Using a comparative reading of Antigone and Iphigenia, the paper illuminates how differing modes of finality within a political moment can be construed along gender lines. For feminine characters whose political life never experiences a birth while ensconced in the Athenian apparatus of male political oppression, understanding how Antigone and Iphigenia both become politically born by entering a mode of finality aids in pinpointing one of the very few agentic methods available to women in ancient Athens. Through a careful understanding of Greek tragedy, the place of women in Ancient Athens, and a discussion of views of gender during the time, the paper offers a multi-disciplinary view, understanding the text for what it is within a contemporary reading of gender. What does Antigone’s suicide imply about gendered power inside a political situation and what does Iphigenia’s sacrifice take away? Antigone’s suicide effectively makes her a masculine actor in the eyes of an Ancient Athenian spectator while Iphigenia’s sacrifice is uniquely feminine. This paper also represents preliminary work into the importance and significance of persons who are politically cornered but have open to them an intentional mode of finality.

This work proposes an integrated pulse transmitter with polarization reconfigurability. A reconfigurable pulse-triggered network is designed and seamlessly integrated with a dual-polarized radiator within the compact transmitter structure. This integration allows the radiator to sequentially perform DC charge accumulation, pulse oscillation, and radiation during each pulse cycle. Moreover, the reconfigurable pulse-triggered network introduces two operating modes, enabling the pulse transmitter to switch between different polarization states. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed pulse transmitter can directly convert DC energy into radiated pulses with switchable polarization modes. The pulse signal with a peak-to-peak voltage of 1.6 V is received in the −45° polarization direction at 1.5 m under mode 1, and switches to +45° polarization with a peak-to-peak voltage of 1.6 V under mode 2.

The story of the Panama Canal is often framed as a morality tale juxtaposing French tragedy and American triumph (or imperialism). What gets lost in this depiction is a pair of adventurous entrepreneurs, Anthoine de Gogorza and Louis Lacharme, whose efforts led Ferdinand de Lesseps to his doomed canal project. This article shows how the roots of the Panama Canal emerged from the forests of Colombia’s Sinú River Valley, whose settlement, in turn, was fostered by the search for canal routes in the Darien. Yet despite the spatial proximity of these two regions, their overlooked connections were woven together through the ‘lifepaths’ of de Gogorza and Lacharme as they moved from France to Colombia and around the globalizing Atlantic of the nineteenth century. Following their movements, in turn, sheds light on the overlooked figure of the foreign speculator, the business of exploration, and marketing the tropics.

This paper presents a novel compact substrate-integrated waveguide (SIW) antenna that can be utilized for several applications, such as fifth generation (5 G), internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence, and medical applications. Six antennas are designed. In addition, there are single SIW, 2 × 1 arrays, and 4 × 1 arrays with and without slots. The proposed feeding method is implemented to create a slot antenna array with incorporating KS connector. The proposed designs target the 25–28 GHz band, covering up to 3 GHz of bandwidth depending on the configuration. The structures are designed and simulated using a numerical technique package (CST). The simulation results demonstrate that the SIW antenna array functions efficiently in terms of the gain, return loss, and radiation patterns. Furthermore, the proposed structures have a total volume of 62 mm × 55 mm × 0.508 mm. In conclusion, the experimental results demonstrate that the performance of the proposed antenna is in good agreement with the simulations. Moreover, the gain increased from 8.5 dBi for the single SIW antenna to 14.7 dBi for the four-element array at 26 GHz, indicating a 72.9% improvement.

The global diffusion of sewing machines required concerted efforts from manufacturers, sales agents, and, most significantly, local consumers, who rendered the machine legible and desirable across diverse social settings. As this article shows, however, in politically volatile contexts, it was manufacturers who most decisively shaped these processes. Focusing on the Singer Company—the largest and most influential of its kind—the article examines how this process unfolded in the Ottoman empire during the Armenian massacres of the 1890s. Occurring when ethnic and religious homogeneity was becoming central to the political order, the Ottoman case offers an especially important early example of global firms’ responses to the emerging pressures of exclusionary—and often violent—political and economic reordering. The article traces how Singer tested adaptive strategies that not only sustained its regional presence but also recalibrated its business model. In doing so, it contributes to global history by demonstrating how seemingly localized episodes of political violence became formative sites of adaptation, attuning global corporations to a world increasingly structured by systemic violence, warfare, and demographic homogenization.

This study has investigated the relationship between the gut microbiota compotision and the growth performance in pigs from birth to the finishing stage, focusing on nutrient metabolism. Of 59 crossbred pigs [(Landrace × Large Yorkshire) × Duroc] from seven sows, individuals with high and low daily gain (DG) were assigned to high DG (HDG, n = 11) and low DG (LDG, n = 8) groups. Fecal samples collected at weaning (21 days), growing (95–106 days) and finishing (136–152 days) stages were analyzed for amino acids, short-chain fatty acids, and microbial composition using 16S rRNA sequencing. Although birth and weaning weights were similar in both groups, the HDG group had significantly higher weights in the growing and finishing stages (P < 0.01). The microbial composition of the LDG group revealed a higher abundance of f_Lachnospiraceae;__ at weaning (P < 0.05), whereas the HDG group contained higher abundance of g_Streptococcus and g_Prevotella 7 at the finishing stage (P < 0.05). Functional analysis revealed increased amino acid metabolism in the HDG group at the finishing stage (P < 0.05). During the growing stage, total free fecal amino acid content was low in the HDG group (P < 0.05); at weaning, levels of isobutyric and isovaleric acids, key amino acid fermentation products (P < 0.05, P < 0.01), were higher. These findings indicate growth stage-specific differences in the gut microbiota and metabolic profiles between groups with different growth performance, suggesting microbial and metabolic characteristics may influence growth performance.

This study systematically evaluates the effects of probiotic interventions on gut microbiota and clinical outcomes in diabetic patients to determine the optimal target population and conditions for effective use, with an emphasis on precision treatment. A comprehensive search was performed across PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Embase, China National Knowledge Internet (CNKI), and Wanfang databases until April 2024. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) assessing probiotics as adjunctive therapy for diabetes were included. The control group received standard care, and the intervention group received probiotics alongside standard care. Data were managed with Endnote and Excel, and analyses were conducted using Revman 5.3 and Stata 16. Twelve RCTs involving 1,113 participants were included. Probiotics significantly increased fecal Lactobacillus (standardized mean difference (SMD) 1.42, P < 0.0001, I2 = 95%) and Bifidobacterium levels (SMD 1.27, P < 0.0001, I² = 90%) and reduced fasting plasma glucose (SMD -0.35, P = 0.004). Subgroup analysis showed that shorter intervention durations (≤3 months) improved FPG, HbA1c, and Bifidobacterium levels, while younger patients (≤60 years) experienced the most significant improvements in Bifidobacterium levels. In conclusion, probiotics improve gut microbiota and clinical outcomes in diabetic patients, with intervention duration and patient age as key factors influencing treatment effectiveness.