Model of Inspiring Media

Scholars have increasingly explored the ways that media content can touch, move, and inspire audiences, leading to numerous beneficial outcomes including increased feelings of connectedness to and heightened motivations for doing good for others. Although this line of inquiry is relatively new, sufficient evidence and patterns of results have emerged such that a clearer picture of the inspiring media experience is coming into focus. This article has two primary goals. First, we seek to synthesize the existing research into a working and evolving model of inspiring media experiences reflecting five interrelated and symbiotic elements: exposure, message factors, responses, outcomes, and personal/situational factors. The model also identifies theoretical mechanisms underlying the previously observed positive effects. Secondly, the article explores situations in which, and precipitating factors present, when these hoped-for outcomes either fail to materialize or result in negative or maladaptive responses and outcomes. Ultimately, the model is proposed as a heuristic roadmap for future scholarship and as an invitation for critique and collaboration in the emerging field of positive media psychology

Hyperlipidemic Conditions Impact Force-Induced Inflammatory Response of Human Periodontal Ligament Fibroblasts Concomitantly Challenged with P. gingivalis -LPS

In obese patients, enhanced serum levels of free fatty acids (FFA), such as palmitate (PA) or oleate (OA), are associated with an increase in systemic inflammatory markers. Bacterial infection during periodontal disease also promotes local and systemic low-grade inflammation. How both conditions concomitantly impact tooth movement is largely unknown. Thus, the aim of this study was to address the changes in cytokine expression and the secretion of human periodontal ligament fibroblasts (HPdLF) due to hyperlipidemic conditions, when additionally stressed by bacterial and mechanical stimuli. To investigate the impact of obesity-related hyperlipidemic FFA levels on HPdLF, cells were treated with 200 µM PA or OA prior to the application of 2 g/cm(2) compressive force. To further determine the additive impact of bacterial infection, HPdLF were stimulated with lipopolysaccharides (LPS) obtained from Porphyromonas gingivalis. In mechanically compressed HPdLF, PA enhanced COX2 expression and PGE2 secretion. When mechanically stressed HPdLF were additionally stimulated with LPS, the PGE2 and IL6 secretion, as well as monocyte adhesion, were further increased in PA-treated cultures. Our data emphasize that a hyperlipidemic condition enhances the susceptibility of HPdLF to an excessive inflammatory response to compressive forces, when cells are concomitantly exposed to bacterial components

SNAPSHOT USA 2019 : a coordinated national camera trap survey of the United States

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.With the accelerating pace of global change, it is imperative that we obtain rapid inventories of the status and distribution of wildlife for ecological inferences and conservation planning. To address this challenge, we launched the SNAPSHOT USA project, a collaborative survey of terrestrial wildlife populations using camera traps across the United States. For our first annual survey, we compiled data across all 50 states during a 14-week period (17 August - 24 November of 2019). We sampled wildlife at 1509 camera trap sites from 110 camera trap arrays covering 12 different ecoregions across four development zones. This effort resulted in 166,036 unique detections of 83 species of mammals and 17 species of birds. All images were processed through the Smithsonian's eMammal camera trap data repository and included an expert review phase to ensure taxonomic accuracy of data, resulting in each picture being reviewed at least twice. The results represent a timely and standardized camera trap survey of the USA. All of the 2019 survey data are made available herein. We are currently repeating surveys in fall 2020, opening up the opportunity to other institutions and cooperators to expand coverage of all the urban-wild gradients and ecophysiographic regions of the country. Future data will be available as the database is updated at eMammal.si.edu/snapshot-usa, as well as future data paper submissions. These data will be useful for local and macroecological research including the examination of community assembly, effects of environmental and anthropogenic landscape variables, effects of fragmentation and extinction debt dynamics, as well as species-specific population dynamics and conservation action plans. There are no copyright restrictions; please cite this paper when using the data for publication.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

In silico Hierarchical Clustering of Neuronal Populations in the Rat Ventral Tegmental Area Based on Extracellular Electrophysiological Properties.

The ventral tegmental area (VTA) is a heterogeneous brain region, containing different neuronal populations. During recordings, electrophysiological characteristics are classically used to distinguish the different populations. However, the VTA is also considered as a region harboring neurons with heterogeneous properties. In the present study, we aimed to classify VTA neurons using approaches, in an attempt to determine if homogeneous populations could be extracted. Thus, we recorded 291 VTA neurons during extracellular recordings in anesthetized rats. Initially, 22 neurons with high firing rates (>10 Hz) and short-lasting action potentials (AP) were considered as a separate subpopulation, in light of previous studies. To segregate the remaining 269 neurons, presumably dopaminergic (DA), we performed analyses, using a combination of different electrophysiological parameters. These parameters included: (1) firing rate; (2) firing rate coefficient of variation (CV); (3) percentage of spikes in a burst; (4) AP duration; (5) Δt duration (i.e., time from initiation of depolarization until end of repolarization); and (6) presence of a notched AP waveform. Unsupervised hierarchical clustering revealed two neuronal populations that differed in their bursting activities. The largest population presented low bursting activities (17.5%). Within non-high-firing neurons, a large heterogeneity was noted concerning AP characteristics. In conclusion, this analysis based on conventional electrophysiological criteria clustered two subpopulations of putative DA VTA neurons that are distinguishable by their firing patterns (firing rates and bursting activities) but not their AP properties

