Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Spatial Pattern of Low Income Housing Tax Credit Properties: Implications for Fair Housing and Poverty Deconcentration Policies

Problem, research strategy, and findings: Housing policies of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) emphasize the spatial dispersal of housing assistance to promote fair housing objectives. The Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, the nation's largest affordable housing subsidy program, is not administered by HUD and therefore is not closely monitored for compliance with dispersal objectives. Using spatial point pattern analyses, I identify the geographic extent of LIHTC property clustering, characterize the local clustering of individual properties and explore the determinants of local clustering within the nation's largest metropolitan areas. In most metropolitan areas, LIHTC properties are more highly clustered than multifamily housing units, although the extent of clustering differs by metropolitan area. Clustered LIHTC properties tend to be located in more densely developed central-city locations that have higher poverty rates and higher minority concentrations. Takeaway for practice: To encourage more affordable housing construction within areas that offer greater economic and social opportunities to LHTC residents, policymakers should 1) provide incentives to locate LIHTC properties within high-opportunity areas, 2) eliminate current incentives to cluster housing in areas with inherently higher poverty and minority concentrations (Qualified Census Tracts and Difficult Development Areas), and 3) enhance coordination between HUD and the Department of the Treasury to implement federal fair housing goals.
Failure Mode and Effect Analysis using Soft Set Theory and COPRAS Method

Failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) is a risk management technique frequently applied to enhance the system performance and safety. In recent years, many researchers have shown an intense interest in improving FMEA due to inherent weaknesses associated with the classical risk priority number (RPN) method. In this study, we develop a new risk ranking model for FMEA based on soft set theory and COPRAS method, which can deal with the limitations and enhance the performance of the conventional FMEA. First, trapezoidal fuzzy soft set is adopted to manage FMEA team members’ linguistic assessments on failure modes. Then, a modified COPRAS method is utilized for determining the ranking order of the failure modes recognized in FMEA. Especially, we treat the risk factors as interdependent and employ the Choquet integral to obtain the aggregate risk of failures in the new FMEA approach. Finally, a practical FMEA problem is analyzed via the proposed approach to demonstrate its applicability and effectiveness. The result shows that the FMEA model developed in this study outperforms the traditional RPN method and provides a more reasonable risk assessment of failure modes.
Gestational Weight Gain - United States, 2012 and 2013.

The weight a woman gains during pregnancy, known as gestational weight gain (GWG), has important health implications for both mother and child (1). The Institute of Medicine (IOM) provides GWG recommendations that promote optimal health by balancing risks associated with too much or too little GWG and are specific to a woman's prepregnancy body mass index (BMI; weight [kg]/height [m]2) (1). In a recent study, 21% of pregnant women gained less than the recommended amount of weight, and 47% gained more than the recommended amount; however, state-specific prevalence was not examined (2). To estimate state-specific prevalence of GWG below, within, and above recommendations (referred to as inadequate, appropriate, and excessive, respectively), CDC analyzed 2013 birth data for U.S. resident women who delivered full-term (37–41 weeks gestation), singleton infants from 43 jurisdictions (41 states, New York City, and the District of Columbia [DC]) that used the 2003 revised birth certificate, which collects maternal height, prepregnancy weight, and delivery weight. In addition, 2012 data from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) were analyzed to estimate prevalence for five states with available data that had not yet adopted the 2003 birth certificate. Overall, 32.1% of women had appropriate GWG. States varied in prevalence of inadequate (range = 12.6%–25.5%), appropriate (range = 26.2%–39.0%), and excessive (range = 38.2%–54.7%) GWG. The prevalence of inadequate GWG was ≥20% in 20 states and New York City; the prevalence of excessive GWG was ≥50% in 17 states. Stratification by prepregnancy BMI category indicated variation by state persisted; notably,
The Acute Potentiating Effects of Back Squats on Athlete Performance

