Discovering Social Events through Online Attention

Twitter is a major social media platform in which users send and read messages (“tweets”) of up to 140 characters. In recent years this communication medium has been used by those affected by crises to organize demonstrations or find relief. Because traffic on this media platform is extremely heavy, with hundreds of millions of tweets sent every day, it is difficult to differentiate between times of turmoil and times of typical discussion. In this work we present a new approach to addressing this problem. We first assess several possible “thermostats” of activity on social media for their effectiveness in finding important time periods. We compare methods commonly found in the literature with a method from economics. By combining methods from computational social science with methods from economics, we introduce an approach that can effectively locate crisis events in the mountains of data generated on Twitter. We demonstrate the strength of this method by using it to locate the social events relating to the Occupy Wall Street movement protests at the end of 2011.     

上皮组织特异性表达N-LMP1和CR2转基因猪胚胎成纤维细胞的构建与鉴定

目的 构建上皮组织特异性表达鼻咽癌来源潜伏膜蛋白1（N-LMP1）和人补体受体2（CR2）真核表达载体,转染猪胚胎成纤维细胞并筛选整合有N-LMP1和CR2基因的细胞克隆,为构建与EBV感染相关的猪鼻咽癌模型奠定基础.方法 通过直接合成ED-L2启动子和N-LMP1,从人B淋巴细胞中的RNA经RT-PCR扩增出CR2,将上述3个片段逐个连接到真核表达载体pN1上,构建上皮组织特异性表达N-LMP1和CR2的载体pN1-ED-L2-N-LMP1-CR2;用脂质体转染猪胚胎成纤维细胞,经药物G418 筛选和PCR鉴定阳性克隆.结果 成功构建上皮组织特异性表达N-LMP1和CR2的真核表达载体pN1-ED-L2-N-LMP1-CR2,并成功整合到猪胚胎成纤维细胞的基因组中,获得了整合有目的 基因N-LMP1和CR2的猪胚胎成纤维细胞克隆.结论 获得了上皮组织特异性表达N-LMP1和CR2 的猪胚胎成纤维细胞克隆,为通过细胞核移植方法获得表达N-LMP1和CR2转基因猪提供了供体细胞.     

高粱属植物的地理分布

为探讨高粱属(Sorghum Moench)的系统发育关系,通过野外调查及查阅标本和文献资料,对高粱属植物的地理分布进行了整理和研究。高粱属植物约有29种,分布于全世界热带到温带地区,其中澳大利亚22种,亚洲15种,非洲9种,欧洲3种,地中海2种,美洲6种。中国有5种,分布在东北、西南到华南各省(区)。高粱属有5亚属,仅高粱亚属(subgen.Sorghum)延伸至新世界,其他亚属均分布在旧世界,高粱亚属覆盖非洲并扩散到全世界热带到温带地区;拟高粱亚属(subgen.Parasorghum)分布在非洲、亚洲、澳大利亚;有柄高粱亚属(subgen.Stiposorghum)主要分布在澳大利亚,个别种分布到亚洲;多毛高粱亚属(subgen.Chaetosorghum)分布在澳大利亚;异高粱亚属(subgen.Heterosorghum)分布在澳大利亚和亚洲。这表明澳大利亚东北部是高粱属的现代分布中心和多样化中心,非洲东北部和热带亚洲是否是高粱属的起源地尚需确证。     

Renewed diversification is associated with new ecological opportunity in the Neotropical turtle ants

Ecological opportunity, defined as access to new resources free from competitors, is thought to be a catalyst for the process of adaptive radiation. Much of what we know about ecological opportunity, and the larger process of adaptive radiation, is derived from vertebrate diversification on islands. Here, we examine lineage diversification in the turtle ants (Cephalotes), a species‐rich group of ants that has diversified throughout the Neotropics. We show that crown group turtle ants originated during the Eocene (around 46 mya), coincident with global warming and the origin of many other clades. We also show a marked lineage‐wide slowdown in diversification rates in the Miocene. Contrasting this overall pattern, a species group associated with the young and seasonally harsh Chacoan biogeographic region underwent a recent burst of diversification. Subsequent analyses also indicated that there is significant phylogenetic clustering within the Chacoan region and that speciation rates are highest there. Together, these findings suggest that recent ecological opportunity, from successful colonization of novel habitat, may have facilitated renewed turtle ant diversification. Our findings highlight a central role of ecological opportunity within a successful continental radiation.     

