Background: More than 700 oral bacterial species have been found and together they make out the oral microbiota. Specific species have shown to correlate with various oral diseases such as caries and periodontitis, but also systemic diseases. Most studies have looked at the whole microbiota but the knowledge about tooth site-specific variation within supragingival plaque after lack of oral hygiene in healthy participants is limited.  Aim: This pilot study aimed to characterize variations in the supragingival plaque with regards to the; anterior (incisors and canines) and posterior (molars and premolars) teeth, upper and lower jaw, and left versus right tooth arches. Method: After three days of accumulating plaque, supragingival tooth biofilm was collected from 16 different tooth sites, from six healthy participants. Bacterial DNA was extracted, and 16s rRNA gene (V3-V4) was amplified by PCR and sequenced on an Illumina MiSeq platform. Sequences were blasted and taxonomically allocated using the Human Oral Microbiome Database. Result: In summary, 50 species showed a difference between the anterior and the posterior region, 30 species differed between the upper and lower jaw, and three species differed between the left and right sides.  Conclusion: This study indicates a difference in oral microbiota composition in supragingival plaque on different tooth regions. These findings emphasize the choice of method when analyzing the oral microbiota—also highlighting the importance of further understanding the dynamic forces driving local enrichment and reduction of specific species.

Thesis advisor: Sara Moorman / In this thesis, I investigate if there are regional differences in suicide acceptability attitudes in the United States and what might explain these differences, namely political views or religious beliefs. I examine four suicide attitudes from the 2018 General Social Survey: whether a person has the right to die by suicide due to an incurable disease; bankruptcy; dishonoring one’s family; or being tired of living and ready to die. I draw upon a number of theories that discuss how one’s environment can influence their attitudes and how individuals form their attitudes in general. An individual from New England was found to be more accepting of suicide than someone from another region, and individual-level political and religious views were somewhat able to explain one’s suicide acceptability attitudes. Overall, regional differences in suicide attitudes do exist, perhaps helpful for future research to better understand differences in suicide rates around the country. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Sociology.

In recent years, the rapid development of Internet finance has seized the financial market with a variety of business modes, which has had a strong impact on traditional financial institutions. This thesis analyzes the characteristics and main modes of Internet finance to explore the impact and future development of Internet finance. Due to the variety of Internet financial modes, this thesis uses a representative model of third-party payment to study the impact on residents, governments, and commercial banks. The main models used are OLS, panel data models, and VAR models. In order to explore the future development of Internet finance, this thesis not only compares the development of Internet finance in the United States, Europe, and China, but also analyzes the differences in the development of various regions. In addition, the thesis uses SWOT analysis to analyze the current environment of Internet finance, and speculates on future development trends and development measures that can be taken. Keywords: Internet finance, third-party payment, regional differences, future development

As China emerges as a major player on the international business scene, it is becoming increasingly important for Western negotiators to understand how the Chinese negotiate business deals. Existing knowledge regarding the Chinese negotiation style is largely based on considering China as one single country and the Chinese as to negotiate in one homogeneous way. Regional differences in the Chinese negotiation style have traditionally been overlooked in the literature. Guided by a negotiation analysis approach, this thesis conducts an exploratory study of the diversity of the Chinese negotiation style from a regional sub-cultural perspective. It suggests four characteristics of the Chinese negotiation style based on the frameworks of international business negotiations and the Chinese cultural roots and values. This thesis investigates five research questions, which address the characteristics of regional negotiation styles and the consequences of these different styles in relation to Sino-Western negotiations. A case study research strategy is employed to study four regions in China, including the Northern, the Eastern, the Southern and the Central region. Each case was studied using three research methods: semi-structured interviews, secondary documents, and negotiation experiments. Interview data analysis focuses on the perceptions of the Chinese negotiators, the Chinese government official, and the foreign negotiators regarding regional negotiation styles, whereas the experiments examine the students cognitive information on regional differences. The results confirm that regional negotiation styles exist in China. The findings show that Northern and Central negotiators have the Chinese negotiation style in the literature. They place emphasis on relationship and face and show low time-sensitivity and risk-taking propensity. On the contrary, Eastern and Southern negotiators are extremely task-oriented and deal-focused, which means they place little value on relationship and face in negotiations. Differences also exist between the two groups of business-oriented negotiators as Southern negotiators have higher time-sensitivity and risk-taking propensity than Eastern negotiators. Differences in historical and geographical backgrounds are found to be the key drivers in the forming of these regional negotiation styles. Importantly, the experiment results show that, in contrast to the conventional idea, Western negotiators might find it easier to negotiate with the relationship-focused Chinese than with the deal-focused Chinese. This is because Northern and Central negotiators appear to be cooperative in Sino-Western negotiations, whereas Eastern and Southern negotiators tend to use a competitive approach. This thesis provides a number of contributions to the existing literature. First, it provides a better understanding of the overall picture of the Chinese negotiation behaviour and fine-tunes the Chinese negotiation style from a regional sub-cultural perspective. This regional approach to the study of culture is not only rare in Sino-Western negotiation studies, but also uncommon in the literature of international business negotiations. Second, this research highlights the fallacious assumption of cultural homogeneity with nations. It calls for academic attention to balance inter-cultural and intra-cultural diversity in the studies of international business. Third, a step is taken towards exploring the regional values and behavioural differences in China. The findings of this research provide directions for future regional studies on other managerial issues.

