How independent? an analysis of GE13 coverage by Malaysia’s online news portal coverage

The May 5, 2013, general election in Malaysia may have marked the move of the nation’s alternative news media—online, unlicensed news portals that challenge the hegemony of the party that has ruled the nation since 1957—into the mainstream. Malaysiakini, The Malaysian Insider, and Free Malaysia Today editors pride themselves on their independence and journalistic role as government watchdogs, a role they claim has been abdicated by newspapers and broadcast outlets. This article critiques the self-professed editorial independence of these three online news portals through analysis of their GE13 campaign coverage. This research will expand knowledge about Malaysia’s evolving news environment and will add to research on media coverage of previous Malaysian elections. The study employs two research methods: content analysis and personal interviews with news portal editors and media scholars. Following an overview of Malaysia’s historically hegemonic mainstream news media, the article traces how the Internet facilitated the introduction of Malaysia’s counter-hegemonic online news portals. Its basic research question is: Did Malaysia’s leading independent news portals provide unbiased news coverage of GE13? The hypothesis was that the sites would be negatively biased against the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition and positively biased toward opposition coalition candidates, However, the study found 8.2 percent more positive BN stories than negative BN stories in overall coverage. A greater disparity appeared in opposition coverage, where positive stories as predicted outnumbered negative stories by 56.1 percent. News portals criticized both parties, leading to the conclusion that they add to the political discourse that is requisite for successful participatory democracy

An argument for using participatory approaches for the design of online health interventions targeted at young women

The Internet is becoming an increasingly important portal to health information and means for promoting health in user populations. As the most frequent users of online health information, young women are an important target population for e-health promotion interventions. Health-related websites have traditionally been generic in design, resulting in poor user engagement and affecting limited impacts on health behaviour change. Mounting evidence suggests that the most effective health promotion communication strategies are collaborative in nature, fully engaging target users throughout the development process. Participatory design approaches to interface development enable researchers to better identify the needs and expectations of users, thus increasing user engagement in, and promoting behaviour change via, online health interventions. This article introduces participatory design methods applicable to online health intervention design and presents an argument for the use of such methods in the development of e-Health applications targeted at young women

Interactive online health promotion interventions:a “health check”

As an increasingly popular medium by which to access health promotion information, the Internet offers significant potential to promote (often individualized) health-related behavioral change across broad populations. Interactive online health promotion interventions are a key means, therefore, by which to empower individuals to make important well being and treatment decisions. But how ldquohealthyrdquo are interactive online health promotion interventions? This paper discusses a literature review (or ldquohealth checkrdquo) of interactive online health interventions. It highlights the types of interactive interventions currently available and identifies areas in which research attention is needed in order to take full advantage for the Internet for effective health promotion

Performance in Scandinavian shortsea shipping links

Within the geographic area constituted by the Scandinavian countries are there a multitude of ferry-services and RoRo-lines supporting the commercial and societal needs of transportation and logistics. The increased international trade and a continued trend towards concentration of production and consumption centres imply raised demands on these transport services that need to correspond to the high expectations set by commercial interests. This abstract springs from the project “Analysis of performance in Scandinavian shortsea shipping links” that has the aim of strengthening the role of waterborne goods transportation within the geographic region represented by the Nordic transport political network, NTN. RoRo-traffic is an important component in Scandinavia’s international transport network where the goods can be shifted from vessels to road/rail to create an efficient chain from supplier to customer. Ferry lines with short transit time and high frequency often fulfil the same function as a bridge, so called bridge substitutes, also plays an important role in this network. This illustrates the vital correlation between shortsea shipping and road transportation, a dependency that often is highlighted in the discussions concerning the development of efficient transport systems. The above mentioned sea links supports a development towards durable and cost efficient transportation on a macro level by enabling a shift of volumes from heavily congested road/rail links to sea. It is also necessary that the sea links provide a cost efficient solution for producers and consumers on a micro level. The project “Analysis of performance in Scandinavian shortsea shipping links” has a focus on vessel resource utilisation, and is based on a hypothesis that supports the relations between: Vessel resource utilisation / distance Vessel resource utilisation / transit time Vessel resource utilisation / frequency When the distance and transit time increase and the frequency decreases, the vessel resource utilisation is in general enhanced. The study will increase the knowledge of the traded-off between resource utilisation and the other parameters in order to streamline the shipping companies’ strategies. The purpose of the study is to make shortsea shipping more competitive towards other modes of transportation and to increase the understanding of the function of a “bridge substitute”. The hypothesis is supported by a pre-study from 2001

