Philosophers of science are increasingly pursuing engaged work that addresses scientific and societal challenges. Previous scholarship has mapped forms of engagement and proposed reforms to enhance its impact. This paper examines the methodological decisions structuring engaged inquiry through qualitative content analysis of 40 peer-reviewed publications from Socially Relevant/Socially Engaged Philosophy of Science (SRPoS/SEPoS), Field Philosophy, and Philosophy in Science. I identify five recurring heuristics: problem-oriented framing, audience-tailored framing, context-sensitive integration, methodological modulation, and normative structuring. These capture higher-order methodological decisions with implications for how engaged philosophy of science is understood, evaluated, and taught.

American politics scholars have long argued for the centrality of Black group consciousness in political decision-making for African Americans, regardless of class. However, what has not been completely explored is whether there are specific circumstances in which class-based concerns are prioritized for middle-class African Americans over racial group considerations. This paper explores whether the specific circumstance of direct economic threat heightens the relevance of class considerations over racial group considerations for local redistributive policy preferences among Black homeowners. Utilizing a novel survey experiment, I directly pit economic self-interest against racial group solidarity to analyze the prioritized political consideration for affluent Black political decision-making. I argue that the strength of racial group solidarity will extend to African American homeowners foregoing their own economic self-interest, defined as their property value, for the benefit of the overall racial group. Findings support my hypotheses and demonstrate that Black homeowners higher in linked fate are most likely to show the highest levels of support for the redistributive policy when low-income tenants are explicitly described as Black, as compared to the White condition or the control. These findings point to the effects and non-effects of economic self-interest in Black political decision-making depending on the racialized context. Lastly, this inquiry points to the resilience of Black group racial solidarity and its role in the formation of Black policy preferences irrespective of class-based intra- group differences.

This article takes up the question of the possible existence of an ‘Auctus’ version of Suetonius’ De uita Caesarum: D. Rohrbacher raised legitimate doubts in an article published in 2009 about divergences between quotations in Servius and Suetonius’ text; yet nobody has given them proper attention. This article therefore reviews all occurrences at stake, trying to understand where the divergences may come from, then confronts another discrepancy between Suetonius, Aurelius Victor and the Epitome de Caesaribus on the one hand, and Jerome and Eutropius on the other. It concludes that the hypothesis of a Suetonius Auctus is not necessary to explain these differences, which rather help us better understand how ancient scholars could work.

The proof of Proposition 2 in Feddersen and Pesendorfer (1998, American Political Science Review 92(1): 23–35) is flawed. This note presents an elementary direct proof of the result.

Improvisation is widely recognised as a musical creative activity, yet it remains infrequently used in classroom practice. This qualitative study examines how eight Dutch primary music teachers understand, implement, and evaluate improvisation. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and field notes, two themes emerged: implementation, including commonly used improvisation activities, perceived effectiveness of improvisation activities, and feedback, and evaluation, including perceived benefits, challenges, and reflections for improvement. Findings show teachers value improvisation for fostering creativity and confidence but face considerable challenges, including managing classroom dynamics and limited pedagogical training, suggesting that teachers’ engagement with improvisation is shaped by both pedagogical beliefs and contextual constraints.

Sceptical theism is commonly deployed as a response to evidential arguments from evil by challenging our entitlement to infer, from the evils we observe, what God would or would not be likely to permit. Standard fine-tuning arguments, however, appear to require precisely the sort of expectation-guided reasoning that sceptical theism places under pressure: namely, the claim that a life-permitting universe is not too improbable given theism. Recent discussion has sharpened this tension: Donahue argues that sceptical-theist considerations undercut standard fine-tuning arguments, while Boyce argues that sceptical theists can nevertheless endorse a suitably revised version. I argue that Boyce’s proposal is philosophically important but dialectically costly. Boyce does not replace generic theism with a more specific hypothesis; rather, he keeps generic theism as the target hypothesis while allowing historically mediated background information, D, to generate the relevant theistic expectations. My objection is that once D is admitted for that positive purpose, it cannot be quarantined from adverse evidential assessment. The result is not merely that the problem of evil is formally reopened. Rather, enriched versions of evil, suffering, and divine hiddenness become serious enough to require independent theistic response. Boyce’s strategy therefore preserves coherence only by narrowing sceptical theism’s traditional broad anti-evil role.

