Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Developing the moral competencies of accounting students: a case study of International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM)

Two decades of financial scandals have seriously damaged the credibility of accountants as guardians of financial information. To repair this credibility, the Malaysian government released a blueprint that mandated Malaysian educational institutions to produce morally competent professionals. This study sought to assist the accounting department at the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) in achieving this mandate by evaluating the moral competencies of 2nd-year students enrolled in the department. The evaluation revealed that the students' had below par levels of moral competencies in dealing with ethical dilemmas in an accounting context. The implication of these results is that IIUM's accounting department has to critically assess the ethical content of its curriculum in order to ensure that it is capable of developing the moral competencies of these students to an excellent level. Additionally, there is a need for IIUM to institutionalize the measurement of students' moral competencies so that an objective determination can be made as to how effective the department is in developing the moral competencies of its students.
Leveraging Digital Technologies: How Information Quality Leads to Localized Capabilities and Customer Service Performance

With the growing recognition of the customer's role in service creation and delivery, there is an increased impetus on building customer-centric organizations. Digital technologies play a key role in such organizations. Prior research studying digital business strategies has largely focused on building production-side competencies and there has been little focus on customer-side digital business strategies to leverage these technologies. We propose a theory to understand the effectiveness of a customer-side digital business strategy focused on localized dynamics--here, a firm's customer service units (CSUs). Specifically, we use a capabilities perspective to propose digital design as an antecedent to two customer service capabilities--namely, customer orientation capability and customer response capability--across a firm's CSUs. These two capabilities will help a firm to locally sense and respond to customer needs, respectively. Information quality from the digital design of the CSU is proposed as the antecedent to the two capabilities. Proposed capability-building dynamics are tested using data collected from multiple respondents across 170 branches of a large bank. Findings suggest that the impacts of information quality in capability-building are contingent on the local process characteristics. We offer implications for a firm's customer-side digital business strategy and present new areas for future examination of such strategies.
Response of chlorophyll fluorescence to salinity stress on the early growth stage of the soybean plants (Glycine max L.)

The chlorophyll fluorescence in response to salinity stress of soybean plants in spectral range 650–850 nm and slow transient fluorescence kinetics were investigated using remote sensing techniques. The soybean plants were grown under controlled conditions as water cultures on nutrient solution of Helrigel. Salinity was performed at the stage of 2nd to 4th trifoliate expanded leaves by adding of NaCl in the nutrient solution at concentrations 40 mM and 80 mM. The chlorophyll fluorescence was registered by a multichannel fiber optic spectrometer USB2000 working in time-acquisition mode. As a source of actinic light, a light emitting diode with the maximum of the light output at 470 nm was used. The fluorescence spectra were registered subsequently in time at every 2 second. At least 40 spectra from each soybean leaf were obtained; the leaves being taken from 20 control plants and 20 plants treated with two NaCl concentrations. Measurements were conducted on the 14th day after treatment. Several indices such as fluorescence spectra area, halfwidth of the fluorescence spectral curve, and wavelength of spectrum maximum were used to characterize the differences between the normalized fluorescence spectra of leaves of control and treated plants. The Student t-criterion, discriminant analysis and derivative analysis were applied to estimate the statistical significance of the differences between the average values of the indices. The results revealed that the low NaCl concentration led to salinity tolerance while the high NaCl concentration caused salinity stress in the soybean plants.
Building a Wrapper for Fine-Grained Private Group Messaging on Twitter

User privacy has been an increasingly growing concern in online social networks (OSNs). While most OSNs today provide some form of privacy controls so that their users can protect their shared content from other users, these controls are typically not sufﬁciently expressive and/or do not provide ﬁne-grained protection of information. In this paper, we consider the introduction of a new privacy control—group messaging on Twitter, with users having ﬁne-grained control over who can see their messages. Speciﬁcally, we demonstrate that such a privacy control can be offered to users of Twitter today without having to wait for Twitter to make changes to its system. We do so by designing and implementing Twitsper , a wrapper around Twitter that enables private group communication among existing Twitter users while preserving Twitter’s commercial interests. Our evaluation shows that our implementation of Twitsper imposes minimal server-side bandwidth requirements and incurs low client-side energy consumption. Our Twitsper client for Android-based devices has been downloaded by over 1000 users and its utility has been noted by several media articles.
A Quasi-Sure Approach to the Control of Non-Markovian Stochastic Differential Equations

We study stochastic differential equations (SDEs) whose drift and diffusion coefficients are path-dependent and controlled. We construct a value process on the canonical path space, considered simultaneously under a family of singular measures, rather than the usual family of processes indexed by the controls. This value process is characterized by a second order backward SDE, which can be seen as a non-Markovian analogue of the Hamilton-Jacobi Bellman partial differential equation. Moreover, our value process yields a generalization of the $G$-expectation to the context of SDEs.
Neonatal acute liver failure

