Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Perceptions of Mobile Phone Use in Public Settings: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

This study entailed a cross-cultural comparison of perceptions of mobile phone use in select public settings, including a movie theater, restaurant, bus, grocery store, classroom, and sidewalk. A sample of participants from the U.S. Mainland, Hawaii, Japan, Taiwan, and Sweden was surveyed for social acceptability assessments of talking on a mobile phone in each of these locations. As hypothesized, settings involving collective attention were considered least acceptable for talking on a mobile phone. Results also revealed numerous cultural similarities and differences. Taiwanese participants tended to report more tolerance for mobile phone use in a theater, restaurant, and classroom than did participants from the other cultural groupings. Japanese participants also tended to be more tolerant of mobile phone use in a classroom, but less tolerant of use on a sidewalk and on a bus than were the other participants. The discussion offers theoretical implications of the findings.
Dynamic causal linkages between the US stock market and the stock markets of the East Asian economies

This paper presents an empirical study in the dynamic causal relationships between each of national stock market of the East Asian economies (Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea (Rep. of), and Taiwan) and the U.S. stock market. This paper complements the existing studies by analyzing the dynamic causal relationship between the U.S. stock market and the East Asian stock markets at different time scales by employing wavelet analysis. Analyses of pre-crisis, East Asian financial crisis (year 1997-2000), inter-crisis and the subprime mortgage crisis (year 2007-2009) periods are conducted to compare the international transmission mechanism of stock market movements. The main empirical insight is that the causal relationship is stronger at finer time scales, whereas the relationship is less and less apparent at longer time horizons. The empirical evidence of the current study indicates that the U.S. stock market Granger-causes almost all the East Asian stock markets regardless of non-crisis periods or not, yet it applies only to the later two sub-sample periods. In general, the empirical results show that short-run causal linkages of the U.S. market to the East Asian economies are more dominant than the causal linkages of the other direction. The results also show that those stock markets are more integrated after the East Asian financial crisis period. Innovations in the U.S. market are transmitted to the stock markets of the East Asian economies in a similar fashion, whereas the degree of responsiveness of those East Asian stock markets differs between the inter-crisis period and the subprime mortgage crisis.
Organisational commitment, job satisfaction and profitability: A cross-national analysis of hotel workers in Mexico and China

Organisational commitment and job satisfaction are important measures of employee performance in the workplace. Although employee commitment and job satisfaction have been studied extensively, their links with organisational performance have not often been considered. The research establishes measures of commitment and job satisfaction using data obtained from workers in a multi-national hotel chain. Commitment is conceptualised by means of an adapted OCQ. Job satisfaction is conceptualised by means of an adapted MSQ. The measures are then used to compare the commitment and job satisfaction of workers in hotels in Mexico and China, judged to be well-performing and poorly-performing national hotel groups respectively. Links between the measures and organisational performance are explored. The resulting adapted measures are shown to measure effectively the commitment and job satisfaction of employees in the hotel industry. Using the measures to compare hotel groups in Mexico and China shows significantly different levels of value commitment and intrinsic job satisfaction between low and high performing hotels. Commitment is shown to be a significant predictor of financial performance and guest satisfaction. Job satisfaction is a significant, though weak, predictor of financial performance, but is not significant in terms of guest satisfaction.
Double-peak specific heat and spin freezing in the spin-2 triangular lattice antiferromagnet 
FeAl2Se4

Kunkun Li,1,2 Shifeng Jin,1,3 Jiangang Guo,1 Yanping Xu,1 Yixi Su,5 Erxi Feng,5 Yu Liu,6 Shengqiang Zhou,6 Tianping Ying,7 Shiyan Li,7,9,10 Ziqiang Wang,11,* Gang Chen,7,8,10,† and Xiaolong Chen1,3,4,‡ 1Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China 2University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China 3School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 101408, China 4Collaborative Innovation Center of Quantum Matter, Beijing, China 5Juelich Centre for Neutron Science (JCNS) at Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Zentrum (MLZ), Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH, Lichtenbergstr. 1, 85747 Garching, Germany 6Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Institute of Ion Beam Physics and Materials Research, Bautzner Landstraße 400, 01328 Dresden, Germany 7State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China 8Department of Physics and Center of Theoretical and Computational Physics, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, China 9Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China 10Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China 11Department of Physics, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts 02467, USA
Expression of PADI4 during rheumatoid arthritis development

