The literature on user trust in social welfare systems appropriately highlights the quality of relationships with frontline workers and the perception of their skills and human qualities, which develop and evolve over time. However, it tends to place less emphasis on users’ perceptions of and experiences with the formal procedures within which these relational processes unfold. With this paper, we aim to contribute to knowledge on user (dis)trust-building by focusing on the microdynamics of its development, which equally considers citizens’ interactions with frontline workers and institutional procedures at various organisational levels. Drawing on empirical research conducted among disadvantaged families seeking support from social services and assistance institutions in the Czech Republic and Serbia, we analyse the narrated experiences and perception-based mechanisms that shape users’ (dis)trust within the dual context of institutional procedures governing access to services, and the relationship with frontline workers.

Accounts of prosody in understudied languages are often impressionistic, potentially leading to conflicting accounts due to different researchers being drawn to different acoustic cues. The debate surrounding the location of primary stress in Plains Cree is such a case. One widely adopted claim states that stress is realized on the antepenult, whereas others argue for a penultimate accent. The present study investigates the phonetic properties of stress (duration, F0, intensity, vowel quality) in multisyllabic words and in phrases to understand the patterns that have led to the current debate. We find that there are cues supporting both previous claims: a high F0 on the antepenultimate syllable compatible with “antepenultimate stress” and a falling F0 on the penultimate syllable compatible with “penultimate accent.” Based on the acoustic evidence, we suggest that Plains Cree is a pitch-accent system, with a predictable penultimate HL word-level pitch-accent. Tonal patterns in other syllables are the result of prosodic boundaries, phonetic interpolation, or tonal spreading.

Due to the complexity of urban and rural drainage systems, although many types of robots have been designed for this purpose, the mainstream pipeline inspection robots are currently dominated by four-wheeled designs. In this study, the shortcomings of four-wheeled pipeline robots were analyzed, including poor passability, difficulties in spatial positioning and orientation, and the limited effectiveness of conventional two-degree-of-freedom observation systems. Based on these issues, the spatial pose mathematical model of the four-wheeled robot inside the pipeline was investigated, along with the spatial geometric constraints and speed characteristics during cornering. This study was intended to reveal the spatial geometric parameter limitations and the kinematic characteristics of the four-wheeled pipeline robot under these constraints, providing corresponding recommendations. To address the issue of the outdated two-degree-of-freedom vision component, a three-degree-of-freedom visual component was designed, and forward kinematics analysis was conducted using Standard-Denavit-Hartenberg parametric modeling, revealing its motion speed and characteristics. Based on this visual component, a new concept of in-pipeline robot vision was proposed, providing new references for the design of four-wheeled pipeline robots.

Collective skill formation systems were central to sustaining a high-road to economic development while upholding social inclusion in industrial societies. But can they still deliver on both economic and social grounds in knowledge-based societies? The article argues that the transition to the knowledge economy may in fact strengthen the ‘traditional’ advantage of collective skill formation systems over other skill formation systems on both economic and social grounds while simultaneously, however, exerting pressure on them to recalibrate some of their underlying policy arrangements. It is argued that this dual relationship has to do with the institutional architecture of collective skill formation systems, in particular, their ‘shared governance’ between employers, unions and governments, and with the nature of technological change in the transition to the knowledge economy, in particular the bias toward complex cognitive skills that it produces. Quantitative and qualitative evidence lends overall support for the argument. Regression analysis shows that collective skill formation systems are still positively associated with a range of socio-economic outcomes also in the new knowledge economy, although conditional analyses suggest that they may be subject to ‘diminishing returns’ on social inclusion grounds, i.e., their ability to effectively perform a social policy function is confronted with greater challenges at high levels of technological intensity. Case studies of Austria, Germany, and Switzerland show how collective skill formation systems have adapted to the knowledge economy following country-specific patterns.

This introductory article challenges foundational assumptions that structure how international legal theory conceptualizes “the Global.” The prevailing approach remains anchored in a Eurocentric legacy that conflates the earth with a geometrically spherical, chronometrically linear, and cartographically fixed model of space and time. This triad has rendered “the Global” an ostensibly objective terrain—embodied by an iconic World Map of states that is presumably atheoretical and transhistorical. I argue this is a form of “misplaced concreteness,” which constrains international legal thought as it confronts increasingly fluid and non-contiguous patterns of global ordering that have become difficult to visualize via the reigning cartographic imaginary. Further, it ignores how “the Global” was constructed by multiple and intersecting types of power, which together manifested demarcations, borders, territories and states as proclaimed mimetic reflections of planetary reality. As contemporary challenges—ranging from e.g. climate change to cyber governance—create trans-territorial or planetary scales of consequence, time is ripe to unfold international legal theory beyond the legacy of a priori conceptualization. Accordingly, the special issue encourages bottom-up, practice-oriented approaches, inviting international lawyers to explore how global spatiality and temporality are actively (re)produced across diverse legal contexts—from mobility regimes and global value chains to counterterrorism forums and planetary systems. Rather than treating “the Global” as a fixed totality or singular map, this special issue reframes it as a historically engineered concept, shaped by ongoing practices of geo-political, geo-economic and legal world-making.

