Chalcedony forms across a wide area in eastern Iran, particularly in the Sarbisheh district near Birjand city, with notable occurrences in the Qazdez-Bahamarz region. Here, cryptocrystalline quartz is found in hydrothermal veins and veinlets within volcanic rocks hosted by carbonate and intermediate igneous formations. Chalcedony samples of various colours—black, purple, green, blue, lavender, grey, lemon yellow and white—were analysed using diverse techniques. These chalcedony samples display fibrous and granular textures, comprising microcrystalline quartz, cryptocrystalline moganite, and opal-CT and opal-C interlayers. Elements that affect the colouration of chalcedony include iron (producing red and yellow tones), chromium (green), manganese (black, blue and grey patterns), nickel (purple) and copper (also purple). Altered carbonate host rocks are enriched in Fe, Cu, Zn and Cd, with Al and Mn depletion. Stable isotope analyses show δ18O values in agates range from +14.9‰ to +25.5‰, whereas δ18O and δ13C values in carbonate minerals and chalcedony range from +14.1‰ to +24.8‰ and –5.7‰ to +0.7‰, indicating agate formation from mantle-derived hydrothermal fluids mixed with meteoric waters. Raman spectroscopy detected moganite, α-quartz, goethite, aragonite and illite in agate interlayers. Analyses by field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) revealed minerals of Fe, Cr, Ni, Ti and Sn. X-ray diffraction confirmed chalcedony, moganite and opal-CT, whereas EPR spectroscopy showed strong magnetic backgrounds from goethite and silicon-vacancy centres formed by radioactive decay of U, Th and their byproducts.

Spacetime singularities are expected to disappear in quantum gravity. Singularity resolution prima facie supports the view that spacetime singularities are mathematical pathologies of gen- eral relativity. However, this conclusion might be premature. Spacetime singularities are more accurately understood as global properties of spacetime, rather than things. Therefore, if space- time emerges in quantum gravity – as it is often claimed – then so may its singular structure. Although this proposal is intriguing, the attempt to uphold that spacetime singularities may be emergent fails. I provide three arguments in support of this claim, drawing upon different views on spacetime emergence.

Galaxy clusters are commonly used tracers of cosmology. Gravitational lensing analysis of the Bullet Cluster is claimed to evidentially support dark matter, an important component in the ΛCDM cosmology. I argue that such ΛCDM-based models of individual galaxy clusters should be explanatory to meet such claims, but hardly in an ontic sense, due to galaxy cluster anisotropies, empirically equivalent non-ΛCDM-based models, and currently unaccountable cases. I propose that adopting an alternative epistemic/representational conception of scientific explanation can maintain the explanatory nature of individual galaxy cluster models, cope with the three complications, and be potentially generalizable to other branches of astrophysics.

According to the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) hypothesis, low-birthweight (LBW) infants are programmed to seek additional resources as compensation for early deprivation. However, no study has yet explored this in the context of delay discounting (DD), which refers to the tendency to prefer smaller, immediate rewards over larger, delayed ones. Both prenatal factors, such as LBW, and postnatal factors, including adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and exposure to natural disasters, may influence DD. To investigate whether LBW children seek larger future rewards, we analyzed LBW’s effect on DD, accounting for ACEs and natural disaster exposure. This prospective cohort study involved 167 children from areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE), with a mean age of 8.3 years at the time of the DD experiment. LBW was assessed in the 2012 baseline questionnaire using the Mother-Child Handbook, along with ACEs prior to the GEJE and traumatic earthquake experiences. In 2014, DD was assessed through a token-based experiment where children allocated tokens for either immediate rewards (one candy per token for “now”) or delayed rewards (two candies per token for “one month later”). Our results showed that children with LBW and three or more ACEs exhibited lower DD, while traumatic earthquake experiences were not associated with DD. These findings suggest that children with LBW and multiple ACEs may develop adaptive strategies to seek more resources, indicating a responsive reward system to childhood adversity, even after exposure to a severe natural disaster.

This paper discusses the role of data within scientific reasoning and as evidence for theoretical claims, arguing for the idea that data can yield theoretically grounded models and be inferred, predicted, or explained from/by such models. Contrary to Bogen and Woodward's rejection of data-to-theory and theory-to-data inferences/predictions, we draw upon artificial intelligence as applied to science literature to argue that (a) many models are routinely inferred and predicted from the data and routinely used to infer and predict data, and (b) such models can, at least in some contexts, play the role of theories.