Connection between distribution of socio-economic characteristics of population and economy in relation to railway network in Czechoslovakia in 1921 and 1930 Abstract Transport is closely related with social and economic processes in space and they affect each other. History of transport, and economy and history of the population are themes quite well covered. Attempts to synthetically cover history of transport and society and its activities in the space have not been numerous, if any they only referred to certain examples, although the transport, especially rail, is mentioned as an important factor of development. The diploma thesis analyzes statistical dependece of selected demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of national censuses in 1921 and 1930 and economic characteristics and agriculural units in 1930 on rail infrastructure in the Czechoslovak Republic. The key statistical data are selected census results (eg. age of population, literacy and inhabitans in the sector of the national economy), results of census of economic and agricultural units (for example units equipment) at the level of administrative units in Czechoslovakia. Spatial data (maps) are an important source, too. These allow statistical and visualization operations in the GIS. They had to be digitized in order to create map...

This thesis analyzes the tenure choice behavior of Turkish household heads over the period between 1985 and 2000, using a method of logit. The probability of owning the housing unit an individual lives in, is modeled by using demographic, labor market, migrational characteristics of the household head and the provincial differences as the explanatory variables. The results show that age and education of the household heads are positively correlated with probability of homeownership and they are the most influential factors determining the tenure choice of Turkish households and the discrepancy in the homeownership rates of the regions. The empirical analysis also displays that internal migrants have lower probabilities than natives and the length of stay matters the most for the tenure choice of internal migrants.

The focus of this dissertation is local government expenditure, where growth, quality, and equality is in the center of attention Essay 1: Sports and Local Growth in Sweden: Is a Sports Team Good for Local Economic Growth? The purpose of Essay 1 is to analyzethe effect of professional sports on the municipality’s tax base. I find no indications of a positive effect on the growth rate of per capita income from having a team in the top series. Essay 2: Equality of Quality of Day Activity Service Programs in Sweden. In this Essay we investigates the equality of the day activity service programs for people with intellectual disabilities provided by local governments in Sweden. The findings are that despite the Act concerning Support and Service for Persons with Certain Functional Impairments intended to secure equality in living conditions, the quality of day activity service programs seems to be dependent on the local government’s tax base as well as the political preferences. In Essay 3: Analysis of Cost and Quality Indicators of Day Activity Service Programs in Sweden, we analyze the distribution of observable quality indicators for daily activity service programs. We find that municipalities that conduct regular user surveys find reasons to spend more per user on average. Additionally, the probability for transitions to employment at a regular workplace is higher in municipalities where as a routine a review is made of whether each participant can be offered an internship or work. The objective of Essay 4: The Composition of Local Government Expenditure and Growth: Empirical Evidence from Sweden, is to analyze whether there is a possibility of enhancing the average income growth rate at the local level by redistributing expenditure between main functional areas of local governments, while keeping the budget restriction fixed. We find that devoting large shares of expenditure on areas that increase labor supply, such as child care are positively related to growth in income. Additionally we find that spending areas previously categorized as productive can have a non-linier relationship with growth.