Neonatal acute liver failure (NALF) is a rare disease about which there is little published data; however, NALF is an extremely important condition as it is distinct from acute liver failure seen in older children and adults. First, unlike acute liver failure in older patients, NALF can be diagnosed in an infant with cirrhosis. This is due to the fetal‐neonatal continuum of liver disease, or the principle that neonatal liver failure may be the result of a liver disease that began in utero. Further differences exist in the mechanism of disease, diagnostic principles, and the common etiologies of NALF when compared with pediatric and adult acute liver failure. This review will address many of the distinguishing features of NALF and focus on the most common etiologies of NALF, including gestational alloimmune liver disease (GALD), the most common cause of NALF. Additionally, this review will provide insight into the pathogenesis, diagnosis, and treatment of this rare condition. Liver Transplantation 22 677‐685 2016 AASLD.
The effect of ageing and physical activity level on muscle fatigue during isometric contraction of knee extensor muscles

Nahar, Nazmun 2013. Effect of ageing and physical activity level on muscle fatigue during isometric contraction of knee extensor muscles. Master’s theses in Biomechanics. Department of Biology of Physical Activity, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland. Muscle fatigue is defined as the loss of force or power producing capacity in response to contractile activity and is a fundamental characteristic of skeletal muscle. The aim of this study was to identify whether time to failure remains same or increases in elderly people compared with young people. Another aim was to identify time to failure is same or less in active old people compared with inactive old people. One hundred and ten subjects were recruited in this study. However, complete data was obtained from ninety subjects [32 young (mean age 24±2 years), 28 old active (75±4 years) and 30 old inactive (75±3 years)]. Experimental protocol consisted of measurements before, during and after fatigue test. The electrical stimulation was induced every 10 sec of the fatigue test. To determine the stimulation intensity, double stimulus (doublet) was applied to the relaxed muscle that produced 30 % of maximal voluntary contraction (MVC). To determine the activation level 2×MVC was performed at 90◦ knee angle. During fatigue test, subjects performed sustained contraction at 50 % of the MVC as long as possible. The test was finished when the force dropped below 5 % of the target force. The results showed that following fatigue test there was no significant difference in time to failure between old and young subjects group. Habitual physical activity did not give any different results compared with old inactive subjects group following the fatigue test. Young subjects group had 18% (p<0.001) more peripheral fatigue and 0.6% (p<0.05) more central fatigue than old subjects group. These findings suggest that though the time to failure is similar in this study but it might be difference in mechanism of fatigue between old and young subjects.
Does his paycheck also matter?: The socioeconomic resources of co-residential partners and entry into parenthood in Finland

Background: Previous research on fertility has focused on women, and less attention has been paid to men and couples. Objective: The aim of this study is to examine how the socioeconomic resources of cohabiting and married partners affect entry into parenthood in a relatively gender-egalitarian welfare society. Methods: The study is based on Finnish register data and uses event-history analysis to predict first births from both partners’ socioeconomic characteristics. Results: The results show that each partner being employed (as opposed to studying) and having a higher income seems to encourage entry into parenthood. As compared to employed couples, either partner being currently unemployed or having recent spells of unemployment had very weak effects, whereas either partner being economically inactive seems to discourage childbearing. Although the resources of male partners also have an effect, the female partner’s situation appears to be equally or even more influential. The effects of female partners’ characteristics are almost as great when male characteristics are controlled as when they are not, and women’s and men’s characteristics do not interact with each other. Moreover, with regard to income and educational attainment beyond age 30, for example, the woman’s resources have a stronger positive effect than the resources of the male partner. Conclusions: Together with several previous studies from the Nordic countries, this study lends support to the idea that the influence of women’s and men’s economic resources on family formation are perhaps much more symmetrical than conventional theories suggest. Comments: The significance of women's own resources, net of the male partner’s resources, suggests that previous studies have not overestimated their positive impact.
The Polynesian settlement of New Zealand in relation to environmental and biotic changes