Peptidyl deiminase 4 (PADI4) catalyzes peptidylarginine to citrulline. The gene encoding PADI4 is associated with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in some populations. The levels of PADI4, anti-CCP, and RF were measured in the blood of patients suffering from RA and osteoarthritis (OA) for less than six months using ELISA. The levels were also measured in the blood of patients that have been diagnosed with RA for more than three years. As controls, samples from healthy subjects or patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS), epidemic pleurodynia (EP), OA, psoriatic arthritis (PA), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), gouty arthritis (GA), or Still’s disease (ST) were also assayed. Of patients with early RA, 68.7% had significantly higher levels of PADI4 than patients with early OA. Patients with RA for a longer period of time had a higher expression of PADI4 than patients with SLE, ST, and GA, but they were similar to healthy subjects or patients with AS, EP, OA, or PA. The level of PADI4 was significantly correlated to the levels of RF and anti-CCP in blood samples of RA, but not in the samples of other diseases and those of healthy subjects. The level of PADI4 relates to the disease activity and clinical performance.
Citizen CameraWitnessing: A Case Study of the Umbrella Movement

Citizen camera-witness is a new concept by which to describe using mobile camera phone to engage in civic expression. I argue that the meaning of this concept should not be limited to painful testimony; instead, it is a mode of civic camera-mediated mass self-testimony to brutality. The use of mobile phone recordings in Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement is examined to understand how mobile cameras are employed as personal witnessing devices to provide recordings to indict unjust events and engage others in the civic movement. This study has examined the Facebook posts and You Tube videos of the Umbrella Movement between September 22, 2014 and December 22, 2014. The results suggest that the camera phone not only contributes to witnessing the brutal repression of the state, but also witnesses the beauty of the movement, and provides a testimony that allows for rituals to develop and semi-codes to be transformed.
Factors Influencing Intention to Engage in Long-term Care Services among Nursing Aide Trainees and the General Public

Abstract—Rapid aging and depopulation could lead to serious problems, including workforce shortages and health expenditure costs. The current and predicted future LTC workforce shortages could be a real threat to Taiwan’s society. By means of comparison of data from 144 nursing aide trainees and 727 general public, the main purpose of the present study was to determine whether there were any notable differences between the two groups toward engaging in LTC services. Moreover, this study focused on recognizing the attributes of the general public who had the willingness to take LTC jobs but continue to ride the fence. A self-developed questionnaire was designed based on Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior model. After conducting exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and reliability analysis, the questionnaire was a reliable and valid instrument for both nursing aide trainees and the general public. The main results were as follows: Firstly, nearly 70% of nursing aide trainees showed interest in LTC jobs. Most of them were middle-aged female (M = 46.85, SD = 9.31), had a high school diploma or lower, had unrelated work experience in healthcare, and were mostly unemployed. The most common reason for attending the LTC training program was to gain skills in a particular field. The second most common reason was to obtain the license. The third and fourth reasons were to be interested in caring for people and to increase income. The three major reasons that might push them to leave LTC jobs were physical exhaustion, payment is bad, and being looked down on. Secondly, the variables that best-predicted nursing aide trainees’ intention to engage in LTC services were having personal willingness, perceived behavior control, with high school diploma or lower, and supported from family and friends. Finally, only 11.80% of the general public reported having interest in LTC jobs (the disapproval rating was 50% for the general public). In comparison to nursing aide trainees who showed interest in LTC settings, 64.8% of the new workforce for LTC among the general public was male and had an associate degree, 54.8% had relevant healthcare experience, 67.1% was currently employed, and they were younger (M = 32.19, SD = 13.19) and unmarried (66.3%). Furthermore, the most commonly reason for the new workforce to engage in LTC jobs were to gain skills in a particular field. The second priority was to be interested in caring for people. The third and fourth most reasons were to give back to society and to increase income, respectively. The top five most commonly reasons for the new workforce to quitting LTC jobs were listed as follows: physical exhaustion, being looked down on, excessive working hours, payment is bad, and excessive job stress.
Morphological and Acoustic Comparisons of Microhyla ornata, M. fissipes, and M. okinavensis (Anura: Microhylidae)

ABSTRACT Morphological and acoustic comparisons were made for three morphologically poorly defined Microhyla species, M. ornata, M. fissipes, and M. okinavensis on the basis of samples from south India, Taiwan, and three islands (Iriomotejima, Okinawajima, and Amamioshima) of the Ryukyu Archipelago, Japan. These three species differed from each other in various external characters, and could be separated by multivariate discriminant analyses. Mean SVL of males was significantly smaller in M. fissipes than in M. ornata and M. okinavensis. The length of the hindlimb relative to SVL increased from west (India) to east (Amamioshima). Microhyla ornata showed a remarkable diurnal-nocturnal color change and had more extensive mottling on the throat and venter than the other two species. The Iriomotejima population of M. okinavensis had a unique ventral mottling pattern that differed from the patterns in the other two conspecific populations examined, as well as from those in M. ornata and M. fissipes. Excepting the Iriomotejima population, M. okinavensis had more extensive toe webbing than M. ornata and M. fissipes. Temporal acoustic features, especially pulse repetition rate, clearly discriminated the three species. The taxonomic status of the Iriomotejima population deserves future investigation.
How China Detects and Blocks Shadowsocks

