Two experiments were conducted for the objective of isolating and characterizing lactic acid bacteria (LAB) from elephant grass and using selected strains as inoculants in elephant grass to enhance its quality as silage. A total of 156 LAB strains were identified in the different periods (0, 1, 3, 7, 14, 28, and 56 days). The main LAB present during the fermentation period were Weissella cibaria at day 1, W. paramesenteroides at day 3, and Lactiplantibacillus plantarum and L. pentosus after the 7th day of fermentation. For inoculation in elephant grass, three strains (L. plantarum 28.19, L. pentosus 28.22 and Lacticaseibacillus casei 28.26) were selected. There was a significant effect of inoculant × period interaction on all silage variables analysed, except for the mould population, which was affected only by fermentation period. At the beginning of fermentation (day 1), silages inoculated with the strains L. plantarum, L. pentosus, and Lc. casei had significantly lower pH compared to the control and commercial inoculant treatments silages. The LAB population in the silages did not differ significantly during the fermentation period, except on days 1 and 7. Silages inoculated with the selected strains had significantly higher crude protein concentrations compared to the control silage. Therefore, selected strains of LAB showed promise for producing better quality elephant grass silage.

This case note comments on the preliminary ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU in Case C-526/24 Brillen Rottler v TC of 19 March 2026, which addresses the abuse of rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), specifically in the context of requests for access to personal data under Article 15 GDPR and compensation under Article 82 GDPR. First, the Court held that even a first access request may be regarded as “excessive” where the controller demonstrates that it was not made to be aware of the data processing and verify its lawfulness, but with an abusive intention, such as artificially creating the conditions for a compensation claim. Publicly available information showing a pattern of repeated requests and claims to different controllers may be considered in this assessment. Second, the Court confirmed that a right to compensation can arise from an infringement of the right of access. Third, it clarified that non-material damage in those cases encompasses the loss of control over the personal data or the uncertainty about its processing, provided the data subject has actually suffered such damage and has not caused it through their own conduct. This note situates the judgment within the broader framework of case law on the abuse of rights and the recent Digital Omnibus proposal, and it outlines its practical significance for balancing the protection of the data subjects with the need to safeguard controllers against illegitimate claims.

We examine the impact of temperature shocks on the saving behaviour of rural households in Ethiopia. Two rounds of survey data and time-series temperature data from Climate Engine/Terra Climate are used for this analysis. We find that the probability of household saving falls following an increase in temperature anomalies, measured by standardized deviations, and this impact is channelled through time and risk preferences. More specifically, temperature shocks increase risk-taking and impatience, both of which are linked to a reduced probability of saving. As a result, preserving long-term welfare requires the promotion of commitment-based saving instruments, including saving mechanisms with automatic deductions at harvest time. Our heterogeneity analysis demonstrates that, compared to their counterparts, poor households’ saving behaviour and those without credit access are more affected by temperature shocks. Therefore, policies aimed at mitigating the adverse effects of climate change on household financial outcomes, such as saving, should prioritize these groups.

This article analyses the implementation of emergency cash transfer policies during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in four decentralized political systems: Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Spain, focusing on how different institutional capacities shaped policy effectiveness. The study examines key dimensions such as digital infrastructure, intergovernmental coordination, pre-existing social protection systems, and fiscal effort to assess the factors that determined the scope and impact of these policies. The findings suggest that state capacity was crucial in shaping outcomes: while digital infrastructure emerged as a necessary condition for effective implementation, it was not sufficient on its own. Likewise, intergovernmental coordination played a decisive role in federal systems, with cooperative governance models yielding better implementation outcomes. Using a qualitative comparative analysis, the study identifies different pathways to successful policy implementation, highlighting the importance of administrative flexibility and institutional adaptation in crisis contexts. The results contribute to the literature on state capacity and crisis governance, offering insights for designing resilient social protection systems. The first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic functioned as a natural experiment that tested the limits of social policy implementation and catalysed institutional innovations, some of which could have long-term implications for welfare states in Latin America and Southern Europe.

