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Reports show that media freedom is under pressure worldwide. Violence against journalists has a legal facet that takes the form of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) that aim at silencing critical speech. While in some countries there are legal protections against SLAPPs, in Europe a debate is only recently being carried out, mainly fostered by professional journalist associations and civil society. This article explores the role that European journalistic self-regulatory bodies perceive they (could) have in fighting SLAPPs, analysing 16 qualitative answers gathered via a questionnaire. Self-regulation has historically been a way to protect the independence of journalism and uphold its ethical standards. The open-ended responses help to understand how SLAPPs put into question the representations that media councils and professional associations use to construct their 'professional jurisdiction', and therefore, their 'territory' and the way in which they see their role in society. Our results provide food for thought on the handling of legal attacks against journalists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the increased risk of high heat release and asphyxiation (toxic gas poisoning) in the event of a fire involving polyurethane (PU)- and MDF-based building materials, which are commonly used in buildings. Among them, polyurethane (PU) building materials are very commonly used in buildings, except in Europe and some other countries, due to their excellent thermal insulation performance. Still, problems of short-term heat release and the spread of toxic gases in the event of a fire continue to occur. To overcome these problems, researchers are actively working on introducing various flame retardants into building materials. Therefore, in this study, we produced a laboratory-sized (500 mm × 500 mm) plate-like flame-retardant board that can be utilized as a building material with a lower heat release rate and a lower toxicity index. The material was made by mixing expanded graphite and ceramic binder as flame retardants in a material that is formulated based on the cellulose of waste paper, replacing the existing building materials with a hot-press method. According to the ISO-5660-1 test on the heat release rate of the plate-like flame-retardant board, the Total Heat Release (THR) value was 2.9 (MJ/m2) for 10 min, showing an effect of reducing the THR value by 36.3 (MJ/m2) compared to the THR value of 39.2 (MJ/m2) of the specimen made using only paper. In addition, the toxicity index of the flame-retardant board was checked through the NES (Naval Engineering Standards)-713 test. As a result, the test specimen showed a toxicity index of 0.7, which is 2.4 lower than the toxicity index of 3.1 of MDF, which is utilized as a conventional building material. Based on the results of this study, the cellulose fire-retardant board showed the effect of reducing the heat release rate and toxicity index of building materials in a building fire, which reduces the risk of rapid heat spread and smoke toxicity. This has the potential to improve the evacuation time (A-SET) of evacuees in fires. It is also important to show that recycling waste paper and utilizing it as the main material for building materials can be an alternative in terms of sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes descriptions of Ukrainian refugees in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Findings of previous research on news media descriptions of refugees point to problematic descriptions of refugees that downgrade their deservingness of refuge and treat refugee status as an inherent feature of fleeing individuals instead of as contingent on external circumstances. However, there is a widespread perception that Ukrainian refugees are being reported on in a more positive light. We therefore examine how news media describe these refugees. Our corpus includes English media news coverage from February 25, 2022, to March 25, 2022, the initial period of the invasion. A discursive psychological analysis of news interactions where hosts elicit information from correspondents about current ongoings with Ukrainian refugees shows that Ukrainian refugees are constructed as vulnerable, and their actions are treated as reasonable given the situation. These descriptions construct Ukrainian refugees as those who are only contingently refugees and legitimate help‐giving by other parties. Our findings, therefore, highlight distinct, previously unanalyzed ways that refugees are constructed: contingent refugees. We discuss implications of our findings for understanding refugee inclusion and exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the practical results of the revolutions that engulfed Europe in 1848–1849 were largely ephemeral, they elicited great excitement and anticipation. In particular, some enlightened Jews saw the revolutions and ensuing political developments as a great opportunity, hoping that they would lead to emancipation, equality, and brotherhood with their non-Jewish neighbors. Spurred on by the events, Abraham Mendel Mohr, a Galician maskil and author, established a Yiddish newspaper, Tsaytung (the first Yiddish weekly), through which he disseminated news and information about the revolutions. He not only sought to inform, however, but also to motivate his readers to seize this unique opportunity, and to change and adapt themselves accordingly (expounding a typically maskilic program). An examination of Mohr's Tsaytung , which was published between May 1848 and September 1849, provides a rare glimpse into how a Galician maskil responded to the tumultuous events of the Spring of Nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section offers public health news briefs in Europe, as of October 2023. Topics covered include how much the European Public Health Association is able to do with its small secretariat, the regional roadmap on antimicrobial resistance for 2023-2030 which member states of the World Health Organization European Region are invited to adopt and the 16th European Public Health Conference to be held in Dublin, Ireland on November 8-11, 2023.

The article highlights developments in public health in Europe as of October 2022. Topics mentioned include the acquisition of an operating grant by European Public Health Association from the European Commission, the lessons about health emergencies that can be learned from COVID-19 pandemic, and the advocacy of Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region for public health.