Shadowsocks is one of the most popular circumvention tools in China. Since May 2019, there have been numerous anecdotal reports of the blocking of Shadowsocks from Chinese users. In this study, we reveal how the Great Firewall of China (GFW) detects and blocks Shadowsocks and its variants. Using measurement experiments, we find that the GFW uses the length and entropy of the first data packet in each connection to identify probable Shadowsocks traffic, then sends seven different types of active probes, in different stages, to the corresponding servers to test whether its guess is correct. We developed a prober simulator to analyze the effect of different types of probes on various Shadowsocks implementations, and used it to infer what vulnerabilities are exploited by the censor. We fingerprinted the probers and found differences relative to previous work on active probing. A network-level side channel reveals that the probers, which use thousands of IP addresses, are likely controlled by a set of centralized structures. Based on our gained understanding, we present a temporary workaround that successfully mitigates the traffic analysis attack by the GFW. We further discuss essential strategies to defend against active probing. We responsibly disclosed our findings and suggestions to Shadowsocks developers, which has led to more censorship-resistant tools.
Cryptic species diversity of ochtodenes-producing Portieria species (Gigartinales, Rhodophyta) from the northwest Pacific

Red algae in the genus Portieria produce secondary halogenated monoterpenes, which are effective deterrents against herbivores, as secondary metabolites. Portieria hornemannii samples from various sites contain different concentrations of these metabolites, suggesting the existence of genetic diversity and cryptic species. To evaluate the genetic diversity and species distribution of Portieria in the northwest Pacific, we analyzed rbcL sequences of samples collected from Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. The phylogenetic analysis revealed five distinct lineages at the species level. One was recognized as Portieria japonica and the others were cryptic lineages in P. hornemannii. The rbcL haplotypes of P. japonica were genetically fragmented into two subgroups of geographic origin; Korean and Japanese. The four cryptic lineages within P. hornemannii were also geographically structured at a much finer scale. These results suggest that different genetic lineages in Portieria evolved from variable microhabitats, consequently influencing secondary metabolites. Further study is required to resolve the relationships between genetic and secondary metabolite variations in Portieria.
NUTRIENT DISTRIBUTIONS IN THE EAST CHINA SEA AND CHANGES OVER THE LAST 25 YEARS

A survey of seasonal variations in the distribution of nutrients along a standard section of the East China Sea was carried out between 1991 and 2015. Here, interannual variations of five key nutrients are analyzed and discussed in the context of possible controlling factors, with special attention given to seasonal variations recorded over the year 2015. Results indicate that concentrations of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN), phosphate (DIP) and silicate (DSi) exhibit gradual increases over this period. Measured concentrations of DIN, DIP and DSi were 5.34–11.87 μmol/L, 0.31–0.53 μmol/L and 11.12-23.15 μmol/L, respectively. Since 1996, concentrations of DIN, DIP and DSi have increased significantly. The annual average concentration of DIN , DIP and DSi in the East China Sea were ~2 times greater in 2015 than in 1991, respectively. The N/P ratio exhibits an increasing trend followed by steady-state asymmetric M-type fluctuations. Conversely, the Si/N ratio is generally stable and exhibits an asymmetric W-type fluctuation. The distribution of nutrients in the East China Sea exhibits clear seasonal variations, with phosphate and inorganic nitrogen contents generally higher in autumn and winter than in spring and summer. Silicate content is higher in summer and winter than in autumn and spring. The main source of nutrients into the East China Sea is the Yangtze River plume, with the Taiwan Warm Current providing an additional, secondary source. The combined effects of the Yangtze River plume and the Taiwan Warm Current enforce a decreasing trend in nutrient concentrations from west to east.
How did the multi-fiber agreement affect the level of specialization in the textile sector of the countries?

