227 research outputs found
Tweets Are Not Created Equal:investigating Twitter's client ecosystem
This article offers an investigation into the developer ecosystem of platforms drawing on the specific case of Twitter and explores how third-party clients enable different âways of beingâ on Twitter. It suggests that researchers need to consider digital data as traces of distributed accomplishments between platforms, users, interfaces, and developers. The argument follows three main steps: We discuss how Twitterâs bounded openness enables and structures distributed data production through grammatization of action. We then suggest ways to explore and qualify sources by drawing on a weeklong data set of nearly 32 million tweets, retrieved from Twitterâs 1% random sample. We explore how clients show considerable differences in tweet characteristics and degrees of automation, and outline methodological steps to deploy the source variable to further investigate the heterogeneous practices common metrics risk flattening into singular counts. We conclude by returning to the question about the measures of the medium, suggesting how they might be revisited in the context of increasingly distributed platform ecosystems, and how platform data challenge key ideas of digital methods research
Climate influences on flood probabilities across Europe
The link between streamflow extremes and climatology has been widely studied
in recent decades. However, a study investigating the effect of large-scale
circulation variations on the distribution of seasonal discharge extremes at
the European level is missing. Here we fit a climate-informed generalized
extreme value (GEV) distribution to about 600Â streamflow records in Europe
for each of the standard seasons, i.e., to winter, spring, summer and autumn
maxima, and compare it with the classical GEV distribution with parameters
invariant in time. The study adopts a Bayesian framework and covers the
period 1950 to 2016. Five indices with proven influence on the European
climate are examined independently as covariates, namely the North Atlantic
Oscillation (NAO), the east Atlantic pattern (EA), the east Atlanticâwestern
Russian pattern (EA/WR), the Scandinavia pattern (SCA) and the
polarâEurasian pattern (POL).
It is found that for a high percentage of stations the climate-informed
model is preferred to the classical model. Particularly for NAO during
winter, a strong influence on streamflow extremes is detected for large
parts of Europe (preferred to the classical GEV distribution for 46 % of the stations).
Climate-informed fits are characterized by spatial coherence and form
patterns that resemble relations between the climate indices and seasonal
precipitation, suggesting a prominent role of the considered circulation
modes for flood generation. For certain regions, such as northwestern
Scandinavia and the British Isles, yearly variations of the mean seasonal
climate indices result in considerably different extreme value distributions
and thus in highly different flood estimates for individual years that can
also persist for longer time periods.</p
Reciprocal Associations between Parenting Challenges and Parents' Personality Development in Young and Middle Adulthood
Having children affects many aspects of people's lives. However, it remains unclear to what degree the challenges that come along with having children are associated with parents' personality development. We addressed this question in two studies by investigating the relationship between parenting challenges and personality development in mothers of newborns (Study 1, Nâ=â556) and the reciprocal associations between (mastering) parenting challenges and personality development in parents of adolescents (Study 2, Nâ=â548 mothers and 460 fathers). In Study 1, we found the stress of having a newborn baby to be associated with declines in maternal Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability. Parenting challenges were also related to personality development in parents of adolescent children in Study 2, with parentâchild conflict being reciprocally associated with decreases in Conscientiousness and Emotional Stability. Mastering parenting challenges in the form of high parenting self-efficacy, on the other hand, was found to be associated with increases in Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability, and vice versa. In sum, our results suggest that mastering the challenges associated with the social role of parenthood is one of the mechanisms underlying personality development in young and middle adulthood
Economic Beliefs and Party Preference
This paper reports the results of a questionnaire study used to explore the economic understanding, normative positions along the egalitarian-libertarian spectrum, and the party preferences of a large student sample. The aim of the study is both to find socio-economic determinants of normative and positive beliefs and to explore how beliefs about the economy influence party support. We find that positive beliefs of lay people differ systematically from those of economic experts. Positive beliefs can be explained by high school grades, field of study, reasons for the choice of subject, personality traits, and - in part - by gender. Normative beliefs are self-serving in the sense that students whose father have high-status jobs and who seek high incomes are more libertarian than others. Party preferences are explained by the professional status of the father, religion, gender, and economic beliefs. Normative beliefs are more important for party support than