Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analytic Culture in the U.S. Intelligence Community: An Ethnographic Study

Abstract : It is a rare season when the intelligence story in the news concerns intelligence analysis, not secret operations abroad. The United States is having such a season as it debates whether intelligence failed in the run-up to both September 11 and the second Iraq war, and so Rob Johnston's wonderful book is perfectly timed to provide the back-story to those headlines. The CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence is to be commended for having the good sense to find Johnston and the courage to support his work, even though his conclusions are not what many in the world of intelligence analysis would like to hear. He reaches those conclusions through the careful procedures of an anthropologist -- conducting literally hundreds of interviews and observing and participating in dozens of work groups in intelligence analysis -- and so they cannot easily be dismissed as mere opinion, still less as the bitter mutterings of those who have lost out in the bureaucratic wars. His findings constitute not just a strong indictment of the way American intelligence performs analysis, but also, and happily, a guide for how to do better. Johnston finds no baseline standard analytic method. Instead, the most common practice is to conduct limited brainstorming on the basis of previous analysis, thus producing a bias toward confirming earlier views. The validating of data is questionable -- for instance, the Directorate of Operation's (DO) "cleaning" of spy reports doesn't permit testing of their validity -- reinforcing the tendency to look for data that confirms, not refutes, prevailing hypotheses. The process is risk averse, with considerable managerial conservatism. There is much more emphasis on avoiding error than on imagining surprises. The analytic process is driven by current intelligence, especially the CIA's crown jewel analytic product, the President's Daily Brief (PDB), which might be caricatured as "CNN plus secrets. "
SCHOOl ACHIEVEMENT AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL: INFLUENCE OF PARENTING STYLE AND PARENT INVOlVEMENT IN SCHOOLING

ABSTRACT. This study examined the influence of parenting style and parental involvement in schooling on academic achievement at the secondary level. The research was conducted with 525 adolescents of the Quebec-Appalaches region and used two instruments, the first one being developed by Steinberg and his colleagues (1992), and the second one by Epstein, Salinas, and Connors (1993). The instruments were validated with French-speaking secondary III students in 1994. lt was found that the three factors, parental acceptance, supervision, and psychological autonomy granting, contributed to school achievement. Results also indicated that youngsters whose parents gave them affective support performed better than their peers. Parent-teacher contacts seemed to be related to lower school grades. These data provide evidence that parents retain substantial influence over their adolescent's school performance. RESUME. La presente recherche examine la relation entre d'une part, le style parental et la participation parentale au suivi scolaire et d'autre part, la reussite scolaire au secondaire. L'etude a ete realisee aupres de 525 adolescents de la region de Quebec-Appalaches a l'aide de deux instruments, dont le premier a ete concu par Steinberg et ses collegues (1992) et le deuxieme, par Epstein, Salinas et Connors ( 1993 ). Les instruments ont ete valides aupres d'eleves de secondaire III, en 1994. Les resultats indiquent que les trois facteurs de l'encadrement parental, de l'encouragement a l'autonomie et de l'engagement parental, contribuent a predire le rendement scolaire. Plus les jeunes percoivent leurs parents comme leur apportant un soutien affectif, meilleurs sont leurs resultats scolaires. Les contacts entre parents et enseignants semblent toutefois avoir un rapport avec les difficultes scolaires. Ces donnees demontrent que les parents exercent toujours une influence preponderante sur la reussite scolaire des adolescents.
Annealing Ant Colony Optimization with Mutation Operator for Solving TSP

Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) has been successfully applied to solve a wide range of combinatorial optimization problems such as minimum spanning tree, traveling salesman problem, and quadratic assignment problem. Basic ACO has drawbacks of trapping into local minimum and low convergence rate. Simulated annealing (SA) and mutation operator have the jumping ability and global convergence; and local search has the ability to speed up the convergence. Therefore, this paper proposed a hybrid ACO algorithm integrating the advantages of ACO, SA, mutation operator, and local search procedure to solve the traveling salesman problem. The core of algorithm is based on the ACO. SA and mutation operator were used to increase the ants population diversity from time to time and the local search was used to exploit the current search area efficiently. The comparative experiments, using 24 TSP instances from TSPLIB, show that the proposed algorithm outperformed some well-known algorithms in the literature in terms of solution quality.
Internet/e-business technologies acceptance in Canada's SMEs: An exploratory investigation

Purpose – This study aims at contributing to the discussion related to what causes Canadian small and medium‐size enterprises (SMEs) to be reticent about accepting internet and e‐business technologies (IEBT) in their operations. The research also seeks to gain an understanding of the relative importance of each of the selected factors in the research setting.Design/methodology/approach – A survey was conducted in the Atlantic region of Canada. Questionnaires were mailed to key SMEs' informants. Data analysis was performed using the partial least squares (PLS) approach. A research framework based on the technology‐organization‐environment (TOE) frameworks was used to guide the research effort. Such contingent factors as perceived benefits, management commitment/support, organizational IT competence, external pressure, information systems (IS) vendor support, and availability of financial support, were used to develop relevant hypotheses.Findings – The study's findings indicated that perceived benefits, man.
Pemilihan Kerjaya Berorientasikan Keusahawanan Di Kalangan Pelajar Diploma Perakaunan Politeknik Kementerian Pendidikan Malaysia : Kajian Empiri

The perception research of the Accounting students towards entrepreneurship is to look at how students perceive entrepreneurship as a career. For the purpose of this research, 5 polytechnics have been selected. They are POLIMAS, POLISAS, PKB, PPD and PUO. About 250 students have been chosen as respondents for this research. The data collected from this questionnaire is analysed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). The findings of this research show that not many respondents are interested to get involved full time in entrepreneurship after completion of their studies. The finding also reveal that the respondents are more interested in choosing the post of accountants as their main choice compared to entrepreneurship. The findings also show that the job that secures better prospects in the future would be the main criteria in choosing any career. This research reveals that the aspects of entrepreneurship are important and should be in a person who wishes to excel in business. These aspects, such as risk taking, creative, hard work, confident and knowledgeable are the core to any success The findings also show that the course quality, the process of learning and even the lecturers are important in helping students to acquire the knowledge. The result of the finding reveals that generally students are satisfied with the courses offered, the level of learning and teaching and the quality of the lecturers.
The Effects of Comprehension Through Close Reading

The ability for students to comprehend what is being read is an essential skill that is necessary for success in academics and career readiness. It is crucial that each student knows how to read and derive meaning from a text. This study examines the question: how can close reading a text be used to improve students’ comprehension? Audio recordings, discussions, and interviews proved differences between the students’ comprehension of a text through a close read and a general reading strategy. The findings showed improvement in the students’ understanding of a text and provides implications that the teachers should evolve instructional practices to meet the needs of the common core and allow for students to become confident in reading harder texts. Document Type Thesis Degree Name MS in Literacy Education Department Education Subject Categories Education This thesis is available at Fisher Digital Publications: http://fisherpub.sjfc. edu/education_ETD_masters/237 The Effects of Comprehension Through Close Reading
Toxicity of sorafenib: clinical and molecular aspects

Importance of the field: Sorafenib is a novel oral bis-aryl urea compound originally developed as an inhibitor of RAF kinase for its anti-proliferative property. Sorafenib also inhibits receptor tyrosine kinases of multiple pro-angiogenic factors such as VEGFR-1/2/3, Flt-3 and PDGFR-β. The combination of both its anti-proliferative and anti-angiogenic properties makes sorafenib an attractive agent in cancer treatment. Sorafenib has been approved for the treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma as well as hepatocellular cancer. Despite its inherent selectivity, sorafenib can cause unusual adverse events whose the management represents a challenge for oncologists. Areas covered in this review: Relevant literature was identified using a Pubmed search of articles published up to June 2009. Search terms included ‘sorafenib’ and ‘toxicity’. Original articles were reviewed and relevant citations from these articles were also considered. What the reader will gain: The clinical aspect of sorafenib-induced adverse events and the molecular basis behind this toxicity are discussed. Finally, recommendations for the management of these adverse events are proposed. Take home message: Although not life-threatening, toxicity of sorafenib can severely impact the physical, psychological and social well-being of patients. The management of this unusual toxicity highlights the particular need of new pluridisciplinarities linking oncologist, cardiologist and dermatologist.
Radiation mechanisms and geometry of cygnus X-1 in the soft state

