In this paper, the development and designing of angle-independent metamaterial microwave absorbers are presented. The unit cell consists of two concentric circle that are linked by consolidated resistors. The absorber is built on a dielectric substrate (FR4) with a thickness of 3.2 mm (λ/0.07) and a dielectric constant of 4.3. The wideband absorption is acquired in the range of 2.8 to 10.42 GHz with a wide band of 7.62 GHz with absorptivity above 90%. In the area of interest, a flat band is obtained, and to examine the current distribution and electric field in the respective region, two peaks are considered at a frequency of 3.66 and 9.54 GHz, with maximum absorptivity of 99.99% and 99.44%, respectively. The presented absorber is examined under different angles for phi and theta variation. From the phi variation, it is observed that for all the angles, absorptivity does not vary, which confirms that the absorber is acting as an angle independent. The fabricated sheet consists of an array of a unit cell, which is examined inside the anechoic chamber with the help of two horn antennas and vector network analyzer. The tested and simulated results are compared, and it was observed that they are close in their agreement. At the end of the manuscript, the presented and already reported arts are compared, and it is observed that the presented one operates for the low frequency with higher bandwidth. The presented absorber can be practically used for defense applications for Radar Cross Sections reduction.

This DiF paper analyses the 2021 Consultations for Central & Eastern Europe and Central Asia, conducted as part of the process underlying the United Nations Working Group ‘Report on human rights-compatible international investment agreements’. These consultations led to three unique conclusions concerning International Investment Agreements (‘IIAs’), which were absent in other consultations: (i) the ‘regulatory chill’ caused by IIAs with respect to human rights regulations is moot in authoritarian and ‘hybrid’ regimes in this region, (ii) IIAs tend to be perceived in this region as tools to protect human rights, which can spill over to other areas of socio-economic life, and as a source of inspiration and a model for building similar protections in such other areas, and with the potential to (iii) have a positive impact on the development of domestic laws (and their relationship with the rule of law and good governance reforms in developing host states).

Zooanthropy (delusional beliefs of turning into an animal) is a rare but well recognised psychiatric phenomenon. This case describes the presence of kynanthropic delusions (delusional beliefs of turning into a dog). Multiple other psychotic symptoms were also evident including unusually the additional presence of delusions of vampirism. Delusional beliefs in this case were associated with behavioural changes including growling and barking, and less commonly an expressed craving for biting people’s necks to suck human blood. Symptom intensity was associated with increased psychosocial stressors for this patient, with some benefit noted from very high doses of anti-psychotic medications. Brief admissions to the acute psychiatric inpatient unit and thus removal from environmental stressors has been associated with an amelioration in symptomatology.

Existing literature has highlighted the importance of recognizing health fraud offenders’ intentional manipulations of victims’ vulnerabilities. However, the manipulation tactics of health fraud have received little attention. This study aims to extend the current understanding of health fraud by incorporating the concept of emotional labour. Nested in the Chinese context, which owns the most populous ageing population, three sets of qualitative data were collected, including 13 semi-structured interviews, 233 judicial documents, and 197 media reports. The findings suggest that health fraud offenders utilized three types of emotional labour as means of committing crime: including the labour of anxiety relief, the labour of filial piety, and the labour of social networking. This article not only provides novel insights into understanding health fraud, but also contributes to introducing the concept of emotional labour in criminological and socio-legal studies.

Water stress conditions have occurred in the past in various places of the world, affecting the yield and production of numerous crops, including wheat. The aim of this research was to estimate standard heterosis under two different water regimes for grain yield and its attributes in 33 crosses, which were obtained by crossing 11 lines and 3 testers in a Line × Tester mating design. The best cross combinations for yield and contributing traits under irrigated condition were C4, C8, C33, C24, and C23, compared to both checks HD2967 and PBW660. Whereas, in rainfed condition, C18, C14, C26, C21, and C20 crosses were superior to the checks. For both irrigated and rainfed conditions, the best cross combinations identified were C29, C15, C32, C2, and C31. As a result, these cross combinations could be used in wheat breeding programmes to improve bread wheat genotypes for increased grain yield, agro-morphological features, and water stress tolerance. The presence of high heterosis for yield-contributing traits not only aids in the development of hybrids by exploiting heterosis but also in the production of transgressive segregants to develop elite lines.

The SUERC Radiocarbon Laboratory reports approximately 3000 unknown samples per year with an additional 1200 samples processed for quality assurance purposes. In addition to the primary OxII standard (SRM-4990C) required for AMS batch normalization, secondary “known-age” standards have been used over many years to evaluate individual batch quality. These have included wood (as prepared alpha-cellulose), barley mash, humic acid, a background mammoth bone, known-age bones, and a whisky sample. In this paper, we present some of the results gathered over routine laboratory operation (for more than 10 years) and examine the results illustrating how they are being used to monitor and quality assure performance. Since many of these samples have also been used in the Glasgow intercomparisons, we will also reflect on the results, as well as the actual and potential uses of such samples.

