Piece Of News Research Articles

Exploring Media Representations of Argentina's President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner

In the last decade, Latin America has seen several women taking up the top job. However, even as Presidents, far from being treated as equal with their male counterparts, they still suffer from media coverage filled with prejudice about their status as women. This article examines the media landscape portraying a woman in power; namely the president of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK), by looking at news pieces published in two main national Argentinean newspapers, Clarín and La Nación. In order to document this trajectory, I identify three “roles” that media assigns to CFK: the Stupid Girl, which accounts for the questionings of her validity as a candidate; the Wicked Widow, which speaks of CFK after her husband died in 2010 through the lens of a revival of that stereotype; and finally a role that arises from the moment in which CFK catches media attention by becoming the first lady in 2003, the Frivolous Diva. The first section briefly introduces CFK's trajectory as a prominent leader. Then, the body of the article discusses the three roles introduced earlier. Finally, the conclusion argues that despite the media's power, sometimes they fail at getting their message across, making obvious their gendered discursive operation.

Theory and practice in a science education course for elementary teachers

In this action research work, I analyze the theory–practice integration in teacher preparation within the context of a science and technology (S&T) education teaching methodology course aimed at future elementary teachers. The course was designed, developed and evaluated taking into account this relationship as one of its axes. The results reveal that the proposal favors progress in theory–practice integration and stimulates the students’ reflection and research. By means of a written report and an oral presentation, the students communicated their reflections on S&T teaching in the context of their concomitant professional practice. They also collected and presented resources and activities they found useful for teaching, practiced the use of certain educational S&T kits, and looked for and shared S&T pieces of news from different mass media. They additionally conducted a school learning project simulation and reflected on it. Besides, they prepared three written essays about theoretical–practical assigned readings and discussed them. In this paper, I refer to achievements and difficulties that emerged during the process, relating them to other research findings in the area and to theoretical considerations. Finally, I make proposals for further efforts in this field.

Posicionamiento y agrupación de la prensa española: Análisis de contenido de las noticias generadas en la Jornada Mundial de la Juventud 2011

In this paper we present a content analysis regarding the position held by several Spanish newspapers and press agencies concerning an international event; the World Youth Day 2011. Its main purpose is to analyse how different media positioned themselves when informing over such event by analyzing the frequency of negative terms in news pieces. To this end, word frequency analysis was applied to 4,860 news pieces, which were then processed through clustering techniques; Multidimensional Scaling and Hierarchical Ascendant Classification. Clustering analysis sheds light on the position of newspapers and their similarities. Results show differences in coverage and uses of keywords. We will find three main clusters of newspapers appear, according to their editorial lines.

Securing Digital Reputation in Online Social Media [Applications Corner

As computing and communication systems evolve rapidly and ubiquitously, it has become convenient and almost effortless for individual users to generate, share, and exchange information on online social media. Through online social media, a wide range of digital content, which covers blogging, forums, reviews, social networking, question-answer databases, digital video, mobile phone photography, and wikis, is created by users and has dramatically changed the way people work and interact. However, the simplicity of creating such digital content online has also led to an increase of users? concern about the trustworthiness of such information. To address the issue of trustworthiness, a widely recognized approach is to evaluate the quality of the online information based on feedback from large scale, virtual word-of-mouth networks where individuals share their own opinions and experiences. The aggregated result of such feedback is called digital reputation. Digital reputation has already been widely adopted by current online social media. For example, viewers on YouTube may ?like? or ?dislike? a video clip, buyers on Amazon share their purchasing experiences, travelers evaluate hotels or restaurants on Yelp, and readers can either ?dig? or ?bury? a piece of social news on Reddit. The reputation-based solution is playing an increasingly important role in influencing users? online social interactions. For example, eBay sellers with established reputations can expect about 8% more revenue than new sellers marketing the same goods [1]; the survey in [2] reveals that the services receiving five-star ratings will attract 20% more revenue than the same services receiving four-star ratings.

