247 research outputs found
Characterizing Online Vandalism: A Rational Choice Perspective
What factors influence the decision to vandalize? Although the harm is clear,
the benefit to the vandal is less clear. In many cases, the thing being damaged
may itself be something the vandal uses or enjoys. Vandalism holds
communicative value: perhaps to the vandal themselves, to some audience at whom
the vandalism is aimed, and to the general public. Viewing vandals as rational
community participants despite their antinormative behavior offers the
possibility of engaging with or countering their choices in novel ways.
Rational choice theory (RCT) as applied in value expectancy theory (VET) offers
a strategy for characterizing behaviors in a framework of rational choices, and
begins with the supposition that subject to some weighting of personal
preferences and constraints, individuals maximize their own utility by
committing acts of vandalism. This study applies the framework of RCT and VET
to gain insight into vandals' preferences and constraints. Using a
mixed-methods analysis of Wikipedia, I combine social computing and
criminological perspectives on vandalism to propose an ontology of vandalism
for online content communities. I use this ontology to categorize 141 instances
of vandalism and find that the character of vandalistic acts varies by vandals'
relative identifiability, policy history with Wikipedia, and the effort
required to vandalize
Stellar Rotation in Young Clusters. II. Evolution of Stellar Rotation and Surface Helium Abundance
We derive the effective temperatures and gravities of 461 OB stars in 19
young clusters by fitting the H-gamma profile in their spectra. We use
synthetic model profiles for rotating stars to develop a method to estimate the
polar gravity for these stars, which we argue is a useful indicator of their
evolutionary status. We combine these results with projected rotational
velocity measurements obtained in a previous paper on these same open clusters.
We find that the more massive B-stars experience a spin down as predicted by
the theories for the evolution of rotating stars. Furthermore, we find that the
members of binary stars also experience a marked spin down with advanced
evolutionary state due to tidal interactions. We also derive non-LTE-corrected
helium abundances for most of the sample by fitting the He I 4026, 4387, 4471
lines. A large number of helium peculiar stars are found among cooler stars
with Teff < 23000 K. The analysis of the high mass stars (8.5 solar masses < M
< 16 solar masses) shows that the helium enrichment process progresses through
the main sequence (MS) phase and is greater among the faster rotators. This
discovery supports the theoretical claim that rotationally induced internal
mixing is the main cause of surface chemical anomalies that appear during the
MS phase. The lower mass stars appear to have slower rotation rates among the
low gravity objects, and they have a large proportion of helium peculiar stars.
We suggest that both properties are due to their youth. The low gravity stars
are probably pre-main sequence objects that will spin up as they contract.
These young objects very likely host a remnant magnetic field from their natal
cloud, and these strong fields sculpt out surface regions with unusual chemical
abundances.Comment: 50 pages 18 figures, accepted by Ap
The importance of biofilm formation for cultivation of a Micrarchaeon and its interactions with its Thermoplasmatales host
Micrarchaeota is a distinctive lineage assigned to the DPANN archaea, which includes poorly characterised microorganisms with reduced genomes that likely depend on interactions with hosts for growth and survival. Here, we report the enrichment of a stable co-culture of a member of the Micrarchaeota (Ca. Micrarchaeum harzensis) together with its Thermoplasmatales host (Ca. Scheffleriplasma hospitalis), as well as the isolation of the latter. We show that symbiont-host interactions depend on biofilm formation as evidenced by growth experiments, comparative transcriptomic analyses and electron microscopy. In addition, genomic, metabolomic, extracellular polymeric substances and lipid content analyses indicate that the Micrarchaeon symbiont relies on the acquisition of metabolites from its host. Our study of the cell biology and physiology of a Micrarchaeon and its host adds to our limited knowledge of archaeal symbioses
Limit on Tau Neutrino Mass from
From a data sample of 29058
decays observed in the CLEO detector we derive a 95% confidence upper limit on
the tau neutrino mass of 28 MeV.Comment: 17 pages postscript, also available through
http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN
First Observation of
We report on a study of exclusive radiative decays of the Upsilon(1S)
resonance collected with the CLEO-II detector operating at CESR. We present the
first observation of the radiative decays Upsilon(1S)->gamma pi+pi- and
Upsilon(1S)->gamma pi0pi0. For the dipion mass regime m(pipi)>1.0 GeV, we
obtain Br(Upsilon(1S)->gamma pi+pi-=(6.3+/-1.2+/-1.3) x 10^(-5), and
Br(Upsilon(1S)->gamma pi0pi0=(1.7+/-0.6+/-0.3) x 10^(-5). The observed gamma
pipi events are consistent with the hypothesis Upsilon(1S)->gamma f2(1270).Comment: 9 pages, postscript file also available through
http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN
Flavor-Specific Inclusive B Decays to Charm
We have measured the branching fractions for B -> D_bar X, B -> D X, and B ->
D_bar X \ell^+ \nu, where ``B'' is an average over B^0 and B^+, ``D'' is a sum
over D^0 and D^+, and``D_bar'' is a sum over D^0_bar and D^-. From these
results and some previously measured branching fractions, we obtain Br(b -> c
c_bar s) = (21.9 3.7)%, Br(b -> s g) K^-
\pi^+) = (3.69 0.20)%. Implications for the ``B semileptonic decay
problem'' (measured branching fraction being below theoretical expectations)
are discussed. The increase in the value of Br(b -> c c_bar s) due to eliminates 40% of the discrepancy.Comment: 12 page postscript file, postscript file also available through
http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN
Rare Decays of the
We have searched for the rare decays of the eta prime meson to e+ e- eta, e+
e- pizero, e+ e- gamma, and e mu in hadronic events at the CLEO II detector.
The search is conducted on 4.80 fb^-1 of e+ e- collisions at the Cornell
Electron Storage Ring. We find no signal in any of these modes, and set 90%
confidence level upper limits on their branching fractions of 2.4 X 10^-3, 1.4
X 10^-3, 0.9 X 10^-3, and 4.7 X 10^-4, respectively. We also investigate the
Dalitz plot of the common decay of the eta prime to pi+ pi- eta. We fit the
matrix element with the Particle Data Group parameterization and find Re(alpha)
= -0.021 +- 0.025, where alpha is a linear function of the kinetic energy of
the eta.Comment: 12 pages postscript, also available through
http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN
Further Search for the Two-Photon Production of the Glueball Candidate
The CLEOII detector at the Cornell e+ e- storage ring CESR has been used to
search for the two-photon production of the decaying into pi+ pi-.
No evidence for a signal is found in data corresponding to an integrated
luminosity of 4.77/fb and a 95% CL upper limit on of 2.5 eV is set. If this result is combined with the BES Collaboration's
measurement of in radiative decay, a 95% CL
lower limit on the stickiness of the of 73 is obtained. If the
recent CLEO result for \Gamma_{two-photon} * BR{\K_S K_S} is combined with
the present result, the stickiness of the is found to be larger
than 102 at the 95% CL. These results for the stickiness (the ratio of the
probabilities for two-gluon coupling and two-photon coupling) provide further
support for a substantial neutral parton content in the .Comment: 8 pages, postscript file also available through
http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN
Measurement of using Partila Reconstruction of
We present a measurement of the absolute branching fraction for using the reconstruction of the decay chain , where only the lepton and the low-momentum pion from
the are detected. With data collected by the CLEO II detector at the
Cornell Electron Storage Ring, we have determined .Comment: 10 page postscript file, postscript file also available through
http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN
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