Conversing Ethics in India’s News Media

This paper identifies the significant ethical challenges expressed by journalists and editors working in media companies in the city of Hyderabad, India. Keeping those dilemmas and challenges in mind, the authors propose economist and Noble laureate Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach as a theoretical outline for the development of future journalism ethics curricula. The major challenges described by the journalists and editors were cross-media ownership, which fosters a political economy focused on revenue generation rather than journalism for public good; problems with the publication of inaccurate information, which are now precipitated by the omnipresence of social media; and a culture of “democratic deficit” where journalists find it increasingly difficult to practice journalism safely and to report about poverty, corruption, crime, environment, caste, and gender. The specific knowledge systems from Sen’s capabilities approach suggested for integration are the study and coverage of injustices in a democratic society; the focus on whether people have flourishing lives that give them the opportunities, freedoms, and choices they need; and economic and political freedoms that give journalists an understanding and appreciation for reporting on inequality and strengthening democratic institutions.     

铅污染对青紫泥田土壤中苄嘧磺隆降解的影响

在实验室培养条件下,研究了Pb对苄嘧磺隆除草剂在青紫泥田土壤中的残留和消失动态.结果表明Pb抑制了土壤中苄嘧磺隆的降解,使残留量提高、消失率降低.至培养结束(第180天)时,不同Pb浓度处理下土壤中的残留量在0.18～0.57 mg.kg-1之间,消失率在91%～97%之间.苄嘧磺隆降解随培养时间的变化符合一级反应动力学方程.降解半衰期N33.2～57.2天.分析表明,300 mg·kg-1可能是Pb严重抑制苄嘧磺隆降解的临界浓度,而500 mg·kg-1则可能是Pb强烈抑制苄嘧磺隆降解的上限浓度.上述结果对制定土壤环境重金属容量标准具有较好的参考意义.     

Biochemical characterization of an immunodominant allergen/antigen ofAspergillus fumigatus

An 18kDa protein was identified as a major immunodominant allergen/antigen secreted by a wild type isolate and various clinical isolates ofA. fumigatus. The protein was purified to homogeneity and the N-terminal amino acid was found to be alanine. The N-terminal 20 amino acid sequence of 18kDa was found to be similar to restrictocin, a cytotoxin secreted byAspergillus restrictus. Mass spectroscopic analysis of the purified allergen revealed a molecular size of 17.01 kDa. Immunoreactivity of the purified allergen with monoclonal antibodies and specific IgG and IgE antibodies of the patients of aspergillosis confirmed that this protein is Asp fl.     

Textual keyword extraction and summarization: State-of-the-art

With the advent of Web 2.0, there exist many online platforms that results in massive textual data production such as social networks, online blogs, magazines etc. This textual data carries information that can be used for betterment of humanity. Hence, there is a dire need to extract potential information out of it. This study aims to present an overview of approaches that can be applied to extract and later present these valuable information nuggets residing within text in brief, clear and concise way. In this regard, two major tasks of automatic keyword extraction and text summarization are being reviewed. To compile the literature, scientific articles were collected using major digital computing research repositories. In the light of acquired literature, survey study covers early approaches up to all the way till recent advancements using machine learning solutions. Survey findings conclude that annotated benchmark datasets for various textual data-generators such as twitter and social forms are not available. This scarcity of dataset has resulted into relatively less progress in many domains. Also, applications of deep learning techniques for the task of automatic keyword extraction are relatively unaddressed. Hence, impact of various deep architectures stands as an open research direction. For text summarization task, deep learning techniques are applied after advent of word vectors, and are currently governing state-of-the-art for abstractive summarization. Currently, one of the major challenges in these tasks is semantic aware evaluation of generated results.     

State Regulation and Administrative Flexibility at Public Universities

Research in Higher Education - Have regulatory practices changed in the past decade and does flexibility make a difference in campus effectiveness? This study first measures the academic,...     

Peer review of teaching: External review of course content

External peer review of course content is described. Content is an important component of courses that most peer review models exclude. General suggestions on the development of models are provided to assist in creating a local model. A detailed content review model developed at the author's institution is included.David J. Malik received his Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from the University of California at San Diego and both an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a B.S. in Chemistry from California State University at Hayward. He is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemistry at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis. His research interests are theoretical chemistry and chemical physics. In recent years, he has been actively developing programs in teaching evaluation and improvement and has published work in developing techniques and practices for effective departmental administration.     

Higher education and women’s empowerment in Pakistan

This paper summarises the findings of a 2005 doctoral study by Malik which explored to what extent participation in higher education offers empowerment to women in Pakistan. A survey instrument was used to question female faculty members and female students from 10 public universities in Pakistan; 1290 students and 290 faculty members responded. Subsequently, semi‐structured interviews were held with 10 faculty members and 10 students. Respondents highlighted economic independence and an increased standing within family and society as the main benefits of higher education participation. A major finding is that participation in higher education enables women to impact on a number of discriminatory practices simultaneously and thereby effect change for the better. The main recommendation is that future educational strategies be developed with the aim of further promoting gender equality in all areas of education in Pakistan, but particularly with the aim of increasing female students’ participation in higher education.     

Detection ofAspergillus Fumigatus based on Asp fl gene in clinical specimens

Oligonucleotide primers were synthesised based on the gene sequence of an 18 kDa allergen/antigen ofA. fumigatus isolated from a pathogenic strain. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was carried out using the forward and reverse primers and genomic DNA ofA. fumigatus, A. flavus andA. niger as template. This resulted in a PCR product of 480 bp with onlyA. fumigatus. The absence of PCR product inA. flavus andA. niger with the primers of Asp fl facilitated use of these primers for detection ofA. fumigatus in clinical specimens of patients. The results were compared with microscopy, culture and serology. Application of PCR test to clinical samples of aspergillosis patients is discussed.     

A Synergistic Model to Enhance Multicultural Competence in Supervision

The Synergistic Model of Multicultural Supervision is an integration of 3 existing models to provide concrete and practical guidance for supervisors wishing to enhance supervisee multicultural competence in personally meaningful and developmentally appropriate ways. The model attends to both content and process within the supervisory session and promotes multicultural counselor competence through increasing cognitive complexity, self‐reflection, and structured interventions.     

Toddlers’ Processing of Phonological Alternations: Early Compensation for Assimilation in English and French

Using a picture pointing task, this study examines toddlers’ processing of phonological alternations that trigger sound changes in connected speech. Three experiments investigate whether 2;5‐ to 3‐year‐old children take into account assimilations—processes by which phonological features of one sound spread to adjacent sounds—for the purpose of word recognition (e.g., in English, ten pounds can be produced as te[mp]ounds). English toddlers (n = 18) show sensitivity to native place assimilations during lexical access in Experiment 1. Likewise, French toddlers (n = 27) compensate for French voicing assimilations in Experiment 2. However, French toddlers (n = 27) do not take into account a hypothetical non‐native place assimilation rule in Experiment 3, suggesting that compensation for assimilation is already language specific.