Toxic comments are associated with reduced activity of volunteer editors on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is one of the most successful collaborative projects in history. It is the largest encyclopedia ever created, with millions of users worldwide relying on it as the first source of information as well as for fact-checking and in-depth research. As Wikipedia relies solely on the efforts of its volunteer editors, its success might be particularly affected by toxic speech. In this paper, we analyze all 57 million comments made on user talk pages of 8.5 million editors across the six most active language editions of Wikipedia to study the potential impact of toxicity on editors' behavior. We find that toxic comments are consistently associated with reduced activity of editors, equivalent to 0.5-2 active days per user in the short term. This translates to multiple human-years of lost productivity, considering the number of active contributors to Wikipedia. The effects of toxic comments are potentially even greater in the long term, as they are associated with a significantly increased risk of editors leaving the project altogether. Using an agent-based model, we demonstrate that toxicity attacks on Wikipedia have the potential to impede the progress of the entire project. Our results underscore the importance of mitigating toxic speech on collaborative platforms such as Wikipedia to ensure their continued success.

Closed-Loop Control of Arterial CO2 in Mechanical Ventilation of Neonates.

During mechanical ventilation of the neonate the main goal is to stabilize respiratory function of the often premature lungs. Ventilating the patient without inflicting harm is then the subordinated next goal. Ideally the arterial partial pressure of CO2 lays within a normocapnic range and fluctuations are kept minimal. By closely monitoring CO2 and controlling ventilation parameters accordingly, CO2 levels in the blood can be managed. We present an approach consisting of a cascaded controller for arterial CO2 by approximating arterial partial pressure PaCO2 from end-tidal PetCO2. As a proof of concept, feasibility of the controller was first evaluated on a mathematical patient model and subsequently in-vivo in lamb experiments. The controller is able to regulate CO2 into a normocapnic range in both setups with satisfactory stationarity within the target range. Estimation of the arterial partial pressure of CO2 remains a critical aspect that needs to be further investigated. Clinical relevance-Closed-loop control of CO2 in mechanical ventilation aims to avoid PaC O2 extremes and to reduce fluctuations. Both are a relevant risk factors especially for neurological complications among preterm newborns.