Crewther, BT, Kilduff, LP, Cook, CJ, Middleton, MK, Bunce, PJ, and Yang, G-Z. The acute potentiating effects of back squats on athlete performance. J Strength Cond Res 25(12): 3319–3325, 2011—This study examined the acute potentiating effects of back squats on athlete performance with a specific focus on movement specificity and the individual timing of potentiation. Nine subelite male rugby players performed 3 protocols on separate occasions using a randomized, crossover, and counterbalanced design. Each protocol consisted of performance testing before a single set of 3 repetition maximum (3RM) back squats, followed by retesting at ∼15 seconds, 4, 8, 12, and 16 minutes. The 3 tests were countermovement jumps (CMJs), sprint performance (5 and 10 m), and 3-m horizontal sled pushes with a 100-kg load. Relationships between the individual changes in salivary testosterone and cortisol concentrations and performance were also examined. The 3RM squats significantly (p < 0.001) improved CMJ height at 4 (3.9 ± 1.9%), 8 (3.5 ± 1.5%), and 12 (3.0 ± 1.4%) minutes compared with baseline values, but no temporal changes in sprinting and sled times were identified. On an individual level, the peak relative changes in CMJ height (6.4 ± 2.1%, p < 0.001) were greater than the 3-m sled (1.4 ± 0.6%), 5-m (2.6 ± 1.0%), and 10-m sprint tests (1.8 ± 1.0%). In conclusion, a single set of 3RM squats was found effective in acutely enhancing CMJ height in the study population, especially when the recovery period was individualized for each athlete. The study results also suggest that the potentiating effects of squats may exhibit some degree of movement specificity, being greater for those exercises with similar movement patterns. The current findings have practical implications for prescribing warm-up exercises, individualizing training programs, and for interpreting postactivation potentiation research.
Aligning strategic profiles with operational metrics in after‐sales service

Purpose - The purpose of the paper is to overcome the limitations of the current models available in the literature in terms of relation and consistency between business strategy, service chain configuration and performance measurement systems, and on the alignment between strategic, tactical and operational levels of after-sales decision-making processes. Design/methodology/approach - The paper draws on a literature review of after-sales performance measurement systems and provides a first validation of the proposed integrated model through industrial case studies related to the provision of durable consumer goods in a business to consumer scenario. Findings - The paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the factors which influence the performance of after-sales, in order to allow enterprises to consistently design their corporate after-sales service strategic performances with those required at operational levels within a service chain. Research limitations/implications - Further development must be carried out in order to: enlarge the sample of companies and cases where the model can be applied, with a specific extension on a business-to-business industry; extend the model to the whole supply and service chain; enrich the framework in order to consider other aspects, as empathy; and develop a full integration with the SCOR model, including the definition of best practices. Originality/value - The integration of the strategic and operational views subsumed by the framework would allow enterprises in relating more consistently their corporate After-sales strategic and operational performance within a service chain and to assess the cause and effect relationship between operational drivers and financial and competitive results.
A Solution to Matching with Preferences Over Colleagues

We study many-to-one matchings, such as the assignment of students to colleges, where the students have preferences over the other students who would attend the same college. It is well known that the core of this model may be empty, without strong assumptions on agents' preferences. We introduce a method that finds all core matchings, if any exist. The method requires no assumptions on preferences. Our method also finds certain partial solutions that may be useful when the core is empty.
March Market Madness: The Impact of Value-Irrelevant Events on the Market Pricing of Earnings News

Each year, the NCAA basketball tournament (March Madness) is a daytime distraction for millions of people, providing a largely exogenous shock to investor attention. We investigate whether March Madness influences the market response to earnings by diverting investor attention away from earnings news. We find that the price reaction to earnings news released during March Madness is muted. This result generally holds across several samples and additional analyses. We also find that the result is more muted for low institutional ownership firms, consistent with the effect being driven by less sophisticated investors. Further, we find that it takes the market 30 to 60 days to correct for the distraction effect. Overall, we provide a unique test of the theory of limited attention by documenting that extraneous events can have a significant impact on the pricing of earnings.
Tunneling explains efficient electron transport via protein junctions

