Iranian Activities in Afghanistan: Constructive or Destructive Attitude?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Josef Kraus

2012-12-01

Full Text Available Afghanistan is still not a stable state with strong central government controlling the whole state territory even after eleven years since American intervention and following the pursuit of reconstruction by allied forces. One of the main causes of this situation consists in interferences of foreign powers, which have their own particular and often mutually incompatible interests in Afghanistan. One of the most important external powers in the country is Iran. Therefore, Iranian involvement in Afghanistan is the main topic of this text. The main goal of this article is to identify and interpret major methods of Iranian enforcement of its plans in Afghanistan and also the characterization of those plans. The important issue of this text is also an understanding of effects of Iranian activities in Afghanistan and whether those actions have positive or rather negative contribution.

Understanding Public Perceptions of the HPV Vaccination Based on Online Comments to Canadian News Articles.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yael Feinberg

Full Text Available Given the variation in human papillomavirus (HPV vaccine coverage across Canada, and debate regarding delivery of HPV vaccines in Catholic schools, we studied online comments on Canadian news websites to understand public perceptions of HPV and HPV vaccine.We searched English- and French-language Canadian news websites for 2012 articles that contained the terms "HPV" or "human papillomavirus." Articles about HPV vaccinations that contained at least one comment were included. Two researchers independently coded comments, analyzing them for emerging themes.We identified 3073 comments from 1198 individuals in response to 71 news articles; 630 (52.6% individuals expressed positive sentiments about HPV vaccination (2.5 comments/individual, 404 (33.7% were negative (3.0 comments/individual, 34 (2.8% were mixed (1.5 comments/individual and 130 (10.8% were neutral (1.6 comments/individual. Vaccine-supportive commenters believed the vaccine is safe and effective. Common themes in negative comments included concerns regarding HPV vaccine safety and efficacy, distrust of pharmaceutical companies and government, and belief that school-age children are too young for HPV vaccine. Many comments focused on whether the Catholic Church has the right to inform health policy for students, and discussion often evolved into debates regarding HPV and sexual behaviour. We noted that many individuals doubted the credibility of vaccine safety information.The majority of commenters do not appear to be against HPV vaccination, but public health messaging that focuses on both the vaccine's safety profile, and its use as a means to prevent cancer rather than sexually transmitted HPV infection may facilitate its acceptance.

Politinė eufemizacija publicistinių straipsnių antraštėse | Political euphemization in the news article headlines

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Irena Smetonienė

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The article is devoted to the analysis of realizations of euphemization in political discourse. Its focus is on news article headlines. The language data under study have been collected from the Internet news websites published in 2013–2014. The aim of the paper is twofold: to give an overview of recent cases of euphemization in news headlines, and to define functions, purpose and means of euphemization. The most frequently euphemized topics this year have been found to be war, military actions in different countries, politics and economics. The analysis of the news article headlines has showed that one of the main purposes of euphemization of social problems and political issues is to veil and cover up the real names of such phenomena as military actions, massacre, preparation for war, rising prices, unsuitable behavior of various officials, conflicts between leading politicians, bad economic conditions. The sub-topics of euphemization are concerned with the criticism of the behaviour of government leaders, leading politicians who are claimed to have violated ethics, who are arrogant, corrupt and dishonest. The semantics of euphemisms is best reflected describing them according to the means of euphemization, which are generalization, conceptual metaphorization, choice of international terms, periphrasis, pronominalization and litotes. Political euphemisms are part and parcel of the world of diplomacy, international and internal policy; politically correct language is crucial in today’s mass media communication. It seeks to avoid conflict and antagonism, reduce panic and anxiety, and to disguise unpleasant news.

Incorporating popularity in a personalized news recommender system

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nirmal Jonnalagedda

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Online news reading has become a widely popular way to read news articles from news sources around the globe. With the enormous amount of news articles available, users are easily overwhelmed by information of little interest to them. News recommender systems help users manage this flood by recommending articles based on user interests rather than presenting articles in order of their occurrence. We present our research on developing personalized news recommendation system with the help of a popular micro-blogging service, “Twitter.” News articles are ranked based on the popularity of the article identified from Twitter’s public timeline. In addition, users construct profiles based on their interests and news articles are also ranked based on their match to the user profile. By integrating these two approaches, we present a hybrid news recommendation model that recommends interesting news articles to the user based on their popularity as well as their relevance to the user profile.

Afghanistan in Transition

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

These include: Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires ; efforts to centralize power in Afghanistan provoke local resistance; and Afghanistan is an...ethnically fragmented and decentralized country inca - pable of forming a unified state. Afghanistan in Transition Autumn 2010 7 The realities

Passing It On: Fighting the Pushtun on Afghanistan’s Frontier

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

borderlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan are not just the ‘lunar landscape’ portrayed on the evening news. The area has irrigated ‘ green zones’ in the...London: Kegan -Paul, 2000). Caroe was the Governor of the North West Frontier Province of India in 1946–47, the period of the India-Pakistan...It was originally published by the India Intelligence Branch, London, 1899. Also see Sir Olaf Caroe, The Pathans: 550 BC - A 957 (London: Kegan

Afghanistan in the whirlwind of US-Russia rivalry in Central Asia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yahia Baiza

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Afghanistan has been the political and military focal points of the United States (US and Russia (formerly the Soviet Union for over a half a century. Initially, from the 1950s through to the 1970s, the superpowers competed for influence through educational, economic and technical development projects. They used their international development aid as a strategic tool to penetrate the country’s political elite circles to create a space for their political and strategic influence. The nature of development aid then changed to a series of proxy military conflicts throughout the 1980s, which also changed the fate of Afghanistan from that of a developing to that of a conflict country. The current US occupation of Afghanistan (October 2001-present is the latest in the cycle of conflict and rivalry between the US and Russia in Afghanistan and Central Asia. Against this background, this article presents an analysis of how (i the US and Russia create a context and a situation in which they develop, advance, and implement their political and military discourses and strategic concepts, intending to influence each other’s areas of strategic interests; (ii the different components of conflicts and violence are interconnected with one another; and (iii their rivalry for strategic influence in Afghanistan and the broader region of Central Asia triggered a cycle of conflict and a series of continuing proxy wars in Afghanistan. This article applies Johan Galtung’s theories of conflicts as the broader theoretical framework. The developed framework combines Galtung’s three theories of conflict, namely the ABC triangle of conflict, triangle of violence and triangle of peace strategy (Galtung, 1967, 1996. The findings of this article demonstrate that both the US and Russia fight each other in Afghanistan as well as in the wider Central Asia region by supporting and maintaining their satellite countries and periphery elites in power and negotiate each other�

The Norwegian media image of the war in Afghanistan: Peacekeeping or aggression?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rune Ottosen

2004-07-01

Full Text Available This article analyzes the framing of Norwegian media coverage of the war against terror in Afghanistan with special emphasis of the coverage of the Norwegian military presence in Afghanistan. Norwegian forces became involved in a military intervention for the first time since the Second World War when ex-Yugoslavia was attacked in April 1999. At that time, Norway provided military support for the invasion and placed fighter planes and Norwegian pilots at the disposal of NATO. The war in Afghanistan represented an additional dimension, with Norwegian ground forces taking part in the hunt for al-Qaida fighters in the mountains of Afghanistan. The purpose of this article is to give a picture of Norwegian media coverage of the war in Afghanistan, with a special emphasis on the coverage of Norway's role in the conflict. As a small country with traditionally close relations to US, Norway had to balance, like many other small countries, between the need uphold its traditional policy of complying with international law, and the desire to avoid provoking the USA with criticism and actions that could be regarded as disloyal and thus harm the bilateral relationship. This dilemma must also be seen as a problem for the mainstream media, which traditionally has been loyal to Norwegian security policy. Two main issues are discussed: 1. How was the start of the war covered in the media in October 2001? 2. In what context was the Norwegian military presence covered? The two newspapers analyzed are Aftenposten and VG. The choice of these two newspapers was made to include Norway's largest and potentially most influential morning paper (Aftenposten and its largest tabloid, as well as largest newspaper (VG. Quantitative as well as qualitative methods are used to analyze the coverage. Both Aftenposten's and VG's coverage on the first day of the war in Afghanistan are dominated by pro-US framing and the use of Western sources. The pro-US framing is more obvious in

Afghanistan

CERN Document Server

Barber, Nicole

2015-01-01

In Afghanistan, you will learn that Afghanistan is one of the least economically developed countries in the world. The economy is based on agriculture, but much of the land suitable for farming has been damaged by drought, deforestation, and war.

Sensing the News: User Experiences when Reading Locative News

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kjetil Vaage Øie

2012-02-01

Full Text Available This article focuses on user experiences on reading location-aware news on the mobile platform and aims to explore what experiences this kind of locative journalism generates and how such experiences change the users’ social interaction with news. We produced a specially designed mobile application and tailored news stories specific to this project called LocaNews in order to explore participants’ relation to the content in this journalistic format. The result is generated through a field study and a questionnaire of 32 people to find out how they experience the news presented in this format. The user participants’ responses are analyzed based on their news experiences, contextualizing places and their social interaction with the news within this form of journalism. Results showed that the local, semi-local and non-local user approaches the locative news in a different manner, but that the average user found this kind of news more interesting and more informative than ordinary news. The participants also have a problem identifying this as journalism, rather than an information service.

News media old and new

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schrøder, Kim Christian

2014-01-01

This article presents and discusses three different approaches to the exploration of the cross-media challenges facing news audiences, as they seek access to, navigate in and make sense of the multitude of news sources across print, broadcasting, online and mobile media platforms. From a modernized...... uses and gratifications perspective, based on the notion of “worthwhileness” as the determinant of people's everyday selections from the “supermarket of news”, the article first reports from a longitudinal survey study in Denmark in which the author's foundational mapping of cross-media news...... consumption in pre-mobile 2008 is compared with replicating mappings carried out in 2011 and 2012, in a collaborative project between academics and news publishers. The analytical interest here focuses on the fluctuations between traditional news media and the surging digital news outlets of the internet...

Decomposition of silica-alumina ores of Afghanistan by sulfuric acid

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Khomidi, A.K.; Mamatov, E.D.

2016-01-01

Present article is devoted to decomposition of silica-alumina ores of Afghanistan by sulfuric acid. Physicochemical properties of initial silica-alumina ores were studied by means of X-ray phase, differential thermal and silicate analysis. The influence of temperature, process duration and acid concentration on extraction rate of valuable components was considered. The optimal conditions of decomposition of silica-alumina ores of Afghanistan by sulfuric acid were proposed.

Contemporary Afghanistan Outlook: Between Counterinsurgency and Search of the Social Contract

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bivainis Andrius

2015-12-01

Full Text Available This article is based on reassessment of the contemporary results of counterinsurgency and nation-building in Afghanistan. Nation-building initiatives have been started in the country since the Bonn agreement in December 2001. This agreement brought into reality the current governing system of Afghanistan. Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan has been initiated in full mode since 2009 after a sound success on Iraqi frontier. However, each operational area is bringing its own specifics into play. The same was with Afghanistan. The newly established constitutional presidential republic has faced with inheritance of unresolved sensitive ethnical identity issues, confrontation between different groups for self-governing authority and security of essential resources. These preconditions have brought a diversified and even confrontational social environment into reality. Prolonged military operations in Afghanistan could show that diversified social environment and misevaluated cultural heritage has led to misleading assumptions that centralized presidential governing system could become an effective ruling model for post-Taliban country.

Young people’s news orientations and uses of traditional and new media for news

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Cauwenberge, A.; d'Haenens, L.; Beentjes, H.

2013-01-01

This article reports on Flemish college students’ news orientations and their uses of traditional and new media for news within a public service media environment. We used five homogeneous focus groups that covered variation in news media use. The analysis of the focus groups revealed major

The Role of Mobile Technology in Tourism: Patents, Articles, News, and Mobile Tour App Reviews

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dongwook Kim

2017-11-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this research is to identify the status and role of mobile technology in achieving sustainable and smart tourism, and to suggest future research and strategy directions for academia and managers in practice. This research utilized multiple sources, such as patents, academic articles, and news, and selected methodologies optimized for the purpose of each study. Study 1 used Netminer, a social network analysis program, to analyze the relationships between patent’s International Patent Classification (IPC codes. Study 2 used the T-LAB program for content analysis to analyze the texts of patents, journal articles, and news. Study 3 used the Leximancer program, which utilizes relative frequency to analyze mobile app consumer reviews. In study 1, we identified various forms of data related technologies and mobile technologies for smart city systems and maps. In study 2, we found the environment, sustainability, business, and market themes to be related to mobile technology. In study 3, we explored consumers’ attitudes and preferences for mobile travel app using their reviews. Advances in mobile technology are expected to create innovative experiences for consumers, foster a sustainable competitive advantage for tourism destinations and tourism-related suppliers, and create sustainable competencies for smart tourism.

The shifting cross-media news landscape

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schrøder, Kim Christian; Steeg Larsen, Bent

2010-01-01

and lifestyles. Theoretically the study is anchored in Habermas’s notion of the public sphere, and its recent reconceptualizations in theories of ‘cultural citizenship’, 'civic agency' and 'public connection'. The project operationalizes these theories through the concept of users' perceived “worthwhileness......The article offers new insights for democracy and for news producers by mapping the use and users of today’s cross-media news landscape, as the everyday consumption of news across the range of available news media and formats is shifting as a result of transformations of technology, culture......” of news media, a user-anchored concept which incorporates the different functionalities of the situational cross-media use of news by citizen/consumers in everyday life. Empirically the article presents the findings of a large-scale survey that traces the imminent challenges facing players in the news...

Networks in the news media

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bro, Peter

more formal types of social networks, but also complement or even substitute social networking elsewhere, and as such this particular type of social network offers people both inside and outside the news room new potentials - and problems. This article describe the basic vision of networks in the news......When news reporters connect people in a single news story or in a series of coherent news stories they essentially construct networks in the news media. Networks through which social actors are aligned symbolically in written, visible or audible form. These socio-symbolic networks not only copy...

NGO Presence and Activity in Afghanistan, 2000–2014: A Provincial-Level Dataset

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

David F. Mitchell

2017-06-01

Full Text Available This article introduces a new provincial-level dataset on non-governmental organizations (NGOs in Afghanistan. The data—which are freely available for download—provide information on the locations and sectors of activity of 891 international and local (Afghan NGOs that operated in the country between 2000 and 2014. A summary and visualization of the data is presented in the article following a brief historical overview of NGOs in Afghanistan. Links to download the full dataset are provided in the conclusion.

Predicting the volume of comments on online news stories

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tsagkias, M.; Weerkamp, W.; de Rijke, M.; Cheung, D.; Song, I.-Y.; Chu, W.; Hu, X.; Lin, J.; Li, J.; Peng, Z.

2009-01-01

On-line news agents provide commenting facilities for readers to express their views with regard to news stories. The number of user supplied comments on a news article may be indicative of its importance or impact. We report on exploratory work that predicts the comment volume of news articles

A Problematic Subject: Afghanistan in Two Contemporary Travel Accounts

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kerry FEATHERSTONE

2005-06-01

Full Text Available Afghanistan has long been the subject of writing by British travellers. Robert Byron’s classic The Road to Oxiana, a twentieth-century text which has influenced several generations of travel writers, focuses on Afghanistan as a place of marvels, both in terms of culture and architecture. Bruce Chatwin’s open admiration for Byron led him to write the introduction to a late-twentieth century edition of The Road to Oxiana; he also wrote a recommendation of one of the books that this article disc...

Political News and Political Consciousness

Science.gov (United States)

Schertges, Claudia

2007-01-01

This article deals with mass media in modern democratic societies, using the example of Israeli news reports in German television (TV) news. Central to this interest are processes of mediating politics: political socialisation and education; that is to say, empowering citizens via TV news to participate in democratic processes. The article…

News coverage of climate change in Nature News and ScienceNOW during 2007

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Kristian Hvidtfelt; Kjærgaard, Rikke Schmidt

2011-01-01

of appreciating climate change, its severe consequences, and its anthropogenic causes. During that year the two journals’ online news services Nature News and ScienceNOW framed climate change to fit particular agendas resulting in markedly different narratives. This article demonstrates that Nature News reported...... more critically on political decisions, scientific results, and social matters of climate change compared to ScienceNOW. Operating under different institutional constraints ScienceNOW generally took a more cautious line. The evidence drawn from both textual and visual analyses shows that news sections...

Re-Inventing Counterinsurgency Doctrine: Why the United States Failed in Iraq and Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

2016-01-08

nation building and not COIN . 18 Christopher Sims, Fernando Lujan, and Bing West. “Both Sides ...of COIN : Defining War After Afghanistan.” Foreign Affairs https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2011-12-18/both- sides - coin ...leaving- afghanistan-afghans. (accessed December 28, 2015). Sims, Christopher, Fernando Lujan, and Bing West. “Both Sides of COIN : Defining War

Cascading Corruption News

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Damgaard, Mads

2018-01-01

Through a content analysis of 8,800 news items and six months of front pages in three Brazilian newspapers, all dealing with corruption and political transgression, this article documents the remarkable skew of media attention to corruption scandals. The bias is examined as an information...... phenomenon, arising from systemic and commercial factors of Brazil’s news media: An information cascade of news on corruption formed, destabilizing the governing coalition and legitimizing the impeachment process of Dilma Rousseff. As this process gained momentum, questions of accountability were disregarded...

Pakistan's Afghanistan Policy

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Hussain, Khawar

2005-01-01

.... Since 1947 both countries have interfered in each other's domestic affairs. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan forced Pakistan to wage a proxy war in Afghanistan, garnering the support of Western and Arab allies...

Cascading Corruption News

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Damgaard, Mads

2018-01-01

Through a content analysis of 8,800 news items and six months of front pages in three Brazilian newspapers, all dealing with corruption and political transgression, this article documents the remarkable skew of media attention to corruption scandals. The bias is examined as an information...... phenomenon, arising from systemic and commercial factors of Brazil’s news media: An information cascade of news on corruption formed, destabilizing the governing coalition and legitimizing the impeachment process of Dilma Rousseff. As this process gained momentum, questions of accountability were disregarded...... by the media, with harmful effects on democracy....

Ballistic trauma: lessons learned from iraq and afghanistan.

Science.gov (United States)

Shin, Emily H; Sabino, Jennifer M; Nanos, George P; Valerio, Ian L

2015-02-01

Management of upper extremity injuries secondary to ballistic and blast trauma can lead to challenging problems for the reconstructive surgeon. Given the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, advancements in combat-casualty care, combined with a high-volume experience in the treatment of ballistic injuries, has led to continued advancements in the treatment of the severely injured upper extremity. There are several lessons learned that are translatable to civilian trauma centers and future conflicts. In this article, the authors provide an overview of the physics of ballistic injuries and principles in the management of such injuries through experience gained from military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Turkey's Increasing Role in Afghanistan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muharrem Eksi

2010-07-01

Full Text Available This paper is briefly dealing with the current situation in Afghanistan within the context of Turkey’s increasing role in Afghanistan. Turkish-Afghani relations are examined in terms of politics and economy while Turkish foreign policies towards Afghanistan and the Turkish-Pakistani-Afghani triple summit attempts are analyzed. Additionally, Turkey’s security and socio-economic contributions in Afghanistan are emphasized. Turkey’s unwillingness to send troops to Afghanistanfor operational purposes that is frequently debated in national and international circles has been evaluated by stating the advantages and disadvantages of such decision. Turkey’s quiet approach between 2001 and 2004 towards Afghanistan, which have been energizing since 2005 and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s visit to Afghanistan on June 2009 have been dealt as well. By considering Davutoglu’s policies, aiming to introduce Turkey as a global actor and as the term President of the UNSC (the UN Security Council, it seems that Turkey is preparing to play a more active role in Afghanistan.

Interpretation of Results of Studies Evaluating an Intervention Highlighted in Google Health News: A Cross-Sectional Study of News.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Romana Haneef

Full Text Available Mass media through the Internet is a powerful means of disseminating medical research. We aimed to determine whether and how the interpretation of research results is misrepresented by the use of "spin" in the health section of Google News. Spin was defined as specific way of reporting, from whatever motive (intentional or unintentional, to emphasize that the beneficial effect of the intervention is greater than that shown by the results.We conducted a cross-sectional study of news highlighted in the health section of US, UK and Canada editions of Google News between July 2013 and January 2014. We searched for news items for 3 days a week (i.e., Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during 6 months and selected a sample of 130 news items reporting a scientific article evaluating the effect of an intervention on human health.In total, 78% of the news did not provide a full reference or electronic link to the scientific article. We found at least one spin in 114 (88% news items and 18 different types of spin in news. These spin were mainly related to misleading reporting (59% such as not reporting adverse events that were reported in the scientific article (25%, misleading interpretation (69% such as claiming a causal effect despite non-randomized study design (49% and overgeneralization/misleading extrapolation (41% of the results such as extrapolating a beneficial effect from an animal study to humans (21%. We also identified some new types of spin such as highlighting a single patient experience for the success of a new treatment instead of focusing on the group results.Interpretation of research results was frequently misrepresented in the health section of Google News. However, we do not know whether these spin were from the scientific articles themselves or added in the news.

Personalized News Recommendation: A Review and an Experimental Investigation

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Lei Li; Ding-Ding Wang; Shun-Zhi Zhu; Tao Li

2011-01-01

Online news articles,as a new format of press releases,have sprung up on the Internet.With its convenience and recency,more and more people prefer to read news online instead of reading the paper-format press releases.However,a gigantic amount of news events might be released at a rate of hundreds,even thousands per hour.A challenging problem is how to efficiently select specific news articles from a large corpus of newly-published press releases to recommend to individual readers,where the selected news items should match the reader's reading preference as much as possible.This issue refers to personalized news recommendation.Recently,personalized news recommendation has become a promising research direction as the Internet provides fast access to real-time information from multiple sources around the world.Existing personalized news recommendation systems strive to adapt their services to individual users by virtue of both user and news content information.A variety of techniques have been proposed to tackle personalized news recommendation,including content-based,collaborative filtering systems and hybrid versions of these two.In this paper,we provide a comprehensive investigation of existing personalized news recommenders.We discuss several essential issues underlying the problem of personalized news recommendation,and explore possible solutions for performance improvement.Further,we provide an empirical study on a collection of news articles obtained from various news websites,and evaluate the effect of different factors for personalized news recommendation.We hope our discussion and exploration would provide insights for researchers who are interested in personalized news recommendation.

Linking online news and social media

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tsagkias, M.; de Rijke, M.; Weerkamp, W.

2011-01-01

Much of what is discussed in social media is inspired by events in the news and, vice versa, social media provide us with a handle on the impact of news events. We address the following linking task: given a news article, find social media utterances that implicitly reference it. We follow a

News Media Framing of Negative Campaigning

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pedersen, Rasmus Tue

2014-01-01

that news coverage of negative campaigning does apply the strategic game frame to a significantly larger degree than articles covering positive campaigning. This finding has significant implications for campaigning politicians and for scholars studying campaign and media effects.......News media coverage of election campaigns is often characterized by use of the strategic game frame and a focus on politicians’ use of negative campaigning. However, the exact relationship between these two characteristics of news coverage is largely unexplored. This article theorizes that consumer...... demand and norms of journalistic independence might induce the news media outlets to cover negative campaigning with a strategic game frame. A comprehensive content analysis based on several newspaper types, several election campaigns, and several different measurements of media framing confirms...

Decoding the codes: A content analysis of the news coverage of genetic cloning by three online news sites and three national daily newspapers, 1996 through 1998

Science.gov (United States)

Hyde, Jon E.

This study compared news coverage of genetic cloning research in three online news sites (CNN.com, ABC.com, and MSNBC.com) and three national daily newspapers (The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today). The study involved the analysis of 230 online and print news articles concerning genetic cloning published from 1996 through 1998. Articles were examined with respect to formats, sources, focus, tone, and assessments about the impact of cloning research. Findings indicated that while print news formats remained relatively constant for the duration of this study, online news formats changed significantly with respect to the kinds of media used to represent the news, the layouts used to represent cloning news, and the emphasis placed on audio-visual content. Online stories were as much as 20 to 70% shorter than print stories. More than 50% of the articles appearing online were composed by outside sources (wire services, guest columnists, etc.). By comparison, nearly 90% of the articles published by print newspapers were written "in-house" by science reporters. Online news sites cited fewer sources and cited a smaller variety of sources than the newspapers examined here. In both news outlets, however, the sources most frequently cited were those with vested interests in furthering cloning research. Both online and print news coverage of cloning tends to focus principally on the technical procedures and on the future benefits of cloning. More than 60% of the articles focused on the techniques and technologies of cloning. Less than 25% of the articles focused on social, ethical, or legal issues associated with cloning. Similarly, articles from all six sources (75%) tended to be both positive and future-oriented. Less than 5% of the total articles examined here had a strongly negative or critical tone. Moreover, both online and print news sources increasingly conveyed a strong sense of acceptance about the possibility of human cloning. Data from this study

Navigating cross-media news use

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Swart, Joëlle; Peters, Chris; Broersma, Marcel

2017-01-01

distinctive cross-media repertoires, and what makes these compositions meaningful. This article analyzes the value of different platforms, genres and practices in everyday life by mapping patterns of cross-media news use. Combining Q methodology with think-aloud protocols and day-in-the-life-interviews, five...... distinct news media repertoires are identified: 1) regionally-oriented 2) background-oriented 3) digital 4) laid-back and 5) nationally-oriented news use. Our findings indicate that users do not always use what they prefer, nor do they prefer what they use. Moreover, the boundaries they draw between news......The current news media landscape is characterized by an abundance of digital outlets and increased opportunities for users to navigate news themselves. Yet, it is still unclear how people negotiate this fluctuating environment to decide which news media to select or ignore, how they assemble...

Indonesian News Harvester and Recommender System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adi Wibowo

2017-09-01

Full Text Available To provide convenience for the user that frequently read the news, a system to gather, classify, and provide news from several news websites in one place was needed. This system utilized a recommender system to provide only relevant news to the user. This research proposed a system architecture that used vector space model, and Rocchio relevance feedback to provide specific news recommendation to user’s feedback. The results are that the proposed system architecture can achieve the goal by using five levels of feedback from the user. However, the time needed to gather news is increasing exponentially in line with the number of terms gathered from articles.

Media coverage of medical journals: do the best articles make the news?

Science.gov (United States)

Selvaraj, Senthil; Borkar, Durga S; Prasad, Vinay

2014-01-01

News coverage of medical research is followed closely by many Americans and affects the practice of medicine and influence of scientific research. Prior work has examined the quality of media coverage, but no investigation has characterized the choice of stories covered in a controlled manner. We examined whether the media systematically covers stories of weaker study design. We compared study characteristics of 75 clinically-oriented journal articles that received coverage in the top five newspapers by circulation against 75 clinically-oriented journal articles that appeared in the top five medical journals by impact factor over a similar timespan. Subgroup analysis was performed to determine whether differences between investigations from both sources varied by study type (randomized controlled trial [RCT] or observational study). Investigations receiving coverage from newspapers were less likely to be RCTs (17% vs. 35%, p = 0.016) and more likely to be observational studies (75% vs. 47%, pstudied (median: 1034 vs. 1901, p = 0.14) or length of follow-up (median: 1.80 vs. 1.00 years, p = 0.22). In subgroup analysis, observational studies from the media used smaller sample sizes (median: 1984 vs. 21136, p = 0.029) and were more likely to be cross-sectional (71% vs. 31%, pstudies and less likely to cover RCTs than high impact journals. Additionally, when the media does cover observational studies, they select articles of inferior quality. Newspapers preferentially cover medical research with weaker methodology.

Estimation of Cross-Lingual News Similarities Using Text-Mining Methods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhouhao Wang

2018-01-01

Full Text Available In this research, two estimation algorithms for extracting cross-lingual news pairs based on machine learning from financial news articles have been proposed. Every second, innumerable text data, including all kinds news, reports, messages, reviews, comments, and tweets are generated on the Internet, and these are written not only in English but also in other languages such as Chinese, Japanese, French, etc. By taking advantage of multi-lingual text resources provided by Thomson Reuters News, we developed two estimation algorithms for extracting cross-lingual news pairs from multilingual text resources. In our first method, we propose a novel structure that uses the word information and the machine learning method effectively in this task. Simultaneously, we developed a bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM based method to calculate cross-lingual semantic text similarity for long text and short text, respectively. Thus, when an important news article is published, users can read similar news articles that are written in their native language using our method.

The shifting temporalities of online news

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bødker, Henrik; Brügger, Niels

2018-01-01

websites (as well as other characteristics of online archives), the construction of the empirical base stands in a complex relation to the analytical framework applied. As much as the article is a historical analysis of the temporality of online news, it, thus, also offers a range of methodological......As much as news websites news can be characterised by speed and immediacy, they are also recognisable online periodicals, which accumulate preceding news items. This is, as with the constitution of time in general, linked to relations between change and continuity. This article aims to understand...... consequently employs a framework for webpage analysis that primarily focuses on the syntactical level where temporalities emerge as relations between textual elements that change at very different intervals. This framework is applied to examples from the different stages of The Guardian’s webpage from 1996...

The INSPIRE Project: Using the "Unknown" to Co-Construct a Training Course on Humanistic Counselling in Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

Berdondini, Lucia; Grieve, Sandra; Kaveh, Ali

2014-01-01

This article details a collaborative project between the University of Strathclyde (UK) and the University of Herat (Afghanistan). The aim was to co-construct a model of training, based on humanistic approaches, in order to enhance counselling services in Afghanistan and to establish counselling training at the University of Herat. Two groups of…

Distributed power in Afghanistan: The Padisaw micro-hydro project

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hallett, Michael

2009-01-01

The provision of electricity is a vital need in reconstruction and development situations, like that in Afghanistan. Indeed, according to the Afghan government's Afghan National Development Strategy (ANDS) the need for electricity featured in 80% of the Provincial Development Plans as a top priority. With the help of the International Community, the government of Afghanistan is attempting to develop a new market oriented approach to the nationwide provision of electrical power. Although the bulk of the electrification effort is directed toward large scale construction of a national grid, the ANDS explicitly mentions a role for 'micro-hydro, solar, waste and small scale diesel power and energy generating sources'. This article will describe a micro-hydro project in Padisaw village, in the Nurgaram district of Nuristan province located in Northeastern Afghanistan and the role Provincial Reconstruction Team played in working with the local community through the project planning and building processes and offer some observation on how, as the Afghan National Development Strategy is executed, the private sector can play an increasingly significant role in the Afghan distributed energy arena. (author)

Repositioning news and public connection in everyday life

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Swart, Joëlle; Peters, Chris; Broersma, Marcel

2017-01-01

News has traditionally served as a common ground, enabling people to connect to others and engage with the public issues they encounter in everyday life. This article revisits these theoretical debates about mediated public connection within the context of a digitalized news media landscape. While...... of public connection into four dimensions that emphasize people’s lived experiences: inclusiveness, engagement, relevance, and constructiveness. Situating these in an everyday life framework, this article advances a user-based perspective that considers the role of news for people in digital societies...

Private sector and stabilisation in Afghanistan

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Magaard, Tina

I briefet opsummerer Tina Magaard de vigtigste konklusioner fra konferencen ”Private sector and stabilisation in Afghanistan – a neglected match?”, som blandt andet gav indsigt i udfordringerne og mulighederne for den private sektor i Afghanistan. Ved at kombinere perspektiver fra strategiske...... studier med forretnings- og udviklingsstudier tilbød konferencen en dybere indsigt i udfordringerne og mulighederne for den private sektor i Afghanistan. Samtidig blev der åbnet en række nye perspektiver for interaktionen mellem den private sektor og stabiliseringsoperationer i en post-krigskontekst som...... Afghanistan. Selvom udgangspunktet var Afghanistan, er konferencens konklusioner i høj grad relevante for andre konflikt/post-konfliktområder. Konferencen var organiseret i et samarbejde mellem Centre for Business and Development Studies (Copenhagen Business School), Public-Private Platform (Copenhagen...

Terra News: sensationalism and fait-divers on the Internet

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carlos Golembiewski

2009-12-01

Full Text Available This article presents an analysis of the news program Jornal do Terra (Terra News shown on the Terra website. The study involved two aspects: forms of news presentations on TV, based on studies by Pedro Maciel, and criteria of news value, based on Mário Erbolatto’s view. In addition, we used Luis Arthur Ferraretto’s studies of the news formats used specifically on the radio. The objective of this work was to verify what kind of news is transmitted by the news program Terra News, and to compare it with the traditional news program we watch on TV. The study confirmed that Terra News utilizes conventional formats of news presentation and makes a selection of sensationalist news about fait-divers.

TERRA NEWS: Sensationalism and Fait-divers on the Internet

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carlos Golembiewski

2011-02-01

Full Text Available This article presents an analysis of the news program Jornal do Terra (Terra News shown on the Terra website. The study involved two aspects: forms of news presentations on TV, based on studies by Pedro Maciel, and criteria of news value, based on Mário Erbolatto’s view. In addition, we used Luis Arthur Ferraretto’s studies of the news formats used specifically on the radio. The objective of this work was to verify what kind of news is transmitted by the news program Terra News, and to compare it with the traditional news program we watch on TV. The study confirmed that Terra News utilizes conventional formats of news presentation and makes a selection of sensationalist news about fait-divers.

Emotional Mining: Tagging Emoticons to Online News

Science.gov (United States)

Kasinathan, Vinothini; Mustapha, Aida; Zhi Yong, Lee; Aida Zamnah, Z. A.

2017-08-01

This paper presents an emotion mining system, which assigns emoticons to newspaper articles into a pre-defined emotion category based on the underlying emotion in the news. Next, the system makes recommendation to the reader by tagging the news headline with the respective emoticons. Users are then able to decide whether to read the news based on the emoticons provided. The system also provides a filter for the users to choose the category of news to read following the emoticons.

Predicting User Views in Online News

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hardt, Daniel; Rambow, Owen

2017-01-01

We analyze user viewing behavior on anonline news site. We collect data from64,000 news articles, and use text featuresto predict frequency of user views.We compare predictiveness of the headlineand “teaser” (viewed before clicking) andthe body (viewed after clicking). Both arepredictive of click...

Glemmer USA Afghanistan nu?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jakobsen, Peter Viggo

2015-01-01

Hvis Obamas efterfølger kan skrue den rigtige strategiske fortælling sammen så vil USA ikke forlade Afghanistan med udgangen af 2016.......Hvis Obamas efterfølger kan skrue den rigtige strategiske fortælling sammen så vil USA ikke forlade Afghanistan med udgangen af 2016....

Immunity and Community in Italian War Novels Set in Afghanistan

NARCIS (Netherlands)

De Rooy, R.; Jansen, M.

2017-01-01

The concept of immunity as developed by Roberto Esposito is complementary with the category of community and contrasts the notion of security with that of external contamination. In this article, the logic of immunity is applied to two 2012 Italian war novels set in Afghanistan, namely Melania

Learning from Afghanistan : Towards a compass for civil-military coordination

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Rientjes, B.; Soeters, J.M.M.L.; van Fenema, P.C.

2013-01-01

Uruzgan Province is widely seen as one of the few areas where positive developments occurred in Afghanistan's south. A major reason for this success is believed to be the comprehensive approach that was adopted to address the complex and multifaceted nature of problems. This article analyses the

Advertising and news management in media organisations aspect of advertisers' influence on news content

OpenAIRE

Jastramskis, Deimantas

2008-01-01

The aim of the article is to analyze display of financial and organizational aspects of advertisers’ influence on news’ content. Main points of analysis are: advertising influence on concentration of media organizations, convergence of advertising and journalism in the strategies of media marketing, relation between advertising and news content in Lithuanian media system, problems of links between political advertising and presentation of politicians in the news .

Polio eradication initiative in Afghanistan, 1997-2013.

Science.gov (United States)

Simpson, Diane M; Sadr-Azodi, Nahad; Mashal, Taufiq; Sabawoon, Wrishmeen; Pardis, Ajmal; Quddus, Arshad; Garrigos, Carmen; Guirguis, Sherine; Zahoor Zaidi, Syed Sohail; Shaukat, Shahzad; Sharif, Salmaan; Asghar, Humayan; Hadler, Stephen C

2014-11-01

This article reviews the epidemiology of polio, acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) surveillance, and the implementation of supplemental immunization activities (SIAs) in Afghanistan from 1997 thru 2013. Published reports and unpublished national data on polio cases, AFP surveillance, and SIAs were analyzed. Recommendations from independent advisory groups and Afghan government informed the conclusions. From 1997 thru 2013, the annual number of confirmed polio cases fluctuated from a low of 4 in 2004 to a high of 80 in 2011. Wild poliovirus types 2 and 3 were last reported in 1997 and 2010, respectively. Circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 emerged in 2009. AFP surveillance quality in children aged 8 per 100,000 population. Since 2001, at least 6 SIAs have been conducted annually. Afghanistan has made progress moving closer to eliminating polio. The program struggles to reach all children because of management and accountability problems in the field, inaccessible populations, and inadequate social mobilization. Consequently, too many children are missed during SIAs. Afghanistan adopted a national emergency action plan in 2012 to address these issues, but national elimination will require consistent and complete implementation of proven strategies. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Infectious Diseases Society of America 2014. This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US.

Determining Citizens’ Opinions About Stories in the News Media

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Timo Wandhöfer

2012-12-01

Full Text Available We describe a method whereby a governmental policy maker can discover citizens’ reaction to news stories. This is particularly relevant in the political world, where governments’ policy statements are reported by the news media and discussed by citizens. The work here addresses two main questions: whereabouts are citizens discussing a news story, and what are they saying? Our strategy to answer the first question is to find news articles pertaining to the policy statements, then perform internet searches for references to the news articles’ headlines and URLs. We have created a software tool that schedules repeating Google searches for the news articles and collects the results in a database, enabling the user to aggregate and analyse them to produce ranked tables of sites that reference the news articles. Using data mining techniques we can analyse data so that resultant ranking reflects an overall aggregate score, taking into account multiple datasets, and this shows the most relevant places on the internet where the story is discussed. To answer the second question, we introduce the WeGov toolbox as a tool for analysing citizens’ comments and behaviour pertaining to news stories.  We first use the tool for identifying social network discussions, using different strategies for Facebook and Twitter. We apply different analysis components to analyse the data to distil the essence of the social network users’ comments, to determine influential users and identify important comments.

Public Opinions Toward Diseases: Infodemiological Study on News Media Data.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Ming; ElTayeby, Omar; Zolnoori, Maryam; Yao, Lixia

2018-05-08

Society always has limited resources to expend on health care, or anything else. What are the unmet medical needs? How do we allocate limited resources to maximize the health and welfare of the people? These challenging questions might be re-examined systematically within an infodemiological frame on a much larger scale, leveraging the latest advancement in information technology and data science. We expanded our previous work by investigating news media data to reveal the coverage of different diseases and medical conditions, together with their sentiments and topics in news articles over three decades. We were motivated to do so since news media plays a significant role in politics and affects the public policy making. We analyzed over 3.5 million archive news articles from Reuters media during the periods of 1996/1997, 2008 and 2016, using summary statistics, sentiment analysis, and topic modeling. Summary statistics illustrated the coverage of various diseases and medical conditions during the last 3 decades. Sentiment analysis and topic modeling helped us automatically detect the sentiments of news articles (ie, positive versus negative) and topics (ie, a series of keywords) associated with each disease over time. The percentages of news articles mentioning diseases and medical conditions were 0.44%, 0.57% and 0.81% in the three time periods, suggesting that news media or the public has gradually increased its interests in medicine since 1996. Certain diseases such as other malignant neoplasm (34%), other infectious diseases (20%), and influenza (11%) represented the most covered diseases. Two hundred and twenty-six diseases and medical conditions (97.8%) were found to have neutral or negative sentiments in the news articles. Using topic modeling, we identified meaningful topics on these diseases and medical conditions. For instance, the smoking theme appeared in the news articles on other malignant neoplasm only during 1996/1997. The topic phrases HIV and

The "Only" Solution: Education, Youth, and Social Change in Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

Holland, Dana G.; Yousofi, Mohammad Hussain

2014-01-01

This article draws on practice theory to examine aspiring youths' pursuit of higher education in Afghanistan. It finds that plans and actions are mediated through youths' families, communities, and solidarity networks. As a result, the personal improvement and enhanced reputational status that aspiring youth seek is structurally connected to…

Breaking the news or fueling the epidemic? Temporal association between news media report volume and opioid-related mortality.

Science.gov (United States)

Dasgupta, Nabarun; Mandl, Kenneth D; Brownstein, John S

2009-11-18

Historical studies of news media have suggested an association between reporting and increased drug abuse. Period effects for substance use have been documented for different classes of legal and illicit substances, with the suspicion that media publicity may have played major roles in their emergence. Previous analyses have drawn primarily from qualitative evidence; the temporal relationship between media reporting volume and adverse health consequences has not been quantified nationally. We set out to explore whether we could find a quantitative relationship between media reports about prescription opioid abuse and overdose mortality associated with these drugs. We assessed whether increases in news media reports occurred before or after increases in overdose deaths. Our ecological study compared a monthly time series of unintentional poisoning deaths involving short-acting prescription opioid substances, from 1999 to 2005 using multiple cause-of-death data published by the National Center for Health Statistics, to monthly counts of English-language news articles mentioning generic and branded names of prescription opioids obtained from Google News Archives from 1999 to 2005. We estimated the association between media volume and mortality rates by time-lagged regression analyses. There were 24,272 articles and 30,916 deaths involving prescription opioids during the seven-year study period. Nationally, the number of articles mentioning prescription opioids increased dramatically starting in early 2001, following prominent coverage about the nonmedical use of OxyContin. We found a significant association between news reports and deaths, with media reporting preceding fatal opioid poisonings by two to six months and explaining 88% (pnews reporting may enhance the popularity of psychoactive substances. Albeit ecological in nature, our finding suggests the need for further evaluation of the influence of news media on health. Reporting on prescription opioids conforms

Local peace and contemporary conflict: Constructing commonality and exclusion during war in Afghanistan.

Science.gov (United States)

Karell, Daniel

2017-01-01

Despite the "local turn" in international peacekeeping and the emphasis on community-centered development during the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, it remains poorly understood how local actors-both foreign and indigenous-shape local-level wartime settings. This article explores the processes and consequences of one military unit's efforts to "win hearts and minds" in Afghanistan during 2012-13. The first portion of the analysis examines original textual data with a novel methodological approach depicting the unit's perceptions of commonalities between itself and local actors. The second portion explores the consequences with data from original interviews with residents of southern Afghanistan in 2014-15. The findings suggest that achieving a local peace can be undermined by military and development actors' own perception of the local community. The article concludes with a discussion of how sociological studies of micro-settings between actors can contribute to research on conflict and wartime development, as well as how the sociological study of war can further develop by disaggregating conflict settings and tracing the social construction of wartime socio-political landscapes. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Breaking the news or fueling the epidemic? Temporal association between news media report volume and opioid-related mortality.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nabarun Dasgupta

2009-11-01

Full Text Available Historical studies of news media have suggested an association between reporting and increased drug abuse. Period effects for substance use have been documented for different classes of legal and illicit substances, with the suspicion that media publicity may have played major roles in their emergence. Previous analyses have drawn primarily from qualitative evidence; the temporal relationship between media reporting volume and adverse health consequences has not been quantified nationally. We set out to explore whether we could find a quantitative relationship between media reports about prescription opioid abuse and overdose mortality associated with these drugs. We assessed whether increases in news media reports occurred before or after increases in overdose deaths.Our ecological study compared a monthly time series of unintentional poisoning deaths involving short-acting prescription opioid substances, from 1999 to 2005 using multiple cause-of-death data published by the National Center for Health Statistics, to monthly counts of English-language news articles mentioning generic and branded names of prescription opioids obtained from Google News Archives from 1999 to 2005. We estimated the association between media volume and mortality rates by time-lagged regression analyses. There were 24,272 articles and 30,916 deaths involving prescription opioids during the seven-year study period. Nationally, the number of articles mentioning prescription opioids increased dramatically starting in early 2001, following prominent coverage about the nonmedical use of OxyContin. We found a significant association between news reports and deaths, with media reporting preceding fatal opioid poisonings by two to six months and explaining 88% (p<0.0001, df 78 of the variation in mortality.While availability, structural, and individual predispositions are key factors influencing substance use, news reporting may enhance the popularity of psychoactive

News and corporate reputation: Empirical findings from the Netherlands

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Meijer, M.M.; Kleinnijenhuis, J.

