Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neural Adjustments during Repeated Braking and Throttle Actions on a Motorcycle Setup

Abstract The aim of the study was to assess neuromuscular changes during an intermittent fatiguing task designed to replicate fundamental actions and ergonomics of road race motorcycling. Twenty-eight participants repeated a sequence of submaximal brake-pulling and gas throttle actions, interspaced by one maximal brake-pulling, until failure. During the submaximal brake-pulling actions performed at 30% MVC, force fluctuations, surface EMG, maximal M-wave (M max ) and H-reflex were measured in the flexor digitorum superficialis. At the end of the task, the MVC force and associated EMG activity decreased ( P <0.001) by 46% and 26%, respectively. During the task, force fluctuation and EMG activity increased gradually (106% and 61%, respectively) with respect to the pre-fatigue state ( P ≤0.029). The M max first phase did not change ( P ≥0.524), whereas the H-reflex amplitude, normalized to M max , increased (149%; P ≤0.039). Noteworthy, the relative increase in H-reflex amplitude was correlated with the increase in EMG activity during the task ( r =0.63; P <0.001). During the 10-min recovery, MVC force and EMG activity remained depressed ( P ≤0.05) whereas H-reflex amplitude and force fluctuation returned to pre-fatigue values. In conclusion, contrarily to other studies, our results bring forward that when mimicking motorcycling brake-pulling and gas throttle actions, supraspinal neural mechanisms primarily limit the duration of the performance.
Mental Models, Decision-Making, Bargaining Power, and Institutional Change

Abstract Institutions not only impact on the behavior of individuals, but they are affected by the behavior of individuals and the mental models or practical theories that drive human action. I argue that it is important to better incorporate mental models and competing mental models into the modelling of institutional change. This needs to be coupled with integrating the role of power relationships to better explain for institutional change and related to this, economic development. Power relationships affect not only the development of mental models, which ones are developed and articulated, they also influence which ones receive public approbation or disapprobation, and which are used to drive or justify institutional design and public policy. I argue that given the particular bundle of power relationships and mental models one can predict an array of institutional designs consistent with an array of levels of economic development and wellbeing, ranging from highly efficient and dynamic to inefficient and laggard. In contrast with traditional economics, no unique set of institutions are inevitable and efficient regimes need not and often do not drive out the inefficient ones. And, in contrast with transaction cost institutional modelling, transaction costs’ role is outranking here by the importance of bargaining power, mental model availability and model literacy.
Effectiveness of Fiscal and Monetary Policies in Promoting Environmental Quality: Evidence from Five Large Emerging Economies

ABSTRACT Growing climate change concern invites policy responses from all corners. Governments and central banks in emerging market economies pose interests in environmental urgencies. This paper reexamines fiscal and monetary policies’ effects on environmental quality in five large emerging economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) from 1990 to 2018. Effects of population, economic growth, and technology on CO2 emissions are also estimated. According to the Pooled Mean Group-Autoregressive Distributed Lag estimations, Panel Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares, and Driscoll-Kraay estimations, expansionary fiscal and monetary policies significantly improve environmental quality. Technology also promotes environmental quality. However, economic and population growth degrade the natural environment in the long run. The paper also discusses potential policy implications.
How Do Ethically Minded Consumers Explain Intention-Behavior Gap? Barriers to Ethical Purchasing in Turkey

Abstract Although consumers usually have positive attitudes and intentions towards purchasing ethical products, the rate of actual ethical purchasing behavior is relatively low. This research aims to identify barriers to ethical purchasing behavior faced by ethically minded consumers. In order to determine the factors that prevent behavioral intention from translating into actual behavior, a qualitative research was conducted. In-depth interviews indicate that ethically minded consumers face four different barriers in terms of ethical purchasing behavior, which are: (1) search difficulty and availability, (2) price, (3) skepticism, and (4) functional expectations. In addition to in-depth interviews, quantitative data was obtained from a larger sample (n = 349) of ethically minded consumers in order to understand the importance of identified barriers. Descriptive statistics of the responses to Ethical Purchasing Barriers Scale items confirm that ethically minded consumers need to overcome information search difficulty, low availability, high prices, low trust and insufficient functional features which are beyond individual factors and need to be solved at the institutional level.
Overview of RelEP2 (2019–2024) findings. Is there a politicisation of and through religion in the European Parliament?

