The Experiment to Detect the Global Epoch of reionization 21 cm Signal (EDGES) has reported evidence for an absorption feature in the sky-averaged radio background near 78 MHz. A cosmological interpretation of this signal corresponds to absorption of 21 cm photons by neutral hydrogen at z ∼ 17. The large depth of the signal has been shown to require an excess radio background above the CMB and/or non-standard cooling processes in the IGM. Here, we explore the plausibility of a scenario in which the EDGES signal is back-lit by an excess radio background sourced from a population of radio-loud AGN at high redshift. These AGN could also explain the unexpected abundance of UV-bright objects observed at z > 10 by JWST. We find that producing enough radio photons to explain the EDGES depth requires that nearly all high-z UV-bright objects down to MUV ≳ –15 are radio-loud AGN and that the UV density of such objects declines by at most 1.5 orders of magnitude between z = 10 and 20. In addition, the fraction of X-ray photons escaping these objects must be ≲ 1% of their expected intrinsic production rate to prevent the absorption signal being washed out by early IGM pre-heating. Re-producing the sharp boundaries of the absorption trough and its flat bottom require that the UV luminosity function, the fraction of UV light produced by AGN, and the X-ray escape fraction have fine-tuned redshift dependence. We conclude that radio-loud AGN are an unlikely (although physically possible) candidate to explain EDGES because of the extreme physical properties required for them to do so.

This article is an attempt to reconstruct the history of the first Nigerien psychiatric service, and diverse aspects of the ordinary functioning of Pavillon E in Niamey (Niger): the organisation of daily life, the position occupied by coopérant doctors, the precise perimeter and development of practices taken from social and community psychiatry, and relationships with the outside world (families, police, legal system, the public health office).

This research allows us to rehistoricise and refine the details of a period from 1950 to 1980 which, up until now, was viewed as fixed and anachronistic. We draw on precious sources of empirical data – medical and administrative archives, students’ dissertations, oral sources – which invite us to reconsider both colonial/post-colonial (dis)continuities and the temporal caesuras in the literature or in reports from the time.

This landscape of mental healthcare appears to be more or less deeply affected by regional and international dynamics, such as the French coopération system, the networks of ethnopsychiatry and transcultural psychiatry, or the network of pharmaceutical groups and their subsidiaries.

Studying this service also raises the issues of the chronology and daily life of post-independence psychiatric care in francophone West Africa. Finally, our research interrogates the intellectual partitions between reforming disalienist movements and day-to-day psychiatry, and addresses fundamental epistemological questions on how historiography can restore the balance of knowledge between them.

The crystal structure of valganciclovir hydrochloride has been solved and refined using synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction data, and optimized using density functional theory techniques. Valganciclovir hydrochloride crystallizes in space group P212121 (#19) with a = 7.07758(23), b = 11.34599(27), c = 49.3041(22) Å, V = 3,959.22(22) Å3, and Z = 8. Solution and refinement of the structure were made difficult by the limited data range, the relatively large size of the structure, the broad diffraction peaks, the relatively low crystallinity, and the significant preferred orientation. The two independent cations are protonated at the N atoms of the valine side chains. The crystal structure is dominated by alternating layers of ring systems and protonated side chains/anions along the c-axis. In addition to the ammonium–Cl hydrogen bonds, the ring systems and side chains are linked into a three-dimensional network by hydrogen bonds. The two independent cations have very different conformations. N–H···Cl, N–H···O, O–H···N, O–H···O, and O–H···Cl, as well as C–H···Cl, C–H···N, and C–H···O hydrogen bonds, are prominent in the structure. The powder pattern is included in the Powder Diffraction File™ (PDF®) as entry 00-071-1641.

Mortality trends among Indigenous peoples in Brazil remain poorly characterised. An ecological time-series study (2010–2022) was conducted, comparing Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations using nationwide open-access demographic and mortality data. Mortality was stratified by sex, age, and ICD-10 groups, populations were compared using Pearson’s chi-square test (p < 0.05), and trends were evaluated with joinpoint regression (JR) to estimate Average Annual Percentage Changes (AAPCs). Between 2010 and 2022, mortality among Indigenous peoples increased by 82.5% (from 2,927 to 5,343), compared with a 42.3% increase in the non-Indigenous population. Over 40% of deaths among Indigenous peoples occurred outside health facilities in both years, versus fewer than 30% among non-Indigenous populations. Crude mortality rates remained lower in Indigenous peoples (2010: 35.8 versus 55.9; 2022: 43.5 versus 74.8 per 10,000 population). However, age-specific differences were marked: mortality among Indigenous children and adolescents (0–19 years) was 3.3 times higher in 2010 and 3.8 times higher in 2022, while mortality among adults aged ≥40 years was approximately 2.5 times lower in both years compared with non-Indigenous populations (all p < 0.05). Mortality rates among Indigenous peoples were consistently higher for maternal, perinatal, and congenital conditions in both 2010 and 2022. JR revealed heterogeneous proportional mortality trends: significant increases in perinatal, congenital, and external causes (AAPC approximately 5.0–6.4%), as well as neoplasms, circulatory, haematological, digestive, respiratory, and endocrine/metabolic diseases (AAPC approximately 1.6–4.4%); a significant decline in infectious and parasitic diseases (AAPC −6.6%); and stability in other groups. Indigenous peoples in Brazil continued to face unfavourable mortality, particularly among children, adolescents, and maternal conditions. Many leading causes of death are preventable. Strengthening primary healthcare, expanding prenatal and perinatal services, improving vaccination and mental-health support, and adopting culturally safe, community-driven strategies to address chronic diseases are critical to reducing inequities and preventable deaths.

