Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploring the Heterogeneous Effects of Ecological and Structural Factors on Intensifying Neighborhood Economic Polarization

ABSTRACT Scholars have recently reported the rise of neighborhoods at the extremes of the income distribution—both affluent and poor neighborhoods—and the loss of middle- or mixed-income neighborhoods. As the majority of studies on neighborhood change have focused on the cyclical process of neighborhood change, especially for poor or disadvantaged neighborhoods, this study contributes to the literature by exploring the mechanisms of affluent and poor neighborhoods’ persistence in their economic status over time. First, this research descriptively shows that affluent and poor neighborhoods within the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) as of 2010 were likely to retain their economic status during the 2000s, whereas other, relatively middle-income neighborhoods presented more diverse economic transitions. Second, by employing multilevel regression models, this research finds that several ecological and structural factors heterogeneously affect affluent and poor neighborhoods. The results suggest that affluent neighborhoods tend to respond more effectively to the decline process generated by ecological, economic, and structural forces than poor neighborhoods do. This study contributes to the urban neighborhood change scholarship by integrating different theoretical perspectives from the social science literature to understand how neighborhoods at the extremes of the income distribution are likely to persist in their economic status.
High-Performance and Hardware-Efficient Odd-Even Based Merge Sorter

SUMMARY Data sorting is an important operation in computer science. It is extensively used in several applications such as database and searching. While high-performance sorting accelerators are in demand, it is very important to pay attention to the hardware resources for such kind of high-performance sorters. In this paper, we propose three FPGA based architectures to accelerate sorting operation based on the merge sorting algorithm. We call our proposals as WMS: Wide Merge Sorter, EHMS: E ﬃ cient Hardware Merge Sorter, and EHMSP: E ﬃ cient Hardware Merge Sorter Plus. We target the Virtex UltraScale FPGA device. Evaluation results show that our proposed merge sorters maintain both the high-performance and cost-e ﬀ ective properties. While using much fewer hardware resources, our proposed merge sorters achieve higher performance compared to the state-of-the-art. For instance, with 256 sorted records are produced per cycle, implementation results of proposed EHMS show a signiﬁcant reduction in the required number of Flip Flops (FFs) and Look-Up Tables (LUTs) to about 66% and 79%, respectively over the state-of-the-art merge sorter. Moreover, while requiring fewer hardware resources, EHMS achieves about 1.4x higher throughput than the state-of-the-art merge sorter. For the same number of produced records, proposed WMS also achieves about 1.6x throughput improvement over the state-of-the-art while requiring about 81% of FFs and 76% of LUTs needed by the state-of-the-art sorter.
Simulating electrostatic effects on electronic transitions in proteins

Biopolymer fluorescence in biology and biochemistry is increasingly used for characterising equilibrium, dynamics and imaging. This is typically done by monitoring wavelength and intensity changes without necessarily knowing what causes such changes in detail. Simulations have been at the core of the considerable recent progress in improving the microscopic understanding of wavelength and quenching of fluorescence intensity in biopolymers. This review focuses on one of the most used intrinsic probes for protein behaviour, tryptophan (Trp), which is arguably now one of the best understood probes of internal structure and dynamics for proteins – despite its reputation to the contrary. In this review, we highlight selected classical molecular dynamics in combination with quantum mechanics simulations from our group and others during the past 20 years that support this view. The work includes simulations of time-dependent wavelength shifts in solvents and proteins, fluorescence-quenching rates, dielectric compensation by water, heterogeneity of quenching rates and applications to protein folding.
The Effects of Acute Stress on the Neural Correlates of Decision-Making

Stress has been defined in many ways but is typically a response to a change in the body’s current state. Stress affects decision-making, and the effects of stress on processes involved in decision-making can be indirectly measured through EEG. The purpose of this study was to investigate how acute stress affects sub-processes involved in decision-making. We hypothesized that acute stress would affect how individuals respond to rewards and pay attention to environmental changes. Stress was physiologically present in the stress condition group, as seen in a mean increased heart rate compared to the control condition group. The stress condition group reported being more subjectively stressed than the control group, seen in STAI and PANAS questionnaire decreased positive and increased negative affect scores compared to the control group. For neural responses, while insignificant, there was a trend towards being less sensitive to environmental changes (attentional sensitivity; P300 component activity) in the stress condition, but no significant changes for reward sensitivity. Further research is needed to explore the implications for reward sensitivity that utilizes multiple tasks and includes cortisol measurement. Stress is common to everyday life and has been implicated chronically in numerous health conditions. Understanding how stress affects executive function, particularly decision-making, is therefore crucial in both the shortand long-term, as demonstrated by the initial findings of this study.
Measuring the Psychometric Properties of the Arabic Version of DCL Scale to Measure Work-Related Stress among Jordanian Nurses

