Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analysis of Risk Factors for Rheumatoid Arthritis in Yunnan: A Small-Scale Case-Control Study

Objective To study the risk factors of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in Yunnan and provide reference for its clinical prevention and treatment. Methods From January 2014 to February 2022, a total of 249 RA patients who were admitted to the First People's Hospital of Yunnan Province were selected and 149 healthy people were selected as the controls. The medical records, clinical data of blood test results of anticyclic citrullinated polypeptide (anti-CCP) antibody, antikeratin antibody (AKA), and antiperinuclear factor (APF) were collected. Logistic regression and receiver operating curve (ROC) were used to analyze the correlation between blood anti-CCP antibody, AKA, and APF and the occurrence of RA. Results Univariate analysis showed that the age, proportion of hypertension, and diabetes patients in RA patients were significantly different from those in the control group (p < 0.05), but there was no statistical difference in sex (p > 0.05). The area under the curve (AUC) of the serum anti-CCP antibody level in the diagnosis of RA was 0.76 (95% CI: 0.72–0.81, p < 0.01), the sensitivity was 85.23%, the specificity was 61.45%, and the cutoff value was 18.07AU/mL. The positive rates of AKA (33.73%) and APF (43.37%) in the RA patients were significantly higher than those in the controls (4.03% and 6.04%), and the differences were statistically significant (p < 0.001). After adjusting for age, sex, hypertension, and diabetes, logistic regression analysis showed that anti-CCP positivity, AKA positive, and APF positive were all independent risk factors for RA (OR = 20.24, 95% CI: 9.36–43.77, p < 0.01; OR = 4.33, 95% CI: 1.62–11.60, p < 0.01; OR = 5.28, 95% CI: 2.33–11.99, p < 0.01). Conclusion Anti-CCP positive, AKA positive, and APF positive are independent risk factors for the occurrence of RA. Serum anti-CCP level has high sensitivity but low specificity in the diagnosis of RA.
A Tale of Two Social Insurance Systems in South Korea and Taiwan: A Financial Risk Protection Perspective

ABSTRACT Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is a widespread policy goal in the 21st century. The aim is to protect people from financial risk while promoting their access to good-quality care. This study examined the social insurance systems of South Korea and Taiwan to explore the critical challenges of achieving effective UHC. By assessing the impact of UHC on financial risk protection (measured by out-of-pocket payment share and catastrophic payment headcount), we found that when South Korea inaugurated its National Health Insurance (NHI) program with a limited benefits package and high cost sharing, it did not reduce the financial burden. Meanwhile, we observed a drop of 5 to 6 percentage points in the catastrophic payment headcount in Taiwan, which offered a universal and rather comprehensive benefits package with a modest cost-sharing design under its single-payer NHI system. The political-economic context of the UHC policy evolution was further explored through an in-depth discussion. We conclude that to provide sufficient financial risk protection against unexpected medical expenses, the design of the insurance scheme, in particular the risk-sharing mechanism, not only matters but is also the key to success.
Effects of Exposure to Political Protests on Political Discussion and Attitudes in Authoritarian Regimes : Evidence from Eight Natural Experiments with Chinese Social Media

This paper estimates the causal effect of eight protests in Hong Kong from 2012 to 14 on the frequency of political discussions and pro-democracy attitudes among witnesses from mainland China. Using the eight protests as natural experiments, I identified treatment groups that were in Hong Kong when protest occurred and control groups that left Hong Kong just before the protests. Using difference-in-differences estimators, I found that physical presence at the scene of the protests caused an enduring increase on witnesses’ frequency of political discussions and reinforce preexisting attitudes. In contrast, just being in Hong Kong when protest occurred did not increase the frequency of political discussions and decreased pro-democracy attitudes. The results were consistent across four robustness checks. This paper has implications for the use of social media data to study the consequences of protests.
Youth Engagement : A Quasi-experimental Study of Social Media Use and Protest Behavior Using Propensity Score Matching

This study examines changes in the association between social media use and protest behavior in the context of growing social unrest among the younger population. Using propensity score matching, it analyzes data from a repeated cross-sectional survey taken before, during, and after the 2011 student demonstrations in Chile. The results indicate that both Facebook and Twitter have significant effects on the likelihood of protesting, although these effects vary across time and platforms. These differences are explained in terms of the protest cycle and the strong-tie versus weak-tie network structures that characterize Facebook and Twitter, respectively. Furthermore, the findings highlight the value of studying the time dynamics of the social media–protest relationship.
Distinguishing three distinct biogeographic regions with an in‐house developed 39‐AIM‐InDel panel and further admixture proportion estimation for Uyghurs