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics' resources: focus on curated databases

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (www.isb-sib.ch) provides world-class bioinformatics databases, software tools, services and training to the international life science community in academia and industry. These solutions allow life scientists to turn the exponentially growing amount of data into knowledge. Here, we provide an overview of SIB's resources and competence areas, with a strong focus on curated databases and SIB's most popular and widely used resources. In particular, SIB's Bioinformatics resource portal ExPASy features over 150 resources, including UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot, ENZYME, PROSITE, neXtProt, STRING, UniCarbKB, SugarBindDB, SwissRegulon, EPD, arrayMap, Bgee, SWISS-MODEL Repository, OMA, OrthoDB and other databases, which are briefly described in this article

Les distributions spatio-temporelles de marqueurs populationnels. : Séminaire de Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel "Archéologie et démographie : les données paléodémographiques et leur interprétation" (Paris, CNRS 2004 - 2005).

Fonds audiovisuel du programme "ESCoM-AAR" (Equipe Sémiotique Cognitive et nouveaux Médias - Archives Audiovisuelles de la Recherche. Paris, France, 2000 - 2016).Les données démographiques écrites couvrent essentiellement les quelques derniers siècles. Depuis la sortie d’Afrique d’Homo ergaster – notre ancêtre humain direct – et son expansion géographique en Eurasie vers 1,8 millions d’années, jusqu’aux périodes sub-actuelles, il n’existe aucune donnée pour reconstruire 99,99 % de l’histoire démographique des êtres humains, qui soit interprétable avec les outils traditionnels de la démographie. Pourtant les principales théories démographiques existantes, de Malthus à Boserup (et leur mélange), exigent des temps (très) longs pour pouvoir valablement être testées. Pour reconstruire cette histoire, on doit donc faire appel à d’autres sources que les données écrites et à d’autres techniques que les techniques courantes des démographes. L’information fournie par les données archéologiques et leurs modèles d’interprétation deviennent alors incontournables.Avec la question : « Faire de la démographie avec quoi et comment ? », deux grands thèmes seront abordés cette année : 1) Les données paléodémographiques, représentées par des distributions spatio-temporelles : i) de vestiges archéologiques (sites, dates 14C, outils, urbains), ii) de squelettes par âge de nécropoles ; 2) L’inférence démographique à partir des distributions des données et leurs densités. Comment remonter des données aux paramètres démographiques générateurs

Détecter les changements démographiques en archéologie : transitions et démographie de frontières. <br>: Séminaire de Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel "Archéologie et démographie : les données paléodémographiques et leur interprétation" (Paris, CNRS 2004 - 2005).

Fonds audiovisuel du programme "ESCoM-AAR" (Equipe Sémiotique Cognitive et nouveaux Médias - Archives Audiovisuelles de la Recherche. Paris, France, 2000 - 2016).Les données démographiques écrites couvrent essentiellement les quelques derniers siècles. Depuis la sortie d’Afrique d’Homo ergaster – notre ancêtre humain direct – et son expansion géographique en Eurasie vers 1,8 millions d’années, jusqu’aux périodes sub-actuelles, il n’existe aucune donnée pour reconstruire 99,99 % de l’histoire démographique des êtres humains, qui soit interprétable avec les outils traditionnels de la démographie. Pourtant les principales théories démographiques existantes, de Malthus à Boserup (et leur mélange), exigent des temps (très) longs pour pouvoir valablement être testées. Pour reconstruire cette histoire, on doit donc faire appel à d’autres sources que les données écrites et à d’autres techniques que les techniques courantes des démographes. L’information fournie par les données archéologiques et leurs modèles d’interprétation deviennent alors incontournables.Avec la question : « Faire de la démographie avec quoi et comment ? », deux grands thèmes seront abordés cette année : 1) Les données paléodémographiques, représentées par des distributions spatio-temporelles : i) de vestiges archéologiques (sites, dates 14C, outils, urbains), ii) de squelettes par âge de nécropoles ; 2) L’inférence démographique à partir des distributions des données et leurs densités. Comment remonter des données aux paramètres démographiques générateurs