In times of new geopolitical challenges, many states have revived the concept of total defence, in which all citizens contribute to national defence efforts. How authorities communicate the need of this new defence strategy and when such crisis communication leads to an increased defence willingness is an important research question. We hypothesise that individuals who feel a sense of empowerment or an increased risk of war when exposed to crisis communication are more willing to engage in the defence. To evaluate our hypotheses, we collected representative survey data from 2,068 Swedish respondents, at the same time as the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency was distributing a new brochure on expectations on and advice for citizens in case of war. By analysing the responses of individuals who had read or not read the brochure, we gauge the impact of the crisis communication on defence willingness. The results show that individuals experiencing a higher sense of empowerment and perceiving a higher risk of war when having read the booklet were more willing to engage in total defence activities. This has important implications for our understanding of how specific types of crisis communication influence commitment and defence willingness in the population.

This study examines the impact of climate change, defined as long-term changes in temperature and precipitation patterns due to natural and human factors, on women's employment in Burkina Faso, highlighting labour market participation and gender disparities. Using a static computable general equilibrium model calibrated with a gender-specific social accounting matrix, it evaluates two climate scenarios: a 2.4°C temperature increase and a 7.5 per cent decrease in precipitation by 2050. The results indicate that these climate shocks significantly reduce women's employment opportunities. The supply of paid labour for women may decrease by 3.9 per cent, with skilled women experiencing greater job losses than their unskilled counterparts. In rural areas, the domestic workload could increase by up to 0.28 per cent, further limiting women's labour market participation. These changes reinforce gender inequalities and contribute to a decline in real GDP. To counter these effects, investments in climate-resilient agriculture, water and energy infrastructure, and women's entrepreneurship are essential. Gender-responsive policies are needed to promote inclusive economic growth and reduce employment disparities.

Narratives shape public perceptions and policymaking around emerging technologies like quantum technologies (QTs), yet what narratives develop across different societal domains remains underexplored. This study analyzes narratives about QTs in 36 government documents, 163 business reports, and 2023 media articles published over the past 23 years, using a mixed-methods approach that combines topic modeling with qualitative thematic analysis. We find that the dystopian or utopian extremes associated with technologies such as artificial intelligence are largely absent from discourse about QTs. Media coverage tends to cover a broad range of topics, while business and government narratives emphasize technical milestones, economic competitiveness, and national security, frequently at the expense of questions about ethics, equity, and accessibility. We discuss the implications of this focus, particularly the risk that an emphasis on zero-sum geopolitical competition could foster a more closed and fragmented innovation ecosystem.

We study how changes in a country’s administrative hierarchy affect development at the city level. We exploit the 1806 Napoleonic administrative reform implemented in the Kingdom of Naples as a historical experiment to assess whether district capitals endowed with supra-municipal administrative functions gained an urban development premium compared with non-capital cities. We find that district capitals recorded a population growth premium throughout the nineteenth century (1828–1911) and experienced higher industrialization both before and after the Italian unification (1861) compared with non-capital cities. We explain our results through mechanisms related to public goods provision and transport network accessibility.

Phenotypic plasticity refers to the capacity of an organism’s phenotype to vary in response to changes in environmental conditions, without any change in the individual genotype. Sea urchins (Echinoidea) are well-known for their morphological and behavioural plasticity in response to changing habitats or trophic environments. Phenotypic plasticity has been little studied in directly developing species, in which low levels of phenotypic plasticity are usually expected as a consequence of high levels of genetic differentiation among populations and local genetic adaptation. In the present work, we report a significant plasticity in the direct-developing and brooding sub-Antarctic species Ctenocidaris (Eurocidaris) nutrix (Echinoidea, Cidaridae) through morphological and trophic analyses of gut contents and δ13C and δ15N isotopic compositions. Molecular data (COI mtDNA) confirm that the different phenotypes of C. nutrix, the short-spined C. nutrix nutrix and the long-spined C. nutrix longispina, are a single species restricted to sub-Antarctic waters. As formerly demonstrated in broadcasting echinoid species, morphological plasticity appears to be mainly linked to depth and swell exposure, specimens from exposed and shallow sites showing shorter spines and larger apical systems compared to specimens from sheltered or deep sites. Significant differences in the diet and trophic niche of the different phenotypes suggest that prey type and food diversity may also be a factor promoting distinct phenotypic responses, both in the feeding behaviour and morphology of echinoids.

