Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CD8+ T Cell Serotype-Cross-Reactivity is a Predominant Feature of Dengue Virus Infections in Humans: A Dissertation

The four serotypes of dengue virus (DENV 1-4) have a significant and growing impact on global health. Dengue disease encompasses a wide range of clinical symptoms, usually presenting as an uncomplicated febrile illness lasting 5-7 days; however, a small percentage of infections are associated with plasma leakage and bleeding tendency (called dengue hemorrhagic fever, DHF), which can result in shock. Epidemiological studies indicate that severe dengue disease most often occurs during secondary heterotypic DENV infection. Additionally, plasma leakage (the hallmark of DHF) coincides with defervescence and viral clearance, suggesting that severe disease arises from the immune response to infection rather than a direct effect of the virus. A number of studies have found increased levels of markers of immune cell activation in patients with DHF compared to patients with the less severe form of disease (DF). These markers include IFNγ, TNFα, soluble CD8, soluble IL-2 receptor, soluble TNF receptor, and CD69, which support a role for T cells in mediating immunopathology. Because of the high homology of DENV 1-4, some degree of serotype-cross-reactivity is seen for most T cell epitopes. A high percentage of DENVspecific T cells recognize multiple DENV serotypes, as demonstrated by peptide-MHC (pMHC) tetramer binding and in vitro functional assays performed on PBMC from subjects vaccinated with an experimental DENV vaccine or naturally-infected subjects with secondary (>1) DENV infection.
Accounting Variables, Deception, and a Bag of Words: Assessing the Tools of Fraud Detection

We develop a data-generated tool for distinguishing between fraudulent and truthful reports based on the language used in the management discussion and analysis section of annual and interim reports. Using this method, we are able to assign a probability of truth to each report which is then shown to be an effective indicator of fraud. Our work goes beyond the development of a tool alone, however, by conducting an extensive comparison of our probability-of-truth measure with eight alternative detection tools representing both quantitative and language-based approaches. Comparisons are made across a variety of samples and show that our language-based approach can be effective in both cross-sectional and time-series settings. It is useful both in distinguishing between fraudulent and truthful firms and in identifying fraudulent reports from a series of reports issued by a single firm. This second setting is one in which accounting-based detection tools have frequently struggled. We establish that, not only is our probability-of-truth measure significantly associated with fraud, so too is the change in this measure from a firm's previous reports. Prior reports may serve an important benchmarking role in using language-based tools to identify fraud.
Relation Between the Macroeconomic Variables and the Stock Return in Companies of the Finance and Insurance Sector from Latin American Stock Market

This paper aims to verify the relation between the macroeconomic indicators with the Stock Return (SR) in public companies of the finance and insurance sector from Latin America. Data were analyzed from 2010 to 2017 through dynamic panel analysis via Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) by two approaches: Arellano-Bond e System. Results pointed that the Stock Return showed a positive relation with Exchange Rate, but a negative relation with Gross Domestic Product. It is concludedthat macroeconomic variables interfere with the shareholder return of companies in the Finance and Insurance sector.
Salient Price Changes, Inflation Expectations, and Household Behavior

How do households form their inflation expectations? We show the price changes individual consumers observe while shopping are a key determinant of their expectation for overall inflation. We use individual non-durable consumption choices in the Nielsen Homescan Panel to construct household-level measures of perceived inflation. We find perceived price changes help explain inflation expectations across individuals and within individuals over time. The frequency of purchases not the expenditure share determines the importance of perceived price changes for inflation expectations. The effect is stronger for individuals that shop less frequently, and hence are more likely exposed to several and larger price changes in their typical shopping trip. The effect is also stronger for individuals whose uncertainty about inflation is higher and who self report to not rely on the media when forming expectations. Because individual inflation expectations shape economic decisions, central banks' focus on core inflation instead of the heterogeneous price changes in households' non-durable bundles might lead to systematic policy mistakes.
Return on investment and cost-effectiveness of harm reduction program in Malaysia