• A new perspective for assessing the convenience of international multimodal transport with the novel international multimodal transport connectivity (IMTC) index is provided. • In both the pre-and post-COVID years, the time-based IMTCs via CR Express were significantly higher than those via maritime shipping for all nine cargo categories. • In the pre-COVID year, monetary-based IMTCs via CR Express were significantly lower than those via maritime shipping and vice versa. In this study, we propose a novel International Multimodal Transport Connectivity (IMTC) index and assess the IMTC of multimodal transport from mainland China to Europe. We first present the definition of IMTC, which represents the ease of transporting export cargoes from a domestic origin to an overseas destination by an international multimodal transport network. Second, we propose two kinds of IMTC indexes and then give detailed measurement methods by considering the main modes (i.e., railway express and maritime shipping) in the international multimodal transport process. One is the monetary-based IMTC measured by the monetary cost shippers must pay for transporting export cargo to an overseas region. The other is the time-based IMTC, which is measured by the time cost of the international multimodal transport process and incorporates the time value of different export cargo categories and transport time uncertainty. Third, we assess the IMTC of the international multimodal transport from mainland China to Europe and we mainly compare the monetary-based and the time-based IMTCs via the CR Express or maritime shipping in the pre- and post-COVID years. The results indicate that monetary-based IMTCs from China to Europe via CR Express are significantly lower than those via maritime shipping in the pre-COVID year, while the trend reverses in the post-COVID year, and the monetary-based IMTCs via CR Express are much higher than those via maritime shipping. Moreover, in both the pre-and post-COVID years, the time-based IMTCs from China to Europe via CR Express were significantly higher than those via maritime shipping for all nine cargo categories. Our study offers a new perspective for assessing the convenience of international multimodal transport with the novel IMTC index and provides policy and managerial implications (e.g., real-time cargo tracking technology with blockchain, unified price control mechanism and subsidy strategy, and expansion of the CR Express capacity) to guide policymakers in improving the resilience of international multimodal transport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses public health news briefs in Europe. The European Health Union launched the European Health Data Space (EHDS) health-specific data sharing framework that establishes common standards and practices. Also cited are the role of health care in fighting human trafficking, and the scheduled 16th European Public Health Conference in Dublin, Ireland in November 2023.

The article presents an update on the COVID-19 pandemic as of February 2022. Based on statistics, people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are more at risk during the pandemic due to their higher comorbidities and limited access to COVID-19 vaccines. The Pan-European Commission on Health and Sustainable Development is calling for all levels of society to address the divisions revealed by COVID-19. The European Public Health Conference will be held in Berlin, Germany in November.

The article deals with the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) and notes that despite its tenth anniversary in 2022, interest in it is low. The Covid-19 pandemic and the Conference on the Future of Europe have led to a decline in the use of the ECI. The political debate mainly focuses on new forms of participation, while strengthening the existing instrument is only mentioned in passing. Scientific research on the ECI remains a niche topic, although some analyses of its impact and mobilization of support have been published. The media plays an important role in providing information on European politics, but there are challenges in reporting due to different national publics and the low market value of European politics. The digital transformation offers opportunities to make European politics more popular and reach new target groups, but EU correspondents warn against diluting the professionalism and control function of EU news journalism. The Conference on the Future of Europe has provided impetus for European media and public policy and discussed various media policy initiatives. The EU has already taken initiatives to strengthen press freedom, including the Digital Services Act and direct sanctions against media institutions. The future of European media policy lies in securing press freedom and promoting new digital forums for the exchange of European political content. [Extracted from the article]

This section offers public health-related news briefs in Europe as of December 1, 2021. The World Health Organization (WHO) Global Air Quality Guidelines was launched in September 2021 offering updated air quality guideline (AQG) levels for six key air pollutants. The European Union (EU) vaccines strategy has led to the delivery of over 890 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to Member States, vaccinating over 290 million citizens. The 15th European Public Health Conference will be held in Germany.

