Information Gaps and Misinformation in the 2022 Elections

The prob­lem of elec­tion misin­form­a­tion is vast. Part of the prob­lem occurs when there is high demand for inform­a­tion about a topic, but the supply of accur­ate and reli­able inform­a­tion is inad­equate to meet that demand. The result­ing inform­a­tion gap creates oppor­tun­it­ies for misin­form­a­tion to emerge and spread.One major elec­tion inform­a­tion gap developed in 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic drove many states to expand access to voting by mail. Inad­equate public know­ledge about the process left room for disin­form­a­tion mongers to spread false claims that mail voting would lead to wide­spread fraud. Elec­tion offi­cials could not fill inform­a­tion gaps with accur­ate inform­a­tion in time. As is now well known, no less than former Pres­id­ent Trump promoted these false claims, among others, to deny the 2020 pres­id­en­tial elec­tion results and provoke the Janu­ary 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.In 2022, false narrat­ives about a stolen 2020 elec­tion persist, even as an unpre­ced­en­ted spate of restrict­ive voting law changes across the coun­try has created fresh inform­a­tion gaps and, thus, fresh oppor­tun­it­ies for misin­form­a­tion. Since 2020, at least 18 states have shrunk voting access, often in ways that dramat­ic­ally alter proced­ures voters might remem­ber from the past. Mean­while, lies and vitriol about the 2020 elec­tion have affected percep­tions of elec­tion admin­is­tra­tion in ways that complic­ate work to defend against misin­form­a­tion.This paper iden­ti­fies some of the most signi­fic­ant inform­a­tion gaps around elec­tions in 2022 and new devel­op­ments in elec­tions over­sight that will make it harder to guard against misin­form­a­tion. Ulti­mately, it recom­mends strategies that elec­tion offi­cials, journ­al­ists, social media compan­ies, civic groups, and indi­vidu­als can and should use to prevent misin­form­a­tion from filling gaps in public know­ledge. Lessons from other subjects, such as Covid-19 vaccine ingredi­ents and tech­no­lo­gies, show how timely responses and proact­ive "preb­unk­ing" with accur­ate inform­a­tion help to mitig­ate misin­form­a­tion

Wee1B Is an Oocyte-Specific Kinase Involved in the Control of Meiotic Arrest in the Mouse

n/

An Ethnographic Study of Chinese Adolescent Identity in Taipei, Taiwan : Franchise Hangouts

One of the discriminating changes that Taiwan is experiencing is a shift in young people\u27s view of self, manifested in and through their daily activities within its cultural context (Yang, 1981). The question arises, how do Taiwan\u27s adolescents shape their view of self\u27 within this contemporary context at the intersection of Eastern and Western cultures? This thesis examined on how Chinese adolescent identity was constituted symbolically in and through their speech practices within a public social context, a typical Westernized dining place--McDonald\u27s, a U.S. fast food restaurant, and how such a locale both served and made sense by these urban adolescents. The study utilized the ethnography of communication as a descriptive theoretical-framework to contextualize the phenomena studied, and to capture communicative patterns in the adolescent speech community. Symbolic interactionism was used to conceptualize the formation of self\u27 and the other through adolescents\u27 interactions. An overview of Taiwan and the cultural features of identity within Confucianism were illustrated to situate the object of inquiry and to capture the contextual richness of the study. Field work was conducted in Taipei, Taiwan, lasting four-and-a half months. Research methods included in situ interviews, observations and collection of cultural artifacts. Findings revealed a set of salient events including talking and eating. The function of McDonald\u27s was perceived as a place to talk, to eat, to take a break, to meet friends, to use free facilities , to study , to have a date , and to escape from the weather. McDonald\u27s also served the function of providing working and learning opportunities for adolescents to enlarge their social world. Major emic categories of this urban fast food locale were identified as comfortable, free, fun/happy, and relaxed. Features of adolescent identity emerged from their speech practices, including (1) freedom vs. restriction, (2) gender identity, and (3) individual competence. Adolescent identity was presented as free, playful, relaxed, and fun. The free, playful, relaxed, fun sense of self was found in individual adolescent customer-employees\u27 communicative behavior. This coincided with the concept of I in Symbolic Interaction theory. A Confucian view of self was found within the operational level between employee-customer interactions. In summary, the study discovered that both Eastern and Western views of adolescent identity were reflected through adolescent communication at the juxtaposition of cultural and social changes

