Online hate network spreads malicious COVID-19 content outside the control of individual social media platforms.

We show that malicious COVID-19 content, including racism, disinformation, and misinformation, exploits the multiverse of online hate to spread quickly beyond the control of any individual social media platform. We provide a first mapping of the online hate network across six major social media platforms. We demonstrate how malicious content can travel across this network in ways that subvert platform moderation efforts. Machine learning topic analysis shows quantitatively how online hate communities are sharpening COVID-19 as a weapon, with topics evolving rapidly and content becoming increasingly coherent. Based on mathematical modeling, we provide predictions of how changes to content moderation policies can slow the spread of malicious content.

Hidden order across online extremist movements can be disrupted by nudging collective chemistry.

Disrupting the emergence and evolution of potentially violent online extremist movements is a crucial challenge. Extremism research has analyzed such movements in detail, focusing on individual- and movement-level characteristics. But are there system-level commonalities in the ways these movements emerge and grow? Here we compare the growth of the Boogaloos, a new and increasingly prominent U.S. extremist movement, to the growth of online support for ISIS, a militant, terrorist organization based in the Middle East that follows a radical version of Islam. We show that the early dynamics of these two online movements follow the same mathematical order despite their stark ideological, geographical, and cultural differences. The evolution of both movements, across scales, follows a single shockwave equation that accounts for heterogeneity in online interactions. These scientific properties suggest specific policies to address online extremism and radicalization. We show how actions by social media platforms could disrupt the onset and 'flatten the curve' of such online extremism by nudging its collective chemistry. Our results provide a system-level understanding of the emergence of extremist movements that yields fresh insight into their evolution and possible interventions to limit their growth.

A preliminary study of cerebral blood flow, aging and dementia in people with Down syndrome.

BACKGROUND: People with Down syndrome (DS) develop Alzheimer's disease (AD) at an earlier age of onset than those with sporadic AD. AD neuropathology is typically present in DS by 40 years of age with an onset of dementia approximately 10 years later. This early onset is due to the overexpression of amyloid precursor protein from the third copy of chromosome 21. Cerebrovascular neuropathology is thought to contribute in 40-60% of cases sporadic AD. However, the vascular contribution to dementia in people with DS has been relatively unexplored. We hypothesised that vascular perfusion is compromised in older adults with DS relative to younger individuals and is further exacerbated in those with dementia. METHOD: Cerebral blood flow (CBF) was measured using pulsed arterial spin labelling in 35 cognitively characterised adults with DS (26-65 years). DS participants were also compared with 15 control subjects without DS or dementia (26-65 years). Linear regression evaluated the difference in CBF across groups and diagnosis along with assessing the association between CBF and cognitive measures within the DS cohort. RESULTS: Cerebral blood flow was significantly lower among DS participants with probable AD compared with controls (P = 0.02) and DS participants with no dementia (P = 0.01). Within the DS cohort, CBF was significantly associated with the Severe Impairment Battery (SIB) measure and the Dementia Questionnaire for People with Learning Disabilities (DLD) rating (F3,25  = 5.13; P = 0.007). Both the SIB (ß = 0.74; t = 2.71; P = 0.01) and DLD (ß = -0.96; t = -3.87; P < 0.001) indicated greater impairment as global CBF decreased. Age was significantly associated with CBF among participants with DS. There was a non-linear effect of age, whereby CBF declined more rapidly after 45 years of age. CONCLUSIONS: This preliminary study of CBF in DS indicates that cerebrovascular pathology may be a significant contributor to dementia in DS. CBF was associated with diagnosis, cognition and age. Notably, CBF decreases at a greater rate after age 45 and may represent a significant prodromal event in AD progression.

Riparian forest fragments in rice fields under different management: differences on hymenopteran parasitoids diversity / Fragmentos de floresta riparia em áreas de cultivo de arroz sob diferentes manejos: diferenças através diversidade de himenópteros parasitoides

Abstract Hymenopteran parasitoids are important biological control agents in agroecosystems, and their diversity can be increased with habitat heterogeneity. Thus, the purpose of the study is to evaluate the influence of distance of rice-growing areas from natural fragment, type of crop management (organic and conventional) and crop stages (vegetative and reproductive stages) on parasitoids family diversity. The work took place in two irrigated rice crops, one with organic management (O.M.) and another one with conventional management (C.M.), in the municipality of Nova Santa Rita, RS, Brazil, during the 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 seasons. The parasitoids were collected with Malaise trap arranged at different distances in relation to the native vegetation surrounding the rice crop in both places. Specimens were collected twice a month from seeding until the rice harvest. Average abundance between management, distances and rice development were compared. The most abundant families were Platygastridae, Mymaridae, Encyrtidae, Eulophidae and Trichogrammatidae. Parasitoid average abundance was significantly higher on OM only in the second season. There was a negative correlation between distance from native vegetation and parasitoid abundance in C.M. areas. There were differences in the composition of the parasitoid assembly between the phenological stages of rice.