Balloon-expandable Edwards SAPIEN 3 (23 mm) and MyVal OCTACOR (21.5 mm) valves were tested in 3D-printed silicone tubes using a low-pressure, water-perfused simulator with ultrasound and video monitoring. Balloons were inflated in 2 mm increments from 18 to 30 mm. Both valves were easily inflated from 18 to 24 mm with 2–3 atm inflation pressures and required 5.5 atm and 7 atm, respectively, to reach an inner diameter of 26 mm at the outflow level for the SAPIEN 3 and OCTACOR valves. Further expansion was not achievable. At 18 mm, leaflet opening was mildly asymmetric, but laminar flow was preserved. Circular geometry improved at 20 mm and normalised at 22 mm for both valves. At 24 mm, SAPIEN 3 showed trivial regurgitation, while OCTACOR exhibited a central coaptation defect with mild-to-moderate regurgitation. At 26 mm, SAPIEN 3 leaflets were maximally stretched yet functional with central regurgitation, whereas OCTACOR failed with leaflet tears at the frame attachment. These results indicate both valves can be implanted at small diameters and stepwise dilated to nominal size, tolerating overexpansion up to 3 mm for SAPIEN 3 (+13% overexpansion) and 4.5 mm for OCTACOR (+20.9% overexpansion) at outflow level, with SAPIEN 3 remaining functional and OCTACOR requiring valve-in-valve replacement. Pending clinical validation, this versatility could support their use for infant mitral and pulmonary replacements as alternatives to the Melody valve; though, under- or overexpansion should be reserved for clinically essential situations.

The Abortion Counseling Service, a U.S. feminist organization better known as Jane, provided safe, affordable abortions to 12,000 women in Chicago during the pre-Roe era (1969–1973). Remarkably, beginning in 1970, its members, women and non-medical professionals, clandestinely performed the abortions themselves. Yet the group’s distinctive practice of political dissidence has not been carefully theorized. The article argues that Jane’s efforts were exemplary of anarchic direct action and feminist mutual aid. Their approach involved action that was “direct” in the specific sense of being unmediated and reflexive in character. Jane also enacted key mutual aid principles in their attempts to construct a community of care governed by relations of solidarity rather than charity. This account of how Jane “took” the right to abortion opens up a way of thinking about feminist organizing for reproductive justice that focuses on meeting immediate needs rather than seeking legislative change.

The goal of this article is to find some geometric characterizations of Kenmotsu and almost Kenmotsu manifolds that admit a non-gradient $m$-quasi-Einstein structure. First, we prove that a Kenmotsu manifold admits a closed $m$-quasi-Einstein structure is an Einstein manifold. Next, we prove that if a three-dimensional Kenmotsu manifold admits a non-trivial $m$-quasi-Einstein structure $(g, V,m,\lambda )$ with $V$ as a conformal vector field, then it is of constant sectional curvature $-1$. Finally, we prove that if a non-Kenmotsu almost Kenmotsu $(k,\mu )^{\prime}$-manifold admits a closed $m$-quasi-Einstein structure $(g, V,m,\lambda )$ with $m\ne 1$, then it is locally isometric to the product space $\mathbb{H}^{n+1}(-4)\times \mathbb{R}^{n}$.

We report a 40-year-old man (167 cm, 69 kg) with a complex surgical history, including repaired coarctation of the aorta and a Bentall procedure with mechanical valve replacement, who presented with recurrent, haemodynamically significant coarctation of the aorta, severe arterial hypertension, and a challenging 17 mm diameter mismatch between the aortic arch and descending aorta. As surgery was declined, a tailored hybrid solution was adopted: deployment of a custom thoracic endograft to bridge the calibre transition, reinforced with a balloon-expandable stent to optimise luminal gain. The approach achieved complete gradient resolution without complications, allowing for discharge at 48 hours. This case underscores the feasibility of personalised hybrid repair for complex re-coarctation of the aorta.

Feminist theorists have critiqued the twenty-first-century turn towards self-care as neoliberal, arguing that personal wellness masks the welfare state’s destruction. I clarify an ambiguity in the argument against self-care’s purported neoliberalism, distinguishing three strands of critique: that self-care is too individual, that self-care is too commercial, and that self-care involves a shift in who is responsible for the reproduction of subjects, from the state to the individual. It is in the Foucauldian critique of self-care as responsibilizing that arguments against self-care’s purported neoliberalism are sharpest. Yet, care for the self is more ambivalent than these arguments admit. Self-care has remained important to Black feminists, feminist scholars of disability, and decolonial feminists, including many explicitly critical of neoliberalism. Attending to the particular contexts from which calls for self-care emerge demonstrate how self-care is compatible with a critique of neoliberalism and can serve as a critique of neoliberalism itself. Neoliberalism is borne disproportionately by Black women, disabled people, and the Indigenous. Members of these groups have historical reasons to distrust the state’s claim to care. They have also been tasked with caring for others instead of for themselves. Finally, care for the self can articulate a refusal of optimization that neoliberalism demands.