Piece Of News Research Articles

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.

주가지수 방향성 예측을 위한 주제지향 감성사전 구축 방안

Recently, the amount of unstructured data being generated through a variety of social media has been increasing rapidly, resulting in the increasing need to collect, store, search for, analyze, and visualize this data. This kind of data cannot be handled appropriately by using the traditional methodologies usually used for analyzing structured data because of its vast volume and unstructured nature. In this situation, many attempts are being made to analyze unstructured data such as text files and log files through various commercial or noncommercial analytical tools. Among the various contemporary issues dealt with in the literature of unstructured text data analysis, the concepts and techniques of opinion mining have been attracting much attention from pioneer researchers and business practitioners. Opinion mining or sentiment analysis refers to a series of processes that analyze participants` opinions, sentiments, evaluations, attitudes, and emotions about selected products, services, organizations, social issues, and so on. In other words, many attempts based on various opinion mining techniques are being made to resolve complicated issues that could not have otherwise been solved by existing traditional approaches. One of the most representative attempts using the opinion mining technique may be the recent research that proposed an intelligent model for predicting the direction of the stock index. This model works mainly on the basis of opinions extracted from an overwhelming number of economic news repots. News content published on various media is obviously a traditional example of unstructured text data. Every day, a large volume of new content is created, digitalized, and subsequently distributed to us via online or offline channels. Many studies have revealed that we make better decisions on political, economic, and social issues by analyzing news and other related information. In this sense, we expect to predict the fluctuation of stock markets partly by analyzing the relationship between economic news reports and the pattern of stock prices. So far, in the literature on opinion mining, most studies including ours have utilized a sentiment dictionary to elicit sentiment polarity or sentiment value from a large number of documents. A sentiment dictionary consists of pairs of selected words and their sentiment values. Sentiment classifiers refer to the dictionary to formulate the sentiment polarity of words, sentences in a document, and the whole document. However, most traditional approaches have common limitations in that they do not consider the flexibility of sentiment polarity, that is, the sentiment polarity or sentiment value of a word is fixed and cannot be changed in a traditional sentiment dictionary. In the real world, however, the sentiment polarity of a word can vary depending on the time, situation, and purpose of the analysis. It can also be contradictory in nature. The flexibility of sentiment polarity motivated us to conduct this study. In this paper, we have stated that sentiment polarity should be assigned, not merely on the basis of the inherent meaning of a word but on the basis of its ad hoc meaning within a particular context. To implement our idea, we presented an intelligent investment decision-support model based on opinion mining that performs the scrapping and parsing of massive volumes of economic news on the web, tags sentiment words, classifies sentiment polarity of the news, and finally predicts the direction of the next day`s stock index. In addition, we applied a domain-specific sentiment dictionary instead of a general purpose one to classify each piece of news as either positive or negative. For the purpose of performance evaluation, we performed intensive experiments and investigated the prediction accuracy of our model. For the experiments to predict the direction of the stock index, we gathered and analyzed 1,072 articles about stock markets published by "M" and "E" media between July 2011 and September 2011.

The Application of Domestication and Foreignization Translation Strategies in English- Persian Translations of News Phrasal Verbs

Since we live in an increasingly globalized world, we are definitely more well-informed about the world happenings through various mediums of globalization such as internet, news agencies, news channels, etc. Here lies the important and remarkable role of translation as a medium of conveying messages and transferring information. If a news piece is translated problematically, it may have bad effects on people’s thinking about a certain country or it may lead to misunderstanding and misjudgment. Therefore, to produce translations as properly as possible, especially in cultural and cross-cultural aspects of translation which are abundant in news texts, the translators need to apply effective translation strategies. Domestication and foreignization translation strategies are two important strategies of translation in rendering phrasal verbs in news from a source-text language to a culture-specific target-text one. The authors of this study have applied these strategies of translation to English-Persian phrasal verbs in news texts to investigate whether English-Persian translators tend to domesticate the news headlines or foreignize them. The news containing phrasal verbs was analyzed based on the ones from different news agencies and websites. First, some news containing phrasal verbs is analyzed, then the English translations were compared and contrasted. As the results of the study showed, English to Persian translators tend to apply the domestication strategy more frequently. It was concluded that since culture-specific terms and words are difficult to be understood in the target language, the translators mostly tend to localize or domesticate them. This research is helpful in journalistic translation studies, since it focuses on the important features of phrasal verbs as culture-specific and context-bound terms with respect to translation strategies.

