The application by states of economic principles in education has not produced good results in access to education in low-income and less-developed countries. This prompted UNESCO to designate countries with substantial problems of access to education and illiteracy as the E-9 countries, which include Nigeria. Nigeria’s status as an E-9 country indicates the existence of considerable problems in education, and where necessary, statistical evidence will be used to elucidate Nigeria’s E-9 status. This article argues that the nature of the laws and policy mechanisms that control education in Nigeria suggests that the country seems to be responding to the contemporaneous demands of global programmes of action in education that are predicated on economic principles and driven by the tides of globalization instead of to the requirements of international human rights law.

This scoping review aims to offer a panoptic overview of the research on grit and L2 grit in second and foreign language learning. To this end, a “hybrid search strategy” (Wohlin et al., 2022) was implemented. Out of 1,111 records identified across 15 databases and 78 found applying the backward/forward snowballing technique, 233 empirical studies published between 2013 and 2025 were finally included. With a focus on study and scale quality, the results present (1) a zoom-in/zoom-out description of the research landscape, considering 30 bibliometric and methodological variables, and (2) an in-depth comparative analysis of the psychometric instruments used to measure both grit and L2 grit, examining 45 variables arranged into four categories: (a) scale design and administration, (b) means and standard deviations, (c) reliability of scales and subscales, (d) content, construct, and predictive validity. The review concludes with a discussion of relevant findings and evidence-based suggestions for future and quality-enhanced research.

The investigation of truncated theta series was popularized by Andrews and Merca. In this article, we establish an explicit expression with nonnegative coefficients for the bivariate truncated Jacobi triple product series:

\begin{equation*}\frac{1}{(z,q/z,q;q)_\infty}\sum_{n=0}^{m}(-1)^n(1-z^{n+1})(1-(q/z)^{n+1})q^{\binom{n+1}{2}},\end{equation*}

which can be regarded as a companion to Wang and Yee’s truncation of the triple product identity. As applications, our result confirms a conjecture of Li, Lin, and Wang and implies a family of linear inequalities for a bi-parametric partition function. We also work on another truncated triple product series arising from the work of Xia, Yee, and Zhao and derive similar nonnegativity results and linear inequalities.

We study weighted Sobolev inequalities on open convex cones endowed with α-homogeneous weights satisfying a certain concavity condition. We establish a so-called reduction principle for these inequalities and characterize optimal rearrangement-invariant function spaces for these weighted Sobolev inequalities. Both optimal target and optimal domain spaces are characterized. Abstract results are accompanied by general yet concrete examples of optimal function spaces. For these examples, the class of so-called Lorentz–Karamata spaces, which contains in particular Lebesgue spaces, Lorentz spaces, and some Orlicz spaces, is used.

This study explores the moderating role of women’s political empowerment in addressing child poverty across European Union (EU) countries, using macro-panel data from 27 EU countries between 2006 and 2023. The study investigates how key socio-economic factors – such as unemployment and government expenditure as mitigating factors – interact with women’s political empowerment in affecting child poverty. The findings show that the political empowerment of women mitigates the negative effects of high unemployment and enhances the impact of public spending. However, no significant moderating effect was observed for early school leaving and income inequality. The study highlights the importance of women’s political participation in shaping inclusive policies for child welfare, especially in contexts of high unemployment or limited public spending. By empowering women politically, policymakers can foster environments that better target child poverty through tailored interventions and improved social policies, offering valuable insights for breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty.

A previously unknown raptor migration hot spot has been identified in southern Greece. During the post-breeding migration of 2024, a total of 11,790 individuals were recorded in 15 days, including 11,606 European Honey Buzzards Pernis apivorus. GPS tracking data from Finnish and Hungarian populations further highlight the site’s significance, suggesting that it could become the third migration hot spot for the species in the Mediterranean, alongside the Straits of Gibraltar and Messina. Plans to develop a wind farm in the area raise concerns due to its crucial role in the beginning of the long sea crossing to Libya.

We report the lattice parameters and cell volume for cristobalite powder added at 35 wt% to Ba-Al-Silicate glass (CGI930) as reflowed bulk glass bars where the embedded cristobalite phase is constrained within the glass matrix. Analysis confirms that the room temperature lattice parameters and cell volume obtained for the bulk glass–ceramic are larger compared with single-phase cristobalite powders. The increased volume of the cristobalite phase in a glass matrix is driven by tensile stresses developed at the interface between the cristobalite and matrix glass phase, and this stress impacts the phase transition temperature and thermal hysteresis of the cristobalite phase. In situ high-temperature measurements confirm that the tetragonal to cubic α–β phase transformation of the cristobalite phase within the glass matrix is ~195 °C with complete suppression of hysteresis behavior. In contrast, bulk glass–ceramic material ground to a powder form displays the expected thermal hysteresis behavior and more comparable phase transition temperatures of 245 °C on heating and 220 °C on cooling. Isothermal holds at varying temperatures above or near the α–β phase transition suggest that the cristobalite phase does not undergo significant relaxation within the matrix phase to reduce accumulated stress imposed by the constraining matrix glassy phase.

Recent reports suggest that New Zealanders underestimate the burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) on society, perceiving NCDs as standalone problems to be managed by affected individuals. This belief conflicts with the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) hypothesis that NCD risk is rooted in early-life environmental exposures. For the research community to contribute towards shifting societal beliefs, we need to know more about NZers’ understanding of how NCDs develop and have the potential to track this over time. To address this, we conducted a face-to-face survey of 702 Auckland adults in 2015–16, repeated in 2022–23 with 814 online and 96 face-to-face respondents. An increased recognition of links between mental health and obesity was the only change observed between the earlier and later cohorts. Overall, of the 59% familiar with the term ‘non-communicable disease’, 73% accurately described NCD characteristics and gave examples. Online, tertiary-educated and non-male respondents were more likely to identify various social determinants of health in addition to individual behaviours as contributors to metabolic disease risk. More than twice as many subjects strongly agreed that preconception health of mothers could affect the health of the child than that of fathers. Maternal nutrition was recognised by most as important for fetal health, but 49% disagreed or did not know if it could affect adult health. These results indicate that regardless of subject sampling or data collection method, adult New Zealanders have little appreciation of the significance of the early-life environment in relation to NCD risk across the lifespan.

The crystal structure of palovarotene has been solved and refined using synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction data and optimized using density functional theory techniques. Palovarotene crystallizes in the space group P-1 (#2) with a = 10.2914(4), b = 11.8318(7), c = 11.9210(5) Å, α = 66.2327(11), β = 82.5032(9), γ = 65.3772(9)°, V = 1,206.442(28) Å3, and Z = 2 at 298 K. The crystal structure consists of chains of O–H···N hydrogen-bonded palovarotene molecules along the <0,−1,1 > axis; the graph set is C1,1(14). The powder pattern has been submitted to the International Centre for Diffraction Data® for inclusion in the Powder Diffraction File™ (PDF®).

A poorly understood and partially described planktonic copepod, Labidocera gangetica Sewell, 1934, is fully described herein from the Hooghly River, a century after its initial collection from the Rangoon (now Yangon) River estuary by Sewell (1912). The complete description of L. gangetica suggests possible uncertainty regarding the validity of the species Labidocera jaafari Othman, 1986, due to the morphological similarity in their overall body plan. In particular, the features of the leg 5 of both sexes are identical, suggesting that L. jaafari is probably a synonym of L. gangetica. Additionally, the taxonomic features of the mouthparts and swimming legs are illustrated for the first time.