This study examines how the blind Russian poet Vasily Eroshenko (1890–1952) was visually constructed in 1920s China through Chu Baoheng’s photography, transforming him from political exile to transcultural icon during the May Fourth Movement (1919–1924). Through formal visual analysis of six key photographs taken between 1921 and 1923, this research reveals how these images functioned simultaneously as documentary evidence, cultural allegory, and philosophical “metapictures” – images that reflect on the process of pictorial representation itself. The investigation proceeds through four analytical dimensions: the strategic framing of Eroshenko through translations and media following his 1921 expulsion from Japan; his photographic documentation at Stopani’s memorial in Shanghai as revolutionary allegory; his intimate portrayal in Zhou Zuoren’s traditional courtyard house and Beijing’s social spaces, revealing visual evidence of cultural integration and domestic harmony; and the iconic “poet on a donkey” image that crystallized the dialectical tension between these photographs of social belonging and the Zhou brothers’ textual accounts of “desert-like” loneliness. This contradiction illuminates May Fourth intellectuals’ complex negotiation between cosmopolitanism and nationalism. Eroshenko’s evolving portrayal from revolutionary exile to literati scholar reveals how transnational figures become screens for local intellectual projections about modernity. By examining how these photographs gained new significance across changing political contexts – particularly in Zhou Zuoren’s post-1949 reinterpretations – this study contributes to our understanding of visual media’s role in constructing cultural memory and articulating intellectual identity during China’s pivotal engagement with global modernity.

This short essay describes the nature and far-reaching impact of a large-format undergraduate course on U.S. legal history that legal historian Stanley N. Katz taught at Princeton University for almost ten years, starting in 1978. The course had a complex origin story, rooted in curricular innovations of the 1960s. It was unusual in its demand that students pursue sustained immersion in primary sources, debate their meaning, and take interpretive positions. Katz taught the course socratically, eschewing lectures. Because Princeton faculty often precepted for fellow faculty—attending Katz’s large-format sessions and leading their own small weekly discussion sections—Katz’s approach persuaded some colleagues to change their own teaching approaches. At a time when legal history was expanding as a research and teaching field, the course, along with its extensive reading materials that were not available in published form, was transplanted to other campuses by Katz’s students and associates.

The East Asian monsoon is a key component of the global climate system; our understanding of its long-term variability and seasonal dynamics remains incomplete. Here we evaluate calcified root cells (CRCs) as a novel paleoenvironmental proxy. We apply this approach to the Fanshan loess–paleosol sequence, northeast China, on the northern margins of East Asian monsoon influence. We present the first continuous down-profile record of CRC concentrations together with carbonates, stable isotopes (δ1⁸Ocarb, δ13Ccarb), and organic matter (δ13Corg) and compare these with grain-size and stratigraphic indicators. CRC concentrations correlate with glacial–interglacial variability: high concentrations within paleosol reflect enhanced vegetation and moisture availability, and low values within primary loess units reflect colder, drier conditions. The estimations of δ1⁸O values of precipitation during the Marine Isotope Stage 5 (MIS 5) indicate an intensification of the monsoon rainfall as compared with present-day scenarios. The δ13Ccarb values are unusually low, which is attributed to kinetic isotope effects, thereby suggesting that CRC formation occurs under quasi-closed conditions dominated by soil organic matter respiration. Internal isotopic variability and CRC concentrations within the MIS 5 paleosol point to multiple episodes of pedogenesis. Our results demonstrate the potential of CRCs to record both long-term monsoon variability and short-term hydroclimatic seasonality, informing past East Asian monsoon dynamics.

