunities associated with new technologies. They come into being primarily because they serve three functions in the adoption and diffusion of innovations: interpretation, legitimation, and mobilization. There is limited work on organizing vision functions, despite their importance. Moreover, the functioning of organizing visions in the digital world warrants examination because the institutional production of organizing visions is undergoing fundamental changes due to core technology being digital and discourse and community formation taking place in digital media. We examined how organizing vision functions operate in the digital world. We examined the blockchain discourse on Twitter over seven years using computational and qualitative methods. We developed a theoretical framework for organizing vision functions and offer three conjectures on how they operate in the digital world. In doing so, we advanced the organizing vision theory

Organizing Visions in the Digital World: The Case of the Blockchain Discourse on Twitter

Organizations are increasingly embracing digital technologies to seize new business opportunities. Organizing visions help organizations to identify opportunities associated with new technologies. They come into being primarily because they serve three functions in the adoption and diffusion of innovations: interpretation, legitimation, and mobilization. There is limited work on organizing vision functions, despite their importance. Moreover, the functioning of organizing visions in the digital world warrants examination because the institutional production of organizing visions is undergoing fundamental changes due to core technology being digital and discourse and community formation taking place in digital media. We examined how organizing vision functions operate in the digital world. We examined the blockchain discourse on Twitter over seven years using computational and qualitative methods. We developed a theoretical framework for organizing vision functions and offer three conjectures on how they operate in the digital world. In doing so, we advanced the organizing vision theory

Organizing visions in online social networks: The role of community heterogeneity and real-time engagement

New information technologies are changing the outcomes and process of innovation due to their increasing availability and use by individuals and organizations. There is a need to better understand how information systems (IS) innovations come about in terms of the socio-cognitive sensemaking through computer-mediated discourse. Yet, there is limited knowledge on how socio-cognitive sensemaking develops and influences IS innovations with organizing vision theory being a notable exception. Online social networks (OSN) is one of the primary new tools that is accelerating innovation due to its capacity for discursive social engagement. It is important for joint sensemaking which can influence diffusion and adoption of IS innovations. To date, past organizing vision research has mainly focused on traditional discursive channels. Therefore, the knowledge about how organizing visions develop within more contemporary channels such as OSNs is very limited so far. In this paper, we emphasize the importance of OSNs as a contemporary discourse channel and discuss how heterogeneity of communities, real-time engagement, and platform characteristics and practices impact organizing visions. We contribute to IS literature by offering a preliminary conceptual framework for organizing visions in OSNs and then suggesting possible opportunities to integrate social networks and big data analytics with organizing vision theory

Comparison of amyloid PET measured in Centiloid units with neuropathological findings in Alzheimer's disease

BACKGROUND: The Centiloid scale was developed to standardise the results of beta-amyloid (Aβ) PET. We aimed to determine the Centiloid unit (CL) thresholds for CERAD sparse and moderate-density neuritic plaques, Alzheimer's disease neuropathologic change (ADNC) score of intermediate or high probability of Alzheimer's Disease (AD), final clinicopathological diagnosis of AD, and expert visual read of a positive Aβ PET scan. METHODS: Aβ PET results in CL for 49 subjects were compared with post-mortem findings, visual read, and final clinicopathological diagnosis. The Youden Index was used to determine the optimal CL thresholds from receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves. RESULTS: A threshold of 20.1 CL (21.3 CL when corrected for time to death, AUC 0.97) yielded highest accuracy in detecting moderate or frequent plaque density while  45 CL. Positive visual read agreed highly with results > 26 CL. CONCLUSIONS: Centiloid values  20 CL indicated the presence of at least moderate plaque density, but approximately 50 CL or more best confirmed both neuropathological and clinicopathological diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease