Medusozoa comprise a diverse group of marine invertebrates that includes cubozoans, hydrozoans, staurozoans, and scyphozoans, which play a fundamental role in marine ecosystems. In Cuba, with exceptions, most of the studies of the phylum Cnidaria have focused on the scleractinian corals. However, their close relatives, the jellyfish have been poorly addressed, limiting themselves to isolated records of some species. In this study, we aimed to update the list of medusozoan species registered in Cuba and compare it with the registries in the Greater Caribbean region. Peer-reviewed publications, museum collections, field-trips, global repositories, and social networks were accomplished to compile a species list. Twenty-one new species are recorded, and the distribution of 11 species previously reported is expanded. Cuba, with 361 species is the country with the highest species richness in the Caribbean region: 342 species of Hydrozoa are distributed in 69 families, 16 species of Scyphozoa are distributed in 10 families, and three species of Cubozoa each belong to one family. Analysing the studies of Medusozoa reveals significant heterogeneity in jellyfish species composition across the Caribbean region, where Cuba, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and the USA are the countries with the highest species richness. A high similarity was observed between the assemblages from Cuba and the USA. The number of jellyfish species reported for Cuba constitutes a baseline for ecological studies of their integrated role in marine ecosystems. Studies in the Caribbean region are heterogeneous, with an imbalance in the sampling effort in time and space and probably underestimate the number of species known.

The magnitude and duration of the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for countries to continuously reflect and improve on their ongoing response. The World Health Organization (WHO) introduced the guidance for conducting COVID-19 intra-action reviews (IARs) in July 2020. As of November 25, 2022, 136 IARs have been conducted by 78 countries in all 6 WHO regions. IARs are country-led and outcomes country-owned, with the flexible methodology enabling countries to focus on COVID-19-related priority issues in their national and subnational contexts. WHO’s approach to promoting the use of IARs recognizes the importance of 3 learning modalities: countries learning through self-reflection, countries learning from each other, and WHO and partners learning from countries to improve WHO guidance and tools. Moving forward, the value of reflective learning in public health emergencies can be further enhanced by institutionalizing an ongoing learning mindset and translating reflective learning-based recommendations into policy change and action.

In 1804, an elder courtier named Ban’deyri Hasan Manikufaanu (1745–1807) chronicled the sea voyage of the sovereign of the Maldives, Sultan Muhammad Mueenuddeen I (r. 1799–1835). The purpose of the voyage was to visit the islands of Ari Atoll. Manikufaanu crafted 171 verses according to the rules of a Maldivian genre of poetry called raivaru. The work is known as Dhivehi Arumaadhu Raivaru (‘Raivaru that chronicled the journey of the Maldivian royal fleet’). In this article, I demonstrate how the verses provide a lens into early nineteenth-century Maldivian boat construction, court music, navigational routes, regnal travel, royal ensigns, sailing, and seamanship, all of which have not been sufficiently explored in Indian Ocean studies. In contrast to scholarship on travelogues that emphasises Muslim men’s experiences of heterotopia when they travelled across the Indian Ocean on steamships to maritime ports, this article centres on a provincial journey of a royal fleet of sailing ships taken by the sultan of the Maldives and other noblemen to visit Maldivian commonfolk who lived on islands that formed part of an atoll in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

This policy brief analyzes the effects of reclassifying large swaths of the federal civilian workforce currently appointed to the competitive service into Schedule F (Policy/Career Schedule) appointments. We review the policy when it was first introduced in 2020 and reinstated with amendments in 2025. In doing so, we draw from decades of extant literature within the organizational sciences to analyze the validity of one of its main assertions, that is, moving federal workers toward at-will employment is beneficial. Our analysis shows that, as it currently stands, the proposed reclassification into Schedule F would generate widespread, chronic job insecurity and fail to improve federal workers’ performance or accountability, in addition to other physical and psychological adverse consequences. It would also result in significant, negative outcomes for federal agencies in terms of their reduced ability to attract and retain competent civil servants, lower economic efficiency, and ultimately negatively impact the customers of federal agencies by increasing costs for lower quality governmental services.