Polynesian settlement of New Zealand (c. 1000 yr B.P.) led directly to the extinction or reduction of much of the vertebrate fauna, destruction of half of the lowland and montane forests, and widespread soil erosion. The climate and natural vegetation changed over the same time but had negligible effects on the fauna compared with the impact of settlement. The most severe modification occurred between 750 and 500 years ago, when a rapidly increasing human population, over-exploited animal populations and used fire to clear the land. Human predation, and destruction of forest habitat eliminated the moa and other large ground birds. Moa appear to have been more abundant in drier conifer-broadleaved forest on fertile lowland sites, than in wetter areas and in cool upland forests. Most forests remaining today are wet mountain land communities, and may never have experienced severe browsing pressure until Europeans introduced browsing mammals. The moderate amount of browsing pressure exerted in them by moa may have been insufficient for the plants to develop browsing adaptations capable of coping with the impact of mammals. Knowledge of these climatic, physical and cultural forces which shaped the biota of present day New Zealand are important for understanding how to manage the remaining estate.
A Coordinate-Based Meta-Analysis of Overlaps in Regional Specialization and Functional Connectivity across Subjective Value and Default Mode Networks

Previous research has provided qualitative evidence for overlap in a number of brain regions across the subjective value network (SVN) and the default mode network (DMN). In order to quantitatively assess this overlap, we conducted a series of coordinate-based meta-analyses (CBMA) of results from 466 functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments on task-negative or subjective value-related activations in the human brain. In these analyses, we first identified significant overlaps and dissociations across activation foci related to SVN and DMN. Second, we investigated whether these overlapping subregions also showed similar patterns of functional connectivity, suggesting a shared functional subnetwork. We find considerable overlap between SVN and DMN in subregions of central ventromedial prefrontal cortex (cVMPFC) and dorsal posterior cingulate cortex (dPCC). Further, our findings show that similar patterns of bidirectional functional connectivity between cVMPFC and dPCC are present in both networks. We discuss ways in which our understanding of how subjective value (SV) is computed and represented in the brain can be synthesized with what we know about the DMN, mind-wandering, and self-referential processing in light of our findings.
Combined Imaging of Bacteria and Oxygen in Biofilms

ABSTRACT Transparent sensors for microscopic O2 imaging were developed by spin coating an ultrathin (<1- to 2-μm) layer of a luminescent O2 indicator onto coverslips. The sensors showed (i) an ideal Stern-Volmer quenching behavior of the luminescence lifetime towards O2 levels, (ii) homogeneous measuring characteristics over the sensor surface, and (iii) a linear decline of luminescence lifetime with increasing temperature. When a batch of such coverslip sensors has been characterized, their use is thus essentially calibration free at a known temperature. The sensors are easy to use in flow chambers and other growth devices used in microbiology. We present the first application for combined imaging of O2 and bacteria in a biofilm flow chamber mounted on a microscope equipped with a spinning-disk confocal unit and a luminescence lifetime camera system.
Genetic evidence for shared mechanisms of epimorphic regeneration in zebrafish

In a microarray-based gene profiling analysis of Müller glia-derived retinal stem cells in light-damaged retinas from adult zebrafish, we found that 2 genes required for regeneration of fin and heart tissues in zebrafish, hspd1 (heat shock 60-kDa protein 1) and mps1 (monopolar spindle 1), were up-regulated. Expression of both genes in the neurogenic Müller glia and progenitors was independently verified by quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR and in situ hybridization. Functional analysis of temperature-sensitive mutants of hspd1 and mps1 revealed that both are necessary for Müller glia-based cone photoreceptor regeneration in adult zebrafish retina. In the amputated fin, hspd1 is required for the induction of mesenchymal stem cells and blastema formation, whereas mps1 is required at a later step for rapid cell proliferation and outgrowth. This temporal sequence of hspd1 and mps1 function is conserved in the regenerating retina. Comparison of gene expression profiles from regenerating zebrafish retina, caudal fin, and heart muscle revealed additional candidate genes potentially implicated in injury-induced epimorphic regeneration in diverse zebrafish tissues.
Tumor characteristics associated with mammographic detection of breast cancer in the Ontario breast screening program.

BACKGROUND Few studies have compared the prognostic value of tumor characteristics by type of breast cancer diagnosed in the interval between mammographic screenings with screen-detected breast cancers. METHODS We conducted a case-case study within the cohort of women (n = 431 480) in the Ontario Breast Screening Program who were aged 50 years and older and were screened between January 1, 1994, and December 31, 2002. Interval cancers, defined as breast cancers diagnosed within 24 months after a negative screening mammogram, were designated as true interval cancers (n = 288) or missed interval cancers (n = 87) if they were not identified at the time of screening but were identified in retrospect. Screen-detected breast cancers (n = 450) were selected to match interval cancers. Tumors were evaluated for stage, grade, mitotic index, histology, and expression of hormone receptors and odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated by conditional logistic regression. RESULTS Both true and missed interval cancers were of higher stage and grade than matched screen-detected breast cancers. However, true interval cancers had a higher mitotic index (OR = 3.13, 95% CI = 1.81 to 5.42), a higher percentage of nonductal histology (OR = 1.94, 95% CI = 1.05 to 3.59), and were more likely to be both estrogen receptor-negative (OR = 2.09, 95% CI = 1.32 to 3.30) and progesterone receptor-negative (OR = 2.49, 95% CI = 1.68 to 3.70) compared with matched screen-detected tumors. CONCLUSIONS In this study, interval cancers were of higher stage and grade compared with screen-detected cancers. True interval cancers were more likely to have additional adverse prognostic features of estrogen and progesterone receptor negativity and nonductal morphology. The findings suggest a need for more sensitive screening modalities to detect true interval breast cancers and different approaches for early detection of fast-growing tumors.
Silent Majority: Childhood Vaccinations and Antecedents to Communicative Action