An Implementation of Document Image Reconstruction System on a Smart Device Using a 1D Histogram Calibration Algorithm

In recent years, the smart devices equipped with imaging functions are widely spreading for consumer application. It is very convenient for people to record information using these devices. For example, people can photo one page of a book in a library or they can capture an interesting piece of news on the bulletin board when walking on the street. But sometimes, one shot full area image cannot give a sufficient resolution for OCR soft or for human visual recognition. Therefore, people would prefer to take several partial character images of a readable size and then stitch them together in an efficient way. In this study, we propose a print document acquisition method using a device with a video camera. A one-dimensional histogram based self-calibration algorithm is developed for calibration. Because the calculation cost is low, it can be installed on a smartphone. The simulation result shows that the calibration and stitching are well performed.

The October issue of Medical Express

MedicalExpress is happy to announce the coming of its 5 issue, October 2014. This is where we move ahead towards accomplishing one more of our goals, which is to publish in continuous flow: following this editorial you have the first three original research articles of volume 1(5). Others will follow, as their processing becomes complete. The most significant piece of news at the time of writing is that MedicalExpress has now acquired the necessary credentials and has formally applied for indexation in SciELO, the Brazilian based Scientific Electronic Library Online. We expect to have news on this development before the end of this year. Our previous, 4 issue, dated August 2014, came out en bloc in July 11th. The 11 titles therein (8 original research articles, 3 reviews) were processed as shown in Table 1. We are moving towards our average goal of 10 articles per issue; our initial response time has remained quite steady whereas our interval between acceptance and publication has fallen to 44 days in the fourth issue. We expect to publish 11 articles in October totalizing 48 in the first five issues (9.6 articles per issue). The table does not show time from submission to publication, because this statistic includes time controlled by authors, not by the journal. The August issue was the largest, so far, with three reviews, seven original research papers and one rapid communication. Oliveira et al reviewed present state of the art technology for cerebrospinal shunt circuitry with emphasis on the development of last generation valves. Iuamoto et al reviewed available reports on the viability of islet allotransplantation in rats and the amelioration of survival with the use of the latest immunosuppressive agents. Campos reviews recent recommendations concerning the use of Chondroprotective agents in osteoarthritic patients and makes a strong case for their use despite negative recommendations by learned international rheumatologic institutions Gotfryd et al retrospectively evaluated back pain in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis and conclude that spinal arthrodesis is efficient for patients with Cobb angles greater than 45 degrees. Andreia Silva et al retrospectively analyzed immunophenotype of lung granulomas in HIV and in non-HIV associated tuberculosis and concluded that the advent of AIDS changed the immunological profile, probably because of CD4 þ lymphocyte depletion. Valenti et al examined the effect of cigarette smoke on the general activity and anxiety of rats and found that exposure to smoke affetcs their performace in open field tests. Tavares et al evaluated the pattern of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring in children with dilated cardiomyopathy and found (a) that arterial pressure is similar to that in normal children, but (b) that cardiopathic children with low ejection fraction exhibited a lower dipping pattern. Gomes et al described and tested a new protocol of regular aerobic training and its effect as an anxiolytic for panic disorder and concluded that the protocol is safe and potentially useful. Plassa et al examined cardiac autonomic responses to musical stimulation with a baroque piece by Pachelbel and report that subjects with affinity to classical music exhibited altered autonomic responses, whereas subjects with no affinity remained unaffected. Coqueiro et al examined the relation between anthropometric indicators and serum triglycerides and conclude that the best indicators differ between men and women; for both sexes, body mass index, calf circumference and triceps skinfold thickness were found to be the best predictors. Koike et al described an ingenious new technique for evaluating aortic valve function in rats with experimental aortic valve insufficiency. The new technique allows for acute and chronic evaluation of cardiac function following the placement of the lesion. Once again we invite readers to submit their research to MedicalExpress. We provide quality revision and speed of publication second to few in the world, second to none in Brazil.

