Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Machine Learning Data Imputation and Prediction of Foraging Group Size in a Kleptoparasitic Spider

Cost–benefit analysis is widely used to elucidate the association between foraging group size and resource size. Despite advances in the development of theoretical frameworks, however, the empirical systems used for testing are hindered by the vagaries of field surveys and incomplete data. This study developed the three approaches to data imputation based on machine learning (ML) algorithms with the aim of rescuing valuable field data. Using 163 host spider webs (132 complete data and 31 incomplete data), our results indicated that the data imputation based on random forest algorithm outperformed classification and regression trees, the k-nearest neighbor, and other conventional approaches (Wilcoxon signed-rank test and correlation difference have p-value from < 0.001–0.030). We then used rescued data based on a natural system involving kleptoparasitic spiders from Taiwan and Vietnam (Argyrodes miniaceus, Theridiidae) to test the occurrence and group size of kleptoparasites in natural populations. Our partial least-squares path modelling (PLS-PM) results demonstrated that the size of the host web (T = 6.890, p = 0.000) is a significant feature affecting group size. The resource size (T = 2.590, p = 0.010) and the microclimate (T = 3.230, p = 0.001) are significant features affecting the presence of kleptoparasites. The test of conformation of group size distribution to the ideal free distribution (IFD) model revealed that predictions pertaining to per-capita resource size were underestimated (bootstrap resampling mean slopes
Analyzing Security and Privacy Advice During the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine on Twitter

The Russian Invasion of Ukraine in 2022 resulted in a rapidly changing cyber threat environment globally and incentivized the sharing of security and privacy advice on social media. Previous research found a strong impact of online security advice on end-user behavior. Twitter is an important platform for sharing information in crises. We examined 306 tweets with security and privacy advice related to the Ukrainian war
High Prevalence of Antimicrobial Resistance among Clinical Streptococcus pneumoniae Isolates in Asia (an ANSORP Study)

ABSTRACT A total of 685 clinical Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates from patients with pneumococcal diseases were collected from 14 centers in 11 Asian countries from January 2000 to June 2001. The in vitro susceptibilities of the isolates to 14 antimicrobial agents were determined by the broth microdilution test. Among the isolates tested, 483 (52.4%) were not susceptible to penicillin, 23% were intermediate, and 29.4% were penicillin resistant (MICs ≥ 2 mg/liter). Isolates from Vietnam showed the highest prevalence of penicillin resistance (71.4%), followed by those from Korea (54.8%), Hong Kong (43.2%), and Taiwan (38.6%). The penicillin MICs at which 90% of isolates are inhibited (MIC90s) were 4 mg/liter among isolates from Vietnam, Hong Kong, Korea, and Taiwan. The prevalence of erythromycin resistance was also very high in Vietnam (92.1%), Taiwan (86%), Korea (80.6%), Hong Kong (76.8%), and China (73.9%). The MIC90s of erythromycin were >32 mg/liter among isolates from Korea, Vietnam, China, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong. Isolates from Hong Kong showed the highest rate of ciprofloxacin resistance (11.8%), followed by isolates from Sri Lanka (9.5%), the Philippines (9.1%), and Korea (6.5%). Multilocus sequence typing showed that the spread of the Taiwan19F clone and the Spain23F clone could be one of the major reasons for the rapid increases in antimicrobial resistance among S. pneumoniae isolates in Asia. Data from the multinational surveillance study clearly documented distinctive increases in the prevalence rates and the levels of antimicrobial resistance among S. pneumoniae isolates in many Asian countries, which are among the highest in the world published to date.
Head and Neck Cancer with Dermatomyositis: A Report of Two Clinical Cases

Dermatomyositis is well known to be associated with several types of malignancy and patients with dermatomyositis have higher rates of mortality from cancer. Although rare in Japan, head and neck cancer, especially nasopharyngeal cancer, is the predominant type of cancer associated with dermatomyositis in several areas in Asia, including Hong Kong and Singapore. Here we report two cases of head and neck cancer with dermatomyositis as well as a literature review. Both cases were treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Although the patients were immunosuppressed due to dermatomyositis treatment, no grade 3 or 4 adverse events occurred.
Geographical distribution of hepatitis C virus genotypes in blood donors: an international collaborative survey

