Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Natural history of oral HPV infection: Longitudinal analyses in prospective cohorts from Australia

Oral infection with human papillomavirus (HPV) is likely to underpin the rapidly rising incidence of oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma; however, there are few data describing the natural history of oral HPV infection. We recruited 704 participants aged 20 to 70 years from worksites, universities and primary care practices in Brisbane, Australia. Participants completed questionnaires at baseline, 12 and 24 months and donate four saliva samples at baseline, 6, 12 and 24 months for HPV polymerase chain reaction testing and typing. We estimated the prevalence of oral HPV infection at baseline, incidence of new infections among those HPV‐negative at baseline, clearance rate and persistent infections. At baseline, 10.7% of participants had oral HPV infections from 26 different HPV types. Sexual behaviours were associated with oral HPV infection, including more partners for passionate kissing (29 or more; odds ratio [OR] 3.4, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.5‐8.0), and giving and receiving oral sex (16 or more; OR 5.4, 95% CI 1.6‐17.7 and OR 5.6, 95% CI 1.6‐18.7, respectively). Of 343 participants, HPV‐free at baseline and with subsequent saliva samples, 87 (25%) acquired new infections over the 24 months. Sixty‐eight of 87 people included in the clearance analysis (78%) cleared their oral HPV infections. Clearance was associated with being a nonsmoker (OR 12.7, 95% CI 1.3‐122.8), and no previous diagnosis of a sexually transmitted infection (OR 6.2, 95% CI 2.0‐19.9). New oral infections with HPV in this sample were not rare. Although most infections were cleared, clearance was not universal suggesting a reservoir of infection exists that might predispose to oropharyngeal carcinogenesis.
Digital Civic Participation and Misinformation during the 2020 Taiwanese Presidential Election

From fact-checking chatbots to community-maintained misinformation databases, Taiwan has emerged as a critical case-study for citizen participation in politics online. Due to Taiwan’s geopolitical history with China, the recent 2020 Taiwanese Presidential Election brought fierce levels of online engagement led by citizens from both sides of the strait. In this article, we study misinformation and digital participation on three platforms, namely Line, Twitter, and Taiwan’s Professional Technology Temple (PTT, Taiwan’s equivalent of Reddit). Each of these platforms presents a different facet of the elections. Results reveal that the greatest level of disagreement occurs in discussion about incumbent president Tsai. Chinese users demonstrate emergent coordination and selective discussion around topics like China, Hong Kong, and President Tsai, whereas topics like Covid-19 are avoided. We discover an imbalance of the political presence of Tsai on Twitter, which suggests partisan practices in disinformation regulation. The cases of Taiwan and China point toward a growing trend where regular citizens, enabled by new media, can both exacerbate and hinder the flow of misinformation. The study highlights an overlooked aspect of misinformation studies, beyond the veracity of information itself, that is the clash of ideologies, practices, and cultural history that matter to democratic ideals.
Sectorwise Assessment of Glacial Lake Outburst Flood Danger in the Indian Himalayan Region

Climate change and associated glacier recession have led to the formation of new glacial lakes and the expansion of existing ones across the Himalayas. Many pose a potential glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) threat to downstream communities and infrastructure. In this paper, 4418 glacial lakes in the Indian Himalayan Region and 636 transboundary lakes are analyzed. We consider hazard, exposure, and integrated danger levels using robust geographic information system-based automated approaches. The hazard level of lakes was estimated based on the potential for avalanches to strike the lake, size of the lake and its upstream watershed, and distal slope of its dam. Exposure levels were calculated by intersecting cropland, roads, hydropower projects, and the human population with potential GLOF trajectories. Then, GLOF danger was determined as a function of hazard and exposure. The study demonstrates that Jammu and Kashmir (JK) is potentially the most threatened region in terms of total number of very high and high danger lakes (n = 556), followed by Arunachal Pradesh (AP) (n = 388) and Sikkim (SK) (n = 219). Sectorwise, JK faces the greatest GLOF threat to roads and population, whereas the threat to cropland and hydropower is greatest in AP and SK, respectively. Transboundary lakes primarily threaten AP and, to a lesser extent, Himachal Pradesh (HP). For Uttarakhand (UK), the impacts of potential future glacial lakes, expected to form during rapid ongoing glacier recession because of climate change, are explored. Finally, a comparison of current results with previous studies suggests that 13 lakes in SK, 5 in HP, 4 in JK, 2 in UK, and 1 in AP are of highest priority for local investigation and potential risk reduction measures. Current results are of vital importance to policymakers, disaster management authorities, and the scientific community.
COVID-19 increased censorship circumvention and access to sensitive topics in China

