It is well-known that physical exercise brings a range of benefits for physical and mental health. This review specifically considers the impact of physical activity on mental health and focuses on the increasing knowledge of the neurobiological actions of exercise. It outlines the effects of stressors on physiology and, consequently, mental health and explores the concept of neuroplasticity. It assesses the wide-ranging evidence from animal and human studies consistent with exercise modulating neuroplasticity processes, such as stimulation of long-term potentiation, synaptic growth and neurogenesis. Mechanisms underpinning these effects are presented: stimulation of angiogenesis, production of neurotrophic factors, modulation of stress and inflammatory responses, metabolic adaptation and epigenetic modification. Finally, the relevance of the evidence base to clinical practice is considered. In particular, it is noted that discussion of these positive impacts of exercise on ‘brain health’ may increase motivation to participate in physical activity in some patients.

This paper presents a wideband C-band reflectarray antenna based on subwavelength triple-resonant phase engineering to address the inherent bandwidth limitation of conventional single-resonant reflectarrays. The proposed unit cell, with a compact size of 0.33λ₀ (where λ₀ is the free-space wavelength at the center frequency) at 6.2 GHz, employs a double-layer configuration composed of two PTFE substrates (relative permittivity εr = 2.55) separated by a 3-mm air gap and printed with three metallic layers. By deliberately introducing three staggered resonances through arc delay-lines, Koch-fractal loops, and cross-shaped resonators, the reflection-phase dispersion is significantly flattened across 4.76–6.70 GHz. Unlike tightly coupled or three-dimensional reflectarrays that enhance bandwidth at the expense of structural complexity, the proposed design achieves broadband operation through systematic phase-slope control while maintaining a planar and fabrication-friendly architecture. An 11 × 11 prototype with a 200 mm × 200 mm aperture was fabricated and fed by a broadband log-periodic dipole antenna to ensure stable aperture illumination. Measured results demonstrate a 3-dB gain bandwidth of 19%, a peak gain of 19.9 dBi at 6.2 GHz, sidelobe levels below −12 dB, and cross-polarization below −29 dB across the operating band. The proposed approach provides an effective and compact solution for broadband C-band reflectarrays through phase-dispersion engineering rather than structural enlargement or complex feeding networks.

Despite strong voter support for higher minimum wages, the US federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25/hour since 2009. This is the longest period of minimum wage stagnation not only in US history but also in the OECD and has resulted in an erosion in its real value over time. Existing scholarship on the politics of the minimum wage in the US has attributed federal inaction to declining union density, the power of wealthy interests, and increasing polarization and partisanship. Although these factors are important, we emphasize the overlooked role of institutions. The US system of minimum-wage setting, in which the legislative branch initiates bills to raise the minimum wage, passes them, and then secures presidential approval, is highly unusual. In most countries, the executive branch has the authority to raise minimum wages without legislative approval. This institutional difference produces both fewer veto points and a distinctive political logic. When executives have the authority to raise the minimum wage, they cannot easily duck responsibility for wage stagnation; they can also manipulate the minimum wage for maximal effect during election season. The result, we argue, is more frequent and generous increases to the minimum wage. Through a comparative analysis with the Hungary and the United Kingdom, we illustrate how institutions shape the politics of the minimum wage, resulting in almost yearly raises there and substantial improvements in the real value of the minimum wage.

Brachycaudus helichrysi (Kaltenbach) (Hemiptera: Aphididae) is a destructive pests of Prunus domestica (L.) (Rosaceae), in India. Life table studies are essential tools for understanding population dynamics and predicting the control period of B. helichrysi on plum cultivation. Age-stage, two-sex life tables of B. helichrysi reared on six plum cultivars under controlled laboratory conditions were constructed. The total phenolic content in the leaves of each cultivar was quantified. Compared with the Red Beaut cultivar of plum, the fecundity, net reproductive rate, intrinsic rate of increase, finite rate of increase, and total longevity of B. helichrysi were significantly lower, and the mean generation time was significantly longer on the Fortune cultivar, followed by Angeleno, Friar, Black Amber, and Santa Rosa. The total phenolic compounds in the leaves of the different cultivars were as follows: Fortune > Angeleno > Friar > Black Amber > Santa Rosa and Red Beaut. The seasonal incidence of aphid was also studied under the field condition, which showed that the highest mean aphid population was recorded during March (113.17/10 leaves), followed by April (74.00/10 leaves), and declined in May (17.30/10 leaves). These findings suggest that the B. helichrysi resistance of cultivars, mainly Fortune and Angeleno, is influenced by the total phenolic compounds in their leaves. The negative correlation observed between phenolic compounds and aphid incidence suggested a potential role of phenolic compounds in mediating plant resistance to aphids. The findings will inform integrated pest management strategies for plum cultivation, promoting crop resilience and ensuring food security.

