An Army of Me: Sockpuppets in Online Discussion Communities

In online discussion communities, users can interact and share information and opinions on a wide variety of topics. However, some users may create multiple identities, or sockpuppets, and engage in undesired behavior by deceiving others or manipulating discussions. In this work, we study sockpuppetry across nine discussion communities, and show that sockpuppets differ from ordinary users in terms of their posting behavior, linguistic traits, as well as social network structure. Sockpuppets tend to start fewer discussions, write shorter posts, use more personal pronouns such as "I", and have more clustered ego-networks. Further, pairs of sockpuppets controlled by the same individual are more likely to interact on the same discussion at the same time than pairs of ordinary users. Our analysis suggests a taxonomy of deceptive behavior in discussion communities. Pairs of sockpuppets can vary in their deceptiveness, i.e., whether they pretend to be different users, or their supportiveness, i.e., if they support arguments of other sockpuppets controlled by the same user. We apply these findings to a series of prediction tasks, notably, to identify whether a pair of accounts belongs to the same underlying user or not. Altogether, this work presents a data-driven view of deception in online discussion communities and paves the way towards the automatic detection of sockpuppets.Comment: 26th International World Wide Web conference 2017 (WWW 2017

Anyone Can Become a Troll: Causes of Trolling Behavior in Online Discussions

In online communities, antisocial behavior such as trolling disrupts constructive discussion. While prior work suggests that trolling behavior is confined to a vocal and antisocial minority, we demonstrate that ordinary people can engage in such behavior as well. We propose two primary trigger mechanisms: the individual's mood, and the surrounding context of a discussion (e.g., exposure to prior trolling behavior). Through an experiment simulating an online discussion, we find that both negative mood and seeing troll posts by others significantly increases the probability of a user trolling, and together double this probability. To support and extend these results, we study how these same mechanisms play out in the wild via a data-driven, longitudinal analysis of a large online news discussion community. This analysis reveals temporal mood effects, and explores long range patterns of repeated exposure to trolling. A predictive model of trolling behavior shows that mood and discussion context together can explain trolling behavior better than an individual's history of trolling. These results combine to suggest that ordinary people can, under the right circumstances, behave like trolls.Comment: Best Paper Award at CSCW 201

Deer reduce habitat quality for a woodland songbird: evidence from settlement patterns, demographic parameters, and body condition.

Understanding avian responses to ungulate-induced habitat modification is important because deer populations are increasing across much of temperate Europe and North America. Our experimental study examined whether habitat quality for Blackcaps (Sylvia atricapilla) in young woodland in eastern England was affected by deer, by comparing Blackcap behavior, abundance, and condition between paired plots (half of each pair protected from deer). The vegetation in each pair of plots was the same age. The Blackcap is an ideal model species for testing effects of deer on avian habitat quality because it is dependent on dense understory vegetation and is abundant throughout much of Europe. We compared timing of settlement, abundance, age structure (second-year vs. after-second-year), and phenotypic quality (measured as a body condition index, body mass divided by tarsus length) between experimental and control plots. We used point counts to examine Blackcap distribution, and standardized mist netting to collect demographic and biometric data. Incidence of singing Blackcaps was higher in nonbrowsed than in browsed plots, and singing males were recorded in nonbrowsed plots earlier in the season, indicating earlier and preferential territory establishment. Most Blackcaps, both males and females, were captured in vegetation prior to canopy closure (2–4 years of regrowth). Body condition was superior for male Blackcaps captured in nonbrowsed plots; for second-year males this was most marked in vegetation prior to canopy closure. We conclude that deer browsing in young woodland can alter habitat quality for understory-dependent species, with potential consequences for individual fitness and population productivity beyond the more obvious effects on population density

Cognitive Computation sans Representation

The Computational Theory of Mind (CTM) holds that cognitive processes are essentially computational, and hence computation provides the scientific key to explaining mentality. The Representational Theory of Mind (RTM) holds that representational content is the key feature in distinguishing mental from non-mental systems. I argue that there is a deep incompatibility between these two theoretical frameworks, and that the acceptance of CTM provides strong grounds for rejecting RTM. The focal point of the incompatibility is the fact that representational content is extrinsic to formal procedures as such, and the intended interpretation of syntax makes no difference to the execution of an algorithm. So the unique 'content' postulated by RTM is superfluous to the formal procedures of CTM. And once these procedures are implemented in a physical mechanism, it is exclusively the causal properties of the physical mechanism that are responsible for all aspects of the system's behaviour. So once again, postulated content is rendered superfluous. To the extent that semantic content may appear to play a role in behaviour, it must be syntactically encoded within the system, and just as in a standard computational artefact, so too with the human mind/brain - it's pure syntax all the way down to the level of physical implementation. Hence 'content' is at most a convenient meta-level gloss, projected from the outside by human theorists, which itself can play no role in cognitive processing

Association Between Objectively Measured Physical Activity and Cognitive Function in Older Adults—The Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke Study

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116310/1/jgs13829_am.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116310/2/jgs13829.pd