Steroids are the cornerstone of the treatment of childhood nephrotic syndrome. The optimal duration for the first episode remains a matter of debate. The aim of this study is to determine whether the 8 weeks International Study of Kidney Disease in Children (ISKDC) regimen is equally effective as the 12 weeks steroid regimen from the German society of pediatric nephrology (Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Pädiatrische Nephrologie [APN]). An individual patient data (IPD) meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials reporting on prednisolone treatment for a first episode of childhood nephrotic syndrome was conducted. European trials aimed at investigating the ISKDC and/or APN steroid regimen were selected. The lead investigators of the selected trials were requested to provide the IPD of the specific treatment groups. Four trials included European cohorts using dosing schedules according to the regimens studied. IPD of two trials were available. A significant difference was found in time to first relapse after cessation of steroid treatment between the 8 and 12 weeks treatment group with a median time to relapse of 29 and 63 days, respectively. Moreover, relapse rate ratios during total follow-up were 51% higher for the 8 weeks regimen. Finally, younger children have a significantly lower time to first relapse and frequently relapsing nephrotic syndrome. Conclusions: The results of this IPD meta-analysis suggest that the 8 weeks steroid regimen for a first episode of steroid-sensitive nephrotic syndrome may not be equally effective as the 12 weeks steroid regimen. Moreover, this study highlights the importance of using uniform definitions to enable accurate comparison and interpretation of trial results. Trial registration: Registration number: CRD42020199244, date of registration 16-08-2020 What is Known: • Steroids are the cornerstone of the treatment of childhood nephrotic syndrome, however the optimal duration for the first episode remains a matter of debate. • Currently, the 8 weeks ISKDC protocol and 12 weeks APN protocol are among the most frequently used protocols in Europe. What is New: • The 8 weeks steroid regimen for a first episode of steroid-sensitive nephrotic syndrome may not be equally effective as the 12 weeks steroid regimen for the treatment of a first episode of nephrotic syndrome. • Younger children have a significantly shorter time to first relapse and time to frequent relapsing nephrotic syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to develop new avenues of research for the study of the Ukrainian press in Europe in a retrospective of the 20th century. Specifically, it aims to present here a comprehensive overview of the Ukrainian periodicals issued in the West European languages during the Ukrainian Revolution (1917–1921). In the process of the search work conducted during 2012–2019, the corpus of the Ukrainian foreign-language press in Europe spanning the Ukrainian national liberation movement/Ukrainian Revolution has been identified. This has been accomplished through a comprehensive study of the foreign-language bibliography (by means of the bibliographic heuristics' method) and scholarly reference sources, as well as systematic fieldwork in the holdings of both Western and Ukrainian archives and libraries. The Ukrainian press in the West European languages of Europe of that period serves as a barometer of receptions by different West European media outlets of the Ukrainian Revolution (1917–1921). Its structure, editorial policies, and content serve both as a record, as well as a digest of the foreign (i.e., West European) press receptions about the Ukrainian national revolution. The complex nature of this cluster of the Ukrainian press thus enables researchers (both Ukrainian, and foreign scholars) to use it as an important (and sometimes indispensable) source of information about the development and transformations of the Ukrainian Revolution. This study argues that this corpus of publications is a unique phenomenon in the history of Ukrainian journalism in terms of its transformation, diversification, internationalization and subsequent integration into the European public sphere. This study also shows that there are yet many gaps in the fields of media history, Slavic and East European Studies, and Ukrainian Studies of the interwar period awaiting attention of future bibliographers and scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers public health news briefs in Europe as of June 2021. The European Union (EU) government launched its "Europe's Beating Cancer Plan" to control and eradicate cancers. Other news include the scheduled 14th European Public Health (EPH) Conference in November, and the need to achieve health equity in the region by establishing well-being economies.

The article focuses on the Federation of European Nutrition Societies (FENS) and their efforts to improve the credibility and trustworthiness of nutrition science. Topics include the development of guidance for writing and reviewing the lack of standardized approaches in disseminating nutrition research, and the need for accurate communication to the public; and FENS Working Group has identified the press release as a source of inaccuracy and exaggeration in nutrition science communication.

This section offers news briefs related to European public health as of June 2023. Topics include the struggle of national health systems to deal with multiple, often overlapping emergencies while also providing quality health care and the 16th European Public Health Conference on November 8-11, 2023 in Dublin, Ireland.

Newly set-up social heritage museums have attempted to counter the anonymous and stereotyped presentations of migrants in the public sphere. Drawing on the tension between media and museum representations of human mobility, this paper offers a multimodal analysis of de-marginalization strategies in museum discourses of migration. We argue that in contrast to contemporary news media and their predominantly "exclusionary" discourse (Krzyżanowski, Triandafyllidou, and Wodak 2018. "The Mediatization and the Politicization of the 'Refugee Crisis' in Europe." Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies 16 (1-2): 1–14), museums portray (e)migration enthusiastically, with varying degrees of sophistication, with strategies to generate involvement, empathy, and pleasurable experience. Historical actors and events are thereby stretched as well as compressed and essentialized into a phenomenon of people of all times everywhere. In this process of de-marginalization, however, museums and visitors also pay a price of differentiation and authenticity. We suggest that this mainly happens under the pressure of neoliberal economic conditions and the exigencies of the experience economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The American College of Cardiology (ACC) in USA and the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) in Europe have issued around 25 practice cardiology guidelines since 2008. The attention and impact of these guidelines have not been investigated yet. Aim: In this study, we aim to compare the attention brought up by ACC and ESC guidelines. Methods: Guideline documents were defined as documents published by either the ACC or the ESC, where recommendations with a specific level of evidence are clearly indicated. These documents were posted on their respective websites. For each document, we extracted the attention on blogs, news, social media, and other platforms to calculate a total score known as the Altmetric Attention Score (AAS). Then we compared AAS, citations, and other indices between ACC and ESC guideline documents. Results: A total of 26 US and 24 European cardiology guidelines were released between 2008 and 2018. We found a significant difference in the median AAS between American and European guidelines (p = 0.048). The median AAS for European and for American guidelines were 159 (104.25–392.5) and 79 (24–169.75), respectively. The US Contribution to the AAS was significantly higher than the European in both the European guidelines (p < 0.001, median contribution values were 7.6% vs 3.4%, respectively), and the American guidelines (p = 0.011, median contribution values were 12% vs 7%, respectively). Conclusion: The attention brought up by the European guideline documents was higher than the American guidelines, although most of the attention in both guidelines was contributed to by USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to articles which addressed the crucial role of public health professionals during the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is presented.

