Currently, intelligence analysts are encouraged to use structured analytic techniques to boost the quality ofargumentation in their reports.2,3 Many of these methods require substantial additional quantities ofanalysts’ time and are therefore not widely used. As contrasted with current applications of structuredanalytic techniques, REASON technology will automatically produce comments with no additional effortfrom analysts, who can use any comments they find valuable.

the actual noncanonical practices of interstitial communities are continuallydeveloping new interpretations of the world because they have a practical rather thanformal connection to that world

we assume that the agent has N primitive cause–effect relationships that each assign probabilities to state, action and next-state transitions, 𝜙𝑖:𝒮×𝒜×𝒮→[0,1]ϕi:S×A×S→[0,1]{\phi }_{i}:{\mathscr{S}}\times {\mathscr{A}}\times {\mathscr{S}}\to [0,1], 𝑖=1,...,𝑁i=1,...,Ni=1,...,N. Each 𝜙𝑖(𝑠′|𝑠,𝑎)ϕi(s′|s,a){\phi }_{i}(s{\prime} |s,a) is a potential function representing, for example, the local effect of colliding with the couch or pulling on the coffee table. Then a construal is a subset of these primitive cause–effect relationships, 𝑐⊆{𝜙1,...,𝜙𝑁}c⊆{ϕ1,...,ϕN}c\subseteq \{{\phi }_{1}\mathrm{,...,}\,{\phi }_{N}\}, that produces a task construal, 𝒯𝑐Tc{{\mathscr{T}}}_{c}, with the following construed transition function:𝑃𝑐(𝑠′|𝑠,𝑎)∝∏𝜙𝑖∈𝑐𝜙𝑖(𝑠′|𝑠,𝑎).Pc(s′|s,a)∝∏ϕi∈cϕi(s′|s,a).{P}_{c}(s{\prime} |s,a)\propto \prod _{{\phi }_{i}\in c}{\phi }_{i}(s{\prime} |s,a). (1)

we should be more explicit about what exactly they can help, how they can help, and whom they can help

The ability to create singular written works is mostly impervious to education and technical supplementation; it is overwhelmingly what we used to call gifted or God-given and today call either genetic or inspired.

The most important thing about writing is discovering novel and non-trivial truths, and determining which of your truths is most important—then imposing order, hierarchy, and linearity—through judgment, decisiveness, and will.

The concept of the Knowledge Graph deserves the classification of bullshit because its allure derives primarily from the false impression that it can mechanistically deliver—or substitute for—the brute, linear willfulness that defines all non-trivial writing

you are unlikely to author anything very profound or forceful, so long as you are possessed by the Knowledge Graph ideology

most of the variance between individuals is genetic and relatively invulnerable to intervention

The researchers’ high-speed videos showed that the creatures, who jump at speeds as high as 8.7 miles per hour, cocked their back legs in a jumping position, then pushed forward, with each moving within 30 microseconds (that’s 30 millionths of a second) of the other. The finely toothed gears in their legs allow this to happen. “In Issus, the skeleton is used to solve a complex problem that the brain and nervous system can’t,” Burrows said in a press statement.

A whole body of work already exists that explores related ideas under the label of “situated cognition” (e.g., Clancey, 1997, 2009; Kirsh, 1991, 2009; Kirshner & Whitson, 1997; Lave, 1988; Robbins & Aydede, 2009a; Suchman, 1987). What exactly is meant by “situated cognition,” however, is a matter of debate (Robbins & Aydede, 2009b; Roth & Jornet, 2013; Wilson, 2002). At least on some formulations, situated cognition and embodied cognitive science are not simply similar and compatible but they actually overlap conceptually and historically (see, e.g., Gallagher, 2009). On other formulations, “situated cognition” is understood broadly enough as to encompass even work in science and technology studies in the vicinity of SSK (see brief discussion in Solomon, 2007). While these convergences and overlaps are suggestive, there are other formulations, still, where “situated cognition” is interpreted in a more traditional cognitivist vein as being roughly equivalent to the first sense of “embodied cognition” reviewed in Sect. 1 (e.g., Wilson, 2002).

The alternative is not between standardization and chaos, but a potential third way is designing infrastructures that allow the diversity of approaches, tools, and techniques to be expressed in a common framework or protocol along with the community infrastructure to allow the continual negotiation of their relationship.

