Explore the vast range of titles available.

This paper seeks to improve our understanding of passengers’ behavioral intention by proposing an integrated framework from the attitudinal perspective. According to the literature in marketing research, we establish a causal relationship model that considers “service quality-satisfaction-behavioral intentions” paradigm, perceived value theory, and switching barrier theory. Exploring passengers’ behavioral intention from satisfaction and perceived value help to understand how passengers are attracted by the company, while switching barriers assist in realizing how passengers are “locked” into a relationship with the current company. Furthermore, in order to capture the nature of service quality, we adopt a hierarchical factor structure which serves service quality as the higher-order factor. In this study, coach industry is selected as our research subject. The empirical results, as hypothesized, show that all causal relationships are statistically significant, and perceived value us the most important predictor of satisfaction and passengers’ behavioral intention. In conclusion, the managerial implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Prediction of human physical traits and demographic information from genomic data challenges privacy and data deidentification in personalized medicine. To explore the current capabilities of phenotype-based genomic identification, we applied whole-genome sequencing, detailed phenotyping, and statistical modeling to predict biometric traits in a cohort of 1,061 participants of diverse ancestry. Individually, for a large fraction of the traits, their predictive accuracy beyond ancestry and demographic information is limited. However, we have developed a maximum entropy algorithm that integrates multiple predictions to determine which genomic samples and phenotype measurements originate from the same person. Using this algorithm, we have reidentified an average of >8 of 10 held-out individuals in an ethnically mixed cohort and an average of 5 of either 10 African Americans or 10 Europeans. This work challenges current conceptions of personal privacy and may have far-reaching ethical and legal implications.

We present a 2D-stitched, 316MP, 120FPS, high dynamic range CMOS image sensor with 92 CML output ports operating at a cumulative date rate of 515 Gbit/s. The total die size is 9.92 cm × 8.31 cm and the chip is fabricated in a 65 nm, 4 metal BSI process with an overall power consumption of 23 W. A 4.3 µm dual-gain pixel has a high and low conversion gain full well of 6600e- and 41,000e-, respectively, with a total high gain temporal noise of 1.8e- achieving a composite dynamic range of 87 dB.

Following up on recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of Crohn's disease, we investigated 50 previously reported susceptibility loci in a German sample of individuals with Crohn's disease ( n = 1,850) or ulcerative colitis ( n = 1,103) and healthy controls ( n = 1,817). Among these loci, we identified variants in 3p21.31, NKX2-3 and CCNY as susceptibility factors for both diseases, whereas variants in PTPN2 , HERC2 and STAT3 were associated only with ulcerative colitis in our sample collection.

Circulating cell-free fetal DNA has enabled non-invasive prenatal fetal aneuploidy testing without direct discrimination of the maternal and fetal DNA. Testing may be improved by specifically enriching the sample material for fetal DNA. DNA methylation may allow for such a separation of DNA; however, this depends on knowledge of the methylomes of circulating cell-free DNA and its cellular contributors. We perform whole genome bisulfite sequencing on a set of unmatched samples including circulating cell-free DNA from non-pregnant and pregnant female donors and genomic DNA from maternal buffy coat and placenta samples. We find CpG cytosines within longer fragments are more likely to be methylated. Comparison of the methylomes of placenta and non-pregnant circulating cell-free DNA reveal many of the 51,259 identified differentially methylated regions are located in domains exhibiting consistent placenta hypomethylation across millions of consecutive bases. We find these placenta hypomethylated domains are consistently located within regions exhibiting low CpG and gene density. Differentially methylated regions identified when comparing placenta to non-pregnant circulating cell-free DNA are recapitulated in pregnant circulating cell-free DNA, confirming the ability to detect differential methylation in circulating cell-free DNA mixtures. We generate methylome maps for four sample types at single-base resolution, identify a link between DNA methylation and fragment length in circulating cell-free DNA, identify differentially methylated regions between sample groups, and uncover the presence of megabase-size placenta hypomethylated domains.