Resumo Os himenópteros parasitoides são importantes agentes de controle biológico em agroecossistemas com sua diversidade variando de acordo com a heterogeneidade de habitat. Nesse sentido, o objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar a influência da distância de áreas com fragmentos de vegetação natural das áreas de cultivo de arroz, o tipo de manejo (orgânico ou convencional) e os estágios da cultura (vegetativo e reprodutivo) na diversidade de famílias de parasitoides. O trabalho foi conduzido em duas áreas com plantio de arroz irrigado, uma com manejo orgânico (MO) e outra com manejo convencional (CM), no município de Nova Santa Rita, RS, Brasil, durante a safra 2013/2014 e 2014/2015. Os parasitoides foram coletados com armadilha Malaise colocadas sob diferentes distâncias em relação a vegetação nativa circundante ao cultivo em ambas as áreas. Os espécimes foram coletados duas vezes ao mês da semeadura até a colheita. Foram comparadas a abundância média entre os manejos, distâncias e estágio de desenvolvimento do arroz. As famílias mais abundantes foram Platygastridae, Mymaridae, Encyrtidae, Eulophidae e Trichogrammatidae com suas abundâncias variando ao longo da safra. A abundância média de parasitoides foi significativamente maior no MO somente na segunda safra. Houve uma correlação negativa entre a distância da vegetação nativa e a abundância de parasitoides. Houve diferença na composição da assembleia de parasitoides entre os estágios fenológicos do arroz.

Riparian forest fragments in rice fields under different management: differences on hymenopteran parasitoids diversity.

Hymenopteran parasitoids are important biological control agents in agroecosystems, and their diversity can be increased with habitat heterogeneity. Thus, the purpose of the study is to evaluate the influence of distance of rice-growing areas from natural fragment, type of crop management (organic and conventional) and crop stages (vegetative and reproductive stages) on parasitoids family diversity. The work took place in two irrigated rice crops, one with organic management (O.M.) and another one with conventional management (C.M.), in the municipality of Nova Santa Rita, RS, Brazil, during the 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 seasons. The parasitoids were collected with Malaise trap arranged at different distances in relation to the native vegetation surrounding the rice crop in both places. Specimens were collected twice a month from seeding until the rice harvest. Average abundance between management, distances and rice development were compared. The most abundant families were Platygastridae, Mymaridae, Encyrtidae, Eulophidae and Trichogrammatidae. Parasitoid average abundance was significantly higher on OM only in the second season. There was a negative correlation between distance from native vegetation and parasitoid abundance in C.M. areas. There were differences in the composition of the parasitoid assembly between the phenological stages of rice.

Hidden resilience and adaptive dynamics of the global online hate ecology.

Online hate and extremist narratives have been linked to abhorrent real-world events, including a current surge in hate crimes1-6 and an alarming increase in youth suicides that result from social media vitriol7; inciting mass shootings such as the 2019 attack in Christchurch, stabbings and bombings8-11; recruitment of extremists12-16, including entrapment and sex-trafficking of girls as fighter brides17; threats against public figures, including the 2019 verbal attack against an anti-Brexit politician, and hybrid (racist-anti-women-anti-immigrant) hate threats against a US member of the British royal family18; and renewed anti-western hate in the 2019 post-ISIS landscape associated with support for Osama Bin Laden's son and Al Qaeda. Social media platforms seem to be losing the battle against online hate19,20 and urgently need new insights. Here we show that the key to understanding the resilience of online hate lies in its global network-of-network dynamics. Interconnected hate clusters form global 'hate highways' that-assisted by collective online adaptations-cross social media platforms, sometimes using 'back doors' even after being banned, as well as jumping between countries, continents and languages. Our mathematical model predicts that policing within a single platform (such as Facebook) can make matters worse, and will eventually generate global 'dark pools' in which online hate will flourish. We observe the current hate network rapidly rewiring and self-repairing at the micro level when attacked, in a way that mimics the formation of covalent bonds in chemistry. This understanding enables us to propose a policy matrix that can help to defeat online hate, classified by the preferred (or legally allowed) granularity of the intervention and top-down versus bottom-up nature. We provide quantitative assessments for the effects of each intervention. This policy matrix also offers a tool for tackling a broader class of illicit online behaviours21,22 such as financial fraud.

