Media, 'Madness' and Ethical Journalism

This article analyses the way newspapers and journalists sometimes fail to acknowledge and resolve some of the contentious ethical dilemmas associated with reporting news. Its focus is on not exploiting and vilifying the vulnerable, especially people with mental illness, through sensationalism and inaccurate and imprecise use of medical terminology such as "psycho ". "schizo" or "lunatic ". Because ethics is central to our understanding of professionalism, this article uses professions and professionalism as benchmarks aginst which to analyse and critique how journalists and newspapers define and report news.Sometimes journalists fail the test of good ethical practice in terms of negative. outdated and inaccurate expressions they use in the news stories they report. Likewise, regulators of news industry standards appear not to recognize and sanction such reporting. The apparent inability to resolve these ethical dilemmas creates a context conducive to tolerance for, not acceptance of. unethical news reporting.

An examination of the effects of print media exposure and contact on subjective social reality and acculturation attitudes

This study draws upon cultivation theory, acculturation theory, and works on intergroup relations to examine the effects of print media exposure and contact on subjective social reality and acculturation attitudes of Chinese immigrants in Australia. Data was gathered via a survey administered to 265 respondents with Chinese origin. Results indicate that exposure to mainstream newspapers is only positively related to one indicator of subjective reality, namely, outgroup perception whereas exposure to ethnic newspapers was not significantly related to any of the indicators of subjective reality. Acculturation attitudes, on the other hand, are more closely related to group perception and contact but not closely associated with exposure to print media. These findings have again challenged the direct effect assumption of cultivation theory, paved the ground for combining mediated communication variables with interpersonal communication variables in acculturation research and suggested policy implications for interethnic coexistence. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Efficient update and retrieval of objects in a multiresolution geospatial database

Many emerging applications benefit from the extraction of geospatial data specified at different resolutions for viewing purposes. Data must also be topologically accurate and up-to-date as it often represents real-world changing phenomena. Current multiresolution schemes use complex opaque data types, which limit the capacity for in-database object manipulation. By using z-values and B+trees to support multiresolution retrieval, objects are fragmented in such a way that updates to objects or object parts are executed using standard SQL (Structured Query Language) statements as opposed to procedural functions. Our approach is compared to a current model, using complex data types indexed under a 3D (three-dimensional) R-tree, and shows better performance for retrieval over realistic window sizes and data loads. Updates with the R-tree are slower and preclude the feasibility of its use in time-critical applications whereas, predictably, projecting the issue to a one-dimensional index allows constant updates using z-values to be implemented more efficiently.

A genetic algorithm approach to optimising component placement and retrieval sequence for chip shooter machines

A chip shooter machine in printed circuit board (PCB) assembly has three movable mechanisms: an X-Y table carrying a PCB, a feeder carrier with several feeders holding components and a rotary turret with multiple assembly heads to pick up and place components. In order to get the minimal placement or assembly time for a PCB on the machine, all the components on the board should be placed in a perfect sequence, and the components should be set up on a right feeder, or feeders since two feeders can hold the same type of components, and additionally, the assembly head should retrieve or pick up a component from a right feeder. The entire problem is very complicated, and this paper presents a genetic algorithm approach to tackle it.

Autochthonous heritage languages and social media:writing and bilingual practices in Low German on Facebook

This article analyses how speakers of an autochthonous heritage language (AHL) make use of digital media, through the example of Low German, a regional language used by a decreasing number of speakers mainly in northern Germany. The focus of the analysis is on Web 2.0 and its interactive potential for individual speakers. The study therefore examines linguistic practices on the social network site Facebook, with special emphasis on language choice, bilingual practices and writing in the autochthonous heritage language. The findings suggest that social network sites such as Facebook have the potential to provide new mediatized spaces for speakers of an AHL that can instigate sociolinguistic change.

