Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Economic inequality shapes the agency–communion content of gender stereotypes

Economic inequality is a main issue in current societies, and it affects people’s psychological processes. In this research, we propose that perceived economic inequality might affect how people perceive men and women. In two experiments carried out in Spain (N = 170) and Mexico (N = 215), we tested whether high (vs. low) economic inequality leads to changes in the perceived agency and communion of both men and women. Our findings suggest that when economic inequality is high (vs. low), the communal content in social perceptions of both men and women decreases. Specifically, under high (vs. low) inequality, the difference in agency and communion ascribed to a man becomes greater (i.e., men are perceived as even more agentic than communal), whereas this difference becomes smaller for women (i.e., women are still perceived as more communal than agentic, but this difference is smaller). We discuss these findings’ implications regarding the psychosocial effects of economic inequality.
Hygrothermal performance optimisation of a museum storage building

For optimal longevity of the stored objects, museum storage buildings require a very stable interior climate, with only minimal and slow variations in temperature and relative humidity. Often extensive heating, ventilating, and air conditioning is installed to provide these stable indoor conditions. The resultant significant energy and maintenance costs are currently motivating a paradigm change: passive control, via the thermal and hygric inertia of the building, is gaining foothold in the museum conservation and building physical community. In this paper we report a hygrothermal performance optimization of a museum storage building related to an existing storage in Vejle (Denmark). The current building design already incorporates passive control concepts: thermal inertia is provided by the thick walls, the ground floor, and its underlying soil volume, and hygric inertia is provided by the thick walls of light-weight concrete. The design promise was that after a few years of dehumidification, the moisture contained in the fresh constructions would be brought down to a level corresponding with the desired interior climate, after which the passive control would eliminate the need for dehumidification. Four years after completing the construction, however, continuous dehumidification is necessary to maintain acceptable humidity levels in the storage rooms. This paper presents an analysis of this contradiction and shows that such complete passive conditioning is an illusion. The general levels of humidity of the exterior environment are too high, which leads to unfavorable conditions for the interior environment. Continuous dehumidification is required, and a new concept for optimization of the building’s thermal insulation and infiltration behavior in relation to the required dehumidification load is invented. The investigation shows that the impact of thermal improvements is minor, while any intervention in the airtightness has a considerable effect. The combination of the two brings the dehumidification needs down by 79%, with a minor price to be paid in the form of an increased potential for mechanical and chemical decay.
Application of Dual-Enhanced Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Probe Technology in the Diagnosis of Tumor Cells in Vitro

With the development of precision medicine, antigen/antibody-targeted therapy has brought great hope to tumor patients; however, the migration of tumor cells, especially a small number of cells flowing into blood or other tissues, remains a clinical challenge. In particular, it is difficult to use functional gold nanomaterials for targeted clinical tumor diagnosis while simultaneously obtaining stable and highly sensitive Raman signals. Therefore, we developed a detection method for functional Au Nanostars (AuNSs) with dual signal enhancement that can specifically track location and obtain high-intensity surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) signals. First, AuNSs with specific optical properties were synthesized and functionalized. The Raman dye 4-mercapto-hydroxybenzoic acid and polyethylene glycol were coupled with the tumor marker, epidermal growth factor receptor, to obtain the targeted SERS probes. In addition, a detection chip was prepared for Raman detection with physical enhancement, exhibiting a 40-times higher signal intensity than that of quartz glass. This study combines physical enhancement and SERS enhancement technologies to achieve dual enhancement, enabling the detection of a highly sensitive and stable Raman signal; this has potential clinical value for antigen/antibody-targeted tumor diagnosis and treatment.
Flavonoid Derivatives as Potential Cholinesterase Inhibitors in Scopolamine-Induced Amnesic Mice: An In Vitro, In Vivo and Integrated Computational Approach

