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In this pathbreaking book, Amy Zegart provides the first scholarly examination of the intelligence failures that preceded September 11. Until now, those failures have been attributed largely to individual mistakes. But Zegart shows how and why the intelligence system itself left us vulnerable. Zegart argues that after the Cold War ended, the CIA and FBI failed to adapt to the rise of terrorism. She makes the case by conducting painstaking analysis of more than three hundred intelligence reform recommendations and tracing the history of CIA and FBI counterterrorism efforts from 1991 to 2001, drawing extensively from declassified government documents and interviews with more than seventy high-ranking government officials. She finds that political leaders were well aware of the emerging terrorist danger and the urgent need for intelligence reform, but failed to achieve the changes they sought. The same forces that have stymied intelligence reform for decades are to blame: resistance inside U.S. intelligence agencies, the rational interests of politicians and career bureaucrats, and core aspects of our democracy such as the fragmented structure of the federal government. Ultimately failures of adaptation led to failures of performance. Zegart reveals how longstanding organizational weaknesses left unaddressed during the 1990s prevented the CIA and FBI from capitalizing on twenty-three opportunities to disrupt the September 11 plot. Spying Blind is a sobering account of why two of America's most important intelligence agencies failed to adjust to new threats after the Cold War, and why they are unlikely to adapt in the future.

This article examines some of the ethical issues involved in competitive intelligence activities on the Internet. The authors discuss the importance of an ethical framework for the performance of competitive intelligence, especially the Code of Ethics of SCIP (the leading professional association for strategic and competitive professionals), in the context of today's networked global environment. The virtual borderlines separating national economic and military territories online are becoming increasingly hard to determine, and a variety of intelligence activities now impact organizations of every size. They describe how competitive intelligence is often practiced by employees and firms with no clear understanding of the legal and public relations problems that various ill-advised initiatives may create for both individuals and the organization, inasmuch as the Internet greatly facilitates the use of sophisticated software products without correspondingly sophisticated ethical perspectives. Specifically, they offer two mundane and seemingly minor examples of how the uninformed use of microtasking software such as Field Agent and identity misrepresentation software such as Persona Management may actually be detrimental to the existence of an ethical organizational culture. They conclude by offering suggestions as to how to help employees \"program\" themselves into being effective and ethical CI \"agents\" for their organizations.

Various types of damages to gas-turbine components, in particular to turbine blades, may occur in the course of gas turbine operation. The paper has been intended to discuss different forms of damages to the blades due to non-uniformity of the exit flow temperature. It has been shown that the overheating of blade material and thermal fatigue are the most common reasons for these damages. The paper presents results from numerical experiments with use of the computer model of the aero jet engine designed for simulations. The model has been purposefully modified to take account of the assumed non-homogeneity of the temperature field within the working agent at the turbine intake. It turned out that such non-homogeneity substantially affects dynamic and static properties of the engine considered as an object of control since it leads to a lag of the acceleration time and to increase in fuel consumption. The summarized simulation results demonstrate that the foregoing properties of a jet engine are subject to considerable deterioration in pace with gradual increase of the assumed non-homogeneity of the temperature field. The simulations made it possible to find out that variations of the temperature field nonhomogeneity within the working agent at the turbine intake lead to huge fluctuation of the turbine rpm for the idle run.

This study emphasizes the need for standardized measurement tools for human robot interaction (HRI). If we are to make progress in this field then we must be able to compare the results from different studies. A literature review has been performed on the measurements of five key concepts in HRI: anthropomorphism, animacy, likeability, perceived intelligence, and perceived safety. The results have been distilled into five consistent questionnaires using semantic differential scales. We report reliability and validity indicators based on several empirical studies that used these questionnaires. It is our hope that these questionnaires can be used by robot developers to monitor their progress. Psychologists are invited to further develop the questionnaires by adding new concepts, and to conduct further validations where it appears necessary.

The Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) is a diagnostic method and strategy developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) aiming to reduce the morbidity and mortality of children under five years of age. Adopted by Burkina Faso, its implementation in rural areas of the country is difficult due to an insufficient number of trained health workers and because difficult working conditions increase the lack of rigor and motivation. Terre des hommes Foundation partnered with the software editor Wopata to develop a diagnostic support tool based on the IMCI directly intended for health workers. The Electronic Consultation Register (Registre Electronique de Consultation, REC) guides the health professionals throughout the consultation to help them strictly apply the IMCI, thus decreasing the number of diagnostic and treatment errors. It determines in real-time the illnesses of the patients as the health worker identifies the symptoms, and also the treatment associated to each diagnosed illness according to the IMCI, as well as the medicines to be prescribed with their dosages. By integrating the REC into the health system in rural areas of Burkina Faso we are affecting all the stakeholders of the health system. We are able to participate in the improvement of patient care, to ease the work of field agents and to allow the Ministry of Health to better monitor the implementation of its national strategies, and, ultimately, to save more lives.