This paper aims to reveal the effects of the Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA), which determines the course of the textile trade and the global competition on countries' levels of specialization. In this perspective, we analyze the levels of specialization (competition) of the 10 countries whose exports were the highest in the sector before and after the complete abolition of quotas in a comparatively. In the analyses, we use the Index of Contribution to Trade Balance (ICBT), the Export-Import Ratio Index (EIRI) and the Michaely Index (MI) to measure the progress of countries' level of specialization in the sector by years. All of these indices indicate that the highest levels of specialization in the sector were Pakistan, India and Turkey before the end of the MFA. After 2005, when quotas were completely eliminated, China and Hong Kong increased their level of expertise in the sector and separated positively from other countries. In this context, China achieved a global competitive advantage in the sector, especially with high level of specialization.
“Shezing” a low cost chow-chow [Sechium edule (Jacq) Swartz] storage by Meyor tribes in Anjaw district, Arunachal Pradesh

Since ancient time, different methods of storage for locally produced goods have been practised using traditional methods in India. Although, difference in techniques of storage are result of difference in knowledge of cultures, their attentiveness to geographic and climatic conditions. “Shezing” is the local storage method for Chow Chow in Anjaw-district of Arunachal Pradesh and is borne to meet the need and requirements during cold winter periods as well as lean period. Chow Chow is highly perishable vegetables with a very short shelf life. Through “shezing” the vegetables are stored in square shaped underground pit near to the household. This storage method is cost effective way of preservation and storage at the same time, it helps in increasing farmer income with absolute no expenditure in power supply, easy construction, maintenance environment friendly and fresh availability of vegetables for 56 months in cold winter and lean periods. This cumbersome practice of storage is still practised and prefer by the farmers of Anjaw-district for earning extra income during off season. This paper highlighted the methods and farmer friendly cost-effective practices of “Shezing”.
Characterization of Newly Emerging Newcastle Disease Virus Isolates from the People's Republic of China and Taiwan

ABSTRACT Seven Newcastle disease (ND) virus (NDV) isolates which were recovered from ND outbreaks in chicken and pigeon flocks in China and Taiwan between 1996 and 2000 were genotypically and pathotypically characterized. By phylogenetic analysis of the fusion protein genes, isolates Ch-A7/96, Ch/98-3, Ch/99, Ch/2000, and TW/2000 were placed into two novel subgenotypes, VIIc and VIId. Isolate Ch/98-1 was grouped into subgenotype VIb, while Ch-W6/96 was proven to be a mixture of isolates Ch-A7/96 and Ch/98-1. These isolates were pathotyped as viscerotropic velogenic for Ch/98-3, Ch/99, Ch/2000, and TW/2000; neurotropic velogenic for Ch-A7/96; and mesogenic for Ch/98-1. Three separate, comparative, genetic analyses of the F genes, including genetic distance measurement, phylogenetic tree analysis, and residue substitution analysis, were performed with our isolates and selected NDV strains from GenBank. Results showed that the close genetic similarity provided evidence for the epidemiological linkage between the outbreaks in China and Taiwan and that the 1990s outbreaks in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe constituted the fourth panzootic of ND. In combination with epidemiological analysis, an evolutionary model of the NDV strains, representative of the direction of transmission within the NDV strains, was proposed, and epidemiology of NDV transmission was evaluated with emphasis on molecular aspects. Finally, a cross-protective experiment indicated that at least one strain (Ch-A7/96) among our NDV isolates was an antigenic variant, responsible for recent outbreaks of ND in vaccinated chicken flocks.
Association analyses of East Asian individuals and trans‐ancestry analyses with European individuals reveal new loci associated with cholesterol and triglyceride levels

&NA; Large‐scale meta‐analyses of genome‐wide association studies (GWAS) have identified >175 loci associated with fasting cholesterol levels, including total cholesterol (TC), high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL‐C), low‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL‐C), and triglycerides (TG). With differences in linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure and allele frequencies between ancestry groups, studies in additional large samples may detect new associations. We conducted staged GWAS meta‐analyses in up to 69,414 East Asian individuals from 24 studies with participants from Japan, the Philippines, Korea, China, Singapore, and Taiwan. These meta‐analyses identified (P < 5 × 10−8) three novel loci associated with HDL‐C near CD163‐APOBEC1 (P = 7.4 × 10−9), NCOA2 (P = 1.6 × 10−8), and NID2‐PTGDR (P = 4.2 × 10−8), and one novel locus associated with TG near WDR11‐FGFR2 (P = 2.7 × 10−10). Conditional analyses identified a second signal near CD163‐APOBEC1. We then combined results from the East Asian meta‐analysis with association results from up to 187,365 European individuals from the Global Lipids Genetics Consortium in a trans‐ancestry meta‐analysis. This analysis identified (log10Bayes Factor ≥6.1) eight additional novel lipid loci. Among the twelve total loci identified, the index variants at eight loci have demonstrated at least nominal significance with other metabolic traits in prior studies, and two loci exhibited coincident eQTLs (P < 1 × 10−5) in subcutaneous adipose tissue for BPTF and PDGFC. Taken together, these analyses identified multiple novel lipid loci, providing new potential therapeutic targets.