Over the last two decades, private renting has undergone a major revival in the UK, more than doubling its share within the housing system. Young adults increasingly remain in the sector into their ...30s, giving rise to the term 'Generation Rent'. Using data from the UK's Family Resources Survey, this article shows how reliance on the sector varies by poverty status, particularly for young adults and children. In 2017/18, 42 per cent of adults under 40 in low-income poverty lived in private renting, compared with just 26 per cent of non-poor. This is almost double the proportion of 20 years earlier. Private renting is now home to more poor adults under 40 than owner occupation and social renting combined. In addition, one in three children in poverty (36 per cent) now lives in private renting, three times the level of 20 years ago. For both adults and children, rates are even higher in London and the South. Although rates of increase have slowed in recent years, this dramatic shift in the housing circumstances of those in poverty has a number of implications for housing and social policy which have not yet been sufficiently recognised.
Speciation and hybridization are intertwined processes in the study of evolution. Hybridization between sufficiently diverged populations can result in genomic conflict within offspring, causing ...reduced viability and fertility, thus increasing divergence between populations. Conflicts between mitochondrial and nuclear genes are increasingly found to play a role in this process in various systems. We examine the possibility of this conflict in the bear macaque, Macaca arctoides (Primates: Cercopithecidae), a primate species exhibiting mitonuclear discordance due to extensive hybridization with species in the sinica and fascicularis groups. Here, divergence, introgression and natural selection of mitonuclear genes (N = 160) relative to nuclear control genes (N = 144) were analysed to determine whether there are evolutionary processes involved in resolving the potential conflict caused by mitonuclear discordance. Nucleotide divergence of mitonuclear genes is increased relative to control nuclear genes between M. arctoides and the species sharing its nuclear ancestry (p = 0.007), consistent with genetic conflict. However, measures of introgression and selection do not identify large‐scale co‐introgression or co‐evolution as means to resolve mitonuclear conflict. Nonetheless, mitochondrial tRNA synthetases stand out in analyses using dN/dS and extended branch lengths as potential targets of selection. The methodology implemented provides a framework that can be used to examine the effects of mitonuclear co‐introgression and co‐evolution on a genomic scale in a variety of systems.
Mitonuclear discordance in the bear macaque due to asymmetric hybridization from fascicularis and sinica species groups. Potential resolutions of this discordance are explained and tested.
The growth of the online short-term rental market, facilitated by platforms such as Airbnb, has added to pressure on cities' housing supply. Without detailed data on activity levels, it is difficult ...to design and evaluate appropriate policy interventions. Up until now, the data sources and methods used to derive activity measures have not provided the detail and rigour needed to robustly carry out these tasks. This paper demonstrates an approach based on daily scrapes of the calendars of Airbnb listings. We provide a systematic interpretation of types of calendar activity derived from these scrapes and define a set of indicators of listing activity levels. We exploit a unique period in short-term rental markets during the UK's first COVID-19 lockdown to demonstrate the value of this approach.
Phononic crystals (PnCs) and metamaterials are widely investigated for vibration suppression owing to the bandgaps, within which, wave propagation is prohibited or the attenuation level is above ...requirements. The application of PnCs and metamaterials is, however, limited by the widths of bandgaps. The recently developed rainbow structures consisting of spatially varied profiles have been shown to generate wider bandgaps than periodic structures. Inspired by this design strategy, rainbow metamaterials composed of nonperiodic mass blocks in two-dimensional (2D) space were proposed in the present study. The blocks were connected by curved beams and tessellated with internal voids to adjust their masses. In order to demonstrate the effects of the rainbow design, two 2D metamaterials, with periodic and nonperiodic units, respectively, were investigated and manufactured using additive manufacturing technologies. Receptance functions, i.e., displacement frequency response functions, of the manufactured metamaterials were calculated with finite element models and measured with a testing system containing a mechanical shaker, an impedance head, and a laser Doppler vibrometer. The obtained numerical and experimental results showed that the metamaterial with rainbow blocks has extended bandgaps compared with the periodic metamaterial.