Do Corporate Bond and Credit Default Swap Markets Value Environmental, Social or Corporate Governance Events?

We measure the impact of negative environmental, social and governance news on corporate bond prices and credit default swap premiums for the Eurozone market. Each firm is affected at least by one piece of news related to its environmental, social and governance practices. Each news is then flagged with an indicator of importance. Ab- normal bond returns are computed by subtracting return from a matching portfolio to the return of the observed bond return. Abnormal credit default swap return is calculated with a regression of the observed bond return on an equiweighted index that is constructed to transpose our bond universe on the credit default swap market. Several parametric and non parametric tests do not show any significant impact of these negative events as a whole on corporate bond prices, even though there is evidence of some impact of two subcategories of social events. When considering all events, we find a slight but counter-intuitive decrease of the credit default swap premium within the 5 following days of the event. REMARK: We did finish the database and have now more than 2000 events associated to 212 firms. Unfortunately, the calculation of the matching portfolios takes more time than we expected due to the various constraints. However, we joined the first results for the credit default swap market (Table 7). It does not change the results we found with our subsample of 85 firms.

Using AdaBoost Meta-Learning Algorithm for Medical News Multi-Document Summarization

Automatic text summarization involves reducing a text document or a larger corpus of multiple documents to a short set of sentences or paragraphs that convey the main meaning of the text. In this paper, we discuss about multi-document summarization that differs from the single one in which the issues of compression, speed, redundancy and passage selection are critical in the formation of useful summaries. Since the number and variety of online medical news make them difficult for experts in the medical field to read all of the medical news, an automatic multi-document summarization can be useful for easy study of information on the web. Hence we propose a new approach based on machine learning meta-learner algorithm called AdaBoost that is used for summarization. We treat a document as a set of sentences, and the learning algorithm must learn to classify as positive or negative examples of sentences based on the score of the sentences. For this learning task, we apply AdaBoost meta-learning algorithm where a C4.5 decision tree has been chosen as the base learner. In our experiment, we use 450 pieces of news that are downloaded from different medical websites. Then we compare our results with some existing approaches.

Female online participation in the brazilian presidential campaign

The Internet encloses unambiguous possibilities of public communication and debate, by creating new spaces for political expression and participation. As a potential deliberative section, readers’ comments in newspapers’ websites constitute a domain enabling citizens to express their views on a particular issue, reacting specifically to a news piece and discussing it along with other readers as well. From a gender perspective, studying the women’s participation in online debates becomes increasingly relevant to understanding the social aspects of Internet use. Some studies have demonstrated, however, that gender differences in online communication tend to disfavour women: women send fewer messages, receive fewer responses and often aren’t able to control the topic of discussion (Herring, 2000). This paper intends to take the debate around the Brazilian presidential campaign as a case study of the possibility of a “female” public sphere, attempting to analyse the way by which women discuss political issues online. Additionally, given the nature and characteristics of the main presidential candidates, our aim is also to understand whether questions about gender were important to the discussion or if the dichotomy male/female was suppressed in the public debate surrounding the campaign. In order to fulfil these purposes, our research focuses on readers’ on the Brazilian presidential campaign (September-November 2010) in the online versions of two Portuguese newspapers, Publico and Expresso

False, inaccurate and incomplete news: challenges facing journalists involuntary rectification. The Spanish experience