Clean and Green Urban Water Bodies Benefit Nocturnal Flying Insects and Their Predators, Insectivorous Bats

Nocturnal arthropods form the prey base for many predators and are an integral part of complex food webs. However, there is limited understanding of the mechanisms influencing invertebrates at urban water bodies and the potential flow-on effects to their predators. This study aims to: (i) understand the importance of standing water bodies for nocturnal flying insect orders, including the landscape- and local-scale factors driving these patterns; and (ii) quantify the relationship between insects and insectivorous bats. We investigated nocturnal flying insects and insectivorous bats simultaneously at water bodies (n = 58) and non-water body sites (n = 35) using light traps and acoustic recorders in Melbourne, Australia. At the landscape scale, we found that the presence of water and high levels of surrounding greenness were important predictors for some insect orders. At the water body scale, low levels of sediment pollutants, increased riparian tree cover and water body size supported higher insect order richness and a greater abundance of Coleopterans and Trichopterans, respectively. Most bat species had a positive response to a high abundance of Lepidopterans, confirming the importance of this order in the diet of insectivorous bats. Fostering communities of nocturnal insects in urban environments can provide opportunities for enhancing the prey base of urban nocturnal insectivores.DFG, 414044773, Open Access Publizieren 2019 - 2020 / Technische Universität Berli

Profiling Students for Violence

2 p.A microfiche copy of this title is available through the UO Libraries under the call number: DOC-US/MF ED 1.310/2:44634

How well do ecosystem-based planning units represent different componenets of biodiversity?

There are many proposals for managing biodiversity by using surrogates, such as umbrella, indicator, focal, and flagship species. We use the term biodiversity management unit for any ecosystem-based classificatory scheme for managing biodiversity. The sufficiency of biodiversity management unit classification schemes depends upon (1) whether different biotic elements (e.g., trees, birds, reptiles) distinguish between biodiversity management units within a classification (i.e., coherence within classes}; and (2) whether different biotic elements agree upon similarities and dissimilarities among biodiversity management unit classes (i.e., conformance among classes). Recent evaluations suggest that biodiversity surrogates based on few or single taxa are not useful. Ecological vegetation classes are an ecosystem-based classification scheme used as one component for biodiversity management in Victoria, Australia. Here we evaluated the potential for ecological vegetation classes to be used as biodiversity management units in the box-ironbark ecosystem of central Victoria, Australia. Eighty sites distributed among 14 ecological vegetation classes were surveyed in the same ways for tree species, birds, mammals, reptiles, terrestrial invertebrates, and nocturnal flying insects. Habitat structure and geographic separations also were measured, which, with the biotic elements, are collectively referred to as variables. Less than half of the biotic element-ecological vegetation class pairings were coherent. Generalized Mantel tests were used to examine conformance among variables with respect to ecological vegetation classes. While most tests were not significant, birds, mammals, tree species, and habitat structure together showed significant agreement on the rating of similarities among ecological vegetation classes. In this system, use of ecological vegetation classes as biodiversity management units may account reasonably well for birds, mammals, and trees; but reptiles and invertebrates would not be accommodated. We conclude that surrogates will usually have to be augmented or developed as hierarchies to provide general representativeness