When compared to the approximately 22 other macaque species,
Macaca arctoides
has many unique phenotypes. These traits fall into various phenotypic categories, including genitalia, coloration, ...mating, and olfactory traits. Here we used a previously identified whole genome set of 690 outlier genes to look for possible genetic explanations of these unique traits. Of these, 279 genes were annotated miRNAs, which are non-coding. Patterns within the remaining outliers in coding genes were investigated using GO (
n
= 370) and String (
n
= 383) analysis, which showed many interconnected immune-related genes. Further, we compared the outliers to candidate pathways associated with
M. arcotides’
unique phenotypes, revealing 10/690 outlier genes that overlapped these four pathways: hedgehog signaling, WNT signaling, olfactory, and melanogenesis. Of these, genes in all pathways except olfactory had higher
F
ST
values than the rest of the genes in the genome based on permutation tests. Overall, our results point to many genes each having a small impact on phenotype, working in tandem to cause large systemic changes. Additionally, these results may indicate pleiotropy. This seems to be especially true with the development and coloration of
M. arctoides.
Our results highlight that development, melanogenesis, immune function, and miRNAs may be heavily involved in
M. arctoides’
evolutionary history.
Abstract
Speciation can involve phases of divergent adaptation in allopatry and ecological/reproductive character displacement in sympatry or parapatry. Reproductive character displacement can result ...as a means of preventing hybridization, a process known as reinforcement speciation. In this study, we use whole‐genome sequencing (WGS) of two closely related primate species that have experienced introgression in their history, the rhesus (
Macaca mulatta
) and cynomolgus (
M. fascicularis
) macaques, to identify genes exhibiting reproductive character displacement and other patterns consistent with reinforcement speciation. Using windowed scans of various population genetic statistics to identify signatures of reinforcement, we find 184 candidate genes associated with a variety of functions, including an overrepresentation of multiple neurological functions and several genes involved in sexual development and gametogenesis. These results are consistent with a variety of genes acting in a reinforcement process between these species. We also find signatures of introgression of the Y‐chromosome that confirm previous studies suggesting male‐driven introgression of
M. mulatta
into
M. fascicularis
populations. This study uses WGS to find evidence of the process of reinforcement in primates that have medical and conservation relevance.
When natural populations split and migrate to different environments, they may experience different selection pressures that can lead to local adaptation. To capture the genomic patterns of a local ...selective sweep, we develop XP‐nSL, a genomic scan for local adaptation that compares haplotype patterns between two populations. We show that XP‐nSL has power to detect ongoing and recently completed hard and soft sweeps, and we then apply this statistic to search for evidence of adaptation to high altitude in rhesus macaques. We analyze the whole genomes of 23 wild rhesus macaques captured at high altitude (mean altitude > 4000 m above sea level) to 22 wild rhesus macaques captured at low altitude (mean altitude < 500 m above sea level) and find evidence of local adaptation in the high‐altitude population at or near 303 known genes and several unannotated regions. We find the strongest signal for adaptation at EGLN1, a classic target for convergent evolution in several species living in low oxygen environments. Furthermore, many of the 303 genes are involved in processes related to hypoxia, regulation of ROS, DNA damage repair, synaptic signaling, and metabolism. These results suggest that, beyond adapting via a beneficial mutation in one single gene, adaptation to high altitude in rhesus macaques is polygenic and spread across numerous important biological systems.
ObjectivesWe aim to estimate occupational differences in COVID-19 hospital admission and mortality by sex. Occupations vary with respect to environmental factors that influence exposure to COVID-19 ...such as ventilation, social contact and protective equipment. Variations between women and men may arise because they occupy different roles within an occupation or from behavioural differences.
