Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prognostic factors and treatment efficacy in patients with primary diffuse large B-cell lymphoma of the bone: single institute experience over 11 years.

OBJECTIVE Primary bone lymphoma is a rare disorder, accounting for less than 1% of all cases of malignant lymphoma. Primary bony diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (PBDLBCL) is the most common histological type. In our study, a favorable response and lower risk of emergent surgery were observed following the administration of systemic chemotherapy with or without rituximab. METHODS Patients diagnosed with malignant lymphoma at our hospital between 2000 and 2011 were evaluated for PBDLBCL. Pertinent data, including the clinical presentation, histological type, treatment modalities, long-term outcome, survival curve and prognostic factors, were analyzed. RESULTS Twenty-four patients with a median age of 63 years were diagnosed with PBDLBCL. A complete response (CR) was achieved in 58.4% (n=14) of the patients. With treatment of the disease, nine of 10 patients with initially impending pathological bone fractures ultimately did not undergo surgery. The median follow-up duration was 48 months. Two patients experienced disease relapse. In a Kaplan-Meier analysis, the 5-year overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) rates were 66.7% and 77.8%, respectively. In the univariate analyses, the significantly favorable prognostic factors for OS were an International Prognostic Index (IPI) score of <3, an age of ≤60 years, a performance status with an Eastern Cooperative Oncology (ECOG) score of <2, a CR and chemotherapy ≥6 cycles. For DFS, a CR was the only favorable factor. In the multivariate analysis, a CR was the only independent factor for both OS and DFS. CONCLUSION Our study confirms the good prognosis of this rare disorder. Once a CR is achieved, even elderly patients may exhibit long-term survival, possibly obviating the need for surgery for less severe bone lesions.
Hepatitis C Virus Genotype Diversity among Intravenous Drug Users in Yunnan Province, Southwestern China

Background Recently, high proportions (15.6%–98.7%) of intravenous drug users (IDUs) in China were found to be positive for hepatitis C virus (HCV). Yunnan Province is located in southwestern China and borders one of the world's most important opium-producing regions, thus it is an important drug trafficking route to other regions of China. Methodology/Principal Findings Here, we assessed 100 HCV-positive plasma samples from IDUs who were enrolled through the Kunming Center for Disease Control and Prevention in 2012. HCV C/E1 fragments were PCR-amplified and sequenced. We identified eight HCV subtypes (1a, 1b, 3a, 3b, 6a, 6n, 6u and 6v), of which genotype 6 was most predominant (frequency, 47%) followed by genotypes 3 (41%) and 1 (12%). HCV subtypes 6n (30%) and 3b (29%) were most common and were identified in 59% of the IDUs. We compared HCV genotypes among IDUs in Yunnan Province with those from other regions and found that the distribution patterns of HCV genotypes in Yunnan Province were similar to those in southern China, but different from those in eastern China. However, the distribution patterns of HCV subtypes varied among Yunnan Province and southern China, despite the shared similar genotypes. A comparison of the current data with those previously reported showed that the frequency of HCV genotype 6 increased from 25% to 47% within 5 years, especially subtypes 6a (5% to 15%) and 6n (11.2% to 30%). In contrast, the frequencies of subtypes 3b and 1b decreased by almost 50% within 5 years. Conclusion/Significance Our results provided further information to support the assertion that drug trafficking routes influence HCV transmission patterns among IDUs in Yunnan Province. The frequency of HCV genotypes and subtypes changed rapidly among IDUs in Yunnan Province and subtypes 6a and 6n may have originated in Vietnam and Myanmar, respectively.
Who are the Best-Known National and Foreign Creators — a Comparative Study Among Undergraduates in China and Germany

ABSTRACT Separate studies of Chinese and Western individuals have suggested that thereare cultural differences in perceptions of creativity, particularly in an emphasison meritorious salience versus aesthetic salience as bases for creativity, but cross-cultural studies are needed to substantiate that difference. In this study, under-graduates from Giessen in Germany and Hong Kong and Nanjing in Chinaprovided data on the recognition of famous creative persons. Chinese undergradu-ates in Hong Kong and Nanjing mos tly nominated politicians, scientists or inven-tors, but rarely nominated artists, musicians. German undergraduates mostlynominated philosophers, artists, and writers but rarely nominated politicians. Thissupports our assumption that the Chinese evaluation of creators emphasizes themeritorious salience of creativity whereas the German evaluation of creatorsemphasizes the aesthetic salience of creativity. Implications and limitations ofthis study are discussed at the end of the paper.
Validation of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index in a Chinese Context

