In this article, we introduce a hierarchy on the class of non-archimedean Polish groups that admit a compatible complete left-invariant metric. We denote this hierarchy by $\alpha $-CLI and L-$\alpha $-CLI where $\alpha $ is a countable ordinal. We establish three results:

1. (1) G is $0$-CLI iff $G=\{1_G\}$;

2. (2) G is $1$-CLI iff G admits a compatible complete two-sided invariant metric; and

3. (3) G is L-$\alpha $-CLI iff G is locally $\alpha $-CLI, i.e., G contains an open subgroup that is $\alpha $-CLI.

Subsequently, we show this hierarchy is proper by constructing non-archimedean CLI Polish groups $G_\alpha $ and $H_\alpha $ for $\alpha <\omega _1$, such that:

1. (1) $H_\alpha $ is $\alpha $-CLI but not L-$\beta $-CLI for $\beta <\alpha $; and

2. (2) $G_\alpha $ is $(\alpha +1)$-CLI but not L-$\alpha $-CLI.

Cephus cinctus Norton (Hymenoptera: Cephidae), the wheat stem sawfly, is a well-established and important pest of wheat, Triticum aestivum Linnaeus (Poaceae), and its relatives in North America. Crop losses are caused directly by C. cinctus feeding inside wheat stems during larval development and indirectly when weakened plants lodge before being harvested. Understanding the factors that affect population dynamics of C. cinctus can help farmers to better manage it. Our study therefore explored how C. cinctus and natural enemy densities vary in space (southern Alberta, Canada) and over time. Five fields were sampled using an established protocol in fall 2019 and resampled in spring 2020; six additional fields were sampled in fall 2020 and resampled in spring 2021. Wheat stubs were dissected to record numbers of cut stems, C. cinctus larvae, and sources of larval mortality (i.e., parasitism, fungal infection). Densities of wheat stem sawfly and the impact of natural enemies varied between the sampled fields. No C. cinctus mortality was observed during the winter, indicating that C. cinctus population dynamics are not susceptible to mortality (abiotic or biotic) between years. Results of our study will be incorporated into new models to predict wheat stem sawfly phenology and risk to crop production.

In this study, we investigate the distribution of radiocarbon and uranium in the calcified opercula of Turbo sp. collected from Ryukyu region and Chiba, Japan, to explore the potential of U/Th dating using mollusks collected from the Japanese archipelago. We acquired high-resolution radiocarbon and uranium concentration measurements using single-stage accelerator mass spectrometry and laser ablation−inductively coupled plasma−mass spectrometry. Our results show that uranium in the opercula of modern Turbo sp. is unevenly distributed at concentrations 1000 times less than those in coral skeletons. Radiocarbon found in the calcified opercula samples record ambient seawater radiocarbon values as well as coral skeletons. Uranium in the calcified opercula of Holocene Turbo marmoratus were also unevenly distributed and concentrated within the opercula in a different manner than observed in modern samples, suggesting uranium exchange after death. Our results suggest variable uptake of uranium isotopes into mollusk shells and highlights the need for rigorous sample selection criteria when choosing mollusks species for U/Th dating around Japan.

Recently, I participated in the thesis defense on an eminently local subject, political economic writing in the eighteenth century in the cantons of Vaud (where I live and teach) and Berne (which at the time had occupied the Canton of Vaud) in Switzerland. I will spare you the details of this 700-pages-thick thesis, with an appendix of another 200 pages, which was not even about political economic writing in all of the Swiss Federation, but only in these two small regions in one of the most beautiful spots of Europe. But I became mesmerized by the profoundness of the political economic thinking of a group of now largely forgotten administrators and members of the Swiss socio-economic elite that grappled with questions of how to position their economic doings against a Europe that was plagued by the early eighteenth-century War of Succession, questions about the economic consequences not of population growth but of population decline, and the consequences of what David Hume has characterized so well as the “Jealousy of Trade” between the emerging European colonial empires. More in particular, these local men of politics and power were concerned with if and how they could preserve the agricultural system of common pastures—that were to figure prominently in Elinor Ostrom’s early studies of the “commons”—or whether they should copy the English model of enclosures that seemed to promise agricultural innovation and economic growth. How would this pan out for the means of existence of the local population? And, of course, what would this mean for their own economic and political interests and standing? All these concerns brought them in conversation with the work of such writers as François Forbonnais, Richard Cantillon, the Physiocrats, and Scottish philosophers such as Hume, James Steuart, and Adam Smith, with some of whom they were also in correspondence. The measures the local elites implemented on the basis of these discussions were consequential for such important issues as land use, manufacture and commerce, and poor relief. Unsurprisingly perhaps, the thesis was supervised by one of Istvan Hont’s students, Béla Kapossy, a professor in the history department of the University of Lausanne.

