̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Stanford ̽��ֱ��

Open-source toolkit helps developing countries meet demand for COVID-19 research and diagnostics

erh68 — Tue, 08 Dec 2020 00:22:13 +0000

High demand for millions of COVID-19 tests per day combined with a disrupted global supply chain has left many countries facing diagnostic shortages. In a recent Nature commentary, John Nkengasong, Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said, “the collapse of global cooperation [has] shoved Africa out of the diagnostics market....African countries have funds to pay for reagents but cannot buy them.”

Scientists across the world are therefore developing new tests that are faster, cheaper, adapted to needs of local health systems and easy to manufacture in order to overcome this challenge.

To enable scientists to access the research tools they need for their work, researchers from the Open Bioeconomy Lab at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, the Lab de Tecnología Libre at iBio/PUC Chile and the FreeGenes Project at Stanford Universit y teamed up with synthetic biology company Ginkgo Bioworks to design an open source toolkit that enables researchers to produce 16 of the most useful enzymes for a number of diagnostic techniques used to detect SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19.

“Designing the collections was a great collaborative effort between researchers with diverse expertise and different local needs for fighting the pandemic,” said Dr Chiara Gandini from Cambridge’s Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology. “We designed it with other biologists in mind, making it as easy as possible for them to reconfigure the toolkit for their requirements.”

̽��ֱ��‘Molecular Diagnostic Toolkit’ comprises ready-to-use DNA to produce enzymes including DNA polymerases and reverse transcriptases – the enzymes used in gold standard RT-qPCR tests. These enzymes are also useful for tests like LAMP, which is faster and simpler than RT-qPCR and is rapidly being adopted by more labs. Control DNA is also included in the toolkit to validate that tests will specifically detect SARS-CoV-2 but not closely related viruses.

̽��ֱ��Molecular Diagnostic Toolkit uses standard laboratory techniques to produce and purify the enzymes, but many researchers in the Global South work under challenging resource constraints and may need to adapt their work to the local availability of materials. They can therefore make use of the ‘E. coli Protein Expression Toolkit’: a collection of over 100 DNA parts that can be assembled in thousands of combinations to tailor the whole production process. For example, modules are included to bind enzymes to cellulose to develop paper-based tests or to activate enzyme production in cells using light from LEDs instead of expensive chemicals.

̽��ֱ��toolkit has been pre-ordered by over 34 labs from 16 countries, including Brazil, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Cameroon, Ethiopia, India and Vietnam.

“Having access to this palette of molecular tools is crucial for our region to fight any reagent supply shortages in the short-term, and to leverage technological autonomy in diagnostics and viral monitoring in the long term,” said Tamara Matute from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and iBio, who participated in the design of the collection. Matute’s colleague Isaac Núñez added that mechanisms like the open online community, Reclone Network, are also needed to enhance the usefulness of the collection through peer support including fostering “a collaborative community, crowd-sourced protocols and openly-shared resources.”

While the initial focus of the toolkit is to support research and development, the same DNA could be used to manufacture diagnostic kits with the correct processes and regulatory approvals in place. As it is open source, any company or institution is able to produce and commercialise enzymes from the toolkit. For example, LAMP enzymes will be manufactured at the Ethiopian Biotechnology Institute in a collaboration with the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge supported by the Cambridge-Africa Alborada Fund.

Dr Brook Esseye of the EBTi LAMP Initiative said, “this initiative will enhance local capacity for bio-manufacturing and strengthen partnerships among researchers in various countries so we can join hands to fight this global pandemic.”

Looking beyond COVID-19, local bio-manufacturing capacity could underpin other advances in biotechnology research, education and innovation.

“A resilient local supply chain for diagnostics is vital to future health security and pandemic preparedness,” said Dr Jenny Molloy, Shuttleworth Fellow at Cambridge’s Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology. “ ̽��ֱ��same enzymes used to detect COVID-19 can also detect malaria, typhoid and many other diseases. They can be applied in lots of other ways to make positive social and economic impact, including research to breed better crops, measuring the effect of conservation initiatives on biodiversity and tracking antibiotic resistance. This flexibility is why it is so important that key tools for biotechnology are accessible, used and useful for all researchers around the world.”

̽��ֱ��toolkit has been made freely available under the Open Material Transfer Agreement (OpenMTA), which gives explicit permission for recipients to distribute to other labs and to use the toolkit for commercial purposes, and can be ordered online via Stanford ̽��ֱ��’s Free Genes project.

