Journalism in an emerging power : how the roles of journalists are evolving in India

Professional project report submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in Journalism from the School of Journalism, University of Missouri--Columbia.Aware that independent journalism is at risk in their country, seven Indian journalists from different cultural and professional backgrounds discuss how they perceive their role in India's current political and economic climate, what challenges they face and what purpose they think journalism needs to serve in the emerging democracy. Despite the commercialization of the news, these professionals fight to tell the truth and engage communities around difficult, often heart-wrenching issues. They take the risks to expose scams and corrupted officials, travel to the most remote villages of India to raise awareness about hunger and poverty, and challenge social norms to talk about child marriage, female infanticide and acid attacks. Some journalists are guilty of nothing more than working for greedy, corrupt owners who use their editorial platform to highlight or ignore issues to suit their interests, but the professionals featured in this piece care about the job they do and do it the best they can. To borrow the expression from Sam Miller, a former BBC correspondent in South Asia, Indian journalists are 'undergoing an acid test' in which they are expected to prove their commitment to the ordinary people and to the basic objective of the profession itself. While striving to remain grounded and true to their goals, they have adapted their journalistic practices to the realities of India's bedlam, often flirting with activism and redefining the journalists' code of ethics. They know that without a stronger ethical stance, a better technical and editorial training, a significant impact from watchdog work and an effort in spreading media literacy, they will not be able to serve the purpose of their profession -- advancing democracy. This article aims to understand where Indian journalism currently stands, and more importantly, where it is heading

The hydrogen evolution reaction: from material to interfacial descriptors

International audienceThe production of sustainable hydrogen with water electrolyzers is envisaged as one of the most promising ways to match the continuously growing demand for renewable electricity storage. While so far regarded as fast when compared to the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) regained interest in the last few years owing to its poor kinetics in alkaline electrolytes. Indeed, this slow kinetics not only may hinder the foreseen development of the anionic exchange membrane water electrolyzer (AEMWE), but also raises fundamental questions regarding the parameters governing the reaction. In this perspective, we first briefly review the fundamentals of the HER, emphasizing how studies performed on model electrodes allowed for achieving a good understanding of its mechanism under acidic conditions. Then, we discuss how the use of physical descriptors capturing the sole properties of the catalyst is not sufficient to describe the HER kinetics under alkaline conditions, thus forcing the catalysis community to adopt a more complex picture taking into account the electrolyte structure at the electrochemical interface. This work also outlines new techniques, such as spectroscopies, molecular simulations, or chemical approaches that could be employed to tackle these new fundamental challenges, and potentially guide the future design of practical and cheap catalysts while also being useful to a wider community dealing with electrochemical energy storage devices using aqueous electrolytes

Importance of Water Structure and Catalyst–Electrolyte Interface on the Design of Water Splitting Catalysts

International audienceHydrogen production technologies have attracted intensive attention for their potential to cope with future challenges related to renewable energy storage and conversion. However, the significant kinetic barriers associated with the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), one of the two half reactions at the heart of water electrolysis, greatly hinder the sustainable production of hydrogen at a large scale. A wide variety of materials have thus been designed and explored as OER catalysts. In this perspective, we briefly review the development of Ir-based OER catalysts in acidic conditions and discuss the limitations of a design strategy solely based on the physical and electronic properties of OER catalysts, highlighting the importance of understanding the catalyst-electrolyte interface which affects the stability and activity of the catalyst. We then share our perspective on a group of crystalline, bulk protonated iridates obtained via cation exchange in acidic solutions to be used as promising stable and active OER catalysts. Finally, we discuss the advances recently made in understanding the impact of the active sites environment on the OER kinetics, emphasizing the influence of the water structure and/or solvation properties of ions in the electrolyte. We highlight the importance of developing a better understanding of these influencing factors and incorporate them into our design of OER catalysts with enhanced properties

Crystallographic and magnetic structures of the VI3_3 and LiVI3_3 van der Waals compounds

