The export of ornamental fishes from Malawi has received limited attention regarding its sustainability or the conservation status of any threatened species involved in this trade. To identify any species that require specific management actions, we used a negative binomial regression model to examine the relationship between the number of exported fish and year of export, adjusted for fish prices and the number of fish exporters. We also examined the correlation between export volume trends and the conservation status of fish species. We identified three groups of fish species based on their export volume trends: species with no trends, with decreasing trends and with increasing trends. There was no significant correlation between export volume trends and the conservation status of fish species. The export volume trends of individual species appear to be related to the number of exporters, price and, potentially, anthropogenic factors affecting fish populations. Based on our findings we recommend the inclusion of ornamental fishery management issues in a revised Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy. This should include strategies to control overexploitation of species with declining export volume trends, and conservation of threatened species and a ban on their export. We recommend further research to establish the population status of the exploited fish species and to identify any other factors linked to the volume trends of ornamental fish exports.

As mid-southern U.S. rice producers continue to adopt furrow-irrigated rice (FIR) production practices, supplementary management efforts will be vital in combating Palmer amaranth due to the extended germination period provided by the lack of a continual flood. Previous research has revealed the ability of cover crops to suppress Palmer amaranth emergence in corn, cotton, and soybean production systems; however, research on cover crop weed control efficacy in rice production is scarce. Therefore, trials were initiated in Arkansas in 2022 and 2023 to evaluate the effect of cover crops across five site years on rice emergence, groundcover, grain yield, and total Palmer amaranth emergence. The cover crops evaluated were cereal rye, winter wheat, Austrian winterpea, and hairy vetch. Cover crop biomass accumulation varied by site year, ranging from 430 to 3,440 kg ha-1, with cereal rye generally being the most consistent producer of high-quantity biomass across site years. Rice growth and development were generally unaffected by cover crop establishment; however, all cover crops reduced rice emergence by up to 30% in one site year. Rice groundcover was reduced by 13% from cereal rye in one site year two weeks before heading but cover crops did not impact rough rice grain yield in any of the site years. Palmer amaranth emergence was reduced by 19 and 35% with cereal rye relative to the absence of a cover crop when rice was planted in April in Marianna and May in Fayetteville, respectively. In most trials, Palmer amaranth emergence was not reduced by a cereal cover crop. In most instances, legume cover crops resulted in less Palmer amaranth emergence than without a cover crop. Based on these results, legume cover crops appear to provide some suppression of Palmer amaranth emergence in FIR while having a minimal effect on rice establishment and yield.

Spiral galaxies are ubiquitous in the local Universe. However the properties of spiral arms in them are still not well studied, and there is even less information concerning spiral structure in distant galaxies. We aim to measure the most general parameters of spiral arms in remote galaxies and trace their changes with redshift. We perform photometric decomposition, including spiral arms, for 159 galaxies from the HST COSMOS and JWST CEERS and JADES surveys, which are imaged in optical and near-infrared rest-frame wavelengths. We confirm that, in our representative sample of spiral galaxies, the pitch angles increase, and the azimuthal lengths decrease with increasing redshift, implying that the spiral structure becomes more tightly wound over time. For the spiral-to-total luminosity ratio and the spiral width-to-disc scale length ratio, we find that band-shifting effects can be as significant as, or even stronger than, evolutionary effects. Additionally, we find that spiral structure becomes more asymmetric at higher redshifts.

According to Fricker’s (2007) seminal account, an epistemic injustice is done when, based on prejudice, a hearer ascribes to a speaker a level of credibility below what they deserve. When prejudice results in credibility excess, however, Fricker contends no similar injustice takes place. In this paper, I will challenge the second of these claims. Using a modified version of Zollman’s (2007) two-armed bandit model, I will show how the systematic over-ascription of credibility within a dominant group can produce epistemic advantages for that group relative to non-group members.

A citywide boil water notice necessitated an alternative solution for treating contaminated water. We report our experience using portable reverse osmosis machines to treat the municipal water to provide purified water to patient care areas where non-sterile water was needed, preventing interruptions in services like elective surgeries.

An abundance and diverse range of prehistoric fishing practices was revealed during excavations between 2012 and 2022 at the construction site of the Femern Belt Tunnel, linking the islands of Lolland (Denmark) and Femern (Germany). The waterlogged parts of the prehistoric Syltholm Fjord yielded well preserved organic materials, including the remains of wooden fish traps and weirs, and numerous vertical stakes and posts driven into the former seabed – evidence of long term fishing practices using stationary wooden structures from the Mesolithic to the Bronze Age (c. 4700–900 cal BC). Here, we present the results of a detailed study on these stationary wooden fishing structures, making this the most comprehensive and detailed description of prehistoric passive fishing practices in Syltholm Fjord to date. The exceptional scale of the excavated area (57 ha) and abundance of organic materials encountered during excavations provides us with a rare opportunity to identify individual weir systems and information on their construction, maintenance, and use. To contextualise further, we provide an up-to-date compilation of comparable finds in the Danish archaeological record, including a dataset of directly dated specimens, based on both published and unpublished sources. Our results show that stationary wooden fishing structures are an invaluable archaeological resource, and their study, combining landscape reconstruction, ethnographic analogy, and fishing technology, together with artefactual evidence and radiocarbon dating, allows us to reconstruct prehistoric fishing strategies in depth. Due to the long chronology and diversity of the study materials, our results complement previous research on the many nuances and regional specificities of the persistence of fishing practices in the western Baltic Sea over time, despite introductions of new cultures, populations, and livelihoods. Finally, we emphasise that the Neolithisation process in Northern Europe was not as straightforward and uniform in terms of subsistence as commonly assumed.