AAAS misses opportunity to advance open access

AAAS misses opportunity to advance open access

Uso de secuencias de película para ilustrar noticias por los servicios informativos de una emisora de televisión regional

A quantitative and thematic study of the use of film sequences in television news editing has been performed. Only cases where films illustrate news pieces about non-cinema related topics were taken into consideration. The basic legal aspects about the use of these sequences are mentioned. The study results can help in the decision-making process about tasks related to the analysis of trailers and electronic press kits. In recent years, there has been a steady increase in the use of film clips in the news, especially on issues of “Society” (40% of total). The results show that 20% of the use is as a metonymic function (when one element is replaced for another with which it has a close relationship, causal, spatial or temporal, and the pictures do not show the narrative element but something that is part of it, such as replacing an author for his work) and 80% environmental or illustrative (supporting the information offered). When extracts do not exceed 20 seconds, may be used without legal permission, what is known as a fair use chrestomathy.

Press and social networking services in the internet: approaches to the relations of two Argentine online newspapers with Facebook and Twitter

This article describes the incorporation of the social networks resources on Internet into digital interfaces of the two main Argentine newspapers, Clarín and La Nación, as well as the ways in which these online newspapers manage and use their official accounts on Facebook (FB) and Twitter (TW). Such reflections are part of the first stage of a research project which aims to understand the relationship established, at present, between digital media and social networking, to account for the impact of the latter both the link to the press with his readership as in the press-public sphere relationship. As we have seen until now, these observed online newspapers use their official accounts on FB and TW for several purposes: to get viral spread of content; to establish a direct contact with the public; to get the audience involved and encourage their participation; to consolidate their own positions into the social networks; and to get users to control the quality of his speeches on the Internet. Besides, the incorporation of the social networks resources on these online newspapers would impact, specially, on news circulation process since a piece of news is no longer a stable unit and gets modified as the story travels through Internet social networks.

A bio-objects approach to biosecurity: the “mutant flu” controversy as a bio-objectification process

The governance of biological emergencies has been an important issue during the last decade. Much policy work has been done on the topic, aiming at covering the necessities associated to bio-preparedness – ie, preparedness for biological threats. In this context, there is a lot to be said and understood by looking at emerging biological entities, such as new viruses or bacteria. Some of the most important international organizations worry about this issue: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), World Health Organization (WHO), or European Union (EU) have specific sections specialized in dealing with this matter. Such concern has been fed by the expert opinion asserting that a big pandemic is imminent. This is based on several developments that have taken place during the last decades: the 80s saw the expansion of Ebola and HIV, and the 90s and 2000s witnessed the appearance of the Creutzfeld-Jacob’s disease, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SRAS), and different types of influenza viruses coming from other species, such as the avian influenza or the H1N1. These outbreaks, together with the Anthrax attacks that took place in the aftermath of 9/11 and the research on genetic engineering of viruses has led to a general state of fear of biological threats. Such events are characterized by a strong interaction between the social and the biological, between populations and viruses. I suggest that conceptualizing viruses as bio-objects will be helpful in our attempt to understand such interaction. The bio-objects framework, which has been developed by the research network “Bio-objects and their Boundaries: Governing Matters at the Intersection of Society, Science and Politics” (1,2) has provided an interesting way of thinking about emerging biological entities. A number of analyses with different biological entities have already been reported in this same journal. MicroRNA’s (3), dried blood spots (4), genetically modified insects (5), transgenic food (6), or HeLa cells (7) serve as examples. Such variety of work shows the versatility of the concept. In an attempt to understand the dynamic processes that give raise and regulate emerging biological entities, the concept provides a theoretical and methodological tool useful to explore new fields related to biology and life sciences. In this article I will claim that the bio-objects framework is a useful tool to connect some biological dimensions of biosecurity with the political and the social. The framework is beneficial when we aim at tracking and following biological entities that are controversial and subject to change. Controversies are common in the area of biosecurity, an area that embraces institutional entities situated in the intersection of science, economy, security, law, society, and politics. It is within this background that viruses need to be understood nowadays: as objects that transgress existing boundaries and classifications while their identity is continually challenged. They are, in that sense, suitable to be understood as bio-objects. I will try to illustrate these ideas using a recent controversy on the consequences of genetic engineering on Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) A/H5N1, a virus that appeared in 1997 in Southeast Asia and that has been threatening to overcome the human/animal interface since then. By following research articles, pieces of news and reports, I have carried out an exploratory analysis that intends to understand viruses as immersed in a bio-objectification process.