In the forensic field, ancestry‐informative markers (AIMs) showing remarkable allele frequency discrepancies can be useful in deducing the likely ancestral origin of a person or estimating the ancestry component proportions of an admixed population or individual. Diallelic single nucleotide polymorphisms are genetic markers commonly used for ancestry inference, but the genotyping methods of single nucleotide polymorphisms fail to fulfil the demands of cost‐effectiveness and simplicity of experimental manipulation. To overcome the limitations, a 39 ancestry‐informative insertion/deletion polymorphism multiplex panel was developed in the present study to perform ancestry assignment of individuals from three distinct biogeographic regions (Africa, Europe, East Asia). And in the panel design, we also attempted to incorporate AIM‐insertion/deletion polymorphisms exhibiting allelic frequency differences in Han, Uyghur, and Tibetan populations into the multiplex assay, further expecting to provide valuable information for refining ancestry inference within Chinese populations. Statistical analyses were performed to estimate efficiency of this panel in clustering individuals from three continents mentioned above into their corresponding populations, which indicated the potential of the panel in ancestry inference. Besides, we also estimated the ancestral component proportions of Uyghur group and STRUCTURE analysis revealed that Uyghurs from Urumchi city of northern Xinjiang exhibited a distinctly admixed pattern of East Asian and European ancestry components with a ratio of 49:44, reflecting the relatively higher East Asian ancestry component contribution in the gene pool of the Uyghur group.
Multinational License Plate Recognition Using Generalized Character Sequence Detection

Automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) is generally considered a solved problem in the computer vision community. However, most of the current works on ALPR are designed to work on license plates (LP) from specific countries and use country-specific information which limits their practical applicability. Such ALPR systems require changes in the algorithm to work on other countries’ LPs. Previous works on multinational LP recognition are tested on datasets from various countries that share the same LP layout. To address this issue, this study presents a deep ALPR system designed to be applicable to multinational LPs. The proposed approach consists of three main steps– LP detection, unified character recognition, and multinational LP layout detection. The system is mainly based on the you only look once (YOLO) networks. Particularly, tiny YOLOv3 was used for the first step whereas the second step uses YOLOv3-SPP– a version of YOLOv3 that consists of the spatial pyramid pooling (SPP) block. The localized LP is fed into YOLOv3-SPP for character recognition. The character recognition network returns the bounding boxes of the predicted characters and does not provide information about the sequence of the LP number. A LP number with an incorrect sequence is considered wrong. Thus, to extract the correct sequence, we propose a layout detection algorithm that can extract the correct sequence of LP numbers from multinational LPs. We collected our own Korean car plate (KarPlate) dataset and made it publicly available. The proposed system was evaluated on LP datasets from five countries which include South Korea, Taiwan, Greece, USA, and Croatia. In addition, a small dataset containing LPs from 17 countries was collected to evaluate the effectiveness of the multinational LP layout detection algorithm. The proposed ALPR system consumes about 42 ms per image on average for extracting LP number. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our ALPR system.
The financialization of real estate in megacities and its variegated trajectories in East Asia

This chapter sheds light on the forces that drive global financial investment into the real estate markets of megacity regions across the world. Although financial approaches and metrics of valuation stem from the Anglo-American investment culture, their rooting in different institutional contexts produces varied trajectories of financialization. Hybridization dynamics are seen especially in East Asia, where local cultures and institutional arrangements were not initially fit to integrate Western investment concepts. This chapter highlights the diverging patterns of real estate financialization in three East Asian countries /regions: Japan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China. It is based on a framework that combines three key elements: i) the representations of 'investable' markets by the global financial industry; ii) the initiatives taken by state agencies to provide a supportive environment for financial investment; and iii) the response by property developers to the supply of market capital in the built environment.
An Unsupervised Graph-Based Approach for Detecting Relevant Topics: A Case Study on the Italian Twitter Cohort during the Russia-Ukraine Conflict

On 24 February 2022, the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops began, starting a dramatic conflict. As in all modern conflicts, the battlefield is both real and virtual. Social networks have had peaks in use and many scholars have seen a strong risk of disinformation. In this study, through an unsupervised topic tracking system implemented with Natural Language Processing and graph-based techniques framed within a biological metaphor, the Italian social context is analyzed, in particular, by processing data from Twitter (texts and metadata) captured during the first month of the war. The system, improved if compared to previous versions, has proved to be effective in highlighting the emerging topics, all the main events and any links between them.
Complex Reconstruction with Flaps After Abdominoperineal Resection and Groin Dissection for Anal Squamous Cell Carcinoma: A Difficult Case Involving Many Specialities