Let $p \;:\; Y \to X$ be a finite, regular cover of finite graphs with associated deck group $G$, and consider the first homology $H_1(Y;\;{\mathbb{C}})$ of the cover as a $G$-representation. The main contribution of this article is to broaden the correspondence and dictionary between the representation theory of the deck group $G$ on the one hand and topological properties of homology classes in $H_1(Y;\;{\mathbb{C}})$ on the other hand. We do so by studying certain subrepresentations in the $G$-representation $H_1(Y;\;{\mathbb{C}})$.

The homology class of a lift of a primitive element in $\pi _1(X)$ spans an induced subrepresentation in $H_1(Y;\;{\mathbb{C}})$, and we show that this property is never sufficient to characterize such homology classes if $G$ is Abelian. We study $H_1^{\textrm{comm}}(Y;\;{\mathbb{C}}) \leq H_1(Y;\;{\mathbb{C}})$—the subrepresentation spanned by homology classes of lifts of commutators of primitive elements in $\pi _1(X)$. Concretely, we prove that the span of such a homology class is isomorphic to the quotient of two induced representations. Furthermore, we construct examples of finite covers with $H_1^{\textrm{comm}}(Y;\;{\mathbb{C}}) \neq \ker\!(p_*)$.

The microzooplankton community structure (species abundance, biomass, diversity) was investigated at a coastal marine station on the South-West Atlantic Ocean (34°23′S–53°45′W, Uruguay). This is a hydrographically complex site within the Subtropical Convergence zone of the SW Atlantic where knowledge of the microzooplankton is particularly scant. The main goal was to perform a first characterization of that community and evaluate its association to environmental drivers along an annual cycle. Oceanographic variables (temperature, salinity, irradiance, nutrients, chlorophyll-a) and ciliates (aloricate and loricate), and dinoflagellates were recorded monthly from July 2019 to June 2020. Over 100 microzooplankton taxa belonging to approximately 30 families and 40 genera were identified, including several subtropical and subantarctic species. Community structure followed wide transitions at the seasonal scale – particularly between summer and winter as subtropical taxa alternated with euryhaline taxa from colder subantarctic waters. The core environmental variables (temperature, salinity and dissolved inorganic nitrogen [DIN]) explained overall variance in microzooplankton community assembly. During summer, high temperatures (20.3, 16.3–22.4°C) and low nutrients (DIN: 3.5, 0.7–6.7 μM; PO4: 1.0, 0.8–1.5 μM) benefited the development of aloricate ciliates. A nutrient pulse in winter posed favourable stoichiometric conditions and the numerical abundance was dominated by dinoflagellates and loricate ciliates in the following months, while diversity remained highest (taxonomic richness: 36 [22–46]; Shannon–Wiener index: 2.5 [1.9–2.8]). Results suggested that the microzooplankton community at the study site is mainly structured by hydrographic variability linked to the seasonal replacement of offshore water masses that differed in thermohaline properties and nutrient levels, and local processes.

Nutrition scientists are currently facing a substantial challenge: to feed the world population sustainably and ethically while supporting the health of all individuals, animals and the environment. The Nutrition Society of Australia's 2022 Annual Scientific meeting theme ‘Sustainable nutrition for a healthy life’ was a timely conference focusing on the environmental impact of global, national and local food systems, how nutrition science can promote sustainable eating practices while respecting cultural and culinary diversity and how to ensure optimal nutrition throughout life to prevent and manage chronic diseases. Comprehensive, diverse, collaborative and forward-thinking research was presented in a 3 d programme of keynote presentations, oral and poster sessions, breakfast and lunch symposiums, ending with a panel discussion to answer the question of how we can best achieve a nutritious food supply that supports human and planetary health. We concluded that this complex issue necessitates coordinated efforts and multi-faceted responses at local, national and global levels. Collaboration among consumers, scientists, industry and government using a systems approach is vital for finding solutions to this challenge.

Traditional classifications of vertebrates’ responses to urbanization fail to capture the behaviour of those that rely on both urban and wildland resources for population persistence. Here, we use the wood stork (Mycteria americana), a species that makes daily foraging trips up to 74 km away from its nest, as an example of a previously unrecognized response to urbanization. We monitored nests and sampled diets at stork colonies in south Florida (USA) during 2014–2020 to investigate how storks use urban habitats. We found that urban development now comprises up to 51.6% of the land cover within the 30-km core foraging area surrounding colonies and that storks access alternative prey types within these urban areas. Our results also showed that urban-nesting storks outperformed wildland-nesting storks when the hydrological condition of the wetlands was suboptimal for foraging. Though storks still require healthy wetlands for population persistence, urban habitat benefitted storks when hydrological patterns were not ideal for prey production in wildlands. This ‘commuter’ response to urbanization, whereby individuals opt to utilize both urban and wildland resources within short time periods, may apply to other vertebrates with large home ranges.