2006-01-01

This article examines the influence of business news on corporate reputation. A panel survey was used to measure the reputations of six companies and two professional sectors. Media coverage was analyzed by focusing on the tone of two different types of news. News about the successes of the

Rehabilitating Afghanistan's natural resources

Science.gov (United States)

George Hernandez

2011-01-01

The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in late 1979. During the next 23 years, the war between the Mujahideen Resistance and the Soviet forces, the ensuing civil war, and eventual take over by the Taliban caused enormous harm to the natural resources of Afghanistan. In 2003, the USDA Forest Service (USFS) was asked by the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service to provide...

Quality of groundwater resources in Afghanistan.

Science.gov (United States)

Hayat, Ehsanullah; Baba, Alper

2017-07-01

Water is the main source of energy production and economy in Afghanistan where agriculture accounts for more than 50% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). Access to safe drinking water is still a problem in the country, which has caused different health issues and even child mortality especially in rural areas. Groundwater is the main source of drinking water in the country. However, little knowledge is available about the quality of groundwater throughout the entire country, and its quality has not been investigated extensively yet like in other countries in the world. While most people think that consuming groundwater is a reliable and safe source of drinking water for health, the United Nations (UN) agencies report various kinds of waterborne diseases and even child mortalities due to drinking water quality in the country. In this article, significant geogenic and anthropogenic factors that play a vital role in groundwater contamination of the country are identified and explained. Different geogenic contaminations such as arsenic, fluoride, sulfate, and boron occur in several areas of Afghanistan that have a direct effect on human health. The water quality mapping for Afghanistan is completed for half of the country, which shows that groundwater is plagued by high levels of fluoride and arsenic in some areas. The water quality mapping of the other half of the country cannot be completed due to security concerns currently. Also, there are different kinds of waterborne diseases such as diarrhea, cholera, and dysentery that can be seen in different parts of the country because of anthropogenic activities which continuously deteriorate groundwater.

Poetic Return in Afghanistan Persian Poem

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Esmaeil Shafagh

2012-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract Poetic return movement was started by a group of poets like Moshtagh and Shole Esfehani in the second half of 12 century. Their goal was restoring Persian poem and deliverance of Hindi style decline. Esfahan’s poets initiative was considered only in Iran but in other Persian language and literature areas like India, Afghanistan and Transoxiana it was ignored. After the failure of constitutional Movement in Afghanistan, motion similar poetic return was happened that caused poetic themes, which had gone towards modernism, return to Hindi style again.The present paper attempts to analyze the poetic atmosphere in Afghanistan synchronous the poetic return movement in Iran and investigate socio- political backgrounds of return to Hindi style in Afghanistan after constitution failure.

Afghanistan [Education Sector Fact Sheet

Science.gov (United States)

US Agency for International Development, 2015

2015-01-01

Three decades of conflict devastated Afghanistan's education systems and institutions. In 2002, an estimated 900,000 boys attended school, while women and girls were almost completely excluded from educational opportunities. Since then, the Afghan government, USAID, and international donors have worked closely to rebuild Afghanistan's education…

Qualification of contemporary French TV news

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sylvie LELEU-MERVIEL

2011-01-01

Full Text Available The News is one of the main programs on TV. In this regard, many investigations are concerned with TV News tackling the problem of the specificity of the audiovisual media. So, descriptive methods were designed to investigate conception and writing processes. Today, the emerging forms (non-stop news TV channels, no comment images TV, revitalize the information processing at television.Carrying on with the analyses of (Compte & Mouchon, 1990, this paper develops a method to examine the news productions in a relevant way. To do so, this article advocates the use of MCR, Méthode générale de Conceptualisation Relativisée based upon knowledge weaving theory (Mugur-Schächter, 2006. This study analysed a few TV news programs by using MCR tools. The method was applied to a corpus of news programs which were broadcasted the same day by two French channels. The study revealed the specificities of the present TV innovations.

From everyday communicative figurations to rigorous audience news repertoires: A mixed method approach to cross-media news consumption

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christian Kobbernagel

2016-06-01

Full Text Available In the last couple of decades there has been an unprecedented explosion of news media platforms and formats, as a succession of digital and social media have joined the ranks of legacy media. We live in a ‘hybrid media system’ (Chadwick, 2013, in which people build their cross-media news repertoires from the ensemble of old and new media available. This article presents an innovative mixed-method approach with considerable explanatory power to the exploration of patterns of news media consumption. This approach tailors Q-methodology in the direction of a qualitative study of news consumption, in which a card sorting exercise serves to translate the participants’ news media preferences into a form that enables the researcher to undertake a rigorous factor-analytical construction of their news consumption repertoires. This interpretive, factor-analytical procedure, which results in the building of six audience news repertoires in Denmark, also preserves the qualitative thickness of the participants’ verbal accounts of the communicative figurations of their day-in-the-life with the news media.

Quantifying the role of online news in linking conservation research to Facebook and Twitter.

Science.gov (United States)

Papworth, S K; Nghiem, T P L; Chimalakonda, D; Posa, M R C; Wijedasa, L S; Bickford, D; Carrasco, L R

2015-06-01

Conservation science needs to engage the general public to ensure successful conservation interventions. Although online technologies such as Twitter and Facebook offer new opportunities to accelerate communication between conservation scientists and the online public, factors influencing the spread of conservation news in online media are not well understood. We explored transmission of conservation research through online news articles with generalized linear mixed-effects models and an information theoretic approach. In particular, we assessed differences in the frequency conservation research is featured on online news sites and the impact of online conservation news content and delivery on Facebook likes and shares and Twitter tweets. Five percent of articles in conservation journals are reported in online news, and the probability of reporting depended on the journal. There was weak evidence that articles on climate change and mammals were more likely to be featured. Online news articles about charismatic mammals with illustrations were more likely to be shared or liked on Facebook and Twitter, but the effect of news sites was much larger. These results suggest journals have the greatest impact on which conservation research is featured and that news site has the greatest impact on how popular an online article will be on Facebook and Twitter. © 2015 Society for Conservation Biology.

Afghanistan: Narcotics and U.S. Policy

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Blanchard, Christopher M

2007-01-01

.... Cultivation has decreased in north-central Afghanistan and skyrocketed in the southwest. In spite of ongoing efforts by the Afghan government, the United States, and their partners, Afghanistan is now the source of 93...

The Early 1730s Shipworm Disaster in Dutch News Media

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Koopmans, Joop W.

This article investigates the interaction between society, government and news media during the 1730s shipworm disaster in the Netherlands. It focuses on the quality of the information news media provided and the effects the governmental use of news media while addressing the population had in

Reasons for medical evacuations of soldiers serving in International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) operation in Afghanistan.

Science.gov (United States)

Korzeniewski, Krzysztof; Gregulski, Robert

2014-01-01

The article presents the results of a research study into the reasons for medical evacuations of Polish military personnel taking part in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) operation in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2013. The authors have analysed medical records of 485 soldiers who were medically evacuated out of a combat zone in Afghanistan for battle injuries, non-battle injuries and diseases. Each medically evacuated Polish soldier was subjected to statistical analysis. The study population comprised 25,974 soldiers assigned to the Polish Military Contingent Afghanistan in the given period. From 2007 to 2013, 1.9% of the Polish military personnel (n = 485) participating in the ISAF operation in Afghanistan were evacuated for medical reasons before the scheduled termination of their contract. 40.6% of all medical evacuations were due to battle injuries, 32.4% due to non-battle injuries, and 27.0% due to diseases. ISAF is an example of a combat operation, in which battle injuries remain the leading health problem in mission participants. 3 of 4 Polish soldiers who were medically evacuated from Afghanistan were no longer fit for military service in the area of operations due to the traumas they had suffered.

Afghanistan Index

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Linnet, Poul Martin

2007-01-01

basis. The data are divided into different indicators such as security, polls, drug, social, economic, refugees etc. This represents a practical division and does not indicate that a picture as to for instance security can be obtained by solely looking at the data under security. In order to obtain...... a more valid picture on security this must incorporate an integrated look on all data meaning that for instance the economic data provides an element as to the whole picture of security.......The Afghanistan index is a compilation of quantitative and qualitative data on the reconstruction and security effort in Afghanistan. The index aims at providing data for benchmarking of the international performance and thus provides the reader with a quick possibility to retrieve valid...

Factoring Central Asia into China's Afghanistan policy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ambrish Dhaka

2014-01-01

Full Text Available China's footprints in Afghanistan are vied by many, both, friends and rivals as it cautiously reveals its geostrategic goals. It would like to emulate the African and Central Asian success story in Afghanistan as well, which is not terra incognito. Afghanistan has been the fulcrum of geopolitical balance of power during the Cold war days. China's Afghanistan policy (CAP is marked by its insecurities of terrorism, extremism and separatism in Xinjiang province. It has heavily invested in procuring Central Asian energy resources. Both, the concerns go well in formulation of CAP. However, the presence of the US and Russia make the scenario competitive, where its ‘Peaceful Rise’ may be contested. Besides, China sees South Asian Region as its new Geoeconomic Frontier. All these concerns get factored into CAP. It remains to be seen what options partake in CAP, as China prepares for durable presence in Afghanistan in the long run.

An Effective News Recommendation Method for Microblog User

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wanrong Gu

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Recommending news stories to users, based on their preferences, has long been a favourite domain for recommender systems research. Traditional systems strive to satisfy their user by tracing users' reading history and choosing the proper candidate news articles to recommend. However, most of news websites hardly require any user to register before reading news. Besides, the latent relations between news and microblog, the popularity of particular news, and the news organization are not addressed or solved efficiently in previous approaches. In order to solve these issues, we propose an effective personalized news recommendation method based on microblog user profile building and sub class popularity prediction, in which we propose a news organization method using hybrid classification and clustering, implement a sub class popularity prediction method, and construct user profile according to our actual situation. We had designed several experiments compared to the state-of-the-art approaches on a real world dataset, and the experimental results demonstrate that our system significantly improves the accuracy and diversity in mass text data.

An effective news recommendation method for microblog user.

Science.gov (United States)

Gu, Wanrong; Dong, Shoubin; Zeng, Zhizhao; He, Jinchao

2014-01-01

Recommending news stories to users, based on their preferences, has long been a favourite domain for recommender systems research. Traditional systems strive to satisfy their user by tracing users' reading history and choosing the proper candidate news articles to recommend. However, most of news websites hardly require any user to register before reading news. Besides, the latent relations between news and microblog, the popularity of particular news, and the news organization are not addressed or solved efficiently in previous approaches. In order to solve these issues, we propose an effective personalized news recommendation method based on microblog user profile building and sub class popularity prediction, in which we propose a news organization method using hybrid classification and clustering, implement a sub class popularity prediction method, and construct user profile according to our actual situation. We had designed several experiments compared to the state-of-the-art approaches on a real world dataset, and the experimental results demonstrate that our system significantly improves the accuracy and diversity in mass text data.

An Effective News Recommendation Method for Microblog User

Science.gov (United States)

Gu, Wanrong; Dong, Shoubin; Zeng, Zhizhao; He, Jinchao

2014-01-01

Recommending news stories to users, based on their preferences, has long been a favourite domain for recommender systems research. Traditional systems strive to satisfy their user by tracing users' reading history and choosing the proper candidate news articles to recommend. However, most of news websites hardly require any user to register before reading news. Besides, the latent relations between news and microblog, the popularity of particular news, and the news organization are not addressed or solved efficiently in previous approaches. In order to solve these issues, we propose an effective personalized news recommendation method based on microblog user profile building and sub class popularity prediction, in which we propose a news organization method using hybrid classification and clustering, implement a sub class popularity prediction method, and construct user profile according to our actual situation. We had designed several experiments compared to the state-of-the-art approaches on a real world dataset, and the experimental results demonstrate that our system significantly improves the accuracy and diversity in mass text data. PMID:24983011

Surveillance of Disease and Nonbattle Injuries During US Army Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Science.gov (United States)

Hauret, Keith G; Pacha, Laura; Taylor, Bonnie J; Jones, Bruce H

2016-01-01

Disease and nonbattle injury (DNBI) are the leading causes of morbidity during wars and military operations. However, adequate medical data were never before available to service public health centers to conduct DNBI surveillance during deployments. This article describes the process, results and lessons learned from centralized DNBI surveillance by the US Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine, predecessor of the US Army Public Health Command, during operations in Afghanistan and Iraq (2001-2013).The surveillance relied primarily on medical evacuation records and in-theater hospitalization records. Medical evacuation rates (per 1,000 person-years) for DNBI were higher (Afghanistan: 56.7; Iraq: 40.2) than battle injury rates (Afghanistan: 12.0; Iraq: 7.7). In Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively, the leading diagnostic categories for medical evacuations were nonbattle injury (31% and 34%), battle injury (20% and 16%), and behavioral health (12% and 10%). Leading causes of medically evacuated nonbattle injuries were sports/physical training (22% and 24%), falls (23% and 26%) and military vehicle accidents (8% and 11%). This surveillance demonstrated the feasibility, utility, and benefits of centralized DNBI surveillance during military operations.

De Bilateral Security Agreement voor Afghanistan

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Voetelink, J.

2013-01-01

Wanneer de VS en de NAVO na 2014 de stationering van troepen in Afghanistan willen voortzetten, zullen zij hiervoor nieuwe internationale overeenkomsten moeten sluiten. De onderhandelingen tussen Afghanistan en de VS zijn het afgelopen jaar gestart en moeten leiden tot de Bilateral Security

Learning from Iraq and Afghanistan: Four Lessons for Building More Effective Coalitions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

White Nathan

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Despite many tactical and operational successes by brave military and civilian personnel, post-9/11 operations by U.S. led coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan did not achieve their intended outcomes. Although many efforts are underway by discrete organizations within coalition countries to identify and learn their own lessons from these conflicts, comparatively less attention is paid to broader lessons for successful coalitions. Given that the U.S. and its allies will most certainly form coalitions in the future for a range of different contingency scenarios, these lessons are equally deserving of close examination. This article identifies four interrelated lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan that can be utilized to inform more effective coalition development and employment.

River Basin Muti-Stakeholder Platforms: the practice of 'good water governance' in Afghanistan.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Thomas, V.; Warner, J.F.

2014-01-01

The article describes local realities and contextual circumstances in Afghanistan which are infuencing cooperation on water sharing during dry years. The contribution assesses the performance of multi-stakeholder platforms for water management as a ‘good' water governance model promoted by the

The News Delivery Sequence: Bad News and Good News in Conversational Interaction.

Science.gov (United States)

Maynard, Douglas W.

1997-01-01

Explores the conditional nature of good and bad news while focusing on three topics: (1) the status of information as news according the participants in a conversation; (2) the valence of this information with regard to its perception as good or bad; and (3) the effect of news on individuals. Notes that good news is privileged over bad news in…

Independent Auditors Report on the Examination of DoD Execution of Afghanistan National Army Trust Fund Donations to the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund

Science.gov (United States)

2015-07-31

Independent Auditor’s Report on the Examination of DoD Execution of Afghanistan National Army Trust Fund Donations to the Afghanistan Security Forces...Execution of Afghanistan National Army Trust Fund Donations to the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund (Report No. DODIG-2015-154) We are providing this...046, “Independent Auditor’s Report on the Examination of DoD Execution of North Atlantic Treaty Organization Contributing Countries’ Donations to

Opium, petroleum and islamism. The crime Triad in Afghanistan; Opium, petrole et islamisme. La Triade du crime en Afghanistan

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lafargue, F

2003-07-01

The geographical position of Afghanistan, at the crossroads of three main cultural areas, Turkish, Indian and Iranian, explains the unsteadiness of its history. Today, Afghanistan is the key position of Central Asia, a necessary path to dispatch the hydrocarbons of the Caucasus region, in particular from Turkmenistan, towards the harbors of the Indian Ocean or China. These political and oil stakes supply the present day chaos and are the constituents of Afghanistan's misfortune.

Slip-Sliding on a Yellow Brick Road: Stabilization Efforts in Afghanistan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vanda Felbab-Brown

2012-11-01

Full Text Available The ongoing transition process in Afghanistan will deliver three shocks in the coming few years: foreign forces will complete the handover of security responsibility to their Afghan counterparts, aid volumes and international spending in the country will decrease and, lastly, the political dispensation will be upended by presidential elections in which President Hamid Karzai is not supposed to run again. These challenges are mounting at a time when, due to inconsistent international approaches and a lack of appreciation for the Afghan context, Afghanistan is dealing with rising insecurity, dysfunctional governance, rampant corruption, and ethnic factionalization within the society and the domestic security forces. Based upon a review of the security sector, governance, social and economic conditions, regional relations and negotiation efforts with the insurgents, this article finds that fundamental questions about the efficacy of stabilization efforts in Afghanistan continue to lack clear answers. Regardless, significant room for improvement – both in policy and execution – appears to exist. It remains to be seen whether, as many Afghans fear, a civil war will engulf Afghanistan once again in the post-transition period or whether the international community will take those steps – re-energizing governance reform efforts, maintaining financial support and continuing to strengthen the Afghan army and police – which could help to bolster stability.

Mineral resources in Afghanistan. Final report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1992-02-01

Despite Afghanistan's wide variety of mineral resources and long history of small-scale mining of gems, gold, copper, and coal, it was not until the 1950's that the country's mineral resources were subject to systematic exploration. The report documents the past and present status of these resources and examines alternative strategies for their exploitation. Chapter 2 provides a brief history of minerals exploration, exploitation, and planning in Afghanistan, including the roles of Great Britain, France, Germany, the Soviet bloc, and the United States in Afghanistan's mineral sector; mineral policy in the five national plans during the years 1962-83; and sector assessments conducted by the World Bank (1978) and the US Department of Energy (1989). Chapter 3 discusses three strategies for developing the country's mineral and hydrocarbon resources. (1) a national orientation focusing on domestic needs; (2) a regional strategy that would consider markets in countries close to Afghanistan; and (3) an international strategy that would place Afghan resources on the international market

The effects of colour and valence on news evaluation.

Science.gov (United States)

Kaspar, Kai; Grümmer, Melanie; Kießler, Antje; Neuß, Celina; Schröter, Franziska

2017-12-01

Research across different fields of psychology has reported effects of colour cues on a variety of cognitive processes. Especially, the colour red has been shown to have striking influences. In the context of media reception, however, colour effects have been widely neglected so far. This study made a first step in this direction by investigating the effects of the colour red (compared with blue and grey) on the way news articles are evaluated. Two types of news were framed by a coloured border while the valence of the news content additionally varied. Based on 369 participants who read and evaluated the news articles online, we observed effects for colour cues and news valence in the absence of an interaction effect, indicating that the colour red induced approach motivation. However, only the contrast between red and grey reached statistical significance, indicating that chromatic and achromatic colours may differ in their perceived visual saliency. Overall, these results provide an important complement to previous studies and have practical implications for media researchers and producers. © 2015 International Union of Psychological Science.

76 FR 14904 - Executive-Led Trade Mission to Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

2011-03-18

... would enhance development of Afghanistan's industrial sector and lead to increased productivity and... business development trade mission to Kabul, Afghanistan in September 2011. This mission will be led by a.... companies explore long-term business opportunities in Afghanistan and enhance U.S.-Afghan commercial...

Content Analysis of US News Stories About E-Cigarettes in 2015.

Science.gov (United States)

Wackowski, Olivia A; Giovenco, Daniel P; Singh, Binu; Lewis, M Jane; Steinberg, Michael B; Delnevo, Cristine D

2017-08-03

Coverage of e-cigarettes in the news media may shape public perceptions about them but little is known about such news content. This content analysis characterized discussion of e-cigarettes in leading print and online US news sources in 2015. We searched Access World News and Factiva databases for e-cigarette-related news articles appearing in the top 30 circulating newspapers, 4 newswires, and 4 online news sources in the United States in 2015 (n = 295). Coders identified the presence of various e-cigarette topics (e.g. regulation), and benefit and risk statements. Nearly half of articles (45.1%) focused primarily on e-cigarette policy/regulatory issues, although e-cigarette prevalence (21.0%) and health effects (21.7%) were common main topics. Concerns about youth were frequently mentioned, including the rise in youth e-cigarette use (45.4%), gateway to smoking potential (33.9%) and appeal of flavors (22.4%). Youth e-cigarette prevalence was more frequently mentioned than adult prevalence in articles discussing FDA regulation (61% vs. 13.5%, respectively). News articles more frequently discussed potential e-cigarette risks or concerns (80%) than benefits (45.4%), such as smoking harm-reduction. Quoted physicians, researchers, and government representatives were more likely to refer to e-cigarette risks than benefits. In 2015, rising rates of e-cigarette use among youth and policy strategies to address e-cigarettes dominated US e-cigarette news stories, leading up to their FDA regulation in 2016. Statements about e-cigarettes' potential risks were frequently attributed to trusted sources such as physicians, and outnumbered claims about their harm-reduction benefits. Such coverage may impact e-cigarette risk perceptions, use intentions and policy support. In the year leading up to the FDA's Deeming Rule, concerns about youth use or potential use were frequently discussed in e-cigarette news. News articles more frequently discussed potential e-cigarette risks

Bad news: The influence of news coverage and Google searches on Gardasil adverse event reporting.

Science.gov (United States)

Faasse, Kate; Porsius, Jarry T; Faasse, Jonathan; Martin, Leslie R

2017-12-14

Human papilloma virus vaccines are a safe and effective tool for reducing HPV infections that can cause cervical cancer. However, uptake of these vaccines has been suboptimal, with many people holding negative beliefs and misconceptions. Such beliefs have been linked with the experience of unpleasant side effects following medical treatment, and media coverage may heighten such concerns. The present study sought to assess the influence of news coverage (number of news articles per month) on adverse event reporting in response to Gardasil vaccination in New Zealand over a 7.5-year period, and whether the influence of news coverage was mediated by internet search activity (Google search volumes). Multiple linear regression analyses and simple mediation analyses were used, controlling for year and number of vaccinations delivered. News coverage in the previous month, and Google search volumes in the same month, were significant predictors of adverse event reporting, after accounting for vaccination rates and year. Concurrent Google search volumes partially mediated the effect of prior news coverage. The results suggest that some of the adverse events reported were not related to the vaccination itself, but to news coverage and internet search volumes, which may have contributed to public concerns about potentially unpleasant or harmful outcomes. These findings have implications for the importance of psychological and social factors in adverse event reporting, and the role of the news media in disseminating health information. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Critical concerns in Iraq/Afghanistan war veteran-forensic interface: combat-related postdeployment criminal violence.

Science.gov (United States)

Sreenivasan, Shoba; Garrick, Thomas; McGuire, James; Smee, Daniel E; Dow, Daniel; Woehl, Daniel

2013-01-01

Identifying whether there is a nexus between Iraq and Afghanistan combat injuries and civilian violence on return from deployment is complicated by differences in reactions of individuals to combat exposure, the overlapping effects of traumatic brain injury (TBI) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the low base rate of civilian violence after combat exposure. Moreover, the overall prevalence of violence among returning Iraq and Afghanistan combat war veterans has not been well documented. Malingered symptoms and either exaggeration or outright fabrication of war zone exposure are challenges to rendering forensic opinions, with the risk reduced by accessing military documents that corroborate war zone duties and exposure. This article serves as a first step toward understanding what may potentiate violence among returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. We offer a systematic approach toward the purpose of forensic case formulation that addresses whether combat duty/war zone exposure and associated clinical conditions are linked to criminal violence on return to civilian life.

Social Determinants of Maternal Health in Afghanistan: A Review.

Science.gov (United States)

Najafizada, Said Ahmad Maisam; Bourgeault, Ivy Lynn; Labonté, Ronald

2017-01-01

Afghanistan has a high maternal mortality rate of 400 per 100,000 live births. Although direct causes of maternal morbidity and mortality in Afghanistan include hemorrhage, obstructed labor, infection, high blood pressure, and unsafe abortion, the high burden of diseases responsible for maternal mortality arises in large part due to social determinants of health. The focus of this literature review is to examine the impact of various social determinants of health on maternal health in Afghanistan, filling an important gap in the existing literature. This narrative review was conducted using Arksey and O'Malley's framework of (1) defining the question, (2) searching the literature, (3) assessing the studies, (4) synthesizing selected evidence in context, and (5) summarizing potential programmatic implication of the context. We searched Medline, CABI global health database, and Google Scholar for relevant publications. A total of 38 articles/reports were included in this review. We found that social determinants such as maternal education, sociocultural practices, and social infrastructure have a significant impact on maternal health. Health care may be the immediate determinant, but it is influenced by other determinants that must be addressed in order to alleviate the burden on health care, as well as to achieve long-term reduction in maternal mortality. Because of the importance of social factors for maternal health outcomes, committed involvement of multiple government sectors (i.e. education, labor and social affairs, information and culture, transport and rural development among others, alongside health care) is the long-term solution to the maternal health problems in Afghanistan. National and international organizations' long-term commitment to social investment such as education, local economy, cultural change, and social infrastructure is recommended for Afghanstan and globally.

Unity of Command in Afghanistan: A Forsaken Principle of War

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Hope, Ian

2008-01-01

... in the evolution of military command for Afghanistan. It examines how there was an unprecedented departure from the principle of unity of command in Afghanistan in 2006, when Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan (CFC...

Afghanistan, history and beyond - GIS based application tool

Science.gov (United States)

Swamy, Rahul Chidananda

The emphasis of this tool is to provide an insight into the history of Afghanistan. Afghanistan has been a warring nation for decades; this tool provides a brief account of the reasons behind the importance of Afghanistan, which led to its invasion by Britain, Russia and USA. The timeline for this thesis was set from 1879 to 1990 which ranges from Barakzai Dynasty to the soviet invasion. Maps are used judiciously to show battles during the British invasion. Maps that show roads, rivers, lakes and provinces are incorporated into the tool to provide an overview of the present situation. The user has options to filter this data by using the timeline and a filtering tool. To quench the users thirst for more information, HTML pages are used judiciously. HTML pages are embedded in key events to provide detailed insight into these events with the help of pictures and videos. An intuitive slider is used to show the people who played a significant role in Afghanistan. The user interface was made intuitive and easy to use, keeping in mind the novice user. A help menu is provided to guide the user on the tool. Spending time researching about Afghanistan has helped me again a new perspective on Afghanistan and its people. With this tool, I hope I can provide a valuable channel for people to understand Afghanistan and gain a fresh perspective into this war ridden nation.

Tuning In: Using the News for a Content-Based ESL Class

Science.gov (United States)

Moglen, Daniel

2014-01-01

Vast amounts of daily news content are widely available and easily accessible, and they can be converted into materials for intermediate and advanced ESL classes. This article will describe the why and how for integrating news media sources into a multiskills ESL classroom. Through the news, students are immediately engaged with the material…

Barefoot in Afghanistan: solar electrification of villages in Afghanistan

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Roy, Bunker [Barefoot Coll., Rajasthan (India); Synnevag, Gry [Norwegian Church Aid (Norway)

2006-05-15

In the mountains of Afghanistan, villagers must walk long distances and pay high prices to buy fuel to survive. The authors report on an innovative solar electrification scheme that has enabled villagers to be self-reliant installers. (Author)

The 2013 general elections in Malaysia: An analysis of online news portals

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Azahar Kasim

2016-05-01

Full Text Available This research analyzed the coverage of online news portals during the election campaign in Malaysia's 13th General Election on 5th May 2013. There were two types of news portals chosen for this research: 1 the mainstream online news portals, namely The Star Online, Berita Harian Online, Bernama Online and Utusan Online; and 2 the alternative news portals consisting of political parties' publications: the Harakah Daily, Roketkini and Keadilan Daily; and the independent news portals of The Malaysian Insider and Malaysiakini. This study was conducted starting from the nomination day on the 20th April 2013 until the polling day on the 5th May 2013. Results obtained were based on the frequencies of articles covering the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN party and the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR party. Each article was coded and labeled as positive, negative, or neutral coverage for each political party. The Content Analysis method was applied where the researchers chose and analyzed each election article and placed it in one of five categories; +BN (positive report, −BN (negative report, +PR (positive report, −PR (negative report and N (Neutral. The results showed that the four mainstream online news portals favored the BN with their coverage. However, the parties' online news portals clearly owned by PR alliance parties had completely opposite, bias toward their owners. The two independent news portals seemed to give more balanced coverage to both sides.

Unity of Command in Afghanistan: A Forsaken Principle of War

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Hope, Ian

2008-01-01

... of military command for Afghanistan. It examines the unprecedented departure from the principle of unity of command in Afghanistan in 2006, when Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan passed control of the ground fight to the International...

Opium and Afghanistan: Reassessing U.S. Counternarcotics Strategy

Science.gov (United States)

2007-10-01

term security, development, and effective governance of Afghanistan.”3 This paper examines the nature of the opium problem in Afghanistan and...worldwide from opium for medical purposes.12 Opium is also refined for use in legal prescription painkillers such as OxyContin and Vicodin.13 However...will now be explored in detail. Lack of Security. The security situation in much of Afghanistan is simply inadequate to carry out an effective

News and Syria: Creating key media moments in the conflict

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Greg Simons

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Mass media play a critical role through the production of news in influencing how citizens have their perceptions and opinions shaped. This article intends to delve into the role of news production in creating knowledge and shaping public perception and opinion within the Syrian case and demonstrates that news is not an accidental occurrence, neither in terms of subject or timing. Articles on specific issues, such as the reaction to the chemical weapons attack of August 2013 and the allegations of “industrial killings” by the Syrian government, appearing in the mass media, are subjected to analysis based on the theoretical notions outlined in the paper. These two cases hint that the timing and nature of these specific news events are not as “random” and coincidental as would seem at first glance.

Breaking bad news: issues relating to nursing practice.

Science.gov (United States)

Warnock, Clare

2014-07-15

The breaking of bad news was traditionally regarded to be the time when a doctor and nurse sat down with a patient and family members to provide information about, for example, a life-limiting diagnosis or a poor prognosis. However, breaking bad news is now generally accepted as a process, not a one-off event, and is considered to refer to any bad, sad or difficult information that alters patients' perceptions of their present and future. Nurses have an important role in the process of providing information and helping patients prepare for, receive, understand and cope with the bad news they have been given. This article aims to help nurses understand the process of breaking bad news and discuss the challenges and difficulties that nurses can face when they are involved with patients who have been given bad news. It also provides guidance with regard to preparing for breaking bad news, giving difficult information, responding to possible reactions, and supporting patients and their relatives after they have received bad news.

The state and challenges of conservation nurseries in Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

John T. Harrington; John G. Mexal; A. M. Wagner; Tammy Parsons

2012-01-01

Afghanistan is a semi-arid, mountainous country with a climate similar to New Mexico. Unfortunately, much of the country has been deforested by unsustainable fuelwood harvesting, overgrazing, and even concerns over security. The senior author was invited to assess the Afghanistan forestry situation in 6 provinces as part of the Afghanistan Water, Agriculture, and...

A content analysis of smokeless tobacco coverage in U.S. newspapers and news wires.

Science.gov (United States)

Wackowski, Olivia A; Lewis, M Jane; Delnevo, Cristine D; Ling, Pamela M

2013-07-01

Research attention on smokeless tobacco (SLT) has focused on SLT use, health risks, harm-reduction potential, and risk perceptions, but few studies have examined mediated communications about SLT. This study aims to contribute to the literature by providing the first description of SLT coverage in the news, an important communication channel given its ability to educate and shape public opinion about tobacco issues. A content analysis was conducted on SLT-related news and opinion articles between 2006 and 2010 from top circulating national and state newspapers and select news wires. Articles were coded for the main SLT topic, SLT risk references, and slant of opinion articles. SLT was discussed in news/feature articles (n = 677) in terms of business (28%), new products, product regulation and harm reduction (19%), prevention/cessation (11.4%), taxation (10.2%), profiles/trends in use (9%), bans (8.1%), and tobacco industry promotional activities (4.9%). Health risk references (i.e., addictiveness, carcinogenicity, and specific health effects including oral cancer) were found in 40% of articles, though frequency differed by article topic. Although the majority of opinion articles (n = 176) conveyed an anti-SLT slant (64%), 25.6% were pro-SLT. SLT topics of both national and local importance are covered in the news. Public health professionals can participate in SLT coverage by sending in press releases about new study findings, events, or resources and by submitting opinion pieces to share views or respond to previous coverage. Research on SLT news should continue given its potential to shape the public's SLT knowledge and opinions.

Fear and Loathing in the News: A Qualitative Analysis of Canadian Print News Coverage of Youthful Offending in the Twentieth Century

Science.gov (United States)

Faucher, Chantal

2009-01-01

This article reports research findings on the representations of youth crime and of young lawbreakers in Canadian print media. The examination of a subset of the sample of news items shows that several themes emerge in the historical discussion of youthful offending in the news. Firstly, the prevailing portrayal of youth crime is that it is to be…

Related Fact Checks: a tool for combating fake news

OpenAIRE

Guha, Sreya

2017-01-01

The emergence of "Fake News" and misinformation via online news and social media has spurred an interest in computational tools to combat this phenomenon. In this paper we present a new "Related Fact Checks" service, which can help a reader critically evaluate an article and make a judgment on its veracity by bringing up fact checks that are relevant to the article. We describe the core technical problems that need to be solved in building a "Related Fact Checks" service, and present results ...

From everyday communicative figurations to rigorous audience news repertoires

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kobbernagel, Christian; Schrøder, Kim Christian

2016-01-01

In the last couple of decades there has been an unprecedented explosion of news media platforms and formats, as a succession of digital and social media have joined the ranks of legacy media. We live in a ‘hybrid media system’ (Chadwick, 2013), in which people build their cross-media news...... repertoires from the ensemble of old and new media available. This article presents an innovative mixed-method approach with considerable explanatory power to the exploration of patterns of news media consumption. This approach tailors Q-methodology in the direction of a qualitative study of news consumption......, in which a card sorting exercise serves to translate the participants’ news media preferences into a form that enables the researcher to undertake a rigorous factor-analytical construction of their news consumption repertoires. This interpretive, factor-analytical procedure, which results in the building...

Trauma treatment in a role 1 medical facility in Afghanistan

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vedel, Pernille Nygaard; Helsø, I; Jørgensen, H L

2013-01-01

Most of the emergency care delivered in Afghanistan is currently provided by the military sector and non-governmental organisations. Main Operating Base (MOB) Price in Helmand Province has a small medical centre and due to its location provides critical care to civilians and military casualties a...... and this article describes the patterns in trauma patient care at the MOB Price medical centre regarding the types of patients and injuries....

Decomposition of aluminosilicate ores of Afghanistan by hydrochloric acid

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mamatov, E.D.; Khomidi, A.K.

2015-01-01

Present article is devoted to decomposition of aluminosilicate ores of Afghanistan by hydrochloric acid. The physicochemical properties of initial aluminosilicate ores were studied by means of X-ray phase, differential-thermal analysis methods. The chemical and mineral composition of aluminosilicate ores was considered. The kinetics of acid decomposition of aluminosilicate ores composed of two stages was studied as well. The flowsheets of complex processing of aluminium comprising ores by means of chloric and acid methods were proposed.

Women in Television News: Analysis of Primetime News on HTV, RTL and Nova TV

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Svjetlana Knežević

2011-12-01

Full Text Available This article assesses the particularly low level of women represented on national primetime television newscasts in Croatia. In doing so, it presents the results of a content analysis covering a random,stratified sample of HTV, Nova TV, and RTL primetime news broadcasts over the years 2009 and 2010. According to these results, women are significantly underrepresented as main characters, experts, or even persons relevant to news stories concerning issues or problems. In particular, the results are most apparent on the primetime newscast Dnevnik, broadcasted daily on Croatia’s main public television station. Ideally, this news broadcast should rank among the best in terms of gender equality, given the principles of equality stipulated throughout Croatian law (and especially where it concerns programming legislation. Concerning the analyzed content, when women serve as the main characters in a news story, their emotional response to an issue appears to be almost obligatory. Further, women are often portrayed as victims, or as a figure to galvanize a rather black and white response, i.e. they are to be praised or blamed. Adding to this gender discrepancy, statistics show that more women than men have earned BA and MA degrees, which not only highlights the unbalanced representation of women on television news, but also distorts the actual level of female participation in society, particularly where it regards sociopolitical fields.

Editorial Tag Endogeneity for News Websites

OpenAIRE

Bruno Ribeiro; Ricardo Morla; Amílcar Correia

2013-01-01

Editors and journalists at some news websites label their articles with structure and content-related editorial tags. Each article can have more than one tag and each tag can be used in more than one article. A network of tags can be defined whose edges are all possible pairs of tags in each article. Because editorial tags relate to structure and content rather than individual articles, the analysis of a network of editorial tags could assist editorial decisions to prioritize types of content...

The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Strategic Context

Science.gov (United States)

2013-12-10

Doblest Afganistana (Tragedy and Valor in Afghanistan), 3rd ed. (Moscow, 2009), http://www.rsva.ru/ biblio /prose_af/afgan_tragedy and_glory...Afghanistan). 3rd ed. Moscow, 2009. http://www.rsva.ru/ biblio /prose_af/afgan_tragedy_and_glory/index.shtml. Marsh, Christopher. Russia at the Polls

Breaking Bad News: An Evidence-Based Review of Communication Models for Oncology Nurses.

Science.gov (United States)

Bumb, Meridith; Keefe, Joanna; Miller, Lindsay; Overcash, Janine

2017-10-01

A diagnosis of cancer is a stressful, difficult, and life-altering event. Breaking bad news is distressing to patients and families and is often uncomfortable for the nurse delivering it. Evidence-based communication models have been developed and adapted for use in clinical practice to assist nurses with breaking bad news.

. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview on breaking bad news and to review the utility of the SPIKES and PEWTER evidence-based communication models for oncology nurses.
. Perceptions of breaking bad news from the nurse and patient perspectives, as well as barriers and consequences to effective communication, will be presented. Clinical examples of possible situations of breaking bad news will demonstrate how to use the SPIKES and PEWTER models of communication when disclosing bad news to patients and their families.
. By using the evidence-based communication strategies depicted in this article, oncology nurses can support the delivery of bad news and maintain communication with their patients and their patients' families in an effective and productive manner.

40 CFR Appendix E to Subpart A of... - Article 5 Parties

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-01

... 40 Protection of Environment 17 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Article 5 Parties E Appendix E to Subpart A of Part 82 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) AIR PROGRAMS... Appendix E to Subpart A of Part 82—Article 5 Parties Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Antigua...

"I Have Good News and Bad News:" The Effects of Power Imbalances and Physical Distance on News-givers' Use of Blended News Delivery

OpenAIRE

Legg, Angela M.

2013-01-01

People dislike giving bad news, and one strategy they use to ease the process is to pair bad news with some good news, a phenomenon called blended news delivery. Often, blended news arrives from people in power positions such as physicians, managers, or teachers. But followers also find themselves needing to give bad news to those in higher power positions. Similarly, people can choose how they deliver bad news, such as in person or over email. The current study brings much needed empirical a...

Omlæg operationen i Afghanistan

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Veicherts, Nicolas Teodors

2008-01-01

Ingen er længere i tvivl om, at tidens krige i f.eks. Afghanistan ikke alene kan vindes med militære midler. Sejr i Afghanistan i form af et nyt stabilt politisk system kan kun ske gennem en kombination af militær og civil indsats. Særligt når det gælder bekæmpelsen af væbnede og aggressive...

A Content Analysis of Smokeless Tobacco Coverage in U.S. Newspapers and News Wires

Science.gov (United States)

2013-01-01

Introduction: Research attention on smokeless tobacco (SLT) has focused on SLT use, health risks, harm-reduction potential, and risk perceptions, but few studies have examined mediated communications about SLT. This study aims to contribute to the literature by providing the first description of SLT coverage in the news, an important communication channel given its ability to educate and shape public opinion about tobacco issues. Methods: A content analysis was conducted on SLT-related news and opinion articles between 2006 and 2010 from top circulating national and state newspapers and select news wires. Articles were coded for the main SLT topic, SLT risk references, and slant of opinion articles. Results: SLT was discussed in news/feature articles (n = 677) in terms of business (28%), new products, product regulation and harm reduction (19%), prevention/cessation (11.4%), taxation (10.2%), profiles/trends in use (9%), bans (8.1%), and tobacco industry promotional activities (4.9%). Health risk references (i.e., addictiveness, carcinogenicity, and specific health effects including oral cancer) were found in 40% of articles, though frequency differed by article topic. Although the majority of opinion articles (n = 176) conveyed an anti-SLT slant (64%), 25.6% were pro-SLT. Conclusions: SLT topics of both national and local importance are covered in the news. Public health professionals can participate in SLT coverage by sending in press releases about new study findings, events, or resources and by submitting opinion pieces to share views or respond to previous coverage. Research on SLT news should continue given its potential to shape the public’s SLT knowledge and opinions. PMID:23288875

Identifying Partisan Slant in News Articles and Twitter during Political Crises

OpenAIRE

Karamshuk, Dmytro; Lokot, Tetyana; Pryymak, Oleksandr; Sastry, Nishanth

2017-01-01

In this paper, we are interested in understanding the interrelationships between mainstream and social media in forming public opinion during mass crises, specifically in regards to how events are framed in the mainstream news and on social networks and to how the language used in those frames may allow to infer political slant and partisanship. We study the lingual choices for political agenda setting in mainstream and social media by analyzing a dataset of more than 40M tweets and more than...

Comparing "insider" and "outsider" news coverage of the 2014 Ebola outbreak.

Science.gov (United States)

Humphries, Brittany; Radice, Martha; Lauzier, Sophie

2017-11-09

Information provided by news media during an infectious disease outbreak can affect the actions taken to safeguard public health. There has been little evaluation of how the content of news published during an outbreak varies by location of the news outlet. This study analyzes coverage of the 2014 Ebola outbreak by one news outlet operating within a country affected by the outbreak and one country not directly affected. A qualitative content analysis was conducted of articles published in two national news outlets, The Globe and Mail (Canada) and the Vanguard (Nigeria), between January 1 and December 31, 2014. Articles available through LexisNexis Academic were sorted by date and sampled using a stratified sampling method (The Globe and Mail n = 100; Vanguard n = 105). A coding scheme was developed and modified to incorporate emerging themes until saturation was achieved. There were substantial differences in outbreak coverage in terms of the topic and content of the articles, as well as the sources consulted. The Globe and Mail framed the outbreak in terms of national security and national interests, as well as presenting it as an international humanitarian crisis. In contrast, the Vanguard framed the outbreak almost exclusively in terms of public health. Our findings highlight how different geographic contexts can shape reporting on the same event. Further research is required to investigate how the political, social or economic situations of a country shape its news media, potentially influencing actions taken to control disease outbreaks.

No news is good news?

