Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Global Inequalities in Youth Mortality, 2007-2012

Objectives: There is limited cross-national research on youth mortality. We examined age-and gender-variations in all-cause mortality among youth aged 15-34 years across 52 countries. Methods: Using the 2014 WHO mortality database, mortality rates for all countries were computed for the latest available year between 2007 and 2012. Rates, rate ratios, and ordinary least squares (OLS) and Poisson regression were used to analyze international variation in mortality. Results: Mortality rates among youth aged 15-34 years varied from a low of 28.4 deaths per 100,000 population for Hong Kong to a high of 250.6 for Russia and 619.1 for South Africa. For men aged 15-34, Singapore and Hong Kong had the lowest mortality rates (≈40 per 100,000), compared with South Africa and Russia with rates of 589.7 and 383.3, respectively. Global patterns in mortality among women were similar. Youth aged 15-24 in South Africa had 14 times higher mortality and those in the Philippines, Mexico, Russia, Colombia, and Brazil had 5-7 times higher mortality than those in Hong Kong. Youth aged 25-34 in Russia and South Africa had, respectively, 10 and 29 times higher mortality than their counterparts in Hong Kong. United States (US) had the 12th highest mortality rate among youth aged 15-24 and the 13th highest rate among youth aged 25-34. Overall, the US youth had 2-3 times higher rates of mortality than their counterparts in many industrialized countries including Hong Kong, Singapore, Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Norway, and Sweden. Income inequality, unemployment rate, and human development explained 50-66% of the global variance in youth mortality. Compared to the countries with low unemployment and income inequality and high human development levels, countries with high unemployment and income inequality and low human development had, respectively, 343%, 213%, and 205% higher risks of youth mortality. Conclusions and Global Health Implications: Marked international disparities in youth all-cause mortality largely reflect differences in violence and injury deaths and in such risk factors as unemployment, income inequality, human development, and alcohol consumption. The US ranks in the upper quartile of all-cause mortality, with youth in Canada and many western industrialized countries showing signifi cantly lower mortality risks than the US youth.
Hepatocellular carcinoma and antidepressants: a nationwide population-based study

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is highly prevalent in Asia. Antidepressants have been associated with increase in hepatocellular carcinoma. This is the first Asian population-based study to evaluate the association between antidepressant use and risk of HCC. Based on Taiwans National Health Insurance Research Database, we conducted a nationwide population-based study. A total of 49,998 cases with HCC were identified and paired with 244,236 randomly selected controls. The data was analyzed via the conditional logistic regression model adjusting for several confounding factors. Use of tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) was associated with lower risk for HCC. No apparent association was found between use of other classes of antidepressants and HCC, including monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), trazodone, mirtazapine and bupropion. The findings of a protective effect of TCAs and SSRIs for HCC should be interpreted with caution and warrants further research.
Title Founder Succession and Accounting Properties

Using a sample of 231 entrepreneurial firm successions in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan, we find that firms’ unsigned discretionary accruals decrease while timely loss recognition increases subsequent to successions, suggesting a shift in accounting toward a less insider-based system. We argue that the change in accounting properties is due to the loss of specialized assets in the succession process, such as the entrepreneur’s reputation and political/social networks, inducing the firm to adapt to market-based rather than relationship-based contracting. Moreover, we find that the extent of the shift in accounting is larger in founder successions than in subsequent (non-founder) successions, as the dissipation of specialized assets is greatest in founder successions.
Prevalence and Patterns of Thyroid Dysfunction in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis

Background: The relationship between Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and Autoimmune Thyroid disturbance is one of the numerous examples of autoimmune comorbidities that are already established. This has been investigated in many countries and different populations, but data are still missing in some countries. We aimed to investigate comorbid RA and autoimmune thyroid disturbance in the Saudi population. Methods: We conducted this retrospective study at a tertiary-teaching center, in Saudi Arabia. We reviewed data of all RA patients, over the last 14 years, and selected all those who had thyroid function results recorded in their laboratory data (free thyroxine, free triiodothyronine and Thyroid-stimulating hormone). We examined all laboratory results of the sample, to assess prevalence of different thyroid disturbances, in regards to the laboratory standard results. We also analyzed the relationship between abnormal thyroid results and the usual inflammatory and autoimmune parameters: Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate (ESR), C-Reactive Protein level (CRP), Rheumatoid Factor (RF) and Anti- Cycliccitrullinated Peptide (anti-CCP). We used both Chi-square testing and Pearson correlation test, whenever indicated, and P-value less than 0.05 to assess significance. Results: One hundred and fifty one (151) patients had their thyroid function tests recorded. We observed the following: high prevalence of thyroid function disturbances in our sample of RA patients, compared to non-RA patients). (26.3% and 7% respectively), with the patterns of thyroid dysfunction as follows: Subclinical hypothyroidism in 29 patients (19%), Hypothyroidism in 6 patients (4%), Subclinical hyperthyroidism in 4 patients (2.6%) and hyperthyroidism in 1 patient (0.7%). No patients were recorded as Euthyroid sick syndrome. Also there was a significant positive correlation between TSH and CRP (r=0.22, P=0.029). Conclusion: There is a high prevalence of comorbid hypothyroidism in our RA patients, in a tertiary care hospital in Western Saudi Arabia. Physicians should be aware of screening RA patients for this comorbidity, especially when the specific symptoms may overlap between both diagnoses.
The neuropsychological profile of children at high risk of developing an eating disorder

