Information Diffusion Power of Political Party Twitter Accounts During Japan's 2017 Election

In modern election campaigns, political parties utilize social media to advertise their policies and candidates and to communicate to electorates. In Japan's latest general election in 2017, the 48th general election for the Lower House, social media, especially Twitter, was actively used. In this paper, we perform a detailed analysis of social graphs and users who retweeted tweets of political parties during the election. Our aim is to obtain accurate information regarding the diffusion power for each party rather than just the number of followers. The results indicate that a user following a user who follows a political party account tended to also follow the account. This means that it does not increase diversity because users who follow each other tend to share similar values. We also find that followers of a specific party frequently retweeted the tweets. However, since users following the user who follow a political party account are not diverse, political parties delivered the information only to a few political detachment users.Comment: The 10th International Conference on Social Informatics (SocInfo 2018

Genome-Wide Association Study and Subsequent Exclusion of ATCAY as a Candidate Gene Involved in Equine Neuroaxonal Dystrophy Using Two Animal Models.

Equine neuroaxonal dystrophy/equine degenerative myeloencephalopathy (eNAD/EDM) is an inherited neurodegenerative disorder of unknown etiology. Clinical signs of neurological deficits develop within the first year of life in vitamin E (vitE) deficient horses. A genome-wide association study (GWAS) was carried out using 670,000 SNP markers in 27 case and 42 control Quarter Horses. Two markers, encompassing a 2.5 Mb region on ECA7, were associated with the phenotype (p = 2.05 × 10-7 and 4.72 × 10-6). Within this region, caytaxin (ATCAY) was identified as a candidate gene due to its known role in Cayman Ataxia and ataxic/dystonic phenotypes in mouse models. Whole-genome sequence data in four eNAD/EDM and five unaffected horses identified 199 associated variants within the ECA7 region. MassARRAY® genotyping was performed on these variants within the GWAS population. The three variants within ATCAY were not concordant with the disease phenotype. No difference in expression or alternative splicing was identified using qRT-PCR in brainstem across the ATCAY transcript. Atcayji-hes mice were then used to conduct functional analysis in a second animal model. Histologic lesions were not identified in the central nervous system of Atcayji-hes mice. Additionally, supplementation of homozygous Atcayji-hes mice with 600 IU/day of dl-α-tocopheryl acetate (vitE) during gestation, lactation, and adulthood did not improve the phenotype. ATCAY has therefore been excluded as a candidate gene for eNAD/EDM

"We are Dumbledore's Army:" Forging the Foundation For Future Upstanders

The profusion of human rights atrocities and purported incidents of genocide across the globe in recent decades has increasingly forced multiple and complicated issues associated with combating these violations onto the political agendas of world leaders and institutions. Scholars are united in recognizing the growing importance and need for critical instruction on the complex issues related to human rights and genocide studies to inspire high school students toward a global, democratic citizenship for the 21st century. Therefore, how do educators and student programs prepare students to critically examine these complex questions in a way that encourages global citizenship? This study, conducted during a two-week intensive summer institute on human rights and genocide studies in western New York state, assessed the ability of a human rights and genocide educational institute to foster higher levels of self-efficacy among the participating students and their ability to be "upstanders," rather than bystanders in their daily lives. We argue that the students felt empowered to pursue their short- and long-term goals regarding becoming human rights upstanders through the role models in their lives who influenced them to come to the Institute and the various experiences they had during the Institute’s workshops and field trips.

Dynamics of Density Cavities Generated by Frictional Heating: Formation, Distortion, and Instability

A simulation study of the generation and evolution of mesoscale density cavities in the polar ionosphere is conducted using a time-dependent, nonlinear, quasi-electrostatic model. The model demonstrates that density cavities, generated by frictional heating, can form in as little as 90 s due to strong electric fields of ∼120 mV/m, which are sometimes observed near auroral zone and polar cap arcs. Asymmetric density cavity features and strong plasma density gradients perpendicular to the geomagnetic field are naturally generated as a consequence of the strong convection and finite extent of the auroral feature. The walls of the auroral density cavities are shown to be susceptible to large-scale distortion and gradient-drift instability, hence indicating that arc-related regions of frictional heating may be a source of polar ionospheric density irregularities

