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This article looks beyond functionalist accounts to consider how fact-checking organisations and practitioners interact with traditional and alternative sites of media power: holding and negotiating that power in their own right while interfacing collaboratively and strategically with those working in adjacent fields. Interpreted through this theoretical prism, interviews and a content analysis reveal how RMIT ABC Fact Check used its CoronaCheck project to renegotiate and renew its position of authority, and master time, during a moment of intense disruption in the media environment due to the global pandemic. With critical insights from the data as a foundation, the article argues that making strategic concessions in practice – conceptualised here as ‘ceding ground’ – can open spaces for new approaches in fact-checking.

Cocrystals are important molecular adducts that have many advantages as a means of modifying the physicochemical properties of active pharmaceutical ingredients, including taste masking and improved solubility, bioavailability, and stability. As a result, the discovery of new cocrystals is of great interest to commercial drug discovery programs. Time-consuming manual analysis of the large volumes of data that emerge from large-scale cocrystal screening programs of up to 1000s of preparations poses a challenge. Raman spectroscopy has been shown to discriminate between cocrystals and physical mixtures and is easy to automate, allowing rapid screening of large numbers of potential cocrystals, but the spectral features that encode the information are often subtle (e.g., slight changes in peak positions or intensities). We have employed an automated signal processing routine based on a sparse decomposition algorithm to speed up the data processing steps while maintaining the accuracy of a trained spectroscopist. We used our algorithm to screen 31 potential cocrystal preparations and found that through the use of a computationally generated threshold, we could achieve a clear classification of cocrystals and physical mixtures in less than a minute, compared to several hours manually.

This article considers the ways in which national and international institutional alliances and professional organizations form the basis of a collaborative approach to the resourcing, production, and distribution of fact-checks through a case study of CoronaCheck, the COVID-19 fact-checking project of Australia’s RMIT ABC Fact Check. In doing so, it builds on a theorization that conceives of journalism as a “community of practice.” Two themes emerge from attention to the conceptual framework, content analysis of CoronaCheck newsletters and interviews with fact-checkers and journalists. The first relates to the nexus between fact-checking communities of practice and the productive and collaborative networks that underpin their operation. The second builds on this to consider the structures, resources, and approaches that facilitate experimentation within the community. Taken together, the findings suggest that understanding the practices of international and inter-institutional collaboration in fact-checking efforts such as CoronaCheck is key to shedding light on how a subcommunity of journalism practice broadens its remit and reorients the concerns of the domain in response to change.

Objective To design a new method for oral preparation of urine for sperm retrieval after retrograde ejaculation (RE) and to test the motility of sperm exposed to prepared and unprepared urine. Design In vitro testing of urine conditions and sperm motility. Setting Assisted conception unit at a teaching hospital in the United Kingdom. Patient(s) Ten healthy volunteers to provide urine and sperm specimens from men attending the unit for semen analysis. Intervention(s) Various solutions of sodium bicarbonate and sodium chloride were drunk by a single subject until a suitable regimen was achieved. This regimen (called the Liverpool solution) was then tested on 10 volunteers. Samples of sperm were then added to prepared urine, unprepared urine, and culture medium, and the motility was analyzed. Main Outcome Measure(s) Urinary pH and osmolarity, sperm motility. Result(s) Urine produced by the 10 volunteers had a mean pH of 7.47 (range, 7.23–7.79) and a mean osmolarity of 289 mOsmol/L (range, 225–412 mOsmol/L), similar to that of medium. The progressive motility of sperm exposed to the unprepared urine was reduced (42.4% of sperm in medium), whereas that in the prepared urine was similar to that in the control medium. Conclusion(s) Liverpool solution can be used in any unit treating couples with RE, and it is a noninvasive and inexpensive regimen that may optimize urine pH and osmolarity for sperm survival after RE.