Researchers and users of the toolkit are invited to share protocols, resources and advice via the Reclone Forum.

Researchers have developed a free, open-source toolkit that allows laboratories in developing countries to produce their own tools for COVID-19 research and diagnosis, without relying on an increasingly fractured global supply chain.

A resilient local supply chain for diagnostics is vital to future health security and pandemic preparedness

Jenny Molloy

NIAID

Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Cell ‘membrane on a chip’ could speed up screening of drug candidates for COVID-19

sc604 — Mon, 06 Jul 2020 07:57:17 +0000

̽��ֱ��researchers, from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, Cornell ̽��ֱ�� and Stanford ̽��ֱ��, say their device could mimic any cell type--bacterial, human or even the tough cells walls of plants. Their research recently pivoted to how COVID-19 attacks human cell membranes and, more importantly, how it can be blocked.

̽��ֱ��devices have been formed on chips while preserving the orientation and functionality of the cell membrane and have been successfully used to monitor the activity of ion channels, a class of protein in human cells which are the target of more than 60% of approved pharmaceuticals. ̽��ֱ��results are published in two recent papers in Langmuir and ACS Nano.

Cell membranes play a central role in biological signalling, controlling everything from pain relief to infection by a virus, acting as the gatekeeper between a cell and the outside world. ̽��ֱ��team set out to create a sensor that preserves all of the critical aspects of a cell membrane—structure, fluidity, and control over ion movement—without the time-consuming steps needed to keep a cell alive.

̽��ֱ��device uses an electronic chip to measure any changes in an overlying membrane extracted from a cell, enabling the scientists to safely and easily understand how the cell interacts with the outside world.

̽��ֱ��device integrates cell membranes with conducting polymer electrodes and transistors. To generate the on-chip membranes, the Cornell team first optimised a process to produce membranes from live cells and then, working with the Cambridge team, coaxed them onto polymeric electrodes in a way that preserved all of their functionality. ̽��ֱ��hydrated conducting polymers provide a more ‘natural’ environment for cell membranes and allows robust monitoring of membrane function.

̽��ֱ��Stanford team optimised the polymeric electrodes for monitoring changes in the membranes. ̽��ֱ��device no longer relies on live cells that are often technically challenging to keep alive and require significant attention, and measurements can last over an extended time period.

“Because the membranes are produced from human cells, it’s like having a biopsy of that cell’s surface - we have all the material that would be present including proteins and lipids, but none of the challenges of using live cells,” said Dr Susan Daniel, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Cornell and senior author of the ACS Langmuir paper.

“This type of screening is typically done by the pharmaceutical industry with live cells, but our device provides an easier alternative,” said Dr Róisín Owens from Cambridge’s Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, and senior author of the ACS Nano paper. “This method is compatible with high-throughput screening and would reduce the number of false positives making it through into the R&D pipeline.”

“ ̽��ֱ��device can be as small as the size of a human cell and easily fabricated in arrays, which allows us to perform multiple measurements at the same time,” said Dr Anna-Maria Pappa, also from Cambridge and joint first author on both papers.

To date, the aim of the research, supported by funding from the United States Defense Research Projects Agency (DARPA), has been to demonstrate how viruses such as influenza interact with cells. Now, DARPA has provided additional funding to test the device’s effectiveness in screening for potential drug candidates for COVID-19 in a safe and effective way.

Given the significant risks involved to researchers working on SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19, scientists on the project will focus on making virus membranes and fusing those with the chips. ̽��ֱ��virus membranes are identical to the SARS-CoV-2 membrane but don’t contain the viral nucleic acid. This way new drugs or antibodies to neutralise the virus spikes that are used to gain entry into the host cell can be identified. This work is expected to get underway on 1 August.

“With this device, we are not exposed to risky working environments for combating SARS-CoV-2. ̽��ֱ��device will speed up the screening of drug candidates and provide answers to questions about how this virus works,” said Dr Han-Yuan Liu, Cornell researcher and joint first author on both papers.

Future work will focus on scaling up production of the devices at Stanford and automating the integration of the membranes with the chips, leveraging the fluidics expertise from Stanford PI Juan Santiago who will join the team in August.

“This project has merged ideas and concepts from laboratories in the UK, California and New York, and shown a device that works reproducibly in all three sites. It is a great example of the power of integrating biology and materials science in addressing global problems,” said Stanford lead PI Professor Alberto Salleo.

