Detecting highly overlapping community structure by greedy clique expansion

In complex networks it is common for each node to belong to several communities, implying a highly overlapping community structure. Recent advances in benchmarking indicate that existing community assignment algorithms that are capable of detecting overlapping communities perform well only when the extent of community overlap is kept to modest levels. To overcome this limitation, we introduce a new community assignment algorithm called Greedy Clique Expansion (GCE). The algorithm identifies distinct cliques as seeds and expands these seeds by greedily optimizing a local fitness function. We perform extensive benchmarks on synthetic data to demonstrate that GCE's good performance is robust across diverse graph topologies. Significantly, GCE is the only algorithm to perform well on these synthetic graphs, in which every node belongs to multiple communities. Furthermore, when put to the task of identifying functional modules in protein interaction data, and college dorm assignments in Facebook friendship data, we find that GCE performs competitively.Comment: 10 pages, 7 Figures. Implementation source and binaries available at http://sites.google.com/site/greedycliqueexpansion

Alcohol and Aggression in WVU Students

The current study hypothesized that there was a positive correlation between consuming alcohol and aggressive behavior among college students. A correlational research method was used to show relations between the factors influencing alcohol consumption and aggression. A survey was given to 74 undergraduate West Virginia University students. The survey was designed to measure verbal and physical aggression while sober and intoxicated, as reported by participants. A positive correlation was found between alcohol consumption and aggression among the sample. A significant main effect was found in the frequency of alcohol consumption and physical and verbal aggression

Accelerating U.S. Clean Energy Deployment: Investor Policy Priorities

International investment to mitigate climate change is far below levels needed to reach the two-degree target. The International Energy Agency estimates that an average of an additional $1 trillion in incremental financing for clean energy is needed to meet the temperature target. In September 2014, over 350 investors representing$24 trillion in assets issued the Global Investor Statement on Climate Change, calling on governments to create an ambitious global agreement that includes a meaningful price on carbon -- the "Clean Trillion."This paper connects the Clean Trillion goal to the current United States climate and clean energy policy framework, which is a mixture of federal, state, and local initiatives. The paper outlines the 2015 U.S. policy priorities of the Policy Working Group of the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), a network of more than 110 institutional investors primarily based in the U.S., focused on investment risks and opportunities associated with climate change

Seeding for pervasively overlapping communities

In some social and biological networks, the majority of nodes belong to multiple communities. It has recently been shown that a number of the algorithms that are designed to detect overlapping communities do not perform well in such highly overlapping settings. Here, we consider one class of these algorithms, those which optimize a local fitness measure, typically by using a greedy heuristic to expand a seed into a community. We perform synthetic benchmarks which indicate that an appropriate seeding strategy becomes increasingly important as the extent of community overlap increases. We find that distinct cliques provide the best seeds. We find further support for this seeding strategy with benchmarks on a Facebook network and the yeast interactome.Comment: 8 Page

The evolution of morph-biased genes in spadefoot toads

Polyphenisms allow for the expression of two or more discrete phenotypes from a single genotype in an environment dependent manner. These phenotypes are associated with extensive differences in levels of gene expression and recent work suggests that genes with differential expression between phenotypes (biased genes) evolve at elevated rates relative to genes showing no difference between phenotypes (unbiased genes). The causes of this difference in evolutionary rate remain relatively unexplored. Using a combination of molecular and genomic approaches I identified genes with biased expression between the environmentally induced alternative morphs of spadefoot toad tadpoles (genus Spea). I further characterized these morph-biased genes in closely related spadefoot toad species that do not express alternative tadpole morphologies (genus Scaphiopus). Phylogenetic estimates of protein evolutionary rates in Spea reveal that morph-biased genes are evolving more quickly than unbiased genes, but this was dependent on rate estimation method. Surprisingly, in Scaphiopus morph-biased orthologs are evolving more quickly than unbiased orthologs, regardless of estimation method. Finally, morph-biased genes in Spea are evolving no more quickly than their orthologs in Scaphiopus. In total, our work suggests that genes with higher rates of evolution are more likely to evolve differential expression, but differential expression has no direct influence on a gene's evolutionary rate

Vaccinate: Posters from the COVID-19 Pandemic

In 2022 we are living through a global pandemic, and vaccines are one of the most effective strategies for slowing the spread of infectious disease, minimizing symptoms, and lowering healthcare demands. In short, vaccines save lives and can reduce the risk of contagion from social interaction. In the United States in late 2021, after the vaccines had been broadly available for almost a year, one in five adults still chose not to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Art can disrupt what is embedded in our minds and open us up to new perspectives and insights. We hope to offer access to images, insights, and knowledge that help people have the freedom to consider their role in the pandemic and the role of vaccines. We hope that experiencing the creativity, humor, and sentiments of artists will encourage those who have avoided the COVID-19 vaccine to reconsider and take advantage of a way to prepare their immune system should they be exposed to the virus. We are thrilled to provide the posters for those who want to enjoy, reflect, and share them with others who are inspired by the power of vaccines and who want to help stop the spread of deadly viruses. CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS include: Rachel Claire Balter, Thane Benson, Randy Bish, Katie Bradshaw, Heinzy Cruz, Hector Curriel, Ben Darling, Nicholas Deason, Kerry Eddy, Margaret Elsener, Paul Fell, David L. Felley, Bob Hall, Hayley Jurek, Justin Kemerling, Abbey Krienke, Stephen Lahey, Anna Lindstrom, Malia McCreight, Yihang Meng, Eric Morris, Katie Nieland, Henry Payer, Natalie Pulte, Nikolaus Stevenson, Pawl Tisdale, Janet Walters, William Wells, & Jave Yoshimoto DOI:10.32873/unl.dc.zea.1334https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/zeabook/1132/thumbnail.jp