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Cross-correlations of American baby names.

ABSTRACT: The quantitative description of cultural evolution is a challenging task. The most difficult part of the problem is probably to find the appropriate measurable quantities that can make more quantitative such evasive concepts as, for example, dynamics of cultural movements, behavioral patterns, and traditions of the people. A strategy to tackle this issue is to observe particular features of human activities, i.e., cultural traits, such as names given to newborns. We study the names of babies born in the United States from 1910 to 2012. Our analysis shows that groups of different correlated states naturally emerge in different epochs, and we are able to follow and decrypt their evolution. Although these groups of states are stable across many decades, a sudden reorganization occurs in the last part of the 20th century. We unambiguously demonstrate that cultural evolution of society can be observed and quantified by looking at cultural traits. We think that this kind of quantitative analysis can be possibly extended to other cultural traits: Although databases covering more than one century (such as the one we used) are rare, the cultural evolution on shorter timescales can be studied due to the fact that many human activities are usually recorded in the present digital era.

SUBMITTER: Barucca P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4491744 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Cross-correlations of American baby names.

Barucca Paolo P Rocchi Jacopo J Marinari Enzo E Parisi Giorgio G Ricci-Tersenghi Federico F

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20150611 26

The quantitative description of cultural evolution is a challenging task. The most difficult part of the problem is probably to find the appropriate measurable quantities that can make more quantitative such evasive concepts as, for example, dynamics of cultural movements, behavioral patterns, and traditions of the people. A strategy to tackle this issue is to observe particular features of human activities, i.e., cultural traits, such as names given to newborns. We study the names of babies bor ...[more]

PMID: 26069207

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Project description:For more than 250 years, the taxonomic enterprise has remained almost unchanged. Certainly, the tools of the trade have improved: months-long journeys aboard sailing ships have been reduced to hours aboard jet airplanes; advanced technology allows humans to access environments that were once utterly inaccessible; GPS has replaced crude maps; digital hi-resolution imagery provides far more accurate renderings of organisms that even the best commissioned artists of a century ago; and primitive candle-lit microscopes have been replaced by an array of technologies ranging from scanning electron microscopy to DNA sequencing. But the basic paradigm remains the same. Perhaps the most revolutionary change of all - which we are still in the midst of, and which has not yet been fully realized - is the means by which taxonomists manage and communicate the information of their trade. The rapid evolution in recent decades of computer database management software, and of information dissemination via the Internet, have both dramatically improved the potential for streamlining the entire taxonomic process. Unfortunately, the potential still largely exceeds the reality. The vast majority of taxonomic information is either not yet digitized, or digitized in a form that does not allow direct and easy access. Moreover, the information that is easily accessed in digital form is not yet seamlessly interconnected. In an effort to bring reality closer to potential, a loose affiliation of major taxonomic resources, including GBIF, the Encyclopedia of Life, NBII, Catalog of Life, ITIS, IPNI, ICZN, Index Fungorum, and many others have been crafting a "Global Names Architecture" (GNA). The intention of the GNA is not to replace any of the existing taxonomic data initiatives, but rather to serve as a dynamic index to interconnect them in a way that streamlines the entire taxonomic enterprise: from gathering specimens in the field, to publication of new taxa and related data.

Project description:Podocyte effacement and loss characterizes glomerulopathies such as diabetic nephropathy, lupus, and glomerular toxicity. Human primary podocyte-like epithelial cells cultured from urine (ECU) were characterized as a window to understand podocyte regeneration in these glomerulopathies. Cytokines TNF, and VEGF stimulated regrowth, whereas FGF-1 and IL1 inhibited growth, consistent with other podocyte or parietal epithelial cell models. Review of published micrographs indicated that podocyte foot processes in rodent kidneys interdigitated exclusively with foot processes from other cells, suggesting podocytes practice self-avoidance. In culture, ECU avoided close interactions with other cells arising from the same clone, until enough cells grew for the culture to become confluent. In contrast, ECU derived from multiple clones associated actively to form contiguous monolayers. Gene expression profiling of eight clonal ECU colonies using RNA sequencing revealed that each colony expressed a highly variable profile of the 53 Protocadherin genes. Variable combinations of the 53 Protocadherin PCDHA-, PCDHB-, and PCDHG- gene products are known to act homophilically to direct self-avoidance interactions in human neurons, so PCDH- genes are postulated to govern self-avoidance similarly in podocytes. Such protocadherin profiles could be considered cell names. Transcriptional profiles of ECUs suggest they may represent intermediate stages of Parietal Epithelial Cells (PECs) differentiating into podocytes. They further suggest that each podocyte practices self-avoidance, interdigitating selectively with other cells in the glomerulus. To enable further investigation of multi-clonal podocyte interactions, five podocyte clones were immortalized using temperature-sensitive SV40 Large T antigen. These results suggest that non-self interdigitation of new podocytes with remnant podocytes may facilitate replacement of dying podocytes and re-establishment of a functional filtration barrier.

Dataset Information

Cross-correlations of American baby names.

Publications

Cross-correlations of American baby names.

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