References:
H-Y Liu et al. “Self-assembly of mammalian cell membranes on bioelectronic devices with functional transmembrane proteins.” ACS Langmuir (2020). DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.0c00804

A-M. Pappa et al. “Optical and Electronic Ion Channel Monitoring from Native Human Membranes.” ACS Nano (2020). DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.0c01330

Researchers have developed a human cell ‘membrane on a chip’ that allows continuous monitoring of how drugs and infectious agents interact with our cells, and may soon be used to test potential drug candidates for COVID-19.

This type of screening is typically done by the pharmaceutical industry with live cells, but our device provides an easier alternative

Róisín Owens

Susan Daniel/Cornell ̽��ֱ��

Schematic of membrane on a chip device

Yes

Vintage film reveals Antarctic glacier melting

sc604 — Tue, 03 Sep 2019 09:20:55 +0000

Newly digitized vintage film has doubled how far back scientists can peer into the history of underground ice in Antarctica, and revealed that an ice shelf on Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is being thawed by a warming ocean more quickly than previously thought. This finding contributes to predictions for sea-level rise that would impact coastal communities around the world.

̽��ֱ��researchers made their findings by comparing ice-penetrating radar records of Thwaites Glacier with modern data. Their results are reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“By having this record, we can now see these areas where the ice shelf is getting thinnest and could break through,” said lead author Dustin Schroeder from Stanford ̽��ֱ��, who led efforts to digitize the historical data from airborne surveys conducted in the 1970s. “This is a pretty hard-to-get-to area and we’re really lucky that they happened to fly across this ice shelf.”

Researchers digitized about 250,000 flight miles of Antarctic radar data originally captured on 35mm optical film between 1971 and 1979 as part of a collaboration between Stanford and the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. ̽��ֱ��data has been released to an online public archive through Stanford Libraries, enabling other scientists to compare it with modern radar data in order to understand long-term changes in ice thickness, features within glaciers and baseline conditions over 40 years.

Professor Julian Dowdeswell, Director of the Scott Polar Research Institute, a co-author of the paper, commented: “These early records of ice thickness provide an important baseline against which we can measure the rate of change of the Antarctic Ice Sheet over the past 40 or so years. ̽��ֱ��high-resolution digitization of these records crucially makes them available for a series of important investigations on aspects of Antarctic environmental change.”

̽��ֱ��information provided by historic records will help efforts like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its goal of projecting climate and sea-level rise for the next 100 years. By being able to look back 40 to 50 years at subsurface conditions rather than just the 10 to 20 years provided by modern data, scientists can better understand what has happened in the past and make more accurate projections about the future, Schroeder said.

“You can really see the geometry over this long period of time, how these ocean currents have melted the ice shelf – not just in general, but exactly where and how,” said Schroeder. “When we model ice sheet behaviour and sea-level projections into the future, we need to understand the processes at the base of the ice sheet that made the changes we’re seeing.”

̽��ֱ��film was originally recorded in an exploratory survey using ice-penetrating radar, a technique still used today to capture information from the surface through the bottom of the ice sheet. ̽��ֱ��radar shows mountains, volcanoes and lakes beneath the surface of Antarctica, as well as layers inside the ice sheet that reveal the history of climate and flow.

̽��ֱ��researchers identified several features beneath the ice sheet that had previously only been observed in modern data, including ash layers from past volcanic eruptions captured inside the ice and channels where water from beneath the ice sheet is eroding the bottom of ice shelves. They also found that one of these channels had a stable geometry for over 40 years, information that contrasts their findings about the Thwaites Glacier ice shelf, which has thinned from 10 to 33 percent between 1978 and 2009.

“ ̽��ֱ��fact that we were able to have one ice shelf where we can say, ‘Look, it’s pretty much stable. And here, there’s significant change’ – that gives us more confidence in the results about Thwaites,” Schroeder said.

̽��ֱ��scientists hope their findings demonstrate the value of comparing this historical information to modern data to analyse different aspects of Antarctica at a finer scale. In addition to the radar data, the Stanford Digital Repository includes photographs of the notebooks from the flight operators, an international consortium of American, British and Danish geoscientists.

“It was surprising how good the old data is,” Schroeder said. “They were very careful and thoughtful engineers and it’s much richer, more modern looking, than you would think.”

