Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Liaisons globales: les multinationales au Canada: apercu des recherches a Statistique Canada

Le present document vise principalement a fournir une synthese concise d'une vaste gamme de donnees produites et de recherches menees a Statistique Canada sur les multinationales, portant sur des etudes tant recentes que plus anciennes. Au chapitre 2, nous examinons la contribution macroeconomique des multinationales etrangeres d'apres deux indicateurs avances de l'activite des multinationales etrangeres, soit le controle etranger et l'investissement direct etranger. Dans ce chapitre, nous decrivons egalement les etudes qui evaluent la contribution des societes sous controle etranger aux flux des echanges globaux, en etablissant un lien entre la variation de l'intensite des echanges multinationaux et la reorganisation strategique de leurs activites de production. Le chapitre 3 porte plus particulierement sur les strategies et les activites des multinationales etrangeres qui sont pertinentes au debat actuel sur la question de savoir si la presence des multinationales etrangeres favorise ou entrave la competitivite industrielle du Canada. Dans ce chapitre, nous examinons en premier lieu la preuve que les entreprises canadiennes et etrangeres reagissent differemment aux conditions du marche interieur. En deuxieme lieu, nous tachons de determiner si les entreprises etrangeres font la concurrence de facons differentes des entreprises canadiennes. En troisieme lieu, nous examinons l'importance relative que les multinationales etrangeres accordent aux pratiques en matiere d'innovation et de technologie, et nous exposons la relation entre ces activites et les resultats observables sur le marche. En quatrieme lieu, nous faisons etat de la contribution des entreprises sous controle etranger a la croissance de la productivite. En cinquieme lieu, nous examinons les nouvelles recherches qui portent plus particulierement sur la relation entre la propriete etrangere et l'emploi dans les sieges sociaux. Les etudes dans ces domaines portent directement sur la question de savoir si les entreprises multinationales etrangeres tronquent ou augmentent leurs activites sur les marches hotes. Le chapitre 4 porte sur les etudes qui examinent les activites des multinationales canadiennes a l'etranger et etablit une comparaison entre les activites des etablissements sous controle canadien et celles des etablissements sous controle etranger. Le chapitre 5 comprend une evaluation des recherches sur les multinationales menees a Statistique Canada.
‘Colonial History’ Revisited. A Response to Breman

In the last issue of Itinerario (vol. XVI, 1992/2), Jan Breman of the University of Amsterdam, has published an English translation of his introduction to the third edition of his book Koelies, Planters en Koloniale Politiek. In this article, titled ‘Controversial Views on Writing Colonial History’, Breman tries to deal with some of the ‘more sceptical and sometimes even hostile’ reactions to his book on plantation labour in East Coast Sumatra during the last decades of the nineteenth century. However, his contribution has a more important purport, as he suggests a specific way in which the history of the colonial past should be written, dismissing at the same time the approach to the colonial past undertaken by what he calls the ‘Leiden Revisionist School’.
Fouille d'opinions

L'internet social a recemment fait exploser la disponibilite de documents textuels exprimant des opinions ou des sentiments, par exemple dans les groupes de discussions, les blogs, forums et autres sites specialises dans les critiques de produits. Les opinions disponibles sur l'internet ont un impact considerable sur les internautes. Des sondages (Pang et Lee (2008)) montrent que la majorite (80%) des internautes ont deja fait des recherches d'avis sur un produit et que ces derniers sont prets a payer deux fois plus cher pour un produit dont l'avis est plus favorable qu'un autre. Les entreprises prennent en compte ce parametre et l'analyse d'opinions est depuis longtemps une composante importante dans leurs prises de decisions. La necessite de traiter automatiquement les opinions se fait donc fortement ressentir. L'analyse automatique des opinions, aussi appelee fouille d'opinions, concerne l'extraction d'un sentiment dans une source telle qu'un texte sans structure predefinie. Les sentiments reconnus peuvent etre classes soit positifs soit negatifs, soit en des classes definies plus finement. Le sujet de notre stage portait sur la construction d'un tel systeme de fouille. Nous axons notre recherche sur la genericite, c'est-a-dire que nous souhaitons diminuer l'intervention humaine dans le processus de fouille. Pour cela, des exemples de textes d'opinions annotes selon le sentiment (positif ou negatif) qui leur est associe sont exploites. Nous nous placons donc dans un cadre d'apprentissage supervise et explorons le probleme de fouille d'opinions a travers l'utilisation de methodes standards. Beaucoup de ces methodes necessitent des ressources a priori telles que le vocabulaire et la structure des phrases. Dans ce rapport, nous tentons de pousser la genericite de ces methodes en diminuant ce besoin en ressources a priori.
Effect of whole yeast cell product supplementation (CitriStim®) on immune responses and cecal microflora species in pullet and layer chickens during an experimental coccidial challenge

