Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DUAL ENROLLMENT AS A FACTOR FOR WOMEN TRANSITIONING INTO STEM MAJORS IN MONTANA TWO-YEAR COLLEGES

iii Acknowledgements iv List of Tables viii List of Figures ix Chapter 1. The Problem 1 Statement of the Problem 3 Research Questions 5 Significance of the Study 6 Purpose of the Study 7 Definition of Terms 7 Delimitations 14 Limitation 14 Summary 15 2. Review of Related Literature 18 Standards 19 Related Federal Legislation 21 State Initiatives 23
Marriage preceded by pregnancy and women's employment

When a woman’s pregnancy precedes her marriage, what sort of impact does it have on her future career? In this paper, we examine this issue. Since marriage preceded by pregnancy is concentrated in certain socioeconomic status groups, in addition to ordinary methods of estimation, we also employed models using the propensity score of marriage preceded by pregnancy, in order to balance the structure of covariates. The results show that although those who have experienced marriage preceded by pregnancy are more likely than their counterparts to quit their jobs after marriage, the likelihood of their being full-time (rather than non-regular) employees after childbirth is higher than those in the other group. They are also more likely to be employed full-time when their first child is one year old. However, we found no statistically significant difference between the two groups in terms of childcare leave utilization, employment status after controlling for age of youngest child, or annual income. While the likelihood of resignation from work is higher among women who have experienced marriage preceded by pregnancy, their status does not appear to place them at an extreme disadvantage in terms of likelihood of employment, or employment status, after childbirth. In a social climate marked by an ongoing weakening of factors other than pregnancy that encourage women to marry, we speculate that marriage precipitated by pregnancy will gain increasing social acceptance as a pattern of family formation.
Prevalence and risk factors of chlamydia infection in Hong Kong: A population-based geospatial household survey and testing

Background Chlamydia causes infertility and increases risk of HIV infection, and population-based studies provide essential information for effective infection control and prevention. This study examined Chlamydia trachomatis prevalence and risk factors among a representative sample of 18-49-year-old residents in Hong Kong. Methods Census boundary map of 412 constituency areas was used as primary sampling units to construct the sampling frame and, residential buildings and units were randomly selected using geospatial modelling. A questionnaire on sexual practice and health was conducted, and polymerase chain reaction was used to test the urine for genital chlamydial infection. Invitation letters were sent to the selected households and a team of interviewers were sent to recruit one subject per household. Prevalence data was weighted according to the 2011 census and risk factors identified through logistic regression. Results Among 881 participants (response rate of 24.5%), the overall Chlamydia trachomatis prevalence was low at 1.4% (95%CI 0.8–2.5%) but sexually active young (18–26 years) women had relatively high prevalence (5.8%, 95%CI 1.7–18.2%) in Hong Kong. A unique U-shape disease burden was observed with peaks in younger and older (40–49 years) women. Amongst the sexually active women, the risk factors of Chlamydia trachomatis infection were: younger age (aOR = 25.4, 95% CI 2.81–230); living alone (aOR = 8.99, 95% CI 1.46–55.40); and, among all the sexually active participants, males (including the male partners of the female participants) who had travelled out of Hong Kong in the previous 12 months had higher risks of infection (aOR = 5.35; 95% CI 1.25–22.8). A core-peripheral geographical distribution of Chlamydia trachomatis prevalence was also observed. Conclusion Young and older sexually active women in Hong Kong have high prevalence of chlamydia. Routine screening for sexually active women and young men should be considered. Further research on testing feasibility and linkage-to-care are urgently needed to control the infection.
Utility of the Illness Intrusiveness Scale in parents of children diagnosed with juvenile rheumatic diseases.

OBJECTIVE To examine the factor structure and convergent validity of the Illness Intrusiveness Scale--Parent Version in mother and fathers of children and adolescents ages 7 to 18 (M = 13.56 years, SD = 2.67) diagnosed with a juvenile rheumatic disease. DESIGN Parents of 122 children and adolescents (82 girls, 40 boys) completed the Illness Intrusiveness Scale-Parent Version, and both parents and children and adolescents completed measures of functional disability, general distress, and illness uncertainty. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted on the Illness Intrusiveness Scale--Parent Version to identify the factor structure. The factors were then compared with parent- and child-report measures of functional disability, general distress, and uncertainty. Finally, analyses were conducted to determine whether the magnitude of the correlations was significantly different between factors for parents and children and adolescents. RESULTS The Illness Intrusiveness Scale--Parent Version was found to have a two-factor structure. The Relationships/Personal Development factor contained items related to self-fulfillment and interactions with others, and the Instrumental factor contained items related to health and work. These factors were found to have good internal consistency and were significantly correlated with measures of parent-reported functional disability and parent- and youth-reported distress and uncertainty. The magnitude of these correlations was also found to differ depending on informant and outcome measure. CONCLUSION The Illness Intrusiveness Scale--Parent Version appears to be a valid measure for use in parents of children with juvenile rheumatic disease.
Medically important differences in snake venom composition are dictated by distinct postgenomic mechanisms