Flavonoids are one of the most exciting types of phenolic compounds with a wide range of bioactive benefits. A series of flavone derivatives (F1–F5) were previously synthesized from substituted O-hydroxy acetophenone and substituted chloro-benzaldehydes. The titled compounds F1–F5 in the present study were evaluated for their anticholinesterase potential (against AChE and BuChE). The obtained results were then validated through a molecular docking approach. Compound F5 was found to be the most potent inhibitor of AChE (IC50 = 98.42 ± 0.97 µg/mL) followed by compound F4, whereas compound F2 was found to be the most promising inhibitor of BuChE (IC50 = 105.20 ± 1.43 µg/mL) among the tested compounds. The molecular docking analysis revealed a similar trend in the binding affinity of compounds with the targeted enzymes and found them to be capable of forming highly stable complexes with both receptors. The selected compounds were further subjected to in vivo assessment of cognitive function in a scopolamine-induced amnesic animal model, in which almost all compounds F1–F5 significantly attenuated the amnesic effects as evaluated through Y-Maze Paradigm and novel object discrimination (NOD) tasks, findings that were further supported by ex vivo experimental results. Among (F1–F5), F5 showed significant anti-amnesic effects in scopolamine-induced amnesic models and ameliorated the memory loss in behavioral model studies as compared to counterparts. In ex vivo study, noteworthy protection from oxidative stress in the brains of scopolamine-induced amnesic mice was also recorded for F5. These findings also confirmed that there were no significant differences among the in vivo and ex vivo results after administration of F1–F5 (7.5 or 15 mg/kg) or donepezil (2 mg/kg). These synthesized flavonoids could serve as potential candidates for new neuroprotective and nootropic drugs. However, further studies are needed to validate their observed potential in other animal models as well.
Railway service quality in northern Italy: A multilevel synthetic assessment

In order to reasonably assess the railway service quality, a multilevel extensible assessment model is proposed based on the matter element theory and the extension theory. The proposed model is applied to a real case study of some railway lines. The matter element to assess the railway service quality is established on the basis of the characteristics of passenger transit which included 7 primary assessment indices and 26 senior assessment indices. The index weights are determined by the passengers who were interviewed on board during their journey. Railway service quality is assessed by the values of the correlation degree of the matter element with all the assessment grades. The multilevel extensible assessment method can fully reflect the distance between the overall railway service quality or one kind of service attribute and the assessment grades and then it can realize the continuous assessment. The method can provide not only the passengers’ overall satisfaction degree on the railway service quality but also the passengers’ satisfaction degree on one assessment index.
Regulatory approaches to rail competitive entries

This paper reviews the regulatory approaches to open access passenger rail competition. This kind of competition has developed substantially in the EU during the past decade. There have been major entries into the national main lines in Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Sweden. These entries have been very popular with passengers and rail ridership has gone up substantially. However, there have also been costs to these entries. The operations of the new entrants are diminishing economies of density, leading to higher unit costs. Further challenges include cherry-picking behaviour, scarce infrastructure capacity, tariff disintegration, and long-term sustainability. The major question is whether the social benefits outweigh the costs. This paper aims to review emerging evidence in the field of open access entries and approaches to their regulation. The scope of this paper is open access passenger rail entries in Europe after 2000 with a particular emphasis on the major entries that took place in Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Sweden after 2011. The contribution of this article to the existing literature is threefold. Firstly, it provides an up-to-date review of open access entries in Europe. Secondly, it combines the results of simulation studies with empirical evidence to provide an overview of market impacts. Lastly, it reviews the spectrum of regulatory approaches.
Green Credit and Total Factor Carbon Emission Performance—Evidence from Moderation-Based Mediating Effect Test

To achieve China’s new development pattern and the “dual carbon” goals, it is necessary to boost emission reduction and high-quality economic development simultaneously. Green credit (GC), consisting of environmental regulation and economic leverage, has a profound impact on improving total factor carbon emission performance (TFCEP). By selecting the panel data of 30 provinces and municipalities in China from 2001 to 2020, this paper constructs a series of panel models to analyze the transmission path of GC to TFCEP. The results indicate that the relationship between GC and TFCEP showed an “inverted-U-shaped” relationship. This is mainly because “energy-saving and emission reduction” first appeared in the government planning outline in 2006, and transition-friendly enterprises successfully transformed with low-interest green credit, thereby effectively improving their TFCEP. However, as environmental regulations continue to increase and the scale of green credit continues to expand, the efficiency of green credit allocation and internal conflicts with other environmental regulation policies are also emerging. At the same time, the advancement of industrial structure and green technology innovation had a significant mediating effect between GC and TFCEP; government quality has a strong moderating effect on the second stage of the mediating process. When GC reaches a certain scale, it tends to restrain TFCEP more in central and western China than in eastern China. Therefore, it is of great significance to continuously increase the scale of GC, promote the advancement of clean energy industrial structure, and improve green technology innovation.
Optimizing Object Storage System by the Object Multi-Tiered Balanced Organization

