European Union media policy and independent regulatory authorities : a new tool to protect European media pluralism?

Can a uniform policy for media pluralism be adopted across the 28 Member States of the European Union through the involvement of independent regulatory authorities? According to the authors, the chances remain remote due to political and stakeholder opposition grounded in diverse structural, cultural, political, and economic interests. Based on a review of key documents from diverse sources, and case studies in Hungary and Italy, it appears that the goal of an EU-wide collaborative network of financially and politically independent audiovisual regulatory authorities, with common standards, faces significant challenges. However, the authors see hope in the increased debate on the topic, and suggest that some movement in that direction may yet be possible

AGEs and Glucose Levels Modulate Type I and III Procollagen mRNA Synthesis in Dermal Fibroblasts Cells Culture

In the dermis, fibroblasts play an important role in the turnover of the dermal extracellular matrix. Collagen I and III, the most important dermal proteins of the extracellular matrix, are progressively altered during ageing and diabetes. For mimicking diabetic conditions, the cultured human dermal fibroblasts were incubated with increasing amounts of AGE-modified BSA and D-glucose for 24 hours. The expression of procollagen α2(I) and procollagen α1(III) mRNA was analyzed by quantitative real-time PCR. Our data revealed that the treatment of fibroblasts with AGE-modified BSA upregulated the expression of procollagen α2(I) and procollagen α1(III) mRNA in a dose-dependent manner. High glucose levels mildly induced a profibrogenic pattern, increasing the procollagen α2(I) mRNA expression whereas there was a downregulation tendency of procollagen α1(III) mRNA

La gobernanza como marco teórico para el estudio del pluralismo de medios

Media Pluralism represents an indispensable part of a democratic society, the balance that the media have to achieve in conveying a message to the end user. It has been a controversial and widely debated concept in media policy for years. Lately, a new notion has been brought to the attention of media scholars: media governance. For the last decade, both notions have been increasingly present in policy debates focusing on media freedom, accountability and media power. The two notions, media pluralism and media governance, are analyzed here in an attempt to bring them together and to verify whether governance provides a better solution for the protection of media pluralism. The concept of media governance is overtaking the traditional notion of media regulation and includes the elements of universal participation, accountability, evaluation and inclusion of more players. Finally, governance's value and utility as a media policy and conceptual tool to protect pluralism is assessed through the proposal of a new theoretical model.El pluralismo en los medios de comunicación es un concepto muy debatido desde hace décadas en el campo de las políticas de comunicación. En cambio, la gobernanza de los medios es un término relativamente nuevo y polisémico que permite ampliar el campo de las políticas de comunicación a nuevos actores e instrumentos. En la última década, ambos conceptos han estado presentes en los debates cuando se aborda la libertad de información, el poder de los medios y la responsabilidad de público y operadores. En este artículo, los dos conceptos se analizarán por separado para trazar su evolución teórica y conceptual. En el análisis de la gobernanza de los medios se constatan nuevos elementos que participan en la ecuación: la participación cívica, la necesidad de evaluación y la responsabilidad de los medios. Además, se estudia el valor y utilidad del nuevo concepto de gobernanza en las políticas de defensa del pluralismo y la inclusión de nuevos actores en el proceso. Finalmente, se propone un modelo teórico que permita abordar el pluralismo desde la gobernanza

BIOCHEMICAL AND HISTOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF DELTAMETHRIN EXPOSURE ON THE GILLS OF CARASSIUS AURATUS GIBELIO (Pisces Cyprinidae)

This study investigated the alterations in the activities of several antioxidant enzymesin the gills of the freshwater fish Carassius auratus gibelio exposed to deltamethrin.To get this goal, groups of 10 individuals were exposed for one, two, three, sevenand fourteen days to sublethal concentration of deltamethrin (2 g/L). Anothergroup was used as control. The activities of catalase, gluthatione peroxidase andgluthatione reductase were significantly decreased, while the glutathione-Stransferasewas up-regulated. All fish, exposed to 2glL deltamethrin revealed gillsmorphological alterations after 48h of exposure which were accentuated after 14days. In the gills hyperemia, fusion of secondary lamellae, epithelial layer ruptureand chloride cells proliferation were observed. These results suggest that animmediate adaptive response to the oxidative stress appeared, demonstratingalterations in the antoxidant defense mechanism in the gills of deltamethrinintoxicated fish

Bio-and hemo-compatible silk fibroin pegylated nanocarriers for 5-fluorouracil chemotherapy in colorectal cancer:In vitro studies