Significance We study the impact of crisis on information seeking in authoritarian regimes. Using digital trace data from China during the COVID-19 crisis, we show that crisis motivates citizens to seek out crisis-related information, which subsequently exposes them to unrelated and potentially regime-damaging information. This gateway to both current and historically sensitive content is not found for individuals in countries without extensive online censorship. While information seeking increases during crisis under all forms of governance, the added gateway to previously unknown and sensitive content is disproportionate in authoritarian contexts. Crisis motivates people to track news closely, and this increased engagement can expose individuals to politically sensitive information unrelated to the initial crisis. We use the case of the COVID-19 outbreak in China to examine how crisis affects information seeking in countries that normally exert significant control over access to media. The crisis spurred censorship circumvention and access to international news and political content on websites blocked in China. Once individuals circumvented censorship, they not only received more information about the crisis itself but also accessed unrelated information that the regime has long censored. Using comparisons to democratic and other authoritarian countries also affected by early outbreaks, the findings suggest that people blocked from accessing information most of the time might disproportionately and collectively access that long-hidden information during a crisis. Evaluations resulting from this access, negative or positive for a government, might draw on both current events and censored history.
Japan 2020: Abe’s well-laid plans go awry

Like elsewhere, the COVID-19 pandemic caused substantial disruptions in Japan. While generous fiscal spending mitigated the pandemic’s economic fallout, and Japan is poised in 2021 to rebound from its year-on-year 4.8% fall in GDP, there was significant political fallout in 2020. The postponement of the Olympic Games, the Abe government’s perceived inability to tackle the pandemic, and the (re)surfacing of political scandals led to Japan’s longest-serving Prime Minister popularity plummeting. The re-emergence of Abe’s health problems then precipitated his abrupt resignation. This ushered in the premiership of Suga Yoshihide, who promised to enact structural reforms and ambitious digitalization and environmental programmes, while also promising to continue significant elements of Abe’s policy agenda. Internationally, COVID-19 accelerated US-China tensions and, in connection to that, China’s regional assertiveness. This perceived assertiveness as well as China’s political involution and human rights violations in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, in turn, hardened the Japanese government’s position vis-à-vis Beijing. This happened despite Abe’s early 2020 efforts towards hosting a state visit by the Chinese president. Instead, the year ended with a «Quad» meeting at the ministerial level, hosted in Tokyo, rather than an entente with China. At the same time, Japan deepened its «Indo-Pacific» engagement with important European nations as well as the European Union itself. It did so while doubling down on economic security initiatives that strengthened supply chain resiliency and provided telecommunication alternatives to Chinese initiatives, thereby restraining Chinese strategic influence. Security cooperation with the United States – through joint development of weapons systems, such as a new Japanese fighter, and close coordination in space, cyber and electromagnetic warfare – continued unabated in 2020.
Is periodontitis a risk factor of benign or malignant colorectal tumor? A population-based cohort study.

