Demographic Inference and Representative Population Estimates from Multilingual Social Media Data

Social media provide access to behavioural data at an unprecedented scale and granularity. However, using these data to understand phenomena in a broader population is difficult due to their non-representativeness and the bias of statistical inference tools towards dominant languages and groups. While demographic attribute inference could be used to mitigate such bias, current techniques are almost entirely monolingual and fail to work in a global environment. We address these challenges by combining multilingual demographic inference with post-stratification to create a more representative population sample. To learn demographic attributes, we create a new multimodal deep neural architecture for joint classification of age, gender, and organization-status of social media users that operates in 32 languages. This method substantially outperforms current state of the art while also reducing algorithmic bias. To correct for sampling biases, we propose fully interpretable multilevel regression methods that estimate inclusion probabilities from inferred joint population counts and ground-truth population counts. In a large experiment over multilingual heterogeneous European regions, we show that our demographic inference and bias correction together allow for more accurate estimates of populations and make a significant step towards representative social sensing in downstream applications with multilingual social media.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, Proceedings of the 2019 World Wide Web Conference (WWW '19

Structural styles and hydrocarbon accumulation of the northern piedmont belt in the Taibei Sag, Turpan-Hami Basin

The northern piedmont belt of the Taibei Sag is one of the oil rich structural belts in the Turpan-Hami Basin. Based on the interpretation of seismic cross sections and the analyses of discovered hydrocarbon accumulations, the geologic structure can be divided into six structural styles, thrust-imbricate structure, imbricate fan structure, thrust-opposite structure, pop-up structure, forward thrust structure and duplex structure. According to the study of the distribution regularity of the structural styles, the fold thrust belt controlled by three levels tectonic transform zones is characterized by zonation from the south to the north and segmentation from the west to the east, and it can be classified into thrust-nappe belt, breaking belt and frontal belt by mechanism of tectonic deformation. The leading edge with two accumulation forming models which are the leading edge pop-up model and the leading edge imbricate fan model is the most favorable hydrocarbon enriched belt in the northern margin of the Taibei Sag. The thrust-opposite structures in the rear edge of the deformable zone have good preservation, potential source kitchen on the footwall, higher fault dip, and good communication of sandbodies. They are the next favorable exploration structures. Key words: structural style, thrust faults system, structural deformation belt, tectonic transform zone, accumulation forming mode

Diversity of culturable aerobic denitrifying bacteria in the sediment, water and biofilms in Liangshui River of Beijing, China

Aerobic denitrification is a process reducing the nitrate into gaseous nitrogen forms in the presence of oxygen gas, which makes the nitrification and denitrification performed simultaneously. However, little was known on the diversity of the culturable aerobic denitrifying bacteria in the surface water system. In this study, 116 strains of aerobic denitrifying bacteria were isolated from the sediment, water and biofilm samples in Liangshui River of Beijing. These bacteria were classified into 14 genera based on the 16 S rDNA, such as Pseudomonas, Rheinheimera, and Gemmobacter. The Pseudomonas sp., represented by the Pseudomonas stutzeri, Pseudomonas mendocina and Pseudomonas putida, composed the major culturable aerobic denitrifiers of the river, followed by Ochrobactrum sp. and Rheinheimera sp. The PCA plot showed the unclassified Pseudomonas sp. and Rheinheimera pacifica preferred to inhabit in biofilm phase while one unclassified Ochrobactrum sp. and Pseudomonas resinovorans had higher abundance in the sediment. In the overlying water, the Pseudomonas stutzeri and Ochrobactrum rhizosphaerae were found to have higher abundance, indicating these aerobic denitrifiers had different habitat-preferable characteristics among the 3 phases of river system. The findings may help select the niche to isolate the aerobic denitrifiers and facilitate the bioaugmentation-based purification of the nitrate polluted surface water.Published versio

Graphene-Coated Poly(ethylene terephthalate) Nonwoven Hollow Tube for Continuous and Highly Effective Oil Collection from the Water Surface

Graphene (GE) has attracted significant attention on account of its unique structure and superior performance, arousing a new research field for materials science. Herein, a novel GE-coated poly­(ethylene terephthalate) nonwoven (PGNW) hollow tube (PGNW-T) was fabricated for continuous and highly effective oil collection from the water surface. The PGNW was prepared via a dip-spray coating method, which possessed superhydrophobicity–superoleophilicity and could absorb a variety of oils or organic solvents with the absorption capacity (Q) value of 18–34 times its own weight. Then, PGNW-T was obtained through winding the PGNW on the surface of a porous polypropylene hollow tube. As-prepared PGNW-T was competent for dynamic oil collection with high flux (18 799.94 L/m2 h), outstanding separation efficiency (97.14%), and excellent recyclability (>96% after 10 cycles) from the oil/water mixture. In particular, a miniature device based on as-prepared PGNW-T was developed for continuous thin oil film collection, which could dynamically “catch up” floated oils or organic solvents from the water surface. Finally, our strategy is extremely facile to scale up, showing its huge potential application in practical oil-spill remediation

