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

The impact of flood in 2010 on the water quality of the Goczałkowice Reservoir

The influence of three waves of the flood in May, June and September 2010 on the water quality in the Goczałkowice reservoir has been studied. For each sample, levels of 22 indicators of water quality were determined. Most amongst all indicators were measured 42–48 times per year. The data were statistically analyzed. It has been shown that cluster analysis of standardized indicators of water quality may be used to distinguish clearly separated groups of measurements from the period of floods and periods beyond. Distribution’ diversities in the water quality indicators were tested separately, and were compared including the following periods: during and beyond floods in 2010, during the floods in 2010 and 1997, as well as during the floods, and month-corresponding multi-year period 1994–2009. It has been shown that flood characteristically affects the distribution of the indicators of water quality – regardless of season, and also the passage of tim

Zespół Sweeta — etiopatogeneza, obraz kliniczny, diagnostyka, leczenie

Zespół Sweeta jest rzadko występującym schorzeniem o charakterze zapalnym, należącym do grupy dermatoz neutrofilowych. Charakteryzuje się nagłym występowaniem zmian skórnych o charakterze grudek, guzków, blaszek z towarzyszącą gorączką i leukocytozą. Zazwyczaj wyróżnia się następujące podtypy zespołu: klasyczny, związany z nowotworami i indukowany przez leki. Etiopatogeneza zespołu Sweeta pozostaje niejasna. Zespół bywa poprzedzony infekcją układu oddechowego, układu pokarmowego, szczepieniem bądź współwystępuje z chorobą nowotworową, chorobą zapalną lub ciążą. Dla zespołu Sweeta charakterystyczna jest dobra odpowiedź na leczenie ogólne preparatami glikokortykosteroidowymi i szybkie ustępowanie wykwitów. Średnio u jednej trzeciej pacjentów zmiany nawracają. Słowa kluczowe: ostra gorączkowa dermatoza neutrofilowa, dermatozy neutrofilowe, zespół Sweet

Negative emotions boost users activity at BBC Forum

We present an empirical study of user activity in online BBC discussion forums, measured by the number of posts written by individual debaters and the average sentiment of these posts. Nearly 2.5 million posts from over 18 thousand users were investigated. Scale free distributions were observed for activity in individual discussion threads as well as for overall activity. The number of unique users in a thread normalized by the thread length decays with thread length, suggesting that thread life is sustained by mutual discussions rather than by independent comments. Automatic sentiment analysis shows that most posts contain negative emotions and the most active users in individual threads express predominantly negative sentiments. It follows that the average emotion of longer threads is more negative and that threads can be sustained by negative comments. An agent based computer simulation model has been used to reproduce several essential characteristics of the analyzed system. The model stresses the role of discussions between users, especially emotionally laden quarrels between supporters of opposite opinions, and represents many observed statistics of the forum.Comment: 29 pages, 6 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

CYBEREMOTIONS – Collective Emotions in Cyberspace

AbstractEmotions are an important part of most societal dynamics. As with face to face meetings, Internet exchanges may not only include factual information but may also elicit emotional responses; how participants feel about the subject discussed or other group members. The development of automatic sentiment analysis has made large scale emotion detection and analysis possible using text messages collected from the web. We present results of two years of studies performed in the EU Large Scale Integrating Project CYBEREMOTIONS (Collective emotions in cyberspace) Our goal is to understand the role of collective emotions in creating, forming and breaking-up ICT mediated communities and to prepare the background for the next generation of emotionally-intelligent ICT services. Project results have already attracted a lot of attention from various mass media and research journals including the Science and New Scientist magazines. Nine Project teams are organised in three layers (data, theory and ICT output)

An inventory of selected sources of light pollution in Tarnów

This article deals with the problem of light pollution, which is associated with the use of incorrectly constructed and positioned lamps, lanterns and reflectors. This problem is common in Polish villages, towns and cities, one of which is Tarnów. External lighting was analysed and evaluated in some areas of this city. This lighting was classified into the following groups: street, stylish, park, architectural and parking. This analysis enables solutions to the problem of excessive night-time lighting to be proposed

Urban lighting in the context of light pollution

Metody oświetlenia obszarów zurbanizowanych mają znaczny wpływ na poziom zanieczyszczenia światłem. Natężenie i kierunek oświetlenia poszczególnych elementów struktury miejskiej zależne są od funkcji, formy oraz prestiżu obiektu. Niewłaściwe oświetlenie, niedostosowane do sposobu użytkowania obiektów powoduje znaczne straty w aspekcie zarówno ekonomicznym, społecznym jak i środowiskowym. Zanieczyszczenie światłem, poprzez zjawiska rozpraszania i odbicia, rozciąga się daleko poza obszary miejskie wywołując zaburzenie dobowych cykli światła i ciemności. Organizmy roślinne i zwierzęce silnie reagują na te bodźce. Poziom oświetlenia otoczenia reguluje ich metabolizm, wzrost i behawior. W efekcie dochodzi do zaburzeń funkcjonowania ekosystemów. Celem niniejszej pracy jest zwrócenie uwagi na wpływ zanieczyszczenia światłem na organizmy żywe oraz przedstawienie, w jaki sposób należy oświetlać obiekty miejskie, aby minimalizować ich negatywne oddziaływanie na środowisko.The methods of illumination of urban areas have a significant influence on the level of light pollution. Function, form and prestige of the urban structure elements determine the direction and intensity of their lighting. Unsuitable lighting, inadequate to the way of the objects usage, causes considerable losses in economic, social and environmental aspects. Due to the phenomena of light scattering and reflection light pollution is spreading far beyond urban areas leading to disruption of circadian cycles of light and darkness. Plant and animal organisms are highly sensitive to these stimuli. Ambient lighting level regulates their metabolism, growth and behavior. As a result, it comes to disturbances in ecosystems. The purpose of this paper is to stress the impact of light pollution on living organisms and to show how to illuminate city facilities to minimize its negative environmental effects

Sweet’s syndrome — etiopathogenesis, clinical presentation, diagnosis, treatment

Zespół Sweeta jest rzadko występującym schorzeniem o charakterze zapalnym, należącym do grupy dermatoz neutrofilowych. Charakteryzuje się nagłym występowaniem zmian skórnych o charakterze grudek, guzków, blaszek z towarzyszącą gorączką i leukocytozą. Zazwyczaj wyróżnia się następujące podtypy zespołu: klasyczny, związany z nowotworami i indukowany przez leki. Etiopatogeneza zespołu Sweeta pozostaje niejasna. Zespół bywa poprzedzony infekcją układu oddechowego, układu pokarmowego, szczepieniem bądź współwystępuje z chorobą nowotworową, chorobą zapalną lub ciążą. Dla zespołu Sweeta charakterystyczna jest dobra odpowiedź na leczenie ogólne preparatami glikokortykosteroidowymi i szybkie ustępowanie wykwitów. Średnio u jednej trzeciej pacjentów zmiany nawracają.Sweet’s syndrome is a rare inflammatory disorder belonging to the group of neutrophilic dermatoses. It is characterized by a sudden onset of skin lesions such as papules, nodules, plaques, accompanied by fever and leukocytosis. The syndrome is typically classified into the following subtypes: classical, malignancy-associated and drug-induced. The etiopathogenesis of Sweet’s syndrome remains unclear. The syndrome is sometimes preceded by infection of the respiratory system, digestive system, vaccination or coexists with neoplastic disease, inflammatory disease or pregnancy. A characteristic feature of Sweet’s syndrome is a good response to systemic treatment with glucocorticosteroids and a rapid resolution of the lesions. On average, one third of patients have recurrent lesions