The era of big data has been constantly producing a huge amount of small files that will cause problems such as uneven distribution of copies and massive random readings and writings, resulting in delays in data accessions and degrading performances. By aiming at resolving the problems of an object storage system concerning the organization of small file objects such as layout imbalance, uneven loading, and adaptability of poor data migration, this article introduces a new strategy for object organization called object multi-tiered balanced organization strategy (OMBOS) with improved performance on massive small files in a real object storage system. Apart from the conventional strategy, the OMBOS achieves a multi-level balanced object by establishing weight indicators that reflect the comprehensive performance of nodes, including the balanced distribution of objects between replica sets and the balanced distribution of I/O requests in the replica sets as well as adapting to the equilibrium of the scale changes of the system dynamics. The OMBOS establishes a comprehensive performance evaluation model based on the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and calculates the performance weights of the nodes of the object storages and replica sets. Then, the consistent hash-based object placement between the replica sets algorithm (BROP) and the I/O-loading balance in the replica set algorithm (IRIB) are utilized to implement performance-weighted objects in the object storage system through a tiered organization when the performance weights are taken into account. When the system scale changes flexibly, data migration is the only performed process in the nodes by adding or removing nodes, so data will not be migrated between existing nodes. Hence, the amount of data migration reaches the theoretical setting. Experiments show that the OMBOS achieves a balanced layout of objects based on performance weights, which meets the balancing and adaptability requirements of data organization. When compared to the original layout strategy through the balanced layout of objects, it performs nearly double the random access method.
Detection of Porphyrins in Hair Using Capillary Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

Unlike humans, some animals have evolved a physiological ability to deposit porphyrins, which are pigments produced during heme synthesis in cells, in the skin and associated integument such as hair. Given the inert nature and easiness of collection of hair, animals that present porphyrin-based pigmentation constitute unique models for porphyrin analysis in biological samples. Here we present the development of a simple, rapid, and efficient analytical method for four natural porphyrins (uroporphyrin I, coproporphyrin I, coproporphyrin III and protoporphyrin IX) in the Southern flying squirrel Glaucomys volans, a mammal with hair that fluoresces and that we suspected has porphyrin-based pigmentation. The method is based on capillary liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (CLC-MS), after an extraction procedure with formic acid and acetonitrile. The resulting limits of detection (LOD) and quantification (LOQ) were 0.006–0.199 and 0.021–0.665 µg mL−1, respectively. This approach enabled us to quantify porphyrins in flying squirrel hairs at concentrations of 3.6–353.2 µg g−1 with 86.4–98.6% extraction yields. This method provides higher simplicity, precision, selectivity, and sensitivity than other methods used to date, presenting the potential to become the standard technique for porphyrin analysis.
Antimicrobial Resistant Salmonella in Chelonians: Assessing Its Potential Risk in Zoological Institutions in Spain

Salmonella is mostly noted as a food-borne pathogen, but contact with chelonians has also been reported as a source of infection. Moreover, high levels of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) have been reported in Salmonella isolated from wild and captive reptiles. The aim of this study was to assess the occurrence of Salmonella AMR carriage by chelonians admitted to two zoological institutions in Spain, characterizing the isolates to assess the Salmonella AMR epidemiology in wildlife. To this end, 152 chelonians from nine species were sampled upon their arrival at the zoological nuclei. Salmonella identification was based on ISO 6579-1:2017 (Annex D), isolates were serotyped and their AMR analysed according to the EU Decision 2013/652. Moreover, the genetic relationship of the isolates was assessed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). Results showed 19% (29/152) of the chelonians positive to Salmonella, all of them tortoises. For all isolates, 69% (20/29) were resistant and 34% (10/29) multidrug-resistant (MDR) strains. PFGE clustered isolates according to the serovar, confirming a low genetic diversity. In conclusion, this study shows a high presence of MDR Salmonella strains in tortoises at their entry into zoological nuclei. This condition highlights the need to establish Salmonella detection protocols for the entry of animals into these centres.
Monitoring landscape-scale forest structure and potential fire behavior changes following ponderosa pine restoration treatments

