This article concerns the role of covenant in early rabbinic literature in relation to biblical and especially Second Temple-era predecessors. The first part establishes that the Qumran sectarians and earlier circles were drawn to the concept of covenant because it represented, especially through the mechanism of covenant renewal, a powerful tool for defining and supporting group identity. The second part shows that for the rabbis, the importance of covenant lay chiefly, instead, in its capacity to conceptualize the notion of Israel as a collective body defined by corporate responsibility. The third part suggests that this novel deployment of covenant arose in part to counter the individuating force of halakah as law, another innovation of the rabbis.

The purpose of this paper is to (a) develop a comprehensive understanding of the relationships between person–environment (PE) fit and employee engagement by shedding light on their intervening mechanisms; (b) represent how different types of PE fit and employee engagement interact; and (c) establish a comprehensive theoretical framework to guide future research based on the empirically examined constructs and their relationships. An integrative literature review of 51 empirical papers which analyzed the relationship between PE fit and employee engagement suggests that the antecedents of the relationship exist at the organizational, group, and individual levels and can be conceptualized as socialization, relationship building, and personal character, respectively; values–supplies fit, needs–supplies fit, and demands–abilities fit act as intervening mechanisms in the relationship; the relationship is temporal, reciprocal, and facilitated by human agency; and various outcomes result from the relationship. Implications for future research and practice are also discussed.

Developmental psychopathology has successfully advanced an understanding of risk and protective factors in multivariate models. However, many areas have relied on top-down approaches that define psychological constructs based largely or solely on their physical form. In this paper, we first describe how top-down approaches have significantly hindered progress by generating generic risk and protective models that yield little more than the conclusion that axiomatically positive and negative factors respectively beget an interchangeable array of positive and negative child sequelae. To advance precision and novelty as central priorities, we describe behavioral systems frameworks rooted in evolutionary theory that infuse both form (i.e., what it looks like) and function (what it is designed to do) into psychological constructs. We further address how this paradigm has generated new growing points for developmental models of interparental relationships and parenting. In the final section, we provide recommendations for expanding this approach to other areas of developmental psychopathology. Throughout the paper, we document how the focus on functional patterns of behavior in well-defined developmental contexts advance precision and novelty in understanding children’s response processes to threats, opportunities, and challenges in associations between their developmental histories and their psychological sequelae.

Centrality measures aim to indicate who is important in a network. Various notions of ‘being important’ give rise to different centrality measures. In this paper, we study how important the central vertices are for the connectivity structure of the network, by investigating how the removal of the most central vertices affects the number of connected components and the size of the giant component. We use local convergence techniques to identify the limiting number of connected components for locally converging graphs and centrality measures that depend on the vertex’s neighbourhood. For the size of the giant, we prove a general upper bound. For the matching lower bound, we specialise to the case of degree centrality on one of the most popular models in network science, the configuration model, for which we show that removal of the highest-degree vertices destroys the giant most.

Variations in sagittal otolith shape and morphometry, including length (Lo), width (Wo), area (Ao), and perimeter (Po), were investigated in two populations of Chelon ramada collected from the Boughrara and El Bibane lagoons located in southeastern Tunisia. The objective was to assess the geographic variation in the sagittal otoliths' shape and morphometry and the effect of potential fluctuating asymmetry (FA) in morphometry on the stock structure of C. ramada in the two lagoons to inform on appropriate management procedures. At the interpopulation level, analysis of sagittal otolith shape showed a statistically significant difference (P = 0.0001), i.e. there was a bilateral asymmetry, in the shape of left and right otoliths between individuals of the two populations. In addition, significant FA was found only in Lo between the left and right otoliths. At the intrapopulation level, a significant shape difference (P < 0.0001), particularly asymmetry, was observed in both left and right otoliths between males and females, indicating sexual dimorphism in shape within the Boughrara lagoon. However, significant shape similarity, i.e. symmetry, was observed in the left and right otoliths among individuals of the El Bibane lagoon. Moreover, a significant FA was detected in Lo between the left and right otoliths only among males, as well as between males and females of the Boughrara lagoon. However, a significant FA between the left and right otoliths was found only in Wo among males and in all morphometric dimensions among females and Wo between males and females of the El Bibane lagoon. Discriminant function analysis of the otolith contour shape confirmed the presence of two separate C. ramada stocks, one corresponding to the Boughrara lagoon and the other representing the El Bibane lagoon, which should be managed separately. The possible cause of morphological variation in the sagittal otoliths' shape and morphometry due to FA between individuals of the two populations was discussed in relation to the biotic and abiotic factors.

This article examines the semantic value of the infinitive in the ingressive constructions se mettre à (SMA) and commencer à (COMA) using a distinctive collexeme analysis. We find that the collexemes significant for the construction SMA are fairly homogeneous across the different corpora and can be grouped into the general category of expressive collexemes. The collexemes significant for COMA are more heterogeneous and belong to the category of cognitive collexemes and to semantic fields of sensory and creative acts. The results are compatible with the hypothesis put forward by Verroens and De Cuypere (2023) stating that the overall meaning of the SMA construction is intrinsically punctual. The punctual value of SMA is not only compatible with expressive collexemes, but, moreover, emphasizes their unforeseen and unintentional meaning. Conversely, the incremental value of COMA is consistent with the gradual onset of cognitive and sensory collexemes.

