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Quotations are essential in lending credibility to news articles. A direct quote, typically enclosed in quotation marks, not only stands out visually but also indicates a reliable source. However, there is a practice known as ‘contextomizing,’ where words are extracted from their original context, changing the speaker’s intended meaning. This results in a headline quote that semantically diverges from any other quote in the main article. This misrepresentation can lead to misunderstandings, especially in online environments where information is often consumed solely through headlines. To address this issue, this paper introduces QuoteCSE++, a data-centric contrastive embedding framework designed for the representation of quote semantics. Utilizing knowledge about the data and the news domain, QuoteCSE++ enhances a BERT-like transformer encoder to represent the complex semantics of news quotes and enables the detection of articles with contextomized headline quotes accurately. Our evaluation experiments demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method over both general-purpose embedding and domain-adapted methods in terms of detection accuracy. Remarkably, the proposed method exhibits a few-shot detection capability, achieving the performance level of SimCSE with just 200 training samples. We also test the ability of this framework for more general tasks of retrieving relevant quotes, implying its potential contribution to relevant fields. We release a dataset of 3,000 examples with high-quality manual annotations to support future research endeavors. Code and dataset are available at https://github.com/ssu-humane/contextomized-quotes-access.

Introduction and objective Bioaerosols exist in almost every environment and are known to be risk factors for a variety of diseases. Agricultural work involves high exposure to bioaerosols and its workplace concentrations affect the surrounding areas. The study evaluates bioaerosol concentrations in agricultural workplaces and residential areas according to farm type. Material and methods In 2013–2015, a total of 381 samples were collected for endotoxin and microbial testing from three farm types: open field, greenhouse, and livestock facilities. Endotoxins were measured using a 37-mm glass fire filter connected to an air pump calibrated to 2 LPM. Microorganisms were measured using a gelatin filter and impaction (single-stage Andersen sampler). Results The concentration of endotoxins and microorganisms at the livestock facilities was significantly higher than in the open fields and greenhouses (p

The rise of domestic fringe groups within the United States has been well documented, threatening political and social stability. The QAnon conspiracy theory has developed as one such destructive group, though it remains a largely misunderstood movement. Through a mixed-methods analysis of over 3.5 million messages on Telegram from three politically extreme communities - QAnon, far-right, and far-left - we studied how QAnon fits within the larger non-mainstream political ecosystem. Our analysis provides insights into how this new political movement is dissimilar to the far-right or the far-left but shares offline interests with the far-right. The topics discussed within QAnon communities were unique to the movement and the least reactive to news cycles. Links shared by QAnon, particularly from YouTube and Twitter, were often from traditional conservative sources and individuals, whereas the far-left and far-right relied on less mainstream sources. Finally, though QAnon may be distinct from the other communities, it coalesces with the far-right during particular political events where the former United States President Trump is a major player. Our findings highlight how fringe groups react to major political events and navigate conversations online.

A survey conducted over South Korean adults (N=513) reveals that emotions, specifically anger, contribute to the broader spread of misinformation on COVID-19 by leading angry individuals to consider false claims to be “scientifically credible.” This pattern is more evident among conservatives than liberals.

Chrysanthemum zawadskii var. latilobum (CZ) has been widely used as a tea in Korea. In this study, we investigated the involvement of anti-inflammatory haem oxygenase-1 (HO-1) in the inhibitory activity of a CZ leaf extracts on nitric oxide (NO) production and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) expression in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-stimulated RAW264.7 cells. At the highest concentration of CZ leaf extract (50 μg/mL), NO production was 10% of that in LPS-stimulated macrophages, whereas iNOS protein expression was 5% of that in LPS-stimulated macrophages. CZ leaf extract also inhibited iNOS mRNA expression in a concentration-dependant manner, and at 50 μg/mL, iNOS mRNA expression was approximately 15% of that in LPS-stimulated cells. The CZ leaf extract induced HO-1 expression in a dose-dependent manner, and blocking HO-1 activity abolished the anti-inflammatory effect of CZ leaf extract. These results suggest that CZ leaf extract has a potent anti-inflammatory activity in RAW264.7 cells through the induction of HO-1.