3,520 Matching Annotations
  1. Mar 2022
    1. front-end dumpster fires, where nothing that is over 18 months old, can build, compile or get support anymore. In my day job, I inherit "fun" tasks as 'get this thing someone glued together with webpack4 and frontend-du-jour to work with webpack5 in 2022
    1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_circle

      Some timber circle sites to look into: - Secotan in North Carolina circa 1585 - Poverty Point - Hopewell timber circles (Moorehead Circle and Stubbs Earthworks) in Ohio - Cahokia

    2. An early example of a timber circle witnessed by Europeans was recorded by watercolor artist John White in July 1585 when he visited the Algonquian village of Secotan in North Carolina. White was the artist-illustrator and mapmaker for the Roanoke Colony expedition sent by Sir Walter Raleigh to begin the first attempts at British colonization of the Americas.[2] White's works represent the sole-surviving visual record of the native inhabitants of the Americas as encountered by England's first colonizers on the Atlantic seaboard.[3] White's watercolor and the writings of the chronicler who accompanied him, Thomas Harriot, describes a great religious festival, possibly the Green Corn ceremony, with participants holding a ceremonial dance at a timber circle. The posts of the circle were carved with faces. Harriot noted that many of the participants had come from surrounding villages and that "every man attyred in the most strange fashion they can devise havinge certayne marks on the backs to declare of what place they bee." and that "Three of the fayrest Virgins" danced around a central post at the center of the timber circle.[4]

      Artist, illustrator and mapmaker John White painted a watercolor in July 1585 of a group of Native Americans in the Secotan village in North America. Both he and chronicler Thomas Harriot described a gathering of Indigenous peoples gathered in the Algonquian village as part of Sir Walter Raleigh's Roanoke Colony expedition. They describe a festival with participants holding a dance at a timber circle, the posts of which were carved with with faces.

      Harriot wrote that participants had come from surrounding villages and that "every man attyred in the most strange fashion they can devise havinge certayne marks on the backs to declare of what place they bee."

      Secotans dancing in a timber circle in North Carolina, watercolor painted by John White in 1585


      This evidence would generally support some of Lynne Kelly's thesis in Knowledge and Power. A group of neighboring peoples gathering, possibly for the Green Corn Ceremony, ostensibly to strengthen social ties and potentially to strengthen and trade knowledge.

      Would we also see others of her list of markers in the area?

      Read references: - Daniels, Dennis F. "John White". NCpedia. Retrieved 2017-12-19. - Tucker, Abigal (December 2008). "Sketching the Earliest Views of the New World". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 2017-12-19. - "A Selection of John White's Watercolors : A festive dance". Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved 2017-12-19.

    1. In 1994, The Unix-Haters Handbook was published containing a long list of missives about the software—everything from overly-cryptic command names that were optimized for Teletype machines, to irreversible file deletion, to unintuitive programs with far too many options. Over twenty years later, an overwhelming majority of these complaints are still valid even across the dozens of modern derivatives. Unix had become so widely used that changing its behavior would have challenging implications. For better
    1. Discussion, revision and decision


      Decision - Verified with reservations

      Charles A. Schumpert: Verified manuscript

      Max Shokhirev: Verified with reservations


      Author response and revisions


      Author response to reviewer Max Shokhirev

      Dear Dr Shokhirev,

      Thank you so very much for having reviewed my paper; your comments have been very helpful for me to improve it. Please find attached two identical copies of my revision of the paper (changes are highlighted in one of the copies) and a supplementary file that relates to one of your comments. Please see below my response to your comments when applicable.

      Does the work cite relevant and sufficient literature? Some, but seems to be very limited in terms of biological literature.

      I recognize and acknowledge this issue. It will be addressed in some of the specific responses below.

      Are the conclusions adequately supported by the results? No

      I understand this question and its answer as the theory presented in the paper (the conclusions) not providing new, proof-of-principle evidence (the results). That is correct, the theory is based only on existing evidence (most importantly, the already described age-dependent "transcriptional noise"), it is consistent with it and, importantly, it provides (in the new revision) three additional, experimentally testable predictions.

      The author has laid out a theoretical argument for senescence as a tradeoff between information capacity between epigenetic and non-epigenetic content.“A constraints-based theory of senescence: imbalance of epigenetic and non-epigenetic information in histone crosstalk.” This work is interesting, but is based on a superficial understanding of the biology underlying senescence/aging, makes several dangerous oversimplifications and assumptions, and does not provide any data or analysis to support the theory.

      I would argue the theory is not based on a superficial understanding of the biology of senescence as it is currently established—in fact it is not based on the current biology of senescence at all. The theory is actually based on my previous theoretical work where I show (supported by real data analysis) how the constraints on transcription start site-adjacent histone crosstalk that are explicitly uncorrelated with transcriptional levels associate strongly with cell differentiation states—even more strongly than those constraints correlated with transcriptional levels (an association which is expected and already described in previous work). This in turn suggests the existence of an additional, higher-order type of biologically meaningful information conveyed by histone crosstalk, with this information is by definition uncorrelated with the information for precise epigenetic control of transcriptional levels. I called this information "hologenic" because it associates to cell differentiation trajectories necessary for the development of the multicellular individual as as a whole while being explicitly uncorrelated with the transcriptional levels. My previous work showed that the capacity for hologenic information in histone crosstalk grows at the expense of that for epigenetic information (this is necessary for the development of the multicellular individual). I emphasize that the theory proposed here relies on only two assumptions: (i) the overall histone crosstalk remains statistically constant in magnitude throughout adulthood and (ii) the hologenic component of the overall histone crosstalk increases at the expense of the epigenetic component throughout adulthood (with the exceptions depicted in Fig. 1b). These assumptions are of course not to be taken for granted, so in the new revision of the paper they are presented as predictions that can falsify the theory. I will further elaborate on these assumptions in my specific responses below.

      All the above being said, the version of the paper you reviewed apparently gives the wrong impression that the theory is a comprehensive description of the senescence process with all its complexity. It is not. It is not surprising then that the theory appears to oversimplify the explanatory power of mechanisms known to be part of the senescence process when in reality they are claimed—this is a big theoretical claim I am making—to be the consequence of the primary cause of senescence. It is only this primary cause what the proposed theory is all about. For these reasons and thanks to your observation, I stated this distinction explicitly in the new subsection 1.2 "Scope" and also modified the title of the paper accordingly.

      I recognize and acknowledge that the paper does not present new data or experimental results in direct support of the theory—something that arguably makes it less compelling to be considered let alone to be tested experimentally. But I do wish to point out that a scientific theory, must "only" (i) effectively explain the phenomena it is aimed to explain (in this case, the primary cause of senescence), (ii) be consistent with existing observations/results (most importantly, with the well described age-dependent "transcriptional noise" in this case), and (iii) provide non-trivial, experimentally testable predictions that can falsify it. I have tried to make up for the lack of preliminary supporting evidence by adding three new straightforward, experimentally testable predictions that can falsify it. Importantly, two of said predictions (C and D in subsection 2.6) relate to precisely how senescence can be slowed down, even stopped, or accelerated—and with associated effects in terms of resistance/propensity to carcinogenesis—in any non-human species, because the direct testing requires genome editing. In this context, I have no problem granting that the prior probability of predictions C and D being verified experimentally is exceedingly small. On the other hand, the experimental verification of predictions C and D would arguably be a game-changing result in terms of the fundamental understanding of the senescence process, however unlikely this scenario is a priori. In this context, I submit to you that the extraordinary nature of predictions C and D in both theoretical and practical terms (I reiterate, this is not to say predictions C and D will be verified) more than makes up for the lack of preliminary evidence for the theory. The prospect of slowing down or even stopping the senescence process may catch the attention of at least some research groups with genome-editing capabilities, given that the gene edits described in predictions C and D are very specific. (You can find more about predictions C and D in my response to your comments related to the subsection 2.4 of the paper you reviewed).

      Sections 1.1-1.3 The author only mentions the Hayflick limit as a biological reference for senescence. There is a very rich body of literature on senescence and aging that is completely overlooked here. The author should include additional references to reviews for senescence and aging to orient the reader to the complexity of these biological processes (e.g. PMC8658264, PMC7846274).

      Thank you for pointing this out. I have included the suggested review articles as references and, most importantly, I tried now to clarify the scope of the theory in a new subsection (1.2 Scope). The scope of the theory is in a sense, very limited: it is indented to explain only the beginning of the causal chain of age-related changes we identify as aging at the multicellular-individual level. In other words, it is about what fundamentally triggers the process. On the other hand, such a scope (i.e., describing the first cause) is quite ambitious in the sense that it should allow, at least in principle, for the manipulation of the process (either slowing it down or accelerating it). I will come back to this point later in my response.

      Please clarify what you mean by senescence vs aging for both cells and individuals. Senescence is a natural biological process that cells/organisms use to turn off cell replication due to damage (e.g. telomere shortening, double-stranded breaks, etc.). Other cells can also facilitate this process through signaling (e.g. immune cells or contact inhibition).

      I am not a native English speaker, and one the first things I did when addressing this problem was to study the associated terminology in the literature. Unfortunately, this terminology is not particularly monolithic. In some articles, the age-dependent, progressive dysfunction undergone by multicellular individuals once they reach their mature form is referred to as "senescence" (PMID 1677205, 6776406, 12940353, 22884974, among others), "biological aging" (PMID 31833194, 33982659, 34700008, among others), or even simply as "aging" (PMID 24862019, 34990845, 31173843, among others). In this context, I decided to stick to "senescence" mainly because (i) it is only one word and (ii) unlike "aging", "senescence" directly and unambiguously implies time-dependent dysfunction or decay. At any rate, to distinguish the term from cellular senescence/cellular aging I created a Glossary in the paper where these terms and others are clarified to avoid confusion.

      Aging is typically thought of as an organismal phenomenon, which is still poorly understood but is theorized to include tradeoffs (as you describe in section 1.2). It is also accepted that aging is cell, tissue, and organism specific. Since you talk about senescence and aging across both biological scales, it is important to define exactly what your theory pertains to.

      I am glad we agree that senescence is poorly understood (especially in comparison to cellular senescence). Unfortunately, some colleagues in the community interpret this as saying the research been done on the topic is worthless—it is not—when it is really pointing out the phenomenon largely lacks falsifiable theories, let alone an already tested falsifiable theory (with experiments failing to falsify it).

      Section 1.4

      The author posits that senescence is an imbalance in information contents of histone post-translational modifications around transcription start sites. This is just one level of regulation, albeit an important one. The author seems to completely overlook many other types of regulation (e.g. microRNA, lincRNAs, metabolic/energetic constraints, non-proximal regulation at enhancers, higher ordered structure of the chromatin, post-translational regulation of proteins, and etc.). How can all of these other important levels of regulation fit into this theory? All have been implicated in senescence/aging in some form or another.