We present X-ray/γ-ray spectra of Cyg X-1 observed during the transition from the hard to the soft state and in the soft state by ASCA, RXTE and CGRO/OSSE in 1996 May and June. The spectra consist of a dominant soft component below ∼2 keV and a power-law-like continuum extending to at least ∼800 keV. We interpret them as emission from an optically thick, cold accretion disc and from an optically thin, non-thermal corona above the disc. A fraction f≳0.5 of total available power is dissipated in the corona. We model the soft component by multicolour blackbody disc emission taking into account the torque-free inner-boundary condition. If the disc extends down to the minimum stable orbit, the ASCARXTE data yield the most probable black hole mass of MX≈10 M⊙ and an accretion rate, , locating Cyg X-1 in the soft state in the upper part of the stable, gas-pressure-dominated, accretion-disc solution branch. The spectrum of the corona is well modelled by repeated Compton scattering of seed photons from the disc off electrons with a hybrid, thermal/non-thermal distribution. The electron distribution can be characterized by a Maxwellian with an equilibrium temperature of kTe∼30–50 keV, a Thomson optical depth of τ∼0.3 and a quasi-power-law tail. The compactness of the corona is 2≲lh≲7, and a presence of a significant population of electron–positron pairs is ruled out. We find strong signatures of Compton reflection from a cold and ionized medium, presumably an accretion disc, with an apparent reflector solid angle, Ω/2π∼0.5–0.7. The reflected continuum is accompanied by a broad iron Kα line.
Observing Learned Object-specific Functional Grasps Preferentially Activates the Ventral Stream

In one popular account of the human visual system, two streams are distinguished, a ventral stream specialized for perception and a dorsal stream specialized for action. The skillful use of familiar tools, however, is likely to involve the cooperation of both streams. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we scanned individuals while they viewed short movies of familiar tools being grasped in ways that were either consistent or inconsistent with how tools are typically grasped during use. Typical-for-use actions were predicted to preferentially activate parietal areas important for tool use. Instead, our results revealed several areas within the ventral stream, as well as the left posterior middle temporal gyrus, as preferentially active for our typical-for-use actions. We believe these findings reflect sensitivity to learned semantic associations and suggest a special role for these areas in representing object-specific actions. We hypothesize that during actual tool use a complex interplay between the two streams must take place, with ventral stream areas providing critical input as to how an object should be engaged in accordance with stored semantic knowledge.
FAWN: A Fast Array of Wimpy Nodes (CMU-PDL-08-108)