Cases of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections were first detected in Malaysia in 1986. Since then, the number of new HIV cases has been increasing steadily to a peak of 6,978 new cases detected in 2002 then declining to 3,438 new cases in 2012. In response to the escalating epidemic, the Government of Malaysia (GOM) agreed the implementation of needle syringe program (NSP) and methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) programs against much public opposition which viewed these programs as being against the Islamic religion and will encourage more people to use drugs. The main objectives of this study are to evaluate whether the harm reduction program in Malaysia is cost-effective and also whether they provide return on investments (ROIs) to the government. The study used an epidemiologic mathematical model of HIV transmission and disease progression, called the projection and evaluation tool (Prevtool) developed by a team of investigators at the Kirby Institute, University of New South Wales, Australia to simulate the impact of MMT and NSP on the transmission of HIV among people who inject drugs (PWIDs) in Malaysia. Briefly, the model simulates the number of PWID who become infected with HIV over time as well as the extent of disease progression among those infected in the presence and absence of harm reduction program in the country. This study has shown that the combined MMT and NSP programs as implemented in Malaysia are cost-effective and are expected to produce net cost-savings to the government in the future. Evidence of cost-effectiveness and expected cost-savings support policy recommendation that both MMT and NSP programs should be maintained as part of the key strategy to control HIV spread among PWIDs in Malaysia. Study findings that even with the present program coverage, harm reduction activities are expected to become more cost-effective and cost-saving in the future suggest that policies towards program expansion may demonstrate higher value for money.
Personal Factors, Perceptions, Influences and Their Relationship with Adherence Behaviors in Patients with Diabetes

___________________________________ Date This dissertation meets the format and style requirements established by the College of Health and Human Sciences. It is acceptable for binding, for placement in the University Library and Archives, and for reproduction and distribution to the scholarly and lay community by University Microfilms International. iii NOTICE TO BORROWERS All dissertations deposited in the Georgia State University Library must be used in accordance with the stipulations prescribed by the author in the preceding statement. Users of this dissertation not regularly enrolled as students at Georgia State University are required to attest acceptance of the preceding stipulations by signing below. Libraries borrowing this dissertation for the use of their patrons are required to see that each user records here the information requested. Problem and significance: Adherence to health-promoting behaviors in a diabetes self-care regimen is essential for individuals with diabetes and can assist providers and individuals with diabetes management. The purpose of this research was to explore the relationship between personal factors (age, length of diabetes diagnosis, perceived health status, weight), perceived barriers to action (number of barrier days), interpersonal influences (social support), situational influences (depressive symptoms), and patient adherence to health-promoting behaviors (blood glucose monitoring, diet, and exercise) and health outcomes (A1c and body mass index) in a diabetes self-care regimen. Methods: A descriptive correlational analysis was performed using baseline data Constructs from the Health Promotion Model were used to predict health-promoting behaviors and health outcomes in diabetes self-management. The 713 participants with diabetes were primarily Black or Hispanic (57.5%), older (M 62.2 years, SD 12.9), and married or living with a partner (56.2%). Approximately half of the participants were female (50.8%); 59% were obese. Results: The longer the time since diagnosis and the more barrier days vii experienced per month, the more frequently blood glucose monitoring was performed (R 2 = .076, R 2 adj = .060, F (6, 363) = 4.875, p < . 001). The greater the body weight, the more likely participants were to implement diet management behaviors (R 2 = .097, R 2 adj = .081, F (7, 413) = 6.209, p < . 001). The younger the age and the higher perceived health status, the more minutes per week were spent in exercise (R 2 age, the more barrier days per month and the more diet management behaviors reported, the higher the BMI (R 2 indicate that treatment measures, not preventative, are being practiced, …
Land-Use/Land-Cover Changes and Their Impact on Surface Urban Heat Islands: Case Study of Kandy City, Sri Lanka

An urban heat island (UHI) is a phenomenon that shows a higher temperature in urban areas compared to surrounding rural areas due to the impact of impervious surface (IS) density, and other anthropogenic activities including changes of land use/land cover (LULC). The purpose of this research is to examine the spatiotemporal land-use/land-cover changes and their impact on the surface UHI (SUHI) in Kandy City, Sri Lanka, using Landsat data and geospatial techniques. LULC classification was made by using a pixel-oriented supervised classification method, and LULC changes were computed by using a cross-cover comparison. The SUHI effect was discussed mainly through the variation of land-surface temperature (LST) over persistent IS and newly added IS. The study showed the dynamics of each LULC and its role in the SUHI. The results showed that IS areas expanded from 529 to 1514 ha (2.3% to 6.7% of the total land area) between 1996 and 2006, and to 5833 ha (23.9% of the total land area) in 2017, with an annual growth rate of 11.1% per year from 1996 to 2006 and 12.2% per year from 2006 to 2017. A gradually declining trend was observed in forest areas. Persistent IS reported the highest mean LST areas compared to newly added IS. The mean LST difference between persistent IS and newly added IS was 1.43 °C over the study period. This is because areas of persistent IS are typically surrounded by IS even in their neighborhoods, whereas areas of newly added IS occur at the edges of the city and are, therefore, cooled by the surrounding nonurban surfaces. This calls for appropriate green-oriented landscape-management methods to mitigate the impact of the SUHI in Kandy City. The findings of the study showed that LULC changes and their effect on the SUHI from 1996 to 2017 made a significant contribution to long records of change dynamics.
Impacts of Internet Use on Political Trust: New Evidence from China

