Boron isotope sensitivity to seawater pH change in a species of Neogoniolithon coralline red alga

The increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) observed since the industrial revolution has reduced surface ocean pH by ∼0.1 pH units, with further change in the oceanic system predicted in the coming decades. Calcareous organisms can be negatively affected by extreme changes in seawater pH (pHsw) such as this due to the associated changes in the oceanic carbonate system. The boron isotopic composition (δ11B) of biogenic carbonates has been previously used to monitor pH at the calcification site (pHcf) in scleractinian corals, providing mechanistic insights into coral biomineralisation and the impact of variable pHsw on this process. Motivated by these investigations, this study examines the δ11B of the high-Mg calcite skeleton of the coralline red alga Neogoniolithon sp. to constrain pHcf, and investigates how this taxon’s pHcf is impacted by ocean acidification. δ11B was measured in multiple algal replicates (n = 4–5) cultured at four different pCO2 scenarios – averaging (±1σ) 409 (±6), 606 (±7), 903 (±12) and 2856 (±54) μatm, corresponding to average pHsw (±1σ) of 8.19 (±0.03), 8.05 (±0.06), 7.91 (±0.03) and 7.49 (±0.02) respectively. Results show that skeletal δ11B is elevated relative to the δ11B of seawater borate at all pHsw treatments by up to 18‰. Although substantial variability in δ11B exists between replicate samples cultured at a given pHsw (smallest range = 2.32‰ at pHsw 8.19, largest range = 6.08‰ at pHsw 7.91), strong correlations are identified between δ11B and pHsw (R2 = 0.72, p < 0.0001, n = 16) and between δ11B and B/Ca (R2 = 0.72, p < 0.0001, n = 16). Assuming that skeletal δ11B reflects pHcf as previously observed for scleractinian corals, the average pHcf across all experiments was 1.20 pH units (0.79 to 1.56) higher than pHsw, with the magnitude of this offset varying parabolically with decreasing pHsw, with a maximum difference between pHsw and pHcf at a pHsw of 7.91. Observed relationships between pHsw and calcification rate, and between pHsw and pHcf, suggest that coralline algae exhibit some resilience to moderate ocean acidification via increase of pHcf relative to pHsw in a similar manner to scleractinian corals. However, these results also indicate that pHcf cannot be sufficiently increased by algae exposed to a larger reduction in pHsw, adversely impacting calcification rates of coralline red algae

A FRAMEWORK FOR EXPLORING RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN ONLINE COMMUNITY CHARACTERISTICS AND REGULATION PRINCIPLES ABSTRACT

In this paper, we explore a framework for researching relationships between community characteristics and regulation principles. Different regulation principles are supported by different website features. Ultimately, our goal is to help community operators to deepen the appreciation of their community sites by providing empirically validated insights which website features might support their online community best. We first determined which community characteristics and regulation principles should be considered, based on a literature search. We then analyzed 31 Dutch and English, national and regional online newspaper communities. Analysis showed some interesting relationships between individual community characteristics and regulation principles. The framework was able to discriminate between two types of community as well, on the basis of our data, but could not relate these types to (sets of) different regulation principles. We will therefore suggest some improvements of our framework. KEYWORDS online community characteristics; regulation principles; typology; design 1

www.cs.uu.nl A Ground Truth For Half A Million Musical Incipits

Musical incipits are short extracts of scores, taken from the beginning. The RISM A/II collection [6] contains about half a million of them. This large collection size makes a ground truth very interesting for the development of music retrieval methods, but at the same time makes it very difficult to establish one. Human experts cannot be expected to sift through half a million melodies to find the best matches for a given query. For 11 queries, we filtered the collection so that about 50 candidates per query were left, which we then presented to 35 human experts for a final ranking. We present our filtering methods, the experiment design, and the resulting ground truth. To obtain ground truths, we ordered the incipits by the median ranks assigned to them by the human experts. For every incipit, we used the Wilcoxon rank sum test to compare the list of ranks assigned to it with the lists of ranks assigned to its predecessors. As a result, we know which rank differences are statistically significant, which gives us groups of incipits whose correct ranking we know. This ground truth can be used for evaluating music information retrieval systems. A good retrieval system should order the incipits in a way that the order of the groups we identified is not violated, and it should include all high-ranking melodies that we found. It might, however, find additional good matches since our filtering process is not guaranteed to be perfect.

Inflammasomes: mechanism of action, role in disease, and therapeutics

The inflammasomes are innate immune system receptors/sensors that regulate the activation of caspase-1 and induce inflammation in response to infectious microbes and molecules derived from host proteins. It has been implicated in a host of inflammatory disorders. Recent developments have greatly enhanced our understanding of the molecular mechanisms by which different inflammasomes are activated. Additionally, increasing evidence in mouse models, supported by human data, strongly implicates an involvement of the inflammasome in the initiation or progression of diseases with a high impact on public health such as metabolic disorders and neurodegenerative diseases. Finally, recent developments pointing toward promising therapeutics that target inflammasome activity in inflammatory diseases have been reported. This review will focus on these three areas of inflammasome research