Childhood maltreatment is a key risk factor for conduct disorder (CD), and the “ecophenotype hypothesis” suggests that maltreatment-related versus non-maltreatment-related CD are neurobiologically distinct. This may explain inconsistent findings in previous structural connectivity studies of CD. We tested this hypothesis by comparing youth with CD with (CD/+) versus without (CD/−) childhood physical or sexual abuse in white-matter microstructure. Diffusion tensor imaging data were collected from 100 CD and 169 control participants aged 9–18 years. Using Tract-Based Spatial Statistics, we compared the CD and control groups in fractional anisotropy, and axial, radial and mean diffusivity, then compared the CD/+ (n = 39) and CD/− (n = 61) subgroups and controls. The combined CD group had higher fractional anisotropy in the corpus callosum than controls. When divided by abuse history, only the CD/− subgroup exhibited higher corpus callosum fractional anisotropy than controls; the CD/+ subgroup did not differ from controls. Comparing the CD subgroups, the CD/+ subgroup displayed higher superior longitudinal fasciculus axial diffusivity than the CD/− subgroup. Notably, sex-stratified analyses yielded different findings in all-male and all-female samples. Findings support the ecophenotype hypothesis, demonstrating microstructural differences between the CD/+ and CD/− subgroups and emphasizing the importance of considering abuse/maltreatment (and sex) in future studies.

In this paper, we study asymptotic behaviors of a subcritical branching Brownian motion with drift $-\rho$, killed upon exiting $(0, \infty)$, and offspring distribution $\{p_k{:}\; k\ge 0\}$. Let $\widetilde{\zeta}^{-\rho}$ be the extinction time of this subcritical branching killed Brownian motion, $\widetilde{M}_t^{-\rho}$ the maximal position of all the particles alive at time t and $\widetilde{M}^{-\rho}:\!=\max_{t\ge 0}\widetilde{M}_t^{-\rho}$ the all-time maximal position. Let $\mathbb{P}_x$ be the law of this subcritical branching killed Brownian motion when the initial particle is located at $x\in (0,\infty)$. Under the assumption $\sum_{k=1}^\infty k ({\log}\; k) p_k <\infty$, we establish the decay rates of $\mathbb{P}_x(\widetilde{\zeta}^{-\rho}>t)$ and $\mathbb{P}_x(\widetilde{M}^{-\rho}>y)$ as t and y respectively tend to $\infty$. We also establish the decay rate of $\mathbb{P}_x(\widetilde{M}_t^{-\rho}> z(t,\rho))$ as $t\to\infty$, where $z(t,\rho)=\sqrt{t}z-\rho t$ for $\rho\leq 0$ and $z(t,\rho)=z$ for $\rho>0$. As a consequence, we obtain a Yaglom-type limit theorem.

This article describes the compilation of three new spoken language corpora designed to address the acquisition of variation and change in English by second language (L2) learners. The first corpus represents L2 English recorded from native Canadian francophones in the Canadian National Capital Region. A second corpus of vernacular English recorded from native anglophones in the same region furnishes a local baseline variety of the target language (TL). A third corpus of local Canadian French represents L2 speakers’ first language (L1). These corpora are used to determine the extent to which L2 variable patterns approximate those in the TL. Comparison of L2 variable features with structural analogues in speakers’ L1, French, additionally affords a window on possible L1 transfer effects. We present a case study exploring the L2 acquisition of quotative variation and change in the local TL benchmark variety. Results point to the close approximation of higher-proficiency L2 speakers to TL community norms, challenging the prevailing notion that L2 acquisition typically involves incomplete mastery of TL patterns and constraints.

Global challenges such as climate change demand transnational responses, including from legal clinics. Building on earlier community legal clinic and international human rights clinic models, transnational legal clinics combine the objectives of legal clinics with the framework of transnational law to work across domestic and international planes. This article focuses on a Canadian–Peruvian legal clinic collaboration to research and draft an amicus curiae brief for landmark climate litigation in Peru. While the global north–south axis of collaboration raises structural challenges, adopting a transnational approach unites participants around the principle of solidarity and decentres assumptions about expertise. A transnational approach also contributes to the progressive development of law, in this case by offering insights into remedies in climate litigation. Overall, we argue that transnational legal clinic collaboration can spur participants’ reflective learning and make substantive contributions to the growing number of climate cases.

