There is substantial international variation in recommended vitamin C intake levels. In the United States, the recommendation is 90 mg/day for men and 75 mg/day for women, while in the United Kingdom (UK), the current recommendation – established in 1991 – is only 40 mg/day for adults. This UK level was based on the 1953 Sheffield study, which found that 10 mg/day prevents scurvy, with 40 mg/day chosen as the recommended level for yielding somewhat higher plasma levels. In this commentary, we argue that the UK recommendation overlooked key evidence available at the time. Specifically, at least six controlled trials published before 1991 reported benefits from vitamin C supplementation in participants whose baseline vitamin C intake was already 40 mg/day or higher. One randomized controlled trial, published in 1993, found benefits from vitamin C supplementation even at a baseline intake of about 500 mg/day; however, this trial involved ultramarathon runners, and the findings should not be broadly generalised. Nonetheless, such results challenge the assumption that 40 mg/day is universally adequate to maintain full health. We also highlight that the UK recommendations were narrowly focused on preventing dermatological symptoms of scurvy, despite strong evidence – even at the time – that vitamin C deficiency can also cause cardiac dysfunction and greater morbidity due to respiratory infections. We conclude that the current UK vitamin C recommendation should be re-evaluated in light of controlled trial evidence and broader clinical outcomes.

This article seeks to answer the question of how interbranch organisations (IBOs) can facilitate coordination among agents involved in transactions within agri-food chains. An IBO is a complex entity that establishes relationships among agents operating at different stages of a supply chain. The empirical analysis focuses on the Italian tomato supply chain and adopts a Process-tracing approach. The study is grounded in meso-institutions theory and demonstrates how the meso-institutional nature of the analysed IBO helps explain its role in establishing coordination among agents by performing the functions outlined by the theory. The institutional outcome of this relationship is the adoption of a contractual system that facilitates coordination itself. The contractual system identified provides an example of the articulation between the meso-institutional and micro-institutional levels.

American sloughgrass [Beckmannia syzigachne (Steud.) Fernald] is a troublesome wheat weed. We tested the germination of B. syzigachne seeds under different temperatures with growth chambers (12 h dark/12 h light, 12000 lx), simulating those during the sowing periods of early- (25/15 C), ordinary- (20/10 C), late- (15/5 C), and very late-sown winter wheat (5/0 C). We also tested the accumulated temperatures required for seedling growth to the 2- to 5-leaf stages, using 225 populations collected from wheat fields in eastern China. The average 1000-seed weight of the 225 populations was 1.2 ± 0.01 g. Overall populations tested did not show seed germination after 21 days of treatment (DAT) at 5/0 C or constant 30 C. At 14 DAT with 25/15 C, 20/10 C, and 15/5 C, the mean germination rates were 85.4%, 6.4%, and 0.1%, respectively. These rates increased to 99.9%, 58.6%, and 21.7% at 21 DAT. Populations collected from lower latitude regions germinated significantly faster (P < 0.05) under optimal conditions. Accumulated temperatures required for growing the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th leaf were 139.0 ± 1.0, 127.8 ± 1.0, 115.6 ± 1.0, and 98.9 ± 0.7 C, which showed a significant decreasing trend. The narrower optimal temperature range for B. syzigachne seed germination and higher thermal requirements for early seedling growth constrain its distributions, while the heterogeneous seed germination facilitates its infestations in wheat planting areas in eastern China.

The dating of the qameṣ shift (*/aː/ > [ɔː]) in the Tiberian tradition of Biblical Hebrew has long been a scholarly puzzle. In this article I present possible evidence for this shift in the Greek transcriptions of Origen’s Hexapla, datable to the first half of the third century ce in Palestine. While the evidence is limited both in attested tokens and in grammatical scope, it is suggested that lexical diffusion may account for the gradual spread of this shift, as recorded in different stages of the transmission of Biblical Hebrew.

This study investigates the production, online processing, and offline comprehension of non-canonical structures in Mandarin-speaking children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). We tested three Mandarin non-canonical structures, which differed in word order, the presence or absence of morphosyntactic cues, and the distance between the displaced element and its trace. Syntactic priming was adopted to elicit production, and a self-paced listening task with picture verification was used to examine online processing and offline comprehension accuracy, among 22 DLD children aged 5 to 9 and 37 age-, SES-, and nonverbal IQ-matched typically developing (TD) children. Results showed a quantitative difference between DLD and TD children across non-canonical structures in production and offline comprehension. In online processing, TD children immediately used different cues when they were available, whereas DLD children relied on the most informative cue within a given structure and context and integrated redundant cues only at a later stage. These findings point toward a complex interaction of representational weakness and domain-general processing constraints whereby DLD children show difficulties in allocating processing resources to integrate multiple linguistic cues.

When it was first introduced, the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) had two primary goals of reducing the reliance on custody and increasing uniformity in sentencing practices. Twenty years later, the YCJA has succeeded in dramatically lowering overall rates of youth in custody, but this gain has been selectively experienced by non-Indigenous youth and regional disparities in sentencing practices persist. In this paper, we suggest that the YCJA’s inability to meet its goals is due to overcriminalization by over depth. Using Indigenous youth sentencing as a case study, we argue the YCJA’s layered and sometimes conflicting principles have symptoms of overcriminalization by over depth, including over- and under-inclusiveness, arbitrariness, and confusion in implementation. To more effectively meet the YCJA’s initial goals, we propose legislative streamlining and systemic reforms, including specialized Indigenous youth courts and enhanced community-based resources, as pathways to greater justice.

