Social scientists often compare survey responses before and after important events to test how those events impact respondent beliefs, attitudes, and preferences. This article offers a formal analysis of such pre-event/post-event survey comparisons, including designs that seek to reduce bias using quota sampling, rolling cross-sections, and panels. Our analysis distinguishes major sources of bias and clarifies the comparative strengths and weaknesses of each approach. We then introduce a modified panel design—the dual randomized survey—to reduce bias in cases where asking respondents to complete the same survey twice could impact their Wave 2 responses. Our formalization of bias and novel research design improve scholars’ ability to study the causal impact of events through surveys.

The planar Skorokhod embedding problem was first proposed and solved by Gross [‘A conformal Skorokhod embedding’, Electron. Commun. Probab. 24 (2019), 11 pages; doi:10.1214/19-ECP272]. Gross worked with probability distributions having finite second moment. Boudabra and Markowsky [‘Remarks on Gross’ technique for obtaining a conformal Skorokhod embedding of planar Brownian motion’, Electron. Commun. Probab. 25 (2020), 13 pages; doi:10.1214/20-ECP300] extended the solution to all distributions with a finite pth moment for $p>1$. The case $p=1$ has remained uncovered since then. In this note, we show that the planar Skorokhod embedding problem is solvable for $p=1$ when the Hilbert transform of its quantile function is integrable, effectively closing this line of investigation.

Efficient memory management is essential for the stability and long-term performance of mobile robots in Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). However, existing methods often struggle to control redundancy in keyframes and map points, leading to reduced efficiency, increased latency, and potential system failure due to resource constraints. Achieving high accuracy in both mapping and trajectory estimation while maintaining a compact state representation remains a key challenge for scalable and efficient SLAM systems. To address this issue, this paper proposes an efficient long-term visual SLAM method based on sparse prior embedding and nonlinear score-guided sparsification for memory-constrained environments. The approach embeds keyframe information into sparse prior factors, avoiding global coupling while preserving system sparsity and consistency. Additionally, a nonlinear scoring function combining parallax and descriptor uniqueness is introduced to guide map point sparsification within the sliding window. This strategy enables efficient state graph management, achieving compact global map representations and effective observation constraints. The proposed method has been implemented in a complete visual SLAM system and evaluated through long-term real-world mapping experiments on an embedded robotic platform. Experimental results demonstrate that the approach significantly reduces memory consumption while maintaining trajectory and mapping accuracy. Furthermore, the method ensures real-time execution and deployment potential, indicating its suitability for large-scale SLAM tasks in resource-constrained and long-duration operational scenarios.

Vicarious learning helps small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) acquire foreign market knowledge by observing and interpreting other firms’ actions and outcomes in international markets. We searched Scopus, ProQuest, and EBSCOhost (2000–2025) and retained 27 studies (2007–2025). The synthesis organizes prior studies into four analytically derived categories that summarize how vicarious learning is conceptualized and operationalized in SME internationalization research: (T1) peer performance benchmarking, (T2) imitation and leader-following, (T3) institutional mimetic pressures, and (T4) network-, cluster-, and advisor-enabled vicarious learning. Across themes, a subset of studies suggests that absorptive capacity may condition whether external experience is recognized, assimilated, and exploited, although direct tests remain uneven and in some cases the contingency is inferred rather than explicitly tested. We translate these insights into an organizing framework and a future agenda on boundary conditions, measurement, and multi-level designs, positioning the review as mechanism clarification that imposes conceptual order on a fragmented literature, rather than as field-level consolidation.

We report a rare case of truncus arteriosus arising exclusively from the right ventricle associated with a restrictive inlet-type ventricular septal defect. Three-dimensional reconstruction provided essential spatial understanding for operative planning and highlights the morphological variability of conotruncal development.

This paper discusses the 2024 Tokyo gubernatorial election in the context of past contests. It shows how this election manifested the trends since the 1990s: an increasing distrust of the existing political parties, including those created in that decade and the growing support for independent candidates. Such candidates follow their own line of thinking, free from party ties, and appeal to voters in ways that resonate with public skepticism toward party politics. The analysis highlights both continuity and change in Tokyo elections and underscores broader patterns in Japanese political development.

This article re-evaluates the late seventeenth-century operatic culture of the Savoy court in Turin through the lens of newly examined archival material, the Avvisi di Torino preserved in the Medici archive in Florence. These handwritten newsletters, covering the years 1688–99, offer unprecedented insights into the musical and theatrical life of the Savoy capital, a court that stood at the crossroads of the Italian and French traditions. Previous scholarship has often overlooked this period or has relied primarily on printed librettos that provide only a partial view of operatic production. By integrating the avvisi with other sources, this study reconstructs the repertory, organization, and sociopolitical function of operatic spectacles under Victor Amadeus II of Savoy.

Climate scenarios are produced through modelling, scientists draw on previously collected data and directions retrieved from governmental reports. In this article, an environmental data scientist and an artist-researcher reflect on their long-term art/science collaboration. They examine how certain models operate in forest ecologies. The concept of the “possible” by French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859–1941) accompanies them in questioning the idea of a future that would be already predetermined or resolved. This is to offer alternative views of the climate emergency, notwithstanding its unprecedented importance and scale. Climate modelling remains open to change, as does the experience of various types of imagery in art. With the notion of the “data-image”, the authors delve into a local/micro incursion about tree carbon quantification visualisation techniques. This is discussed through an immersive outdoor art installation, according to experiential learning in place-based and arts-based interdisciplinary collaboration with digital media. The process of questioning how these images are produced and disseminated are ways to support visual literacy as it moves towards ecoliteracy. A thematic overview of responses by publics who experienced the art installations is included, to highlight the role of creativity and imagination with art in environmental education.

Let $\lambda (G)$ be the maximum number of subgroups in an irredundant cover of the finite group G. We establish bounds on the order, exponent and derived length of the group in terms of this invariant.

Adults who stutter (AWS) frequently engage in language monitoring to anticipate and manage stuttering. This linguistic monitoring may reallocate cognitive resources, with potential consequences for language production and memory. We investigated whether AWS’ increased monitoring during production imposes dual-task costs that limit encoding benefits, or whether it enhances memory through deeper conceptual engagement. Thirty-two AWS and sixty-four adults who do not stutter (AWNS) completed a referential communication task in which they described or identified pictures with an experimenter. To simulate AWS’ linguistic monitoring, half of the AWNS performed a simultaneous sound avoidance task (AWNS-SA), prohibiting certain word-initial phonemes. After the communication task, participants completed a recognition memory test for past referents. Results showed that AWS performed more similarly to AWNS than to AWNS-SA in both language production and memory, although AWS’ memory declined on a trial-by-trial basis when stuttering occurred. These findings suggest that linguistic monitoring in AWS does not impose substantial dual-task costs overall, but that stuttering moments can transiently disrupt memory encoding. Together, these results highlight the adaptive nature of linguistic monitoring in AWS and contribute to a broader understanding of how it supports language production and memory across AWS and AWNS.