“Sea Anemone”-like CeFe Oxides for High-Efficient Phosphate Removal

The excessive release of phosphorus is a prime culprit for eutrophication and algal bloom in the aquatic environment, and there is always an urgent need to develop effective methods to deal with phosphorus pollution. Ce-based oxide is a type of compelling adsorbent for phosphate removal, and a self-templating strategy is used to construct high-performance Ce-based oxides for phosphate adsorption in this study. A “sea anemone”-like CeFe cyanometallate (CM) with a 3D microstructure is fabricated to provide a precursor for synthesizing CeFe-based oxides (CeFe-CM-T) by high-temperature pyrolysis. The as-prepared CeFe-CM-T maintains the “sea anemone” morphology well and has abundant micropores/mesopores, which render its superior phosphate adsorption capacity 1~2 orders of magnitude higher than that of the commercial CeO2 and Fe3O4 materials. Moreover, CeFe-CM-T shows high selectivity for phosphate removal when it co-exists with other anions and natural organic matter and exhibits excellent recycling performance. It demonstrates that both Ce3+ and Ce4+ are reserved in the oxides, where Ce3+ serves as the main active site for phosphate capture, which forms stable Ce-PO4 compounds via a ligand-exchange mechanism. Thus, the self-templating strategy using CM as a precursor is a potential method for synthesizing porous Ce-based oxides for phosphate removal

“Sea Anemone”-like CeFe Oxides for High-Efficient Phosphate Removal

The excessive release of phosphorus is a prime culprit for eutrophication and algal bloom in the aquatic environment, and there is always an urgent need to develop effective methods to deal with phosphorus pollution. Ce-based oxide is a type of compelling adsorbent for phosphate removal, and a self-templating strategy is used to construct high-performance Ce-based oxides for phosphate adsorption in this study. A “sea anemone”-like CeFe cyanometallate (CM) with a 3D microstructure is fabricated to provide a precursor for synthesizing CeFe-based oxides (CeFe-CM-T) by high-temperature pyrolysis. The as-prepared CeFe-CM-T maintains the “sea anemone” morphology well and has abundant micropores/mesopores, which render its superior phosphate adsorption capacity 1~2 orders of magnitude higher than that of the commercial CeO2 and Fe3O4 materials. Moreover, CeFe-CM-T shows high selectivity for phosphate removal when it co-exists with other anions and natural organic matter and exhibits excellent recycling performance. It demonstrates that both Ce3+ and Ce4+ are reserved in the oxides, where Ce3+ serves as the main active site for phosphate capture, which forms stable Ce-PO4 compounds via a ligand-exchange mechanism. Thus, the self-templating strategy using CM as a precursor is a potential method for synthesizing porous Ce-based oxides for phosphate removal

Understory fine roots are more ephemeral than those of trees in subtropical Chinese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata (Lamb.) Hook) stands

International audienceAbstract Key messageWe tested the life span of fine roots of Chinese fir trees and understory plants in two stands in subtropical China. Fine roots from understory plants were much more ephemeral than those from trees. The life span of fine roots of understory plants and Chinese fir was shorter in the younger than in the older stand, although most of the factors affecting fine-root life spans were similar between trees and understory plants. ContextUnderstory fine root can contribute significantly to total fine root biomass and belowground carbon. AimsThe contribution of understory vegetation to belowground carbon and nutrient cycling is often neglected in forest stands. Potential differences in fine-root life span between understory and trees remain poorly known. This study aimed to document fine-root life spans in trees and understory plants in two Chinese fir plantations with different ages. MethodsWe measured fine-root (≤2 mm in diameter) life span for trees and understory vegetation in 16- and 88-year-old Chinese fir plantations in southern China during 4 years with minirhizotron. Factors controlling fine-root life spans were identified with Cox proportional hazards regression. ResultsFine roots were more ephemeral in understory plants than in trees in the two plantations. Fine-root life spans for both trees and understory plants were longer in the older than in the younger plantation. Root diameter at appearance, rooting depth, and season of emergence had a significant effect on fine-root life span. ConclusionThese results highlight the importance of taking into account understory fine-root life span estimates when assessing the dynamics of fine-root recycling in Chinese fir forests

PTEN C-Terminal Deletion Causes Genomic Instability and Tumor Development

Tumor suppressor PTEN controls genomic stability and inhibits tumorigenesis. The N-terminal phosphatase domain of PTEN antagonizes the PI3K/AKT pathway, but its C-terminal function is less defined. Here, we describe a knockin mouse model of a nonsense mutation that results in the deletion of the entire Pten C-terminal region, referred to as PtenΔC. Mice heterozygous for PtenΔC develop multiple spontaneous tumors, including cancers and B cell lymphoma. Heterozygous deletion of the Pten C-terminal domain also causes genomic instability and common fragile site rearrangement. We found that Pten C-terminal disruption induces p53 and its downstream targets. Simultaneous depletion of p53 promotes metastasis without influencing the initiation of tumors, suggesting that p53 mainly suppresses tumor progression. Our data highlight the essential role of the PTEN C terminus in the maintenance of genomic stability and suppression of tumorigenesis