No abstract

Russian influence operations on social media have received significant attention following the 2016 US presidential elections. Here, scholarship has largely focused on the covert strategies of the Russia-based Internet Research Agency and the overt strategies of Russia's largest international broadcaster RT (Russia Today). But since 2017, a number of new news media providers linked to the Russian state have emerged, and less research has focused on these channels and how they may support contemporary influence operations. We conduct a qualitative content analysis of 2,014 Facebook posts about the #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) protests in the United States over the summer of 2020 to comparatively examine the overt propaganda strategies of six Russian-linked news organizations—RT, Ruptly, Soapbox, In The NOW, Sputnik, and Redfish. We found that RT and Sputnik diverged in their framing of the BLM movement from the newer media properties. RT and Sputnik primarily produced negative coverage of the BLM movement, painting protestors as violent, or discussed the hypocrisy of racial justice in America. In contrast, newer media properties like In The NOW, Soapbox, and Redfish supported the BLM movement with clickbait-style videos highlighting racism in America. Video footage bearing the Ruptly brandmark appears in both traditional and new media properties, to illustrate, in real time, civil unrest across the US. By focusing on overt propaganda from the broad array of Russian-affiliated media, our data allows us to further understand the “full spectrum” and “counter-hegemonic” strategies at play in contemporary information operations.

Genetic variations of microRNAs and their target sites among individuals are increasingly recognized as possible factors underlying various human disorders. Currently, the computer-assisted predictions of microRNA-binding sites rely exclusively on one or few reference genomic sequences and do not take into consideration significant variations within human genomes. There is a need to develop computational approaches to assess the probability of excessively strong or completely disabled microRNA-binding sites upon the known SNP frequencies. We developed the software NEIL to align the individual microRNA and mRNA sequences in the setting of the corresponding genomic SNP map of the targeted gene. This approach allows us to visualize the presence of SNPs within and in the proximity of microRNA-target sites in order to predict the combinatorial effects of SNPs on microRNA-mRNA binding and the expression of the microRNA-regulated genes.

This case study examines how the product BEATS by Dre, entered pop culture and rose to success in the current market. Through a literature analysis and a review of the company’s organizational structure, Beats Electronics is assessed due to its entrepreneurial prowess. The success of Beats by Dre addressed a critical problem in the marketplace, consequently, becoming the top premium sound model to entrepreneurs across the globe. Through the lens of Hip Hop, readers can observe the characteristics of effective entrepreneurship, which is essential for success in the business world. The result of this investigation is significant because the results can better assist scholars and practitioners in how to inject the entrepreneurial mindset in popular culture.

Reading requires the sophisticated interplay of multiple neurocognitive systems. Decades of neuropsychological and neuroimaging findings have shed light onto the highly specialized brain areas along the ventral occipitotemporal stream that harbor the first critical step: the transition from grouping of lines to recognizable words.Here, we report on a 14-year old female who developed temporary dyslexia (i.e., slow and effortful reading) after suffering a left ventral occipitotemporal ischemic stroke. Our longitudinal multimodal findings indicate that the resolution of the reading impairment was associated with heightened activity in left posterior superior temporal gyrus and left inferior temporal gyrus.Overall, our findings highlight the critical role played by the left inferior temporal gyrus in reading, and suggest the importance of perilesional and ipsilateral cortical areas for functional recovery after childhood stroke.