Automatic indexing and retrieval of encounter-specific evidence for point-of-care support

Evidence-based medicine relies on repositories of empirical research evidence that can be used to support clinical decision making for improved patient care. However, retrieving evidence from such repositories at local sites presents many challenges. This paper describes a methodological framework for automatically indexing and retrieving empirical research evidence in the form of the systematic reviews and associated studies from The Cochrane Library, where retrieved documents are specific to a patient-physician encounter and thus can be used to support evidence-based decision making at the point of care. Such an encounter is defined by three pertinent groups of concepts - diagnosis, treatment, and patient, and the framework relies on these three groups to steer indexing and retrieval of reviews and associated studies. An evaluation of the indexing and retrieval components of the proposed framework was performed using documents relevant for the pediatric asthma domain. Precision and recall values for automatic indexing of systematic reviews and associated studies were 0.93 and 0.87, and 0.81 and 0.56, respectively. Moreover, precision and recall for the retrieval of relevant systematic reviews and associated studies were 0.89 and 0.81, and 0.92 and 0.89, respectively. With minor modifications, the proposed methodological framework can be customized for other evidence repositories. © 2010 Elsevier Inc.

Media, ecology and conservation:using the media to protect the world's wildlife and ecosystems

The second book in The Converging World series, Media, Ecology and Conservation focuses on global connectivity and the role of new digital and traditional media in bringing people together to protect the world's endangered wildlife and conserve fragile and threatened habitats. New media offers opportunities for like-minded individuals, community groups, businesses and public organisations to learn and work cooperatively for the good of all species. One of the key themes of this book explores the important issue of how new information and communication technologies mediate the natural world, and our understanding of our place in it. By exploring the role of film, television, video, photography and the internet in animal conservation in the USA, India, Africa, Australia and the United Kingdom John Blewitt investigates the politics of media representation surrounding important controversies such as the trade in bushmeat, whaling and habitat destruction. The work and achievements of media/conservation activists are located within a cultural framework that simultaneously loves nature, reveres animals but too often ignores the uncomfortable realities of species extinction and animal cruelty.

Costs and Benefits of Stem Cell Research and Treatment: Media Presentation and Audience Understanding in Hungary

This study examined the press coverage and audience understanding of the costs and benefits of stem cell research/treatment in Hungary. A content analysis of five newspapers and a focus group study was conducted. The way participants talked about the costs and benefits in many aspects echoed the dominant framing of the issue in the press (medical benefits = main benefit, high expense of treatment = dominant negative aspect). Even though participants applied analogical reasoning to formulate some risks that were missing from the reporting on stem cells, many gaps of the media coverage were echoed in gaps in lay discussions.

Media presentation and public understanding of stem cells and stem cell research in Hungary

This paper reports on a research project which examined media coverage and audience perceptions of stem cells and stem cell research in Hungary, using focus groups and a media analysis. A background study was also conducted on the Hungarian legal, social and political situation linked to stem cell research, treatment and storage. Our data shows how stem cell research/treatments were framed by the focus group members in terms of medical results/cures and human interest stories – mirroring the dominant frames utilized by the Hungarian press. The spontaneous discourse on stem cells in the groups involved a non-political and non-controversial understanding – also echoing the dominant presentation of the media. Comparing our results with those of a UK study, we found that although there are some similarities, UK and Hungarian focus group participants framed the issue of stem cell research differently in many respects – and these differences often echoed the divergences of the media coverage in the two countries. We conclude by arguing against approaches which attribute only negligible influence to the media – especially in the case of complex scientific topics and when the dominant information source for the public is the media.

A comparison of the impact of trained media specialists and untrained media personnel in junior colleges in the Republic of China

From educational, communications, psychological, and technical points of view, the renovation of pedagogy in media education is based upon the promotion of "educational technology." The promotion of educational technology relies upon the appropriate availability and knowledge of different educational media made available by the trained media personnel.^ In the past three decades most of the junior colleges in Taiwan set up educational media centers to help students learn through the use of media which enables them to obtain optimum benefits in a short time. What are the roles the media personnel play in the media center? What responsibilities have they to bear in the center? What differences are there when a trained and untrained media personnel are presented in junior colleges media center in Taiwan? What do the trained and untrained media personnel feel toward the importance of each media service in the area of media center's administration, media production, specialized media duties, and the training of staff in media use? These are the questions addressed in this study.^ Through the study of the related literature and a survey conducted in the junior colleges in Taiwan, recommendations are offered to provide improvement of the services and training of media specialists in Taiwan that are appropriate for a changing work and environment. These recommendations are for media specialists to be formally trained to effectively serve the changing needs of school library media so as to make optimal use of media in the junior colleges. ^