Calls for standardization without careful consideration and incorporation of existing practice have a familiar cycle: devise a standard that will solve everything, implement it, wonder why people aren’t using it, funding and energy dissipiates, rinse, repeat

Infrastructuring

structured by

the promise of digital technology for science

There is no guarantee that it “optimally” satisfies some set of needs for the benefit of the greatest number of people

The yawning mismatch between our ambitions of what digital technology should allow us to do and the state of digital infrastructure

deinfrastructured

a robust archive is not only a matter of building a database with some frontend, but by building a community

If she goes offline, we may still be able to get the same photo from Grace or another peer.

hashes can prevent malicious actors from deceiving us about the content of files

trust the information that's shared

Cryptographic hashes can be derived from the content of the data itself, meaning that anyone using the same algorithm on the same data will arrive at the same hash. If Ada and Grace are both using the same decentralized web protocol, such as IPFS, to share the exact same photo of a kitten, both images will have exactly the same hash. By comparing those hashes and confirming that they're the same, we can guarantee that every single pixel of those two photos is identical.

Last year the futurist Ayesha Khanna even described smart contact lenses that could make homeless people disappear from view

building theories of capacities is a daunting task. The space of possible theories is, prima facie, at least as large as the space of effects: For any finite set of (naturalistic or controlled) observations about capacities, there exist (in principle) infinitely many theories consistent with those observations. However, we argue that theories may be built by following a constructive strategy and meeting key plausibility constraints to rule out from the start theories that are least likely to be true: We refer to this as the theoretical cycle

PredicTER is a tool for estimating how long a review will take to complete. The tool calculates the time requirements for various tasks involved in reviewing evidence, from planning and coordination to quantitative synthesis and reporting.  The tool contains default values provided by an assessment of 5 years of systematic reviews and maps published by the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence, but users can tailor the tool based on what they know about their own subject.

Clusters of infections within families living in Bnei Brak were identified and investigated. The parents were asked regarding the first case of the infection in the family and regarding the pre-sumed source of the infection.In addition, household members underwent polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing whether they were symptomatic or not

Thirteen family clusters were investigated; all families reside in the city of Bnei Brak.

Mayenei Hayeshuah Medical center is located in the city of Bnei Brak, Central Israel.Bnei Brak is a “young” city. Children of 0–19 years of age comprise almost 50% of its 200,000 population, and the average number of children in a family is 4.57

SARS-CoV-2 positive PCR was documented in the different age groups as follows:1. In 21 of 36 adults (>18 years) (58.3%).2. In 13 of 40 children, 5–17 years (32.5%), (P = 0.037 for the difference between group 1 and group 2, risk ratio: 0.61, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.39–0.96).3. In 2 of 18 children, 0–4 (<5) years of age (11.8%), (P < 0.002 for the difference between group 1 and group 3, risk ratio: 0.47, 95% CI: 0.30–0.71)

young children in particular are approximately half as likely as adults to acquire the infection given equivalent exposure.

While so much about the virus and how it operates remains unclear, sub-Saharan Africa so far has dodged a deadly wave of coronavirus cases. Many factors have contributed to this. A number of West African nations already had a pandemic response infrastructure in place from the Ebola outbreak of late 2013 to 2016. Just six years ago, Liberia lost nearly 5,000 people to Ebola. At the beginning of this year, Liberia began screening for covid-19 at airports. Travelers coming in from countries with more than 200 cases were quarantined. To date, Liberia, a country of some 5 million, has 1,335 cases and around 82 deaths.

in the unexposed patients, 40 to 60% had CD4+ cells that already respond to the new coronavirus

100% of the exposed patients had CD4+ cells that responded to all three of these. There were also significant CD4+ responses to other viral proteins: nsp3, nsp4, ORF3s, ORF7a, nsp12 and ORF8

The difference between detecting COVID antibodies and detecting T cells with an effective anti-COVID response is kind of like the difference between detecting guns and detecting assassins. One of these is relatively straightforward; the other one requires extensive investigation.

just because antibodies in plasma wane over time doesn’t mean that individual’s aren’t protected right, Derek? What’s really important is Memory B-Cells, which can rapidly reproduce antibodies if the antigen is seen again? Have peoeple tested individuals with SARS-CoV-2 for Memory B-Cell formations?

BUT there is a hidden assumption, an artefact of the initial model’s simplified reality assumptions, the Susceptible and Recovered must be randomly spread out. This randomisation is the mechanism that extinguishes the virus (in the model !). In observable reality, these two populations are not perfectly intermixed.

antigen specific memory B cells themselves–by definition fairly low abundance and difficult to distinguish from standard B cells using assays robust enough to handle large numbers of samples.

There are hundreds of viruses that can cause common cold symptons. Endemic coronaviruses, enteroviruses, rhinoviruses, coxsackie viruses, parainfluenza – probably a bunch that are unknown at this point.

Highly conserved sections of the virus are also often highly protected. Look at the effort that’s been put into the universal influenza vaccine. The parts that are stable enough to dependably target are also usually hidden, and only revealed briefly when the virus activates.

“I can imagine a scenario where this becomes a fifth endemic human coronavirus,” said Stephen Morse of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, an epidemiologist and expert on emerging infectious diseases. “We don’t pay much attention to them because they’re so mundane,” especially compared to seasonal flu.