Who will not respond adequately to traditional DMARDs? Which patients would benefit most from expensive, sometimes-effective biologic agents, and who is most likely to experience adverse events? Although firm answers to these questions are pending, pharmacogenetic studies offer insight into how an individual's genetic identity determines the metabolic fate and outcome of drug therapies. In this article the authors summarize the extent of such knowledge in rheumatology today, and discuss the hurdles remaining before the ultimate goal of personalized therapy can be achieved. DMARDs not only improve the joint pain and swelling associated with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), but also slow down the joint damage associated with the disease. The efficacy of biologic therapies, introduced in the past decade for the treatment of RA, has been unequivocally established. Similarly, in addition to traditional drugs such as hydroxychloroquine, new biologic agents such as rituximab have been introduced for systemic lupus erythematosus in recent years. However, considerable variability occurs in the responses of patients to these therapies. Pharmacogenetics, the study of variations in genes encoding drug transporters, drug-metabolizing enzymes and drug targets, and their translation to differential responses to drugs, is a rapidly progressing field in rheumatology. Pharmacogenetic applications, particularly to the old vanguard DMARD, methotrexate, and the newer, more expensive biologic agents, might make personalized therapy in rheumatic diseases possible. The pharmacogenetics of commonly used DMARDs and of biologic therapies are described in this Review. Key Points Responses to therapies used in rheumatic diseases vary considerably between individual patients Pharmacogenetics—how drug efficacy and toxicity are affected by variations in genes encoding drug metabolizing enzymes, transporters and targets—is a nascent, promising area of research in rheumatology Pharmacogenetic applications, both for traditional agents such as methotrexate, and for biologic agents, might facilitate individualized therapy in rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus The importance of a few genetic variants has been established by reproducibility, notably 677C>T polymorphism of methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase, and thiopurine S -methyltransferase allelic variants—markers of methotrexate and azathioprine toxicity, respectively Although more research is needed to replicate preliminary findings, and to formally validate established markers, several exploratory, promising new markers are showing the future potential of this exciting field

Marine resources are today a renewable source of various compounds, such as polysaccharides, that are used in the pharmaceutical, medical, cosmetic, and food fields. In recent years, considerable attention has been focused on carrageenan-based biomaterials due to their multifunctional qualities, including biodegradability, biocompatibility, and non-toxicity, in addition to bioactive attributes, such as their antiviral, antibacterial, antihyperlipidemic, anticoagulant, antioxidant, antitumor, and immunomodulating properties. They have been applied in pharmaceutical formulations as both their bioactive and physicochemical properties make them suitable biomaterials for drug delivery, and recently for the development of tissue engineering. This article provides a review of recent research on the various types of carrageenan-based biomedical and pharmaceutical applications.

In recent years, researchers across various fields have shown a keen interest in the exploitation of biocompatible natural polymer materials, especially the development and application of seaweed polysaccharides. Seaweed polysaccharides are a multi-component mixture composed of one or more monosaccharides, which have the functions of being anti-virus, anti-tumor, anti-mutation, anti-radiation and enhancing immunity. These biological activities allow them to be applied in various controllable and sustained anti-inflammatory and anticancer drug delivery systems, such as seaweed polysaccharide-based nanoparticles, microspheres and gels, etc. This review summarizes the advantages of alginic acid, carrageenan and other seaweed polysaccharides, and focuses on their application in gel drug delivery systems (such as nanogels, microgels and hydrogels). In addition, recent literature reports and applications of seaweed polysaccharides are also discussed.

“Novichoks” is the name given to the controversial chemical weapons supposedly developed in the former Soviet Union between the 1970s and the 1990s. Designed to be undetectable and untreatable, these chemicals became the most toxic of the nerve agents, being very attractive for both terrorist and chemical warfare purposes. However, very little information is available in the literature, and the Russian government did not acknowledge their development. The intent of this review is to provide the IJMS readers with a general overview on what is known about novichoks today. We briefly tell the story of the secret development of these agents, and discuss their synthesis, toxicity, physical-chemical properties, and possible ways of treatment and neutralization. In addition, we also wish to call the attention of the scientific community to the great risks still represented by nerve agents worldwide, and the need to keep constant investments in the development of antidotes and ways to protect against such deadly compounds.

In the current study, the bottlebrush [Callistemon viminalis (Sol. ex Gaertn.) G. Don] plant was selected for the green synthesis of silver (Ag) and gold (Au) nanoparticles and to evaluate its antibacterial and antifungal activities. Phytochemical screening of C. viminalis confirmed the presence of alkaloids, anthraquinones, saponins, tannins, betacyanins, phlobatanins, coumarins, terpenoids, steroids, glycosides, and proteins. To characterize the synthesized Ag and Au NPs, UV–Visible spectroscopy, FTIR spectroscopy for functional group identification, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) for particle size, and elemental analysis were performed using EDX. The UV–Visible absorption spectra of the green-synthesized Ag and Au nanoparticles were found to have a maximum absorption band at 420 nm for Ag NPs and 525 nm for Au NPs. FE-SEM analysis of the synthesized NPs revealed a circular shape with a size of 100 nm. Elemental analysis was performed for the synthesis of Ag and Au NPs, which confirmed the purity of the nanoparticles. The greenly synthesized Ag and Au NPs were also evaluated for their anti-bacterial and anti-fungal activities, which exhibited prominent inhibition activities against Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Candida albicans, C. krusei, Aspergillus sp., and Trichoderma species. The highest zone of inhibition 15.5 ± 0.75 and 15 ± 0.85 mm was observed for Ag NPs against E. coli and P. aeruginosa. Similarly, Trichoderma sp. and Aspergillus sp. were inhibited by Ag NPs up to 13.5 ± 0.95 and 13 ± 0.70 mm. This work will open doors for the development of new antimicrobial agents using green chemistry.