Reference:
Dustin M. Schroeder et al. ‘Multidecadal observations of the Antarctic ice sheet from restored analog radar records.’ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2019). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1821646116

Adapted from a Stanford press release.

A bold response to the world’s greatest challenge
̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is building on its existing research and launching an ambitious new environment and climate change initiative. Cambridge Zero is not just about developing greener technologies. It will harness the full power of the ̽��ֱ��’s research and policy expertise, developing solutions that work for our lives, our society and our biosphere.

Newly available archival film has revealed the eastern ice shelf of Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is melting faster than previous estimates, suggesting the shelf may collapse sooner than expected.

̽��ֱ��high-resolution digitization of these records crucially makes them available for a series of important investigations on aspects of Antarctic environmental change

Julian Dowdeswell

NASA

Thwaites Glacier

Yes

Molecular patterns could better predict breast cancer recurrence

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 18:18:50 +0000

In the first study of its kind, scientists at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, in collaboration with Professor Christina Curtis at Stanford ̽��ֱ��, examined the patterns of genetic changes within tumours from nearly 2,000 women with breast cancer and followed their progress over 20 years – including whether their cancer returned. They used this information to create a statistical tool that can better predict if, and when a women’s breast cancer could come back.

While the genetic analyses used in the study are too detailed for everyday use, the team are now working on a routine test that could one day help doctors offer women a more accurate prediction of if, and when, their disease may return. Although not available to patients yet, this means that in the future, treatments and follow-up can be tailored, improving women’s chances of survival.

Professor Carlos Caldas, lead researcher at the Institute, said: “Treatments for breast cancer have improved dramatically in recent years, but unfortunately for some women, their breast cancer returns and spreads, becoming incurable. For some, this can be many years later – but it’s been impossible to accurately predict who is at risk of recurrence and who is all clear.

“In this study, we’ve delved deeper into breast cancer molecular subtypes, so we can more accurately identify who might be at risk of relapsing and uncover new ways of treating them.”

Previous results from this group of researchers had already revealed that breast cancer isn’t just one disease, but instead could be classified into one of eleven different molecular subgroups.

̽��ֱ��latest findings highlight how these molecular subtypes have distinct clinical ‘trajectories’, which can’t be predicted by looking at commonly used characteristics (such as size, stage, oestrogen receptor (ER), or Her2 status) alone.

These clinical trajectories vary considerably, even between tumours that seem similar. For example, the team found, among women with a form of the disease called triple-negative breast cancer, there was a distinct subgroup whose outlook is initially poor, but for whom the disease is unlikely to come back in those who survived 5 years.

They also identified subgroups of women with oestrogen receptor-positive (ER+) tumours, who were at a higher risk of their cancer coming back up to 20 years after they were first diagnosed. Around 12,300 women in the UK could belong to one of these late relapse subgroups and therefore might benefit from longer courses of treatments such as tamoxifen, or more frequent check-ups

“We’ve shown that the molecular nature of a woman’s breast cancer determines how their disease could progress, not just for the first 5 years, but also later, even if it comes back.” said Dr Oscar Rueda, first author of the paper and senior research associate at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute. “We hope that our research tool can be turned into a test doctors can easily use to guide treatment recommendations.”

̽��ֱ��model also revealed how molecular subgroups could behave very differently if a patient’s cancer returns. They commonly spread to different parts of the body and some are more aggressive than others, affecting how much time women survive for following a relapse

Professor Karen Vousden, Cancer Research UK’s chief scientist, said: “This study provides some valuable new insights into how we might identify women whose breast cancer is likely to return.

“We’re still a way off being able to offer this type of detailed molecular testing to all women and we need more research to understand how we can tailor treatments to a patient’s individual tumour biology. But this is incredibly encouraging progress. One in seven women will get breast cancer in their lifetime in the UK, and we hope that research like this will mean that if faced with the disease, even more of our daughters and granddaughters will survive.”

In addition to developing an affordable test for future use in hospitals, Caldas’ team are also already investigating personalised treatment options for different breast cancer subtypes. ̽��ֱ��next steps will be to recruit patients onto different clinical trials depending on the molecular makeup of their tumour.

Catharine Scott, 51, from Cambridge, was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer in 2016. She had the molecular biology of her tumour analysed as part of the Personalised Breast Cancer Programme at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, which is part of Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. This programme aims to confirm whether women are receiving the best treatment for their tumour type, and if they might be eligible for a clinical trial should they relapse in the future.