ABSTRACT This study evaluates the impacts of Internet use on political trust in China. Negative effects are consistently found across variant measures of political trust. IV and PSM estimations confirm that the negative impact is causal. Further, placebo tests show that the traditional media as the primary information source hasn’t generated such effects and trust in friends hasn’t been impacted by Internet use. This effect is most likely attributable to the fact that internet use in China exacerbates public perception toward government and government officials, increases public demand for political participation, and raises the expectation of government performance.
A comprehensive examination of inflammatory bowel disease for genetic counselors

Inflammatory Bowel Disease is a complex, non-Mendelian auto-inflammatory/auto-immune disorder with increasing incidence worldwide. The pathogenesis of this disease remains elusive; however, the current theory postulates that the inflammation of the bowel is caused by an aberrant immune response to commensal gut bacterial. It is believed that this abnormal response occurs in a genetically susceptible host after exposure to environmental triggers. Research has still yet to prove a universal trigger for all cases of IBD Currently the genotype-phenotype data is too limited to provide any kind of substantial diagnostic genetic test and relative risk data provides as 1 in 10-20 risk for first-degree family members. Roughly 20-25% of disease heritability is explained and researchers believe an additional portion of the “missing heritability” may be found in either risk alleles with small effect sizes or the non-coding regions of the genome affecting gene expression through gene-to-gene interactions. Studies have shown patients are open and receptive to genetic counseling services; however, today’s data provides counselors with little useful information. In the future a panel of many small effect genes may help to elucidate those at the greatest risk for disease. The ability to determine those at the greatest risk for disease is of public health importance due to the ever-increasing burden of disease. With the average age of onset between 15-30 years old, the majority of an individual’s working life may be inhibited by disease related complications reducing their productivity, as well as, increasing the time and cost for which disease related health care services are required. Together these factors and more create a burden of disease on both the individual and the public health community.
Management Consultancy: Issues, Perspectives, and Agendas

This issue of International Studies of Management and Organization brings together five articles that reflect the rich array of contemporary research that is being conducted into the activities of the management consultancy industry. Management consultancy, in various forms, has existed for as long as complex organizations. However, its increasing economic significance, associated with the rapid expansion in the number of consultancies and the rise of large multinational consultancy firms, as well as the influence and impact of the fashionable management knowledge and techniques on which much of their work is based, are more recent phenomena. To date, detailed conceptual and empirical research into the work of consultants has been slight (for a summary, see Clark and Fincham 2002; Kipping and Engwall 2002). Much, therefore, remains to be done if we are to develop a more penetrating and nuanced understanding of this activity. This special issue begins to rectify this situation by bringing together in one volume original and innovative contributions from leading academics in this emerging field. Our purpose in this introduction is to set the scene for the issue as whole. We begin by discussing the nature of management consultancy, and relate this to some of the recent developments within the industry. We then review the reasons why management consultancy work is increasingly attracting academic attention. Following this, we examine the possible consequences of a downturn for management consultancy services. Finally, we outline the content of the individual contributions that comprise this issue.
Antitakeover Provisions and Shareholder Wealth: A Survey of the Literature

Abstract We survey theoretical and empirical research on antitakeover provisions, focusing on the relation between antitakeover provisions and shareholder value. We divide the empirical studies based upon the evidence that they provide: short-term event studies, studies on performance and policy changes around adopting antitakeover provisions or passing state antitakeover laws, studies on the impact of antitakeover provisions on takeovers, studies on the relation between antitakeover provisions and firm characteristics, and long-term studies on the relation between antitakeover provisions and firm performance or policies. We also discuss the place of antitakeover provisions in the current debate about “good governance” practices.
Analysis of the mediating role of social network embeddedness on low-carbon household behaviour: Evidence from China

