News Feeds Research Articles

Strengthening the European Union by Regulating the Digital Single Market

Polarization of the society is nowadays easier than ever due to the strong influence of social media. Opaque algorithms personalize news feed of users through massive data processing and thus creating effects that are fueling extremization of opinions. Negative effects of social media can be used by third parties to influence society to achieve their goals, however antidemocratic. Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act aim to regulate Digital Single Market through fair competition and consumer protection regulation. This regulation can have significant impact on the democratic deficit of the European Union as it has potential to eradicate analyzed negative effects of social media on the polarization of society.

How Can Publishers Collaborate and Compete with News Aggregators?

Publishers face an existential threat from a variety of news aggregators, such as free aggregators (e.g., Google News, Yahoo News), micropayment-facilitating aggregators (e.g., Blendle), and subscription-charging aggregators (e.g., Apple News+). The authors seek to theoretically examine whether publishers can collaborate and compete with the different types of news aggregators and, if so, what pricing and content-sharing strategies publishers should pursue. In the absence of a news aggregator, publishers sell their content as a composite publication; this intensifies interpublisher price competition and hurts publishers’ profits. A free aggregator, however, could help unbundle the articles of a publisher. Moreover, if publishers share articles on the same topic with a free aggregator, they can completely eliminate interpublisher competition and replace it with competition between the aggregator and the publishers, but they only partially eliminate interpublisher competition if they share articles on different topics with it. Yet, the free aggregator needs to bring sufficient additional traffic to the publishers to motivate them to share content and collaborate with it. Conversely, publishers will be willing to collaborate with a micropayment-facilitating aggregator even if it does not bring additional traffic to the publishers. This is because a micropayment-facilitating aggregator helps publishers unbundle their content and price discriminate. Lastly, publishers can be motivated to collaborate even with a subscription-charging aggregator that is powerful enough to dictate the terms of the revenue-sharing arrangement with the publishers. This is because the subscription-charging aggregator improves its profits without hurting the publishers’ surplus.

Indonesia's Economic Diplomacy in Facing Red (Renewable Energy Directive) and European Union Palm Oil Policy

This study aims to examine Indonesia's economic diplomacy efforts in dealing with the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) and palm oil policies in the European Union. This economic diplomacy effort is a step to deal with the impact caused by policies implemented by the European Union. The method used is descriptive qualitative with data collection techniques in the form of literature review related to the problem under study. This literature includes books, journals, written reports, articles, news collections on the internet, and documents related to the object of research. Furthermore, the data analysis technique used is qualitative. The results found that in dealing with the policy, Indonesia used commercial diplomacy by cooperating with stakeholders to form FoKSBI, as well as making ISPO policies and suing the European Union regarding its claims

CONSTRUING THE NUCLEAR THREAT: The Relevance of Deterrence Theory in the Russia-Ukraine Conflict

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine was heating up. Russian military attacks succeeded in taking control of Zaporizhzhia, the major Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant. This mastery drew world criticism, especially from the West with its NATO, and was responded to by Russia by threatening to use nuclear weapons if another country intervened in the conflict. Threat imposed by Russia is relevant to be assessed by employing the Deterrence Theory. The aim of this study is to analyze and describe the relevance of the Deterrence Theory amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict. More specifically, this study is to conceive the possibility of the outbreak of nuclear war amidst the Russian threat. Qualitative methods are used in this research. The interpretation of the data becomes the basis for the analysis that comes from a series of interviews and based on literature studies. Collection of previous reference journals, books, and news from internet sources, all of which are used as secondary data. Conclusion of this study, bearing in mind mass destruction possibly caused by nuclear war, the outbreak of nuclear war between Russia and the NATO alliance is unlikely. The threats and bluffs paid off, at least for a time.

Civil-Military Collaborative Governance Model in Natural Disaster Management in National Defense Policy

By understanding that disasters are everyone's business, disasters are not only a civil matter, but the involvement of the military is necessary. Civil-military collaboration has proven capable of speeding up disaster management so that the number of victims and damage can be minimized. MOOTW (Military Operations Other Than War) can be carried out in harmony with social, technological and knowledge changes in society and provide cooperative assistance in disaster management. The aim of this study is to conduct an analysis and elaborate on the importance of Collaborative Governance in strengthening defense policies in disaster management. Qualitative methods are used in this research. The interpretation of the data becomes the basis for the analysis that comes from a series of interviews and based on literature studies. Collection of previous reference journals, books, and news from internet sources, all of which are used as secondary data. Conclusion of this study, Collaborative Governance in efforts to deal with natural disasters has been relatively good. However, several obstacles were found and it is hoped that this can be used as evaluation material for the future.