Two research branches in evolutionary psychology can make similar predictions about treatment expectations in contexts of conflict of interest, where, for those involved, costs and benefits are at stake. Recalibrational Theory of Anger suggests that evolved psychological mechanisms operate at the cognitive level and regulate human behavior. The Dark Triad Personality posits that traits of Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and Psychopathy confer adaptive advantages, leading individuals to prioritize their interests over those of others. This study aimed to replicate the results of Sell et al. (2017) in a Brazilian sample (Replication Analysis) and investigated whether dark triad traits predict the magnitude of anger in conflict-of-interest situations (Extension Analysis). Replication Analysis consistently replicated previous findings, with effect sizes from moderate to large magnitudes. Extension Analysis revealed that only Narcissism was a significant predictor when victims were intentionally targeted by offenders. While the Recalibrational Theory of Anger predictions were largely confirmed, the dark triad personality traits, except for Narcissism, were generally poor predictors of anger magnitude. The results suggest that the universality of the information processing is robust and is little influenced by antisocial personality characteristics.

This introduction presents a novel framework that distinguishes three activities of organized crime (OC): production (creating goods and services), trade (moving products and people), and governance (regulating markets and controlling communities). These activities require different skills and give rise to three different types of OC groups. To illustrate some of the points, I make references to the papers published in this Special Issue, on erotic fiction in China by Wang and Evelyn; on falsified medicines production and trade between Asia and Europe by Hamill; on drugs retail and gang control of a neighbourhood in Marseilles by Rodgers and Jensen; and the cocaine international distribution chain by Feltran.

In the Roman imperial worldview, masculine, civilized Rome saw a duty to control and care for uncivilized, feminine foreigners—a gendered power dynamic shared by more recent colonizing states as well. However, it is a methodological challenge to catch sight of the way such a worldview may have impacted colonial subjects. I examine the impact in Roman Britain and Gaul by applying a symbolic anthropological approach to a well-suited body of evidence, votive offerings: widely accessible and highly individual, each represents a single symbolic act. Taking up archaeological questions of material symbolism, I analyse the confluence of gender and offering material categories. Analysis of objects men and women offered at 10 sanctuaries in Britain and Gaul, and of the materials in which men and women were portrayed, reveals a permeability–impermeability binary: women are associated with breakable clay, porous bone and translucent glass, and men with strong, durable metal. This binary reflects Roman understandings of femininity and masculinity, shedding light on the fraught relationship between colonial rule and gendered understandings of the world.

This introductory article situates the study of gratitude within the historiography on emotions and transatlantic relations, particularly in relation to the affective turn in the humanities and social sciences. It also sets out the common goals of the articles: inviting historians to take gratitude seriously by defining its relationship to ongoing work in memory, humanitarian and international studies. By identifying a diplomacy of gratitude, it centres on emotional practices and performances and illustrates how this draws in new actors, behaviours and processes to our overall understanding of European–United States relations. Finally, it argues how the contributions to this special issue collectively reveal the historical development of repertoires and processes of gratitude throughout the ‘Transatlantic Century’.1

This study concerns how the Online Coins of the Roman Empire (OCRE) database of imperial coins can support Year 12 students to learn about Roman imperial image on coins for their Classical Civilisation Imperial Image paper. In observations of lessons, the author noted that pupils struggled to remember and identify coins which were prescribed sources for their examinations and appeared disengaged in other teaching methods. The author taught pupils how to use the OCRE database. When using the database, all pupils seemed more interested and engaged in the study of coins. Indeed, pupils’ classwork and written essays showed that, after using the database, their use of coin-related terminology and metalanguage increased, they wrote more detailed descriptions of coins, and considered how coins contributed to Augustus’ imperial image. The author recommends that teachers allow an extended period for students to become familiar with the software before formal activities. He suggests engaging activities for students such as finding and presenting coins to the class, curating displays of coins, or finding coins depicting various animals in the quickest time. Teachers could vary the time on each activity depending on the lesson time available.