Abstract The focus of this study was to examine mortality, disability, psychiatric treatment and medication utilizing register-based five-year follow-up data on all first-onset schizophrenia patients between the years 1995 to 2003 in Finland. The data were obtained from the Finnish Hospital Discharge Register, the national Finnish Causes of Death Register, and registers of pensions and reimbursed medicines. People with first-onset schizophrenia had a 4.45-fold higher mortality rate than the general population. Mortality was significantly elevated in all age groups. The most prominent single unnatural cause of death was suicide and the most common natural cause of death was circulatory diseases. Half of all first-onset schizophrenia patients retired on disability pension within the five-year follow-up period. Men retired at an earlier age and more commonly than women. Regional differences in mortality and disability retirement were evident. Patients first identified as outpatients had better outcomes than patients first identified following hospitalization. In total, 40% of outpatient-treated patients and 74% of hospital-treated patients had experienced a relapse during follow-up period. The use of second generation antipsychotics (SGAs) was associated with reduced risk of all-cause mortality, while clozapine was associated with lower suicide risk. First generation antipsychotics (FGAs) were associated with increased all-cause mortality and, particularly chlorprothixene, with increased suicide mortality. An increased likelihood of cardiovascular death was found among users of levomepromazine. In antidepressants, use of mirtazapine was associated with increased risk of suicide. In this study, the results and outcomes of first-onset schizophrenia patient treatment were analysed using register-based data. The results indicate that the outcome of first-onset schizophrenia is not good enough. Regional differences were seen in mortality and treatment practices. In clinical work more attention should be paid to health promotion and somatic screening, but also treatment of depressive symptoms. The results indicate that more effective treatments and rehabilitation are needed along with improved equality of treatment practices between hospital districts. / Tiivistelmä Tavoitteena oli tutkia skitsofreniaan sairastuneiden kuolleisuutta, työkyvyttömyyttä ja sairaalahoitoa sekä selvittää lääkehoidon yhteyttä kuolleisuuteen. Tutkimusaineistona olivat hoitoilmoitus-, kuolinsyyrekisteri-, eläkerekisteri- ja lääkekorvattavuustiedot. Tutkimusjoukkona olivat vuosien 1995-2003 aikana skitsofreniaan sairastuneet henkilöt. Seuranta-aika oli 5 vuotta. Skitsofreniaa sairastavien kuolleisuus oli 4.4 -kertainen normaaliväestöön verrattuna. Kuolleisuus oli korkeaa kaikissa ikäryhmissä sairastumisiästä riippumatta. Yleisin kuolinsyy oli itsemurha. Yleisin luonnollinen kuolinsyy olivat sydän- ja verenkiertoelinten sairaudet. Skitsofreniaan sairastuneista puolet jäi työkyvyttömyyseläkkeelle viiden vuoden seurannan aikana. Miehet eläköityivät nuorempina ja useammin kuin naiset. Kuolleisuudessa ja eläkkeelle siirtymisessä oli havaittavissa alueellista vaihtelua. Avohoidossa hoidetuilla vasta skitsofreniaan sairastuneilla oli parempi ennuste kuin sairaalahoitoon joutuneilla. Heidän kuolleisuutensa sekä sairaalahoitopäivien, relapsien ja vastentahtoisen hoidon määrät olivat alhaisemmat kuin sairaalassa hoidetuilla. Toisen polven antipsykoottien käyttö oli yhteydessä alentuneeseen kuolleisuuteen ja ensimmäisen polven antipsykootit kohonneeseen kuolemanriskiin. Klotsapiinin käyttö oli yhteydessä alhaisempaan itsemurhariskiin, kun taas masennuslääkkeistä mirtatsepiinin käyttö liittyi kohonneeseen itsemurhariskiin. Skitsofrenian hoidon kehittymisestä huolimatta sairauden ennuste on edelleen huono. Skitsofreniaa sairastavilla on yhä korkeampi kuolleisuusriski kuin muulla väestöllä. Hoitomenetelmien kehittymisestä huolimatta puolet sairastuneista on työkyvyttömyyseläkkeellä viiden vuoden kuluessa sairastumisesta. Sairauden vakavuutta osoittaa myös se, että iso osa skitsofreniaan sairastuneista tarvitsee useamman sairaalahoitojakson ja tahdosta riippumatonta hoitoa. Lisäksi useat tarvitsevat tuettua asumispalvelua. Skitsofrenian somaattisten sairauksien ja masennusoireiden arviointi vaatii edelleen huomioita. Hoitoon ja kuntoutukseen pitää panostaa ja taata, että skitsofrenian hoito olisi yhtä laadukasta koko Suomessa. Potilaat ovat eriarvoisessa asemassa, mikäli hoitokäytännöt ja mahdollisuus saada kuntoutusta vaihtelevat asuinpaikasta riippuen.

This paper examines if the labor markets in border municipalities in Sweden were affected by the COVID-19 border restrictions implemented by the Swedish and Norwegian governments. To do so, this paper uses unemployment and population data gathered from different sources to estimate results derived from using the synthetic control method. The results imply that imposing border restriction had a larger negative effect on the unemployment levels in the border municipalities, compared to non-border municipalities. Results also shows that males were more affected by this compared to females in terms of unemployment and that there is a positive trend in unemployment associated with increasing these restrictions.

The work deals with allocations of financial resources redistributing by European Union Structural funds for the running program period 2007-2013. The theoretical part describes all funds in Czech Republic, creation of application and confirmation of the application. It tries to find the mistakes, which the applicants often do and it indicates, what is the best way to prevent them. The main thesis of Structural funds is balancing economical differences particulars regions. The work describes particular allocations for NUTS II regions and their actual level of money ran out. To adjust a difference between particular regions, the poorest region should get the most of financial resources. Conclusion of the work describes, the financial resources do not redistribute in a way to minimize the economic differences between the regions, and conversely it tends to their bigger differences.