2,580 research outputs found
Simultaneous infection of Ixodes ricinus nymphs by two Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato species: possible implications for clinical manifestations.
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe
Quantitative Analysis of Bloggers Collective Behavior Powered by Emotions
Large-scale data resulting from users online interactions provide the
ultimate source of information to study emergent social phenomena on the Web.
From individual actions of users to observable collective behaviors, different
mechanisms involving emotions expressed in the posted text play a role. Here we
combine approaches of statistical physics with machine-learning methods of text
analysis to study emergence of the emotional behavior among Web users. Mapping
the high-resolution data from digg.com onto bipartite network of users and
their comments onto posted stories, we identify user communities centered
around certain popular posts and determine emotional contents of the related
comments by the emotion-classifier developed for this type of texts. Applied
over different time periods, this framework reveals strong correlations between
the excess of negative emotions and the evolution of communities. We observe
avalanches of emotional comments exhibiting significant self-organized critical
behavior and temporal correlations. To explore robustness of these critical
states, we design a network automaton model on realistic network connections
and several control parameters, which can be inferred from the dataset.
Dissemination of emotions by a small fraction of very active users appears to
critically tune the collective states
High-accuracy Penning trap mass measurements with stored and cooled exotic ions
The technique of Penning trap mass spectrometry is briefly reviewed
particularly in view of precision experiments on unstable nuclei, performed at
different facilities worldwide. Selected examples of recent results emphasize
the importance of high-precision mass measurements in various fields of
physics
The Convergence of Digital-Libraries and the Peer-Review Process
Pre-print repositories have seen a significant increase in use over the past
fifteen years across multiple research domains. Researchers are beginning to
develop applications capable of using these repositories to assist the
scientific community above and beyond the pure dissemination of information.
The contribution set forth by this paper emphasizes a deconstructed publication
model in which the peer-review process is mediated by an OAI-PMH peer-review
service. This peer-review service uses a social-network algorithm to determine
potential reviewers for a submitted manuscript and for weighting the relative
influence of each participating reviewer's evaluations. This paper also
suggests a set of peer-review specific metadata tags that can accompany a
pre-print's existing metadata record. The combinations of these contributions
provide a unique repository-centric peer-review model that fits within the
widely deployed OAI-PMH framework.Comment: Journal of Information Science [in press
A meta-analysis of state-of-the-art electoral prediction from Twitter data
Electoral prediction from Twitter data is an appealing research topic. It
seems relatively straightforward and the prevailing view is overly optimistic.
This is problematic because while simple approaches are assumed to be good
enough, core problems are not addressed. Thus, this paper aims to (1) provide a
balanced and critical review of the state of the art; (2) cast light on the
presume predictive power of Twitter data; and (3) depict a roadmap to push
forward the field. Hence, a scheme to characterize Twitter prediction methods
is proposed. It covers every aspect from data collection to performance
evaluation, through data processing and vote inference. Using that scheme,
prior research is analyzed and organized to explain the main approaches taken
up to date but also their weaknesses. This is the first meta-analysis of the
whole body of research regarding electoral prediction from Twitter data. It
reveals that its presumed predictive power regarding electoral prediction has
been rather exaggerated: although social media may provide a glimpse on
electoral outcomes current research does not provide strong evidence to support
it can replace traditional polls. Finally, future lines of research along with
a set of requirements they must fulfill are provided.Comment: 19 pages, 3 table
SentiCircles for contextual and conceptual semantic sentiment analysis of Twitter
Lexicon-based approaches to Twitter sentiment analysis are gaining much popularity due to their simplicity, domain independence, and relatively good performance. These approaches rely on sentiment lexicons, where a collection of words are marked with fixed sentiment polarities. However, wordsā sentiment orientation (positive, neural, negative) and/or sentiment strengths could change depending on context and targeted entities. In this paper we present SentiCircle; a novel lexicon-based approach that takes into account the contextual and conceptual semantics of words when calculating their sentiment orientation and strength in Twitter. We evaluate our approach on three Twitter datasets using three different sentiment lexicons. Results show that our approach significantly outperforms two lexicon baselines. Results are competitive but inconclusive when comparing to state-of-art SentiStrength, and vary from one dataset to another. SentiCircle outperforms SentiStrength in accuracy on average, but falls marginally behind in F-measure
Explaining the effects of a 1-year intervention promoting physical activity in middle schools: a mediation analysis
Objective : The aim of the present study was to examine the mediation effects of changes in psychosocial determinants of physical activity (attitude, social support, self-efficacy, perceived benefits and barriers) on changes in physical activity. Design : One-year intervention study with baseline and 1-year post measures of physical activity habits and psychosocial correlates. Setting : Fifteen middle schools. Subjects : Boys and girls (n = 2840) aged 11–15 years completed the validated questionnaires during class hours. Results : The product-of-coefficients test was used to asses the mediating effects. Self-efficacy for physical activity at school was found to be the only significant mediator of physical activity change. Specifically, self-efficacy for physical activity at school partly mediated the effect of the intervention on total and school-related physical activity change in the intervention group with parental support (P < 0.05). None of the other potential mediators, attitudes, social support, perceived benefits and perceived barriers, seemed to have had a positive effect. Even a suppressor effect was found for attitudes. Given that the effects of self-efficacy and attitudes were of opposite direction, the total mediated/suppressed effects of the intervention were not statistically significant. Conclusions : Positive changes in total and school-related physical activity in adolescents could be partly explained by increases in self-efficacy for physical activity at school through a physical activity intervention in middle schools with parental support. However, the suppressor effect of attitudes decreased this effect. As this is one of the first true mediation analyses in this age group, further research is needed to replicate the importance of these mediators
How to Educate Entrepreneurs?
Entrepreneurship education has two purposes: To improve studentsā entrepreneurial skills and to provide impetus to those suited to entrepreneurship while discouraging the rest. While entrepreneurship education helps students to make a vocational decision its effects may conflict for those not suited to entrepreneurship. This study shows that vocational and the skill formation effects of entrepreneurship education can be identified empirically by drawing on the Theory of Planned Behavior. This is embedded in a structural equation model which we estimate and test using a robust 2SLS estimator. We find that the attitudinal factors posited by the Theory of Planned Behavior are positively correlated with studentsā entrepreneurial intentions. While conflicting effects of vocational and skill directed course content are observed in some individuals, overall these types of content are complements. This finding contradicts previous results in the literature. We reconcile the conflicting findings and discuss implications for the design of entrepreneurship courses
- ā¦