Configuration Design and Trans-Media Control Status of the Hybrid Aerial Underwater Vehicles

Hybrid aerial underwater vehicles (HAUV) are newly borne vehicle concepts, which could fly in the air, navigate underwater, and cross the air-water surface repeatedly. Although there are many problems to be solved, the advanced concept, which combines the integrated multidomain locomotion of both water and air mediums is worth exploring. This paper presents the water–air trans-media status of the HAUV from the perspective of the configuration and trans-media control. It shows that the multi-rotor HAUV is relatively mature and has achieved a stable water–air trans-media process repeatedly. The morphing HAUV is still in its exploration stage, and has achieved partial success.

Boundary Control as Gatekeeping in Facebook Groups

Facebook groups host user-created communities on Facebook’s global platform, and their administrative structure consists of members, volunteer moderators, and governance mechanisms developed by the platform itself. This study presents the viewpoints of volunteers who moderate groups on Facebook that are dedicated to political discussion. It sheds light on how they enact their day-to-day moderation work, from platform administration to group membership, while acknowledging the demands that come from both these tasks. As volunteer moderators make key decisions about content, their work significantly shapes public discussion in their groups. Using data obtained from 15 face-to-face interviews, this qualitative study sheds light on volunteer moderation as a means of media control in complex digital networks. The findings show that moderation concerns not just the removal of content or contacts but, most importantly, it is about protecting group norms by controlling who has the access to the group. Facebook’s volunteer moderators have power not only to guide discussion but, above all, to decide who can participate in it, which makes them important gatekeepers of the digital public sphere.

Understanding Media Control in the Digital Age

Media control comprises multifaceted and amorphous phenomena, combining a variety of forms, tools, and practices. Today media control takes place in a sphere where national politics meet global technology, resulting in practices that bear features of both the (global) platforms and the affordances of national politics. At the intersection of these fields, we try to understand current practices of media control and the ways in which it may be resisted. This thematic issue is an endeavour to bring together conceptual, methodological, and empirical contributions to revise the scholarly discussion on media control. First, authors of this thematic issue re-assemble the notion of media control itself, as not being holistic and discrete (control vs freedom) but by considering it from a more critical perspective as having various modes and regimes. Second, this thematic issue brings a “micro” perspective into understanding and theorising media control. In comparison to structural and institutional perspectives on control, this perspective focuses on the agency of various actors (objects and subjects of media pressure) and their practices, motivations, and the resources with which they exert or resist control. Featuring cases from a broad range of countries with political systems ranging from democracy to electoral authoritarian regime, this issue also draws attention to the question of how media control relates to regime type.

The Vulnerabilities of Trusted Notifier-Models in Russia: The Case of Netoscope

Current digital ecosystems are shaped by platformisation, algorithmic recommender systems, and news personalisation. These (algorithmic) infrastructures influence online news dissemination and therefore necessitate a reconceptualisation of how online media control is or may be exercised in states with restricted media freedom. Indeed, the degree of media plurality and journalistic independence becomes irrelevant when reporting is available but difficult to access; for example, if the websites of media outlets are not indexed or recommended by the search engines, news aggregators, or social media platforms that function as algorithmic gatekeepers. Research approaches to media control need to be broadened because authoritarian governments are increasingly adopting policies that govern the internet <em>through</em> its infrastructure; the power they leverage against private infrastructure owners yields more effective—and less easily perceptible—control over online content dissemination. Zooming in on the use of trusted notifier-models to counter online harms in Russia, we examine the Netoscope project (a database of Russian domain names suspected of malware, botnet, or phishing activities) in which federal censor Roskomnadzor cooperates with, e.g., Yandex (that downranks listed domains in search results), Kaspersky, and foreign partners. Based<strong> </strong>on publicly available reports, media coverage, and semi-structured interviews, the article analyses the degree of influence, control, and oversight of Netoscope’s participating partners over the database and its applications. We argue that, in the absence of effective legal safeguards and transparency requirements, the politicised nature of internet infrastructure makes the trusted notifier-model vulnerable to abuse in authoritarian states.

Violence against Journalists

News has always been a sphere of conflict, and one finds violence at every point in the history of news. Although violence in general has been omnipresent, the forms that violence takes come and go, corresponding to rising and falling levels of general violence within and between societies (with war being the classic example), as well as changes in the social and political roles of the news media and developing norms for journalism. In periods of partisan journalism, for instance, attacks intensify with political conflict and aim to silence opinion writers; in periods of professionalized journalism supported by strong news organizations, attacks are often attempts to “hack” the news system so that it includes non-mainstream positions. In other words, violence is always meaningful, and usually strategic, even though it might seem like random irrational noise. Sometimes violence has been an extension of state media control; this is particularly the case in authoritarian systems, where violence supplements other forms of censorship. On the other hand, often it’s a way of contesting state authority, and it can be especially pronounced in post-authoritarian systems with a limited capacity for state protection of independent journalism. In other cases it involves conflicts that are not political in nature: in every period, violence has been a way of reacting to perceived slights on honor or reputation. Because it is such a diverse and shifting set of phenomena, it is useful to distinguish various common forms of violence against journalists.