CERN Multimedia

Peter Schmid

I'm retired and living back home in Austria. But I am still excited about ATLAS and I try to follow the progress of the project as closely as I can. The ATLAS e-news are an excellent source of information. Appearing now every month they provide a broad, solid view of what is going on. But I'm greedy; I'd love to be "on-line". When the first End-Cap Toroid moved from hall 180 to the pit I was frustrated. I knew that it was happening but I could only get first pictures and reports a few days later. In the meantime the ECT was lowered into the cavern; no information on this available nowhere up to the this issue of the e-news. Here is my dream: an "ATLAS news ticker", i.e. a web page with the news appearing on the day they happen; just one line of information, possibly with a reference to a picture, a person or a report. My idea isn't new. On the ATLAS web-site for the public we have a window "latest news". But I was disappointed when, until a week ago, the latest news dated from December 2006 !!! Can't we do...

news-please

OpenAIRE

Hamborg, Felix; Meuschke, Norman; Breitinger, Corinna; Gipp, Bela

2017-01-01

The amount of news published and read online has increased tremendously in recent years, making news data an interesting resource for many research disciplines, such as the social sciences and linguistics. However, large scale collection of news data is cumbersome due to a lack of generic tools for crawling and extracting such data. We present news-please, a generic, multilanguage, open-source crawler and extractor for news that works out-of-thebox for a large variety of news websites. ...

Afghanistan's gender apartheid.

Science.gov (United States)

Carlisle, D

This paper discusses the aftermath of gender apartheid in Afghanistan and its implications on the health care situation. Since 1996, when the radical Islamic Taliban movement took over two-thirds of Afghanistan, the country has faced severe restrictions. Women were told to stop working. Girls¿ schools were closed and access to health care was denied. To address this problem, Emma Bonino, the outspoken head of the European Community Humanitarian Office, has started an international campaign. Over the past 2 years the health care situation has somewhat improved. Women are now allowed to go to hospitals, provided that there are segregated male and female wards. In addition, female nurses are working in Afghan hospitals under certain conditions. The Taliban leaders have also allowed the health education program to continue.

Tracking Multiple Topics for Finding Interesting Articles

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pon, R K; Cardenas, A F; Buttler, D J; Critchlow, T J

2008-01-03

We introduce multiple topic tracking (MTT) for iScore to better recommend news articles for users with multiple interests and to address changes in user interests over time. As an extension of the basic Rocchio algorithm, traditional topic detection and tracking, and single-pass clustering, MTT maintains multiple interest profiles to identify interesting articles for a specific user given user-feedback. Focusing on only interesting topics enables iScore to discard useless profiles to address changes in user interests and to achieve a balance between resource consumption and classification accuracy. iScore is able to achieve higher quality results than traditional methods such as the Rocchio algorithm. We identify several operating parameters that work well for MTT. Using the same parameters, we show that MTT alone yields high quality results for recommending interesting articles from several corpora. The inclusion of MTT improves iScore's performance by 25% in recommending news articles from the Yahoo! News RSS feeds and the TREC11 adaptive filter article collection. And through a small user study, we show that iScore can still perform well when only provided with little user feedback.

Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Dobbins, James

2009-01-01

.... American attention is now being redirected toward this region. It is not a day too soon. For the first several years after the collapse of the Taliban regime the Bush Administration ignored Afghanistan almost entirely...

‘It’s Something Posh People Do’: Digital Distinction in Young People’s Cross-Media News Engagement

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jannie Møller Hartley

2018-05-01

Full Text Available In this article, I analyse digital distinction mechanisms in young people’s cross media engagement with news. Using a combination of open online diaries and qualitative interviews with young Danes aged 15 to 18 who differ in social background and education, and with Bourdieu’s field theory as an analytical framework, the article investigates how cultural capital (CC operates in specific tastes and distastes for news genres, platforms and providers. The article argues that distinction mechanism not only works on the level of news providers and news genres but also on the level of engagement practices—the ways in which people enact and describe their own news engagement practices. Among those rich in CC, physical, analogue objects in the form of newspapers and physical conversations about news are seen as ‘better’ that digital ones, resulting in a feeling of guilt when they mostly engage with news on social media. Secondly, young people with lower CC discard legacy news, which they see as elitist and irrelevant. Thirdly, those rich in CC are media and news genre savvy in the sense that it makes them able to critically evaluate the news they engage with across platforms and sites.

Opium and Afghanistan: Reassessing U.S. Counter-Narcotics Strategy

Science.gov (United States)

2007-03-30

and effective governance of Afghanistan.”3 This paper examines the nature of the opium problem in Afghanistan and analyzes the current strategy to...Opium is also refined for use in legal prescription painkillers such as OxyContin and Vicodin.14 However, Australia and France currently produce about...is simply inadequate to carry out an effective counter-narcotics campaign. While some regions of Afghanistan are relatively stable and free of

"Rape Culture" language and the news media: contested versus non-contested cases

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

April COBOS

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The American news media has recently reported on several rape and sexual assault cases in various cultural settings, sparking public conversations about rape culture in different cultural contexts. The article is focused as a Critical Discourse Analysis that compares the language use in news articles from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal over a six months period in order to more clearly understand the way the news media uses language in regards to gender and sexual assault and creates a spectrum of valid versus contested reports of sexual assault in different cultural settings.

Causal interpretation of correlational studies - Analysis of medical news on the website of the official journal for German physicians.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Susanne Buhse

Full Text Available Media frequently draws inappropriate causal statements from observational studies. We analyzed the reporting of study results in the Medical News section of the German medical journal Deutsches Ärzteblatt (DÄ.Study design: Retrospective quantitative content analysis of randomly selected news reports and related original journal articles and press releases. A medical news report was selected if headlines comprised at least two linked variables. Two raters independently categorized the headline and text of each news report, conclusions of the abstract and full text of the related journal article, and the press release. The assessment instrument comprised five categories from 'neutral' to 'unconditionally causal'. Outcome measures: degree of matching between 1 news headlines and conclusions of the journal article, 2 headlines and text of news reports, 3 text and conclusions, and 4 headlines and press releases. We analyzed whether news headlines rated as unconditionally causal based on randomized controlled trials (RCTs.One-thousand eighty-seven medical news reports were published between April 2015 and May 2016. The final random sample comprised 176 news reports and 100 related press releases. Degree of matching: 1 45% (79/176 for news headlines and journal article conclusions, 2 55% (97/176 for headlines and text, 3 53% (93/176 for text and conclusions, and 4 41% (41/100 for headlines and press releases. Exaggerations were found in 45% (80/176 of the headlines compared to the conclusions of the related journal article. Sixty-five of 137 unconditionally causal statements of the news headlines were phrased more weakly in the subsequent news text body. Only 52 of 137 headlines (38% categorized as unconditionally causal reported RCTs.Reporting of medical news in the DÄ medical journal is misleading. Most headlines that imply causal associations were not based on RCTs. Medical journalists should follow standards of reporting scientific study results.

Causal interpretation of correlational studies - Analysis of medical news on the website of the official journal for German physicians.

Science.gov (United States)

Buhse, Susanne; Rahn, Anne Christin; Bock, Merle; Mühlhauser, Ingrid

2018-01-01

Media frequently draws inappropriate causal statements from observational studies. We analyzed the reporting of study results in the Medical News section of the German medical journal Deutsches Ärzteblatt (DÄ). Study design: Retrospective quantitative content analysis of randomly selected news reports and related original journal articles and press releases. A medical news report was selected if headlines comprised at least two linked variables. Two raters independently categorized the headline and text of each news report, conclusions of the abstract and full text of the related journal article, and the press release. The assessment instrument comprised five categories from 'neutral' to 'unconditionally causal'. Outcome measures: degree of matching between 1) news headlines and conclusions of the journal article, 2) headlines and text of news reports, 3) text and conclusions, and 4) headlines and press releases. We analyzed whether news headlines rated as unconditionally causal based on randomized controlled trials (RCTs). One-thousand eighty-seven medical news reports were published between April 2015 and May 2016. The final random sample comprised 176 news reports and 100 related press releases. Degree of matching: 1) 45% (79/176) for news headlines and journal article conclusions, 2) 55% (97/176) for headlines and text, 3) 53% (93/176) for text and conclusions, and 4) 41% (41/100) for headlines and press releases. Exaggerations were found in 45% (80/176) of the headlines compared to the conclusions of the related journal article. Sixty-five of 137 unconditionally causal statements of the news headlines were phrased more weakly in the subsequent news text body. Only 52 of 137 headlines (38%) categorized as unconditionally causal reported RCTs. Reporting of medical news in the DÄ medical journal is misleading. Most headlines that imply causal associations were not based on RCTs. Medical journalists should follow standards of reporting scientific study results.

They Came, They Liked, They Commented: Social Influence on Facebook News Channels.

Science.gov (United States)

Winter, Stephan; Brückner, Caroline; Krämer, Nicole C

2015-08-01

Due to the increasing importance of social networking sites as sources of information, news media organizations have set up Facebook channels in which they publish news stories or links to articles. This research investigated how journalistic texts are perceived in this new context and how reactions of other users change the influence of the main articles. In an online experiment (N=197), a Facebook posting of a reputable news site and the corresponding article were shown. The type of user comments and the number of likes were systematically varied. Negative comments diminished the persuasive influence of the article, while there were no strengthening effects of positive comments. When readers perceived the topic as personally relevant, comments including relevant arguments were more influential than comments with subjective opinions, which can be explained by higher levels of elaboration. However, against expectations of bandwagon perceptions, a high number of likes did not lead to conformity effects, which suggests that exemplifying comments are more influential than statistical user representations. Results are discussed with regard to effects of news media content and the mechanisms of social influence in Web 2.0.

Opium, petroleum and islamism. The crime Triad in Afghanistan

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lafargue, F.

2003-01-01

The geographical position of Afghanistan, at the crossroads of three main cultural areas, Turkish, Indian and Iranian, explains the unsteadiness of its history. Today, Afghanistan is the key position of Central Asia, a necessary path to dispatch the hydrocarbons of the Caucasus region, in particular from Turkmenistan, towards the harbors of the Indian Ocean or China. These political and oil stakes supply the present day chaos and are the constituents of Afghanistan's misfortune

Afghanistan: Post-War Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Katzman, Kenneth

2007-01-01

Afghanistan's political transition was completed with the convening of a parliament in December 2005, but in 2006 insurgent threats to Afghanistan's government escalated to the point that some experts...

News values on social media: News organizations’ Facebook use

Science.gov (United States)

Al-Rawi, Ahmed

2016-01-01

This study examines the news selection practices followed by news organizations through investigating the news posted on social networking sites and, in particular, the Facebook pages of four foreign Arabic language TV stations: The Iranian Al-Alam TV, Russia Today, Deutsche Welle, and BBC. A total of 15,589 news stories are analyzed in order to examine the prominence of references to countries and political actors. The study reveals that social significance and proximity as well as the news organizations’ ideological agenda are the most important elements that dictate the news selection process. PMID:29278253

News values on social media: News organizations' Facebook use.

Science.gov (United States)

Al-Rawi, Ahmed

2017-08-01

This study examines the news selection practices followed by news organizations through investigating the news posted on social networking sites and, in particular, the Facebook pages of four foreign Arabic language TV stations: The Iranian Al-Alam TV, Russia Today, Deutsche Welle, and BBC. A total of 15,589 news stories are analyzed in order to examine the prominence of references to countries and political actors. The study reveals that social significance and proximity as well as the news organizations' ideological agenda are the most important elements that dictate the news selection process.

Breaking bad news in prenatal medicine: a literature review.

Science.gov (United States)

Luz, Rita; George, Astrid; Spitz, Elisabeth; Vieux, Rachel

2017-02-01

The diagnosis of a fetal anomaly in perinatal medicine forces expectant parents and healthcare providers to face the difficult process of breaking bad news. This exploratory literature review was aimed at providing a medical and psychological view of the psychological experience in expectant parents and physicians in the context of prenatal diagnosis of a fetal anomaly. An exploratory search of PubMed and PsycINFO/PsycARTICLES databases performed by an interdisciplinary team composed of a physician and psychologists. Search terms were: prenatal diagnosis AND bad news; prenatal diagnosis AND psychological consequences; prenatal diagnosis AND psychological sequelae; prenatal diagnosis AND fetal abnormality. The processing of selected articles followed a standardised five-step procedure. A total of 860 articles were screened of which 32 were retained for analysis. Four main themes emerged from the explanatory content analysis: (1) parents' subjective experience; (2) physicians' subjective experience; (3) encounters between expectant parents and professionals; and (4) ethical challenges in breaking bad news in prenatal medicine. Expectant parents go through a complex and multidimensional experience when the diagnosis of a fetal anomaly is disclosed. Simultaneously, physicians consider breaking bad news as a very stressful event and are poorly prepared in this regard. A better knowledge of factors underlying psychological adjustment of the parental dyad and on the subjective experience of physicians delivering these diagnoses could enable better adaptation for both patients and professionals.

‘Let’s Get Them Involved’ . . . to Some Extent: Analyzing Online News Participation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Susanne M. Almgren

2015-12-01

Full Text Available The development of social media applications, such as blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, has offered new participatory opportunities for everyday media users. This article contributes to research by looking into one specific aspect of the increasingly more participatory media ecology—the news comment feature. Drawing on a quantitative content analysis of 1,100 news pieces, as well as spaces for user comments, the article reveals both how this emerging public space is shaped by the media company and, later, appropriated by their participating users. Our analysis reveals, for instance, that the online newspaper prefers to allow users to comment on lightweight news such as sports and entertainment. The users, however, prefer to post comments on news covering changes in proximity space, politics, and health care, while also clearly ignoring the most available news pieces (sport and entertainment. In the concluding section, the discrepancy in preferences is discussed.

Girls, Guys and Games: How News Media Perpetuate Stereotypes of Male and Female Gamers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Erin Maclean

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Despite the sheer popularity of gaming, stereotypes of gamers are persistent and often ill-informed. The average age of an Australian gamer, for example, is 33 and nearly half of gamers are female. Yet, few mainstream and gaming news articles seem to acknowledge this diversity. Because news media and public perception are intertwined, such misrepresentation may affect the way gamers are perceived by the public and, in turn, how gamers negotiate their identities. This paper, through a primarily qualitative analysis of 75 online news articles, explores many examples of simplistic and distorted portrayals of gamers that characterise news coverage. In particular, it examines three gendered tropes—‘not real’ female gamers, women as the victims and oppressors of gamers, and toxic male gamers—that news media use to frame the narratives that misrepresent gaming in social life. Ultimately, this article argues that two prevailing themes underlie many news stories about gaming: the perpetuation of male technocratic privilege and moral panic. Both of these phenomena have relevance to the #GamerGate controversy of 2014, which news media portrayed as a ‘culture war’ between these inaccurate notions of male and female gamers. Thus, this indicates that the media blame game and alienation of gaming culture, as a multibillion-dollar international industry of increasing social importance, must be acknowledged and addressed.

Afghanistan: Post-War Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Katzman, Kenneth

2006-01-01

Afghanistan's planned political transition was completed with the convening of a parliament in December 2005, but insurgent threats to Afghanistan s government persist and are even growing in some southern provinces...

Cinema and the communication of bad news

OpenAIRE

Ana Isabel GÓMEZ CORDOBA; Haroldo ESTRADA

2016-01-01

Breaking Bad News requires medical professionals possess a range of skills to ensure that the patient has the information required for decision?making, this process occurs without further damage and even has a therapeutic effect, and another, that the doctor is not exposed to legal risk or stress associated with the inability to cope with the feelings of the patient, their families or themselves. This article discusses the aspects of communication of bad news in the field of doctor?patient re...

A short guide to giving bad news.

Science.gov (United States)

Mitchell, Jeffrey T

2008-01-01

Approaching an individual or a family with bad news, but without an appropriate plan to present the information in a structured manner, is almost a guarantee of greater emotional pain and disruption for the recipients of the news. Crisis interveners must develop a strategic plan for the announcement of bad news. That plan should entail a lead-up phase, a transmission phase, and a followup phase. The lead-up phase encompasses the gathering of accurate, verifiable information and the clear identification of the targets of the information. The transmission phase includes immediate preparation for the presentation of the information, the actual announcement, and the presentation of additional details as questions arise. The follow-up phase includes a range of supportive interventions to assist people in the immediate crisis reaction. It also includes a system of referrals for people who might benefit from additional professional care. This article provides practical guidelines for providing bad news to the loved ones of injured, ill, or deceased people.

Simulating the Afghanistan-Pakistan opium supply chain

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Watkins, Jennifer H [Los Alamos National Laboratory; MacKerrow, Edward P [Los Alamos National Laboratory; Merritt, Terence M [Los Alamos National Laboratory

2010-04-08

This paper outlines an opium supply chain using the Hilmand province of Afghanistan as exemplar. The opium supply chain model follows the transformation of opium poppy seed through cultivation and chemical alteration to brown heroin base. The purpose of modeling and simulating the Afghanistan-Pakistan opium supply chain is to discover and test strategies that will disrupt this criminal enterprise.

Afghanistan: Post-War Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Katzman, Kenneth

2007-01-01

Assessments of the U.S. effort to stabilize Afghanistan are mixed. The political transition was completed with the convening of a parliament in December 2005, but since 2006 insurgent threats to Afghanistan's government have escalated...

International News Flows in the Post-Cold War World: Mapping the News and the News Producers.

Science.gov (United States)

Sreberny-Mohammadi, Annabelle

1995-01-01

Reviews the global political environment, major global news providers, and technologies of global news production. Argues for a multinational comparative mapping of international news representation in the 1990s. Outlines a major international venture to update and elaborate the 1979 UNESCO/IAMCR study of foreign news in the media of 29 countries,…

Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR)

Science.gov (United States)

2013-01-30

began operations in Afghanistan aimed at stabilizing the country and coun- tering economically motivated violence by decreasing unemployment and...Afghan migrant workers have returned from Iran, affecting the spending power of their families, and possibly con- tributing to higher unemployment .371...of USAID, held the first U.S.-Afghanistan Franchising Trade Conference in Kabul to build trade partnerships between Afghan businesses and U.S

Afghanistan: Post-War Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Katzman, Kenneth

2004-01-01

....-led war that brought the current government to power. Before the U.S. military campaign against the Taliban began on October 7, 2001, Afghanistan had been mired in conflict since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979...

Marine environment news. Vol. 2, no. 2

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2004-09-01

This issue of the Newsletter carries articles on Tracers to reveal Global Role of Southern Oceans in Climate Change, a Technical Cooperation project on contamination in Mediterranean Sea and an article Marine Environment Laboratory (MEL) and Harmful Algal Blooms: nuclear methods serving seafood toxicity management. News items on training, personnel and intercomparison exercise are also covered

Framing beyond words : Applying cluster and sentiment analysis to news coverage of the nuclear power issue

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Burscher, B.; Vliegenthart, R.; de Vreese, C.H.

2016-01-01

Methods to automatically analyze media content are advancing significantly. Among others, it has become increasingly popular to analyze the framing of news articles by means of statistical procedures. In this article, we investigate the conceptual validity of news frames that are inferred by a

Assessment of bauxite, clay, and laterite deposits in Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

Renaud, Karine M.; Wardlaw, Bruce R.; Hubbard, Bernard E.

2015-01-01

Bauxite-bearing rocks are present in several regions of Afghanistan; specifically, the southeast segment of the North Afghanistan Platform, the eastern parts of South Afghanistan, and within the Afghanistan-North and -South Pamir Fold Regions. Bauxite-bearing rocks occur at various stratigraphic levels, in lithologically different sequences of sedimentary rocks. The bauxites are paleosols and represent previous, rather than recent, weathering events. Bauxites and bauxite-type horizons are most common at the base of carbonate rock units, where they form the basal horizons of sedimentary rock sequences separated by erosion and stratigraphic unconformity surfaces. Less common are zones in redeposited weathering developed on igneous rocks. At present there are five known stratigraphic intervals with significant bauxite and bauxite-type deposits and occurrences: the lower Permian, the upper Permian, the Upper Triassic, the Lower Jurassic, and the base of the Upper Jurassic.

The Spin Doctors of news sources

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aldo Antonio Schmitz

2013-06-01

Full Text Available This paper examines in a historical context, with reference to concrete cases, the phenomenon of spin doctors. What is it? How does it act? What is its purpose? Where does it operate? And what are its consequences? These questions are raised in order to help identify the actions and strategies benefitting news sources, as well as the impact on journalism: the accommodation of journalists, the reduction or elimination of investigative journalism, the transference of the news to digital social networks, and the expansion of media sources. The article draws on a survey conducted with 163 news sources and journalists, on the premise that spin doctors are professional communicators, who are able to forge public opinion using processes, procedures, journalist’s co-optation, and knowledge of journalism and public relations, in order to be successful in the media, or directly with the target audience.

THE SPIN DOCTORS OF NEWS SOURCES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aldo Antonio Schmitz

2013-06-01

Full Text Available This paper examines in a historical context, with reference to concrete cases, the phenomenon of spin doctors. What is it? How does it act? What is its purpose? Where does it operate? And what are its consequences? These questions are raised in order to help identify the actions and strategies benefitting news sources, as well as the impact on journalism: the accommodation of journalists, the reduction or elimination of investigative journalism, the transference of the news to digital social networks, and the expansion of media sources. The article draws on a survey conducted with 163 news sources and journalists, on the premise that spin doctors are professional communicators, who are able to forge public opinion using processes, procedures, journalist’s co-optation, and knowledge of journalism and public relations, in order to be successful in the media, or directly with the target audience.

IDRC in Afghanistan

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

security, health, democracy, and human rights. They continue to face tough challenges as they work to produce ... nities for launching a course in Afghanistan to train field epidemiologists skilled in tack- ling the country's ... of Computer and Emerging Sciences. (NUCES), Pakistan. With computing and the Internet dominated.

Research News

Science.gov (United States)

... Research News Share this page Facebook Twitter Email Research News Research News Quarterly Updates Research Call Archive ... Clinical Trials in MS Learn More Become a Research Champion An MS Research Revolution Support MS Research ...

Breaking bad news revisited: the push for negotiated disclosure and changing practice implications.

Science.gov (United States)

Arber, Anne; Gallagher, Ann

2003-04-01

This article revisits the ethical, legal, professional and emotional issues involved with disclosing bad news. The authors examine the push for disclosure that has come from a number of quarters in the UK, including ethical and legal challenges, in particular the Bristol Royal Inquiry Report, professional codes of conduct, health policy and the expectations of the public. The contribution of nurses to breaking bad news is not widely discussed in the literature. With the development of new nursing roles and evidence-based practice it is timely to consider the role of nurses in this process. The article highlights some limitations with current guidelines for breaking bad news, in particular, that these guidelines tend to be constructed from a professional standpoint and lack patient-centred evidence. The issue of emotional labour and how it relates to giving bad news is discussed with respect to professional staff and patients. The article concludes by raising some practice implications, including: the importance of context and continuity; the significance of information and support; the desirable qualities of the professional; and issues to consider in determining patient preferences.

Respiratory symptoms necessitating spirometry among soldiers with Iraq/Afghanistan war lung injury.

Science.gov (United States)

Szema, Anthony M; Salihi, Walid; Savary, Khalil; Chen, John J

2011-09-01

New-onset asthma rates are higher among US soldiers deployed to Iraq/Afghanistan than stateside, but overall respiratory symptom and spirometry rates among soldiers returning from Iraq/Afghanistan have not yet been addressed. We determined these rates in soldiers deployed to Iraq/Afghanistan versus troops stationed elsewhere. Retrospective review of active-duty soldiers (2004 to 2010) registered at Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Northport, New York, with Long Island/New York City zip codes. Subjects were examined by physicians or physicians' assistants. We counted number of spirometries, which required respiratory symptoms, and the provider was required to submit a diagnosis as part of the request process. Twenty-five percent of 7151 troops went to Iraq/Afghanistan (n = 1816) and 75% went elsewhere (n = 5335), with more smokers in the Iraq/Afghanistan group (16.1% vs 3.3%). Rates of symptoms and spirometry were 14.5% and 1.8%, for Iraq/Afghanistan, versus troops deployed elsewhere, respectively (P Afghanistan war lung injury is common and rates of symptoms leading to a diagnosis requiring spirometry are high. (C)2011The American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine

Beyond Knowledge Gaps: Examining Socioeconomic Differences in Response to Cancer News

Science.gov (United States)

Niederdeppe, Jeff

2008-01-01

This article tested a model, informed by the knowledge gap hypothesis, to predict information seeking about cancer immediately following news about the diagnosis or death from cancer of a national celebrity. I identified five celebrity news events and examined their impact using data from the 2005 Health Information National Trends Survey. News…

48 CFR 252.225-7023 - Preference for products or services from Iraq or Afghanistan.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... services from Iraq or Afghanistan. 252.225-7023 Section 252.225-7023 Federal Acquisition Regulations System... from Iraq or Afghanistan. As prescribed in 225.7703-5(a), use the following provision: Requirement for Products or Services from Iraq or Afghanistan (APR 2010) (a) Definitions. Product from Iraq or Afghanistan...

News Coverage of Child Sexual Abuse and Prevention, 2007-2009

Science.gov (United States)

Mejia, Pamela; Cheyne, Andrew; Dorfman, Lori

2012-01-01

News media coverage of child sexual abuse can help policymakers and the public understand what must be done to prevent future abuse, but coverage tends to focus on extreme cases. This article presents an analysis of newspaper coverage from 2007 to 2009 to describe how the daily news presents and frames day-to-day stories about child sexual abuse.…

Availability of Water in the Kabul Basin, Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

Mack, Thomas J.; Chornack, Michael P.; Coplen, T.B.; Plummer, Niel; Rezai, M.T.; Verstraeten, Ingrid M.

2010-01-01

The availability of water resources is vital to the social and economic well being and rebuilding of Afghanistan. Kabul City currently (2010) has a population of nearly 4 million and is growing rapidly as a result of periods of relative security and the return of refugees. Population growth and recent droughts have placed new stresses on the city's limited water resources and have caused many wells to become contaminated, dry, or inoperable in recent years. The projected vulnerability of Central and West Asia to climate change (Cruz and others, 2007; Milly and others, 2005) and observations of diminishing glaciers in Afghanistan (Molnia, 2009) have heightened concerns for future water availability in the Kabul Basin of Afghanistan.

76 FR 66692 - Executive-Led Trade Mission to Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

2011-10-27

... business development trade mission to Kabul, Afghanistan in February 2012. This mission will be led by a..., architecture, transportation and logistics, and infrastructure); mining (including equipment, technology, and.... companies explore long-term business opportunities in Afghanistan and enhance U.S.--Afghan commercial...

The Digital Distribution of Public Health News Surrounding the Human Papillomavirus Vaccination: A Longitudinal Infodemiology Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Mahoney, L Meghan; Tang, Tang; Ji, Kai; Ulrich-Schad, Jessica

2015-01-01

New media changes the dissemination of public health information and misinformation. During a guest appearance on the Today Show, US Representative Michele Bachmann claimed that human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines could cause "mental retardation". The purpose of this study is to explore how new media influences the type of public health information users access, as well as the impact to these platforms after a major controversy. Specifically, this study aims to examine the similarities and differences in the dissemination of news articles related to the HPV vaccination between Google News and Twitter, as well as how the content of news changed after Michele Bachmann's controversial comment. This study used a purposive sampling to draw the first 100 news articles that appeared on Google News and the first 100 articles that appeared on Twitter from August 1-October 31, 2011. Article tone, source, topics, concerns, references, publication date, and interactive features were coded. The intercoder reliability had a total agreement of .90. Results indicate that 44.0% of the articles (88/200) about the HPV vaccination had a positive tone, 32.5% (65/200) maintained a neutral tone, while 23.5% (47/200) presented a negative tone. Protection against diseases 82.0% (164/200), vaccine eligibility for females 75.5% (151/200), and side effects 59.0% (118/200) were the top three topics covered by these articles. Google News and Twitter articles significantly differed in article tone, source, topics, concerns covered, types of sources referenced in the article, and uses of interactive features. Most notably, topic focus changed from public health information towards political conversation after Bachmann's comment. Before the comment, the HPV vaccine news talked more often about vaccine dosing (Ppolitics (P=.01) and talked more about HPV vaccine eligibility for males (P=.01). This longitudinal infodemiology study suggests that new media influences public health communication

Monkey Bites among US Military Members, Afghanistan, 2011

Science.gov (United States)

Baker, Katheryn A.

2012-01-01

Bites from Macaca mulatta monkeys, native to Afghanistan, can cause serious infections. To determine risk for US military members in Afghanistan, we reviewed records for September–December 2011. Among 126 animal bites and exposures, 10 were monkey bites. Command emphasis is vital for preventing monkey bites; provider training and bite reporting promote postexposure treatment. PMID:23017939

Good News in Bad News: How Negativity Enhances Economic Efficacy

OpenAIRE

Svensson, H.M.; Albæk, E.; van Dalen, A.; de Vreese, C.

2017-01-01

Negativity is a news ideology, and its negative effects on attitude formation are widely documented. Contrary to this view, the present study demonstrates that negative economic news can in fact be good news. Based on a two-wave national panel survey and a media content analysis, we show that individual exposure to negative economic news enhances internal economic efficacy, a sense of competence in and understanding of the economy. This is good news as internal economic efficacy may facilitat...

Resource Assessment for Afghanistan and Alleviation of Terrorism

Science.gov (United States)

Shroder, J. F.

2002-05-01

Mineral and water resources in Afghanistan may be the best means by which redevelopment of the country can be used to alleviate future terrorism. Remote-sensing analysis of snow, ice, resources, and topography in Afghanistan, and development of digital elevation models with ASTER imagery and previously classified, large scale topographic maps from the Department of Defense enable better assessment and forecasting resources in the country. Adequate resource assessment and planning is viewed as critical to alleviation of one cause of the problems associated with the fertilization of terrorism in Afghanistan. Long-term diminution of meltwater resources in Afghanistan is exemplified by the disastrous and famine-inducing droughts of the present time and three decades prior, as well as by the early Landsat assessment of glacier resources sponsored by USGS and now brought up-to-date with current imagery. Extensive cold-war projects undertaken by both the USSR and USA generated plentiful essential mineral, hydrocarbon, hydrogeological, and hydrological data, including an extensive stream gauging and vital irrigation network now adversly affected or destroyed entirely by decades of war. Analysis, measurement, prediction, rehabilitation, and reconstruction of critical resource projects are regarded as most critical elements in the war on terrorism in this portion of the world. The GLIMS (Global Land Ice Measurements from Space) Project, initially sponsored by USGS, has established our group as the Regional Center for Afghanistan and Pakistan, in which the above concepts serve as guiding research precepts.

News from the future

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Reinecke Hansen, Kenneth

2016-01-01

This article presents a corpus linguistic analysis of the development in future-oriented political journalism in four Danish newspapers in the period 1997–2013 (N = 2954 full articles = 1,553,038 word tokens). Keyword analysis and concordance analysis are applied within a framework of grammatical......-semantic theory of tense and modal verbs and semantic-pragmatic theory of time meaning, modality and speech acts. The results suggest, unexpectedly, that the newspapers – and news reports in particular – seem to have become less future-oriented in the period. At the same time, however, the articles...

Afghanistan Multi-Risk Assessment to Natural Hazards

Science.gov (United States)

Diermanse, Ferdinand; Daniell, James; Pollino, Maurizio; Glover, James; Bouwer, Laurens; de Bel, Mark; Schaefer, Andreas; Puglisi, Claudio; Winsemius, Hessel; Burzel, Andreas; Ammann, Walter; Aliparast, Mojtaba; Jongman, Brenden; Ranghieri, Federica; Fallesen, Ditte

2017-04-01

The geographical location of Afghanistan and years of environmental degradation in the country make Afghanistan highly prone to intense and recurring natural hazards such as flooding, earthquakes, snow avalanches, landslides, and droughts. These occur in addition to man-made disasters resulting in the frequent loss of live, livelihoods, and property. Since 1980, disasters caused by natural hazards have affected 9 million people and caused over 20,000 fatalities in Afghanistan. The creation, understanding and accessibility of hazard, exposure, vulnerability and risk information is key for effective management of disaster risk. This is especially true in Afghanistan, where reconstruction after recent natural disasters and military conflicts is on-going and will continue over the coming years. So far, there has been limited disaster risk information produced in Afghanistan, and information that does exist typically lacks standard methodology and does not have uniform geo-spatial coverage. There are currently no available risk assessment studies that cover all major natural hazards in Afghanistan, which can be used to assess the costs and benefits of different resilient reconstruction and disaster risk reduction strategies. As a result, the Government of Afghanistan has limited information regarding current and future disaster risk and the effectiveness of policy options on which to base their reconstruction and risk reduction decisions. To better understand natural hazard and disaster risk, the World Bank and Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) are supporting the development of new fluvial flood, flash flood, drought, landslide, avalanche and seismic risk information in Afghanistan, as well as a first-order analysis of the costs and benefits of resilient reconstruction and risk reduction strategies undertaken by the authors. The hazard component is the combination of probability and magnitude of natural hazards. Hazard analyses were carried out

Economic Development in Afghanistan during the Soviet Period, 1979-1989: Lessons Learned from the Soviet Experience in Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

2007-08-01

gouvernement afghan. Les auteurs de l’étude concluent que l’accent sur la sécurité en Afghanistan a été préjudiciable à un développement économique...Afghanistan (PDPA) regime were largely influenced by Soviet economic theory and experience. In addition to adopting economic planning based on the five...rural Afghans. On peasant in Leninist theory see Esther Kingston-Mann, “Proletarian Theory and Peasant Practice: Lenin 1901-1904,” in Soviet Studies

A mediation model for the translation of radio news texts in a ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Broadcast journalists in South Africa are media workers, editors and translators simultaneously producing news for bilingual or multilingual audiences. News texts are translated from English into one or more of the other official languages, depending on the target audience of the broadcaster. This article aims to indicate how ...

Progress Toward Poliomyelitis Eradication - Afghanistan, January 2016-June 2017.

Science.gov (United States)

Martinez, Maureen; Shukla, Hemant; Nikulin, Joanna; Wadood, Mufti Zubair; Hadler, Stephen; Mbaeyi, Chukwuma; Tangermann, Rudolph; Jorba, Jaume; Ehrhardt, Derek

2017-08-18

Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria remain the only countries where the transmission of endemic wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) continues (1). This report describes polio eradication activities, progress, and challenges in Afghanistan during January 2016-June 2017 and updates previous reports (2,3). Thirteen WPV1 cases were confirmed in Afghanistan in 2016, a decrease of seven from the 20 cases reported in 2015. From January to June 2017, five WPV1 cases were reported, compared with six during the same period in 2016. The number of affected districts declined from 23 (including WPV1-positive acute flaccid paralysis [AFP] cases and positive environmental sewage samples) in 2015 to six in 2016. To achieve WPV1 eradication, it is important that Afghanistan's polio program continue to collaborate with that of neighboring Pakistan to track and vaccinate groups of high-risk mobile populations and strengthen efforts to reach children in security-compromised areas.

Resonance – Journal of Science Education | News

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

78 Feature Article. What is Free Software? V Vinay · More Details Fulltext PDF. pp 79-84 Classroom. Exchange and Sign-change: The Pauli Exclusion Principle · Rahul Siddharthan · More Details Fulltext PDF. pp 85-87 Research News.

Types of Journalistic News Selection or Media Tracks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

SILVIA BRANEA

2013-07-01

Full Text Available This article aims to answer to the following question: How do the TV news and the online media platforms reflect reality from Romania and from outside of Romania? The subjective response to this question will be given based on an audiovisual and online monitoring conducted in the week 2-8 May 2011. The main core of our analysis consists of data obtained through monitoring of programs at four local Romanian TV stations (TVR 2, B1TV, Realitatea TV and Antena 3 for one week at the beginning of May, 2011. We also used information provided by two news websites: hotnews.ro and realitatea.ro.The research starts from two assumptions: 1. The news presented by all four TV networks will focus on events in the proximity, on the one hand and on human interest, on the other hand. 2. Online news websites will be more interested in political and social news, both in the region and in more distant areas. From the methodological point of view, the analysis of documents (the audiovisual tracks and the online ones is based on the communicational approach and on hermeneutic analysis.

TYPES OF JOURNALISTIC NEWS SELECTION OR MEDIA TRACKS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

SILVIA BRANEA

2013-01-01

Full Text Available This article aims to answer to the following question: How do the TV news and the online media platforms reflect reality from Romania and from outside of Romania? The subjective response to this question will be given based on an audiovisual and online monitoring conducted in the week 2−8 May 2011. The main core of our analysis consists of data obtained through monitoring of programs at four local Romanian TV stations (TVR 2, B1TV, Realitatea TV and Antena 3 for one week at the beginning of May, 2011. We also used information provided by two news websites: hotnews.ro and realitatea.ro. The research starts from two assumptions: 1. The news presented by all four TV networks will focus on events in the proximity, on the one hand and on human interest, on the other hand. 2. Online news websites will be more interested in political and social news, both in the region and in more distant areas. From the methodological point of view, the analysis of documents (the audiovisual tracks and the online ones is based on the communicational approach and on hermeneutic analysis

UNO's Afghanistan Collection.

Science.gov (United States)

McKernan, M. D.

This paper explores the background history and sources of the Afghanistan collection at the University Library, University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). Credit for the impetus behind the development of the collection is given to Chris Jung, a former UNO geography/geology faculty member; Ronald Roskens, then UNO chancellor; and the Afghanistan…

BBC VERSUS EURO NEWS: DISCOURSE AND IDEOLOGY IN NEWS TRANSLATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hosseini, F.

2016-09-01

Full Text Available The present study aimed to compare discursive strategies employed by two international news agencies including Euro News and BBC. Van Dijk’s (2004 model of CDA was adopted. Thirty pieces of news about internal affairs of Iran together with their Persian translations were downloaded from the corresponding website, i.e. 30 pieces of English news and their corresponding Persian translations from the Euro News website and 30 pieces of English news with their corresponding translations from the BBC website. The frequency of lexical items was observed to not differ significantly. Two sets of translations were compared to their source texts based on four discursive strategies of hyperbole, polarization, vagueness and euphemism. An independent-samples t-test was conducted to compare the frequency of strategies applied by the two news agencies. Results revealed no significant difference between the two agencies except for the discursive strategy of vagueness.

The status of foreign forces in Afghanistan post 2014

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Voetelink, J.E.D.

2015-01-01

On 30 September 2014 the long-awaited Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) between Afghanistan and the US and the post-2014 Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between Afghanistan and NATO were signed, ending a process that dragged on for almost two years. While the media often stress that the

The good news about giving bad news to patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Farber, Neil J; Urban, Susan Y; Collier, Virginia U; Weiner, Joan; Polite, Ronald G; Davis, Elizabeth B; Boyer, E Gil

2002-12-01

There are few data available on how physicians inform patients about bad news. We surveyed internists about how they convey this information. We surveyed internists about their activities in giving bad news to patients. One set of questions was about activities for the emotional support of the patient (11 items), and the other was about activities for creating a supportive environment for delivering bad news (9 items). The impact of demographic factors on the performance of emotionally supportive items, environmentally supportive items, and on the number of minutes reportedly spent delivering news was analyzed by analysis of variance and multiple regression analysis. More than half of the internists reported that they always or frequently performed 10 of the 11 emotionally supportive items and 6 of the 9 environmentally supportive items while giving bad news to patients. The average time reportedly spent in giving bad news was 27 minutes. Although training in giving bad news had a significant impact on the number of emotionally supportive items reported (P woman, unmarried, and having a history of major illness were also associated with reporting a greater number of emotionally supportive activities. Internists report that they inform patients of bad news appropriately. Some deficiencies exist, specifically in discussing prognosis and referral of patients to support groups. Physician educational efforts should include discussion of prognosis with patients as well as the availability of support groups.

Good, Bad or Absent: Discourses of Parents with Disabilities in Australian News Media

Science.gov (United States)

Fraser, Vikki; Llewellyn, Gwynnyth

2015-01-01

Background: News media frames public perceptions. As such, news media becomes a useful source of analysis to understand the presence (or otherwise) of people with disabilities, particularly intellectual disabilities, within parenting discourses in Australia. Method: Using Critical Discourse Analysis, this article examines major Australian…

Collaborative Practice Model: Improving the Delivery of Bad News.

Science.gov (United States)

Bowman, Pamela N; Slusser, Kim; Allen, Deborah

2018-02-01

Ideal bad news delivery requires skilled communication and team support. The literature has primarily focused on patient preferences, impact on care decisions, healthcare roles, and communication styles, without addressing systematic implementation. This article describes how an interdisciplinary team, led by advanced practice nurses, developed and implemented a collaborative practice model to deliver bad news on a unit that had struggled with inconsistencies. Using evidence-based practices, the authors explored current processes, role perceptions and expectations, and perceived barriers to developing the model, which is now the standard of care and an example of interprofessional team collaboration across the healthcare system. This model for delivering bad news can be easily adapted to meet the needs of other clinical units.
.

Use of the terms "schizophrenia" and "schizophrenic" in the South Korean news media: a content analysis of newspapers and news programs in the last 10 years.

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Jun-Hyun; Choi, Young-Min; Kim, Bongseog; Lee, Dong-Woo; Gim, Min-Sook

2012-03-01

In this study, we explored the meaning attributed to the words "jungshinbunyeolbyung" (schizophrenia) and "jungshinbunyeol" (schizophrenic) in South Korean newspapers and news programs in the last 10 years. We screened the websites of three national newspapers and the broadcasts of three nationwide television news programs from January 1, 2001, to December 31, 2010. We classified a total of 490 articles and 257 news segments by category and quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed them. The articles and news segments were assigned to one of the following categories based on their use of the term "schizophrenia": 1) negative, 2) neutral or positive, 3) incidental, and 4) metaphorical. The negative viewpoint accounted for 349 incidences (46.7%), while the neutral and positive viewpoints included 225 incidences (30.1%). Incidental uses accounted for 95 incidences (12.7%), and metaphorical uses accounted for 78 incidences (10.4%). The majority of the negative uses focused on violence or dangers posed by patients (137 mentions, 37.8%), while the metaphorical uses mainly focused on the idea of splitting (51 mentions, or 65%). This study showed that the South Korean news media do not provide balanced information about schizophrenia to the public. This study also showed that no significant move has been made toward a more positive use of the term since a previous study was conducted on the subject. Although the term schizophrenia has given way to "attunement disorder," it will be difficult to establish the new term as the standard if the South Korean media continue to use the term "schizophrenic symptom." Even though the term has been changed, guidelines are necessary to encourage the mass media to provide balanced articles and reduce prejudice.

Britishness and Community Cohesion in Muslim News Online

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hassen ZRIBA

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The issues of British national identity and social cohesion have become pressing concerns within the multicultural fabric of contemporary British society. The increasing number of immigrants and their offspring, along with the maintenance of their cultural roots, seem to represent a serious defiance to social cohesion and the alleged “purity” of Britishness. A number of race related reports were produced by the official authorities to churn out the necessary steps to be followed by the British (immigrants and host community in order to keep social stability and community cohesion. Thus, the politics of community cohesion came to the fore as the neologism of contemporary British political discourse. Such new discourse of governance has been digested and processed differently by different mass media. It has been decoded, for instance, preferably by mainstream news agencies like BBC News Online. However, arguably, it is read appositionally or at best negotiatedly by ethnicity-related news agencies such as Muslim News Online. In this article, attempt has been made to adopt media discourse analysis tools to decipher the ways Muslim News Online decoded and then encoded the hegemonic official discourses of Britishness and community cohesion. A critical and interpretative approach is used to accomplish such study. The corpus of this study is primarily extracted from the website of the Muslim News Online.

