We aimed to determine the association between maternal bonding difficulty in the postpartum period and children’s neurodevelopment, considering maternal psychological distress and child sex-specific differences. To evaluate the relationship, the dataset of the Japan Environment and Children’s Study was used, as well as the Mother-to-Infant Bonding Scale (MIBS), the six-item version of the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K6) for mothers, and the Ages and Stages Questionnaires Third Edition for children aged 2 to 4 years. Maternal MIBS and K6 were administered at 1 year postpartum. Data from 24,798 boys and 24,025 girls were analyzed. Multivariate logistic regression analyses, with the reference groups being those with maternal MIBS scores ≤4 and K6 scores ≤4, were performed. The Benjamini–Hochberg procedure was employed to account for multiple testing. In boys, maternal bonding difficulty (MIBS score ≥5) without psychological distress (K6 score ≤4) was associated with a screen-positive result for neurodevelopmental delay in all five domains (communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem-solving, and personal-social) at ages 2 to 4 years. In girls, maternal bonding difficulty without psychological distress was associated with a screen-positive result for neurodevelopmental delay in all five domains at 2 years of age. However, at age 4 years, maternal bonding difficulty without psychological distress was no longer associated with a screen-positive result for problem-solving delay in girls. The association of maternal bonding difficulty without psychological distress at 1 year postpartum with screen-positive result for problem-solving delay persisted in boys, but at age 4 years in girls, the association no longer existed.

We usually think of aesthetic experiences as belonging to our engagement with artistic products such as paintings, sculptures, literature, and music, or nature itself. But science can be a source of a wide range of aesthetic experiences, and scientific pursuits in their turn can be shaped by aesthetic judgements. In this piece, I explore how scientific experimentation, through the choice of design, production of results, performance, and creative agency, is both shaped by aesthetic judgements and a source of a broad range of aesthetic experiences. The piece reflects why the aesthetic dimension of scientific practice matters in the production of knowledge.

We analyse the Maxwell’s spectrum on thin tubular neighbourhoods of embedded surfaces of $\mathbb R^3$. We show that the Maxwell’s eigenvalues converge to the Laplacian eigenvalues of the surface as the thin parameter tends to zero. To achieve this, we reformulate the problem in terms of the spectrum of the Hodge Laplacian with relative conditions acting on co-closed differential $1$-forms. The result leads to new examples of domains where the Faber–Krahn inequality for Maxwell’s eigenvalues fails, examples of domains with any number of arbitrarily small eigenvalues, and underlines the failure of spectral stability under singular perturbations changing the topology of the domain. Additionally, we explicitly produce Maxwell’s eigenfunctions on product domains with the product metric, extending previous constructions valid in the Euclidean case.

2025 sees the thirtieth anniversary of Revd Auntie Lenore Parker’s ‘God of Holy Dreaming’ being included in the Anglican Prayer Book for Australia. In this article, she explores and describes the dreaming process which birthed this prayer. The analysis which follows compares the value of dreams in aboriginal culture with the privileged place given to dreams and visions as altered states of consciousness in the foundational texts of emerging Christianity. This comparison raises the question of how such experiences may be valued within Christian theology and spirituality, not least because Western and Northern resistance to such phenomena in the modern period has made such visions seem suspect.

Global mortality rates continue to decline, and life expectancy continues its upward trend. Besides mortality levels, policymakers and providers of financial and health services would also be interested in disability prevalence and its potential future trajectories. The length of time in good health versus the duration with major disabilities or long-term illnesses has significant financial implications for both individuals and society. In this paper, we develop Bayesian common factor models to analyse Australian age- and sex-specific disability prevalence rates. In particular, there are one or more common factors shared by both sexes, as well as specific factors for each sex. Retirement villages are purpose-built residential complexes designed for relatively healthy retirees to live as neighbours and share a communal lifestyle. We apply the model forecasts and simulations to valuate a typical retirement village contract. The cost of this accommodation service is determined by the resident’s total length of stay, which can be estimated using forecasted and simulated disability prevalence rates and mortality rates from our proposed models.

Cross-linguistically, the existence of ‘double case’ configurations (e.g., nom-subject and nom-object) presents an empirical challenge to theories of case where anti-identity, or distinctness between two NPs, plays a key role (e.g., Yip, Maling & Jackendoff 1987). This study investigates the factors that influence the distribution of nominative object constructions in Korean. In a novel acceptability judgment experiment, we find that sentences with nom-objects are rated less acceptable than those with acc-objects. In a corpus survey, sentences with nom-objects commonly have topic-marked subjects. We propose the Morphological-Thematic-Grammatical (MTG) Alignment Hypothesis, which posits that sentences are maximally acceptable when there is maximal alignment between morphological case marking, thematic role, and grammatical function. In nom-acc constructions, this alignment is achieved because the highest-ranked subject (Keenan & Comrie 1977) is marked with highest-ranked nominative case (Otsuka 2006) and functions as a higher-ranked agent or experiencer. The lower-ranked object, meanwhile, has lower-ranked accusative case and functions as a lower-ranked patient. In contrast, nom-nom (and dat-nom) constructions fail to achieve this alignment. Our analysis treats the relevant constraints (e.g., distinctness, alignment) as interacting with each other to produce cumulative effects on acceptability.