Background: Nursing role is instrumental to effective patient care, but the level and standards of clinical practice can be affected by stress. Work-related stress among nurses working in mental health units in Jordan has not been investigated using an instrument in Arabic. Aim: To evaluate the psychometric properties of the Arabic version of the Devilliers, Carson, and Leary (DCL) Stress Scale when used on Jordanian mental health nurses. Methods: A descriptive, cross-sectional design was used on a convenience, non-probability sample of Jordanian 99 nurses working in three public hospitals. Results: The Arabic version of the DCL demonstrated acceptable levels of validity and reliability when it was used on mental health nurses working in units caring for psychiatric patients Jordan. Conclusions: A reliable and valid instrument that is useful in determining levels of stress in nursing staff. Another facet of findings in this study is to the empirical evidence on the presence of high stress among mental health nurses, which should be taken into consideration among health care planners in mental health in Jordan. Therefore, nurse managers can use these findings to implement actions necessary to alleviate work-related stress among nurses in order to improve retention and decrease the negative impact of stress on nurses’ wellbeing.
EFL LEARNERS’ PERCEPTIONS TOWARDS THE ACTIVE READING SOFTWARE AS A LEARNING TOOL TO ENHANCE READING COMPREHENSION

The present study endeavored to explore EFL students' perceptions regarding the acceptance and intervention of ARS in enhancing reading comprehension ability at Majmaah University, Saudi Arabia. The study engaged 30 male undergraduates of English major B.A program. For data collection, the study utilized a qualitative technique using semi-structured interviews and the interview questions were constructed based on the principles of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) by Davis (1989). Active Reading Software (ARS) was employed as a technological tool for teaching reading comprehension. The treatment group received intervention from ARS for the duration of four weeks in the computer lab. Qualitative data obtained from the students' interviews were evaluated by means of thematic analysis using Braun and Clarke’s (2006) framework. The results of the thematic analysis pointed out five major themes considered to be the factors that influenced participants’ perceptions towards ARS as a learning tool for improving reading comprehension at the tertiary level. Findings of the present study offer essential implications for language instructors and educational institutions providing technology-integrated courses. Understanding the factors influencing the learners’ perceptions towards the adoption of technological tools in learning is significant for its success. Article visualizations:
Net Worth Poverty in Child Households by Race and Ethnicity, 1989-2019.

Objective This study is the first to examine net worth poverty, and its intersection with income poverty, by race and ethnicity among child households in the United States. Background Scholarship on economic scarcity for children has largely concentrated on income deficits and thus leaves open important questions about wealth deficits. Method Data come from the 1989-2019 waves of the Survey of Consumer Finances, on households with at least one resident child under the age of 18. Net worth poverty is measured as household net worth, defined as total assets minus total debts, that is less than one-fourth of the federal poverty line. Results In 2019, 57% of Black and 50% of Latino child households were net worth poor. The majority of these households were not income poor. Racial and ethnic differences in net worth poverty (unlike those for income poverty) persist even when sociodemographic variation predicting income poverty is controlled for. Conclusion Net worth poverty is so prevalent in the lives of non-White children that, after sociodemographic characteristics are controlled for, Black and Latino child households have about the same probability of not being poor as they do of being net worth poor. Implications A focus on income deprivation alone will overlook the precarious economic conditions related to family net worth and ignore growing disparities by race and ethnicity.
A Prospective Randomised Study to Assess the Analgesic Efficacy of Serratus Anterior Plane (SAP) Block for Modified Radical Mastectomy Under General Anaesthesia

Objective Breast cancer is the most common malignancy among women and often requires surgery for the removal of the tumour. Uncontrolled pain after breast surgeries is a common problem. Serratus anterior plane (SAP) block is a recently designed technique to block the lateral cutaneous branches of the ventral rami of thoracic intercostal nerves and may cover the area of surgical dissection for modified radical mastectomy (MRM). The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of SAP block on the time to first rescue analgesic in the post-operative period in patients undergoing MRM. Methods A randomised, single-blind, parallel group trial was conducted in a single teaching hospital. A total of 100 patients undergoing MRM were randomised in a 1:1 ratio into 2 groups: MRM under general anaesthesia (GA) alone (group G, n=50) or GA with SAP block (group S, n=50). Blocks were performed under ultrasound guidance at the level of the 5th rib in the midaxillary line with 0.4 mL kg−1 of 0.375% ropivacaine. Results The time to request of first rescue analgesia was significantly prolonged in group S compared with group G (p=0.008). Median (interquartile range) for time to rescue analgesia in group S was 120 (60–300) min, whereas in group G, it was 60 (15–120) min. Post-operative pain scores and the number of patients requiring intra-operative additional fentanyl were significantly less in group S. No technique-related adverse events were observed. Conclusion SAP block improved perioperative analgesia in patients undergoing MRM. Clinical trial registry number CTRI/2017/11/010424. (http://ctri.nic.in/Clinicaltrials/regtrial.php? modid=1&compid=19&EncHid=45912.14862)
Over 100 ns intrinsic radiative recombination lifetime in type II InAs/GaAs1−xSbx quantum dots

