We characterize the fractional Dehn twist coefficient (FDTC) on the n-stranded braid group as the unique homogeneous quasimorphism to $\mathbb {R}$ of defect at most 1 that equals 1 on the positive full twist and vanishes on the $(n-1)$-stranded braid subgroup. In a different direction, we establish that the slice-Bennequin inequality holds with the FDTC in place of the writhe. In other words, we establish an affine linear lower bound for the smooth slice genus of the closure of a braid in terms of the braid’s FDTC. We also discuss connections between these two seemingly unrelated results. In the appendix, we provide a unifying framework for the slice-Bennequin inequality and its counterpart for the FDTC.

We prove a general formula that relates the parity of the Langlands parameter of a conjugate self-dual discrete series representation of $\operatorname { {GL}}_n$ to the parity of its Jacquet-Langlands image. It gives a generalization of a partial result by Mieda concerning the case of invariant $1/n$ and supercuspidal representations. It also gives a variation of the result on the self-dual case by Prasad and Ramakrishnan.

This study contributes to an emerging body of research that combines new mobilities and gerontological perspectives. Most previous studies on older adults’ mobilities have analysed data collected at a single point in time and there is a need for studies that explore the meanings of movement and non-movement over time, especially in relation to unexpected life events. This work explores the meanings of older adults’ abruptly changing everyday (im)mobilities before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. It draws from qualitative interviews conducted with 11 older adults in a Finnish suburb in autumn 2019 and spring 2020, and focuses on grocery shopping, which most of the participants did themselves before the pandemic, but not during it. The findings provide insight into how meanings of everyday (im)mobilities are formed as older individuals (re)negotiate their relationships with their changing places of ageing. The participants’ views of their disrupted everyday mobilities were shaped by active person–place engagements. On one hand, the findings highlight that individuals are not at the mercy of their circumstances; they possess agency that can enable maintaining a sense of self and independence even in restricted mobility situations. On the other hand, the findings reveal relationalities that explain why sudden mobility loss often leads to diminished wellbeing. The relational nature of the meanings of (im)mobility implies that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to supporting older adults who face mobility difficulties while ageing in their homes. It is crucial to recognise the diversity of older adults and to support their individual lifestyles.

Sea turtle populations have significantly declined in recent years due to anthropogenic causes. Historical stranding records in the Canary Islands archipelago (Spain) reveal a high frequency of Caretta caretta and Chelonia mydas strandings. Our study aims to comprehensively characterize and explore these stranding records. Additionally, we have investigated the interactions between sea turtles and the island's professional fishers, seeking insights from small-scale artisanal fishers to understand the current state of sea turtle populations. The results have shown that Tenerife stands out with the highest number of sea turtle strandings, recording 1875 strandings over a span of 23 years. The primary cause of sea turtle stranding's is the interaction with fishing gear, specifically nets and hooks. Moreover, our research has highlighted the need for improved knowledge and training on how to handle stranded sea turtles within the fishing sector. Consequently, raising awareness and implementing conservation plans for sea turtle populations in Tenerife is of outmost importance in addressing and improving the current situation.

In 2015, a new accelerator mass spectrometry facility (AMS), the ECHoMICADAS (Environnement, Climat, Homme, MIni CArbon DAting System), was installed in the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement (LSCE). Equipped with a hybrid source, it allows the analysis of solid or gas samples for 14C measurement. Here, we summarize the equipment surrounding the Gas Interface System (GIS), namely the elemental analyzer (EA), the carbonate handling system (CHS2) and the ampoule cracker. We describe our model of sample contamination, taking into account the cross and the constant contaminations, and then describe how these contaminations were handled in the data processing. Both contaminant corrections are applied before the phases of blank subtraction and standard normalization, making it possible to use the standard, blank and sample ratios without contaminant during these phases. We finally present our results on normalization standards (N=118), blanks (N=125) and reference materials (N=117) for different measurement protocols and for sample masses between 3 and 300 µgC.

Yakushima is a small, mountainous island off southern Kyushu, Japan. Its proximity to active volcanos and subduction zones leaves Yakushima vulnerable to large megathrust earthquakes and tsunamis, in addition to powerful typhoons and storm surges. These hazardous events deposit beach boulders: large rocks moved above sea-level by powerful waves. By radiocarbon dating the fossilized coral within these boulders, one can derive age estimates of the hazard events. Reliably estimating the magnitude and timing of geological events in the historical record is vital for future hazard prediction and mitigation. In this study, we estimated the deposition age of ten boulders on the north coast of Yakushima to infer potential paleo tsunamis and storm surges. We found that large wave events have occurred frequently throughout the Holocene. Based on the boulders’ ages, we identified four potential deposition events at 1986–2692 cal yr BP, 3522–4075 cal yr BP, 4773–5232 cal yr BP, and 6187–6638 cal yr BP. These deposits are likely a result of storm surges, or tsunamis from nearby volcanic activity or subduction earthquakes. Another set of boulders dated to 5125–5738 cal yr BP were likely exposed due to a decline in sea-level following the Holocene high sea-level stand. Further modelling could determine the wave height necessary to move the boulders and distinguish between storm and tsunami deposits. This is especially pertinent given the high frequency of coastal geohazards, and the likelihood of similar hazards impacting southeast Japan in the future.