This article examines the "Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Programme" (SVPRP) as a specific British response to the "European refugee crisis". Based on an analysis of media reporting (2014–17) and empirical evidence from agencies and volunteers tasked with implementing the programme, this essay reveals the ethical and political ambiguities at its heart. By focusing on the notion of "vulnerability" I argue that the humanitarian configuration of a refugee worthy of care is implicated in two significant practices: exceptionalising a small group of Syrians as legitimate targets for compassion and constructing compassion itself as a rationed resource in a climate of anti-immigrant hostility, austerity and Brexit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the discursive representation of refugees in a 1.8-million-word corpus of Spanish news articles collected from the digital libraries of El Mundo and El País. Through a corpus-assisted methodology, synchronic and diachronic analyses have been conducted in order to examine the semantic preference of the lemma refugiado over the 2010–16 period. The results show a semantic preference of refugiado for two major semantic sets, namely victimization and dehumanization. Indeed, the preference tends to fluctuate between these two extremes over the years analyzed: either they are victims and their human condition is highlighted or they are dehumanized. Both sets of collocates represent about 50 percent of the total semantic preference of refugiado. • The lemma refugiado shows a preference for victimization 24.5% of its occurrences. • The lemma refugiado shows a preference for dehumanization 25.8% of its occurrences. • Seasonal collocates coincide with the biggest arrival of refugees in Europe. • Victimization and dehumanization show opposite tendencies over the 2010–16 period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fantoches was a weekly Venezuelan humorous icon of press freedom in the first decades of the 20th century. From the warlike conflict in Europe in September 1939 we came across varied caricatures of characters, settings and elements that identified the context of conflict in Europe, whose effects threatened the economic and social stability of the country. As a graphic testimony of a time of political, social and international changes, the images of the weekly reveal a Bolivarian and nationalist character to break into the moral and historical conscience of Venezuelans in favor of the protection of their socioeconomic and territorial interests before the outbreak of the war, being mainly critical of the economic effects of the neutral position proposed by the central government for the benefit of the country. For the development and interpretation of these expressions through these images, is necessary to do an analysis of political, economic and social documents in order to help link the caricatures of Fantoches with the Venezuelan reality of the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commercially motivated junk news–i.e. money-driven, highly shareable clickbait with low journalistic production standards–constitutes a vast and largely unexplored news media ecosystem. Using publicly available Facebook data, we compared the reach of junk news on Facebook pages in the Netherlands to the reach of Dutch mainstream news on Facebook. During the period 2013–2017 the total number of user interactions with junk news significantly exceeded that with mainstream news. Over 5 Million of the 10 Million Dutch Facebook users have interacted with a junk news post at least once. Junk news Facebook pages also had a significantly stronger increase in the number of user interactions over time than mainstream news. Since the beginning of 2016 the average number of user interactions per junk news post has consistently exceeded the average number of user interactions per mainstream news post. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• An international trade transportation mode is proposed utilizing the short-ocean liner shipping as the end trip of the CR-Express trip. • The markets of both Japan-Europe transportation and Japan-China transportation are considered. • The commodities exported from Japan to Europe and China are clustered in terms of their values of time. • The mode utility function and mode choice model are constructed by integrating the data of both SP and RP surveys. • The feasibility of the new service is verified by clustering the goods exported from Japan to either Europe or China. Based on the export demand from Japan to the EU, we propose a sea-rail multimodal transportation corridor, with the China Railway Express (CR-Express) as the backbone. We conduct revealed preference (RP) and stated preference (SP) surveys of Japanese shippers and forwarders, and then integrate this data to build a utility function and route choice model of containers exported from Japan to Europe. We then construct a programming model to optimize a Japan-Europe, sea-rail transportation corridor in terms of ship size and sailing speed, operating frequency for Japan-China short-sea liner shipping and the needed CR-Express trains, with the objective of maximizing transportation profits from the multimodal system. Our model demonstrates that Japan's high value exports to Europe prefer the multimodal route. In addition, three ships of 500 TEU each, with a sailing speed of 21 knots and departing 3 times per week, should be used for the short-sea liner leg of the route. We project the realized benefit at 2.0807 million USD/week (equivalent to 108.19 million USD annually). In the optimal case, 3 CR-Express trains with available capacity of 69 TEU containers will be necessary to connect the short-sea liner ships to the overland route. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of the rise of online communication and political divisions based on symbols, rather than structure (decrease in the importance of class-based voting), citizens are increasingly linked to news outlets that articulate and reinforce their views. The process is facilitated by the spontaneous processes of bottom–up communication that excludes, in an iterative process, people who express views that are inconsistent with the prevailing opinion. The emergence of "information verticals" is a significant influence on attitudes to some issues covered in political debate. These effects operate with regard to so-called easy issues, that is, those rooted in emotions and in the symbolic sphere. Our article is an empirical test of our hypotheses about the effects of media framing of "hard" and "easy" issues. We apply a survey experiment method to verify whether contact with news coverage has an effect on attitudes, taking into account the political orientation and cognitive skills of citizens. Our empirical analyses confirm that a hostile media framing of migration changes respondents' attitudes no matter their level of cognitive engagement. The data come from Poland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The