Emotional agents at the square lattice

We introduce and investigate by numerical simulations a number of models of emotional agents at the square lattice. Our models describe the most general features of emotions such as the spontaneous emotional arousal, emotional relaxation, and transfers of emotions between different agents. Group emotions in the considered models are periodically fluctuating between two opposite valency levels and as result the mean value of such group emotions is zero. The oscillations amplitude depends strongly on probability ps of the individual spontaneous arousal. For small values of relaxation times tau we observed a stochastic resonance, i.e. the signal to noise ratio SNR is maximal for a non-zero ps parameter. The amplitude increases with the probability p of local affective interactions while the mean oscillations period increases with the relaxation time tau and is only weakly dependent on other system parameters. Presence of emotional antenna can enhance positive or negative emotions and for the optimal transition probability the antenna can change agents emotions at longer distances. The stochastic resonance was also observed for the influence of emotions on task execution efficiency.Comment: 28 pages, 19 figures, 3 table

Networks of companies and branches in Poland

In this study we consider relations between companies in Poland taking into account common branches they belong to. It is clear that companies belonging to the same branch compete for similar customers, so the market induces correlations between them. On the other hand two branches can be related by companies acting in both of them. To remove weak, accidental links we shall use a concept of threshold filtering for weighted networks where a link weight corresponds to a number of existing connections (common companies or branches) between a pair of nodes.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures and 4 table

Scaling of human behavior during portal browsing

We investigate transitions of portals users between different subpages. A weighted network of portals subpages is reconstructed where edge weights are numbers of corresponding transitions. Distributions of link weights and node strengths follow power laws over several decades. Node strength increases faster than linearly with node degree. The distribution of time spent by the user at one subpage decays as power law with exponent around 1.3. Distribution of numbers P(z) of unique subpages during one visit is exponential. We find a square root dependence between the average z and the total number of transitions n during a single visit. Individual path of portal user resembles of self-attracting walk on the weighted network. Analytical model is developed to recover in part the collected data.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figure

Collective emotions online and their influence on community life

E-communities, social groups interacting online, have recently become an object of interdisciplinary research. As with face-to-face meetings, Internet exchanges may not only include factual information but also emotional information - how participants feel about the subject discussed or other group members. Emotions are known to be important in affecting interaction partners in offline communication in many ways. Could emotions in Internet exchanges affect others and systematically influence quantitative and qualitative aspects of the trajectory of e-communities? The development of automatic sentiment analysis has made large scale emotion detection and analysis possible using text messages collected from the web. It is not clear if emotions in e-communities primarily derive from individual group members' personalities or if they result from intra-group interactions, and whether they influence group activities. We show the collective character of affective phenomena on a large scale as observed in 4 million posts downloaded from Blogs, Digg and BBC forums. To test whether the emotions of a community member may influence the emotions of others, posts were grouped into clusters of messages with similar emotional valences. The frequency of long clusters was much higher than it would be if emotions occurred at random. Distributions for cluster lengths can be explained by preferential processes because conditional probabilities for consecutive messages grow as a power law with cluster length. For BBC forum threads, average discussion lengths were higher for larger values of absolute average emotional valence in the first ten comments and the average amount of emotion in messages fell during discussions. Our results prove that collective emotional states can be created and modulated via Internet communication and that emotional expressiveness is the fuel that sustains some e-communities.Comment: 23 pages including Supporting Information, accepted to PLoS ON