Objectives: Psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (C-IRI) for the assessment of empathy in Chinese people were examined. Method: The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) was translated to Chinese, and an expert panel reviewed its content validity and cultural relevance. The translated instrument (C-IRI) was administered to 189 junior high school students and 391 university students. Results: Confirmatory factor analyses revealed a stable hierarchical three-factor structure that was consistent with structure of the English IRI, but the cognitive and emotional aspects of empathy were combined to form a new factor. The subscales of the C-IRI demonstrated acceptable to good internal consistency and test-retest reliability. Some evidence for the construct validity of the measure was also found. Conclusions: The C-IRI possessed acceptable psychometric properties in Chinese adolescent samples. The present findings suggest that the cognitive and emotional aspects of empathy are not differentiated in Chinese adolescents.
Justice and Leader-Member Exchange: The Moderating Role of Organizational Culture

We hypothesized that organizational culture moderates the relationship between justice perceptions and leader-member exchange (LMX). In a sample of 516 teachers from 30 high schools in Turkey, we found that one dimension of culture from the Organizational Culture Profile, respect for people, strengthened the relationship between interactional justice and LMX, and another dimension, team orientation, weakened that relationship. Furthermore, aggressiveness strengthened, whereas team orientation weakened, the relationship between distributive justice and LMX. Finally, we found that in team-oriented schools, LMX was higher.
Distributed Consensus-Based Weight Design for Cooperative Spectrum Sensing

In this paper, we study the distributed spectrum sensing in cognitive radio networks. Existing distributed consensus-based fusion algorithms only ensure equal gain combining of local measurements, whose performance may be incomparable to various centralized soft combining schemes. Motivated by this fact, we consider practical channel conditions and link failures, and develop new weighted soft measurement combining without a centralized fusion center. Following the measurement by its energy detector, each secondary user exchanges its own measurement statistics with its local one-hop neighbors, and chooses the information exchanging rate according to the measurement channel condition, e.g., the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). We rigorously prove the convergence of the new consensus algorithm, and show all secondary users hold the same global decision statistics from the weighted soft measurement combining throughout the network. We also provide distributed optimal weight design under uncorrelated measurement channels. The convergence rate of the consensus iteration is given under the assumption that each communication link has an independent probability to fail, and the upper bound of the iteration number of the ε-convergence is explicitly given as a function of system parameters. Simulation results show significant improvement of the sensing performance compared to existing consensus-based approaches, and the performance of the distributed weighted design is comparable to the centralized weighted combining scheme.
Toward applied Islamic business ethics: responsible halal business

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the opportunities of using halal regulation and certification as a mechanism for applying Islamic business ethics in contemporary world.Design/methodology/approach – The current practices of halal regulation and certification and literature on Islamic ethics were reviewed, to identify a practical approach for Islamic business ethics.Findings – Islam allows and accepts different levels of ethical commitment. A multi‐level Islamic ethics framework and a multi‐level halal certification approach are proposed to facilitate the implementation of Islamic business ethics in a relative context. Two major developments can enrich halal business practices: harmonization of global standards and governance structure, and integrating responsibility and ethical issues in halal standards.Practical implications – The proposed framework and developments can enrich halal regulation and certification practice.Originality/value – The paper emphasizes the importance of flexibili.
Newspaper Coverage of Causes of Death

W Life is dangerous, even in the most modern societies. Although great progress has been made towards reducing illness and deaths from infectious diseases, this improvement has been significantly offset by increased vulnerability to natural disastersl and the hazards of technology.2 Because society is limited in its capacity to worry about risk and to provide resources to reduce it. hazards must compete with one another for public attention. Unfortunately, there is evidence that people's perceptions of risk are subject to large and systematic biases. ) These misconceptions undoubtedly influence the way that people think about and respond to hazards in their personal lives. Such biases may misdirect the actions of publicinterest groups and government agencies,
Hate Crime: Record or Perception?

Public policing in Northern Ireland has gone through a process of reform and governance change in reaction to the peace process and the requirement to shift from a police force, largely engaged in conflict-centred policing, to a policing service dedicated to civil policing and normalisation. During the past decade, Northern Ireland has witnessed a significant decline in recorded sectarian crime. This decline in ethnic conflict has been accompanied by a growth in support for the police, especially within the Catholic community. However, information pertaining to support for public policing is determined at national level and we know little about how residents of sites of previously high levels of political and sectarian conflict feel about policing reform and delivery. In this paper we show that the perception of sectarian crime is much greater than recorded sectarian crime. Moreover, the perception of sectarian crime is a significant predictor of negative attitudes regarding police performance. The paper offers a unique quantitative insight into perceptions of sectarian crime and posits a predicament that is not discussed or debated with regard to the delivery of community policing. The evidence presented offers a benchmark upon which such a debate could occur. We argue that knowledge of sectarian hate crime should not be centred at the national level, but at the more discrete scale of neighbourhood. Perceptions, whether linked to reality, signal or prejudice, can at times destabilise the peace-building process, yet are rarely attended to or discussed. Knowing the difference between recorded and perceived crime as either sectarian exaggeration or actuality would aid localised police-community interaction. Here we provide a statistical basis to stimulate such enquiry.
The role of positive consequences of alcohol in the relation between sensation seeking and drinking