By the second half of the first millennium CE, a substantial body of texts written in Literary Sinitic developed into a shared repertoire of writings throughout Central and East Asia. In no small part, this was the result of the spread of Buddhism, which, in many regions, was adopted in its Sinitic form and relied on Chinese versions of the scriptures. As part of the means to cope with Sinitic Buddhist texts, most states also adopted a range of auxiliary texts, including primers and dictionaries. While modern scholarship has directed substantial attention at the participation of Japan, Korea, and Vietnam in the world of Sinitic texts, it has placed much less emphasis on the western and north-western regions of what is now China. This article attempts to redress the imbalance and demonstrate not only that, at one point, Inner Asian states actively participated in the Sinographic world, but also that they did this through a similar process of adaptation to that documented elsewhere. Primers played a special role in this, in that they had a more immediate connection with the core competency of reading and writing.

In the late 1850s and early 1860s, the idea of building a passage through the Isthmus of Kra in the Malay Peninsula was hotly debated amongst British officials, merchants, and investors. This study finds that the British East India Company's rule over the Straits of Malacca had been a dilemma for itself and British merchants in China. The Second Opium War and the Indian Revolt of 1857 exacerbated the dilemma and pushed some British policymakers and investors to seek an alternative route between India and China. The proposal of the Kra passage was the response and solution to the Malacca dilemma. In historicising the Kra passage proposal and putting it in the context of the British empire's simultaneous crises in Asia in the mid-nineteenth century, the case of the proposed Kra passage reveals the complex relations between different actors within the British empire and the challenges of integrating multiple imperial interests into a British world system

In 2016, Colombia’s Constitutional Court recognized the Atrato River as the first water body in Latin America to have its own rights. This article interrogates the historical roots of the judicial decision declaring the river a rights holder. Drawing on my long-term engagement with social organizations as an activist, lawyer, and then researcher, I illuminate the influence of Black people from the Atrato River in the transformation of law in at least three areas: ethnic territorial rights, transitional justice, and river rights. To do so, I combine interdisciplinary theoretical critique with socio-legal research using community-based and autoethnographic approaches to trace the community methods and historical practices of political contestation deployed along the rivers. Thus, I conceptualize how an organic and distinctive style of claiming and creating rights has been constructed in the basin. Moreover, by listening to the voices of the riverine representatives, I argue that the river is a nonhuman existence that has participated in the processes of rights-making in conjunction with local communities and a broader mosaic of allied actors. However, I also outline how legal systems still function to overlook crucial socio-legal claims of marginalized and resistant communities.

Chong (2017) claims that a derived environment process is productive to the extent that it is supported by phonotactics. The present study tests this claim by comparing variable patterns observed in Korean vowel harmony of suffix alternation with vowel co-occurrence restrictions in the lexicon. A corpus study replicated findings of previous studies that the harmony in suffix alternation is losing productivity, conditioned by the quality of the stem vowel, the number of intervening consonants between the vowels and the stem class. Phonotactic generalisations in vowel sequences matched such tendencies in the alternation in that harmony was feeble in phonotactics and that some of the factors that modulate the harmony in alternation were found to affect the harmony in phonotactics as well. The findings generally support Chong’s claim that lack of phonotactic support for an alternation makes it harder to learn.

Gas turbine engine starting models require a lot of calibration to represent reality with acceptable accuracy due to the lack of high-quality component rig data in the sub-idle region. A detailed sensitivity study is presented in this paper to guide such calibration efforts. A thermodynamic component-matching type transient model of a single-spool turbojet engine with shaft and heat-soakage dynamics is employed for this purpose. Turbomachinery component maps are extended to sub-idle using an in-house map smoothing tool and the strategies presented by Kurzke recently. These extension strategies make use of the correlations hidden in the already available regions of the maps and ensure physical consistency. However, they contain some uncertainty, even when an experimentally obtained zero-speed line is available. Combustor sub-idle efficiency, stability limits, and delay are taken from the literature. Due to the chaotic nature of a combustor in the sub-idle region, a precise prediction of the combustor efficiency seems impossible. Effects of uncertainties related to sub-idle turbomachinery map extensions, burner efficiency, and heat soakage are investigated in this paper. Two popular fuel control strategies are employed and compared to see how controls deal with these uncertainties. It is concluded that turbomachinery torque characteristics and turbine capacities are the most important parameters when calibrating a starting model with a control based on rotational acceleration while burner efficiency and heat soakage are added on top of these with a control based on fuel flow rate.