Artificial Intelligence and Autonomy: On the Ethical Dimension of Recommender Systems

Feasting on a plethora of social media platforms, news aggregators, and online marketplaces, recommender systems (RSs) are spreading pervasively throughout our daily online activities. Over the years, a host of ethical issues have been associated with the diffusion of RSs and the tracking and monitoring of users’ data. Here, we focus on the impact RSs may have on personal autonomy as the most elusive among the often-cited sources of grievance and public outcry. On the grounds of a philosophically nuanced notion of autonomy, we illustrate three specific reasons why RSs may limit or compromise it: the threat of manipulation and deception associated with RSs; the RSs’ power to reshape users’ personal identity; the impact of RSs on knowledge and critical thinking. In our view, however, notwithstanding these legitimate concerns, RSs may effectively help users to navigate an otherwise overwhelming landscape. Our perspective, therefore, is not to be intended as a bulwark to protect the status quo but as an invitation to carefully weigh these aspects in the design of ethically oriented RSs.

Blame the Internet, Not Online News Aggregators

“Facebook is not compatible with democracy,” declared Representative David Cicilline (D-R.I.) on Twitter. One might think that the Congressman was announcing the results of an investigation into the 2016 election when making that claim. Not so—the Congressman’s tweet was a reaction to Facebook’s decision to halt the sharing of news on its platform in Australia. According to Representative Cicilline, Facebook’s decision to forego carrying news links on its website to avoid paying a new tax to publishers was the equivalent of “bring[ing] an entire country to its knees.” Really?
 Australia’s link tax is one of many recent policy proposals that places online news aggregators such as Facebook in their crosshairs. In the quest to take on “Big Tech,” legislators and regulators have armed themselves with privacy law, antitrust law, copyright law, and, in a few states, even the Constitution. Moves to reduce the influence of technology platforms on the news require us to take a step back and consider whether we have accurately identified the causes of the challenges faced by the news media. Absent a clear-eyed understanding of the forces at play, any so-called solutions will surely miss the mark.
 This essay argues that is exactly what is happening. The real problem for news publishers is the internet itself, not online news aggregation. If anything, online news aggregation is a force that works in favor of news publishers by driving traffic to them that they can monetize through advertising, subscriptions, or both. Once that is understood, it becomes clear that current policy proposals that intend to force online aggregators to pay publishers to link to their content fail to grasp the economic relationship between news aggregators and news platforms and are ultimately counterproductive.

Abundance, range and movements of a feeding aggregation of gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) from California to southeastern Alaska in 1998

This study documents the range, abundance and movements of a feeding aggregation of gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) in the Pacific northwest. Identification photographs were collected by eight collaborating organisations between March and November 1998. Surveys extended between northern California and southeastern Alaska. Effort was variable by region and was concentrated off the northern Washington coast and Vancouver Island. Of 1,242 occasions when suitable photographs of gray whales were obtained in 1998, 155 unique whales were identified. Each individual was photographed an average of 8.0 times (SD = 8.4, range 1-42) and the average tenure of whales seen multiple times was 56 days (SD = 41, range 1-170). Whales seen longer than three months generally were seen in multiple regions. Movements among regions in 1998 were documented for 57 whales with the most frequent interchange among three adjacent areas from northern Washington to central Vancouver Island. The overall pattern of movements among regions was complex; whales were not always moving in the same direction at the same time of year. Movements within 1998 among more distant locations did occur but were less frequently observed. Total distances between resighting positions for individual whales ranged from < 1 to 526 n.miles. Most whales photographed in 1998 had been identified in previous years when compared to photographs collected by some of the collaborators. At least 86 (55%) of the whales identified had been seen previously. The rate of inter-year resightings was highest for whales identified off northern Washington and three areas off British Columbia (from southern Vancouver Island to north of Vancouver Island). In these areas, from 70-100% of the whales seen in each region had been photographed previously. Mark-recapture abundance estimates based on comparisons to samples in 1996 and 1997 were 181 and 179, respectively. The management implication for these whales has become controversial due to the resumption of whaling by the Makah tribe in northern Washington, an area used by both migrating and feeding whales. This research shows that there are a few hundred gray whales that range in summer months from at least northern California to southeastern Alaska. The mechanism by which these animals are recruited into this group and the degree to which they should be managed as a separate unit from the overall population is not resolved.