The frequency of infection with the six classified major genotypes of hepatitis C virus (HCV) was investigated in 447 infected volunteer blood donors from the following nine countries: Scotland, Finland, The Netherlands, Hungary, Australia, Egypt, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Viral sequences in plasma from blood donors infected with HCV were amplified in the 5'-noncoding region and were typed by restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis. Electrophoresis of DNA fragments produced by cleavage with HaeIII-RsaI and ScrFI-HinfI allowed HCV types 1 (or 5), 2, 3, 4, and 6 to be identified. Further analysis with MvaI-HinfI allowed sequences of the type 5 genotype to be distinguished from sequences of the type 1 genotype. Types 1, 2, and 3 accounted for almost all infections in donors from Scotland, Finland, The Netherlands, and Australia. Types 2 and 3 were not found in the eastern European country (Hungary), where all but one of the donors were infected with type 1. Donors from Japan and Taiwan were infected only with type 1 or 2, while types 1, 2, and 6 were found in those from Hong Kong. HCV infection among Egyptians was almost always by type 4. Donors infected with HCV type 1 showed broad serological reactivity with all four antigens of the second generation Chiron RIBA-2 assay (Chiron Corporation, Emeryville, Calif.), while infection with divergent HCV genotypes elicited antibodies mainly reactive to c22-3 and c33c. Reactivities with antibodies 5-1-1 and c100-3 were infrequent and were generally weak, irrespective of the geographical origin of the donor. Because the envelope region of HCV is even more variable than the NS-4 region, it is likely that vaccines based on these proteins need to be multivalent and perhaps specifically adapted for different geographical regions.
Protection by Face Masks against Influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 Virus on Trans-Pacific Passenger Aircraft, 2009

In response to several influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 infections that developed in passengers after they traveled on the same 2 flights from New York, New York, USA, to Hong Kong, China, to Fuzhou, China, we assessed transmission of influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 virus on these flights. We defined a case of infection as onset of fever and respiratory symptoms and detection of virus by PCR in a passenger or crew member of either flight. Illness developed only in passengers who traveled on the New York to Hong Kong flight. We compared exposures of 9 case-passengers with those of 32 asymptomatic control-passengers. None of the 9 case-passengers, compared with 47% (15/32) of control-passengers, wore a face mask for the entire flight (odds ratio 0, 95% CI 0–0.71). The source case-passenger was not identified. Wearing a face mask was a protective factor against influenza infection. We recommend a more comprehensive intervention study to accurately estimate this effect.
Politics and religions in Hong Kong after 1997: whether tension or equilibrium is needed

The principle of ‘one country, two systems’ is the basic political relationship between the China mainland and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (hereafter: Hong Kong). The Basic Law (a ‘little’ constitution) guarantees Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy, but also emphasises the primacy of ‘one country’ (‘country’ here meaning ‘state’ rather than ‘nation’). Whether ‘two systems’ is understood from the perspective of ‘one country’ or whether ‘one country’ is understood from the perspective of ‘two systems’ has become an ongoing and controversial issue in Hong Kong and even on the China mainland. Obviously, the former inclines one to put the interests of the Chinese government above those of Hong Kong, while the latter tends to put the interests of Hong Kong above those of the Chinese government. This basic dilemma is reflected in a recent event in Hong Kong: the implementation of the law on national security stated in the Basic Law (hereafter, Article 23). It seems extremely difficult to find equilibrium between ‘one country’ and ‘two systems’, not only because this is essentially a matter of mutual trust, but also because a certain amount of tension may be part of the very nature of ‘one country, two systems’. In other words, once equilibrium is found, ‘one country, two systems’ may vanish. I consider that two recent ‘religious’ events in Hong Kong, namely the issue of Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa) and the outspoken role played by the Catholic Bishop Joseph Zen Zekiun on the issue of Article 23, well articulate this dilemma. The concern of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, it is my purpose to use these two recent ‘religious’ events to reflect on the nature of the political dilemma in Hong Kong. I call this dilemma ‘politicisation’. On the other hand, I also intend to reflect on the particular role that religions may be able to play in such a context, as the conscience of Hong Kong. After that, I am going to argue that political tension in Hong Kong generated by ‘one country, two systems’ should be ‘welcomed’ rather than avoided, because it paves the way for the emergence of civil society.
Explaining Variations in Business Performance Among Immigrant Entrepreneurs in Canada

This paper seeks to explain the self-reported business performance of entrepreneurs who entered Canada through the Business Immigration Programme. The study draws upon a detailed face-to-face questionnaire with 90 entrepreneurs in Vancouver, a third each from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea. As suggested by the mixed-embeddedness model, state regulations provided a significant context for the economic actions of immigrant entrepreneurs. But opportunities were also narrowed by a perceived precariousness in the regional market. Overall, business performance was weak for entrepreneurs, despite significant pre-migration resources. Some factors regarded as encouraging entrepreneurialism were also important in shaping business outcomes. Human capital, though not the scale of investment capital, influenced business success. Consistent with European research, the ethnic enclave economy imposed a penalty on outcomes. Inter-ethnic variation was significant, with Korean-Canadians, who disproportionately sought mainstream markets, by far the most successful of the three groups. In addition they were less involved in transnational business activities, which seemed to compete with, rather than complement, Canadian enterprise.
Chapter 26. Behavioral Finance