ApproachWe established an innovative linked data collection combining individual-level data from 2011 Census with health administrative records and household identifiers from Ordnance Survey’s Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN). Using data for a cohort of approximately 1.7 million Scottish adults aged 40 to 64 years, we analysed occupational differences in COVID-19 hospital admission and mortality, during the period between 1 March 2020 and 31 January 2021. We estimated age-standardised incidence rates (ASIRs) for COVID-19 hospital admission and death per 100,000 adults, stratified by sex and occupation. Using Cox proportional hazards models, we estimated COVID-19 hospital admission and death risks, adjusting for socio-economic and pre-pandemic health factors.
ResultsGenerally, women had lower ASIRs for COVID-19 hospital admission and mortality compared to men. For COVID-19 mortality, ASIRs were highest among women employed in elementary trades and related occupations (e.g. packers/canners). For hospital admission, high rates were observed among women working in caring personal services (e.g. nursing assistants/ambulance staff). Among men, ASIRs were highest among those in elementary services occupations (kitchen assistants/waiters) and taxi drivers, who also had the highest admission rate. After adjusting for pre-pandemic health factors, we observed lower death risks for women employed as health professionals, and those in associate professional and technical occupations (medical technicians/paramedics), compared to the baseline model. Lower adjusted admission risks were also observed for both women and men in professional occupations (e.g. in science/engineering and teaching/education). Among men, adjusted death risks remained elevated for large vehicle and taxi drivers, who also displayed high admission risks.
ConclusionOccupational differences in COVID-19 hospital admission and mortality between women and men may be explained by a mixture of social, workplace and behavioural factors. These need to be considered when designing intervention policies which aim to reduce infections in the workplace.
Genital divergence is thought to contribute to reproductive barriers by establishing a “lock‐and‐key" mechanism for reproductive compatibility. One such example, Macaca arctoides, the bear macaque, ...has compensatory changes in both male and female genital morphology as compared to close relatives. M. arctoides also has a complex evolutionary history, having extensive introgression between the fascicularis and sinica macaque species groups. Here, phylogenetic relationships were analyzed via whole‐genome sequences from five species, including M. arctoides, and two species each from the putative parental species groups. This analysis revealed ~3x more genomic regions supported placement in the sinica species group as compared to the fascicularis species group. Additionally, introgression analysis of the M. arctoides genome revealed it is a mosaic of recent polymorphisms shared with both species groups. To examine the evolution of their unique genital morphology further, the prevalence of candidate genes involved in genital morphology was compared against genome‐wide outliers in various population genetic metrics of diversity, divergence, introgression, and selection, while accounting for background variation in recombination rate. This analysis identified 67 outlier genes, including several genes that influence baculum morphology in mice, which were of interest since the bear macaque has the longest primate baculum. The mean of four of the seven population genetic metrics was statistically different in the candidate genes as compared to the rest of the genome, suggesting that genes involved in genital morphology have increased divergence and decreased diversity beyond expectations. These results highlight specific genes that may have played a role in shaping the unique genital morphology in the bear macaque.
The bear macaque has diverged in both male and female genital morphology from other macaques, which can contribute to reproductive incompatibility. Here, 67 candidate genes involved in genital morphology were also genome‐wide outliers in various population genetic metrics. Additionally, the mean in the candidate genes of several metrics was statistically different as compared to the rest of the genome, suggesting that genital morphology has diverged beyond expectations in the bear macaque.
Deprivation scales are becoming increasingly familiar in research and official statistics on poverty. Taking advantage of the basis of these scales in Item Response Theory, this paper proposes a more ...efficient approach to implementation using adaptive testing. This maximises information collected for a given amount of survey time by screening respondents on the basis of initial answers, and halting questioning where it is very unlikely any further information will be gathered. The paper illustrates various implementations using data from eight years of the UK’s
Family Resources Survey (FRS)
. Results show that an adaptive approach collects more than 99% of the information from the UK’s official deprivation measure in half the survey time. In addition, the paper suggests improvements in the design of the UK’s official deprivation scale as well as lessons for the development of future deprivation scales more generally.
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