current economic context calls for rationalizing health resources that can be pursued through disinvestment from low value health technologies to invest in the best performing ones, ensuring high healthcare quality. Oncology is a field where, because of high costs of health technologies and rapid innovation, disinvestment is crucial. Methods On this basis, the research team investigated through a survey, based on a questionnaire, opinions and views of representatives of European countries about disinvestment, in terms of fields of application, potential advocates and barriers, specifically focusing on cancer care. Results A total of 17 questionnaires were filled in (response rate: 32.1%). The survey showed disinvestment is applied in several countries as a tool for containing health care expenditures and identifying obsolete technologies/ineffective interventions. Clinicians' resistance to change and industries' opposition are recognized as the most important barriers to the implementation of disinvestment policies. Potential targets of disinvestment in cancer are seen in diagnostic and therapeutic areas. Conclusion Despite the agreement on fields of waste and of disinvestment policies, operational methods to put disinvestment in place are lacking. Since they should rely on an inclusive assessment of the technology, Health Technology Assessment may represent a good approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Schizophrenia is a chronic disease associated with significant and long-lasting effects on health, and it is also a social and financial burden, not only for patients but also for families, other caregivers, and the wider society. It is essential to conduct the assessment of indirect costs, to understand all the effects of the disease on society. Our aim is to gain a better understanding of the indirect costs of schizophrenia in Europe. Methods We conducted a comprehensive systematic literature review covering EMBASE, Medline, and PsycINFO as well as reviewing Health Technology Assessment databases from different countries. We used a qualitative research synthesis for presenting information, as most of the studies were methodologically diverse, a quantitative analysis would have been impractical. Results Indirect cost adjusted to inflation ranged vastly between studies included in the review from 119 Euros to 62, 034 Euros annually. The average proportion of indirect costs of total costs was 44%. Studies highlighted important cost drivers as age, gender, and disease severity, explaining the variation in costs between treatment and patient groups. Conclusions Regardless of the methodological heterogeneity of the reviewed studies, there was an agreement about the significance of indirect costs of schizophrenia on the society. Considering the relatively high prevalence of schizophrenia in Europe, a need for more cost of illness studies especially from Central Eastern and Southern Europe is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The ST131 Escherichia coli clone is associated with the global dissemination of ESBLs. It has been hypothesized that ST131 could take advantage of better colonizing abilities. However, the data on colonization prevalence of ESBL-ST131 in European hospitals are scarce.Objectives: To assess the prevalence of the ST131 clone and its microbiological characteristics among colonizing ESBL-producing E. coli (ESBL-Ec) from hospitalized patients in four European hospitals (Berlin, Geneva, Madrid and Utrecht) during the R-GNOSIS study.Methods: ESBL-Ec isolates (n = 688) were obtained from rectal swabs of hospitalized patients from March 2014 to February 2015 using selective media. The ST131 clone and its subclones were sought using PCR and positive isolates were further studied. blaESBL genes were characterized (PCR and sequencing), antibiotic susceptibility testing was performed, clonal relationships were studied by PFGE and fimH allele and O type (PCR) were assessed.Results: ST131 prevalence was 20.5% (141/688); C1/H30R1 isolates were significantly more prevalent in Geneva (49%) and C2/H30Rx in Madrid (67%). C1/H30R1 isolates showed less resistance to amikacin than C2/H30Rx (4% versus 35%) and all were susceptible to penicillin/inhibitor combinations. CTX-M-15 was the most common enzyme (49%) followed by CTX-M-27 (27%). C1/H30R1 isolates were significantly associated with CTX-M-27 (72%) and all of these isolates belonged to the C1-M27 clade. Moreover, C2/H30Rx isolates and CTX-M-15 were also significantly related (88%).Conclusions: The predominance of C2/H30Rx-CTX-M-15 in Madrid and C1/H30R1-CTX-M-27 in Geneva demonstrates a changing epidemiology of ESBLs in Europe caused by ST131 subclones; in particular, the emergence of the C1-M27 clade in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Environmental and welfare implications of intermodal competition between the CR Express and maritime shipping are examined. • While increasing the welfare, CR Express increases emissions unless it is sufficiently emission efficient. • Such impacts are enhanced with more CR Express operators, or fewer shipping carriers. • The competition among Chinese local governments in supporting their own CR Express services also strengthens the impacts. • The analytical model is further calibrated with real market and operational data. China Railway Express (CR Express) has been fast developed, offering an alternative to transportation of the containerized cargo between China and Europe. This paper examines CO 2 emissions and social welfare implications of the intermodal competition between the emerging CR Express and incumbent maritime shipping. An analytical model is developed, which shows that the implications depend in general on the relative emission intensities of the two transport modes on a per-trip basis. The entry of CR Express and the resultant intermodal competition, while likely improving welfare, will increase emissions unless CR Express is sufficiently emission efficient. Such impacts on emissions and welfare are enhanced when there are more CR Express operators, or when there are fewer shipping carriers. The competition among Chinese local governments in supporting their own CR Express services also strengthens the impacts. The analytical model is further calibrated with real market and operational data on the route between China's Yangtze River Delta and Central Europe. Our numerical simulations show that intermodal competition leads to more emissions unless CR Express can achieve an approximately 90% reduction in emission intensity and that overall welfare is nonetheless improved. Policy and managerial implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section offers news briefs on European public health as of August 2020. Topics discussed include solidarity amid the Covid-19 pandemic and after the crisis, ways of improving equitable access to medicines and technologies, and decision of the Congress Management Committee to move the 16th World Congress on Public Health (WCPH 2020) into a virtual congress.