Cover

On the Cover: Centre: Pinus cembra L. is an enigmatic closed-cone pine of the timberline ecotone in the European Alps and the Carpathian Mountains; photograph by Felix Gugerli; pp. 1049–1062. Top right: Feeding aggregation of coney (Cephalopholis fulva, Epinephelidae) in tropical rocky reefs of Fernando de Noronha Archipelago, northeast Brazil; photograph by João Paulo Krajewski; pp. 1163–1176. Top left: Euhadra peliomphala simodae (Jay, 1856) inhabit the southern part of the Izu Peninsula and the Izu Islands in Japan; their great diversity of shell colour is attributed to differences in island elevation; photograph by Shun Ito; pp. 1103–1116. Bottom left: The biodiversity of an aquatic ecosystem is encompassed in the transient traces of environmental DNA left behind by the inhabitants; illustration by Laura L. Hauck; pp. 1151–1162. Bottom right: This circular logo graced the cover of the first issue (March 1974) and initial 14 volumes of the Journal of Biogeography; the golden text celebrates the journal's five decades and 50th anniversary.

Evaluation of the Brazilian Portuguese version of linguistic inquiry and word count 2015 (BP-LIWC2015)

Text psycholinguistic features are a valuable source for various research topics since they are used to obtain psychological, social, and linguistic aspects from written texts using dictionary files. These files are structured in categories, which are defined as groups of dictionary words that tap a particular domain (e.g., negative emotion words). The Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC) is a vastly used and versatile computer-based language analysis tool designed for text psycholinguistic analysis. The most recent version of the default English dictionary is LIWC2015, as it was released with the 2015 version of the LIWC software. The literature has recently introduced the latest Brazilian Portuguese LIWC dictionary (BP-LIWC2015), developed with the same categories as the LIWC 2015 English dictionary. However, the literature has also reported the need to evaluate BP-LIWC2015. In this scenario, this work investigates three questions: (i) Since LIWC2015 shows consistent improvements over the English dictionary developed in 2007 (LIWC2007), does BP-LIWC2015 achieves better text classification results than the older Brazilian Portuguese dictionary (BP-LIWC2007)? (ii) What is the equivalence between BP-LIWC2015 and BP-LIWC2007 with LIWC2015? (iii) Are there significant differences between Brazilian Portuguese dictionaries? To answer these questions, we conducted text classification experiments with four datasets and seven classification algorithms to compare the two Brazilian Portuguese LIWC dictionaries reported in the literature (i.e., 2007 and 2015). Second, we used a bilingual Portuguese-English scientific news collection to analyze the correlation between LIWC2015 and Brazilian Portuguese LIWC dictionaries. The results indicate that BP-LIWC2015 outperforms the older version in Brazilian Portuguese text classification. Finally, we found a more significant correlation between BP-LIWC2015 and the original English dictionary than the older version.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Synthesized feature learning model on news aggregator for chatbot

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Synthesized feature learning model on news aggregator for chatbot

Implementation of Newsly Aggregator using Django Framework

The newsly web is a platform where we are filtering, aggregating news and providing the information or news for user friendly experience at one place. Newsly aggregator is a very simple and user-friendly application. In a news aggregator, user can select the websites user want to follow. Visiting many separate websites frequently to find out if the content on the site has been updated can take a long time. Newsly Aggregation technology helps to consolidate many websites into one page that can show only the new or updated information from many sites. Newsly Aggregators reduce the time and effort. News and providing the content for user friendly experience at one place In Newsly we have used HTML, CSS, JavaScript and bootstrap for the front End. We use crispy forms python, Django for the back-end support. This paper will explore the advancements in AI and NLP that are expected to shape the future, as well as the potential implications of human interaction

Rail News From 1912

News from the archives The issue suggests a small collection of news from the Zheleznodorozhnoe delo [Rail Business] journal, that had reproduced them from other media of that period. The diversity of topics proves the existence of different issues that were relevant in 1912: adoption of round trips – similar to modern reduced fares for purchase of two way ticket, discussion of timeliness of emergence of rail bus in the Far East, accession of future Moscow Institute of Railway Engineers (now – Russian University of Transport) to the status of the institute of higher education. Style, lexis, punctuation are kept maximally authentic.

