Humour reactions in crisis: a proximal analysis of Chinese posts on Sina Weibo in reaction to the salt panicof March 2011

This paper presents an analysis of humour use in Sina Weibo in reaction to the Chinese salt panic, which occurred as a result of the Fukushima disaster in March 2011. Basing the investigation on the humour Proximal Distancing Theory (PDT), and utilising a dataset from Sina Weibo in 2011, an examination of humour reactions is performed to identify the proximal spread of humourous Weibo posts in relation to the consequent salt panic in China. As a result of this method, we present a novel methodology for understanding humour reactions in social media, and provide recommendations on how such a method could be applied to a variety of other social media, crises, cultural and spatial settings

The dominant Anopheles vectors of human malaria in Africa, Europe and the Middle East: occurrence data, distribution maps and bionomic précis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This is the second in a series of three articles documenting the geographical distribution of 41 dominant vector species (DVS) of human malaria. The first paper addressed the DVS of the Americas and the third will consider those of the Asian Pacific Region. Here, the DVS of Africa, Europe and the Middle East are discussed. The continent of Africa experiences the bulk of the global malaria burden due in part to the presence of the <it>An. gambiae </it>complex. <it>Anopheles gambiae </it>is one of four DVS within the <it>An. gambiae </it>complex, the others being <it>An. arabiensis </it>and the coastal <it>An. merus </it>and <it>An. melas</it>. There are a further three, highly anthropophilic DVS in Africa, <it>An. funestus</it>, <it>An. moucheti </it>and <it>An. nili</it>. Conversely, across Europe and the Middle East, malaria transmission is low and frequently absent, despite the presence of six DVS. To help control malaria in Africa and the Middle East, or to identify the risk of its re-emergence in Europe, the contemporary distribution and bionomics of the relevant DVS are needed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A contemporary database of occurrence data, compiled from the formal literature and other relevant resources, resulted in the collation of information for seven DVS from 44 countries in Africa containing 4234 geo-referenced, independent sites. In Europe and the Middle East, six DVS were identified from 2784 geo-referenced sites across 49 countries. These occurrence data were combined with expert opinion ranges and a suite of environmental and climatic variables of relevance to anopheline ecology to produce predictive distribution maps using the Boosted Regression Tree (BRT) method.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The predicted geographic extent for the following DVS (or species/suspected species complex*) is provided for Africa: <it>Anopheles </it>(<it>Cellia</it>) <it>arabiensis</it>, <it>An. </it>(<it>Cel.</it>) <it>funestus*</it>, <it>An. </it>(<it>Cel.</it>) <it>gambiae</it>, <it>An. </it>(<it>Cel.</it>) <it>melas</it>, <it>An. </it>(<it>Cel.</it>) <it>merus</it>, <it>An. </it>(<it>Cel.</it>) <it>moucheti </it>and <it>An. </it>(<it>Cel.</it>) <it>nili*</it>, and in the European and Middle Eastern Region: <it>An. </it>(<it>Anopheles</it>) <it>atroparvus</it>, <it>An. </it>(<it>Ano.</it>) <it>labranchiae</it>, <it>An. </it>(<it>Ano.</it>) <it>messeae</it>, <it>An. </it>(<it>Ano.</it>) <it>sacharovi</it>, <it>An. </it>(<it>Cel.</it>) <it>sergentii </it>and <it>An. </it>(<it>Cel.</it>) <it>superpictus*</it>. These maps are presented alongside a bionomics summary for each species relevant to its control.</p

SPENCE: A Model of online/offline community

Online and offline community are both studied but not as an intersection. There is a gap in the literature on the nature of community that is blended online with offline and geographically situated.SPENCE, a Model of online/offline community with measurement principles - capabilities - was formulated. It aims to provide an integrated view of residential online/offline community that offers a lens of synthesis. It is based on the definition: social exchange using channels of digital multi-media and physical expression, leading to permanent social ties connected across social graphs, from proximity informed by a diversity of values, interests and needs, bounded in settlement combining physical and cyber place, curated by an entrepreneur.SPENCE has six facets - settlement, proximity, exchange, net/latticework, channels and entrepreneur; and four capabilities - trust, influence, information and intelligence. iii Two Case Studies, based on online/offline communities in London, deployed the methods of interview, survey and online social network study to discover the nature of online/offline community, how to investigate it and what policy initiatives could be implemented to develop it. The Survey and Twitter Study methods were merged into a Twofold Instrument.The contributions of the thesis are: the Model SPENCE; novel concepts derived from the Model i.e. decile fabric, net/latticework, VINs ratio, diverse cohesion, specific cohesion, and capabilities, which offer updates on established concepts. The affordances of online/offline community include situated cognition, blended relations between people with cohesions in the social fabric predicated on a greater exchange of informal/formal assets. It is recommended that national digital infrastructure is developed to extend online/offline community, either as independent instances or as an integrated national platform. A twofold investigation method, measuring the national total of decile fabric, would offer a pragmatic automated approach to assist a national development programme.<br/