The article offers public health news briefs. The World Health Organization's (WHO) June 2022 statement claiming that eastern African countries like Kenya, Somalia, and South Sudan are facing a nutrition crisis due to factors like extreme weather events. Also cited are the earthquake that hit Afghanistan, the discovery of Marburg virus infection in Ghana, and the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

This article analyses Ihc on-going struggle over property rights in journalism in Europe, with a particular emphasis on the situation in Spain. To do so, we have carried out a historical review of the main conflicts on which the defence of intellectual property on the internet has centred. The European legislative system has tended to shy away from involvement in the area. The decisions and actions of the Member Slates have revealed a lack of common policy in the field of intellectual properly rights as a result of the facultative nature of EU Directives. State judicial bodies diverge in their regulation of the protection of the press regarding news aggregators. Intermediaries arc deemed parasites of the transformed value chain of the press industry by certain sectors. In the face of the tension which has surfaced between editors and news aggregators, diplomacy would appear to have become a key player as mediation takes place, with the intermediaries attempting to reach press collaboration agreements with the giants of the net The services and activities which feature in the digital environment outpace judicial orders and, consequently, out-of-court settlements appear to be preferred by some media. At the same lime, they await the Ell authorities' debate on the regulatory framework, which is expected to afford greater protection to press editors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 1 January 2014 the transitional controls on free movement adopted by the UK when Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU in 2007, ended. This paper demonstrates how the discourses of politicians relating to their removal, amplified via news media contributed to the extension of state bordering practices further into everyday life. Based on ethnographic research into everyday bordering during 2013–15 the paper uses an intersectional framework to explore how this homogenizing, bordering discourse was experienced and contested from differently situated perspectives of Roma and non-Roma social actors from established communities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How do public opinion signals affect political representatives' opinion formation? To date, we have only limited knowledge about this essential representative process. In this article, we theorize and examine the signaling strength of one type of societal signal: protest. We do so by means of an innovative experiment conducted among Belgian national and regional politicians. Elected officials were exposed to manipulated television news items covering a protest demonstration. Following Tilly's previously untested WUNC claim, four features of the event were manipulated: the demonstrators' worthiness, unity, numerical strength, and commitment. We argue that these protest features present elected officials with useful cues about what (a segment of) the public wants. We find that these cues affect elected officials' beliefs. The salience they attach to the protest issue, the position they take, and their intended actions all change as a consequence of exposure. The size of a protest event (numbers) and whether the protesters agree among themselves (unity) are the most persuasive protest factors. The effects of the protest signals come on top of strong receiver effects. We find no evidence that elected officials' predispositions moderate the effects of the protest features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