      What you point out here is very important, thank you. In a remarkable piece of research, Kumar and colleagues showed that core nucleosomal histone post-translational modification (hPTM) profiles are able to predict transcript abundance levels with very high accuracy (R~0.9, ref. 33). The constraints on hPTMs underpinning this predictive power (in turn underpinned by DNA-histone octamer interactions)—as well as those constraints on hPTMs that are explicitly uncorrelated to transcriptional levels—are central to the theory proposed. As stated in the new section 1.2, the complex cascade of changes/interactions characterizing senescence escapes the scope of the theory. In this context, most of the types of regulation you mention are under this theory not actually regulation in a "teleological" (the quotes are meant to avoid alienating the reader) sense but rather types of propagation/amplification of truly regulated/dysregulated changes. One of my goals when developing this theory was to try shift attention from "molecule A-collides with molecule-B, which collides to..." into higher-order constraints and trying to explain phenomena such as the well-known, age-dependent "transcriptional noise", which under the theory presented should be understood as senescence itself. Furthermore, I maintain the relative slow progress we have made in understanding phenomena such as cancer and senescence (in spite of the abundance of high-throughput data) comes from

      The author further suggests that histone crosstalk information content can be decomposed into two unrelated components: epigenetic and non-epigenetic. The non-epigenetic component is described as “hologenic information content,” which stems from a previously published work by the author. Non-epigenetic is confusing in this context since really this is information content that stems from the synergies of individual cells to form a whole, e.g. the emergent information content that comes from many cells working together (or at least this is how I understand the underlying theory). This information content is important for the general maintenance and survival of the organism. The author should clarify this point further, since this seems to be one of the fundamental assertions being made in the paper. For example, bringing in the descriptions used in section 2, can further clarify these central points.

      In my previous work, "hologenic" information content is defined as being uncorrelated with (i.e., orthogonal to) changes in transcriptional levels, in the same way "epigenetic" information has been defined (traditionally and for good reason) as being uncorrelated with changes in the DNA reason. Hologenic information content emerges when proliferation-generated extracellular gradients of secreted molecules start to being used to perform regulatory work (after being transduced) on the histone crosstalk of each cell's nucleus.

      In addition, the author states: “ Moreover, the sum decomposition in Eq. 1 implies that the growth in magnitude (bits) of the hologenic (i.e., non-epigenetic) component must be accompanied by a decrease in magnitude of the epigenetic component.” This is not necessarily true, since signaling is a separate biological process from the regulation of gene expression. In other words, both can increase or decrease simultaneously. For example, a healthy non-senescent immune cell can upregulate very specific transcriptional programs that lead to very complex signaling and extra-cellular interactions. You can argue that both represent an increase in information content for both the epigenetic and non-epigenetic “hologenic” components. In addition, as cells naturally senesce they are programmed to turn off cell-cycling while upregulating autophagy and repair processes. They may not upregulate extracellular signaling at this time, which would seem to contradict the author’s theory/statement. In this case, the simplification that all cells are the same is dangerous because it overlooks the tradeoff of information contents between cells. It also ignores important repair pathways (senescence being one of them), to deal with cells that have dysregulated their natural processes over time. It also overlooks the important action of immune cells that work to get rid of cancer and poorly-functioning cells.

      This comment of yours (referring to complex yet specific signaling pathways and interactions) clearly shows I did a poor job (if not utterly failed) in conveying that the epigenetic and hologenic components must be understood in chromatin-wide terms. Yes, the random variables used to define both components in the sum decomposition of Eq.1 are defined with respect to a single, generic transcription start site, but these random variables take their respective values from data for all transcription start sites in the nucleus. This is why the terms Eq. 1 and the log-ratio in Eq. 2 must be understood as chromatin-wide terms. Again, this approach intends to shift attention from specific (however important) molecular mechanism to higher-order, information conveying hologenic/epigenetic constraints (whose imbalance are proposed to trigger senescence as proposed in this theory). The chromatin-wide nature of the hologenic and epigenetic components is not an obvious consideration but it is a very important one, so it is now explicit (twice) in the revised text and I thank you for bringing this to my attention.

      For a statistically invariant level of overall histone crosstalk C(X1,...,Xn) in Eq. 1, a growth in magnitude of the hologenic (i.e., non-epigenetic) component must be accompanied by a decrease in magnitude of the epigenetic component and vice versa. This chromatin-wide trade-off might not hold, as you suggest, only if the overall histone crosstalk C(X1,...,Xn) varies significantly (in particular, if it varies significantly throughout adulthood). If, in fact, the overall histone crosstalk C(X1,...,Xn) varied significantly throughout adulthood the proposed theory would make no sense whatsoever. Mathematically, C(X1,...,Xn) is finite and upper bounded by ΣH(Xi) - max H(Xi) (where H(Xi) is the marginal Shannon uncertainty of Xi), and one can further expect that the overall histone crosstalk represented nu C(X1,...,Xn) remains statistically invariant for a number of reason, chief among them the massive chromatin instability that would ensue if it indeed C(X1,...,Xn) varied. For this reason, I included the C(X1,...,Xn) time-invariance as an additional prediction for the falsifiability of the theory.

      Also, it seems crosstalk, correlation, capacity, and content, are used interchangeably. Please clarify that these are all the same, or use one of these terms to avoid confusion.

      I went through the use of these terms in the paper and, unfortunately, I cannot reduce them to just one term or dispense with them altogether without losing rigor for the theory. Because of this I decided to include them in the Glossary, hoping that it will make any reader recognize that their respective uses in the text are actually not interchangeable.

      Section 1.5 The author provides a general approach for measuring the log of the ratio of epigenetic and non-epigenetic capacities for a particular histone modification at three positions (i,j,k), and for some measured abundance of mRNA Y. Since we typically measure abundance of a particular modification genome-wide, and the mRNA level for tens of thousands of genes, how would a realistic equation look like (i.e. one that has 10k mRNA levels, and 10k histone positions)? In addition, the author does not explain how to combine correlations across multiple histone modifications. Please expand this section to make it relevant for real-world genome-wide measurements since this will be important for falsifying the theory.

      Since public datasets are available (e.g. the aging atlas https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkaa894), the author should show an example of how a dataset might be used to falsify or demonstrate the theory in more detail.

      This response to this observation can be found in the new Fig. 2 and with greater detail in Supplementary File 1. In summary, the data analysis approach is basically the same used by Kumar et al. (ref. 33). That is, with tandem RNA-seq/ChIP-seq data obtained from the same cell sample a table can be constructed with the rows representing the transcription start sites (TSSs) in the genome and the columns displaying the normalized ChIP-seq signal for each hPTM in different positions relative to the respective TSS (variables X1,...,Xn in the paper) plus a column with the respective measured transcript abundance for each TSS (variable Y).

      Section 2.1 The author uses correlation of the log ratio of the epigenetic and non-epigenetic content with age as a readout of “reassignment” of crosstalk/contents, arguing that for cancer cells this correlation should be essentially zero. This seems like an oversimplification of the “reassignment” process since senescence may occur in phases across the age of a cell/organism, and since there might be both increases and decreases in the log ratio of contents due to natural biological processes and variability. Would it not be better to measure the sum of changes in the log ratio or the difference between the log ratios at different ages?

      In addition, the biological age of a cell/tissue/organism can vary. For example, stem cells may have negligent aging, while other cells might age relatively quickly. Again, the author should clarify the context of age: are we measuring strictly chronological age correlation? Should we consider different correlations for each cell/tissue in the organism? What about tradeoffs in information content between cell types and tissues? In other words, it is unclear how the theory should be applied to biological systems.

      This is a great observation, thank you. Yes, the correlation in Eq.3 relates strictly to chronological age (in other words, to time). The correlation must hold for somatic cells of the same type according to the theory; now this condition is explicit in the text. In this context, some cell types and tissue may senesce (see new Fig 1c, center) faster than others as you point out; in this case the associated slope is predicted to be steeper, whereas cell types that senesce relatively slower the slope should be gentler. Only in species displaying negligible senescence the hologenic/epigenetic log-ratio should remain constant (i.e., zero slope, as depicted in Fig. 1b, blue curve), or fluctuate significantly in species displaying "reversible" development (Fig. 1b, magenta curve).

      Section 2.2 The author argues that senescence is an emergent property of the loss of information content for epigenetic histone crosstalk and an increase in information content of “hologenic” information content (e.g. cell signaling and anti-tumor signaling). I believe this premise does not stem from the reality of biological systems (see my comments for section 1.4).

      The trade-off between capacity for hologenic and epigenetic information within a constant overall histone crosstalk magnitude—in particular, the growth of the former at the expense of the latter throughout adulthood generating a dysfunctional imbalance—is arguably the cornerstone of the theory in fundamental terms. Whatever my response was to your comments about subsection 1.4, this crucial trade-off cannot be taken for granted, however compelling the arguments are. In this context, there is no better solution than putting the hologenic/epigenetic trade-off to the test (see prediction B for falsifiability of the theory, also further detailed in the new revision of the paper). Realistically, however, I expect prediction B to be tested (and the hologenic/epigenetic log-ratio quite thoroughly examined) only if predictions C and D are verified. In that scenario, it will be interesting to see whether the hologenic/epigenetic log-ratio increase may be steeper in some tissues (which should then explain why those tissues senesce faster than others).

      Also, this section seems to be contradicting the author’s conclusions and is very confusing. The author seems to argue that there is both more AND less constraint at the multi-cellular level (organismal)? Please clarify or remove this section.

      I can see now how it seems contradictory because I was saying the capacity for hologenic information (which is about transcriptional levels being accurate for the multicellular individual as a whole) increases up to the point of being dysfunctional at the multicellular-individual level. Here I failed to convey that said dysfunctional outcome derives from the concurrent decrease of capacity for epigenetic information, not from the increase of capacity for hologenic content per se). Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I decided to remove this subsection altogether because the hologenic/epigenetic trade-off is covered in greater detail in the next subsection.

      Section 2.3

      Senescence as transcriptional overregulation is vague. Here the author is arguing that as epigenetic constraint decreases, you have a decrease in precision (e.g. loss of regulation), but then you have a competing global or hologenic increase in constraints, which constrains the expression of genes for the overall benefit of the organism. A shift toward global constraint.

      My intention here is to establish a fundamental contrast between the group of diseases we call cancer and senescence using the difference between the concepts of accuracy (average closses of the actual values to a target value) and precision (variance of the actual values, also added to the Glossary). In this context, since cancer is an almost canonical example of gene dysregulation (transcriptional accuracy is lost because capacity for hologenic information is lost), we can understand senescence as transcriptional overregulation in the sense of too much capacity for hologenic information gained over time at the expense of capacity for epigenetic information, thereby losing transcriptional precision). I added a third panel "c" to Fig. 1 to clarify the proposed contrast between cancer and senescence, in terms of impaired transcriptional regulation (i.e., inaccurate up to dysfunction in cancer and imprecise up to dysfunction in senescence).

      Section 2.4 This seems to be describing an illustrative real-world example? This section is incredibly specific and again only focuses on one possible mechanism and does not include any measured data or analysis. Please preface this section to explain that this is just one of many possible examples. Again, it will be good to provide other examples looking at other aspects of aging biology (not just histone modifications).

