Social Media Fingerprints of Unemployment

Recent widespread adoption of electronic and pervasive technologies has enabled the study of human behavior at an unprecedented level, uncovering universal patterns underlying human activity, mobility, and interpersonal communication. In the present work, we investigate whether deviations from these universal patterns may reveal information about the socio-economical status of geographical regions. We quantify the extent to which deviations in diurnal rhythm, mobility patterns, and communication styles across regions relate to their unemployment incidence. For this we examine a country-scale publicly articulated social media dataset, where we quantify individual behavioral features from over 19 million geo-located messages distributed among more than 340 different Spanish economic regions, inferred by computing communities of cohesive mobility fluxes. We find that regions exhibiting more diverse mobility fluxes, earlier diurnal rhythms, and more correct grammatical styles display lower unemployment rates. As a result, we provide a simple model able to produce accurate, easily interpretable reconstruction of regional unemployment incidence from their social-media digital fingerprints alone. Our results show that cost-effective economical indicators can be built based on publicly-available social media datasets.     

Improvement of aroma in transgenic potato as a consequence of impairing tuber browning

Sensory analysis studies are critical in the development of quality enhanced crops, and may be an important component in the public acceptance of genetically modified foods. It has recently been established that odor preferences are shared between humans and mice, suggesting that odor exploration behavior in mice may be used to predict the effect of odors in humans. We have previously found that mice fed diets supplemented with engineered nonbrowning potatoes (-PPO) consumed more potato than mice fed diets supplemented with wild-type potatoes (WT). This prompted us to explore a possible role of potato odor in mice preference for nonbrowning potatoes. Taking advantage of two well established neuroscience paradigms, the "open field test" and the "nose-poking preference test", we performed experiments where mice exploration behavior was monitored in preference assays on the basis of olfaction alone. No obvious preference was observed towards -PPO or WT lines when fresh potato samples were tested. However, when oxidized samples were tested, mice consistently investigated -PPO potatoes more times and for longer periods than WT potatoes. Congruently, humans discriminated WT from -PPO samples with a considerably better performance when oxidized samples were tested than when fresh samples were tested in blind olfactory experiments. Notably, even though participants ranked all samples with an intermediate level of pleasantness, there was a general consensus that the -PPO samples had a more intense odor and also evoked the sense-impression of a familiar vegetable more often than the WT samples. Taken together, these findings suggest that our previous observations might be influenced, at least in part, by differential odors that are accentuated among the lines once oxidative deterioration takes place. Additionally, our results suggest that nonbrowning potatoes, in addition to their extended shelf life, maintain their odor quality for longer periods of time than WT potatoes. To our knowledge this is the first report on the use of an animal model applied to the sensory analysis of a transgenic crop.     

Predicting functional upstream open reading frames in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Background  

Some upstream open reading frames (uORFs) regulate gene expression (i.e., they are functional) and can play key roles in keeping organisms healthy. However, how uORFs are involved in gene regulation is not yet fully understood. In order to get a complete view of how uORFs are involved in gene regulation, it is expected that a large number of experimentally verified functional uORFs are needed. Unfortunately, wet-experiments to verify that uORFs are functional are expensive.     

The Shade Avoidance Syndrome in Arabidopsis: The Antagonistic Role of Phytochrome A and B Differentiates Vegetation Proximity and Canopy Shade

Light limitation caused by dense vegetation is one of the greatest threats to plant survival in natural environments. Plants detect such neighboring vegetation as a reduction in the red to far-red ratio (R:FR) of the incoming light. The low R:FR signal, perceived by phytochromes, initiates a set of responses collectively known as the shade avoidance syndrome, intended to reduce the degree of current or future shade from neighbors by overtopping such competitors or inducing flowering to ensure seed production. At the seedling stage these responses include increased hypocotyl elongation. We have systematically analyzed the Arabidopsis seedling response and the contribution of phyA and phyB to perception of decreased R:FR, at three different levels of photosynthetically active radiation. Our results show that the shade avoidance syndrome, induced by phyB deactivation, is gradually antagonized by phyA, operating through the so-called FR-High Irradiance Response, in response to high FR levels in a range that simulates plant canopy shade. The data indicate that the R:FR signal distinguishes between the presence of proximal, but non-shading, neighbors and direct foliar shade, via a intrafamily photosensory attenuation mechanism that acts to suppress excessive reversion toward skotomorphogenic development under prolonged direct vegetation shade.     

Peripheral regulatory cells immunophenotyping in Primary Sj?gren's Syndrome: a cross-sectional study

Introduction

IL-10--producing B cells, Foxp3-expressing T cells (Tregs) and the IDO-expressing dendritic cells (pDC) are able to modulate inflammatory processes, to induce immunological tolerance and, in turn, to inhibit the pathogenesis of autoimmune disease.The aim of the study was to characterize and to enumerate peripheral IL-10--producing B cells, Tregs and pDCregs in primary Sjögren''s Syndrome (pSS) patients in regard of their clinical and serologic activity.

Methods

Fifty pSS patients and 25 healthy individuals were included in the study. CD19⁺--expressing peripheral B lymphocytes were purified by positive selection. CD19⁺/CD24^hi/CD38^hi/IL-10--producing B cells, CD4⁺/CD25^hi/Foxp3⁺ and CD8⁺/CD28^-/Foxp3⁺ Tregs, as well as CCR6⁺/CD123⁺/IDO⁺ DCs, were quantitated by flow cytometry.

Results

Immature/transitional circulating IgA⁺ IL-10--producing B cells had higher levels in pSS patients versus control group, whereas CD19⁺/CD38^hi/IgG⁺/IL-10⁺ cells had lower percentage versus control. Indeed CD19⁺/CD24^hi/CD38^hi/CD5⁺/IL-10⁺, CD19⁺/CD24^hi/CD38^hi/CD10⁺/IL-10⁺, CD19⁺/CD24^hi/CD38^hi/CD20⁺/IL-10⁺, CD19⁺/CD24^hi/CD38^hi/CD27^-/IL-10⁺, and CD19⁺/CD24^hi/CD38^hi/CXCR7⁺/IL-10⁺ cells had higher frequency in clinical inactive pSS patients when compared with control group. Remarkably, only percentages of CD19⁺/CD24^hi/CD38^hi/CD10⁺/IL-10⁺ and CD19⁺/CD24^hi/CD38^hi/CD27^-/IL-10⁺ subsets were increased in pSS serologic inactive versus control group (P < 0.05). The percentage of IDO-expressing pDC cells was higher in pSS patients regardless of their clinical or serologic activity. There were no statistically significant differences in the percentage of CD4⁺/CD25^hi/Foxp3⁺ Tregs between patient groups versus controls. Nonetheless, a decrease in the frequency of CD8⁺/CD28^-/Foxp3⁺ Tregs was found in inactive pSS patients versus controls (P < 0.05).

Conclusions

The findings of this exploratory study show that clinical inactive pSS patients have an increased frequency of IL-10--producing B cells and IDO-expressing pDC cells.