&NA; Three separate experiments were conducted to study the effects of whole yeast cell product supplementation in pullets and layer hens. Body weight gain, fecal and intestinal coccidial oocyst counts, cecal microflora species, cytokine mRNA amounts, and CD4+ and CD8+ T‐cell populations in the cecal tonsils were analyzed following an experimental coccidial infection. In Experiment I, day‐old Leghorn layer chicks were fed 3 experimental diets with 0, 0.1, or 0.2% whole yeast cell product (CitriStim®, ADM, Decatur, IL). At 21 d of age, birds were challenged with 1 × 105 live coccidial oocysts. Supplementation with whole yeast cell product decreased the fecal coccidial oocyst count at 7 (P = 0.05) and 8 (P < 0.01) d post‐challenge. In Experiment II, 27‐week old Leghorn layer hens were fed 3 experimental diets with 0, 0.05 or 0.1% whole yeast cell product and challenged with 1 × 105 live coccidial oocysts on d 25 of whole yeast cell product feeding. Supplementation with whole yeast cell product decreased the coccidial oocyst count in the intestinal content (P < 0.01) at 5, 13, and 38 d post‐coccidial challenge. Supplementation with whole yeast cell product increased relative proportion of Lactobacillus (P < 0.01) in the cecal tonsils 13 d post‐coccidial challenge. Supplementation with whole yeast cell product decreased CD8+ T cell percentages (P < 0.05) in the cecal tonsils at 5 d post‐coccidial challenge. In Experiment III, 32‐week‐old Leghorn layer hens were fed 3 experimental diets with 0, 0.1, or 0.2% whole yeast cell product and challenged with 1 × 105 live coccidial oocysts on d 66 of whole yeast cell product feeding. At 5 d post‐coccidial challenge, whole yeast cell product supplementation down‐regulated (P = 0.01) IL‐10 mRNA amount. It could be concluded that supplementing whole yeast cell product can help minimize coccidial infection in both growing pullets and layer chickens.
Use of affect based interaction classification for continuous emotion tracking

Natural and affective handshakes of two participants define the course of dyadic interaction. Affective states of the participants are expected to be correlated with the nature of the dyadic interaction. In this paper, we extract two classes of the dyadic interaction based on temporal clustering of affective states. We use the k-means temporal clustering to define the interaction classes, and utilize support vector machine based classifier to estimate the interaction class types from multimodal, speech and motion, features. Then, we investigate the continuous emotion tracking problem over the dyadic interaction classes. We use the JESTKOD database, which consists of speech and full-body motion capture data recordings of dyadic interactions with affective annotations in activation, valence and dominance (AVD) attributes. The continuous affect tracking is executed as estimation of the AVD attributes. Experimental evaluation results attain statistically significant (p < 0.05) improvements in affective state estimation using the interaction class information.
Características de los investigadores relacionados con programas de contaduría pública y con temáticas relacionadas

El presente escrito muestra las caracteristicas basicas de los investigadores que pertenecen a los grupos de investigacion categorizados por el Instituto Colombiano para el Desarrollo de la Ciencia y la Tecnologia Francisco Jose de Caldas, Colciencias, en la convocatoria de 2008, que trabajan en programas de contaduria publica o con temas relacionados. Se presentan aspectos como el dominio que tienen de los idiomas, el tipo de formacion y el area tematica de la misma y los productos que generan, para posteriormente realizar un calculo de correlaciones entre las categorias de los grupos y el nivel de formacion de los investigadores, con el fin de establecer si es un parametro fundamental dentro de la misma.
Risque cardiovasculaire « global » : intérêts et limites pour la décision médicale