Patient: Male, 49 Final Diagnosis: Anal squamo cell carcinoma Symptoms: Inguinal mass • inflammation • perineal tumor Medication: — Clinical Procedure: Abdominoperineal resection (APR) • groin dissection and closure of the inguinal defect with oblique rectus abdominis myocutaneous (ORAM) flap Specialty: Surgery Objective: Unusual setting of medical care Background: Anal squamous cell carcinoma accounts for about 2–4% of all lower gastrointestinal malignancies, with a distant disease reported in less than 5%. Although surgical treatment is rarely necessary, this often involve large dissections and difficult reconstructive procedures. Case Report: We present a complex but successful case of double-flap reconstruction after abdominoperineal resection and groin dissection for anal squamous cell carcinoma (cT3N3M0) with metastatic right inguinal lymph nodes and ipsilateral threatening of femoral vessels. A multi-specialty team was involved in the operation. A vascular and plastic surgeon performed the inguinal dissection with en bloc excision of the saphenous magna and a cuff of the femoral vein, while colorectal surgeons carried out the abdominoperineal excision. The 2 large tissue gaps at the groin and perineum were covered with an oblique rectus abdominis myocutaneous flap and a gluteal lotus flap, respectively. A partially absorbable mesh was placed at the level of the anterior sheath in order to reinforce the abdominal wall, whereas an absorbable mesh was used as a bridge for the dissected pelvic floor muscles. The post-operative period was uneventful and the follow-up at 5 months showed good results. Conclusions: An early diagnosis along with new techniques of radiochemotherapy allow patients to preserve their sphincter function. However, a persistent or recurrent disease needs major operations, which often involve a complex reconstruction. Good team-work and experience in specialized fields give the opportunity to make the best choices to perform critical steps during the management of complex cases.
Global Media for Global Citizenship in India and China

In the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, many issues pertaining to ethnicity, nationalism, and global values were relevant. After the violent protests in Lhasa on March 14, 2008, once again it was evident that when Chinese citizenship becomes contested by ethnic minorities such as Tibetans and Uyghurs, the Han Chinese population tends to unite as a whole. With regard to rapid globalization, the questions that arise are whether (Han) Chinese values are globalizing, and if global citizenship is a valid concept to understand China’s deepening integration with the world economy and increasing participation in multilateral organizations.
Global policy paradigms, gender equality and everyday lives in Beijing, Hong Kong, Seoul and Taipei

Abstract Focusing on the interface between gender equality, the labour market, and everyday lives in four East Asian societies – China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan – this article seeks to articulate the spatial expression and multi-scalarity of global governance and policy paradigms. It will demonstrate that whilst regions, places and people are influenced by global processes and paradigms, these move and embed in different ways across spaces, time and scales. In this context, the article seeks to develop a more nuanced appreciation of ‘the social lives’ of global policy models, engaging with the role of ideas and institutions and the interactions of transnational, national and local dynamics in the shaping of gender equality policies and everyday experiences. Drawing on qualitative data collected in Beijing, Hong Kong, Seoul and Taipei the article draws out the perceptions of individuals from different policy, sectoral, social and cultural settings of gender equality. It highlights the tensions and disjunctures between general principles and particular situations, and in embedding gender equality policies into the social imaginaries and everyday lives of women and men. It emphasizes the importance of recognizing the role of place and power relations in shaping localized responses to and experiences of gender justice.
Plasmid Metagenome Reveals High Levels of Antibiotic Resistance Genes and Mobile Genetic Elements in Activated Sludge

The overuse or misuse of antibiotics has accelerated antibiotic resistance, creating a major challenge for the public health in the world. Sewage treatment plants (STPs) are considered as important reservoirs for antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and activated sludge characterized with high microbial density and diversity facilitates ARG horizontal gene transfer (HGT) via mobile genetic elements (MGEs). However, little is known regarding the pool of ARGs and MGEs in sludge microbiome. In this study, the transposon aided capture (TRACA) system was employed to isolate novel plasmids from activated sludge of one STP in Hong Kong, China. We also used Illumina Hiseq 2000 high-throughput sequencing and metagenomics analysis to investigate the plasmid metagenome. Two novel plasmids were acquired from the sludge microbiome by using TRACA system and one novel plasmid was identified through metagenomics analysis. Our results revealed high levels of various ARGs as well as MGEs for HGT, including integrons, transposons and plasmids. The application of the TRACA system to isolate novel plasmids from the environmental metagenome, coupled with subsequent high-throughput sequencing and metagenomic analysis, highlighted the prevalence of ARGs and MGEs in microbial community of STPs.
A Perceptual Study of Scale-degree Qualia in Context