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between oocyte meiotic and developmental competences and antral follicle diameter on random days of estrous in naturally cycling zebu females (Nellore - a tropical Bos indicus breed). Immature oocytes recovered from early antral follicles (diameter of 0.5 to 2 mm) exhibited a higher percentage of intact transzonal projections, but lower viability, smaller diameter and a higher proportion of chromatin decondensation when compared to those recovered from mid- (diameter > 2 to 6 mm) and late antral follicles (diameter > 6 mm), demonstrating that oocytes recovered from early antral follicles lack meiotic and developmental competence. Immature oocytes recovered from mid- or late antral follicles were homogeneous in terms of morphology and size, in addition to exhibiting a high proportion of a pattern of chromatin configuration compatible with high developmental competence, which may help explain the better oocyte quality and improved performance of zebu donors in IVP programs. At the end of the in vitro maturation culture, the percentage of oocytes that completed meiotic maturation was higher when they were recovered from late antral follicles compared to mid antral follicles, although the rate of embryonic development to the blastocyst stage was similar. Our results demonstrated a relationship between the acquisition of competences during the final stages of oocyte growth and morphofunctional events, including the chromatin structure remodeling, but further research is needed to better characterize the functional differences in ovarian physiology between bovine breeds that may impact the oocyte developmental potential.

Understanding the local to regional history of extreme events such as debris flows and floods provides context to plan for and mitigate these hazards to life, property, and infrastructure. The Klamath Mountains of northwestern California have experienced both debris flows and devastating wildfires. Whiskeytown National Recreation Area (WHIS) is at the heart of this range and has a wealth of debris flow–related landforms. Gaining an understanding of prehistoric flows and their relationship with fire or other potential triggers can help mitigate future problems. Optically stimulated luminescence and radiocarbon analyses from sediment and entrained organics in undisturbed facies, including beneath partially buried boulders, establishes a chronology of paleo-events in WHIS. The levee deposits indicate a repetition of debris flows during the latest Holocene, every 125–150 years, since 850 yr. Larger flows occurred, with a record elucidated from debris-flow deposits along Clear Creek, with Middle Holocene ages, ca. 2600 to 5500 yr, most of which have sufficient concentrations of charcoal to indicate origins as postfire debris flows. Deposits at higher elevations show events from the latest Pleistocene ca. 13,000 yr. This geochronology indicates that these are not singular events but are relatively common and inherent to the geomorphic processes shaping this landscape.

It is well known that the amount of damage caused by lightning strikes to protected composite airframe structures depends on the paint characteristics, often applied on the surface of composite structures to protect from environmental effects and to personalise a product. In this work, physically based models of the mechanical loads induced by lightning strikes are employed in the generation of the mechanical overpressure fields due to a simulated lightning strike, while accounting for the paint thickness. These fields are then implemented into a three-dimensional finite element framework and combined with a damage model to predict the effect of paint thickness on the mechanical damage in composite structures subjected to this type of events. These models accurately predict the increase of damage extent with the increase of paint thickness, which is corroborated by experimental observations from industry and by the experimentally observed trends reported in literature.

Canada is widely regarded as a pro-arbitration jurisdiction. Yet the role of domestic judges in investor-state dispute settlement remains significant, particularly in arbitrations that do not take place at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Unlike ICSID, which provides a self-contained system for enforcement and annulment, investment treaty arbitration conducted under other arbitration rules are subject to judicial oversight. This article examines how Canadian judges have approached set-aside proceedings in non-ICSID cases, with a particular focus on the standard of review applied under Article 34 of the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration. The article contends that Canadian judges play a pivotal role in shaping the interface between international investment law and domestic legal principles. In this context, this article argues that the degree of deference shown by Canadian judges to investment arbitral awards should be understood not as judicial restraint per se but, rather, as respect for the distinct legal order constituted by investment treaty arbitration and the UNCITRAL Model Law — a legal order that is international in nature and grounded in a shared global understanding of review standards. Through an analysis of key judicial decisions reviewing investment awards — specifically, the North American Free Trade Agreement Chapter 11 awards, this study explores the extent to which Canadian judges have embraced an internationalist perspective. The article concludes that, while Canadian judges claim to be pro-arbitration, this does not necessarily equate to deference towards investment arbitral awards.