While geological and paleoanthropological studies at Laetoli have focused on the relatively fossiliferous Ndolanya and Laetolil beds, Laetoli’s younger Naibadad and Olpiro beds provide an important record of Pleistocene volcanism, tectonics, and landscape evolution in northern Tanzania. This study documents the mineralogical and geochemical compositions of their tephra using EPMA of glass and phenocrysts, and their ages using 40Ar/39Ar geochronology. Naibadad Beds tephra is rhyolitic or trachytic, compositionally distinct from the underlying Ndolanya and overlying Olpiro beds in their mineral assemblages and glass and phenocryst compositions. The Naibadad Beds can be divided into chronostratigraphic clusters as follows: Lower (2.189–2.154 Ma), Middle (2.115–2.104 Ma), and Upper (2.036–2.004 Ma). Most Naibadad Beds tephra could not be compositionally differentiated, although the basal Naibadad Beds tuff is unique in having both trachytic glass and andradite garnet. The uppermost Naibadad Beds tuff at Locality 23 has rhyolitic glass and aenigmatite like Olduvai Gorge’s Naabi ignimbrite and a similar age (2.033 Ma and 2.004 Ma, respectively), although they differ in feldspar and augite composition and are likely not from the same eruption. The lack of direct correlatives between Olduvai and Laetoli, which both derived tephra from Ngorongoro over the same time interval, is likely explained by paleotopography.

This paper examines Britain’s process of electrification following a disruptive stock market boom and bust in 1882. This is done by noting the companies that raise finance on British stock exchanges, the amounts raised, and the returns earned on that money. It also examines the impact of the Lighting Act of 1882, finding that the Act inhibited investment, but with important exceptions. We find the Act was not a barrier to entrepreneurs alert to the possibilities of electrification. However, the limited British electrical investment after the 1882 crash was more heavily and successfully concentrated on supplying electricity to end users than on developing electrical equipment. When electrification began in earnest after 1888, upon the amendment of the 1882 Lighting Act, there existed only a very weak engineering base to support it, leading to slow, expensive, and unimaginative electrification.

This study marks the first update on Malaysia’s marine tardigrades after more than 50 years, presenting both the discovery of a new species, Batillipes malaysianus sp. nov., and a new record, Batillipes rotundiculus. The specimens were collected from the intertidal zone at Pantai Pancur Hitam, Labuan, Malaysia, during two separate sampling efforts. Despite extensive sampling, the density of marine tardigrades in the area was found to be exceptionally low, with only a single specimen of B. malaysianus sp. nov. and a limited number of other Batillipes individuals collected. The new species, B. malaysianus sp. nov., is distinguished by unique morphological features, including setae scattered across the ventral cuticle – a trait not observed in any other species of the genus – and constricted primary clavae, a characteristic absent in other species of the B1 toe arrangement group. Additionally, B. rotundiculus represents the first confirmed record of this species in Malaysia, expanding its known distribution. This study also updates the global species count of Batillipes to 42, incorporating recent taxonomic changes and this new addition. An updated dichotomous key for the genus is provided, incorporating all species described to date. These findings underscore the importance of exploring understudied marine habitats and highlight the potential for discovering more tardigrade species in Malaysia.

This theoretical pearl shows how a graphical, relational, point-free, and calculational approach to linear algebra, known as graphical linear algebra, can be used to reason not only about matrices (and matrix algebra, as can be found in the literature) but also vector spaces and more generally linear relations. Linear algebra is usually seen as the study of vector spaces and linear transformations. However, to reason effectively with subspaces in a point-free and calculational manner, both can be generalized to an unifying concept: linear relations, much like relational algebra. While the semantics is relational, the syntax is graphical and uses string diagrams, 2-dimensional formal diagrams, which represent the linear relations. Most importantly, in a number of cases, the relational semantics allows algorithms and properties to be derived calculationally instead of just verified. Our approach is to proceed primarily by examples which involve finding inverses, switching from an implicit basis to an explicit basis (solving a homogeneous linear system), exploring both the exchange lemma and the Zassenhaus’ algorithm.