This paper introduces the FAWN—Fast Array of Wimpy Nodes—cluster architecture for providing fast, scalable, and power-efficient key-value storage. A FAWN links together a large number of tiny nodes built using embedded processors and small amounts (2–16GB) of flash memory into an ensemble capable of handling 700 queries per second per node, while consuming fewer than 6 watts of power per node. We have designed and implemented a clustered key-value storage system, FAWN-DHT, that runs atop these node. Nodes in FAWN-DHT use a specialized log-like back-end hash-based database to ensure that the system can absorb the large write workload imposed by frequent node arrivals and departures. FAWN uses a two-level cache hierarchy to ensure that imbalanced workloads cannot create hot-spots on one or a few wimpy nodes that impair the system’s ability to service queries at its guaranteed rate. Our evaluation of a small-scale FAWN cluster and several candidate FAWN node systems suggest that FAWN can be a practical approach to building large-scale storage for seek-intensive workloads. Our further analysis indicates that a FAWN cluster is cost-competitive with other approaches (e.g., DRAM, multitudes of magnetic disks, solid-state disk) to providing high query rates, while consuming 3-10x less power. Acknowledgements: We thank the members and companies of the CyLab Corporate Partners and the PDL Consortium (including APC, Cisco, EMC, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, IBM, Intel, LSI, Microsoft, Network Appliance, Oracle, Seagate, Symantec, and VMware) for their interest, insights, feedback, and support. This material is based on research sponsored in part by the National Science Foundation, via grant CNS-0619525, and by the Army Research Office, under agreement number DAAD19–02–1–0389.
Distinctive Profile of IsomiR Expression and Novel MicroRNAs in Rat Heart Left Ventricle

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are single-stranded non-coding RNAs that negatively regulate target gene expression through mRNA cleavage or translational repression. There is mounting evidence that they play critical roles in heart disease. The expression of known miRNAs in the heart has been studied at length by microarray and quantitative PCR but it is becoming evident that microRNA isoforms (isomiRs) are potentially physiologically important. It is well known that left ventricular (patho)physiology is influenced by transmural heterogeneity of cardiomyocyte phenotype, and this likely reflects underlying heterogeneity of gene expression. Given the significant role of miRNAs in regulating gene expression, knowledge of how the miRNA profile varies across the ventricular wall will be crucial to better understand the mechanisms governing transmural physiological heterogeneity. To determinine miRNA/isomiR expression profiles in the rat heart we investigated tissue from different locations across the left ventricular wall using deep sequencing. We detected significant quantities of 145 known rat miRNAs and 68 potential novel orthologs of known miRNAs, in mature, mature* and isomiR formation. Many isomiRs were detected at a higher frequency than their canonical sequence in miRBase and have different predicted targets. The most common miR-133a isomiR was more effective at targeting a construct containing a sequence from the gelsolin gene than was canonical miR-133a, as determined by dual-fluorescence assay. We identified a novel rat miR-1 homolog from a second miR-1 gene; and a novel rat miRNA similar to miR-676. We also cloned and sequenced the rat miR-486 gene which is not in miRBase (v18). Signalling pathways predicted to be targeted by the most highly detected miRNAs include Ubiquitin-mediated Proteolysis, Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase, Regulation of Actin Cytoskeleton, Wnt signalling, Calcium Signalling, Gap junctions and Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy. Most miRNAs are not expressed in a gradient across the ventricular wall, with exceptions including miR-10b, miR-21, miR-99b and miR-486.
Diversity of mitochondrial large subunit rDNA haplotypes of Glomus intraradices in two agricultural field experiments and two semi‐natural grasslands

Glomus intraradices, an arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus (AMF), is frequently found in a surprisingly wide range of ecosystems all over the world. It is used as model organism for AMF and its genome is being sequenced. Despite the ecological importance of AMF, little has been known about their population structure, because no adequate molecular markers have been available. In the present study we analyse for the first time the intraspecific genetic structure of an AMF directly from colonized roots in the field. A recently developed PCR‐RFLP approach for the mitochondrial rRNA large subunit gene (mtLSU) of these obligate symbionts was used and complemented by sequencing and primers specific for a particularly frequent mtLSU haplotype. We analysed root samples from two agricultural field experiments in Switzerland and two semi‐natural grasslands in France and Switzerland. RFLP type composition of G. intraradices (phylogroup GLOM A‐1) differed strongly between agricultural and semi‐natural sites and the G. intraradices populations of the two agricultural sites were significantly differentiated. RFLP type richness was higher in the agricultural sites compared with the grasslands. Detailed sequence analyses which resolved multiple sequence haplotypes within some RFLP types even revealed that there was no overlap of haplotypes among any of the study sites except between the two grasslands. Our results demonstrate a surprisingly high differentiation among semi‐natural and agricultural field sites for G. intraradices. These findings will have major implications on our views of processes of adaptation and specialization in these plant/fungus associations.
Lineage Tree for the Venous Pole of the Heart: Clonal Analysis Clarifies Controversial Genealogy Based on Genetic Tracing