Much of the existing philosophical literature on BDSM focuses on questions about the ethics of BDSM. But there is an underlying question here regarding the nature of BDSM, one which remains largely unaddressed. In this paper, I take that metaphysical question to be prior to the normative one. In other words: it will be important to have a clear view of what BDSM is before we go on to evaluate it. Accordingly, this is a paper about the nature of BDSM and BDSM activities: what they are like, what makes them unique, and the ways in which these activities might be valuable. Here, I work from the philosophical literature on games to analyze structured erotic encounters (or “scenes”) in BDSM. In the first half of the paper, I argue that BDSM scenes are games, and that understanding them in this way yields important insights into the roles of agency, autonomy, and value in BDSM. In the second half of the paper, I map points of connection between this view of scenes-as-games and the existing literature on BDSM in sexual ethics, in order to illuminate the ways in which a moral evaluation of BDSM scenes might proceed from this analysis.

One of the main features of Gilles Deleuze’s lectures of 1981 concerns the importance accorded to the notion of modulation as a philosophical definition of painting. The novelty of such a framework lies in the correspondences established between analogical operations and artistic spaces of Western art. This article establishes the main moments of this analysis and thus point out its main technical, historical, and aesthetic implications. Ultimately, the notion of modulation is considered as the conceptual operator of a “heterogenetic” history of art within the framework of Deleuze’s philosophy.

We are all capable of arriving at views that are driven by corrupting non-epistemic interests. But we are nonetheless very skilled at performing a commitment to epistemic goods in such cases. I call this the “Problem of Mere Epistemic Performance,” and it generates a need to determine when these commitments are illusory and when they are in fact genuine. I argue that changing one’s mind, when done in response to the evidence and at a likely cost to oneself, is the best indication that an agent is committed to epistemic goods and that they are genuinely in the game of giving and asking for reasons. This is because changing one’s mind in this way goes as far as we can in eliminating the possibility that the agent has an ulterior motivation for their epistemic practices. Moreover, this account shows that the consensus view of the ideal epistemic agent is mistaken. The ideal agent must have false beliefs or deficient epistemic practices because only then do they have the opportunity to change their mind and establish a commitment to epistemic goods – a commitment that even an agent with only true beliefs and maximal justification or understanding may lack.

Motivated by the study of algebraic classes in mixed characteristic, we define a countable subalgebra of ${\overline {\mathbb {Q}}}_p$ which we call the algebra of André’s p-adic periods. The classical Tannakian formalism cannot be used to study these new periods. Instead, inspired by ideas of Drinfel’d on the Plücker embedding and further developed by Haines, we produce an adapted Tannakian setting which allows us to bound the transcendence degree of André’s p-adic periods and to formulate the p-adic analog of the Grothendieck period conjecture. We exhibit several examples where special values of classical p-adic functions appear as André’s p-adic periods, and we relate these new conjectures to some classical problems on algebraic classes.

The secessionist state of Biafra enacted a propaganda campaign that simultaneously built support for its war of independence (the Nigerian Civil War, 1967–1970) and fostered nationalism. Integral to this effort, although understudied, were the currency, stamps, posters, and cartoons artists produced while working for the government. Putting these materials in dialogue with print and radio propaganda, and the Ahiara Declaration (the culminating treatise of Biafran nationalism), this article demonstrates how visual propaganda actualized a nation, constructed national identity, positioned Biafra as a foil to an irredeemable Nigeria, and defined a citizenry. Through the materials they created, artists shaped Biafra’s national consciousness.

Impact dynamics have long fascinated due to their ubiquity in everyday phenomena, from rain droplets splashing on windscreens to stone-skimming on the surface of the ocean. Impacts are characterized by rapid changes over disparate length scales, which make them expensive or sensitive to capture experimentally and computationally. Here, reduced mathematical models come to the fore, offering a way to get significant physical insight at reduced cost. In this volume, Phillips & Milewski (J. Fluid Mech., 2024) develop a mathematical model allowing for air–water interactions in the low-impact speed regime, in which an impactor bounces or rebounds rather than splashes. Their model offers a reliable way to capture air effects in bouncing, with a range of potential applications including hydrodynamic-quantum analogues and biomimetic water walkers.