      I am not including examples of mechanisms propagating dysfunctional changes in the senescence process because this theory is not about adding one more possible mechanism to the collection of well-described mechanisms associated to senescence. The theoretical claim I am making here is that the sequence of steps described in subsection 2.4 constitute the primary cause that triggers senescence throughout the multicellular individual's adulthood. This is of course an extraordinary theoretical claim and, as the great Carl Sagan pointed out, as such requires extraordinary evidence (or, in this theoretical paper, an extraordinary prediction aimed to obtain said evidence).

      This is why I also added two predictions, C and D, to the now completely rewritten subsection 2.6 "Falsifiability". These predictions are extraordinary in that they provide extremely specific sufficient conditions for either slowing down or accelerating the senescence process in any non-human species. For this reason (i.e., adding predictions C and D) I have duly updated the "Competing interests" section of the paper. [Note: in a separate paper I explore in greater depth the theoretical underpinnings of predictions C and D.]

      Section 2.5-2.9,3

      This seems to be a general discussion. It would be easier to organize these sections into one discussion section for added clarity. Again, I would recommend not talking about sweeping statements like “Senesensce’s ultimate cause” and “Can senescence be stopped?” since this theory only addresses one small aspect of the biology underlying aging and senescence and does not address the heterogeneity of aging. These topics are controversial and should be addressed very carefully to avoid alienating the biological community.

      Thank you for your suggestion, I organized a Discussion section accordingly, placing the predictions for falsifiability in it. Additionally, I changed “Senescence’s ultimate cause” for “Senescence’s proposed ultimate cause”, clarifying also in the Scope subsection 1.2 that ultimate/proximate is used only in terms of the concepts of causality as introduced and named by Ernst Mayr.

      Following your advice, I removed the subsection “Can senescence be stopped?” Now, I believe this theory is bound to alienate at least some colleagues in the biological community (among those who read the paper, that is). As you point out, the theory addresses only one small aspect of the senescence process, but it is not any small aspect. It is about what triggers the process or, equivalently, what is the initial link of the causal chain leading to senescence with all its mechanistic complexity. This implies all other proposed primary causes would, simply by logical exclusion, be incorrect.

      One of the reasons I developed this theory in the first place is that I failed to find even a single falsifiable description proposing a primary cause of senescence that integrates Mayr's proximate and ultimate concepts of causality. To be clear, this is not a shortage of explanatory accounts for the senescence process; it is a shortage of experimentally falsifiable ones. There are scientific fields where falsifiability is inherently difficult or probably impossible to meet, such as paleoclimatology. But that is not the case in biology—certainly not in developmental biology. This is why I agree with you in that the senescence process is still poorly understood in fundamental terms (which by no means implies all work in the field is worthless).

      Forgive me for the following related digression/personal note: Since I started writing this paper I faced the dilemma of how many research works on this topic should I cite, given there is plenty (even considering this is not a review-type article). We scientists are only human and as such we very much like our work being cited in terms of current knowledge. That changes, however, when the explanatory account we like the most (or even worse, the explanatory account we ourselves proposed) is being cited to acknowledge its existence but the lack of predictions to falsify the "theory" is also pointed out (our reaction changes probably because unfalsifiable explanatory accounts can be always dismissed as just storytelling, however compelling the story might be). These rather petty emotional responses of ours have of course nothing to do with the advancement of science. Yet, many scientific journals—however prestigious, and particularly in the life sciences—routinely publish articles the word "theory" describing the work in the title and/or body when there is no prediction to be found for falsifiability. As a student, this is when I learned the interests of the scientific publishing industry (as we know it) and those of science are completely uncorrelated—not really surprising since their respective goals are so different. In this context, I found the PeerRef initiative/model very interesting since it aims to focus purely on the scientific content as opposed to essentially non-scientific considerations.] In the previous revision of the paper I offered only one prediction to falsify the theory, which is arguably cumbersome—and therefore arguably not too appealing—for experimentalist colleagues to test. For that reason I added three predictions (A, C, and D) which are straightforward to test in the laboratory. In this context, I am hoping the scientific community will be open to consider and to test falsifiable theories, however alienating they might be. Especially when we are dealing with a phenomenon for which paradigmatically accepted explanatory accounts is, at least to the best of my knowledge" all we currently have. Last but certainly not least, I wish to express again my gratitude for all the time you devoted to review my paper. Whether or not the theory it presents resists falsification attempts, I firmly believe the paper itself is now better than it was before thanks to your feedback.

      Reviewer response

      In general, it seems the paper is improved and includes quite a bit of additional clarification and qualifying statements.

      The scope is also much more constrained and it is clear that the author is sticking only to proposing a possible theory, which is fine with me, albeit not as exciting as it might have been if the author had gone through and provided real-world examples or evidence. It still bothers me that the work is trying to implicate a very specific mechanism for senescence (chromatic cross-talk and regulation), since now it is clear that the work is mostly a theoretical exercise without much basis in established biology. In other words, chromatin cross talk might be an example of one way that this could happen among others (e.g. other epigenetic regulation or lack thereof). As a theoretical work it is fine as long as you agree that it is sufficient for the scope of the journal

      Decision changed - Verified with reservations: The content is scientifically sound, but has shortcomings that could be improved by further studies and/or minor revisions.


      Author response to reviewer Charles A. Schumpert

      Dear Dr Schumpert,

      I wish to thank you for having reviewed my paper; your comments have been very encouraging for the effort of moving my theory forward. Please find attached two identical copies of my revision of the paper (changes are highlighted in one of the copies) and a supplementary file that relates to one of your comments. Please see below my response to your comments when applicable.

      Overall the manuscript is written brilliantly and provides excellent context to the audience about a complex theoretical biological concept. No flaws can be found, although one could argue against a few of the points in the assumptions used to construct the theory, there’s nothing illogical or irrational.

      Thank you for kind words, but I have to admit any and all brilliance that may be found in the write-up must be credited to my wonderful editor Angelika Hofmann. Regarding the assumptions, this theory relies on two critical ones, which of course cannot be taken at face value. This is why these assumptions inform prediction B (in the new revision). There are now four experimentally testable predictions to falsify the theory; hopefully some will be appealing to experimentalist colleagues.

      In your opinion how could the author improve the study? The writing of the paper makes it easy to read, which can sometimes be a challenge with theoretical biology manuscripts. Potentially adding a bit more context on the various theories of aging may help demonstrate the marriage of the ideas into the theory he constructed.

      One of the problems I faced when writing this paper was how many different explanatory accounts (there is plenty) I was going to cite provided I would have to underscore their lack of testable predictions for falsifying them—which in time becomes dangerously close of being downright unfalsifiable. As Wolfgang Pauli famously said, unfalsifiable theories are not even wrong. In other words, the problem was how many readers I was going to alienate while having no intention to do so. Navigating academia's social ocean is not an easy task, at least not to me, so I decided to compromise. To be clear, I am by no means claiming my theory is correct but underscoring that (i) it can be tested experimentally and (ii) explains the known age-dependent, cell-to-cell transcriptional noise that I argue should be regarded as senescence itself in fundamental terms.

    1. because increasingly search and credibility skills or social skills to help their friends build personal trust networks to determine good information scientific information scholarly 00:09:36 information health related information information related to your social needs like where am I going to go on vacation where am I going to go on Friday night but I think that we're going to be able to improve the internet experience for 00:09:49 everybody and the capital investment and teaching people searching credibility skills crap detection skills is miniscule compared to the cost of building servers and and and creating 00:10:03 all of the physical infrastructure that the Internet requires

      personal trust networks - a part of personal learning networks? the internal and the external benefit are no longer seperatable - one always comes together with the other

    1. The stars also give meaning to our existence. The sky is a canvasof sparkling dots that we connect to form familiar patterns, to whichwe assign narratives about their formation and meaning. Across thesky, ancestors, heroic figures, animals, landscapes and fantasticbeasts tell stories of the human experience. They speak of braveryand deceit, war and peace, sex and violence, punishment andreward. It is fascinating to find striking similarities in stories about thestars across vastly different cultures, with even more similarities in theways they are utilised.

      Are these graphic and memorable stories strikingly similar because of the underlying packages of orality and memory used in these cultures?

      This is one of my primary motivations for reading this text.

    2. Indigenous sciences are highly interconnected, while Westernscience tends to be divided into different categories by discipline, witheach diverging into ever smaller focus areas.

      Indigenous sciences are highly interconnected while Western sciences tend to be highly sub-divided into ever smaller specializations.


      Are Indigenous sciences naturally interconnected or do they form that way because of the associative memory underlying the cultural orality by which they are formed and transmitted? (I would suspect so, but don't yet have the experience to say definitively. Evidence for this should be collected.)

    1. I tried building Firefox once but I wasn't able to, it's slightly outside of my competences at the moment
    1. But crucially, he believes the pool at the center of the complex may have also served as a surface to observe and map the stars. The water surface would have mirrored the sky, as water does – none other than Leonardo da Vinci pointed out the attributes of inert standing water when studying the night sky. For one thing, the stars were adored by the Phoenicians, whether as gods or deceased ancestors; and the position of the constellations was of keen interest to the sailors among them for navigation purposes, Nigro points out.

      Lorenzo Nigro indicates that the "kothon" of Motya in southern Sicily was a pool of Baal whose surface may have been used to observe and map the stars. He also indicates that the Phoenicians adored the stars potentially as gods or deceased ancestors. This is an example of a potentially false assumption often seen in archaeology of Western practitioners misconstruing Indigenous practices based on modern ideas of religion and culture.

      I might posit that this sort of practice is more akin to that of the science of Indigenous peoples who used oral and mnemonic methods in combination with remembering their histories and ancestors.

      Cross reference this with coming reading in The First Astronomers (to come) which may treat this in more depth.


      Leonardo da Vinci documented the attributes of standing water for studying the night sky.

      Where was this and what did it actually entail?

    1. Don’t read the code before learning to build the project. Too often, I see people get bogged down trying to understand the source code of a project before they’ve learned how to build it. For me, part of that learning process is experimenting and breaking things, and its hard to experiment and break a software project without being able to build it.
    1. The danger of working at "internet time" is that hasty decisions may be poor, and rapid changes may cause troubling turbulence for many users.

      In 1998, Ben Shneiderman wrote "The danger of working at "internet time" is that hasty decisions may be poor, and rapid changes may cause troubling turbulence for many users." He's essentially admonishing against the dangerous and anti-social idea of what Mark Zuckerberg would later encourage at Facebook when he said "move fast and break things."

    2. Refinement is a social process

      The idea that refinement is a social process is a powerful one, but it is limited by the society's power structures, scale, and access to the original material and least powerful person's ability to help refine it.

    3. There is a growing risk that advancing technology will widen the gap between rich and poor, and produce further disadvantages for poorly educated citizens.

      Nice that he takes this sort of inclusive approach so early in the evolution of the internet.

