Global Journalism Ethics: Widening the Conceptual Base

For most of its history, journalism ethics has been highly practical in aim, in theorizing, and in application. Inquiry analyzed what was occurring inside newsrooms and its scope was parochial. Starting from the premise that a parochial approach no longer serves journalism, the study of journalism, or the public of journalism, in this paper it is argued that a major task of journalism ethics is to construct a more non-parochial ethics—a global journalism ethics informed by critical work from various disciplines and cultures. The discussion presented charts the trajectory of journalism ethics over several centuries to explain the role of parochialism and the limits of theorizing in journalism ethics. This historical perspective also serves as a foundation for outlining what a future journalism ethics might look like, if we widen the conceptual base by incorporating new knowledge of media from outside journalism ethics, and by redefining journalism ethics as a global enterprise

A Free and Undemocratic Press?

Papers presented for the Center for the Study of Ethics in Society Western Michigan University

Death is associated with complement C3 depletion in cerebrospinal fluid of patients with pneumococcal meningitis.

Pneumococcal meningitis can lead to death or serious neurological sequelae as a result of the host inflammatory response. We investigated the association between host response protein expression and outcome in patients with pneumococcal meningitis. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) was obtained from 80 patients with pneumococcal meningitis (40 nonsurvivors and 40 survivors) and 10 normal controls. Candidate proteins were analyzed for an association with survival. Complement C3 levels were 5-fold lower in nonsurvivors than in survivors (P < 0.05). This C3 reduction was not associated with lower levels in serum, indicating a compartmentalized CSF response. Transferrin levels were significantly higher in CSF (but not serum) from nonsurvivors than in CSF from survivors, suggestive of blood-brain barrier damage. Classical apoptosis proteins caspase 3 and apoptosis-inducing factor were not present in CSF. Expression of creatine kinase BB in clinically infected CSF suggested neuronal necrosis, but there was no clear association between level of expression and clinical outcome. Increased blood-brain barrier permeability and complement C3 depletion may have a role in determining outcome from bacterial meningitis. Therapeutic use of citicoline or caspase inhibitors is unlikely to have beneficial effects in patients with meningitis. IMPORTANCE: We previously identified proteins associated with clinical outcome in patients diagnosed with pneumococcal meningitis in a pilot proteomics study of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). In this article, we have quantitatively assayed specific proteins identified from this previous proteomics analysis along with proteins associated with cell death by using Western blotting

Reconstructing journalism ethics: disrupt, invent, collaborate

https://doi.org/10.14195/2183-5462_32_

Clui: A Platform for Handles to Rich Objects

On the desktop, users are accustomed to having visible handles to objects that they want to organize, share, or manipulate. Web applications today feature many classes of such objects, like flight itineraries, products for sale, people, recipes, and businesses, but there are no interoperable handles for high-level semantic objects that users can grab. This paper proposes Clui, a platform for exploring a new data type, called a Webit, that provides uniform handles to rich objects. Clui uses plugins to 1) create Webits on existing pages by extracting semantic data from those pages, and 2) augmenting existing sites with drag and drop targets that accept and interpret Webits. Users drag and drop Webits between sites to transfer data, auto-fill search forms, map associated locations, or share Webits with others. Clui enables experimentation with handles to semantic objects and the standards that underlie them

The proliferating cell hypothesis: a metabolic framework for Plasmodium growth and development.

We hypothesise that intraerythrocytic malaria parasite metabolism is not merely fulfilling the need for ATP generation, but is evolved to support rapid proliferation, similar to that seen in other rapidly proliferating cells such as cancer cells. Deregulated glycolytic activity coupled with impaired mitochondrial metabolism is a metabolic strategy to generate glycolytic intermediates essential for rapid biomass generation for schizogony. Further, we discuss the possibility that Plasmodium metabolism is not only a functional consequence of the 'hard-wired' genome and argue that metabolism may also have a causal role in triggering the cascade of events that leads to developmental stage transitions. This hypothesis offers a framework to rationalise the observations of aerobic glycolysis, atypical mitochondrial metabolism, and metabolic switching in nonproliferating stages

Computed Tomography in Trauma Patients Accepted in Transfer:: Missed Injuries and Rationale for Repeat Imaging. Can we do Better?

