Several Monochamus species (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) use monochamol as an aggregation-sex pheromone, raising questions about how they maintain reproductive isolation. Herbivorous insects use host plant semiochemicals as cues for mate location and, with or without habitat cues, these could confer reproductive isolation among sympatric Monochamus spp. To test this hypothesis, host and habitat preferences in mate location were examined for sympatric populations of Monochamus maculosus, Monochamus notatus, and Monochamus scutellatus in the Algoma District, Ontario, Canada. Field experiments were performed to investigate whether differences in host preference, vertical distribution across the forest canopy, spatial distribution within down and standing dead trees, or any combination of these factors could minimise cross-attraction to monochamol. Results showed that more M. maculosus were attracted to monochamol combined with jack pine foliage than with balsam fir or white spruce, whereas no differences in host attractivity were observed for the other species. Vertical abundance of M. maculosus and M. scutellatus was similar across forests. Spatial distribution provided limited evidence for species segregation within hosts. No evidence was found that host or habitat preferences contribute to reproductive isolation in M. maculosus, M. notatus, or M. scutellatus, suggesting that vertical distribution could be driven by resource availability.

The field of “urban economics” is an elusive object whose US-based origins, development, and internationalization we attempt to document in this paper. To flesh out urban economists’ territory, we rely on a mix of quantitative analysis (networks of authors most cited alongside the foundational contributions of William Alonso, Richard Muth, and Edwin Mills) and archival research. We identify several periods in the development of American urban economics, including a taking-off in the 1960s, fueled by scholarly contributions, urban riots, and foundations’ grants; a marginalization in the 1980s; and a recent renewal where urban economists grappled with the theoretical legacy of the New Economic Geography, and with the transfer of new empirical techniques from neighboring fields.

Election integrity is paramount to democratic health. The Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) is a multistate collaboration that facilitates essential election administration functions, whereby members share administrative data to ensure clean voter registration lists and to encourage individuals who are eligible but unregistered (EBUs) to register to vote. Despite ERIC’s primary focus on maintaining the accuracy of voter rolls, in 2022, some conservatives accused it of being a tool for partisan electioneering, prompting nine Republican-led states to leave ERIC. To assess the validity of a central criticism made against ERIC, we leverage field experiments conducted by member states during the 2016 elections in Pennsylvania and Nevada (i.e., two important swing states). We find no empirical evidence to support the claim that outreach to EBUs yielded a partisan advantage: ERIC’s registration efforts had little differential effect on party registration or turnout. This article discusses the importance of efforts to maintain accurate voter rolls and to encourage greater participation for promoting confidence in our democratic system.

The article examines artificial intelligence (AI) narratives of the three most important powers in the emerging global AI order – the US, China, and the EU. It argues that these narratives are central to constructing the meanings ascribed to AI in international politics and therefore to understanding the global competition for AI leadership. Specifically, the article uses a method of narrative analysis to reconstruct the AI narratives of the three powers from government documents and strategy papers. These narratives speak to the worldviews and AI images of the powers, how they view each other’s aspirations and behaviours, and what their objectives and motivations are to engage in AI competition. The relationship between the narratives sheds light on the scope for international AI cooperation and conflict. The results reinforce expectations of an intensifying ‘AI race’ between the US and China for global AI leadership. The EU comes out more as a bystander to this geopolitical competition, but strives to lead the development of international AI norms and standards. The article points to different potentials for cooperation and conflict on different aspects of AI and identifies status-seeking as a possible driver of AI competition.

On 18 June 2024, a fire devastated Block D of the Barbados Department of Archives (BDA), destroying irreplaceable local governance and health records. This disaster underscores the fragility of Caribbean archives, which face chronic underfunding, aging infrastructure, and climatic threats such as humidity, pests, and mold. Barbados’s documentary heritage is dispersed across local and global repositories. While digitization offers improved access, it cannot replace original records and introduces new risks of technological obsolescence and cost barriers. Post-pandemic, the BDA fire and closures of other local repositories disrupted research access for over a year, reminding us that archives need to be accessible for safeguarding national memory and governance. This article places the BDA fire within a larger context of regional vulnerabilities and examines policy gaps in disaster risk reduction (DRR) for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in archives management. It argues for integrated strategies that balance modernization with conservation, prioritize cultural heritage in national planning, and strengthen collaboration among professional heritage managers in galleries, libraries, archives, and museums (GLAM). Sustained investment and transparent reporting are essential to protect and manage Barbados’s archives.