Background There is a large body of evidence indicating that eating disorders (EDs) are characterized by particular neuropsychological profiles. We aimed to further explore whether impairments in neuropsychological functioning previously found in ED groups are present prior to onset, or are secondary to the disorder. Method This is the first study to explore neuropsychological functioning in children born to a mother with a lifetime ED, who are therefore at high risk of developing an ED, in a large cohort sample. We investigated intelligence and attention at age 8 years (n = 6201) and working memory (WM) and inhibition at age 10 years (6192) in children who are at high risk of developing an ED, compared to children who are not. Results The children of women with lifetime anorexia nervosa (AN) showed high full-scale and performance IQ, increased WM capacity, better visuo-spatial functioning, and decreased attentional control. The children of women with lifetime bulimia nervosa (BN) showed comparatively poor visuo-spatial functioning. Conclusions Our findings suggest that high intelligence, increased WM capacity and impaired attentional control might be intermediate phenotypes on the pathway between genetic vulnerability and the development of an ED.
Attracting East Asian Students to Canadian Graduate Schools

This study seeks to identify factors influencing East Asian international students’ choices of Canadian graduate schools, to assess the strengths and dynamics of the factors influencing enrolment decisions, and to describe possible implications both for the Canadian government and for Canadian universities offering graduate education. The research sample comprised 140 students from China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan who enrolled in graduate programs at two large Ontario universities. The research findings reveal the significant influence of academic, economic, environmental, and visa/immigration pulling factors as well as a set of negative pushing factors from third countries such as the United States. Activities related to internationalization of graduate education play a critical role in influencing the choice of a Canadian graduate school. The findings suggest that to attract the “best and brightest” international graduate students, policy makers and institutional administrators should focus on investing in research and ensuring the quality of graduate education while devoting efforts and resources to the internationalization of Canadian graduate education.
1989 and the European Social Model

The post-communist revolutions of 1989 triggered parallel transformation in the ideological landscape on both sides of the former Iron Curtain. The geo-political opening after the end of the Cold War made global integration a highly salient factor in political mobilization, opting out to replace the capital-versus-labor dynamics of conflict that had shaped the ideological families of Europe during the 20th century. This has resulted in splitting the traditional constituencies of the Left and the Right and reorganizing them along new fault-lines: those shaped by attitudes to globalization and EU enlargement (in the West) and by attitudes to EU accession and global economic competition (in the East). Thus, an ideational convergence between East and West is taking place in Europe, radically altering the structure of political competition in the early 21st century. As the new political cleavage cuts across, rather than runs along, the left—right ideological continuum, it is eroding the societal alliances that had supported the post-war European Social Model. The emerging structure of political competition enables substantive changes in the European Social Model in the direction of deepening labor commodification, thus defeating the emancipatory potential that earlier labor-market policies had contained.
Privilege and Corruption: The Problems of China's Socialist Market Economy

It is well known that China's corruption problem has become more and more serious during the period of economic reform. This paper examines China's corruption problem with the help of several simple economic models. The author proposes the concepts of implicit corruption and explicit corruption. We explain how the granting of privileges has directly created implicit corruption in China's socialist market economy. We argue that the long-term existence of the same privileged group in Chinese society has led to widespread collusion among its members, and as a result, these privileged group members, by utilizing their monopoly power, are able to seize almost all the wealth created by the ordinary Chinese people. This seizure is accomplished by means of a two-part tariff in pricing their administrative service, which is the essence of the explicit corruption. Finally, we point out that, because both implicit corruption and explicit corruption are generated by China's political system, which grants and protects privileges, unless a political reform is initiated and privileges are eliminated, China's problem of corruption will never be solved. Copyright 2002 The American Journal of Economics and Sociology.
Exploring Taiwanese High School Students’ Perceptions of and Preferences for Teacher Authority in the Earth Science Classroom with Relation to their Attitudes and Achievement