Integrating Learning, Leadership, and Crisis in Management Education: Lessons from Army Officers in Iraq and Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

Kayes, D. Christopher; Allen, Nate; Self, Nate

2013-01-01

This article presents a model and case study used to teach crisis leadership as a management education topic. The materials emerge from studies of U.S. Army leaders (company commanders and platoon leaders) working in Iraq and Afghanistan. The authors explain how examples and cases from military combat provide tools to teach about crisis…

Decomposition of pre calcined aluminium silicate ores of Afghanistan by hydrochloric acid

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Khomidi, A.K.; Mamatov, E.D.

2015-01-01

Present article is devoted to decomposition of pre calcined aluminium silicate ores of Afghanistan by hydrochloric acid. The physicochemical properties of initial aluminium silicate ores were studied by means of X-ray phase, differential thermal and silicate analysis. The chemical composition of aluminium containing ores was determined. The optimal conditions of interaction of initial and pre calcined siallites with hydrochloric acid were defined. The kinetics of acid decomposition of aluminium silicate ores was studied as well.

Afghanistan and Opium - Can the US Military Do More

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Kaiser, Richard G

2008-01-01

.... Department of Defense policy allows US forces to participate to a great extent and what is now needed is a refocusing of US military operations in Afghanistan to prosecute counter-narcotics efforts to the maximum degree allowed. US forces can and must do more to stop Afghanistan from falling into a narcotics abyss.

Men behind the Women of Educational Leadership in Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

Reilly, Elizabeth C.

2015-01-01

On nearly any international index of those nations where women suffer the greatest, Afghanistan remains consistently identified within the top ten year after year. Afghanistan stands at a crossroad as the country makes the transition from reliance on extensive support for security from the international community to its own police forces and…

Corporate Social Responsibility in Afghanistan

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Azizi, Sameer

This doctoral dissertation examines the business-development relations in Afghanistan by focusing on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and other related practices from corporations in the Afghan mobile telecommunications industry. More concretely, the study aims to explore the characteristics...... provides a relevant empirical focus that can enrich the theoretical debates about CSR in developing countries. The study thereby stresses on the importance of context, and integrates both the societal and corporate dimensions to study CSR by corporations in the Afghan mobile telecommunications industry...... and drivers of the various CSR practices in the Afghan mobile telecommunications industry in order to critically assess the relationship between CSR and development in such context. The thesis highlights that the national context of Afghanistan in combination with the global mobile telecommunications industry...

Posts to online news message boards and public discourse surrounding DUI enforcement.

Science.gov (United States)

Connor, Susan M; Wesolowski, Kathryn

2009-12-01

This study analyzes posts to online news message boards covering driving under the influence (DUI) enforcement efforts to determine their usefulness for informing traffic safety program planning and public relations efforts aimed at mainstream drinking drivers. A series of Google searches were conducted using keywords designed to capture news stories regarding impaired driving enforcement efforts. For each search, the first 100 Web pages returned were reviewed and articles were included in analysis if they were from an independent news source and contained user comments. Coders captured data on 28 fields for each post, including tone in relation to enforcement, tone of interpersonal communication with other posters, and expressed feelings regarding drinking and driving. Fifty-six news articles covering DUI enforcement efforts met study criteria, with 615 posts. The majority of posts (57%) were neutral on DUI enforcement; 24 percent (148) took a negative tone and 19 percent (115) positive. Posts that discussed checkpoints were 2.6 times more likely to take a negative tone toward enforcement than those that did not. Twenty-one percent of anti-enforcement posts challenged the idea that driving after drinking was necessarily dangerous. Of the 321 posts involving direct communication between posters, 67 percent involved disagreement with another post. Profanity or belittling comments appeared in 10 percent of posts. Public responses to DUI enforcement news articles provide insight into the beliefs and thought processes of those who oppose enforcement efforts or view drinking and driving as no big deal. Primary objections to enforcement focused on civil and personal rights issues, skepticism regarding law enforcement's motives and objectivity, and the belief that drinking driving is not a "real" crime. Online news message boards could be useful in informing campaigns and helping program planners frame media events and press releases to best appeal to the most at

Media ownership and news framing: an analysis of HIV/AIDS coverage by Ugandan press.

Science.gov (United States)

Kiwanuka-Tondo, James; Albada, Kelly F; Payton, Fay Cobb

2012-12-01

Applying framing theory, the present research analyzes trends in Ugandan news coverage and the prominent issue frames for HIV/AIDS-related stories. In order to determine the influence of other factors, such as media ownership and journalist origin, nearly 800 articles, from 2000 to 2004, were gathered from the major private newspaper and government-owned newspaper in Uganda. After systematic sampling, 365 articles constitute the sample. The results indicate that print news coverage of HIV and AIDS followed a non-linear trajectory, declining from 2000-2002 and then increasing from 2003-2004. Curative medicine emerged as the most prominent issue frame. Higher-risk behaviour was the least prominent issue frame overall. The 'solutions' issue frame nearly doubled in prominence from 2000-2004, while the HIV-prevention frame decreased from 2000-2002 and then rebounded from 2003-2004. Concerning HIV-related topics, the private newspaper included more features, printed lengthier articles, incorporated a greater variety of news frames, and published more articles by foreign journalists than the government-owned newspaper. The private newspaper employed the 'HIV-prevention,' 'action,' and 'victims' frames more often than the government-owned newspaper. Journalists at the government-owned newspaper adopted a 'solutions' frame more often than their private-press counterparts. Though foreign journalists were more likely than local journalists to employ the HIV-prevention frame, additional tests revealed that the news organisation for which the journalists worked contributed to issue framing to a greater extent than did either a local or foreign reporting origin. Local (Ugandan) journalists working for the two news organisations differed in their tendencies to apply the HIV-prevention, action, victims, and tragedy frames in news stories on HIV and AIDS, with journalists at the private newspaper using these frames more often than did journalists at the government-owned newspaper.

News media coverage of trans fat: health risks and policy responses.

Science.gov (United States)

Jarlenski, Marian; Barry, Colleen L

2013-01-01

Prior research indicates that the news media play a critical role in transmitting information to the public about the most pressing public health problems, and framing attributions about who in society is responsible for solving these problems. In this article, we use content analysis methods to study the agenda-setting and framing functions of the news media in shaping perceptions about the health risks posed by trans fat in the U.S. diet. A census of news stories focusing on trans fat was collected from the two largest circulation U.S. newspapers and three major television networks from 1998 to 2008 (N = 156). The content of news coverage was analyzed using a 23-item instrument. Findings indicated that the news media served an important agenda-setting role in educating the public about the presence of trans fat in the U.S. diet and describing the health risks these foods pose. In addition, results indicate that news media coverage framed attributions of responsibility for solving the problem of trans fat in the food supply. News stories noting the heart disease risks of trans fat were significantly more likely to mention governmental responses aimed at curbing consumption than news coverage that did not note these health risks.

News media consumption among immigrants in Europe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christiansen, Connie Carøe

2004-01-01

In recent years, especially with the advent of Digital Broadcasting Technology, transnational media has become central in the consumption of news by immigrant populations. This has received some attention as a factor associated with lack of integration into their new societies. The present article...

The Effects of Bad News and Good News on a Newspaper's Image.

Science.gov (United States)

Haskins, Jack B.; Miller, M. Mark

1984-01-01

Concludes that whether a newspaper carries mostly good news or mostly bad news affects the image of the paper, with bad news having negative effects and good news having positive effects on readers' perceptions of the newspaper. (FL)

Investigating people’s news diets: how online news users use offline news

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Trilling, D.; Schoenbach, K.

2015-01-01

The question how offline media use is related to online media use has been heavily debated in the last decades. If they are functionally equivalent, then advantages like low costs, rapid publication cycles, and easy access to online news could lead to them displacing offline news. Data from a

The impact of Australian ETS news on wholesale spot electricity prices. An exploratory analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chevallier, Julien

2010-01-01

This article investigates the impact of news concerning the development of emissions trading in Australia (such as the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS)) on wholesale electricity spot prices, by using a database of 117 news announcements from December 1, 1998 to July 1, 2009. As power producers constitute the bulk of the participants of the proposed Australian emissions trading scheme, regulatory changes (about allocation, banking, coverage, targets) are indeed likely to affect the five interconnected electricity markets in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, and Tasmania. We assess these effects with an ARMA(1,1)-GARCH(1,1) model, where daily electricity spot prices are regressed against exogenous variables in the mean and variance equations. This article constitutes the first empirical analysis of Australian ETS news effects on electricity wholesale spot prices. Our results show two asymmetric types of news effects, depending on their information content. (author)

The impact of Australian ETS news on wholesale spot electricity prices. An exploratory analysis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chevallier, Julien [Universite Paris Dauphine, Place du Marechal de Lattre de Tassigny, 75775 Paris Cedex 16 (France)

2010-08-15

This article investigates the impact of news concerning the development of emissions trading in Australia (such as the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS)) on wholesale electricity spot prices, by using a database of 117 news announcements from December 1, 1998 to July 1, 2009. As power producers constitute the bulk of the participants of the proposed Australian emissions trading scheme, regulatory changes (about allocation, banking, coverage, targets) are indeed likely to affect the five interconnected electricity markets in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, and Tasmania. We assess these effects with an ARMA(1,1)-GARCH(1,1) model, where daily electricity spot prices are regressed against exogenous variables in the mean and variance equations. This article constitutes the first empirical analysis of Australian ETS news effects on electricity wholesale spot prices. Our results show two asymmetric types of news effects, depending on their information content. (author)

The impact of Australian ETS news on wholesale spot electricity prices: An exploratory analysis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chevallier, Julien, E-mail: julien.chevallier@dauphine.f [Universite Paris Dauphine, Place du Marechal de Lattre de Tassigny, 75775 Paris Cedex 16 (France)

2010-08-15

This article investigates the impact of news concerning the development of emissions trading in Australia (such as the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS)) on wholesale electricity spot prices, by using a database of 117 news announcements from December 1, 1998 to July 1, 2009. As power producers constitute the bulk of the participants of the proposed Australian emissions trading scheme, regulatory changes (about allocation, banking, coverage, targets) are indeed likely to affect the five interconnected electricity markets in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, and Tasmania. We assess these effects with an ARMA(1,1)-GARCH(1,1) model, where daily electricity spot prices are regressed against exogenous variables in the mean and variance equations. This article constitutes the first empirical analysis of Australian ETS news effects on electricity wholesale spot prices. Our results show two asymmetric types of news effects, depending on their information content.

Implementation of news module for news client based on ApiCloud

OpenAIRE

Fu Xin; Liang Yu; Cao Sanxing; Gu Hongbo

2017-01-01

With the development of new media technology, news client has become the main battlefield of news browsing. Based on the ApiCloud hybrid development platform, this paper uses HTML, JavaScript and other technologies to develop the mobile client news module, and uses WAMP integrated development environment to build a news publishing system on the server side.

Reporting risk, producing prejudice: how news reporting on obesity shapes attitudes about health risk, policy, and prejudice.

Science.gov (United States)

Saguy, Abigail C; Frederick, David; Gruys, Kjerstin

2014-06-01

News reporting on research studies may influence attitudes about health risk, support for public health policies, or attitudes towards people labeled as unhealthy or at risk for disease. Across five experiments (N = 2123) we examined how different news framings of obesity research influence these attitudes. We exposed participants to either a control condition, a news report on a study portraying obesity as a public health crisis, a news report on a study suggesting that obesity may not be as much of a problem as previously thought, or an article discussing weight-based discrimination. Compared to controls, exposure to the public health crisis article did not increase perception of obesity-related health risks but did significantly increase the expression of antifat prejudice in four out of seven comparisons. Across studies, compared to controls, participants who read an article about weight-based discrimination were less likely to agree that overweight constitutes a public health crisis or to support various obesity policies. Effects of exposure to an article questioning the health risks associated with overweight and obesity were mixed. These findings suggest that news reports on the "obesity epidemic" - and, by extension, on public health crises commonly blamed on personal behavior - may unintentionally activate prejudice. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Counterterrorism in Pakistan (post-seminar Report)

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vestenskov, David; Syed, Mahroona Hussain

The war on terror has left Afghanistan and the whole of the Central Asian region in a state of turmoil. The increase in militant and terrorist activities has had a major impact in Afghanistan as well as in Pakistan. As a result regional actors have been forced to adapt and evolve new strategies...... to thank the PSF for supporting the project. The objective of the conference was to share lessons identified between the Pakistani armed forces in Pakistan with the Danish armed forces in Afghanistan, in relations to Counter-terrorism (CT) and Counterinsurgency (COIN) respectively. The asymmetric warfare...

Handing Over the ATLAS eNews Scientific Editor Task

CERN Multimedia

P. Jenni

2006-01-01

The ATLAS eNews are now established since many years as a lively source of stories about the construction of our detector as well as the preparations for the physics running to come. The human touch in telling these stories is important, and to stimulate and motivate the article writers to include also this side of our work is one of the tasks for the Scientific Editor of the eNews. Joleen ('Jo') Pater has been the enthusiastic and competent 'skipper' for the last two years keeping the eNews on track. The whole Collaboration owes her a great and very hearty thank-you! Pauline Gagnon has kindly accepted to take up the challenge for the next couple of years. She will have the privilege to be the editor when we will see the first collisions with ATLAS! I wish her all the best for this new task. Outgoing and incoming editors of the ATLAS E-news: Jo Pater (left) and Pauline Gagnon (right)

Fiqh Education in Today’s Afghanistan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mehterhan FURKANİ

2016-07-01

Full Text Available In the beginning of spreading of Islam in todays Afghanistan, some sahaba (companions of the prophet Mohammad and tâbi’ûn (followers; muslims who saw the sahaba scholars have been sent to this region for teaching the Islamic religion in general and especially Islamic fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence. In short time, many famous fiqh scholars were educated from this region, they undertook this duty and continued this education until today. The fiqh education that started in mosques in the begining, continued also in madrasas after some time. Today the fiqh lessons have been included in modern primary, secondary and high schools’ curriculum, as well as the formal and informal madrasas. In higher education, the fiqh classes are included in law faculties’ curriculum as well as shariah (theology faculties. This article provides informations and evaluations about the mentioned issues

Unconventional Counter-Insurgency in Afghanistan

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Dyke, John R; Crisafulli, John R

2006-01-01

...) invaded the Al Qaeda safe haven of Afghanistan. USSF A-teams, operating with almost total independence, conducted highly successful Unconventional Warfare "through, with, and by" the indigenous Afghan militias of the Northern Alliance...

Voices and Power in the Tv News Broadcast: The Workings of the Reported Speech in Rede Globo´S National News

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dóris de Arruda Carneiro da Cunha

2017-08-01

Full Text Available This article presents some reflections on the voices and power of journalism on TV, based on a study of a news report in Jornal Nacional, via Rede Globo, an evening Brazilian TV news program. The central question is the power of the editor and the journalists in the construction of the news, constituted mostly by the use of reported speech. In the analyzed newscast, the ways the heterodiscourse are inserted are little diversified and apparently neutral: the citing discourse of the editor and the one of the presenter calls the journalist who introduces other voices – fragments of interviews, official statements and testimonies, in the form of direct or indirect citation. The strategy is not to use linguistic forms that explicitly state their points of view. However, the selected voices serve to illustrate and highlight the veiled views of the company and its professionals, acting as an authoritative argument. This way, TV Globo exercises its power by manipulating a large audience, unaware of this strategy, who believes that the news broadcast on Jornal Nacional is neutral and truthful.

ENET News July 2003 - Information on energy research - German issue; ENET News, Juli 2003, Nr. 55 deutsch

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wellstein, J.

2003-07-01

The July 2003 issue of ENET News, a magazine on energy research in Switzerland published three times a year, presents several articles on and around the topic of geothermal energy. Further articles cover the topics of decentralised power supply, environment-friendly small hydropower, adsorption refrigeration for African clinics, optimisation of wood-fired boilers, biofuels and noise abatement issues concerning heat pump applications. Also, a fuel-cell based mobile power pack and an electric scooter are described. Further articles take a look at nuclear fusion and the development of a gas-motor based combined heat and power system.

ENET News July 2003 - Information on energy research - French issue; ENET News, Juillet 2003, No 55 francais

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wellstein, J.

2003-07-01

The July 2003 issue of ENET News, a magazine on energy research in Switzerland published three times a year, presents several articles on and around the topic of geothermal energy. Further articles cover the topics of decentralised power supply, environment-friendly small hydropower, adsorption refrigeration for African clinics, optimisation of wood-fired boilers, biofuels and noise abatement issues concerning heat pump applications. Also, a fuel-cell based mobile power pack and an electric scooter are described. Further articles take a look at nuclear fusion and the development of a gas-motor based combined heat and power system.

Implementation of news module for news client based on ApiCloud

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fu Xin

2017-01-01

Full Text Available With the development of new media technology, news client has become the main battlefield of news browsing. Based on the ApiCloud hybrid development platform, this paper uses HTML, JavaScript and other technologies to develop the mobile client news module, and uses WAMP integrated development environment to build a news publishing system on the server side.

Afghanistan, state and society

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kværnø, Ole

In June 2007, the RAND Corporation and the Royal Danish Defence College hosted a conference titled “Afghanistan: State and Society, Great Power Politics, and the Way Ahead”. The two-day event, held in Copenhagen, was attended by more than 100 politicians, scholars, academics, and representative...

Resonance – Journal of Science Education | News

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

pp 768-778 General Article. Dissymmetry and Asymmetry - A Hopeless Conflict in Chemical Literature · Chandan Saha Suchandra Chakraborty · More Details Fulltext PDF. pp 779-790 Classroom. Analysing Spherical Aberration in Concave Mirrors · Ranjit Konkar · More Details Fulltext PDF. pp 791-796 Research News.

News clippings for introductory astronomy

Science.gov (United States)

Bobrowsky, Matthew

1999-09-01

Most students entering our introductory astronomy course for nonscience majors arrive not merely lacking scientific facts-they also have misconceptions about the nature of science, and many have a handicapping ``science anxiety'' (in addition to math anxiety). So I have added a ``current science'' requirement to our introductory course. Each student must compile a file of five astronomy news articles taken from readily available sources.

Technology, FID, and Afghanistan: A Model for Aviation Capacity

Science.gov (United States)

2017-04-05

operators and maintenance is challenging. Power politics in Afghanistan are problematic. Village, tribe and nomadic paradigms permeate the military...is not the biggest Afghan aviation challenge. LOGISTICS Nomadic societies have problems with distributed goods. Afghan power structures rely...will not likely be successful until Afghanistan scores in high single or double digits . This puts end of mission beyond 2030. CONCLUSION Forget

Pushed news: when the news comes to the cellphone

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Antonio Fidalgo

2009-12-01

Full Text Available Combining two findings of recent surveys on the Internet which state that 1 “the Internet will soon surpass all other media as a main source for national and international news” and 2 “the mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the Internet in 2020” leads us to the conclusion that smartphones will soon be the primary source for news access. But if so, how will news come to the Internetconnected cellphones? In accordance with the distinction, already drawn in 1997, between push and pull technologies as two different forms of how content is delivered to the end users, cellphones are characterized as push devices (passive reception, in opposition to computers, classified as pull devices (active reception. The news items that fit cellphones are pushed news. And they will be pushed as SMS, e-mails, tweets and through news aggregators.

PUSHED NEWS: When the news comes to the cellphone

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Antonio Fidalgo

2009-12-01

Full Text Available Combining two findings of recent surveys on the Internet whichstate that 1 “the Internet will soon surpass all other media as a main source for national and international news” and 2 “the mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the Internet in 2020” leads us to the conclusion that smartphones will soon be the primary source for news access. But if so, how will news come to the Internetconnected cellphones? In accordance with the distinction, already drawn in 1997, between push and pull technologies as two different forms of how content is delivered to the end users, cellphones are characterized as push devices (passive reception, in opposition to computers, classified as pull devices (active reception. The news items that fit cellphones are pushed news. And they will be pushed as SMS, e-mails, tweets and through news aggregators.

Afghanistan: Reconstituting a Collapsed State

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Millen, Raymond A

2005-01-01

.... In this monograph, Lieutenant Colonel Raymond A. Millen examines warlordism as the principal impediment to Afghanistan's revival and offers a shift in strategy that addresses the war of ideas, the counternarcotics initiative, and the incorporation...

Good News in Bad News: How Negativity Enhances Economic Efficacy

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Svensson, H.M.; Albæk, E.; van Dalen, A.; de Vreese, C.

2017-01-01

Negativity is a news ideology, and its negative effects on attitude formation are widely documented. Contrary to this view, the present study demonstrates that negative economic news can in fact be good news. Based on a two-wave national panel survey and a media content analysis, we show that

Healthy depictions? Depicting adoption and adoption news events on broadcast news.

Science.gov (United States)

Kline, Susan L; Chatterjee, Karishma; Karel, Amanda I

2009-01-01

Given that the public uses the media to learn about adoption as a family form, this study analyzes U.S. television news coverage of adoption between 2001 and 2005 (N = 309 stories), to identify the types of news events covered about adoption. A majority of news stories covered fraud, crime, legal disputes, and negative international adoption cases. Adoptees as defective or unhealthy were depicted more in negative news event stories, birth parents appeared less overall, and adoptive parents were most likely to have healthy depictions in positively oriented adoption experience, big family, and reunion stories. Although three quarters of the stories used primary adoption participants as news sources, one-third of the negative event stories did not contain healthy depictions of adoption participants. The authors discuss ways journalists and researchers might improve adoption news coverage.

News framing and public opinion: A mediation analysis of framing effects on political attitudes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lecheler, S.K.; de Vreese, C.H.

2012-01-01

There is no satisfactory account of the psychological processes that mediate a news framing effect. Based on an experimental study (N = 1,537), this article presents a mediation analysis of a news framing effect on opinion, testing for two important mediation processes: belief importance and belief

Oesophageal carcinoma in jordanian field hospital in afghanistan

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ajlouni, Y.M.

2007-01-01

Mazzar-I-Shariff in Afghanistan, is a poor wartorn city with only one gastrointestinal endoscopist in the region. It was noticed by previous gastroenterologists working in Jordanian Field Hospital in Afghanistan that oesophageal carcinoma is seen more frequant than that in Jordan. The objectives of the study were to determine the spectrum of upper gastrointestinal diseases in patients who undergone upper endoscopy in the Jordanian Field Hospital in Afghanistan and to estimate the incidence,age of diagnosis, clinical presentations and the endoscopic appearance of the oesophageal carcinoma. Between 20 December 2003 and March 3, 2004, 289 gastroscopies were performed in Jordanian field Hospital/Afghanistan on patients aged 16 years or more. Biopsies were taken from any suspected lesion. Data for each patient were kept to correlate with the histopathological results. Thirty three (11.4%) endoscopies gave normal results. The most common major single findings in the other 256 were oseophageal carcinoma (22.5%) duodenal ulcers (13.5%), and oesophagitis (13%). About one third of the patients had more than one endoscopic finding. Oseophageal carcinoma was found in 22.5% of patients and it was more common in men than women. The most common presenting symptom for oseophageal carcinoma were dysphagia and weight loss. It was more frequent in age group of 60-72 years. The most common endoscopic findings were mass or ulcerative lesion. Oesophageal carcinoma is a common finding in patients who had upper endoscopy in the Jordanian Field Hospital in the north of Afghanistan.Mazzar-I-Sharif needs well equiped gastrointestinal unit and a multi disciplinary team (Gastroenterologist, Histopathologist,Surgeon and Dietitian) to deal with patients with oesophageal carcinoma and more research is needed to establish the possible etiology. (author)

High Tempo Knowledge Collaboration in Wikipedia's Coverage of Breaking News Events

Science.gov (United States)

Keegan, Brian C.

2012-01-01

When major news breaks in our hyper-connected society, we increasingly turn to an encyclopedia for the latest information. Wikipedia's coverage of breaking news events attracts unique levels of attention; the articles with the most page views, edits, and contributors in any given month since 2003 are related to current events. Extant…

Diverse politics, diverse news coverage? A longitudinal study of diversity in Dutch political news during two decades of election campaigns

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Hoof, A.M.J.; Jacobi, C.; Ruigrok, N.; van Atteveldt, W.H.

2014-01-01

Although diverse political news has been recognized as a requirement for a well-functioning democracy, longitudinal research into this topic is sparse. In this article, we analyse the development of diversity in election coverage in the Netherlands between 1994 and 2012. We distinguish between

Danske erfaringer i Afghanistan

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Thomas Galasz

2016-01-01

Der er høstet mange forskellige danske erfaringer i Afghanistan gennem det civile og militære engagement fra 2001 til 2014, men det er muligt at samle dem i tre områder, hvor der er mulighed for at forbedre fremtidige indsatser: Prioritet til integrerede indsatser, lokal sikkerhedsskabelse og...

Great Escapes from the Past. Memory and Identity in European Transnational Television News

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andreas Widholm

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Over the last couple of decades, Europe has undergone fundamental political transformations that have challenged old stereotypes about the ‘essence’ of the European identity. This article analyses televisual narratives of the 2004 enlargement of the European Union, turning the analytical spotlight on two of Europe’s largest news broadcasters: BBC World and Euronews. The article focuses on how Europe is remembered in the news, but also how references to the past are used to explain what Europe is today and what it might look like in the future.

Automatic caption generation for news images.

Science.gov (United States)

Feng, Yansong; Lapata, Mirella

2013-04-01

This paper is concerned with the task of automatically generating captions for images, which is important for many image-related applications. Examples include video and image retrieval as well as the development of tools that aid visually impaired individuals to access pictorial information. Our approach leverages the vast resource of pictures available on the web and the fact that many of them are captioned and colocated with thematically related documents. Our model learns to create captions from a database of news articles, the pictures embedded in them, and their captions, and consists of two stages. Content selection identifies what the image and accompanying article are about, whereas surface realization determines how to verbalize the chosen content. We approximate content selection with a probabilistic image annotation model that suggests keywords for an image. The model postulates that images and their textual descriptions are generated by a shared set of latent variables (topics) and is trained on a weakly labeled dataset (which treats the captions and associated news articles as image labels). Inspired by recent work in summarization, we propose extractive and abstractive surface realization models. Experimental results show that it is viable to generate captions that are pertinent to the specific content of an image and its associated article, while permitting creativity in the description. Indeed, the output of our abstractive model compares favorably to handwritten captions and is often superior to extractive methods.

BRAC in Afghanistan: Building South-South Partnerships in Teacher Training

Science.gov (United States)

Islam, Mir Nazmul; Anwar, Arif

2012-01-01

Training paraprofessionals such as teachers is one of many significant challenges facing Afghanistan's educational system. This case study focuses on the innovations offered in that regard by BRAC, a large NGO based in Bangladesh that brought its many years of development experience to Afghanistan in 2002 and established itself there as the…

Routinizing Breaking News

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hartley, Jannie Møller

2011-01-01

This chapter revisits seminal theoretical categorizations of news proposed three decades earlier by US sociologist Gaye Tuchman. By exploring the definition of ”breaking news” in the contemporary online newsrooms of three Danish news organisations, the author offers us a long overdue re-theorizat......-theorization of journalistic practice in the online context and helpfully explores well-evidenced limitations to online news production, such as the relationship between original reporting and the use of ”shovelware.”......This chapter revisits seminal theoretical categorizations of news proposed three decades earlier by US sociologist Gaye Tuchman. By exploring the definition of ”breaking news” in the contemporary online newsrooms of three Danish news organisations, the author offers us a long overdue re...

Supplemental surveillance: a review of 2015 and 2016 agricultural injury data from news reports on AgInjuryNews.org.

Science.gov (United States)

Weichelt, Bryan; Gorucu, Serap

2018-01-31

Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting industry is the most hazardous occupational sector in the USA. Even with this level of occupational risk, several national and state-level occupational injury surveillance programmes have been eliminated, leaving regional efforts to analyse multiple sources and compile data on agricultural injuries and fatalities. No up-to-date centralised national database for agricultural injuries/fatalities in the USA currently exists. Using the public data on AgInjuryNews.org, this study considered a wide range of variables to examine fatalities and injuries of the industry in 2015 and 2016. The results reported in this paper sought to explore and understand common data elements of US news reports. As of 5 April 2017, more than 3000 articles across 36 years were contained in the dataset. We selected 2 years to review, 2015 and 2016, which represented the most complete years to date; 2015 was the first year in which systematic collection was initiated by the AgInjuryNews.org team. Data were coded based on the Occupational Injury and Illness Classification System source and event/exposure types. A total of 1345 victims were involved in 1044 incidents. Leading sources of injuries were vehicles and machinery, and the most common event/exposure type was transportation. This study demonstrated that data from AgInjuryNew.org is consistent with previous literature, and it can supply up-to-date data as an open-source surveillance supplement, disseminated for health and safety stakeholders. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

48 CFR 252.225-7024 - Requirement for products or services from Iraq or Afghanistan.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... or services from Iraq or Afghanistan. 252.225-7024 Section 252.225-7024 Federal Acquisition... products or services from Iraq or Afghanistan. As prescribed in 225.7703-5(b), use the following clause: Requirement for Products or Services From Iraq or Afghanistan (SEP 2008) (a) Definitions. As used in this...

Afghanistan water constraints overview analysis. Final report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1992-05-01

Afghanistan's already severe water supply problems are expected to intensify as Afghan refugees resettle in former conflictive zones. The report examines the technical, economic, cultural, and institutional facets of the country's water supply and suggests steps to mitigate existing and anticipated water supply problems. Chapter 2 presents information on Afghanistan's water resources, covering the country's climate, precipitation, glaciers/snow packs, and watersheds; the principal patterns of water flow and distribution; and comprehensive estimates. Chapter 3 examines water resource development in the country from 1945 to 1979, including projects involving irrigation and hydroelectric power and strategies for improving the drinking water supply

Preliminary Mineral Resource Assessment of Selected Mineral Deposit Types in Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

Ludington, Steve; Orris, Greta J.; Bolm, Karen S.; Peters, Stephen G.; ,

2007-01-01

INTRODUCTION Wise decision-making and management of natural resources depend upon credible and reliable scientific information about the occurrence, distribution, quantity and quality of a country's resource base. Economic development decisions by governments require such information to be part of a Mineral Resource Assessment. Such Mineral Assessments are also useful to private citizens and international investors, consultants, and companies prior to entry and investment in a country. Assessments can also be used to help evaluate the economic risks and impact on the natural environment associated with development of resources. In February 2002, at the request of the Department of State and the then U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan (Robert P. Finn), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) prepared a detailed proposal addressing natural resources issues critical to the reconstruction of Afghanistan. The proposal was refined and updated in December 2003 and was presented as a 5-year work plan to USAID-Kabul in February 2004. USAID-Kabul currently funds this plan and this report presents a part of the preliminary results obligated for fiscal year 2006. A final Preliminary Assessment of the Non Fuel Mineral Resource of Afghanistan will be completed and delivered at the end of fiscal year 2007. Afghanistan has abundant metallic and non-metallic resources, but the potential resources have never been systematically assessed using modern methods. Much of the existing mineral information for Afghanistan was gathered during the 1950s and continued in the late 1980s until the departure of the geologic advisors from the Soviet Union. During this period, there were many mineral-related activities centered on systematic geologic mapping of the country, collection of geochemical and rock samples, implementation of airborne geophysical surveys, and exploration focused on the discovery of large mineral deposits. Many reports, maps, charts, and tables were produced at that time. Some of

A User-Friendly, Keyword-Searchable Database of Geoscientific References Through 2007 for Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

Eppinger, Robert G.; Sipeki, Julianna; Scofield, M.L. Sco

2008-01-01

This report includes a document and accompanying Microsoft Access 2003 database of geoscientific references for the country of Afghanistan. The reference compilation is part of a larger joint study of Afghanistan?s energy, mineral, and water resources, and geologic hazards currently underway by the U.S. Geological Survey, the British Geological Survey, and the Afghanistan Geological Survey. The database includes both published (n = 2,489) and unpublished (n = 176) references compiled through calendar year 2007. The references comprise two separate tables in the Access database. The reference database includes a user-friendly, keyword-searchable interface and only minimum knowledge of the use of Microsoft Access is required.

Biofantasies: genetics and medicine in the print news media.

Science.gov (United States)

Petersen, A

2001-04-01

The contemporary news media is an important site for exploring the diverse and complex cultural images of genetics and its medical possibilities, and of the mechanisms by which these images are (re) produced and sustained. This article investigates how the print news media 'frames' stories on genetics and medicine. It is based on a discourse analysis of articles appearing in three Australian newspapers in the late 1990s. Gene stories were found to be prominent in each of the newspapers, and to emphasise the medical benefits of genetic research. Stories frequently cite and quote scientists, who explain the nature and significance of the research and/or its implications for treatment or prevention. Many stories focus on new genetic discoveries, and portray genetic researchers as involved in a quest to unlock nature's secrets. Stories of hope, and depictions of geneticists as warriors or heroes, appear regularly. The positive vision of genetics is supported by the use of particular metaphors, accompanying illustrative material, 'human interest' stories, and reference to credible sources. There is rarely mention of the influence of non-genetic factors and 'multifactorial' interactions on disorders, or questioning of the goals, direction, methods, or value of genetic research. Scientists made extensive use of the media in their efforts to maintain a positive image of research in the face of public concerns about scientists 'going too far', following the announcement of the cloning of Dolly. Boundaries were drawn between 'therapeutic cloning'--implicitly defined as 'good', useful, and legitimate--and 'reproductive cloning'--seen as 'bad', dangerous, and illegitimate. By framing news stories as they do, the print news media are likely to exert a powerful influence on public responses to health problems. With new genetic technologies becoming more integrated in preventive medicine and public health, it is important to investigate how news stories help shape the agenda for

Mining Concept Maps from News Stories for Measuring Civic Scientific Literacy in Media

Science.gov (United States)

Tseng, Yuen-Hsien; Chang, Chun-Yen; Rundgren, Shu-Nu Chang; Rundgren, Carl-Johan

2010-01-01

Motivated by a long-term goal in education for measuring Taiwanese civic scientific literacy in media (SLiM), this work reports the detailed techniques to efficiently mine a concept map from 2 years of Chinese news articles (901,446 in total) for SLiM instrument development. From the Chinese news stories, key terms (important words or phrases),…

Law in Afghanistan: A Critique of Post-2001 Reconstruction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Antonio de Lauri

2013-03-01

Full Text Available This article provides a critical reflection on the efforts at legal reconstruction initiated in 2001 by the international community and the Afghan government. Its aim is to highlight some of the more controversial factors that accompany the implementation of a foreign model of justice inspired by the ideology of the rule of law. Following Operation Enduring Freedom and the consequent arrival of various international agencies on Afghan soil, the international community (led by the United States has attempted to bring political stability and democracy to Afghanistan. This endeavor has evolved into a more extensive, and rather controversial, process of reconstruction, which has called into question the mantra of democratization and modernization used to ideologically justify the US-led coalition control of a pro-Western Afghan government. By introducing a reflection on restorative justice and judicial mediation, I argue that the standardization and global circulation of specific models of justice present a series of problems often hidden behind legalistic interpretations. While in Western countries jurists and legal practitioners promote the industry of ‘alternative dispute resolution’ (ADR and emphasize the recourse to mediation and conciliation, in Afghanistan governments and international agencies implement the rule of law, thus condemning and marginalizing customary practices in the resolution of disputes. Once taken away from the rules of the judicial order, judicial mediation becomes caught in a logic of compromise and deteriorates.

The Dynamic Cross-Correlations between Mass Media News, New Media News, and Stock Returns

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zuochao Zhang

2018-01-01

Full Text Available We investigate the dynamic cross-correlations between mass media news, new media news, and stock returns for the SSE 50 Index in Chinese stock market by employing the MF-DCCA method. The empirical results show that (1 there exist power-law cross-correlations between two types of news as well as between news and its corresponding SSE 50 Index return; (2 the cross-correlations between mass media news and SSE 50 Index returns show larger multifractality and more complicated structures; (3 mass media news and new media news have both complementary and competitive relationships; (4 with the rolling window analysis, we further find that there is a general increasing trend for the cross-correlations between the two types of news as well as the cross-correlations between news and returns and this trend becomes more persistent over time.

Progress toward poliomyelitis eradication - Afghanistan and Pakistan, January 2011-August 2012.

Science.gov (United States)

2012-10-05

In 1988, the World Health Assembly resolved to eradicate polio, which led to the establishment of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI). In 2012, however, the transmission of indigenous wild poliovirus (WPV) continued uninterrupted in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria, leading the World Health Assembly to declare completion of polio eradication a programmatic emergency for global public health. This report updates previous reports and describes polio eradication activities and progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan during January 2011-August 2012, as of September 9, 2012. During 2011, 80 WPV cases were confirmed in Afghanistan, compared with 25 WPV cases in 2010; 17 WPV cases were confirmed during January-August 2012, compared with 34 WPV cases for the same period in 2011. In Pakistan, 198 WPV cases were confirmed in 2011, compared with 144 WPV cases in 2010; 30 WPV cases were confirmed during January-August 2012, compared with 88 WPV cases during the same period in 2011. During January 2011-August 2012, no WPV type 3 (WPV3) cases were confirmed in Afghanistan, and four confirmed WPV3 cases and one case with coinfection of WPV3 and WPV type 1 (WPV1) were reported in Pakistan. Violence targeting vaccinators has occurred previously in Afghanistan and recently in Pakistan. To progress further toward interruption of WPV transmission within their countries and across their shared border, the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan might consider reviewing the implementation of their national emergency action plans and determine how to enhance the safety of vaccination teams within conflict-affected areas of both countries.

Fake news propagate differently from real news even at early stages of spreading

OpenAIRE

Zhao, Zilong; Zhao, Jichang; Sano, Yukie; Levy, Orr; Takayasu, Hideki; Takayasu, Misako; Li, Daqing; Havlin, Shlomo

2018-01-01

Social media can be a double-edged sword for modern communications, either a convenient channel exchanging ideas or an unexpected conduit circulating fake news through a large population. Existing studies of fake news focus on efforts on theoretical modelling of propagation or identification methods based on black-box machine learning, neglecting the possibility of identifying fake news using only structural features of propagation of fake news compared to those of real news and in particular...

Enhancing the European Union’s Development Strategy in Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

2010-06-01

REE Rare Earth Element SCA Swedish Committee for Afghanistan SIDA Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency SIGAR Special Inspector...member states such as Ireland’s Development Cooperation Ireland (DCI), Sweden’s Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency ( SIDA ), and the...Command and General Staff College, June 2008.) 71. 142 Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, “Afghanistan Sida Country Report 2005

Carsten Jensens Afghanistan er en øvelse i kreativ kildebrug

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vestenskov, David

2014-01-01

Carsten Jensen ophøjer det værst tænkelige til et generelt billede på tingenes ringe tilstand i Afghanistan. Det bringer Jensens Afghanistan-fortælling op på siden af Lars Hedegaards argumentation om, at æresdrab og voldtægter blandt muslimer er et generelt problem. Det er uredeligt, usagligt og...

News Media Industry

Science.gov (United States)

2007-01-01

radio news departments will operate on many technological platforms at the same time ( Papper , 2006, p.3). News radio stations will likely broadcast...Retrieved March 25, 2007, from http://firstlook.nytimes.com/index.php?cat=4 Papper , Bob. RTNDF’s 2006 Future of the News Survey, 25 Mar. 2006. 10 Mar

Resonance – Journal of Science Education | News

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Embryonic Stem Cells and their Genetic Modification - The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2007 · Mitradas M Panicker · More Details Fulltext PDF. pp 181-190 General Article. Is There a Pattern? ... pp 195-197 Research News. DNA's New Avatar as Nanoscale Construction Material · Yamuna Krishnan · More Details ...

Why Is Afghanistan Important?

Science.gov (United States)

Salter, Cathy

2010-01-01

As a former Peace Corps volunteer, avid traveler, classroom geography teacher, and writer, the author has been interested in Afghanistan for decades. Sparked by her own travel experiences in Kabul in February 1970, she made certain that her ninth grade World History/Geography students in south Central Los Angeles not only knew where Afghanistan…

Success in reducing maternal and child mortality in Afghanistan.

Science.gov (United States)

Rasooly, Mohammad Hafiz; Govindasamy, Pav; Aqil, Anwer; Rutstein, Shea; Arnold, Fred; Noormal, Bashiruddin; Way, Ann; Brock, Susan; Shadoul, Ahmed

2014-01-01

After the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2002, Afghanistan adopted a new development path and billions of dollars were invested in rebuilding the country's economy and health systems with the help of donors. These investments have led to substantial improvements in maternal and child health in recent years and ultimately to a decrease in maternal and child mortality. The 2010 Afghanistan Mortality Survey (AMS) provides important new information on the levels and trends in these indicators. The AMS estimated that there are 327 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births (95% confidence interval = 260-394) and 97 deaths before the age of five years for every 1000 children born. Decreases in these mortality rates are consistent with changes in key determinants of mortality, including an increasing age at marriage, higher contraceptive use, lower fertility, better immunisation coverage, improvements in the percentage of women delivering in health facilities and receiving antenatal and postnatal care, involvement of community health workers and increasing access to the Basic Package of Health Services. Despite the impressive gains in these areas, many challenges remain. Further improvements in health services in Afghanistan will require sustained efforts on the part of both the Government of Afghanistan and international donors.

Measuring News Media Literacy

Science.gov (United States)

Maksl, Adam; Ashley, Seth; Craft, Stephanie

2015-01-01

News media literacy refers to the knowledge and motivations needed to identify and engage with journalism. This study measured levels of news media literacy among 500 teenagers using a new scale measure based on Potter's model of media literacy and adapted to news media specifically. The adapted model posits that news media literate individuals…

Infectious Diseases - Diseases Related to Service in Gulf War, Iraq, and Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

... qualify for VA health care . Diseases related to Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan service VA presumes that the ... Southwest Asia theater of military operations during the Gulf War August 2, 1990 to present and in Afghanistan ...

BRAZILIAN NEWS PORTALS CHARACTERISTICS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Heloiza G. Herckovitz

2011-02-01

Full Text Available A content analysis of four Brazilian news media portals found that economic news dominated the top headlines with little attention paid to education, the environment and welfare. Other trends included a focus on local events and national news sources, reliance on few sources, mostly official ones, and a low percentage of news that fitted the concept of newsworthiness (a combination of both social significance and deviance concepts. Other findings of a study of 432 top news stories published by UOL, Estadão, iG and Terra during a 15-day period between February and March 2008 indicate that the top portions of the portals’ front pages carry news that lacks story depth, editorial branding, and multimedia applications. The results suggest that online news portals are in their infancy although Brazil has the largest online population of Latin America. This study hopes to shed light on the gatekeeping process in Brazilian news portals. Brazilian media portals have yet to become a significant editorial force able to provide knowledge about social issues and public affairs in a socially responsible fashione.

Sustainable Supply Chain Based on News Articles and Sustainability Reports: Text Mining with Leximancer and DICTION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dongwook Kim

2017-06-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this research is to explore sustainable supply chain management (SSCM trends, and firms’ strategic positioning and execution with regard to sustainability in the textile and apparel industry based on news articles and sustainability reports. Further analysis of the rhetoric in Chief executive officer (CEO letters within sustainability reports is used to determine firms’ resoluteness, positive entailments, sharing of values, perception of reality, and sustainability strategy and execution feasibility. Computer-based content analysis is used for this research: Leximancer is applied for text analysis, while dictionary-based text mining program DICTION and SPSS are used for rhetorical analysis. Overall, contents similar to the literature on environmental, social, and economic aspects of the triple bottom line (TBL are observed, however, topics such as regulation, green incentives, and international standards are not readily observed. Furthmore, ethical issues, sustainable production, quality, and customer roles are emphasized in texts analyzed. The CEO letter analysis indicates that listed firms show relatively low realism and high commonality, while North American firms exhibit relatively high commonality, and Europe firms show relatively high realism. The results will serve as a baseline for providing academia guidelines in SSCM research, and provide an opportunity for businesses to complement their sustainability strategies and executions.