This paper presents a novel planar balanced-to-balanced diplexer with high isolation and harmonic suppression. Both the lower and higher channels of the diplexer consist of the two-stepped impedance resonators and one uniform impedance resonator. To enhance the inter-channel isolation of the diplexer, the cross-coupling between the resonators is used to introduce extra out-of-band transmission zeros. By utilizing stepped impedance resonators with different impedance ratios, the harmonics of the three resonators, except the fundamental harmonics, are different from each other so as to suppress the odd- and even-mode harmonics effectively and ultimately to achieve the purpose of broadening the stopband and enhancing the common-mode (CM) suppression. To verify the feasibility of this design, a microstrip prototype with dual-channel center frequencies of 2.01 GHz and 3.54 GHz was manufactured. Experimental results demonstrate that the in-band differential-mode (DM) isolation is higher than 41.6 dB and 41.5 dB for the lower and higher channels, respectively. CM suppression is greater than 20 dB in the 0–13.7 GHz range for the lower channel and 20 dB in the 0–9.0 GHz range for the higher channel. The stopband suppression level achieves 20 dB up to 18.5 GHz.

Rewilding is a transformative conservation strategy that emphasises the restoration of ecological processes and ecosystem resilience. This perspective article addresses limitations in current rewilding monitoring practices, which predominantly rely on quantitative metrics. We argue for the integration of qualitative approaches to better capture the complexity and interdependence of human–nature interactions that shape rewilding outcomes. Drawing on social–ecological systems (SES) thinking, we propose a holistic monitoring framework that combines quantitative and qualitative measures. This approach reflects emerging shifts in conservation mindsets – recognising humans as part of nature, valuing biodiversity intrinsically as well as instrumentally, and embracing uncertainty and complexity over control. We suggest that Holling’s panarchy – a framework for understanding adaptive cycles and cross-scale interactions – can support the design of rewilding interventions and guide monitoring. By focusing on fast- and slow-changing variables, panarchy enhances adaptive management and supports context-sensitive theories of change. This article contributes to the rewilding discourse by offering practical guidance for practitioners and policymakers, promoting a shift towards inclusive, adaptive and transformative monitoring practices.

The display of ancestral human remains in museums is a contentious ethical issue, raising concerns around the dignity and respect for ancestral lived lives versus the role of remains for education and scientific enquiry. Against the backdrop of recent debates sparked by the deinstallation of ancestral remains at several museums (e.g., the removal of the Shuar tsantsas at the Pitt Rivers Museum) and revisions of national and international ethics codes, this essay explores the role of two methodologies – a trial and interactive workshop – in producing inclusive spaces to support ethical decision making and practice. Digital participation technologies were used to support an accessible mode of participation that was anonymous – allowing attendees to express opinions about emotive and challenging subjects, such as ancestral human remains. For both examples, attendees and participants identified key priority and action areas for the sector and within their places of work. The activities will contribute to a wider research project that is investigating value and ethical disagreements and polarization within museums.

One of the most relevant types of human-made disasters, due to its intense and long-lasting effects on health, is the so-called Complex Emergency (CE) or Complex Humanitarian Emergency, defined since the early 1990s as “a relatively acute situation affecting a large civilian population, usually involving a combination of a situation of war or massive civil disturbance, food insecurity or shortage, and population displacement, resulting in a significant increase in mortality.”

