The Nottebohm judgment from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has recently come under attack in the context of the European Commission's position on “golden passports” programmes. The judgment has long received intense criticism from a consensus of scholars. This article challenges the conventional wisdom of Nottebohm. The ICJ did not, as critics argue, depart from international law on nationality, nor did it seek to create an international rule based on a “genuine link” requirement. A closer look at the majority's reasoning reveals that the ICJ's conception of nationality as something more than a mere formal classification was prompted by problems that can arise precisely from the phenomenon of globalization, including the instrumentalization of nationality. It further shows that the “substance-over-form” approach adopted by Nottebohm may, or already does, operate in more contemporary contexts.

Choosing ${\kappa }$ (horizontal ordinate of the saddle point associated to the homoclinic orbit) as bifurcation parameter, bifurcations of the travelling wave solutions is studied in a perturbed $(1 + 1)$-dimensional dispersive long wave equation. The solitary wave solution exists at a suitable wave speed $c$ for the bifurcation parameter ${\kappa }\in \left (0,1-\frac {\sqrt 3}{3}\right )\cup \left (1+\frac {\sqrt 3}{3},2\right )$, while the kink and anti-kink wave solutions exist at a unique wave speed $c^*=\sqrt {15}/3$ for $\kappa =0$ or $\kappa =2$. The methods are based on the geometric singular perturbation (GSP, for short) approach, Melnikov method and invariant manifolds theory. Interestingly, not only the explicit analytical expression of the complicated homoclinic Melnikov integral is directly obtained for the perturbed long wave equation, but also the explicit analytical expression of the limit wave speed is directly given. Numerical simulations are utilized to verify our mathematical results.

This paper develops a multivariate filter based on an unobserved component model to estimate the financial cycle. Our model features: (1) a dynamic relationship between the financial cycle and key variables; (2) time-varying shock volatility for trend and cycle components. We demonstrate that our approach not only exhibits superior early warning properties for banking crises but also outperforms commonly used indicators in terms of data fit for decomposition exercises, as evidenced by the higher marginal likelihood. We document three important properties of the financial cycle. First, the sensitivity of the financial cycle to changes in real estate valuations increased during the post-90s period. Second, the sensitivity of the cycle to changes in financial conditions displays volatility and country specificities. Finally, our reduced form estimates suggest that the banking crisis of 1988 was preceded by positive contributions from the risk appetite shock, while the primary source of vulnerabilities emanated from the housing market in the run-up to the Global Financial Crisis.

Many European farmland bird populations are rapidly declining because of agricultural intensification and land-use changes. Robust estimates of population sizes and trends, habitat use, and protected area coverage within the distribution range are crucial to inform the conservation and management of threatened species. Here we report on the results of the 2019 Black-bellied Sandgrouse Pterocles orientalis (BBS) survey promoted and coordinated by SEO/BirdLife to update its breeding distribution, population size, and trends in continental Spain. A total of 660 grid cells, 10 × 10 km, Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM), were surveyed (81% of the distribution area), with 2,257 visits to 1,750 walked transects (7,001 km in total; 10.6 km per UTM). BBS was detected in 43% of sampled UTMs. At transect level, occupancy was 11% higher inside protected areas. At UTM level, occupancy was estimated at 0.58 (Bayesian credible interval [BCI] 95%: 0.55–0.61), revealing that BBS occupied about half of its previous breeding range (2003–2005). Using hierarchical distance sampling modelling, we estimated an average density of 1.33 individuals/km2 in occupied areas, and a population of 4,025 individuals (confidence interval: 1,840–7,609) within sampled areas, with an additional 697 individuals (confidence interval 461–1,075) in areas that were not surveyed. Further, the relative abundance of BBS (Kilometric Abundance Index) declined by 63% between 2005 and 2019 (annual decline rate of 4.5%). BBS used agricultural habitats (73%) and unprotected areas (54%) despite a higher occupancy within protected areas. Given the recent decline rate and persistent threats, the BBS conservation status should be upgraded to “Endangered” in peninsular Spain. Its future depends on land-use changes and agricultural practices, in particular the maintenance of fallows, semi-natural habitats, and pastures for extensive grazing. Better protection of important areas and targeted conservation initiatives should be promoted to halt and reverse the population decline in this key western Palearctic stronghold.

Land-use change for crop production is one of the key drivers of habitat loss and fragmentation and consequently biodiversity loss and change in tropical regions. This may impact biodiversity-regulated ecosystem services; birds are important to crop health regulating services (e.g. seed dispersal, pest control) and disservices (e.g. seed predation, grain herbivory). However, knowledge is limited on how birds use heterogeneous agricultural landscapes and the consequences for spatial distribution and flow of services and disservices. We studied crop and non-crop–habitat associations of birds in forest–agricultural landscapes of the Kilombero Valley, Tanzania. We focused on dietary preference as a key trait impacting bird responses to land-use change, services, and disservices to crops. We surveyed birds across four main habitat types using repeated point counts, recording a total of 148 species. We found that crop habitats supported higher species richness and larger communities of potentially beneficial species to crop health, whereby 34.5% of invertebrate-feeding species were recorded in cropland. We found that habitat heterogeneity within the landscape supports bird functional diversity and that each habitat type supported unique communities of species. Furthermore, the number of species unique to forest habitats increased with increasing forest canopy closure. Our findings suggest that management strategies for maintaining trees and shrubs, and enhancing tree cover within the crop production landscape, can be effective approaches for maintaining bird diversity and services. However, in-depth studies on trade-offs with disservices need further exploration to mitigate negative impacts of birds on crop yields.

