Recent government interventions support the objectives of collective markets through public policy rather than relying on traditional strategic cooperation between non-state actors. We ask when and how left-wing governments intervene in collectively-governed markets. We develop a novel theoretical framework at the intersection of public policy and comparative political economy. We build on public policy scholarship to mobilize a typology of policy instruments available to governments to shore up collective markets, including regulation (sticks), subsidies (carrots), and information (sermons). We embed this hierarchical classification in a political economy framework to outline under which conditions we expect policymakers to opt for different instruments. We illustrate the usefulness of this approach through a case study of least likely policy areas – labor market and training policy – nested within a least likely case – Germany.

Credit rating agencies (CRAs) are less likely and slower to downgrade firms with performance-sensitive debt (PSD) if these downgrades increase borrowing costs. This effect is stronger when CRAs rate their most profitable clients and is not driven by selection into PSD contracts, by borrowers adjusting their leverage, or by borrowers hiding information. Originating banks price the CRAs’ conflicts of interest and sell loans with more embedded conflicts more frequently. In contrast, secondary market participants do not price conflicts of interest to the same extent. The recent settlements between the major CRAs and the U.S. government do not prevent rating inflation.

This paper proposes an ecological framework for understanding medieval mining towns as dynamic socio-ecological systems shaped by flows of matter, energy, capital and information. Drawing on concepts from human and political ecology, it examines how mining, technology and power structures interacted to produce feedback loops and tipping points that transformed both society and the environment. A case study of Kutná Hora (Czechia) illustrates these mechanisms, showing how the discovery of silver triggered cycles of population growth, technological innovation and capital accumulation, whilst also causing deforestation, pollution and social stratification. The study highlights how medieval mining towns functioned as adaptive, self-organizing systems embedded in global economic networks, revealing early forms of extractive capitalism and environmental change. This ecological perspective offers a heuristic model for analysing historical urban environments and their long-term sustainability, bridging archaeology, history and environmental science.

The implementation of distance learning in Greece during the 2020 to 2021 school years due to the pandemic was a necessary solution for the continuation of education, presenting challenges. It offered new opportunities for the use of technology in the educational process and highlighted the importance of flexibility and adaptability in education. One example of the new possibilities was interschool collaborations and the joint implementation of programmes and activities. Through the platform Webex, used by the Greek educational system, schools from different regions were able to collaborate, exchange ideas and materials, enhance communication, promote the exchange of cultural experiences, and broaden the horizons of students and educators.

The interschool programme titled A Thousand and One Interpretations: The Reception of Antigone through Different Forms of Art was designed and implemented through the collaboration of 2 educators and 2 second-year high school classes, one from the Varvakeio Model High School in Athens (a school where pupils are selected through examinations in Greek language and Maths at the age of 12 years) and the other from the 3rd General High School of Serres (a suburban school in Northern Greece).

With the main objectives being the creative integration of art into the teaching of a compulsory curriculum subject1 and collaboration between 2 schools of different types (model and conventional) from different regions, 6 mixed groups (each group included students from both schools) were formed. These groups studied and explored the relationship between Sophocles’s Antigone and contemporary works of art that reinterpret and recreate the ancient tragedy.

According to its 2022 national glacier inventory, Chile is home to 26,169 glaciers and roughly 80 percent of the glaciers in South America. Yet much of this ice is not legally protected. Diverse local communities whose lifeworlds depend on the spiritual and material integrity of Andean glaciers and their meltwaters are placing growing demands on Chilean glaciologists to accompany grassroots campaigns to defend these ecosystems from the direct impacts of anthropogenic interventions amid the climate crisis and years of megadrought. This article builds off a feminist glaciology framework to examine if, how, and to what extent an emerging generation of Andean glacier scientists is learning to question the masculinist and Western modes of knowledge, thinking, and action embedded in their disciplinary training. Through ethnographic fieldwork with glacier scientists, arrieros (herders), and grassroots organizations in the municipality of Putaendo in Central Chile, and the author’s participation in codesigning a knowledge exchange between Mapuche communities and glacier scientists in the province of Araucanía, this article analyzes the possibility for dialogues between ancestral, local, and technoscientific knowledges to transform the dominant discourses and practices of glaciology. It demonstrates the ontological openings that occur when knowledges that have been systematically marginalized from the technoscientific domain of glacier science are taken seriously in conversations over the present and future of the cryosphere. And it argues that these ontological exchanges not only impact the possibility of climate justice for those communities most directly affected by glacier loss but also can contribute to building more feminist, plural, and decolonial praxis within contemporary glaciology.

The application of a contract involves ascertaining whether the components of a contract term are met on the facts. It is a matter of categorisation or classification. There are at least three methods of categorisation: by criteria; by factor-balancing; and by analogy. The process of application is distinct from the processes that are engaged to define contract terms, including in particular interpretation. However, both the process of application and the process of interpretation address problems of linguistic indeterminacy, that is, cases where the words do not fit the facts. And these problems are usually resolved through interpretation; the relevant term is defined with such specificity that it is clear how it is to be applied. It is only when the court cannot define the term precisely that the court engages in categorisation or classification in a complex and meaningful way.