Il ressort des differentes etudes d'observation, en particulier du long suivi de la cohorte americaine de Framingham, et maintenant de nombreuses etudes d'intervention, que l'evaluation globale du risque cardiovasculaire est l'un des elements-cles de la prise de decision therapeutique devant chacun des nombreux facteurs de ce risque. La recente recommandation de l'Afssaps, presentee dans un precedent numero de Medecine [1] et commentee dans celui-ci [2] confirme apres celles sur l'hypertension arterielle ou le diabete l'importance primordiale d'une telle evaluation. A l'approche « classique » par facteurs de risques devrait succeder progressivement une reflexion plus globale reunissant l'ensemble de ces facteurs, que ce soit en preventif ou en curatif, meme si l'existence de differents modeles de calcul laisse supposer qu'aujourd'hui encore aucun n'est reellement satisfaisant. Mais cette nouvelle approche peut-elle reellement changer nos pratiques, et surtout qu'en font nos patients « arisque » ? Dans ce domaine qui concerne d'abord les comportements et modes de vie, le fosse entre recommandations et pratiques reste considerable. C'est ce que presente cette synthese du Centre de documentation de l'Unaformec, effectuee en 2004 apartir de differents articles de la litterature medicale internationale.
Performance Analysis of Simultaneous Perturbation Stochastic Approximation on the Noisy Sphere Model

To theoretically compare the behavior of di fferent algorithms compatible performance measures are necessary. Thus, in the first part an analysis approach, d eveloped for Evolution Strategies, was applied to Simultaneous Perturbation Stochastic Appro ximation on the noisy sphere model. A considerable advantage of this approach is that convergen ce results for non-noisy and noisy optimization can be obtained simultaneously. Next to the co nvergence rates, optimal step sizes and convergence criteria for 3 di fferent noise models were derived. These results were validat ed by simulation experiments. Afterwards, the results were us ed for a comparison with Evolution Strategies on the sphere model in combination with the 3 nois e models. It was shown that both strategies perform similarly, with a slight advantage for S PSA if optimal settings were used and the noise strength is not too large.
Phylodynamic analysis of avian infectious bronchitis virus in South America

Infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) is a coronavirus of chickens that causes great economic losses to the global poultry industry. The present study focuses on South American IBVs and their genetic relationships with global strains. We obtained full-length sequences of the S1 coding region and N gene of IBV field isolates from Uruguay and Argentina, and performed Phylodynamic analysis to characterize the strains and estimate the time of the most recent common ancestor. We identified two major South American genotypes, which were here denoted South America I (SAI) and Asia/South America II (A/SAII). The SAI genotype is an exclusive South American lineage that emerged in the 1960s. The A/SAII genotype may have emerged in Asia in approximately 1995 before being introduced into South America. Both SAI and A/SAII genotype strains clearly differ from the Massachusetts strains that are included in the vaccine formulations being used in most South American countries.
Analyzing Positioning Strategies in Sponsored Search Auctions Under CTR-Based Quality Scoring

