Sustainability marketing myopia: the lack of sustainability communication persuasiveness

Sustainability communication in accommodation businesses tends to be factual and descriptive, as companies are concerned with product-based messages that focus on what they do; they appear not to understand the potential benefits of constructing messages that would influence consumers to behave more sustainably, which is effectively sustainability marketing myopia. An analysis of 1,835 sustainability messages from award-winning businesses shows that messages communicate facts not emotions, and benefits for society as a whole rather than for the individual customer. The messages are explicit, but passive and not experiential hence they positively affect the cognitive but not the affective image of the business. The lack of message normalization and customer focus reinforces the image of sustainability being a niche concern. We reflect on the reasons for these shortcomings and highlight opportunities to improve persuasive communication, which we have now applied commercially in more than 400 website analyses and 60 training courses

Individual biases, cultural evolution, and the statistical nature of language universals: the case of colour naming systems

Language universals have long been attributed to an innate Universal Grammar. An alternative explanation states that linguistic universals emerged independently in every language in response to shared cognitive or perceptual biases. A computational model has recently shown how this could be the case, focusing on the paradigmatic example of the universal properties of colour naming patterns, and producing results in quantitative agreement with the experimental data. Here we investigate the role of an individual perceptual bias in the framework of the model. We study how, and to what extent, the structure of the bias influences the corresponding linguistic universal patterns. We show that the cultural history of a group of speakers introduces population-specific constraints that act against the pressure for uniformity arising from the individual bias, and we clarify the interplay between these two forces

Dynamic hierarchies in temporal directed networks

The outcome of interactions in many real-world systems can be often explained by a hierarchy between the participants. Discovering hierarchy from a given directed network can be formulated as follows: partition vertices into levels such that, ideally, there are only forward edges, that is, edges from upper levels to lower levels. In practice, the ideal case is impossible, so instead we minimize some penalty function on the backward edges. One practical option for such a penalty is agony, where the penalty depends on the severity of the violation. In this paper we extend the definition of agony to temporal networks. In this setup we are given a directed network with time stamped edges, and we allow the rank assignment to vary over time. We propose 2 strategies for controlling the variation of individual ranks. In our first variant, we penalize the fluctuation of the rankings over time by adding a penalty directly to the optimization function. In our second variant we allow the rank change at most once. We show that the first variant can be solved exactly in polynomial time while the second variant is NP-hard, and in fact inapproximable. However, we develop an iterative method, where we first fix the change point and optimize the ranks, and then fix the ranks and optimize the change points, and reiterate until convergence. We show empirically that the algorithms are reasonably fast in practice, and that the obtained rankings are sensible

Population mechanics: A mathematical framework to study T cell homeostasis

Unlike other cell types, T cells do not form spatially arranged tissues, but move independently throughout the body. Accordingly, the number of T cells in the organism does not depend on physical constraints imposed by the shape or size of specific organs. Instead, it is determined by competition for interleukins. From the perspective of classical population dynamics, competition for resources seems to be at odds with the observed high clone diversity, leading to the so-called diversity paradox. In this work we make use of population mechanics, a non-standard theoretical approach to T cell homeostasis that accounts for clone diversity as arising from competition for interleukins. The proposed models show that carrying capacities of T cell populations naturally emerge from the balance between interleukins production and consumption. These models also suggest remarkable functional differences in the maintenance of diversity in naïve and memory pools. In particular, the distribution of memory clones would be biased towards clones activated more recently, or responding to more aggressive pathogenic threats. In contrast, permanence of naïve T cell clones would be determined by their affinity for cognate antigens. From this viewpoint, positive and negative selection can be understood as mechanisms to maximize naïve T cell diversity

Multi-messenger observations of a binary neutron star merger

On 2017 August 17 a binary neutron star coalescence candidate (later designated GW170817) with merger time 12:41:04 UTC was observed through gravitational waves by the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors. The Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor independently detected a gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) with a time delay of ~1.7 s with respect to the merger time. From the gravitational-wave signal, the source was initially localized to a sky region of 31 deg2 at a luminosity distance of 40+8-8 Mpc and with component masses consistent with neutron stars. The component masses were later measured to be in the range 0.86 to 2.26 Mo. An extensive observing campaign was launched across the electromagnetic spectrum leading to the discovery of a bright optical transient (SSS17a, now with the IAU identification of AT 2017gfo) in NGC 4993 (at ~40 Mpc) less than 11 hours after the merger by the One- Meter, Two Hemisphere (1M2H) team using the 1 m Swope Telescope. The optical transient was independently detected by multiple teams within an hour. Subsequent observations targeted the object and its environment. Early ultraviolet observations revealed a blue transient that faded within 48 hours. Optical and infrared observations showed a redward evolution over ~10 days. Following early non-detections, X-ray and radio emission were discovered at the transient’s position ~9 and ~16 days, respectively, after the merger. Both the X-ray and radio emission likely arise from a physical process that is distinct from the one that generates the UV/optical/near-infrared emission. No ultra-high-energy gamma-rays and no neutrino candidates consistent with the source were found in follow-up searches. These observations support the hypothesis that GW170817 was produced by the merger of two neutron stars in NGC4993 followed by a short gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) and a kilonova/macronova powered by the radioactive decay of r-process nuclei synthesized in the ejecta

Mechanisms of T cell organotropism

F.M.M.-B. is supported by the British Heart Foundation, the Medical Research Council of the UK and the Gates Foundation

Co-targeting PIM and PI3K/mTOR using multikinase inhibitor AUM302 and a combination of AZD-1208 and BEZ235 in prostate cancer

PIM and PI3K/mTOR pathways are often dysregulated in prostate cancer, and may lead to decreased survival, increased metastasis and invasion. The pathways are heavily interconnected and act on a variety of common efectors that can lead to the development of resistance to drug inhibitors. Most current treatments exhibit issues with toxicity and resistance. We investigated the novel multikinase PIM/PI3K/mTOR inhibitor, AUM302, versus a combination of the PIM inhibitor, AZD-1208, and the PI3K/mTOR inhibitor BEZ235 (Dactolisib) to determine their impact on mRNA and phosphoprotein expression, as well as their functional efcacy. We have determined that around 20% of prostate cancer patients overexpress the direct targets of these drugs, and this cohort are more likely to have a high Gleason grade tumour (≥Gleason 8). A co-targeted inhibition approach ofered broader inhibition of genes and phosphoproteins in the PI3K/mTOR pathway, when compared to single kinase inhibition. The preclinical inhibitor AUM302, used at a lower dose, elicited a comparable or superior functional outcome compared with combined AZD-1208 +BEZ235, which have been investigated in clinical trials, and could help to reduce treatment toxicity in future trials. We believe that a co-targeting approach is a viable therapeutic strategy that should be developed further in pre-clinical studies