Voicing contrast is a difficult feature for Chinese-English emergent bilingual learners of L3 Spanish. Adopting a time-series approach, this study investigates developmental trajectories of L3 Spanish voiced and voiceless VOT integrating the dynamic roles of language aptitude components.To trace their developmental paths, thirty classroom learners of L3Spanish in China produced VOT samples in a wordlist reading task five times during a five-month period. Language aptitude indicators were integrated in mixed effect models. Results showed improvement on voiced stop VOT accuracy as proficiency increases, with significant individual differences in developmental paths. Statistical analysis revealed a facilitative effect of phonetic coding ability on pronunciation accuracy and an effect of sequence recognition ability in more advanced stages of learning.This study contributes to a dynamic view of voicing contrast development in multilinguals, highlighting the differential role of explicit and implicit language aptitude in distinct stages of segment pronunciation development.

The young across animal species act as learners and innovators of cultural behaviors. Early engagement with their social and ecological environment often leads to the emergence of new behaviors that spread within groups. These juvenile-driven innovations play a central role in developing and transmitting animal cultures, which should be recognized and protected as essential components of biodiversity.

Scholars, journalists, and educational professionals have called for renewed efforts to make American civics coursework more relatable to students. Relatable coursework should spur students’ sense that the material is relevant to them and yield greater gains in key learning outcomes—namely, increased internal political efficacy. We developed a series of “regular people” profiles that were used to introduce weekly topics in an introductory college-level American Government course. Each profile highlighted the role of an outsider or a behind-the-scenes actor, drawn from disproportionately young and historically marginalized backgrounds, who has made or is making an impact on American politics. We find that students who received the regular people lessons were significantly more likely to rate the course material as personally relevant. Moreover, they exhibited significantly greater growth in internal political efficacy—that is, the feeling that they have the knowledge and skills to make a difference in the political process—during the semester.

We establish a connection between the part-whole principle and the quantity ded κ – a generalized cardinal characteristic related to the number of Dedekind cuts of a linear order. As consequences, we improve a result of Mancosu and Massas (2024) on generalized probability functions and propose some questions.

Most research on mycelium-based composites (MBC) focuses on the growth and properties of pure mycelium materials (PMM), engineered living materials (ELM), and biofoams. Using the basic method patented by Chris Maurer and team for MycoHAB, which we call high-compression mycofabrication (HCM), we turn spent mushroom substrate into mycobricks to understand and improve their material properties towards structural building. Compressive tests of HCM coupons of Ganoderma lucidum (reishi) fabricated at 20-tons and Pleurotus ostreatus (oyster) fabricated at 20-tons and 30-tons of force reveal that oyster outperforms reishi in compressive stress, reversing what is commonly known about these species when tested as biofoams or PMMs. Whereas Maurer has achieved 26 MPa with reishi, our median for oyster at 20-tons is 34.95 MPa and at 30-tons is 46.1 MPa measured at ∼70% deformation levels, comparable to values accepted for medium and high strength concrete (but at much lower deformations). Furthermore, for oyster HCM it appears that higher compression during fabrication produces higher compressive stress results during testing, even possibly strain hardening behavior.

Rogers’s remarkable book manages to be both deep and broad, both provocative and persuasive; it attends with equal care to the burdens of historical reflection and of theoretical investigation. I’ve learned a great deal from the text, and expect to keep learning as I return to it over time. One admirable feature is the ease with which it explores particularism while resisting parochialism. Rogers examines a distinctively black tradition of political theorizing, a tradition that Eddie Glaude calls “Black democratic perfectionism”1 and that in Rogers’s account includes Baldwin, Du Bois, and Wells. Rogers neither gives the tradition the name that Glaude assigns it nor shows much interest in naming it at all, apart from a stray reference or two to “Black perfectionism.” This bears further study. He identifies the tradition as a distinct enterprise while noting that it was not hermetically sealed off from the wider discursive world. Perfectionists also contributed to other traditions that one might, in the right mood, call “mainstream,” and that include Thomas Jefferson, Walt Whitman, and Sidney Hook. Rogers reminds readers that the perfectionists were in conversation with racial liberals and classical rhetoricians and theorists of democracy and assorted others, and that deepening these conversations is essential both to realizing whatever potential the mainstream views still have, and to understanding the content and value of the black perfectionist intervention.

