Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Market and Nonmarket Pathways to Home Ownership and Social Stratification in Hybrid Housing Regimes: Evidence from Four Post-Soviet Countries

Sociological research on housing inequality overlooks how the predictors and benefits of home ownership vary by pathway to ownership. The market pathway (purchase) is more associated with ascribed and achieved status characteristics linked to income and with higher housing satisfaction, greater subjective housing-related autonomy, and better housing quality. Nonmarket pathways (primarily, transfers from relatives or the state) are related to the longevity of parents and (in more patriarchal countries) gender. Such variations in the stratifying role of home ownership are theoretically derived and empirically confirmed in analyses of Russia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, where privatization of state-owned housing produced hybrid housing regimes featuring widespread private ownership but limited market purchases. These case studies foreground pathways to ownership as an important source of heterogeneity, relate aspects of well-being other than wealth to home ownership, and highlight market allocation as a key mechanism linking home ownership to other dimensions of inequality.
A cognitive evaluation and equity-based perspective of pay for performance on job performance: A meta-analysis and path model

Pay for performance, as one of the most important means of motivating employees, has attracted the attention of many scholars and managers. However, controversy has continued regarding whether it promotes or undermines job performance. Drawing on a meta-analysis of 108 independent samples (N = 71,438) from 100 articles, we found that pay for performance was positively related to job performance. That pay for performance had a more substantial positive effect on task performance than contextual performance in workplace settings. From the cognitive evaluation perspective, we found that pay for performance enhanced employees' task performance and contextual performance by enhancing intrinsic motivation and weakened task performance and contextual performance by increasing employee pressure. From the equity perspective, our results indicated that the relationship between pay for performance and task performance was partially mediated by employee perceptions of distributive justice and procedural justice, with distributive justice having a more substantial mediating effect than procedural justice. However, the relationship between pay for performance and contextual performance was only partially mediated by procedural justice. Further tests of moderating effects indicated that the varying impacts of pay for performance are contingent on measures of pay for performance and national culture. The findings contributed to understanding the complex mechanisms and boundary conditions of pay-for-performance's effects on job performance, which provided insights for organizations to maximize its positive effects.
A PPA Study of Reinforced Placement Parameter Autotuning: Pseudo-3D vs. True-3D Placers

D Place and Route (P&R) flows either involve true-3D placement algorithms or use commercial 2D tools to transform a 2D design into a 3D design. Irrespective of the nature of the placers, several placement parameters in these tools affect the quality of the final 3D designs. Different parameter settings work well with different circuits, and it is impossible to manually tune them for a particular circuit. Automated approaches involving reinforcement learning have been shown to adapt and learn the parameter settings and create trained models. However, their effectiveness depends on the input dataset quality. Using a set of 10 netlists and 10–21 handpicked placement parameters in P&R flows involving pseudo-3D or true-3D placement, the dataset quality is analyzed. The datasets are the design metrics obtained through different P&R stages, such as placement optimization, clock tree synthesis, or 3D partitioning and global routing. The training runtime and the quality of the final design metrics are compared. On a pseudo-3D flow, the training takes around 126–290 hours, whereas, on a true-3D placer-based flow, it takes around 305–410 hours. It is observed that the datasets obtained from different stages lead to drastically different final design results. With the RL-based training processes, the quality of results in 3D designs improves by up to 23.7% compared to their corresponding untrained P&R flows.
CacheSack: Theory and Experience of Google’s Admission Optimization for Datacenter Flash Caches

This article describes the algorithm, implementation, and deployment experience of CacheSack, the admission algorithm for Google datacenter flash caches. CacheSack minimizes the dominant costs of Google’s datacenter flash caches: disk IO and flash footprint. CacheSack partitions cache traffic into disjoint categories, analyzes the observed cache benefit of each subset, and formulates a knapsack problem to assign the optimal admission policy to each subset. Prior to this work, Google datacenter flash cache admission policies were optimized manually, with most caches using the Lazy Adaptive Replacement Cache algorithm. Production experiments showed that CacheSack significantly outperforms the prior static admission policies for a 7.7% improvement of the total cost of ownership, as well as significant improvements in disk reads (9.5% reduction) and flash wearout (17.8% reduction).
The conical shape filament growth model in unipolar resistance switching of TiO2 thin film

This study examined the relationship between the conducting filament resistance and reset voltage during the resistance switching of TiO2 thin films assuming a filament with a conical shape. There was a critical resistance (∼20 Ω) of the set state above and below which the filament responded differently in response to the current. Maintaining a higher set state resistance was more beneficial in achieving a more uniform reset voltage. This filament model coincides well with the localized switching behavior and the recently microscopically observed filament shape.
A Theory of a Human-Centered Social Cognitive Chain