Abstract This article provides a brief introduction to behavioral finance. Behavioral finance encompasses research that drops the traditional assumptions of expected utility maximization with rational investors in efficient markets. The two building blocks of behavioral finance are cognitive psychology (how people think) and the limits to arbitrage (when markets will be inefficient). The growth of behavioral finance research has been fueled by the inability of the traditional framework to explain many empirical patterns, including stock market bubbles in Japan, Taiwan, and the U.S.
The Prevalence and Incidence of Oral Human Papillomavirus Infection Among Young Men and Women, Aged 18–30 Years

Background: Oral human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is a cause of oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma, yet little is known about the epidemiology and natural history of infection. Methods: At a baseline and 3-month follow-up visit, 1000 young adults aged 18 to 30 years provided an oral rinse sample and completed a survey assessing demographic and behavioral risk factors. The oral rinse sample was analyzed for 37 types of HPV by use of a multiplex polymerase chain reaction assay. Factors associated with oral HPV detection were analyzed using univariate and bivariate logistic regression. Results: The prevalence of oral HPV infection was 2.4% (95% CI: 1.4–3.4). Ever having consumed alcohol (OR, 0.2; 95% CI: 0.1–0.8), 5 or more lifetime open-mouth kissing (OR, 4.0; 95% CI: 1.1–14.8) or lifetime oral sex (OR, 4.0; 95% CI: 1.3–11.9) partners were associated with infection, controlling for lifetime vaginal sex partners. The incidence rate for oral HPV infection was 5.67 (95% CI: 3.12–8.16) per 1000 person-months. Incident infection was associated in univariate analysis with black race (OR, 4.7; 95% CI: 1.7–13.5) and having open-mouth kissed a new partner in the previous 3 months (OR, 2.6; 95% CI: 1.0–6.4). Conclusions: This study provides further evidence that oral sexual contact in the form of both oral-oral and oral-genital contact could play a role in the transmission of oral HPV.
Review of English as a medium of instruction in Chinese universities today: current trends and future directions

The use of the English language in China, and especially in Chinese education has been increasing for several decades, despite various attitudes towards its use (Hu, 2009; Niu & Wolff, 2003; Wang, 2015). In the traditional perspective of world Englishes (Kachru, 1992), China lies in the expanding circle, where English is regarded as a foreign language. However, since China's implementation of the opening-up policy, the teaching of the English language has gained momentum by becoming a key subject in China's education system. Currently, policies in China make English a subject of study from grade three at primary school and as one of the three compulsory subjects in the national university entrance exam (Gaokao), and a compulsory course for university students of all majors (Hu, 2003; Li, 2016).
Globalization, State Autonomy and the Fight against Cross-Border Crime: Greater China's Cooperation with the World

Abstract Although globalization has stimulated the rise in cross-border crime, it does not really undermine the autonomy of the mainland Chinese state, the Taiwan state, and the city-states of Hong Kong and Macao. Instead, through cooperation with law-enforcement agencies in other countries, the law-enforcement agencies of these four places, notably the police and customs, have ensured the persistence of state autonomy vis-à-vis cross-border criminal groups and individuals. In the case of Greater China (mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao), interstate cooperation involving the police and customs can maintain state autonomy vis-à-vis criminal groups and individuals. The mechanisms of such interstate and intergovernmental cooperation embrace the sharing of criminal intelligence, the occurrence of anti-crime joint operations, the holding of seminars and conferences, and the administrative arrangements of extraditions. In a nutshell, intergovernmental cooperation in the combat against cross-border crime can maintain state autonomy in the midst of globalization, as the case of Greater China shows.
The Failure of Organizational Control: Changing Party Power in the Chinese Countryside

As frequent, violent, and organized peasant protests show, China’s reform regime has lost its once all-powerful control in the countryside. The sharp decline of village cadres’ positional authority in allocating economic resources, which began in post-Mao decollectivization, holds the key to explaining the change. Since the late 1990s, the collapse of village enterprises and the erosion of power over land have cost village cadres their remaining economic levers to engage the villagers as well as their incentives to work for the party-state. The loss of the regime’s grip on village cadres and the loss of command by village cadres on peasants have almost synchronized, causing the traditional structure of organizational control to crumble in vast rural areas. In the new, prevailing patterns of village governance, party power is becoming increasingly irrelevant.
Impact of special shipping across the Taiwan Straits on the employment of Taiwanese ship officers