Emergent dynamics of extremes in a population driven by common information sources and new social media algorithms.

We quantify how and when extreme subpopulations emerge in a model society despite everyone having the same information and available resources - and show that counterintuitively these extremes will likely be enhanced over time by new social media algorithms designed to reduce division. We verify our analysis mathematically, and show it reproduces (a) the time-dependent behavior observed in controlled experiments on humans, (b) the findings of a recent study of online behavior by Facebook concerning the impact of 'soft' and 'hard' news, (c) the observed temporal emergence of extremes in U.S. House of Representatives voting, and (d) the real-time emergence of a division in national opinion during the ongoing peace process in Colombia. We uncover a novel societal tipping point which is a 'ghost' of a nearby saddle-node bifurcation from dynamical systems theory, and which provides a novel policy opportunity for preventing extremes from emerging.

Universality and correlations in individuals wandering through an online extremist space.

The "out of the blue" nature of recent terror attacks and the diversity of apparent motives highlight the importance of understanding the online trajectories that individuals follow prior to developing high levels of extremist support. Here we show that the physics of stochastic walks, with and without temporal correlation, provides a unifying description of these online trajectories. Our unique data set comprising all users of a global social media site reveals universal characteristics in individuals' online lifetimes. Our accompanying theory generates analytical and numerical solutions that describe the characteristics shown by individuals that go on to develop high levels of extremist support and those that do not. Going forward, it is conceivable that a deeper understanding of these temporal and many-body correlations may eventually contribute to the important task of better countering the spread of radical propaganda online.

Multiscale dynamical network mechanisms underlying aging of an online organism from birth to death.

We present the continuous-time evolution of an online organism network from birth to death which crosses all organizational and temporal scales, from individual components through to the mesoscopic and entire system scale. These continuous-time data reveal a lifespan driven by punctuated, real-time co-evolution of the structural and functional networks. Aging sees these structural and functional networks gradually diverge in terms of their small-worldness and eventually their connectivity. Dying emerges as an extended process associated with the formation of large but disjoint functional sub-networks together with an increasingly detached core. Our mathematical model quantifies the very different impacts that interventions will have on the overall lifetime, period of initial growth, peak of potency, and duration of old age, depending on when and how they are administered. In addition to their direct relevance to online extremism, our findings may offer insight into aging in other network systems of comparable complexity for which extensive in vivo data is not yet available.

Simple visit behavior unifies complex Zika outbreaks.

New outbreaks of Zika in the U.S. are imminent. Human nature dictates that many individuals will continue to revisit affected 'Ground Zero' patches, whether out of choice, work or family reasons - yet this feature is missing from traditional epidemiological analyses. Here we show that this missing visit-revisit mechanism is by itself capable of explaining quantitatively the 2016 human Zika outbreaks in all three Ground Zero patches. Our findings reveal counterintuitive ways in which this human flow can be managed to tailor any future outbreak's duration, severity and time-to-peak. Effective public health planning can leverage these results to impact the evolution of future outbreaks via soft control of the overall human flow, as well as to suggest best-practice visitation behavior for local residents.

Riparian forest fragments in rice fields under different management: differences on hymenopteran parasitoids diversity

Abstract Hymenopteran parasitoids are important biological control agents in agroecosystems, and their diversity can be increased with habitat heterogeneity. Thus, the purpose of the study is to evaluate the influence of distance of rice-growing areas from natural fragment, type of crop management (organic and conventional) and crop stages (vegetative and reproductive stages) on parasitoids family diversity. The work took place in two irrigated rice crops, one with organic management (O.M.) and another one with conventional management (C.M.), in the municipality of Nova Santa Rita, RS, Brazil, during the 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 seasons. The parasitoids were collected with Malaise trap arranged at different distances in relation to the native vegetation surrounding the rice crop in both places. Specimens were collected twice a month from seeding until the rice harvest. Average abundance between management, distances and rice development were compared. The most abundant families were Platygastridae, Mymaridae, Encyrtidae, Eulophidae and Trichogrammatidae. Parasitoid average abundance was significantly higher on OM only in the second season. There was a negative correlation between distance from native vegetation and parasitoid abundance in C.M. areas. There were differences in the composition of the parasitoid assembly between the phenological stages of rice.