A new insect cell line from the pupal ovary of the Asian corn borer moth Ostrinia furnacalis

Ovaries were removed from Ostrinia furnacalis (Guenée) pupae and were placed in a flask containing TNM-FH medium with 10% inactivated fetal bovine serum. Cell migration occurred after about 1 wk of the initiation in June 2011. The migrated cells were distributed over most of the flask and were treated with N-methyl-N′-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine (MNNG), a chemical carcinogen, after about 1 mo of initiation for 26 d. Cells were first subcultured successfully 12 d after the MNNG was removed, followed by subculturing for 30 passages. The established cell line, designated IOZCAS-Osfu-1, were analyzed by DNA fingerprinting–PCR (DAF-PCR) to confirm that it originated from O. furnacalis.     

Isolation,culture, and characterization of primordial germ cells in Mongolian sheep

This study was performed to culture and preliminarily identify the primordial germ cells (PGCs) isolated from the genital ridge of the Mongolian sheep fetus. The growth characteristics of the sheep PGCs were detected in different culture systems such as culture media, resources, and state and passages of feeder cells. The obtained embryonic germ (EG) cells were identified by morphology, enzymology, and immunofluorescence. The results showed that the sheep EG cell colonies were ridgy, typically nest like, and compact, and had regular edges. Alkaline phosphatase staining reaction was weakly positive. EG cells expressed Kit, Rex-1, Nanog, and Oct-4. Immunofluorescence detection was weakly positive for Oct3/4, whereas positive for SSEA-1, SSEA-3, SSEA-4, TRA-1-61, and TRA-1-80.     

Contribution of the skin,rectus abdominis and their sheaths to the structural response of the abdominal wall ex vivo

A better understanding of the abdominal wall biomechanics could help designing new treatments for incisional hernia. In the current study, an experimental protocol was developed to evaluate the contributions of the abdominal wall components to the structural response of the anterior part of the abdominal wall. The specimens underwent 3 dissections (removal of (1) skin and subcutaneous fat, (2) anterior rectus sheath, (3) rectus abdominis muscles). After each dissection, they were subjected to air pressure up to 3 kPa. Ultrasound images and associated elastographic maps were collected at 0, 2 and 3 kPa in the intact state and strains on the internal surface were calculated using stereo-correlation in all states. Strains on the rectus abdominis and linea alba were analyzed. After the dissection of the anterior sheath of the rectus abdominis, longitudinal strain was found significantly different on the linea alba (5% at 3 kPa) and on the rectus abdominis area (11% at 3 kPa). The current results highlight the importance of the rectus sheath in the structural response of the anterior part of the abdominal wall ex vivo. Geometrical characteristics such as thicknesses and radii of curvature and mechanical properties (shear modulus of the rectus abdominis, e.g. at 0 pressure the average value is 14 kPa) were provided in order to facilitate future modeling efforts.     

Dynamic compression and co-culture with nucleus pulposus cells promotes proliferation and differentiation of adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells

Adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) are a set of multi potent stem cells potentially used in cartilage tissue engineering. We hypothesized that the effect of dynamic compression and co-culture with nucleus pulposus cells (NPCs) promotes ASC proliferation and chondrogenic differentiation. A controlled dynamic compression loading device was utilized to stimulate ASCs obtained from Sprague Dawley (SD) rats and identified by flow cytometry. The proliferation index was measured by carboxyfluorescein succinimidyl ester (CFSE) staining. Dynamic compression, as well as co-culture enhanced chondrogenic differentiation of ASCs as indicated by the expression of SOX-9, type-II collagen and aggrecan, which were measured by real-time PCR and Western blot. In our study, we found dynamic compression promoted the proliferation of ASCs and induced its differentiation into NP-like cells. Combination of dynamic compression and co-culture showed an additive effect on NP-like cell differentiation.