5-fluorouracil (5-FU) remains the gold standard of treatment for colorectal cancer, but its poor bioavailability and high systemic toxicity highlight the urgent need for the development of novel delivery strategies to increase the efficacy of 5-FU treatment. The present study is aimed to design and validate a PEGylated Silk Fibroin Nanocarrier (SF/PEG nanoparticles (NPs)) as an efficient 5-FU delivery system for potential intravenous administration. Using the human adenocarcinoma HT–29 cell line as an in vitro model for colorectal cancer, the cytotoxicity screening of the SF/PEG NPs showed that pristine nanocarriers were highly biocompatible, while the addition of 5-FU triggers a dramatic reduction in tumor cell viability, proliferation potential and mitochondrial integrity as well as a significant increase in nitric oxide production. Despite their high in vitro cytotoxicity, the 5-FU SF/PEG NPs were found hemocompatible as no impact on red blood cells hemolysis or the phagocytic activity of the granulocytes was observed. Exposure of HT–29 tumor cells and blood samples to 5-FU SF/PEG NPs augmented the tumor necrosis factor-α levels. Moreover, 5-FU SF/PEG NPs showed an impact on tumor cell migration and invasive potential as both of these processes were inhibited by the NP treatment

Genetic analysis of populations of brown trout (Salmo trutta L.) from the Romanian Carpathians

The Carpathian Mountains are one of the most complex orogenetic areas of Europe, with unique fauna, including the brown trout (Salmo trutta). In this study we performed population genetic analysis of 12 different S. trutta populations using two types of molecular markers: nine microsatellites and mitochondrial D-loop sequences. The following working hypothesis was considered: the Romanian Carpathians and their surrounding lowlands can be key relief units based on which the S. trutta genetic diversity, spread, distribution, connectivity, relative isolation and genetic divergence can be at least partially explained. The phylogenetic analysis revealed that the majority of sequences were grouped in the Danubian clade. The high haplotype diversity of the 12 analyzed brown trout populations can be explained by the high nucleotide diversity. The microsatellite analysis revealed an inbreeding event for all the loci and for the populations analyzed. The Romanian Carpathians' shape and geographic orientation play a zoogeographical key role driving force in respect to the S. trutta populations

Nuclear Markers of Danube Sturgeons Hybridization

Acipenseriformes are composed of 25 sturgeon species and two paddlefish species distributed exclusively in the northern hemisphere. The Danube River and the Black Sea were originally inhabited by six sturgeon species but two are extinct and only four are still reproducing currently in the Lower Danube: Huso huso, Acipenser stellatus, A. gueldenstaedtii and A. ruthenus. Sturgeon species hybridize more easily than other fish and the determination of pure species or hybrid status is important for conservation and for breeding in fish farms. This survey demonstrated that morphological determination of this status is not reliable and a molecular tool, based on eight microsatellites genotypes is proposed. This method, based on three successive statistical analyses including Factorial Correspondence Analysis (FCA), Structure assignation and NewHybrids status determination, showed a high efficiency in discriminating pure species specimens from F1, F2 and two kinds of backcross individuals involving three of the four reproducing Lower Danube sturgeon species

Real-time computer-aided diagnosis of focal pancreatic masses from endoscopic ultrasound imaging based on a hybrid convolutional and long short-term memory neural network model

Differential diagnosis of focal pancreatic masses is based on endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) guided fine needle aspiration biopsy (EUS-FNA/FNB). Several imaging techniques (i.e. gray-scale, color Doppler, contrast-enhancement and elastography) are used for differential diagnosis. However, diagnosis remains highly operator dependent. To address this problem, machine learning algorithms (MLA) can generate an automatic computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) by analyzing a large number of clinical images in real-time. We aimed to develop a MLA to characterize focal pancreatic masses during the EUS procedure. The study included 65 patients with focal pancreatic masses, with 20 EUS images selected from each patient (grayscale, color Doppler, arterial and venous phase contrast-enhancement and elastography). Images were classified based on cytopathology exam as: chronic pseudotumoral pancreatitis (CPP), neuroendocrine tumor (PNET) and ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). The MLA is based on a deep learning method which combines convolutional (CNN) and long short-term memory (LSTM) neural networks. 2688 images were used for training and 672 images for testing the deep learning models. The CNN was developed to identify the discriminative features of images, while a LSTM neural network was used to extract the dependencies between images. The model predicted the clinical diagnosis with an area under curve index of 0.98 and an overall accuracy of 98.26%. The negative (NPV) and positive (PPV) predictive values and the corresponding 95% confidential intervals (CI) are 96.7%, [94.5, 98.9] and 98.1%, [96.81, 99.4] for PDAC, 96.5%, [94.1, 98.8], and 99.7%, [99.3, 100] for CPP, and 98.9%, [97.5, 100] and 98.3%, [97.1, 99.4] for PNET. Following further validation on a independent test cohort, this method could become an efficient CAD tool to differentiate focal pancreatic masses in real-time