Is All Dating Violence Equal? Gender and Severity Differences in Predictors of Perpetration

The present study assesses the extent of perpetration of physical violence in predominately Hispanic high school students in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas. The relationship between adverse childhood experiences, exposure to interparental violence, attachment, emotion regulation, and impulsivity on two distinct, mutually exclusive, categories of severity of physical teen dating violence (TDV) perpetration is further explored. Participants completed self-report measures as part of a larger, anonymous web-based questionnaire. Two categories (i.e., minor/moderate and severe) were created to discern the contextual variables associated with different levels of severity of physical violence perpetration by males and females. Eight-hundred and twenty-nine 14- to 18-year-old adolescents from four different high schools participated in the study, of whom 407 reported having been in a dating relationship in the last 12 months. The results demonstrate that when only the most severe item of TDV is taken into consideration, the rates of violence perpetration by males and females are almost equal and remarkably lower than those reported in the literature. However, when the assessment includes minor/moderate levels of violence, such as pushing, the rates of violence perpetration by females are twice those of males and are consistent with those reported in the literature. Furthermore, different variables are associated with different levels of severity of violence perpetration. The results support approaches that emphasize the need to take the context of the violence into consideration, since all levels are not equal. The need to take the severity of violence into account in studies assessing dating violence is highlighted

Prophase I arrest and progression to metaphase I in mouse oocytes are controlled by Emi1-dependent regulation of APCCdh1

Mammalian oocytes are arrested in prophase of the first meiotic division. Progression into the first meiotic division is driven by an increase in the activity of maturation-promoting factor (MPF). In mouse oocytes, we find that early mitotic inhibitor 1 (Emi1), an inhibitor of the anaphase-promoting complex (APC) that is responsible for cyclin B destruction and inactivation of MPF, is present at prophase I and undergoes Skp1–Cul1–F-box/βTrCP-mediated destruction immediately after germinal vesicle breakdown (GVBD). Exogenous Emi1 or the inhibition of Emi1 destruction in prophase-arrested oocytes leads to a stabilization of cyclin B1–GFP that is sufficient to trigger GVBD. In contrast, the depletion of Emi1 using morpholino oligonucleotides increases cyclin B1–GFP destruction, resulting in an attenuation of MPF activation and a delay of entry into the first meiotic division. Finally, we show that Emi1-dependent effects on meiosis I require the presence of Cdh1. These observations reveal a novel mechanism for the control of entry into the first meiotic division: an Emi1-dependent inhibition of APCCdh1

Detection of microRNAs in color space

MotivationDeep sequencing provides inexpensive opportunities to characterize the transcriptional diversity of known genomes. The AB SOLiD technology generates millions of short sequencing reads in color-space; that is, the raw data is a sequence of colors, where each color represents 2 nt and each nucleotide is represented by two consecutive colors. This strategy is purported to have several advantages, including increased ability to distinguish sequencing errors from polymorphisms. Several programs have been developed to map short reads to genomes in color space. However, a number of previously unexplored technical issues arise when using SOLiD technology to characterize microRNAs.ResultsHere we explore these technical difficulties. First, since the sequenced reads are longer than the biological sequences, every read is expected to contain linker fragments. The color-calling error rate increases toward the 3(') end of the read such that recognizing the linker sequence for removal becomes problematic. Second, mapping in color space may lead to the loss of the first nucleotide of each read. We propose a sequential trimming and mapping approach to map small RNAs. Using our strategy, we reanalyze three published insect small RNA deep sequencing datasets and characterize 22 new microRNAs.Availability and implementationA bash shell script to perform the sequential trimming and mapping procedure, called SeqTrimMap, is available at: http://www.mirbase.org/tools/seqtrimmap/[email protected] informationSupplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online

Variants in estrogen-biosynthesis genes CYP17 and CYP19 and breast cancer risk: a family-based genetic association study