Standard narratives of the emergence and consolidation of the Portuguese overseas empire stress the importance of decisions taken during the successive reigns of Dom João II (1481-95) and his cousin Dom Manuel (1495-1521). In this essay, I propose a different point of departure, namely one that stresses the frequently opportunistic character of Portuguese expansion. The central argument is that the Portuguese were not necessarily masters of the rhythms of their own empire. Their agency was heavily constrained by other historical actors and processes, particularly in the Islamic world, and the opportunities that these either created or closed off. Drawing on a large canvas of the transformation of European geopolitics after the death of Amir Timur in 1405, the emphasis would be on the complex struggle for hegemony in the Sunni inter-state system, especially between the Timurids, Mamluks and Ottomans, but also involving other polities such as the Aqquyunlu, the Muzaffarids (in Gujarat), and the Bahmanids (in the Deccan).

The mental lexicon is a repository of all known words and their phonological connections in long-term memory. These connectivity patterns can be visualized through phonological networks, with network metrics (degree and local clustering coefficient) having previously been observed to influence spoken word recognition. However, it remains unclear whether different dialects of a language have distinct phonological networks and whether such differences affect cross-dialect word recognition. This study compared American English (AmE-Net) and Singaporean English (SgE-Net) phonological networks on predicting word detection performance of native speakers of AmE-Net and SgE-Net for words spoken in both dialects. We hypothesized that network metrics from a participant’s dialect would better predict their spoken word recognition in their own dialect. Results were not entirely as expected: The pattern of the interaction effects suggested that the AmE-Net degree was the superior predictor for both participant groups; yet, the SgE-Net degree, but not the AmE-Net degree, was a significant predictor when words were produced by the Singaporean talker. The Singaporean mental lexicon may thus be more influenced by AmE than previously anticipated. Overall, phonological networks remain valuable for modeling dialect differences, though their predictive power may depend on listener familiarity with the dialect.

This article examines how Black communities in New York City and Atlanta responded to the crack epidemic of the 1980s and how their grassroots activism shaped the rise of order-maintenance policing. Although much scholarship attributes the development of order-maintenance policing to top-down neoliberal and conservative forces, we demonstrate that residents—facing daily violence, open-air drug markets, and social collapse—demanded more aggressive enforcement. Drawing on extensive archival research, including municipal records, police files, oral histories, and congressional testimony, this study analyzes the formation of Tactical Narcotics Teams in New York and Operation Red Dog in Atlanta. We find that community activism was both a catalyst for and a constraint on policing strategy. Ultimately, this article complicates dominant accounts of contemporary policing by showing how demands for authority and public order, forged from the ground up, helped pave the way for order-maintenance policing.

An infant with junctional ectopic tachycardia developed tachycardia-induced cardiomyopathy requiring extracorporeal membrane oxygenation for circulatory failure. After oxygenation withdrawal became feasible following intravenous antiarrhythmics, tachycardia recurred with oral transition. Subsequent ivabradine administration resulted in heart rate control and improved cardiac function. We emphasise the role of ivabradine in heart rate control and cardiac function stabilisation in junctional ectopic tachycardia.

This article offers a new way to think about objects of memory, focusing on how a single item can take on various roles – from a cherished personal keepsake through a commercial product to a powerful political symbol. By examining the ‘Bring Them Home’ dog tags created in response to the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel in 2023, the article explores how these dog tags emerged as expressions of empathy for the hostages and their families, then evolved into a powerful symbol of the current historic moment, and eventually came to reflect diverse political positions on the conflict and even on broader human rights issues. Drawing from media reports, interviews, and visual evidence, the article highlights how these dog tags were worn during local protests, featured in international discussions, dominated the Israeli public space, and were integrated into everyday life, serving as a compact representation of both political identity and protest.

This article discusses cases of phonological abstractness and opacity and shows how they are eminently learnable, given certain assumptions about the innate cognitive endowment that learners bring to acquisition. I argue that opacity is not a learning problem but its solution. I propose that a distinction in patterning between two types of i in Inuit dialects is best explained by positing that surface [i] represents a merger of two underlying vowels. The apparently similar case of /i/ in Uyghur is shown to require a different type of solution. A review of contrasting approaches to prefix selection in Esimbi shows that opacity plays no role in evaluating their relative learnability. Though a celebrated case of opacity in Polish appears to have been misanalysed, an abstract analysis can still be motivated to account for alternations in certain lexemes. Uniting these cases is a preference for phonological analyses over diacritics or suppletion.