Significance Investigation of the charge transport mechanism across a monolayer of a redox active protein is important for the fundamental understanding of the naturally occurring electron transfer processes, such as those in photosynthesis or respiration. Inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy measurements of a redox active protein may provide direct experimental evidence that the tunneling charges are, in fact, passing through the protein molecules. Results of our study of conductance via well-controlled azurin monolayer solid-state junctions show the direct involvement of the Cu(II) site in assisting electron transport, underscoring this site’s vibronic characteristics associated with the charge transport mechanism. Our study widens the scope of currently available methodologies and also adds to the potential of using proteins in bioelectronics. Metalloproteins, proteins containing a transition metal ion cofactor, are electron transfer agents that perform key functions in cells. Inspired by this fact, electron transport across these proteins has been widely studied in solid-state settings, triggering the interest in examining potential use of proteins as building blocks in bioelectronic devices. Here, we report results of low-temperature (10 K) electron transport measurements via monolayer junctions based on the blue copper protein azurin (Az), which strongly suggest quantum tunneling of electrons as the dominant charge transport mechanism. Specifically, we show that, weakening the protein–electrode coupling by introducing a spacer, one can switch the electron transport from off-resonant to resonant tunneling. This is a consequence of reducing the electrode’s perturbation of the Cu(II)-localized electronic state, a pattern that has not been observed before in protein-based junctions. Moreover, we identify vibronic features of the Cu(II) coordination sphere in transport characteristics that show directly the active role of the metal ion in resonance tunneling. Our results illustrate how quantum mechanical effects may dominate electron transport via protein-based junctions.
Silence is golden – Implementation of a noise cancelling office chair

Elevated noise levels are commonplace in today’s office environment and may compromise attention and work performance or even affect health. This work aims at reducing acoustic immissions by integrating an active noise control feature into an office chair. To obtain a reasonable noise cancellation, several challenges have to be considered. First, noise cancellation has to be achieved at the user's ears (virtual microphone), rather than at the noise measurement location (physical microphone). This requires estimating the noise at the virtual location, which is generally referred to as virtual microphone algorithm. Second, head movements of the user as well as the position of the noise source have to be detected. Third, all mechatronic parts should be integrated into the chair, ruling out the use of a reference microphone. This paper describes the necessary measurement techniques and algorithms to implement a noise-cancelling office chair. To achieve adequate noise cancellation, stereo operation with two actuators is advisable. Different stereo algorithms are examined. A measurement principle based on ultrasonic sensors as well as the inherent algorithms to detect the user's head position are described. Finally, this paper describes the implementation of the concepts in experiment and simulation and provides results describing the achieved performance.
Breast Cancer-Derived Exosomes Alter Macrophage Polarization via gp130/STAT3 Signaling

Tumor-derived exosomes are being recognized as essential mediators of intercellular communication between cancer and immune cells. It is well established that bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDMs) take up tumor-derived exosomes. However, the functional impact of these exosomes on macrophage phenotypes is controversial and not well studied. Here, we show that breast cancer-derived exosomes alter the phenotype of macrophages through the interleukin-6 (IL-6) receptor beta (glycoprotein 130, gp130)-STAT3 signaling pathway. Addition of breast cancer-derived exosomes to macrophages results in the activation of the IL-6 response pathway, including phosphorylation of the key downstream transcription factor STAT3. Exosomal gp130, which is highly enriched in cancer exosomes, triggers the secretion of IL-6 from BMDMs. Moreover, the exposure of BMDMs to cancer-derived exosomes triggers changes from a conventional toward a polarized phenotype often observed in tumor-associated macrophages. All of these effects can be inhibited through the addition of a gp130 inhibitor to cancer-derived exosomes or by blocking BMDMs exosome uptake. Collectively, this work demonstrates that breast cancer-derived exosomes are capable of inducing IL-6 secretion and a pro-survival phenotype in macrophages, partially via gp130/STAT3 signaling.
PENGARUH LEVERAGE, UKURAN PERUSAHAAN, PROFITABILITAS DAN LIKUIDITAS PADA LUAS PENGUNGKAPAN SUKARELA

