Search Results (44)

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has profoundly altered the global geopolitical landscape. Owing to its geographical proximity, the conflict has had a considerable impact on Europe. Marked by the professionalisation and democratisation of technology, it has underscored the growing significance of hybrid warfare, in which disinformation and propaganda serve as additional instruments of war. Within this context, the aim of this article is to examine the characteristics of false information related to the war between Russia and Ukraine in four European countries between 2022 and 2023. To this end, a content analysis of 297 hoaxes was conducted across eight fact-checking platforms, complemented by ten in-depth interviews with specialised professionals. The findings indicate that disinformation is characterised by viral audiovisual hoaxes, particularly on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), with a notable surge in disinformation flows at the onset of the invasion. In the early months, misleading content predominantly consisted of decontextualised images of the conflict, whereas a year later, the focus shifted to narratives concerning international support and alliances. The primary objective of this disinformation is to polarise public opinion against a perceived common enemy. The conclusions provide a broader and more nuanced understanding of wartime disinformation within the European context. Full article

Scientific literature has provided evidence that teacher education based on scientific evidence is highly beneficial for professional development. However, the impact of receiving training grounded on co-created teaching materials—incorporating the expertise of teachers, trainers, and researchers—remains less explored. In this context, the TeachXevidence (2023–2025) project (ref.101096234) conducted nine teacher education seminars in Spain and Portugal, based on co-created scientific evidence with social impact. Following the Communicative Methodology, a total of 180 social impact questionnaires were collected to assess the perceived social impact of the teacher education seminars. The results of these questionnaires indicate that (a) the participant teachers feel more confident and better equipped with arguments to debunk existing hoaxes related to gender violence prevention and (b) they report having stronger arguments to critically evaluate and select the training programs school want to implement on gender violence prevention. Full article

This study addresses public perception of the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and disinformation. The level of general awareness of AI is considered, and based on this, an analysis is carried out of whether it may favor the creation and distribution of false content or, conversely, the public perceive its potential to counteract information disorders. A survey has been conducted on a representative sample of the Andalusian population aged 15 and over (1550 people). The results show that over 90% of the population have heard of AI, although it is less well known among the eldest age group (78%). There is a consensus that AI helps to produce (86%) and distribute (84%) fake news. Descriptive analyses show no major differences by sex, age, social class, ideology, type of activity or size of municipality, although those less educated tend to mention these negative effects to a lesser extent. However, 54% of the population consider that it may help in combating hoaxes, with women, the lower class and the left wing having positive views. Logistic regressions broadly confirm these results, showing that education, ideology and social class are the most relevant factors when explaining opinions about the role of AI in disinformation. Full article

This paper presents a comprehensive study on detecting AI-generated text using transformer models. Our research extends the existing RODICA dataset to create the Enhanced RODICA for Human-Authored and AI-Generated Text (ERH) dataset. We enriched RODICA by incorporating machine-generated texts from various large language models (LLMs), ensuring a diverse and representative corpus. Methodologically, we fine-tuned several transformer architectures, including BERT, RoBERTa, and DistilBERT, on this dataset to distinguish between human-written and AI-generated text. Our experiments examined both monolingual and multilingual settings, evaluating the model’s performance across diverse datasets such as M4, AICrowd, Indonesian Hoax News Detection, TURNBACKHOAX, and ERH. The results demonstrate that RoBERTa-large achieved superior accuracy and F-scores of around 83%, particularly in monolingual contexts, while DistilBERT-multilingual-cased excelled in multilingual scenarios, achieving accuracy and F-scores of around 72%. This study contributes a refined dataset and provides insights into model performance, highlighting the transformative potential of transformer models in detecting AI-generated content. Full article

The so-called controversy in elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) regarding the nature of the shear dependence of viscosity, Eyring versus Carreau, is truly a controversy regarding the pressure and temperature dependence of low-shear viscosity. Roelands removed data that contradicted his claims of accuracy for his correlation. The Roelands hoax became acceptable in EHL because ignoring the universal previtreous piezoviscous response made the traction calculated with the Eyring assumption appear to be reasonable. Traction and minimum film thickness calculations sometimes require the description of viscosity at pressures up to the glass transition pressure. There have been few measurements of viscosity at pressures up to glass pressure. Therefore, a need exists for a piezoviscous model that extrapolates accurately, and the Hybrid model fills that need. Here, an improved relation for the temperature dependence of divergence pressure is offered and extrapolation is demonstrated for a polyalphaolefin and propylene carbonate. A linear dependence of divergence pressure with temperature is more useful than previous versions. An improvement in the capability of high-pressure viscometry is suggested based upon the fractional Stokes Einstein Debye relation and the relatively simple measurements of DC conductivity. Full article