Resumo Os himenópteros parasitoides são importantes agentes de controle biológico em agroecossistemas com sua diversidade variando de acordo com a heterogeneidade de habitat. Nesse sentido, o objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar a influência da distância de áreas com fragmentos de vegetação natural das áreas de cultivo de arroz, o tipo de manejo (orgânico ou convencional) e os estágios da cultura (vegetativo e reprodutivo) na diversidade de famílias de parasitoides. O trabalho foi conduzido em duas áreas com plantio de arroz irrigado, uma com manejo orgânico (MO) e outra com manejo convencional (CM), no município de Nova Santa Rita, RS, Brasil, durante a safra 2013/2014 e 2014/2015. Os parasitoides foram coletados com armadilha Malaise colocadas sob diferentes distâncias em relação a vegetação nativa circundante ao cultivo em ambas as áreas. Os espécimes foram coletados duas vezes ao mês da semeadura até a colheita. Foram comparadas a abundância média entre os manejos, distâncias e estágio de desenvolvimento do arroz. As famílias mais abundantes foram Platygastridae, Mymaridae, Encyrtidae, Eulophidae e Trichogrammatidae com suas abundâncias variando ao longo da safra. A abundância média de parasitoides foi significativamente maior no MO somente na segunda safra. Houve uma correlação negativa entre a distância da vegetação nativa e a abundância de parasitoides. Houve diferença na composição da assembleia de parasitoides entre os estágios fenológicos do arroz.

New online ecology of adversarial aggregates: ISIS and beyond.

Support for an extremist entity such as Islamic State (ISIS) somehow manages to survive globally online despite considerable external pressure and may ultimately inspire acts by individuals having no history of extremism, membership in a terrorist faction, or direct links to leadership. Examining longitudinal records of online activity, we uncovered an ecology evolving on a daily time scale that drives online support, and we provide a mathematical theory that describes it. The ecology features self-organized aggregates (ad hoc groups formed via linkage to a Facebook page or analog) that proliferate preceding the onset of recent real-world campaigns and adopt novel adaptive mechanisms to enhance their survival. One of the predictions is that development of large, potentially potent pro-ISIS aggregates can be thwarted by targeting smaller ones.

Age-related increases in right frontal activation during task switching are mediated by reaction time and white matter microstructure.

Age-related increases in right frontal cortex activation are a common finding in the neuroimaging literature. However, neurocognitive factors contributing to right frontal over-recruitment remain poorly understood. Here we investigated the influence of age-related reaction time (RT) slowing and white matter (WM) microstructure reductions as potential explanatory factors for age-related increases in right frontal activation during task switching. Groups of younger (N=32) and older (N=33) participants completed a task switching paradigm while functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was performed, and rested while diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was performed. Two right frontal regions of interest (ROIs), the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and insula, were selected for further analyses from a common network of regions recruited by both age groups during task switching. Results demonstrated age-related activation increases in both ROIs. In addition, the older adult group showed longer RT and decreased fractional anisotropy in regions of the corpus callosum with direct connections to the fMRI ROIs. Subsequent mediation analyses indicated that age-related increases in right insula activation were mediated by RT slowing and age-related increases in right DLPFC activation were mediated by WM microstructure. Our results suggest that age-related RT slowing and WM microstructure declines contribute to age-related increases in right frontal activation during cognitive task performance.

New dynamical scaling universality for quantum networks across adiabatic quantum phase transitions.

We reveal universal dynamical scaling behavior across adiabatic quantum phase transitions in networks ranging from traditional spatial systems (Ising model) to fully connected ones (Dicke and Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick models). Our findings, which lie beyond traditional critical exponent analysis and adiabatic perturbation approximations, are applicable even where excitations have not yet stabilized and, hence, provide a time-resolved understanding of quantum phase transitions encompassing a wide range of adiabatic regimes. We show explicitly that even though two systems may traditionally belong to the same universality class, they can have very different adiabatic evolutions. This implies that more stringent conditions need to be imposed than at present, both for quantum simulations where one system is used to simulate the other and for adiabatic quantum computing schemes.

Rumen degradable protein supply affects microbial efficiency in continuous culture and growth in steers.