Physician databases constitute an essential component of health workforce planning. However, while some countries have established functioning national physician databases, others have failed to do so. We compared the healthcare systems of two technologically and economically developed countries, Canada and Israel, which represent cases of respective success and failure in establishing physician databases. A comparative analysis was conducted using a historical-institutionalist approach to examine contemporary health policy outcomes. White papers, studies on healthcare human resources, and reports by professional committees were examined to explore the aims, interests, positions, and actions of stakeholders. In Canada, state–medical profession cooperation, deep-rooted in a longstanding regulatory bargain between the two parties, has facilitated the creation and management of physician databases, albeit limited and in need of urgent improvement, on national and jurisdictional levels. The lack of such regulatory arrangement coupled with enduring conflicted relations between stakeholders due to particular historical developments have hindered the development of an Israeli equivalent database so far. Finally, health policy outcomes may be explained against the backdrop of broader political, governance, and organisational contexts. How medical organisations respond to governmental healthcare initiatives is heavily influenced by their institutional position vis-à-vis the state, shaped by historical processes and regulatory arrangements.

By adopting a pre- and post-test design, the current study longitudinally examined the complex relationship between two different dimensions of phonological vocabulary knowledge (declarative vs. automatized) and their ultimate impacts on global L2 listening proficiency among 133 Japanese EFL students. The declarative group focused solely on what target words sound like and mean via meaning recognition tasks. The automatization group worked not only on such form-meaning mappings but also on prompt access to the target words in a semantically, collocationally, and grammatically appropriate manner via lexicosemantic judgment tasks. Compared to the declarative group, the automatization group showed relatively robust learning in both declarative and automatized dimensions of target words. Although neither training approach showed clear superiority, the results suggest that relative gains in automatized, rather than declarative, dimensions are associated with enhanced L2 listening proficiency. The distinction between declarative and automatized dimensions of phonological vocabulary knowledge, along with the absence of a direct link between training type and improved listening proficiency, offers valuable insights for future extension studies.

The spotted hyaena Crocuta crocuta is relatively understudied across its range despite evidence of widespread declines. It is therefore essential that robust baseline population density assessments are conducted to inform current management and future conservation policy. In Mozambique this is urgent as decades of armed conflict followed by unchecked poaching have resulted in large-scale wildlife declines and extirpations. We conducted the first robust population density estimate for a spotted hyaena population in Mozambique using spatially explicit capture–recapture methodologies. We recorded a relatively low population density of 0.8–2.1 hyaenas/100 km2 in the wildlife management area Coutada 11 in the Zambezi Delta of central Mozambique in 2021. These densities are well below the estimated carrying capacity for the landscape and are comparable to published densities in high human-impact, miombo woodland-dominated and arid environments. The combination of historical armed conflict, marginal trophy hunting and bushmeat poaching using wire snares and gin traps (with physical injuries evident in 9% of identified individuals) presents persistent anthropogenic pressure, limiting the post-war recovery of this resident hyaena population. We provide insights into the dynamics of hyaena population status and recovery in such post-war landscapes, adding to mounting evidence that the species is less resilient to severe anthropogenic disturbances than previously believed. We recommend long-term monitoring of this and other carnivore populations in post-war landscapes to ascertain demographic trends and implement effective conservation interventions for population recovery.

Legislative term limits garnered public support because they promised to drain the swamp, removing entrenched incumbents from office. There is often a partisan dimension to this appeal since “the swamp” that is to be “drained” has often been controlled by one party for a lengthy period. However, it remains unclear to what extent term limits realign partisanship within US state legislatures. Using newly available turnover data, this research evaluates how legislative partisanship shifted after the implementation of term limits in state legislatures and continued over 20 years. The initial surge effects of term limits did appear to level the playing field between parties. The passage of term limits reversed party majorities in state legislatures, primarily benefiting newfound Republican majorities. These findings have important implications for current understandings of legislative term limits, as more states revisit these proposals, and provide insight into party trends at the state legislative level.

Discussions of term limits are happening in the United States and abroad. In July 2024, President Biden announced his support for limiting the number of years that federal judges may serve. Surveys suggest that limits for judges are popular with Americans.1 Relatedly, voters have historically supported term limits for members of Congress, with the most recent survey (from July 2023) finding support among 87%.2 For now, limits are unlikely to be imposed on federal judges or members of Congress, but there are recent changes in the states. Voters in North Dakota imposed limits on their state legislators in 2022, and those limits will take effect in 2028. In Michigan, also in 2022, voters shortened the long-standing lifetime limits for their legislators from 14 to 12 years. Discussions or reforms, including the elimination of limits, have also occurred outside of the United States. In Russia, voters seemingly reset the term limits that applied previously to President Vladimir Putin, thereby allowing him to serve in office until 2036. In China, where limits for various leaders including the president were first added to the country’s constitution in 1982, limits were abolished in 2018. Although these are prominent examples of limits being lifted, a remarkable number of new limits have been enacted elsewhere, with limits on executives being imposed in 17 countries within the past decade alone. To date, only a handful of countries, most of which are in the Americas, have legislative limits.3 Conversely, nearly every country limits the service of judges.4