A courageous agitator, Ida B. Wells is known for her principled commitment to racial justice and reluctance to consider concessions in her anti-lynching advocacy. Yet this article argues that Wells negotiates her political principles, specifically her commitment to sacrificial death in political resistance, given the constraints she faces as a Black woman advocating for racial justice in Jim Crow America. Wells links Black leadership with sacrificial death, but she qualifies this view of resistance when confronted with threats against her own life and the Black community in Memphis, Tennessee. Wells is committed to racial justice and willing to make unimaginable sacrifices to try to awaken the conscience of white Americans to the injustice of lynching, but she also engages in political resistance that centers care for the Black community. By examining Wells’s theory of political resistance and Black leadership in her political writings alongside her reflections on her anti-lynching advocacy in her autobiographical writings, this article recovers Wells’s commitment to care and community in her political resistance and reflects on how Black actors negotiate competing principles in practice under oppressive conditions.

The 2025 Budget exemplified the dysfunction in the UK’s Budget process, with systematic and selective briefing of underlying forecast details—meant to be private between the Office for Budget Responsibility and the Treasury—to the media since the 2022 ‘mini-budget’ crisis. In all documented occasions, this has come from the Treasury, with the OBR remaining silent allowing the Treasury to bed in a narrative based on partial information, with real costs in terms of prolonged uncertainty and market volatility. This article proposes a relatively narrow reform to the process that would see the OBR ‘bookend’ the Budget. The OBR would publish its pre-measures forecast three weeks before a fiscal statement—the same timing as it currently delivers it internally to the Treasury. The Treasury would then respond with its policy measures on Budget Day, with an OBR assessment following some days or a couple of weeks later. Key benefits of this reform are: increased transparency and democratic accountability; removing the OBR from politically contentious judgements about second-round effects of policies before they are announced and under pressure from the Treasury to hit particular fiscal rule targets; reducing the window for market uncertainty by providing a published baseline; and restricting speculation after OBR publication to policy decisions. This would be achieved while minimising the impact on the established forecast timetable. This design, adopting established practice from the Netherlands in publishing the pre-measures forecast to the UK’s institutional setup, can help guard the OBR’s independence while reducing the window for market volatility.

The primary objective of the current work was to determine whether pH could be used as a proxy measure for bacterial contamination (using reference standard sheep blood agar plates to measure total bacteria counts [TBCs] and MacConkey agar plates to measure total coliform counts [TCCs]) of bovine colostrum (BC). The hypothesis for this work was that bacteria produce acid by-products from their metabolism, thereby more highly contaminated BC is likely to be more acidic, based on lower pH measurement. A secondary objective was to identify optimal thresholds for pH to identify colostrum highly contaminated with total bacteria or coliform species, with industry thresholds for highly contaminated colostrum being TBCs > 100,000 CFU/mL and TCCs > 10,000 CFU/mL. One hundred and one samples were purposively selected from previously frozen BC samples. Sample pH was measured using a pH meter in duplicate, and bacteria counts were measured using the reference tests of 5% sheep blood agar and MacConkey agar plates for TBC and TCC, respectively. Small decreases in pH measurement were associated with increases in bacterial contamination of BC, particularly coliform species, which are those most implicated in the disruption of IgG absorption from colostrum. There was a statistically significant relationship between pH measurements and log-transformed bacterial measurements.

In this paper I theorize a form of epistemic resistance rooted in Audre Lorde’s notion of self-care. I do this by developing an undertheorized concept in Miranda Fricker’s work, hermeneutical rebellion, proposing a model of epistemic self-care that can cultivate the capacities needed to resist oppressive narratives and social imaginaries acting on one’s identity. Considering breast cancer survivor narratives as a case study, I analyze the identity power wielded by the dominant narrative (e.g. white, cis, heteronormative conceptions of femininity), arguing that survivors are subject to hermeneutical injustice that kettles them into an understanding of themselves which perpetuates systems of oppression. Engaging Katharine Jenkins’s account of gender identity, I show how an individual’s efforts to rebel against this dominant narrative will be insufficient to overcome identity harms, as she will be defining herself in relation to the same constructions she is rebelling against. I argue that a different type of rebellion is needed—one capable of loosening the grip of identity power on one’s sense of self. Drawing from Lorde’s experience as well as my own, ultimately I reframe the dominant narrative as absurd and introduce Donna Haraway’s cyborg myth as a model for the kind of alternative conceptual resource that can make this rebellion possible.

