Peatlands, shaped by centuries of human activities, now face a primary threat from mining activities. Vulnerable to drainage and hydrological instability, peatland areas encounter challenges that compromise their ecological integrity. This study hypothesised that permanent water reservoirs within mines could serve as refugia for water beetles from adjacent areas prone to drying in the summer. Employing standard methods, including entomological scraping and water traps, samples were collected. Results revealed that, in most cases, water beetles exhibited a preference for the Nature 2000 area untouched by mining. Despite unfavourable conditions, the Nature 2000 area showcased a more diverse water beetle fauna. Remarkably, the selected Nature 2000 area, despite its identified degradation based on flora, remained a biodiversity hotspot for peatland water beetle fauna. The study underscores the significance of assessing insects, particularly beetles, as rapid responders to environmental changes. This evaluation holds crucial implications for peatland restoration planning and decision-making regarding mining investments in proximity to peatland areas.

Anesthesiology training programs are tasked with equipping trainees with the skills to become medically and ethically competent in the practice of anesthesia and to be prepared to obtain board certification, yet there is currently no standardized ethics curriculum within anesthesia training programs in the United States. To bridge this gap, and to provide a validated ethics curriculum to meet the aforementioned needs, in July 2021, a survey was sent to anesthesia scholars in the field of biomedical ethics to identify key areas that should be included in such an ethics curriculum. The responses were rated on a Likert scale and ranked. This paper identifies the top ten topics identified as high priority for inclusion in an anesthesiology training program and consequently deemed most relevant to meet the educational needs of graduates of an anesthesiology residency: (1) capacity to consent; (2) capacity to refuse elective versus lifesaving treatment; (3) application of surrogate decisionmaking; (4) approach to do not resuscitate (DNR) status in the operating room; (5) patient autonomy and advance directives; (6) navigating patient beliefs that may impair care; (7) “futility” in end-of-life care: when to withdraw life support; (8) disclosure of medical errors; (9) clinical criteria for “brain death” and consequences of this definition; and (10) the impaired anesthesiologist.

In the late eighteenth century, Johann David Michaelis criticized Moses Mendelssohn for bringing what Michaelis termed his native Jewish tradition into his thinking on universal matters. Yet leaning on Jewish sources had been a key feature of European natural law thinking from the onset of modernity. In this article, the author reads Mendelssohn’s natural law theory as conversant with early modern legal thought that was scrutinized in the enlightenment, shedding new light on Mendelssohn’s innovations and on what Mendelssohn was up against when he offered natural law foundations for toleration. The author finds that arguments for and against toleration of the Jews from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth were tied to the question of whether Judaism contained universal laws or laws particular to the Jews, and suggests that Mendelssohn’s approach, while rejected from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, may be newly relevant today.

Manual production enhances learning and recall of signs by hearing second language learners; however, the mechanisms enabling this effect are unclear. We examined whether the motor encoding (somatosensory feedback) that occurs during sign production benefits learning and whether it interacts with sign iconicity, which also enhances learning. American Sign Language (ASL) signs varying in iconicity were learned either via production (repetition) with the eyes closed or via observation without production. Signs learned via production were recalled more accurately than signs learned via observation, indicating that motor encoding from manual production enriches the representations of signs. Moreover, the effect of motor encoding interacted with iconicity, suggesting that motor encoding may particularly enhance the recall of signs low in iconicity. Together, these results reveal the importance of somatosensory feedback as a key mechanism underlying the beneficial effect of production on sign learning, demonstrating that feeling one’s own signing promotes learning and recall of signs.

We generalize the influential $C^*$-algebraic results of Kawamura–Tomiyama and Archbold–Spielberg for crossed products of discrete groups actions to the realm of Banach algebras and twisted actions. We prove that topological freeness is equivalent to the intersection property for all reduced twisted Banach algebra crossed products coming from subgroups, and in the untwisted case to a generalized intersection property for a full $L^p$-operator algebra crossed product for any $p\in [1,\,\infty ]$. This gives efficient simplicity criteria for various Banach algebra crossed products. We also use it to identify the prime ideal space of some crossed products as the quasi-orbit space of the action. For amenable actions we prove that the full and reduced twisted $L^p$-operator algebras coincide.