Internal and external validity are key criteria for evaluating the quality and usefulness of research on second language acquisition (SLA). Although considerable attention is given to internal validity, external validity—the extent to which findings can be generalized beyond the specific study conditions—may be neglected during peer review and subsequent interpretations of findings. This editorial argues that a lack of attention paid to external validity reduces the interpretability and responsible use of SLA research through overgeneralization and misinterpretation of results. Current initiatives aimed at improving generalizability, including replication, meta-analysis, and multisite studies, are discussed, and a framework for evaluating external validity is proposed. The editorial concludes by calling for more transparent reporting practices and more cautious interpretation of research findings, with the aim of promoting accurate interpretation, replication, and theoretically motivated follow-up research in SLA.

While many phonological variables can be captured by single acoustic correlates, others must be described along several dimensions. This paper examines multiple properties of creaky voice to facilitate an understanding of phonatory variation. We evaluate the ideology that creak is most prevalent among young women using replicable, automated methods on a large, socially diverse sample. We take three approaches to quantifying creak: binary classification, measures of glottal constriction, and periodicity. Results indicate that creak originates in phrase-final position and spreads to earlier positions characterized by high glottal constriction, regardless of gender. Gender differences arise phrase-finally, where young men (like women) are less periodic but show decreased glottal constriction (in contrast to women). Overall, even though young women creak the most, young men and older women produce comparable degrees of glottal constriction. Each approach is differently informative, and analyses that rely on just one could yield partial understandings.

I investigate the interaction of Ā-movement, long-distance agreement (LDA), and clause type in Passamaquoddy (Eastern Algonquian) as a lens into the structure of the left periphery. I observe that we must distinguish three LDA patterns in the language: (i) LDA into complements of verbs like 'kocicihtun ‘know’ (“epistemic complements”), which is generally free (i.e. not A-local), but is restricted to the wh-DP under long-distance wh-movement; (ii) LDA into direct perception complements, which is always free, even when long-distance wh-moving a DP; and (iii) LDA into complements of verbs like 'pawatomon ‘want’ (“subordinative complements”, featuring verbs inflected in the subordinative verbal paradigm), which is always subject to A-locality, even when long-distance wh-moving a DP. I propose that these three patterns arise from independently-diagnosable differences in clause size: epistemic complements are full, phasal CPs, direct perception complements are reduced, nonphasal CPs, and subordinative complements are (nonphasal) bare TPs.

Agrivoltaics offers a strategy to expand renewable energy production while preserving agricultural land use through lease agreements between solar utilities and landowners. It can also provide farmers with additional income. Despite these advantages, adoption remains limited. This study examines farmers’ willingness to lease and estimates how additional information on this strategy affects farmers’ willingness to lease land for agrivoltaics. Using survey data from 177 farmers, we find that while 25% are willing to lease their land, 25% are indifferent. We find that additional information significantly increases the likelihood of farmers expressing willingness to lease by 4.1 percentage points.

Lew-Levy and Amir highlight contextual variation across both traits and societies in the influence of childhood peer cultures on mainstream adult culture. I suggest that this contextual variation can be explained in part by variable cultural acquisition costs, where some traits (e.g., technology) and societies (e.g., post-industrial) comprise accumulated cultural knowledge that is too costly for children to acquire.

Children’s peer cultures hold the potential to drive cultural evolution, depending on demography and social transmission pathways. Understanding their interactions can inform cultural-evolutionary theory and promote adaptable cultural institutions. Here, we outline the next steps for theoretical models, clarifying the importance of peer cultures, and introduce sustainable behavior as a compelling test case for children- and youth-driven cultural change.