We report very long intrinsic radiative recombination lifetime τrad in type II InAs quantum dots embedded in GaAs1−xSbx. The dependence of photoluminescence (PL) decay time τPL on both the Sb composition (x = 0–0.18) and excitation intensity (38–460 mW/cm2) was systematically investigated by time-resolved PL measurements with a time-correlated single-photon counting method. All PL decay curves exhibited non-exponential profiles, and τPL was strongly dependent on the excitation intensity. These properties were well explained by solving rate equations of carrier density with neglecting nonradiative process, in which τrad is inversely proportional to carrier density. The 18% Sb sample exhibited a τPL of over 100 ns under weak excitation, which is longer than twice the previously reported values. We evaluated the value of τrad in InAs/GaAs1−xSbx QDs relative to that in type I InAs/GaAs QDs based on an effective mass approximation and found that the observed extremely long τPL corresponds to τrad.
Behavioural Survey of Local Inhabitants’ Views and Attitudes about Slovak Karst National Park in Slovakia

Park-people relationships are crucial for the effective operation of national parks (NPs). According to this new paradigm, protected areas are increasingly considered as instruments for regional development, particularly in marginal regions. However, park-people relationships often comprise conflicts. We tried to understand park-people relationships through the views and attitudes of local people living in or around the area of the Slovak Karst NP, which is found in a marginal, less developed region within Slovakia. We carried out a questionnaire survey and applied multidimensional statistical methods for the results. We identified four attitude dimensions and six local people clusters. Clusters were compared in terms of socio-demographic characteristics, views on NP tasks, attitudes towards the NP, tourism and nature, as well as migration intentions. We found that 45% of the sampled population had positive attitudes towards the NP and nature, 29.5% were neutral and 25.5% had somewhat negative feelings. Results showed that the personal economic situation, the relationship with tourism, age, education level and profession all influence the attitude of local people towards the NP. As for the socio-economic development of the region, we found that till now, the Slovak Karst NP had only a limited role. Nonetheless, understanding the views and attitudes of local people may help to refine the NP strategy. Results suggest that NP management should strengthen the interaction with local communities and improve resource efficiency through a participatory approach to preserve natural values, improve the quality of life and stop outward migration from the region.
Predicting social and health vulnerability to floods in Bangladesh

Abstract. Floods are the most common and damaging natural disaster in Bangladesh, and the effects of floods on public health have increased significantly in recent decades, particularly among lower socioeconomic populations. Assessments of social vulnerability on flood-induced health outcomes typically focus on local to regional scales; a notable gap remains in comprehensive, large-scale assessments that may foster disaster management practices. In this study, socioeconomic, health, and coping capacity vulnerability and composite social-health vulnerability are assessed using both equal-weight and principal-component approaches using 26 indicators across Bangladesh. Results indicate that vulnerable zones exist in the northwest riverine areas, northeast floodplains, and southwest region, potentially affecting 42 million people (26 % of the total population). Subsequently, the vulnerability measures are linked to flood forecast and satellite inundation information to evaluate their potential for predicting actual flood impact indices (distress, damage, disruption, and health) based on the immense August 2017 flood event. Overall, the forecast-based equally weighted vulnerability measures perform best. Specifically, socioeconomic and coping capacity vulnerability measures strongly align with the distress, disruption, and health impact records observed. Additionally, the forecast-based composite social-health vulnerability index also correlates well with the impact indices, illustrating its utility in identifying predominantly vulnerable regions. These findings suggest the benefits and practicality of this approach to assess both thematic and comprehensive spatial vulnerabilities, with the potential to support targeted and coordinated public disaster management and health practices.
The Impact of Internationalization of the Boardroom on Capital Structure

We develop a theoretical model based on several theories, mainly pecking order theory and theory of information economics, as well as on theoretical arguments provided by economic sociology and psychology to investigate for the first time the impact of the presence of a foreign board member on capital structure. The sample of study covers 3773 non-financial U.S. firms and includes 23,196 observations over the period from 2010 to 2018. We used pooled OLS, fixed effects, random effects, and the general method of moments (GMM) in order to analyze the impact of foreign directors on capital structure after controlling for a range of factors, including size, year, and industry effects. The results of this empirical analysis support the proposed hypothesis. Of particular note is the finding that the proportion of foreign directors on the board correlates negatively with debt structure. Furthermore, we demonstrate that our findings hold up in the face of all appropriate robustness checks. Our study contributes to the existing literature by including an international dimension of board diversity, specifically the influence of foreign directors on corporate capital structure. We argue that increasing international diversity in the boardroom improves both the quantity and quality of the information exchange between insiders and shareholders, thereby reducing adverse selection costs.
Motivational Interviewing With At-Risk Students (MARS) Mentoring: Addressing the Unique Mental Health Needs of Students in Alternative School Placements

