Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dietary habits and gastro-intestinal cancers: a comparative case-control study of stomach and large intestinal cancers in Nagoya, Japan.

A simultaneous case-control study on stomach cancer and colo-rectal cancer involving 93 cases with stomach cancer, 93 cases with colo-rectal cancer and 186 controls was conducted using a common questionnaire at the Aichi Cancer Center Hospital in 1981-83. A fondness for salty tastes, especially salted foods such as pickled hakusai (vegetable) and dried & salted fishes, which are typical traditional Japanese foods showed a significantly positive association with stomach cancer (relative risk(RR) = 2.60, P less than 0.01). On the other hand, the habit of eating a western-style breakfast, particularly for 10 years or more made a significant contribution to the risk of colon cancer (RR = 2.24, P less than 0.05) but conversely decreased the risk of stomach cancer (RR = 0.50, not significant (NS)) and rectal cancer (RR = 0.40, NS). In this study, relatively frequent intakes (4 times/week) of some vegetables, i.e. pumpkin, green pepper, onion and cabbage, showed high relative risks for both stomach and colon cancers, contrary to the findings of previous epidemiological studies. Cigarette smoking increased the risk of stomach cancer (RR = 1.99, NS) but decreased that of colon cancer (RR = 0.61, NS). There was no positive relation between drinking and cancer at any site. Some other factors with opposite effects on the two contrasting cancers and some independent factors were identified in this comparative case-control study.
Federation Of Cloud Computing Infrastructure

This paper proposes federation of cloud computing environments, thereby supporting scaling of applications across various vendor clouds. As the users are geographically distributed, the burden on cloud providers can be reduced by automatic load coordination. Later, we discussed some threats posed by federation and some solutions for the same. Also we discussed a general model for implementing inter-cloud federation
Variability in sleep bruxism activity over time

Sleep bruxism (SB) is an oral activity associated with jaw movements and tooth grinding. Sleep bruxism is believed to be highly variable over time, with subjects showing no activity on some nights and intense activity on others. Assessment of SB variability in individual patients is necessary for clinical trials designed to estimate the efficacy of SB management strategies. The present study analysed SB night‐to‐night variability over time in nine moderate to severe SB patients. Excluding the first night for habituation, a total of 37 nights were analysed, with a range of 2–8 nights per subject. The interval between the first and the last recording was between 2 months and 7.5 years. The outcomes were the number of SB episodes per hour, number of SB bursts per hour and number of SB episodes with grinding noise. The within subject variability of the three SB oromotor outcomes was evaluated using standard deviation (SD) and coefficient of variation. To verify the diagnosis of subjects over time, the values of the oromotor outcomes were compared with a standard research diagnostic cut‐off: (1) Number of SB episodes per hour >4, (2) Number of SB bursts per hour >25, (3) Number of SB episodes with noise per night >1 ( Lavigne et al. 1996 ). The mean coefficient of variation for the nine subjects was 25.3% for SB episodes per hour, 30.4% for SB bursts per hour and 53.5% for episodes with noise. Linear regression showed that the number of SB episodes per hour of stages 1 and 2 explains a large proportion of the variability. The SB diagnosis remained constant over time for every subject: 35 nights over 37 respected criteria 1 and 2, while grinding was present every night. These results indicate that while the SB diagnostic remains relatively constant over time in moderate to severe sleep bruxers, individual variability could be important in some SB patients.
On the Factors Influencing Consumers' Adoption of Social Commerce - A Review of the Empirical Literature