To explore molecular targets for regulating glucose metabolism in carnivorous fish, the glucose tolerance test (GTT) was carried out on the Paralichthys olivaceus. The concentration of glucose and insulin in serum were measured at 0, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, 24, and 48h after intraperitoneal (IP) injecting. The concentration of insulin was the lowest after 3h of glucose injection, and that of glucose reached the highest after 5h. Therefore, 0h (IP0) was chosen as control group, 3h (IP3) and 5h (IP5) were selected as experimental groups, which the liver samples in three time points were used to high-throughput sequencing. Although, there were no significant KEGG and GO functional enrichment, the differential genes including MAPK binding protein 1 (MAPKBP1), glycosyltransferase (FNG), suppressor of cytokine signaling 3 (SOCS3), CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein alpha (CEBP-α) were closely related to glucose metabolism, among which SOCS3 was worthy of further explore. The full-length cDNA sequence of SOCS3 gene was cloned and the open reading frame (ORF) of SOCS3 encoded 225 amino acids including conserved domains SH2 and SOCS3-box. The results of tissue differential expression showed that SOCS3 was highly expressed in liver and intestine. The SOCS3 was knocked down by specific siRNA in the primary hepatocyte of P. olivaceus. Results showed that the gene expression of insulin receptor substrate 1 (IRS1), protease B1 (AKT1), glucose transporter 2 (GLUT2), pyruvate kinase (PK) and glucokinase (GK) increased significantly after knocking down SOCS3. Meanwhile, the phosphatidylinositol-3-hydroxykinase (PI3K) and glucose-6-phosphatase (G6Pase) decreased significantly. The results of this study indicated that siSOSC3 enhanced the sensitivity of the insulin signaling pathway to promote glucose transport, thereby affecting gluconeogenesis and glycolysis to maintain glucose homeostasis.

A simple application of urn models is useful in spelling out the way in which, in abstraction, if the parents are distributed in Hardy-Weinberg form, that form is reproduced in offspring with nonrandom mating. A measure of divergence from random mating is proposed and illustrated by numerical examples. The scope of urn models of stochastic processes in population genetics theory is set out.

The intensification of pig (Sus scrofa domesticus) production systems raises concerns regarding animal welfare, particularly during pre-slaughter conditions, a phase associated with significant stress. Saliva is increasingly recognised as a non-invasive matrix for detecting stress-related biomarkers in pigs. This preliminary study aimed to explore salivary protein changes in pigs subjected to two distinct pre-slaughter conditions at the slaughterhouse, improved (Group A) and stressful (Group B), by tandem mass tag (TMT)-based proteomics. Proteomic analysis of saliva from three pigs per group revealed 13 proteins with a statistically significant difference in relative abundance between the groups. Group B showed elevated levels of proteins linked to metabolic stress, inflammation, and coagulation, such as cystatin-C and fibrinogen chains, while proteins like vimentin and follistatin-related protein were decreased. Cystatin-C and vimentin were further validated by immunoassays in 12 additional pigs per group, confirming their differential abundance. These findings suggest that salivary cystatin-C and vimentin, along with the other 11 proteins that showed changes at proteomics, may serve as candidate biomarkers of acute stress at slaughter. While further validation is required, our results support the potential of salivary proteomics for welfare monitoring in livestock.

The correct author and date for the family-group name Heriadini (Hymenoptera: Megachilidae: Megachilinae) are discussed. A brief discussion of available family-group names associated with Osmiini Newman, 1834 is provided.

Studies have called for exploring authentic leadership in diverse contexts, as organizations expressed a need for credible leadership amid challenging business times and societal volatilities. However, there has been limited consideration of the cultural and contextual boundaries of authentic leadership. This paper addresses this gap in literature and expands the empirical evidence by investigating the conceptualization of authentic leadership through a qualitative study in the context of West Africa. To this end, this research adopts a life-story approach with a variety of 16 business executives who shared their leadership experiences from Ghana. The findings of this research not only support and enrich the multifactorial characteristics of authentic leadership but also reveal an emerging dimension described as collective orientation. Additionally, the findings indicate that authentic leadership holds cultural relevance in emerging economies. Therefore, managers aiming to promote authentic leadership in their organizations need to recognize contextual values and cultivate appropriate environments to achieve positive outcomes.

Career progression in academia is negotiated across multiple stages, yet the relational and institutional dynamics shaping these negotiations remain underexamined. This article examines how career progression negotiations unfold between STEM women academics and decision-makers, including faculty Deans, within Australian universities. Drawing on constructivist grounded theory, the study analyses 50 interviews across 14 STEM faculties. The study finds that career progression negotiations are identity-evaluative encounters that determine whether women academics are recognised as legitimate and promotion-ready. Women academics are required to render their identities visible, coherent, and credible, while decision-makers selectively interpret these claims through institutional expectations of readiness, risk, and merit. These evaluative negotiations accumulate across formal and informal interactions, shaping career trajectories before promotion decisions are made. By theorising intersectional identity negotiation as a relational and co-constructed process, the study recasts career progression as an institutional site of negotiated power, highlighting how practices reproduce or contest inequities in academia.

Three-dimensional computed tomography provides an accurate interpretation of anomalous coronary arteries and related anatomy, which helps determine the ideal surgical approach in rare cases.