The National Project on Achievement in Twins (NatPAT) is a twin project based in the United States (US) that began in 2017. Using a cohort sequential design, the overall goal of the initial project was to uncover salient factors, including genetic and environmental influences, which contribute to the co-development of reading and math performance during elementary school. In 2022, the focus of NatPAT pivoted towards a new focus on the COVID-19 pandemic’s short- and long-term impacts on children’s reading achievement. In addition, a genomics data collection began. New enrollment into the registry continues every year, but currently NatPAT follows 1997 twin pairs and their families as they progress through school. The project supports open science principles, with open materials and code, preregistration, and shared data. Here we present the goals of the project, summarize recent results, methods and materials, with a focus on the integration across many different data sources, and future directions of the project.

The so-called Island Carib Problem remains topical, and discoveries in the last decade have sparked further discussion. This article addresses this issue from the Guianas, where recent excavations have demonstrated the presence of a material counterpart of the Lesser Antilles from the seventeenth century. When compared to the insular Cayo complex, the continental complex of Malmanoury in what is today French Guiana suggests a historical movement of the Galibi toward the Antilles, where they overcame the local population, as told in a Callinago myth. This movement was driven by turmoil throughout the Guianas, Trinidad, and the Antilles during the sixteenth century caused by Indigenous warfare and migration in this area and was possibly an amplification of the late prehistoric Koriabo expansion. The Caribs encountered by Columbus were not the same Caribs met by Europeans in the seventeenth century.

The Chicha Soras valley on the boundary of Ayacucho with Apurimac in south-central Peru sees the introduction of intensive irrigated terraced agriculture in the Middle Horizon. The control over the water sources and the terracing systems fell to corporate lineage groups laying claim to common ancestors, viewed as being the founders of the local irrigation systems. The control over these systems and the rights of the respective lineages to land and water was expressed in the placement of ancestral tomb locations across the local landscape. This article demonstrates that ancestor-based organization of water sources was long lived across the area and survived the large-scale demographic and sociopolitical disruptions resulting from the Spanish conquest and the imposition of Christian belief systems.

Coastal erosion is a dynamic process driven by multiple environmental factors. In Antarctic regions, the interaction between wind, waves, sea ice, sediment transport and precipitation creates a complex setting for understanding shoreline change. This study focuses on Potter Cove, a small fjord in Maxwell Bay, south-west of King George Island (South Shetland Islands), where winter waves are investigated as a key erosive driver. Shoreline changes were assessed through satellite imagery, in situ beach profiling and sediment sampling. Additionally, a numerical wave modelling system was implemented to simulate wave dynamics within the cove. The results indicate a coastal retreat of up to 20 m along the southern shore of Potter Cove since 2020. Simulations for winter 2021 reveal two high-energy wave events with significant wave heights (Hs) of ~2 m, along with eight moderate events (Hs ≈ 1 m) occurring within the cove. The most energetic events (Hs = 2.11 m) originated offshore and entered directly through the cove’s mouth from the west-south-west. Conversely, moderate waves could be generated both internally and externally. Reduced sea-ice cover probably diminished the natural wave-buffering effect, enhancing the erosive impact of wave action on the coast. However, the absence of quantitative assessments of other relevant processes (e.g. permafrost thaw, glacial meltwater discharge, sea-level variability and sediment supply) limits our ability to gain a comprehensive understanding of the ongoing erosion. These findings highlight the role of wave dynamics in Antarctic coastal change and the need for integrated monitoring approaches.

Chylothorax and chylopericardium are rare in children and are typically associated with cardiothoracic surgery, congenital lymphatic abnormalities, or malignancy. Traumatic chylous effusions are particularly uncommon. We report an 11-year-old boy who developed extensive cervical and upper chest swelling following a minor firecracker blast injury. Subsequent imaging revealed large chylous pleural and pericardial effusions. Persistent high-output chyle loss despite exhaustive conservative therapy necessitated thoracic duct embolisation, which successfully resolved the effusions. This case highlights the importance of considering lymphatic injuries following seemingly trivial trauma and demonstrates the utility of percutaneous thoracic duct embolisation in paediatric lymphatic leaks.

The balance sheet of the ECB expanded greatly after the Great Crisis of 2007-9, similarly to other core central banks, but this development does not signify the adoption of a new ‘interventionist’ stance. The expansion of the balance sheet by core central banks reflects a profound change in the framework of monetary policy responding to pressures generated during and after the Crisis. In the case of the ECB, however, the expansion also resulted from attempting to cover the cracks of the fragmented European money market to protect the euro. This fragmentation persists and concern about the euro continues to shape ECB policy. The resurgence of inflation since 2022 led the ECB to contract its balance sheet, again similarly to other central banks, making a new framework necessary for monetary policy. But it is not clear what that would be, given the fragmented European money market. The monetary policy of the ECB is in a quandary reflecting the structural deficiencies of the Eurozone.

Rates of judicial dissent vary dramatically between Southern Africa’s appeal courts, even though judges frequently circulate between their benches. This variation cannot be explained by the ideological distance between judges or by their judicial philosophies. Differing institutional arrangements provide better but still incomplete explanations. These arrangements reflect dramatic transformations in the region’s judicial cultures. Analysing these diverging cultures illuminates why some forms of dissent have proved particularly contentious, and why styles of adjudication favouring dissent in some areas of the law have aroused particular hostility. There is thus no straightforward ‘norm’ that promotes or undermines judicial consensus in the region.