OBJECTIVE To examine the risk of developing benign or malignant colorectal tumors in patients with periodontitis within 15 years using Taiwan's National Health Insurance Database. BACKGROUND Studies have shown that colorectal carcinoma often develops under inflammatory conditions and changes of microbiota in the gut. Recently, a link between Fusobacterium nucleatum, a periodontal pathogen, and colorectal carcinoma has been proposed. However, whether periodontitis is a risk of developing colorectal tumor remains uncertain. METHODS In total, 35 124 participants were enrolled from 2000 to 2015 to examine the development risk of benign colorectal tumors, including 11 708 patients with periodontitis who received therapy (group 1), 11 708 patients with periodontitis not receiving periodontal treatment (group 2), and 11 708 non-periodontitis controls after matching for gender, age, and index year. To examine the risk of developing colorectal malignancy, 11 720 participants were assigned to each of the three groups. Cox proportional hazards model and Kaplan-Meier methods were used to compare the risks. Sensitivity analysis was performed, excluding the diagnoses during the first 1 or 5 years. RESULTS After the follow-up, 177, 154, and 63 participants in group 1, group 2, and control group had benign colorectal tumors. Patients with periodontitis tended to be associated with a greater rate of having a benign colorectal tumor. The adjusted hazard ratios (aHRs) were 3.77 (95% confidence interval [CI] 2.01-4.82, p < .001) and 2.85 (95% CI 1.62-3.74, p < .001) for groups 1 and 2, respectively. Regarding the risk of malignant colorectal tumor, 20, 18, and 14 participants who developed malignant tumors were included in group 1, group 2, and control group; however, no significant increase in malignancy was observed in periodontitis groups (aHR1.92, 95% CI 0.74-2.36, p = .482; aHR 1.50, 95% CI 0.68-1.97, p = .529, for the two periodontitis groups, respectively). CONCLUSIONS The results of this study suggest that patients with periodontitis may have an increased risk of developing benign, but not malignant, colorectal tumors.
The Impact of Institutional Quality on FDI Inflows: The Evidence from Capital Outflow of Asian Economies*

This paper investigates the effect of institutional quality on FDI inflows by using FDI outflows from Asian countries from 2009 to 2017. We used the FDI data from five major Asian economies, which are South Korea, China, Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The gravity model was used to examine the effect of institutional quality on FDI flows. The regression model considers several independent variables, and we select the most appropriate variables by using the Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) estimator. We have shown that foreign direct investment from Asian countries depends on the size of home and the partner countries, geographical distance, trade interaction between two countries, economic freedom, labor supply, tariff rate, and capacity of the government. The results of different estimation techniques emphasize that multinational enterprises prefer to invest in those countries which have a higher income, which shows the evidence for Lucas’s paradox. The results also show that economic freedom and control of corruption have a positive impact on FDI inwards. The regression results show that better institutional quality in host countries encourages more FDIs from Asian economies. It suggests that the state should control corruption and create a free economic environment to attract FDIs.
Nocodazole-induced expression and phosphorylation of anillin and other mitotic proteins is decreased in DNA-dependent protein kinase catalytic subunit (DNA-PKcs)-deficient cells and rescued by inhibition of the Anaphase Promoting Complex/Cyclosome (APC/C) with proTAME but not apcin

1 2 Nocodazole-induced expression and phosphorylation of anillin and other mitotic proteins is 3 decreased in DNA-dependent protein kinase catalytic subunit (DNA-PKcs)-deficient cells and 4 rescued by inhibition of the Anaphase Promoting Complex/Cyclosome (APC/C) with proTAME 5 but not apcin. 6 7 Pauline Douglas, Ruiqiong Ye, Suraj Radhamani, Alexander Cobban, Nicole P. Jenkins, 8 Edward Bartlett, Jonathan Roveredo, Arminja N. Kettenbach and Susan P. Lees-Miller 9 10 a Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Robson DNA Science Centre, 11 Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. b Norris Cotton Cancer 12 Center, Geisel School of Medicine, Lebanon Campus at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, 13 NH, USA. 14 15 # To whom correspondence should be addressed: leesmill@ucalgary.ca 16 17 Running title: DNA-PKcs regulates the APC/C 18 19 Footnote 1: 20 Present address: Department of Chemistry, University College London, UK 21 22 MCB Accepted Manuscript Posted Online 13 April 2020 Mol. Cell. Biol. doi:10.1128/MCB.00191-19 Copyright © 2020 Douglas et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
A morphological study of gigahertz equatorial scintillations in the Asian region