Asymmetric News Effects on Volatility: Good vs. Bad News in Good vs. Bad Times

OpenAIRE

Laakkonen, Helinä; Lanne, Markku

2008-01-01

We study the impact of positive and negative macroeconomic US and European news announcements in different phases of the business cycle on the highfrequency volatility of the EUR/USD exchange rate. The results suggest that in general bad news increases volatility more than good news. The news effects also depend on the state of the economy: bad news increases volatility more in good times than in bad times, while there is no difference between the volatility effects of good news in bad and go...

Soviet Cybernetics: Recent News Items, Number Thirteen.

Science.gov (United States)

Holland, Wade B.

An issue of "Soviet Cybernetics: Recent News Items" consists of English translations of the leading recent Soviet contributions to the study of cybernetics. Articles deal with cybernetics in the 21st Century; the Soviet State Committee on Science and Technology; economic reforms in Rudnev's ministry; an interview with Rudnev; Dnepr-2; Dnepr-2…

The "U.S. News" Rankings Roll On

Science.gov (United States)

Hoover, Eric

2007-01-01

As usual, "U.S. News & World Report's" annual college rankings offered a heavy dose of deja vu when they arrived last August. In this article, the author discusses the response rate to the magazine's controversial reputational survey. The overall response rate plunged to its lowest level ever, a possible sign that organized criticism of the…

Andre scener fra Afghanistan

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Serritzlev, Jeanette

2010-01-01

Filmen 'Armadillo' viser, at indsatsen i Afghanistan er formålsløs. At det ikke nytter. At drengene er storforbrugere af cola og porno, og at afghanerne synes, at vi skal tage hjem. At soldaterne har sjove film på deres computere, kan ikke provokere mig. Det kan til gengæld et ensidigt og fortegnet...

Den græske by i Afghanistan

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hannestad, Lise

2016-01-01

Byen Ai Khanoum som blev udgravet i i 1960'erne i det nordøstlige Afghanistan blev grundlagt som følge af Alexander den Stores erobring af hele Nærorienten og frem til det nordlige Indien. Fundene viser en spændende blanding af græsk og nræorientalsk kultur......Byen Ai Khanoum som blev udgravet i i 1960'erne i det nordøstlige Afghanistan blev grundlagt som følge af Alexander den Stores erobring af hele Nærorienten og frem til det nordlige Indien. Fundene viser en spændende blanding af græsk og nræorientalsk kultur...

News Media Coverage of Corporate Tax Avoidance and Corporate Tax Reporting

OpenAIRE

Lee, Soojin

2015-01-01

Drawing upon media agenda-setting theory and previous studies in organizational impression management, this paper empirically investigates the influence of tax avoidance news on corporate tax reporting. This study is based on the pronounced discontinuity in the amount of news articles related to tax avoidance in the United Kingdom over two periods (2010-2011 and 2012-2013). A difference-in-differences design is employed in order to enable a comparison of the media effects on those firms that ...

On Specifying Media Representation of Reality in the Genre of News Story

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Mel'nikova

2015-11-01

Full Text Available The article highlights genre peculiarities of the news story that represents social event in media discourse as the mixture of invariant genre features and text realization variations. The author points to the entanglement of narration about the event constituents with the response commentaries and refers it to discursive circumstances in verbal presentation of a socially relevant event in the breaking news story format. The statement is verified with the interpretational analysis of news stories with the tag «Natural Disaster». It is proved that the narrative part is to ensure invariability of exactness and conciseness as the genre features of the text that describes an event or happening. To implement the tasks of making the plausibility of the information and increasing the interest to the news story the following types of response commentaries are incorporated into the text: the current commentary (witnesses' opinion or citations on impression, the pre-commentary (indication to connection between the main event and the prior ones, the post-commentary (information for the reader about possible consequences of the happening. Such mixture of ways that depict main and related events helps to solve one pragmatic goal of media discourse – having changed the perspective of event representation a journalist could not only attract the attention to the breaking news about natural disasters, but get a reader's respond to it. Being initiated by a journalist response commentaries help to enrich the details indirectly and raise the reader's awareness that he hasn't asked for. The article also contains generalization about stylistic implementation of the pre- and post-commentaries in the news breaking story.

Effects of "Good News" and "Bad News" on Newscast Image and Community Image.

Science.gov (United States)

Galician, Mary-Lou; Vestre, Norris D.

1987-01-01

Investigates whether the relative amount of bad, neutral, and good news on television has corresponding effects on viewers' image of the community depicted and of the carrying newscast. Concludes that bad news creates a bad image for the community but that good news does not produce a more favorable image than neutral news. (MM)

ON THE ANATOMY OF MEDIATIZED NEWS BROADCASTING: METAMORPHOSES AND MULTIPLE NARRATIVES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Demétrio de Azeredo Soster

2013-06-01

Full Text Available This article discusses mediatization in news journalism, which is characterized by the institution, in current times, of a new “place” for the media. From this standpoint, they are no longer regarded as mere media, but as structuring elements of a new communicational bios. In the course of society’s transition from the media towards a mediatized society, news production practices become complex and process practices, as well as narrative and content distribution forms emerge, that are distinct from those seen until then. Television news broadcast emerges, therefore, in a new format, made up of the cluster of diverse media that refer to such programs, demanding new identification and recognition protocols. These changes will be examined as they relate to the news telecasts TV Folha, of TV Cultura, based on four movements resulting from the mediatization process in journalism: self-referentiality, co-referentiality, decentralization and dialogy.

On the anatomy of mediatized news broadcasting: metamorphoses and multiple narratives

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fabiana Piccinin

2013-12-01

Full Text Available This article discusses mediatization in news journalism, which is characterized by the institution, in current times, of a new “place” for the media. From this standpoint, they are no longer regarded as mere media, but as structuring elements of a new communicational bios. In the course of society’s transition from the media towards a mediatized society, news production practices become complex and process practices, as well as narrative and content distribution forms emerge, that are distinct from those seen until then. Television news broadcast emerges, therefore, in a new format, made up of the cluster of diverse media that refer to such programs, demanding new identification and recognition protocols. These changes will be examined as they relate to the news telecasts TV Folha, of TV Cultura, based on four movements resulting from the mediatization process in journalism: self-referentiality, co-referentiality, decentralization and dialogy.

48 CFR 252.225-7026 - Acquisition Restricted to Products or Services from Iraq or Afghanistan.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... Products or Services from Iraq or Afghanistan. 252.225-7026 Section 252.225-7026 Federal Acquisition... to Products or Services from Iraq or Afghanistan. As prescribed in 225.7703-5(c), use the following clause: Acquisition Restricted to Products or Services From Iraq or Afghanistan (APR 2010) (a...

Igniting Paths of Reconciliation between Afghanistan and Pakistan

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vestenskov, David

the external and internal factors affecting the security situation, thereby attempting to explain the current low level of trust between Afghanistan and Pakistan. All these perspectives present an intriguing puzzle that seeks to identify present challenges and opportunities on the table for both states......This report is based on the seminar: “Mutual Trust Building and Reconciliation in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Beyond” organized by the Royal Danish Defence College in Copenhagen, October 2016. The report includes perspectives by the speakers of the seminar and their attribution to understand...

Transition in Afghanistan

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vestenskov, David; Pedersen, Mads Grønbech

Whether the deployment of international forces in Afghanistan has been a successful venture or an unsuccessful one is of course a matter of perception. This brief sets out to present a comparative overview of Soviet experiences from the intervention in 1979-1989 and the following stabilization ef...... efforts in order to highlight coinciding elements, pitfalls, opportunities, and lessons that the present RSM operation could learn from and implement in order to improve the current situation....

Changing the Afghan Cycle of Conflict from the Outside, In

Science.gov (United States)

2011-06-01

accountid=12702 (accessed on 05/26/2011). 67 Riedel, Deadly Embrace, 122. 68 Christopher Paul, Colin P. Clarke, and Beth Grill, Victory Has a...2011); and Ian Drury , “Taliban Border between Afghanistan and Pakistan ’is Impossible to Seal’,” Daily Mail, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...accessed on 04/09/2011). Ollapally, Deepa. The Politics of Extremism in South Asia. Cambridge University Press, 2008. Paul, Christopher, Colin

Political Expertise and Affect: Effects on News Processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Hsu, Mei-Ling; Price, Vincent

1993-01-01

Investigates interactions between political expertise and affect in shaping cognitive strategies people employ in forming reactions to newspaper stories. Finds that, in processing the news articles, political experts produced a greater number of thoughts and a larger share of arguments than did novices. Observes no predicted main effects of…

Examining the Nexus of Science Communication and Science Education: A Content Analysis of Genetics News Articles

Science.gov (United States)

Shea, Nicole A.

2015-01-01

Access to science information via communications in the media is rapidly becoming a central means for the public to gain knowledge about scientific advancements. However, little is known about what content knowledge is essential for understanding issues presented in news media. Very few empirical studies attempt to bridge science communication and…

News of the Year.

Science.gov (United States)

St. Lifer, Evan; Olson, Renee; Margolis, Rick; Glick, Andrea; Milliot, Jim

1999-01-01

Includes the following reports: "'LJ' (Library Journal) News Report: Libraries Success at Funding Books and Bytes"; "'SLJ' (School Library Journal) News Report: We're in the Money!"; and "'PW' (Publishers Weekly) News Reports". (AEF)

Assessment of Biomass Resources in Afghanistan

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Milbrandt, A.; Overend, R.

2011-01-01

Afghanistan is facing many challenges on its path of reconstruction and development. Among all its pressing needs, the country would benefit from the development and implementation of an energy strategy. In addition to conventional energy sources, the Afghan government is considering alternative options such as energy derived from renewable resources (wind, solar, biomass, geothermal). Biomass energy is derived from a variety of sources -- plant-based material and residues -- and can be used in various conversion processes to yield power, heat, steam, and fuel. This study provides policymakers and industry developers with information on the biomass resource potential in Afghanistan for power/heat generation and transportation fuels production. To achieve this goal, the study estimates the current biomass resources and evaluates the potential resources that could be used for energy purposes.

Collection and Analysis of Open Source News for Information Awareness and Early Warning in Nuclear Safeguards

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cojazzi, Giacomo G.M.; Van Der Goot, Erik; Verile, Marco; Wolfart, Erik; Rutan Fowler, Marcy; Feldman, Yana; Hammond, William; Schweighardt, John; Ferguson, Mattew

2013-01-01

Acquisition and analysis of open source information plays an increasingly important role in the IAEA’s move towards safeguards implementation based on all safeguards relevant information known about a State. The growing volume of open source information requires the development of technology and tools capable of effectively collecting relevant information, filtering out “noise”, organizing valuable information in a clear and accessible manner, and assessing its relevance. In this context, the IAEA’s Division of Information Management (SGIM) and the EC’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) are currently implementing a joint project to advance the effectiveness and efficiency of the IAEA’s workflow for open source information collection and analysis. The objective is to provide tools to support SGIM in the production of the SGIM Open Source Highlights, which is a daily news brief consisting of the most pertinent news stories relevant to safeguards and non-proliferation. The process involves the review and selection of hundreds of articles from a wide array of specifically selected sources. The joint activity exploits the JRC’s Europe Media Monitor (EMM) and NewsDesk applications: EMM automatically collects and analyses news articles from a pre-defined list of web sites, and NewsDesk allows an analyst to manually select the most relevant articles from the EMM stream for further processing. The paper discusses the IAEA’s workflow for the production of SGIM Open Source Highlights and describes the capabilities of EMM and NewsDesk. It then provides an overview of the joint activities since the project started in 2011, which were focused i) on setting up a separate EMM installation dedicated to the nuclear safeguards and security domain (Nuclear Security Media Monitor, NSMM) and ii) on evaluating the NSMM/NewsDesk for meeting the IAEA’s needs. Finally, it presents the current use NSMM/NewsDesk at the IAEA and proposes options for further integration with the

Arousing news characteristics in Dutch television news 1990-2004: an exploration of competitive strategies

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hendriks Vettehen, P.; Beentjes, J.; Nuijten, K.; Peeters, A.

2011-01-01

This study investigates the processes by which competition in the television news market might promote the presence of arousing characteristics in television news. A total of 3,024 news stories from six Dutch television news programs over the period 1990 to 2004 were investigated through content

Arousing news characteristics in Dutch television news 1990-2004: An exploration of competitive strategies

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hendriks Vettehen, P.G.J.; Beentjes, J.W.J.; Nuijten, C.M.; Peeters, A.L.

2011-01-01

This study investigates the processes by which competition in the television news market might promote the presence of arousing characteristics in television news. A total of 3,024 news stories from six Dutch television news programs over the period 1990 to 2004 were investigated through content

Mobile news - a review and model of journalism in an age of mobile media

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Westlund, Oscar

2012-01-01

The technological convergence of mobile “phones” and multimedia has been taking place since the 1990s, but it was not until the commercial birth of touchscreen-enabled mobile devices, offered with flat-rate subscriptions for mobile internet, that widespread production and use of news....... This article explores the production of mobile news, by discussing and synthesising the findings of the contemporary literature found in the nexus of journalism and mobile media. It posits a model of journalism focusing on the roles of humans and technology in activities characterised by customising......-related content and services began to flourish. Accessing mobile news has gained traction in the everyday life of the public. In parallel, legacy news media have in recent years developed news provision, by repurposing or customising journalistic content published for mobile sites and/or applications...

FY2005 Supplemental Appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan, Tsunami Relief, and Other Activities

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Belasco, Amy; Nowels, Larry

2005-01-01

... (subsequently amended to total $82.04 billion) to provide funds for ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the global war on terror, reconstruction in Afghanistan, Tsunami relief and rehabilitation, and other activities...

Surma eye cosmetic in Afghanistan: a potential source of lead toxicity in children.

Science.gov (United States)

McMichael, J R; Stoff, B K

2018-02-01

Surma is a traditional eye cosmetic used as an eyeliner for infants in Afghanistan, as well as in many other countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Surma has been reported to contain lead and to be a potential source of lead toxicity in children, which can lead to permanent damage to multiple organ systems. To our knowledge, assessment for lead in surma found in Afghanistan has not been performed. We determined the quantitative lead content of a convenience sample of 10 surma products acquired in Afghanistan. Analysis revealed that 70% of surma samples contained high levels of lead (range 35-83%). The remaining samples contained low levels of lead (range 0.04-0.17%). The majority of surma samples contained very high levels of lead, a troubling finding that could potentially correlate with lead toxicity in Afghan children. Making available lead-free surma alternatives and providing health education, for both healthcare professionals and the general population, in locations where surma use is prevalent and for those involved in care of refugees and immigrants from Afghanistan, may be strategies to prevent lead poisoning in children. What is Known: • Surma is a traditional cosmetic used as an eyeliner for infants in Afghanistan as well as in many countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. • Surma has been reported to contain lead and to be a source of lead toxicity in children. What is New: • Assessment for lead content in surma found in Afghanistan has not been performed. • In this convenience sample of 10 surma products acquired in Afghanistan, 70% contained very high levels of lead.

Thrilling News Revisited: The Role of Suspense for the Enjoyment of News Stories.

Science.gov (United States)

Kaspar, Kai; Zimmermann, Daniel; Wilbers, Anne-Kathrin

2016-01-01

Previous research on news perception has been dominated by a cognitively oriented perspective on reception processes, whereas emotions have been widely neglected. Consequently, it has remained open which features of a news story might elicit affective responses and hence modulate news perception, shifting the focus to the emotional potential of the narrative. According to the affective-disposition theory, the experience of suspense is the striving force of immersion in fictional dramas. Thereby, a positive affective disposition toward the protagonist of a story and a high likelihood of a bad ending should increase suspense that, in turn, should positively influence reading appreciation and lingering interest in the story. We investigated whether suspense and its determinants also play such a key role in the context of news stories. Study 1 ( n = 263) successfully replicated results of an earlier study, whereas Studies 2 ( n = 255) and 3 ( n = 599) challenged the generalizability of some effects related to manipulated characteristics of a news story. In contrast, correlational relationships between perceived news characteristics and news evaluation were relatively stable. In particular, participants' liking of the protagonist and the perceived likelihood of a good ending were positively associated with suspense, reading appreciation, and lingering interest. This result indicates a preference for happy endings and contradicts the notion that likely negative outcomes are beneficial for suspense and the enjoyment of news stories, as postulated by the affective-disposition theory in the context of fictional dramas. Moreover, experienced suspense reliably mediated the correlations between, on the one hand, participants' liking of the protagonist and the perceived likelihood of a good ending and, on the other hand, reading appreciation and lingering interest. The news story's personal relevance was less influential than expected. Further, we observed a large absence of

News trends and web search query of HIV/AIDS in Hong Kong

Science.gov (United States)

Chiu, Alice P. Y.; Lin, Qianying

2017-01-01

Background The HIV epidemic in Hong Kong has worsened in recent years, with major contributions from high-risk subgroup of men who have sex with men (MSM). Internet use is prevalent among the majority of the local population, where they sought health information online. This study examines the impacts of HIV/AIDS and MSM news coverage on web search query in Hong Kong. Methods Relevant news coverage about HIV/AIDS and MSM from January 1st, 2004 to December 31st, 2014 was obtained from the WiseNews databse. News trends were created by computing the number of relevant articles by type, topic, place of origin and sub-populations. We then obtained relevant search volumes from Google and analysed causality between news trends and Google Trends using Granger Causality test and orthogonal impulse function. Results We found that editorial news has an impact on “HIV” Google searches on HIV, with the search term popularity peaking at an average of two weeks after the news are published. Similarly, editorial news has an impact on the frequency of “AIDS” searches two weeks after. MSM-related news trends have a more fluctuating impact on “MSM” Google searches, although the time lag varies anywhere from one week later to ten weeks later. Conclusions This infodemiological study shows that there is a positive impact of news trends on the online search behavior of HIV/AIDS or MSM-related issues for up to ten weeks after. Health promotional professionals could make use of this brief time window to tailor the timing of HIV awareness campaigns and public health interventions to maximise its reach and effectiveness. PMID:28922376

Staphylococcus aureus colonization of healthy military service members in the United States and Afghanistan.

Science.gov (United States)

Vento, Todd J; Calvano, Tatjana P; Cole, David W; Mende, Katrin; Rini, Elizabeth A; Tully, Charla C; Landrum, Michael L; Zera, Wendy; Guymon, Charles H; Yu, Xin; Beckius, Miriam L; Cheatle, Kristelle A; Murray, Clinton K

2013-07-16

Staphylococcus aureus [methicillin-resistant and methicillin-susceptible (MRSA/MSSA)] is a leading cause of infections in military personnel, but there are limited data regarding baseline colonization of individuals while deployed. We conducted a pilot study to screen non-deployed and deployed healthy military service members for MRSA/MSSA colonization at various anatomic sites and assessed isolates for molecular differences. Colonization point-prevalence of 101 military personnel in the US and 100 in Afghanistan was determined by swabbing 7 anatomic sites. US-based individuals had received no antibiotics within 30 days, and Afghanistan-deployed personnel were taking doxycycline for malaria prophylaxis. Isolates underwent identification and testing for antimicrobial resistance, virulence factors, and pulsed-field type (PFT). 4 individuals in the US (4 isolates- 3 oropharynx, 1 perirectal) and 4 in Afghanistan (6 isolates- 2 oropharynx, 2 nare, 1 hand, 1 foot) were colonized with MRSA. Among US-based personnel, 3 had USA300 (1 PVL+) and 1 USA700. Among Afghanistan-based personnel, 1 had USA300 (PVL+), 1 USA800 and 2 USA1000. MSSA was present in 40 (71 isolates-25 oropharynx, 15 nare) of the US-based and 32 (65 isolates- 16 oropharynx, 24 nare) of the Afghanistan-based individuals. 56 (79%) US and 41(63%) Afghanistan-based individuals had MSSA isolates recovered from extra-nare sites. The most common MSSA PFTs were USA200 (9 isolates) in the US and USA800 (7 isolates) in Afghanistan. MRSA/MSSA isolates were susceptible to doxycycline in all but 3 personnel (1 US, 2 Afghanistan; all were MSSA isolates that carried tetM). MRSA and MSSA colonization of military personnel was not associated with deployment status or doxycycline exposure. Higher S. aureus oropharynx colonization rates were observed and may warrant changes in decolonization practices.

How Television News Programs Use Video News Releases.

Science.gov (United States)

Harmon, Mark D.; White, Candace

2001-01-01

Examines actual use in television news broadcasts of video news releases (VNRs). Finds that all sizes of markets were likely to use VNRs. Finds that the most common use was as a voice-over story in an early evening newscast, and that VNRs associated with children and their safety or health got the greatest number of uses. (SR)

An analysis of news media coverage of complementary and alternative medicine.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Billie Bonevski

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: To examine the accuracy and adequacy of lay media news stories about complementary and alternative medicines and therapies. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: A descriptive analysis of news stories about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM in the Australian media using a national medical news monitoring website, mediadoctor.org.au. Each story was rated against 10 criteria by two individuals. Consensus scores of 222 news articles reporting therapeutic claims about complementary medicines posted on mediadoctor.org.au between 1 January 2004 and 1 September 2007 were calculated. The overall rating score for 222 CAM articles was 50% (95% CI 47% to 53%. There was a statistically significant (F = 3.68, p = 0.006 difference in cumulative mean scores according to type of therapy: biologically based practices (54%, 95% CI 50% to 58%; manipulative body based practices (46%, 95% CI 39% to 54%, whole medical systems (45%, 95% CI 32% to 58%, mind body medicine (41%, 95% CI 31% to 50% and energy medicine (33%, 95% CI 11% to 55%. There was a statistically significant difference in cumulative mean scores (F = 3.72, p = 0.0001 according to the clinical outcome of interest with stories about cancer treatments (62%, 95% CI 54% to 70% scoring highest and stories about treatments for children's behavioural and mental health concerns scoring lowest (31%, 95% CI 19% to 43%. Significant differences were also found in scores between media outlets. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: There is substantial variability in news reporting practices about CAM. Overall, although they may be improving, the scores remain generally low. It appears that much of the information the public receives about CAM is inaccurate or incomplete.

The Impact of Smokeless Tobacco Risk Information on Smokers' Risk Perceptions and Use Intentions: A News Media Experiment.

Science.gov (United States)

Wackowski, Olivia A; Manderski, Michelle T Bover; Lewis, M Jane; Delnevo, Cristine D

2017-12-13

Little research exists on the impact of risk information comparing smokeless tobacco (SLT) use, particularly snus, to cigarette smoking. This study explored this topic using a communication channel where smokers may be exposed to such information-the news media. We randomly assigned 1008 current smokers to read one of three constructed news stories or to a control group (no article). The "favorable" story framed snus as a "safer" smoking alternative while the "cautious" story described snus risks. The "mixed" version described potential risks and harm-reduction benefits. Participants completed a post-article survey with snus risk and harm perception and use intention measures. Article condition was significantly associated with perceived harm of daily snus use relative to smoking (1 = a lot less harmful - 5 = a lot more harmful; p news messages about SLT and snus relative to cigarettes may impact smokers' SLT harm perceptions and use intentions. Tobacco control professionals and FDA officials should consider the potential impact of the news media when communicating about tobacco risks.

Airpower in Afghanistan 2005-10: The Air Commanders’ Perspectives

Science.gov (United States)

2014-11-01

primary customers (Multi-National Force Iraq, the Combined Joint Task Force in Afghanistan, and the Combined Joint Task Force–Horn of Africa) was very...battle in Iraq with friends and against enemies who had divided loyalties . Support for Afghanistan paled in com- parison to Iraq. Less clear were the ends...something he felt more comfortable with, which included shutting down morale and welfare facilities, closing stores, kiosks, and restaurants on coalition

Prevention of postpartum hemorrhage at home birth in Afghanistan.

Science.gov (United States)

Sanghvi, Harshadkumar; Ansari, Nasratullah; Prata, Ndola J V; Gibson, Hannah; Ehsan, Aftab T; Smith, Jeffrey M

2010-03-01

To test the safety, acceptability, feasibility, and effectiveness of community-based education and distribution of misoprostol for prevention of postpartum hemorrhage at home birth in Afghanistan. A nonrandomized experimental control design in rural Afghanistan. A total of 3187 women participated: 2039 in the intervention group and 1148 in the control group. Of the 1421 women in the intervention group who took misoprostol, 100% correctly took it after birth, including 20 women with twin pregnancies. Adverse effect rates were unexpectedly lower in the intervention group than in the comparison group. Among women in the intervention group, 92% said they would use misoprostol in their next pregnancy. In the intervention area where community-based distribution of misoprostol was introduced, near-universal uterotonic coverage (92%) was achieved compared with 25% coverage in the control areas. In Afghanistan, community-based education and distribution of misoprostol is safe, acceptable, feasible, and effective. This strategy should be considered for other countries where access to skilled attendance is limited.

Counting Lives in a Theater of Terror - an Analysis of Media-oriented Hostage Takings in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Judith Tinnes

2010-12-01

Full Text Available This article summarizes key findings of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of media-oriented hostage takings involving local people and foreigners in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia during a five-year period (01-01-2004 to 12-31-2008. Based on a long-term tracking of Islamist online publications, the chosen approach did not only allow to identify static values, but also granted insights into developments over time. Characteristic patterns regarding responsible organizations, nationalities of victims, distribution channels for hostage media, etc. could in this way be identified.  The kidnappers' organizational affiliation turned out to be the most significant variable. It decisively affected other factors like number of abductions, likelihood of fatal outcome or duration of a kidnapping. As a consequence, the highest attention should be given to  this parameter when dealing with hostage situations. Another key finding is that insurgents have been increasingly refraining from broadcasting visual representations of extreme violence. This article is based on the German-language dissertation J. Tinnes. “Internetnutzung islamistischer Terror- und Insurgentengruppen unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von medialen Geiselnahmen im Irak, Afghanistan, Pakistan und Saudi-Arabien” -  in English: “Internet Usage of Islamist Terrorist and Insurgent Groups with Special Regard for Media-oriented Hostage Takings in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia”.[1] In the following I shall summarize key findings in order to make them accessible to non-German speaking readers.

Quality of health news disseminated in the print media in developing countries: a case study in Iran.

Science.gov (United States)

Ashorkhani, Mahnaz; Gholami, Jaleh; Maleki, Katayoun; Nedjat, Sima; Mortazavi, Jalaledin; Majdzadeh, Reza

2012-08-09

Mass media play an important role in keeping people up-to-date with the latest health news. This study aims at investigating the quality of health news disseminated in the print media, its course of production and factors affecting its quality. In the quantitative section of the study, 410 health-related news items, published during a six-month span in the Iranian public press, underwent content analysis. In the qualitative section, focus group discussions were held with journalists, editors-in-chief and news gatekeepers. The quantitative phase showed that 18% of the news articles were not fit for dissemination in public. The qualitative phase illustrated that multiple factors at various levels affect the quality of news, namely poor knowledge, inadequate motivations and context-related barriers. The quality of health news reporting is not desirable. Educational interventions need to be carried out to raise awareness among researchers and journalists. Also, certain steps should be taken to increase motivations and strengthen infrastructures, including designing guidelines and monitoring news.

Evaluating the impact a proposed family planning model would have on maternal and infant mortality in Afghanistan.

Science.gov (United States)

Rahmani, Ahmad Masoud; Wade, Benjamin; Riley, William

2015-01-01

This study aimed to assess the potential impact a proposed family planning model would have on reducing maternal and infant mortality in Afghanistan. Afghanistan has a high total fertility rate, high infant mortality rate, and high maternal mortality rate. Afghanistan also has tremendous socio-cultural barriers to and misconceptions about family planning services. We applied predictive statistical models to a proposed family planning model for Afghanistan to better understand the impact increased family planning can have on Afghanistan's maternal mortality rate and infant mortality rate. We further developed a sensitivity analysis that illustrates the number of maternal and infant deaths that can be averted over 5 years according to different increases in contraceptive prevalence rates. Incrementally increasing contraceptive prevalence rates in Afghanistan from 10% to 60% over the course of 5 years could prevent 11,653 maternal deaths and 317,084 infant deaths, a total of 328,737 maternal and infant deaths averted. Achieving goals in reducing maternal and infant mortality rates in Afghanistan requires a culturally relevant approach to family planning that will be supported by the population. The family planning model for Afghanistan presents such a solution and holds the potential to prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

NERSC News

Science.gov (United States)

NERSC Powering Scientific Discovery Since 1974 Login Site Map | My NERSC search... Go Home About Scheduled Outages Login Node Status My NERSC Now Computing Highlights Timeline News & Publications News Coming to NERSC Login Page May 21, 2018 NERSC rolls out a redesigned login page on June 11. Read More Â

Thrilling news revisited: The role of suspense for the enjoyment of news stories

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kai Kaspar

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Previous research on news perception has been dominated by a cognitively oriented perspective on reception processes, whereas emotions have been widely neglected. Consequently, it has remained open which features of a news story might elicit affective responses and hence modulate news perception, shifting the focus to the emotional potential of the narrative. According to the affective-disposition theory, the experience of suspense is the striving force of immersion in fictional dramas. Thereby, a positive affective disposition toward the protagonist of a story and a high likelihood of a bad ending should increase suspense that, in turn, should positively influence reading appreciation and lingering interest in the story. We investigated whether suspense and its determinants also play such a key role in the context of news stories. Study 1 (n = 263 successfully replicated results of an earlier study, whereas Studies 2 (n = 255 and 3 (n = 599 challenged the generalizability of some effects related to manipulated characteristics of a news story. In contrast, correlational relationships between perceived news characteristics were relatively stable. In particular, a higher liking of the protagonist and a higher perceived likelihood of a good versus bad ending were positively associated with suspense, reading appreciation, and lingering interest. This result indicates a preference for happy endings and it contradicts the notion that likely negative outcomes are beneficial for suspense and the enjoyment of news stories, as postulated by the affective-disposition theory in the context of fictional dramas. Moreover, experienced suspense reliably mediated the correlations between, on the one hand, participants’ liking of the protagonist and the perceived likelihood of a good ending and, on the other hand, reading appreciation and lingering interest. The news story’s personal relevance was less influential than expected. Further, we observed a large

Communicating Ebola through social media and electronic news media outlets: A cross-sectional study.

Science.gov (United States)

Househ, Mowafa

2016-09-01

Social media and electronic news media activity are an important source of information for the general public. Yet, there is a dearth of research exploring the use of Twitter and electronic news outlets during significant worldly events such as the recent Ebola Virus scare. The purpose of this article is to investigate the use of Twitter and electronic news media outlets in communicating Ebola Virus information. A cross-sectional survey of Twitter data and Google News Trend data from 30 September till 29 October, 2014 was conducted. Between 30 September and 29 October, there were approximately 26 million tweets (25,925,152) that contained the word Ebola. The highest number of correlated activity for Twitter and electronic news outlets occurred on 16 October 2014. Other important peaks in Twitter data occurred on 1 October, 6 October, 8 October, and 12 October, 2014. The main influencers of the Twitter feeds were news media outlets. The study reveals a relationship between electronic news media publishing and Twitter activity around significant events such as Ebola. Healthcare organizations should take advantage of the relationship between electronic news media and trending events on social media sites such as Twitter and should work on developing social media campaigns in co-operation with leading electronic news media outlets (e.g. CNN, Yahoo, Reuters) that can have an influence on social media activity. © The Author(s) 2015.

News/Press Releases

Data.gov (United States)

Office of Personnel Management — A press release, news release, media release, press statement is written communication directed at members of the news media for the purpose of announcing programs...

Earth observation data for assessment of nationwide land cover and long-term deforestation in Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

Sudhakar Reddy, C.; Saranya, K. R. L.

2017-08-01

This study has generated a national level spatial database of land cover and changes in forest cover of Afghanistan for the 1975-1990, 1990-2005 and 2005-2014 periods. Using these results we have analysed the annual deforestation rates, spatial changes in forests, forest types and fragmentation classes over a period of 1975 to 2014 in Afghanistan. The land cover map of 2014 provides distribution of forest (dry evergreen, moist temperate, dry temperate, pine, sub alpine) and non-forest (grassland, scrub, agriculture, wetlands, barren land, snow and settlements) in Afghanistan. The largest land cover, barren land, contributes to 56% of geographical area of country. Forest is distributed mostly in eastern Afghanistan and constitutes an area of 1.02% of geographical area in 2014. The annual deforestation rate in Afghanistan's forests for the period from 1975 to 1990 estimated as 0.06% which was declined significantly from 2005 to 2014. The predominant forest type in Afghanistan is moist temperate which shows loss of 80 km2 of area during the last four decades of the study period. At national level, the percentage of large core forest area was calculated as 52.20% in 2014.

Who Makes The News?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jørndrup, Hanne; Bentsen, Martine

As newsroom staff around the world went about their day on 25 March 2015, hundreds of volunteers located in over 100 countries gathered to monitor their news media as part of the Fifth Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP). The Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) is the world’s longest......-running and most extensive research on gender in the news media. It began in 1995 when volunteers in 71 countries around the world monitored women’s presence in their national radio, television and print news. The research revealed that only 17% of news subjects – the people who are interviewed or whom the news...... is about – were women. It found that gender parity was ‘a distant prospect in any region of the world. News [was] more often being presented by women but it [was] still rarely about women. Denmark participates in GMMP for the second time and both times we can recognize the global inequality in the Danish...

Behavioral genetics in Polish print news media between 2000 and 2014.

Science.gov (United States)

Domaradzki, Jan

2016-12-23

The aim of this paper is to describe how Polish print news media frame relations between genetics and human behaviors and what images of behavioral genetics dominate in press discourse. A content and frame analysis of 72 print news articles about behavioral genetics published between 2000 and 2014 in four major Polish weekly magazines: "Polityka", "Wprost", "Newsweek" and "Przekrój" was conducted. Twenty one different behaviors were mentioned in the sample and six major analytic frames were identified: essentialist, materialistic, deterministic, probabilistic, optimistic and pessimistic. The most common was the tendency to describe human behaviors in terms of genetic essentialism, reductionism and determinism, as almost one half of the articles was focused solely on genetic determinants of human behaviors and lacked any reference to polygenetic and/or environmental conditioning. Although most of the articles were balanced in tone, benefits were stressed more often than potential risks. Stories that confirmed existence of genetic determinants of human behavior were favored over those that did not. One third of the articles stressed the social or ethical consequences of the development of behavioral genetics. The complex and abstract character of genetic knowledge results in a simplistic portrayal of behavioral genetics in the press, which may lead to a misunderstood interpretation of the complicated interplay between behavior, genetics and environment by the public. Consequently, print news media contribute to geneticization of behaviors. It is important to improve the quality of science reporting on behavioral genetics and to educate researchers how to communicate with the media more effectively.

Cascading corruption news: explaining the bias of media attention to Brazil’s political scandals

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mads Damgaard

Full Text Available Abstract Through a content analysis of 8,800 news items and six months of front pages of three Brazilian newspapers, all dealing with corruption and political transgression, the present article documents the remarkable bias of media coverage toward corruption scandals. Said bias is examined as an informational phenomenon, arising from key systemic and commercial factors of Brazil’s news media: an information cascade of news on corruption formed, destabilizing the governing coalition and legitimizing the impeachment process of Dilma Rousseff. As this process gained momentum, questions of accountability were disregarded by the media, with harmful effects for democracy.

The Al-Jazeera News Network: Opportunity or Challenge for U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East

Science.gov (United States)

2003-07-23

vehemently. During the war in Afghanistan in 2001, Al- Jazeera’s Kabul office was accidently struck by U.S. fire. Despite Ayoub’s death , a recent article...series entitled “ Horseman Without a Horse.” The story was a chronicle of the Arab struggle against colonial rule and against the establishment of the

Multidrug-resistant gram-negative bacteria colonization of healthy US military personnel in the US and Afghanistan.

Science.gov (United States)

Vento, Todd J; Cole, David W; Mende, Katrin; Calvano, Tatjana P; Rini, Elizabeth A; Tully, Charla C; Zera, Wendy C; Guymon, Charles H; Yu, Xin; Cheatle, Kristelle A; Akers, Kevin S; Beckius, Miriam L; Landrum, Michael L; Murray, Clinton K

2013-02-05

The US military has seen steady increases in multidrug-resistant (MDR) gram-negative bacteria (GNB) infections in casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan. This study evaluates the prevalence of MDR GNB colonization in US military personnel. GNB colonization surveillance of healthy, asymptomatic military personnel (101 in the US and 100 in Afghanistan) was performed by swabbing 7 anatomical sites. US-based personnel had received no antibiotics within 30 days of specimen collection, and Afghanistan-based personnel were receiving doxycycline for malaria chemoprophylaxis at time of specimen collection. Isolates underwent genotypic and phenotypic characterization. The only colonizing MDR GNB recovered in both populations was Escherichia coli (p=0.01), which was seen in 2% of US-based personnel (all perirectal) and 11% of Afghanistan-based personnel (10 perirectal, 1 foot+groin). Individuals with higher off-base exposures in Afghanistan did not show a difference in overall GNB colonization or MDR E. coli colonization, compared with those with limited off-base exposures. Healthy US- and Afghanistan-based military personnel have community onset-MDR E. coli colonization, with Afghanistan-based personnel showing a 5.5-fold higher prevalence. The association of doxycycline prophylaxis or other exposures with antimicrobial resistance and increased rates of MDR E. coli colonization needs further evaluation.

NEWS ARTICLES

Science.gov (United States)

CENTCOM: Search CENTCOM CENTCOM Home ABOUT US COMMAND NARRATIVE LEADERSHIP COMPONENT COMMANDS HISTORY , security forces May 14, 2018 Syrian Democratic Forces fire in self-defense May 11, 2018 Military Strikes against Daesh terrorists in Iraq and Syria May 04, 2018 Syrian Democratic Forces announce drive to reclaim

War, Peace and Stabilisation: Critically Reconceptualising Stability in Southern Afghanistan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

William Robert Carter

2013-06-01

Full Text Available This article critically treats stabilisation theory and programming through a perspective of peace and conflict, and argues for stabilisation’s reconceptualisation. Through tracking the concept’s emergence, it outlines that stabilisation is theoretically rooted in an insecurity-underdevelopment problematic and relies on the Liberal Peace thesis as a solution. When this concept was operationalised in southern Afghanistan, however, it was translated into a praxis informed by state-building and counterinsurgency imperatives. This approach ultimately produced confused, sometimes counterproductive, effects: simultaneously engendering a liberal, negative, rented and victor’s peace. The article concludes by arguing that stabilisation should be reconceptualised so that it pursues a positive and hybrid peace if it is to be a more effective source of guidance for policy and practice. The first step is to denaturalise the ‘formal’ state in conflict and fragile environments as being seen as a panacea to all ills of instability.

Search for OIE-listed ruminant mycoplasma diseases in Afghanistan.

Science.gov (United States)

Bahir, W; Omar, O; Rosales, R S; Hlusek, M; Ziay, G; Schauwers, W; Whatmore, A M; Nicholas, R A J

2017-05-30

Little is known about the occurrence of important diseases of ruminants in Afghanistan because of the conflict affecting the country over the last 40 years. To address this discrepancy, ruminant herds in Afghanistan were screened for OIE-listed mycoplasma diseases, contagious bovine (CBPP) and caprine pleuropneumonias (CCPP). Of the 825 samples from 24 provinces tested for serological evidence of CBPP caused by Mycoplasma mycoides subsp.mycoides, 20 (3.4%) had ELISA values greater than the positive threshold of 50% though all were less than 55%. Repeat testing of these suspect sera gave values below 50. A smaller number of sera (330) from cattle in nine provinces were also tested by the rapid latex agglutination test (LAT) for CBPP, 10 of which were considered suspect. However, no positive bands were seen when immunoblotting was carried out on all sera that gave suspect results. Serological evidence of Mycoplasma bovis was detected in half of 28 herds in eight provinces. The cause of CCPP, M. capricolum subsp. capripneumoniae was not detected in any of the 107 nasal swabs and lung tissue collected from goats in seven provinces though sample handling and storage were not optimal. However, strong serological evidence was detected in goat herds in several villages near Kabul some of which were over 50% seropositive by LAT and ELISAs for CCPP; immunoblotting confirmed positive results on a selection of these sera. The data presented here provide a first assessment of the occurrence of the two OIE listed mycoplasma diseases in Afghanistan. From the results of the testing bovine sera from the majority of provinces there is no evidence of the presence of CBPP in Afghanistan. However the samples tested represented only 0.03% of the cattle population so a larger survey is required to confirm these findings. Serological, but not bacterial, evidence was produced during this investigation to show that CCPP is highly likely to be present in parts of Afghanistan.

Groundwater levels in the Kabul Basin, Afghanistan, 2004-2013

Science.gov (United States)

Taher, Mohammad R.; Chornack, Michael P.; Mack, Thomas J.

2014-01-01

The Afghanistan Geological Survey, with technical assistance from the U.S. Geological Survey, established a network of wells to measure and monitor groundwater levels to assess seasonal, areal, and potentially climatic variations in groundwater characteristics in the Kabul Basin, Afghanistan, the most populous region in the country. Groundwater levels were monitored in 71 wells in the Kabul Basin, Afghanistan, starting as early as July 2004 and continuing to the present (2013). The monitoring network is made up exclusively of existing production wells; therefore, both static and dynamic water levels were recorded. Seventy wells are in unconsolidated sediments, and one well is in bedrock. Water levels were measured periodically, generally monthly, using electric tape water-level meters. Water levels in well 64 on the grounds of the Afghanistan Geological Survey building were measured more frequently. This report provides a 10-year compilation of groundwater levels in the Kabul Basin prepared in cooperation with the Afghanistan Geological Survey. Depths to water below land surface range from a minimum of 1.47 meters (m) in the Shomali subbasin to a maximum of 73.34 m in the Central Kabul subbasin. The Logar subbasin had the smallest range in depth to water below land surface (1.5 to 12.4 m), whereas the Central Kabul subbasin had the largest range (2.64 to 73.34 m). Seasonal water-level fluctuations can be estimated from the hydrographs in this report for wells that have depth-to-water measurements collected under static conditions. The seasonal water-level fluctuations range from less than 1 m to a little more than 7 m during the monitoring period. In general, the hydrographs for the Deh Sabz, Logar, Paghman and Upper Kabul, and Shomali subbasins show relatively little change in the water-level trend during the period of record, whereas hydrographs for the Central Kabul subbasin show water level decreases of several meters to about 25 m.

Do audiences receive diverse ideas from news media? Exposure to a variety of news media and personal characteristics as determinants of diversity as received

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van der Wurff, R.

2011-01-01

Media policies in Europe traditionally promote a diverse media supply. This article investigates for the first time under what conditions audience members actually receive diversity. It focuses on the reception of diverse ideas on European integration from mainstream news media in Ireland and the

ACCURACY AND RELIABILITY AS CRITERIA OF INFORMATIVENESS IN THE NEWS STORY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Melnikova Ekaterina Aleksandrovna

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The article clarifies the meaning of the terms accuracy and reliability of the news story, offers a researcher's approach to obtaining objective data that helps to verify linguistic means of accuracy and reliability presence in the informative structure of the text. The accuracy of the news story is defined as a high relevance degree of event reflection through language representation of its constituents; the reliability is viewed as news story originality that is proved by introducing citations and sources of information considered being trustworthy into the text content. Having based the research on an event nominative density identification method, the author composed nominative charts of 115 news story texts, collected at web-sites of BBC and CNN media corporations; distinguished qualitative and quantitative markers of accuracy and reliability in the news story text; confirmed that the accuracy of the news story is achieved with terminological clearness in nominating event constituents in the text, thematic bind between words, presence of onyms that help deeply identify characteristics of the referent event. The reliability of the text is discovered in eyewitness accounts, quotations, and references to the sources being considered as trustworthy. Accurate revision of associations between accuracy and reliability and informing strategies in digital news nets allowed the author to set two variants of information delivery, that differ in their communicative and pragmatic functions: developing (that informs about major and minor details of an event and truncated (which gives some details thus raising the interest to the event and urging a reader to open a full story.