A perceptual study investigated the ability of scale degrees to evoke qualia, and the impact of harmonic context in shaping a scale degree’s qualia. In addition, the following questions were addressed: What role does music training have in shaping qualia? Are listeners consistent in their descriptions? Are experiences similar across participants, or are they individual and subjective? Listeners with or without music-theoretic training were asked to rate the qualia of scale degrees following various chord progressions, each ending with a different final harmony. Scale degrees were found to exhibit relatively consistent musical qualia; however, the local chord context was found to significantly influence qualia ratings. In general, both groups of listeners were found to be fairly consistent in their ratings of scale-degree qualia; however, as expected, musician listeners were more consistent than nonmusician listeners. Finally, a subset of the musical qualia ratings were compared against Krumhansl and Kessler’s (1982) scale-degree “profiles. ” While profiles created from the present data, overall, were correlated with the K&K profiles, their claim that tonal stability accounts for the high ratings ascribed to tonic triad members was found to be better explained by the effect of the local chord context.
A system-wide approach to import demand for US fresh oranges

An import allocation model was used to investigate import demand for US fresh oranges in Canada, the European Community (EC), Singapore, and Hong Kong. The results indicate that the US import share will increase significantly in Singapore and a fair amount in Canada and Hong Kong as these markets grow. The income elasticity in the EC for US oranges is statistically insignificant. Price elasticities indicate that a negative relationship exists between the price of US oranges and demand in all markets considered.
Day-of-the-week effects: evidence from developing stock markets

An extension of the research on the day-of-the-week effect to the stock markets of Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand and Taiwan is presented. These small-sized markets are still much neglected. We find that there is a day-of-the-week effect in all these markets except Taiwan. These four markets have negative mean returns on Monday or Tuesday and high positive returns on Friday. Further analysis with four subperiods of data reveals that the weekly seasonal patterns appear to be period specific. The US stock market has little contribution to the day-of-the-week effect in these four markets. Thin trading does not seem to have a significant impact on the day-of-the-week effect in the Singapore market.
Global capital market interdependence and spillover effect of credit risk: evidence from the 2007–2009 global financial crisis

This article examines the impact of the 2007–2009 Global Financial Crisis on the interrelationships among global stock markets and the informational role of the TED spread as perceived credit risk. The current crisis originated from the dominant US market has a prompt and pervasive spillover effect into other global markets. Using the Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model, Granger causality test, cointegrating Vector Error Correction Model (VECM), we document enhanced leadership of the US market with respect to UK, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, Russia and China markets during the crisis. Consistent with the contagion theory, the interdependence among international stock markets becomes stronger in the crisis. The TED spread serves as a leading ‘fear’ indicator and adjusts to new information rapidly during the crisis. While the impact of orthogonalized shocks from the US market on other global markets increases by at least two times during the crisis, the impact of orthogonalized shocks from the TED spread on global market indices increase by at least five times. Overall, these findings shed light on the dynamics of international stock market linkage and the spillover effect of credit risk.
The value relevance of intellectual capital disclosures

Purpose – This study aims to examine whether or not listed companies' disclosure of intellectual capital is value‐relevant in share markets and to assess its moderating role in the value‐relevance of reported earnings and equity following the adoption of international financial reporting standards (IFRS). Design/methodology/approach – A measure of intellectual capital disclosure (ICD), based on a content analysis of the text in annual reports sampled from listed companies in Britain, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore, is incorporated in the models to examine the direct and moderating roles of ICD in a firm's valuation.Findings – The results reveal that ICD is positively associated with market price (i.e. has value relevance) in companies in two of the four countries and in non‐traditional industries. Further, the incremental value relevance of earnings and net assets is mostly non‐significant; however, interaction of these variables with ICD considerably increases the basic coefficients and the explanator.
An Empirical Examination of Capital Mobility in East Asia Emerging Markets

Abstract This paper examines the evidence on saving-investment correlations and the covered interest parity conditions to gauge the degree of capital mobility in eight East Asia emerging markets. It is found that Hong Kong and Singapore have fairly mobile capital markets while other countries exhibit financial openness only to a certain extent. The results also indicate that financial integration has been broadly enhanced among these markets following their liberalizations. However, except for Hong Kong, the degree of capital mobility in all markets has not yet returned to the level before the Asian crisis.
Mobile Communication and Relational Mobilization in China

AbstractRecent studies have shown what indispensable role mobile phones play as means of mobilization in contentious politics around the world. Nevertheless, there has been no clear elaboration of how mobile phone uses translate into mobilization in contentious politics. To fill this gap, the current study employs Passy’s (2003) framework of the threefold function of social ties as channels of mobilization to examine how mobile communication, embedding the dynamics of social ties, influences protest mobilization. It investigates two cases in rural and urban China in which Chinese people employed their mobile phones to mobilize participants for protests, and conducts 24 in-depth interviews with participants in these protests. Findings suggest that using mobile phones for mobilization registers the relational dynamics of social ties, which shapes participants’ perceptions of given protest issues, ensures the safety of protest recruitment and mobilization in a repressive context, and generates pressure on participation, all of which contributes to the mechanism of mobilization. This study concludes with the concept of ‘relational mobilization’, which addresses the embedment and relevance of social ties in the process of mobile-phone-mediated mobilization and its implication for Asian countries.