    1. L’imitation et l’influence du jeu interactif sont bien mises en évidence dans une étude de Orit Hetzroni et Juman Tannous, de la Faculté des Sciences de l’éducation de l’Université de Haifa (Israël)

      ==>l’échantillon de l’étude est est extrêmement limité, l’étude n’est pas répliqué et elle ne permet pas de retirer de résultats concluants

    1. I am struggling to think of any open source project of any size beyond small NPM packages that I've experienced that do not have an arcane build system. At least all of the ones I've encountered have been incredibly obtuse, to the point that I've mostly just given up.
    1. having to install 12gb xcode so i can convert my chrome extension to safari. or my local env/build system stop working because i update from catalina to big sur

    Tags

    Annotators

    1. You will need a JVM installed with appropriate enviornment settings (JAVA_HOME, etc) along with Maven 2.x+. You will also need Babel as well as SIMILE Butterfly. Butterfly should be installed in a peer directory to Backstage, like
    1. If humans, some humans, start making bad decisions and start destroying the institutions that kept the peace, then we will be back in the era of war with budgets, military budgets going to 20, 30, 40 percent. It can happen. It's in our hands.

      An economic diversion of this scale would make it far more likely that humanity will not be able to prevent, but indeed accelerate planetary tipping points! Hence the urgency of this crisis for the climate movement. This implies that the climate movement and the antiwar movement must now synchronize resources and form a coherent, unified strategy

    1. And it’s easier to share a personal story when you’re composing it 280 characters at a time and publishing it as you go, without thinking about or knowing where the end may be. It’s at least easier than staring down a blank text editor with no limit and having to decide later how much of a 2,500 word rant is worth sharing, anyway.

      Ideas fill their spaces.

      When writing it can be daunting to see a long blank screen and feel like you've got to fill it up with ideas de novo.

      From the other perspective if you're starting with a smaller space like a Twitter input box or index card you may find that you write too much and require the ability to edit things down to fit the sparse space.


      I do quite like the small space provided by Hypothes.is which has the ability to expand and scroll as you write so that it has the Goldilocks feel of not too small, not too big, but "just right".


      Micro.blog has a feature that starts with a box that can grow with the content. Once going past 280 characters it also adds an optional input box to give the post a title if one wants it to be an article rather than a simple note.


      Link to idea of Occamy from the movie Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them that can grow or shrink to fit the available space: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Occamy

    1. I have been personally and my whole professional life on Linux for 15y. And I have the exact same feeling when I have to compile something.The waste of time to compile anything is staggering. And more often than not I give up on failure after 2h.
    1. Each highlighted statement expresses political talking points aligned to induce trump-like support.

      Trump introduced new marketing and strategy, formulated using concepts and metrics mastered by Reality TV and Hollywood and then paired with advertising propaganda and "selling" techniques to create a "Brand". This is after-all Donald Trump, this is what he does, has done and is the only way he has found to make money. Trump built the "brand" (just barely) while teetering on self destruction.

      His charismatic persona became "the glue" that allowed creative narratives to stick to certain types of people in-spite of risk. Trump learned OTJ how to capture a specific type of audience.

      The mistake people make about Trump is assuming his audience to be "Joe Six-Pack", redneck's with limited education! This assumption does not have merit on its own.<br /> * There is a common "follower" theme among his audience that is exploited by those who: * Bought the "licensing rights" to the master-class Trump "how-to" course.

  2. Feb 2022
    1. 9/8g Hinter der Zettelkastentechnik steht dieErfahrung: Ohne zu schreiben kann mannicht denken – jedenfalls nicht in anspruchsvollen,selektiven Zugriff aufs Gedächtnis voraussehendenZusammenhängen. Das heißt auch: ohne Differenzen einzukerben,kann man nicht denken.

      Google translation:

      9/8g The Zettelkasten technique is based on experience: You can't think without writing—at least not in contexts that require selective access to memory.

      That also means: you can't think without notching differences.

      There's something interesting about the translation here of "notching" occurring on an index card about ideas which can be linked to the early computer science version of edge-notched cards. Could this have been a subtle and tangential reference to just this sort of computing?

      The idea isn't new to me, but in the last phrase Luhmann tangentially highlights the value of the zettelkasten for more easily and directly comparing and contrasting the ideas on two different cards which might be either linked or juxtaposed.


      Link to:

      • Graeber and Wengrow ideas of storytelling
      • Shield of Achilles and ekphrasis thesis

      • https://hypothes.is/a/I-VY-HyfEeyjIC_pm7NF7Q With the further context of the full quote including "with selective access to memory" Luhmann seemed to at least to make space (if not give a tacit nod?) to oral traditions which had methods for access to memories in ways that modern literates don't typically give any credit at all. Johannes F.K .Schmidt certainly didn't and actively erased it in Niklas Luhmann’s Card Index: The Fabrication of Serendipity.

    1. But the coverage, as our editorial page later noted in 2018, “deplored the inhumanity of the perpetrators without ever really acknowledging the humanity of the victims” or the community terrorized by their brutal deaths. The ire was directed at the “poor, white trash” killers, as Mencken put it; there was no empathy for — or even real interest in — the Black victims.
    2. Pretending we were all the same never worked, because it ignored the fact that we’re not all given the same opportunities to succeed or fail on our merits; some are privileged, others are oppressed. Refusing to recognize that only prolonged difficult conversations and much-needed soul-searching, dooming more generations to repeat the cycle.
    1. First, consider who gets to make the rules. Tenured scholars who, as we’ve noted, are mostly white and male, largely make the rules that determine who else can join the tenured ranks. This involves what sociologists call “boundary work,” or the practice of a group setting rules to determine who is good enough to join. And as such, many of the rules established around tenure over the years work really well for white scholars, but don’t adequately capture the contributions of scholars of color.

      Boundary work is the practice of a group that sets the rules to determine who is and isn't good enough to join the group.

      Link to Groucho Marx quote, "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member."

  3. openlab.citytech.cuny.edu openlab.citytech.cuny.edu
    1. But it isn’t. This is because over such a long period a message can easily be distorted or altered without this being in any way intended. (This distortion or alteration in the meaning or method of transmission of a message, whether intended or not, is called “noise.”) Languages, both written and spoken, always change. The meanings of symbols are often lost in the passage of time. In fact, most messages are bound so closely to a particular period and place that even a short time later they cannot be understood. Therefore, ensuring that a message created now can be decoded by future generations is highly problematic.

      Can symbol that represents one thing change over a long period of time to mean something different?

    2. ea. It is only because there is already a well-established connection in our minds between the appearance of an apple and the idea of temptation that this fruit is used in the picture. It is this connection that makes the picture successful in terms of communicatio

      Why was the apple chosen as the representation of temptation?

    3. semiotician,

      A Theory of signs and symbols that deals especially with there function in both artificially constructed and natural languages.

    1. Editing a list of dependencies or wrangling with package managers doesn’t sound too bad

      Disagree. Sounds plenty bad.

    1. I think that making sure the apps and website we use are accessible to everyone is really important. I liked how this reading broke down the different levels in terms language accessibility and internet access. Sometimes I think teachers can overlook that aspect and accidentally have students trailing behind.

    1. The unified approachhas the advantage, that the enterprise has more control overthe data and quality, and the data querying is significantlyfaster.
    1. Many factors altered this plight by the close of thecentury. Possibly most significant is that journalistsbegan to flex their muscle by the 1890s. Referred to as“yellow journalism,” this style of writing derived fromdubious motives. Most notably, “yellow journalism”was magnified by the newspaper circulation battlebetween two publishers, William Randolph Hearstand Joseph Pulitzer. Graphic illustrations commis-sioned from some of the country’s most talentedartists and stories written by premiere authors andjournalists of the day exaggerated the plight of Cubansunder Spanish rule in the early 1890s and fanned theflames of war

      It's interesting to see how far back exaggeration in the media has been a relevant thing. Today we have different social media sites, blogs, and podcasts, etc. that modernly display "yellow journalism", and that's just something that I thought wasn't a thing during the 1800s and 1900s.

    1. The impact of Nast's cartoons and the campaign by journalists at Harper's Weekly, and later the New York Times, led directly to a change of leadership at Tammany Hall and most of the Ring were eventually voted out of office. Tweed himself was sentenced to twelve years in prison, but was released after a year and then arrested again in an attempt to recover $6 million in stolen funds.

      I think that it's very interesting how a drawing/cartoon can be so powerful and have such an impact that it brings upon changes.

    1. you can’t force insight into a preconceiveddirection

      By its own definition, insight cannot be forced, much less forced in a particular direction.

    2. We need a reliable and simple external structure tothink in that compensates for the limitations of our brains

      Let's be honest that there are certainly methods for doing all of this within our brains and not needing to rely on external structures. This being said, using writing, literacy, and external structures does allow us to process things faster than before.


      Can we calculate what the level of greater efficiency allows for doing this? What is the overall throughput difference in being able to forget and write? Not rely on communication with others? What does a back of the envelope calculation for this look like?

    1. In crowded housing markets in large cities, house flipping is often viewed as a driver of inequality.

      If house flipping is viewed as a driver of inequality in crowded housing markets in larger cities, what spurs it on? What do the economics look like and how can the trend be combatted?

      What effect does economic speculation have?

    2. So to attract newcomers, towns have attempted a dizzying array of stunts and initiatives.

      Have they considered consolidation? Abandon three or four cities to aggregate into one?

    3. “When I moved to Kansas,” Roberts said, “I was like, ‘holy shit, they’re giving stuff away.’”

      This sounds great, but what are the "costs" on the other side? How does one balance out the economics of this sort of housing situation versus amenities supplied by a community in terms of culture, health, health care, interaction, etc.? Is there a maximum on a curve to be found here? Certainly in some places one is going to overpay for this basket of goods (perhaps San Francisco?) where in others one may underpay. Does it have anything to do with the lifecycle of cities and their governments? If so, how much?

  4. Jan 2022
    1. Overall the webpage is clean and uncluddered. A user can view each section in th order. Allowing for efficient keyboard navigation.

    1. Exposing myself to addictive interactions trained me to self-interrupt - whenever I encountered a difficult decision or a tricky bug I would find myself switching to something easier and more immediately rewarding. Making progress on hard problems is only possible if I don't allow those habits to be reinforced.

      Highlighting this, but really the whole section is almost perfectly written. Hardest is achieving your desired inner discipline and then having to fight with people who don't understand this shit (because their performance never matters, or they don't give a damn).

    1. Don’t rely on metrics that treat all users the same. Explore how subgroups of users interact with a platform, and develop metrics of user experience for these subgroups.
    2. Current approaches to improving digital well-being also promote tech solutionism, or the presumption that technology can fix social, cultural, and structural problems.

      Tech solutionism is the presumption that technology (usually by itself) can fix a variety of social, cultural, and structural problems.

      It fits into a category of problem that when one's tool is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail.

      Many tech solutionism problems are likely ill-defined to begin with. Many are also incredibly complex and difficult which also tends to encourage bikeshedding, which is unlikely to lead us to appropriate solutions.

    1. Discussion, revision and decision


      Discussion and Revision


      Author

      Reviewer 1 (Takehiko Ogawa, Yokohama City University, ogawa@yokohama-cu.ac.jp ):

      We had already suggested in the "Limitations" section on page 10 of the manuscript-PDF testis transplantation experiments to test biological functionality for future studies: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.12.464060v1.full.pdf

      However, these experiments will require new cell lines, new funding, more resources, more logistics, and new ethics approval which we are considering for future studies. We believe that the observations described in our manuscript are valuable to the scientific community and are a basis to conduct further studies.