This article examines the impact of the Thirty Years War on Lutheran religious life. Drawing on evidence from Electoral Saxony, one of Germany’s most important Protestant territories, it argues that faith played an important role in individual and communal resilience. It uses eyewitness accounts to explore the disruption of everyday religious life, strategies of spiritual survival and the post-war restoration of religious space and ritual. The article emphasises the importance of traditional beliefs and practices and argues that rather than being a crucible in which disinterest in faith was forged, war reinforced religion’s role at the heart of pre-modern society.

This work proposes a novel crossover cavity with high isolation and power handling capability. It consists of a one-pole Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW) circular resonator that excites two decoupled evanescent modes at the same resonant frequency. The proposed structure deploys two substrates acting as one evanescent-mode circular cavity. The electric fields of the evanescent modes are confined in the secondary substrate. Meanwhile, most of their magnetic fields exist in the main substrate. Each semicircular post is loaded by a capacitive load ($C_{1}$) in the secondary substrate, defining the resonant frequencies of the excited modes. Moreover, the isolation between channels is controlled through capacitive slots in the top metal layer of the main substrate. Consequently, the resonant frequency of the proposed crossover cavity and the isolation between its channels are independently tuned. The proposed SIW crossover cavity is implemented at 8.7 GHz with a size of (0.65$\lambda_{g}\times $0.65$\lambda_{g}$). A high-power handling capability of 44.7 dBm is measured. Also, 1.7 dB and 64 dB levels of insertion loss and isolation are measured, respectively. Furthermore, a 50-dB isolation bandwidth of 739 MHz is achieved. The scalability of the one-pole crossover cavity to a second-order transfer function has been demonstrated in a simulated two-channel crossover configuration.

Translanguaging, a significant linguistic trend, is capturing the interest of various academic fields. However, existing literature has yet to adequately examine the role of translanguaging humor in entertainment media. To investigate this issue, we employ discourse analysis to explore the creative performance of translanguaging humor and its audience reception, as manifested in the parasocial interactions through danmu comments. Results show that, firstly, four translanguaging strategies are employed to create humor in Chinese entertainment shows: bilingual puns, literal translation, performance of ‘bad’ English and code-approximation. Secondly, beneath the humor lies a complex layer of emotions that are often paradoxical in nature. Furthermore, the search for a fluid linguistic identity is manifested in the creation and reception of translanguaging humor, which challenges monoglossic ideologies that prioritize rigid language boundaries and embraces the dynamic and hybrid nature of translingual practices across diverse linguistic landscapes.

We present the first case of CTNND1 variant with a prenatal clinical phenotype of total anomalous pulmonary venous connection. The genetic analysis identified a heterozygous pathogenic variant NM_001085458.2: c.2098C>T (p.R700*) in the CTNND1 gene of the fetus. This case expands the phenotypic spectrum of CTNND1 gene, provides a novel clinical reference for prenatal diagnosis, and suggests that the CTNND1 gene plays a crucial role in early cardiac development.

Recent work on random growth models with light-tailed Markov-modulated additive shocks has shown that irreducible modulation yields tail behavior resembling an exponential distribution. We show that with reducible modulation the tail behavior more generally resembles an Erlang distribution. Our main technical contribution is a theorem on the order of a real pole of the inverse of a holomorphic matrix-valued function with reducible Metzler structure. In a special affine case, the theorem recovers the Rothblum index theorem. Applying this result together with a Tauberian theorem, we characterize the Erlang shape parameter in two models of Markov-modulated random growth.

This article studies the nonparametric identification and estimation of double auctions with one buyer and one seller. This model assumes that both bidders submit their own sealed bids, and the transaction price is determined by a weighted average between the submitted bids when the buyer’s offer is higher than the seller’s ask. It captures the bargaining process between two parties. Working within this double auction model, we first establish the nonparametric identification of both the buyer’s and the seller’s private value distributions in two bid data scenarios; from the case of all bids being available, to the case of only transacted bids being available. Specifically, both private value distributions are point identified when all of the bids are observed. They are, however, partially identified when only the transacted bids are available. In the latter case, a sharp characterization of the identified set is provided. Second, we estimate double auctions with bargaining using a two-step procedure that incorporates both boundary and interior bias correction. We then show that our value density estimators achieve the optimal uniform convergence rate of first-price auctions. Monte Carlo experiments show that, in finite samples, our estimation procedure works well on the whole support.