Since finishing treatment, Catharine had one scare in the summer of 2018, but it was not a recurrence. She has annual check-ups and mammograms.

Catharine said: “I finished my treatment and found it very strange knowing I wouldn’t see anyone for a year. I was at the hospital every week, then every three, then suddenly that’s it. It’s quite scary and definitely a worry. I spoke to my consultant at the time and asked, ‘How likely am I to get this again?’

“They can tell you the risks and likelihood, and how things have been in the past. If they were able to make it more personalised that would be more reassuring. It would definitely be better than feeling you have to cross your fingers.

“I feel lucky to have been on the trials and I’m glad to be helping with research. Women in the past contributed to get treatment where it is today and I’m glad to be doing my bit for my daughter, for other women and for the future generations.”

Adapted from a press release from Cancer Research UK.

Reference:
Rueda, O., et al. Dynamics of breast cancer relapse reveal late recurring ER-positive genomic subgroups. Nature; 13 March 2019; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1007-8

̽��ֱ��genetic and molecular make-up of individual breast tumours holds clues to how a woman’s disease could progress, including the likelihood of it coming back after treatment, and in what time frame, according to a study published in Nature.

We can more accurately identify who might be at risk of relapsing and uncover new ways of treating them

Carlos Caldas

Yes

Meteorite impact turns silica into stishovite in a billionth of a second

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Oct 2015 12:49:29 +0000

̽��ֱ��Barringer meteor crater is an iconic Arizona landmark, more than 1km wide and 170 metres deep, left behind by a massive 300,000 tonne meteorite that hit Earth 50,000 years ago with a force equivalent to a ten megaton nuclear bomb. ̽��ֱ��forces unleashed by such an impact are hard to comprehend, but a team of Stanford scientists has recreated the conditions experienced during the first billionths of a second as the meteor struck in order to reveal the effects it had on the rock underneath.

̽��ֱ��sandstone rocks of Arizona were, on that day of impact 50,000 years ago, pushed beyond their limits and momentarily – for the first few trillionths and billionths of a second – transformed into a new state. ̽��ֱ��Stanford scientists, in a study published in the journal Nature Materials, recreated the conditions as the impact shockwave passed through the ground through computer models of half a million atoms of silica. Blasted by fragments of an asteroid that fell to Earth at tens of kilometres a second, the silica quartz crystals in the sandstone rocks would have experienced pressures of hundreds of thousands of atmospheres, and temperatures of thousands of degrees Celsius.

What the model reveals is that atoms form an immensely dense structure almost instantaneously as the shock wave hits at more than 7km/s. Within ten trillionths of a second the silica has reached temperatures of around 3,000℃ and pressures of more than half a million atmospheres. Then, within the next billionth of a second, the dense silica crystallises into a very rare mineral called stishovite.

̽��ֱ��results are particularly exciting because stishovite is exactly the mineral found in shocked rocks at the Barringer Crater and similar sites across the globe. Indeed, stishovite (named after a Russian high-pressure physics researcher) was first found at the Barringer Crater in 1962. ̽��ֱ��latest simulations give an insight into the birth of mineral grains in the first moments of meteorite impact.

Simulations show how crystals form in billionths of a second

̽��ֱ��size of the crystals that form in the impact event appears to be indicative of the size and nature of the impact. ̽��ֱ��simulations arrive at crystals of stishovite very similar to the range of sizes actually observed in geological samples of asteroid impacts.

Studying transformations of minerals such as quartz, the commonest mineral of Earth’s continental crust, under such extreme conditions of temperature and pressure is challenging. To measure what happens on such short timescales adds another degree of complexity to the problem.

These computer models point the way forward, and will guide experimentalists in the studies of shock events in the future. In the next few years we can expect to see these computer simulations backed up with further laboratory studies of impact events using the next generation of X-ray instruments, called X-ray free electron lasers, which have the potential to “see” materials transform under the same conditions and on the same sorts of timescales.

Simon Redfern, Professor in Earth Sciences, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

Inset image: Barringer meteor Crater, Arizona (NASA Earth Observatory).

̽��ֱ��opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author(s) and do not represent the views of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Simon Redfern from the Department of Earth Sciences discusses a study that has recreated the conditions experienced during the meteor strike that formed the Barringer Crater in Arizona.

