Online Signals of Extremist Mobilization Brown, Olivia; Smith, Laura G. E.; Davidson, Brittany I. ...
Personality & social psychology bulletin,
07/2024
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Psychological theories of mobilization tend to focus on explaining people’s motivations for action, rather than mobilization (“activation”) processes. To investigate the online behaviors associated ...with mobilization, we compared the online communications data of 26 people who subsequently mobilized to right-wing extremist action and 48 people who held similar extremist views but did not mobilize ( N = 119,473 social media posts). In a three-part analysis, involving content analysis (Part 1), topic modeling (Part 2), and machine learning (Part 3), we showed that communicating ideological or hateful content was not related to mobilization, but rather mobilization was positively related to talking about violent action, operational planning, and logistics. Our findings imply that to explain mobilization to extremist action, rather than the motivations for action, theories of collective action should extend beyond how individuals express grievances and anger, to how they equip themselves with the “know-how” and capability to act.
Solvated sodium anions (Na–) were thought to behave essentially like isolated gas-phase ions that interact only weakly with their environments. For example, 23Na NMR signals for solvated Na– are very ...sharp, despite the potential for strong quadrupolar broadening. The sharp NMR signals appear to indicate a nearly spherical electron density of the ion. For the present study, ab initio molecular dynamics simulations and quadrupolar relaxation rate calculations were carried out for the Na–/Na+ 2.2.2cryptand system solvated in methylamine, followed by detailed analyses of the electric field gradient at the sodium nuclei. It is found that Na– does not behave like a quasi-free ion interacting only weakly with its environment. Rather, the filled 3s shell of Na– interacts weakly with the ion’s own core and the nucleus, causing Na– to appear in NMR experiments like a free ion.
Collective narcissism—a phenomenon in which individuals show excessively high regard for their own group—is ubiquitous in studies of small groups. We examined how Americans from the 50 U.S. states (N ...= 2,898) remembered U.S. history by asking them, “In terms of percentage, what do you think was your home state’s contribution to the history of the United States?” The mean state estimates ranged from 9% (Iowa) to 41% (Virginia), with the total contribution for all states equaling 907%, indicating strong collective narcissism. In comparison, ratings provided by nonresidents for states were much lower (but still high). Surprisingly, asking people questions about U.S. history before they made their judgment did not lower estimates. We argue that this ethnocentric bias is due to ego protection, selective memory retrieval processes involving the availability heuristic, and poor statistical reasoning. This study shows that biases that influence individual remembering also influence collective remembering.
Protein synthesis and autophagy are regulated by cellular ATP content. We tested the hypothesis that mitochondrial dysfunction, including generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), contributes to ...impaired protein synthesis and increased proteolysis resulting in tissue atrophy in a comprehensive array of models. In myotubes treated with ethanol, using unbiased approaches, we identified defects in mitochondrial electron transport chain components, endogenous antioxidants, and enzymes regulating the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle. Using high sensitivity respirometry, we observed impaired cellular respiration, decreased function of complexes I, II, and IV, and a reduction in oxidative phosphorylation in ethanol-treated myotubes and muscle from ethanol-fed mice. These perturbations resulted in lower skeletal muscle ATP content and redox ratio (NAD+/NADH). Ethanol also caused a leak of electrons, primarily from complex III, with generation of mitochondrial ROS and reverse electron transport. Oxidant stress with lipid peroxidation (thiobarbituric acid reactive substances) and protein oxidation (carbonylated proteins) were increased in myotubes and skeletal muscle from mice and humans with alcoholic liver disease. Ethanol also impaired succinate oxidation in the TCA cycle with decreased metabolic intermediates. MitoTEMPO, a mitochondrial specific antioxidant, reversed ethanol-induced mitochondrial perturbations (including reduced oxygen consumption, generation of ROS and oxidative stress), increased TCA cycle intermediates, and reversed impaired protein synthesis and the sarcopenic phenotype. We show that ethanol causes skeletal muscle mitochondrial dysfunction, decreased protein synthesis, and increased autophagy, and that these perturbations are reversed by targeting mitochondrial ROS.
Overall schema of ethanol-induced mitochondrial function in skeletal muscle. Ethanol impairs ETC function with leak of electrons to generate superoxide (O2-) that causes oxidative injury to tissue and decreases TCA cycle intermediates. Display omitted
•Unbiased approaches showed that ethanol altered muscle mitochondrial regulatory proteins.•Mitochondrial functional studies in situ showed defects in electron transport chain components.•Ethanol increased mitochondrial ROS and oxidative stress in myotubes, human and mouse muscle.•Tricarboxylic acid cycle intermediates were reduced by ethanol in muscle and myotubes.•MitoTempo reversed ethanol induced perturbations in myotubes.
