On media monitoring - the Media for Democracy Monitor (MDM)

Do the mass media deliver what contemporary democracies require? This fundamental research question has been discussed for many decades and the body of literature is firmly rooted in the debate following from the Hutchins Commission 1947. In more recent years, monitoring of the relations between democracy and the mass media has concentrated on new or democracies in transition. Fewer monitoring efforts have been undertaken in mature democracies. The following text develops a social science based monitoring instrument for established democracies, the Media for Democracy Monitor (MDM). It has been developed at the University of Zurich and tested in five European countries (Germany, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Portugal, and Switzerland

Improved laser-induced forward transfer of organic semiconductor thin films by reducing the environmental pressure and controlling the substrate-substrate gap width

Laser-induced forward transfer (LIFT) has been investigated for bilayer transfer material systems: silver/organic film (Alq3or PFO). The LIFT process uses an intermediate dynamic release layer of a triazene polymer. This study focuses on the effect of introducing a controlled donor-receiver substrate gap distance and the effect of doing the transfer at reduced air pressures, whilst varying the fluence up to ∼200 mJ/cm2. The gap between ‘in-contact' substrates has been measured to be a minimum of 2-3μm. A linear variation in the gap width from ‘in contact' to 40μm has been achieved by adding a spacer at one side of the substrate-substrate sandwich. At atmospheric pressure, very little transfer is achieved for Alq3, although PFO shows some signs of successful doughnut transfer (with a large hole in the middle) in a narrow fluence range, at gaps greater than 20μm. For the transfer of Ag/PFO bilayers at atmospheric pressure, the addition of a PFO layer onto the receiver substrate improved the transfer enormously at smaller gaps and higher fluences. However, the best transfer results were obtained at reduced pressures where a 100% transfer success rate is obtained within a certain fluence window. The quality of the pixel morphology at less than 100 mbar is much higher than at atmospheric pressure, particularly when the gap width is less than 20μm. These results show the promise of LIFT for industrial deposition processes where a gap between the substrates will improve the throughpu

The technopolitical discourse of european governance: a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the post-Lisbon policies

En las últimas dos décadas, en el proceso de gobernanza de la Unión Europea se ha ido debilitando progresivamente la importancia del sentido específicamente intelectual de la ideología, en favor de los procesos técnicos de resolución de problemas. Un cambio que podríamos denominar de desintelectualización de la hegemonía. El consenso no se genera en torno a una visión del mundo, sino más bien en relación a qué grupo particular tiene que ser responsable de la gestión administrativa de la UE. El discurso de la gobernanza, en consecuencia, ha desplazado su foco hacia modalidades que se desarrollan para hacer funcionar este policy making: las configuraciones institucionales devienen, necesaria y aparentemente, menos impositivas que en el pasado. La dirección tecnopolítica como capacidad de resolver los problemas −y coordinar a la sociedad− es contextualmente una gestión política mediada, dada su capacidad de mando. En efecto, se otorga la dirección a actores que no se presentan como parte de la clase dominante, sino como intelectuales, profesionales de la política −administradores−, que sólo indirectamente comparten la defensa de los intereses del corporativismo europeo que, de esta forma, se siguen representando como intereses más bien comunes.Over the last decades, the process of governing in the EU has gradually weakened the importance of the intellectual sense of the ideology, in favour of the technical processes of problem solving. A shift we could call unintellectualization of the hegemony. An agreement is no longer sought on a vision of the world, but rather on which group is to become responsible for the administrative management of the EU. The discourse of governance, therefore, has focused on the process of this policy making: institutional settings become necessary and apparently less stringent than in the past. The direction of technopolitics, intended as the ability to solve problems of the society, involves the capacity to domain. The legitimacy is given to actors that do not present themselves as part of the dominant class, but as intellectuals, technicians, political professionals (administrators), that indirectly share the defence of the European corporatism’s interests, which continue to be presented as the common interests

Symptoms associated with victimization in patients with schizophrenia and related disorders

Background: Patients with psychoses have an increased risk of becoming victims of violence. Previous studies have suggested that higher symptom levels are associated with a raised risk of becoming a victim of physical violence. There has been, however, no evidence on the type of symptoms that are linked with an increased risk of recent victimization. Methods: Data was taken from two studies on involuntarily admitted patients, one national study in England and an international one in six other European countries. In the week following admission, trained interviewers asked patients whether they had been victims of physical violence in the year prior to admission, and assessed symptoms on the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS). Only patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia or related disorders (ICD-10 F20–29) were included in the analysis which was conducted separately for the two samples. Symptom levels assessed on the BPRS subscales were tested as predictors of victimization. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression models were fitted to estimate adjusted odds ratios. Results: Data from 383 patients in the English sample and 543 patients in the European sample was analysed. Rates of victimization were 37.8% and 28.0% respectively. In multivariable models, the BPRS manic subscale was significantly associated with victimization in both samples. Conclusions: Higher levels of manic symptoms indicate a raised risk of being a victim of violence in involuntary patients with schizophrenia and related disorders. This might be explained by higher activity levels, impaired judgement or poorer self-control in patients with manic symptoms. Such symptoms should be specifically considered in risk assessments