Partial difference operators for a large class of functors between presheaf categories are introduced, extending our previous work on the difference operator to the multivariable case. These combine into the Jacobian profunctor that provides the setting for a lax chain rule. We introduce a functorial version of multivariable Newton series whose aim is to recover a functor from its iterated differences. Not all functors are recovered; however, we get a best approximation in the form of a left adjoint, and the induced comonad is idempotent. Its fixed points are what we call soft analytic functors, a generalization of the well-studied multivariable analytic functors.

This study presents an innovative method for in situ measurements of electrical conductivity at microwave frequencies using a dielectric resonator (DR)-based probe. The DR, excited in the transverse electric mode with azimuthal index 0, radial index 1, and an open (non-integer) axial field variation denoted by δ (TE01δ mode) by a ridged waveguide, interacts with metallic layers as small as 5 × 5 mm2 on a dielectric substrate, enabling precise conductivity measurements through reflection coefficient analysis and electromagnetic simulations. Validation is performed by comparing the probe’s conductivity extraction results at 13.28 GHz with a conventional resonant cavity method at 10 GHz, demonstrating strong agreement. The used samples are therefore much smaller than what other comparable methods would require. The method is further applied to additively manufactured metallic deposits produced via a micro-dispensing technique, providing insights into their high-frequency (HF) conductivity and the effects of surface roughness. Additionally, a second-generation contact-based probe is developed to extend the characterization capabilities to larger samples and perform HF surface conductivity mapping. This advancement enables localized evaluations of surface properties and correlations with roughness, offering a valuable tool for optimizing additively manufactured components for HF applications.

How should we understand 1970s Kenya, with its combination of inequality and relative political stability? This article offers a new perspective on that by following the early history of the Harambee Co-operative Savings and Credit Society—the most prominent of many such societies that grew in those years. The rise and crisis of this co-operative provides evidence of mismanagement and the pursuit of personal advantage—but also suggests that civil servants saw the importance of enabling wider accumulation. As a result, the lowest-paid employees of government could see through Harambee—and other co-operatives—a possible, if precarious, route to a future as property-owners. That possibility helps explain both the institutional strength of Kenya’s provincial administration (whose employees were the members of Harambee Co-operative) and how a substantial number of Kenyans could develop a sense of themselves as citizens with a stake in the political system.

I argue for a hybrid analysis of English numeratives that (i) treats the extended basic numeratives (0–99) as lexemes but (ii) analyzes larger expressions as syntactic phrases or coordinations with magnitudes (hundred, thousand, million, …) as heads and factors (two hundred, forty-two million, …) as (obligatory) modifiers. A number of independent diagnostics – including ordinal/fractional morphology, prosodic phrasing and ellipsis/coordination – converge on the existence of a constituent containing all preceding material up to the rightmost base; this directly contradicts the cascading NumP + NP-deletion architecture of Ionin & Matushansky (2006, 2018) when applied to English. The analysis preserves the category assignments of The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language – cardinals as determinatives and nouns, ordinals as adjectives, fractionals as nouns – and refines the functional picture: (i) multiplicative factors (one hundred) function as modifiers, never as determiners or complements, and (ii) additions (one hundred and two) are coordinates in a coordination. The resulting determinative category is a small closed list, not an open-ended stock of ‘numeral lexemes’. Cardinal nouns split in two: proper when they name, common when they count – a division borne out by distributional diagnostics. The result is a more complete, empirically tighter, morphosyntax-sensitive account of English numeratives that explains why English is lexical below 100 but demands overt syntax above it.

This research presents the design and development of a microwave sensor capable of detecting and distinguishing hydroxylated organic compounds (HOCs), namely water, methanol, ethanol, and propanol. The work analyzes the physical mechanisms that govern the sensitivity and detectability of these liquids in the microwave range. Differences in sensor response are linked to variations in molecular characteristics such as dipole moment, microwave absorption, and refractive index. Unlike approaches that rely solely on experimentation, this study connects microwave behavior to fundamental molecular properties, enabling a predictive, physics-based understanding of HOC detection. Molecular polarization and relaxation models were combined with experimental observations to explain how these compounds interact with microwave fields. A metamaterial-based sensing cell was designed, simulated, and experimentally validated. Results demonstrate that the sensor effectively identifies hydroxyl compounds with high sensitivity. Water produced the highest resonance-frequency shift (0.76 GHz), followed by methanol (0.7 GHz), while ethanol and propanol showed similar shifts around 0.35–0.37 GHz. Propanol achieved a quality factor of 10.82 in the 12–17 GHz range. The sensor also reached a frequency detection resolution of 6.75 MHz and showed strong amplitude sensitivity, highest for water at 10.66 dB.