Logical Fallacy Argumentation on Testimonials on Homeshopping Television Show

The decision to purchase a product is inseparable from the buyer's trust in a product. Testimonials are a tool for marketers to eliminate consumer barriers about the product to be purchased. Testimonials on home shopping television products tend to be controllable. The selection of sources, the use of scripts, and the editing process can be a form of media control over the information received by the public. This study focus on analyzing testimonials from the logical side of the testimony content. The method used to analyze this logical fallacy is qualitative content analysis. The text is separated using Toulmin's model into three parts, namely claim, ground, and warrant. This research uses a logical fallacy as a tool to evaluate the logic of the testimony in terms of content. The results of this study found that there was a logical fallacy in the testimony content. The fallacies include generalization fallacy, fallacy fallacies, fallacy of composition, appeal to wealth fallacy, appeal to pity, dan appeal to force.

Foreign Experience of Public Sector Communications in the context of Global COVID-19 Pandemic

Communication in the public sector is a key tool for responding to sudden crises. It allows to check the interpretation of what is happening in accordance with changing circumstances and prevent the risks of irreversible obligations, when the authorities make management decisions in conditions of the pandemic crisis, which has raised the bar of their responsibility to protect citizens. COVID-19 is considered by the author as a starting point in the transformation of traditional communication schemes and the institutional consolidation of new communication practices and models of crisis communication. Public sector organizations face different challenges in comparison to private ones, because they are influenced by social structures, power dynamics and a higher level of media control. The pandemic accelerated the processes of media convergence and defined in it a communication collaborative strategy for the development of crisis communications in the public sector. The beginning institutionalization of crisis communications makes it possible to systematize communication strategies and increase the effectiveness of the tools and means used for the proper organization of crisis communication in the public sector. The core of modern crisis communications is social media, which, in fact, is equated with traditional media and entered into direct competition with them, primarily due to the ability to monitor crisis problems and decentralized rapid communications. To keep control over the process of informing the citizens in a crisis, the authorities must act in accordance with a certain communication scenario. The model of crisis communication for the public sector is still being formed. It needs to be re-conceptualized in an increasingly personalized, emotional, and hybrid media landscape.

O-099 TEAD4 regulates trophectoderm differentiation upstream of CDX2 in human preimplantation embryos

Study question What is the main pathway regulating trophectoderm (TE) differentiation during pre-implantation development in mouse versus human embryos? Summary answer TEAD4 is acting upstream of CDX2 and is involved in TE differentiation, as TEAD4-null human embryos exhibit compromised TE lineage differentiation. What is known already TEAD4 is the earliest transcription factor during early embryo development, required for the expression of TE-associated genes leading to successful TE differentiation and subsequent blastocoel formation in mouse. Functional knock-out studies in mouse, inactivating Tead4 by site-specific recombination have shown that Tead4-null embryos do not express TE specific genes, including Caudal-Type Homeobox Protein 2 (Cdx2) and GATA Binding Protein 3 (Gata3), but expression of inner cell mass (ICM)-specific genes, remains unaffected. Furthermore, ablation of Tead4 compromises embryonic development and subsequent blastocoel formation in mouse. The role of TEAD4, during human pre-implantation development has not been functionally characterized yet. Study design, size, duration CRISPR-Cas9 was introduced in mouse zygotes and editing efficiency was evaluated by next-generation sequencing (NGS) on 4.5dpc embryos (n = 55). Developmental kinetics were monitored in CRISPR-Cas9 targeted (n = 83), sham-injected (n = 26) and non-injected media-control (n = 51) mouse embryos. Immunofluorescence analysis was performed in Tead4 targeted (n = 57) and non-injected media-control embryos (n = 94). The same methodology was applied in human donated in vitro matured (IVM) metaphase-II (MII) oocytes, which were CRISPR-Cas9 targeted (n = 74) during ICSI or used as media-Control (n = 33). Participants/materials, setting, methods A gRNA-Cas9 mixture targeting exon 2 of Tead4/TEAD4 was microinjected in respectively mouse 2PN (pronuclear) stage zygotes, or human IVM MII oocytes along with the sperm. Generated embryos were cultured in vitro for 4 days in mouse or 6.5 days in human. Embryonic development and morphology were assessed daily, followed by a detailed scoring at the late blastocyst stage. Successful targeting following CRISPR-Cas9 introduction was assessed by immunostaining and NGS analysis of the targeted locus. Main results and the role of chance In mouse, we confirmed previous findings, as the developmental capacity of Tead4 targeted embryos was significantly reduced starting from the morula stage and blastocyst formation rates were 8.97% in the targeted group, compared to 87.23% in the control and 87.50% in the sham group, respectively. Immunofluorescence analysis of late morula and blastocyst stage embryos confirmed the absence of Tead4, Cdx2 and Gata3, resulting from the successful interruption of the Tead4 locus (n = 57). Exon 2 of TEAD4 was successfully targeted in human. In total, 21 embryos from various developmental stages were successfully NGS analyzed and 90,48% (19 out of 21) of the embryos carried genetic modifications as a result of CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing and seven blastocysts were identified carrying exclusively frameshift mutations. In contrast to mouse, the developmental capacity of human targeted embryos (25%) did not differ significantly from the control group (23%). However, the blastocyst morphology and quality were compromised in the targeted group showing mostly grade C TE scores, containing very few cells. Immunofluorescence analysis of targeted blastocysts (n = 6) confirmed successful editing by complete absence of TEAD4 and its downstream TE marker CDX2. Limitations, reasons for caution CRISPR-Cas9 germline genome editing results in multiple editing outcomes with variable phenotypic penetrance, the mosaic nature of which complicates the phenotypic analysis and developmental behaviour of the injected embryos. Wider implications of the findings Elucidation of the evolutionary conserved molecular mechanisms that regulate self-renewal of the trophoblast lineage can give us fundamental insights on early implantation failure. Trial registration number Not Applicable