This article by Susan Brodigan at McCann FitzGerald LLP provides an overview of Irish case law, outlining the methods used for researching Irish cases while also giving tips to those new to the profession, or to the Irish jurisdiction.

Poetry has proven a productive aesthetic discourse for those working in Russian and in Ukrainian, documented by a huge outpouring of verse and by both the articles in this forum. This viewpoint piece zeroes in on the ways in which poems have become a means of resistance, particularly for those writing in Russian, and on the roles played by translation as its own ethical act and as a form of further resistance. It ends with the example of Igor’ Bulatovskii's poetry and his broader actions as translator and editor.

Concerning the “ungrammatical” interrogative form aren't I, many scholars have made their points. However, these scholars’ arguments are based on their personal observations and few studies have examined this phenomenon against large corpora. This study aimed at investigating the widespread usage of “ungrammatical” contraction form aren't I in question tags from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. Based on large corpora, this study showed a clear picture of the current frequency of use of the question tags aren't I and other alternatives (amn't I, ain't I, am I not and an't I) in modern English. From a qualitative perspective, this study found that the reason why aren't I has taken hold as a recognized standard form around the globe lies in that the use of aren't I appears to be a smart coincidence to imply the potential double roles of “I” as both the addresser and the addressee in a monologue. In addition, the fact of the matter that amn't I is difficult to pronounce, am I not is bookish, an't I is old-fashioned and ain't I can only be used in informal situations, increases the popularity of aren't I. The findings of this study can justify the usage of “ungrammatical” aren't I as a natural norm in both British English and American English. These findings open new research avenues alongside pedagogical and sociolinguistic implications for other similar “ungrammatical” language phenomenon.

We classify hyperbolic polynomials in two real variables that admit a transitive action on some component of their hyperbolic level sets. Such surfaces are called special homogeneous surfaces, and they are equipped with a natural Riemannian metric obtained by restricting the negative Hessian of their defining polynomial. Independent of the degree of the polynomials, there exist a finite number of special homogeneous surfaces. They are either flat, or have constant negative curvature.

Nepal is classified as a low-middle income country (World Bank, 2023), and like other such countries, it is under international pressure to attain gender equality targets in order to receive international aid. However, Nepal is also permeated by widespread perceptions that girls are subordinate to boys, which influences girls’ access to education, information, health and the labour market (Upadhaya & Sah, 2019). Women face restrictions in terms of their basic ability to ‘independently venture outside the household, maintain the privacy of their bank accounts, use mobile phones, or become employed’ (Karki & Mix, 2022: 413). Illiteracy disproportionately affects females, with 58.95% of illiterates being women and girls (UNESCO, 2021). Notwithstanding this, recent years have seen some progress in enhancing gender equality in Nepal, and females currently enjoy higher enrolment rates than males across secondary education (UNESCO, 2023). This article, however, provides evidence that the recent trend to offer English-medium education risks setting back progress made by creating a gender-differentiated system that could yield different outcomes for boys and girls and potentially restrict girls’ future trajectories post school and contribute to broader gender inequality in society.

This article explores how time-related metaphors frame advanced cryopreservation technologies in environmental conservation. Cryopreservation “stops” or “freezes” biological time and “buys time” desperately needed to preserve species and ecosystems. We advance a framing of these technologies as logistical, highlighting how they create opportunities to shift materials, knowledge, and decision-making power through space and time. As logistical technologies, advanced cryopreservation techniques require active planning in the present rather than deferring responsibility and accountability to the future.

Studies of the Jing Ke lore in early China have focused on three major texts: the “Yan ce” 燕策 (Stratagems of the Yan) in Zhanguo ce 戰國策 (Stratagems of the Warring States), “Cike liezhuan” 刺客列傳 (The Biography of Assassins) in the Shi ji 史記 (Grand Archivist’s Records), and Yan Dan zi 燕丹子 (Prince Dan of Yan). Most discussions have centered on the similarities and differences among the three accounts—e.g., how the main characters are depicted, and different interpretations of Jing Ke’s motivations and Prince Dan’s plot. However, a myriad of transmitted and excavated materials on the Jing Ke lore have not been sufficiently discussed in the context of the culture of early China. This article adopts a multidisciplinary approach, combining literature, history, philosophy, fine arts, and archaeology, to examine Pre-Qin and Han dynasty accounts of the Jing Ke lore. In addition, this article comprehensively investigates the iconography of the Jing Ke lore found in burial paintings and huaxiang shi 畫像石 (pictorial stones) dating to the Han dynasty which have been found throughout China. It delves into the disparities between these visual representations and the records of the Jing Ke lore in transmitted texts and explains the likely underlying reasons behind these disparities. By analyzing both transmitted texts and excavated materials, this article traces the construction of this influential and controversial figure in early China, and in elite discourse as well as in folk culture and art, and in so doing provides a glimpse into the transformation of the socio-political, literary, and intellectual history of early China.

Traditional radiometric tracking navigation increasingly fails to meet the demands of deep space exploration. In contrast, optical navigation enables interplanetary spacecraft to navigate autonomously with higher precision. The effectiveness of image processing algorithms plays a crucial role in determining the accuracy of optical navigation systems. This paper presents a robust centroid extraction method based on a hybrid genetic algorithm. First, noise interference is effectively reduced by leveraging proximity information. Second, a fitness evaluation mechanism is introduced to assess model performance throughout the iterative process. Third, an annealing mutation operator is incorporated to prevent premature convergence to local optima. Finally, extensive comparative testing demonstrates that the proposed method offers substantial improvements in both accuracy and robustness, thereby substantially improving the reliability of the navigation system under complex conditions.

We use sheaves of spectra to quantize a Hamiltonian $\coprod _n BO(n)$-action on $\varinjlim _{N}T^*\mathbf {R}^N$ that naturally arises from Bott periodicity. We employ the category of correspondences developed by Gaitsgory and Rozenblyum [A study in derived algebraic geometry, vol. I. Correspondences and duality, Mathematical Surveys and Monographs, vol. 221 (American Mathematical Society, 2017)] to give an enrichment of stratified Morse theory by the $J$-homomorphism. This provides a key step in the work of Jin [Microlocal sheaf categories and the $J$-homomorphism, Preprint (2020), arXiv:2004.14270v4] on the proof of a claim of Jin and Treumann [Brane structures in microlocal sheaf theory, J. Topol. 17 (2024), e12325]: the classifying map of the local system of brane structures on an (immersed) exact Lagrangian submanifold $L\subset T^*\mathbf {R}^N$ is given by the composition of the stable Gauss map $L\rightarrow U/O$ and the delooping of the $J$-homomorphism $U/O\rightarrow B\mathrm {Pic}(\mathbf {S})$. We put special emphasis on the functoriality and (symmetric) monoidal structures of the categories involved and, as a byproduct, we produce several concrete constructions of (commutative) algebra/module objects and (right-lax) morphisms between them in the (symmetric) monoidal $(\infty, 2)$-category of correspondences, generalizing the construction out of Segal objects of Gaitsgory and Rozenblyum, which might be of independent interest.