This paper presents a comprehensive navigation strategy aimed at enabling autonomous and collision-free motion of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) in indoor environments. The work addresses limitations of conventional AGV systems which are often restricted by static routing and inadequate adaptability to dynamic obstacles. A framework on global–local motion planning is developed, optimising (i) a global path planner based on the Probabilistic Roadmap (PRM) algorithm, (ii) a local trajectory tracking using the Pure Pursuit (PP) controller, and (iii) a real-time obstacle avoidance method leveraging the vector field histogram (VFH) algorithm. The decision-making layer oversees the coordination between global routing and local manoeuvring, dynamically switching between planning and avoidance modes in response to environmental changes. The proposed framework is validated through real-world experiments on a physical AGV platform operating in a structured environment. Experimental results show that the proposed framework generates feasible and smooth paths, while PP-based trajectory tracking achieves high final positioning performance when supported by fused odometry. In free-path navigation, fused odometry reduced the average final percentage error to 0.61% and increased the average final positioning accuracy to 99.40%. In obstacle-path navigation, the integrated PP–VFH framework maintained high final positioning accuracy at 99.10% under varying obstacle configurations. The coordination of PRM, PP, and VFH enables smooth, adaptive, and safe navigation of the AGV within a structured workspace. The proposed framework contributes a unified, modular architecture that strategies to bridges global path planning, local motion control, and real-time reactive avoidance within a single system.

Within-person changes in racial attitudes influence presidential vote switching in the United States, but not all forms of racial attitude change are equally consequential. An analysis of a three-wave panel of American National Election Studies respondents from 2016, 2020, and 2024 contrasts two types of racial attitude change: perceptions of discrimination against Black Americans and relative racial affect (the difference in warmth toward white versus Black Americans). First, difference and fixed-effects models, which leverage within-person variation, reveal that decreases in perceived discrimination predict movement toward the Republican presidential candidate and shifts in relative racial affect show no association with vote choice. Reverse causality tests reinforce a directional effect from attitudinal change to vote change. There is minimal evidence that those who switched from voting for a Democrat to a Republican shift their racial attitudes in response. These findings demonstrate that dynamic grievance about racial injustice is a key driver of partisan realignment, highlighting that cognitive assessments of discrimination, rather than general racial affect, are central to understanding changes in electoral behavior.

In Spring 2024, we conducted a randomized controlled trial in Latino-majority communities in Arizona and Texas to test the impact and effects of voter registration campaigns run by local Registrars in high schools. We theorized that bringing election officials into schools dispels informational uncertainty, cultivates positive political attitudes and emotions, and ultimately boosts voter registration rates. Two partner schools were identified in each state and then randomized into treatment and control conditions. Before treatment, seniors at all four high schools were asked to complete a survey about their interest in and attitudes toward politics and voting. Registrars then conducted in-person visits at the two treatment schools. After treatment, the seniors again were asked to complete a survey. We find that the Registrars’ visits increased enthusiasm, encouragement, and interest around voting and decreased anxiety.

Body-mass evolution in extinct mammals is an important factor in understanding their diversification and niche occupation dynamics over geological time. To know how Macraucheniidae, South American native ungulates, diversified over 30 Myr, we estimated body mass for 15 genera within this family and investigated which evolutionary process best explains body-mass evolution in this lineage. For this purpose, we applied a set of body-mass estimation equations and conducted comparative phylogenetic analyses to assess the presence of phylogenetic signals and identify the best-fitting model of trait evolution. Our results show that all Macraucheniidae genera can be classified as megafauna (i.e., mammals weighing more than 44 kg). The evolutionary model that best explains body-mass diversification in this family is a directional, gradual increase over time. The subfamilies Cramaucheniinae and Macraucheniinae did not differ significantly in body-mass evolutionary rates; however, the negative relationship between body mass and temperature, together with the most parsimonious evolutionary scenario, supports temperature as the primary ecological driver of body-mass evolution in macraucheniids.

This study examines how the Roman Catholic Church formulated and implemented its principal directive during China’s civil war and subsequent regime change in the mid-twentieth century, particularly the obligation that clergy remain at their posts alongside the relocation of seminarians to safer areas. Drawing on newly available Vatican archival materials, it demonstrates that the decision to evacuate seminarians was not solely prompted by the petition of the first Chinese cardinal to the pope, as previously assumed; rather, the Apostolic Internuncio’s shift in position played a decisive role. It further identifies an original Italian version of the directive that differs in sequence and emphasis from the widely circulated Chinese text. Against this background, criticisms of the Internuncio as “the executioner of native priests” require reconsideration. Rather, the study reinterprets him as an adaptive intermediary within the process of policy formation and implementation.