The Priming Effect of News Context on Chinese Attitudes toward Foreign Brands

This article investigates the priming effect of news context on Chinese college students' brand attitudes. The first experiment examined the effects of domestic news topics and news negativity and found that exposure to positive Chinese product news led to lower attitude scores for Nike. The second experiment employed a news piece on China–U.S. trade relations and tested whether different news sources (the Chinese press, the U.S. press, and a combination of Chinese and U.S. press) had the same effect on Chinese brand attitudes. It located a significant effect of news source on Chinese attitudes toward Coca-Cola and Nike.

Current trends in UK university libraries

Purpose – The paper aims to describe the effect of changes in UK higher education policy on services and staff in university libraries. Design/methodology/approach – A survey of academic literature, higher education statistics and news pieces was used to supplement the author's 16 years' experience of academic library work to identify the main trends in academic library services as student numbers enter a period of likely decline. The paper considers the motivating factors behind these changes in library design, library collections and services and how the culture of academic libraries is changing as a result. Findings – It is suggested that the culture of business improvement and performance measurement, which libraries have followed their university institutions in adopting, has implications for the culture of customer service in libraries; that traditional library services will continue to be marginalised by the automation of services and remote and virtual access to services; that current librarians m...

Impact Factor of the European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery increased to 2.674

As revealed in the recently published Journal Citation Report 2012 [1], the impact factor (IF) of EJCTS has again increased, from 2.550 in 2011, to 2.674 in 2012, continuing the trend observed over the last eight years (Fig. 1). This underscores the great development of EJCTS since the first issue was published in 1987 [2]. Another welcome piece of news is the first award of an IF (1.112) to Interactive CardioVascular and Thoracic Surgery (ICVTS), sister journal to EJCTS. [3]. The journal “family” of the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery (EACTS) EJCTS, ICVTS, and MMCTS (the Multimedia Manual of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery, a premier online manual of cardiovascular and thoracic surgical procedures, with Marko Turina as Editor-in-Chief [4]) therefore continues to consolidate its powerful position in the field of cardiothoracic scientific publishing. The impact factor was devised by Eugene Garfield, who founded the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) in 1960. Since 1975, IFs for Journals indexed in the Journal Citation Report ( JCR) have been calculated once a year; the ISI Web of Knowledge has indexed more than 11000 scientific Journals. The ISI was acquired by Thomson Scientific and Healthcare in 1992 (Thomson ISI) and now belongs to the Healthcare and Science business of Thomson Reuters. The IF measures the average number of citations to articles in a scientific journal from the previous two years. It is calculated (e.g. for the year 2012) according to the following formula:

Administrando o debate público: O Globo e a controvérsia em torno das cotas raciais

O trabalho analisa a estratégia editorial do jornal O Globo no tratamento da questão das cotas raciais a partir do exame dos textos publicados pelo periódico sobre o tema entre 2001 e 2008. Focamos os textos de caráter opinativo para testar a hipótese de que há um controle editorial estrito na maneira como a questão das cotas raciais é apresentada no jornal na forma de controvérsia. Denominamos tal estratégia de "administração do espaço do debate". A análise temporal dos dados mostra que (1) O Globo mantém uma razão constante entre o número de textos opinativos e o de reportagens publicadas sobre o tema; e (2) entre os textos opinativos o jornal mantém uma razão constante entre textos contrários e favoráveis, com expressiva vantagem para os primeiros. A partir do cruzamento dos diferentes formatos e autorias dos textos publicados com sua valência descobrimos que, enquanto editoriais e cartas de leitores são dominantemente contrários, acadêmicos e colunistas do jornal se dividem entre prós e contras, e militantes, políticos e burocratas são apresentados como dominantemente favoráveis. Em suma, nossa análise permite mostrar que O Globo consegue ao mesmo tempo apresentar uma aparência de imparcialidade e controlar o espaço de debate de modo a passar uma posição dominantemente negativa das ações afirmativas para negros na universidade brasileira.