Journalists must verify information provided by their sources. However, factors such as job precariousness, urgency and the credibility they give to mainly institutional sources mean that journalists do not verify information. Most codes of conduct recommend the duty to correct information as soon as an unintentionally committed error is discovered, but journalists dislike recognising their own errors and even more so correcting them publicly. These circumstances affect adversely the quality of discourse and the credibility of mass-media. Ombudsmen partially bridge this gap. As a result, false, mistaken, wrong or biased pieces of news are published and journalists, against the rules of truth and honesty, rarely rectify on their own initiative. This article analyses the coverage of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, in which the game of mimicry saw the same mistake repeated in different media and in different countries, although prestigious newspapers published an unusual public apology.

Riesgos medioambientales en los espacios informativos: análisis cualitativo de la televisión española

Given the important role mass media play in the dissemination of risks, this article analysis the media discourse about a particular risk: the environmental one. From a sample of 84 news programs broadcast by the three Spanish television channels with the highest national ratings, we have analyzed a total of 138 pieces of news related to the environment and the nature. Applying qualitative methodology, the information has been classified looking for discourses around: references to environmental risks, causes, consequences and solutions. In general terms, news tend to focus on specific events and display their preference to emotional contents, entertainment or anecdotal facts, compared to the explanation of solutions, consequences and, above all, causes.

Uso y modificación de los títulos procedentes de gabinetes de prensa en las informaciones periodísticas

The headline is the most important part of a press release, as it grabs the attention of the reader and highlights the most relevant aspect of the piece of news. However, some public relations experts do not recommend spending too much time elaborating one sentence that will probably be changed by the journalist anyway. In this research, the headlines of the press releases sent during four years by the Atapuerca Foundation (Spain) have been analyzed, as well as their repercussion in six different newspapers. Even if journalists may not employ the same headline, the main idea remains the same in many cases, although simplified and with shorter words. The headline should highlight the most newsworthy aspect, and it should be constructed with verbs and simple and short words.

Sleep apnoea and cancer: current insights and future perspectives

It seems paradoxical to observe how obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) has been associated with a large number of systemic diseases, and is even recognized as a risk factor for some of them [1–4], but is nevertheless, strictly speaking, basically a local mechanical problem resulting from intermittent collapses of the upper airway during sleep. The explanation for this phenomenon is that these repetitive airway obstructions trigger several pathophysiological mechanisms that have an overall systemic effect. Thus, sympathetic activation, periodical hypoxaemias–normoxaemias, hypercapnia, arousals and changes in intrathoracic pressure induced by OSA lead to the activation of some pathophysiological pathways similar to those observed in several cardiovascular diseases [5]. This explains why OSA has been associated with the onset, poor control and worsened prognosis of some of the most prevalent cardiovascular diseases, such as arterial hypertension [6], cardiac arrhythmias [7], and cerebral and cardiovascular events [3, 4]. One aspect that has been far less studied to date is the relationship between OSA and systemic inflammation. In this respect, OSA has recently been associated with diseases with a great inflammatory burden, such as psoriasis [8] and other autoimmune disorders [9]. The relative scientific youthfulness of OSA means that new action mechanisms and previously unknown associations with other diseases are now being increasingly discovered. One particular piece of news was sprung on the scientific community at recent international congresses, creating quite a stir: some studies in both animals [10–12] and humans [13–15], undertaken almost simultaneously, had found an association between OSA and cancer. There have been reports of a relationship between different aspects of nonapnoeic sleep disorders, particularly sleep duration, and cancer. Specifically, some studies have shown an association between …

