Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Research on online consumer building trust and sharing information through value congruence

This study explores how value congruence influences online consumers' trust in B2C transactions, and thus consumers are willing to give personal information to the organisation freely. This article establishes the structural equation modelling based on three assumptions, and then surveys 200 samples by questionnaire. The results pass the reliability and validity test and support the hypothesis originally proposed. This study finds value congruence has some direct effects on building trust and the willingness to disclose personal information. When consumers perceive similar value with the organisation, they tend to take some measures to help this organisation, because they believe that their behaviour support and protect their espoused philosophy. This research helps online enterprises concern the importance of value congruence.
The carotid intima media thickness: a predictor of the clincal coronary events.

BACKGROUND The Carotid Intima-Media Thickness (CIMT) is a simple and an inexpensive tool which can be used to assess the cumulative effect of atherosclerotic risk factors and it is also an independent predictor of the future cardiovascular risk. Nevertheless, criticism has been raised throughout the scientific community, based on the observations which indicated a weak correlation between CIMT and coronary atherosclerosis. It has been suggested by the International Atherosclerosis Project, that the atherosclerotic process occurs at the same time in the carotid, cerebral and the coronary arteries. Measurement of the Carotid Intima-Media Thickness (CIMT) of the Common Carotid Artery (CCA) by B-mode ultrasound was found to be a suitable non-invasive method, to visualize the arterial walls and to monitor the early stages of the atherosclerotic process. AIM This study sought to determine the usefulness of B-mode ultrasound as a non-invasive marker to examine the association between CIMT and the extent and the severity of coronary artery disease and its association with the cardiovascular risk factors, if any. METHODS A cross-sectional study was done among hundred cases and hundred age and sex matched controls who were in the age group of 30-65 years. The cases included those who had undergone coronary angiography. The controls included non-diabetic non-hypertensives with no cardiovascular risk factors. The CIMT was assessed by using a 7MHz linear array transducer. Fasting blood samples were collected for measuring the blood sugar and the lipid profiles. RESULTS The statistical analysis was done by using the Student's t test and ANOVA and a p value of <0.001 was considered to be significant. The Average Carotid Intima Media Thickness (AVCIMT) was higher in the cases (0.90 vs 0.47 in controls, p<0.001, very highly significant). The AVCIMT was found to be higher in those with triple vessel disease (1.00mm) <double vessel disease (0.91mm) <single vessel disease (0.82mm) <normal coronaries (0.65mm). CONCLUSION The easy applicability and the non invasive nature of B-mode ultrasonography make it suitable for use as a surrogate endpoint for measuring the atherosclerotic burden in people with cardiovascular risk factors. Even in this present study, we found a significant association between the extent of carotid atherosclerosis which was measured by B-mode ultrasound, and the presence, its extent, or the lack of coronary atherosclerosis which was documented by coronary angiography.
The Impact of Mobile Broadband Infrastructure on Technological Innovation: An Empirical Analysis

Innovation is one of the drivers of national competitiveness and economic growth. Considering well-established information and communication technologies (ICT) infrastructure is essential for the national level of innovation, the ICT infrastructure such as mobile broadband has an impact on the innovation. Using longitudinal panel data, this study examines whether mobile broadband diffusion, R&D expenditure, education, income, and corruption perception index (CPI) have influenced technological innovation. The results of the data analysis suggest that mobile broadband infrastructure is one of the key drivers of technological innovation. This finding implies that mobile broadband diffusion stimulates knowledge-based innovation and contributes to economic growth. The study also finds that R&D expenditure is an influential factor of innovation, which implies that the improvement of knowledge capital by R&D investment can promote innovations. In addition, education and corruption perception index are positively associated with innovation, indicating that human capital and government efficiency can boost innovations.
Long‐Term Care Insurance Purchase Patterns

Given the aging population and high cost of long‐term care, many Americans are concerned about financing long‐term care services. Despite this concern, private long‐term care insurance policy sales have experienced slow growth. On average only about 7 percent of the population aged 65 and older has long‐term care insurance, but this percentage varies greatly across the states. In this study we test hypothesized relationships between purchase of long‐term care insurance and various explanatory factors. We provide evidence that state Medicaid nursing home expenditure levels and the relative sizes of the elderly population and the nursing home population are significant explanatory factors of purchase rates. We find no evidence that public–private partnership regulation, the quality of available facilities, or agent marketing controls affect purchase. Findings of the study are useful to insurers, legislators, regulators, and others involved in the public policy debate about financing long‐term care.
Study on Relationship between Livelihood Capital and Livelihood Strategy of Farming and Grazing Households: A Case of Uxin Banner in Ordos