Studies have linked lower birth weight to development of radiographic osteoarthritis (OA). We examined early life factors in relation to subsequent knee pain among individuals with radiographic OA. 143 participants from the UK Hertfordshire Cohort study were included. Birth weight and weight at one year (WA1) were ascertained from health ledgers and used to derive conditional infant weight gain (CIWG). At baseline and follow-up, heath questionnaires (including knee pain) and knee radiographs were collected. Only those with radiographic knee OA at baseline were analysed. Logistic regression was used to examine early life factors in relation to pain. Pain at follow-up was common (men 41.3%, women 50%). Greater WA1 and greater CIWG were related to reduced risk of knee pain at follow-up after adjustment for sex and follow-up time. CIWG was protective against knee pain at follow-up, with this association attenuated after adjustment for follow-up osteophyte score. Validation in larger studies is required.

Late-phase graft incompatibility and subsequent yield reduction pose significant threats to sustainable nutmeg (Myristica fragrans) production in India, primarily due to the widespread use of wild Myristica species as rootstocks. Accurate rootstock authentication at the seedling stage is critical to prevent these long-term losses, but current methodologies are insufficient. This study develops novel chloroplast DNA (cpDNA)-based markers for species authentication and phylogenetic analysis in Myristica. Utilizing a comparative chloroplast genomics approach, we identified hypervariable regions to create robust sequence length polymorphism markers. Marker validation across 33 diverse Myristica accessions, including all major Indian cultivated germplasm, revealed a unique 25 bp deletion in the ycf4-cemA region. This deletion serves as a highly reliable diagnostic marker to differentiate cultivated nutmeg from wild rootstock species. The validated markers were successfully used to authenticate rootstocks in both commercial nurseries and established plantations, offering a critical tool to prevent long-term graft incompatibility. Intraspecific variation within M. fragrans cultivars was observed in the rpoB_trnC-GCA, trnS-UGA_psbZ and trnR-ACG_rrn5S intergenic spacer regions. UPGMA clustering distinctly separated the Myristica accessions into three discrete phylogenetic groups. Beyond rootstock management, the identified M. fragrans-specific marker can reliably authenticate nutmeg in commercial products, distinguishing it from potential adulterants like M. magnifica and M. andamanica. Furthermore, we report a species-specific marker for the endemic and IUCN red-listed vulnerable species, M. andamanica, which will be invaluable for its precise identification and conservation efforts. Our research provides an invaluable, easy-to-use toolkit for Myristica germplasm management, breeding programs and quality control of nutmeg products.

Scholars and policymakers have argued that territorial revisionism is dangerous because it risks setting off a cascade of claims by states dissatisfied with their borders. This Pandora’s box logic suggests that states that are vulnerable to an unraveling of the status quo have incentives to restrain their territorial ambitions to preserve stability. This paper explores this claim theoretically and empirically. It provides descriptive evidence to determine whether vulnerability to territorial threats has historically been associated with a lower likelihood of initiating territorial disputes. We find some evidence of such an effect in postindependence Africa, where this logic is most frequently invoked, and to some extent in Asia, but not in other regions. To help explain these empirical observations, we develop a multistate model of territorial conflict that identifies the conditions under which cooperation to preserve the territorial status quo can be sustained. The model shows that while an equilibrium of mutual restraint can exist, the necessary conditions are quite restrictive, and this cooperative equilibrium is never unique. Thus while a Pandora’s box of potential claims can provide the basis for a norm of restraint, the emergence of such a norm is neither straightforward nor guaranteed.