Save Our Souls: Study of Twitter Use during India’s COVID-19 Pandemic

Twitter is a commonly used social platform for communication during disasters. Tweets by citizens during disasters to share information, seek, and offer help create a body of spontaneous, decentralized, emergent social media communication. Users’ exploit Twitter’s reach-enabling technological functionalities (hashtags (#), mentions (@), and ‘reply-to’) to draw attention to the messages. Set in context of the second wave of COVID-19 in India, that saw a surge in citizen-driven tweets seeking healthcare resources from fellow citizens and officials (i.e., SOS tweets), our paper empirically analyses the effects of Twitter’s reach-enabling functionalities on online responses (i.e., retweets and replies) to these SOS tweets. We investigate the effects of inclusion of hashtags, mentions, and ‘reply to’ SOS tweets. We also examine the moderating effect of how the effects of the reach-enabling functionalities change as the social platform gets crowded with SOS tweets. The study offers various academic and practical implications

Segmenting an Online Reviewer Community: Empirical Detection and Comparison of Reviewer Clusters

More people are travelling overseas for health or wellness reasons however, there is limited understanding of the background of those travelling and how information is sourced for decision making. Those travelling for treatment are likely to be unaware of all of the risks. Reliable information sources are scattered and not easy to find. Interviews were conducted with 51 Australians contemplating or who had travelled for stem cell treatment. Information sources people used were identified, and an analysis was undertaken of how this influenced their decision. The data highlight that health travellers are likely to search extensively using a wide range of sources including information on clinics’ websites, Facebook, blogs, friends and family. Interviewees highlight that often decisions are made based on unreliable sources. The implications are that without quality, reliable information health travellers are at risk of suffering adverse outcomes and spending significant funds without any improvement in their condition

I am Safe, so I will Help: Prosocial Impact of Marking Oneself Safe during Disasters

In the aftermath of disasters, people anxiously desire to immediately inquire or inform their loved ones about their safety. A social safety check system (SSCS) is a single-click safety status broadcasting mechanism on social platforms during crises. While millions of people use it globally during disasters, millions ignore the system. Research investigating the antecedents and consequents of SSCS adoption during disasters is scarce. We examine the unforeseen prosocial consequences (donations, volunteering, information sharing) of SSCS adoption. Based on theoretically established link between individuals’ state gratitude and prosocial tendencies, we posit that using SSCS would act as a gratitude intervention and will lead to higher prosocial intentions among adopters as compared to non-adopters. We test our hypotheses using scenario-based controlled experiment. A post-hoc study reveals the motivators and concerns in adoption of SSCS. The study investigates a sociotechnical tool in disaster management with impact on the societal welfare of disaster-hit communities

Time-contingent Impact of Inconsistent Action-based Information Cues on Social Commerce Purchases: An Experimental Investigation

Social commerce websites predominantly display two types of action-based online social information: product’s past purchases and bookmarks (e.g. wish-lists). The impact of inconsistency between these two information cues on consumer decision making is uncertain and is expected to be dependent on the purchase context. In this paper we investigate the effect of (action-based) online social information inconsistency on consumers’ likelihood of purchasing a product for temporally proximal and distant purchases. Using a controlled experimental set-up with Latin-square design and linear mixed model analysis we find significant interaction effect of information inconsistency type and temporal distance of purchase on purchase likelihood of product, establishing the purchase timing dependent impact of information inconsistency. The paper offers several academic implications, and valuable insights for website managers to elicit favorable consumer responses even under information inconsistency and effectively design their product recommendation strategies

Impact of Community Recognition on the Quality of Online Reviewer Contribution

Online review sites use community recognition (badges, titles, etc.) to encourage reviewer contribution. It is worthwhile to investigate the effect of such recognition on subsequent reviewer contribution, especially on the quality of online reviews. In this study we examine how receiving recognition influences qualitative aspects of online reviews, namely, depth, expressiveness of sentiments, and language proficiency. Expecting recognition to act as a social reinforcer we hypothesize positive effect of recognition on all three quality outcomes in post-recognition phase. Using real empirical data from a popular online review website, we employ complex text mining techniques to extract review sentiments and language proficiency. Further, we use pre-post quasi-experiment across groups of recognized and similar unrecognized reviewers. We observe significant increase in all three quality outcomes for the recognized reviewers while no change in outcomes for the unrecognized group. Our study offers practical insights to managers and moderators of online review communities

Temporal effects of repeated recognition and lack of recognition on online community contributions

10.1080/07421222.2020.1759341Journal of Management Information Systems3702536-56

<i>Cntn2</i>^{<i>3’UTR-IRES-Cre-EGFP/+</i>}<i>; R26R</i>^{<i>tdTomato/+</i>} mice display robust reporter expression in the VCS.