this article examines how leading European newspapers reported on oil-sands production in Canada between 2008 and 2013. Based on content and critical discourse analysis of news reports published in major daily newspapers in the United Kingdom, germany, and France, it compares the interpretative frames and dominant storylines. the data analysis suggests that overall, European coverage adopted a critical perspective based on the environmental impacts of oil-sands development, with very particular differences in environmental frame building among the national media analyzed. the British coverage focused mainly on narratives based on a combination of factors such as cultural ties between the two countries and social and cultural practices of reporting on annual shareholders' meetings. in contrast, the later german and French environmental frame building was embedded mostly in the European debate over the Fuel Quality directive or in discussions of the Keystone Xl pipeline project. this article aims to provide a broader picture of how a prominent Canadian public policy issue is reflected in Europe and to contribute to the assessment of Stephen Harper's goal of fostering the international image of Canada as an energy superpower. the results of the empirical analysis suggest that Canada's position in the oil market did not allow it to actively lead the international energy discourse and instead fractured its ability to efficiently influence this aspect of its international image. as a result, oil-sands production had important destabilizing effects on Canada's international image in European media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of a larger European Union (EU)-funded project, this paper investigates the coverage of corruption and related topics in three European democracies: France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Based on Freedom House data, these countries are characterized by different levels of press freedom. A large corpus of newspaper articles (107,248 articles) from the period 2004 to 2013 were analyzed using dedicated software. We demonstrate that freedom of press is not the only dimension that affects the ability to and the way in which news media report on corruption. Because of its political partisanship, the Italian press tends to emphasize and dramatize corruption cases involving domestic public administrators and, in particular, politicians. The British coverage is affected mainly by market factors, and the press pays more attention to cases occurring abroad and in sport. The French coverage shares specific features with both the British and the Italian coverage: Newspapers mainly focus on corruption involving business companies and foreign actors, but they also cover cases involving domestic politicians. Media market segmentation, political parallelism, and media instrumentalization determine different representations preventing the establishment of unanimously shared indignation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The revolution of 1905 had a significant impact on the social and political life of the Kingdom of Poland. Not only did it lead to the emergence of the foundations of civil society, but it also contributed to the emergence of a new political scene. Jan Jeleński, the publisher of the antisemitic Rola weekly, was also an active participant in those transformations. He got involved in many activities, including organizing the Polish Catholic Association, an election campaign to the Duma, or publishing a new newspaper. According to him, similarly to the opinion of other conservative and Catholic milieus, the revolution had a clearly negative influence on Polish society. He perceived it as a result of behind-the-scenes machinations of Germans and, above all, of Jews who supposedly drew profit from the chaos in the Kingdom. According to Rola, Jews were also responsible for the emergence of socialist parties which, while focusing on Jewish interests, brought harm to Polish workers. And thus, in Jeleński's weekly, at the threshold of the twentieth century, antisemitism became a convenient tool of political strategy. It served as a means of deprecating political adversaries, strengthened the stereotype of the Jew as an enemy, and the rhetoric shaped at that time became deeply rooted in the Polish public discourse for many years to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tests the normative assumptions on the empowerment effects of freedom of information (FOI) legislation on the press-government relationship in the context of new democracies. In-depth interviews with journalists in Albania, Kosovo, and Montenegro imply that FOI laws can facilitate access to some previously unavailable official information. But, contrary to expectations, FOI laws are proving counterproductive for journalists who report stories beyond the official storyline, as government relies on this tool to control information access and the news agenda. The implication of these results for media freedom, agenda-building theory, and future transparency initiatives is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Collected and consolidated a comprehensive set of supply and demand data from multiple data repositories, government agencies, freight carriers, research papers and reports, and text and oral communications with industry professionals for China-Europe containerized freight flows; • Constructed a multimodal freight transportation supernetwork for China-Europe containerized freight flows, including a liner shipping network run by all major liner shipping alliances, a freight rail network exclusively managed by the China Railway Express, and a domestic highway network in China and a multinational highway network in Europe; • Proposed and analyzed a multimodal multicommodity freight transportation network flow model with bottleneck congestion functions and service capacity constraints, in which the individual mode-route choice behavior is regulated by stochastic user equilibrium; • Developed, tested and analyzed a Lagrangian relaxation framework embedding a disaggregate simplicial decomposition algorithm for the developed multimodal multicommodity freight transportation network problem. As a traditional way for transporting containerized cargoes, international liner shipping has long played a dominant role in the China-Europe freight transportation market. In recent years, China Railway Express has offered a new and competitive freight transportation option, contributing to a significant increase in the trade volume by rail between China and Europe. With the goal of providing a holistic computational tool that can predict and analyze the spatial distribution of containerized freight flows and suggest strategic transportation infrastructure and service expansion options, this paper develops and implements a multimodal multicommodity freight transportation network equilibrium model, based on a newly constructed supernetwork integrating international liner shipping lines, international freight rail services, and international and domestic highway networks in relevant countries. The combined transportation mode-route choice behavior of individual shippers is characterized by the widely used multinomial logit model, where the values of time of different commodity categories are included in its utility functions. The congestion effects arising from bottleneck facilities along liner shipping and freight rail lines (i.e., seaports, water channels, and break-of-gauge stations) are first captured by queueing models and then approximated by polynomial delay functions, while the accommodation capacity of individual service lines is explicitly embedded into the model as hard constraints. This supernetwork equilibrium model is tackled by a subgradient algorithm in the Lagrangian relaxation framework embedding a disaggregate simplicial decomposition algorithm. Computational experiments are conducted with a multi-layer, hetero-structure set of supply and demand data collected from multiple data repositories, government agencies, freight carriers, and research papers and reports. The preliminary results exhibit the computational performance of the solution procedure and reveal the variation of congestion levels of bottleneck facilities, capacity usage profiles of service lines, and competitiveness conditions between liner shipping and freight rail services under different monthly demand patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the article, the author discusses updates on public health and the European Public Health Association (EUPHA). Also cited are the appointment of Doctor Marieke Verschuuren as director of EUPHA, how the misinformation and disinformation adversely affect the solutions to global challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic, the scheduled 15th European Public Health (EPH) Conference, and the efforts by the World Health Organization (WHO) to prevent the spread of misinformation.

The article offers news brief on the topic including on the increase in activities by FENS Symposium which was held in Tokyo in early December 2022.