Educational researchers have suggested that the tension between the learner‐centred and teacher‐centred pedagogies represents a real classroom issue that influences teaching and learning. This issue may be particularly significant in East‐Asian countries such as Taiwan due to some cultural influences. For example, teacher authority is highly valued in the culture. Accordingly, the present study aims to develop a questionnaire—the Teacher Authority Survey (TAS), with actual and preferred versions—to explore students’ perceptions/preferences regarding teacher authority in the earth science course. The relationships among students’ perceptions/preferences for teacher authority, learning attitudes, and learning achievements were investigated. Six hundred and seventeen Taiwanese high school students were administered the TAS, the earth science attitudinal questionnaire, and achievement assessment. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses indicated that the TAS developed in this study has satisfactory validity and reliability measures. Correlation analysis indicated that the classrooms more oriented to learner‐centredness were correlated with more favourable attitudes toward learning. Moreover, three clusters of preferred teacher authority—namely, teacher‐centred authority, uncertain authority, and sharing authority—were identified. Students who preferred sharing authority tended to have more favourable learning attitudes, whereas students in the uncertain authority group seemed to have lower earth science attitudes and achievements.
Transnational tourism education and student approaches to learning: is there a mismatch?

ABSTRACT This article employs a novel approach by investigating Chinese students from a transnational tourism management programme in Hong Kong and Chinese students studying on a similar programme at the degree-awarding UK university. This quantitative study investigates whether there are any differences between two groups of students in terms of their approaches to learning, preferred learning and teaching methods and their satisfaction with the programme. The findings demonstrate significant differences between the two cohorts, indicating that a programme cannot be easily exported. The implications of the findings for the transnational curriculum, learning and teaching practice and theories of student approaches to learning are discussed.
Language loss phenomenon in Taiwan: a narrative inquiry—autobiography and phenomenological study

Taiwan is a country colonized by various regimes over the past four hundred years. The research first adopted the narrative inquiry-an autobiography on my journey to find my Taiwanese identity and mother tongue loss. Secondly, a phenomenological study on three Taiwanese families was conducted to secure an in-depth complex understanding on the scope and extent of the language loss phenomenon in Taiwan, of the thoughts and feelings about losing mother tongues, of the role of political power, the colonial history and other sociocultural contexts in the language loss phenomenon in Taiwan. Ten features and eleven themes were identified in this study. The political power and colonial history are important factors of mother tongue loss among my three participant families.
Political Connection , Corporate Governance and Preferential Bank Loan

The 2000 presidential election in Taiwan resulted in the initial political changeover from the original ruling party, Kuomintang (KMT) for more than 50 years, to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). This event provides a splendid forum to investigate the causes and consequences of firm’s political connection. We find that the quality of corporate governance and R&D intensity were negatively associated with while firm size was positively associated with the likelihood for firms to engage in political connection. The results are qualitatively similar for the two ideologically different ruling parties in their reigning periods, implying that political connection is mainly for forging cozy alliance with politicians. Moreover, political connection affects firm’s access to preferential loans with the extent of preferential treatments subject to the entrenched position of the ruling party: KMT-connected firms enjoyed a higher portion of long-term non-collateral loan in KMT ruling period while DPP-connected firms enjoyed a higher portion of short-term non-collateral loan when DPP was in power. Furthermore, good governance deters firms from engaging in political connection and the access to preferential bank loans.
Male‐on‐male sexual assault: Victim, offender and offence characteristics

Unlike male-on-female sexual assaults, little is known about the nature of male-on-male sexual assault, especially in terms of victim, offender and offence characteristics. The present paper systematically reviews the limited research into male-on-male sexual offences in order to ascertain the current state of knowledge with regards to these issues. An extensive search resulted in the identification of 15 empirical studies, with a total of 5,112 cases of male-on-male sexual assaults, for inclusion in the analyses. Findings revealed that, in the main, both victims and offenders of this type of offence tend to be young and heterosexual. Offenders tend to act alone during the assault and to be previously acquainted with the victim. Most male-on-male sexual assaults are violent in nature, taking place in either the victim's or the offender's home. Victims are subjected to various sexual acts, with anal penetration being the most frequent, and victims are frequently forced to perform oral sex on the offender. The implications of these findings, as well as limitations of the reviewed studies and directions for future research, are discussed.
An Interpersonal Perspective on Classroom Management in Secondary Classrooms in the Netherlands.