ABSTRACT This overview presents some outcomes of the survey ‘Religion in the European Parliament and in European multilevel governance’ (RelEP2) pursued during the term 2019–2024. It focuses on the way politicisation may occur in two capacities: politicisation through religion by its effects on the functioning of the European Parliament (EP) as an institution and on political belongings and cleavages; politicisation of religion as an issue or a set of actors likely to increase the conflictualisation of European politics. Politicisation is defined along three usual dimensions customised for the purpose of our research: the salience of religion in MEPs’ work, attitudes, and practices; its effects on polarisation (understood as a hardening of belongings and cleavages); its contribution to the expansion of actors and audiences involved in debating or shaping European integration. Our findings show that religion has limited salience in the functioning of the EP and in the practices of its members. Religion may work as a symbolic marker of distinction between and within existing belongings, and leads to a fragmentation rather than to the polarisation of clear-cut coalitions shaped by religious beliefs or issues. The capacity of religious actors or issues to expand the debate about European integration is not demonstrated.
Model Selection and Stopping Rules for High-Dimensional Forward Selection

Forward Selection (FS) is a popular variable selection method for linear regression. Working in a sparse high-dimensional setting, we derive suffi? cient conditions for FS to attain model-selection consistency, assuming the true model size is known. Compared with earlier results for the closely-related Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (OMP), our conditions are similar but obtained using a different argument. We also demonstrate why a submodularity-based argument is not fruitful for the purpose of correct model recovery.Since the true model size is rarely known in practice, we also derive su? fficient conditions for model-selection consistency of FS with a data-driven stopping rule, based on a sequential variant of cross-validation (CV). As a by-product of our proofs, we also have a sharp (su? fficient and almost necessary) condition for model selection consistency when using "wrapper" forward search for linear regression. This appears to be the fi? rst consistency result for any wrapper model-selection method. We illustrate intuition and demonstrate performance of our methods using simulation studies and real datasets.
Regional Integrity and Corporate Green-Technology Innovation: Evidence from Deadbeat Borrowers in China

ABSTRACT Corporate green-technology innovation (GTI), an inevitable choice for sustainable development in China and the world, has attracted widespread attention in academic circles. However, prior studies have ignored the critical impact of informal institutions on GTI. The present study introduces the concept of regional integrity, as an important informal institution. It analyzes whether, how, and the extent to which levels of regional integrity can influence GTI in firms. Based on data derived from people known to have defaulted on orders issued by the Supreme People’s Court and green patent-licensing data from listed companies between 2013 and 2020, we show that a decline in regional integrity levels can significantly inhibit GTI. We use instrumental-variable method to overcome a potential endogeneity problem; after a series of robustness tests, the conclusions remain valid. Further analysis shows that lower levels of regional integrity can hinder corporate GTI by reducing the willingness of firms to disclose environmental information and diminishing the impact of environmental regulations. We also find that, for firms whose directors and general managers do not hold concurrent posts, state-owned firms, and utility patents, lower levels of regional integrity have a more significant inhibitory effect on GTI.
A republic uncomfortable with what comes from above (God or Europe): political representation and laïcité in Europeanising France

ABSTRACT France is regularly singled out in comparative studies for its ‘laïcité’, which is assumed to lead to the conflictual separation of politics and religion. The aim of this contribution is to discuss the actual specificity of French laïcité in comparison to other member states of the European Union (EU) regarding the interactions between nation, Europe, and religion. Empirically, we rely on a survey of five French members of the European Parliament (MEPs); an analysis of parliamentary questions related to ‘religion’ and ‘laïcité’ by French MEPs between 2019 and 2023; and two policy case studies (the counter-radicalisation strategy following terrorist attacks in the years 2000–2010 and the restriction of religious freedom during the pandemic in 2020–2021). Our findings suggest that French laïcité retains its singularity as a symbolic resource even if its policy practices do not differ greatly from what happens in other member states. In national as well as in European politics, French elites are still reluctant to deal with religion in the public space and use it as a marker of national identity only in a distant, secularised, and culturalised way.
United by history, divided by God? Religion among Dutch and Belgian members of the European Parliament

ABSTRACT Even though the European project has often been claimed to be a secular one, studies point out that the European Parliament is an arena in which a more Christian-inspired version of Europe is sometimes advocated. The question we therefore address in this contribution is what role does religion play in the parliamentary work of Dutch and Belgian MEPs? Within the larger RelEP2 project, this contribution specifically focuses on MEPs from Belgium and the Netherlands, countries in which religion has historically been one of the most prominent political cleavages. Based on surveys and an analysis of MEPs parliamentary questions, we find that the old religious conflict between Christian and secular groups is no longer dominant in Belgium and the Netherlands, although Dutch MEPs from ChristenUnie and Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij do still frequently rely on Christian values in their parliamentary work. Instead, religion has taken up a more prominent role among radical right MEPs from Belgium and the Netherlands, who primarily advocate an anti-Islam stance. Taken together, these findings suggest that there are few remnants of the old religious consociation, but rather we are seeing a politicisation of Islam is a driver of Dutch and Belgian MEPs.
Keratinocyte Piezo1 drives paclitaxel-induced mechanical hypersensitivity

