We investigate the dynamical role of internal vibrational modes in the self-dual Abelian-Higgs model, focusing on how Derrick-type breathing excitations modify vortex dynamics and scattering processes. While unexcited BPS vortices follow geodesic motion leading to the well-known $90^\circ$ scattering, initially excited vortices experience vibration-induced forces arising from the spectral flow of internal modes as the inter-vortex distance changes. This mechanism intensifies the resonant energy transfer between translational and vibrational channels, producing non-adiabatic dynamics, superelastic collisions and fractal structures in scattering diagrams.

The aim of this study was to investigate the predictive validity of a proposed revision of the Nutri-Score and the current Nutri-Score by investigating associations between the diet quality scores measured in mid-pregnancy and the risk of dispensed prescription of medications for hypertension up to 11 years following delivery and blood pressure mid-pregnancy. The study population (n 70 730) were participants in the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study. Food intake was assessed in mid-pregnancy using a validated FFQ. Nutritional scores for each food item were calculated based on content of energy, sugars, saturated fat, salt, fibre, protein, fruit, vegetables and legumes. Diet quality scores were derived using energy-weighted means of nutritional scores. Anti-hypertensive medications were registered in the national prescription database. We estimated hazard ratios (HRs) with 95 % CIs using Cox regression models. During a mean follow-up of 6 years, 4736 (6·7 %) women were dispensed prescription for medications for hypertension. There was a non-linear association between diet quality and hypertension medication. Compared with the median diet quality score, poorer diet quality (90th percentile of the score) was associated with higher risk of medications for hypertension (HR = 1·08, 95 % CI 1·02, 1·14) and cross-sectional high diastolic blood pressure (OR = 1·18, 95 % CI 1·03, 1·32). Both diet quality scores yielded similar results overall. Poorer diet quality during pregnancy, assessed with a proposed version, and the current Nutri-Score, was associated with a higher risk of medications for hypertension, indicating its usefulness as a valuable tool for guiding consumers and improving public health.

Arising from the 2024 European Political Science (EPS) annual debate, this article examines the role of expertise in transnational governance (TNG) with a focus on political science. It explores how transnational governance reconfigures the spaces and contexts for expert engagements in global policy making and transnational administration. In these evolving spaces of jurisdiction, the democratic potential, accountability, and legitimacy of expert knowledge are not only shrouded from the Global Majority but cannot be assumed to be inevitable. The article outlines some meanings attached to TNG and suggests democratic considerations cannot be conceived or operationalised in the same ways as at nation-state levels of governance. First, TNG is a series of overlapping but fragmented transnational spheres of public sector activity as well as hybrid public-private jurisdictions where democratic principles are yet to be normalised and embedded. Second, the accountability and legitimacy of sources of expertise in the policy sectors of TNG can be counter-swayed by latent features of ‘epistocracy’, or expert rule, in transnational policy communities.

What does training look like such that one’s improvisation can be experienced as spontaneous? In this paper, I explore how the aesthetics of “freestyle” in street dance are constituted by empirically achieved bodily capacities contingent upon recognitions. Through examining the pedagogy of freestyle, I show how semiotic labor registers the apparent solipsism of freestyle in street dance into reflexive accounts of sensory-affective capacities selected for cultivation, scaffolded through the deployment of terms like “feeling” and “relation” within participation frameworks. I suggest that ethnographic approaches to the relationship between discursive and non-discursive dimensions of aesthetic-social practices, such as street dance, need to remain both affectively attuned to and semiotically informed, attending to how sensory-affective experiences are rendered discernible and enactable within intersubjective spaces. In addition to exploring these semiotic processes, I also gesture toward the evaluative dimensions of street dance through my fieldwork in a local community in the US and my participation in its transnational scene.

Acute liver failure is a rare disease characterized by acute presentation of liver injury in the absence of cirrhosis that poses significant morbidity and mortality. Neurological manifestations, including hepatic encephalopathy, cerebral edema and intracranial hypertension, are frequent. The incidence of intracranial hypertension in acute liver failure has declined, which is a likely reflection of the impact of early and adequate intervention, but it holds a poor prognosis. This review summarizes the key concepts relating to pathophysiology, diagnosis and management of intracranial hypertension in acute liver failure. Clinical and biochemical predictors aid in early recognition and use of prophylactic or targeted management. Validated invasive and noninvasive intracranial pressure monitoring are important in the management of intracranial hypertension. The use of invasive intracranial pressure monitoring in acute liver failure has been limited due to the expected risk of hemorrhage secondary to coagulopathy. The risk associated with invasive monitoring is better assessed with the use of viscoelastic testing when compared to conventional coagulation tests. Management of intracranial hypertension includes strategies that target the reduction of cerebral blood volume and cerebral volume.

