In a world grappling with escalating agrochemical pollution, this article explores the potential for shifting from a security-centric approach to a human rights-based approach to safeguard health, the environment, and biodiversity. By engaging with European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence related to environmental protection and climate change, the article critically assesses how to address state (in)action regarding pollutants such as pesticides through human rights litigation. In its analysis, the article highlights climate change litigation as a catalyst for change to assert states’ threefold obligations to respect, protect, and realize human rights. It concludes that the legal approaches developed in climate litigation – with regard to both procedural and substantive aspects – provide a strong basis for addressing the human rights impacts of agrochemical harm.

This article examines the paradoxical relationship between discourses of sincerity and an aesthetics of imperfection in twenty-first-century pop culture, with special attention to the Russian music scene. We focus on the career of cult musician Sergei Shnurov to address this broader question: What do present-day anxieties around sincerity tell us about pop-cultural production and consumption processes? First, we offer a genealogy of post-Soviet sincerity rhetoric. We then use this genealogy to unpack the approach to sincere expression that Shnurov and his critics and fans adopt. Two recurring artistic strategies stand out. First, Shnurov creates a sincere effect by insisting on insincerity. Second, he amplifies this ‘insincerely sincere’ rhetoric by foregrounding a visual aesthetics of imperfection. We argue that these strategies play an important role not only in Shnurov’s biography but also in a broader story: that of sincere expression as a prime concern of twenty-first-century media and popular culture.

Changes in waxed dry cheese during the ripening process, over periods of 7 and 30 days, were analysed using near-infrared spectroscopy (FT-NIR) and mid-infrared spectroscopy (FT-MIR) by attenuated total reflection (ATR). FT-NIR was employed to determine the proximate composition of the cheese (protein, fat, moisture, total solids, and salt content), identifying changes directly associated with the ripening process. FT-MIR data were used to identify spectral bands associated with chemical changes occurring during the cheese maturation. Additionally, chemometric techniques were applied to demonstrate the potential of FT-MIR infrared spectroscopy for cheese differentiation and fingerprint profiling. Subsequently, partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) of the FT-MIR spectra was performed, revealing two distinct clusters representing the cheese ripening times. Functional groups related to lipids (–CH2 – and – CH3), proteins (amide bands I and II), and carbohydrates (C–O) were identified, correlating to lipolysis, proteolysis, and lactose catabolism. Infrared spectroscopy in combination with chemometric methods proved to be a robust and reliable tool for monitoring changes during the ripening of waxed dry cheese. The results obtained highlight its usefulness as an alternative approach for the analysis and fingerprinting of traditional Mexican foods, aiming to add value to local products.

The politics of sexual minorities has been an understudied topic in the political science discipline. Recent years have seen a growing body of scholarly research that examines these often marginalized people and their challenges when building communities. Sexual minorities whose sexualities differ from dominant sexual norms are conventionally conceived as stigmatized outsiders, which contributes to their social movements and identities. However, differences among sexual minorities concerning ideology, race, and lifestyle may (1) undermine group cohesiveness and (2) show how debates among sexual minorities reflect divisive society-wide debates on inclusiveness and belonging. The four works in this essay, which focus on American and European cases, make significant contributions to these debates.

Indigenous values are increasingly recognised in helping organisations contribute to wellbeing within and beyond the workplace. Adopting the theoretical lens of Māori economies of wellbeing, this case study examines how The Southern Initiative (TSI), a unit within Auckland Council, incorporates Māori values to co-create place-based solutions and foster whānau (family) wellbeing. Through kōrero (conversations) with three people, a wānanga (collaborative discussion) with TSI members, and analysis of organisational literature, we identified how TSI’s organising approach synthesises social innovation and bureaucracy. We found that indigeneity-embedded intrapreneurship, distributed leadership, and whānau-centred design support TSI’s innovations. Mana (prestige) emerged as a primary organising principle, sustaining TSI’s approach to achieving systemic change. By bridging Indigenous paradigms and conventional managerial practice, this case study demonstrates how Māori values can transform public sector management, elevate social justice, and encourage community resilience. These findings highlight culturally grounded frameworks for delivering social impact and shaping equitable outcomes.