Introduction This chapter reports on results of research from 25-year program of studies investigating teacher-student interpersonal relationships in secondary classrooms. This research focuses on the role of the teacher and builds a knowledge base about managing classrooms to create effective learning environments. Starting in the Netherlands, this line of research now has developed to many other countries such as Australia, Canada, Israel, Slovenia, Turkey, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and the US. In this chapter, we will focus on Dutch research, referring when useful to the research in other countries. We begin this chapter with a discussion of the multiple perspectives that can be used to analyze teaching and then describe the communicative systems approach, the central element of the interpersonal perspective that is the focus of this chapter. We then turn to other element, the Model for Interpersonal Teacher Behavior and measurement instruments developed to map teacher interpersonal behavior. The remainder of the chapter reviews studies on diverse issues covering the development of interpersonal teacher behavior during the teaching career, problems of beginning and experienced teachers including the non-verbal behavior and the spatial position of the teacher in the class, teacher interpersonal relations and student outcomes, differences between teacher and student perceptions of the relationship, and finally interventions to improve relationships in class.
IgG Antibodies to Cyclic Citrullinated Peptides Exhibit Profiles Specific in Terms of IgG Subclasses, Fc-Glycans and a Fab-Peptide Sequence

The Fc-glycan profile of IgG1 anti-citrullinated peptide antibodies (ACPA) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients has recently been reported to be different from non-ACPA IgG1, a phenomenon which likely plays a role in RA pathogenesis. Herein we investigate the Fc-glycosylation pattern of all ACPA-IgG isotypes and simultaneously investigate in detail the IgG protein-chain sequence repertoire. IgG from serum or plasma (S/P, n = 14) and synovial fluid (SF, n = 4) from 18 ACPA-positive RA-patients was enriched using Protein G columns followed by ACPA-purification on cyclic citrullinated peptide-2 (CCP2)-coupled columns. Paired ACPA (anti-CCP2 eluted IgG) and IgG flow through (FT) fractions were analyzed by LC-MS/MS-proteomics. IgG peptides, isotypes and corresponding Fc-glycopeptides were quantified and interrogated using uni- and multivariate statistics. The Fc-glycans from the IgG4 peptide EEQFNSTYR was validated using protein A column purification. Relative to FT-IgG4, the ACPA-IgG4 Fc-glycan-profile contained lower amounts (p = 0.002) of the agalacto and asialylated core-fucosylated biantennary form (FA2) and higher content (p = 0.001) of sialylated glycans. Novel differences in the Fc-glycan-profile of ACPA-IgG1 compared to FT-IgG1 were observed in the distribution of bisected forms (n = 5, p = 0.0001, decrease) and mono-antennnary forms (n = 3, p = 0.02, increase). Our study also confirmed higher abundance of FA2 (p = 0.002) and lower abundance of afucosylated forms (n = 4, p = 0.001) in ACPA-IgG1 relative to FT-IgG1 as well as lower content of IgG2 (p = 0.0000001) and elevated content of IgG4 (p = 0.004) in ACPA compared to FT. One λ-variable peptide sequence was significantly increased in ACPA (p = 0.0001). In conclusion, the Fc-glycan profile of both ACPA-IgG1 and ACPA-IgG4 are distinct. Given that IgG1 and IgG4 have different Fc-receptor and complement binding affinities, this phenomenon likely affects ACPA effector- and immune-regulatory functions in an IgG isotype-specific manner. These findings further highlight the importance of antibody characterization in relation to functional in vivo and in vitro studies.
Financial Conditions Indexes for Asian Economies

Financial conditions indexes (FCIs) are constructed for five Asian economies, namely, Hong Kong, China; Japan; the Republic of Korea; Malaysia; and Singapore, using a principal component analysis (PCA) methodology from Hatzius et al. (2010) and quarterly data. Various financial stress indicators are included, allowing the constructed Financial Condition Index to capture important episodes in each economy’s financial history. The predictive power of the constructed FCIs is higher than that of benchmark AR models and they generally outperform single financial indicators. A decomposition of the FCIs sheds light on particular sources of financial stress. A regional FCI based on the individual economy FCIs is also constructed.
Small‐Scale Industry in the Asian‐Pacific Region

Small‐scale industry has been important in the successful development of many of the economies of East and Southeast Asia, both in cases like Japan, Korea and Taiwan where import‐substitution preceeded and/or accompanied the manufactured exporting phase, and in Hang Kong, the only essentially laissez faire economy in the region. An important general characteristic of the small‐scale sector, and one long commented upon in the Japanese case, is the prevalence of subcontracting relationships either with larger manufacturing firms or with traders. There is considerable evidence of economic efficiency in the sector, especially perhaps in the medium‐size range. Although some types of policy support appear to have paid off well, others appear not to have, so it is clear that such support must be both well thought out and carefully implemented if it is to have the hoped‐for result.