College students exhibit high levels of heavy drinking that are often associated with negative consequences, including unsafe sexual activity, injury, and legal trouble. The fact that students continue to drink despite these outcomes suggests they experience salient positive consequences. A known risk factor of drinking is the personality trait sensation seeking (SS), which may influence how a person interprets alcohol-related consequences and ultimately result in increased alcohol consumption. In this study, we examined the relations between SS, positive and negative consequences, and drinking among college students. Participants were 206 undergraduates who reported recent heavy drinking (53% female, 65% white, and 26% African-American). Students with higher levels of SS reported drinking more and also indicated experiencing more positive consequences as a result of their drinking than participants with lower levels of SS. This relation between SS and drinking was mediated by positive consequences, suggesting that one reason why students with higher levels of SS drink more than other students is that they experience more positive consequences from drinking. This could be due to increased social interactions typical of high SS students, resulting in a more positive appraisal of the drinking context. These conclusions may inform college drinking prevention and intervention programs.
Mathematical Analysis of IEEE 802.11 Energy Efficiency

Mobility and portability are the major advantages that IEEE 802.11 wireless networks offer over their traditional counter- parts, i.e. wired Ethernet networks. However, when nodes are mobile or portable units, power consumption becomes a primary issue since terminals are usually battery driven. In this paper we propose an analytical framework to investigate the energetic cost of communicating in a cluster of IEEE 802.11 DCF terminals. We propose a linear model describing all the different phases that a node goes through during its active period. Under independence hypothesis, we provide the complete statistical description of the power consumption process through a moment generating function. By this means, we can evaluate the average life of a terminal, that is the maximum number of packets which can be transmitted by a terminal competing in a cluster of nodes. Using our model, we develop a case study and provide interesting indications to mitigate the power consumption of IEEE 802.11 terminals. Keywords— IEEE 802.11, energy efficiency, statistical analysis
Predicting Bundles of Spatial Locations from Learning Revealed Preference Data

We propose the problem of predicting a bundle of goods, where the goods considered is a set of spatial locations that an agent wishes to visit. This typically arises in the tourism setting where attractions can often be bundled and sold as a package to visitors. While the problem of predicting future locations given the current and past trajectories is well-established, we take a radical approach by looking at it from an economic point of view. We view an agent's past trajectories as revealed preference (RP) data, where the choice of locations is a solution to an optimisation problem according to some unknown utility function and subject to the prevailing prices and budget constraint. We approximate the prices and budget constraint as the time costs to finish visiting the chosen locations. We leverage on a recent line of work that has established algorithms to efficiently learn from RP data (i.e., recover the utility functions) and make predictions of future purchasing behaviours. We adopt and adapt those work to our original setting while incorporating techniques from spatiotemporal analysis. We experiment with real-world trajectory data collected from a theme park. Our predictions show improved accuracies in comparison with the baseline methods by at least 20, one of which comes from the spatiotemporal analysis domain.
Disability Studies and Inclusive Teacher Preparation: A Socially Just Path for Teacher Education

This article explores the benefits and challenges of operating an inclusive elementary and special education teacher preparation program within a disability studies framework. How does such a program balance issues of theory and practice? How does it provide students with a critical approach that essentially views disability as a social and cultural category much like race and gender, with a practical approach that attempts to address, remediate or eliminate those conditions that are considered disabling? How is it possible to become a successful professional with a disability studies perspective within a field such as special education that is traditionally based around a deficit model? The article provides recommendations for how such questions might be addressed in teacher education.
The Impact of Organizational Justice on Organizational Citizenship Behavior in Malaysian Higher Education

This study investigated the relationship between organizational justice and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). The population is the academic staff in Malaysian polytechnic which was clustered into five regions (Northern, Central, Western, Eastern and Borneo) which involved 363 samples. The instruments used to collect data were adopted from established previous studies. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and regression analysis. The results show that there only distributive justice and interactional justice has a significant relationship of OCB. Finally, the findings have supported the social exchange theory. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015. v6n5s2p674
The Impact of Ethnicity and Phase in Training on Israeli Social Work Students' Satisfaction with the Field Instruction