      Reviewer 2 (Dr. Pradeep G Kumar, Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, and kumarp@rgcb.res.in )

      There are no line numbers in the manuscript-PDF but the pages are numbered: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.12.464060v1.full.pdf Since the pages of the manuscript-PDF are numbered, we think that citation of the manuscript is unproblematic. The text of the manuscript has been checked by multiple experienced authors and found not to require the suggested changes.


      Reviewer (Takehiko Ogawa)

      I think that authors admit the limit of the study, which I think is serious. I think the paper has its own value with limitation as almost always in most cases. I would like to take “verified with reservation” as my final decision.


      Decision

      Takehiko Ogawa: Verified with reservations

      Pradeep G Kumar: Verified manuscript

      Verified with reservations

    1. Discussion, revision and decision


      Revision


      The research question of this article is not clear enough, and this paper is more like a report than a research paper. Since a lot of research about retraction haven been published, many characteristics of retraction have been analysed. There seem not enough new messages comes from this article.

      The objective of the paper was not to address a research question but to report on a more recent set of PubMed retractions due to insufficient/old information available in the papers published on this subject(PubMed, not WoS retracted articles). One of the initial objectives was to analyze the dynamic of image related retractions(a relatively new subject), a subject for which the information is at least scarce if non existing. We have also studied the impact of retracted research via two citations databases (Google Scholar and Dimensions) and tried to represent the variability of this impact when the author country is being considered. At this time, the paper is the second biggest serie of PubMed retracted articles.

      In addition, as ‘exploratory research’ defined by the title, the use of full data for analysis is more in line with the objectives of the title, instead of excluding other disciplines and restricting the analysis to human health. If the author’s goal is to analyse the characteristics of human health-related retractions, it is recommended to limit it in the title. The current topic is too general.*

      There was an error from our part, thank you very much for pointing this.

      It is recommended that the author properly point out what have and haven’t been done in this topic, and their specific contribution to the existing knowledge, so as to show the innovation of the research.*

      We have revised the article and added the informations related to previous research on this subject. Thank you so much for this suggestion.

    1. Discussion, revision and decision


      Discussion and Revision


      Author response

      We would like to thank the reviewers for their valuable comments. Below we provide pointwise response and the changes made in the revised manuscript.

      To Dr. Jyotsnamayee Sabat

      Pt-13: I want to know how the representative sequences were selected for different states. Is it based on no. of sequences submitted or positivity rate of a particular region?

      All the Indian isolates available in GISAID for the period 27th Jan – 27th May 2020 were download and considered for analysis. NO state-wise selection was done.

      To Dr Parvin Abraham

      Pt-12: The dataset is only from 27th Jan – 27th May 2020. Maybe they can include more Numbers.

      The period of data collection was restricted to 27th Jan – 27th May 2020 to basically understand the variations observed across different states of the country during the early phase of pandemic. Also, we are interested in assessing the impact of lockdown in containing the spread of COVID19 and state-specific subclusters, if any.

      To Hurng-Yi Wang:

      Pt-13: Agarwal and Parekh analyzed 685 SARS-CoV-2 isolates collected during 27th Jan - 27th May 2020 from India and described the distribution of virus strains and mutations across the country. While the information might be valuable to some local readers, the results are mainly descriptive and the data are a bit out of date. In addition, I have the following comments.

      The period of data collection is restricted to 27th Jan – 27th May 2020 to basically understand the variations observed across different states of the country during the early phase of pandemic. Also, we are interested in assessing the impact of lockdown in containing the spread of COVID19 and state-specific subclusters, if any.

      1. Some details of the methods are lacking. For example, the MUpro provides two methods, it is necessary to specify which method was used in the analysis. The confidence score of each prediction should also be provided. Besides, some results from I-Mutant and MUpro were conflicting, the authors may want to discuss the discrepancy.

        In the revised manuscript we give the sign of DDG predicted using the tools I-Mutant2.0 and the MUpro along with the respective confidence scores. In I-Mutant2.0, the sign of protein stability change predicted and reliability index (which provides confidence to the prediction) are now incorporated in Table-1. Similarly, the sign change and confidence scores given by MUpro on using SVM and NN based models have been incorporated. We expect all the models to give same results, except in cases where the predictions may be hard to make. This has now been explicitly mentioned in the Materials and Methods section: “In I-Mutant2.0, the sign of DDG is based on SVM classifier, and the associated confidence score is given by the reliability index. On the other hand, MUpro provides sign change prediction using two models, one SVM-based and the other using Neural Networks. InTable-1, the predicted sign of DDG by I-Mutant2.0 and MuPRO along with the respective confidence scores is reported.”

      2. The “Analysis of the Mutational Profile of Indian Isolates” should be moved to Materials and Methods.

        There indeed was some redundancy in the information available in the Materials and Methods section and in the section “Analysis of the Mutational Profile of Indian Isolates”. We have now edited the Materials and Methods section appropriately and deleted the para under the above- mentioned section.

      3. The authors provided lengthy discussion about the effect of each mutation in some lineages, such as 20A and I/A3i. However, as these mutations are tightly linked, the effect of each individual mutation is difficult to access. It is possible that some of the mutations are just hitchhikers. They may want to address this alternative point.

        For 20A we define the haplotype comprising four co-occurring mutations D614G, C241T, C3037T, and C14408T. Similarly, six co-occurring mutations C6312A, C13730T, C23929T, C28311T, C6310A (S2015R) and C19524T are shown to be associated with subclade I/A3i. Together as a set, these are useful in identifying clusters or group of isolates with similar mutational profile. However, those that are non-synonymous mutations are likely to have some individual impact on the overall stability of the respective protein. And so, we have presented both these results. To address this point, we have added a sentence at the end of Materials and Methods section and is reproduced below: “While we report individual effects of mutations on protein stability, some of the mutations in a haplotype may not be under natural selection and are just hitchhiking mutations.”

      4. Several figures are confusing and lack detail. The diversity plots of Figure 3 and Figure 8 are hard to be precisely compared to the mutations that occurred among different plots. Phylogenetic trees, as well as their figure legends, are confusing, especially Figure 9 and Figure 10. For Figure 9, it is impossible to tell which mutation site had changed from C to T. For Figure 10, spots depicted in yellow are both position 29827 A>T and position 29830 G>T, green spot only notes as G, but A29827 is not mentioned in the figure. Furthermore, the mutation position of blue spot C cannot be found.

        We have now redrawn the diversity plots in Figure 3 and Figure 8, (labelled Figure 2 and Figure 4, respectively, in the revised manuscript) and are shown below. We have introduced horizontal lines to show the height of the divergence line at variant positions discussed in the manuscript, and these are also marked with the same colour in corresponding subplots for comparison.

      In the revised manuscript, Figures 9 and 10 are now Supplementary Figures 2c and 2d respectively. The new figure legends are: Supplementary Figure 2: The sequences carrying the mutations a) C5700A b) C23929T c) C18877T d) G29830T are depicted in yellow colour. Figure 10 (now Supplementary Figure 2(d)) is now re-plotted, and we have removed the blue dot corresponding to ‘C’ since no samples from India had this variation.

      1. Figure 9 and Figure 10 were not mentioned inside the text.

        It has now been added in the manuscript: Supplementary Figure 2(c) – On Pg-9, in the first line under the heading “Identification of novel subclade I/GJ-20A and unique mutations in Maharashtra”. Supplementary Figure 2(d) – On Pg-11, in the last paragraph under the heading “Identification of novel subclade I/GJ-20A and unique mutations in Maharashtra”.

      2. The Top 10 mutations in PCA analysis are the mutations in 20A and I/A3i. It is reasonable to observed a clear association of the clusters with the clades. It is not clear, however, how these distribution correlate with lockdown, contact tracing and quarantine measures.

        From Supplementary Figure 1 clade 20A (shown in ‘Green’) is predominantly observed in Gujarat (178/201) and the distribution of clade 19A (shown in ‘Blue’) is high in Telangana (75/97), followed by Delhi (55/76), Maharashtra (31/80), and Tamil Nadu (19/34). Four mutations, C6312A, C13730T, C23929T, and C28311T are reported to be associated with subclade I/A3i, which is India-specific subclade of 19A. These co-occurring mutations are found in ~32% of Indian samples sequenced (till 31st May 2020). Only 5 isolates of this subclade were observed after May in India with the last one dated 13th June 2020 (according to data available in Nextstrain). This indicates that the spread of subclade I/A3i had been largely contained during lockdown with efforts of contact tracing and quarantining the infected individuals. Also, Telangana and Delhi isolates cluster together due to shared I/A3i mutations, primarily due to the Tablighi Jamaat congregation that occurred just before lockdown was announced. Similarly, clade 20A defining mutations were observed to occur in ~ 90% of Gujarat samples. Due to the countrywide lockdown from 25th March 2020, this clade and its sub-clusters were localized in the state, defined by Gujarat-specific mutations, e.g., I/GJ-20A.


      Hurng-Yi Wang:

      I agree to change to Verified manuscript.


      Decision

      Verified manuscript

      Dr. Abraham: Verified manuscript

      Dr. Sabat: Verified manuscript

      Dr. Wang: Verified manuscript

    1. Reading "refreshes," but it must lead to writing. Neither activity should be pursued at the exclusion of the other. "Continuous writing will cast gloom over our strength, and exhaust it," while continuous reading "will make our strength watery and flabby. It is better to have recourse to them alternately, and to blend one with the other, so that the fruits of one's reading may be reduced to the concrete form by the pen" (277).

      Almost like saying that "man cannot live by bread alone"...

  5. Dec 2021
    1. Of the many brilliant individual XML leaders from the early days, almost all have moved focus to entirely different technologies. Almost all the companies who sponsored the efforts of these leaders have moved on to different strategic initiatives, seeking competitive advantage elsewhere now that XML has lost its fairy sheen.
    1. Every note is only an element which receives its quality only from the network of links and back-links within the system.

      Every element receives its value based on the network of links and connections it has with other elements. This is just as true for ideas on index cards in a zettelkasten as it is for people within a society.

      idea/index card:zettelkasten :: person:society

      What other elements in complex systems is this analogy true for? Is it a truism for all elements in complex systems? What other examples can we come up with?

    2. Possibility of linking (Verweisungsmöglichkeiten). Since all papers have fixed numbers, you can add as many references to them as you may want. Central concepts can have many links which show on which other contexts we can find materials relevant for them.

      Continuing on the analogy between addresses for zettels/index cards and for people, the differing contexts for cards and ideas is similar to the multiple different publics in which people operate (home, work, school, church, etc.)

      Having these multiple publics creates a variety of cross links within various networks for people which makes their internal knowledge and relationships more valuable.

      As societies grow the number of potential interconnections grows as well. Compounding things the society doesn't grow as a homogeneous whole but smaller sub-groups appear creating new and different publics for each member of the society. This is sure to create a much larger and much more complex system. Perhaps it's part of the beneficial piece of the human limit of memory of inter-personal connections (the Dunbar number) means that instead of spending time linearly with those physically closest to us, we travel further out into other spheres and by doing so, we dramatically increase the complexity of our societies.