Based on the questionnaire survey and mathematical statistics,quantitative evaluation of the livelihood assets in Uxin Banner was made,revealing the relationship between livelihood assets and livelihood strategies and analyzing the influences of de-farming and anti-grazing policy on the local livelihood.The main research results are as follows.Firstly,pasture area,credit conditions,family income and livestock quantity are important livelihood assets for the local households,while the stocks of social assets and human assets are relatively lower,indicating rich natural resources,adequate financial inventory assets but less ability and quality of people,so that the configuration of livelihood assets couldn’t be optimized properly.Secondly,households possessing rich human,financial and social assets tend to non-agricultural activities,while those with abundant material and natural assets are more willing to agricultural activities.Thirdly,the implementation of de-farming policy leads to the changes in cultivated land amount and planting structure,mainly presenting the phenomenon of "farming for support" and the transfer of agricultural labor forces to non-agricultural activities.And the implementation of anti-gazing policy results in the changes of husbandry management into agricultural management modes,that is a tendency to yard feeding sheep and pigs and developing large-scale and specialty farming,leading to the issue of role-change and needs of vocational training.Fourthly,the implementation of these policies still has several problems,especially in the livelihoods guidance on immigration,protection on basic life,a reasonable determination of subsidies amount and guarantees of follow-up ones,transfer and absorption of surplus labors.Given the above aspects,suggestions on how to improve the local livelihoods strategies while promote the de-farming and anti-grazing policies at the same time have been put forward from the perspective of sustainable livelihood.
Good News vs. Bad News: What are they talking about?

Today’s massive news streams demand the automate analysis which is provided by various online news explorers. However, most of them do not provide sentiment analysis. The main problem of sentiment analysis of news is the differences between the writers and readers attitudes to the news text. News can be good or bad but have to be delivered in neutral words as pure facts. Although there are applications for sentiment analysis of news, the task of news analysis is still a very actual problem because the latest news impacts people’s lives daily. In this paper, we explored the problem of sentiment analysis for Ukrainian and Russian news, developed a corpus of Ukrainian and Russian news and annotated each text using one of three categories: positive, negative and neutral. Each text was marked by at least three independent annotators via the web interface, the inter-annotator agreement was analyzed and the final label for each text was computed. These texts were used in the machine learning experiments. Further, we investigated what kinds of named entities such as Locations, Organizations, Persons are perceived as good or bad by the readers and which of them were the cause for text annotation ambiguity.
Beam Steering Transmitarray Using Tunable Frequency Selective Surface With Integrated Ferroelectric Varactors

A tunable frequency selective surface (FSS) with beam steering capability is presented. The FSS is used as a transmitarray with a bandpass characteristic in Ku-band. The periodic sub-wavelength (λ0/25) unit-cells are composed of capacitive and inductive structures creating a bandpass for an incident wave. By patterning the capacitive elements on a screen-printed barium-strontium-titanate (BST) thick-film ceramic, the resonant frequency of the FSS can be tuned. This technology offers a simple and cost effective way for integrating varactors into the FSS and is particularly attractive for microwave circuits with a high varactor density. A prototype is fabricated including two capacitive layers with an overall size of 40 mm × 40 mm. Each layer includes a total of 1600 integrated BST varactors that are fabricated by using a patterning and metallization process. A transmitted wave passing through the FSS will experience a phase shift, which can be tuned by tuning the passband. This allows steering the transmitted wave to a certain direction by applying a phase gradient along the FSS interface. A phase shift range of 360° can be covered by cascading several FSS panels. The prototyped tunable FSS demonstrates the feasibility of the proposed technology and its potential for beam steering.
Managing the risks of private sector participation in the provision of water services