Detection and distribution of the North Atlantic capelin (Mallotus villosus) using environmental DNA—comparison with data from the main fishery management survey

AbstractCapelin (Mallotus villosus) is both an important commercial and ecological resource of the North Atlantic subpolar region. Two decades ago, the stock distribution around Iceland drastically changed. During autumn, which corresponds to the main feeding period, the capelin stock was previously located between the North of Iceland and the Jan Mayen area. Since the beginning of 2000s, the feeding aggregation has been located at the east coast of Greenland, inducing slight changes in the timing and route of the capelin spawning migration along the Icelandic shelf, and therefore in the catches. Changes in the distribution of capelin around Iceland made it both more difficult and expensive to assess the distribution of the stock with current survey methods. Here, we compare environmental DNA (eDNA) data to the acoustic data collected during the autumn monitoring survey, which leads to a preliminary estimation of the stock size. eDNA samples were collected at five different depths and were analyzed both horizontally across latitudes and longitudes and vertically across depth profiles. We detected eDNA in most of the locations where acoustic data detected capelin. Generalized linear models suggested that eDNA concentrations can be used as a proxy for the detection and quantification of capelin. The horizontal distribution of eDNA observed during both years corresponds with the horizontal distribution of capelin registered with the acoustic approach, while the vertical distribution indicated both effects of oceanic currents and diel vertical migration on eDNA detection and quantification.

AUDITING FACEBOOK ALGORITHMS: THE ELAPSED EFFECTS OF FACEBOOK NEWS FEED TO ENGAGEMENT WITH GUARDIAN ARTICLES

In this paper, a proof-of-concept study is performed to validate the algorithmic auditing of Facebook News Feed. We tracked and documented public or otherwise known changes to the algorithms through Facebook public announcements, industry research, and information leaked to the press to parametrize a model that accounts for the variation in user engagement with Guardian news articles. To this end, we queried the Guardian API to collate a database of all Guardian articles published between 2010 and 2020 and subsequently queried the CrowdTangle API to retrieve Facebook engagement metrics for Guardian articles. We modeled this time series using time series analysis, including cross-correlation, anomaly detection, and granger causality tests to examine the relationship between changes to Facebook News Feed and engagement with Guardian articles over the past decade. Our results show that hard news items, particularly those classified in the section ‘News’ by the Guardian API, are significantly more likely to have been impacted by changes made to the News Feed Algorithm in the period. We conclude with a discussion on the asymmetric power exerted by social platforms on news organizations and the elapsed effects of algorithmic changes to website traffic, business models, and editorial decision-making in the news industry.

Distributed caching strategy for hot news propagation based on data engineering processing

In order to improve the performance of the hot news collection and propagation of hotspot news, we aim at improving the performance and solve the opinion collection and propagation bottleneck by analyzing the demand and framework of current hot news supported systems. Then, a corresponding opinion collection and propagation optimization framework and strategy are proposed with a distributed hotspot caching system is designed and implemented. On the basis of the existing distributed search engine, a cache server is added between the overall hotspot query processing server and each cluster sub‐query processing server, so that we can improve the caching and searching efficiency greatly. The experimental results show that after using the proposed distributed caching system and strategy for hot news propagation, the processing capacity of the hot news system has been greatly enhanced.

Internet service providers as subjects of prevention of sexual crime on the Internet