Abstract The goal of this project was to evaluate the effects of an innovative intervention model created specifically for youth in alternative school settings. The Motivational Interviewing with At-Risk Students (MARS) Mentoring Program is a unique intervention rooted in self-determination and behavior modification theories and delivered through a motivational interviewing framework. Student participants were enrolled at a K–12 district disciplinary alternative school and were predominately Black males who qualified for free or reduced price lunch (N = 39). Students were randomized using a block design to receive MARS Mentoring or to a wait-list control group. Regression analyses revealed significant and large treatment effects at 3-month follow-up. Mean improvements on the Behavior Assessment System for Children-Third Edition (BASC-3) social, emotional, and behavioral composites all indicated medium to large effect sizes. Students enrolled in MARS also experienced significantly fewer school disciplinary actions and improved academic performance. Analysis of intervention feasibility and acceptability reports indicated the program to be well received by stakeholders and practical to implement within the school setting. This brief, manualized intervention can be readily disseminated and has the potential to serve as a model for addressing the unique and profound social, emotional, and behavioral needs of youth in alternative school settings.
How Does the Tibetan Plateau Dynamically Affect Downstream Monsoon Precipitation?

Recent studies have demonstrated that mechanical effects have a greater contribution to the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) than thermodynamical effects. However, a theoretical basis for the underlying dynamical mechanism has not been elucidated. The present study shows that topographically forced barotropic Rossby wave theory well explains the seasonal evolution of the monsoonal precipitation and its amplitude and peak location. The subtropical zonal wind impinging on the Tibetan Plateau is a key factor, and the resulting downstream cyclonic and anticyclonic circulation anomalies form a peak zonal geopotential height gradient in between, leading to the development of the meridional wind and the accompanying moisture transport to the EASM region. As the season approaches the summer monsoon period, the peak geopotential height gradient—thus the monsoonal rainband—shifts to the west from the western North Pacific to East Asia. The findings in this study can be applied to subtropical monsoons worldwide.
Terminal differentiation into adipocyte and growth inhibition by PPARγ activation in human A549 lung adenocarcinoma cells

ABSTRACT The present study investigated the terminal differentiation capacity into adipocytes and subsequent growth inhibition in A549 cancer cells treated with pioglitazone (PGZ), a PPARγ activator. The rate of cell growth in A549 cells was significantly (P < .05) inhibited in concentrations above 10 μM PGZ while maintaining less cytotoxic effects in MRC-5 fibroblasts. Following 50 μM PGZ treatment, population doubling time (PDT) was significantly (P < .05) increased by inhibition of cell growth, as per increasing PGZ exposure time by up to 4 weeks. The adiposome-like vesicles were commonly observed in the PGZ-treated A549 cells, and the vesicles were highly stained with Oil-Red O solution. In addition, the cell size and expression of GLUT4 and PPARγ were significantly (P < .05) increased, as per increasing PGZ exposure time by up to 4 weeks. The significant (P < .05) down-regulation of telomerase activity and up-regulation of senescence-associated β-galactosidase (SA β-GAL) activity was displayed in the PGZ-treated A549 cells, as per increasing PGZ exposure time by up to 4 weeks. The G1 phase of the cell cycle was also significantly (P < .05) increased in the PGZ-treated A549 cells compared with untreated A549 cells. The present results have demonstrated that activation of PPARγ using PGZ induces cellular differentiation into adipocytes and inhibits cell growth in the A549 cancer cells. The terminal differentiation into adipocytes could offer potent chemotherapy in the cancer cells showing high glucose metabolism.
Calculation of diffraction efficiency for curved crystals with arbitrary curvature radius

A model is proposed to calculate the diffraction efficiency of X-rays in Laue geometry for curved crystals with an arbitrary value of the curvature radius. The model generalizes the results based on the dynamical theory of diffraction, which are valid only for crystals with a radius of curvature lower than the critical curvature. The model is proposed for any kind of crystal, and its efficiency tends to one-half in the limit of a thick flat crystal. On the basis of this model, it was possible to reconsider the results of recently observed diffraction efficiency for curved crystals. Finally, the model sets an upper limit for diffraction efficiency of low-curvature curved crystals, this latter being useful in applications such as the construction of a hard X-ray Laue lens.