Online platforms have adopted business models enabling the proliferation of hate speech. In some extreme cases, platforms are being investigated for employing algorithms that amplify criminal hate speech such as incitement to genocide. Legislators have developed binding legal frameworks clarifying the human rights due diligence and liability regimes of these platforms to identify and prevent hate speech. Some of the key legal instruments at the European Union level include the Digital Services Act, the proposed Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and the Artificial Intelligence Act. However, these legal frameworks fail to clarify the remedial responsibilities of online platforms to redress people harmed by criminal hate speech caused or contributed to by the platforms. This article addresses this legal vacuum by proposing a comprehensive remedial responsibilities framework for online platforms which caused or contributed to criminal hate speech based on the general corporate human rights responsibilities framework.

This article summarizes how problems in formalizing scientific inference led to the production of social accounts of science, offering Helen Longino’s feminist contextual empiricism as a way forward. Rather than focus on rules of inference that connect knowledge-claims, Longino constructs norms for knowledge-producing communities which, when followed, ensure equitable dialogue and transformative criticism. It is further argued communities engaged in Christian systematic theology would benefit from developing a similar set of norms, given that theological inference is similarly rooted in social cognition and faces many problems analogous to those with which Longino is concerned. Finally, the extent to which Longino’s norms may serve as a starting point for theological communities is explored.

In the United States, about 1 in 100 children are born with a CHD, with complex cases requiring intensive, lifelong care. Despite medical severity, little data exist on economic burden, driving low impact scores in federal research funding applications, a lack of specific funding appropriations, and minimal research investment. Here, the financial and economic impact was quantified by identifying direct, indirect, and mortality costs of six complex CHDs and compared to two common cardiovascular diseases: coronary heart disease and congestive heart failure. Despite lower prevalence, complex CHDs exert disproportionate, often invisible financial burdens on families and the healthcare system. Annually, per patient, direct and indirect costs of complex CHDs are four times higher than coronary heart disease and eight times higher than congestive heart failure. The average lifetime direct and indirect cost for complex CHDs is $2.1 million per patient—nearly 44 times that of congestive heart failure. 31% of lifetime costs for complex CHDs are incurred in the first five years of life with families paying an average of $190,000 out-of-pocket. Many caregivers are forced to reduce employment hours, change jobs, or completely withdraw from the labour force. The annual national cost of complex CHDs is $74 billion, and the total lifetime economic impact exceeds $3.35 trillion. Systemic under-recognition has led to chronic underinvestment in research and stagnant patient outcomes. The biomedical community can catalyse an interdisciplinary response from research institutions, policymakers, and clinical systems to alleviate the economic and human toll of complex CHDs.

The presence of a basal cingulum, fluting, and overall size have been used to differentiate nodosaurid and ankylosaurid teeth for decades. The taxonomic utility of tooth morphology in ankylosaurs, however, has not been quantitatively tested. In addition, new phylogenetic hypotheses recognize four ankylosaur families (Panoplosauridae, Polacanthidae, Struthiosauridae, and Ankylosauridae), rather than the traditional nodosaurid–ankylosaurid dichotomy. Understanding ankylosaur tooth variation could better help identify taxa with ambiguous phylogenetic affinities or allow isolated teeth to test paleoecological questions such as a potential extirpation of mid-Cretaceous ankylosaurids from Laramidia. We analyzed a large sample of ankylosaur teeth using traditional and geometric morphometrics and investigated the utility of size and the presence of a cingulum and fluting for differentiating ankylosaur teeth. Morphometric analyses show that “nodosaurids” had the greatest variation in tooth shape and size. Panoplosauridae and Struthiosauridae account for a large amount of “nodosaurid” variation, whereas basal ankylosaurs, Polacanthidae, and Ankylosauridae share a similar restricted morphospace. Teeth with a crown base length or height over 10 mm are found only in panoplosaurids, struthiosaurids, and Peloroplites, but smaller sizes are found in all clades. A basal cingulum and fluting are associated with Ankylosauridae and Panoplosauridae. Linear discriminant analyses could accurately identify only between 50% and 75% of the teeth in our sample; thus, they should be used in conjunction with size and discrete traits when identifying isolated teeth. With these findings, caution should be used when attempting to use isolated ankylosaur teeth in broader paleoecological questions, and reclassification of museum collections should be undertaken.

