Emotional persistence in online chatting communities

How do users behave in online chatrooms, where they instantaneously read and write posts? We analyzed about 2.5 million posts covering various topics in Internet relay channels, and found that user activity patterns follow known power-law and stretched exponential distributions, indicating that online chat activity is not different from other forms of communication. Analysing the emotional expressions (positive, negative, neutral) of users, we revealed a remarkable persistence both for individual users and channels. I.e. despite their anonymity, users tend to follow social norms in repeated interactions in online chats, which results in a specific emotional "tone" of the channels. We provide an agent-based model of emotional interaction, which recovers qualitatively both the activity patterns in chatrooms and the emotional persistence of users and channels. While our assumptions about agent's emotional expressions are rooted in psychology, the model allows to test different hypothesis regarding their emotional impact in online communication.Comment: 34 pages, 4 main and 12 supplementary figure

Synchronization modulation increases transepithelial potentials in MDCK monolayers through Na/K pumps

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Endothelial dysfunction and glycocalyx shedding in heart failure:insights from patients receiving cardiac resynchronisation therapy

To determine (a) whether chronic heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) is associated with increased glycocalyx shedding; (b) whether glycocalyx shedding in HFrEF with left ventricular dyssynchrony is related to inflammation, endothelial dysfunction and/or redox stress and is ameliorated by cardiac resynchronisation therapy. Glycocalyx shedding has been reported to be increased in heart failure and is a marker of increased mortality. Its role in dyssynchronous systolic heart failure and the effects of cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT) are largely unknown. Twenty-six patients with dyssynchronous HFrEF were evaluated before and 6 months after CRT insertion. Echocardiographic septal to posterior wall delay (SPWD) assessed intra-ventricular mechanical dyssynchrony, and quality of life, integrity of nitric oxide (NO) signalling, inflammatory and redox-related biomarkers were measured. Glycocalyx shedding was quantitated via plasma levels of the glycocalyx component, syndecan-1. Syndecan-1 levels pre-CRT were inversely correlated with LVEF (r = - 0.45, p = 0.02) and directly with SPWD (r = 0.44, p = 0.02), QOL (r = 0.39, p = 0.04), plasma NT-proBNP (r = 0.43, p = 0.02), and the inflammatory marker, symmetric dimethylarginine (SDMA) (r = 0.54, p = 0.003). On multivariate analysis, syndecan-1 levels were predicted by SPWD and SDMA (β = 0.42, p = 0.009 and β = 0.54, p = 0.001, respectively). No significant correlation was found between syndecan-1 levels and other markers of endothelial dysfunction/inflammatory activation. Following CRT there was no significant change in syndecan-1 levels. In patients with dyssynchronous HFrEF, markers of glycocalyx shedding are associated with the magnitude of mechanical dyssynchrony and elevation of SDMA levels and inversely with LVEF. However, CRT does not reverse this process

Physicochemical properties and antimicrobial activity of new spirocyclic thieno[2,3-d]pyrimidin-4(3H)-one derivatives

A number of 6'-methylidene-2,3-dihydro-1H-spiro[pyridine-4,5'-thieno[2,3-d]pyrimidin]-4'(3'H)-one derivatives, obtained as major products of a domino reaction between 5,6,7,8-tetrahydropyrido[4',3':4,5]thieno[2,3-d]pyrimidines and electron-deficient alkynes, were characterized for their acid-base properties and lipophilicity and evaluated for the antimicrobial activity against a number of clinical isolates of bacterial and fungal strains. The cytotoxicity against four tumor cell lines was also screened for some compounds. The dissociation constants (pKa) and partition coefficients (log P) in 1-octanol–water system were determined using a potentiometric technique. The negative difference between the observed and calculated log P values could be explained in the light of the conformational rigidity. Most of the studied compounds showed a moderate and selective activity against Gram-positive bacteria strains (S. agalactiae, E. faecalis, S. epidermidis), whereas did not exhibit any effect against Gram-negative bacteria and fungi at the maximum test concentration (500 μM). Implications of the physicochemical properties in modulating the antimicrobial activity and cytotoxicity of the examined spirocyclic thieno[2,3-d]pyrimidin-4(3H)-one derivatives are also discussed