Easy‐to‐read Texts for Students with Intellectual Disability: Linguistic Factors Affecting Comprehension

The use of 'easy-to-read' materials for people with intellectual disabilities has become very widespread but their effectiveness has scarcely been evaluated. In this study, the framework provided by Kintsch's Construction-Integration Model (1988) is used to examine (i) the reading comprehension levels of different passages of the Spanish text that have been designed following easy-to-read guidelines and (ii) the relationships between reading comprehension (literal and inferential) and various linguistic features of these texts. Sixteen students with mild intellectual disability and low levels of reading skills were asked to read easy-to-read texts and then complete a reading comprehension test. The corpus of texts was composed of a set of forty-eight pieces of news selected from www.noticiasfacil.es, a Spanish digital newspaper that publishes daily journalistic texts following international guidelines for the design of easy-to-read documents (IFLA, Tronbacke B. (1997) Guidelines for Easy-to-read Materials. IFLA, The Hague). Participants correctly answered 80% of the comprehension questions, showing significantly higher scores for literal questions than for inferential questions. The analyses of the texts' linguistic features revealed that the number of coreferences was the variable that best predicted literal comprehension, but contrary to what the previous literature seemed to indicate, the relationship between the two variables was inverse. In the case of inferential comprehension, the number of sentences was a significant negative predictor; that is, the higher the sentence density, the lower the ability of these students to find relationships between them. The effects of the rest of linguistic variables, such as word frequency and word length, on comprehension were null. These results provide preliminary empirical support for the use of easy-to-read texts but bring into question the validity of some popular design guidelines (e.g. augmenting word frequency) to optimally match texts and reading levels of students with intellectual disability. Two factors are suggested as contributing to the effect of sentence density on inferential comprehension: (i) long texts present higher conceptual density, so there are more ideas to store, retrieve and integrate, which increases the demand on inferential reasoning and (ii) long texts are perceived as difficult, which affects reading motivation and, consequently, induces passive reading strategies. The need for further research to elucidate the origin of our main findings with a larger and more heterogeneous sample of students with intellectual disability is highlighted.

Infancia y adolescencia en las noticias: representación y tratamiento informativo de los menores de edad en la prensa diaria vasca

Representations are ways to know and approach social reality and to equally understand it. The image given on the childhood and adolescence is gathered by media, and contributes to shape the public opinion on this collective. Is from this representation from where society acts and operates in relation to them. This research analyzes the pieces of news and opinion related to boys, girls and teenagers which appeared during 2010 on the Basque newspapers, and identifies which are the most common thematic areas and employed frames in order to inform on this group.

Pragmatic functions of requests in commentaries made by the readership to an online news article


 The following study takes its data from commentaries made by the audience to acontroversial piece of news, posted by a virtual newspaper. The theoretical frame is based on Searle’s notions about the non-unidimensionality of speech acts. It is also complemented by Vendervenken ́s proposals about the existence of a gap between the speaker meaning and the sentence meaning. However, given the virtual context where the utterances are produced, a different dimensionality was observed regarding the directive speech acts. During the analysis, we took into account the (in)direct strategies used by the speakers when expressing ideas or opinions. These were classified according to Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper. It was presupposed that the non-existent cost-benefit relationship between the interlocutors in a virtual environment would be a decisive factor for being more or less direct when making requests, giving orders or making pleas. The results showed a high frequency of direct requests with an exhortative function plus an underlying function of rejection. Rejection was also found as a subfunction of the other types of pragmatic functions.
 

