Skibbereen has become a byword for famine, frequently appearing in academic literature on humanitarian disasters — but almost always as a symbol of Irish victimhood. By contrast, this article seeks to demonstrate that the town of Skibbereen was a centre of agency and innovation with far-reaching impact throughout Ireland and beyond. It examines the hands-on efforts of local people to take charge of a dire situation, highlighting three key aspects inadequately considered by previous research. First, a Skibbereen deputation to London played a crucial role in establishing the British Relief Association, the major voluntary aid effort at the time. Secondly, a soup house founded in Skibbereen became the model for the most effective governmental relief effort in Ireland. Thirdly, Skibbereen was the home of an elaborate emigration scheme to rescue starving individuals that was launched early and sustained for a long time. This article reveals a significant disparity between the widely accepted image of Skibbereen as a place of passive suffering and the lesser-known agency and innovation of its people. Ultimately, this case study not only sheds light on the recipient perspectives and complexities of humanitarian aid, but also serves as a testament to the resilience and resourcefulness of local Irish leaders.

This article shows that the Qarāmiṭa (a Muslim group) strategically adapted the Islamic concept of the Mahdī to align with the spiritual figure of Jesus in order to render their eschatological message more acceptable within the Christian milieu of Syria. More broadly, however, it argues that the Qarāmiṭa’s discourse engaged with Christian theology, which also involved ideas of divine manifestation, the identification of the Qarāmiṭa’s leader Yaḥyā b. Zikrawayh (d. 290/903) with John the Baptist, and even the symbolic redirection of the qibla and ḥajj towards Jerusalem. The article examines what may be described as a pseudo-Christian discourse surrounding the figure of Yaḥyā b. Zikrawayh in Syria. The study considers two pathways leading to the establishment of such pseudo discourse. First, such Christianised motifs may have been deliberately employed by the Qarāmiṭa themselves as a strategy to attract wider audiences and reinforce the legitimacy of their movement. This examination will offer a new perspective on the probability of how the Qarāmiṭa sought legitimacy via adapting their so-called Mahdīist discourse for a non-Muslim society and ideology. Second, this Christian colouring was later reinforced by sources seeking to demonise and marginalise those who stood outside the authorities’ official position. This article critically examines the development of this syncretic Mahdīist narrative by analysing the problematic nature of these sources that document these adaptations. The analysis therefore moves between the rhetoric of the preachers and the historiographical framing by their opponents, showing how both contributed to shaping the image of a pseudo-Christian Mahdīist movement in Syria.

The first three of Fauré’s nine preludes (Op. 103), first published as Trois Préludes, were completed and dispatched ten days late. This article suggests that the deadline created a compositional strain by uncovering a range of phenomena, from copying errors to shared gestures and the mining of older works. Piecing together the web of self-quotation and associations found in primary and secondary sources of Fauré scholarship, it appears that Fauré’s first three preludes display not only a nocturnal arc, but also a vague relation to the three main heroines of his oeuvre, so that depictions of stars, spinning and flames intermingle. Additionally, Fauré’s compositional short-cuts, including self-borrowing and additive thematic development, are utilized over a pervasive earworm which slipped into the composer’s working memory through a score recently completed, the last song of La chanson d’Ève (op. 95): ‘Ô mort, poussière d’étoiles’. The combined discussion frames a self-referential story of the composer’s toil with his current deadline; although past deadlines – toiles and étoiles – resurface, Fauré emerges victorious with a completed score in hand.

This study explores how secondary school English teachers in Portugal and Spain perceive extramural English (EE) and integrate it into English Language Teaching (ELT). EE involves any exposure to English outside the classroom, through watching videos, listening to music, or playing games – these being the activities identified by teachers in both countries as the most common among their students. The study analyzes teachers’ perspectives on the frequency of students’ exposure to EE activities, the impact of these activities on different language areas, and, more broadly, the relationship between EE and ELT. A total of 244 participants took part in the study. A survey was used as the research instrument. Data were analyzed by means of mixed ANOVA and an exploratory factor analysis. Findings showed that Portuguese teachers reported higher frequencies of student engagement in all EE activities compared to their Spanish counterparts. However, teachers from both countries shared similar perceptions of the impact of EE on language learning, and identified listening skills, informal language use, and the development of vocabulary as the areas most positively influenced by EE. Finally, teachers from both territories supported the integration of EE into ELT.

This paper analyses living standards in the capital cities of southern Latin America during the First Globalisation and the post-export-led period. It examines whether well-being in these cities – relative to London – improved and whether the gap in living standards between these cities narrowed or persisted. To address these questions, we constructed a new series of purchasing power parity (PPP) converters to adjust real wages and analyse their evolution in comparison to London. The findings highlight two key points: first, relative living standards in Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Santiago de Chile were higher in the pre-World War I period than in the post-export-led era, during which real wages significantly declined, falling well below those of London; second, notable disparities in real wages persisted among the cities of the Southern Cone.