While many commentators have noted the Bharatiya Janata Party’s more recent attempts at appropriating Gandhian imagery and symbolism, few have diverted their attention towards earlier attempts by Hindu Nationalists to do so. M. S. Golwalkar is the most prominent example of Hindu Nationalists who attempted to incorporate Gandhi into the pantheon of Hindutva (Hindu-ness). This article argues that Golwalkar reproduced Gandhian ideas as part of Hindu Nationalist thought, alongside carefully and consciously portraying himself as an ascetic politician, much like Gandhi, in the post-colonial leg of his career. He crafted a mode of Hindutva politics whereby his image as an extraordinarily able-bodied yogi became an archetype that was touted as a model for every swayamsevak to follow. Furthermore, the ideological shifts that are visible in Golwalkar’s later publications created greater room in Hindutva thought to incorporate Gandhi’s ideas and legacy into the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) ideological fold. Doing so allowed Golwalkar to tackle the challenges the RSS faced after Gandhi’s assassination. This article locates Golwalkar and the RSS in the shadow of the Mahatma to not only broaden the understanding of Gandhi’s legacy in post-colonial India but also to prompt a reappraisal of the nature of Hindutva itself. By exploring the Sangh’s deep appropriation of Gandhi’s ideas and legacy, one can begin to understand the malleable and flexible nature of the otherwise narrow majoritarian Hindu Nationalist project.

New morphological and molecular data were generated for trematodes recovered from the intestines of the fish Pseudaspius hakonensis from two locations in the south of the Russian Far East. Morphologically, these trematodes are identical to Pseudozoogonoides ugui (Microphalloidea: Zoogonidae) from Japan. According to results of phylogenetic analysis based on 28S rDNA sequence data, P. ugui was closely related to Zoogonoides viviparus, and P. subaequiporus appears as a sister taxon to these two species. Genetic distance values, calculated based on both 28S rDNA and ITS2 rDNA, between P. ugui and Z. viviparus represents an interspecific differentiation level. Our results have an ambiguous explanation, indicating that the implication of the presence of one or two compact vitellarial aggregations for the differentiation of Zoogonoides and Pseudozoogonoides should be reconsidered or that our results open up the question of the taxonomical status of trematodes previously denoted as Z. viviparus and P. subaequiporus.

Refractory chylothorax, a postoperative complication of CHD, is difficult to manage and sometimes fatal. Herein, we report the case of a 10-month-old infant with 22-mosaic trisomy and a coarctation complex, who developed refractory chylothorax after cardiac repairs and was successfully treated with midodrine, an oral alpha-1-adrenoreceptor agonist. Midodrine may be used as adjunctive therapy for postoperative refractory chylothorax.

The construction sector has long been underrepresented in business historical studies and debates. While an application of the “historical alternatives to mass production” approach has provided a valuable conceptual framework, this paper offers a still-needed quantitative basis to assess actual long-term changes and continuities in the forms of business organization and entrepreneurship in construction. A database of c. 16,700 construction enterprises in Brussels between 1830 and 1970, drawn from trade directories and fiscal registers, uncovers evolutions in sectoral and subsectoral numbers of enterprises, firm sizes, and rates of company formation. Thus, the growing divergence at the core of the construction industry becomes clear. Industrialization and urbanization led to market concentration, firm growth, and incorporation with some capital-intensive enterprises, whereas the variability of the work on the construction site resulted, with many others, in the persistence of labor-intensive processes, and small-scale, flexible, and informal forms of business organization.

This article focuses on the 1952 visit to the Jingjiang Flood Diversion Project, the first large-scale water infrastructure built on the Yangzi river after the founding of the People's Republic of China, by a foreign delegation from the Asia-Pacific Peace Conference. Serving as a form of technology diplomacy, this trip advanced two main purposes for the newly established country – to build up closer ties with ‘foreign friends’ who advocated international peace in the context of the Korean War, and to demonstrate China's own technical capabilities and achievements as part of the national campaign of ‘peaceful construction’ of the early 1950s. I argue that vernacular technologies, which were grounded in indigenous knowledge and practices for water control in the mid-Yangzi region, were essential in shaping China's self-reliant modernization and China's public diplomacy, which targeted individuals without scientific or technical backgrounds.

Ermeloite is a new aluminium phosphate mineral from Galicia, Spain, in the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula. It is the third formally recognised mineral discovered in Galicia since morenosite and cervantite in the 19th Century. The name and symbol (Erm) were approved by the Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification of the International Mineralogical Association (IMA2021–017a) in recognition of the geographical location where it was found. The mineral occurs as a light blue to white fine aggregate over quartz and microcline associated with wardite. Crystals of ~0.04 mm are transparent and have a waxy lustre. The simplified empirical formula determined using electron microprobe analysis is Al1.02P0.95F0.06O3.88⋅1.06 H2O, which is near to the ideal formula Al(PO4)⋅H2O. The mineral is an alteration product within a phosphate pegmatite. Ermeloite is the second phosphate isostructural with the sulfates of the kieserite group. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction showed that ermeloite crystallises in the monoclinic C2/c space group with cell parameters a = 6.5371(4) Å, b = 7.5670(5) Å, c = 7.1146(5) Å, β = 115.335(2)°, V = 318.08(4) Å3 and Z = 4 at room temperature. Comparative analysis of the crystallographic data, with isostructural phosphates, revealed an interesting behaviour for these compounds.