Abstract The absence of anthropology from cognitive science may be related to the fact that the Western-dominated cognitive approach is not human-centered. From an anthropological perspective, we propose a possible social cognitive model—the human-centered social cognitive chain. It is a theory of the human cognitive process that includes two phenomena— anthropomorphism and dehumanization; has two directions—upward and downward; involves two dimensions—morality and competence; and produces two results—cuteness and coolness. It is a way for humans to understand the whole world with themselves as starting point and end point, governing social cognition. The human-centered social cognitive chain involves gods, humans, animals, plants, artificial objects, pure objects, and even abstract concepts, on the basis of which upward and downward anthropomorphism and upward and downward dehumanization arise. The existing research on anthropomorphism and dehumanization is slightly biased in that it only emphasizes upward anthropomorphism and downward dehumanization. Theoretically, both anthropomorphism and dehumanization should be two-stage processes based on essentialism, but humans engaged in cognition tend to adopt a dimensional view that simplifies them. The morality-competence dichotomy reflects this tendency and results in the cognitive outcomes of cuteness, where morality is valued higher than competence and coolness, where competence is valued higher than morality. The human-centered social cognitive chain is the paradigm by which humans understand themselves, their culture, and the world.
Genome diversity of Leishmania aethiopica

Leishmania aethiopica is a zoonotic Old World parasite transmitted by Phlebotomine sand flies and causing cutaneous leishmaniasis in Ethiopia and Kenya. Despite a range of clinical manifestations and a high prevalence of treatment failure, L. aethiopica is the most neglected species of the Leishmania genus in terms of scientific attention. Here, we explored the genome diversity of L. aethiopica by analyzing the genomes of twenty isolates from Ethiopia. Phylogenomic analyses identified two strains as interspecific hybrids involving L. aethiopica as one parent and L. donovani and L. tropica respectively as the other parent. High levels of genome-wide heterozygosity suggest that these two hybrids are equivalent to F1 progeny that propagated mitotically since the initial hybridization event. Analyses of allelic read depths further revealed that the L. aethiopica - L. tropica hybrid was diploid and the L. aethiopica - L. donovani hybrid was triploid, as has been described for other interspecific Leishmania hybrids. When focusing on L. aethiopica, we show that this species is genetically highly diverse and consists of both asexually evolving strains and groups of recombining parasites. A remarkable observation is that some L. aethiopica strains showed an extensive loss of heterozygosity across large regions of the chromosomal genome, which likely arose from gene conversion/mitotic recombination. Hence, our prospection of L. aethiopica genomics revealed new insights into the genomic consequences of both meiotic and mitotic recombination in Leishmania.
Feature extraction for classification of fish species using the Cepstral analysis

Identification and classification of fish species are essential for acoustic surveys of fisheries. The echo from the fish contains components from multiple reflections, including the swimbladder and other organs. The target strength (TS) and temporal structure, which were measured and analyzed by using the broadband signal, were changed dependent on the incident angles and fish species. The cepstral analysis, which was defined as the inverse Fourier transform, was used to discriminate between the spectral pattern associated with the swim bladder and the interference pattern associated with these reflections. Echoes of Japanese jack mackerel (Trachurus japonicus), chub mackerel (Scomber japonicus), and red sea bream (Pagrus major) were measured and analyzed in the sea and tank. It was clarified that the spectral pattern associated the swim bladder was strongly dependent on both the tilt angle and the fish species. [Supported by the Research and Development Program for New Bio-industry Initiatives, and CRES.
Medial entorhinal cortex plays a specialized role in learning of flexible, context-dependent interval timing behavior

Summary In order to survive and adapt in a dynamic environment, animals must perceive and remember the temporal structure of events and actions across a wide range of timescales, including so-called interval timing on the scale of seconds to minutes1,2. Episodic memory (i.e. the ability to remember specific, personal events that occur in spatial and temporal context) requires accurate temporal processing and is known to require neural circuits in the medial temporal lobe (MTL), including medial entorhinal cortex (MEC)3-5. Recently, it has been discovered that neurons in MEC termed time cells, fire regularly at brief moments as animals engage in interval timing behavior, and as a population, display sequential neural activity that tiles the entire timed epoch6. It has been hypothesized that MEC time cell activity could provide temporal information necessary for episodic memories, yet it remains unknown whether the neural dynamics of MEC time cells display a critical feature necessary for encoding experience. That is, whether MEC time cells display context-dependent activity. To address this question, we developed a novel behavioral paradigm that requires learning complex temporal contingencies. Applying this novel interval timing task in mice, in concert with methods for manipulating neural activity and methods for large-scale cellular resolution neurophysiological recording, we have uncovered a specific role for MEC in flexible, context-dependent learning of interval timing behavior. Further, we find evidence for a common circuit mechanism that could drive both sequential activity of time cells and spatially selective neurons in MEC.
Terrestrial laser scan metrics predict surface vegetation biomass and consumption in a frequently burned southeastern U.S. ecosystem