Preserving the in vivo cell transcriptome is essential for accurate profiling, yet factors during cell isolation including time ex vivo and temperature induce artifactual gene expression, ...particularly in stress-responsive immune cells. In this study, we investigated two methods to mitigate ex vivo activation signature gene (ASG) expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs): transcription and translation inhibitors (TTis) and cold temperatures during isolation. Comparative analysis of PBMCs isolated with TTis revealed reduced ASG expression. However, TTi treatment impaired responsiveness to LPS stimulation in subsequent in vitro experiments. In contrast, cold isolation methods also prevented ASG expression; up to a point where the addition of TTis during cold isolation offered minimal additional advantage. These findings highlight the importance of considering the advantages and drawbacks of different isolation methods to ensure accurate interpretation of PBMC transcriptomic profiles.
Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) is the primary method for noninvasively studying the organization of white matter in the human brain. Here we introduce QSIPrep, an integrative ...software platform for the processing of diffusion images that is compatible with nearly all dMRI sampling schemes. Drawing on a diverse set of software suites to capitalize on their complementary strengths, QSIPrep facilitates the implementation of best practices for processing of diffusion images.
Replication of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is regulated in part by cellular kinases and the single viral Ser/Thr kinase, pUL97. The virus‐coded kinase augments the replication of HCMV by enabling ...nuclear egress and altering cell cycle progression. These roles are accomplished through direct phosphorylation of nuclear lamins and the retinoblastoma protein, respectively. In an effort to identify additional pUL97 substrates, we analyzed the phosphoproteome of SILAC‐labeled human fibroblasts during infection with either wild‐type HCMV or a pUL97 kinase‐dead mutant virus. Phosphopeptides were enriched over a titanium dioxide matrix and analyzed by high‐resolution MS. We identified 157 unambiguous phosphosites from 106 cellular and 17 viral proteins whose phosphorylation required UL97. Analysis of peptides containing these sites allowed the identification of several candidate pUL97 phosphorylation motifs, including a completely novel phosphorylation motif, LxSP. Substrates harboring the LxSP motif were enriched in nucleocytoplasmic transport functions, including a number of components of the nuclear pore complex. These results extend the known functions of pUL97 and suggest that modulation of nuclear pore function may be important during HCMV replication.
Visualizing the distributions of drugs and their metabolites is one of the key emerging application areas of matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization–mass spectrometry imaging (MALDI-MSI) within ...pharmaceutical research. The success of a given MALDI-MSI experiment is ultimately determined by the ionization efficiency of the compounds of interest, which in many cases are too low to enable detection at relevant concentrations. In this work we have taken steps to address this challenge via the first application of laser-postionisation coupled with MALDI (so-called MALDI-2) to the analysis and imaging of pharmaceutical compounds. We demonstrate that MALDI-2 increased the signal intensities for 7 out of the 10 drug compounds analyzed by up to 2 orders of magnitude compared to conventional MALDI analysis. This gain in sensitivity enabled the distributions of drug compounds in both human cartilage and dog liver tissue to be visualized using MALDI-2, whereas little-to-no signal from tissue was obtained using conventional MALDI. This work demonstrates the vast potential of MALDI-2-MSI in pharmaceutical research and drug development and provides a valuable tool to broaden the application areas of MSI. Finally, in an effort to understand the ionization mechanism, we provide the first evidence that the preferential formation of M + H+ ions with MALDI-2 has no obvious correlation with the gas-phase proton affinity values of the analyte molecules, suggesting, as with MALDI, the occurrence of complex and yet to be elucidated ionization phenomena.
We conducted the largest investigation of predisposition variants in cancer to date, discovering 853 pathogenic or likely pathogenic variants in 8% of 10,389 cases from 33 cancer types. Twenty-one ...genes showed single or cross-cancer associations, including novel associations of SDHA in melanoma and PALB2 in stomach adenocarcinoma. The 659 predisposition variants and 18 additional large deletions in tumor suppressors, including ATM, BRCA1, and NF1, showed low gene expression and frequent (43%) loss of heterozygosity or biallelic two-hit events. We also discovered 33 such variants in oncogenes, including missenses in MET, RET, and PTPN11 associated with high gene expression. We nominated 47 additional predisposition variants from prioritized VUSs supported by multiple evidences involving case-control frequency, loss of heterozygosity, expression effect, and co-localization with mutations and modified residues. Our integrative approach links rare predisposition variants to functional consequences, informing future guidelines of variant classification and germline genetic testing in cancer.
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•871 predisposition variants/CNVs discovered in 8% of 10,389 cases of 33 cancers•Pan-cancer approach identified shared variants and genes across cancers•33 variants affecting activating domains of oncogenes showed high expression•47 VUSs prioritized using cancer enrichment, LOH, expression and other evidence
A pan-cancer analysis identifies hundreds of predisposing germline variants.
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