CUA as health advocate

As mentioned in past CUA News pieces, the CUA Executive has embarked on a 5-Year Strategic Plan. One of the objectives is to develop and implement an advocacy business plan. The realization of this objective would position CUA as the voice for all matters urological in Canada. What does this really mean? Where does the CUA fit in? A 2007 study1 showed that, among urology residents, 68% believe that the role of the health advocate is an important one in residency training and in urological practice. Knowing its importance, how can the CUA put this ideal into practice? According to the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, the role of health advocate includes identifying “the determinants of health that affect a patient, so as to be able to effectively contribute to improving individual and societal health in Canada.” In this area, CUA’s Patient Information Brochures meet this need. They are available to CUA members (as a benefit of membership) for distribution to patients. They are written in an informal and non-scientific tone to speak directly to the patient. The brochures range from disease descriptions to discharge instructions. According to a recent CUA survey, these brochures were cited as being an important part of patient care and education. Another recent CUA initiative contributing to improving societal health is the urologic information site—www.uroinfo.ca. This site is becoming the “go-to” place for patients. The information on it is written by CUA members. The goal of the site is to be the source of “honest and balanced” information about urology. Uroinfo.ca is open to the general public, patients and their family members. Another aspect of the health advocate’s role is recognizing and responding to “issues, settings, circumstances or situations in which advocacy on behalf of patients, professions or society is appropriate.” The CUA is working hard to respond to this role. The PSA-screening controversy last year illustrated how important it was to have the CUA respond to queries—from our patients and from the public. We will be embracing many tools to address the public when these health issues and questions arise. Advocacy is fundamental to the promotion of health. The CUA is taking its place as a health advocate in Canada. We look forward to sharing our initiatives with you.

A Study on the Discourse and Reality of Abortion in Korea: 1920s~1930s

This paper tried to collect, classify and analyse the discourse about abortion in 1920~1930. In Korea, modern medical abortion operation started in 1920~30s. At that time abortion was prohibited by the Japanese Government-General of Korea, because the Japanese Government-General of Korea needed large population which was used for labor and exploitation. Hence, the Empire of Japan de-penalized Japanese criminal law related to birth control but Korean law was not revised between 1910~1945. Nevertheless, there were quite a few women who wanted abortion when they had children born in sin or they were too poor to raise their children, so they had abortion secretly. At that time the women generally had abortion through toxic drugs or foods and violence (dropping from a high place or beating their stomach). But high class women did it by medical operation. In 1920s, there was few Korean (modern) medical doctors who could operate for abortion, instead Japanese immigrant medical doctors did it--as the newspaper of that time showed(there were many pieces of news that Japanese doctor who helped abortion was arrested by the police). As time went by Korean doctors got their say about the technique and various knowledge of abortion in newspapers, magazines, and academic Journals; this was especially the case starting in 1930. It is worth noting that they were sometimes arrested for illegal abortion operations. Furthermore, from the late 1920s the insist that abortion should be permitted for women and poor people, appeared. This insist was affected by Japan, the Soviet Union and other countries which was generous with abortion.

Pretty Nasty: Symmetry in virus architecture

Symmetry in virus architecture A piece of bad news, wrapped up in protein, is an often-quoted description of viruses eloquently made by Sir Peter Medawar. Putting aside the added complexity of the lipid envelopes found in many viruses, this describes most viruses very well. This catchy soundbite does not, however, convey exactly how the bad news is packaged, or the astonishingly intricate and dynamic nature of viral coat proteins. For reasons of genetic economy, viruses enclose their genomes in protective shells that are highly symmetrical and, consequently, these tiniest of pathogens can be strikingly beautiful structures. When confronted with images of viruses, it is tempting to view the virus particle (or virion) as a static entity, designed to do no more than protect its genetic payload in the harsh extra-cellular environment. Such a view is overly simplistic, however. The abstract beauty of these assemblies belies the complex morphogenetic pathways that ensure correct genome packaging and particle assembly. While remaining robust in the environment and evading host immunity, viruses must engage host cell receptors and other cellular components, traffic to specific compartments and only then release their genomes at precisely the correct moment to initiate infection. Viruses are marvels of nanoengineering, molecular machines superbly adapted to transmit their bad news and bring misery, illness and sometimes death to their unfortunate victims.