Over the course of the eighteenth century, Russian rulers released dozens of decrees about petitions. First, the decrees regulated the format of petitions, emphasizing their formulaic nature and moving them away from the personal appeals with supplication and abasement that were present in earlier centuries. These decrees recognized that petitions were essential to the administrative functioning of the imperial Russian state but saw them as akin to forms or applications. Second, the decrees stated firmly that petitioners should not approach the ruler directly. In part, these decrees reflect the rulers’ irritation at being endlessly bothered by personal requests, but Russia’s rulers also gave a more serious justification for the ban on personal appeals: they had established the rule of law, which meant that their subjects did not need to bother them personally and instead should clearly know other authorities—courts, governors—to address for aid. While efforts to change the format of petitions largely succeeded, efforts to curtail petitions directly to the ruler largely failed. That failure likely reflects several factors: inefficiencies in the judicial or administrative system, contradictory laws that still made space for petitions because they were useful, and because they held the promise of getting help quickly.

An account of human subjectivity is built up from an analysis of the fundamental human desire for God. In conversation with Karl Rahner and Blaise Pascal, it is argued that this desire does not have any conceivable conditions of satisfiability. This leads to an account of human beings as fundamentally distractible, fragmented, opaque to themselves and non-self-identical; however, none of these are viewed as essentially problematic, arising instead out of the basic human–God relation rather than from a fallen condition. A range of implications for ethics and social criticism are briefly suggested.

In this paper, we initiate the study of higher rank Baumslag–Solitar (BS) semigroups and their related C*-algebras. We focus on two rather interesting classes—one is related to products of odometers and the other is related to Furstenberg’s $\times p, \times q$ conjecture. For the former class, whose C*-algebras are studied in [32], we here characterize the factoriality of the associated von Neumann algebras and further determine their types; for the latter, we obtain their canonical Cartan subalgebras. In the rank 1 case, we study a more general setting that encompasses (single-vertex) generalized BS semigroups. One of our main tools in this paper is from self-similar higher rank graphs and their C*-algebras.

As part of a larger campaign to end diversity, equity, and inclusion, President Donald Trump’s recent Executive Order 14173 eliminated EO 11246 “Equal Employment Opportunity.” In this brief, we provided background on the often-misunderstood EO 11246 and discuss the potential implications of its reversal considering previous state legislation banning affirmative action and the current political context.

Intelligibility is often seen as a paradigmatic goal for overcoming epistemic oppression. Understanding oppression helps to undo structures of ignorance and to create the grounds for moral, political, and legal arguments that protect marginalized people from being silenced. This is especially crucial for those who experience sexual and gendered violence, as they often struggle both to understand their own experiences and to make others understand them. In this paper, I argue that social epistemologists and feminist standpoint theorists often focus in an unvariegated way on intelligibility, inadvertently reinforcing reliance on carceral structures—systems that tend to reproduce harm and violence for survivors. This concern is particularly relevant in feminist anti-rape politics, where the pressure to make experiences legible often intersects with calls for carceral solutions, which fail to address the root causes of harm and maintain cultures of sexual and gender violence. To remedy this, I propose a new epistemological framework that preserves the importance of intelligibility while challenging carceral reliance. Instead of focusing solely on comprehension, I suggest approaching intelligibility as a process of navigating layers of social legibility, allowing for alternatives that better support survivors and resist carceral thinking.

In the UK, some devolved governments such as in Scotland have taken a distinctive approach to implementing public service reforms. In this article, we explore the key enablers and constraints of outcome-based initiatives at the sub-national level. Drawing on a formative evaluation of the delivery of the Social Bridging Finance model, this study contributes to understanding results-oriented funding models and pluralist governance in welfare services beyond Scotland in three key ways. First, it emphasises the critical role of independent, multi-year grant funding in enabling more equitable and collaborative relationships between public bodies and the third sector. By reducing financial risk, such mechanisms challenge traditional state-led financing models. Second, it highlights the dual role of contractual agreements – supporting early sustainability discussions but revealing limitations when legal enforceability is weak. This points to the relevance of informal and relational accountability in outcome-based commissioning. Third, the study identifies the importance of collaboratively developed success criteria. The diverse experiences revealed in this study emphasise the need for flexibility, shared ownership and continuous learning – particularly given public sector responsibility for service continuity.