Significance The toxic composition of snake venom varies between species. Such variation can have major medical implications for the treatment of human snakebite victims. Venom variation is largely attributed to differences in toxin-encoding genes present in the genome or venom gland of snakes. Here, we demonstrate that mechanisms affecting the transcription, translation, and posttranslational modification of toxins also significantly contribute to the diversity of venom protein composition. Venom variation observed between related snake species is therefore the result of a complex interaction between a variety of genetic and postgenomic factors acting on toxin genes. Ultimately, this variation results in significant differences in venom-induced pathology and lethality and can undermine the efficacy of antivenom therapies used to treat human snakebite victims. Variation in venom composition is a ubiquitous phenomenon in snakes and occurs both interspecifically and intraspecifically. Venom variation can have severe outcomes for snakebite victims by rendering the specific antibodies found in antivenoms ineffective against heterologous toxins found in different venoms. The rapid evolutionary expansion of different toxin-encoding gene families in different snake lineages is widely perceived as the main cause of venom variation. However, this view is simplistic and disregards the understudied influence that processes acting on gene transcription and translation may have on the production of the venom proteome. Here, we assess the venom composition of six related viperid snakes and compare interspecific changes in the number of toxin genes, their transcription in the venom gland, and their translation into proteins secreted in venom. Our results reveal that multiple levels of regulation are responsible for generating variation in venom composition between related snake species. We demonstrate that differential levels of toxin transcription, translation, and their posttranslational modification have a substantial impact upon the resulting venom protein mixture. Notably, these processes act to varying extents on different toxin paralogs found in different snakes and are therefore likely to be as important as ancestral gene duplication events for generating compositionally distinct venom proteomes. Our results suggest that these processes may also contribute to altering the toxicity of snake venoms, and we demonstrate how this variability can undermine the treatment of a neglected tropical disease, snakebite.
High-level synthesis of data paths with concurrent error detection

High-level synthesis of data paths with concurrent self-checking abilities is discussed to balance redundancy, latency, and checking effectiveness. The nominal and the checking computations are scheduled and allocated contemporaneously by using a force-directed approach to limit the number of redundant units required to achieve detection within the latency of the nominal computation only. Resource sharing between the nominal and the checking computation is used to minimise the redundancy, while keeping error aliasing as reduced as possible.
Investigating User Privacy in Android Ad Libraries

—Recent years have witnessed incredible growth in the popularity and prevalence of smart phones. A ﬂourishing mobile application market has evolved to provide users with additional functionality such as interacting with social networks, games, and more. Mobile applications may have a direct purchasing cost or be free but ad-supported. Unlike in-browser ads, the privacy implications of ads in Android applications has not been thoroughly explored. We start by comparing the similarities and differences of in-browser ads and in-app ads. We examine the effect on user privacy of thirteen popular Android ad providers by reviewing their use of permissions. Worryingly, several ad libraries checked for permissions beyond the required and optional ones listed in their documentation, including dangerous permissions like CAMERA , WRITE CALENDAR and WRITE CONTACTS . Further, we discover the insecure use of Android’s JavaScript extension mechanism in several ad libraries. We identify ﬁelds in ad requests for private user information and conﬁrm their presence in network data obtained from a tier-1 network provider. We also show that users can be tracked by a network sniffer across ad providers and by an ad provider across applications. Finally, we discuss several possible solutions to the privacy issues identiﬁed above.
Low EMI noise techniques of the 6th generation IGBT module

This paper describes the mechanism of radiation EMI noise coming from power electronics and introduces the applied technology of Fuji 6th generation IGBT modules, which have drastically improved the trade-off of radiation EMI noise and power dissipation loss. The application of new packaging technology has achieved a reduction in radiation noise of about -5dB by reducing the radiation noise loop area. New trench gate IGBTs have achieved a reduction in the radiation noise without significantly increasing switching losses. As a result, the total radiation noise is reduced by - 15 dB with the same dissipation losses compared to the conventional IGBT.
Measurements of Serum Pituitary-Gonadal Hormones and Investigation of Sexual and Reproductive Functions in Kidney Transplant Recipients