Collective action involving natural resources can be politically consequential. But organisers confronting resource interests or even just operating in natural resource-dependent areas face substantial obstacles. This paper tests three arguments about why such activists can nonetheless sometimes succeed: that local party dynamics are important to dispute outcomes, that small-scale and persistent campaigns have the best results, and that peacefully disruptive tactics are especially impactful. We conduct our analysis using a new dataset comprised of 1,525 reports of actions and their immediate outcomes from the Appalachian state of West Virginia, one of the United States’ major coal producers and a longstanding site of coal-related social conflict. Our results regarding parties and movement participation and persistence are mixed. And, while we find a significant negative correlation between disruption and concessions, we observe very different patterns for labour versus environmental actions: disruption appears to work for the former but not the latter.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of BJPsych Open, this Editorial highlights papers published in BJPsych Open over the past decade that have focused on university student mental health. Common mental disorders are increasing in young people and those going on to higher education make up an important and sizeable sector of this population. At the same time, success in university studies is a major determinant of individual and societal health and prosperity. As a field of inquiry, university student mental health research gained momentum through the COVID-19 pandemic and associated campus closures, pivot to remote learning and social restrictions. Although research describing student well-being and mental health burden align globally, not enough is known about determinants that inform sustainable and scalable prevention and early intervention. Furthermore, research evidence should inform university policies, practices and benchmarks to ensure responsive and effective student well-being and mental health support that underpins academic and life success.

Established pharmaceutical innovation theory holds that companies and patents are essential for developing new treatments. Yet, it does not adequately explain numerous clinical trials conducted by hospitals and universities. This paper introduces a new, complementary theory that describes a parallel system of innovation, focused on new uses of already authorised drugs, particularly once generics are available. These trials are driven by incentives previously associated with “open science” and “user innovation” rather than by patents and cost 90 per cent less than commercial equivalents. This “hidden” research system could regularly provide society with affordable treatments.

Southern Patagonia hunter-gatherers were adapted to a region marked by cold and wind, yet characterized by significant climatic and environmental variability, particularly between the eastern and western slopes of the Andes. This diversity fostered the development of distinct subsistence strategies. The present study analyzes variations in skull shape and size in relation to ecogeographical regions. A sample of 54 Late Holocene adult skulls from Southern Patagonia archaeological sites was analyzed. Individuals were categorized according to ecogeographic regions and subsistence strategies. Using geometric morphometrics, 35 three-dimensional landmarks describing the splanchnocranium and the neurocranium were recorded and statistically compared across groups. Results revealed an ecogeographic latitudinal pattern: individuals from colder regions exhibited significant prognathism, heavier and bigger cranial forms, consistent with Bergmann’s rule. Additionally, an ecogeographic longitudinal gradient was recognized. No significant sex-related differences were detected in the sample. The latitudinal and longitudinal cranial patterns identified among Southern Patagonia individuals suggest an association with ecogeographical characteristics, supporting the environmental and climate hypothesis regarding skull morphology. Notably, the findings lend support to Bergmann’s rule, as more robust and bigger forms were observed in the coldest regions, not necessarily those at the highest latitudes, as in this case.

Numbers have mathematically defined, formal meanings, which afford precision and objectivity. In practice, however, we show that round numbers are frequently used approximately, and this approximate use depends on magnitude. Across three analyses of British and American English, we demonstrate the following: (1) people use round numbers more often, and round to a greater extent, at higher magnitudes; (2) the distributional semantics of larger round numbers resemble those of indefinite hyperbolic numbers such as ‘gazillion’, which lack a precise value; and (3) larger jigsaw puzzles have greater discrepancies between round advertised piece counts and the actual values (e.g., advertising ‘13,200 pieces’ when the actual count is 13,224). We argue that the relationship between roundness, magnitude and approximation derives from the base-10 structure of English numerals, which renders powers of 10 structurally salient, creating hotspots for communicative functions such as approximation. We discuss how these communicative patterns align with the approximate number system, which cognitively represents larger quantities with increasing imprecision, making them harder to estimate and compare.

Social scientists express concerns that perspectives on new genetic engineering techniques, such as gene editing, are becoming polarized and entrenched and that those entrenched positions could hinder the formation of alliances needed to make the new technologies available. Without such alliances, potential solutions to agronomic challenges, food security, climate change, improving nutrition, and reducing food waste may never be implemented. This paper explores whether these competing perspectives are as entrenched as they are often portrayed. Through intensive interviews, I ask German scientists to share their perspectives on the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling that gene edited crops would be regulated the same as transgenic crops. Using the concepts of techno-optimism and techno-pessimism to analyze those scientists’ perspectives, I discover that both techno-optimistic and techno-pessimistic scientists are generally less entrenched and more reflective when presented with competing perspectives. Furthermore, four of the scientists offer potential policies and practices that could resolve some disputes and could even overcome obstacles to promoting social and ecological benefits from the new technologies.