Introduction. Computed tomography scans often are repeated ontrauma patient transfers, leading to increased radiation exposure,resource utilization, and costs. This study examined the incidenceof repeated computed tomography scans (RCT) in trauma patienttransfers before and after software upgrades, physician education,and encouragement to reduce RCT.Methods.xThe number of RCTs at an American College of SurgeonsCommittee on Trauma verified level 1 trauma center was measured.The trauma team was educated and encouraged to use the computedtomography scans received with transfer trauma patients as perstudy protocol. All available images were reviewed and reasons for aRCT when ordered were recorded and categorized. Impact of systemimprovements and education on subsequent RCT were evaluated.Results. A RCT was done on 47.2% (n = 76) of patients throughoutthe study period. Unacceptable image quality and possible misseddiagnoses were the most commonly reported reasons for a RCT. Preventablereasons for a RCT (attending refusal to read outside films,incompatible software, and physician preference) decreased from25.8 to 14.3% over the study periods.Conclusions. The volume of unnecessary RCT can be reduced primarilythrough software updates and physician education, therebydecreasing radiation exposure, patient cost, and inefficiencies in hospitalresource usage. Kans J Med 2019;12(1):7-10

Vision: a Lightweight Computing Model for Fine-Grained Cloud Computing

Cloud systems differ fundamentally in how they offer and charge for resources. While some systems provide a generic programming abstraction at coarse granularity, e.g., a virtual machine rented by the hour, others offer specialized abstractions with fine-grained accounting on a per-request basis. In this paper, we explore Tasklets, an abstraction for instances of short-duration, generic computations that migrate from a host requiring computation to hosts that are willing to provide computation. Tasklets enable fine-grained accounting of resource usage, enabling us to build infrastructure that supports trading computing resources according to various economic models. This computation model is especially attractive in settings where mobile devices can utilize resources in the cloud to mitigate local resource constraints

Plasma and cerebrospinal proteomes from childre with cerebral malaria differ from those of children with other encephalopathies

Journal article published in The Journal of Infectious DiseasesClinical signs and symptoms of cerebral malaria in children are nonspecific and are seen in other common encephalopathies in malaria-endemic areas. This makes accurate diagnosis difficult in resource-poor settings. Novel malaria-specific diagnostic and prognostic methods are needed. We have used 2 proteomic strategies to identify differentially expressed proteins in plasma and cerebrospinal fluid from children with a diagnosis of cerebral malaria, compared with those with a diagnosis of malaria-slide-negative acute bacterial meningitis and other nonspecific encephalopathies. Here we report the presence of differentially expressed proteins in cerebral malaria in both plasma and cerebrospinal fluid that could be used to better understand pathogenesis and help develop more-specific diagnostic methods. In particular, we report the expression of 2 spectrin proteins that have known Plasmodium falciparum–binding partners involved in the stability of the infected red blood cell, suppressing further invasion and possibly enhancing the red blood cell’s ability to sequester in microvasculature.Clinical signs and symptoms of cerebral malaria in children are nonspecific and are seen in other common encephalopathies in malaria-endemic areas. This makes accurate diagnosis difficult in resource-poor settings. Novel malaria-specific diagnostic and prognostic methods are needed. We have used 2 proteomic strategies to identify differentially expressed proteins in plasma and cerebrospinal fluid from children with a diagnosis of cerebral malaria, compared with those with a diagnosis of malaria-slide-negative acute bacterial meningitis and other nonspecific encephalopathies. Here we report the presence of differentially expressed proteins in cerebral malaria in both plasma and cerebrospinal fluid that could be used to better understand pathogenesis and help develop more-specific diagnostic methods. In particular, we report the expression of 2 spectrin proteins that have known Plasmodium falciparum–binding partners involved in the stability of the infected red blood cell, suppressing further invasion and possibly enhancing the red blood cell’s ability to sequester in microvasculature