Summaries of important areas for mineral investment and production opportunities of nonfuel minerals in Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

Peters, Stephen G.; King, Trude V.V.; Mack, Thomas J.; Chornack, Michael P.

2011-01-01

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Department of Defense Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO) entered into an agreement with the Afghanistan Geological Survey to study and assess the fuel and nonfuel mineral resources of Afghanistan from October 2009 to September 2011 so that these resources could be economically extracted to expand the economy of Afghanistan. This report summarizes the results of joint studies on 24 important areas of interest (AOIs) of nonfuel mineral resources that were identified for mineral investment and production opportunities in Afghanistan. This report is supported by digital data and archival and non-USGS reports on each AOI, and these data are available from the Afghanistan Geological Survey Data Center in Kabul (http://mom.gov.af/en/ and http://www.bgs.ac.uk/afghanminerals/) and for viewing and download on the USGS public Web site and in a separate viewer at http://mapdss2.er.usgs.gov/.

Progress Toward Poliomyelitis Eradication--Afghanistan, January 2014‒August 2015.

Science.gov (United States)

Mbaeyi, Chukwuma; Saatcioglu, Akif; Tangermann, Rudolf H; Hadler, Stephen; Ehrhardt, Derek

2015-10-23

Despite recent progress toward global polio eradication, endemic transmission of wild poliovirus (WPV) continues to be reported in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Afghanistan program must overcome many challenges to remain on track toward achieving the objectives set in the 2013–2018 strategic plan of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI). Cross-border transmission of WPV type 1 (WPV1) continues to occur among children traveling to and from Pakistan. The country's routine immunization system remains weak and unable to reach recommended benchmarks in most regions; hence, the national Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI) relies mainly on providing children aged <5 years with oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV), administered during supplementary immunization activities (SIAs). Because of ongoing conflict and insecurity, some children continue to be missed during SIAs in areas not under government control; however, the majority of missed children live in accessible areas and are often unreached because of a failure to plan, implement, and supervise SIAs efficiently. This report describes polio eradication activities and progress in Afghanistan during January 2014‒August 2015 and updates previous reports. During 2014, a total of 28 WPV1 cases were reported in Afghanistan, compared with 14 cases in 2013; nine cases were reported during January‒August 2015, the same number as during the same period in 2014. To eliminate poliovirus transmission in Afghanistan, emergency operations centers (EOCs) need to be established at the national level and in critical regions without delay to improve overall coordination and oversight of polio eradication activities. The recently revised National Emergency Action Plan for polio eradication needs to be fully implemented, including detailed microplanning and enhanced monitoring and supervision of SIAs, as well as improved cross-border coordination with Pakistan.

NetWorking News

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fritsch, Jonas; Iversen, Ole Sejer; Dindler, Christian

For many years cooperative design was primarily concerned with the development of IT supported systems for professional users. However, the cooperative design approach can embrace other social practices such as children’s everyday life. At a methodological level there is no difference in designing...... the Networking News workshop, offers an opportunity to make first hand studies of children’s IT supported social activities in an informal classroom setting....... with adults or children. However there is a need for new methods to support communication and collaboration between designers and children. This article proposes a new method for understandings children’s appropriation of new technology in an interactive workshop setting. The method, which we call...

A test of rivaling approaches to explain news effects: A multi-wave panel study of agenda setting, social and economic conditions, the tone of the news, and horse race news

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kleinnijenhuis, J.; van Hoof, A.M.J.; Oegema, D.; de Ridder, J.A.

2007-01-01

Different "paradigmatic" approaches to explain news effects on voting may supplement each other, because their starting points are based on different news types in political campaign news: news on issue positions of parties, news on real-world developments, news on support or criticism for parties,

The Bookseller of Kabul, women citizenship and Afghanistan: When will 1789 arrive in the Middle East?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

André Pizetta Altoé

2017-07-01

Full Text Available The article aims at analyzing gender relations in a Muslim society such as Afghanistan in view of the book The Bookseller of Cabul.  The theoretical framework is based on the concept of gender, the concept of citizenship proposed by Marshall, and the definition of symbolic violence given by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Finding show that in strongly patriarchal cultures, women lack basic citizenship rights - civil rights in particular, becoming symbolic goods available for purchase.

The Bookseller of Kabul, women citizenship and Afghanistan: When will 1789 arrive in the Middle East?

OpenAIRE

André Pizetta Altoé

2017-01-01

The article aims at analyzing gender relations in a Muslim society such as Afghanistan in view of the book The Bookseller of Cabul.  The theoretical framework is based on the concept of gender, the concept of citizenship proposed by Marshall, and the definition of symbolic violence given by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Finding show that in strongly patriarchal cultures, women lack basic citizenship rights - civil rights in particular, becoming symbolic goods available for purchase.

The Battle over Pastures: The Hidden War in Afghanistan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Liz Alden Wily

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Rangelands (‘pastures’ constitute a large and valuable natural resource in Afghanistan. Millions of rural people shape their agro-pastoral or pastoral livelihoods around this asset. In many ways, the territorial history of Afghanistan may be written through the lens of ancient and continuing battles between ethnic groups for possession of alpine pastures. In more recent times, this battle has centred on control of the Hindu Kush, the rich highland pastures of central Afghanistan. This paper focuses on the worsening conflict over this resource and the diminishing opportunities for its resolution, as new pressures mount. Despite numerous government initiatives, the Karzai Administration has failed to get to grips with the ownership issues underpinning this contestation and the associated seasonal armed conflict. As rangelands are made more available for purchase in the marketplace and as a surge in mining developments eats into pastures, more conflict may be expected, deepening divisions not only between ethnicities, but also between rich and poor, and between the people and the state.

Good Friends, Bad News

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Lars Kai; Arvidsson, Adam; Nielsen, Finn Årup

. In this paper we explore the apparent paradox in a quantitative analysis of information diffusion on Twitter. Twitter is interesting in this context as it has been shown to present both the characteristics social and news media. The basic measure of virality in Twitter is the probability of retweet. Twitter...... is different from email in that retweeting does not depend on pre-existing social relations, but often occur among strangers, thus in this respect Twitter may be more similar to traditional news media. We therefore hypothesize that negative news content is more likely to be retweeted, while for non-news tweets...

Exploiting Tri-Relationship for Fake News Detection

OpenAIRE

Shu, Kai; Wang, Suhang; Liu, Huan

2017-01-01

Social media for news consumption is becoming popular nowadays. The low cost, easy access and rapid information dissemination of social media bring benefits for people to seek out news timely. However, it also causes the widespread of fake news, i.e., low-quality news pieces that are intentionally fabricated. The fake news brings about several negative effects on individual consumers, news ecosystem, and even society trust. Previous fake news detection methods mainly focus on news contents fo...

There is no news like bad news: women are more remembering and stress reactive after reading real negative news than men.

Science.gov (United States)

Marin, Marie-France; Morin-Major, Julie-Katia; Schramek, Tania E; Beaupré, Annick; Perna, Andrea; Juster, Robert-Paul; Lupien, Sonia J

2012-01-01

With the advent of specialized television channels offering 24-hour coverage, Internet and smart phones, the possibility to be constantly in contact with the media has increased dramatically in the last decades. Despite this higher access to knowledge, the impact media exposure has on healthy individuals remains poorly studied. Given that most information conveyed in the media is negative and that upon perception of threat, the brain activates the stress system, which leads to cortisol secretion, we decided to determine how healthy individuals react to media information. Accordingly, we investigated whether reading real negative news (1) is physiologically stressful, (2) modulates one's propensity to be stress reactive to a subsequent stressor and (3) modulates remembrance for these news. Sixty participants (30 women, 30 men) were randomly assigned to either twenty-four real neutral news excerpts or to twenty-four real negative excerpts for 10 minutes. They were then all exposed to a well-validated psychosocial stressor, the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), which consists of an anticipation phase of 10 minutes and a test phase of 10 minutes. A total of eight salivary cortisol samples were collected, at 10-minutes intervals, throughout the experimental procedure. One day later, a free recall of the news was performed. Results showed that although reading negative news did not lead to change in cortisol levels (p>0.05), it led to a significant increase in cortisol to a subsequent stressor in women only (pnegative news condition experienced better memory for these news excerpts compared to men (pmedia exposure could increase stress reactivity and memory for negative news in women.

Tailor-Made News: Meeting the demands of news users on mobile and social media

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Groot Kormelink, T.; Costera Meijer, I.

2014-01-01

Despite the technological possibilities for portable, personalized, and participatory news use, the public has not turned en masse from passive receivers who consume news on the producers' terms, into active users who tailor news to fit their personal preferences and practices. Unmistakably, some

Schizophrenia in the News: The Role of News Frames in Shaping Online Reader Dialogue about Mental Illness.

Science.gov (United States)

Gwarjanski, Anna Rae; Parrott, Scott

2018-08-01

A quantitative content analysis examined the portrayal of schizophrenia in eight of the most read online news publications in the United States. The analysis documented the prevalence of stigma frames, which communicate stereotypes concerning schizophrenia, and stigma-challenge frames, which contradict stereotypes, in 558 articles related to schizophrenia. The study also examined the relationship between media framing and reader commentary, including the likelihood of readers posting stigmatizing comments, stigma-challenging comments, and comments in which they disclosed personal experience with mental illness. Stigma frames were prevalent in the sample, suggesting the news media continue associating schizophrenia with violent and criminal behavior. Stigma frames stood greater chance of being accompanied by stigmatizing comments from readers when compared to stigma-challenging frames. Conversely, stigma-challenging frames stood greater chance of being accompanied by stigma-challenging comments from readers. Readers were more likely to disclose personal experience with mental illness when they encountered a stigma-challenging frame. Recommendations are made for journalists and health communicators.

Are Marines a Better Fit for Afghanistan

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Tart, William M

2008-01-01

...insurgency fight in Afghanistan. This plan, leaked to the New York Times, immediately drew criticism from those who characterized the plan as a "power grab," Within weeks, retired general officers generals "who spoke on condition...

Head and neck trauma in Iraq and Afghanistan: different war, different surgery, lessons learned.

Science.gov (United States)

Brennan, Joseph

2013-10-01

The objectives are to compare and contrast the head and neck trauma experience in Iraq and Afghanistan and to identify trauma lessons learned that are applicable to civilian practice. A retrospective review of one head and neck surgeon's operative experience in Iraq and Afghanistan was performed using operative logs and medical records. The surgeon's daily operative log book with patient demographic data and operative reports was reviewed. Also, patient medical records were examined to identify the preoperative and postoperative course of care. The head and neck trauma experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan were very different, with a higher percentage of emergent cases performed in Iraq. In Iraq, only 10% of patients were pretreated at a facility with surgical capabilities. In Afghanistan, 93% of patients were pretreated at such facilities. Emergent neck exploration for penetrating neck trauma and emergent airway surgery were more common in Iraq, which most likely accounted for the increased perioperative mortality also seen in Iraq (5.3% in Iraq vs. 1.3% in Afghanistan). Valuable lessons regarding soft tissue trauma repair, midface fracture repair, and mandible fracture repair were learned. The head and neck trauma experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan were very different, and the future training for mass casualty trauma events should reflect these differences. Furthermore, valuable head and neck trauma lessons learned in both war zones are applicable to the civilian practice of trauma. Level 4. Copyright © 2013 The American Laryngological, Rhinological and Otological Society, Inc.

In the Know and in the News: How Science and the Media Communicate About Stem Cells, Autism and Cerebral Palsy.

Science.gov (United States)

Sharpe, Kimberly; Di Pietro, Nina; Illes, Judy

2016-02-01

Stem cell research has generated considerable attention for its potential to remediate many disorders of the central nervous system including neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and cerebral palsy (CP) that place a high burden on individual children, families and society. Here we characterized messaging about the use of stem cells for ASD and CP in news media articles and concurrent dissemination of discoveries through conventional science discourse. We searched LexisNexis and Canadian Newsstand for news articles from the US, UK, Canada and Australia in the period between 2000 and 2014, and PubMed for peer reviewed articles for the same 10 years. Using in-depth content analysis methods, we found less cautionary messaging about stem cells for ASD and CP in the resulting sample of 73 media articles than in the sample of 87 science papers, and a privileging of benefits over risk. News media also present stem cells as ready for clinical application to treat these neurodevelopmental disorders, even while the science literature calls for further research. Investigative news reports that explicitly quote researchers, however, provide the most accurate information to actual science news. The hope, hype, and promise of stem cell interventions for neurodevelopmental disorders, combined with the extreme vulnerability of these children and their families, creates a perfect storm in which journalists and stem cell scientists must commit to a continued, if not even more robust, partnership to promote balanced and accurate messaging.

Afghanistan: Politics, Elections, and Government Performance

Science.gov (United States)

2013-11-22

Labour and Development Party, the National Solidarity Party of Afghanistan’s Youth, the Republican Party, and the National Congress Party of Afghanistan...There is no law specifically banning sexual harassment , and women are routinely jailed for zina—a term meaning adultery, and a crime under the

Governance in Afghanistan: Context and Possibilities

Science.gov (United States)

2011-05-19

Nathaniel. Russia in Central Asia in 1889 & the Anglo-Russian Question. London: Longmans, Green , and Co., 1889. Drage, Geoffrey. Russian Affairs. New York...Richard Bentley, 1839. Gray, John Alfred. At the Court of the Amir of Afghanistan. New York: Kegan Paul, 2002. Holdich, T. Hungerford. Through Central

Achieving maternal and child health gains in Afghanistan: a Countdown to 2015 country case study.

Science.gov (United States)

Akseer, Nadia; Salehi, Ahmad S; Hossain, S M Moazzem; Mashal, M Taufiq; Rasooly, M Hafiz; Bhatti, Zaid; Rizvi, Arjumand; Bhutta, Zulfiqar A

2016-06-01

for nurses (738 to 5766), midwives (211 to 3333), general physicians (403 to 5990), and community health workers (2682 to 28 837). Multivariable analysis of factors contributing to overall changes in skilled birth attendance and facility births suggests independent contributions of maternal literacy, deployment of community midwives, and proximity to a facility. Despite conflict and poverty, Afghanistan has made reasonable progress in its reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health indicators over the last decade based on contributions of factors within and outside the health sector. However, equitable access to health care remains a challenge and present delivery models have high transactional costs, affecting sustainability. To maintain and further accelerate health and development gains, future strategies in Afghanistan will need to focus on investments in improving social determinants of health and targeted cost-effective interventions to address major causes of maternal and newborn mortality. US Fund for UNICEF under the Countdown to 2015 for Maternal, Newborn, and Child Survival grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and from the Government of Canada, Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada. Additional direct and in-kind support was received from the UNICEF Country Office Afghanistan, the Centre for Global Child Health, the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, the Aga Khan University, and Mother and Child Care Trust (Pakistan). Copyright © 2016 Akseer et al. Open Access article distributed under the terms of CC BY. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

News Authorship and News Sources: Impacts on Environmental Coverage in The Nigerian Press

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ogadimma C. Emenyeonu

2017-07-01

Full Text Available This study examines the impacts of news authorship and news sources on environmental coverage in the Nigerian press to shed light on the roles they play in news construction. The study finds that journalists in conjunction with policy makers are the catalyst for environmental information, whereas citizens who are pivotal in creating relevant public opinion on environmental issues are left behind. The study reveals that investigative reporting lacks in environmental coverage because most coverage are events driven which explains why environmental news is reported as straight news and as such journalists rely heavily on official sources rather than subsidiary sources. The study opines that for proper environmental coverage, journalists must choose sources from both main and subsidiary actors and revert to proactive, investigative and interpretive reporting so as to make environmental stories relatable to the intended audiences.

Antarctic news clips - 1992

Science.gov (United States)

1992-07-01

The newspaper and magazine stories selected for this book present only a sampling of one year's (July 1991 to July 1992) news coverage of Antarctica. The only requirement for inclusion in this publication is that the article's subject matter pertains or refers to Antarctica in some way - whether it is focused on the science done there, or on the people who play such a large part in the work accomplished, or on the issues related to it. No attempt has been made to correlate the number of articles, or their length, with the importance of the subjects treated. Clippings are provided to the Foundation by a service that searches for items containing the phrase 'National Science Foundation'. Identical versions of many stories, especially those written and distributed by wire services such as the Associated Press and United Press International, and by syndicated columnists, are published in numerous papers across the United States. Other articles are submitted from a variety of sources, including interested readers across the United States and in New Zealand.

The pattern of paediatric blast injury in Afghanistan.

Science.gov (United States)

Thompson, Daniel C; Crooks, R J; Clasper, J C; Lupu, A; Stapley, S A; Cloke, D J

2017-10-21

Between 2009 and 2015, 3746 children died, and 7904 were injured as a result of armed conflict within Afghanistan. Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and explosive remnants of war accounted for 29% of child casualties in 2015. The aim of this study was to review the burden of paediatric blast injuries admitted to Camp Bastion, Afghanistan, and to investigate the hypothesis that children suffer proportionally more head injuries than adults. A retrospective analysis was undertaken of prospectively collected data derived from the UK Joint Theatre Trauma Registry of ambulant paediatric (aged 2-15 years) admissions with blast injuries at the Role 3 Field Hospital, Camp Bastion from June 2006 to March 2013. The data set included demographic information, injury profile and severity (New Injury Severity Score) and operative findings. The pattern of injuries were investigated by looking at trends in the number and severity of injuries sustained by each body region. During this period, 295 admissions were identified, 76% of whom were male, with an overall mortality rate of 18.5%. The most common blast mechanism was an IED (68%) causing 80% of fatalities. The lower extremities were the most commonly injured body region, accounting for 31% of total injuries and occurring in 62% of cases. 24.3% of children between 2 and 7 years suffered severe head or neck injuries compared with 19.8% of children aged between 8 and 15 years. 34% of head injuries were rated unsurvivable and accounted for 88% of fatalities. 77% of cases required an operation with a mean operating time of 125 min. The most common first operations were debridement of soft tissues (50%), laparotomy (16%) and lower limb amputation (11%). Although paediatric blast casualties represented a small percentage of the overall workload at Camp Bastion Role 3 Medical Facility, the pattern of injuries seen suggests that children are more likely to sustain severe head, face and neck injuries than adults. © Article author

The Afghanistan experience.

Science.gov (United States)

Cosio, M P

1977-01-01

The Mobile Training Scheme (MTS) operated in Afghanistan in 1975-76. It had the same philosophy and method as that in Nepal, but was implemented differently based on needs and development plans, and especially the need to institutionalize the MTS. The training course was interdepartmental and took place at the Gulzar Training Centre near Kabul. The main features of the MTS are job analysis through role performance, leading to realistic job description, and developing indigenous teaching materials thus evolving a curriculum based on realities of the field situation. A policy and overseeing mechanism was established--the Interdepartmental Council composed of the heads of rural, adult education and literacy, cooperatives, women, and agricultural departments, and a steering committee elected by the participants. The trainee trainers were drawn from these 5 sectors. The trainer's class recommended a national training center at Gulzar, the use of indigenous teaching materials, better coordination between the village and district (woleswal) levels, popular participation, and most of all, the need to institutionalize the MTS approach. It was agreed the Interdepartmental Council would continue as a monitoring system, thus taking care of the need for acceptance by the policy makers. This continuation provided for the institutionalization of the MTS approach; the Council formed a program to take place after the MTS departed. The article includes a schematic projected model for implementation of the MTS program from training to post training and institutional arrangements to institutional reforms in policy.

High Quality Topic Extraction from Business News Explains Abnormal Financial Market Volatility

Science.gov (United States)

Hisano, Ryohei; Sornette, Didier; Mizuno, Takayuki; Ohnishi, Takaaki; Watanabe, Tsutomu

2013-01-01

Understanding the mutual relationships between information flows and social activity in society today is one of the cornerstones of the social sciences. In financial economics, the key issue in this regard is understanding and quantifying how news of all possible types (geopolitical, environmental, social, financial, economic, etc.) affects trading and the pricing of firms in organized stock markets. In this article, we seek to address this issue by performing an analysis of more than 24 million news records provided by Thompson Reuters and of their relationship with trading activity for 206 major stocks in the S&P US stock index. We show that the whole landscape of news that affects stock price movements can be automatically summarized via simple regularized regressions between trading activity and news information pieces decomposed, with the help of simple topic modeling techniques, into their “thematic” features. Using these methods, we are able to estimate and quantify the impacts of news on trading. We introduce network-based visualization techniques to represent the whole landscape of news information associated with a basket of stocks. The examination of the words that are representative of the topic distributions confirms that our method is able to extract the significant pieces of information influencing the stock market. Our results show that one of the most puzzling stylized facts in financial economies, namely that at certain times trading volumes appear to be “abnormally large,” can be partially explained by the flow of news. In this sense, our results prove that there is no “excess trading,” when restricting to times when news is genuinely novel and provides relevant financial information. PMID:23762258

High quality topic extraction from business news explains abnormal financial market volatility.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ryohei Hisano

Full Text Available Understanding the mutual relationships between information flows and social activity in society today is one of the cornerstones of the social sciences. In financial economics, the key issue in this regard is understanding and quantifying how news of all possible types (geopolitical, environmental, social, financial, economic, etc. affects trading and the pricing of firms in organized stock markets. In this article, we seek to address this issue by performing an analysis of more than 24 million news records provided by Thompson Reuters and of their relationship with trading activity for 206 major stocks in the S&P US stock index. We show that the whole landscape of news that affects stock price movements can be automatically summarized via simple regularized regressions between trading activity and news information pieces decomposed, with the help of simple topic modeling techniques, into their "thematic" features. Using these methods, we are able to estimate and quantify the impacts of news on trading. We introduce network-based visualization techniques to represent the whole landscape of news information associated with a basket of stocks. The examination of the words that are representative of the topic distributions confirms that our method is able to extract the significant pieces of information influencing the stock market. Our results show that one of the most puzzling stylized facts in financial economies, namely that at certain times trading volumes appear to be "abnormally large," can be partially explained by the flow of news. In this sense, our results prove that there is no "excess trading," when restricting to times when news is genuinely novel and provides relevant financial information.

The news Engine

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersson, Ralf

for ideas etc. Reporters have limitedpossibilities for making own stories and less time for research - each live reportercovers 5-7 stories during a day. People : In a survey, most reporters replied that the new workflow was afundamental change of their work and had major impact on their identity......The News Engine How a new experiment in newsrooms can change process, product and people.   By Ralf Andersson   In fall 2012, the news department of the Danish Broadcasting Corporation,decided to implement a new workflow called ”The News Engine” - in order to workfaster, more freely, flexible...... and with fewer resources. This was done to raisethe productivity. The fundamental principle was that all stories should fit all platforms(content sharing) - and that no one did their own story anymore. DR News introduced 8-10 mobile live teams who are responsible for doinginterviews, record pictures and sound...

There is no news like bad news: women are more remembering and stress reactive after reading real negative news than men.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marie-France Marin

Full Text Available With the advent of specialized television channels offering 24-hour coverage, Internet and smart phones, the possibility to be constantly in contact with the media has increased dramatically in the last decades. Despite this higher access to knowledge, the impact media exposure has on healthy individuals remains poorly studied. Given that most information conveyed in the media is negative and that upon perception of threat, the brain activates the stress system, which leads to cortisol secretion, we decided to determine how healthy individuals react to media information. Accordingly, we investigated whether reading real negative news (1 is physiologically stressful, (2 modulates one's propensity to be stress reactive to a subsequent stressor and (3 modulates remembrance for these news. Sixty participants (30 women, 30 men were randomly assigned to either twenty-four real neutral news excerpts or to twenty-four real negative excerpts for 10 minutes. They were then all exposed to a well-validated psychosocial stressor, the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST, which consists of an anticipation phase of 10 minutes and a test phase of 10 minutes. A total of eight salivary cortisol samples were collected, at 10-minutes intervals, throughout the experimental procedure. One day later, a free recall of the news was performed. Results showed that although reading negative news did not lead to change in cortisol levels (p>0.05, it led to a significant increase in cortisol to a subsequent stressor in women only (p<0.001. Also, women in the negative news condition experienced better memory for these news excerpts compared to men (p<0.01. These results suggest a potential mechanism by which media exposure could increase stress reactivity and memory for negative news in women.

The War in Afghanistan: A Strategic Analysis

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Herring, G

2003-01-01

This paper is a strategic analysis of the war in Afghanistan. It begins by articulating the United States' strategic objectives for the war, the approaches taken to achieve those objectives, and the resources employed in each approach...

Defense.gov - Special Report: Afghanistan Buildup

Science.gov (United States)

explosive devices in Afghanistan and rendering them harmless. Story Commanders Look to Boost Security Force mind of an Afghan elder, the hope of an Afghan mother, the aspirations of an Afghan child, this can be , Mullen Says NATO Leader Expects Partners to Boost Contributions Petraeus: Afghan 'Surge' to Target

Afghanistan erfaringsopsamling 2001-2014 del III

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Steen Bornholdt; Klingenberg Vistisen, Niels; Hansen Schøning, Anna Sofie

Denne rapport er Forsvarsakademiets bidrag til opsamlingen af den danske samtænkte Afghanistan-indsats 2001-2014, som de politiske partier bag Afghanistanindsatsen med udgangen af 2014 besluttede sig for at gennemføre. Rapporten, som er et af tre studier, skal give en kortfattet, realistisk og an...

Googling the news

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ørmen, Jacob

2016-01-01

Search engines provide a window into the changing association between websites and keywords across cultures and countries and over time. As such, they offer journalism and news researchers an opportunity to study how search engines, in this case Google, mediate news events and stories online...

Feminism in the News: Representations of the Women's Movement Since the 1960s

OpenAIRE

Mendes, Kaitlynn

2011-01-01

Feminism in the News is a detailed exploration of how the women's movement, its members, and their goals were represented in eight British and American newspapers between 1968 and 2008 – a period covering the height of the Second Wave, and a more contemporary Third Wave. Examining over 1100 news articles, the book analyses the nuanced ways feminism has historically been supported, marginalized and debated in the mainstream press.Mendes asks questions such as: How have feminists and the women'...

Science fiction/science fact: medical genetics in news stories.

Science.gov (United States)

Petersen, Alan; Anderson, Alison; Allan, Stuart

2005-12-01

News media coverage of biotechnology issues offers a rich source of fictional portrayals, with stories drawing strongly on popular imagery and metaphors in descriptions of the powers and dangers of biotechnology. This article examines how science fiction metaphors, imagery and motifs surface in British newspaper (broadsheet and tabloid) coverage of medical genetic issues, focusing on press reporting of two recent highly publicised news media events; namely, the Hashmi and Whitaker families' plights to use stem cells from a 'perfectly matched sibling' for the treatment of their diseased children. It is concerned in particular with the extent to which journalists' use of certain literary devices encourages preferred formulations of medical genetics, and thereby potentially shapes public deliberation about scientific developments and their consequences for society. Understanding how science fiction sustains science fact, and vice versa, and how the former is portrayed in news media, it is argued, would thus seem to be crucial in the effort to understand why people respond so strongly to biotechnologies, and what they imagine their consequences to be.

Future Tense: Lessons from the Best and Worst Cases in Afghanistan from Pakistan’s Perspective

Science.gov (United States)

2017-03-01

political, and economic implications for Pakistan could, in turn, lead to instability in the region and further long- term disruption in Afghanistan. D...20thesis.pdf. 23 economic stability , as Afghanistan lies on a major crossroad between South and Central Asia. In such a sensitive situation, Pakistan’s...any other countries’ efforts—”to place Afghanistan on a sustainable path toward political stability , economic growth, and regional integration.”85 a

Outsourcing the news? An empirical assessment of the role of sources and news agencies in the contemporary news landscape

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Boumans, J.W.

2016-01-01

Journalists are increasingly accused of uncritically recycling subsidized material in the form of press releases and news agency copy. This practice has been labeled churnalism and is believed to compromise journalism’s autonomy and threaten news quality. While the context - rampant competition,

Automatic Detection of Fake News

OpenAIRE

Pérez-Rosas, Verónica; Kleinberg, Bennett; Lefevre, Alexandra; Mihalcea, Rada

2017-01-01

The proliferation of misleading information in everyday access media outlets such as social media feeds, news blogs, and online newspapers have made it challenging to identify trustworthy news sources, thus increasing the need for computational tools able to provide insights into the reliability of online content. In this paper, we focus on the automatic identification of fake content in online news. Our contribution is twofold. First, we introduce two novel datasets for the task of fake news...

The Stock Market's Reaction to Unemployment News: Why Bad News is Usually Good for Stocks

OpenAIRE

John H. Boyd; Ravi Jagannathan; Jian Hu

2001-01-01

We find that on average an announcement of rising unemployment is 'good news' for stocks during economic expansions and 'bad news' during economic contractions. Thus stock prices usually increase on news of rising unemployment, since the economy is usually in an expansion phase. We provide an explanation for this phenomenon. Unemployment news bundles two primitive types of information relevant for valuing stocks: information about future interest rates and future corporate earnings and divide...

When Sound Bites Become the News: a Case Study on Manufacturing News in Croatia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tena Perišin

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Media environment is rapidly changing and facing a widespread crisis in journalism. It is followed by the decline of audience trust and increasing market pressures. The main goal is to win the audience’s attention, very often by creating drama and producing ‘conflict’. The news is not based on something that really happened and that is relevant, but it is more often manufactured or artificially produced. In this case study we explore the curious life cycle of a sound bite from a passing remark by the then Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanović’s to the headlines, discussions and extensive reports which developed over the course of several days. This example shows how news could be manufactured and content blurred when it is built around a fragment without providing the context, in this case a political quote. For several days, politicians, experts, war veterans, but also ordinary citizens were involved in the manufactured news story without making a reference to the context. Consequently, the democratic debate was avoided. Drawing on a discussion of news fragmentation as isolation from context, we show that in this case, news values (what news is are increasingly blurred, preventing the news from becoming the source of information and discussion of the country’s key issues.

Reviving the United States' Commitment to Pakistan and Afghanistan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dr. Steve Young

2009-01-01

Full Text Available As President Obama is in the midst of deciding whether additional U.S.combat forces are needed in Afghanistan in addition to the 21,000 troops recently committed, he must realize that additional armed forces are only a stopgap measure in Afghanistan's downward spiral into an 'undergoverned' failed state. Similarly, as Pakistan's fragile and fractured civilian government continues to appease the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, an umbrella organization of Pakistani Pashtun tribesmen with Taliban cultural values led by Baitullah Mehsud and others, it comes closer to the concept of a "misgoverned" failed state, possessing a small arsenal of nuclear arms. The problem for the U.S. administration is that neither of these countries can be allowed to fall further into disrepair. At the same time each requires a different and unique approach to the threat of "Talibanization" that faces each country—the control of territory within each country by Islamic radicals seeking to impose their ultraconservative interpretation of shar'ia law onto the general populace. Generally acknowledged is the belief that what has tentatively worked in Iraq, that is, the additional U.S. troops and employment of former Sunni insurgents to help fight foreign fighters associated with al-Qaida, will not work in either Afghanistan or Pakistan. While a regional approach to the conflict in these two countries is warranted, Afghanistan and Pakistan are on two different economic, social, and political playing fields. Hence, there cannot be a one-size-fits-all solution for the two countries, especially one that draws on the Iraq playbook. In addition to its internal political problems, Pakistan also faces the issue of al-Qaida and Taliban training camps positioned in its literal back yard, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA or Tribal Areas. Resolution of the War on Terror cannot come to fruition without addressing the problems that exist in the Tribal Areas. This largely

Afghanistan Narcotics: The Bigger Battle Toward Stabilization

Science.gov (United States)

2009-04-01

composition of the region limit agricultural output and the availability of successful crops. Energy resources, precious metals, and gemstones are...narcotics industry. Afghanistan should consider oil, natural gas, coal, minerals, and gemstones as viable industrial options. Marketing of these

Exploring Digital News Publishing Business Models

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lindskow, Kasper

News publishers in the industrialized world are experiencing a fundamental challenge to their business models because of the changing modes of consumption, competition, and production of their offerings that are associated with the emergence of the networked information society. The erosion...... of the traditional business models poses an existential threat to news publishing and has given rise to a continuing struggle among news publishers to design digital business models that will be sustainable in the future. This dissertation argues that a central and underresearched aspect of digital news publishing...... business models concerns the production networks that support the co-production of digital news offerings. To fill this knowledge gap, this dissertation explores the strategic design of the digital news publishing production networks that are associated with HTML-based news offerings on the open Web...

7 CFR 28.904 - Market news.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Market news. 28.904 Section 28.904 Agriculture..., TESTING, AND STANDARDS Cotton Classification and Market News Service for Producers Classification and Market News Services § 28.904 Market news. The Director shall cause to be distributed to producers of...

Diverse artikelen in Gay Amsterdam News

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hekma, G.

2002-01-01

Vernedering, in: Gay Amsterdam News 125 (jan 2002), pp. 20-21; Webseks, zaad, zweetseks, in: Gay Amsterdam News 126 (feb 2002), pp. 30-31; Wurgseks, in: Gay Amsterdam News 127 (mrt 2002), pp. 30-31; Wijnandus Johannes Sengers (1927-2002), in: Gay Amsterdam News 133 (sept 2002), pp. 49.

Beyond the Eurosceptic/Europhile Divide: Towards a New Classification of EU News Coverage in the UK Press

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

John Price

2009-11-01

Full Text Available Newspapers are typically categorised as being either Eurosceptic or Europhile. However, this classification is insufficient and misleading when applied to news reporting in the UK press. The term Euroscepticism has been usefully deconstructed into more nuanced and complex categories by researchers studying political parties and public opinion. A similar approach is now needed to better represent the complexities of EU news coverage. The current Eurosceptic/Europhile classification needs to be developed for two main reasons. First, it is misleading in that it fails to accurately map the landscape of EU news reporting across the press. Second, it is too simplistic in that it ignores important variations in EU news production – in particular, differences between tabloid and quality titles, and between Brussels based and national based journalists. This article will discuss these issues by drawing on new, empirical research into EU news production. It will conclude by proposing a new means of classifying EU news coverage in the UK press.

Curriculum and Civil Society in Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, Adele

2009-01-01

Although research has traditionally discussed the ways in which societies in conflict develop educational practices, only recently have scholars begun to examine the role of education in creating or sustaining conflict. In Afghanistan, changing regimes have had an impact on state-sanctioned curricula over the past fifty years, drastically altering…

Afghanistan: Narcotics and U.S. Policy

Science.gov (United States)

2009-06-18

and trafficking in their provinces.” In April 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called corruption in Afghanistan “a cancer ” that “eats away at...An herbicide- based eradication program, if employed in the future, also could feature the use of the glyphosate compound currently approved for use

Job satisfaction and retention of health-care providers in Afghanistan and Malawi.

Science.gov (United States)

Fogarty, Linda; Kim, Young Mi; Juon, Hee-Soon; Tappis, Hannah; Noh, Jin Won; Zainullah, Partamin; Rozario, Aleisha

2014-02-17

This study describes job satisfaction and intention to stay on the job among primary health-care providers in countries with distinctly different human resources crises, Afghanistan and Malawi. Using a cross-sectional design, we enrolled 87 health-care providers in 32 primary health-care facilities in Afghanistan and 360 providers in 10 regional hospitals in Malawi. The study questionnaire was used to assess job satisfaction, intention to stay on the job and five features of the workplace environment: resources, performance recognition, financial compensation, training opportunities and safety. Descriptive analyses, exploratory factor analyses for scale development, bivariate correlation analyses and bivariate and multiple linear regression analyses were conducted. The multivariate model for Afghanistan, with demographic, background and work environment variables, explained 23.9% of variance in job satisfaction (F(9,73) = 5.08; P job satisfaction. The multivariate model for intention to stay for Afghanistan explained 23.6% of variance (F(8,74) = 4.10; P job satisfaction (F(8,332) = 4.19; P job are highly dependent on the local context. Although health-care workers in both Afghanistan and Malawi reported satisfaction with their jobs, the predictors of satisfaction, and the extent to which those predictors explained variations in job satisfaction and intention to stay on the job, differed substantially. These findings demonstrate the need for more detailed comparative human resources for health-care research, particularly regarding the relative importance of different determinants of job satisfaction and intention to stay in different contexts and the effectiveness of interventions designed to improve health-care worker performance and retention.

Papua in Media: A Discourse Critical Analysis of Economic News in Three National Indonesian Newspapers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mungky Diana Sari

2016-04-01

Full Text Available For so many years, peace in Papua has become a high critical thing in Indonesian politics. In order to find the solution, the paradigm has been shifted from security to welfare or economic approach. Article explored the impact of religion affiliation toward news making and news frame, especially in economic news published by mass media. This research was developed to explore the framing formed by three media outlets which each of them affiliated with certain religion. This research focused on the analysis of economic articles published by three media outlets; Sinar Harapan, Republika, and Kompas daily. The method of framing analysis was based on Robert N. Entman theory, while the critical discourse analysis method was based on Norman Fairclough theory. Political economics theories such as Vincent Mosco, Robert E. Babe, and D.W. Smythe to analyze the influence of religion affiliation in news production were also used. Meanwhile, some political communication theories such as Brian McNair, Dann Nimmo, Noam Chomsky and Denis McQuail were also used to know how media stands in Papua conflict. From the research, it is discovered that the religion affiliation has a big impact on news media and its content, and also the frame that is built. Not only political-economic matters, but "the-sense-of-belonging" of the owner through particular religion gives impact to media policy. The content and frame are finally influencing political communication in Indonesia in Papua conflict particularly. 

Fake News

OpenAIRE

Grunewald, Andreas; Kräkel, Matthias

2017-01-01

In the last decade, social media and the Internet have amplified the possibility to spread false information, a.k.a. fake news, which has become a serious threat to the credibility of politicians, organizations, and other decision makers. This paper proposes a framework for investigating the incentives to strategically spread fake news under different institutional configurations and payoff structures. In particular, we show under what conditions institutions that foster transparency in the m...

The New News Media: Democratic implications of undergraduate education and news consumption over social and traditional media

OpenAIRE

Miller, Jennifer

2013-01-01

Communication students at Simon Fraser University were surveyed and interviewed to deduce perceptions and behaviour of news consumption over social and traditional media. Both social media and traditional media are used to consume news with traditional media acting as the primary news source and as more accessible and reliable than social media. News stories considered important or having various perspectives were verified the most, especially world news. Extent of accessibility of sources an...

Implicit hype? Representations of platelet rich plasma in the news media.

Science.gov (United States)

Rachul, Christen; Rasko, John E J; Caulfield, Timothy

2017-01-01

Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) has gained popularity in recent years for treating sports-related injuries and the news media frequently reports on elite athletes' and celebrities' use of PRP. We conducted a content analysis of newspaper coverage of PRP in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and the United States. Findings show that news media coverage of PRP appears most frequently in sports-related stories, and in relation to elite athletes use of PRP. PRP injections are largely portrayed as a routine treatment for sports-related injuries and newspaper articles rarely discuss the limitations or efficacy of PRP. We argue that while news media coverage of PRP exhibits very few common hallmarks of hype, its portrayal as a routine treatment used by elite athletes and celebrities creates an implicit hype. This implicit hype can contribute to public misunderstandings of the efficacy of PRP.

Development of renewable energy resources in Afghanistan for economically optimized cross-border electricity trading

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohammad Masih Sediqi

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Afghanistan is a key country between energy surplus areas (Central Asian Republics andIran and energy deficit regions (Pakistan and India. It is in a position that can facilitate and launchregional electricity trade for the benefit of the region also derive significant gains for its own economyfrom energy imports and exports. On the other hand, Afghanistan is endowed with large renewableenergy resources (RERs, which it could exploit not only to satisfy its domestic power demand butalso to earn significant export revenue. This paper firstly explains the methodology and framework forthe power trade and then presents an optimization framework for profit maximization in the short-runtrading and cost minimization in the long-run trading. The proposed methodology is applied to a realcase between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The objective functions, parameters, variables and constraintsare described for both optimization models. System sizing, simulation and optimization are carriedout using genetic algorithm (GA technique. The results in the short-run model represent optimalityof about 2654 MW electricity export from Afghanistan to Pakistan during summer. Moreover, resultsderived from running long-run model depict that by utilizing its RERs such as solar, wind and hydro,Afghanistan can not only meet its power demand but also can export to Pakistan during its deficitperiods and gain remarkable energy profits.

Home sweet home! Repatriation, reintegration and land allocation in Afghanistan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nassim Majidi

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Retour sur terre: politiques de retour et d'allocation de la terre pour les réfugiés afghans.Plus de 6 millions de réfugiés afghans sont retournés dans leur pays d’origine depuis 2002, dont 4.6 millions assistés par le Haut-commissariat aux Réfugiés des Nations Unies (UNHCR. Ce retour était, en nombre et en investissement, sans précédent pour l’Afghanistan comme pour le reste du monde. Alors que l’intervention de 2002 marque le début d’une décennie du retour, en 2012, l’Afghanistan est le reflet d’un contexte humanitaire et de développement marqué par un taux très faible de retours volontaires, une croissance du nombre de déplacés internes, et un profil migratoire changeant, orienté vers une migration mixte – volontaire et forcée – avec nombre d’individus, de familles et de mineurs non accompagnés qui tentent de quitter leur pays, légalement ou irrégulièrement. En 2012, l’espoir se tourne de nouveau vers les pays voisins et vers l’Occident, c’est à dire vers une vie en dehors de l’Afghanistan. Malgré cette évolution, les politiques migratoires et les états qui les dirigent restent encore focalisées sur des initiatives de retour et de réinsertion en Afghanistan. Une pièce centrale de ces politiques est la question de l’accès à la terre, et des ressources disponibles sur ces terres. Ce papier s’interroge sur la relation entre les réfugiés rentrés « chez eux », communément appelés «returnees », l’accès à la terre et les politiques d’aide au retour au travers de recherches menées en Afghanistan entre 2007 et 2012.

Afghanistan Digital Library Initiative: Revitalizing an Integrated Library System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yan HAN

2007-12-01

Full Text Available This paper describes an Afghanistan digital library initiative of building an integrated library system (ILS for Afghanistan universities and colleges based on open-source software. As one of the goals of the Afghan eQuality Digital Libraries Alliance, the authors applied systems analysis approach, evaluated different open-source ILSs, and customized the selected software to accommodate users’ needs. Improvements include Arabic and Persian language support, user interface changes, call number label printing, and ISBN-13 support. To our knowledge, this ILS is the first at a large academic library running on open-source software.

