Mapping Quality Digital Journalism. Research Trends and Pending Challenges in the Age of Hi-Tech

Quality is a priority concept of journalism that connects with the social function of the press. The achievement of quality would ensure a proper work of the media. Technology is driving journalism today; hence, this purpose of excel lence requires new common parameters that allow its assessment, especially given the democratic dimension of the sector. Prior scholarship was widely analyzed these issues, but there is neither academic nor professional consensus on how journalistic quality works. Our study aims to examine the main lines of research that have explored quality digital journalism, organizing a fragmented literature into the three schools of theory already recognized by academia in the study of quality: Liberal, Professional and Social Responsibility. Based on a systematic review, we map the research trends regarding topics addressed and theoretical contributions, identifying an increasing number of ethical challenges in the use of digital technologies. This paper suggests to promote a debate on the need of a dialogue between research traditions to deal with the problems of a growing hi-tech journalism

Dissecting a complex chemical stress: chemogenomic profiling of plant hydrolysates.

The efficient production of biofuels from cellulosic feedstocks will require the efficient fermentation of the sugars in hydrolyzed plant material. Unfortunately, plant hydrolysates also contain many compounds that inhibit microbial growth and fermentation. We used DNA-barcoded mutant libraries to identify genes that are important for hydrolysate tolerance in both Zymomonas mobilis (44 genes) and Saccharomyces cerevisiae (99 genes). Overexpression of a Z. mobilis tolerance gene of unknown function (ZMO1875) improved its specific ethanol productivity 2.4-fold in the presence of miscanthus hydrolysate. However, a mixture of 37 hydrolysate-derived inhibitors was not sufficient to explain the fitness profile of plant hydrolysate. To deconstruct the fitness profile of hydrolysate, we profiled the 37 inhibitors against a library of Z. mobilis mutants and we modeled fitness in hydrolysate as a mixture of fitness in its components. By examining outliers in this model, we identified methylglyoxal as a previously unknown component of hydrolysate. Our work provides a general strategy to dissect how microbes respond to a complex chemical stress and should enable further engineering of hydrolysate tolerance

SUSY Quivers, Intersecting Branes and the Modest Hierarchy Problem

We present a class of chiral non-supersymmetric D=4 field theories in which quadratic divergences appear only at two loops. They may be depicted as ``SUSY quivers'' in which the nodes represent a gauge group with extended e.g., N=4 SUSY whereas links represent bifundamental matter fields which transform as chiral multiplets with respect to different N=1 subgroups. One can obtain this type of field theories from simple D6-brane configurations on Type IIA string theory compactified on a six-torus. We discuss the conditions under which this kind of structure is obtained from D6-brane intersections. We also discuss some aspects of the effective low-energy field theory. In particular we compute gauge couplings and Fayet-Iliopoulos terms from the Born-Infeld action and show how they match the field theory results. This class of theories may be of phenomenological interest in order to understand the modest hierarchy problem i.e., the stability of the hierarchy between the weak scale and a fundamental scale of order 10-100 TeV which appears e.g. in low string scale models. Specific D-brane models with the spectrum of the SUSY Standard Model and three generations are presented.Comment: 36 pages, using JHEP3.cls, 8 figures. References update

Comparison of health behaviours between cancer survivors and the general population:a cross-sectional analysis of the Lifelines cohort

Purpose: To compare the differences in lifestyle behaviours between cancer survivors (CSs) and cancer-free participants in a large and representative population-based cohort. Methods: We included 115,257 adults from the Lifelines cohort. Cancer status was self-reported, and health behaviours were measured (e.g. body mass index [BMI]) or assessed by questionnaire (e.g. physical activity, smoking, alcohol consumption, sedentary behaviour and diet). The data were then categorised for logistic regression analysis, stratified and adjusted by sex and age (< 55 vs ≥ 55 years). Results: CSs (5473; 4.7%) were diagnosed 9 ± 8.5 years before data collection, were older (mean age 55.4 vs 44.4 years) and more often female (66.6% vs 33.4%) than the cancer-free participants. They were also more likely to be physically active and to have a better diet, and also less likely to be alcohol drinkers; but, were more likely to have a higher BMI, be former smokers and to be sedentary. After adjustment for sex and age, however, BMI was more likely to be normal, physical activity was more likely to be higher and smoking to be prevalent in CSs. Current smoking was also significantly higher among females and those aged < 55 years who were CSs than for those with no history of cancer. Conclusions: In this population-based cohort, CSs have health behaviour comparable to those without a cancer diagnosis. Implications for cancer survivors: Smoking cessation strategies should target all CSs, but efforts could yield greatest benefit if they target females and those younger than 55 years

Yukawa couplings in intersecting D-brane models

We compute the Yukawa couplings among chiral fields in toroidal Type II compactifications with wrapping D6-branes intersecting at angles. Those models can yield realistic standard model spectrum living at the intersections. The Yukawa couplings depend both on the Kahler and open string moduli but not on the complex structure. They arise from worldsheet instanton corrections and are found to be given by products of complex Jacobi theta functions with characteristics. The Yukawa couplings for a particular intersecting brane configuration yielding the chiral spectrum of the MSSM are computed as an example. We also show how our methods can be extended to compute Yukawa couplings on certain classes of elliptically fibered CY manifolds which are mirror to complex cones over del Pezzo surfaces. We find that the Yukawa couplings in intersecting D6-brane models have a mathematical interpretation in the context of homological mirror symmetry. In particular, the computation of such Yukawa couplings is related to the construction of Fukaya's category in a generic symplectic manifold.Comment: 47 pages, using JHEP3.cls, 11 figures. Typos and other minor corrections. References adde