The Early Years

Policy concentration on the early years is of vital importance for the wellbeing of children now and for their future health outcomes and life chances. Evidence-based research points to the need for a focus that is properly holistic and to precipitate intervention to promote a healthy diet, regular patterns of activity and rest and give children the best start in life. In 2005, The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (General Comment No. 7) acknowledged the need for a fresh strategy, pinpointing research findings indicating that a failure to prioritise early years’ welfare exposes children to the ills of ‘malnutrition, disease, poverty, neglect, social exclusion and a range of other adversities.’ Professor Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer of the United Kingdom, considers that robust early years’ policies make both social and economic sense: ‘Too many children and young people do not have the start in life they need, leading to high costs for society, and too many affected lives’ (Forward to ‘The 1001 Critical Days’, June 16th 2014). This observation is significant because there remains much to do. In 2012, the NSPCC reviewed the United Kingdom policy scenario for babies and very young children and concluded that identifiable advances in maternity and early years’ provision did not detract from the fact that: ‘babies are still particularly vulnerable’ and ‘their rights are not always recognised or realised’. (‘All Babies Count – But what about their rights?’ Sally Knock and Lorriann Robinson, January 2012). Knock and Robinson highlight glaring gaps of support and provision – especially in maternity services whereby the fostering of a strong parent-child bond is invariably sacrificed to a concentration upon purely medical practicalities such as labour, birth and the immunisation programme. The All Party Group on a Fit and Healthy Childhood aims, in this report, to offer the incoming Government recommendations for an early years’ strategy that are credible, feasible and evidence-based and will enable the United Kingdom to set the standard in a crucial policy field both at home and abroad. In defining ‘early childhood’, we follow the example of The United Nations (2005) Convention on the Right of the Child by examining the period of 0-8 including, as it does, the vital transition phase from pre-school to primary school. We consider the antenatal period and maternal physical and mental health, methods of feeding the newborn, parental support services both hospital and home-based and infant nutrition and socioeconomic factors that may impact upon the health and wellbeing of young children. The report examines the optimum balance between sleep, rest and activity, the need for freely-chosen play, safeguarding measures and the importance of respecting cultural diversity in all early years’ settings. Above all, we analyse the relationship between young families and the professionals whose role it is to ensure that babies have the very best start in life, supported by parents who have confidence in the choices that they make and the advice that they are given. Just as new families require mentoring so that they can act in the best interests of their children, so the early years’ workforce needs training and continuous professional development to ensure that the advice given is of the highest possible quality and specifically tailored to the individual family. Early Years’ students from The University of Northampton (interviewed) explain what a positive difference their newly acquired knowledge has made to their performance in the settings and Government recognition of The Early Years as a developmental stage in its own right and the creation of the new posts of Early Years Teacher and Early Years Educator have been positive. Yet as the Ilkeston ‘Mums Group’ (interviewed) makes clear, there is still no guarantee of uniform excellence in the delivery of services nationwide and no assurance of continuity between, for example, advice on feeding from the midwife and the health visitor, or the emphasis put on freely-chosen play in an early years’ setting and a primary school. If young children are to thrive, we believe it is essential that there is a national consensus and political will behind multi-disciplinary working in the early years. We see the early years as a window of opportunity and make no apology for the fact that each section of this report is accompanied by many policy recommendations. It has not been possible to produce a uniform handful of ‘asks’, just as the early years itself is a rich, complex and multifarious developmental phase. However, neither do we consider it to be feasible to achieve everything that we recommend in the lifespan of a single Government. This is a two, even three term journey. However, if the nation’s families and the early years workforce are to embark upon it, the Government must be prepared to provide the resources; the Cabinet Minister for Children and Families, the commitment to multi-disciplinary co-operation to achieve an early years workforce that is truly ‘joined up’ and, above all, the finance to make well–intentioned aspiration a reality. In an age of austerity, by spending early, the later savings to education, health, social or criminal justice services will be immense. Investing in the children of today is not a gambl

Bioreactor technologies to support liver function in vitro

Liver is a central nexus integrating metabolic and immunologic homeostasis in the human body, and the direct or indirect target of most molecular therapeutics. A wide spectrum of therapeutic and technological needs drives efforts to capture liver physiology and pathophysiology in vitro, ranging from prediction of metabolism and toxicity of small molecule drugs, to understanding off-target effects of proteins, nucleic acid therapies, and targeted therapeutics, to serving as disease models for drug development. Here we provide perspective on the evolving landscape of bioreactor-based models to meet old and new challenges in drug discovery and development, emphasizing design challenges in maintaining long-term liver-specific function and how emerging technologies in biomaterials and microdevices are providing new experimental models.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (R01 EB010246)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (P50-GM068762-08)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (R01-ES015241)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (P30-ES002109)5UH2TR000496-02National Science Foundation (U.S.). Emergent Behaviors of Integrated Cellular Systems (CBET-0939511)United States. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Microphysiological Systems Program (W911NF-12-2-0039