      Does this level of complexity change for oral societies in pre-agrarian contexts?


      What would this look like mathematically and combinatorially? How does this effect the size and complexity of the system?


      How can we connect this to Stuart Kauffman's ideas on complexity? (Picking up a single thread creates a network by itself...)

    1. Web3 is best under­stood as a game, or a game of games. I don’t intend that as a dig: it’s a really good game! Vast and open-ended, deeply social, with lots of scores to tally … AND you can win real money?? I mean, that’s terrific.
    2. This message was emailed to the Media Lab committee. The assumed audience is subscribers who know roughly what Web3 is supposed to be, but aren’t sure what to think about it. (Here’s more about assumed audiences.)
    1. lit­tle plac­ards up top mak­ing it clear they are aimed at dif­fer­ent groups of read­ers. Those groups might overlap! They might also: not.
    2. the way they push back against the “context collapse” of the internet, in which every pub­lic post is, by default, addressed to everyone.
    1. When we simply guess as to whathumans in other times and places might be up to, we almostinvariably make guesses that are far less interesting, far less quirky– in a word, far less human than what was likely going on.

      Definitely worth keeping in mind, even for my own work. Providing an evidential structure for claims will be paramount.

      Is there a well-named cognitive bias for the human tendency to see everything as nails when one has a hammer in their hand?

    2. But we often find such regional networks developinglargely for the sake of creating friendly mutual relations, or having anexcuse to visit one another from time to time;33 and there are plentyof other possibilities that in no way resemble ‘trade’.

      There is certainly social lubrication of visiting people from time to time which can help and advance societies, but this regular visiting can also be seen as a means of reinforcing one's oral cultural history through spaced repetition.

      It can be seen as "trade" but in a way that anthropologists have generally ignored for lack of imagination for what may have been actually happening.

    3. Already tens of thousands of years ago, one can find evidence ofobjects – very often precious stones, shells or other items ofadornment – being moved around over enormous distances. Oftenthese were just the sort of objects that anthropologists would laterfind being used as ‘primitive currencies’ all over the world.

      Is it also possible that these items may have served the purpose of mnemonic devices as a means of transporting (otherwise invisible) information from one area or culture to another?

      Can we build evidence for this from the archaeological record?

      Relate this to the idea of expanding the traditional "land, labor, capital" theory of economics to include "information" as a basic building block

    4. We are all familiar with the Christian answer: peopleonce lived in a state of innocence, yet were tainted by original sin.We desired to be godlike and have been punished for it; now we livein a fallen state while hoping for future redemption.

      Compare this with the Indigenous idea of Skywoman in the opening chapter of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer, which tells a dramatically different story.

    1. As Thailand is ranked as the third most favored country in the world for medical and dental tourism with cost savings of 50-75% compared to the US, it is a significant selling point for dental services in Thailand that it can compete with other countries

      medical and dental tourism

    1. sea-discoverers to new worlds

      The imagery of exploration and sea travel was a popular subject in the literature of the Elizabethan-Jacobean era. It was the Age of Discovery, and John Donne himself also had experience in sea travel. The heroic adventure stories of the people who fulfilled the Renaissance curiosity through their expedition were fascinating enough to stir the imagination of the writers of the time.

      Exploration is a process of understanding a wider world, but Speaker is no more interested in it since he has already found the perfect world in his little room with his lover.

    2. Whatever dies, was not mixed equally

      In Galen's medicine, disease and death were the consequence of a disproportion in one's constituent elements, the 4 humors: black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm.

    1. But the stelae were also symbols of power and status, and were used for ancestor worship and rituals.

      This is a good example of the default "ancestor worship" and "rituals" label on archeological finds of ancient peoples

      What is the actual basis for assigning these labels? Is there any real evidence or is it just become the default in the literature.

      Personally I'm building evidence towards a more comprehensive thesis for what these practices may have been used for.

    1. economic realities will ultimately drive adoption curves on a global level. 

      There are alternative models to global capitalism to rapid scaling, and a lot more equitable. Elore cosmolocal production: https://clreader.net/. This model could disrupt the Speed and Scale model.

    1. With that in mind, I'm trying something new, the guided tour for Mu. Ironically, it atomizes my previous docs by linking repeatedly into anchors in the middle of pages. Proceed if you dare.

      The current incarnation of the tutorial (https://raw.githubusercontent.com/akkartik/mu/7195a5e88e7657b380c0b410c8701792a5ebad72/tutorial/index.md) starts by describing "Prerequisites[:] You will need[...]", and then goes on to list several things, including various software packages—assuming a Linux system, etc.

      This is the idea I'm trying to get across with the self-containedness I've been pursuing (if not with triple scripts then at least with LP docs).

      That prerequisites list should be able to replace with two requirements, i.e.:

      "You will need: (1) this document, and (2) the ability to read it (assuming you have an appropriate viewer [which in 2021 is nowhere close to the kind of ask of the old world])"

  6. Nov 2021
    1. On one side of the world were people whose relationship with the liv-ing world was shaped by Skywoman, who created a garden for the

      well-being of all. On the other side was another woman with a garden and a tree. But for tasting its fruit, she was banished from the garden and the gates clanged shut behind her. That mother of men was made to wander in the wilderness and earn her bread by the sweat of her brow, not by filling her mouth with the sweet juicy fruits that bend the branches low. In order to eat, she was instructed to subdue the wilder-ness into which she was cast.

      Its amazing how two origin stories with such similarities lead us to such different cultures and civilizations. The founder effects can be incredibly powerful.

    2. Our elders say that ceremonies are the way we “remember to remember,”

      The Western word "ceremony" is certainly not the best word for describing these traditions. It has too much baggage and hidden meaning with religious overtones. It's a close-enough word to convey some meaning to those who don't have the cultural background to understand the underlying orality and memory culture. It is one of those words that gets "lost in translation" because of the dramatic differences in culture and contextual collapse.

      Most Western-based anthropology presumes a Western idea of "religion" and impinges it upon oral cultures. I would maintain that what we would call their "religion" is really an oral-based mnemonic tradition that creates the power of their culture through knowledge. The West mistakes this for superstitious religious practices, but primarily because we can't see (or have never been shown) the larger structures behind what is going on. Our hubris and lack of respect (the evils of the scala naturae) has prevented us from listening and gaining entrance to this knowledge.

      I think that the archaeological ideas of cultish practices or ritual and religion are all more likely better viewed as oral practices of mnemonic tradition. To see this more easily compare the Western idea of the memory palace with the Australian indigenous idea of songline.

    1. Sustainability window analysis is based on the advanced sustainability analysis (ASA) approach. The ASA approach was developed in Finland Futures Research Centre [31,32,33] providing a general framework for analyzing sustainability.

      Include this in a comparative analysis of other methodologies such as Hoornweg, Hachaichi, R3.0 Thresholds and Allocations, etc.

    1. Looking for a property?

      Do you want to buy property in India? Are you looking for best-in-class residential and commercial properties for sale in Delhi NCR, Lucknow, Pune, Mumbai, Bangalore, Gurgaon, and Noida? Well, you have landed in the correct place.

    1. ignores

      Critiques community economic development's focus on local empowerment. Advances the argument that a local focus divorced from the broader political economy cannot tackle the larger governance and economic forces that create inequality, especially due to concentrated poverty in some jurisdictions that leaves local governments under-resourced due to a meager tax base.

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    1. My UIs are data/store driven. The UI is just a way to visualize the data. Your data could flow through all of of the extensions and the extensions can make decisions (e.g. setting visible to false). Like middlewares in a Connect/Express/Polka app. And the UI doesn't even know about all this, it just updates with the current state and makes sure it's consistent.
    1. I think it’s a good idea to have a fall break. Also a mental day. But the mental day has to be productive. A roundtable discussion is a really good idea. Maybe even some group therapy sessions if that’s even a thing. And with students with disabilities. We should also have classes that talk about serious subjects. And also give The students with disabilities a chance to air their grievances. And also have teachers explain to them what’s going on and how they can make a change. Or have some additional counseling. Maybe we can even have a way to make sure everybody is safe both physically mentally. And educationally. Students with disabilities have a right to. It’s harder for students is with mental challenges to grasp at serious subject. Maybe we should have a class maybe at the Achieve center like a roundtable class or a class and teaching us how to be more resilient. How to deal with trauma and PTSD and she CPTSD.

    1. 2018wave of ICILS (International Computer and Information Literacy Study)

      2018 wave of ICILS (International Computer and Information Literacy Study)

    2. Special EducationalNeeds and /or Disabilities (SEND):

      Special Educational Needs and /or Disabilities (SEND):

    3. Guarantee access to internet and availability of computers, laptops, or tablets:access to the internet at a decent speed and to proper ICT tools are basicprerequisites for any online teaching and learning strategy.

      ICT Information and Communication Technology

    4. TALIS(Teaching and Learning International Survey)

      TALIS

      (Teaching and Learning International Survey)

    5. The experience from EDT raises pedagogical and organizational questions.

      like in Finland, but technological

    6. Distant and Remote Communication

      Distant and Remote Communication

    7. structure of the measurement and analysis
      1. Findings, solutions and good practices in regard of online learning during the pandemic. mixed method approach
      • collect data through surveying students each week
      • analyze quantitative data using ANOVA
      • compare results to the analysis from qualitative data triangulation: quantitative, qualitative data and literature
    1. I think the reason that all the spiritual traditions have got this concept of "we are all connected inside of it" is because the societies that actually deeply adopt this idea are the ones that over time deepen their level of consideration, deepen their level of expression, deepen their level of understanding for each other. 00:16:40 This is the reason that this idea pops up over and over at the core of spiritual traditions. And I hope through this talk you see that the reason that it appears at the core of science is it's actually something that is just literally true of the physical universe at every single level of organization and every single manifestation of matter, energy, and life.

      This is a good alignment showing that at the deepest level, the fundamental aspiration and values of science and religion are the same: interconnectedness.

    1. How people use to write was on Papyrus which was made out of hands and other natural things you find in nature. People also wrote with black and red ink. And they would make those into scrolls. What is papyrus?

    1. There was no ancient poet called “Homer,” he argued. Nor were the poems attributed to him “written” by any single individual. Rather, they were the product of a centuries-long tradition of poet-performers.

      Are there possibly any physical artifacts in physical archaeology that may fit into the structure of the thesis made by Lynne Kelly in Knowledge and Power in Prehistoric Societies?

      What would we be looking for? Small mnemonic devices? Menhir? Standing stones? Wooden or stone circles? Other examples of extended ekphrasis similar to that of the shield of Achilles?

      cf: Expanding Ekphrasis to the Broader Field of Mnemotechny: or How the Shield of Achilles Relates to a Towel, Car, and Water Buffalo

  7. Oct 2021
    1. Unfortunately, if the location to which you wish to move the text is off-screen, you may have to use some other mechanism to find the target location
    1. Around @0:25:52

      Krouse: Another subset of "shit just works" would be—

      Leung:"No installation required"?