Water services in South Africa are provided by the public sector. The present situation is characterised by a large backlog in service delivery, inefficient management and operation of existing services systems, and limited financial resources available to remedy the situation. Developing countries around the world have engaged the private sector to provide management services and project finance. In South Africa good progress has been made in preparing the sector for private sector participation (PSP). However, to date only a few examples of PSP exist, indicating that there are constraints to PSP in the sector. The literature and international experience indicate that the main constraints are the management of and the access to finance. This research set out to obtain a deeper identify the constraints to PSP in the provision of water services in South Africa, focussed on the identification of risks and the access to finance. The research comprised a literature review, an analysis of international and national cases and interviews with a range of stakeholders from across in the sector. The research results lead to the conclusion that the main constraints to PSP are the perception of legal and regulatory risks, socio-political risks and market risks. The access to private sector finance is constrained by these and the financial risk in the sector, not by limited resources. As a contribution to managing the risks of PSP in the provision of water services, an integrated risk management framework is developed to guide and focus risk management in the sector.
Splintered memories or vivid landmarks? Qualities and organization of traumatic memories with and without PTSD

SUMMARY One hundred and eighty-one students answered a standardized questionnaire on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): 25 reported trauma(s) and indicated a pattern of after-effects that matched a PTSD symptom profile, whereas 88 indicated trauma(s) but no PTSD symptom profile. Both groups answered a questionnaire addressing the recollective quality, integration and coherence of the traumatic memory that currently affected them most. Participants with a PTSD symptom profile reported more vivid recollection of emotion and sensory impressions. They reported more observer perspective in the memory (seeing themselves ‘from the outside’), but no more fragmentation. They also agreed more with the statement that the trauma had become part of their identity, and perceived more thematic connections between the trauma and current events in their lives. The two groups showed different patterns of correlations which indicated different coping styles. Overall, the findings suggest that traumas form dysfunctional reference points for the organization of other personal memories in people with PTSD symptoms, leading to fluctuations between vivid intrusions and avoidance. Copyright # 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The Tobacco Pack Surveillance System: A Protocol for Assessing Health Warning Compliance, Design Features, and Appeals of Tobacco Packs Sold in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Background Tobacco remains the world’s leading preventable cause of death, with the majority of tobacco-caused deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries. The first global health treaty, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), outlines a set of policy initiatives that have been demonstrated as effective in reducing tobacco use. Article 11 of the FCTC focuses on using the tobacco package to communicate tobacco-caused harms; it also seeks to restrict the delivery of misleading information about the product on the pack. Objective The objective of this study was to establish a surveillance system for tobacco packs in the 14 low- and middle-income countries with the greatest number of smokers. The Tobacco Pack Surveillance System (TPackSS) monitors whether required health warnings on tobacco packages are being implemented as intended, and identifies pack designs and appeals that might violate or detract from the communication of harm-related information and undermine the impact of a country’s tobacco packaging laws. The protocol outlined is intended to be applicable or adaptable for surveillance efforts in other countries. Methods Tobacco packs were collected in 14 countries during 2013. The intention was, to the extent possible, to construct a census of “unique” pack presentations available for purchase in each country. The TPackSS team partnered with in-country field staff to implement a standardized protocol for acquiring packs from 36 diverse neighborhoods across three cities in each country. At the time of purchase, data on price and place of acquisition of each pack was recorded. The field staff, according to a standardized protocol, then photographed packs before they were shipped to the United States for coding and archiving. Results Each pack was coded for compliance with the country-specific health warning label laws, as well as for key design features of the pack and appeals of the branding elements. The coding protocols were developed based upon prior research, expert opinion, and communication theories. Each pack was coded by two independent coders, with consistency of personnel across the project. We routinely measured intercoder reliability, and only retained variables for which a good level of reliability was achieved. Variables where reliability was too low were not included in final analyses, and any inconsistencies in coding were resolved on a daily basis. Conclusions Across the 14 countries, the TPackSS team collected 3307 tobacco packs. We have established a publicly accessible, Internet archive of these packs that is intended for use by the tobacco control policy advocacy and research community.
Analysis of Using Barrier Options to the Formation of New Structured Products

This paper analyses the new structured products formation on the Slovak financial market. Structured products are products, the value of which is derived from the underlying asset value, in our case it is a currency pair (EUR/USD). There are presented Tatra Premium Deposit EKI and new proposed Tatra Premium Deposit EKO from the point of view of its investor and provided detailed descriptions of the profit functions in analytical form. The main objective is to perform an analysis of the classic Tatra Premium Deposit´s modification, i.e. Tatra Premium Deposit EKI construction using knock-in barrier option. Then there is proposed new modified product - Tatra Premium Deposit EKO using knock-out barrier option with determination of maximum loss for investor. Finally, there are analysed and compared all three types of Tatra Premium Deposit in EUR for various underlying price development followed by investigation of their profitability with recommendation for potential investors.This analysis is made with the objective to contribute to the intellectualization of all investors. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015. v6n2p303
Rottlerin exerts its anti-tumor activity through inhibition of Skp2 in breast cancer cells