Peri-ovulatory putrescine to reduce aneuploid conceptions

Women experience diminished fertility, increased risk of miscarriages and congenital birth defects in their late 30s and early 40s, 10-15 years before reaching menopause. Egg aneuploidy (having an incorrect number of chromosomes) is the most important etiology for these reproductive problems in older women. Science correspondent Jon Cohen wrote a News piece in 2002 [1] on the quest to understand the mechanisms of maternal aging-related aneuploidies in humans, which is still applicable today. Although we have made impressive progress in understanding how aneuploidies arise, we know little about providing medical interventions to reduce them. “My Holy Grail is to deliver some sort of aneuploidy-reduction pill, …”, Dr. Terry Hassold, a leading geneticist in the field, is quoted as saying. Our recent study [2] may be a step towards developing such a pill. Aneuploid eggs result in aneuploid conceptions, most of which are lost either prior to clinical recognition of pregnancies or by miscarriages. The small proportion that survive inevitably carry major birth defects. Accurate egg aneuploidy rates in the general population are not known, but numerous analyses of IVF samples have revealed staggeringly high rates. Notably, a recent study of more than 20,000 IVF eggs revealed significant age-related aneuploidies, reaching >40% in the 40 year old age group [3]. Furthermore, this study [3] employs fluorescence in situ hybridization of polar bodies and is therefore limited in the number of chromosomes (five) that can be analyzed simultaneously. The true aneuploidy rates in older women, considering all 23 chromosomes, would be expected to be much higher. This unusually high egg aneuploidy rate in humans is likely due to a combination of our longevity and the peculiar oogenesis (the process of generating eggs) in all vertebrates including humans. Unlike vertebrate males that continuously generate mature sperm from germ line stem cells through adulthood, in vertebrates oogenesis begins during the embryonic stage when germ line stem cells initiate meiosis and develop into primary oocytes. By birth, the females have developed a finite number of primary oocytes arrested in meiotic prophase that comprises their lifetime egg supply. The prophase oocytes contain chromosome bivalents each having four chromatids linked together by a combination of sister chromotid cohesion and non-sister cross-over (Figure ​(Figure1),1), with this linkage persisting for decades in women. During ovulation the two sister chromatids are segregated to the same cell (egg or 1st polar body) in a process called oocyte maturation; in the subsequent fertilization, the sisters are segregated between the 2nd polar body and the haploid egg. As females age, chromosome cohesion becomes progressively weakened [4], predisposing the oocytes to greater risk of premature separation of sister chromatids (PSSC) during oocyte maturation [2-5] (Figure ​(Figure11). Figure 1 Premature separation of sister chromatids (PSSC) during oocyte maturation Given the great time lapse, it seems daunting that any measure can be found to keep these primary oocytes “fresh” while women age. Our study however suggests that a metabolic deficiency during ovulation in older females, which can be easily corrected, is an important compounding factor in age-related egg aneuploidies. It has been known for more than four decades [6] that during mammalian ovulation, the ovaries exhibit a transitory (i.e. a few hours) rise in the enzyme ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) and its product putrescine and yet its physiological function remains enigmatic. We found that inhibition of ODC during ovulation results in significant increase of incidence of PSSC in eggs of young mice. Interestingly, older mice exhibit a diminished ODC rise in the ovaries, and a corresponding increase of PSSC in eggs. Most remarkably, a combination of putrescine supplementation in mouse drinking water leading up to oocyte retrieval and in oocyte maturation medium reduced the incidence of PSSC in eggs by more than 50% [2]. Putrescine is a naturally occurring, small metabolite easily absorbed and distributed throughout the organism. A high dose of putrescine supplementation similar to that used in our study has been given safely to neonatal calves and pigs as an ingredient of soybean-based milk replacement [7]. However, post-conception putrescine supplementation in mouse drinking water compromises fetal development, likely due to excess reactive oxygen species produced by placental diamine oxidase oxidizing the exogenous putrescine [8]. In contrast, periovulatory putrescine supplementation is safe for gestation, because exogenous putrescine administered around ovulation is cleared long before placental development (Tao and Liu, in preparation). Nonetheless, further studies, including that employing primates, are required to formulate effective and safe putrescine supplementation protocols to reduce egg aneuploidies, both in IVF clinics and in natural conception.