Novel probiotic approach to counter Paenibacillus larvae infection in honey bees

© 2019, The Author(s). American foulbrood (AFB) is a highly virulent disease afflicting honey bees (Apis mellifera). The causative organism, Paenibacillus larvae, attacks honey bee brood and renders entire hives dysfunctional during active disease states, but more commonly resides in hives asymptomatically as inactive spores that elude even vigilant beekeepers. The mechanism of this pathogenic transition is not fully understood, and no cure exists for AFB. Here, we evaluated how hive supplementation with probiotic lactobacilli (delivered through a nutrient patty; BioPatty) affected colony resistance towards a naturally occurring AFB outbreak. Results demonstrated a significantly lower pathogen load and proteolytic activity of honey bee larvae from BioPatty-treated hives. Interestingly, a distinctive shift in the microbiota composition of adult nurse bees occurred irrespective of treatment group during the monitoring period, but only vehicle-supplemented nurse bees exhibited higher P. larvae loads. In vitro experiments utilizing laboratory-reared honey bee larvae showed Lactobacillus plantarum Lp39, Lactobacillus rhamnosus GR-1, and Lactobacillus kunkeei BR-1 (contained in the BioPatty) could reduce pathogen load, upregulate expression of key immune genes, and improve survival during P. larvae infection. These findings suggest the usage of a lactobacilli-containing hive supplement, which is practical and affordable for beekeepers, may be effective for reducing enzootic pathogen-related hive losses

Networks of companies and branches in Poland

In this study we consider relations between companies in Poland taking into account common branches they belong to. It is clear that companies belonging to the same branch compete for similar customers, so the market induces correlations between them. On the other hand two branches can be related by companies acting in both of them. To remove weak, accidental links we shall use a concept of threshold filtering for weighted networks where a link weight corresponds to a number of existing connections (common companies or branches) between a pair of nodes.

COVID-19 lockdown shows how much natural mountain regions are affected by heavy tourism

Mountain areas in Poland are among the most frequented tourist destinations and such intensive tourism negatively affects the natural environment. The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting lockdown restricted travel for a few months in 2020, providing a unique opportunity to observe the studied mountain environment without the impact of typical tourist traffic. This study is based on the determination of antibiotic content, hydrochemical parameters, enumeration of culturable bacterial water quality indicators, antimicrobial susceptibility tests together with extended spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) gene detection in waterborne E. coli and NGS-based bacterial community composition at six sites along the Białka river valley (one of the most popular touristic regions in Poland) in three periods: in summer and winter tourist seasons and during the COVID-19 lockdown. The results of individual measurements showed decreased numbers of bacterial indicators of water contamination (e.g. numbers of E. coli dropped from 99 × 10(4) CFU/100 ml to 12 CFU/100 ml at the most contaminated site) and the share of antimicrobial resistant E. coli (total resistance dropped from 21% in summer to 9% during lockdown, share of multidrug resistant strains from 100 to 44%, and ESBL from 20% in summer to none during lockdown). Antibiotic concentrations were the highest during lockdown. The use of multivariate analysis (principal component analysis – PCA and heatmaps) revealed a clear pattern of tourism-related anthropogenic pressure on the water environment and positive impact of COVID-19 lockdown on water quality. PCA distinguished three major factors determining water quality: F1 shows strong effect of anthropogenic pressure; F2 describes the lockdown-related quality restoration processes; F3 is semi-natural and describes the differences between the most pristine and most anthropogenically-impacted waters

Lactobacillus spp. attenuate antibiotic-induced immune and microbiota dysregulation in honey bees

Widespread antibiotic usage in apiculture contributes substantially to the global dissemination of antimicrobial resistance and has the potential to negatively influence bacterial symbionts of honey bees (Apis mellifera). Here, we show that routine antibiotic administration with oxytetracycline selectively increased tetB (efflux pump resistance gene) abundance in the gut microbiota of adult workers while concurrently depleting several key symbionts known to regulate immune function and nutrient metabolism such as Frischella perrera and Lactobacillus Firm-5 strains. These microbial changes were functionally characterized by decreased capped brood counts (marker of hive nutritional status and productivity) and reduced antimicrobial capacity of adult hemolymph (indicator of immune competence). Importantly, combination therapy with three immunostimulatory Lactobacillus strains could mitigate antibiotic-associated microbiota dysbiosis and immune deficits in adult workers, as well as maximize the intended benefit of oxytetracycline by suppressing larval pathogen loads to near-undetectable levels. We conclude that microbial-based therapeutics may offer a simple but effective solution to reduce honey bee disease burden, environmental xenobiotic exposure, and spread of antimicrobial resistance