Fire-prone landscapes found throughout the world are increasingly managed with prescribed fire for a variety of objectives. These frequent low-intensity fires directly impact lower forest strata, and thus estimating surface fuels or understory vegetation is essential for planning, evaluating, and monitoring management strategies and studying fire behavior and effects. Traditional fuel estimation methods have applications for stand-level and canopy fuel loading; however, local-scale understory biomass remains challenging because of complex within-stand heterogeneity and fast recovery post-fire. Previous studies have demonstrated how single location terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) can be used to estimate plot-level vegetation characteristics and impacts from prescribed fire. To build upon this methodology, co-located single TLS scans and physical biomass measurements were used to generate linear models for predicting understory vegetation and fuel biomass as well as consumption by fire in a southeastern U.S. pineland. A variable selection method was used to select the six most important TLS-derived structural metrics for each linear model, where model fit ranged in R2 from 0.61 to 0.74. This study highlights a prospect for efficiently estimating vegetation and fuel characteristics relevant to prescribed burning via the integration of a single-scan TLS method adaptable by managers and relevant for coupled fire-atmosphere models.
Sustained Selective Attention in Adolescence: Cognitive Development and Predictors of Distractibility at School

Despite much research into the development of attention in adolescence, mixed results and between-task differences have precluded clear conclusions regarding the relative early- or late-maturation of attention abilities. Moreover, although adolescents constantly face the need to pay attention to their lessons at school, it remains unclear whether laboratory measures of attention can predict their ability to sustain attention focus during school lessons. Here we therefore devised a task that was sensitive to measure both sustained and selective attention and tested whether any of our task measures can predict adolescents’ levels of inattention during their school lessons. 166 adolescents (aged 12-17) and 50 adults performed in our sustained-selective attention task, searching for letter targets, while ignoring salient yet-entirely-irrelevant distractor faces, under different levels of perceptual load-an established determinant of attention in adults. Inattention levels during a just-preceding classroom lesson were measured using our novel self-report classroom-distractibility checklist. The results established that sustained attention (measured with response variability) continued to develop throughout adolescence, across perceptual load levels. In contrast there was an earlier maturation of the effect of perceptual load on selective attention: load modulation of distractor interference was larger in the early adolescence compared to later periods. Both distractor interference and response variability were significant unique predictors of distractibility in the classroom, including when interest in the lesson and cognitive aptitude were controlled for. Overall, the results demonstrate divergence of development of sustained and selective attention in adolescence, and establish both as significant predictors of attention in the important educational setting of school lessons.
Predicting Human Bioavailability of Subcutaneously Administered Fusion Proteins and Monoclonal Antibodies

There has been an increasing trend towards subcutaneous (SC) delivery of fusion proteins and monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) in recent years versus intravenous (IV) administration. The prediction of bioavailability is one of the major barriers in clinical translation of SC administered therapeutic proteins due to a lack of reliable in vitro and preclinical in vivo predictive models. In this study, we explored the relationships between human SC bioavailability and physicochemical or pharmacokinetic properties of 20 Fc-or albumin-fusion proteins and 98 monoclonal antibodies. An inverse linear correlation was observed between human SC bioavailability and human intravenous clearance (CL) or isoelectric point (pI). The bioavailability of fusion proteins is more correlated with pI while the bioavailability of mAbs is more correlated with CL. A mAbs with intravenous CL < 4 mL/day/kg is likely to have SC bioavailability > 60%. Multivariate regression models were developed using intravenous CL and pI of a training set (N = 59) as independent variables. The predictive models were validated with an independent test set (N = 33). A linear regression model resulted in 27 among 33 (82%) predictions within 0.8-to 1.2-fold deviations. Overall, this study demonstrated that CL- and pI-based multivariate regression models could be used to predict human SC bioavailability of fusion proteins and mAbs.
Motor cortex retains and reorients neural dynamics during motor imagery

The most prominent role of motor cortex is generating patterns of neural activity that lead to movement, but it is also active when we simply imagine movements in the absence of actual motor output. Despite decades of behavioral and imaging studies, it is unknown how the specific activity patterns and temporal dynamics within motor cortex during covert motor imagery relate to those during motor execution. Here we recorded intracortical activity from the motor cortex of two people with residual wrist function following incomplete spinal cord injury as they performed both actual and imagined isometric wrist extensions. We found that we could decompose the population-level activity into orthogonal subspaces such that one set of components was similarly active during both action and imagery, and others were only active during a single task type—action or imagery. Although they inhabited orthogonal neural dimensions, the action-unique and imagery-unique subspaces contained a strikingly similar set of dynamical features. Our results suggest that during motor imagery, motor cortex maintains the same overall population dynamics as during execution by recreating the missing components related to motor output and/or feedback within a unique imagery-only subspace.
Morphological changes and two Nodal paralogs drive left-right asymmetry in the squamate veiled chameleon (C. calyptratus)