The subject of the article is the provisions of the legislation of the Russian Federation aimed at ensuring the sexual inviolability of a minor.The object of the research is the relations connected with ensuring the sexual inviolability of minors.The Internet serves as an additional tool that facilitates access to minors, their social pages, the impact on the psyche of minors, and the involvement of children in destructive groups. However, not all articles establishing criminal liability for violation of the sexual inviolability of children contain a qualifying feature - this is the use of the Network in the implementation of such activities. Thus, Art. 135 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which establishes criminal liability for committing indecent acts against minors, does not contain a qualifying feature - the commission of a crime through the use of the Internet.The organization of Internet relations on the Web is carried out by various Internet providers, whose activities are connected both with organizing the communications of network users and with ensuring the circulation of information on the Internet. Based on these theses, the article provides answers to such questions as can acts were committed with the help of Internet technologies to be qualified under Art. 135 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, is the use of Internet technologies by ISPs effective as a tool to combat crimes against the sexual integrity of minors carried out using the Web, and what legal and technical instruments will ensure the sexual integrity of children?The study showed that the norms of the Criminal Law aimed at preventing crimes related to the sexual inviolability of minors are also applicable to acts committed using the Internet. In accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation, violence can take the form of physical or mental impact on a person, carried out through the Internet. Regarding the possibility of committing indecent acts on the Web, it can also be concluded that such acts can be recognized as depraved, despite the absence of direct physical contact with the body of the victim.States use various methods for determining the content, recognizing images distributed on the Web. The most commonly used technological tool is the information monitoring method. However, the obligation to use this method, both in Russia and in European countries, is not provided for all types of hosting providers.In connection with the analysis of Russian legislation, we can conclude that the possibilities of such hosting providers as the owners of audiovisual services and news aggregators in the field of information monitoring remained unused. Thus, the Federal Law “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection” does not contain requirements for the owners of audiovisual services and news aggregators to conduct mandatory monitoring of information distributed on Internet platforms.The use of content filtering technology cannot be considered a panacea, but its mandatory use by various hosting providers will reduce the likelihood of distributing prohibited information.The requirement for the owners of social networks to monitor content by their users, defined by the Federal Law “On Information, Information Technologies, and Information Protection”, is only the first step taken towards reducing the volume of prohibited content posted on the Web. However, the requirements for the use of image and text recognition technologies by Internet providers remained outside.The article used the methods and techniques of formal logic - this is analysis and synthesis, analogy, comparison, hypothesis, proof in order to determine assumptions and find answers to the questions posed in the article.The study and comparative analysis of the practice of ensuring the safety of children from information posted on the Web, reflected in foreign studies, demonstrating possible solutions, made it possible to compare Russian experience with the experience of foreign colleagues and draw conclusions about approaches to solving the problems.The methods of forecasting and modeling are used for formulating possible ways to develop regulation and eliminate gaps in Russian legislation.

La Niña conditions influence interannual call detections of pygmy blue whales in the eastern Indian Ocean

Oceans across the globe are warming rapidly and marine ecosystems are changing as a result. However, there is a lack of information regarding how blue whales are responding to these changing environments, especially in the Southern Hemisphere. This is because long term data are needed to determine whether blue whales respond to variability in environmental conditions. Using over 16 years of passive acoustic data recorded at Cape Leeuwin, we investigated whether oceanic environmental drivers are correlated with the migration patterns of eastern Indian Ocean (EIO) pygmy blue whales off Western Australia. To determine which environmental variables may influence migration patterns, we modelled the number of acoustic call detections of EIO pygmy blue whale calls with broad and fine scale environmental variables. We found a positive correlation between total annual whale call detections and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycles and the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), with more whale calls detected during La Niña years. We also found that monthly whale call detections correlated with sea surface height around the hydrophone and chlorophyll-a concentration at a prominent blue whale feeding aggregation area (Bonney Upwelling) where whales feed during the summer before migrating up the west Australian coast. At the interannual scale, ENSO had a stronger relationship with call detections than IOD. During La Niña years, up to ten times more EIO pygmy blue whale calls were detected than in neutral or El Niño years. This is likely linked to changes in productivity in the feeding areas of the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean. We propose that in lower productivity years whales either skipped migration or altered their habitat use and moved further offshore from the hydrophones and therefore were not detected. The frequency and intensity of ENSO events are predicted to increase with climate change, which is likely to impact the productivity of the areas used by blue whales. These changes in productivity may affect the physical condition and reproductive success of individual whales. A reduction in reproductive success could have a significant impact on blue whale recovery from historical whaling and their ability to adapt to a changing environment.

A Development of an IoT-Based Connected University System: Progress Report.

In this paper, a report on the development of an Internet of Things (IoT)-based connected university system is presented. There have been multiple smart solutions developed at the university over recent years. However, the user base of these systems is limited. The IoT-based connected university system allows for integration of multiple subsystems without the need to implement all of them in the same environment, thus enabling end-users to access multiple solutions through a single common interface. The implementation is based on microservice architecture, with the focus mainly on system robustness, scalability, and universality. In the system design, four subsystems are currently implemented, i.e., the subsystem for indoor navigation, the subsystem for parking assistants, the subsystem for smart classrooms or offices, and the subsystem for news aggregation from university life. The principles of all implemented subsystems, as well as the implementation of the system as a web interface and a mobile application, are presented in the paper. Moreover, the implementation of the indoor navigation subsystem that uses signals from Bluetooth beacons is described in detail. The paper also presents results proving the concept of the Bluetooth-based indoor navigation, taking into account different placements of nodes. The tests were performed in a real-world environment to evaluate the feasibility of the navigation module that utilizes deterministic fingerprinting algorithms to estimate the positions of users' devices.

Commercial krill fishing within a foraging supergroup of fin whales in the Southern Ocean.

Commercial krill fishing within a foraging supergroup of fin whales in the Southern Ocean.