The topic of childhood vaccinations has received much news media attention recently, prompting scholars to examine how the public has responded. In light of this news, and the deep divide that seems to exist between parents who support childhood vaccinations and those who do not, this study examines how and why individuals may involve themselves in communication about vaccinations, particularly on social media or in other online environments. Focusing on the concept of communicative action and drawing from spiral of silence and other research, a survey of mothers (N = 455) found that those who do not support childhood vaccinations are more likely to engage in communication about the issue, including information seeking, attending, forefending, permitting, forwarding, and sharing. In addition, issue importance and affective and cognitive involvement help drive communicative action regarding childhood vaccinations, which could affect public opinion or public perceptions of the issue. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
The Effects of Suspicion and Causal Uncertainty on Dispositional Inferences

ii Dedication. iv Acknowledgments . v Vita . vi List of Figures . ix Chapters:
Medication Adherence in Kidney Transplant Recipients in an Urban Indian Setting

Medication nonadherence is a known problem after renal transplantation and can vary from one setting to another. Since it can lead to negative outcomes, it is important to develop intervention strategies to enhance adherence in a given setting using determinants identified through exploratory studies. We explored nonadherence in renal transplant recipients. A longitudinal survey was done with adult renal transplant recipients at a tertiary care public and two private hospitals of Kolkata. Subjects were followed-up for 1 year. After screening for medication adherence status by the four-item Morisky Medication Adherence Scale, those admitting to potential nonadherence were probed further. A patient was deemed to be nonadherent if failing to take medicines on appointed time (doses missed or delayed by more than 2 h) more than three times in any month during the observation period. A pretested questionnaire was used to explore potential determinants of nonadherence. Data of 153 patients recruited over a 2-year were analyzed. The extent of nonadherence with immunosuppressant regimens was about 31% overall; 44% in the public sector and 19% in the private sector (P < 0.001). Nonadherence with other medication was around 19% in both the sectors. Several potential demographic, socioeconomic and psychosocial determinants of nonadherence were identified on univariate analysis. However, logistic regression analysis singled out only the economic status. This study had updated the issue of nonadherence in renal transplant recipients in the Indian setting. Strategies to improve medication adherence can be planned by relevant stakeholders on the basis of these findings.
Predictive audio coding using rate-distortion-optimal pre- and post-filtering

A natural approach to audio coding is to use a rate-distortion optimal design combined with a perceptual model. While this approach is common in transform coding, existing predictive-coding based audio coders are generally not optimal and they benefit from heuristically motivated post-filtering. As delay requirements often force the use of predictive coding, we consider audio coding with a pre- and post-filtered predictive structure that was recently proven to be asymptotically optimal in the rate-distortion sense [1]. We show that this audio coding is efficient in achieving the state-of-the-art performance. We also show that the pre-filter plays a relatively minor role. This leads to an analytic approach for optimizing the post-filter and the predictor at each rate, eliminating the need for manual re-tuning whenever a different rate is called for. In a subjective test, the theoretically optimized post-filter provided a better performance than a conventional post-filter.
Molecular Characteristics of Occult Hepatitis B Virus from Blood Donors in Southeast China

ABSTRACT The characteristics of 30 carriers with occult hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection (OBI) were compared with those of 30 individuals diagnosed as being HBV carriers at the time of blood donation, 60 asymptomatic carriers, and 60 chronic hepatitis patients. The prevalence of genotype C was significantly higher in carriers with OBIs than in any other HBsAg-positive (HBsAg+) group (P < 0.001). Specific amino acid substitutions in the regions from amino acids 117 to 121 and amino acids 144 to 147 located in the major hydrophilic region of the S gene were associated with carriers with OBIs (P < 0.01 for carriers with OBIs versus HBsAg+ donors, carriers with OBIs versus HBsAg+ asymptomatic carriers, and carriers with OBIs versus HBsAg+ chronic hepatitis patients). G145R was the major variation in the HBV isolates responsible for local occult HBV infections.