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"Johansson, Anna Maria"
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Spotify teardown : inside the black box of streaming music
Spotify provides a streaming service that has been welcomed as disrupting the world of music. Yet such disruption always comes at a price. This book contests the tired claim that digital culture thrives on disruption. Borrowing the notion of 'teardown' from reverse-engineering processes, a team of five researchers have playfully disassembled Spotify's product and the way it is commonly understood. Spotify has been hailed as the solution to illicit downloading, but it began as a partly illicit enterprise that grew out of the Swedish file-sharing community. Spotify was originally praised as an innovative digital platform but increasingly resembles a media company in need of regulation, raising questions about the ways in which such cultural content as songs, books, and films are now typically made available online. 'Spotify Teardown' combines interviews, participant observations, and other analyses of Spotify's 'front end' with experimental, covert investigations of its 'back end'. The authors engaged in a series of interventions, which include establishing a record label for research purposes, intercepting network traffic with packet sniffers, and web-scraping corporate materials. Their innovative digital methods earned them a stern letter from Spotify accusing them of violating its terms of use; the company later threatened their research funding. Thus, the book itself became an intervention into the ethics and legal frameworks of corporate behavior.
Book
Brain activations during execution and observation of visually guided sequential manual movements in autism and in typical development: A study protocol
Motor issues are frequently observed accompanying core deficits in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Impaired motor behavior has also been linked to cognitive and social abnormalities, and problems with predictive ability have been suggested to play an important, possibly shared, part across all these domains. Brain imaging of sensory-motor behavior is a promising method for characterizing the neurobiological foundation for this proposed key trait. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) developmental study, involving children/youth with ASD, typically developing (TD) children/youth, and neurotypical adults, will investigate brain activations during execution and observation of a visually guided, goal-directed sequential (two-step) manual task. Neural processing related to both execution and observation of the task, as well as activation patterns during the preparation stage before execution/observation will be investigated. Main regions of interest include frontoparietal and occipitotemporal cortical areas, the human mirror neuron system (MNS), and the cerebellum.
Journal Article
Influence of visual feedback, hand dominance and sex on individuated finger movements
The ability to perform individual finger movements, highly important in daily activities, involves visual monitoring and proprioception. We investigated the influence of vision on the spatial and temporal control of independent finger movements, for the dominant and non-dominant hand and in relation to sex. Twenty-six healthy middle-aged to old adults (M age = 61 years; range 46–79 years; females n = 13) participated. Participants performed cyclic flexion–extension movements at the metacarpophalangeal joint of one finger at a time while keeping the other fingers as still as possible. Movements were recorded using 3D optoelectronic motion technique (120 Hz). The movement trajectory distance; speed peaks (movement smoothness); Individuation Index (II; the degree a finger can move in isolation from the other fingers) and Stationarity Index (SI; how still a finger remains while the other fingers move) were extracted. The main findings were: (1) vision only improved the II and SI marginally; (2) longer trajectories were evident in the no-vision condition for the fingers of the dominant hand in the female group; (3) longer trajectories were specifically evident for the middle and ring fingers within the female group; (4) females had marginally higher II and SI compared with males; and (5) females had fewer speed peaks than males, particularly for the ring finger. Our results suggest that visual monitoring of finger movements marginally improves performance of our non-manipulative finger movement task. A consistent finding was that females showed greater independent finger control compared with males.
Journal Article
Development of Motor Imagery in School-Aged Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Longitudinal Study
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a diagnosis based on social communication deficits and prevalence of repetitive stereotyped behaviors, but sensorimotor disturbances are commonly exhibited. This longitudinal study aimed at exploring the development of the ability to form mental motor representations (motor imagery; MI) in 14 children with ASD and 17 typically developing (TD) children at 7, 8 and 9 years of age. MI was investigated using a hand laterality paradigm from which response times (RT) and error rates were extracted and compared with performance on a visually based mental rotation task (VI). A criterion task was used to ensure that the children could perform the task. The results showed wide performance variability in the ASD group with more failures than TD in the MI criterion task, especially at 7 years. For all age levels and both the MI and VI tasks, the error rates were significantly higher and RTs longer for the ASD group compared with TD. Signs of MI strategies were however noted in the ASD group as biomechanically constrained orientations had longer RTs than less constrained orientations, a RT pattern that differed from the VI task. The presence of MI in the ASD group was most evident at 9 years, but the error rates remained high at all ages, both in the MI and VI task. In comparison, the TD group showed stable MI strategies at all ages. These findings indicate that MI ability is delayed and/or impaired in children with ASD which may be related to difficulties performing required mental rotations.