Public perception matters for policy outcomes. Most research finds that, in contrast to past drug waves, the public views the contemporary opioid epidemic as a medical rather than criminal justice issue, although a smaller body of research suggests that criminal justice frameworks persist. We know less, however, about how issue publics with direct experience—who are more likely to take action and have the ear of policy makers—understand it. How do people involved in the ecosystem of drug use and policy understand the opioid epidemic, and what are the implications for policy and policy change? We identify the competing issue publics that people with experience represent by the frameworks they draw from and the perceptions they hold. Through in-depth interviews and participant observation, we, too, find that people with direct experience more often use language of the medical framework than the criminal justice framework. Yet underlying the seemingly strong surface-level support for the medical framework, the criminal justice approach remains in place. Within the issue publics critical for policy debates, individuals apply the medical framework selectively to people proximate to them, or they are ambivalent, holding multiple frames (including criminal justice) at once, even among those outside the criminal justice field. Further, our research reinforces how even the medical framework is compatible with many punitive elements. The hidden persistence of a punitive framework allows differential treatment for specific populations today and paves the way for dramatic policy change, potentially in the future. Our research has implications for public perception and policy change more broadly.

The founder of the Hong Kong branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, John Francis Davis, published the first translation of a Chinese play into English, Laou-Seng-Urh, or ‘An Heir in Old Age’, in 1817. While significant in both literary and scholarly terms, Davis’s work is also worthy of attention for its political undercurrents. An anonymously penned introduction draws connections between Davis’s translation and theatrical performances in the context of Qing diplomacy, including Macartney’s embassy of 1793, while an accompanying ‘Advertisement’ highlights Davis’s role as interpreter on Amherst’s subsequent embassy of 1816. This article conclusively attributes these paratexts to the second secretary of the Admiralty, Sir John Barrow. Records from the East India House library, the John Murray Archive, and back-numbers of The Quarterly Review reveal how Barrow exploited Davis’s translation to promote British diplomatic engagement with China and celebrate the embassy on which he had staked his own reputation as a China expert. Though Laou-Seng-Urh achieved few of its political objectives, it nevertheless inadvertently influenced the trajectory of nineteenth-century academic sinology in Europe.

We report a case of severe Kawasaki disease with giant coronary artery aneurysms, multiple systemic arterial aneurysms, and delayed-onset, independently progressive bivalvular insufficiency due to direct valvulitis. Despite controlled inflammation and favourable coronary evolution under immunosuppressive therapy, the patient required surgical valve repair. This case highlights the unpredictable nature of complex Kawasaki disease phenotypes and underscores the need for comprehensive vascular imaging and lifelong follow-up, as atypical features may lead to independent complications.

In flight safety monitoring, risk prediction demands high accuracy for rare but critical events such as engine failures and weather-related hazards. However, the limited sample size of such extreme cases within a single dataset poses a significant challenge to achieving precise predictions. Aggregating data across sources is a potential solution, but datasets are often not independently and identically distributed. Transfer learning can improve target performance by leveraging related sources, yet classical methods struggle with heavy-tailed data due to the lack of robust loss functions. This paper proposes a transfer learning algorithm based on composite quantile regression (CQR). It identifies and transfers information from similar sources and constructs pseudo response variables to linearise the CQR loss, enabling robust computation under heavy-tailed noise. Extensive simulation studies demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed method. The practical utility of the algorithm is further illustrated through its application to quick access recorder (QAR) flight data for hard landing risk prediction. This work aims to identify and quantify key controllable factors influencing landing safety through a data-driven approach. Our research provides quantitative analytical tools for multiple core safety aspects, including flight operation standardisation, aircraft condition monitoring, operational environment assessment and support resource allocation, thereby enabling more precise and proactive risk mitigation strategies.

This study investigates the role of working memory (WM) in the development of receptive and productive abilities in Spanish among intermediate second/additional language (L2/A) learners. Participants completed WM assessments and receptive and productive language tasks targeting grammatical gender agreement on articles and adjectives (receptive: acceptability judgment task [AJT]; productive: information gap activity). Results showed group-level improvement for productive performance, but substantial variability in growth for both receptive and productive performance. WM did not significantly predict growth in either ability, suggesting that WM may not strongly influence the development of gender agreement accuracy at this intermediate proficiency level. To extend the analysis beyond behavioral outcomes, an exploratory post hoc analysis examined associations between WM and neural responses during receptive processing. By examining parallel receptive and productive performance and integrating behavioral and neurocognitive approaches, this study highlights the value of interdisciplinary methods moving forward for understanding the role of WM in L2/A development.

The false chinch bug, Nysius cymoides (Spinola), is a polyphagous pest causing significant damage in canola (Brassica napus L.) fields in Iran. This preliminary study aimed to investigate the dispersal pattern of N. cymoides after canola harvest to support integrated pest management strategies. Sampling was conducted using pitfall traps arranged along transects spaced approximately 60 m apart over an area exceeding 28 hectares. Insect distribution over time was mapped using ArcGIS and kriging interpolation. Results showed that N. cymoides nymphs and adults remained mainly concentrated within the harvested canola field for over 2 months post-harvest, indicating limited dispersal to surrounding fields. Nymphs exhibited broader spatial dispersion than adults, which tended to stay within the harvested area. These findings highlight the importance of post-harvest ground management practices, such as plant residue removal and ploughing, to reduce N. cymoides populations and mitigate pest pressure in subsequent canola crops.