Chronic Q fever can present as culture-negative aortic endograft infection with osteomyelitis. Plasma microbial cell-free DNA sequencing unexpectedly detected Coxiella burnetii before serology, prompting exposure reassessment and targeted therapy. Later operative cultures grew Eikenella corrodens, underscoring the need to pair molecular results with serology and source-control microbiology.

Care ethicists often critique the history of Western philosophy for its tendency, at least within certain movements, to conceive of human nature in terms of independence. They argue that this has led some to disregard dependence’s role in human life, which in turn has led them to sideline care as basic to morality. In this paper, I complicate this narrative by examining the thought of the eighteenth-century philosopher Christian August Crusius. Like care ethicists, Crusius constructs his moral philosophy upon a model of human nature that places dependence at the center, arguing that moral obligations follow from dependence upon God. Following an examination of dependence in both theories, I discuss various points of overlap and distinction between them and identify ways in which both care ethicists and Crusius scholars stand to benefit from engaging with one another. In view of this analysis, I conclude that Crusius helps to bridge the gap between care ethics and the history of philosophy and should therefore be understood as a strong ally of care ethics with respect to their shared commitment to the dependence model of human nature and their efforts to construct a moral theory rooted therein.

The genre of Islamic juristic opinions (fatāwā or nawāzil) provides a fascinating window into how Muslim jurists—both medieval and modern—have applied theoretical sharī‘a guidelines to actual problems facing their communities. Because Muslim practitioners have historically sought fatāwā (sing. fatwā) on matters ranging from the legal to the ethical to the ritual, these juristic opinions allow us to trace not only the concerns of believers in different Muslim societies over time, but also the moral imagination of the jurists as they grappled with those concerns. In this article, I present a close reading of a fatwā by the late modern Moroccan jurist al-Mahdī b. Muḥammad al-Wazzānī (1849–19231) on the moral value of polygamy versus monogamy. I show how his legal opinion can be fruitfully read in the context of larger debates across the Middle East and Muslim societies over marriage law and ethics. I suggest that al-Wazzānī’s fatwā represents a traditionalist reaction to the wave of modernist-feminist religious reform that was sweeping through the region at the turn of and into the twentieth century, and that sought to discredit the traditional Islamic practice of polygamy in favor of monogamy.

While the textual corpus of Ebla is well-known for its assortment of incantations in Sumerian and one or more Semitic languages, the evidence put forth to identify the language of discrete spells from Ebla has not been subject to reexamination for many years. Due to the esoteric content of incantations as well as their specialized vocabulary and unconventional orthography, it is often difficult to recognize the language of a given composition or discern its subject matter. This contribution reevaluates the Semitic classification of the tenth incantation on TM 75.G.2459 (ARET 5, 19), reanalyzes its language as syllabic Sumerian, and explores its content in light of other early Mesopotamian incantations.

The year 2024 marked a turning point for EU delict law, as the EU adopted a new Product Liability Directive to replace its 1985 predecessor. The new Directive, however, does more than modernise product liability law. It also reflects a deeper shift in how the EU uses private law as a tool of governance. While doctrinal commentary has largely treated the Directive as a remedial private-law instrument, this article argues that it also pursues regulatory functions. In that sense, it reflects the increasingly blurring boundary between private and public law, a development already noted in European legal scholarship. This article contributes to that debate in three ways. First, it shows how that regulatory dimension is expressed through the Directive’s objectives, namely the internal market, innovation, the circular economy and private enforcement. Second, it argues that those objectives are not relevant in every dispute, but only where particular provisions giving effect to them are applied. Third, it proposes a three-step test for determining when regulatory objectives are relevant in a given dispute and examines the consequences that follow: where this is so, those provisions should be interpreted differently from classic private-law provisions, through a forward-looking reading that advances those regulatory aims.