How do policy issues reach the political agenda? This question has received ample scholarly attention over the last decades, yet only recently have researchers explicitly examined the ways in which the agendas of political parties and media interact. This study builds on this ongoing work to examine how the conflict among parties in terms of the policy stances they propose (positional conflict) and the frames they attach to policy issues (discursive conflict) affect media attention. By focusing on party debates on European integration in British, Dutch and German election campaigns between 1987 and 2006 and employing a pooled time-series analysis, the study shows that both positional and discursive conflict among parties boost media reporting on issues. These findings have important implications for our understanding of the dynamics of media attention in relation to particular policy issues, as well as the way in which parties and media interact within election campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From a historical sociology and gender studies perspective, this article sets out to explore the representations and the public discourse surrounding women’s role in society and in the family, through the lenses of the late nineteenth-century Romanian feminist press. As elsewhere in Europe, the feminine ideal of that era emphasized motherhood and the dichotomy between public and private spheres in the construction of gender relations. At the same time, the feminist discourse provides a privileged window on the “idealized” model of the family and the distribution of gender roles, but it also allows researchers to capture the tensions between dominant and minority representations of femininity. This kind of discourse and public position create at the time the conditions of possibility for further social change. Hence, a content analysis of Femeia română magazine is of particular heuristic value, due to its longevity, but also to the personality of its founder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What we have been living since October 2013 when we were shocked by the images of two successive ship-wreck with hundreds of deads In front onf Lapmpedusa's and Libia's coasts, it is not really a refugees' crisis. It's my opinion that we are rather talking about problems and challenges that are ours, as far as I see, although the refugees are the very center, the ones who suffer. It is our crisis in several ways, not other people's crisis as it has been built from both some of the mass media and messages of the european leaders, In a great part through some falacles that, I Insist, it's precise to analyze and to criticize. It Is also a consecuence of our failure, or, If preferred, our refusal to tackle the challenges of our own European Project, that lead us to discover contradictions inside this European Project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As cities grow and expand, governance networks advocated by the “new regionalism” have become increasingly important for policy making in metropolitan areas. This article examines media reporting about governance networks and the effect this reporting has on democratic accountability and legitimacy. We use data from a standardized content analysis of newspaper coverage about metropolitan policy making in four European metropolitan areas (Zurich, Berlin, Paris, and London), as well as survey data on citizens’ attitudes. We find that the leading newspapers adequately cover governance processes and pay attention to both governmental and nongovernmental actors. Media content is correlated with citizen perceptions of democratic legitimacy, meaning both trust in government as well as satisfaction with democracy. We argue that there is a communicational dimension of public accountability that is important in upholding the democratic quality of “new regionalism” and of governance networks more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents key results of a comparative journalists’ survey on media accountability, for which 1762 journalists in 14 countries had been interrogated online. The article explores how European journalists perceive the impact of old versus new media accountability instruments on professional journalistic standards – established instruments like press councils, ethics codes, ombudsmen and media criticism, but also more recent online instruments like newsroom blogs and criticism via social media. Thus, the study also adds empirical data to the current debate about the future of media self-regulation in Europe, ignited by the Leveson Inquiry in the United Kingdom as well as the European Commission’s High-Level Group on Media Freedom and Pluralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the fact that journalists recognize the need for specialized training on health issues, there is lack of such training. In November 2010, the 2-year European project 'Health Reporting Training-HeaRT' was launched, aiming to develop vocational training on health reporting for journalists. In this study, we present the results of the original survey conducted in the framework of the HearT project, with the participation of seven EU partner countries, aiming to assess journalists' education, experience, skills, perceptions, barriers, and needs concerning health reporting across Europe. Only a small proportion of journalists have received specialized training in the past. Those that have received such training, consider it more necessary than their counterparts. Journalists believe they need more training to acquire specific skills related to evaluating conflicts of interest, interpreting medical research reports, and understanding statistics, so as to analyze specific health topics, such as medical research and science, health policy, and business/economics of health care. In view of the risks associated with false health reporting, and the lack of related training, this study could provide useful information towards developing educational programs in journalism schools and educational centers across Europe and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A capacitated multigraph is presented that defines services (directed arcs) by transport mode, departure date, transit time, cost, distance and carbon emissions. • A Capacitated Multi-Commodity Flow Service Selection Problem is proposed to help shippers to choose transport mode, routes and the specific departure vehicle, train or ship. • This study analyses the regional patterns of CR Express versus maritime shipping under the dual impact of inventory cost and carbon emissions. • This paper provides some suggestions for shippers to route cargos, for operators to improve services and for government to determine carbon tariffs. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) entails investments to improve overland (rail) transport between Europe and China. This paper introduces a microscopic Multi-Commodity Flow Service Selection Problem for freight transport under the BRI and provides a decision tool for shippers to make door-to-door service plans. The minimizing objective function considers transportation costs, in-transit inventory costs, and carbon emissions. A series of sampled data of each provincial region of China are collected from Chinese multimodal transport operators. Results show that inland regions are strongly attracted to the rail mode for shipments to Europe. However, the "last mile" (including "first mile") transport from the shipper to the long-haul transport terminal strongly influences this choice, and carbon emissions are strongly influenced by the available last mile transport links. Under the dual impact of in-transit inventory and carbon emission costs, regions that prefer rail to maritime are much further east than suggested by previous literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Introduction of the printing press into the Ottoman Empire, and thereof Arab countries which constituted a major component of that Empire, was delayed as a result of a religious fatwa (edict) for about four centuries. Arab lands were first conquered by the Turks in 1516, around the time when printing, was invented by Gutenberg in 1439 marked the coming of the Second Communication Revolution, spread widely in the European continent. By the end of the 15th century A.D., around 2500 printing presses were found in European towns, with 15 million books printed, bringing awakening to that continent. But In the Ottoman Empire, the religious fatwa banned the use of the Printing press as sacrilegious to Muslims. However, religious minorities were excluded of this fatwa, and the first Jewish printing press was found in 1492. Arab Christians' printing presses were first introduced in 1610 in a monastery in present-day Lebanon. Arab Christian presses were of immense value as they helped preserve Arab culture generally. The ban for Muslims ended in 1727, and the first printing house was built in Istanbul a year later. Few books were printed then, but a revolution followed in 1730 leading to the destruction of the press, dethroning of the Sultan and the murder of his prime minister. The following years witnessed the reinstitution of the printing press, which published in 100 years, until 1828, not more than 98 books, averaging one book per year, a clear indication of the slow pace of progress in the Empire. But, in Arab lands, the printing press was not introduced until the first half of the 19th century. Stringent press-laws followed. As a result, four centuries separated Arabs from the benefit of the press, bringing growth to a standstill, creating a cultural gap with Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]