<p>(a-e) <i>Cntn2</i>^{<i>3’UTR-IRES-Cre-EGFP/+</i>} mice were bred with <i>R26R</i>^{<i>tdTomato/tdTomato</i>} reporter mice to characterize the <i>Cntn2</i>^{<i>3’UTR-IRES-Cre-EGFP/+</i>} allele by monitoring tdTomato expression at P28 by whole mount fluorescence imaging (a and a’) in brain (dorsal view, used as a positive control) where endogenous Contactin 2 is known to be expressed abundantly and (b-e) in heart. We monitored tdTomato expression in at least 15 independent <i>Cntn2</i>^{<i>3’UTR-IRES-Cre-EGFP/+</i>}<i>; R26R</i>^{<i>tdTomato/+</i>} mice from multiple litters in comparison to 12 WT control littermates. (b and b’) Native tdTomato fluorescence was visualized at the Atrio-Ventricular Junction (AVJ) by whole-mount microscopy following Cre recombination of the <i>R26R</i> locus. (c-e) A P28 mouse heart was sectioned grossly in the four-chamber orientation to visualize native tdTomato expression in the VCS. (c and c’) Robust tdTomato fluorescence was observed in the Atrio-Ventricular Bundle (AVB), right and left Bundle Branches (BB), and right and left Purkinje Fiber (PF) network. Faint speckled fluorescent signal was also observed in the Right Atrium (RA) (not visible in the image). (a-c) Scale bar: 500 μM. (d and e) Higher magnification images of (d) right inlet in (c’) and (e) left inlet in (c’) to visualize the intricate structures of AVB and highly branched PF network in the adult mouse heart. Scale bar: 250 μm. LA, Left Atrium; LV, Left Ventricle; RV, Right Ventricle.</p

Genomic architecture of the <i>Cntn2</i>^{<i>3’UTR-IRES-Cre-EGFP/+</i>} allele.

<p>a) Schematic of the endogenous <i>Contactin-2 (Cntn2)</i> locus comprising 23 exons as indicated by blue numbered blocks. Green block denotes the 3’UTR of the <i>Cntn2</i> gene located in exon 23. The black right-handed arrow indicates the <i>Cntn2</i> transcriptional start site driven by endogenous regulatory elements. The <i>IRES-Cre-EGFP-FRT-neo-PGK-FRT</i> KI cassette was targeted to the 3’ UTR of the <i>Cntn2</i> locus to ensure unperturbed bi-cistronic expression of endogenous Cntn2 protein and a Cre-EGFP fusion protein under the control of the endogenous regulatory elements upon FLP recombination. b) PCR genotyping of mice before FLP-mediated recombination using the indicated primer sets to amplify the 5’ (i) and 3’ (ii) insertion sites. In this example, 4 out of 5 pups were positive by F1-R1 genotyping, and these 4 were subjected to the second round of genotyping using F2-R2 primer sets. C) PCR genotyping of mice after FLP-mediated recombination using the indicated primer sets to amplify across the deleted <i>Neo</i>^<i>R</i> cassette (i) and the <i>Cre</i> coding sequence (ii). In this example, 4 out of 6 pups were positive by F3-R3 genotyping, and these 4 were subjected to the second round of genotyping using F4-R4 primer sets.</p

Phenotypically silent Cre recombination within the postnatal ventricular conduction system

<div><p>The cardiac conduction system (CCS) is composed of specialized cardiomyocytes that initiate and maintain cardiac rhythm. Any perturbation to the normal sequence of electrical events within the heart can result in cardiac arrhythmias. To understand how cardiac rhythm is established at the molecular level, several genetically modified mouse lines expressing Cre recombinase within specific CCS compartments have been created. In general, Cre driver lines have been generated either by homologous recombination of Cre into an endogenous locus or Cre expression driven by a randomly inserted transgene. However, haploinsufficiency of the endogenous gene compromises the former approach, while position effects negatively impact the latter. To address these limitations, we generated a Cre driver line for the ventricular conduction system (VCS) that preserves endogenous gene expression by targeting the Contactin2 (Cntn2) 3’ untranslated region (3’UTR). Here we show that <i>Cntn2</i>^{<i>3’UTR-IRES-Cre-EGFP/+</i>} mice recombine floxed alleles within the VCS and that Cre expression faithfully recapitulates the spatial distribution of Cntn2 within the heart. We further demonstrate that Cre expression initiates after birth with preservation of native Cntn2 protein. Finally, we show that <i>Cntn2</i>^{<i>3’UTR-IRES-Cre-EGFP/+</i>} mice maintain normal cardiac mechanical and electrical function. Taken together, our results establish a novel VCS-specific Cre driver line without the adverse consequences of haploinsufficiency or position effects. We expect that our new mouse line will add to the accumulating toolkit of CCS-specific mouse reagents and aid characterization of the cell-autonomous molecular circuitry that drives VCS maintenance and function.</p></div

Cre-mediated recombination in <i>Cntn2</i>^{<i>3’UTR-IRES-Cre-EGFP/+</i>}<i>; R26R</i>^{<i>tdTomato/+</i>} mice is only evident after birth.

<p>(a, a’) Whole mount fluorescent image of an E18.5 double heterozygous embryo with robust expression of the recombined reporter protein in the cerebrum. tdTomato expression in the brain was also seen at E16.5 (data not shown). (b, b’) Following microdissection of the heart at E18.5, native tdTomato signal was not observed. (c, c’) Double heterozygous P0 mouse heart after dissection revealed bright reporter protein expression in the AVB, right and left BB, and right and left PF network. P0 was the earliest point at which reporter expression was observed in the heart. (d,d’) Micro-dissected P7 double heterozygous hearts express tdTomato protein in the identical anatomical regions as described in (c,c’). The cardiac PF network appears fully developed by P7 based on fluorescent reporter expression. At least 8 hearts were dissected per group of animals at each time point. Scale bar: 500 μm.</p