Abstract Based on Social Network Theory and the Planned Behaviour Theory, this paper adopts a multi-group analysis of structural equation model and uses the low-carbon behavioural intention as a mediator to analyse the role of social network embeddedness in influencing residents' low-carbon household behaviours. Based on the reliability test of the scale and the first-order confirmatory factor analysis, the direct and mediating effect dual models are used to verify the proposed research hypothesis; furthermore, based on demographic and family characteristics, a multi-group structural equation model analysis is conducted. The empirical results show that social network embeddedness will significantly improve residents' low-carbon household behaviours and reduce household carbon emissions. Social networks will embed residents' low-carbon household behaviours through direct effects and incomplete mediation of low-carbon behavioural intentions as mediators. Multi-group analysis result shows that female and highly-educated groups exhibited better low-carbon household behaviours, and different family scales, monthly incomes and consumption, housing size, and living area show significant influences on low-carbon household behaviours.
The energy policies for a sustainable economic growth in Turkey

This study deliberates on the main energy policies and their implications for Turkey in recent years. Turkey has been implementing some major policy changes in its energy strategy, including comprehensive liberalization and competitive market initiatives. There have been also same efforts to attract investors into energy sector. Energy efficiency is also attracting attention from the policy makers since it is an important element of the energy supply security. Diversification of the suppliers of natural gas and oil, and an increase in the use of alternative renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar energy, reduce energy costs and contribute to the energy supply security. There has been an ongoing effort to modify laws and regulations to confirm with European Union (EU) legislations forTurkey’s advancement toward accession to EU.Turkey may also serve as aTransportation Corridor and an Energy Hub between the East and the West
SIVO: Semantically Informed Visual Odometry and Mapping

Accurate localization is a requirement for any autonomous mobile robot. In recent years, cameras have proven to be a reliable, cheap, and effective sensor to achieve this goal. Visual simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithms determine camera motion by tracking the motion of reference points from the scene. However, these references must be static, as well as viewpoint, scale, and rotation invariant in order to ensure accurate localization. This is especially paramount for long-term robot operation, where we require our references to be stable over long durations and also require careful point selection to maintain the runtime and storage complexity of the algorithm while the robot navigates through its environment. In this thesis, we present SIVO (Semantically Informed Visual Odometry and Mapping), a novel feature selection method for visual SLAM which incorporates machine learning and neural network uncertainty into an information-theoretic approach to feature selection. The emergence of deep learning techniques has resulted in remarkable advances in scene understanding, and our method supplements traditional visual SLAM with this contextual knowledge. Our algorithm selects points which provide significant information to reduce the uncertainty of the state estimate while ensuring that the feature is detected to be a static object repeatedly, with a high confidence. This is done by evaluating the reduction in Shannon entropy between the current state entropy, and the joint entropy of the state given the addition of the new feature with the classification entropy of the feature from a Bayesian neural network. Our method is evaluated against ORB SLAM2 and the ground truth of the KITTI odometry dataset. Overall, SIVO performs comparably to ORB SLAM2 (average of 0.17% translation error difference, 6.2×10−5deg/m rotation error difference) while removing 69% of the map points on average. As the reference points selected are from static objects (building, traffic signs, etc.), the map generated using our algorithm is suitable for longterm localization.
Ego defensiveness, open-closed mindedness, and nurses' attitude toward culturally different patients.

: Three hundred actively employed female registered professional nurses representing four cultural groups (white Anglo-Saxon, black, Jewish, and Hispanic) participated in a study to investigate nurses' attitudes toward culturally different patients. Cattell's 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire and Rokeach's Dogmatism Scale were used to measure the independent variables of ego defensiveness and open-closed mindedness. The Cultural Attitude Scale which was used to measure nurses' attitudes was developed by the investigator. Lower ego defensiveness of the nurses was found to result in more positive attitudes toward Hispanic patients regarding cultural attitudes and beliefs (p = .05). The more open minded the nurse, the more positive were attitudes toward all patients regarding nursing care-patient interaction (p = .01 for the white patient, p = .001 for the Hispanic, Jewish, and black patients) and cultural attitudes and beliefs. The data supported the hypothesis that ego defensiveness and open-closed mindedness predict greater variance in attitudes than one variable alone for all patients regarding nursing care-patient interaction and cultural attitudes and beliefs. Implications for nursing research, education, and practice are discussed.