University of Nottingham

About: University of Nottingham is a education organization based out in Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Context (language use). The organization has 54772 authors who have published 119600 publications receiving 4227408 citations. The organization is also known as: The University of Nottingham & University College, Nottingham.

Platform capitalism: the intermediation and capitalization of digital economic circulation

Abstract: A new form of digital economic circulation has emerged, wherein ideas, knowledge, labour and use rights for otherwise idle assets move between geographically distributed but connected and interactive online communities. Such circulation is apparent across a number of digital economic ecologies, including social media, online marketplaces, crowdsourcing, crowdfunding and other manifestations of the so-called ‘sharing economy’. Prevailing accounts deploy concepts such as ‘co-production’, ‘prosumption’ and ‘peer-to-peer’ to explain digital economic circulation as networked exchange relations characterised by their disintermediated, collaborative and democratizing qualities. Building from the neologism of platform capitalism, we place ‘the platform’ – understood as a distinct mode of socio-technical intermediary and business arrangement that is incorporated into wider processes of capitalization – at the centre of the critical analysis of digital economic circulation. To create multi-sided markets and coordinate network effects, platforms enrol users through a participatory economic culture and mobilize code and data analytics to compose immanent infrastructures. Platform intermediation is also nested in the ex-post construction of a replicable business model. Prioritizing rapid up-scaling and extracting revenues from circulations and associated data trails, the model performs the structure of venture capital investment which capitalizes on the potential of platforms to realize monopoly rents.

Blood Pressure Reduction and Secondary Prevention of Stroke and Other Vascular Events A Systematic Review

Abstract: Background— High blood pressure is a risk factor for stroke recurrence. We assessed the effectiveness of lowering blood pressure in preventing recurrent vascular events in patients with previous stroke or transient ischemic attack. Summary of Review— We performed a systematic review and meta-regression of completed randomized controlled trials that investigated the effect of lowering blood pressure on recurrent vascular events in patients with prior ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke or transient ischemic attack. Trials were identified from searches of 3 electronic databases (Cochrane Library, EMBASE, MEDLINE). Seven randomized controlled trials, with 8 comparison groups, were included. Lowering blood pressure or treating hypertension with a variety of antihypertensive agents reduced stroke (odds ratio [OR], 0.76; 95% CI, 0.63 to 0.92), nonfatal stroke (OR, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.65 to 0.95), myocardial infarction (OR, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.63 to 0.98), and total vascular events (OR, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.66 to 0.95). No effect...

The Percentage of Words Known in a Text and Reading Comprehension.

Abstract: This study focused on the relationship between percentage of vocabulary known in a text and level of comprehension of the same text. Earlier studies have estimated the percentage of vocabulary necessary for second language learners to understand written texts as being between 95% (Laufer, 1989) and 98% (Hu & Nation, 2000). In this study, 661 participants from 8 countries completed a vocabulary measure based on words drawn from 2 texts, read the texts, and then completed a reading comprehension test for each text. The results revealed a relatively linear relationship between the percentage of vocabulary known and the degree of reading comprehension. There was no indication of a vocabulary “threshold,” where comprehension increased dramatically at a particular percentage of vocabulary knowledge. Results suggest that the 98% estimate is a more reasonable coverage target for readers of academic texts.

Screening ethnically diverse human embryonic stem cells identifies a chromosome 20 minimal amplicon conferring growth advantage

Abstract: The International Stem Cell Initiative analyzed 125 human embryonic stem (ES) cell lines and 11 induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell lines, from 38 laboratories worldwide, for genetic changes occurring during culture. Most lines were analyzed at an early and late passage. Single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis revealed that they included representatives of most major ethnic groups. Most lines remained karyotypically normal, but there was a progressive tendency to acquire changes on prolonged culture, commonly affecting chromosomes 1, 12, 17 and 20. DNA methylation patterns changed haphazardly with no link to time in culture. Structural variants, determined from the SNP arrays, also appeared sporadically. No common variants related to culture were observed on chromosomes 1, 12 and 17, but a minimal amplicon in chromosome 20q11.21, including three genes expressed in human ES cells, ID1, BCL2L1 and HM13, occurred in >20% of the lines. Of these genes, BCL2L1 is a strong candidate for driving culture adaptation of ES cells.