Social commerce, the combination of e-commerce activities and social media, is a lucrative means for e-commerce companies to increase their sales volumes. As social commerce initiatives considerably depend on the consumers’ social interactions, it becomes important for companies to understand how consumers can be stimulated to participate in social commerce. While several empirical studies have already focused on investigating what factors influence consumers to adopt to social commerce, the findings of these studies are scattered across the literature base, sometimes not transparent, and not straightforwardly comparable. To synthesize these findings, we conduct a systematic review of the empirical literature on the consumers’ adoption of social commerce. In particular, we identify and classify conceptually similar factors and outcome variables (i.e., behavioral intentions and/or behaviors). Moreover, we apply a votecounting technique and a sign test to aggregate the reported effects between the factors and outcome variables. After analyzing 61 academic publications, we contribute a structured and comprehensive list of factors and their potential effects on various adoption-related outcome variables. Our results reveal that for some factors, such as trust, usefulness, or social influence, the effects point in a clear direction, while for several other factors, such as enjoyment, risk, or social presence, the effects are yet not clear and require further investigations.
Perceived stigma among patients receiving antiretroviral therapy: a prospective study in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Abstract The aim of this study is to examine whether internalized AIDS stigma among HIV patients one year after antiretroviral therapy (ART) initiation is associated with sociodemographic characteristics, health status, social support, quality of life (QoL), and ARV adherence. This is a prospective study of all treatment-naïve patients (N=735) recruited from all three public hospitals in Uthukela health district in KwaZulu-Natal and followed up at 6 and 12 months being on ART. Results indicated that despite a decrease in stigma seen in this study (may be due to ART) the level of stigma and discrimination remains high, and stigma reduction interventions are urgently needed in this population. CD4 cell counts significantly increased and HIV symptoms reduced significantly but depression symptoms remained high and even increased after 12 months on treatment. In multivariate analysis lower CD4 cell counts (odds ratio 0.5, 0.3–0.9), severe depression (5.6, 2.5–12.5) and low QoL (0.6, 0.5–0.8) were associated with internalized AIDS stigma. These findings may suggest that HIV care should include counseling and support that includes stigma concerns, depression, and QoL prior to and during the first year following diagnosis.
The Handbook of Financial Communication and Investor Relations

Featuring contributions from leading scholars and practitioners in financial communication and related fields—including public relations, corporate communications, finance, and accounting— this volume in the critically acclaimed “Handbooks in Communication and Media” seriesprovides readers with a comprehensive, up-to-date picture of investor relations and financial communications as they are practiced in North America and around the world.
First autonomous wireless sensor node powered by a vacuum-packaged piezoelectric MEMS energy harvester

This paper describes the experimental characterization of piezoelectric harvesters with different dimensions. We present a record level of generated power of 85 µW obtained from an unpacked device. We have developed a wafer-scale vacuum package which shows a 100–200 fold increase in power output compared with packaged devices under atmospheric pressure. A wireless sensor node was fully powered by a piezoelectric harvester. The average power consumption was less than 10 µW while it was operating at 15 seconds duty cycle.
Ulcerative colitis: Correlation of the Rachmilewitz endoscopic activity index with fecal calprotectin, clinical activity, C‐reactive protein, and blood leukocytes

Background: The accuracy of noninvasive markers for the detection of endoscopically active ulcerative colitis (UC) according the Rachmilewitz Score is so far unknown. The aim was to evaluate the correlation between endoscopic disease activity and fecal calprotectin, Clinical Activity Index, C‐reactive protein (CRP), and blood leukocytes. Methods: UC patients undergoing colonoscopy were prospectively enrolled and scored independently according the endoscopic and clinical part of the Rachmilewitz Index. Patients and controls provided fecal and blood samples for measuring calprotectin, CRP, and leukocytes. Results: Values in UC patients (n = 134) compared to controls (n = 48): calprotectin: 396 ± 351 versus 18.1 ± 5 μg/g, CRP 16 ± 13 versus 3 ± 2 mg/L, blood leukocytes 9.9 ± 3.5 versus 5.4 ± 1.9 g/L (all P < 0.001). Endoscopic disease activity correlated closest with calprotectin (Spearman's rank correlation coefficient r = 0.834), followed by Clinical Activity Index (r = 0.672), CRP (r = 0.503), and leukocytes (r = 0.461). Calprotectin levels were significantly lower in UC patients with inactive disease (endoscopic score 0‐3, calprotectin 42 ± 38 μg/g), compared to patients with mild (score 4‐6, calprotectin 210 ± 121 μg/g, P < 0.001), moderate (score 7‐9, calprotectin 392 ± 246 μg/g, P = 0.002), and severe disease (score 10‐12, calprotectin 730 ± 291 μg/g, P < 0.001). The overall accuracy for the detection of endoscopically active disease (score ≥4) was 89% for calprotectin, 73% for Clinical Activity Index, 62% for elevated CRP, and 60% for leukocytosis. Conclusions: Fecal calprotectin correlated closest with endoscopic disease activity, followed by Clinical Activity Index, CRP, and blood leukocytes. Furthermore, fecal calprotectin was the only marker that reliably discriminated inactive from mild, moderate, and highly active disease, which emphasizes its usefulness for activity monitoring. Inflamm Bowel Dis 2009
Expression of IL-7 receptor α is necessary but not sufficient for the formation of memory CD8 T cells during viral infection