Social cohesion suffers when people perceive that they live among others who differ from them, even if such people live in homogeneous neighborhoods. This article shows that (1) two individuals who live in equally diverse local contexts may not perceive the same amount of diversity in that context, nor think of the boundaries of their local community in the same way; and (2) when comparing two individuals who live in equally diverse local contexts, the one who thinks they live with more minorities tends, on average, to see lower social cohesion and less collective efficacy among their neighbors. These descriptive results align with a causal framework that distinguishes the objective environment from that of the subjective context. Revealing that perceptions of social reality matter above and beyond the experience of objective context adds evidence to a theory of context effects that involves perceptions as well as experience.

Higher-order uncertainty is uncertainty about what one’s evidence supports. In many cases, a rational reaction to such uncertainty is to engage in inquiring activities like double-checking or redeliberating, with the aim of securing a firmer grasp of the evidence. An attractive idea is to account for the epistemic impact of higher-order uncertainty in terms of these inquiring activities. However, I argue that zetetic accounts along these lines are, at best, incomplete, because they cannot deal satisfactorily with cases in which higher-order uncertainty persists even if further inquiry is not required (cases at the end of inquiry). In this paper, I put forward a more general account of the impact of higher-order uncertainty. On this view, higher-order uncertainty may defeat propositional justification by undermining one’s access to the relevant evidence. Losing access to some evidence often calls for further inquiry. However, when this further inquiring is ineffective, inadvisable, or merely optional, one may be justified to adopt instead revised attitudes that fit one’s limited access to the evidence. This proposal accounts for the impact of higher-order uncertainty at the end of inquiry and offers an appealing explanation of the relations between this type of uncertainty and inquiry.

This paper studies the effect of gender imbalance on assortative matching and household income inequality. Using data across prefectures in China, we show that a higher sex ratio in the marriage market is negatively associated with both assortative marriage and household income inequality. Motivated by empirical evidence, we develop a heterogeneous-agent model to study the mechanism behind the pattern. The quantitative results of the model match the empirical evidence: a higher sex ratio is associated with a lower degree of assortative matching, which leads to a decrease in household income inequality. When we allow men and women to choose their level of education endogenously before entering the marriage market, we find that a higher sex ratio leads to a higher level of education investment among both men and women, with men investing more significantly than women.

Many archaeology graduate students pursue advanced degrees in the hope of undertaking an academic career. Job-listing websites often serve as the first port-of-call for students seeking academic positions. We examined tenure-track job advertisements over the past decade to gain insights into the academic job market for archaeologists. Using data from the community-edited Academic Jobs Wiki for Archaeology, we examined changes in the academic job market over time. We investigated the editing dynamics of the Wiki to understand its users and their biases. We then analyzed the text of 431 job ads posted from 2013 to 2023. Our analysis addresses the question of how archaeological topics, methods, and geographic regions specified in archaeological job ads have shifted over time. We also explored whether the labor burden for applicants has changed over time: do institutions request more information and documents from applicants at the initial stages of application, compared to a decade ago? Finally, we assessed the influence of sociopolitical factors on the changing focus of research topics in the field. We conclude with implications for archaeology students, graduates, and advisors seeking to understand the dynamics of the academic job market and the requirements of employers.

La reciente excavación arqueológica efectuada en el centro provincial inka de Tambo Viejo, en el valle de Acarí, Perú, resultó en el hallazgo de una pequeña construcción de forma rectangular y semisubterránea. En su interior encontramos hojas y semillas de coca en asociación con arena limpia. Esta evidencia sugiere que la pequeña construcción sirvió para el almacenamiento de las hojas de coca, las que habían sido cubiertas con arena limpia para garantizar su preservación. La arena tiene propiedades térmicas que crean condiciones relativamente frías y que son óptimas para la preservación de productos orgánicos.

This study investigates the effect of participation in the Global Value Chain (GVC) on Multidimensional Energy Poverty (MEPI), and the role played by the quality of institutions (QI) in the short and long run for 51 African countries over the period 1995–2018. For this purpose, the DCCE-PMG approach is employed, as well as both the GVC and QI indices. MEPI includes electricity, clean fuel, and technology for cooking. The findings show that GVC participation negatively affects MEPI in both the short and long run, meaning that the GVC reduces energy poverty in Africa. Besides, there is mixed evidence regarding the heterogeneity effect according to rural and urban locations. The evidence further shows that GVCs interact with institutions to negatively impact both energy poverty and the rural–urban MEPI gap, implying that the better the institutional quality, the larger the effect of GVC integration on energy poverty reduction. Therefore, a better quality of institution enables local firms, participating in the GVC, to easily capture technology and knowledge diffusion to promote energy development and fulfill the spatial inequality in energy poverty. Additional tests allow us to confirm the evidence and, moving forward, the implications of participation in the GVC.

We report the first detections of Otiorhynchus albidus Stierlin (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) in North America. The first specimens of O. albidus were found inside a home in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, in June 2022, and additional specimens from the same location were collected throughout 2023 and 2024. Otiorhynchus albidus is of European origin. It is known to attack tree fruits and ornamental plants. Otiorhynchus albidus sometimes co-occurred with O. raucus (Fabricius), an already established weevil species in British Columbia that is a pest of tree fruits, grapes, vegetables, and ornamental plants. To test different surveillance methods and understand the seasonal occurrence of O. albidus, surveys for adult weevils were conducted in 2023 and 2024 with pitfall traps (outside the home) and sticky traps (inside and outside the home) in 2023. Both O. albidus and O. raucus were recovered with pitfall and sticky traps and were found in both years. We provide a key and reference DNA barcodes (from the cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 region) to distinguish O. albidus from similar species present in Canada. Otiorhynchus albidus has the potential to become a pest of tree fruits and ornamental plants in North America, as well as a nuisance pest for homeowners.