The ancestral mode of left-right (L-R) patterning involves cilia in the L-R organizer. However, the mechanisms regulating L-R patterning in non-avian reptiles remains an enigma, since most squamate embryos are undergoing organogenesis at oviposition. In contrast, veiled chameleon (Chamaeleo calyptratus) embryos are pre-gastrula at oviposition, making them an excellent organism for studying L-R patterning evolution. Here we show that veiled chameleon embryos lack motile cilia in their L-R organizer, consistent with the loss of motile cilia being a synapomorphy of all reptiles. Furthermore, in contrast to avians, geckos and turtles, which have one Nodal gene, veiled chameleon exhibits expression of two paralogs of Nodal in the left lateral plate mesoderm, albeit in non-identical patterns. Using live imaging, we observed asymmetric morphological changes that precede, and likely trigger, asymmetric expression of the Nodal cascade. Thus, veiled chameleons are a new and unique model for studying the evolution of L-R patterning.
Isolation and genomic and physiological characterization of Parageobacillus sp. G301, the isolate capable of both hydrogenogenic and aerobic carbon monoxide oxidation

Prokaryotes, known as carbon monoxide (CO) oxidizers, use CO as the carbon or energy source with CO dehydrogenases (CODHs), which are divided into nickel-containing CODH (Ni-CODH) that are sensitive to O2 and molybdenum-containing CODH (Mo-CODH) that are capable of aerobic functioning. The oxygen conditions for CO oxidizers to oxidize CO may be limited because CO oxidizers isolated and characterized so far have either Ni- or Mo-CODH. Here, we report a novel CO oxidizer capable of CO oxidation with both types of CODH based on genomic and physiological characterization of the isolate Parageobacillus sp. G301. This thermophilic facultative anaerobic Bacillota bacterium was isolated from the sediment of a freshwater lake. Genomic analyses showed that G301 was the only isolate possessing both Ni-CODH and Mo-CODH. Genome-based reconstruction of the respiratory machinery and physiological investigation indicated that CO oxidation by Ni-CODH was coupled with H2 production (proton reduction), and CO oxidation by Mo-CODH was coupled with O2 reduction under aerobic conditions and nitrate reduction under anaerobic conditions. G301 would thus be able to thrive via CO oxidation under a wide range of conditions, from aerobic environments to anaerobic environments even without terminal electron acceptors other than protons. As comparative genome analyses revealed no significant differences in genome structures and encoded cellular functions, except for CO oxidation between CO oxidizers and non-CO oxidizers in the genus Parageobacillus, CO oxidation genes would be retained exclusively for CO metabolism and related respiration. Importance Microbial CO oxidation has received a lot of attention because it contributes to global carbon cycling in addition to functioning as a remover of CO, which is toxic to many organisms. Microbial CO oxidizers have a punctate phylogenetic distribution throughout bacteria and archaea, even in genus-level monophyletic groups. In this study, we demonstrated that the new isolate Parageobacillus sp. G301 is capable of both anaerobic (hydrogenogenic) and aerobic CO oxidation, which had not been previously reported. The discovery of this new isolate, which is versatile in CO metabolism, would accelerate research into such CO oxidizers with diverse CO metabolisms, expanding our understanding of microbial diversity. Through comparative genomic analyses, we propose that CO oxidation genes are optional but not essential genetic elements in the genus Parageobacillus, providing insight into a factor that shapes the mosaic phylogenetic distribution of CO oxidizers, even in genus-level monophyletic groups.
Yeast eukaryotic initiation factor 4B remodels the mRNA entry site on the small ribosomal subunit

Eukaryotic initiation factor 4B (eIF4B) belongs to the eIF4 group of factors that help in mRNA recruitment to the ribosomal preinitiation complex (PIC) in all eukaryotic organisms. eIF4B stimulates the helicase activity of eIF4A and helps in the formation of the 48S PIC by facilitating mRNA recruitment. However, there is no clear understanding of the location of eIF4B on the 40S and how eIF4B helps in the recruitment of mRNAs. In this work using cryo-electron microscopy, we show that yeast eIF4B binds to the 40S ribosomal subunit at the mRNA entry channel making contacts with ribosomal proteins uS10, uS3, and eS10 and ribosomal rRNA helix h16. The yeast eIF4B position on the 40S overlaps with the RRM domain of eIF3g indicating that the binding of eIF4B may trigger the relocation of the eIF3 b-g-i module to the subunit interface. The 40S head is in partially open conformation that may facilitate the release of eIF3j and hence aid mRNA recruitment and scanning. The structural analysis of yeast eIF4B-bound ribosomal complex provides insight into possible events during mRNA recruitment.