Energy-restricted (ER) diets promote weight loss and improve body composition and glycaemic control. Nut consumption also improves these parameters. However, less is known about the combined benefit of these two strategies. This scoping review implemented a systematic search of Medline, Embase and Scopus to identify randomised controlled trials evaluating the effect of ER diets with or without nuts on body mass, body composition and glycaemic control in adults. After reviewing titles and abstracts, twenty-nine full-text articles were screened, resulting in seven studies reported in eight papers that met the inclusion criteria. Energy restriction was achieved by prescribing a set energy target or reducing intake by 1000–4200 kJ from daily energy requirements. Interventions ranged from 4 to 52 weeks in duration and contained 42–84 g/d of almonds, peanuts, pistachios or walnuts. While all studies reported that energy restriction resulted in significant weight loss, the addition of nuts to ER diets demonstrated significantly greater weight loss in only approximately half of the included studies (4/7 studies). There was limited evidence to support additional benefits from nuts for body composition measures or glycaemic control. Although improvements in weight loss and glycaemia were not consistent when nuts were included in ER diets, no study revealed an adverse effect of nut consumption on health outcomes. Future studies could explore the effect of consuming different types and amounts of nuts, combined with various levels of energy restriction on weight, body composition and glycaemic control.

The interdisciplinary field of developmental psychopathology has made great strides by including context into theoretical and empirical approaches to studying risk and resilience. Perhaps no context is more important to the developing child than their relationships with their caregivers (typically a child’s parents), as caregivers are a key source of stimulation and nurturance to young children. Coupled with the high degree of brain plasticity in the earliest years of life, these caregiving relationships have an immense influence on shaping behavioral outcomes relevant to developmental psychopathology. In this article, we discuss three areas within caregiving relationships: (1) caregiver–child interactions in everyday, naturalistic settings; (2) caregivers’ social cognitions about their child; and (3) caregivers’ broader social and cultural context. For each area, we provide an overview of its significance to the field, identify existing knowledge gaps, and offer potential approaches for bridging these gaps to foster growth in the field. Lastly, given that one value of a scientific discipline is its ability to produce research useful in guiding real-world decisions related to policy and practice, we encourage developmental psychopathology to consider that a focus on caregiving, a modifiable target, supports this mission.

In this paper, dedicated to Dante Cicchetti’s contributions and enduring influence, we explore the prospective directions of developmental psychopathology. Our focus centers on key domains where Cicchetti’s significant achievements have continually shaped our evolving thinking about psychological development. These domains include (a) the concepts of equifinality and multifinality, along with the challenges in predicting developmental trajectories, (b) the imperative to integrate wider sociocultural viewpoints into developmental psychopathology frameworks, (c) the interplay of genetic and environmental influences in developmental courses, (d) the significance of mental state language, and (e) the progress, or its absence, in the development of prevention and intervention tactics for children, adolescents, and their caregivers. While many of our forecasts regarding the future of developmental psychopathology may not materialize, we maintain optimistic that the essential ideas presented will influence the research agenda in this field and contribute to its growth over the next fifty years.

This paper analyzes the use of public reason requirements in bioethical discourse and discusses when such requirements are warranted. By a “public reason requirement,” I mean a requirement that those involved in a particular discourse or debate only use reasons that can properly be described as public reasons. The first part of the paper outlines the concept of public reasons as developed by John Rawls and others and discusses some of the general criticisms of the concept and its importance. The second part then distinguishes between two types of public reason requirements in bioethics. One type is what I will call the orthodox public reason requirement since it hews closely to the original Rawlsian conception. The second is what I will call the expansive public reason requirement, which departs quite radically from the Rawlsian conception and applies the requirement not to policy discourse or policymaking, but to the actions of individuals. Both types of requirements will be analyzed, and some problems in applying public reason requirements in bioethics will be identified. It will be argued that the expansive public reason requirement is misguided. The concluding part argues that requirements of civic civility and what Rawls terms an “inclusive view” of public reason should be important in bioethical discourse.

I show that hedge funds react to unrealized losses on their passive positions by engaging with the management. The hedge fund managers’ psychological response is consistent with cognitive dissonance: They blame the firms’ management and switch to activism. The loss, which is hedge fund-investment specific, is distinct from economic factors such as the firm’s industry-adjusted performance. Loss-driven activism is more likely to be unfocused on specific issues and results in worse firm performance. This study shows that an overlooked consequence of unrealized losses is to trigger an active engagement with the firm.

This article is a story about tetherings, a concept that illuminates the power of law in the relational dynamics of individual-family-state. The concept emerges from my qualitative study of parental maintenance litigation in Taiwan over the provision of financial support to troublous parents, who mistreated their children when they were young. Troubled parental maintenance litigation arises when nobody wants to look after these elderly people, and the state restricts their access to social welfare by holding their estranged children financially responsible. Such litigation leads to empowerments and disempowerments for litigants, as well as legal reform and detriments for the state. Bridging sociolegal scholarship on continuing relations with feminist vulnerability theory, “tetherings” is both an empirical and a normative concept concerned with the relational nature of power, and the openness of humans and institutions to harms and other changes. The concept is empirical, being the paradigm through which I trace disputes and other relational processes of individual-family-state; it is normative because my empirical analysis aims to expose the state’s workings and detail how people respond to law and power that binds them to one another and the state. “Tetherings” advances feminist vulnerability theory and offers a circumspectly optimistic view on the potential of law.