1,711 research outputs found
Competition and Selection Among Conventions
In many domains, a latent competition among different conventions determines
which one will come to dominate. One sees such effects in the success of
community jargon, of competing frames in political rhetoric, or of terminology
in technical contexts. These effects have become widespread in the online
domain, where the data offers the potential to study competition among
conventions at a fine-grained level.
In analyzing the dynamics of conventions over time, however, even with
detailed on-line data, one encounters two significant challenges. First, as
conventions evolve, the underlying substance of their meaning tends to change
as well; and such substantive changes confound investigations of social
effects. Second, the selection of a convention takes place through the complex
interactions of individuals within a community, and contention between the
users of competing conventions plays a key role in the convention's evolution.
Any analysis must take place in the presence of these two issues.
In this work we study a setting in which we can cleanly track the competition
among conventions. Our analysis is based on the spread of low-level authoring
conventions in the eprint arXiv over 24 years: by tracking the spread of macros
and other author-defined conventions, we are able to study conventions that
vary even as the underlying meaning remains constant. We find that the
interaction among co-authors over time plays a crucial role in the selection of
them; the distinction between more and less experienced members of the
community, and the distinction between conventions with visible versus
invisible effects, are both central to the underlying processes. Through our
analysis we make predictions at the population level about the ultimate success
of different synonymous conventions over time--and at the individual level
about the outcome of "fights" between people over convention choices.Comment: To appear in Proceedings of WWW 2017, data at
https://github.com/CornellNLP/Macro
On the Origins of Memes by Means of Fringe Web Communities
Internet memes are increasingly used to sway and manipulate public opinion.
This prompts the need to study their propagation, evolution, and influence
across the Web. In this paper, we detect and measure the propagation of memes
across multiple Web communities, using a processing pipeline based on
perceptual hashing and clustering techniques, and a dataset of 160M images from
2.6B posts gathered from Twitter, Reddit, 4chan's Politically Incorrect board
(/pol/), and Gab, over the course of 13 months. We group the images posted on
fringe Web communities (/pol/, Gab, and The_Donald subreddit) into clusters,
annotate them using meme metadata obtained from Know Your Meme, and also map
images from mainstream communities (Twitter and Reddit) to the clusters.
Our analysis provides an assessment of the popularity and diversity of memes
in the context of each community, showing, e.g., that racist memes are
extremely common in fringe Web communities. We also find a substantial number
of politics-related memes on both mainstream and fringe Web communities,
supporting media reports that memes might be used to enhance or harm
politicians. Finally, we use Hawkes processes to model the interplay between
Web communities and quantify their reciprocal influence, finding that /pol/
substantially influences the meme ecosystem with the number of memes it
produces, while \td has a higher success rate in pushing them to other
communities.Comment: A shorter version of this paper appears in the Proceedings of 18th
ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC 2018). This is the full versio
Delineation of Cohen Syndrome Following a Large-Scale Genotype-Phenotype Screen
Cohen syndrome is an autosomal recessive condition associated with developmental delay, facial dysmorphism, pigmentary retinopathy, and neutropenia. The pleiotropic phenotype, combined with insufficient clinical data, often leads to an erroneous diagnosis and has led to confusion in the literature. Here, we report the results of a comprehensive genotype-phenotype study on the largest cohort of patients with Cohen syndrome assembled to date. We found 22 different COH1 mutations, of which 19 are novel, in probands identified by our diagnostic criteria. In addition, we identified another three novel mutations in patients with incomplete clinical data. By contrast, no COH1 mutations were found in patients with a provisional diagnosis of Cohen syndrome who did not fulfill the diagnostic criteria (“Cohen-like” syndrome). This study provides a molecular confirmation of the clinical phenotype associated with Cohen syndrome and provides a basis for laboratory screening that will be valuable in its diagnosis
Uncertain Climate Policy and the Green Paradox
Unintended consequences of announcing a climate policy well in advance of its implementation have been studied in a variety of situations. We show that a phenomenon akin to the so-called “Green-Paradox” holds also when the policy implementation date is uncertain. Governments are compelled, by international and domestic pressure, to demonstrate an intention to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Taking actual steps, such as imposing a carbon tax on fossil energy, is a different matter altogether and depends on a host of political considerations. As a result, economic agents often consider the policy implementation date to be uncertain. We show that in the interim period between the policy announcement and its actual implementation the emission of green-house gases increases vis-à-vis business-as-usual
Determination of alpha_s using Jet Rates at LEP with the OPAL detector
Hadronic events produced in e+e- collisions by the LEP collider and recorded
by the OPAL detector were used to form distributions based on the number of
reconstructed jets. The data were collected between 1995 and 2000 and
correspond to energies of 91 GeV, 130-136 GeV and 161-209 GeV. The jet rates
were determined using four different jet-finding algorithms (Cone, JADE, Durham
and Cambridge). The differential two-jet rate and the average jet rate with the
Durham and Cambridge algorithms were used to measure alpha(s) in the LEP energy
range by fitting an expression in which order alpah_2s calculations were
matched to a NLLA prediction and fitted to the data. Combining the measurements
at different centre-of-mass energies, the value of alpha_s (Mz) was determined
to be
alpha(s)(Mz)=0.1177+-0.0006(stat.)+-0.0012$(expt.)+-0.0010(had.)+-0.0032(theo.)
\.Comment: 40 pages, 17 figures, Submitted to Euro. Phys. J.
Colour reconnection in e+e- -> W+W- at sqrt(s) = 189 - 209 GeV
The effects of the final state interaction phenomenon known as colour
reconnection are investigated at centre-of-mass energies in the range sqrt(s) ~
189-209 GeV using the OPAL detector at LEP. Colour reconnection is expected to
affect observables based on charged particles in hadronic decays of W+W-.
Measurements of inclusive charged particle multiplicities, and of their angular
distribution with respect to the four jet axes of the events, are used to test
models of colour reconnection. The data are found to exclude extreme scenarios
of the Sjostrand-Khoze Type I (SK-I) model and are compatible with other
models, both with and without colour reconnection effects. In the context of
the SK-I model, the best agreement with data is obtained for a reconnection
probability of 37%. Assuming no colour reconnection, the charged particle
multiplicity in hadronically decaying W bosons is measured to be (nqqch) =
19.38+-0.05(stat.)+-0.08 (syst.).Comment: 30 pages, 9 figures, Submitted to Euro. Phys. J.
Measurements of Flavour Dependent Fragmentation Functions in Z^0 -> qq(bar) Events
Fragmentation functions for charged particles in Z -> qq(bar) events have
been measured for bottom (b), charm (c) and light (uds) quarks as well as for
all flavours together. The results are based on data recorded between 1990 and
1995 using the OPAL detector at LEP. Event samples with different flavour
compositions were formed using reconstructed D* mesons and secondary vertices.
The \xi_p = ln(1/x_E) distributions and the position of their maxima \xi_max
are also presented separately for uds, c and b quark events. The fragmentation
function for b quarks is significantly softer than for uds quarks.Comment: 29 pages, LaTeX, 5 eps figures (and colour figs) included, submitted
to Eur. Phys. J.
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