This article explores the development of Ukraine’s legal framework on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the context of European Union integration and post-war recovery. It analyses key regulatory challenges, including outdated biosafety laws, insufficient enforcement mechanisms and gaps in GMO detection and co-existence frameworks. Focus is placed on the 2023 Ukrainian GMO Law, which aligns with EU standards but is subject to delayed implementation. The article examines the legal tension between the EU’s interpretation of the precautionary principle in GMO law and Ukraine’s WTO obligations, highlighting the need for balanced, science-based regulation. In light of wartime agricultural disruption, the article argues that a robust, science-based GMO regulatory regime is essential for ensuring biosafety, facilitating market access and enabling the development of a resilient bioeconomy. GMO reform is thus positioned as a strategic necessity for Ukraine’s legal modernisation, economic recovery and long-term integration into the European and global systems.

Analogies appear to permeate the entire domain of international humanitarian law (IHL), but as an independent subject of inquiry, they remain largely overlooked within IHL scholarship. This article seeks to initiate a debate by examining the role(s) of legal analogies in the historical development of IHL from 1864 to 2001. It pursues two specific objectives. First, it undertakes an empirical investigation into the prevalence and significance of analogies in IHL. Drawing on the collected data, the article proposes a taxonomy of IHL analogies encompassing three categories: analogies preceding IHL norms, analogies embedded within IHL norms, and analogies following IHL norms. Second, building on the hypothesis that analogical reasoning plays a pivotal role in shaping the normative content and structural evolution of IHL, the article analyzes such reasoning from an axiological perspective, identifying the underlying values and benefits that it conveys within the field. In the context of IHL’s historical development, two traditional values emerge prominently: coherence and flexibility. On the one hand, analogies have enabled the discipline to evolve coherently, avoiding chaotic progressions; on the other, they have brought flexibility, allowing the law to adapt to changing realities on the ground. This two-pronged approach demonstrates that analogical reasoning in IHL is both pervasive and substantive: it has played a crucial role in the transformation of IHL over time.

This article explores the nineteenth-century history of ship’s ballast to study global maritime mobility ‘from below’, both socially and materially. Though mostly overlooked by contemporaries and historians alike, ballast was both a necessary resource for and a constraint on sea travel. This article examines ballast in four steps. First, it defines ballast in terms of its function, materiality, and value. Second, it studies ballast in the littoral zone, where specialized ballasting organizations depended on precarious labour and where both its production and disposal became entangled with environmental agendas and concerns. In a third step, the article focuses on ballast at sea, where it materially and sometimes detrimentally impacted the experience of ‘being in transit’. Finally, the article considers the transition to water ballast as an example for the persistence and staying-power of seemingly obsolete technologies and associated labour regimes. Ballast was an obscure but powerful enabler of sea travel. Maintaining this connectivity rested both on the widespread mobilization of labour for ballast practices and on the global movement of vast amounts of otherwise useless weight.

This review summarizes evidence from cohort and intervention studies on the relationships between nutrition in early life, epigenetics, and lifelong health. Established links include maternal diet quality with conception rates, micronutrient sufficiency before and during pregnancy with preterm birth prevention, gestational vitamin D intake with offspring bone health, preconception iodine status with child IQ, adiposity with offspring obesity, and maternal stress with childhood atopic eczema. Animal studies demonstrate that early-life environmental exposures induce lasting phenotypic changes via epigenetic mechanisms, including DNA methylation, histone modifications, and non-coding RNAs, with DNA methylation of non-imprinted genes most extensively studied. Human data show that nutrition during pregnancy induces epigenetic changes associated with childhood obesity risk, such as Antisense long Non-coding RNA in the INK4 Locus (ANRIL, a long non-coding RNA) methylation variations linked to obesity and replicated across multiple populations. Emerging insights reveal that paternal nutrition and lifestyle also modify sperm epigenomics and influence offspring development. Although nutritional randomised trials in pregnancy remain limited, findings from the NiPPeR trial showed widespread preconception micronutrient deficiencies and indicated that maternal preconception and pregnancy nutritional supplementation can reduce preterm birth and early childhood obesity. The randomised trials UPBEAT and MAVIDOS have shown that nutritional intervention can impact offspring epigenetics. Postnatal nutritional exposures further influence offspring epigenetic profiles, exemplified by ALSPAC cohort findings linking rapid infant weight gain to later methylation changes and increased obesity risk. Together, these studies support a persistent impact of maternal and early-life nutrition on child health and development, underpinned by modifiable epigenetic processes.

Using the Irish experience of public investment and fiscal policy management over the last 25 years, we identify five core lessons. These concern (1) the need for sustained investment effort even when facing tough choices regarding public expenditure, (2) the importance of assessing the adequacy of public capital, (3) counter-cyclicality as an important principle of public investment, (4) crowding-in private investment and (5) the challenge for public investment caused by longer-term challenges such as the necessary climate transition. We also propose two overarching design suggestions for fiscal policy and investment management frameworks.