Quality score (QS) plays a critical role in sponsored search advertising (SSA) auctions, and in practice is closely correlated to the historical click-through rate (CTR) of an advertisement. The CTR-QS correlation may impose great influence on advertisers' positioning strategies of selecting the targeting slots in the sponsored list. In the literature, however, QS is implicitly assumed to be an independent variable and exogenously assigned by Web search engines, so that little theoretical or managerial insights can be offered to help understand the positioning dynamics in SSA auctions with CTR-QS correlation. We strive to bridge this research gap in this paper. Based on a discrete time-dependent optimal control model, which explicitly captures the relationship between the historical CTR and QS, we determine the optimal strategy for revenue-maximizing advertisers' QS-based positioning decisions through a policy-iteration-based numerical approximation method. We also investigate two practically-used heuristic strategies, namely the greedy and farsighted positioning strategies, aiming to examine and help understand advertisers' real-world positioning dynamics. Our analysis indicates that both the optimal and greedy positioning strategies lead advertisers to monotonically increase or decrease their targeting slots over time, which may cause a polarization trend emerging in SSA markets. Meanwhile, the farsighted positioning strategy can accelerate the polarization. Our simulations show that both the greedy and farsighted strategies have good revenue performance. Our findings indicate that advertisers should monotonically adjust their targeting positions to maximize their revenue in CTR-QS correlated SSA auctions. Our findings also highlight the need for Web search engine companies to set a lowered weight for historical CTRs or use position-normalized CTRs in their QS measurements, so as to suppress the polarization trend.
Multivesicular Endosome Biogenesis in the Absence of ESCRTs

The endosomal sorting complex required for transport (ESCRT) protein machinery comprises four complexes, ESCRT‐0, ESCRT‐I, ESCRT‐II and ESCRT‐III, that facilitate receptor sorting into the lumen of multivesicular endosomes (MVEs) in order to terminate signalling receptors for final degradation within the lysosomes. Even though ESCRT proteins appear to be essential for the biogenesis of MVEs in Saccharomyces cerevisae, it is not clear whether ESCRT‐independent pathways for MVE biogenesis exist in higher organisms. In this study we maximized inhibition of ESCRT‐dependent pathway by depleting cells of key subunits of all four ESCRTs and followed MVE formation and epidermal growth factor (EGF) receptor (EGFR) traffic using electron and confocal microscopy. There was a dramatic alteration in the morphology of components of the endocytic pathway in ESCRT‐depleted cells, but early and late endosomes stayed clearly differentiated. Importantly, although EGF‐induced formation of MVEs was highly sensitive to ESCRT depletion, EGF‐independent formation of MVEs could still occur. The MVEs remaining in ESCRT‐depleted cells contained enlarged intralumenal vesicles into which EGFRs were not sorted. Our observations suggest that both ESCRT‐dependent and ESCRT‐independent mechanisms of MVE biogenesis exist in mammalian cells.
Reduced Impact of Pyrimethamine Drug Pressure on Plasmodium malariae Dihydrofolate Reductase Gene

ABSTRACT Molecular investigations performed following the emergence of sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) resistance in Plasmodium falciparum have allowed the identification of the dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) enzyme as the target of pyrimethamine. Although clinical cases of Plasmodium malariae are not usually treated with antifolate therapy, incorrect diagnosis and the high frequency of undetected mixed infections has probably exposed non-P. falciparum parasites to antifolate therapy in many areas. In this context, we aimed to assess the worldwide genetic diversity of the P. malariae dhfr gene in 123 samples collected in Africa and Asia, areas with different histories of SP use. Among the 10 polymorphic sites found, we have observed 7 new mutations (K55E, S58R, S59A, F168S, N194S, D207G, and T221A), which led us to describe 6 new DHFR proteins. All isolates from African countries were classified as wild type, while new mutations and haplotypes were recognized as exclusive to Madagascar (except for the double mutations at nucleotides 341 and 342 [S114N] found in one Cambodian isolate). Among these nonsynonymous mutations, two were likely related to pyrimethamine resistance: S58R (corresponding to C59R in P. falciparum and S58R in Plasmodium vivax; observed in one Malagasy sample) and S114N (corresponding to S108N in P. falciparum and S117N in P. vivax; observed in three Cambodian samples).
γ-Secretase Activity Is Associated with a Conformational Change of Nicastrin*