United States Geological Survey/D. Roddy

Barringer Crater aerial photo

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Computers using digital footprints are better judges of personality than friends and family

fpjl2 — Mon, 12 Jan 2015 20:05:04 +0000

A new study, published today in the journal PNAS, compares the ability of computers and people to make accurate judgments about our personalities. People's judgments were based on their familiarity with the judged individual, while computer models used a specific digital signal: Facebook Likes.

̽��ֱ��results show that by mining Facebook Likes, the computer model was able to predict a person's personality more accurately than most of their friends and family. Given enough Likes to analyse, only a person's spouse rivalled the computer for accuracy of broad psychological traits.

Researchers at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Stanford ̽��ֱ�� describe the finding as an "emphatic demonstration" of the capacity of computers to discover an individual's psychological traits through pure data analysis, showing machines can know us better than we'd previously thought: an "important milestone" on the path towards more social human-computer interactions.

"In the future, computers could be able to infer our psychological traits and react accordingly, leading to the emergence of emotionally-intelligent and socially skilled machines," said lead author Wu Youyou, from Cambridge's Psychometrics Centre.

"In this context, the human-computer interactions depicted in science fiction films such as Her seem to be within our reach."

̽��ֱ��researchers say these results might raise concerns over privacy as such technology develops; the research team support policies giving users full control of their digital footprint.

In the study, a computer could more accurately predict the subject's personality than a work colleague by analysing just ten Likes; more than a friend or a cohabitant (roommate) with 70, a family member (parent, sibling) with 150, and a spouse with 300 Likes.

Given that an average Facebook user has about 227 Likes (and this number is growing steadily), the researchers say that this kind of AI has the potential to know us better than our closest companions.

̽��ֱ��latest results build on previous work from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, published in March 2013, which showed that a variety of psychological and demographic characteristics could be predicted with startling accuracy through Facebook Likes.

In the new study, researchers used a sample of 86,220 volunteers on Facebook who completed a 100-item personality questionnaire through the 'myPersonality' app, as well as providing access to their Likes.

These results provided self-reported personality scores for what are known in psychological practice as the 'big five' traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism— the OCEAN model. Through this, researchers could establish which Likes equated with higher levels of particular traits e.g. liking 'Salvador Dali' or 'meditation' showed a high degree of openness.

Users of the 'myPersonality' app were then given the option of inviting friends and family to judge the psychological traits of the user through a shorter version of the personality test. These were the human judges in the study—those listed on Facebook as friends or family expressing their judgement of a subject's personality using a 10-item questionnaire

Researchers were able to get a sample of 17,622 participants judged by one friend or family member, and a sample of 14,410 judged by two.

To gauge the accuracy of these measurements, the online personality judgements were corroborated with a meta-analysis of previous psychological studies over decades which looked at how people's colleagues, family and so on judge their personality. Researchers found their online values similar to the averages from years of person-to-person research.

In this way, the researchers were able to come up with accuracy comparisons between computer algorithms and the personality judgements made by humans. Given enough Likes, the computers came closer to a person's self-reported personality than their brothers, mothers or partners.

Dr Michal Kosinski, co-author and researcher at Stanford, says machines have a couple of key advantages that make these results possible: the ability to retain and access vast quantities of information, and the ability to analyse it with algorithms the techniques of 'Big Data'.

"Big Data and machine-learning provide accuracy that the human mind has a hard time achieving, as humans tend to give too much weight to one or two examples, or lapse into non-rational ways of thinking," he said. Nevertheless, the authors concede that detection of some traits might be best left to human abilities, those without digital footprints or dependant on subtle cognition.

̽��ֱ��authors of the study write that automated, accurate, and cheap personality assessments could improve societal and personal decision-making in many ways—from recruitment to romance.

" ̽��ֱ��ability to judge personality is an essential component of social living— from day-to-day decisions to long-term plans such as whom to marry, trust, hire, or elect as president," said Cambridge co-author Dr David Stillwell. " ̽��ֱ��results of such data analysis can be very useful in aiding people when making decisions."

Youyou explains: "Recruiters could better match candidates with jobs based on their personality; products and services could adjust their behaviour to best match their users' characters and changing moods.

"People may choose to augment their own intuitions and judgments with this kind of data analysis when making important life decisions such as choosing activities, career paths, or even romantic partners. Such data-driven decisions may well improve people's lives," she said.