A multimedia indexing and retrieval framework for multimedia database systems

The main challenges of multimedia data retrieval lie in the effective mapping between low-level features and high-level concepts, and in the individual users' subjective perceptions of multimedia content. ^ The objectives of this dissertation are to develop an integrated multimedia indexing and retrieval framework with the aim to bridge the gap between semantic concepts and low-level features. To achieve this goal, a set of core techniques have been developed, including image segmentation, content-based image retrieval, object tracking, video indexing, and video event detection. These core techniques are integrated in a systematic way to enable the semantic search for images/videos, and can be tailored to solve the problems in other multimedia related domains. In image retrieval, two new methods of bridging the semantic gap are proposed: (1) for general content-based image retrieval, a stochastic mechanism is utilized to enable the long-term learning of high-level concepts from a set of training data, such as user access frequencies and access patterns of images. (2) In addition to whole-image retrieval, a novel multiple instance learning framework is proposed for object-based image retrieval, by which a user is allowed to more effectively search for images that contain multiple objects of interest. An enhanced image segmentation algorithm is developed to extract the object information from images. This segmentation algorithm is further used in video indexing and retrieval, by which a robust video shot/scene segmentation method is developed based on low-level visual feature comparison, object tracking, and audio analysis. Based on shot boundaries, a novel data mining framework is further proposed to detect events in soccer videos, while fully utilizing the multi-modality features and object information obtained through video shot/scene detection. ^ Another contribution of this dissertation is the potential of the above techniques to be tailored and applied to other multimedia applications. This is demonstrated by their utilization in traffic video surveillance applications. The enhanced image segmentation algorithm, coupled with an adaptive background learning algorithm, improves the performance of vehicle identification. A sophisticated object tracking algorithm is proposed to track individual vehicles, while the spatial and temporal relationships of vehicle objects are modeled by an abstract semantic model. ^

XML storage and retrieval using the semantic binary object -oriented database system (SEM-ODB)

Over the past five years, XML has been embraced by both the research and industrial community due to its promising prospects as a new data representation and exchange format on the Internet. The widespread popularity of XML creates an increasing need to store XML data in persistent storage systems and to enable sophisticated XML queries over the data. The currently available approaches to addressing the XML storage and retrieval issue have the limitations of either being not mature enough (e.g. native approaches) or causing inflexibility, a lot of fragmentation and excessive join operations (e.g. non-native approaches such as the relational database approach). ^ In this dissertation, I studied the issue of storing and retrieving XML data using the Semantic Binary Object-Oriented Database System (Sem-ODB) to leverage the advanced Sem-ODB technology with the emerging XML data model. First, a meta-schema based approach was implemented to address the data model mismatch issue that is inherent in the non-native approaches. The meta-schema based approach captures the meta-data of both Document Type Definitions (DTDs) and Sem-ODB Semantic Schemas, thus enables a dynamic and flexible mapping scheme. Second, a formal framework was presented to ensure precise and concise mappings. In this framework, both schemas and the conversions between them are formally defined and described. Third, after major features of an XML query language, XQuery, were analyzed, a high-level XQuery to Semantic SQL (Sem-SQL) query translation scheme was described. This translation scheme takes advantage of the navigation-oriented query paradigm of the Sem-SQL, thus avoids the excessive join problem of relational approaches. Finally, the modeling capability of the Semantic Binary Object-Oriented Data Model (Sem-ODM) was explored from the perspective of conceptually modeling an XML Schema using a Semantic Schema. ^ It was revealed that the advanced features of the Sem-ODB, such as multi-valued attributes, surrogates, the navigation-oriented query paradigm, among others, are indeed beneficial in coping with the XML storage and retrieval issue using a non-XML approach. Furthermore, extensions to the Sem-ODB to make it work more effectively with XML data were also proposed. ^