Studies have investigated the tumor suppressive role of rottlerin in carcinogenesis. However, the molecular mechanisms of rottlerin-induced anti-tumor activity are largely unclear. Skp2 (S-phase kinase associated protein 2) has been validated to play an oncogenic role in a variety of human malignancies. Therefore, inactivation of Skp2 could be helpful for the treatment of human cancers. In the current study, we explore whether rottlerin could inhibit Skp2 expression, leading to inhibition of cell growth, migration and invasion in breast cancer cells. We found that rottlerin treatment inhibited cell growth, induced apoptosis and cell cycle arrest. We also revealed that rottlerin suppressed cell migration and invasion in breast cancer cells. Mechanically, we observed that rottlerin significantly down-regulated the expression of Skp2 in breast cancer cells. Importantly, overexpression of Skp2 abrogated rottlerin-mediated tumor suppressive activity, whereas down-regulation of Skp2 enhanced rottlerin-triggered anti-tumor function. Strikingly, we identified that rottlerin exhibited its anti-tumor potential partly through inactivation of Skp2 in breast cancer. Our findings indicate that rottlerin could be a potential safe agent for the treatment of breast cancer.
Molecular identification and antifungal susceptibility profiles of Candida parapsilosis complex species isolated from culture collection of clinical samples.

INTRODUCTION Candida parapsilosis is a common yeast species found in cases of onychomycosis and candidemia associated with infected intravascular devices. In this study, we differentiated Candida parapsilosis sensu stricto, Candida orthopsilosis , and Candida metapsilosis from a culture collection containing blood and subungual scraping samples. Furthermore, we assessed the in vitro antifungal susceptibility of these species to fluconazole, itraconazole, voriconazole, posaconazole, amphotericin B, and caspofungin. METHODS Differentiation of C. parapsilosis complex species was performed by amplification of the secondary alcohol dehydrogenase (SADH) gene and digestion by the restriction enzyme Ban I. All isolates were evaluated for the determination of minimal inhibitory concentrations using Etest, a method for antifungal susceptibility testing. RESULTS Among the 87 isolates, 78 (89.7%) were identified as C. parapsilosis sensu stricto , five (5.7%) were identified as C. orthopsilosis , and four (4.6%) were identified as C. metapsilosis . Analysis of antifungal susceptibility showed that C. parapsilosis sensu strictoisolates were less susceptible to amphotericin B and itraconazole. One C. parapsilosis sensu stricto isolate was resistant to amphotericin B and itraconazole. Moreover, 10.2% of C. parapsilosis sensu stricto isolates were resistant to caspofungin. Two C. parapsilosis sensu strictoisolates and one C. metapsilosis isolate were susceptible to fluconazole in a dose-dependent manner. CONCLUSIONS We reported the first molecular identification of C. parapsilosiscomplex species in State of Goiás, Brazil. Additionally, we showed that although the three species exhibited differences in antifungal susceptibility profiles, the primary susceptibility of this species was to caspofungin.
Which Institutions Reduce Financial Frictions and Facilitate Investment

Using a model-based structural estimation first time in the literature, we investigate which cross-country institutional differences affect financial frictions when firms make investment decisions, and how. We develop a novel estimation procedure as well: To overcome flaws in common investment-cash flow regressions, we use a standard investment model but with explicit financial frictions and impose structural restrictions when measuring the impact of institutions. Our method is also shown to be better suited to use in the empirical investment literature than the methods developed so far (e.g., Erickson and Whited, 2000). We consider two channels: (i) lower financial transaction costs at the individual firm (micro) level; and (ii) a lower required rate of return at the country (macro) level. Using a panel of 75,000 firmyears from 48 countries in the period 1990-2007, we find that corporate governance (shareholder rights) matters more in reducing frictions than the other institutions such as
Analysis of power jitter induced by interchannel interactions in dispersion-managed optical soliton transmission systems

Collision-induced power jitter is theoretically and numerically examined in dispersion-managed wavelength-division multiplexed optical soliton transmission systems. The variational method is mainly used to develop a time efficient jitter calculation approach. The power jitter causes a serious problem for a singly periodic dispersion managed line having almost zero average dispersion, which can be reduced by applying doubly periodic dispersion management.