Dependence of Maximum Trappable Field on Superconducting Nb3Sn Cylinder Wall Thickness

Uniform dipole magnetic fields from 1.9 to 22.4 kOe were permanently trapped, with high fidelity to the original field, transversely to the axes of hollow Nb3Sn superconducting cylinders. These cylinders were constructed by helically wrapping multiple layers of superconducting ribbon around a mandrel. This is the highest field yet trapped, the first time trapping has been reported in such helically wound taped cylinders, and the first time the maximum trappable field has been experimentally determined as a function of cylinder wall thickness.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. PACS numbers: 74.60.Ge, 74.70.Ps, 41.10.Fs, 85.25.+

Translating research into policy and practice in developing countries: a case study of magnesium sulphate for pre-eclampsia.

BACKGROUND: The evidence base for improving reproductive health continues to grow. However, concerns remain that the translation of this evidence into appropriate policies is partial and slow. Little is known about the factors affecting the use of evidence by policy makers and clinicians, particularly in developing countries. The objective of this study was to examine the factors that might affect the translation of randomised controlled trial (RCT) findings into policies and practice in developing countries. METHODS: The recent publication of an important RCT on the use of magnesium sulphate to treat pre-eclampsia provided an opportunity to explore how research findings might be translated into policy. A range of research methods, including a survey, group interview and observations with RCT collaborators and a survey of WHO drug information officers, regulatory officials and obstetricians in 12 countries, were undertaken to identify barriers and facilitators to knowledge translation. RESULTS: It proved difficult to obtain reliable data regarding the availability and use of commonly used drugs in many countries. The perceived barriers to implementing RCT findings regarding the use of magnesium sulphate for pre-eclampsia include drug licensing and availability; inadequate and poorly implemented clinical guidelines; and lack of political support for policy change. However, there were significant regional and national differences in the importance of specific barriers. CONCLUSION: The policy changes needed to ensure widespread availability and use of magnesium sulphate are variable and complex. Difficulties in obtaining information on availability and use are combined with the wide range of barriers across settings, including a lack of support from policy makers. This makes it difficult to envisage any single intervention strategy that might be used to promote the uptake of research findings on magnesium sulphate into policy across the study settings. The publication of important trials may therefore not have the impacts on health care that researchers hope for

Confronting globalisation: Learning from intercontinental collaboration

Higher education institutions are responding to globalisation in various ways. This study describes and analyses challenges encountered in a recent case of global collaboration between four universities on different continents in developing a web-based master's program. The key issue was how to develop programs in a way that is fair for the different countries involved. The focus of the paper is on tensions between local and national contexts, rules and resources and the creation of a common global program. 'Agency', 'structure' and 'frame factor' are used as analytical concepts to help understand the dynamics of the collaboration and the character of the program

Energy and flux variations across thin auroral arcs

Two discrete auroral arc filaments, with widths of less than 1 km, have been analysed using multi-station, multi-monochromatic optical observations from small and medium field-of-view imagers and the EISCAT radar. The energy and flux of the precipitating electrons, volume emission rates and local electric fields in the ionosphere have been determined at high temporal (up to 30 Hz) and spatial (down to tens of metres) resolution. A new time-dependent inversion model is used to derive energy spectra from EISCAT electron density profiles. The energy and flux are also derived independently from optical emissions combined with ion-chemistry modelling, and a good agreement is found. A robust method to obtain detailed 2-D maps of the average energy and number flux of small scale aurora is presented. The arcs are stretched in the north-south direction, and the lowest energies are found on the western, leading edges of the arcs. The large ionospheric electric fields (250 mV m?1) found from tristatic radar measurements are evidence of strong currents associated with the region close to the optical arcs. The different data sets indicate that the arcs appear on the boundaries between regions with different average energy of diffuse precipitation, caused by pitch-angle scattering. The two thin arcs on these boundaries are found to be related to an increase in number flux (and thus increased energy flux) without an increase in energ