      Krouse: Yeah. "No installation required". [...] as I was just telling you, I spent the last, like... I spent 5 hours over the last two days installing... trying to install software to get something to run. And it's just ridiculous to have to spend hours and hours. If you want to get Xcode to run, it takes— first of all you need a Mac, which is crazy, and then second of all it takes, depending on your internet connection, it could take you a whole day just to get up and running. Why isn't it xcode.com/create?

    1. From paper to block and ink we are now learning about the printing press. The best invention at the time because you can create a news paper. And now printers are becoming obsolete and so is the news paper now a news paper is on line.

  8. bafybeiery76ov25qa7hpadaiziuwhebaefhpxzzx6t6rchn7b37krzgroi.ipfs.dweb.link bafybeiery76ov25qa7hpadaiziuwhebaefhpxzzx6t6rchn7b37krzgroi.ipfs.dweb.link
    1. A final cluster gathers lenses that explore phenomena that are arguably more elastic and withthe potential to both indirectly maintain and explicitly reject and reshape existing norms. Many ofthe topics addressed here can be appropriately characterized as bottom-up, with strong and highlydiverse cultural foundations.

      The bottom-up nature of this cluster makes it the focus area for civil society movements, inner transformation approaches and cultural methodologies. Changing the mindset or paradigm from which the system arises is the most powerful place to intervene in a system as Donella Meadows pointed out decades ago in her research on system leverage points: https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/

      The Stop Reset Go initiative is focused on this thematic lens, bottom-up, rapid whole system change, with Deep Humanity as the open-source praxis to address the needed shift in worldview. One of the Deep Humanity programs is based on addressing the psychological deficits of the wealthy, and transforming them into heroes for the transition, by redirecting their WEALTH-to-WELLth.

    2. Yet, these lenses also point to the power of ideas, to how people can thrive beyonddominant norms, and to the possibility of rapid cultural change in societies—all forms of trans-formation reminiscent of the mythological phoenix born from the ashes of its predecessor. It isconceivable that this cluster could begin to redefine the boundaries of analysis that inform the En-abler cluster, which in turn has the potential to erode the legitimacy of the Davos cluster. The veryearly signs of such disruption are evident in some of the following sections and are subsequentlyelaborated in the latter part of the discussion.

      This passage pays homage to Donella Meadows, who identified the shift in mindset or paradigm that supports the system as the top leverage point. If we can shift this mindset in sufficient number of people, it can shift the thinking of the Enabler Cluster identified in the paper. A social tipping point strategy can be adopted to help this to happen quickly. This strategy is being developed by Stop Reset Go and other civil society actors.

    1. I no longer know how it works. I don't care to maintain it. It needs big changes to handle something like embedding a Jupyter notebook. And it depends on Python 2.6(!).With hundreds of pages, and its own custom URL layout that I don't want to break, I dread migrating
    1. To date, there is no single accounting of how much money flowed from the slave economy into coffers of American higher education. But Wilder says most American colleges founded before the Civil War relied on money derived from slavery. He suspects that many institutions are reluctant to examine this past. "There's not a lot of upside for them. You know these aren't great fundraising stories," Wilder says. Some people say that institutions must do more than make apologies and rename buildings. They insist that scholarships and other forms of monetary reparations are due. And others argue that whatever colleges and universities are doing to acknowledge their slave-holding past — a campus memorial to slaves, for example — is motivated by public relations and does nothing to ameliorate the legacy of slavery and systemic inequality. Brown University was the first to confront its ties to slavery in a major way. In 2003, Brown president Ruth Simmons appointed a commission to investigate. "What better way to teach our students about ethical conduct than to show ourselves to be open to the truth, and to tell the full story?" she says.

      This is important research to do so as not to conveniently forget the past. If all were equal today, that would have happened as the proper outcome of proactive, widespread and impactful recognition of the injustice of the past. Inequality has persisted, transmuted into structural inequality, especially manifesting in economic legacy of inherited wealth. It could be interpreted as unconducive for fundraising, but so can opaqueness of a proactive strategy.

    2. "The story of the American college is largely the story of the rise of the slave economy in the Atlantic world," says Craig Steven Wilder, a historian at MIT and author of "Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities."

      In this way, the past seeps into the present. This is a literal example of the legacy of structural inequality.

    1. When the Western world accepted Christianity, Caesar conquered; and the received text of Western theology was edited by his lawyers.… The brief Galilean vision of humility flickered throughout the ages, uncertainly.

      On the Homebrewed Christianity podcast, Tripp Fuller quotes Process and Reality by Alfred North Whitehead in a conversation with Brian McLaren (22:20).

      When the Western world accepted Christianity, Caesar conquered; and the received text of Western theology was edited by his lawyers. The code of Justinian and the theology of Justinian are two volumes expressing one movement of the human spirit. The brief Galilean vision of humility flickered throughout the ages, uncertainly. In the official formulation of the religion it has assumed the trivial form of the mere attribution to the Jews that they cherished a misconception about their Messiah. But the deeper idolatry, of the fashioning of God in the image of the Egyptian, Persian, and Roman imperial rulers, was retained. The Church gave unto God the attributes which belonged exclusively to Caesar.

      Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality (Gifford Lectures Delivered in the University of Edinburgh During the Session 1927-28) (p. 342). Free Press. Kindle Edition.

    1. In some cases, our use of cellphone cameras has the potential to liberate us when directed at the state, subjecting the powerful and privileged to forms of accountability that they’re not used to. That’s been made plain by the significant role of cellphone video in the movement against police brutality

      This topic of cellphone cameras relates perfectly to my social justice topic. Before, cellphones the only way to record police brutality was by word of mouth.

    2. But as we surveil each other in profoundly coercive ways, we also risk — as is often the case with informal forms of power — replicating the coercive power of the state itself. Surveillance disciplines our behavior, as any minority who’s passed through a security checkpoint in America can tell you in detail. It creates certain behaviors by design, most notably compliance, the willingness to do anything to avoid being hurt.

      In reference to social justice, we surveil each other in ways, such as police brutality. Before there was cell phones to record violent behavior, it was their word against the public and no one believed them..

    1. Coronavirus Pandemic Data Explorer. (n.d.). Our World in Data. Retrieved March 3, 2021, from https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer

      is:webpage lang:en COVID-19 graph case death Germany Sweden UK Afghanistan Africa Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Anguilla Antigua Barbuda Argentina Armenia Asia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Congo Costa Rica Cote d'ivoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czechia Democratic Republic of Congo Denmark Djobouti Dominica Dominician Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia Europe Europian Union Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands Fiji Finland France Gabon Gambia Georgia Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Mashall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria North America North Macedonia Northern Cyprus Norway Oceania Oman Pakistan Palestine Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philipines Poland Portugal Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Saint Helena Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South America South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Timor Togo Trinidad Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turks and Caicos Islands Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates USA Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican Venezuela Vietnam World Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe test vaccine chart map table data case fatality rate mortality

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  9. Sep 2021
    1. c. 19, s. 700

      Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, SC 2012, c 19, s. 700:

      • removed the previous s. 2(2)
      • replaced it with: "(2) Unless otherwise indicated, references in this Act to “this Act” include regulations made under it and instructions given under subsection 14.1(1)."
    1. Thomas Edison creating motion pictures not because of a contest. But he created short films using other investors from France ideas and created a studio called the black Moria

    2. You need to pay to get in the crystal palace to see all that Paris has to offer. The crystal palace was a museum or movie theater

    3. Don’t sit to close to the television. The old way of thinking and now to much screen time can have an effect on your mental health.

    1. After ablation, we observed a 95% reduction in time spent exploring the open arm of the EPM and a 57% increase in duration of the immobility time in the FST

      These findings validate the effectiveness of TH-IR ablation by 6-OHDA, as a decrease in time spent in the open arm of the EPM is associated with increased anxiety, and an increase in immobility time in the FST is associated with a depressed state. These results are not surprising as it is expected that a halt in the synthesis of dopamine (the feel-good transmitter) would increase anxiety and depression.

    2. Long-day exposure produced the opposite effects

      For rats, nocturnal mammals, increased photoperiod exposure is a stressor. Consequently, in both the EPM and FST, rats exhibit more depressive/anxious behaviors following long photoperiod exposure. In the EPM test, these rats spend less time in the open arm, and in the FST, they give up swimming and become almost immobile much sooner than the control group. For the short-day exposure group, the rats have more open arm activity, and in the FST persevere for longer, indicating reduced anxiety relative to the control group.

    3. Assays of CRF in the CSF and corticosterone in the plasma confirmed this to be the case (Fig. 4D).

      Panel D of Figure 4 shows that CSF levels of CRF and plasma levels of corticosterone significantly decrease following short photoperiod exposure. In panel B, short photoperiod exposure results in elevated coexpression of D2R and SST2/4R. These findings support the hypothesis that increased coexpression of D2R and SST2/4R has inhibitory effects on CRF neurons of the third ventricle.

    4. These results demonstrate that transmitter respecification is not achieved by translation from preexisting transcripts and involves de novo induction of TH or SST mRNA

      The experimenters' measurements of mRNA expression are used to determine whether transmitter respecification is resulting from new transcription or preexisting transcription. If transmitter respecification is resulting from preexisting transcripts, TH and SST mRNA would already be present in the cytosol and only following exposure to a certain photoperiod condition, translational machinery would translate that existing mRNA. Thus, if the source is preexisting mRNA, then we should not observe TH and SST mRNA counts follow numbers of TH and SST neurons, and instead mRNA levels should be unchanged. The fact that the experimenters are observing that mRNA levels follow TH and SST neuron count demonstrates that the photoperiod exposure condition is inducing de novo transcription, rather than direct translation of preexisting transcripts.

    5. Newly expressing TH-IR neurons induced through short-day photoperiod exposure coexpressed additional dopaminergic markers (3), VMAT2 (fig. S6), and the dopamine transporter, DAT (fig. S7).

      Because one role of VMAT2 is to package dopamine from the cytosol into synaptic vesicles for their release from the neuron, VMAT2 serves as a marker for the presence of dopamine. In addition to VMAT2 expression, the expression of the dopamine transporter, DAT, was also observed. Altogether, these findings serve as evidence that the newly expressed TH-IR neurons, induced by short-day photoperiod exposure, are indeed synthesizing dopamine.

    6. The number of intracellular SST-IR storage vesicles depended on photoperiod light-cycle duration

      Panel D is consistent with the findings in Panel B and Panel C, which also demonstrate an increase in SST expression following increase day exposure.

    7. The 43% increase and 96% decrease in TH-IR/SST-IR coexpression after short- and long-day exposure, in contrast to the balanced photoperiod, suggest that TH-IR and SST-IR neurons are recruited from a reserve pool of cells (23) that are switching transmitters

      In response to the photoperiod exposure condition, the circuit activity changes such that the neurons of the reserve pool are switching transmitters. The researchers believe that the TH-IR and SST-IR neurons are coming from this reserve pool of cells based on their finding that short-day exposure led to an increase in the recruitment of TH-IR neurons and diminishment of SST-IR neurons, while long-day exposure had the opposite effect.