Tujuan penelitian adalah untuk menganalisis pengaruh leverage , ukuran perusahaan, profitabilitas, dan likuiditas terhadap luas pengungkapan sukarela pada laporan keuangan tahunan perusahaan manufaktur yang terdaftar di Bursa Efek Indonesia periode 2007-2011. Sampel diambil menggunakan metode purposive sampling sehingga diperoleh total sampel 9 perusahaan dengan total pengamatan 45 laporan keuangan tahunan perusahaan manufaktur. Teknik analisis data yang digunakan adalah regresi linear berganda. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa secara serempak leverage , ukuran perusahaan, profitabilitas, dan likuiditas berpengaruh terhadap luas pengungkapan sukarela pada laporan keuangan tahunan perusahaan manufaktur yang terdaftar di Bursa Efek Indonesia periode 2007-2011. Pengujian secara parsial, leverage berpengaruh negatif, ukuran perusahaan tidak berpengaruh, profitabilitas berpengaruh positif dan likuiditas berpengaruh negatif terhadap luas pengungkapan sukarela pada laporan keuangan tahunan perusahaan manufaktur yang terdaftar di Bursa Efek Indonesia periode 2007-2011. Kata kunci : leverage , likuiditas, pengungkapan sukarela, profitabilitas, ukuran perusahaan
Cortical Power-Density Changes of Different Frequency Bands in Visually Guided Associative Learning: A Human EEG-Study

The computer-based Rutgers Acquired Equivalence test (RAET) is a widely used paradigm to test the function of subcortical structures in visual associative learning. The test consists of an acquisition (pair learning) and a test (rule transfer) phase, associated with the function of the basal ganglia and the hippocampi, respectively. Obviously, such a complex task also requires cortical involvement. To investigate the activity of different cortical areas during this test, 64-channel EEG recordings were recorded in 24 healthy volunteers. Fast-Fourier and Morlet wavelet convolution analyses were performed on the recordings. The most robust power changes were observed in the theta (4–7 Hz) and gamma (>30 Hz) frequency bands, in which significant power elevation was observed in the vast majority of the subjects, over the parieto-occipital and temporo-parietal areas during the acquisition phase. The involvement of the frontal areas in the acquisition phase was remarkably weaker. No remarkable cortical power elevations were found in the test phase. In fact, the power of the alpha and beta bands was significantly decreased over the parietooccipital areas. We conclude that the initial acquisition of the image pairs requires strong cortical involvement, but once the pairs have been learned, neither retrieval nor generalization requires strong cortical contribution.
Tracking an RGB-D Camera on Mobile Devices Using an Improved Frame-to-Frame Pose Estimation Method

The simple frame-to-frame tracking used for dense visual odometry is computationally efficient, but regarded as rather numerically unstable, easily entailing a rapid accumulation of pose estimation errors. In this paper, we show that a cost-efficient extension of the frame-to-frame tracking can significantly improve the accuracy of estimated camera poses. In particular, we propose to use a multi-level pose error correction scheme in which the camera poses are reestimated only when necessary against a few adaptively selected reference frames. Unlike the recent successful camera tracking methods that mostly rely on the extra computing time and/or memory space for performing global pose optimization and/or keeping accumulated models, the extended frame-to-frame tracking requires to keep only a few recent frames to improve the accuracy. Thus, the resulting visual odometry scheme is lightweight in terms of both time and space complexity, offering a compact implementation on mobile devices, which do not still have sufficient computing power to run such complicated methods.
[Expression and transcription of inducible nitric oxide synthase in the liver ischemic preconditioning in rats].

