The Plastid Genome of Eutreptiella Provides a Window into the Process of Secondary Endosymbiosis of Plastid in Euglenids

Euglenids are a group of protists that comprises species with diverse feeding modes. One distinct and diversified clade of euglenids is photoautotrophic, and its members bear green secondary plastids. In this paper we present the plastid genome of the euglenid Eutreptiella, which we assembled from 454 sequencing of Eutreptiella gDNA. Comparison of this genome and the only other available plastid genomes of photosynthetic euglenid, Euglena gracilis, revealed that they contain a virtually identical set of 57 protein coding genes, 24 genes fewer than the genome of Pyramimonas parkeae, the closest extant algal relative of the euglenid plastid. Searching within the transcriptomes of Euglena and Eutreptiella showed that 6 of the missing genes were transferred to the nucleus of the euglenid host while 18 have been probably lost completely. Euglena and Eutreptiella represent the deepest bifurcation in the photosynthetic clade, and therefore all these gene transfers and losses must have happened before the last common ancestor of all known photosynthetic euglenids. After the split of Euglena and Eutreptiella only one additional gene loss took place. The conservation of gene content in the two lineages of euglenids is in contrast to the variability of gene order and intron counts, which diversified dramatically. Our results show that the early secondary plastid of euglenids was much more susceptible to gene losses and endosymbiotic gene transfers than the established plastid, which is surprisingly resistant to changes in gene content

Principles of audio watermarking

The article contains a brief overview of modern methods for embedding additional data in audio signals. It could have many reasons - for the purposes of access control or identification related to particular type of audio. This secret information is not “visible” for a user. This concept utilizes the imperfection of human auditory system. Simple data hiding into audio file has been proved in MATLAB

SD LMS L-Filters for Filtration of Gray Level Images in Timespatial Domain Based on GLCM Features

SD LMS L-Filters for Filtration of Gray Level Images in Timespatial Domain Based on GLCM Feature

SLOVAKIA. Critical junctures in the media transformation process.

In Slovakia, we record several critical junctures in the years 2000 – 2020, which had a significant impact on the media development, as well as on the opportunities and risks for deliberative communication and democracy. These included the advent of online media after 2000, the rise of social media since 2004, the worldwide economic crisis in 2008, the corruption case ‘Gorilla’ in 2011, the murder of the investigative journalist Ján Kuciak in 2018 and the COVID-19 pandemic since 2020. These events also affected the individual domains studied in Slovakia. Within the legal and ethical regulation, there are laws and standards that guarantee freedom of the press and the conduct of journalists is governed by multiple ethical codes. However, the most significant risks for the media in the journalistic domain are political influences and the pressures from media owners. These issues were also reflected in the decline in media credibility, as confirmed by research in the domain of media usage patterns. A rather positive phenomenon is, despite the persistent absence of empirical data that would support the claim, a sufficient number of academics who deal with the media competencies of media users. In summary, solid conditions (legislative, ethical, educational) for the media have been created in Slovakia, but the influences of politicians and media owners, job instability and poor financial evaluation of journalists remain a risk

SLOVAKIA. Risks and Opportunities Related to Media and Journalism Studies (2000–2020). Case Study on the National Research and Monitoring Capabilities.

Slovakia with a population of 5.3 million is one of the smaller countries in the Mediadelcom project, so the authors were able to identify and describe almost all relevant publications that contributed to the scholarly reflection on the four media domains in 2000 – 2020. The researchers mapped 865 publications, which included 707 academic and 159 non-academic outputs. Within the academic outputs, the project participants found that the most represented are academic articles, then academic books and finally academic book chapters. Most publications are written in Slovak and then in English. A smaller part of the body of literature is indexed in WoS or Scopus databases. Within the non-academic outputs, the project participants found that nonacademic articles, books and research reports have the largest representation. Most outputs are published in Slovak and without indexing in WoS or Scopus databases. Based on these findings, the authors claim that the media studies field has a well-established tradition in Slovakia, which is constantly evolving