γ-Secretase is a high molecular weight multicomponent protein complex with an unusual intramembrane-cleaving aspartyl protease activity. γ-Secretase is intimately associated with Alzheimer disease because it catalyzes the proteolytic cleavage, which leads to the liberation of amyloid β-peptide. At least presenilin (PS), Nicastrin (Nct), APH-1, and PEN-2 are constituents of the γ-secretase complex, with PS apparently providing the active site of γ-secretase. Expression of γ-secretase complex components is tightly regulated, however little is known about the assembly of the complex. Here we demonstrate that Nct undergoes a major conformational change during the assembly of the γ-secretase complex. The conformational change is directly associated with γ-secretase function and involves the entire Nct ectodomain. Loss of function mutations generated by deletions failed to undergo the conformational change. Furthermore, the conformational alteration did not occur in the absence of PS. Our data thus suggest that γ-secretase function critically depends on the structural “activation” of Nct.
Impact of not measuring residual gastric volume in mechanically ventilated patients receiving early enteral feeding: a prospective before-after study.

BACKGROUND Monitoring of residual gastric volume (RGV) to prevent aspiration is standard practice in mechanically ventilated patients receiving early enteral nutrition (EN). No data are available to support a correlation between RGV and adverse event rates. We evaluated whether not measuring RGV affected EN delivery, vomiting, or risk of nosocomial pneumonia. METHODS Two hundred and five eligible patients with nasogastric feeding within 48 hours after intubation were included in a 7-day prospective before-after study. Continuous 24-hour nutrition was started at 25 mL/h then increased by 25 mL/h every 6 hours, to 85 mL/h. In both groups, intolerance was treated with erythromycin (250 mg IV/6 h) and a delivery rate decrease to the previously well-tolerated rate. RGV monitoring was used during the first study period (n = 102), but not during the subsequent intervention period (n = 103). Intolerance was defined as RGV >250 mL/6 h or vomiting in the standard-practice group and as vomiting in the intervention group. RESULTS Groups were similar for baseline characteristics. Median daily volume of enteral feeding was higher in the intervention group (1489; interquartile range [IQR], 1349-1647) than in the controls (1381; IQR, 1151-1591; P = .002). Intolerance occurred in 47 (46.1%) controls and 27 (26.2%) intervention patients (P = .004). The vomiting rate did not differ between controls and intervention group patients (24.5% vs 26.2%, respectively; P = .34), and neither was a difference found for ventilator-associated pneumonia (19.6% vs 18.4%; P = .86). CONCLUSION Early EN without RGV monitoring in mechanically ventilated patients improves the delivery of enteral feeding and may not increase vomiting or ventilator-associated pneumonia.
Pulsed oxidation and biological evolution in the Ediacaran Doushantuo Formation

Recent geochemical data from Oman, Newfoundland, and the western United States suggest that long-term oxidation of Ediacaran oceans resulted in progressive depletion of a large dissolved organic carbon (DOC) reservoir and potentially triggered the radiation of acanthomorphic acritarchs, algae, macroscopic Ediacara organisms, and, subsequently, motile bilaterian animals. However, the hypothesized coupling between ocean oxidation and evolution is contingent on the reliability of continuous geochemical and paleontological data in individual sections and of intercontinental correlations. Here we report high-resolution geochemical data from the fossil-rich Doushantuo Formation (635–551 Ma) in South China that confirm trends from other broadly equivalent sections and highlight key features that have not been observed in most sections or have received little attention. First, samples from the lower Doushantuo Formation are characterized by remarkably stable δ13Corg (carbon isotope composition of organic carbon) values but variable δ34SCAS (sulfur isotope composition of carbonate-associated sulfate) values, which are consistent with a large isotopically buffered DOC reservoir and relatively low sulfate concentrations. Second, there are three profound negative δ13Ccarb (carbon isotope composition of carbonate) excursions in the Ediacaran Period. The negative δ13Ccarb excursions in the middle and upper Doushantuo Formation record pulsed oxidation of the deep oceanic DOC reservoir. The oxidation events appear to be coupled with eukaryote diversity in the Doushantuo basin. Comparison with other early Ediacaran basins suggests spatial heterogeneity of eukaryote distribution and redox conditions. We hypothesize that the distribution of early Ediacaran eukaryotes likely tracked redox conditions and that only after ≈551 Ma (when Ediacaran oceans were pervasively oxidized) did evolution of oxygen-requiring taxa reach global distribution.