A semi-analytical study of oblique wave interaction with two $\boldsymbol {\sqcap }$-shaped breakwater designs—floating and bottom-fixed structures—incorporating two thin porous plates is presented using linearized theory. Wave potential for both configurations is developed using the eigenfunction expansion method, considering both progressive and evanescent wave modes. The problem of oblique wave scattering by $\boldsymbol {\sqcap }$-shaped breakwaters is reduced to a set of coupled integral equations of first kind, based on horizontal velocity components. These equations are solved using the multi-term Galerkin approximation with appropriate basis functions to handle the square-root singularities at sharp edges of the porous barriers. The performance of the models is evaluated by examining reflection, transmission and energy dissipation coefficients, along with free surface elevation and horizontal drift force. We observe that increasing the plate length of the breakwaters attenuates the incident waves more effectively than increasing the width. Additionally, the floating $\boldsymbol {\sqcap }$-shaped breakwater significantly reduces the free surface elevation in the transmitted region. The results from the developed model can provide valuable insights for the design of wave–structure systems in shallow waters.

Capillary leak syndrome is a serious postoperative complication in neonates and infants after open-heart surgery for CHD. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between sternal opening width and the occurrence of capillary leak syndrome in patients undergoing cardiac surgery with delayed sternal closure.

We retrospectively analysed the clinical data of neonates and infants (aged < 12 months) who underwent open-heart surgery with delayed sternal closure at our institution between January 2016 and December 2021. Patients were categorised into groups based on postoperative diagnosis of capillary leak syndrome, defined as delayed sternal closure exceeding 3 days in combination with established clinical criteria. Stent length per kilogram (SL/kg) was calculated as the ratio of the sternal stent length to the patient”s body weight (mm/kg).

Of the 164 patients, 12 (7.3%) met capillary leak syndrome criteria. Capillary leak syndrome patients had higher median SL/kg (19.7%, p = 0.02), higher prenatal diagnosis rate (31.3%, p = 0.03), longer cardiopulmonary bypass time (24 min, p = 0.01), inotrope use (155 hours, p < 0.001), drainage time (99 hours, p < 0.001), duration of invasive ventilation (168 hours, p < 0.001), delayed sternal closure (3.8 days, p < 0.001), postoperative paediatric ICU length of stay (8.0 days, p < 0.001), and total hospital length of stay (8.5 days, p = 0.002). Nine deaths occurred, three of which were in the capillary leak syndrome group.

Univariate analysis identified higher SL/kg (OR:1.17, 95% CI:1.00–1.38) as a risk factor for postoperative mortality. Multivariate analysis identified SL/kg (OR:1.28, 95% CI:1.05–1.58) and prolonged paediatric ICU length of stay (OR:1.11, 95% CI:1.03–1.21) as significant risk factors for mortality.

In conclusion, capillary leak syndrome after open-heart surgery in neonates and infants with delayed sternal closure is associated with postoperative morbidity. Increased SL/kg and prolonged paediatric ICU length of stay are associated with mortality. Importantly, patients requiring wider sternal separation often present with greater haemodynamic instability and require more extensive postoperative support and prolonged intensive care. Thus, SL/kg may function as a surrogate marker of overall illness severity, rather than as an independent risk factor for capillary leak syndrome or mortality.