The Usefulness of a News Media Literacy Measure in Evaluating a News Literacy Curriculum

Science.gov (United States)

Maksl, Adam; Craft, Stephanie; Ashley, Seth; Miller, Dean

2017-01-01

A survey of college students showed those who had taken a news literacy course had significantly higher levels of news media literacy, greater knowledge of current events, and higher motivation to consume news, compared with students who had not taken the course. The effect of taking the course did not diminish over time. Results validate the News…

America’s Heroes -- Preparing Our Vets for Civilian Employment

Science.gov (United States)

2012-04-16

business environment . Oracle’s Injured Veteran Job and Training Program offers on-the-job training for soldiers wounded in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars...Awards.aspx 10 ^ http://www.blackstone.com/news/news-views/ blackstone -portfolio-company- alliedbarton-supports-u.s.-veterans-and-reservists 11 ^ http

Navigating Cross-Media News Use : Media repertoires and the value of news in everyday life.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Swart, Joelle; Peters, Chris; Broersma, Marcel

2017-01-01

The current news media landscape is characterized by an abundance of digital outlets and increased opportunities for users to navigate news themselves. Yet, it is still unclear how people negotiate this fluctuating environment to decide which news media to select or ignore, how they assemble

78 FR 54947 - Waiver of Restriction on Assistance to the Central Government of Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

2013-09-06

... DEPARTMENT OF STATE [Public Notice 8452] Waiver of Restriction on Assistance to the Central Government of Afghanistan Pursuant to Section 7031(b)(3) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and... prior year Acts with respect to Afghanistan and I hereby waive this restriction. This determination and...

76 FR 36167 - Waiver of Restriction on Assistance to the Central Government of Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

2011-06-21

... DEPARTMENT OF STATE [Public Notice: 7506] Waiver of Restriction on Assistance to the Central Government of Afghanistan Pursuant to Section 7086(c)(2) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and... respect to Afghanistan, and I hereby waive such restriction. This determination shall be reported to the...

News Sources, Gender and Majority-Minority in Danish TV News Programs

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fiig, Christina

In this paper, I am going to identify some central methodological challenges in relation to a project on TV-news and news sources in a perspective of intersectionality and to sketch a research design. In what follows, I will present some methodological issues and research designs of previous...

Media ownership and news framing: an analysis of HIV/AIDS ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Applying framing theory, the present research analyzes trends in Ugandan news coverage and the prominent issue frames for HIV/AIDS-related stories. In order to determine the influence of other factors, such as media ownership and journalist origin, nearly 800 articles, from 2000 to 2004, were gathered from the major ...

Power structure in Chilean news media.

Science.gov (United States)

Bahamonde, Jorge; Bollen, Johan; Elejalde, Erick; Ferres, Leo; Poblete, Barbara

2018-01-01

Even democracies endowed with the most active free press struggle to maintain diversity of news coverage. Consolidation and market forces may cause only a few dominant players to control the news cycle. Editorial policies may be biased by corporate ownership relations, narrowing news coverage and focus. To an increasing degree this problem also applies to social media news distribution, since it is subject to the same socio-economic drivers. To study the effects of consolidation and ownership on news diversity, we model the diversity of Chilean coverage on the basis of ownership records and social media data. We create similarity networks of news outlets on the basis of their ownership and the topics they cover. We then examine the relationships between the topology of ownership networks and content similarity to characterize how ownership affects news coverage. A network analysis reveals that Chilean media is highly concentrated both in terms of ownership as well as in terms of topics covered. Our method can be used to determine which groups of outlets and ownership exert the greatest influence on news coverage.

La guerre en Afghanistan : portée, forces et faiblesses du concept de culture de guerre appliqué aux guerres modernes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aycha Fleury

2011-05-01

Full Text Available L'objectif de cet article est d’analyser la portée, les forces et les faiblesses du concept de « culture de guerre » appliqué à la guerre en Afghanistan. La théorie constructiviste, utilisée en sciences sociales, permet de comprendre les constructions sociales que sous-tend une culture de guerre ainsi que les quatre dimensions autour desquelles elle s’articule : violence, haine, consentement à la guerre et ferveur religieuse. La guerre en Afghanistan est un nouveau type d'affrontement, symptomatique des changements qui surviennent dans les stratégies de maintien de la paix. Le concept de culture de guerre permet de comprendre certains aspects bien spécifiques des problèmes qui entourent ces nouvelles guerres. Le conflit en Afghanistan nous montre cependant les limites de cette approche, notamment le manque d’un facteur « temporel » et l'absence de prise en considération de la construction historique de la guerre. Le concept de culture de guerre ne permet donc pas de comprendre et d'analyser toute la complexité d’un conflit comme celui qui se déroule en Afghanistan, mais il permet de faire émerger de nouvelles perspectives et remet en question certains faits tenus pour acquis.The aim of this article is to analyze the range, the strengths and weaknesses of the concept of «war culture» as it is applied to the war in Afghanistan. The constructivist theory used in social sciences permits to comprehend the social constructions behind a culture of war and its four dimensions: violence, hatred, consent to warfare and religious zeal. The war in Afghanistan is a new war, typical of changes that occur in peace keeping missions. This concept of «war culture» permits us to comprehend certain quite specific aspects of the problems that surround this new warfare. The conflict in Afghanistan also demonstrates the limits of this approach, notably the lack of a «temporal» factor and the absence of consideration of the

News, truth and crime: the Westray disaster and its aftermath

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

McMullan, J.L. [Saint Mary' s University, Halifax, NS (Canada). Department of Sociology and Criminology

2005-07-01

A study of the way the media portrayed the Westray Mine disaster and its aftermath over the period 1992 to 2002 is presented. The chapters titles are; power, discourse, and the production of news as truth; the explosion and its aftermath; studying the press and Westray; the press and the presentation of Westray's truth; and the politics of truth and the invisibility of corporate crime. News articles reporting the accident and outcome were sampled, coded, and evaluated by content analysis. It is concluded that the various media represented alternative truths, but did not label the corporation as criminal. This was missing from the media's reporting of the disaster.

State-building, migration and economic development on the frontiers of northern Afghanistan and southern Tajikistan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Christian Bleuer

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The Kunduz River Valley of northern Afghanistan and the Vakhsh River Valley of southern Tajikistan followed what initially appear to be vastly different trajectories. Despite these two adjacent areas having had much in common throughout many periods of history, the present-day region of northern Afghanistan was eventually taken under the control of the Afghan state while the areas north of the Amu Darya and Panj River were to become part of the Soviet Union. However, instead of a divergent course of development and state-building, these two regions were subjected to very similar patterns of agricultural development and migration policies. “Empty” areas were to be populated, by force if necessary, wetlands were to be drained for agriculture, and cotton farming was to become pre-eminent. The end result in both areas was the creation of a socially diverse and economically significant region that was fully integrated into the modern state’s economy and politics. This article analyzes and compares the motives and implementation of the state-building projects in both of these now domestically important regions and finds remarkable similarities despite the obvious differences in the structure of the Afghan and Soviet states.

48 CFR 206.303-70 - Acquisitions in support of operations in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Acquisitions in support of operations in Iraq or Afghanistan. 206.303-70 Section 206.303-70 Federal Acquisition Regulations System... Afghanistan. The justification and approval addressed in FAR 6.303 is not required for acquisitions conducted...

Progress in the blood supply of Afghanistan.

Science.gov (United States)

Riley, William J; McCullough, Terri Konstenius; Rhamani, Ahmad Masoud; McCullough, Jeffrey

2017-07-01

The blood supply system in Afghanistan was badly damaged by years of conflict. In 2009, the Afghanistan National Blood Safety and Transfusion Service (ANBSTS) was established. For 6 years, we collaborated to assist with policy and infrastructure development; blood bank operations; blood collection, testing, and component production; transfusion practices; and training of technicians, nurses, midwives, and physicians. Policies were established, infrastructure was strengthened, and capable staff was acquired and trained. Standard operating procedures were developed, testing was improved, and quality systems were established. Thirty trainings were held for blood center staff. Four additional formal trainings were held for 39 physicians, 36 nurses and/or midwives, and 38 laboratory technicians. During 5 years of this project, blood collection increased by 40%. The ANBSTS has made impressive progress developing infrastructure, personnel, procedures, quality systems, and training programs and increasing blood collection. Knowledge of transfusion medicine was improved through structured training. © 2017 AABB.

Cross-validation of the factorial structure of the Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale (NEWS and its abbreviated form (NEWS-A

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cerin Ester

2009-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale (NEWS and its abbreviated form (NEWS-A assess perceived environmental attributes believed to influence physical activity. A multilevel confirmatory factor analysis (MCFA conducted on a sample from Seattle, WA showed that, at the respondent level, the factor-analyzable items of the NEWS and NEWS-A measured 11 and 10 constructs of perceived neighborhood environment, respectively. At the census blockgroup (used by the US Census Bureau as a subunit of census tracts level, the MCFA yielded five factors for both NEWS and NEWS-A. The aim of this study was to cross-validate the individual- and blockgroup-level measurement models of the NEWS and NEWS-A in a geographical location and population different from those used in the original validation study. Methods A sample of 912 adults was recruited from 16 selected neighborhoods (116 census blockgroups in the Baltimore, MD region. Neighborhoods were stratified according to their socio-economic status and transport-related walkability level measured using Geographic Information Systems. Participants self-completed the NEWS. MCFA was used to cross-validate the individual- and blockgroup-level measurement models of the NEWS and NEWS-A. Results The data provided sufficient support for the factorial validity of the original individual-level measurement models, which consisted of 11 (NEWS and 10 (NEWS-A correlated factors. The original blockgroup-level measurement model of the NEWS and NEWS-A showed poor fit to the data and required substantial modifications. These included the combining of aspects of building aesthetics with safety from crime into one factor; the separation of natural aesthetics and building aesthetics into two factors; and for the NEWS-A, the separation of presence of sidewalks/walking routes from other infrastructure for walking. Conclusion This study provided support for the generalizability of the individual

Frequency of Risk-Related News Media Messages in 2016 Coverage of Zika Virus.

Science.gov (United States)

Sell, Tara Kirk; Watson, Crystal; Meyer, Diane; Kronk, Marissa; Ravi, Sanjana; Pechta, Laura E; Lubell, Keri M; Rose, Dale A

2018-01-03

News media plays a large role in the information the public receives during an infectious disease outbreak, and may influence public knowledge and perceptions of risk. This study analyzed and described the content of U.S. news media coverage of Zika virus and Zika response during 2016. A random selection of 800 Zika-related news stories from 25 print and television news sources was analyzed. The study examined 24 different messages that appeared in news media articles and characterized them using theories of risk perception as messages with characteristics that could increase perception of risk (risk-elevating messages; n = 14), messages that could decrease perception of risk (risk-minimizing messages; n = 8), or messages about travel or testing guidance (n = 2). Overall, 96% of news stories in the study sample contained at least one or more risk-elevating message(s) and 61% contained risk-minimizing message(s). The frequency of many messages changed after local transmission was confirmed in Florida, and differed between sources in locations with or without local transmission in 2016. Forty percent of news stories included messages about negative potential outcomes of Zika virus infection without mentioning ways to reduce risk. Findings from this study may help inform current federal, state, and local Zika responses by offering a detailed analysis of how news media are covering the outbreak and response activities as well as identifying specific messages appearing more or less frequently than intended. Findings identifying the types of messages that require greater emphasis may also assist public health communicators in responding more effectively to future outbreaks. © 2017 Society for Risk Analysis.

Recommendations for how to communicate bad news

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Beatriz Villa López

2007-11-01

Full Text Available The communication, along with the control of the symptoms and the emotional support are the basic instruments that are used in the daily development of our profession. To be little capable at the time of notifying bad news can generate an added suffering unnecessary in the person who receives the new and a deterioration in the relation professional-patient.In many occasions, at the time of approaching these situations, the professional of the health usually feels anguish, fear and restlessness, this is because during is scared and restlessness this happens because during his stage of studies in the faculty the student has received a formation based on the binomial health-disease from a totally biological perspective forgetting the abilities communication.Supported in different bibliographical sources, this article tries to analyze the factors that influence when communicating the bad news and, to suggest some preventatives ideas on how giving them trying to prevent the burnout syndrome.

(In)direct framing effects: the effects of news media framing on public support for Turkish membership in the European Union

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Vreese, C.H.; Boomgaarden, H.G.; Semetko, H.A.

2011-01-01

News framing can exert a strong influence on public opinion. Following a media content analysis, this article investigates the effects of news framing on support for membership of Turkey in the European Union. A first experimental study (n = 304) showed a significant difference in the level of

Climate News Across Media Platforms

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Eskjær, Mikkel Fugl

2015-01-01

In a changing media landscape marked by technological, institutional and cultural convergence, comparative and cross-media content analysis represents a valuable analytical tool in mapping the diverse channels of climate change communication. This paper presents a comparative study of climate...... quantitative and qualitative content analysis the paper documents and explores the extent and character of climate change news across different media platforms. The study aims at contributing to the on-going assessment of how news media are addressing climate change at a time when old and new media...... change news on five different media platforms: newspapers, television, radio, web-news and mobile news. It investigates the themes and actors represented in public climate change communication as well as the diverse possibilities of participating in public debates and information sharing. By combining...

CERN television news

CERN Multimedia

2002-01-01

CERN events brought right to your desktop by the new video bulletin.   CERN now has its very own news broadcast , or rather 'webcast', with a host of special reports and even a star presenter. From today onwards, just go to the Bulletin's web page, click on the 'video news' link and sit back and enjoy the latest news about CERN, presented in images by Wendy Korda. The ten-minute newscast in both French and English, the Organization's two official languages, presents interviews, pictures of experiments and computer-generated graphics, bringing you right up to date with some of the Laboratory's latest stories. The show concludes with a selection of the best snapshots taken by the CERN Photo Lab. So every one or two months CERN's Audio-Video Service (ETT/DH) will be putting together a video news report that you can watch on your own desktop computer. Daniel Boileau, Patrick Gilbert de Vautibault and Jacques Fichet, the Service's three technicians, came up with the idea of producing this regular feat...

NEWordS A News Search Engine for English Vocabulary Learning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xuejing Huang

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Vocabulary is the first hurdle for English learners to over- come. Instead of simply showing a word again and again we come up with an idea to develop an English news article search engine based on users word-reciting record on Shanbay.com. It is designed for advanced English learners to find suitable reading materials. The search engine consists of Crawling Module Document Normalizing module Indexing Module Querying Module and Interface Module. We propose three sorting amp ranking algorithms for Querying Module. For the basic algorithm five crucial principles are taken into consideration. Term frequency inverse document frequency familiarity degree and article freshness degree are factors in this algorithm. Then we think of a improved algorithm for the scene in which a user read multiple articles in the searching result list. Here we adopt a iterative amp greedy method. The essential idea is to select English news articles one by one according to the query meanwhile dynamically update the unfamiliarity of the words during each iterative step. Moreover we develop an advanced algorithm to take article difficulty in to account. Interface Module is designed as a website meanwhile some data visualization technologies e.g. word cloud are applied here. Furthermore we conduct both applicability check and performance evaluation. Metrics such as searching time word-covering ratio and minimum number of articles that completely cover all the queried vocabulary are randomly sampled and profoundly analyzed. The result shows that our search engine works very well with satisfying performance.

Health as science and the biological body as an artifact: the case of Brazil's national TV news program Jornal Nacional.

Science.gov (United States)

Caron, Eduardo; Ianni, Aurea Maria Zöllner; Lefevre, Fernando

2018-04-01

This article presents the findings of a study of the coverage of health, science and technology during 2012 by the Jornal Nacional, a national television news program in Brazil produced by the Rede Globo de Televisão. A total of 246 news stories addressing health-related topics were analyzed, half of which addressed scientific research, technological innovation and hospital care, and were shown to represent a doctor-centered discourse. The findings also show that 82% of the news stories concerning science and technology advertise products that are about to be introduced onto the market, illustrating the commercial nature of this research. The article discusses two aspects portrayed by these news stories that characterize the biological body as an artifact: the construction of a virtual and fragmented body through the diffusion of images of the inside of the body; and the importance of biotechnological issues, which leaves life processes open to molecular manipulation and alteration. The study also questions the nature-culture hybridization present in biotechnological objects.

The interaction of financial news between mass media and new media: Evidence from news on Chinese stock market

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Yongjie; Zhang, Zuochao; Liu, Lanbiao; Shen, Dehua

2017-11-01

In this paper, we investigate both the contemporaneous and the lead-lag relationships between the mass media news and the new media news of the financial news on the constitute stocks of the CSI 300. The empirical results show that: (1) there exists a strong correlation between these two types of news; (2) the granger causality direction from new media news to mass media news is increasingly obvious, while the reverse direction has a downward trend; (3) new media is playing a increasingly important role in the stock market and exhibits a trend to substitutes the mass media.

Agriculture and stability in Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

2009-05-21

national wealth are due to good political institutions. 16 He believes that geographical factors, including disproportionate disease burdens on human... Celia W. Dugger, “Ending Famine, Simply by Ignoring the Experts,” New York Times, December 2, 2007. 87 Dugger, Ending Famine, p 1. 88 J. Brian Atwood...is multidimensional, as well as a symptom of insecurity, corruption and poor governance. The Islamic Government of Afghanistan describes the opium

This Afghanistan War in the Light of America’s Post Vietnam Military Culture: The Logic of Asymmetrical Death and Commemoration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mark Meigs

2007-01-01

Full Text Available Dans cet article, Mark Meigs explique les ressorts profonds des choix stratégiques américains dans la conduite de la guerre en Afghanistan. Il montre en particulier comment ceux-ci sont basés sur l'expérience américaine au Vietnam, qui a conduit à une profonde restructuration de la doctrine, et font l'originalité de la culture militaire américaine.

Competing Discourses about Youth Sexual Exploitation in Canadian News Media.

Science.gov (United States)

Saewyc, Elizabeth M; Miller, Bonnie B; Rivers, Robert; Matthews, Jennifer; Hilario, Carla; Hirakata, Pam

2013-10-01

Media holds the power to create, maintain, or break down stigmatizing attitudes, which affect policies, funding, and services. To understand how Canadian news media depicts the commercial sexual exploitation of children and youth, we examined 835 Canadian newspaper articles from 1989-2008 using a mixed methods critical discourse analysis approach, comparing representations to existing research about sexually exploited youth. Despite research evidence that equal rates of boys and girls experience exploitation, Canadian news media depicted exploited youth predominantly as heterosexual girls, and described them alternately as victims or workers in a trade, often both in the same story. News media mentioned exploiters far less often than victims, and portrayed them almost exclusively as male, most often called 'customers' or 'consumers,' and occasionally 'predators'; in contrast, research has documented the majority of sexually exploited boys report female exploiters. Few news stories over the past two decades portrayed the diversity of victims, perpetrators, and venues of exploitation reported in research. The focus on victims but not exploiters helps perpetuate stereotypes of sexual exploitation as business or a 'victimless crime,' maintains the status quo, and blurs responsibility for protecting youth under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Health care providers and researchers can be advocates for accuracy in media coverage about sexual exploitation; news reporters and editors should focus on exploiters more than victims, draw on existing research evidence to avoid perpetuating stereotypes, and use accurate terms, such as commercial sexual exploitation, rather than terms related to business or trade.

Market News Price Dataset

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — Real-time price data collected by the Boston Market News Reporter. The NOAA Fisheries' "Fishery Market News" began operations in New York City on February 14, 1938....

Fake News: A Technological Approach to Proving the Origins of Content, Using Blockchains.

Science.gov (United States)

Huckle, Steve; White, Martin

2017-12-01

In this article, we introduce a prototype of an innovative technology for proving the origins of captured digital media. In an era of fake news, when someone shows us a video or picture of some event, how can we trust its authenticity? It seems that the public no longer believe that traditional media is a reliable reference of fact, perhaps due, in part, to the onset of many diverse sources of conflicting information, via social media. Indeed, the issue of "fake" reached a crescendo during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, when the winner, Donald Trump, claimed that The New York Times was trying to discredit him by pushing disinformation. Current research into overcoming the problem of fake news does not focus on establishing the ownership of media resources used in such stories-the blockchain-based application introduced in this article is technology that is capable of indicating the authenticity of digital media. Put simply, using the trust mechanisms of blockchain technology, the tool can show, beyond doubt, the provenance of any source of digital media, including images used out of context in attempts to mislead. Although the application is an early prototype and its capability to find fake resources is somewhat limited, we outline future improvements that would overcome such limitations. Furthermore, we believe that our application (and its use of blockchain technology and standardized metadata) introduces a novel approach to overcoming falsities in news reporting and the provenance of media resources used therein. However, while our application has the potential to be able to verify the originality of media resources, we believe that technology is only capable of providing a partial solution to fake news. That is because it is incapable of proving the authenticity of a news story as a whole. We believe that takes human skills.

A synthesis of the literature on breaking bad news or truth telling: potential for research in India.

Science.gov (United States)

Martis, Lawrence; Westhues, Anne

2013-01-01

The high incidence of fatal diseases, inequitable access to health care, and socioeconomic disparities in India generate plentiful clinical bad news including diagnosis of a life-limiting disease, poor prognosis, treatment failure, and impending death. These contexts compel health care professionals to become the messengers of bad news to patients and their families. In global literature on breaking bad news, there is very little about such complex clinical interactions occurring in India or guiding health care providers to do it well. The purpose of this article is to identify the issues for future research that would contribute to the volume, comprehensiveness, and quality of empirical literature on breaking bad news in clinical settings across India. Towards this end, we have synthesized the studies done across the globe on breaking bad news, under four themes: (a) deciding the amount of bad news to deliver; (b) attending to cultural and ethical issues; (c) managing psychological distress; and (d) producing competent messengers of bad news. We believe that robust research is inevitable to build an indigenous knowledge base, enhance communicative competence among health care professionals, and thereby to improve the quality of clinical interactions in India.

A synthesis of the literature on breaking bad news or truth telling: Potential for research in India

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lawrence Martis

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The high incidence of fatal diseases, inequitable access to health care, and socioeconomic disparities in India generate plentiful clinical bad news including diagnosis of a life-limiting disease, poor prognosis, treatment failure, and impending death. These contexts compel health care professionals to become the messengers of bad news to patients and their families. In global literature on breaking bad news, there is very little about such complex clinical interactions occurring in India or guiding health care providers to do it well. The purpose of this article is to identify the issues for future research that would contribute to the volume, comprehensiveness, and quality of empirical literature on breaking bad news in clinical settings across India. Towards this end, we have synthesized the studies done across the globe on breaking bad news, under four themes: (a deciding the amount of bad news to deliver; (b attending to cultural and ethical issues; (c managing psychological distress; and (d producing competent messengers of bad news. We believe that robust research is inevitable to build an indigenous knowledge base, enhance communicative competence among health care professionals, and thereby to improve the quality of clinical interactions in India.

The Changing Landscape of Science News

Science.gov (United States)

Riordon, James

2011-03-01

Social media are revolutionizing the ways that people communicate and the ways they get their news. Traditional news outlets are in decline, and no subject area is declining faster than science news. Every day there are fewer professional science journalists working in traditional media. On the other hand, ever greater numbers of scientists, science enthusiasts, and online journalists are turning to blogs, podcasts, eBooks, twitter feeds, and social media sites like Facebook and Tumbler to spread news about science. I will present an overview of the state of science journalism and speculate on the likely directions it seems to be heading. I will also offer some general guidelines to help scientists understand what makes a good science news story, as well as suggesting ways that they can get their work in the news.

Summer Food Service Program. Nourishing News. Volume 3, Issue 8

Science.gov (United States)

Idaho State Department of Education, 2009

2009-01-01

The primary goal of the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) is to provide nutritious meals to children in low-income areas when school is not in session. This issue of "Nourishing News" focuses on SFSPs. The articles contained in this issue are: (1) Is Your Summer Food Program Financially Fit? (Jean Zaske); (2) Keeping the…

Water resources activities of the U.S. Geological Survey in Afghanistan from 2004 through 2014

Science.gov (United States)

Mack, Thomas J.; Chornack, Michael P.; Vining, Kevin C.; Amer, Saud A.; Zaheer, Mohammad F.; Medlin, Jack H.

2014-01-01

Safe and reliable supply of water, for irrigation and domestic consumption, is one of Afghanistan’s critical needs for the country’s growing population. Water is also needed for mining and mineral processing and the associated business and community development, all of which contribute to the country’s economic growth and stability. Beginning in 2004, U.S. Geological Survey scientists have aided efforts to rebuild Afghanistan’s capacity to monitor water resources, working largely with scientists in the Afghanistan Geological Survey of the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum as well as with scientists in the Afghanistan Ministry of Energy and Water, the Afghanistan Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock, and nongovernmental organizations in Afghanistan. Considerable efforts were undertaken by the U.S. Geological Survey to compile or recover hydrologic data on Afghanistan’s water resources. These collaborative efforts have assisted Afghan scientists in developing the data collection networks necessary for improved understanding, managing these resources, and monitoring critical changes that may affect future water supplies and conditions. The U.S. Geological Survey, together with Afghan scientists, developed a regional groundwater flow model to assist with water resource planning in the Kabul Basin. Afghan scientists are now independently developing the datasets and conducting studies needed to assess water resources in other population centers of Afghanistan.

News with an attitude: assessing the mechanisms underlying the effects of opinionated news

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Boukes, M.; Boomgaarden, H.G.; Moorman, M.; de Vreese, C.H.

2014-01-01

Opinionated news targets communities of likeminded viewers, relies on dramaturgical storytelling techniques, and shares characteristics with political satire. Accordingly, opinionated news should be understood as a specific form of political entertainment. We have investigated the mechanisms

Afghanistan's population: planning to avoid a crisis.

Science.gov (United States)

Rosenthal, J E

1973-07-09

Though the population of Afghanistan is exploding (AID estimates net growth rate at 2.5%), private, governmental, and foreign efforts should avert a crisis. The family-planning situation in this developing nation is discussed. The Afghan Family Guidance Association (AFGA), formed in July 1968, is a private organization but has semi-official status. AFGA runs 6 clinics in Kabul and 13 in the provinces. AFGA family Guides talk of mothers about their health and their children's health and about the desirability and methods of spacing children. In a pilot project several male Family Guides approach husbands with information about family planning. The Afghan government's family-planning program, scheduled to begin this year, has had its way paved by the work of the AFGA. The government plans to establish 280 basic health centers within 5 years. AID gives $1 million annually for family-planning projects, supplies, and services in Afghanistan. AID also is providing $1.7 million to finance the first demographic study of the nation.

Displaying fairness while delivering bad news: Testing the effectiveness of organizational bad news training in the layoff context.

Science.gov (United States)

Richter, Manuela; König, Cornelius J; Koppermann, Christopher; Schilling, Michael

2016-06-01

Although giving bad news at work is a stressful experience, managers are often underprepared for this challenging task. As a solution, we introduce organizational bad news training that integrates (a) principles of delivering bad news from the context of health care (i.e., bad news delivery component), and (b) principles of organizational justice theory (i.e., fairness component). We argue that both the formal and fair delivery of bad news at work can be enhanced with the help of training to mitigate distress both for the messenger and the recipient. We tested the effectiveness of training for the delivery of a layoff as a typical bad news event at work. In 2 studies, we compared the performance of a training group (receiving both components of training) with that of a control group (Study 1, Study 2) and a basics group (receiving the bad news delivery component only; Study 2) during a simulated dismissal notification meeting. In general, the results supported our hypotheses: Training improved the formal delivery of bad news and predicted indicators of procedural fairness during the conversation in both studies. In Study 2, we also considered layoff victims' negativity after the layoff and found that training significantly reduced negative responses. This relationship was fully mediated by layoff victims' fairness perceptions. Despite preparation, however, giving bad news remained a challenging task in both studies. In summary, we recommend that organizations provide managers with organizational bad news training in order to promote professional and fair bad news conversations at work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Gender perspectives on access to public debate: reflecting on the evening news contents

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rosa Cabecinhas

2013-06-01

Full Text Available The present article aims to analyze the reception of media content within a gender perspective. The women’s full exercise of citizenship and access to public debate depends greatly on the way media presents them to the world. This study considers that balanced representation of men and women in the news is an important criterion to take into account in order to produce quality journalism. Considering the various television news programs, the evening news is definitely one of the most important and, yet, one of the less studied. Daily broadcast on a prime time schedule, it is considered to be an important source of information through which citizens acknowledge themain events of the news agenda and, also, their social roles and responsibilities. Therefore, several focus groups have been organized with the purpose of debating news contents and understanding how gender meanings are negotiated by audiences. The analysis of these debates displayed important gender perspectives among focus groups participants. Its outputs allowed a better understanding of how audiences interpret gender meanings in the media and emphasized the need to develop alternative proposals of journalistic practices capable of promoting a critical, balanced and diversified gender perspective within the audiences.

Breaking bad news in cancer patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Konstantis, Apostolos; Exiara, Triada

2015-01-01

In a regional hospital, many patients are newly diagnosed with cancer. Breaking the bad news in these patients and their relatives is a tough task. Many doctors are not experienced in talking to patients about death or death-related diseases. In recent years, there have been great efforts to change the current situation. The aim of this study was to investigate the experience and education of medical personnel in breaking bad news in a secondary hospital. 59 doctors from General Hospital of Komotini, Greece were included in the study. All the doctors were in clinical specialties that treated cancer patients. A brief questionnaire was developed based on current guidelines such as Baile/SPIKES framework and the ABCDE mnemonic. Residents are involved in delivering bad news less frequently than specialists. Only 21 doctors (35.59%) had specific training on breaking bad news. 20 doctors (33.90%) were aware of the available techniques and protocols on breaking bad news. 47 doctors (79.66%) had a consistent plan for breaking bad news. 57 (96.61%) delivered bad news in a quiet place, 53 (89.83%) ensured no interruptions and enough time, 53 (89.83%) used simple words and 54 (91.53%) checked for understanding and did not rush through the news. 46 doctors (77.97%) allowed relatives to determine patient's knowledge about the disease. There were low rates of specific training in breaking bad news. However, the selected location, the physician's speech and their plan were according to current guidelines.

The Cognitive Information Effect of Televised News.

Science.gov (United States)

Lăzăroiu, George; Pera, Aurel; Ştefănescu-Mihăilă, Ramona O; Bratu, Sofia; Mircică, Nela

2017-01-01

The purpose of this review is to summarize the key findings which prove that the biased perceptions of viewers may provide an inaccurate image of the informational validity of televised news. The news may generate distorted recollections of what occurred in particular reported events if displayed routines influence viewers not to pay attention to the essential features of a narrative. Elaborating on Fiske and Hartley (2010), Zelizer (2010), and Gunter (2015), we indicate that the character of the news setting has altered and individuals' news consumption routines have changed in adapting to media advancements. The news may be undergone at various psychological stages by news publics. Televised news may transmit information undeviatingly to publics that may (not) be committed successfully to memory. Our paper shows that individuals' skills to handle information that is displayed in a linguistic configuration are influenced by their abilities in the utilization of certain symbol systems that are employed to represent notions and meanings. Televised news may shape what individuals grasp, influence their perceptions, convictions, and views regarding prevailing events and matters, and transmit knowledge and interpretation. If news stories can be jotted down in a linguistic style that sidesteps making needless processing demands and captivate news users by facilitating them to make connections with former knowledge, they may be more worthy of note and more edifying. We conclude that news narratives present a cognitive demanding task to individuals, displaying novel information regarding evolving events in a multifarious format. Broadcast news exhibits intricate contents, displaying configurations that employ excessively the cognitive abilities for information processing of viewers.

Spatio-Temporal History of HIV-1 CRF35_AD in Afghanistan and Iran.

Science.gov (United States)

Eybpoosh, Sana; Bahrampour, Abbas; Karamouzian, Mohammad; Azadmanesh, Kayhan; Jahanbakhsh, Fatemeh; Mostafavi, Ehsan; Zolala, Farzaneh; Haghdoost, Ali Akbar

2016-01-01

HIV-1 Circulating Recombinant Form 35_AD (CRF35_AD) has an important position in the epidemiological profile of Afghanistan and Iran. Despite the presence of this clade in Afghanistan and Iran for over a decade, our understanding of its origin and dissemination patterns is limited. In this study, we performed a Bayesian phylogeographic analysis to reconstruct the spatio-temporal dispersion pattern of this clade using eligible CRF35_AD gag and pol sequences available in the Los Alamos HIV database (432 sequences available from Iran, 16 sequences available from Afghanistan, and a single CRF35_AD-like pol sequence available from USA). Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm was implemented in BEAST v1.8.1. Between-country dispersion rates were tested with Bayesian stochastic search variable selection method and were considered significant where Bayes factor values were greater than three. The findings suggested that CRF35_AD sequences were genetically similar to parental sequences from Kenya and Uganda, and to a set of subtype A1 sequences available from Afghan refugees living in Pakistan. Our results also showed that across all phylogenies, Afghan and Iranian CRF35_AD sequences formed a monophyletic cluster (posterior clade credibility> 0.7). The divergence date of this cluster was estimated to be between 1990 and 1992. Within this cluster, a bidirectional dispersion of the virus was observed across Afghanistan and Iran. We could not clearly identify if Afghanistan or Iran first established or received this epidemic, as the root location of this cluster could not be robustly estimated. Three CRF35_AD sequences from Afghan refugees living in Pakistan nested among Afghan and Iranian CRF35_AD branches. However, the CRF35_AD-like sequence available from USA diverged independently from Kenyan subtype A1 sequences, suggesting it not to be a true CRF35_AD lineage. Potential factors contributing to viral exchange between Afghanistan and Iran could be injection drug

Implicating municipalities in addressing household food insecurity in Canada: A pan-Canadian analysis of news print media coverage.

Science.gov (United States)

Collins, Patricia A; Gaucher, Megan; Power, Elaine M; Little, Margaret H

2016-06-27

Household food insecurity (HFI) affects approximately 13% of Canadian households and is especially prevalent among low-income households. Actions to address HFI have been occurring primarily at the local level, despite calls for greater income supports from senior governments to reduce poverty. News media may be reinforcing this trend, by emphasizing food-based solutions to HFI and the municipal level as the site where action needs to take place. The objective of this study was to examine the level and framing of print news media coverage of HFI action in Canada. Using a quantitative newspaper content analysis approach, we analyzed 547 articles gathered from 2 national and 16 local/regional English-language newspapers published between January 2007 and December 2012. News coverage increased over time, and over half was produced from Ontario (33%) and British Columbia (22%) combined. Of the 374 articles that profiled a specific action, community gardens/urban agriculture was most commonly profiled (17%), followed by food banks/meal programs (13%); 70% of articles implicated governments to take action on HFI, and of these, 43% implicated municipal governments. Article tone was notably more negative when senior governments were profiled and more neutral and positive when municipal governments were profiled. News media reporting of this issue in Canada may be placing pressure on municipalities to engage in food-based actions to address HFI. A more systematic approach to HFI action in Canada will require more balanced media reporting that acknowledges the limitations of food-based solutions to the income-based problem of HFI.

Jobs from Agriculture in Afghanistan

OpenAIRE

Leao, Izabela; Ahmed, Mansur; Kar, Anuja

2018-01-01

The agriculture sector can play an important role in poverty reduction and sustained growth in Afghanistan, primarily through job creation, improved productivity, and inclusiveness. Using an 'agricultural jobs lens' and multidimensional approach, this report explores the sector’s direct and indirect roles in explaining the dynamics of rural employment. The report critically examines three dimensions. First, it evaluates the current jobs structure in rural areas and finds that rural jobs are c...

Assessing News Contagion in Finance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paola Cerchiello

2018-02-01

Full Text Available The analysis of news in the financial context has gained a prominent interest in the last years. This is because of the possible predictive power of such content especially in terms of associated sentiment/mood. In this paper, we focus on a specific aspect of financial news analysis: how the covered topics modify according to space and time dimensions. To this purpose, we employ a modified version of topic model LDA, the so-called Structural Topic Model (STM, that takes into account covariates as well. Our aim is to study the possible evolution of topics extracted from two well known news archive—Reuters and Bloomberg—and to investigate a causal effect in the diffusion of the news by means of a Granger causality test. Our results show that both the temporal dynamics and the spatial differentiation matter in the news contagion.

Do the contents of foreign news on television match viewers’ interests? A 12-nation study of topics and countries of interest

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lee, F.; De Swert, K.; Cohen, A.A.

2017-01-01

This article draws upon content analytic and survey data from a 12-nation comparative study to examine the question of content-interest correspondence (CIC) regarding foreign news on television, that is, to what extent do the contents of foreign news aired on television match the interests that

Women's Hidden Agency in the News Coverage of the Tibetian Riots

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Suvimarja Vuontela

2012-10-01

Full Text Available This mixed methods case study on the international newspaper coverage of women in the  Tibetan  riots  in  March  2008  analyses  to  what extent  women  are  represented according to prevailing gender stereotypes in conflict news. The study largely confirms news media’s gender bias, in that news media hides women’s agency. Women are either not included in the studied 62 articles from International Herald Tribune, China Daily, and  the  Tibet  Post  International, or represented according  to  prevailing  gender stereotypes, namely as passive feminine objects. Interestingly, Chi-square testing  reveals  that  the Tibet Post International, an online newspaper  run  by  Tibetan  exiles,  deviated from  the  general  tendency  by  representing remarkably frequent images of active Tibetan women. Around one-third (32 percent of the Tibet Post  International’s articles  included press  photos featuring women and the clear  majority  (88  percent  of  these  images represented  them  as  active.  However,  the qualitative  part  of  the study  tells  that  text  associated  with  the  newspaper’s  images  of active Tibetan women reduced these women’s perceived agency. When introducing text into  the  interpretation  of  these  images,  the  women in  many  cases  were  turned  into potential victims. This points out that text-image interaction is an often overlooked, yet integral part of assigning meaning in conflict news.

Prevalence of antifolate resistance mutations in Plasmodium falciparum isolates in Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

2013-01-01

Background Artesunate plus sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine (AS+SP) is now first-line treatment for Plasmodium falciparum infection in several south Asian countries, including Afghanistan. Molecular studies provide a sensitive means to investigate the current state of drug susceptibility to the SP component, and can also provide information on the likely efficacy of other potential forms of artemisinin-combination therapy. Methods During the years 2007 to 2010, 120 blood spots from patients with P. falciparum malaria were obtained in four provinces of Afghanistan. PCR-based methods were used to detect drug-resistance mutations in dhfr, dhps, pfcrt and pfmdr1, as well as to determine copy number of pfmdr1. Results The majority (95.5%) of infections had a double mutation in the dhfr gene (C59R, S108N); no mutations at dhfr positions 16, 51 or 164 were seen. Most isolates were wild type across the dhps gene, but five isolates from the provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar in eastern Afghanistan had the triple mutation A437G / K540E / A581G; all five cases were successfully treated with three receiving AS+SP and two receiving dihydroartemisinin-piperaquine. All isolates showed the pfcrt SVNMT chloroquine resistance haplotype. Five of 79 isolates had the pfmdr1 N86Y mutation, while 52 had pfmdr1 Y184F; positions 1034, 1042 and 1246 were wild type in all isolates. The pfmdr1 gene was not amplified in any sample. Conclusions This study indicates that shortly after the adoption of AS+SP as first-line treatment in Afghanistan, most parasites had a double mutation haplotype in dhfr, and a small number of isolates from eastern Afghanistan harboured a triple mutation haplotype in dhps. The impact of these mutations on the efficacy of AS+SP remains to be assessed in significant numbers of patients, but these results are clearly concerning since they suggest a higher degree of SP resistance than previously detected. Further focused molecular and clinical studies in this region are urgently

Representations of disability in the Canadian news media: a decade of change?

Science.gov (United States)

Devotta, Kimberly; Wilton, Robert; Yiannakoulias, Niko

2013-01-01

To assess stability and change in representations of disability and persons with disability in the Canadian news media between 1998 and 2008. The study replicated research conducted in 1998 that assessed the representation of disability in the Canadian news media. Following the earlier study, three newspapers were selected (Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and Toronto Sun) and all articles from a three-month period in 1998 and 2008 were assessed for disability content. In total, 362 articles were found in the two time periods. These were coded for structure and content using a schema developed in the earlier research. Between 1998 and 2008, there was a significant increase in the proportion of stories using "person first" language, and a significant increase in the proportion of "progressively" themed articles (e.g. dealing with barriers to participation, or disability awareness and inclusion). At the same time, there were significant differences between newspapers, with the Toronto Sun (a tabloid) maintaining a strong focus on "traditional" themes (e.g. special education, charitable provision). The differences in news media representations between 1998 and 2008 suggest a positive change in the way people with disabilities are represented, with greater attention to the complexity of their identity and their multiple social roles. The participation of persons with disabilities in society continues to be limited by negative attitudes. Media reporting has a significant influence on public attitudes toward disability. In a content analysis of three Canadian newspapers, this study found several significant changes in the language and content of disability-related articles. Together, these changes provide some evidence of more favorable media representations of disability. Further research in rehabilitation is needed to understand how such changes may both reflect and facilitate ongoing efforts to enhance people with disabilties' participation in social life.

Press problem related to nuclear energy news reporting

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Arai, Mitsuo

2008-01-01

Since the event of Niigataken Chuetsu-oki Earthquake in 2007 and the subsequent press reports on damage of nuclear power station after it, a stance of media is being questioned. In order to clear this problem, basic organizational structure of the press related to nuclear energy news was analyzed. Local news department, social news department, science news department and economical news department involve in nuclear energy news the accordance with their own situations and concerns. This structure makes problem of nuclear energy news reporting complicated. Changing this system is required but very difficult. It is concluded that the press problem around nuclear energy news is strange. (author)

Research and Practice of the News Map Compilation Service

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, T.; Liu, W.; Ma, W.

2018-04-01

Based on the needs of the news media on the map, this paper researches on the news map compilation service, conducts demand research on the service of compiling news maps, designs and compiles the public authority base map suitable for media publication, and constructs the news base map material library. It studies the compilation of domestic and international news maps with timeliness and strong pertinence and cross-regional characteristics, constructs the hot news thematic gallery and news map customization services, conducts research on types of news maps, establish closer liaison and cooperation methods with news media, and guides news media to use correct maps. Through the practice of the news map compilation service, this paper lists two cases of news map preparation services used by different media, compares and analyses cases, summarizes the research situation of news map compilation service, and at the same time puts forward outstanding problems and development suggestions in the service of news map compilation service.

RESEARCH AND PRACTICE OF THE NEWS MAP COMPILATION SERVICE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

T. Zhao

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Based on the needs of the news media on the map, this paper researches on the news map compilation service, conducts demand research on the service of compiling news maps, designs and compiles the public authority base map suitable for media publication, and constructs the news base map material library. It studies the compilation of domestic and international news maps with timeliness and strong pertinence and cross-regional characteristics, constructs the hot news thematic gallery and news map customization services, conducts research on types of news maps, establish closer liaison and cooperation methods with news media, and guides news media to use correct maps. Through the practice of the news map compilation service, this paper lists two cases of news map preparation services used by different media, compares and analyses cases, summarizes the research situation of news map compilation service, and at the same time puts forward outstanding problems and development suggestions in the service of news map compilation service.

Going Down the Hole: Beaconsfield, Celebrities and the Changing News Culture in Australia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jason Bainbridge

2011-04-01

Full Text Available For fourteen days, all of Australia and much of the world was focused on the rescue of two miners trapped underground in Beaconsfield, Tasmania. This article looks at the period from Todd Russell and Brant Webb’s rescue up to and including Channel Nine’s screening of an exclusive interview with the men on 21 May 2006. It analyses the ways in which Beaconsfield was reported—and the exclusive interview with the miners pursued—as a way of exploring notions of celebrity, infotainment, chequebook journalism and the changing shape of news culture in Australia. For these reasons, the events at Beaconsfield should not be dismissed as just another news story, but rather, should be regarded as indicative of the ways in which news is increasingly being reported, packaged and folded back into larger entertainment structures.

A Blind Angle? News Sources, Gender and Ethnicity in Danish TV News

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fiig, Christina

The paper will present and discuss a framework for grasping some of the democratic consequences of biased TV news programs. In line with Jürgen Habermas, one can ask what consequences it has for a democratic public sphere that the national TV news landscape is biased in term of source diversity (...