Standard Model baryogenesis through four-fermion operators in braneworlds

We study a new baryogenesis scenario in a class of braneworld models with low fundamental scale, which typically have difficulty with baryogenesis. The scenario is characterized by its minimal nature: the field content is that of the Standard Model and all interactions consistent with the gauge symmetry are admitted. Baryon number is violated via a dimension-6 proton decay operator, suppressed today by the mechanism of quark-lepton separation in extra dimensions; we assume that this operator was unsuppressed in the early Universe due to a time-dependent quark-lepton separation. The source of CP violation is the CKM matrix, in combination with the dimension-6 operators. We find that almost independently of cosmology, sufficient baryogenesis is nearly impossible in such a scenario if the fundamental scale is above 100 TeV, as required by an unsuppressed neutron-antineutron oscillation operator. The only exception producing sufficient baryon asymmetry is a scenario involving out-of-equilibrium c quarks interacting with equilibrium b quarks.Comment: 39 pages, 5 figures v2: typos, presentational changes, references and acknowledgments adde

Quality control-driven deep ensemble for accountable automated segmentation of cardiac magnetic resonance LGE and VNE images

BackgroundLate gadolinium enhancement (LGE) cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging is the gold standard for non-invasive myocardial tissue characterisation. However, accurate segmentation of the left ventricular (LV) myocardium remains a challenge due to limited training data and lack of quality control. This study addresses these issues by leveraging generative adversarial networks (GAN)-generated virtual native enhancement (VNE) images to expand the training set and incorporating an automated quality control-driven (QCD) framework to improve segmentation reliability.MethodsA dataset comprising 4,716 LGE images (from 1,363 patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and myocardial infarction) was used for development. To generate additional clinically validated data, LGE data were augmented with a GAN-based generator to produce VNE images. LV was contoured on these images manually by clinical observers. To create diverse candidate segmentations, the QCD framework involved multiple U-Nets, which were combined using statistical rank filters. The framework predicted the Dice Similarity Coefficient (DSC) for each candidate segmentation, with the highest predicted DSC indicating the most accurate and reliable result. The performance of the QCD ensemble framework was evaluated on both LGE and VNE test datasets (309 LGE/VNE images from 103 patients), assessing segmentation accuracy (DSC) and quality prediction (mean absolute error (MAE) and binary classification accuracy).ResultsThe QCD framework effectively and rapidly segmented the LV myocardium (&lt;1 s per image) on both LGE and VNE images, demonstrating robust performance on both test datasets with similar mean DSC (LGE: 0.845±0.075; VNE: 0.845±0.071; p=ns). Incorporating GAN-generated VNE data into the training process consistently led to enhanced performance for both individual models and the overall framework. The quality control mechanism yielded a high performance (MAE=0.043, accuracy=0.951) emphasising the accuracy of the quality control-driven strategy in predicting segmentation quality in clinical settings. Overall, no statistical difference (p=ns) was found when comparing the LGE and VNE test sets across all experiments.ConclusionsThe QCD ensemble framework, leveraging GAN-generated VNE data and an automated quality control mechanism, significantly improved the accuracy and reliability of LGE segmentation, paving the way for enhanced and accountable diagnostic imaging in routine clinical use

Intersecting Brane Models of Particle Physics and the Higgs Mechanism

We analyze a recently constructed class of D-brane theories with the fermion spectrum of the SM at the intersection of D6-branes wrapping a compact toroidal space. We show how the SM Higgs mechanism appears as a brane recombination effect in which the branes giving rise to U(2)_L \times U(1) recombine into a single brane related to U(1)_{em}. We also show how one can construct D6-brane models which respect some supersymmetry at every intersection. These are quasi-supersymmetric models of the type introduced in hep-th/0201205 which may be depicted in terms of SUSY-quivers and may stabilize the hierarchy between the weak scale and a fundamental scale of order 10-100 TeV present in low string scale models. Several explicit D6-brane models with three generations of quarks and leptons and different SUSY-quiver structure are presented. One can prove on general grounds that if one wants to build a (factorizable) D6-brane configuration with the SM gauge group and N = 1 SUSY (or quasi-SUSY), also a massless (B-L) generator must be initially present in any model. If in addition we insist on lef- and right-handed fermions respecting the same N=1 SUSY, the brane configurations are forced to have intersections giving rise to Higgs multiplets, providing for a rationale for the very existence of the SM Higgs sector.Comment: 58 pages, using JHEP3.cls, 13 figures. Minor corrections and references update

The use of imepitoin (Pexion™) on fear and anxiety related problems in dogs – a case series

Fear and anxiety based problems are common in dogs. Alongside behaviour modification programmes, a range of psychopharmacological agents may be recommended to treat such problems, but few are licensed for use in dogs and the onset of action of some can be delayed. The low affinity partial benzodiazepine receptor agonist imepitoin (Pexion™, Boehringer Ingelheim) is licensed for treating canine epilepsy, has a fast onset of action in dogs and has demonstrated anxiolytic properties in rodent models. This case series reports on the use of imepitoin in a group of dogs identified as having fear/anxiety based problems. Twenty dogs were enrolled into the study, attended a behaviour consultation and underwent routine laboratory evaluation. Nineteen dogs proceeded to be treated with imepitoin orally twice daily (starting dose approximately 10 mg/kg, with alterations as required to a maximum 30 mg/kg) alongside a patient-specific behaviour modification plan for a period of 11–19 weeks. Progress was monitored via owner report through daily diary entries and telephone follow-up every two weeks. A Positive and Negative Activation Scale (PANAS) of temperament was also completed by owners during baseline and at the end of the study