Journal Article
Breeding practices and trait preferences of smallholder farmers for indigenous sheep in the northwest highlands of Ethiopia: Inputs to design a breeding program
The aim of this study was to identify breeding practices and trait preferences for indigenous sheep in three districts (Estie, Farta and Lay Gayient) located in the northwest highlands of Ethiopia. Questionnaire survey and choice experiment methods were used to collect data from 370 smallholder farmers. Respondents were selected randomly among smallholder farmers who own sheep in the aforementioned districts. A generalized multinomial logit model was employed to examine preferences for sheep attributes, while descriptive statistics and index values were computed to describe sheep breeding practices. Having the highest index value of 0.36, income generation was ranked as the primary reason for keeping sheep, followed by meat and manure sources. The average flock size per smallholder farmer was 10.21 sheep. The majority of the smallholder farmers (91%) have the experience of selecting breeding rams and ewes within their own flock using diverse criteria. Given the highest index value of 0.34, body size was ranked as a primary ram and ewe selection criteria, followed by coat color. Furthermore, choice modeling results revealed that tail type, body size, coat color, growth rate, horn and ear size have shown significant influences on smallholder farmers' preference for breeding rams (P<0.01). The part-worth utility coefficients were positive for all ram attributes except ear size. For breeding ewes, mothering ability, coat color, body size, lambing interval, growth rate, tail type and litter size have shown significant effects on choice preferences of smallholder farmers (P<0.05). Moreover, significant scale heterogeneity was observed among respondents for ewe attributes (P<0.001). Overall, the results implied that sheep breeding objectives suitable for the northwest highlands of the country can be derived from traits such as linear body measurement, weight and survival at different ages, and lambing intervals. However, selection decisions at the smallholder level should not only be based on estimated breeding values of traits included in the breeding objective but instead, incorporate ways to address farmers' preference for qualitative traits.
Journal Article
Genetic and phenotypic parameters for growth and lamb survival traits of Farta and their crosses with Washera sheep in northwest Ethiopia: Inputs to design of breeding programs
Genetic and phenotypic parameters were estimated for various traits of Farta and their crosses with Washera sheep in northwest Ethiopia. Data collected from 2015 to 2020 on 4318 lambs were used. A number of models were evaluated, all contained the direct additive animal genetic effect and then, either the maternal genetic or permanent environment or both effects. The estimates of direct heritability for birth weight, weaning weight, pre-weaning daily gain, six-month weight, yearling weight and pre-weaning lamb survival were 0.08 ± 0.03, 0.20 ± 0.05, 0.15 ± 0.05, 0.24 ± 0.06, 0.29 ± 0.14 and 0.14 ± 0.04, respectively. The maternal heritabilities were 0.29 ± 0.05, 0.31 ± 0.05, 0.40 ± 0.05, 0.15 ± 0.57 and 0.02 ± 0.15 for weaning weight, pre-weaning daily gain, six-month weight, yearling weight and pre-weaning lamb survival, respectively. Genetic correlation between birth weight and pre-weaning lamb survival was negative (−0.36 ± 0.22), implying heavier lambs have low pre-weaning survival. For the other pairs of traits, genetic correlations ranging from 0.10 ± 0.16 between yearling weight and pre-weaning lamb survival to 0.98 ± 0.01 between weaning weight and pre-weaning daily gain were estimated. Overall, the present study showed that heritability is more likely to be overestimated if the maternal genetic and permanent environment effects are not taken into account. Parameters estimated in the current study can be used to design sheep breeding programs.
Journal Article
Genome of the extinct Gotland cattle breed
Background
The extinct cattle breed Gotland cattle lived on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea until the beginning of the 1950s. We sequenced the genomes of two Gotland cattle isolated from skulls from a local museum on Gotland.
Results
The depth of coverage was 2.7X and 3.3X, respectively, with a breadth of coverage of 85% and 89%. Based on coverage of the sex chromosomes, both animals appeared to be female. We detected 19 million single nucleotide variants and 2.8 million indels in the joint dataset of Gotland cattle jointly called with modern Swedish cattle. In a principal component analysis, the two Gotland cattle placed the closest to Swedish Red cattle, rather than among the southern or northern traditional breeds. In terms of mitochondrial haplotypes, they were similar to clusters of related haplotypes involving multiple other breeds, including Swedish Mountain cattle, Swedish Red Polled and several Finnish cattle breeds.