This article discusses the University of Kansas’s Kenneth Spencer Research Library as an unexpectedly rich resource for British and Irish studies. The library’s location in Lawrence, Kansas, at a distance from the coastal research corridors, means that its collections tend to be underexplored, despite their significance. Spencer Library’s strength in eighteenth-century British imprints is complemented by extensive manuscript holdings. Among these are several centuries of estate papers for Britain’s prominent North family, and manuscripts documenting the Asiento (agreement) and England’s trade in supplying captive Africans to Spanish colonies in the Americas in the papers of Arthur Moore. Particularly noteworthy is the library of writer, civil servant, and Irish nationalist P. S. O’Hegarty, which offers scholars an unparalleled resource for Anglo-Irish relations and Irish history, culture, and politics. O’Hegarty’s collecting of scarce and ephemeral material, on the one hand, and books with significant provenance, on the other, makes his library a valuable resource for researchers even in an age of digitized text.

Scholars and political observers, alike, have associated political polarization with the weakening of democratic norms and the undermining of accountability, as partisans trade off the public interest against in-group loyalty. We probe how in-group bias shapes support for collective goods in actual high-stakes settings in an especially polarized democracy. Conducting survey experiments in Poland, we examine two scenarios: electoral integrity during the 2023 parliamentary election that could have entrenched authoritarian rule and national security after Russia’s 2022 invasion of neighboring Ukraine. Our findings show pronounced partisan bias undermining support for electoral integrity – approximately 40 per cent of party supporters with an average level of partisanship supported rerunning an election when their party unexpectedly lost – but less bias in judgments about national security, raising the possibility that individuals may view democracy as more of an instrumental than an intrinsic good.

This study investigates the hydroelastic interaction of flexural gravity waves with multiple porous elastic plates of varying lengths in finite-depth water, employing an integral equation approach. The floating ice sheet is modelled as a flexible plate of uniform thickness, governed by the Euler–Bernoulli beam equation. The primary objective is to evaluate the effectiveness of porous elastic plates as wave barriers for shoreline protection in ice-covered regions. Within the framework of linearized theory, the problem is formulated as a boundary value problem (BVP) and solved using an eigenfunction expansion method with nonorthogonal eigenfunctions. The mode-coupling relation is utilized to transform the BVP into a system of Fredholm-type integral equations, which is subsequently solved using the multi-term Galerkin approximation technique with Chebyshev polynomials. The numerical analysis evaluates the reflection and transmission coefficients, hydrodynamic forces, and wave energy dissipation, with a particular focus on the influence of the permeability and flexibility of the submerged plates, along with other relevant parameters. Validation is conducted by comparing the results with those of previous studies under specific conditions. This research underscores the practical benefits of incorporating porosity and flexibility into the model, demonstrating improved wave reflection and energy dissipation. Additionally, the findings reveal that the thickness of the ice sheet plays a crucial role in optimizing breakwater performance. The research delivers key insights into mitigating wave-induced forces and offers a reliable framework for designing effective and sustainable coastal protection systems that safeguard shorelines from high waves.

Richard Bambach was a leading figure in the “paleobiology revolution” of the late 1960s and 1970s, keeping the movement grounded with his keen geological and ecological insights. With interests ranging from the functional biology of individual organisms to the largest macroevolutionary trends in the history of life, he was especially adept at linking paleoecological and macroevolutionary patterns across spatiotemporal scales. He authored seminal publications during five different decades and was recognized with both the Moore Medal from the Society for Sedimentary Geology and the Paleontological Society Medal.

Outside the conventional scope of national security, States characterize a plethora of issues as security concerns in present-day international affairs. While the securitization of unconventional issues has been studied extensively in relation to national security exceptions under economic treaties, States’ use of unconventional security claims in invoking public policy exceptions, where the legal text contains no security-related terms, has attracted less academic attention. This article investigates the WTO judiciary’s approach to unconventional security claims raised under the GATT/GATS general exceptions, focusing on energy security as a case study. It demonstrates how the WTO judiciary has used two ‘old’ legal techniques from well-established general exceptions jurisprudence to examine ‘new’ energy security claims: framing regulatory objectives and identifying origin-based discriminations. The article finds that the WTO judiciary tends to be more permissive with energy security claims that are more closely related to the conventional, defence-oriented security notion; claims that are more distant from the conventional conception are also given substantial regard, but subject to more cautious scrutiny.