We hypothesized that microbial efficiency and output from fermentation in the rumen would be optimized when peptide supply was balanced with peptide requirement of ruminal microflora. This study was conducted to measure response of varying rumen degradable peptide (RDPep) supply on ruminal fermentation characteristics and steer growth. A continuous culture experiment was conducted with diets formulated to achieve a predicted RDPep balance (RDPep supplied above RDPep required) of -0.30 to 1.45% CP with rumen degradable N (RDN) balance (RDN supplied above RDN required) above dietary ammonia-N requirement of microbes. Two additional treatments had RDPep balances of -0.30 and 0.78% CP with insufficient ammonia-N supply to meet microbial requirements. Single-flow fermenters (N = 24; n = 6) were inoculated with rumen fluid and maintained anaerobically at 39°C with a 0.06 h(-1) dilution rate. Inadequate RDN decreased OM digestion and microbial N flow, and increased rumen undegradable N (P < 0.01). Microbial efficiency decreased in RDN-deficient diets and was greatest when RDPep balance did not excessively exceed microbial requirement of RDPep predicted (P < 0.01). A growth study was conducted with 49 yearling, crossbred, Angus steers (initial BW 370 ± 34 kg). Animals were assigned to 1 of 4 treatment groups by BW and further divided into 3 pens with 4 steers per pen to achieve similar initial pen weights. Treatments consisted of 4 isonitrogenous diets balanced for RDN but varying in predicted RDPep balance (0.55%, -0.02%, -0.25%, and -0.65% CP). Animals were maintained on treatment for 70 d with individual BW taken on d 0, 1, 21, 42, 70, and 71. Final BW decreased linearly with decreasing RDPep (P = 0.05). Average daily gain and G:F displayed a quadratic effect with greater ADG and G:F at greater and lesser RDPep levels (P = 0.02). We concluded that balancing RDPep supply to predicted requirement improved fermentation efficiency and microbial output, which in turn improved animal performance.

Theory of enhanced performance emerging in a sparsely connected competitive population.

We provide an analytic theory to explain Anghel et al's recent numerical finding whereby a maximum in the global performance emerges for a sparsely connected competitive population [Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 058701 (2004)]. We show that the effect originates in the highly correlated dynamics of strategy choice, and can be significantly enhanced using a simple modification to the model.

Systematics, evolution, and biology of scelionid and platygastrid wasps.

The Platygastroidea comprises two families of parasitoids, Scelionidae and Platygastridae, and nearly 4500 described species. They parasitize a diverse array of insects as well as spiders. Idiobiont endoparasitism of eggs is the putative ground plan biology, as reflected by all scelionids, but most Platygastridae are koinobiont endoparasitoids of immature Auchenorrhyncha, Sternorrhyncha, and Cecidomyiidae. The superfamily is demonstrably monophyletic but its phylogenetic position remains uncertain. Relationships within the Platygastroidea are also poorly known and the group is in need of comprehensive phylogenetic study. Significant information is available on host relationships and biology, although much of this is biased to a few genera of Telenominae that are employed as biocontrol agents. Hosts for many genera are unknown, in particular those that inhabit leaf litter or parasitize solitary host eggs. The Trissolcus basalis-Nezara viridula parasitoid-host association has become a favored model system in ecological, behavioral, and physiological research on insects.

Theory of networked minority games based on strategy pattern dynamics.

We formulate a theory of agent-based models in which agents compete to be in a winning group. The agents may be part of a network or not, and the winning group may be a minority group or not. An important feature of the present formalism is its focus on the dynamical pattern of strategy rankings, and its careful treatment of the strategy ties which arise during the system's temporal evolution. We apply it to the minority game with connected populations. Expressions for the mean success rate among the agents and for the mean success rate for agents with k neighbors are derived. We also use the theory to estimate the value of connectivity p above which the binary-agent-resource system with high resource levels makes the transition into the high-connectivity state.

Enhanced winning in a competing population by random participation.

We study a version of the minority game in which one agent is allowed to join the game in a random fashion. It is shown that in the crowded regime, i.e., for small values of the memory size m of the agents in the population, the agent performs significantly well if she decides to participate the game randomly with a probability q and she records the performance of her strategies only in the turns that she participates. The information, characterized by a quantity called the inefficiency, embedded in the agent's strategies performance turns out to be very different from that of the other agents. Detailed numerical studies reveal a relationship between the success rate of the agent and the inefficiency. The relationship can be understood analytically in terms of the dynamics in which the various possible histories are being visited as the game proceeds. For a finite fraction of randomly participating agents up to 60% of the population, it is found that the winning edge of these agents persists.

Deterministic dynamics in the minority game.

The minority game (MG) behaves as a stochastically disturbed deterministic system due to the coin toss invoked to resolve tied strategies. Averaging over this stochasticity yields a description of the MG's deterministic dynamics via mapping equations for the strategy score and global information. The strategy-score map contains both restoring-force and bias terms, whose magnitudes depend on the game's quenched disorder. Approximate analytical expressions are obtained and the effect of "market impact" is discussed. The global-information map represents a trajectory on a de Bruijn graph. For small quenched disorder, a Eulerian trail represents a stable attractor. It is shown analytically how antipersistence arises. The response to perturbations and different initial conditions is also discussed.