Conclusions
In summary, our results suggest that Gotland cattle were genetically closer to the ancestors of Swedish Red cattle than to the extant traditional Swedish breeds.
Journal Article
Genetic diversity and recent ancestry based on whole-genome sequencing of endangered Swedish cattle breeds
Several indigenous cattle breeds in Sweden are endangered. Conservation of their genetic diversity and genomic characterization is a priority.
Whole-genome sequences (WGS) with a mean coverage of 25X, ranging from 14 to 41X were obtained for 30 individuals of the breeds Fjällko, Fjällnära, Bohuskulla, Rödkulla, Ringamåla, and Väneko. WGS-based genotyping revealed 22,548,028 variants in total, comprising 18,876,115 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and 3,671,913 indels. Out of these, 1,154,779 SNPs and 304,467 indels were novel. Population stratification based on roughly 19 million SNPs showed two major groups of the breeds that correspond to northern and southern breeds. Overall, a higher genetic diversity was observed in the southern breeds compared to the northern breeds. While the population stratification was consistent with previous genome-wide SNP array-based analyses, the genealogy of the individuals inferred from WGS based estimates turned out to be more complex than expected from previous SNP-array based estimates. Polymorphisms and their predicted phenotypic consequences were associated with differences in the coat color phenotypes between the northern and southern breeds. Notably, these high-consequence polymorphisms were not represented in SNP arrays, which are used routinely for genotyping of cattle breeds.
This study is the first WGS-based population genetic analysis of Swedish native cattle breeds. The genetic diversity of native breeds was found to be high. High-consequence polymorphisms were linked with desirable phenotypes using whole-genome genotyping, which highlights the pressing need for intensifying WGS-based characterization of the native breeds.
Journal Article
A Complex Genomic Rearrangement Involving the Endothelin 3 Locus Causes Dermal Hyperpigmentation in the Chicken
Dermal hyperpigmentation or Fibromelanosis (FM) is one of the few examples of skin pigmentation phenotypes in the chicken, where most other pigmentation variants influence feather color and patterning. The Silkie chicken is the most widespread and well-studied breed displaying this phenotype. The presence of the dominant FM allele results in extensive pigmentation of the dermal layer of skin and the majority of internal connective tissue. Here we identify the causal mutation of FM as an inverted duplication and junction of two genomic regions separated by more than 400 kb in wild-type individuals. One of these duplicated regions contains endothelin 3 (EDN3), a gene with a known role in promoting melanoblast proliferation. We show that EDN3 expression is increased in the developing Silkie embryo during the time in which melanoblasts are migrating, and elevated levels of expression are maintained in the adult skin tissue. We have examined four different chicken breeds from both Asia and Europe displaying dermal hyperpigmentation and conclude that the same structural variant underlies this phenotype in all chicken breeds. This complex genomic rearrangement causing a specific monogenic trait in the chicken illustrates how novel mutations with major phenotypic effects have been reused during breed formation in domestic animals.
Journal Article
Whole-Genome Resequencing of Worldwide Wild and Domestic Sheep Elucidates Genetic Diversity, Introgression, and Agronomically Important Loci
Abstract
Domestic sheep and their wild relatives harbor substantial genetic variants that can form the backbone of molecular breeding, but their genome landscapes remain understudied. Here, we present a comprehensive genome resource for wild ovine species, landraces and improved breeds of domestic sheep, comprising high-coverage (∼16.10×) whole genomes of 810 samples from 7 wild species and 158 diverse domestic populations. We detected, in total, ∼121.2 million single nucleotide polymorphisms, ∼61 million of which are novel. Some display significant (P < 0.001) differences in frequency between wild and domestic species, or are private to continent-wide or individual sheep populations. Retained or introgressed wild gene variants in domestic populations have contributed to local adaptation, such as the variation in the HBB associated with plateau adaptation. We identified novel and previously reported targets of selection on morphological and agronomic traits such as stature, horn, tail configuration, and wool fineness. We explored the genetic basis of wool fineness and unveiled a novel mutation (chr25: T7,068,586C) in the 3′-UTR of IRF2BP2 as plausible causal variant for fleece fiber diameter. We reconstructed prehistorical migrations from the Near Eastern domestication center to South-and-Southeast Asia and found two main waves of migrations across the Eurasian Steppe and the Iranian Plateau in the Early and Late Bronze Ages. Our findings refine our understanding of genome variation as shaped by continental migrations, introgression, adaptation, and selection of sheep.
Journal Article