Recent work demonstrates that epidermal keratinocytes are critical for normal touch sensation. However, it is unknown if keratinocytes contribute to touch evoked pain and hypersensitivity following tissue injury. Here, we used inhibitory optogenetic and chemogenetic techniques to determine the extent to which keratinocyte activity contributes to the severe neuropathic pain that accompanies chemotherapeutic treatment. We found that keratinocyte inhibition largely alleviates paclitaxel-induced mechanical hypersensitivity. Furthermore, we found that paclitaxel exposure sensitizes mouse and human keratinocytes to mechanical stimulation through the keratinocyte mechanotransducer Piezo1. These findings demonstrate the contribution of non-neuronal cutaneous cells to neuropathic pain and pave the way for the development of new pain-relief strategies that target epidermal keratinocytes and Piezo1. Summary Sensitization of the keratinocyte mechanotransducer Piezo1 drives paclitaxel-induced touch pain.
The end of the ‘Iberian exception’: religion and the new Spanish far right in the European Parliament

ABSTRACT This contribution analyses the role of religion in the attitudes, beliefs, and discourses of Spanish members of the European Parliament (MEPs). The aim is to show how MEPs relate to religion in their activity, against the background of the transformations experienced by the Spanish political party system in the last decade. One of the most important changes has been the emergence of Vox, a far-right political group, in 2018. The contribution discusses the main results of the Religion in the European Parliament and in European multilevel governance II (RelEP2) survey for the Spanish case and, together with other qualitative data, analyses how religion is an issue on the political agenda of Spanish MEPs, focusing on Vox and how other parties have reacted to the emergence of the far right. The contribution identifies two fields in which religion is mobilised as a symbolic resource for political activity: a) identity politics and EU external action, and b) morality policies and issues related to gender.
Too much or not enough? Optimal level of human intracranial theta activity for rule-switching in the subthalamo-medio-prefrontal circuit

The ability to strategically switch between rules associating stimuli and responses as a function of changing environmental demands critically depend on a neural circuit including the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and the basal ganglia. However, the precise neural implementations of rule switching remain unclear. To address this issue, we recorded local field potentials from two groups of rare patients performing a rule-switching paradigm: (1) deep brain recordings of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and (2) stereo-electroencephalogram from dmPFC of drug-resistant epileptic patients. We fitted a hierarchical drift-diffusion model (HDDM) to patients’ choice behavior and found that rule-switching was associated with a shift in the starting point of evidence accumulation (z), effectively disentangling rule switches from the selection of a new response. At the neural level, we found that theta band (5-10 Hz) activity increased in dmPFC and STN during switch compared to non-switch trials, while temporally delayed and excessive levels of theta activity led to premature switch errors. This seemingly opposing impact of increased theta rhythms in successful and unsuccessful switching could be explained mechanistically using a neural HDDM, as trial-by-trial fluctuations in theta power negatively correlated with the subjects’ starting point parameter. Together, these results shed a new light on the neural mechanisms underlying the rapid reconfiguration of stimulus-response associations, revealing a Goldilocks’ effect of theta band activity on rule switching behavior.
MBD2 couples DNA methylation to transposable element silencing during male gametogenesis

Transposable element proliferation poses considerable threats to genomes. A previously unknown methyl reader, MBD2, represses transposable elements during male gametogenesis. MBD2 acts with a high degree of redundancy with other silencing pathways, together preserving genome stability. DNA methylation is an essential component of transposable element (TE) silencing, yet the mechanism by which methylation causes transcriptional repression remains poorly understood^ 1 – 5 . Here we study the Arabidopsis thaliana Methyl-CpG Binding Domain (MBD) proteins MBD1, MBD2 and MBD4 and show that MBD2 acts as a TE repressor during male gametogenesis. MBD2 bound chromatin regions containing high levels of CG methylation, and MBD2 was capable of silencing the FWA gene when tethered to its promoter. MBD2 loss caused activation at a small subset of TEs in the vegetative cell of mature pollen without affecting DNA methylation levels, demonstrating that MBD2-mediated silencing acts strictly downstream of DNA methylation. TE activation in mbd2 became more significant in the mbd5 mbd6 and adcp1 mutant backgrounds, suggesting that MBD2 acts redundantly with other silencing pathways to repress TEs. Overall, our study identifies MBD2 as a methyl reader that acts downstream of DNA methylation to silence TEs during male gametogenesis.
Pan-cancer Analysis Reveals m6A Variation and Cell-specific Regulatory Network in Different Cancer Types