Recognizing thyrotoxicosis in a patient with bipolar mania: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A thyroid stimulating hormone level is commonly measured in patients presenting with symptoms of mania in order to rule out an underlying general medical condition such as hyperthyroidism or thyrotoxicosis. Indeed, many cases have been reported in which a patient is initially treated for bipolar mania, but is later found to have a thyroid condition. Several case reports have noted the development of a thyroid condition in bipolar patients either on lithium maintenance treatment or recently on lithium treatment.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We review a case in which a patient with a long history of bipolar disorder presents with comorbid hyperthyroidism and bipolar mania after recent discontinuation of lithium treatment.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Physicians should consider a comorbid hyperthyroidism in bipolar manic patients only partially responsive to standard care treatment with a mood stabilizer and antipsychotic.</p

Interacting with Fictions:The Role of Pretend Play in Theory of Mind Acquisition

Pretend play is generally considered to be a developmental landmark in Theory of Mind acquisition. The aim of the present paper is to offer a new account of the role of pretend play in Theory of Mind development. To this end I combine Hutto and Gallagher’s account of social cognition development with Matravers’ recent argument that the cognitive processes involved in engagement with narratives are neutral regarding fictionality. The key contribution of my account is an analysis of pretend play as interaction with fictions. I argue that my account offers a better explanation of existing empirical data on the development of children’s pretend play and Theory of Mind than the competing theories from Leslie, Perner and Harris

Starling foraging success in relation to agricultural land-use

Changes in agricultural land-use have been suggested to contribute to the decline of several bird species through negative effects on their food supply during breeding. One important change in land-Use has been loss of pastures, especially permanent pastures. In this study we investigated how different forms of agricultural land-use affected foraging success or a declining bird species, the European starling Sturnus vulgaris. We let caged starlings forage in different forms of agricultural fields and determined time spent foraging and foraging success, The starlings' activity level (time spent actively foraging) as well as the number of prey caught per time unit was strongly related to the abundance of prey in soil samples. Also the body mass change during the experiment was positively related to activity level and prey capture rate, We found consistent differences in foraging variables between habitats. In spring sown grain starlings were least active and found fewer prey items at a lower rate than in any other habitat. The other three habitats differed less, but in general mowed hay fields appeared slightly more valuable than the cultivated and natural pastures. We did not find any differences between natural and cultivated pastures in foraging variables. Thus, starling foraging success is higher in grass-covered fields than in cultivated fields, but the management of the grass-covered fields mattered less. The results are consistent with starlings having higher population densities and breeding success in areas with higher availability of pasture. We suggest that the physical structure of the habitat (sward height) and Moisture may be additional variables that need to be taken into account to explain starling breeding density and success in the agricultural landscape

Moving Stories: Agency, Emotion and Practical Rationality

What is it to be an agent? One influential line of thought, endorsed by G. E. M. Anscombe and David Velleman, among others, holds that agency depends on practical rationality—the ability to act for reasons, rather than being merely moved by causes. Over the past 25 years, Velleman has argued compellingly for a distinctive view of agency and the practical rationality with which he associates it. On Velleman’s conception, being an agent consists in having the capacity to be motivated by a drive to act for reasons. Your bodily movements qualify as genuine actions insofar as they are motivated in part by your desire to behave in a way that makes sense to yourself. However, there are at least two distinct ways of spelling out what this drive towards self-intelligibility consists in, both present in Velleman’s work. It might consist in a drive towards intelligibility in causal-psychological terms: roughly, a drive to maximize the rational coherence of your psychological states. Alternatively, it might consist in a drive towards narrative intelligibility: a drive to make your ongoing activity conform to a recognizable narrative structure, where that structure is understood emotionally. Velleman originally saw these options as basically equivalent, but later came to prioritize the drive towards causal-psychological intelligibility over that towards narrative intelligibility. I argue that this gets things the wrong way round—we should instead understand our capacities to render ourselves intelligible in causal-psychological terms as built upon a bedrock of emotionally suffused narrative understanding. In doing so, we resolve several problems for Velleman’s view, and pave the way for an embodied, embedded and affective account of practical rationality and agency. According to the picture that emerges, practical rationality is essential to agency, narrative understanding is essential to practical rationality, and the rhythms and structures patterning the ebb and flow of our emotional lives are essential to narrative understanding

Food abundance does not determine bird use of early-successional habitat.

Abstract. Few attempts have been made to experimentally address the extent to which temporal or spatial variation in food availability influences avian habitat use. We used an experimental approach to investigate whether bird use differed between treated (arthropods reduced through insecticide application) and control (untreated) forest canopy gaps within a bottomland hardwood forest in the Upper Coastal Plain of South Carolina, USA. Gaps were two- to three-year-old group selection timber harvest openings of three sizes (0.13, 0.26, and 0.50 ha). Our study was conducted during four bird use periods (spring migration, breeding, post-breeding, and fall migration) in 2002 and 2003. Arthropods were reduced in treated gaps by 68% in 2002 and 73% in 2003. We used mist-netting captures and foraging attack rates to assess the influence of arthropod abundance on avian habitat use. Evidence that birds responded to arthropod abundance was limited and inconsistent. In 2002, we generally captured more birds in treated gaps of the smallest size (0.13 ha) and fewer birds in treated gaps of the larger sizes. In 2003, we recorded few differences in the number of captures in treated and control gaps. Foraging attack rates generally were lower in treated than in control gaps, indicating that birds were able to adapt to the reduced food availability and remain in treated gaps. We conclude that arthropod abundance was not a proximate factor controlling whether forest birds used our gaps. The abundance of food resources may not be as important in determining avian habitat selection as previous research has indicated, at least for passerines in temperate subtropical regions