Analyzing the Language of Food on Social Media

We investigate the predictive power behind the language of food on social media. We collect a corpus of over three million food-related posts from Twitter and demonstrate that many latent population characteristics can be directly predicted from this data: overweight rate, diabetes rate, political leaning, and home geographical location of authors. For all tasks, our language-based models significantly outperform the majority-class baselines. Performance is further improved with more complex natural language processing, such as topic modeling. We analyze which textual features have most predictive power for these datasets, providing insight into the connections between the language of food, geographic locale, and community characteristics. Lastly, we design and implement an online system for real-time query and visualization of the dataset. Visualization tools, such as geo-referenced heatmaps, semantics-preserving wordclouds and temporal histograms, allow us to discover more complex, global patterns mirrored in the language of food.Comment: An extended abstract of this paper will appear in IEEE Big Data 201

The Power of Words

Non-fiction by Geraldine Hingl

Some applications of separated flames to flame spectrophotometry

Imperial Users onl

No Detectable Fertility Benefit from a Single Additional Mating in Wild Stalk-Eyed Flies

Background: Multiple mating by female insects is widespread, and the explanation(s) for repeated mating by females has been the subject of much discussion. Females may profit from mating multiply through direct material benefits that increase their own reproductive output, or indirect genetic benefits that increase offspring fitness. One particular direct benefit that has attracted significant attention is that of fertility assurance, as females often need to mate multiply to achieve high fertility. This hypothesis has never been tested in a wild insect population.Methodology/Principal Findings: Female Malaysian stalk-eyed flies (Teleopsis dalmanni) mate repeatedly during their lifetime, and have been shown to be sperm limited under both laboratory and field conditions. Here we ask whether receiving an additional mating alleviates sperm limitation in wild females. In our experiment one group of females received a single additional mating, while a control group received an interrupted, and therefore unsuccessful, mating. Females that received an additional mating did not lay more fertilised eggs in total, nor did they lay proportionately more fertilised eggs. Female fertility declined significantly through time, demonstrating that females were sperm limited. However, receipt of an additional mating did not significantly alter the rate of this decline.Conclusions/Significance: Our data suggest that the fertility consequences of a single additional mating were small. We discuss this effect (or lack thereof), and suggest that it is likely to be attributed to small ejaculate size, a high proportion of failed copulations, and the presence of X-linked meiotic drive in this species

Condition-dependent mate preference in the stalk-eyed fly Cyrtodiopsis dalmanni

This thesis investigates whether female mate preference is dependent upon female morphology or condition using the stalk-eyed fly, Cyrtodiopsis dalmanni, as a model. Workers in the field of sexual selection are interested in evidence for this type of variation in mate preference because it is believed it may affect the rate of evolution of male trait and female preference and increase our understanding of the mechanistic nature of mate choice. Little is known or understood about variation in female mating preferences despite the great attention paid to mating systems. There is some evidence for genetic variation in female preference. There is more evidence for environmental factors affecting preference, with sources as diverse as morphological phenotype, predation risk, parasitism, copying, age and experience having been identified. The phenotype of females was manipulated in two ways. First by varying larval food density to create females that varied in eyespan. Second, adult females were fed a sucrose diet to create a transient reduction in nutrition. Both manipulations are likely to have depressed female condition. Female eyespan correlates with body size and thus with fecundity. The sucrose diet also reduced female fecundity by causing a reduction of egg production. Under both manipulations, females in lower condition (small eyespan or sucrose diet) were less choosy. Female C. dalmanni normally prefer large eyespan males. Eyespan-dependent mate choice is probably due to large eyespan females having better vision and so being better able to distinguish between male phenotypes. Diet-dependent mate choice is caused by females with reduced egg production having weaker mate choice. Further investigation of eyespan-dependent mate preference was made by mixing large and small eyespan females in the same cage to see whether there was competition between the two female phenotypes for mates. The results did not provide evidence that females competed for mates. In addition, the use of fluctuating asymmetry (FA) as a tool for conservation biologists monitoring endangered populations was evaluated. Fluctuating asymmetry in exaggerated sexual ornaments has been proposed to show a strong positive relationship with environmental stress. No evidence was found to support this theory

Modifying effect of obesity on the association between sitting time and incident diabetes in post-menopausal women

Objective: To evaluate the association between self-reported daily sitting time and the incidence of type II diabetes in a cohort of postmenopausal women. Design and Methods Women (N = 88,829) without diagnosed diabetes reported the number of hours spent sitting over a typical day. Incident cases of diabetes were identified annually by self-reported initiation of using oral medications or insulin for diabetes over 14.4 years follow-up. Results: Each hour of sitting time was positively associated with increased risk of diabetes (Risk ratio (RR): 1.05; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.02–1.08]. However, sitting time was only positively associated with incident diabetes in obese women. Obese women reporting sitting 8–11 (RR: 1.08; 95% CI 1.0–1.1), 12–15 (OR: 1.13; 95% CI 1.0–1.2), and ≥16 hours (OR: 1.25; 95% CI 1.0–1.5) hours per day had an increased risk of diabetes compared to women sitting ≤ 7 hours per day. These associations were adjusted for demographics, health conditions, behaviors (smoking, diet and alcohol intake) and family history of diabetes. Time performing moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity did not modify these associations. Conclusion: Time spent sitting was independently associated with increased risk of diabetes diagnosis among obese women— a population already at high risk of the disease

James Joyce\u27s Ulysses and World War I.

The final words of Ulysses underline the text\u27s position on the cusp of the pre- and postwar eras. Joyce was emphatic that Molly\u27s Yes be immediately followed by those crucial coordinates: centerlineTrieste--Zurich--Paris. centerline 1914-1921. Where does this unsettling epitaph point us? In the direction of history, clearly; we are nudged toward the text\u27s and its nail-paring creator\u27s autobiography. Even the shallowest knowledge of recent history will indicate the centrality of those towns, during those years, to all those wretched quarrels ... erroneouslv supposed to be about a punctilio of honour and a flag (526). Even the shallowest knowledge of recent history will make us aware that Ulysses\u27 initial plotting was done in one world and its final incarnation fixed in another. We reflexively turn those coordinates upon the foregoing text and try to gauge their significance. How might they have affected the narrative? Here I explain how World War I affected Ulysses in important ways which have yet to be critically explored. And I also explain how Ulysses reflects back upon that war and the culture it transformed. I first sketch James Joyce\u27s interest and involvement in World War I, an engagement with history that belies his later, self-conscious pose of aesthete. I then demonstrate specifically how the War, though anachronistic to the date of Bloomsday, is yet important to Ulysses\u27 theme, characters, tone. I explore how the war manifests itself in the book\u27s protagonists\u27, and their creator\u27s, new attitudes to heroism. I probe the war\u27s relation to Joyce\u27s new mechanics of plot and perspective. I examine how the War is evinced too in the theme of the Waste Land as it is sited in the book. I explain how the poignant sense of homelessness experienced by many characters within the book is related to the dislocation of space, time and meaning often experienced by participants and civilians during and after the war. Finally, I emphasize how the war manifests itself in Ulysses\u27 alternate site, the Dublin (f) abled by daughters of memory (20). This alternate site is characterized by stabilizing coordinates which provide a new grounding for postwar space and time. Joyce creates for his readers a comforting world within the text: thus Ulysses transcends the crisis of values which it simultaneously reveals