    8. Double immunofluorescence revealed that different photoperiods changed the balance of dopamine and SST coexpression in neurons in the PaVN and PeVN

      The experimenters performed immunostaining for both dopamine and SST expression. Panel B depicts immunofluorescence of these transmitters in the PaVN. The first of the three images depicts the results from long day exposure; under this condition, there is an abundance of red representing an increase of SST expression and very little green indicating that there is a decrease in dopamine expression. Under short day exposure (third image), the opposite is true.

    9. TH expression did not differ from controls exposed to the 12L:12D photoperiod for 2 weeks

      Finding that the TH-IR neuron counts are reversible upon application of opposite photoperiod treatment is further evidence that sensory stimuli can induce neuroplastic changes in the already mature brain.

    10. No significant BrdU labeling was detected in the LPO, PaVN, or PeVN

      BrdU labeling did not result in significant amounts of active poliferating cells; this is an initial indication that inverse SST and dopamine expression is not due to neurogenesis.

    11. Week-long exposure to each of the different photoperiods failed to produce changes in numbers of TH-IR neurons in an adjacent nucleus, A13 (Fig. 1E and fig. S2B), which does not receive retinal input via the SCN

      In order for the dopamine alterations to be induced by changes in light exposure duration, the dopaminergic neurons must be able to receive retinal input, as is the case with the dopaminergic neurons in the hypothalmic nuclei, innervated by the retino-hypothalmic projection. If the neurotransmitter respecificaiton is indeed due to the photoperiod treatment, dopamine production at an adjacent dopamine source, which does not receive retinal input via the SCN, should be unaffected.

    12. Circadian fluctuations do not account for changes produced by different photoperiods.

      Within the three photoperiods, 19L:5D, 5L:19D, and 12L:12D, the number of TH-IR neurons are similar. Because there is a consensus within each photoperiod, this is indicating that circadian fluctuations are not contributing to neurotransmitter respecificaiton.

    13. FFN511 generated fluorescent signals in hypothalamic slices from brains of animals exposed to each of the three photoperiods. Fluorescence decreased upon KCl depolarization

      In panel C, before KCl depolarization, there is observable fluorescent signals from FFN511, indicating dopamine uptake. Upon KCl depolarization, the fluorescence is diminished; this is indicative of dopamine release. The results of panel C are consistent with panel A and B in that during the long day light condition (19 hours light, 5 hours darkness), the fluorescence signal is the lowest, which means less dopamine being taken up.

    14. Dopamine is colocalized with TH in the PaVN after exposure to each of the photoperiods. n = 5 animals for each photoperiod.

      Panel B: The fact that in all three photoperiod conditions, dopamine is colocalized with TH validates the use of TH as a marker of dopamine synthesis.

    15. Natural stimulation of other sensory modalities may cause changes in transmitter expression that regulate different behaviors.

      The researchers found that neurotransmitters are not actually fixed upon maturation, but are, in actuality, dynamic and can be affected by sensory stimuli such as longer or shorter photoperiods. Changes in transmitter expression result in behavioral changes as well. Thus, follow up research can explore what other sensory stimuli can change transmitter expression and also examine the corresponding behaviors that are regulated by those transmitters.

    16. Induction of newly dopaminergic neurons through exposure to the short-day photoperiod rescued the behavioral consequences of lesions.

      Shortening the length of daylight the rats are exposed to induced the formation of new dopaminergic neurons and thereby restored the rats' previous (normal) behaviors, i.e., the rats no longer displayed anxious and depressed behaviors.

    17. Pharmacological blockade or ablation of these dopaminergic neurons led to anxious and depressed behavior, phenocopying performance after exposure to the long-day photoperiod

      Using drugs to prevent dopamine production resulted in anxious and depressed behaviors by the rats; these same behaviors were also observed following extended day length exposure.

    18. Changes in postsynaptic dopamine receptor expression matched changes in presynaptic dopamine, whereas somatostatin receptor expression remained constant.

      When more of the neurotransmitter dopamine is produced, there is also an increase in the postsynaptic dopamine receptor. Likewise, when less dopamine is produced, it follows that there is a decreased expression of dopamine receptors. However, for somatostatin, this was not the case. Regardless of whether somatostatin production is increased or decreased, the somatostatin receptor expression is unchanged.

    1. while the super-rich may move through through world cities, their cosmopolitan practices and lifestyles rarely break out of the exclusive transnational spaces which stand at the intersecting points of particular corporate, capital, technological, information and cultural lines of flow.

      The elites move in a world of their own. Embedded within the deteriorating spaces all around them, their privileged and exclusive spaces are like self-constructed lotus blossoms floating on a sea of muck, which their lifestyles have disproportionately helped create in the first place. The geographic juxtapostion of these two spaces is stark, as illustrated in images such as those of Cape Town’s elite neighborhoods nextdoor to crowded townships. Wealth and privilege live side by side poverty.

    1. the following terms are from the arkansas department of health: family planning

      "prevent unwanted pregnancies" = abortion "lifestyle behaviors" = having sex "prevent unintended pregnancies" = birth control "infants born too early" = premature babies for some insane reason, all of these things are still considered taboo. the website is using euphemism (and for the infants one, orthphemism). these terms like "unwanted pregnancy" are way "softer" than saying that a woman has become pregnant and wants an abortion. they don't use abortion once on the entire website. the goal is to seem neutral and clinical, so there is no room for emotions. birth control is somehow also still considered taboo by many, so it is much easier and clinical to say "contraceptives." i think the website does an amazing job of making it very clear what family planning can do without giving the haters any room to be dumb.

      the other website, "the order of the good death," uses a lot of orthphemisms. words like "bacteria," "decomposing bodies," and "decomposition" describe exactly what is literally happening. it uses clinical words to explain what a dead body goes through during decomposition, like "autolysis" and "rigor mortis." because of my own person idealogy concerning death, i wanted to read this website and deem it dysphemistic, but i think it really is just very literal, clinical diction. the website does a really good job of ecplaining important questions that i'm sure a lot of people have who are afraid to ask. this also seems like something i would research at 3 am after skipping out on my zoloft for a few days. in that situation, i would need clear, concise answers to my questions. death is often really taboo and emotional, and the interworkings of death are something that we as a society NEVER talk about. i think this website just wanted to answer our questions.

    2. the website i used had over forty examples of grammatical errors. here are the ones i chose.

      1. "first come, first serve." this sentence sounds right when i say it, but the website says that the word is actually supposed to be "served" and not "serve." the lack of the d making it past tense makes the sentence "lose its meaning." this is obviously just verbs losing their endings, which is a sign of language change.

      2. using "me" to start a sentence. grammatically, the website says, we are supposed to list ourselves second and the other noun first. the author of this website obviously has very strict views on subject pronouns and object pronouns (blech). i think this is language becoming less formal. i think (in my world at least) language is much less written and much more frequently spoken. starting a sentence with me just makes sense to me verbally.

      3. overuse of apostrophes. the website states that the only times we are to use apostrophes are when there are missing letters or we are showing possession. in this case, "the johnson's" would be wrong, because it is neither showing possession nor is it making up for missing letters. however, again, i believe it just makes sense to a lot of us to add an apostrophe.

      my website didnt talk about this, but it felt wrong to not include the idea of subject-verb agreement a great many people i know feel much more comfortable being referred to as "they," but they should not lose their personage just because they do not want to use he/she pronouns. gendered pronouns are truly a thing of the past and "they" is just as singular as he or she.

    1. The tunnel far below represented Nevada’s latest salvo in a simmering water war: the construction of a $1.4 billion drainage hole to ensure that if the lake ever ran dry, Las Vegas could get the very last drop

      Deep Concept: Modern America is mostly corrupt from it's own creation of wealth. Wealth is power, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely! Money and wealth have completely changed the underlying foundation of America. Modern America is the corrupted result of wealth. Morality and ethics in modern American have been reshaped to "fit" European Aristocracy, ironically the same European aristocracy America fled in the Revolutionary War.

      Billions and billions of tax payer money is spent on projects that could never pass rigorous examination and best public ROI use. Political authoritative conditions rule public tax money for the benefit of a few at the expense of the many. The public "cult-like" sheep have no clue how they are being abused.

      The authoritative abusers (politicians) follow the "mostly" corrupt American (fuck-you) form of government and individual power tactics that have been conveniently embedded in corrupt modern morality and ethics, used by corrupted lawyers and judges to codify the fundamental moral code that underpins the original American Constitution.

    1. Connect Pick and Pack Warehouse UK

      Pick and Pack Fulfilment Services with Connect

      Pick and pack is our bread and butter here at Connect, and it’s a service we have provided to our customers for many years.

      ​In fact, it’s the foundation of our business, so we are more than experienced when it comes to all things pick and pack fulfilment.

      But what is pick and pack fulfilment?

      What is Pick and Pack?

      Pick and pack is part and parcel of any warehouse operation. It’s critical when it comes to the order fulfilment process, and is essentially following a few steps, which are:

      First, items in a customers’ order are collected, or picked, from the locations within the pick and pack warehouse storage facility.

      Next, these items are appropriately packaged, or packed, in a safe and secure manner, so nothing is damaged or lost.

      Then, the product or package is shipped to the customer.

      Simple!

      pick and pack warehouse uk

  10. Aug 2021
    1. COGNITIVE CONSEQUENCES OF FORCED COMPLIANCE

      The title of the article immediately made me think of the world we are living in now. For example it is becoming more and more evident that the country has mixed opinions on the vaccine. The government, state agencies and other public entities are requiring proof of a vaccine to even enter the premises. Some companies are offering incentives across the country to incentivize the vaccine by offering free products and discounts. To an extent from a medical perspective you want everyone as healthy as possible, but from a freedom perspective it is on the verge of violating an individual's freedom of choice through forced compliance.

    1. We found that populations of interneurons in the adult rat hypothalamus switched between dopamine and somatostatin expression in response to exposure to short- and long-day photoperiods.

      Altering the amount of time that a rat is exposed to light in a day leads to changes in the type of neurotransmitters being expressed by a set interneurons located in the hypothalamus. When the rat's daily light exposure is restricted to a shorter time frame, those interneurons favor dopamine expression. In contrast, longer daily periods of light exposure results in those same interneurons favoring somatostatin expression.

    1. There are two ways for someone to be in this quadrant. The unhealthy way, as a people pleaser, with associated resentment and chaos. In a healthy way, everything feels very clear. It’s easy to fit feedback into their mental model, and adjustments feel natural and build on what they are currently working on. This comes from having a good idea themselves about what is happening and how they think they can improve.

      good point on the people-pleaser mindset, also worth considering with ADHD/ASD employees - try and foster more curiosity than chaos

    1. Tonality refers to how our harmony affects our song's mood and vibe.

      Hmm? Again, it makes some sense in context. Yet it could lead to quite a bit of confusion. I honestly thought it was going to be about actual tonality. Yet it’s about mode, calling it tonality. Disconnecting mode and mood. It’s nice to use simple language. This isn’t that. It’s using jargon and shifting it. The technical term for that might be… obfuscation. Strange

    1. What we call progressconsists in coordinating ideas with realities

      "The map is not the territory" is there as a basic sentiment long before General Semantics