Nowhere else in the world are there marine transportations highly confined than across the Taiwan Straits (mainland China and Taiwan). This study strives to explore the present employment status of Taiwanese ship officers under the influence of special shipping across the Taiwan Straits, and to make sure if such an employment trend has a negative impact on the future operating mode of Taiwan shipping companies. By means of field interview and questionnaire, this study collected the employment data of ship officers from 21 leading shipping companies in Taiwan, and made a statistical analysis. The research findings show that the existing cross-strait shipping relationship, which is seriously distorted by the hostility between the governments of Taiwan and mainland China across the Taiwan Straits, has made Taiwanese shipping companies turn to flagging-out in order to enter the extensive shipping market of mainland China. This leads to a decline of job opportunities for Taiwanese ship officers. Ironically, the ship officers from mainland China pose a biggest threat to those in Taiwan in this respect. In addition, the operating modes of Taiwanese shipping companies also change gradually in tune with the increasing number of non-Taiwanese ship officers (mainly those from mainland China).
Cointegration of Stock Markets

This article uses daily stock prices during the period 1997–2013 to empirically investigate the existence of stock market cointegration between Thailand and its 11 major trading markets, including Hong Kong, Japan, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the National Association of Securities Dealer Automated Quotation (NASDAQ), London, Australia, Philippines, Singapore, Korea, Indonesia and Malaysia. After accounting for structural breaks of the series and salient economic events (for example, the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 and the US recession in middle of 2007), the Engle–Granger test suggests that the stock price indices of Thailand exhibit a weak long-run relationship with the other selected markets, which in turn provides investors profitable opportunities from portfolio diversification.
Dual Economies, Disguised Unemployment and the Unlimited Supply of Labour

The disguised-unemployment hypothesis ranks among the most interesting and the most controversial doctrines of development economics. Proponents of the hypothesis claim that there is "surplus labour" in much of Asia, the West Indies, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. These areas are inhabited by more than half the world's population. As much as 40 per cent. of the population of the Middle East and between one-fourth and one-third of the agricultural population of pre-war Eastern Europe was said at one time or another to constitute a "surplus" or to be "unemployed in a disguised fashion". And the disguised-unemployment analysis has been extended to other underdeveloped areas of the world as well, including Latin America. The hypothesis claims that in poor, densely populated countries, more people are employed than needed to produce the prevailing output with the existing techniques and the existing supply of non-labour inputs. The "surplus" labour constitutes "hidden" or "disguised" unemployment. Many of the proponents of the hypothesis make the further claim that agricultural output will not decrease, and industrial output will increase, if measures are taken to re-allocate labour from subsistence agriculture (where the surplus is supposed to exist) to industry (where there is no surplus labour). Since labour can be removed from agriculture at no social cost, its supply to industry is, in a sense, "unlimited" as long as disguised unemployment prevails. The hypothesis of disguised unemployment or of the unlimited supply of labour has been praised as being "intellectually elegant" and for having "considerable explanatory power in economic history and in the growth of developed countries". ' It has been used to justify the Great Leap Forward type of development strategy: in countries such as China there are untold millions unemployed in a disguised fashion; these untold millions can be employed "without any modern capital equipment" in the creation of "highly capital intensive works yielding in most part phenomenal returns". 2 On the theoretical front the hypothesis has served in the construction of an ingenious and elegant growth theory corresponding to the Rostovian "stages". 3
Antibodies against cyclic citrullinated peptide and IgA rheumatoid factor predict the development of rheumatoid arthritis.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the prevalence and predictive value of anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (anti-CCP) antibodies in individuals who subsequently developed rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and to determine the relationship to rheumatoid factor (RF) of any isotype. METHODS A case-control study was nested within the Northern Sweden Health and Disease Study and the Maternity cohorts of Northern Sweden. Patients with RA were identified among blood donors whose samples had been taken years before the onset of symptoms. Control subjects matched for age, sex, date of sampling, and residential area were selected randomly from the same cohorts. Anti-CCP antibody and RFs were determined using enzyme immunoassays. RESULTS Eighty-three individuals with RA were identified as having donated blood before presenting with any symptoms of joint disease (median 2.5 years [interquartile range 1.1-4.7] before RA). In samples obtained before the onset of RA, the prevalence of autoantibodies was 33.7% for anti-CCP, 16.9% for IgG-RF, 19.3% for IgM-RF, and 33.7% for IgA-RF (all highly significant compared with controls). The sensitivities for detecting these autoantibodies >1.5 years and </=1.5 years before the appearance of any RA symptoms were 25% and 52% for anti-CCP, 15% and 30% for IgM-RF, 12% and 27% for IgG-RF, and 29% and 39% for IgA-RF. In conditional logistic regression models, anti-CCP antibody and IgA-RF were found to be significant predictors of RA. CONCLUSION Anti-CCP antibody and RFs of all isotypes predated the onset of RA by several years. The presence of anti-CCP and IgA-RF predicted the development of RA, with anti-CCP antibody having the highest predictive value. This indicates that citrullination and the production of anti-CCP and RF autoantibodies are early processes in RA.