BACKGROUND: Case-control studies have reported inconsistent results concerning breast cancer risk and polymorphisms in genes that control endogenous estrogen biosynthesis. We report findings from the first family-based association study examining associations between female breast cancer risk and polymorphisms in two key estrogen-biosynthesis genes CYP17 (T→C promoter polymorphism) and CYP19 (TTTA repeat polymorphism). METHODS: We conducted the study among 278 nuclear families containing one or more daughters with breast cancer, with a total of 1123 family members (702 with available constitutional DNA and questionnaire data and 421 without them). These nuclear families were selected from breast cancer families participating in the Metropolitan New York Registry, one of the six centers of the National Cancer Institute's Breast Cancer Family Registry. We used likelihood-based statistical methods to examine allelic associations. RESULTS: We found the CYP19 allele with 11 TTTA repeats to be associated with breast cancer risk in these families. We also found that maternal (but not paternal) carrier status of CYP19 alleles with 11 repeats tended to be associated with breast cancer risk in daughters (independently of the daughters' own genotype), suggesting a possible in utero effect of CYP19. We found no association of a woman's breast cancer risk either with her own or with her mother's CYP17 genotype. CONCLUSION: This family-based study indicates that a woman's personal and maternal carrier status of CYP19 11 TTTA repeat allele might be related to increased breast cancer risk. However, because this is the first study to report an association between CYP19 11 TTTA repeat allele and breast cancer, and because multiple comparisons have been made, the associations should be interpreted with caution and need confirmation in future family-based studies

Human piRNAs Are Under Selection in Africans and Repress Transposable Elements

Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) are a recently discovered class of 24- to 30-nt noncoding RNAs whose best-understood function is to repress transposable elements (TEs) in animal germ lines. In humans, TE-derived sequences comprise ∼45% of the genome and there are several active TE families, including LINE-1 and Alu elements, which are a significant source of de novo mutations and intrapopulation variability. In the “ping-pong model,” piRNAs are thought to alternatively cleave sense and antisense TE transcripts in a positive feedback loop. Because piRNAs are poorly conserved between closely related species, including human and chimpanzee, we took a population genomics approach to study piRNA function and evolution. We found strong statistical evidence that piRNA sequences are under selective constraint in African populations. We then mapped the piRNA sequences to human TE sequences and found strong correlations between the age of each LINE-1 and Alu subfamily and the number of piRNAs mapping to the subfamily. This result supports the idea that piRNAs function as repressors of TEs in humans. Finally, we observed a significant depletion of piRNA matches in the reverse transcriptase region of the consensus human LINE-1 element but not of the consensus mouse LINE-1 element. This result suggests that reverse transcriptase might have an endogenous role specific to humans. Overall, our results elucidate the function and evolution of piRNAs in humans and highlight the utility of population genomics analysis for studying this rapidly evolving genetic system

A splicing-dependent transcriptional checkpoint associated with prespliceosome formation

There is good evidence for functional interactions between splicing and transcription in eukaryotes, but how and why these processes are coupled remain unknown. Prp5 protein (Prp5p) is an RNA-stimulated adenosine triphosphatase (ATPase) required for prespliceosome formation in yeast. We demonstrate through in vivo RNA labeling that, in addition to a splicing defect, the prp5-1 mutation causes a defect in the transcription of intron-containing genes. We present chromatin immunoprecipitation evidence for a transcriptional elongation defect in which RNA polymerase that is phosphorylated at Ser5 of the largest subunit’s heptad repeat accumulates over introns and that this defect requires Cus2 protein. A similar accumulation of polymerase was observed when prespliceosome formation was blocked by a mutation in U2 snRNA. These results indicate the existence of a transcriptional elongation checkpoint that is associated with prespliceosome formation during cotranscriptional spliceosome assembly. We propose a role for Cus2p as a potential checkpoint factor in transcription

WormBase 2007

WormBase (www.wormbase.org) is the major publicly available database of information about Caenorhabditis elegans, an important system for basic biological and biomedical research. Derived from the initial ACeDB database of C. elegans genetic and sequence information, WormBase now includes the genomic, anatomical and functional information about C. elegans, other Caenorhabditis species and other nematodes. As such, it is a crucial resource not only for C. elegans biologists but the larger biomedical and bioinformatics communities. Coverage of core areas of C. elegans biology will allow the biomedical community to make full use of the results of intensive molecular genetic analysis and functional genomic studies of this organism. Improved search and display tools, wider cross-species comparisons and extended ontologies are some of the features that will help scientists extend their research and take advantage of other nematode species genome sequences