During many acute viral and bacterial infections, IL-7 receptor α-chain (IL-7Rα) is expressed on a subset of effector CD8 T cells that preferentially develop into long-lived memory CD8 T cells. These cells functionally require IL-7Rα, but it is unclear whether IL-7Rα acts mainly to induce their differentiation into memory cells or to sustain their long-term survival. To examine this question, IL-7Rα was constitutively overexpressed on all antigen-specific effector CD8 T cells during viral infection. Constitutive IL-7Rα expression had minimal effects on the numbers or function of effector and memory CD8 T cells formed. This indicated that IL-7Rα expression is not sufficient to drive memory cell development. In particular, the forced IL-7Rα expression did not rescue the killer cell lectin-like receptor G1 (KLRG1)hi short-lived effector CD8 T cells from death, showing that the majority of effector CD8 T cells die in an IL-7Rα-independent manner. Moreover, we found that, regardless of the ectopic expression of IL-7Rα, the KLRG1hi, but not the KLRG1lo effector CD8 T cells, were unable to proliferate well to IL-7, which may be due to increased amounts of p27kip in KLRG1hi cells. Because IL-7 can destabilize p27kip, this result suggested that KLRG1hi and KLRG1lo effector CD8 T cells naturally differ in their ability to transmit IL-7 signals. Altogether, these results reveal that IL-7Rα expression is permissive, but not instructive, to the creation of memory CD8 T cells.
Bank noninterest income and risk: An empirical analysis of commercial banks in Malaysia

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of noninterest income on Malaysian commercial banks risk for over the period 2005 to 2014. Previous studies document that noninterest income activities may influence bank risk as the earnings volatility increases when banks expand into noninterest income generating activities due to higher level of competition. Employing a sample of 27 commercial banks in Malaysia, the finding of this study suggests that banks' risk will increase when net noninterest income increase. This study also includes bank size and return on equity (ROE) as control variables to see their impact on bank risk. The results indicate that larger banks tend to have lower risk, while banks with higher ROE will also have lower risk
Path Loss Characteristics for IMT-Advanced Systems in Residential and Street Environments

This letter presents the measured path loss characteristics in microcellular residential and street environments at 3.4-, 5.3-, and 6.4-GHz band signals. Path loss characteristics on the different residential areas are thoroughly investigated and compared to a modified Hata model, and a new path loss model based on the modified Hata model is developed from the measurement of the residential area. A two-ray model is applied to analyze the path loss characteristics in a line-of-sight (LOS) street. Moreover, in a non-line-of-sight (NLOS) street, the power level decreases due to corner loss, and path loss exponents were investigated.
The Effect of Weekly Family Home Evening Nutrition Lessons on Nutritional Behavior in Latter-day Saint Families