As the most abundant mRNA modification in mRNA, N6-methyladenosine (m6A) plays a crucial role in RNA fate, impacting cellular and physiological processes in various tumor types. However, our understanding of the function and role of the m6A methylome in tumor heterogeneity remains limited. Herein, we collected and analyzed m6A methylomes across nine human tissues from 97 m6A-seq and RNA-seq samples. Our findings demonstrate that m6A exhibits different heterogeneity in most tumor tissues compared to normal tissues, which contributes to the diverse clinical outcomes in different cancer types. We also found that the cancer type-specific m6A level regulated the expression of different cancer-related genes in distinct cancer types. Utilizing a novel and reliable method called “m6A-express”, we predicted m6A– regulated genes and revealed that cancer type-specific m6A-regulated genes contributed to the prognosis, tumor origin and infiltration level of immune cells in diverse patient populations. Furthermore, we identified cell-specific m6A regulators that regulate cancer-specific m6A and constructed a regulatory network. Experimental validation was performed, confirming that the cell-specific m6A regulator CAPRIN1 controls the m6A level of TP53. Overall, our work reveals the clinical relevance of m6A in various tumor tissues and explains how such heterogeneity is established. These results further suggest the potential of m6A for cancer precision medicine for patients with different cancer types.
Larval growth rate affects wing shape more than eyespot size in the seasonally polyphenic butterfly Melanitis leda

Butterflies often show adaptive phenotypic plasticity where environmental cues during early stages are used to produce a phenotype that maximizes fitness in the environment experienced by adults. Many tropical satyrine butterflies (Nymphalidae: Satyrinae) are seasonally polyphenic and produce distinct wet- and dry-season form adults providing tight environment-phenotype matching in seasonal environments. Dry-season forms, which are expressed in the dry season, can be induced in the laboratory by growing larvae at low temperatures or on poor food quality. Since both these factors also tend to reduce larval growth rate, larval growth rate may be an internal cue that translates the environmental cues into the expression of phenotypes. If this is the case, we predict that slower-growing larvae would be more likely to develop a dry-season phenotype. To test this hypothesis, we measured both larval growth rate and adult phenotype (eyespot size and wing shape) of individuals of the common evening brown butterfly (Melanitis leda), reared at various temperatures and on various host-plant species. We found that among treatments, larvae with lower growth rates (low temperature, particular host plants) were more likely to develop dry-season phenotypes (small eyespots, falcate wing tips), but within treatments, larval growth rate was mainly linked to wing shape, not eyespot size. These relationships tended to be stronger for males than females as males showed a wider range of eyespot sizes and wing shapes. Overall, only plasticity in wing shape appears to be (partly) mediated by larval growth, and in a sex-specific manner.
Shared features underlying compact genomes and extreme habitat use in chironomid midges

Non-biting midges (family Chironomidae) are found throughout the world in a diverse array of aquatic and terrestrial habitats, can often tolerate harsh conditions such as hypoxia or desiccation, and have consistently compact genomes. Yet we know little about the shared molecular basis for these attributes and how they have evolved across the family. Here, we address these questions by first creating high-quality, annotated reference assemblies for Tanytarsus gracilentus (subfamily Chironominae, tribe Tanytarsini) and Parochlus steinenii (subfamily Podonominae). Using these and other publicly available assemblies, we created a time-calibrated phylogenomic tree for family Chironomidae with outgroups from order Diptera. We used this phylogeny to test for features associated with compact genomes, as well as examining patterns of gene family evolution and positive selection that may underlie chironomid habitat tolerances. Our results suggest that compact genomes evolved in the most recent common ancestor of Chironomidae and Ceratopogonidae, and that this occurred mainly through reductions in non-coding regions (introns, intergenic sequences, and repeat elements). Gene families that significantly expanded in Chironomidae included biological processes that may relate to tolerance of stressful environments, such as temperature homeostasis, inflammatory response, melanization defense response, and trehalose transport. We identified a number of genes with evidence for positive selection in Chironomidae, notably sulfonylurea receptor, peroxiredoxin-1, and protein kinase D. Our results help to understand the genomic basis for the small genomes and extreme habitat use in this widely distributed group. Significance Statement Chironomid midges are known for having small genomes and being able to tolerate many forms of environmental stress, yet little is known of the shared features of their genomes that may underlie these traits. We found that reductions in non-coding regions coincide with small chironomid genomes, and we identified duplicated and/or selected genes that may equip chironomids to tolerate harsh conditions. These results describe the key genomic changes in chironomid midges that may explain their ability to inhabit a range of extreme habitats across the world.