̽��ֱ��researchers say that this kind of data mining and its inferences has hallmarks of techniques currently used by some digital service providers, and that—for many people— a future in which machines read our habits as an open book on a massive scale may seem dystopian to those concerned with privacy.

It's a concern shared by the researchers. "We hope that consumers, technology developers, and policy-makers will tackle those challenges by supporting privacy-protecting laws and technologies, and giving the users full control over their digital footprints," said Kosinski.

Take the Facebook personality test yourself here: applymagicsauce.com

Researchers have found that, based on enough Facebook Likes, computers can judge your personality traits better than your friends, family and even your partner. Using a new algorithm, researchers have calculated the average number of Likes artificial intelligence (AI) needs to draw personality inferences about you as accurately as your partner or parents.

People may choose to augment their own intuitions and judgments with this kind of data analysis when making important life decisions

Wu Youyou

Ksayer1

Facebook's Infection

Some example personality traits and associated Likes

Liberal & artistic	Shy & reserved	Cooperative	Calm & relaxed
TED	J-pop	Life of Pi	Ferrari
John Coltrane	Minecraft	the Bible	Volunteering
̽��ֱ��Daily Show	Wikipedia	smiling	Usain Bolt
Atheism	̽��ֱ��X-Files	Bourne Identity	Kayaking

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page. For image rights, please see the credits associated with each individual image.

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Assessing protected area effectiveness

bjb42 — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:00:59 +0000

̽��ֱ��new study disentangled the effects of regulations governing access in unprotected lands surrounding the 110,000 sq km protected area network on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Its results showed that measures of the effectiveness of protection differed according to the different land use regulations governing unprotected lands outside protected area boundaries.

̽��ֱ��study, led by Dr David Gaveau of Stanford ̽��ֱ��, and co-authored by Professor Nigel Leader-Williams, a conservation scientist from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, introduces another twist in the tale of measurement bias. Its results show that controlling for geographic access alone is not enough to remove all measurement biases, which may have led to over-estimating the effectiveness of protected areas because they did not control for government-sanctioned access such as conversion to industrial-scale oil palm or rubber plantations.

Nigel Leader-Williams, Director of Conservation Leadership in the Department of Geography at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge adds: “Just as deforestation rates in remote protected areas should not be compared with deforestation rates from more accessible and lower altitude unprotected areas, it is also critical to control for government-mediated access in the form of regulations governing unprotected lands.”

Said David Gaveau “These new findings call into question the conclusions reached by previous studies on the effectiveness of protected area performance that have not controlled for regulations governing access to unprotected lands. As governments continue to sanction access to industrial agriculture across the tropics, this method should become an essential component of land use change research evaluating the effectiveness of protected areas.”

Such measurements have great importance for future conservation policy. Across the tropics, governments sanction access to large scale, industrial plantations causing considerable loss of natural forests and wildlife habitats. Initiatives, such as REDD, or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, propose a set of steps to provide financial incentives to reduce greenhouse gasses associated with deforestation. ̽��ֱ��new study will help provide baselines for allocating funds from REDD and assessing the effectiveness of such conservation efforts in the future. REDD policies are vital to countries such as Indonesia, where deforestation intensified in the 1970’s and has accelerated since. ̽��ֱ��estimated forest cover on Indonesia decreased from 170 million ha in 1900 to about 98 million ha by the 1990’s. At this rate, the tropical rainforest on Indonesia could be completely logged out in another 10 years, unless the remaining forests can be protected more effectively.

Early assessments of protected area effectiveness typically measured and compared deforestation rates inside and outside protected area boundaries. However, these early assessments did not control for the ease of access, since much of the global protected area network lies “high and far” in steeper foothills and mountains, where it is less easy to cut down the forest than in flatter lowlands outside protected area boundaries. Therefore, researchers such as Dr Lucas Joppa, currently based at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, developed sophisticated statistical tools to remove this measurement bias, by controlled for geographic access. This new study has taken approaches to measuring protected area effectiveness on to the next stage.

Article published Conservation Letters, entitled: Examining protected area effectiveness in Sumatra

A new study published in Conservation Letters aims to measure whether parks and reserves in the tropics succeed in protecting forests.

Just as deforestation rates in remote protected areas should not be compared with deforestation rates from more accessible and lower altitude unprotected areas, it is also critical to control for government-mediated access in the form of regulations governing unprotected lands.

Professor Nigel Leader-Williams

Neil Ennis from Flickr

rainforest canopy

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Assessing protected area effectiveness