This study introduces an improved gesture-based human–swarm interaction control system for drone swarms that unifies motion and formation control while addressing the critical challenge of neglecting the impact of faulty robots on task performance. Unlike conventional approaches that treat these functionalities separately, our integrated framework enables robust task execution in challenging environments. Using 26 hand gestures (18 formations and 8 flight commands) processed by a variety of deep learning models, including convolutional neural networks (e.g., ResNet101 and MobileNetV2) and recurrent neural network-based approaches such as long short-term memory (LSTM), bidirectional LSTM, gated recurrent unit (GRU), and bidirectional GRU (BiGRU), the system provides comprehensive yet accessible control, notably through the BiGRU network with 99.4% accuracy in real-time gesture recognition tasks. Deployment testing conducted using the CrazyFlyt simulation platform demonstrated the system’s robustness in maintaining user-intended formations with low positional error and stable convergence times, even in the presence of sensor noise and faulty robots. Statistical analysis revealed highly significant main and interaction effects ($p\lt 0.05$) for swarm scale and scenario on performance metrics, indicating that the impact of swarm size is dynamically contingent upon environmental conditions. Post hoc evaluations predominantly highlighted significant performance degradation in faulty-robot scenarios compared to normal or noisy conditions, with swarm scale critically modulating these effects.

Collisional merging experiments on field-reversed configurations (FRCs) in the FRC amplification via translation–collisional merging (FAT-CM) device have suggested that the mirror magnetic field strength influences the final merged plasma state. Analytical models do not account for mirror magnetic fields at the ends of the confinement section. To explore their effect, experiments were conducted at FAT-CM, where the strength of mirror magnetic fields were varied. Increasing the mirror field strength was found to promote relaxation to an FRC with larger radius and shorter axial length. Based on these observations, the dependence of equilibrium states on the mirror field strength and the resulting plasma parameters were investigated using a model that reconstructs fully two-dimensional equilibria primarily constrained by wall-mounted magnetic probe measurements. Consistent with the experimental results, computed equilibria with stronger mirror fields converged to plasma states with a larger radius and shorter length. Further, these results showed a bifurcation of topologies with a closed FRC core for higher mirror field and an open-field high-$\beta$ mirror for lower field. This result agreed with internal magnetic probe data which confirm the FRC-to-high-$\beta$ mirror transition. This demonstrates the importance of employing fully two-dimensional modelling of plasma equilibria.

Digital policymaking in the European Union (EU), once seen as an internal market concern, is increasingly shaped by non-economic aims, such as the pursuit of security and the protection of fundamental rights. Recent pieces of legislation, such as the AI Act or the Cyber Resilience Act, have nominally acknowledged the relevance of such factors, but serious concerns have been raised about security considerations de facto trumping all others. In this article, we argue that, despite its predominance, security does not displace fundamental rights or the internal market as the foundations of EU digital law. Instead, we propose a framework to explain how the interaction among rationales for security promotion, rights protection, and market-making goes beyond mere opposition. Applying this framework to three case studies of post-GDPR regulation, we show that the deepening of fundamental rights safeguards in digital regulatory instruments offers, at most, a limited check to creeping securitisation – and sometimes even allows the EU legislator to extend the reach of security measures in the name of protecting certain rights. Understanding the logics and actors that shape the triple helix of markets, rights, and security is therefore crucial for properly understanding – and responding to – security overreach in cyberspace.

Precision psychiatry cannot deliver reliable care for women when treating reproductive neuroendocrine dynamics as background noise. This paper argues for routine, standardised reporting of reproductive stage, exogenous hormone exposure, and staging methods, making the case that hormone-integrated research could reduce heterogeneity, sharpen mechanisms, improve safety and enhance clinical utility.

The radiocarbon content of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC: CO2(aq), HCO3–, CO32–) and gaseous CO2 can provide valuable information for the cycling and residence time of carbon in groundwaters, porewaters, hydrocarbon reservoirs, methane seeps, and hydrothermal systems. Fluids and gases from these systems often contain high concentrations of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) that interferes with critical steps of the analytical procedure, particularly the reduction of CO2 to graphite. We developed and tested a simple and effective method to remove H2S from water and gas samples prior to graphitization by passing the gas through a silver nitrate solution in dilute nitric acid. The resulting cleaned CO2 was sufficiently pure to be reduced to graphite by hydrogen on an iron catalyst. The mass of the process blank of this method is negligible (0.45 ± 0.10 µg C, with F14C of 0.30 ± 0.20) and almost identical to our process blanks without the H2S trap (0.43 ± 0.10 µg C, F14C = 0.30 ± 0.10). The method has been successfully applied to samples containing elevated H2S from multiple hydrothermal vent fluids.