In this study, a high-isolation multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) microstrip patch antenna (MPA), which utilizes an orthogonal mode cancellation method is proposed. This method employs TM10 and TM01 modes, which are simultaneously excited in the rectangular passive MPA. Initially, a rectangular decoupling structure featuring polarization rotation characteristics is designed. Further studies show that by loading the polarization conversion parasitic structure (PCPS), the electric field of the spatial coupling wave can be transformed from the x-polarized TM10 mode to the y-polarized TM01 mode. Therefore, TM10 and TM01 modes from the excited antenna and decoupling structure are concurrently coupled to the passive antenna, forming an evident weak-field region on the passive antenna. Placing the feeding probe of the passive MPA within the weak-field region prevents signal reception at the port. Consequently, this results in an extremely low mutual coupling of −49 dB at a resonant frequency of 5.8 GHz. Finally, a prototype of the proposed antenna is fabricated and tested, and the measured results closely match the simulated results. Additionally, it is observed that PCPS slightly influences the performance of the MIMO antenna.

We study the phenomenon of selective exposure in China's restricted online information environment. Through an experimental survey study, we measure to what extent features of online news, such as popularity (i.e. number of “likes”), influence information selection among Chinese internet users (“netizens”). We find evidence of preferences for news information according to news topic and the nationalist sentiments of individuals. Generally, for news about domestic affairs, Chinese netizens prefer articles that take the opposite position of the government; for foreign affairs, they prefer articles aligned with the government's position. However, nationalistic individuals are more likely to select domestic affairs articles congruent with the Chinese government's issue framing. We also find social endorsements to be highly influential on news selection behaviour. Popular posts with many “likes” attract Chinese netizens to the point where they select content they may not otherwise read, even though the internet environment is easily manipulated.

The synchronization hierarchy of finite permutation groups consists of classes of groups lying between $2$-transitive groups and primitive groups. This includes the class of spreading groups, which are defined in terms of sets and multisets of permuted points, and which are known to be primitive of almost simple, affine or diagonal type. In this paper, we prove that in fact no spreading group of diagonal type exists. As part of our proof, we show that all non-abelian finite simple groups, other than six sporadic groups, have a transitive action in which a proper normal subgroup of a point stabilizer is supplemented by all corresponding two-point stabilizers.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the media provided daily coverage of this unprecedented crisis in the history of the 21st century. Some topics, such as how the virus affected older adults, were widely covered. The way in which COVID-19 was documented evoked a ‘tragedy’ narrative through consistent reporting about the suffering it was causing and the deleterious consequences it had on specific populations, including residents of long-term care homes (LTC). This article explores how reports on COVID-19 in LTC homes in a national newspaper (The Globe and Mail) fuelled a tragedy discourse that modulated the value of life of older adults living in those environments. We used critical discourse analysis and analysed 74 articles focusing on older persons residing in LTC homes in two Canadian provinces (Quebec and Ontario) during COVID-19. This article offers a brief overview of the notion of tragedy and how the discourse of tragedy is intertwined with humanitarian crises, life and death, and the value of life. Our findings revealed the construction of three types of tragedies that shape our societal values around life and death in LTC: the tragedy of the threat to life, the tragedy of the unfortunate (old, vulnerable and lacking in agency) and, finally, the tragedy of historical neglect and abandonment. Our findings suggest that the nature of reporting on life and death in LTC homes during the COVID-19 pandemic provoked a sense of fear and pity for a passive other. Re-thinking what gets reported in the media, including whose voice is represented/missing and how tragedy narratives are balanced with contesting stories, could elicit more sentiments of solidarity and action rather than reinforce pity, distancing and immobilisation.