Objective. To investigate changes in serum pituitary-gonadal hormones and restoration of sexual and reproductive functions after successful kidney transplantation. Patients and Methods. Serum pituitary-gonadal hormones before and after kidney transplantation were measured in 78 patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) and in 30 healthy adults. Pre- and postoperative semen specimens of 46 male recipients and 15 male controls were collected and compared. Additional 100 married kidney transplant recipients without children were followed up for 3 years to observe their sexual function and fertility. Results. Serum PRL, LH, and T or E2 levels gradually restored to the normal ranges in all kidney transplant recipients, and sperm density, motility, viability, and morphology significantly improved in the male recipients 4 months after successful kidney transplantation (P < .05). Thirty-three male recipients (55.93%) reobtained normal erectile function, and 49 kidney transplant recipients (61.25%) had children within the 3-year follow-up period. Conclusion. Successful kidney transplantation could effectively improve pituitary-gonadal hormone disturbance and sexual and reproductive dysfunctions of ESRD patients.
The radicalisation of the German electorate: Swinging to the Right and the Left in the twilight of the Weimar Republic

This article analyses the impact of the onset of the Great Depression on voting patterns at the local level in the final years of the Weimar Republic. A special pooled longitudinal/cross sectional, fixed-effects approach with spatial autocorrelation (EGLS) is used in order to simultaneously estimate the popularity determinants for the entire system of political parties for each of the 830 localities in our data set. By analysing the determinants for the vote shares of all major parties/party blocs we demonstrate unequivocally that the economic crisis was the crucial prerequisite for the political collapse of the Weimar Republic. In contrast to other empirical studies in this field, we use an essentially longitudinal approach by which we can completely avoid the problems associated with ecological inference and show that unemployment had a strong positive effect in favour of the National Socialists. Because of using aggregated data, we cannot, however, distinguish between egotropic and sociotropic voting behaviour.
Backward stochastic PDEs related to the utility maximization problem

Abstract We study utility maximization problem for general utility functions using the dynamic programming approach. An incomplete financial market model is considered, where the dynamics of asset prices is described by an -valued continuous semimartingale. Under some regularity assumptions, we derive the backward stochastic partial differential equation related directly to the primal problem and show that the strategy is optimal if and only if the corresponding wealth process satisfies a certain forward stochastic differential equation. The cases of power, exponential and logarithmic utilities are considered as examples.
Adjuvant, neoadjuvant, and experimental regimens in overcoming pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive and deadly malignancies. Despite better understanding of its biology and pathogenesis, contemporary treatment regimens are still insufficient. Along with the introduction of new treatment agents and combination therapy, the response rates are increasing, but these scores do not go with overall survival, and results are frequently conflicting. Therefore, contemporary medicine faces the challenge of expanding the knowledge base and practice on all grounds – pathology, factor risk, diagnosis, and finally surgical and palliative treatment of this disease. This paper provides a review of current adjuvant and neoadjuvant regimens and the role of experimental therapies in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.
Gamma Responses Correlate with Temporal Expectation in Monkey Primary Visual Cortex

Gamma oscillations have been linked to selective attention. Here, we investigate the effects of expecting a behaviorally relevant event (a change in the fixation point) on the oscillatory patterning of the local field potential and spiking responses in V1. Three protocols were used. In the first protocol, fixation point change occurred at a fixed time point, enabling predictions on task timing. In the second, fixation point change occurred in trial blocks either early or late in the trial, allowing us to compare responses during epochs of low and high expectation. Finally, we used a cue to indicate the upcoming fixation point change. All protocols led to an increase in gamma oscillations associated with alpha suppression when the monkeys expected an event in time. These effects were spatially widespread, since comparable results were observed for both central and peripheral visual representations in V1. Our findings indicate that expectations associated with perceptual decisions, motor responses, or upcoming reward may have a strong effect on the primary visual cortex, causing global, spatially nonselective modulation of gamma activity.
Risk and Time Preferences of West African Cattle Farmers

This study investigates risk and time preferences of small-scale cattle farmers in West Africa and examines how demographic and socio-economic characteristics are related to these preferences. Using a maximum likelihood approach we jointly estimate risk and time preferences. Our findings show that, overall the West African cattle farmer shows poor performance in using probability information and is generally risk averse. The average cattle farmers’ time preferences indicate a higher degree of patience than expected. We also find that income, education, and religion are highly correlated with risk and time preferences.
A Multicentre Hospital Outbreak in Sweden Caused by Introduction of a vanB2 Transposon into a Stably Maintained pRUM-Plasmid in an Enterococcus faecium ST192 Clone