OBJECTIVE To investigate the changes in transcription and expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase (NOS2) in the liver ischemic preconditioning (IP), and to determine the role of nitric oxide (NO) synthetic pathway in the liver IP in rats. METHODS We randomly divided 131 Sprague Dawley rats into 3 groups: ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) group (n=52), IP group (n=41), and sham operation (S) group (n=38). Plasm NO concentration and the transcription and expression of NOS2 were detected 2 hours, 24 hours, and 1 week after the operation. RESULTS (1) In the IP group, the NO concentrations at the 2nd hour, the 24th hour, and 1 week were significantly higher than those in the S group (P < 0.05, P < 0.01, P < 0.01, respectively) and the NO concentrations at the 2nd hour and the 24th hour were obviously higher than those in I/R group (all P < 0.01). In the I/R group, the NO concentration at the 2nd hour was significantly lower than that in the S group (P < 0.05); there was no significant difference between the I/R group and the S group 24 hours after the operation (P > 0.05), and the NO concentration 1 week after the operation was obviously higher than that in the S group (P < 0.05). (2) In the IP group, the transcription of NOS2 2 and 24 hours after the operation were significantly increased compared with that in the I/R group (all P < 0.05) , but after 1 week, the transcription was not statistically different between the IP group and the I/R group (P > 0.05). (3) In the IP group, the expressions of NOS2 after 2 and 24 hours were obviously higher than those in the I/R group (P < 0.05) and the S group (P < 0.05), but the expression between the IR group and the S group was not significantly different (P > 0.05); after 1 week, the expressions of NOS2 in IP group and I/R group were weakly positive (P > 0.05) , and those in S group were negative (P > 0.05). Conclusion The transcription and the expression of liver NOS2 increase after the liver received ischemic preconditioning in rats. That the peak phases of transcription and expression of NOS2 are ahead of time may be related to the early protective effect of the liver IP.
Determining feasible contact states of pairs of spatial polyhedra

Recent research uses qualitative contact models for compliant motion planning and control. Although these methods have great potential, generation of qualitative contact models of nonconvex polyhedra is difficult. Qualitative contact models could be generated in a generate-and-test fashion if a predicate were available for verifying contact hypotheses. In general, a contact hypothesis does not fully constrain the relative configuration of the objects making verification of the hypothesis difficult. This paper presents an optimization-based method to verify geometric feasibility of contact hypotheses that do not fully constrain the relative configuration. This method has been implemented and applied to test contact hypotheses of nontrivial object pairs.
The response of the Indian stock market to the movement of Asia's emerging markets: From isolation toward integration?

This paper investigates the existence of the inter‐dependence between the Indian stock market and Asia's emerging markets since 1990. This study analyzes whether the MSCI Asian Index has significantly influenced the Bombay Stock Exchange Index before, during, and after the Asian financial crisis. To address this issue, the author first uses a rolling correlation, and conduct uni‐directional and bi‐directional causality tests using the Granger causality test. He then examines the impulse response functions and variance decompositions of forecast errors based on a VAR (vector auto‐regression) model. These tests provide evidence that the influence of the Asian market on the Indian market has increased during and after the Asian financial crisis. These results can be interpreted as evidence that the Indian market has been moving toward integration with other Asian markets.
BelMan: Bayesian Bandits on the Belief-Reward Manifold

We propose a generic, Bayesian, information geometric approach to the exploration--exploitation trade-off in multi-armed bandit problems. Our approach, BelMan, uniformly supports pure exploration, exploration--exploitation, and two-phase bandit problems. The knowledge on bandit arms and their reward distributions is summarised by the barycentre of the joint distributions of beliefs and rewards of the arms, the \emph{pseudobelief-reward}, within the beliefs-rewards manifold. BelMan alternates \emph{information projection} and \emph{reverse information projection}, i.e., projection of the pseudobelief-reward onto beliefs-rewards to choose the arm to play, and projection of the resulting beliefs-rewards onto the pseudobelief-reward. It introduces a mechanism that infuses an exploitative bias by means of a \emph{focal distribution}, i.e., a reward distribution that gradually concentrates on higher rewards. Comparative performance evaluation with state-of-the-art algorithms shows that BelMan is not only competitive but can also outperform other approaches in specific setups, for instance involving many arms and continuous rewards.