Rationale: Genetic tracing experiments and cell lineage analyses are complementary approaches that give information about the progenitor cells of a tissue. Approaches based on gene expression have led to conflicting views about the origin of the venous pole of the heart. Whereas the heart forms from 2 sources of progenitor cells, the first and second heart fields, genetic tracing has suggested a distinct origin for caval vein myocardium, from a proposed third heart field. Objective: To determine the cell lineage history of the myocardium at the venous pole of the heart. Methods and Results: We used retrospective clonal analyses to investigate lineage segregation for myocardium at the venous pole of the mouse heart, independent of gene expression. Conclusions: Our lineage analysis unequivocally shows that caval vein and atrial myocardium share a common origin and demonstrates a clonal relationship between the pulmonary vein and progenitors of the left venous pole. Clonal characteristics give insight into the development of the veins. Unexpectedly, we found a lineage relationship between the venous pole and part of the arterial pole, which is derived exclusively from the second heart field. Integration of results from genetic tracing into the lineage tree adds a further temporal dimension to this reconstruction of the history of venous myocardium and the arterial pole.
Gene expression in oligodendrocytes during remyelination reveals cholesterol homeostasis as a therapeutic target in multiple sclerosis

Significance Cell-specific and region-specific gene expression can identify therapeutic targets in different neuroanatomic regions during neurodegenerative diseases. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is multifocal, and neuroprotective treatments are needed. Here, RNA sequencing of MS brain suggested study of the transcriptome of oligodendrocyte lineage cells (OLCs) in a location where remyelination occurs in an MS model. Cholesterol-synthesis pathways dominated as top upregulated pathways in OLCs of corpus callosum during remyelination in the cuprizone model. Estrogen receptor-β ligand treatment further increased cholesterol-synthesis pathways through direct effects on OLCs. As fetal OLCs are exposed in utero to high levels of estrogens in maternal blood, we hypothesize that remyelinating properties of estrogen treatment in adults during injury may recapitulate normal developmental myelination by targeting cholesterol homeostasis. Regional differences in neurons, astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, and microglia exist in the brain during health, and regional differences in the transcriptome may occur for each cell type during neurodegeneration. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is multifocal, and regional differences in the astrocyte transcriptome occur in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), an MS model. MS and EAE are characterized by inflammation, demyelination, and axonal damage, with minimal remyelination. Here, RNA-sequencing analysis of MS tissues from six brain regions suggested a focus on oligodendrocyte lineage cells (OLCs) in corpus callosum. Olig1-RiboTag mice were used to determine the translatome of OLCs in vivo in corpus callosum during the remyelination phase of a chronic cuprizone model with axonal damage. Cholesterol-synthesis gene pathways dominated as the top up-regulated pathways in OLCs during remyelination. In EAE, remyelination was induced with estrogen receptor-β (ERβ) ligand treatment, and up-regulation of cholesterol-synthesis gene expression was again observed in OLCs. ERβ-ligand treatment in the cuprizone model further increased cholesterol synthesis gene expression and enhanced remyelination. Conditional KOs of ERβ in OLCs demonstrated that increased cholesterol-synthesis gene expression in OLCs was mediated by direct effects in both models. To address this direct effect, ChIP assays showed binding of ERβ to the putative estrogen-response element of a key cholesterol-synthesis gene (Fdps). As fetal OLCs are exposed in utero to high levels of estrogens in maternal blood, we discuss how remyelinating properties of estrogen treatment in adults during injury may recapitulate normal developmental myelination through targeting cholesterol homeostasis in OLCs.