Modern Political Communication and Web 2.0 in Representative Democracies

During the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the social media has facilitated interactive communications between the political elites and public. In the 2016 UK Referendum, the social media became a vehicle for contested political arguments and post-truth positions defined the Remain and Leave camps. For instance, it was claimed that the United Kingdom Independence Party former leader Nigel Farage’s anti-migrant tweets influenced many voters. In the 2016 US Presidential election, the victorious celebrity property tycoon Donald Trump maintained a controversial online presence. He posted tweets about his campaign and engaged in a blatantly hateful online discourse aimed at his political opponents. Therefore, does such a usage of the social media aid democratic representation or contribute to a greater destabilisation of modern politics

The public sphere and network democracy: Social movements and political change?

The article critically examines the democratic possibilities of technological innovations associated with Web 2.0 tools and in this context it address the first and second ‘waves’ of academic debates concerning the social media and the public sphere in the networked society. It argues that the initial optimism associated with a virtual public sphere has been replaced by doubts about whether this model was appropriate for the development of democratic values. It assesses whether the information communications networks have constructed a more personalised form of politics and it is concerned with the application of the networked power relations with reference to grassroots or social revolutionary movements. New communications environments were seen to be instrumental in forging the conditions for the ‘Arab Spring’ revolutions and the Turkish protests within Istanbul’s Taksim square during the summer of 2013. These Middle Eastern case examples are discussed along with the calls for political and economic change in Southern Europe within financially constrained countries of Spain and Greece. Based on such studies the article theorizes on the key question concerning whether the social media can contribute to democracy, revolution and expansion of the public sphere, or whether they remain instruments of control and power

Application of Market Models to Network Equilibrium Problems

We present a general two-side market model with divisible commodities and price functions of participants. A general existence result on unbounded sets is obtained from its variational inequality re-formulation. We describe an extension of the network flow equilibrium problem with elastic demands and a new equilibrium type model for resource allocation problems in wireless communication networks, which appear to be particular cases of the general market model. This enables us to obtain new existence results for these models as some adjustments of that for the market model. Under certain additional conditions the general market model can be reduced to a decomposable optimization problem where the goal function is the sum of two functions and one of them is convex separable, whereas the feasible set is the corresponding Cartesian product. We discuss some versions of the partial linearization method, which can be applied to these network equilibrium problems.Comment: 18 pages, 3 table

Meropenem vs standard of care for treatment of neonatal late onset sepsis (NeoMero1): A randomised controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: The early use of broad-spectrum antibiotics remains the cornerstone for the treatment of neonatal late onset sepsis (LOS). However, which antibiotics should be used is still debatable, as relevant studies were conducted more than 20 years ago, recruited in single centres or countries, evaluated antibiotics not in clinical use anymore and had variable inclusion/exclusion criteria and outcome measures. Moreover, antibiotic-resistant bacteria have become a major problem in many countries worldwide. We hypothesized that efficacy of meropenem as a broad-spectrum antibiotic is superior to standard of care regimens (SOC) in empiric treatment of LOS and aimed to compare meropenem to SOC in infants aged 44 weeks meeting the Goldstein criteria of sepsis, were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to receive meropenem or one of the two SOC regimens (ampicillin+gentamicin or cefotaxime+gentamicin) chosen by each site prior to the start of the study for 8-14 days. The primary outcome was treatment success (survival, no modification of allocated therapy, resolution/improvement of clinical and laboratory markers, no need of additional antibiotics and presumed/confirmed eradication of pathogens) at test-of-cure visit (TOC) in full analysis set. Stool samples were tested at baseline and Day 28 for meropenem-resistant Gram-negative organisms (CRGNO). The primary analysis was performed in all randomised patients and in patients with culture confirmed LOS. Proportions of participants with successful outcome were compared by using a logistic regression model adjusted for the stratification factors. From September 3, 2012 to November 30th 2014, total of 136 patients (instead of planned 275) in each arm were randomized; 140 (52%) were culture positive. Successful outcome at TOC was achieved in 44/136 (32%) in the meropenem arm vs. 31/135 (23%) in the SOC arm (p = 0.087). The respective numbers in patients with positive cultures were 17/63 (27%) vs. 10/77 (13%) (p = 0.022). The main reason of failure was modification of allocated therapy. Treatment emergent adverse events occurred in 72% and serious adverse events in 17% of patients, the Day 28 mortality was 6%. Cumulative acquisition of CRGNO by Day 28 occurred in 4% of patients in the meropenem and 12% in the SOC arm (p = 0.052). CONCLUSIONS: Within this study population, we found no evidence that meropenem was superior to SOC in terms of success at TOC, short term hearing disturbances, safety or mortality were similar in both treatment arms but the study was underpowered to detect the planned effect. Meropenem treatment did not select for colonization with CRGNOs. We suggest that meropenem as broad-spectrum antibiotic should be reserved for neonates who are more likely to have Gram-negative LOS, especially in NICUs where microorganisms producing extended spectrum- and AmpC type beta-lactamases are circulating

The regulation of television sports broadcasting: a comparative analysis

Based on seven different sports broadcasting markets (Australia, Brazil, Italy, India, South Africa, United Kingdom and the United States), this article provides a comparative analysis of the regulation of television sports broadcasting. The article examines how contrasting perspectives on television and sport – economic and sociocultural – have been reflected in two main approaches to the regulation of sports broadcasting, namely competition law and major events legislation. The results of this analysis suggest that in many cases, the balance between commerce and culture in sports broadcasting has shifted too far in favour of the commercial interests of dominant pay-TV operators and sports organisations. Here, the case is made for the pursuit of an approach to sports broadcasting regulation that seeks to balance the commercial priorities of broadcasters and sports organisations with the wider sociocultural benefits citizens gain from freeto- air sports broadcasting

The Next Big Match: Convergence, Competition and Sports Media Rights

Using examples from a number of different European countries, this article analyses the increasingly prominent position of traditional telecommunications companies, such as British Telecom (UK), Deutsche Telekom (Germany), France Telecom/Orange (France) and Telefonica (Spain), in the contemporary sports media rights market. The first part of the article examines the commercial strategies of telecommunications operators and highlights how their acquisition of sports rights has been driven by the need to ensure a competitive position within an increasingly converged communications market. The second part of the article then moves on to consider the regulation of the sports media rights market. Most significantly, this section emphasises the need for further regulatory intervention to ensure that increased competition for sports rights leads to improved services and lower prices for consumers, rather than merely endlessly spiralling fees for the exclusive ownership of premium rights that are then passed on to sports channel and/or broadband subscribers