The Effect of Weekly Family Home Evening Nutrition Lessons on Nutritional Behavior in Latter-day Saint Families Jacquelyn H. Packard Department of Exercise Sciences Master of Science Latter-day Saint (LDS) families with two parents and two children between the ages of 616 were recruited to participate in a weekly nutrition Family Home Evening (FHE) study and randomized into either a control group or an intervention group. Each family had to complete a nutrition screener prior to and after completing 6 weekly FHE lessons in the family’s home environment. Online nutritional instruction was given to the intervention group for their FHE lessons, while the control group studied typical religious topics. Data taken from the nutrition screener were collapsed into a healthy or unhealthy diet score by averaging scores for questions relating to healthy or unhealthy food practices respectively. The question responses were based on a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 being less than once per week to 6 being 2+ times per day relative to specific type of food consumption. In the healthy diet profile intervention group (n = 64), parents started at 2.6 or just greater than once a week and increased to 3.0 or as much as 3 times a week. The children increased from 2.3 or slightly more than once a week to 2.7 or nearly 2-3 times per week. The overall effect was significant for parents and children (p < .001). These results suggest the intervention group increased eating healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables, and whole grain from just greater than once per week to as much as 3 times per week, a 50% increase, in response to the nutritional FHE lessons. The parents started and ended with higher scores than the children, however, the overall increase in scores was similar. In the unhealthy diet profile (n = 33), no significant change was observed between the control and intervention groups. Results of this study suggest that FHE may be an effective tool for improving nutritional behavior in LDS families. Family-based interventions using religious organizations seem to be a promising channel for implementing healthy behavior change.
Employee adaptation as key activity in human resource management upon implementing and maintaining desired organisational culture

In order to achieve the greatest possible equivalence between human resources in a company and desired organisational culture elements declared by a company, it is necessary to interconnect activities within individual functions of human resource management with desired values, attitudes and work behaviour. Such an interconnection is crucial for a positive response of employees to a suitable organisational culture, its embedding in their behaviour and subsequent sharing and spreading of organisational values. This paper will specifically define individual activities related to the adaptation of employees which need to be carried out in this regard. Based on a research conducted between 2011 and 2013, the paper will also define the present state and level of focus of organisations operating in Slovakia on both organisational culture as a whole and organisational culture in the context of employee adaptation.
Competitiveness Development of Tourism Human Resources Facing the ASEAN Economic Community in 2015: A Case Study on Hotel Human Resources in Jakarta and Bali

The assessment from the world economic forum in the travel and tourism competitiveness index report in 2013, put the competitiveness of Indonesian tourism in the world ranking of 70 out of 140 countries and the ranking of 3 for human resources (HRs). There are many factors that influencing competitiveness of HRs. Chan and Katau (2007) claimed that hotel performance has positive relationship with HR system, however, it did not explore the HR competitiveness yet. While Wang (2013) stated some factors related to technological at small medium enterprises are living condition analysis and evaluation indexes. Those findings did not represent specifically on the HR competitiveness at hotel industry. It is necessary to conduct a study to perform the HR competitiveness model as valuable benefit for the hotel. The research method used descriptive qualitative. The in-depth interview and focus group discussion have been delivered from 43 stars management hotel representatives in Jakarta and Bali. The result shown that beside core competency, there are other influencing factors including emotional quotient, local wisdom, and capabilities to HR competitiveness model for hotel industry. This study brings a significant contribution to the development of HR at hotels for rank-file and top management level. Further, the result improved current HR program to enhance hotel business strategy. This is one of the few research studies crafting the model of HRs competitiveness in hotel industry by taking only stars hotel in two big cities in Indonesia. Aus. Aca. Busi & Eco. Rev Vol 3(2), April 2017, P 76-87
Factors Affecting Adoption of Digital Business: Evidence from Australia