The creation and spreading of fake information can be carried out very easily through the internet community. This pervasive escalation of fake news and rumors has an extremely adverse effect on the nation and society. Detecting fake news on the social web is an emerging topic in research today. In this research, the authors review various characteristics of fake news and identify research gaps. In this research, the fake news dataset is modeled and tokenized by applying term frequency and inverse document frequency (TFIDF). Several machine-learning classification approaches are used to compute evaluation metrics. The authors proposed hybridizing SVMs and RF classification algorithms for improved accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score. The authors also show the comparative analysis of different types of news categories using various machine-learning models and compare the performance of the hybrid RFSVM. Comparative studies of hybrid RFSVM with different algorithms such as Random Forest (RF), naïve Bayes (NB), SVMs, and XGBoost have shown better results of around 8% to 16% in terms of accuracy, precision, recall, and F1-score. Full article

Within the realm of disinformation, across all media platforms, a crucial subject of interest seems to be immigration, which produces the so-called ‘racial hoaxes’. Racial hoaxes are closely linked to the spread of populist ideologies and ethnic stereotypes, both of which are psychosocial processes that, during health crises, could acquire particular features based on cultural differences. This study analysed the main contents of 239 racial hoaxes in relation to three main features: the country of origin (i.e., France, Italy and Spain), the stereotypical contents, and the COVID-19 pandemic period. The results highlight some similarities across these three countries but also peculiarities in terms of topics and stereotypical contents that were magnified during the pandemic period. The peculiarities of emerging racial hoaxes are discussed in relation to the stereotype content model and the literature on populist discourses, providing valuable information for use in psycho-educational intervention, policymaking and social integration efforts. Full article

A novel method of portfolio selection is provided with further higher moments, filtering with fundamentals in intelligent computing resources. The Evolutional Portfolio Optimization System (EPOS) evaluates unobtrusive relations from a vast amount of accounting and financial data, excluding hoax and noise, to select the optimal portfolio. The fundamental question of Free Will, limited in investment selection, is answered through a new philosophical approach. Full article

We evolved our past Portfolio Yield Reactive (PYR) model to provide a competitive system with infiltration of categorical information and fundamentals into advanced higher-order moments that support more objective portfolio selection aided by intelligent computing. The system of the PYR model searches for hidden corporate performance prototypes in big data from accounting and financial statements. The PYR model restricts malicious patterns, such as hoaxes, noise, and manipulation, incorporated into a novel optimal portfolio selection method. Full article

In the Netherlands, there was always a clear distinction between Protestant and Catholic folklore. That is visible in witchcraft accusations, but it is also visible in ghost lore. This lore is here reconstructed applying a not always used source, to wit newspaper articles. Here, I will discuss how accounts of hoaxing on the one hand and misinterpreted experiences on the other, help to understand how, in this case people in the Netherlands of roughly a century to a century and a half ago, realized their imagination of the dead. Not in a paradisical kind of afterlife, or as rotten corpses in the ground, but as specific entities which permeated the boundaries between the living and the dead. These newspaper reports are confronted with the stories (or jokes) collected by folklorists. I will also discuss content, with a special focus on the phenomenon of the hoax. Hoaxsters, however, allow the researcher to engage with an extra dimension in the encounter, between the ghost and the observer there is now a third party interacting with both. (How this involves the researcher, is always a problem in historical research.) Was there an overall ghost picture? What was the reaction of bystanders? Moreover, this essay will move between story and history, between the past as it was experienced and as it was related to contemporaries, between ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’ to give it another name. As it will appear, the boundary between the two seems blurred but in the end turns out rather precise. Full article

As disinformation has become a topic of conversation in the media in recent years, the theory of agenda setting is once again making its presence known. The aim of this research is to verify the degree of interest in disinformation by the media (mainstream press) and in academic writing (scientific communication journals) according to frequency and whether or not such disinformation can be observed in the field of science. The primary research has been carried out through quantitative content analysis of three Spanish newspapers (El País, Abc, El Mundo) and 32 Spanish scientific communication journals included in the SJR-SCImago Journal Rank database from the year 2000 to 2023. The results were 732 units of analysis. From those, it can be concluded that once again, the pandemic represents a before and after. Firstly, a general increase in disinformation has been observed, as well as a corresponding rise in false information in certain fields of science, especially that of health. Secondly, a gradual increase in public interest in disinformation has also been detected, which indicates that the issue is on the agenda of both the media and citizens. Full article