“But the UN Said So …”: International Organisations as Discursive Authorities

Many scholars take it as given that international governmental and non-governmental actors play a decisive role in international politics as regulative, moral or epistemic authorities. Hence, a denationalised “multi-centric world” (James Rosenau) is said to be emerging, although empirical evidence for this is incomplete at best. Building on a variety of communication theoretical approaches, I argue for a clear-cut differentiation between authority and the power of the better argument. Moreover, I claim that, by looking at the way actors select and refer to the statements of others (“authority talk”), we can research the reproduction of authority as a specific type of relational power exercised by a variety of political actors, including governments, international agencies and non-state actors. The usefulness of this kind of analytical framework for researching an emerging “world authority structure” (John Boli) is illustrated, using speeches and news pieces on the humanitarian crisis in Sudan/Darfur. Results suggest that the common perception of an existing “non-governmental order” in humanitarian politics is highly exaggerated. Instead, what we see is a high degree of “UN-isation” of debate and a pivotal role of national governments that are widely acknowledged as authoritative sources of meaning.

Television News Coverage of Obesity in China, 1982–2009

ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to explore how obesity was covered in television news in China, including the trends over time and the characteristics of obesity-related news. MethodsThe frame analysis was adopted to assess the content of obesity-related news broadcasted in China Central Television (CCTV) from 1982 to 2009. To investigate the characteristics of the news, the obesity-related news was divided into subgroups according to populations concerned, as well as the period in which the news was broadcasted. The differences between subgroups were examined. ResultsA total of 1 599 pieces of news reported obesity, in which 1 278 pieces (79.92%) aired in “wealthy” period (2006–2009). More news was concerned with adults (1 134, 70.92%). “Individual behavior” dominated most of the cause frames (389, 24.33%), solution frames (522, 32.65%), and responsibility frames (860, 53.78%). There was more news mentioning individual factors in news aired in “wealthy” period and news concerning children. The coverage of social-structure causes was higher in news concerning children, while the coverage of social-structure solutions was higher in news concerning children and news aired in “wealthy” period. ConclusionAlthough the coverage of obesity was modest, it showed an incremental trend as the economy grew. Obesity was mostly depicted as an individual problem in terms of responsibility, causes and solutions.

Perfis das Notícias sobre o Câncer no Correio da Manhã e no The New York Times nos Anos 1931-1932 e 1948-1949

Introdução: No início do século passado, o câncer já se caracterizava como uma das doenças crônico-degenerativas mais letais e começou a demandar mais atenção dos governos. Portanto, alguns países empreenderam novas medidas políticas, como o aumento de investimentos científicos em busca de uma cura. Objetivo: Este artigo procura evidenciar as características dos conteúdos das matérias jornalísticas sobre o câncer nos jornais brasileiro e norte-americano Correio da Manhã e The New York Times, nas décadas de 1930 e 1940, através da análise das notícias publicadas em quatro anos selecionados (1931, 1932, 1948 e 1949). Método: Foram realizadas pesquisas no acervo documental da Biblioteca Nacional e no acervo digital do The New York Times. Em paralelo, também foi realizada uma análise do que foi publicado sobre o tema câncer nos periódicos científicos, acessível através do portal do PubMed, durante a mesma época. Resultados: Enquanto, no Correio da Manhã, foram identificadas 56 reportagens sobre o tema no período estudado, no jornal americano, foram identificadas 540 notícias, ou seja, quantidade praticamente dez vezes superior. Conclusão: Os achados demonstram uma imprensa brasileira tímida e, por vezes ingênua, diante de promessas de curas milagrosas, como pomadas contra o câncer de pele. Enquanto isso, a mídia norte-americana priorizava abordagens sobre investimentos para a pesquisa da doença, destacava as conferências de cientistas especialistas no assunto e até o uso de experimentação animal na pesquisa do câncer; embora, em certas ocasiões, também tenha apostado em inovações científicas que a história mostrou como iniciativas infrutíferas.