positive beliefs. While there is a clear positive relation between libertarianism and support for right-leaning parties, positive beliefs only matter for some parties. A parochialism bias in positive beliefs seems to reinforce libertarian views favoring the most conservative party.Dieser Artikel berichtet die Resultate einer Umfrage, die genutzt wurde, um das ökonomische VerstĂ€ndnis, die normative Einstellung entlang des egalitĂ€r-libertĂ€ren Spektrums und die ParteiprĂ€ferenzen eines groĂen studentischen Samples zu untersuchen. Das Ziel der Studie ist es, sowohl die sozioökonomischen Determinanten der normativen und positiven Beliefs zu ermitteln, als auch zu untersuchen, wie diese Beliefs ĂŒber die Wirtschaft die ParteiprĂ€ferenz beeinflussen. Wir finden, dass die positiven Beliefs von Laien sich signifikant von denen der ökonomischen Experten unterscheiden. Die positiven Beliefs können durch Abiturnoten, Studienfachwahl, die GrĂŒnde fĂŒr die Wahl des Studienfachs, Persönlichkeitsmerkmale und - zum Teil - durch das Geschlecht erklĂ€rt werden. Normative Beliefs sind einer selbstwertdienlichen Verzerrung in dem Sinne unterworfen, dass Studierende, deren Vater einer BeschĂ€ftigung mit hohem Status nachgeht und die ein hohes Einkommen anstreben, libertĂ€rer als andere sind. ParteiprĂ€ferenzen werden durch den BeschĂ€ftigungsstatus des Vaters, die Religionszugehörigkeit, das Geschlecht und die ökonomischen Beliefs erklĂ€rt. Normative Beliefs sind fĂŒr die ParteiprĂ€ferenz wichtiger als positive Beliefs. WĂ€hrend es eine klare positive Beziehung zwischen Libertarismus und der UnterstĂŒtzung nach rechts tendierender Parteien gibt, sind positive Beliefs nur fĂŒr einige Parteien wichtig. Ein Parochialismus-Bias der positiven Beliefs scheint die libertĂ€ren Ansichten zu verstĂ€rken und die konservativste Partei zu begĂŒnstigen
Interface Methods: Renegotiating relations between digital social research, STS and sociology
This paper introduces a distinctive approach to methods development in digital social research called âinterface methods.â We begin by discussing various methodological confluences between digital media, social studies of science and technology (STS) and sociology. Some authors have posited significant overlap between, on the one hand, sociological and STS concepts, and on the other hand, the ontologies of digital media. Others have emphasised the significant differences between prominent methods built into digital media and those of STS and sociology. This paper advocates a third approach, one that a) highlights the dynamism and relative under-determinacy of digital methods, and b) affirms that multiple methodological traditions intersect in digital devices and research. We argue that these two circumstances enable a distinctive approach to methodology in digital social research â thinking methods as âinterface methodsâ - and the paper contextualizes this approach in two different ways. First, we show how the proliferation of online data tools or âdigital analyticsâ opens up distinctive opportunities for critical and creative engagement with methods development at the intersection of sociology, STS and digital research. Second, we discuss a digital research project in which we investigated a specific âinterface methodâ, namely co-occurrence analysis. In this digital pilot study we implemented this method in a critical and creative way to analyse and visualise âissue dynamicsâ in the area of climate change on Twitter. We evaluate this project in the light of our principal objective, which was to test the possibilities for the modification of methods through experimental implementation and interfacing of various methodological traditions. To conclude, we discuss a major obstacle to the development of âinterface methodsâ: digital media are marked by particular quantitative dynamics that seem adverse to the methodological commitments of sociology and STS. To address this, we argue in favour of a methodological approach in digital social research that affirms its mal-adjustment to the research methods that are prevalent in the medium
A closer look at neuron interaction with track-etched microporous membranes
Microporous membranes support the growth of neurites into and through micro-channels, providing a different type of neural growth platform to conventional dish cultures. Microporous membranes are used to support various types of culture, however, the role of pore diameter in relation to neurite growth through the membrane has not been well characterised. In this study, the human cell line (SH-SY5Y) was differentiated into neuron-like cells and cultured on track-etched microporous membranes with pore and channel diameters selected to accommodate neurite width (0.8â”m to 5â”m). Whilst neurites extended through all pore diameters, the extent of neurite coverage on the non-seeded side of the membranes after 5 days in culture was found to be directly proportional to channel diameter. Neurite growth through membrane pores reduced significantly when neural cultures were non-confluent. Scanning electron microscopy revealed that neurites bridged pores and circumnavigated pore edges â such that the overall likelihood of a neurite entering a pore channel was decreased. These findings highlight the role of pore diameter, cell sheet confluence and contact guidance in directing neurite growth through pores and may be useful in applications that seek to use physical substrates to maintain separate neural populations whilst permitting neurite contact between cultures
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