Hydrogen-rich water (HRW) has emerged as a novel approach in the field of health and wellness. It is believed to have therapeutic antioxidant properties that can neutralize harmful free radicals in the human body. It has also been shown to be beneficial in mitigating oxidative stress-induced damage through its anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic pathways. We aim to conduct a systematic review to evaluate the potential benefits of hydrogen-rich water. The review protocol was uploaded on PROSPERO. After the initial search criteria, the articles were reviewed by two blinded investigators, and a total of 25 articles were included in the systematic review. The potential benefits of hydrogen-rich water on various aspects of health, including exercise capacity, physical endurance, liver function, cardiovascular disease, mental health, COVID-19, oxidative stress, and anti-aging research, are a subject of growing interest and ongoing research. Although preliminary results in clinical trials and studies are encouraging, further research with larger sample sizes and rigorous methodologies is needed to substantiate these findings. Current research needs to fully explain the mechanisms behind the potential benefits of hydrogen-rich water. Continued scientific exploration will provide valuable insights into the potential of hydrogen-rich water as an adjunctive therapeutic approach in the future. Full article

Three years after a pandemic that demonstrated the importance of reliable health information in a news agenda dominated by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), we analyze the situation of health disinformation in Spain on the basis of the verifications carried out by its main fact-checking platforms. The results show that COVID-19 shared center stage with other topics in the health area. In addition, a unique agenda is evident in each situation in the study, indicating a fact-checking strategy that is differentiated according to the media outlet and type of specialization (generalist fact-checker or one specialized in health). Vaccination, nutrition, and disease treatment emerge as the most important thematic subfields. Most health hoaxes are manufactured, i.e., created from scratch, rather than being manipulated or reconfigured from real preexisting elements. The format of text and image together predominates, and new social networks (TikTok or Telegram) have appeared as platforms for the circulation of hoaxes. This indicates that providing necessary health literacy to society and giving health issues greater presence in current fact-checking agendas are strategies for combatting disinformation, which can have serious consequences, regardless of whether there is a public health crisis such as the one experienced recently. Full article

During 2018, three academics employed what they referred to as “reflective ethnography” to examine the hypothesis that many disciplines (e.g., sociology, educational philosophy, and critical race theory) are motivated by extreme ideologies, as opposed to generating knowledge. The authors published, or had accepted, seven “hoax” articles in a number of peer-reviewed journals. When the story broke in the Wall Street Journal, the authors stated that the articles advocated a number of ludicrous, inhumane, and appalling ideas. For example, one argued that men should be trained like dogs with shock collars. Their acceptance for publication was therefore taken as evidence for the kind of ideas that many academic disciplines will advocate. In the present article, I will show that the central aspects of the hoax articles do not match with how they were later described by the hoax authors and many other commentators (e.g., journalists). Despite the vast amount of media coverage, this has (virtually) gone unnoticed. I will suggest that the widely accepted narrative of the so-called Grievance Studies affair is incorrect. Full article

Since 2021, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been a popular topic which has kindled the interest of art and technology enthusiasts and professionals. Some had very high expectations for the potential of NFTs, and in some cases, made an assessment for NFTs that go beyond the existing limits of NFTs. There have also been others who approached NFTs suspiciously and in some cases, described them as a hoax. The purpose of this study is to examine the important effects of NFTs on the art world and art law, and to consider NFTs’ current and potential impacts. In this context, this article first provides an introduction to NFTs and why the author finds it interesting to think about legal issues surrounding NFTs. After providing definitions of non-fungible tokens and highlighting technical aspects of NFTs, the article then discusses select legal issues surrounding NFTs, such as the importance of legal terms and conditions of an NFT purchase, legal qualifications of NFTs, artwork ownership, artwork authenticity, artwork provenance and intermediary liability for NFT sales. One of the aims of this study is to put forward clearly what should be expected of non-fungible tokens and their potential. Another objective is to underline the fact that the unique dynamics of the art world necessitate having a unique perspective for legal matters relating to them, which is satisfied with art law and its professionals. Ultimately, this paper aims to contribute to having a more comprehensive understanding of non-fungible tokens and their impact on the art world and surrounding legal questions. Full article