Two-dimensional (2D) layered magnetic materials are generating a great amount of interest for the next generation of electronic devices thanks to their remarkable properties associated to spin dynamics. The recently discovered layered VI$_3$ ferromagnetic phase belongs to this family, although a full understanding of its properties is limited by an ill-defined crystallographic structure. This is not any longer true. Here, we investigate the VI$_3$ crystal structure upon cooling using both synchrotron X-ray and neutron powder diffraction and provide structural models for the two structural transitions occurring at 76 K and 32 K. Moreover, we confirm by magnetic measurements that VI$_3$ becomes ferromagnetic at 50 K and discuss the difficulty of solving its full magnetic structure by neutrons. We equally determined the magnetic properties of our recently reported LiVI$_3$ phase, which is alike the well-known CrI$_3$ ferromagnetic phase in terms of electronic and crystallographic structures and found to our surprise an antiferromagnetic behavior with a N\'eel temperature of 12 K. Such a finding provides extra clues for a better understanding of magnetism in these low dimension compounds. Finally, the easiness of preparing novel Li-based 2D magnetic materials by chemical/electrochemical means opens wide the opportunity to design materials with exotic properties

The Effect of Water on Quinone Redox Mediators in Nonaqueous Li-O2 Batteries.

The parasitic reactions associated with reduced oxygen species and the difficulty in achieving the high theoretical capacity have been major issues plaguing development of practical nonaqueous Li-O2 batteries. We hereby address the above issues by exploring the synergistic effect of 2,5-di-tert-butyl-1,4-benzoquinone and H2O on the oxygen chemistry in a nonaqueous Li-O2 battery. Water stabilizes the quinone monoanion and dianion, shifting the reduction potentials of the quinone and monoanion to more positive values (vs Li/Li+). When water and the quinone are used together in a (largely) nonaqueous Li-O2 battery, the cell discharge operates via a two-electron oxygen reduction reaction to form Li2O2, with the battery discharge voltage, rate, and capacity all being considerably increased and fewer side reactions being detected. Li2O2 crystals can grow up to 30 μm, more than an order of magnitude larger than cases with the quinone alone or without any additives, suggesting that water is essential to promoting a solution dominated process with the quinone on discharging. The catalytic reduction of O2 by the quinone monoanion is predominantly responsible for the attractive features mentioned above. Water stabilizes the quinone monoanion via hydrogen-bond formation and by coordination of the Li+ ions, and it also helps increase the solvation, concentration, lifetime, and diffusion length of reduced oxygen species that dictate the discharge voltage, rate, and capacity of the battery. When a redox mediator is also used to aid the charging process, a high-power, high energy density, rechargeable Li-O2 battery is obtained.The authors thank EPSRC-EP/M009521/1 (T.L., G.K., C.P.G.), Innovate UK (T.L.), Darwin Schlumberger Fellowship (T.L.), EU Horizon 2020 GrapheneCore1-No.696656 (G.K., C.P.G.), EPSRC - EP/N024303/1, EP/L019469/1 (N.G.-A., J.T.F.), Royal Society - RG130523 (N.G.-A.), and the European Commission FP7-MC–CIG Funlab, 630162 (N.G.-A.) for research funding

Hydrogen evolution enhancement of ultra-low loading, size-selected molybdenum sulfide nanoclusters by sulfur enrichment

Size-selected molybdenum sulfide (MoSx) nanoclusters obtained by magnetron sputtering and gas condensation on glassy carbon substrates are typically sulfur-deficient (x = 1.6 ± 0.1), which limits their crystallinity and electrocatalytic properties. Here we demonstrate that a sulfur-enriching method, comprising sulfur evaporation and cluster annealing under vacuum conditions, significantly enhances their activity towards the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). The S-richness (x = 4.9 ± 0.1) and extended crystalline order obtained in the sulfur-treated MoSx nanoclusters lead to consistent 200 mV shifts to lower HER onset potentials, along with two-fold and more-than 30-fold increases in turnover frequency and exchange current density values respectively. The high mass activities (~111 mA mg-1 @ 400 mV) obtained at ultra-low loadings (~100 ng cm-2, 5 % surface coverage) are comparable to the best reported MoS2 catalysts in the literature

Propos introductifs sur l’accès aux soins

L’intitulé retenu pour cette contribution m’autorise à présenter, non pas un exposé savamment balancé, mais, dans une démarche que je pense logique, quelques unes des questions importantes que l’accès aux soins me paraît poser. On pourrait, certes, se demander si l’on peut attendre d’un colloque qu’il apporte des éléments nouveaux de réponse à ces questions. Les règles qui gouvernent l’accès aux soins et les imperfections qui affectent à cet égard notre système de santé sont depuis plus de de..

L'Europe et le tonneau des Danaïdes grec

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Droit du vin et santé publique, conclusions

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