Small and medium-size enterprises are a significant part of the Australian economy. Understanding how Small and medium-size enterprises can effectively adopt digital strategies to facilitate their growth will have positive implications for the national economy. Research has found that Small and medium-size enterprises with a high level of digital engagement are more profitable, survive longer and grow larger (Deloitte Access Economics, 2013). However, a recent research survey shows only 16% of Australian Small and medium-size enterprises with a high level of digital engagement and the vast majority of Small and medium-size enterprises are not fully engaging with digital strategies (Deloitte Access Economics, 2013). Small businesses are at risk of missing opportunities that the digital economy opens up. While there are considerable studies on small business going online in the research literature, few studies have focused on the adoption of digital business in Greater Western Sydney. This paper attempts to address this lack by examining the level of digital engagement in Small and medium-size enterprises in Greater Western Sydney using a qualitative approach. This research analyses and identifies factors affecting adoption of digital business in Small and medium-size enterprises. The findings of this research suggest that the current state of local digital businesses in Greater Western Sydney can be best viewed as little more than using emails or providing basic information and services online. The factors affecting digital business adoption include lack of understanding of relevance of digital business to their organisations, absence of digital strategies, lack of skills and perceived cost and risk of change. Most local small businesses in Greater Western Sydney appear to be slow to advance their efforts to engage in the digital economy. This research recommends that Small and medium-size enterprises in Greater Western Sydney need a proactive approach to developing effective digital strategies
FINANCIAL STATEMENTS REPORTING AS A TOOL FOR MANIPULATING THE PERCEPTION OF ACCOUNTING INFORMATION

Financial statements must present the property, financial position, and performance of entities truly and honestly. Managers, however, may influence users’ perception of information by altering the manner in which this information is presented in financial statements. The objective of this paper is to employ a slightly different approach based on the specific features of the parties involved in the information-exchange process, i.e. users (with their expectations and constraints) and managers (with their goals and motives) and review different methods and techniques applied by managers to manipulate users’ perception of the information presented in financial statements.
A comparison of two assessments of high level cognitive communication disorders in mild traumatic brain injury

Primary objectives: Individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) frequently encounter cognitive communication disorders. Deficits can be subtle but can seriously influence an individual's ability to achieve life goals. Feedback from rehabilitation facilities indicated that high level cognitive communication disorders are not consistently identified in the acute setting. This study aimed to compare the cognitive communication results from two screening assessments, the Cognistat and the Cognitive Linguistic Quick Test (CLQT), in participants with a mild traumatic brain injury and to relate these findings to a range of prognostic indicators. Methods: Eighty-three adults post-TBI (16–81 years; 79.5% males) were recruited at an acute trauma centre. The language components of the two tests were analysed. Main outcomes and results: The CLQT identified more participants with an impairment in language than the Cognistat, 19.3% compared to 1.2% (p < 0.001). No clinical variables relating to the participants’ brain injury were found to be associated with language impairment. Conclusions: This study found that the CLQT identified more individuals with high level cognitive communication deficits than the Cognistat in the acute setting.
Streptococcus agalactiae Alpha-Like Protein 1 Possesses Both Cross-Reacting and Alp1-Specific Epitopes

ABSTRACT Most isolates of group B streptococci (GBS) express an alpha-like protein (Alp), Cα (encoded by bca), Alp1 (also called epsilon; alp1), Alp2 (alp2), Alp3 (alp3), Alp4 (alp4), or R4/Rib (rib). These proteins are chimeras with a mosaic structure and with antigenic determinants with variable immunological cross-reactivities between the Alps, including Alp1 and Cα cross-reactivity. This study focused on antigenic domains of Alp1, studied by using rabbit antisera in immunofluorescence, Western blotting, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)-based tests and whole cells of GBS or trypsin-extracted and partially purified antigens from the strains A909 (serotype Ia/Cα, Cβ) and 335 (Ia/Alp1). Alp1 and Cα shared an antigenic determinant, Alp1/Cα common, not harbored by other Alps, probably located in the Alp1 and Cα repeat units, as these units are nearly identical in genomic sequence. An antigenic Alp1 determinant was Alp1 specific and was most likely located in the N-terminal unit of Alp1 in which an Alp1-specific primer site for PCR is also located. In addition, Alp1 possessed a domain with low immunogenicity which cross-reacted immunologically with Alp2 and Alp3, with unknown location in Alp1. Alp1 was partially degraded by trypsin during antigen extraction but with the antigenic domains preserved. The results indicate that Cα and Alp1 are immunologically related in the same manner that R4 (Rib) and Alp3 are related. The domain called Alp1 specific should be important in GBS serotyping as a surface-anchored serosubtype marker. The Alp1/Cα common determinant may be of prime interest as an immunogenic domain in a GBS vaccine.