"Is it a {Qoincidence}?": {A} First Step Towards Understanding and Characterizing the {QAnon} Movement on {Voat.co}

Online fringe communities offer fertile grounds for users to seek and share paranoid ideas fueling suspicion of mainstream news, and outright conspiracy theories. Among these, the QAnon conspiracy theory has emerged in 2017 on 4chan, broadly supporting the idea that powerful politicians, aristocrats, and celebrities are closely engaged in a global pedophile ring. At the same time, governments are thought to be controlled by "puppet masters," as democratically elected officials serve as a fake showroom of democracy. In this paper, we provide an empirical exploratory analysis of the QAnon community on Voat.co, a Reddit-esque news aggregator, which has recently captured the interest of the press for its toxicity and for providing a platform to QAnon followers. More precisely, we analyze a large dataset from /v/GreatAwakening, the most popular QAnon-related subverse (the Voat equivalent of a subreddit) to characterize activity and user engagement. To further understand the discourse around QAnon, we study the most popular named entities mentioned in the posts, along with the most prominent topics of discussion, which focus on US politics, Donald Trump, and world events. We also use word2vec models to identify narratives around QAnon-specific keywords, and our graph visualization shows that some of QAnon-related ones are closely related to those from the Pizzagate conspiracy theory and "drops" by "Q." Finally, we analyze content toxicity, finding that discussions on /v/GreatAwakening are less toxic than in the broad Voat community

Raiders of the Lost Kek: 3.5 Years of Augmented 4chan Posts from the Politically Incorrect Board

This paper presents a dataset with over 3.3M threads and 134.5M posts from the Politically Incorrect board (/pol/) of the imageboard forum 4chan, posted over a period of almost 3.5 years (June 2016-November 2019). To the best of our knowledge, this represents the largest publicly available 4chan dataset, providing the community with an archive of posts that have been permanently deleted from 4chan and are otherwise inaccessible. We augment the data with a set of additional labels, including toxicity scores and the named entities mentioned in each post. We also present a statistical analysis of the dataset, providing an overview of what researchers interested in using it can expect, as well as a simple content analysis, shedding light on the most prominent discussion topics, the most popular entities mentioned, and the toxicity level of each post. Overall, we are confident that our work will motivate and assist researchers in studying and understanding 4chan, as well as its role on the greater Web. For instance, we hope this dataset may be used for cross-platform studies of social media, as well as being useful for other types of research like natural language processing. Finally, our dataset can assist qualitative work focusing on in-depth case studies of specific narratives, events, or social theories

Optimization of RT-QuIC for detection of seeding activity in preclinical blood samples from prion-infected sheep.

Contrasting the knowledge about prion diseases or TSEs in sheep, only a very limited number of strain typing studies are available in goats. Two cases deriv- ing from the zoonotic bovine BSE epidemic were however detected in goats. During 2004–2012, over 70 TSE goat brain samples were collected from seven European countries and evaluated for TSE type/strain variation. A selection of these materials was chosen for in-depth analysis based on various criteria: tissue quality, genotype, broad geographical distribution, potential type variation...

Four types of scrapie in goats differentiated from each other and bovine spongiform encephalopathy by biochemical methods

Scrapie in goats has been known since 1942, the archetype of prion diseases in which only prion protein (PrP) in misfolded state (PrPSc) acts as infectious agent with fatal consequence. Emergence of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) with its zoonotic behaviour and detection in goats enhanced fears that its source was located in small ruminants. However, in goats knowledge on prion strain typing is limited. A European-wide study is presented concerning the biochemical phenotypes of the protease resistant fraction of PrPSc (PrPres) in over thirty brain isolates from transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) affected goats collected in seven countries. Three different scrapie forms were found: classical scrapie (CS), Nor98/atypical scrapie and one case of CH1641 scrapie. In addition, CS was found in two variants—CS-1 and CS-2 (mainly Italy)—which differed in proteolytic resistance of the PrPres N-terminus. Suitable PrPres markers for discriminating CH1641 from BSE (C-type) appeared to be glycoprofile pattern, presence of two triplets instead of one, and structural (in)stability of its core amino acid region. None of the samples exhibited BSE like features. BSE and these four scrapie types, of which CS-2 is new, can be recognized in goats with combinations of a set of nine biochemical parameters

Vitamin D Supplementation and Genetic Polymorphisms Impact on Weight Loss Diet Outcomes in Caucasians: A Randomized Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Clinical Study

Vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency is common in obese people, with some studies suggesting that low vitamin D level might be an independent predictor of obesity. Thus, the purpose of the present randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study was to investigate the effect of oral spray vitamin D3 3000 IU supplementation along with personalized weight-loss diet on obesity markers in overweight and obese Caucasians with vitamin d deficiency or insufficiency. The impact of vitamin D receptor (VDR) and adrenergic receptors (ADRs) genetic variants on vitamin D levels and weight loss diet outcomes was also investigated. After signing informed consent, a total of 125 eligible volunteers were randomly assigned into vitamin D (vitamin D3 3000 IU/d oral spray supplementation, n = 76) or placebo (xylitol, water, mint, n = 49) group following a weight loss program (600 calories less than the total energy expenditure of each volunteer) for 3 months. Fat mass, BMI, REE and 25(OH)D serum level were monitored on baseline and each month. DNA samples were extracted from buccal swabs and genotyped for the rs2228570 (VDR), rs1544410 (VDR), rs731236 (VDR), rs1800544 (ADRA2A), rs1801252 (ADRB1), rs1042713 (ADRB2), and rs4994 (ADRB3) polymorphisms. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS package (v.23). Between group comparisons revealed significant improvement in serum 25(OH)D level and greater reduction in weight, BMI and fat percentage in the vitamin D group compared to placebo group (p < 0.05). In the vitamin D group, carriers of the rs2228570 T allele tended to have greater vitamin D level improvement compared with the homozygous C allele (p = 0.067). Furthermore, heterozygous (CT) for the rs731236 tended to have lesser weight loss (p = 0.068) and for the rs1042713, a lower decline in fat percentage was observed for homozygous AA carriers compared to the heterozygous (p = 0.051). In the control group, differences in weight loss (p = 0.055) and BMI (p = 0.045) were observed between rs1544410 AA and GG homozygous. In conclusion, vitamin D oral spray supplementation seems to improve vitamin D status and decrease obesity markers during a weight-loss intervention in overweight/obese Caucasians with vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency. Also, the results of the present study indicate that VDR and ADRs genetic polymorphisms seem to influence vitamin D supplementation response and obesity markers. Copyright © 2022 Xenos, Papasavva, Raptis, Katsarou and Drakoulis

First experimental study of carbon dioxide digital subtraction lymphangiography

Fourteen pigs with an average weight of 17 kg were used in this study. Under general anesthesia and magnification 1-3 ccm/kg of carbon dioxide were administered in the lymph vessels of the front and rear legs. Imaging of the peripheral lymph vessels, lymph nodes and the thoracic duct was achieved with digital subtraction angiography. The quality of lymphangiography was satisfactory and comparable with that of the standard non-ionic contrast agent. It is anticipated that further technical evolution will permit the application of CO2/DSA lymphangiography to man. Carbon dioxide is non-nephrotoxic and is non-allergic; it is inexpensive, can be administered in unlimited quantity and is quickly eliminated via the pulmonary system

A Minimal Set of SNPs for the Noninvasive Prenatal Diagnosis of β-Thalassaemia

β-thalassaemia is one of the commonest autosomal recessive single-gene disorders worldwide. Prenatal tests use invasive methods, posing a risk for the pregnancy itself. Development of a noninvasive prenatal diagnostic method is, therefore, of paramount importance. The aim of the present study is to identify high-heterozygote informative single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), suitable for the development of noninvasive prenatal diagnosis (NIPD) of β-thalassaemia. SNP genotyping analysis was performed on 75 random samples from the Cypriot population for 140 SNPs across the β-globin cluster. Shortlisted, highly heterozygous SNPs were then examined in 101 carrier families for their applicability in the noninvasive detection of paternally inherited alleles. Forty-nine SNPs displayed more than 6% heterozygosity and were selected for NIPD analysis, revealing 72.28% of the carrier families eligible for qualitative SNP-based NIPD, and 92% for quantitative detection. Moreover, inference of haplotypes showed predominant haplotypes and many subhaplotypes with sufficient prevalence for diagnostic exploitation. SNP-based analyses are sensitive and specific for the detection of the paternally inherited allele in maternal plasma. This study provides proof of concept for this approach, highlighting its superiority to NIPD based on single markers and thus providing a blueprint for the general development of noninvasive prenatal diagnostic assays for β-thalassaemia. © 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd/University College London