The clonal dissemination of VanB-type vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VREfm) strains in three Swedish hospitals between 2007 and 2011 prompted further analysis to reveal the possible origin and molecular characteristics of the outbreak strain. A representative subset of VREfm isolates (n = 18) and vancomycin-susceptible E. faecium (VSEfm, n = 2) reflecting the spread in time and location was approached by an array of methods including: selective whole genome sequencing (WGS; n = 3), multi locus sequence typing (MLST), antimicrobial susceptibility testing, virulence gene profiling, identification of mobile genetic elements conferring glycopeptide resistance and their ability to support glycopeptide resistance transfer. In addition, a single VREfm strain with an unrelated PFGE pattern collected prior to the outbreak was examined by WGS. MLST revealed a predominance of ST192, belonging to a hospital adapted high-risk lineage harbouring several known virulence determinants (n≥10). The VREfm outbreak strain was resistant to ampicillin, gentamicin, ciprofloxacin and vancomycin, and susceptible to teicoplanin. Consistently, a vanB2-subtype as part of Tn1549/Tn5382 with a unique genetic signature was identified in the VREfm outbreak strains. Moreover, Southern blot hybridisation analyses of PFGE separated S1 nuclease-restricted total DNAs and filter mating experiments showed that vanB2-Tn1549/Tn5382 was located in a 70-kb sized rep 17/pRUM plasmid readily transferable between E. faecium. This plasmid contained an axe-txe toxin-antitoxin module associated with stable maintenance. The two clonally related VSEfm harboured a 40 kb rep 17/pRUM plasmid absent of the 30 kb vanB2-Tn1549/Tn5382 gene complex. Otherwise, these two isolates were similar to the VREfm outbreak strain in virulence- and resistance profile. In conclusion, our observations support that the origin of the multicentre outbreak was caused by an introduction of vanB2-Tn1549/Tn5382 into a rep 17/pRUM plasmid harboured in a pre-existing high-risk E. faecium ST192 clone. The subsequent dissemination of VREfm to other centres was primarily caused by clonal spread rather than plasmid transfer to pre-existing high-risk clones.
Towards an integrated model of customer service skills and customer loyalty

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between customer service skills and customers' loyalty through examining the mediation effect of customer satisfaction dimensions in Jordan's mobile service operators.Design/methodology/approach – To achieve the research objectives, data were collected from 1,350 subscribers in Jordan from which 1,007 were valid for the analysis. Utilizing structural equation modeling, and after a series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, the authors tested an integrated model of customer service skills and customer loyalty through examining the meditational effects of customer service satisfaction dimensions on the relationship between customer service skills and customer loyalty.Findings – It was found that three of customer service skills components, namely; reputation building skills, nonverbal communication skills, and customer service culture have positive relationships with customer service satisfaction dimensions (overall, functional,.
Political Markets of Post-Socialism: Anomalous Development or Evolutionary Trend?

Looking at the post-socialist cases of Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Ukraine and Russia, this dissertation asks whether rapid development of political markets in postsocialist polities represents the anomaly of post-socialist transformation or, perhaps, it represents the normal trajectory of the evolutionary development of democratic institutions. The study has a cross-disciplinary approach, incorporating insights and analyses from different disciplines. To answer the research question in this study, a comprehensive (comparative case study) research strategy is employed. The cases were selected based on the notion that they represent a subset of a larger set of post-socialist democratic polities with very similar transformational trajectories although different in a range of historical, cultural, and geopolitical aspects. All selected cases experienced a relatively painful transformation of social, political and economic institutions. However, the success of these transformations varies across these cases. Also there is a substantial variation in the strategies of reforms, pace of changes and extent of public and elite support for the changes. Particular electoral practices and their correlation with distinct institutional and media environments are examined by combining macro-level contextual data with micro-level data. The conclusions about the degree of professionalization, the impact of the ongoing mediatization of electoral politics, the variety of campaign styles and the consequences of these changes in the nature of political campaigns for electoral democracies in postsocialist countries and worldwide are drawn.
Reduced form models of bond portfolios

We derive simple return models for several classes of bond portfolios. With only one or two risk factors our models are able to explain most of the return variations in portfolios of fixed rate government bonds, inflation linked government bonds and investment grade corporate bonds. The underlying risk factors have natural interpretations which make the models well suited for risk management and portfolio design.