Students' evaluations of their satisfaction with their field instruction including their field instructors, agency, and learning opportunities have been the focus of earlier and more recent studies. However much less is known about students' satisfaction in non‐English speaking countries. Even rarer are studies on how satisfaction differs among diverse ethnic groups and phase of training. This study focuses on the impact of ethnicity (Jewish and Israeli Arabs), and phase of training (second or third years) on the satisfaction of Israeli social work students with their field instruction. Some 742 second and third year students reported their satisfaction on a self‐administered questionnaire. Third year students who had already completed two academic years of training were more satisfied with their field instruction than second year students. Arab students were significantly less satisfied with their field placement agencies. Second year Arab students were also less satisfied with their field instructors and their field instruction in general than second year Jewish students. The lower satisfaction might be true for other minority groups in Western countries and should be further investigated. We recommend increasing cultural sensitivity in the curriculum of social work education as well as preparatory workshops before the beginning of field practice.
Reflective-Type Phase Shifters for Multiple-Antenna Transceivers

A 10.5-GHz reflective-type phase shifter (RTPS) using resonant loads with L-match impedance transformation (RLT) is implemented in a 0.25-mum SiGe BiCMOS process. A 2.4-GHz RTPS with RLT loads is also integrated in 0.18-mum CMOS; it employs a negative resistance (NR) technique to reduce the loss by 5.9 dB compared to a conventional design that is also implemented. Several other 2.4-GHz reflective loads are fabricated in 0.18-mum CMOS including a Y-shaped dual RLT (DRLT). A transformation converts it from a Y-shape to a Delta-shape and enables use of the NR technique in an RTPS with DRLT loads, wherein the loss is reduced by 10 dB and the phase shift range is increased to over 360deg.
On the modeling and forecasting of call center arrivals

We review and discuss the key issues in building statistical models for the call arrival process in telephone call centers, and then we survey and compare various types of models proposed so far. These models are used both for simulation and to forecast incoming call volumes to make staffing decisions and build (or update) work schedules for agents who answer those calls. Commercial software and call center managers usually base their decisions solely on point forecasts, given in the form of mathematical expectations (conditional on current information), but distributional forecasts, which come in the form of (conditional) probability distributions, are generally more useful, in particular in the context of simulation. Building realistic models is not simple, because arrival rates are themselves stochastic, time-dependent, dependent across time periods and across call types, and are often affected by external events. As an illustration, we evaluate the forecasting accuracy of selected models in an empirical study with real-life call center data.
Therapists' Approaches in Working with Heterosexual Couples Struggling with Male Partners' Online Sexual Behavior

The purpose of this study was to examine the clinical approaches therapists adopt in working with couples in which the husbands' pornography use is an aspect of the presenting problem; and to determine variables that may be associated with clinical approaches. Ninety-nine clinical members of the AAMFT described the therapeutic approach they would adopt in response to a clinical vignette. Results show that clients are regularly disclosing pornography use in therapy, and AAMFT clinicians have received little to no training to prepare them to assist clients in dealing with problems related to pornography use. Findings also indicate that therapists' personal attitudes about pornography influence their treatment approach. Given the likelihood that AAMFT clinicians will see clients experiencing problems associated with habitual on-line pornography use, it is important that continuing education opportunities related to this topic are available and utilized.
Children's First Names: An Empirical Study of Social Taste

Data on births in New York State between 1973 and 1985 are used to analy gender differences in naming patterns. In a relatively rigorous way, the authors infer how seemingly idiosyncratic expressions of tastes in names are in general affected by underlying cultural themes. For example, the results suggest that long-standing stereotyped role assignments still have a subtle but major effect on the naming process. Two major parental characteristics-education and race-modify these general patterns. In turn, taste differences in subpopulations reveal their general esthetics dispositions. The authors present these results as the first large-scale systematic comparison of educational differences in naming patterns in the United States.
Exposure to Threatening and Violent Behaviour Among Single Mothers: The Significance of Lifestyle, Neighbourhood and Welfare Situation

The objective of this article is to study violent victimization among single mothers. This is mainly achieved by examining variations within the group of single mothers. The study is based on the Annual Survey of Living Conditions conducted by Statistics Sweden. The analysis includes a total of 1,713 single mothers. One of the central issues in this study is to examine the significance of factors related to participation in public entertainment, residential neighbourhood and resource deficiencies at the individual level. One important conclusion from the study is that differences in levels of exposure to violence, both within the group of single mothers and between this group and other women, are primarily related to levels of individual welfare resources.