This study advances neorealist theory by examining how systemic constraints shape state behavior through economic statecraft, focusing on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Iran’s strategic calculations. Employing methodological triangulation – network analysis, discourse examination, and institutional assessment – this research explores the strategic logic underpinning the China-Iran engagement. For Iran, the BRI emerges as a mechanism for institutional resilience and sanctions circumvention, though its integration remains constrained by systemic limitations and regional competition. For China, the BRI serves as a geopolitical infrastructure strategy to expand influence and secure resources, despite concerns over economic sustainability. By framing economic statecraft as a strategic response to systemic constraints, this study challenges conventional materialist and militaristic paradigms of international relations. It critically assesses the generalizability of BRI partnerships, illustrating how states, bound by structural limitations, use economic instruments to reshape their strategic environments. Ultimately, the research offers nuanced insight into emerging power dynamics in a multipolar world, extending beyond traditional power-centric models.

This paper introduces a novel ray-tracing methodology for various gradient-index materials, particularly plasmas. The proposed approach utilizes adaptive-step Runge–Kutta integration to compute ray trajectories while incorporating an innovative rasterization step for ray energy deposition. By removing the requirement for rays to terminate at cell interfaces – a limitation inherent in earlier cell-confined approaches – the numerical formulation of ray motion becomes independent of specific domain geometries. This facilitates a unified and concise tracing method compatible with all commonly used curvilinear coordinate systems in laser–plasma simulations, which were previously unsupported or prohibitively complex under cell-confined frameworks. Numerical experiments demonstrate the algorithm’s stability and versatility in capturing diverse ray physics across reduced-dimensional planar, cylindrical and spherical coordinate systems. We anticipate that the rasterization-based approach will pave the way for the development of a generalized ray-tracing toolkit applicable to a broad range of fluid simulations and synthetic optical diagnostics.

P-value functions are modern statistical tools that unify effect estimation and hypothesis testing and can provide alternative point and interval estimates compared to standard meta-analysis methods, using any of the many p-value combination procedures available (Xie et al., 2011, JASA). We provide a systematic comparison of different combination procedures, both from a theoretical perspective and through simulation. We show that many prominent p-value combination methods (e.g. Fisher’s method) are not invariant to the orientation of the underlying one-sided p-values. Only Edgington’s method, a lesser-known combination method based on the sum of p-values, is orientation-invariant and still provides confidence intervals not restricted to be symmetric around the point estimate. Adjustments for heterogeneity can also be made and results from a simulation study indicate that Edgington’s method can compete with more standard meta-analytic methods.

R. Pavlov and S. Schmieding [On the structure of generic subshifts. Nonlinearity 36 (2023), 4904–4953] recently provided some results about generic $\mathbb {Z}$-shifts, which rely mainly on an original theorem stating that isolated points form a residual set in the space of $\mathbb {Z}$-shifts such that all other residual sets must contain it. As a direction for further research, they pointed towards genericity in the space of $\mathbb {G}$-shifts, where $\mathbb {G}$ is a finitely generated group. In the present text, we approach this for the case of $\mathbb {Z}^d$-shifts, where $d \ge 2$. As it is usual, multidimensional dynamical systems are much more difficult to understand. In light of the result of R. Pavlov and S. Schmieding, it is natural to begin with a better understanding of isolated points. We prove here a characterization of such points in the space of $\mathbb {Z}^d$-shifts, in terms of the natural notion of maximal subsystems that we also introduce in this article. From this characterization, we recover the result of R. Pavlov and S. Schmieding for $\mathbb {Z}^1$-shifts. We also prove a series of results that exploit this notion. In particular, some transitivity-like properties can be related to the number of maximal subsystems. Furthermore, we show that the Cantor–Bendixon rank of the space of $\mathbb {Z}^d$-shifts is infinite for $d>1$, while for $d=1$, it is known to be equal to one.

There is considerable data suggesting that the gut microbiota (GM) contributes to health and regulates host immunity and influences brain function, findings with implications for neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s Disease (AD).

In the present study, using three non-fat diets with different ratios of unsaturated ω-6/ω-3 fatty acids (FAs)(high or low), we analyzed how minor differences in diet can affect the microbiota of amyloid precursor protein/Presenilin 1 transgenic (APP/PS1 [TG]) mice, a mice model of AD, next, we studied how the levels of sex hormones may affect the GM. The data obtained show that sex hormones in males fed our standard diet (S) modified alpha and beta diversity, whereas no differences were observed in TG mice compared with wild-type mice. Moreover, there were significant differences in both alpha or beta diversity in mice fed with an H or L diet compared with an S diet.

In conclusion, our data indicate that the levels of sex hormones or differences in the ω-6/ω-3 FA ratio alter the GM more than expected. Thus, it is tantalizing to propose that low levels of ω-3 FAs in APP/PS1 mice fed an “H” diet may be responsible for modifying some bacterial genera, exacerbating the basal neuropathology in this AD model.