Still a risk of mad cows? The need for epidemiological studies

Veterinary RecordVolume 170, Issue 15 p. 387-388 Research Still a risk of mad cows? The need for epidemiological studies Giuseppe Ru DVM, PhD, MSE, Corresponding Author Giuseppe Ru DVM, PhD,...

Shifts in Volatility Driven by Large Stock Market Shocks

This paper presents a new stochastic volatility model which allows for persistent shifts in volatility of stock market returns, referred to as structural breaks. These shifts are endogenously driven by large return shocks (innovations), reflecting large pieces of market news. These shocks are identified from the data as being bigger than the values of two threshold parameters of the model: one for the negative shocks and one for the positive shocks. The model can be employed to investigate economic (or market) sources of volatility shifts, without relying on exogenous information from the sample. In addition to this, it has a number of interesting features which enables us to study the dynamic or changing in magnitude effects of large return shocks on future levels of market volatility. The above properties of the model are shown based on a study for the US stock market volatility. For this market, the model identifies from the data as large negative return shocks these which are smaller than -2.05% on weekly basis, while as large positive return shocks those which are bigger than 2.33%.

Contextual frames and their argumentative implications: A case study in media argumentation

By presenting a case study based on the argumentative analysis of news in the press, this article introduces and discusses strategic manoeuvring with contextual frames. Drawing on the linguistic notion of frame, I introduce the concept of contextual frame to refer to the news context, that is, the background against which a certain event is presented as a piece of news. I argue that newspapers and journalists make use of contextual frames in the apparently neutral genre of news reporting to propose specific interpretations of the facts at issue, which become the basis for explicit comments and editorials. To show how this works, I investigate in detail a case of newspaper coverage of a complex episode using the pragma-dialectical notion of strategic manoeuvring and the Argumentum Model of Topics (AMT) to analyse argument schemes. I show that, in the use of contextual frames, there is a prominent relation between presentational devices (the lexical choices that build up the frame) and topical potential; contextual frames provide the implicit material premises ( endoxa) which are at the basis of argumentations through which newspapers interpret and comment on the news.

Visualization of the Internet News Based on Efficient Self-Organizing Map Using Restricted Region Search and Dimensionality Reduction

In this paper, we propose a system to visualize the relationships in huge quantities of Internet news by twodimensional self-organizing maps instead of the conventional methods of listing Internet news. In the proposed method, morphological analysis is conducted on the texts of Internet news to generate input vectors with elements of keywords. The characteristics specific to Internet news that many of the vector elements become sparse allows dimensional reductions as well as speeding up of self-organizing mapping with restricted search regions in learning. We verify through evaluation experiments with the data of 80 pieces of news that the proposed system can reduce computation time by 75% to 99% and can create more efficient SOM compared with the generally available SOM.

Desafios do controle social na atualidade

O artigo pretende fazer uma abordagem dos desafios do controle social na atualidade, analisando a sua formulação no processo de redemocratização da sociedade brasileira, bem como os seus impasses a partir dos anos 1990. Finaliza com os debates na atual conjuntura e apresenta como novidade a criação dos fóruns estaduais, municipais e da Frente Nacional contra a Privatização da Saúde, considerados também como mecanismos autônomos de controle democrático do controle social institucionalizado.

Lexical and visual choices in the representation of immigration in the Spanish press

Our goal in this paper is to shed some light on the treatment of immigration issues in the current Spanish press via the analysis of the visual and lexical choices used in the journalistic representation of immigration. With this in mind, taking Critical Discourse Analysis and Visual Grammar as theoretical paradigms, we will explore how immigration is represented in a representative sample of multimodal texts found in newspapers from Alicante, a province with a very high percentage of immigrants in Spain. To this end, we will analyse the image and the euphemistic lexical references to immigration in the headlines, subheadings and captions of the pieces of news that constitute our corpus. The findings obtained provide evidence for the fact that, in the majority of the texts analysed, a considerable number of lexical and visual elements do not contribute to a positive representation of immigrants and tend to provoke, whether consciously or not, discriminatory attitudes towards them.