Transparency and (no) more in the Political Advertising Regulation

The EU has taken its first steps into a sensitive space by proposing a new Regulation on Political Advertising (RPA). Simply put, the RPA does two things, which this commentary will address in turn. First, it replaces national laws on the transparency of political advertising with a single set of rules. These provide progressively more information to citizens who see an ad, to the public through ad libraries, and to regulators and private actors who are authorised to request information. Second, the RPA tightens the GDPR’s ban on using sensitive data for targeted political advertising. It leaves member states free, however, to further regulate the use of political advertising.The RPA takes a number of important steps in political advertising law. It strengthens the transparency of the (so far largely unregulated) online political advertising environment. It expands ad libraries with information on targeting and funding. And it allows a broad range of private actors (including civil society and journalists) to request data from a broad range of companies (including ad agencies and small platforms). At the same time, the RPA not only represents the EU’s most significant effort to address concerns about political advertising’s democratic impact, but (because it fully harmonises transparency) also shapes how individuals, researchers, and national regulators can scrutinise political advertising. It is therefore important to determine whether the regulation lives up to the Commission’s hype

The unstable coastline: navigating dispossession and belonging in Colombo

This article explores how residents of a small coastal fishing enclave in Colombo live with cumulative waves of dispossession brought on by exclusionary projects of urban development. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, I introduce the analytic of navigation to describe how people move, plan and live with both present and future threats of dispossession. Navigation offers a unique perspective on questions of agency and resistance in oppressive conditions. Rather than framing subjects as “resisting” projects of world-class city-making, this analysis shows that urban residents instead engage in complex and occasionally contradictory modes of living with uncertainty. I complicate existing understandings of the term “navigation” by describing how questions of nation and belonging are crucial to comprehending how people navigate. Ultimately, I suggest that expressions of belonging and obligation to an imagined community might not only be strategic, but instead reflect some of the broader social forces which structure possibilities for action

Novel insights by 4D Flow imaging on aortic flow physiology after valve-sparing root replacement with or without neosinuses

This study was undertaken to evaluate the flow dynamics in the aortic root after valve-sparing root replacement with and without neosinuses of Valsalva reconstruction, by exploiting the capability of 4D Flow imaging to measure in vivo blood velocity fields and 3D geometric flow patterns

Transparency and (no) more in the Political Advertising Regulation

The EU has taken its first steps into a sensitive space by proposing a new Regulation on Political Advertising (RPA). Simply put, the RPA does two things, which this commentary will address in turn. First, it replaces national laws on the transparency of political advertising with a single set of rules. These provide progressively more information to citizens who see an ad, to the public through ad libraries, and to regulators and private actors who are authorised to request information. Second, the RPA tightens the GDPR’s ban on using sensitive data for targeted political advertising. It leaves member states free, however, to further regulate the use of political advertising.The RPA takes a number of important steps in political advertising law. It strengthens the transparency of the (so far largely unregulated) online political advertising environment. It expands ad libraries with information on targeting and funding. And it allows a broad range of private actors (including civil society and journalists) to request data from a broad range of companies (including ad agencies and small platforms). At the same time, the RPA not only represents the EU’s most significant effort to address concerns about political advertising’s democratic impact, but (because it fully harmonises transparency) also shapes how individuals, researchers, and national regulators can scrutinise political advertising. It is therefore important to determine whether the regulation lives up to the Commission’s hype

Aortic flow after valve sparing root replacement with or without neosinuses reconstruction

Objectives: This study applied advanced 4-dimensional flow magnetic resonance imaging processing to assess differences in aortic flow dynamics after valve sparing root replacement, with and without reconstruction of the Valsalva sinuses. Methods: We enrolled patients after valve sparing root replacement with a straight tubular prosthesis (n = 10) or with a prosthesis with Valsalva neosinuses (n = 10); age-matched subjects without cardiovascular diseases served as controls (n = 10). 4-Dimensional flow magnetic resonance imaging acquisitions were performed on a 3.0T magnetic resonance imaging unit. In-house processing was used to segment the aortic lumen and extract the volumetric 4-dimensional flow velocity field. Velocity flow streamlines were computed to compare the amount of rotational flow and wall shear stress. Occurrence of abnormal wall shear stress (WSS) was estimated within the descending aorta of each surgical group. Results: Physiologic-like sinus vortices were visible in the aortic root when using the prosthesis with neosinuses, whereas straight tubular graft revealed localized intrados malrotations (P =.003 for organized vortical structures vs neosinuses graft and P <.001 vs control). In the ascending aorta, recreation of the sinuses resulted in significantly lower velocity and WSS than in the straight tubular graft (P <.001) and controls (P <.001), these alterations were attenuated in the mid-descending aorta. Incidence of abnormal WSS was markedly higher in the straight tube grafts than neosinus of Valsalva grafts. Conclusions: Re-creation of the sinuses of Valsalva during valve-sparing root replacement is associated with more physiologic flow and significantly lower WSS in the aortic root. Lower WSSs in the distal thoracic aorta is a novel finding with potential implications on distal aortic remodeling

A deep learning approach to generate synthetic CT in low field MR-guided adaptive radiotherapy for abdominal and pelvic cases

Purpose: Artificial intelligence (AI) can play a significant role in Magnetic Resonance guided Radiotherapy (MRgRT), especially to speed up the online adaptive workflow. The aim of this study is to set up a Deep Learning (DL) approach able to generate synthetic computed tomography (sCT) images from low field MR images in pelvis and abdomen. Methods: A conditional Generative Adversarial Network (cGAN) was used for sCT generation: a total of 120 patients treated on pelvic and abdominal sites were enrolled and divided in training (80) and test sets (40). Intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) treatment plans were calculated on sCT and original CT and then compared in terms of gamma analysis and differences in Dose Volume Histogram (DVH). The two one-sided test for paired samples (TOST-P) was used to evaluate the equivalence among different DVH parameters calculated for target and organs at risks (OAR) on CT and sCT images. Results: Using a CPU architecture, the mean time required by the neural network to generate a synthetic CT was 175 ± 43 seconds (s) for pelvic cases and 110 ± 40 s for abdominal ones. Mean gamma passing rates for the three tolerance criteria analysed (1%/1 mm, 2%/2 mm and 3%/3 mm) were respectively 90.8 ± 4.5%, 98.7 ± 1.1% and 99.8 ± 0.2% for abdominal cases; 89.3 ± 4.8%, 99.0 ± 0.7% and 99.9 ± 0.2% for pelvic ones, while equivalence within 1% was observed among the DVH indicators. Conclusion: This study demonstrated that sCT generation using a DL approach is feasible for low field MR images in pelvis and abdomen, allowing a reliable calculation of IMRT plans in MRgRT