This article examines the recent dissolution of H-Coop, South Korea’s first feminist-oriented consumer cooperative, founded in 1989 by a women’s organization. Initially established to promote gender equality and civic participation through daily practices such as consumption, H-Coop played a symbolic and pioneering role in the Korean cooperative movement. However, despite its ideological significance, the cooperative experienced long-standing business stagnation, mounting financial deficits, and management challenges, ultimately leading to its closure in 2025. Drawing on qualitative research methods, this study explores H-Coop’s collapse within the broader discourse on cooperative failure. This article critically engages with existing theoretical frameworks, mainly developed in the Western European context, while also considering the unique historical and socio-cultural context of the cooperative movement in South Korea. This study has two implications. First, through the case of H-Coop, the study assesses the applicability of existing theoretical explanations and considers new insights into the failure of cooperatives in the contemporary Korean context. Second, analyzing the challenges and eventual failure that H-Coop has experienced over the years offers valuable and meaningful insights not only for practitioners within Korea’s cooperative sector but also for cooperative stakeholders globally.

The aim of this study was to evaluate fetal survival and neonatal outcomes following fetoscopic laser ablation (FLA) for twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS). This retrospective study included 106 TTTS pregnancies treated with FLA at Harapan Kita Women and Children Hospital, from January 2016 to January 2025. Maternal and neonatal data were collected from medical records. Fetal survival, gestational age, and neurodevelopmental outcomes were assessed. Quintero staging was used to classify TTTS severity. Statistical analysis used the Mann‒Whitney-U test for continuous variables and the chi square test for categorical variables. Among the 106 pregnancies, 93 (87.73%) had at least one surviving fetus, and 82 (77.35%) had both fetuses that survived the procedure. The highest proportion of double fetal survival was observed in Quintero stage 2 (35/82, 42.68%), whereas double fetal death was most frequently observed in stage 3 (7/13, 53.84%) and stage 4 (4/13, 30.76%) (p = .003). Neonates surviving to 28 days were born at a significantly higher gestational age than nonsurvivors (32.25 ± 2.95 vs. 27.62 ± 2.68 weeks, p < .001; OR 1.70, 95% CI [1.40, 2.10]). The neonatal survival rate at 28 days was 44.87%. Brain injury was observed in 52.17% of the screened infants and long-term neurodevelopmental follow-up was documented in 8 infants, with 2 showing delayed milestones. Quintero stage at the time of the procedure, prematurity, and growth restriction were significantly associated with neonatal survival outcomes. Early detection, timely intervention, and long-term follow-up are essential to optimize outcomes and address potential developmental delays.

On December 11, 2025, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights delivered a landmark judgment in Tsaava and Others v. Georgia. The case arose from the Georgian authorities’ forceful dispersal of major public protests outside the Georgian Parliament in Tbilisi on the night of June 20–21, 2019, also known as “Gavrilov’s night.” Thousands of people gathered to protest the authorities’ invitation to Sergei Gavrilov, an outspoken member of the Russian Duma, to sit in the chair reserved for the Speaker of the Georgian Parliament. The Grand Chamber found extensive violations of the European Convention on Human Rights stemming from the state’s violent dispersal of the protest and the excessive and indiscriminate use of “less-lethal” weapons, specifically kinetic impact projectiles and rubber bullets, against demonstrators and journalists. Beyond vindicating individual applicants, the Grand Chamber directed Georgia to take specific measures to conduct an effective investigation into the events and to put in place domestic regulations on crowd control and the limits of police force.

In Burundi, weekly services are the primary point of contact between churches and their followers, with most of the population attending. These gatherings provide churches with a strategic platform to attract and retain members. Over six months, we collected data from five churches in the rural town of Muramvya—Catholic, Anglican, Pentecostal, FECABU (Evangelical), and Adventist—analyzing 125 transcripts for structure, themes, scope, tone, and key words. We find that emerging denominations—Pentecostal, FECABU, and Adventist—pursue different strategies than traditional ones. Pentecostal and FECABU churches place greater emphasis on rituals than on scripture readings, adopt a more positive tone, and focus on the immediate concerns of their congregants rather than abstract topics. The Adventist Church, while also emphasizing rituals and using a positive tone, distinguishes itself with a stronger commitment to scripture. The Pentecostal church uniquely combines a focus on morality with references to supernatural punishment. We argue that this blend of approaches among emerging denominations strengthens group cohesion and enriches individual faith experiences, helping them attract followers. Our findings shed light on the growth of these denominations in Burundi and may help explain broader religious trends across Sub-Saharan Africa.