Concerted efforts were made from 1978 to 1980 to monitor ionospheric scintillations in the Asian region. Two geostationary satellites (Intelsat IV F8, Pacific Ocean Region, and Intelsat IV-A F1, Indian Ocean Region) and five earth stations (Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Hawaii, and Sri Lanka) with a total of eight up/downlink signals at 4 and 6 GHz, respectively, were involved. Twenty-nine months of 4-GHz data received at the Hong Kong earth station were used for analysis. This measurement period coincided with the solar maximum period of the current solar cycle 21. Scintillations of severe intensity with peak-to-peak fluctuations of up to 14 dB were recorded. This paper examines the morphological aspect of scintillations in the Asian region, including the equinoctial occurrence pattern, diurnal onset characteristics, relationship between scintillations along the eastward and westward links during sunset, and correlation with sunspot numbers. These findings, complementary to information already available from American and European-African regions, provide an essential element in understanding the global behavior of gigahertz ionospheric scintillations.
Small NGOs and Agenda-Setting in Global Conservation Governance: The Case of Pangolin Conservation

Abstract:The study of global environmental governance suggests that agenda-setting power is concentrated in a handful of high-profile, leading nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The recent rise of interest in pangolin conservation constitutes a deviant case in this theoretical tradition. In order to explain the puzzle, I introduce a new theory of small NGO influence and illustrate the mechanisms through the case study of pangolin conservation. Based on in-depth interviews with conservation NGOs, I show how small NGOs raised the salience of pangolin trafficking in global conservation governance by appealing to the shared values of the people who are highly interested in conservation. Moreover, the targeting of traditional Chinese medicine as the driver of pangolin extinction, while unintentionally, helped raise the salience of pangolin trafficking by leveraging the rise of anti-Chinese sentiment in the Global North. Finally, small NGOs were able to use their expertise to guide leading NGOs and state officials in rule-making processes. The findings offer a corrective to the hierarchical view of civil society, calling for more careful evaluations of small NGOs in global conservation governance.
Identifying Behavioral Factors Leading to Differential Polarization Effects of Adversarial Botnets

In this paper, we utilize a Twitter dataset collected between December 8, 2021 and February 18, 2022, during the lead-up to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Our aim is to design a data processing pipeline featuring a high-accuracy Graph Convolutional Network (GCN) based political camp classifier, a botnet detection algorithm, and a robust measure of botnet effects. Our experiments reveal that while the pro-Russian botnet contributes significantly to network polarization, the pro-Ukrainian botnet contributes with moderating effects. To understand the factors leading to these different effects, we analyze the interactions between the botnets and the users, distinguishing between barrier-crossing users, who navigate across different political camps, and barrier-bound users, who remain within their own camps. We observe that the pro-Russian botnet amplifies the barrier-bound partisan users within their own camp most of the time. In contrast, the pro-Ukrainian botnet amplifies the barrier-crossing users on their own camp alongside themselves for the majority of the time.
Cross-Strait Relations Between Taiwan and Mainland China: The Economic Imbalance and its Implications

The cross-strait relations between Taiwan and China are critical in the Asia Pacific and the world. This study focuses on economic relations and their implications. The main conclusions include: First, the economic gap in output is increasingly larger, thus favouring China. Based on a time series robust least squares model, this study finds that this economic strength will significantly reduce the number of Taiwan’s foreign allies. At the same time, this economic strength also brings military imbalance. Second, by employing the Granger causality tests to examine the causality relations between the stock markets of Taiwan and China, which reflect the economic integrations in areas such as the trade of goods and services and capital flow, this study finds that China is in a dominant position. At the same time, Taiwan is in a dominated position. However, except for tourism, the effects of China’s dominant position as leverage seem limited.
The performance of anti–cyclic citrullinated peptide antibodies in predicting the severity of radiologic damage in inflammatory polyarthritis: Results from the Norfolk Arthritis Register