This essay explores a key stage in the legal history of the concepts of consent and guilt in cases of rape, namely in twelfth-century canon law in the work of Gratian and the early canonists who commented on his Decretum. It substantially revises the account that currently exists in scholarship and explains that confusion between raptus and rape and a limited read of the Decretum have combined to provide a problematic picture in which, it has been claimed, neither Gratian nor broader medieval canon law took rape seriously as an offence. The essay focuses on the underexplored Causa 32 in the Decretum and discusses how Gratian very directly addressed forced coitus in that section of his text, both condemning it and exonerating women of all guilt who are forced to have sex without their consent. Gratian and the decretists ended up changing the discourse on rape, in part through their treatment of both Lucretia of Roman legend and an early Christian martyr, Lucia. Their considerations, which intersected with theology, resulted in a legal principle that a raped wife cannot be charged with adultery. Since their considerations could also be applied to any rape victim, their work is important for the development of rape law and legal notions of consent.

By the end of the fourteenth-century AD, Native peoples throughout the midwestern and southeastern regions of North America had withdrawn from major monumental and political centers established in prior centuries. In this article, I present the results of a community-level examination of settlement transformations on the Georgia Coast that I argue are the outcome of this large-scale movement of Mississippian peoples. Specifically, I examine the consequences of the depopulation of the Savannah River Valley, a case of a rapid, historically contingent Mississippian emigration beginning in the fourteenth century AD. My results establish how a large-scale immigration event affected community spatial and political organization and demonstrate that migrants and coastal locals engaged in the collective cultural construction of new identities and lifeways in response to the challenges of negotiating the use of common pool resources, such as fisheries and suitable farmland. Reconstructing the spatial organization of communities can help explain the demographic, economic, and political processes that undergird the cultural materialization of space. Although much remains to be learned about intra-settlement organization at post-Archaic, precolonial sites along the Georgia Coast, this investigation provides new information about the local, community-level spatial response to the fourteenth-century immigration event.

The stable property cluster view of natural kinds leaves the metaphysical structure of natural kinds open. The positive corollary of this feature is freedom from explaining the nature of problematic entities and that it affords natural kind status and flexibility. However, some worries are raised against this feature; the metaphysical structure of natural kinds is required for explaining their epistemic values such as inductive and explanatory power. Here I take the criticisms at face value and offer a possible metaphysical model of the SPC account that does not meddle with the merits but mitigates the worries.

The recent phenomenon of anthropomorphizing artificial intelligences (AIs) is uniquely provocative for philosophy of religion because of its tendency to place AIs in an analogous position to divinity vis-à-vis humans in spite of AIs being human artefacts. In the case of divinity, intelligent mental capacities are, and in the case of AIs are sometimes presented as inevitably becoming, not just equivalent but in fact superior to their realization in humans. Philosophers of religion would do well to learn from discussions of anthropomorphism in AI, in conversation with the historical debates over anthropomorphizing divinity, and to remember that evolved cognitive biases may lose their adaptive functions as the cultural context shifts, and even become maladaptive.

This historical study examines the evolving landscape of gender equality within the Anglican Church in the Diocese of Central Tanganyika (DCT), with a focus on health-related developments in the post-colonial period. Tracing the trajectory from entrenched gender-based limitations to broader inclusivity, the article highlights how women, once marginalized in Church health initiatives, have gained visibility and agency, particularly since the 1980s. The period marks a turning point in which women began to access education, participate in leadership and contribute to health programmes that had long been male-dominated. Traditional gender roles have gradually shifted, reflecting a redefinition of responsibility within the Church and a growing embrace of shared leadership rooted in Christian values of love, cooperation and mutual respect. However, despite institutional advancements and theological support for equality, enduring gender disparities, especially in rural health services, continue to pose serious challenges. This study underscores the dual narrative of progress and persistent inequality, offering an important account of the Anglican Church’s ongoing journey towards holistic gender inclusion in health and ministry.

This work presents a novel dynamic inflow modeling approach for single- and multirotor systems. The proposed model is derived from first principles using a parametrisation that guarantees accurate results at steady-state. In an effort to simplify and unite previous works in the field, it is shown how two important works from the dynamic inflow modeling literature can be recreated using the present framework. The utility of the model is further illustrated through analysis and comparisons to well-established theories and empirical results in both steady-state and dynamic scenarios. Overall, the aim is to simplify and unite dynamic inflow models.