Circulating cell-free (ccf) fetal DNA comprises 3-20% of all the cell-free DNA present in maternal plasma. Numerous research and clinical studies have described the analysis of ccf DNA using next generation sequencing for the detection of fetal aneuploidies with high sensitivity and specificity. We sought to extend the utility of this approach by assessing semi-automated library preparation, higher sample multiplexing during sequencing, and improved bioinformatic tools to enable a higher throughput, more efficient assay while maintaining or improving clinical performance. Whole blood (10mL) was collected from pregnant female donors and plasma separated using centrifugation. Ccf DNA was extracted using column-based methods. Libraries were prepared using an optimized semi-automated library preparation method and sequenced on an Illumina HiSeq2000 sequencer in a 12-plex format. Z-scores were calculated for affected chromosomes using a robust method after normalization and genomic segment filtering. Classification was based upon a standard normal transformed cutoff value of z = 3 for chromosome 21 and z = 3.95 for chromosomes 18 and 13. Two parallel assay development studies using a total of more than 1900 ccf DNA samples were performed to evaluate the technical feasibility of automating library preparation and increasing the sample multiplexing level. These processes were subsequently combined and a study of 1587 samples was completed to verify the stability of the process-optimized assay. Finally, an unblinded clinical evaluation of 1269 euploid and aneuploid samples utilizing this high-throughput assay coupled to improved bioinformatic procedures was performed. We were able to correctly detect all aneuploid cases with extremely low false positive rates of 0.09%, <0.01%, and 0.08% for trisomies 21, 18, and 13, respectively. These data suggest that the developed laboratory methods in concert with improved bioinformatic approaches enable higher sample throughput while maintaining high classification accuracy.

Cross-efficiency evaluation, an extension of data envelopment analysis (DEA), can eliminate unrealistic weighing schemes and provide a ranking for decision making units (DMUs). In the literature, the determination of input and output weights uniquely receives more attentions. However, the problem of choosing the aggressive (minimal) or benevolent (maximal) formulation for decision-making might still remain. In this paper, we develop a procedure to perform cross-efficiency evaluation without the need to make any specific choice of DEA weights. The proposed procedure takes into account the aggressive and benevolent formulations at the same time, and the choice of DEA weights can then be avoided. Consequently, a number of cross-efficiency intervals is obtained for each DMU. The entropy, which is based on information theory, is an effective tool to measure the uncertainty. We then utilize the entropy to construct a numerical index for DMUs with cross-efficiency intervals. A mathematical program is proposed to find the optimal entropy values of DMUs for comparison. With the derived entropy value, we can rank DMUs accordingly. Two examples are illustrated to show the effectiveness of the idea proposed in this paper.

A man in his 60s presented to the emergency department with marked bilateral preauricular swelling, associated with jaw claudication, temporal tenderness and blurred vision. He was immediately treated for temporal arteritis by commencing systemic corticosteroids. A temporal artery biopsy showed no evidence of vasculitis. However, positron emission tomography-CT demonstrated increased uptake in the medium-large vessels, including the left superficial temporal artery and aorta. This case illustrates that facial swelling may be an under-recognised presenting feature of temporal arteritis, and that a negative temporal artery biopsy does not always rule out a diagnosis of temporal arteritis, and should not delay treatment.

With an overall prevalence of 10–20%, gallstone disease (cholelithiasis) represents one of the most frequent and economically relevant health problems of industrialized countries 1 , 2 . We performed an association scan of >500,000 SNPs in 280 individuals with gallstones and 360 controls. A follow-up study of the 235 most significant SNPs in 1,105 affected individuals and 873 controls replicated the disease association of SNP A-1791411 in ABCG8 (allelic P value P CCA = 4.1 × 10 −9 ), which was subsequently attributed to coding variant rs11887534 (D19H). Additional replication was achieved in 728 German ( P = 2.8 × 10 −7 ) and 167 Chilean subjects ( P = 0.02). The overall odds ratio for D19H carriership was 2.2 (95% confidence interval: 1.8–2.6, P = 1.4 × 10 −14 ) in the full German sample. Association was stronger in subjects with cholesterol gallstones (odds ratio = 3.3), suggesting that His19 might be associated with a more efficient transport of cholesterol into the bile.