Objective Anti–cyclic citrullinated peptide (anti-CCP) antibodies are a stronger predictor of the severity of rheumatoid arthritis than is rheumatoid factor (RF). Their role in predicting outcome in unselected patients with new-onset inflammatory polyarthritis (IP) has not been examined. The aims of this study were to examine the role of baseline RF and anti-CCP antibodies in determining the likelihood of patients having erosions at presentation or in predicting future radiologic damage, and to determine whether anti-CCP antibodies or RF is sufficiently robust to be clinically useful in guiding treatment decisions in early IP. Methods Patients were recruited from the Norfolk Arthritis Register. Logistic regression models were fitted to test the ability of anti-CCP antibodies and RF to predict erosions. Further models were investigated to examine the role of anti-CCP antibodies in patients stratified by RF status. Results The presence of anti-CCP antibodies at baseline was strongly associated with both prevalent erosions (odds ratio [OR] 2.53 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.48–4.30]) and developing erosions at 5 years (OR 10.2 [95% CI 6.2–16.9]). These ORs were higher than those for RF (OR 1.63 [95% CI 0.94–2.82] and OR 3.4 [95% CI 2.2–5.2], respectively). The likelihood ratio (LR) for the prediction of prevalent erosions and erosions at 5 years was highest in the RF−subgroup (LR 2.2 and 5.8, respectively). However, 27% of anti-CCP−patients had developed erosions by 5 years. Conclusion Despite their strong association with the presence, development, and extent of erosions, anti-CCP antibodies alone are not a sufficiently accurate measure upon which to base clinical treatment decisions. Knowledge of anti-CCP antibody status is most informative in RF−negative patients.
Achieving Emotions in Collective Action: Emotional Processes and Movement Mobilization in the 1989 Chinese Student Movement

This article outlines an emotional achievement perspective for the study of emotions in social movements. Following Denzin's work on emotions, I consider emotions as self-feelings that are situated, interactional, and temporal in nature. The concept of emotions as achievement complements Hochschild's emotion management perspective. While management focuses on control, achievement emphasizes articulation and creativity. I argue that, although individuals may be compelled to suppress feelings in the organizational context, different social contexts and practices make it possible for individuals to pursue emotional fulfillment and self-realization. In social movements, the process of emotional achievement among participants unfolds as a process of mobilization. An analysis of the emotional dynamics of the 1989 Chinese student movement shows that emotions were inextricably intertwined with identities and action and that the emotional dynamics generated in this process significantly contributed to movement mobilization. The article concludes with a discussion of the theoretical contributions of the emotional achievement perspective.
Acculturation, Internalization of Western Appearance Norms, and Eating Pathology Among Japanese and Chinese International Student Women

In the context of the sociocultural model of eating disorders, this study investigated the hypothesis that Westernization would be positively associated with eating pathology among non-Western women. International participants from Japan (n = 26), Peoples Republic of China (n = 25), Taiwan (n = 30), and Hong Kong (n = 25) who were studying in the United States completed the Eating Attitudes Test, Symptoms Checklist, Sociocultural Attitudes Toward Appearance Questionnaire, the American–International Relations Survey, and a demographic questionnaire. Awareness and internalization of Western appearance norms were positively associated with eating disordered symptoms, but acculturation was not. Results lend further support for the sociocultural model. It is suggested that measures of eating pathology and acculturation be closely examined with respect to their cross-cultural relevance, particularly when conducting research involving international populations.
Transnational Higher Education: A perspective from China

The growth and development of TNHE in China has progressed from an informal, incidental and laissez-faire activity up to 1995 into a currently more systematic and regulated project, largely controlled by the Chinese government through "input"--accrediting, registering, and licensing TNHE institutions, and restricting curricula development in particular study fields, as well as "output"--controlling the types and levels of academic degrees. The forms of franchises, articulation, and twinning as well as study abroad are most popular in China. The major source countries and regions that provide TNHE services in China have changed from the USA in 1997 to Australia and Hong Kong. It is possible that TNHE provided by Australia and Hong Kong, will continue to increase and eventually will constitute a much larger share of the total market in China.