Malnutrition is a key factor in metabolic syndrome (MS) and sarcopenia, assessing the nutritional status of these patients is a pressing issue. The purpose of this study was to clarify sarcopenia and sarcopenic obesity in patients with MS based on nutritional status. This was a case–control study between MS/non-MS. Body composition was measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Muscle function was assessed by handgrip strength, five times sit-to-stand test, gait speed test and short physical performance battery (SPPB). The Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) was performed to assess the nutritional status in the participants in this study. Overall, a total of 56 % and 13 % of participants suffered from possible sarcopenia and sarcopenia, respectively. There was a higher rate of possible sarcopenic obesity in the MS group than in the non-MS group (48·9 % v. 24·7 %, P < 0·01), and all the sarcopenia participants in the MS group had sarcopenic obesity. MNA score was significantly associated with sarcopenia status (P < 0·01). The MNA combined with body fat score showed better acceptable discrimination for detecting sarcopenic obesity and sarcopenia in MS (AUC = 0·70, 95 % CI 0·53, 0·86). In summary, there was a higher prevalence of possible sarcopenic obesity in MS, and all the MS patients with sarcopenia had sarcopenic obesity in the present study. We suggest that the MNA should be combined with body fat percentage to assess the nutritional status of MS participants, and it also serves as a good indicator for sarcopenia and sarcopenic obesity in MS.

This essay documents growing partisan social uprootedness across Latin America over time, manifested in diminishing social trust toward parties, debilitation of links between parties and social collectivities, lowering levels of partisanship, and rising incidence of personalism in the electorate. It focuses on some unrecognized and undertheorized causal factors behind partisan involution in the region, putting emphasis on mutually reinforcing processes. First, it identifies forces endogenous to the traits of origin of diminished parties that foster their uprootedness and decay; second, it lays out some of the manifold ways that the weakening of political parties fuels regime malperformance, in a mutually reinforcing vicious circle; third, it outlines the existence of mutual feedback loops between political agency and structure; fourth, it identifies various agential sources of party decay. There are strong theoretical and empirical reasons to expect continued party deinstitutionalization across Latin America going forward.

How can we remain attentive to the scale of the environmental damage caused in traditional Maroon territories by the effects of the Plantationocene and the material vestiges of colonial and racial violence left by capitalism? Dwelling on conversations held with Maroon Cottica Ndyuka women living in Moengo, a small town established on the Cottica River in Eastern Suriname to support a bauxite industrial plant in the early twentieth century, this text seeks to illuminate what Maria Puig de la Bellacasa (2021) calls “elemental affinities,” relationships in which humans and more-than-humans interact in composing body and earth through refractive and diffractive effects. The paper observes how the women mixed and modeled clay, turning it into sculpted balls known as pemba or pemba doti, frequently used as a therapeutical and spiritual substance, and as food. In so doing, the text deals with processes such as creating, composing, undoing, decomposing, and perishing once the earth—as soil—takes part in and renders possible the existence of diverse creatures. This is a contribution toward an ethnography of (de)compositions of the earth that sets out from the affinities between earth and bodies, attentive to certain metamorphic possibilities, the multiplicities of relations in which soils act.

Examples abound of Supreme Court justices writing opinions because their ideological preferences or identity characteristics run counter to case outcomes, like when devoted Methodist and Nixon appointee Harry Blackmun wrote the opinion codifying abortion rights in Roe v. Wade (1973). These stories suggest that in some controversial cases, the justices ask such incongruent justices to explain decisions because they believe those justices can underscore an opinion’s legal soundness and increase support for it. Does it work? We asked participants in two survey experiments to read about a pro-abortion or pro-death penalty ruling written by justices of differing ideologies and genders, and then we asked them to respond to the ruling. Their responses indicate that deploying identity-incongruent justices can influence responses, but not the way the justices expect. We find that incongruent opinion writers can reduce partisan differences in support for a Court decision but do not broadly increase public.

Autoimmune encephalitis is increasingly recognized as a neurologic cause of acute mental status changes with similar prevalence to infectious encephalitis. Despite rising awareness, approaches to diagnosis remain inconsistent and evidence for optimal treatment is limited. The following Canadian guidelines represent a consensus and evidence (where available) based approach to both the diagnosis and treatment of adult patients with autoimmune encephalitis. The guidelines were developed using a modified RAND process and included input from specialists in autoimmune neurology, neuropsychiatry and infectious diseases. These guidelines are targeted at front line clinicians and were created to provide a pragmatic and practical approach to managing such patients in the acute setting.

Physically compliant actuator brings significant benefits to robots in terms of environmental adaptability, human–robot interaction, and energy efficiency as the introduction of the inherent compliance. However, this inherent compliance also limits the force and position control performance of the actuator system due to the induced oscillations and decreased mechanical bandwidth. To solve this problem, we first investigate the dynamic effects of implementing variable physical damping into a compliant actuator. Following this, we propose a structural scheme that integrates a variable damping element in parallel to a conventional series elastic actuator. A damping regulation algorithm is then developed for the parallel spring-damping actuator (PSDA) to tune the dynamic performance of the system while remaining sufficient compliance. Experimental results show that the PSDA offers better stability and dynamic capability in the force and position control by generating appropriate damping levels.