BioMIPs: molecularly imprinted silk fibroin nanoparticles to recognize the iron regulating hormone hepcidin

: The possibility to prepare molecularly imprinted nanoparticles from silk fibroin was recently demonstrated starting from methacrylated silk fibroin and choosing a protein as template. Here, we attempted the imprinting of fibroin-based molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs), called bioMIPs, using as a template hepcidin that is a iron-metabolism regulator-peptide, possessing a hairpin structure. A homogeneous population (PDI < 0.2) of bioMIPs with size ~50 nm was produced. The bioMIPs were selective for the template; the estimated dissociation constant for hepcidin was KD = 3.6 ± 0.5 10-7 M and the average number of binding sites per bioMIP was equal to 2. The bioMIPs used in a competitive assay for hepcidin in serum showed a detection range of 1.01 10-7- 6.82 10-7 M and a limit of detection of 3.29 10-8 M

Ultrasound-based Measurement of the Intra-scaphoid angle.

Ultrasound is gaining popularity for diagnosing scaphoid fractures. However, it hasn't been used to assess fracture displacement, such as humpback deformity. We propose a sonographic method to measure the intra-scaphoid angle, potentially serving as an alternative to CT scans for detecting fragment malposition after a scaphoid fracture. We recruited 11 healthy adult volunteers without wrist pathology and performed bilateral wrist ultrasounds, totaling 22 examinations. Each wrist was splinted at 50 ° extension and fully supinated. Two hand surgeons independently performed the ultrasounds. All images were then evaluated separately by two evaluators. The following measurements were taken: 1. Inter-poles distance (IPD): Distance between the summits of the two scaphoid poles on the palmar cortex. 2. Palmar cortical intra-scaphoid angle (PCISA): Angle between the two summits and the deepest point of the waist on the palmar cortex. Measurements were compared for inter-investigator and inter-evaluator reliability using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). The study included four males and seven females, with an average age of 35 years (range 21-56). The mean PCISA was 142 ° (SD 10 °) and the mean IPD was 16.3 mm (SD 2.1 mm). Differences in IPD measurements averaged 0.3 mm (range 0-5.2 mm) among investigators and 1.0 mm (range 0.1-3.8 mm) among evaluators. For PCISA, the differences averaged 4 ° (range 0-17 °) among investigators and 6 ° (range 0-15 °) among evaluators. The ICC for IPD was 0.804 (investigators) and 0.572 (evaluators); for PCISA, it was 0.704 (investigators) and 0.602 (evaluators). This study presents a cost-effective and accessible sonographic technique to measure the intra-scaphoid angle. Further research is required to assess its effectiveness in scaphoid fractures and compare it to CT-based measurements like the H/L ratio, LISA, and DCA

Brain Drain and Technologies in the Social Justice New Policies of Ecuador

In this article, we want to denounce how the politics of the global economy of knowledge have built an inter-state-dependent geography, which reinforces unfair access to the valorization of knowledge on a global scale. National governments participate in the systemic organization of collective intelligence when dealing in intellectual property rights (whether controlling markets or favouring monopolization) and regulating education institutions, universities and research centres. The brain migration flows indicate the close complex articulations and interactions between higher education sectors, economic policies and national interests in science and technology, RandD and ICT on the one hand, and the competitive strategies and global influences of the wealthier countries on the other. In this scenario, knowledge, science and technology public policies in Ecuador rely on growth patterns, which assumes a structural cognitive deficit, complicated by globally and regionally spread cognitive unfairness. Such policies attempt to strategically relocalize the country, in hegemony terms, in the international division of knowledge

El discurso tecnopolítico de la gobernanza europea: un análisis crítico del discurso (ACD) de las políticas post-Lisboa

En las últimas dos décadas, en el proceso de gobernanza de la Unión Europea se ha ido debilitando progresivamente la importancia del sentido específicamente intelectual de la ideología, en favor de los procesos técnicos de resolución de problemas. Un cambio que podríamos denominar de desintelectualización de la hegemonía. El consenso no se genera entorno a una visión del mundo, sino mas bien sobre qué grupo particular tiene que ser responsable de la gestión administrativa de la UE. El discurso de la gobernanza, en consecuencia, ha desplazado su foco hacia modalidades que se desarrollan para hacer funcionar este policy making: las configuraciones institucionales devienen, necesaria y aparentemente, menos impositivas que en el pasado. La dirección tecnopolítica como capacidad de resolver los problemas, y coordinar a la sociedad, es contextualmente una dirección política mediada dada su capacidad de mando. En efecto, se otorga la dirección en actores que no se presentan como parte de la clase dominante, sino como intelectuales, profesionales de la política (administradores), que sólo indirectamente comparten la defensa de los intereses del corporativismo europeo que, de esta forma, se siguen representando como intereses más bien comunes.