We evaluated landscape-scale forest restoration treatment implementation and effectiveness and assessed canopy fuels and potential fire behavior changes following landscape-scale forest restoration treatments in a ponderosa pine forest at Mt. Trumbull, Arizona. The goal of the project was to alter forest structure by thinning and burning to more closely resemble forest conditions prior to Euro-American settlement in 1870. We measured 117 permanent plots before (1996/97) and after (2003) treatments. The plots were evenly distributed across the landscape and represented an area of approximately 1200 ha, about half of which was an untreated control. The success of treatment implementation was variable. Most of the area originally planned for restoration was treated in some manner by 2003; however, only 70(percent) received the full planned treatment (thin and burn). Although pine density decreased significantly in the treated area, the projected residual density was exceeded by 111-256(percent). Despite contract amendments to terminate oak cutting, some oaks were still cut for several reasons. Thirteen percent of the presettlement pines died in the treated area by 2003 slightly exceeding the 10(percent) maximum allowable mortality outlined by managers; however, 9(percent) percent of the presettlement pines died in the control. One-third of large snags were lost, falling below the snag retention target, but new large snags were recruited, resulting in a net increase in snag density within the treated area. Implementation goals for large logs were achieved. Restoration treatments decreased canopy fuel load (CFL) and canopy bulk density (CBD) in the treated area, while slight increases occurred in the control. Predicted outcomes were consistent between the two fire behavior models (FlamMap and Nexus): under extreme drought and wind conditions, active crown fire hazard was reduced in the treated area. In contrast, the models show little change in active crown fire hazard in the control over the same time period. Although restoration treatments were not implemented perfectly, they were effective in attaining the overall project goal of restoring more open forest structure conditions while preserving most of the presettlement trees. Furthermore, canopy fuels and active crown fire hazard were substantially reduced, allowing for the reintroduction of low-intensity surface fires.
Epigenetic Signatures of Centrosomes Are Novel Targets in Cancer Diagnosis: Insights from an Analysis of the Cancer Genome Atlas

The centrosome plays a central role for cellular signaling and is critical for several fundamental cellular processes in human cells. Centrosome abnormalities have been linked to multiple solid tumors and hematological malignancies. We sought to explore the potential role of the DNA methylation, a critical epigenetic modification, of centrosome-related genes in different cancers. The 450K array DNA methylation data and RNA-seq data were downloaded for ~4000 tumor samples and ~500 normal controls from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project, covering 11 major cancer types. Cancers with more than 30 normal controls were retained for analysis. Differentially modified CpGs of centrosome genes were identified, and cancer-specific epigenetic models were developed using a machine-learning algorithm for each cancer type. The association between the methylation level of differential CpGs and the corresponding gene expression, as well as the co-localization of the differential CpGs and cis-regulatory elements were evaluated. In total, 2761 CpGs located on 160 centrosome genes for 6 cancers were included in the analysis. Cancer-specific models demonstrated a high accuracy in terms of the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC > 0.9) in five cancers and showed tissue specificity. This study enhanced our understanding of the epigenetic mechanisms underlying the DNA methylation of centrosome-related genes in cancers, and showed the potential of these epigenetic modifications as novel cancer biomarkers.
Modeling and simulation for inventory management of repairable items in maintenance systems

Simulation models have become promising methods to investigate and improve real-world systems. This paper describes the development of effective simulation-based models for maintenance systems in a manufacturing environment whereby production lines send their faulty but repairable items to a repair shop. The proposed models aim at investigating the centralized storage of repaired items with three replenishing strategies, lot-for-lot (L4L), economic order quantity and reorder point (Q-R), and minimum-maximum order level (s-S) reordering policies of repairable items with backordering allowance in a risk-free and flexible manner to effectively manage the procurement of new repairable items and control three inventories of repairable items, repaired ready-for-use, new, and faulty awaiting repair. The models take into account the uncertain environment of maintenance systems and the probabilistic nature of the failures, repair times, and lead times of repairable items. The demand for repairable items in these three inventories is both stochastic and dynamic. A simulation case problem is presented to demonstrate the suitability and applicability of the proposed simulation models and to study the influence of different parameters on performance measures using parametric analysis. The main results are the vital decision-making insights provided by the developed models about the three reordering policies and the three inventories of repairable items. These managerial insights are essential for achieving minimum inventory costs and maximum service levels.
Collaborative Governance at Scale: Examining the Regimes, Platforms, and System in the State of Oregon

This article takes a first step toward analyzing the characteristics of a cross-policy, state-wide collaborative system. Specifically, using data from the Atlas of Collaboration project, we offer a big-picture analysis of how over 200 externally directed collaborative governance regimes (CGRs) are operationalized in a state-level collaborative system consisting of 13 collaborative platforms operating across five policy areas (economic development, education, health, natural resources, public safety) in Oregon. We focus on three attributes—geographic scope, collaborative size, and collaborative characteristics—aggregated at the system level across CGRs, as well as across collaborative platforms and policy areas. The descriptive findings reveal that collaborative efforts are geographically dispersed across the state, involve thousands of participants representing organizations from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, and vary across multiple characteristics, such as organizational form, lead organization, funding model, structural roles, staffing, and extent of face-to-face dialogue. These findings lay the groundwork for future theoretical development and empirical research.