Breaking News as Radicalisation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hartley, Jannie Møller

The aim of the paper is to make explicit how the different categories are applied in the online newsroom and thus how new categories can be seen as positioning strategies in the form of radicalisations of already existing categories. Thus field theory provides us with tools to analyse how online...... journalists are using the categorisations to create hierarchies within the journalistic field in order to position themselves as specialists in what Tuchman has called developing news, aiming and striving for what today is know as breaking news and the “exclusive scoop,” as the trademark of online journalism...... in a media environment where immediacy rules (Domingo 2008a). Following this research the primary focus of this paper is the category breaking news and Tuchmans developing news, but as they are all connected the analysis will also draw upon the other categories in Tuchmans typology. The theoretical framework...

Home sweet home! Repatriation, reintegration and land allocation in Afghanistan

OpenAIRE

Majidi, Nassim

2013-01-01

Retour sur terre: politiques de retour et d'allocation de la terre pour les réfugiés afghans - Plus de 6 millions de réfugiés afghans sont retournés dans leur pays d’origine depuis 2002, dont 4.6 millions assistés par le Haut-commissariat aux Réfugiés des Nations Unies (UNHCR). Ce retour était, en nombre et en investissement, sans précédent pour l’Afghanistan comme pour le reste du monde. Alors que l’intervention de 2002 marque le début d’une décennie du retour, en 2012, l’Afghanistan est...

The Cognitive Information Effect of Televised News

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

George Lăzăroiu

2017-07-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this review is to summarize the key findings which prove that the biased perceptions of viewers may provide an inaccurate image of the informational validity of televised news. The news may generate distorted recollections of what occurred in particular reported events if displayed routines influence viewers not to pay attention to the essential features of a narrative. Elaborating on Fiske and Hartley (2010, Zelizer (2010, and Gunter (2015, we indicate that the character of the news setting has altered and individuals’ news consumption routines have changed in adapting to media advancements. The news may be undergone at various psychological stages by news publics. Televised news may transmit information undeviatingly to publics that may (not be committed successfully to memory. Our paper shows that individuals’ skills to handle information that is displayed in a linguistic configuration are influenced by their abilities in the utilization of certain symbol systems that are employed to represent notions and meanings. Televised news may shape what individuals grasp, influence their perceptions, convictions, and views regarding prevailing events and matters, and transmit knowledge and interpretation. If news stories can be jotted down in a linguistic style that sidesteps making needless processing demands and captivate news users by facilitating them to make connections with former knowledge, they may be more worthy of note and more edifying. We conclude that news narratives present a cognitive demanding task to individuals, displaying novel information regarding evolving events in a multifarious format. Broadcast news exhibits intricate contents, displaying configurations that employ excessively the cognitive abilities for information processing of viewers.

Communication Management Guidelines for Software Organizations in Pakistan with clients from Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

Arif Shah, Muhammad; Hashim, Rathiah; Shah, Adil Ali; Farooq Khattak, Umar

2016-11-01

Developing software through Global Software Development (GSD) became very common now days in the software industry. Pakistan is one of the countries where projects are taken and designed from different countries including Afghanistan. The purpose of this paper is to identify and provide an analysis on several communication barriers that can have a negative impact on the project and to provide management guidelines for medium size software organizations working in Pakistan with clients from Afghanistan and to overcome these communication barriers and challenges organizations face when coordinating with client. Initially we performed a literature review to identify different communication barriers and to check if there are any standardized communications management guidelines for medium size software houses provided in the past. The second stage of the research paper involves guidelines with vendor's perspective that include interviews and focus group discussions with different stakeholders and employees of software houses with clients from Afghanistan. Based on those interviews and discussions we established communication management guidelines in order to overcome the communication problems and barriers working with clients from Afghanistan. As a result of the literature review, we have identified that barriers such as cultural barriers and language barrier were one of the main reasons behind the project failure and suggested that software organizations working in Pakistan should follow certain defined communication guidelines in order to overcome communication barriers that affect the project directly.

Afghanistan's ethnic groups share a Y-chromosomal heritage structured by historical events.

Science.gov (United States)

Haber, Marc; Platt, Daniel E; Ashrafian Bonab, Maziar; Youhanna, Sonia C; Soria-Hernanz, David F; Martínez-Cruz, Begoña; Douaihy, Bouchra; Ghassibe-Sabbagh, Michella; Rafatpanah, Hoshang; Ghanbari, Mohsen; Whale, John; Balanovsky, Oleg; Wells, R Spencer; Comas, David; Tyler-Smith, Chris; Zalloua, Pierre A

2012-01-01

Afghanistan has held a strategic position throughout history. It has been inhabited since the Paleolithic and later became a crossroad for expanding civilizations and empires. Afghanistan's location, history, and diverse ethnic groups present a unique opportunity to explore how nations and ethnic groups emerged, and how major cultural evolutions and technological developments in human history have influenced modern population structures. In this study we have analyzed, for the first time, the four major ethnic groups in present-day Afghanistan: Hazara, Pashtun, Tajik, and Uzbek, using 52 binary markers and 19 short tandem repeats on the non-recombinant segment of the Y-chromosome. A total of 204 Afghan samples were investigated along with more than 8,500 samples from surrounding populations important to Afghanistan's history through migrations and conquests, including Iranians, Greeks, Indians, Middle Easterners, East Europeans, and East Asians. Our results suggest that all current Afghans largely share a heritage derived from a common unstructured ancestral population that could have emerged during the Neolithic revolution and the formation of the first farming communities. Our results also indicate that inter-Afghan differentiation started during the Bronze Age, probably driven by the formation of the first civilizations in the region. Later migrations and invasions into the region have been assimilated differentially among the ethnic groups, increasing inter-population genetic differences, and giving the Afghans a unique genetic diversity in Central Asia.

Marine environment news. Vol. 3, no. 1, May 2005

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2005-06-01

This issue presents a guest article on selective biomagnification of metals and radionuclides in marine food chains. Major news items include that MEL joins the international study in South Pacific, inter-agency collaboration in the study of marine pollution, IAEA-UNESCO coordinate studies on submarine ground water discharge and collaborative research on nuclear and isotopic studies of the El Nino phenomenon launched in 2004

Marine environment news. Vol. 3, no. 1, May 2005

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

2005-06-01

This issue presents a guest article on selective biomagnification of metals and radionuclides in marine food chains. Major news items include that MEL joins the international study in South Pacific, inter-agency collaboration in the study of marine pollution, IAEA-UNESCO coordinate studies on submarine ground water discharge and collaborative research on nuclear and isotopic studies of the El Nino phenomenon launched in 2004.

Social Responsibility in Stem Cell Research - Is the News All Bad?

Science.gov (United States)

Benjaminy, Shelly; Lo, Cody; Illes, Judy

2016-06-01

Transparent public discourse about translational stem cell research promotes informed hope about scientific progress and the sustainable development of biotechnologies. Using an a priori coding scheme, we surveyed articles from leading news media about stem cell interventions for neurodegenerative diseases (1991-2014) from United States (n = 83), Canada (n = 29), and United Kingdom (n = 65). While, this analysis of translational contexts in the news demonstrates a lingering tendency to celebrate the benefits of research with little context of its caveats even for chronic neurologic diseases, in a departure from many previous studies, the data also reveal conscientious reporting about stem cell tourism and timeframe estimates for the development of relevant therapeutics.

Breaking bad news in cancer patients

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Apostolos Konstantis

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Objective: In a regional hospital, many patients are newly diagnosed with cancer. Breaking the bad news in these patients and their relatives is a tough task. Many doctors are not experienced in talking to patients about death or death-related diseases. In recent years, there have been great efforts to change the current situation. The aim of this study was to investigate the experience and education of medical personnel in breaking bad news in a secondary hospital. Materials and Methods: 59 doctors from General Hospital of Komotini, Greece were included in the study. All the doctors were in clinical specialties that treated cancer patients. A brief questionnaire was developed based on current guidelines such as Baile/SPIKES framework and the ABCDE mnemonic. Results: Residents are involved in delivering bad news less frequently than specialists. Only 21 doctors (35.59% had specific training on breaking bad news. 20 doctors (33.90% were aware of the available techniques and protocols on breaking bad news. 47 doctors (79.66% had a consistent plan for breaking bad news. 57 (96.61% delivered bad news in a quiet place, 53 (89.83% ensured no interruptions and enough time, 53 (89.83% used simple words and 54 (91.53% checked for understanding and did not rush through the news. 46 doctors (77.97% allowed relatives to determine patient′s knowledge about the disease. Conclusions: There were low rates of specific training in breaking bad news. However, the selected location, the physician′s speech and their plan were according to current guidelines.

When Opportunity Only Knocks Once: Lessons From Gen Petraeus In Iraq And Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

2016-03-01

OLIVARES, S/AY16 11 pockets of Afghanistan so peace could spread. Ironically, the Taliban’s resurgence was because Petraeus had diverted...Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan. New York: Norton and Company, 2010. 4 Definition of “Success.” Merriam Webster Online Dictionary ...Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/ dictionary /success , 11 Jan 16. 5 Definition of “Failure.” Dictionary.com. Retrieved from http

Extracting the Discussion Structure in Comments on News-Articles

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Schuth, A.; Marx, M.; de Rijke, M.

2007-01-01

Several on-line daily newspapers offer readers the opportunity to directly comment on articles. In the Netherlands this feature is used quite often and the quality (grammatically and content-wise) is surprisingly high. We develop techniques to collect, store, enrichand analyze these comments. After

Afghanistan: Post-War Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Katzman, Kenneth

2008-01-01

.... Both the official U.S. as well as outside assessments increasingly point to Pakistan's failure to prevent Taliban and other militant infiltration into Afghanistan as a cause of the security deterioration...

Surface Water Investigations in Afghanistan: A Summary of Activities from 1952 to 1969. Appendix 5: End of Tour Report. United States Operations Mission to Afghanistan; International Cooperation Administration, Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

1966-05-01

Royal Government of Afghanistan under the auspices of the United States Agency for International Development. 18 appendices. 15. SUBJECT TERMS...village leaders; third, the transfer to Kob-ol of Kr. Chulan Shell t;ho, altliou^o. a ’ . S* graduate engineer (at AID espenoe), has no interest in

Delivering bad news in emergency care medicine.

Science.gov (United States)

Maynard, Douglas W

2017-01-01

Forecasting is a strategy for delivering bad news and is compared to two other strategies, stalling and being blunt. Forecasting provides some warning that bad news is forthcoming without keeping the recipient in a state of indefinite suspense (stalling) or conveying the news abruptly (being blunt). Forecasting appears to be more effective than stalling or being blunt in helping a recipient to "realize" the bad news because it involves the deliverer and recipient in a particular social relation. The deliverer of bad news initiates the telling by giving an advance indication of the bad news to come; this allows the recipient to calculate the news in advance of its final presentation, when the deliverer confirms what the recipient has been led to anticipate. Thus, realization of bad news emerges from intimate collaboration, whereas stalling and being blunt require recipients to apprehend the news in a social vacuum. Exacerbating disruption to recipients' everyday world, stalling and being blunt increase the probability of misapprehension (denying, blaming, taking the situation as a joke, etc.) and thereby inhibit rather than facilitate realization. Particular attention is paid to the "perspective display sequence", a particular forecasting strategy that enables both confirming the recipient's perspective and using that perspective to affirm the clinical news. An example from acute or emergency medicine is examined at the close of the paper.

Are Marines a Better Fit for Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

2008-03-01

FOR AFGHANISTAN? by Lieutenant Colonel William M. Tart Unites States Air Force Colonel John A. Terrell Project Adviser This SRP is submitted in...December 2007. 7 Telephone interview with Lt Col James Kendall, USMC, USMC PP&O, 11 Jan 08. 8 Anne Flaherty, “Marine Commandant Says He Is Concerned Iraq

Day-by-Day: Higher Education in Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

Roof, David J.

2015-01-01

This paper examines higher education in Afghanistan. Based on qualitative research, including interviews with key policymakers and stakeholders, the paper examines the primary issues, challenges, progress, and future vision for higher education in the country. The research reveals that one of the most significant issues in the country in the…

"We remain very much the second sex": the constructions of prostate cancer in popular news magazines, 2000-2010.

Science.gov (United States)

Miele, Rachelle; Clarke, Juanne

2014-01-01

Informed by social constructionism, biomedicalization, and a feminist framework, a discourse analysis was performed on 31 popular news articles published in North America between 2000 and 2010. The magazines construct prostate cancer in a gendered manner. Its construction is rooted in themes that are related to discussions of biology, prostate cancer as a heterosexual problem, the responsibilization of health and masculinity. Through these constructions, the popular news articles reinforce dominant ideals and performances of hegemonic masculinity and male sexuality, traditional femininity, and heteronormativity. While reinforcing such ideals, the prevention, treatment, and knowledge of prostate cancer is constructed as the responsibility of individual men. This study reveals that the articles favor discussions of heteronormativity and hegemonic masculinity over racism, rendering health inequalities silent.

Protocol Additional to the agreement between the Republic of Afghanistan and the International Atomic Energy Agency for the application of safeguards in connection with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2005-01-01

The text of the Protocol Additional to the Agreement between the Republic of Afghanistan and the International Atomic Energy Agency for the Application of Safeguards in Connection with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is reproduced in this document for the information of all Members. The Board of Governors approved the Additional Protocol on 1 March 2005. It was signed on 19 July 2005 in Vienna. Pursuant to Article 17 of the Additional Protocol, the Protocol entered into force on 19 July 2005, upon signature by the representatives of Afghanistan and the Agency

Visualizing news: obstacles, challenges, and solutions

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dr. Piet Bakker; Gerard Smit; Yael de Haan; Laura Buijs

2013-01-01

Depicting news graphically is considered an apt way to deal with challenges of modern journalism: to disclose big data, and present news attractively, visually, and fast to grasp. This study delves into reported obstacles and challenges for the production of news visualizations. It focuses on the

The Search for Stability: Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Wardle, Russel

2004-01-01

... and international bodies as well as the military. Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), as employed in Afghanistan, are used as a vehicle to examine the wide range of activities necessary for Nation Building...

Breaking News: Utilizing Video Simulations to Improve Educational Leaders' Public Speaking Skills

Science.gov (United States)

Friend, Jennifer; Adams, April; Curry, George

2011-01-01

This article examines specific uses of video simulations in one educational leadership preparation program to advance future school and district leaders' skills related to public speaking and participation in televised news interviews. One faculty member and two advanced educational leadership candidates share their perspectives of several…

A content-based news video retrieval system: NVRS

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Huayong; He, Tingting

2009-10-01

This paper focus on TV news programs and design a content-based news video browsing and retrieval system, NVRS, which is convenient for users to fast browsing and retrieving news video by different categories such as political, finance, amusement, etc. Combining audiovisual features and caption text information, the system automatically segments a complete news program into separate news stories. NVRS supports keyword-based news story retrieval, category-based news story browsing and generates key-frame-based video abstract for each story. Experiments show that the method of story segmentation is effective and the retrieval is also efficient.

The Influence of News Framing on Support for Charter School Reform

Science.gov (United States)

Feuerstein, Abe

2015-01-01

This study examined the influence of media framing on attitudes toward charter school reform. Participants in an Internet-based experiment were presented, at random, with one of three manipulated news articles framing charter school reform as (a) supportive of values such as freedom, choice, and innovation; (b) conflicting with values such as…

Turkey’s Strategy towards Afghanistan: Security and Development Assistance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Altunay Ilgar Aliyeva

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Providing assistance to the least developed countries has remained one of the top priorities for leading international actors in the XXI century, and the Republic of Turkey is no exception in this regard. The Justice and Development Party's ascension to power in 2002 led to a drastic revision of the Turkish foreign policy and adoption of a novel approach to the least developed countries accounting for the complex interdependence between security and development. This approach was tested in Afghanistan where Turkey contributed to both post-conflict reconstruction of the country and to the activities of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF. Since 2015 Turkey has been actively engaged in the new NATO 'Resolute Support' mission, while continuing its economic support to Afghanistan on bilateral and multilateral basis. This paper aims to unveil the particularities of the Turkey's Afghan strategy, which has yet escaped the Russian scholars' attention, with the help of the Turkish primary sources and academic works. It studies the specificity of bilateral relations and their determinants, including historic ties and religious and cultural proximity. It provides an in-depth analysis of the activities of both Turkish Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA and the Turkish Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT in Afghanistan and examines the challenges of Turkish troops' presence on the Afghan soil and the way how the Turkish elites and Turkey's NATO allies perceive it.

Spread the News: How the Crisis Affected the Impact of News on the European Sovereign Bond Markets

OpenAIRE

Beetsma, Roel; de Jong, Frank; Giuliodori, Massimo; Widijanto, Daniel

2012-01-01

We investigate how "news" affected domestic interest spreads vis-à-vis Germany and how it propagated to other countries during the recent crisis period, thereby distinguishing between the so-called GIIPS countries and other European countries. We make original use of the Eurointelligence newsflash to construct news variables based on the amount of news that is released on a country on a given date. We find that more news on average raises the domestic interest spread of GIIPS countries since ...

Audiovisual infotainment in European news: a comparative content analysis of Dutch, Spanish and Irish television news programs

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Alencar, A.; Kruikemeier, S.

2015-01-01

This study investigates to what extent audiovisual infotainment features can be found in the narrative structure of television news in three European countries news. Content analysis included a sample of 639 news reports (or reporter packages) aired in the first three weeks of September 2013, in six

How Afghanistan Can Assume Ownership for the Ongoing Conflict

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Horn, Sr, John M

2008-01-01

In view of United States global commitments and larger Global War on Terror (GWOT) strategy, the ultimate security goal in Afghanistan must be for the Afghans to assume ownership of the counterinsurgency struggle...

75 FR 71079 - Determination on Use of Cooperative Threat Reduction Funds in Pakistan and Afghanistan Under...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-11-22

... DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE Office of the Secretary Determination on Use of Cooperative Threat Reduction Funds in Pakistan and Afghanistan Under Section 1308 of the National Defense Authorization Act for... Threat Reduction (CTR) funds for the implementation of CTR programs in Pakistan and Afghanistan will...

News reported on 30 November 1993 by the Middle East News Agency

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1994-01-10

The document reproduces a letter dated 27 December 1993 from the Alternate Resident Representative of Iraq to the IAEA including in an annex the news reported on 30 November 1993 by the Middle East News Agency concerning the detection of nuclear radiations in Iraqi military equipment left behind by the Iraqi army during the war for Kuwait liberation.

News reported on 30 November 1993 by the Middle East News Agency

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1994-01-01

The document reproduces a letter dated 27 December 1993 from the Alternate Resident Representative of Iraq to the IAEA including in an annex the news reported on 30 November 1993 by the Middle East News Agency concerning the detection of nuclear radiations in Iraqi military equipment left behind by the Iraqi army during the war for Kuwait liberation

Assessment of progress towards universal health coverage for people with disabilities in Afghanistan: a multilevel analysis of repeated cross-sectional surveys.

Science.gov (United States)

Trani, Jean-Francois; Kumar, Praveen; Ballard, Ellis; Chandola, Tarani

2017-08-01

Since 2002, Afghanistan has made much effort to achieve universal health coverage. According to the UN Sustainable Development Goal 3, target eight, the provision of quality care to all must include usually underserved groups, including people with disabilities. We investigated whether a decade of international investment in the Afghan health system has brought quality health care to this group. We used data from two representative household surveys, one done in 2005 and one in 2013, in 13 provinces of Afghanistan, that included questions about activity limitations and functioning difficulties, socioeconomic factors, perceived availability of health care, and experience with coverage of health-care needs. We used multilevel modelling and tests for interaction to investigate factors associated with differences in perception between timepoints and whether village remoteness affected changes in perception. The 2005 survey included 334 people, and the 2013 survey included 961 people. Mean age, employment, and asset levels of participants with disabilities increased slightly between 2005 and 2013, but the level of education decreased. Formal education and higher asset level were associated with improved availability of health care and positive experience with coverage of health-care needs, whereas being employed was only associated with the latter. Perceived availability of health care and positive experience with coverage of health-care needs significantly worsened in 2013 compared with in 2005 (227 [69%] perceived that services were available in 2005 vs 405 [44%] in 2013, pAfghanistan, particularly in remote areas. Health policy in Afghanistan will need to address attitudinal, social, and accessibility barriers to health care. Swedish International Development Agency. Copyright © 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

News media coverage of a women's health contraversy: how newspapers and TV outlets covered a recent debate over screening mammography.

Science.gov (United States)

Steele, Whitney Randolph; Mebane, Felicia; Viswanath, K; Solomon, Janice

2005-01-01

Over the past decade, there have been several highly visible debates about mammography that have captured professional, public and media attention. This paper looks at newspaper and television news coverage of a controversial research letter in The Lancet by Gøtzsche and Olsen (2001) that concluded that screening mammography did not prevent deaths from breast cancer. The news pieces examined for this project were published between October 2001 and March 2002 in one of eight U.S. newspapers or aired on one of six national or cable news networks. The six-month period was divided into one-week segments; the numbers of articles published or stories aired in each week were graphed to examine patterns. Each newspaper article and television transcript was then reviewed to identify its main content area and the amount of coverage for each major event was quantified. The highest number of newspaper articles appeared to result from several events during the end of January through the beginning of February. These events included the publication of another meta-analysis of mammography that disputed the original letter's conclusion and a full-page New York Times advertisement paid for by major medical organizations stating their continued support for mammography. The greatest amount of television news coverage was devoted to the announcement of the official federal guidelines by the Secretary of Health and Human Services in late February. We conclude by discussing how the flow of news coverage of medical controversies can potentially impact the actions and reactions of the public, the medical community and health policy makers.

Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) Negotiation Skill Requirements in Afghanistan: Afghanistan Security Issues Final Research Paper

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

culture shock” that soldiers experienced as “the anxiety and physical and emotional discomfort that can occur when a person moves to an unfa- miliar...Afghanistan. Don‟t Believe it.” Newsweek, 14 December 2009, 48. Jalali, Ali A. “The Future of Security Institutions.” In Warfare Studies AY10 Coursebook ...62-69. Rubin, Barnett R. “The Transformation of the Afghan State.” In Warfare Studies AY10 Coursebook , edited by Sharon McBride, 351-356. Maxwell

Pediatric Surgical Care in a Dutch Military Hospital in Afghanistan.

Science.gov (United States)

Idenburg, Floris J; van Dongen, Thijs T C F; Tan, Edward C T H; Hamming, Jaap H; Leenen, Luke P H; Hoencamp, Rigo

2015-10-01

From August 2006-August 2010, as part of the ISAF mission, the Armed Forces of the Netherlands deployed a role 2 enhanced Medical Treatment Facility (R2E-MTF) to Uruzgan province, Afghanistan. Although from the principle doctrine not considered a primary task, care was delivered to civilians, including many children. Humanitarian aid accounted for a substantial part of the workload, necessitating medical, infrastructural, and logistical adaptations. Particularly pediatric care demanded specific expertise and equipment. In our pre-deployment preparations this aspect had been undervalued. Because these experiences could be influential in future mission planning, we analyzed our data and compared them with international reports. This is a retrospective, descriptive study. Using the hospital's electronic database, all pediatric cases, defined as patients Afghanistan were analyzed. Of the 2736 admissions, 415 (15.2 %) were pediatric. The majority (80.9 %, 336/415) of these admissions were for surgical, often trauma-related, pathology and required 610 surgical procedures, being 26 % of all procedures. Mean length of stay was 3.1 days. The male to female ratio was 70:30. Girls were significantly younger of age than boys. In-hospital mortality was 5.3 %. Pediatric patients made up a considerable part of the workload at the Dutch R2E-MTF in Uruzgan, Afghanistan. This is in line with other reports from the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but used definitions in reported series are inconsistent, making comparisons difficult. Our findings stress the need for a comprehensive, prospective, and coalition-wide patient registry with uniformly applied criteria. Civilian disaster and military operational planners should incorporate reported patient statistics in manning documents, future courses, training manuals, logistic planning, and doctrines, because pediatric care is a reality that cannot be ignored.

How long do news framing effects last? A systematic review of longitudinal studies

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lecheler, S.; de Vreese, C.H.

2016-01-01

A growing number of experimental studies investigate the duration of news framing effects. This article presents a systematic review of the theoretical premises, experimental designs, and individual-level moderators in these studies. Our results suggest that most studies report effects that persist

Toward Malaria Risk Prediction in Afghanistan Using Remote Sensing

Science.gov (United States)

Safi, N.; Adimi, F.; Soebiyanto, R. P.; Kiang, R. K.

2010-01-01

Malaria causes more than one million deaths every year worldwide, with most of the mortality in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is also a significant public health concern in Afghanistan, with approximately 60% of the population, or nearly 14 million people, living in a malaria-endemic area. Malaria transmission has been shown to be dependent on a number of environmental and meteorological variables. For countries in the tropics and the subtropics, rainfall is normally the most important variable, except for regions with high altitude where temperature may also be important. Afghanistan s diverse landscape contributes to the heterogeneous malaria distribution. Understanding the environmental effects on malaria transmission is essential to the effective control of malaria in Afghanistan. Provincial malaria data gathered by Health Posts in 23 provinces during 2004-2007 are used in this study. Remotely sensed geophysical parameters, including precipitation from TRMM, and surface temperature and vegetation index from MODIS are used to derive the empirical relationship between malaria cases and these geophysical parameters. Both neural network methods and regression analyses are used to examine the environmental dependency of malaria transmission. And the trained models are used for predicting future transmission. While neural network methods are intrinsically more adaptive for nonlinear relationship, the regression approach lends itself in providing statistical significance measures. Our results indicate that NDVI is the strongest predictor. This reflects the role of irrigation, instead of precipitation, in Afghanistan for agricultural production. The second strongest prediction is surface temperature. Precipitation is not shown as a significant predictor, contrary to other malarious countries in the tropics or subtropics. With the regression approach, the malaria time series are modelled well, with average R2 of 0.845. For cumulative 6-month prediction of malaria cases, the

Creative Cycling of News Professionals

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Astrid Gynnild, PhD.

2007-03-01

Full Text Available The theory of creative cycling emerged from my PhD study of news professionals in Norway. The study was carried out according to classic grounded theory principles (Glaser and Strauss 1967, Glaser 1978, 1998, 2001, 2005, and the area of interest was the performance of news journalism in the multimedia age. The theory runs counter to widespread tendencies of industrial age thinking in news media. It emphasizes news professionals’ search for meaning in their daily work, and suggests that their main concern is self-fulfillment through original contribution. The dilemma and resolution, creative cycling, is a basic social process continuously going within inner and outer framings. It consists of three interrelated dimensions: productive processing, breaks and shifts and inspirational looping.

Cinema and the communication of bad news

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ana Isabel GÓMEZ CORDOBA

2016-04-01

Full Text Available Breaking Bad News requires medical professionals possess a range of skills to ensure that the patient has the information required for decision?making, this process occurs without further damage and even has a therapeutic effect, and another, that the doctor is not exposed to legal risk or stress associated with the inability to cope with the feelings of the patient, their families or themselves. This article discusses the aspects of communication of bad news in the field of doctor?patient relationship will be presented. The SPIKES model and discussion of movie segments related to the subject was employed as a thread, such as Doctor, 50/50, The Barbarian Invasions, Wings of Life, Stepmom, Letters to God, Wit, The butterfly blue, The power of friendship, Life without me, Make me laugh, Knockin ‘on Heaven’s Door, My Life, A crazy Loose in Brooklyn, As suicide and not die in the attempt, A lesson of life, and The sacrifice of a mother, as a pedagogical strategy in medical training.

New format for ATLAS e-news

CERN Multimedia

Pauline Gagnon

ATLAS e-news got a new look! As of November 30, 2007, we have a new format for ATLAS e-news. Please go to: http://atlas-service-enews.web.cern.ch/atlas-service-enews/index.html . ATLAS e-news will now be published on a weekly basis. If you are not an ATLAS colaboration member but still want to know how the ATLAS experiment is doing, we will soon have a version of ATLAS e-news intended for the general public. Information will be sent out in due time.

Dividend growth, cash flow, and discount rate news

OpenAIRE

Garrett, Ian; Priestley, Richard

2012-01-01

This is the authors’ accepted and refereed manuscript to the article. Publishers web site http://journals.cambridge.org/ Using a new variable based on a model of dividend smoothing, we find that dividend growth is highly predictable and that cash flow news contributes importantly to return variability. Cash flow betas derived from this predictability are central to explaining the size effect in the cross section of returns. However, they do not explain the value effect; this is explained b...

A balanced scorecard for health services in Afghanistan.

Science.gov (United States)

Peters, David H; Noor, Ayan Ahmed; Singh, Lakhwinder P; Kakar, Faizullah K; Hansen, Peter M; Burnham, Gilbert

2007-02-01

The Ministry of Public Health (MOPH) in Afghanistan has developed a balanced scorecard (BSC) to regularly monitor the progress of its strategy to deliver a basic package of health services. Although frequently used in other health-care settings, this represents the first time that the BSC has been employed in a developing country. The BSC was designed via a collaborative process focusing on translating the vision and mission of the MOPH into 29 core indicators and benchmarks representing six different domains of health services, together with two composite measures of performance. In the absence of a routine health information system, the 2004 BSC for Afghanistan was derived from a stratified random sample of 617 health facilities, 5719 observations of patient-provider interactions, and interviews with 5597 patients, 1553 health workers, and 13,843 households. Nationally, health services were found to be reaching more of the poor than the less-poor population, and providing for more women than men, both key concerns of the government. However, serious deficiencies were found in five domains, and particularly in counselling patients, providing delivery care during childbirth, monitoring tuberculosis treatment, placing staff and equipment, and establishing functional village health councils. The BSC also identified wide variations in performance across provinces; no province performed better than the others across all domains. The innovative adaptation of the BSC in Afghanistan has provided a useful tool to summarize the multidimensional nature of health-services performance, and is enabling managers to benchmark performance and identify strengths and weaknesses in the Afghan context.

Semantic Analysis of FBI News Reports

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nizamani, Sarwat; Memon, Nasrullah

2012-01-01

In this paper we present our work on semantic analysis of FBI News reports. In the paper we have considered the News which are of the immense significance for the analyst who want to analyze the News of specific area. With this definite analysis we are able to extract critical events or concepts...

Genetic characterization and molecular epidemiology of foot-and-mouth disease viruses isolated from Afghanistan in 2003-2005.

Science.gov (United States)

Schumann, Kate R; Knowles, Nick J; Davies, Paul R; Midgley, Rebecca J; Valarcher, Jean-Francois; Raoufi, Abdul Quader; McKenna, Thomas S; Hurtle, William; Burans, James P; Martin, Barbara M; Rodriguez, Luis L; Beckham, Tammy R

2008-04-01

Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) isolates collected from various geographic locations in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2005 were genetically characterized, and their phylogeny was reconstructed utilizing nucleotide sequences of the complete VP1 coding region. Three serotypes of FMDV (types A, O, and Asia 1) were identified as causing clinical disease in Afghanistan during this period. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the type A viruses were most closely related to isolates collected in Iran during 2002-2004. This is the first published report of serotype A in Afghanistan since 1975, therefore indicating the need for inclusion of serotype A in vaccine formulations that will be used to control disease outbreaks in this country. Serotype O virus isolates were closely related to PanAsia strains, including those that originated from Bhutan and Nepal during 2003-2004. The Asia 1 viruses, collected along the northern and eastern borders of Afghanistan, were most closely related to FMDV isolates collected in Pakistan during 2003 and 2004. Data obtained from this study provide valuable information on the FMDV serotypes circulating in Afghanistan and their genetic relationship with strains causing FMD in neighboring countries.

Geologic and topographic maps of the Kabul South 30' x 60' quadrangle, Afghanistan

Science.gov (United States)

Bohannon, Robert G.

2010-01-01

This report consists of two map sheets, this pamphlet, and a collection of database files. Sheet 1 is the geologic map with three highly speculative cross sections, and sheet 2 is a topographic map that comprises all the support data for the geologic map. Both maps (sheets 1 and 2) are produced at 1:100,000-scale and are provided in Geospatial PDF format that preserves the georegistration and original layering. The database files include images of the topographic hillshade (shaded relief) and color-topography files used to create the topographic maps, a copy of the Landsat image, and a gray-scale basemap. Vector data from each of the layers that comprise both maps are provided in the form of Arc/INFO shapefiles. Most of the geologic interpretations and all of the topographic data were derived exclusively from images. A variety of image types were used, and each image type corresponds to a unique view of the geology. The geologic interpretations presented here are the result of comparing and contrasting between the various images and making the best uses of the strengths of each image type. A limited amount of fieldwork, in the spring of 2004 and the fall of 2006, was carried out within the quadrangle, but all the war-related dangers present in Afghanistan restricted its scope, duration, and utility. The maps that are included in this report represent works-in-progress in that they are simply intended to be the best possible product for the time available and conditions that exist during the early phases of reconstruction in Afghanistan. This report has been funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as a part of several broader programs that USAID designed to stimulate growth in the energy and mineral sectors of the Afghan economy. The main objective is to provide maps that will be used by scientists of the Afghan Ministry of Mines, the Afghanistan Geological Survey, and the Afghan Geodesy and Cartography Head Office in their efforts

"Gay Guys are Shit-Lovers" and "Lesbians are Obsessed With Fingers": The (Mis)Representation of LGBTIQ People in Thai News Media.

Science.gov (United States)

Fongkaew, Kangwan; Khruataeng, Anoporn; Unsathit, Sumon; Khamphiirathasana, Matawii; Jongwisan, Nisarat; Arlunaek, Oranong; Byrne, Jensen

2017-10-26

This article presents an analysis of news reports containing information or opinions about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) people taken from six Thai media outlets over a period of one year. The aim was to explore how LGBTIQ people are portrayed in news media narratives. LGBTIQ identities were found to be vastly underrepresented and, when represented, were often represented inaccurately, stereotypically, harmfully, or without a clear understanding of the diversity of sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions. (Hetero-)sexist narratives, negative portrayals, harmful stereotypes, and discriminatory speech were also widely found, fueling a climate of stigmatization and discrimination of LGBTIQ people in Thai society. This article suggests that key stakeholders in Thai news media should be sensitized on the human rights of LGBTIQ people and on basic professional ethics in journalism.

Soviet Counterinsurgency Operations in Afghanistan (1979-1988)

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-29

Soviet commitment in Afghanistan. was to be an "economy of force" mission, with the focus of Red Army combat power to remain in the European theatre ...critically for its operational and tactical resupply capability. ’’The Soviets in Afghanis4Ul,li1ce the Americansin Vietnam, discovered thai helicopters were

Job satisfaction and retention of health-care providers in Afghanistan and Malawi

Science.gov (United States)

2014-01-01

Background This study describes job satisfaction and intention to stay on the job among primary health-care providers in countries with distinctly different human resources crises, Afghanistan and Malawi. Methods Using a cross-sectional design, we enrolled 87 health-care providers in 32 primary health-care facilities in Afghanistan and 360 providers in 10 regional hospitals in Malawi. The study questionnaire was used to assess job satisfaction, intention to stay on the job and five features of the workplace environment: resources, performance recognition, financial compensation, training opportunities and safety. Descriptive analyses, exploratory factor analyses for scale development, bivariate correlation analyses and bivariate and multiple linear regression analyses were conducted. Results The multivariate model for Afghanistan, with demographic, background and work environment variables, explained 23.9% of variance in job satisfaction (F(9,73) = 5.08; P job satisfaction. The multivariate model for intention to stay for Afghanistan explained 23.6% of variance (F(8,74) = 4.10; P job satisfaction (F(8,332) = 4.19; P job satisfaction and intention to stay on the job, differed substantially. These findings demonstrate the need for more detailed comparative human resources for health-care research, particularly regarding the relative importance of different determinants of job satisfaction and intention to stay in different contexts and the effectiveness of interventions designed to improve health-care worker performance and retention. PMID:24533615

Afghanistan's ethnic groups share a Y-chromosomal heritage structured by historical events.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marc Haber

Full Text Available Afghanistan has held a strategic position throughout history. It has been inhabited since the Paleolithic and later became a crossroad for expanding civilizations and empires. Afghanistan's location, history, and diverse ethnic groups present a unique opportunity to explore how nations and ethnic groups emerged, and how major cultural evolutions and technological developments in human history have influenced modern population structures. In this study we have analyzed, for the first time, the four major ethnic groups in present-day Afghanistan: Hazara, Pashtun, Tajik, and Uzbek, using 52 binary markers and 19 short tandem repeats on the non-recombinant segment of the Y-chromosome. A total of 204 Afghan samples were investigated along with more than 8,500 samples from surrounding populations important to Afghanistan's history through migrations and conquests, including Iranians, Greeks, Indians, Middle Easterners, East Europeans, and East Asians. Our results suggest that all current Afghans largely share a heritage derived from a common unstructured ancestral population that could have emerged during the Neolithic revolution and the formation of the first farming communities. Our results also indicate that inter-Afghan differentiation started during the Bronze Age, probably driven by the formation of the first civilizations in the region. Later migrations and invasions into the region have been assimilated differentially among the ethnic groups, increasing inter-population genetic differences, and giving the Afghans a unique genetic diversity in Central Asia.

Assessing Water Security in the Amu Darya River Basin, Afghanistan

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

DiPasquale, Joseph A

2006-01-01

...; and water development projects. The thesis evaluated the quantitative techniques employed for their utility in planning, executing, and assessing military operations in relation to water resources. Afghanistan...

Product Differentiation in Local Television News.

Science.gov (United States)

Atwater, Tony

A study was conducted to investigate the extent to which local television stations exhibited diversity in newscast content within three midwest broadcast markets. A second objective was to describe the nature of the news content characteristic of local news stories that were broadcast by only one station within a market (or unique news stories). A…

UK news media representations of smoking, smoking policies and tobacco bans in prisons.

Science.gov (United States)

Robinson, Amy; Sweeting, Helen; Hunt, Kate

2018-02-19

Prisoner smoking rates remain high, resulting in secondhand smoke exposures for prison staff and non-smoker prisoners. Several jurisdictions have introduced prison smoking bans with little evidence of resulting disorder. Successful implementation of such bans requires staff support. As news media representations of health and other issues shape public views and as prison smoking bans are being introduced in the UK, we conducted content analysis of UK news media to explore representations of smoking in prisons and smoke-free prisons. We searched 64 national and local newspapers and 5 broadcast media published over 17 months during 2015-2016, and conducted thematic analysis of relevant coverage in 106 articles/broadcasts. Coverage was relatively infrequent and lacked in-depth engagement with the issues. It tended to reinforce a negative view of prisoners, avoid explicit concern for prisoner or prison staff health and largely ignore the health gains of smoke-free policies. Most coverage failed to discuss appropriate responses or support for cessation in the prison context, or factors associated with high prisoner smoking rates. Half the articles/broadcasts included coverage suggesting smoke-free prisons might lead to unrest or instability. Negative news media representations of prisoners and prison smoking bans may impact key stakeholders' views (eg, prison staff, policy-makers) on the introduction of smoke-free prison policies. Policy-makers' communications when engaging in discussion around smoke-free prison policies should draw on the generally smooth transitions to smoke-free prisons to date, and on evidence on health benefits of smoke-free environments and smoking cessation. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

News and Features Updates from USA.gov

Data.gov (United States)

General Services Administration — Stay on top of important government news and information with the USA.gov Updates: News and Features RSS feed. We'll update this feed when we add news and featured...

JOURNALISM IN POST-TRUTH ERA: fact-checking as a tool to fight against the fake news

OpenAIRE

Spinelli, Egle Müller; Santos, Jéssica de Almeida

2018-01-01

This article intends to report how the work of the agencies of fact-checking can help informative companies in the fight against false news, with their data-checking methodologies in order to encourage the transparency of the journalistic process. A literature review addresses the impacts of post-truth and the spread of fake news in society - where objective facts are less influential in public opinion than personal emotions and beliefs. As a result, it is concluded that serious fact-finding ...

Framing CSR fit: How corporate social responsibility activities are covered by news media

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lunenberg, Katharina; Gosselt, Jordi Franciscus; de Jong, Menno D.T.

2016-01-01

This research provides a basis for understanding how the contents of media coverage about CSR activities relates to the fit between these CSR activities and the organizations’ core activities. In two steps, 513 news articles about organizations’ CSR activities were analyzed. First, an expert review

RHYTHM STRUCTURE IN NEWS READING

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lluís Mas Manchón

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Rhythm is central to news reading in radio and television programs. This paper proposes a three level structure for rhythm in news discourse. It gives a comprehensive definition of rhythm and types of rhythm. Firstly, the Base Rhythm Structure consists of semantic and pragmatic rhythmic accents, coincident with very specific words. Secondly, these accents are grouped together according to type, frequency and order, thereby configuring three types of “rhythmic units” (the Internal Rhythm Structure: starting, main and end units. A last structure level presents four discursive factors that are very important in integrating the overall time structure of news announcing (the Melodic Rhythm Structure. This integral structure for news announcing rhythm should be further tested in acoustic-experimental studies under the criterion of information transmission efficacy.

Krig i Afghanistan gennem fire årtier

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vestenskov, David

2014-01-01

I mere en et årti har dansk og international sikkerhedspolitik haft øjnene rettet mod det etnisk og politisk fragmenterede land i Centralasien, og engagement i Afghanistan har på mange måder været skelsættende for dansk militærhistorie. Landet har gennem de seneste fire årtier befundet sig i en...

Communicating bad news: an integrative review of the nursing literature.

Science.gov (United States)

Fontes, Cassiana Mendes Bertoncello; Menezes, Daniele Vieira de; Borgato, Maria Helena; Luiz, Marcos Roberto

2017-01-01

describe how the process of breaking bad news is established and identify how nurses approach the task of giving bad news. integrative review of the literature for articles in Portuguese and English published between 1993-2014, in the databases: Bireme, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, CINAHL and Embase. Nine articles were included using the selection flow chart. A digital form was completed for each article according to the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research checklist and the level of scientific evidence was determined. Of the 99 articles in identified, nine were included after applying the selection flowchart. breaking bad news is frequent in the area of oncology and palliative care, with a strong cultural influence on the autonomy of nurses in this process. the approach and skills of the nurse during this task influences the patient's reaction to the message. The theme is scarce in the literature and merits further investigation. Descrever como se estabelece o processo de comunicação de más notícias e identificar como o enfermeiro pratica a comunicação de más notícias. Revisão integrativa da literatura com artigos em português e inglês referente ao período 1993-2014 nas bases de dados Bireme, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, CINAHL e Embase. Elegeram-se nove artigos pelo fluxograma de seleção. Para cada artigo foi preenchida uma ficha eletrônica, elaborado um checklist do Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research e verificado o nível de evidência científica. Foram identificados 99 artigos e incluídos nove pelo fluxograma de seleção. Transmitir más notícias é frequente nas áreas de oncologia e cuidados paliativos, com forte influência cultural na autonomia do enfermeiro nesse processo. O modo e a habilidade do enfermeiro durante a ação influenciarão a reação do paciente acerca da mensagem. O tema é escasso na literatura, necessitando ser explorado.

Violence and suffering in television news: toward a broader conception of harmful television content for children.

Science.gov (United States)

Walma van der Molen, Juliette H

2004-06-01

Traditionally, the public and professional debate about the inappropriateness of media violence for children focuses mainly on the negative effects of violence in entertainment programming. However, since the terrorist attacks on September 11th and the recent coverage of the war in Iraq, the suitability of real-life news violence for children may be doubted more than ever. To draw attention to the potential harmful effects of violence presented in news programs, it is argued in the present article that health care professionals should advocate a broader conception of media violence than thus far has been used. On the basis of recent research, potential effects of violent news content, such as fear, aggression, and desensitization, are discussed and recommendations are provided on how to abate these outcomes.