This paper proposes an energy-efficient walking generation method utilizing limit cycles generated by nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC). Conventional limit cycle walking methods rely on strong feedback, such as output zeroing control, to attract the robot’s state toward a predefined periodic trajectory. However, we hypothesize that employing feedback control that better leverages the robot’s dynamics can improve energy efficiency during walking. Our previous work confirmed that using limit cycles generated by NMPC can produce energy-efficient walking patterns. This study builds upon this foundation and proposes a new method for generating walking in a general five-link bipedal robot. Through extensive numerical simulations, we demonstrate that the proposed method achieves highly energy-efficient walking while exhibiting excellent convergence to periodic trajectories.

This article suggests that the economically activist tendencies of the European Union are not just a temporary response to exogenous crises, but part of a long-term transformation of the EU into a governance structure that is increasingly equipped for forms of more direct rule over its territory, economy, and citizens, albeit still in an incomplete and contested manner. This transformation hinges on three interlocking processes that feed into each other and accelerate: (i) the rise of EU-level material, financial, and institutional infrastructure; (ii) the significant centralisation of EU power; and (iii) novel narrations about the ‘point’ of the EU that stabilise its authority. This transformation of the EU brings with it new challenges for its authority. Using the work by Charles Tilly, who focuses on the way in which trust networks are integrated in rule, this article distinguishes between the EU’s ability to rule by way of coercion, by way of capital and by way of commitment. It is suggested that while the EU’s ability to rule by way of coercion and capital have grown, it remains difficult to envisage how the EU may stably reproduce commitments structures that would allow it to transition into a stable and democratic structure of governance.

Avian schistosomatids are blood flukes parasitizing a wide spectrum of aquatic birds. However, its research in the Neotropics is ongoing with several putative new taxa pending description. Although waterfowl represent the most important avian hosts for these flukes, only a small proportion of these birds have been assessed for schistosomatids. This study aimed to describe avian schistosomatids from two native ducks from the Southern Cone of South America. A total of 24 Chiloe wigeon (Mareca sibilatrix) and three Cinnamon teals (Spatula cyanoptera) from different localities in Chile and Argentina were dissected to retrieve schistosomatids. The retrieved worms were described through an integrative approach considering morphology (staining and SEM) and molecular tools (PCR: COI, 28S rRNA genes). The new schistosomatid: Trichobilharzia kulfu sp. nov. was recovered from the viscera of Chiloe wigeon. It was closely related to other undescribed Trichobilharzia taxa from the United States, also from Mareca ducks. The new species was morphologically and molecularly different from other Trichobilharzia species, and it was included in the clade Q. In addition, SEM imaging proved to be an important tool to describe unnoticed traits on the tegument of worms. This new species represents the second Trichobilharzia taxon from the Neotropics described through an integrative approach. Furthermore, the Cinnamon teals harboured Trichobilharzia querquedulae. Considering there are several avian schistosomatids described only through morphological or molecular tools, there is a clear need to include a comprehensive approach in the description of avian schistosomatids, considering the remarkable richness of schistosomatids in Neotropics.

Democracy faces growing threats from authoritarian ideologies, especially in terrorism-affected regions. We test whether citizen-targeted democracy-promotion intervention can bolster democratic support and resist authoritarian appeals. A randomized online experiment in Burkina Faso exposed participants to educational videos focusing on: (1) introduction of civic rights democracies offer, (2) general discussion of democracy’s advantages in combating terrorism, (3) Burkina Faso–specific discussion of democracy’s advantages in combating terrorism, (4) space exploration (placebo). Democracy-promotion videos increased democratic support. The general terrorism-advantage message produced the largest gains, whereas the country-specific message had little effect. Effects are not contingent on respondents’ proximity to attacks or direct experience. These findings highlight how democratic resilience can be strengthened in conflict-affected societies and inform future efforts to promote democracy.

.