How do autocracies use nationalism to normalize and contain unsettled times? The full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 marked a decisive point in Russia’s politics from which there could be no return to an antebellum normality. Rather than attempt to mobilize the Russian public to war, state-run television sought to normalize the war as a banal reality for domestic audiences. Drawing on a content analysis of 1,575 reports from the state-run First Channel [Pervyi Kanal] from 2022 to 2024, this article argues that the Ukrainian regions occupied by Russia — the so-called “new regions” — are crucial to this strategy through their incorporation into banal nationalist depictions of Russia. In turn, televised depictions of residents in the “new regions” confer emotional weight and moral examples for ordinary Russians through their everyday practices: their fortitude in voting for Putin despite ongoing attacks; through their shared excitement in acquiring routine aspects of daily life from passports to pensions; and through their embodiment of Russia’s future. In the process, media depictions normalize imperial nationalist justifications for Russia’s occupation of Ukrainian territory in terms of the distinctiveness of the Russian people, Russia’s civilizing mission, and presentation of its war as defensive.

Emerging as a critique of the cultural paradigm in philosophy, new materialism has had a significant impact on the contemporary landscape of the humanities and social sciences, particularly since the 2000s. Following Donna Haraway’s 1988 critique of social constructivism, developed through her concept of situated knowledge, which invited feminists to make reality claims rather than merely addressing the extent to which this or that practice is socially constructed, new materialist feminisms proposed solutions for conceiving the agency of matter—as well as the body and the nonhuman—in its various entanglements with meaning and discourse. Most have criticized Judith Butler’s concept of performativity for reducing the body to either a sign or a fantasy, thus ignoring its agency. In this article, after positioning the new materialist critique of the cultural turn as a response to Haraway’s earlier call for faithful claims to reality, I argue that the underlying problem of the new materialists with Butlerian performativity is generally framed in terms of an objection to correlationism, as conceptualized by the French philosopher Meillassaux, which the new materialist feminisms themselves do not manage to evade either.

Narcissism is a personality trait characterized by a sense of being more important and entitled than others. Narcissism is high in adolescence and puts adolescents at risk of psychopathology and problematic social relationships. Why is narcissism persistent in adolescence? Bridging insights from developmental, clinical, social, and personality psychology, we examined whether adolescents (ages 11–15) high in narcissism maintain narcissism through downward social comparisons (e.g., “I am better than my classmates”), not downward temporal comparisons (e.g., “I am better now than when I was younger”). A cross-sectional study (N = 382, 97% Dutch) showed that adolescents higher in narcissism made more downward social and temporal comparisons. In a longitudinal study (N = 389, 99% Dutch), we assessed adolescents’ narcissism levels at the beginning of the school year and at 3-month follow-up. In-between, we captured adolescents’ comparisons through daily diary assessments. Adolescents higher in narcissism made more downward social and temporal comparisons. Downward social – but not temporal – comparisons partially mediated the 3-month stability of narcissism. In both studies, self-esteem was unrelated to downward comparisons. Thus, downward social – but not temporal – comparisons contribute to the maintenance of adolescent narcissism, and these comparisons constitute a potentially malleable developmental mechanism to curtail narcissism.

Three-dimensional mapping-aided (3DMA) Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) positioning improves the positioning in urban canyons for non-precision GNSS receivers. However, the 3DMA GNSS algorithms often produce a multimodal position solution, and simply taking the average of these modes reduces accuracy. A further problem, named ‘solution shifting’, is the effect of large numbers of low-scoring candidates shifting the overall position solution away from high-scoring regions. This study uses a clustering method to separate the different modes and exclude low-scoring regions from the position solution. Factor graph optimisation (FGO) is then used to integrate clustered 3DMA GNSS position and GNSS Doppler measurements or estimated velocity over multiple epochs. Positioning performance is assessed using data collected in London. The results show that the clustering method can successfully mitigate the multimodal effect, and integrating the FGO can mitigate the occurrence of multimodality and solution shifting. Static experiments in London achieve an RMSE of approximately 10 m for FGO 3DMA GNSS with clustering and 11 m without clustering.

We show that $\alpha $-stable Lévy motions can be simulated by any ergodic and aperiodic probability-preserving transformation. Namely we show that: for $0<\alpha <1$ and every $\alpha $-stable Lévy motion ${\mathbb {W}}$, there exists a function f whose partial sum process converges in distribution to ${\mathbb {W}}$; for $1\leq \alpha <2$ and every symmetric $\alpha $-stable Lévy motion, there exists a function f whose partial sum process converges in distribution to ${\mathbb {W}}$; for $1< \alpha <2$ and every $-1\leq \beta \leq 1$ there exists a function f whose associated time series is in the classical domain of attraction of an $S_\alpha (\ln (2), \beta ,0)$ random variable.

In this paper, we study the asymptotic behavior of the generalized Zagreb indices of the classical Erdős–Rényi (ER) random graph G(n, p), as $n\to\infty$. For any integer $k\ge1$, we first give an expression for the kth-order generalized Zagreb index in terms of the number of star graphs of various sizes in any simple graph. The explicit formulas for the first two moments of the generalized Zagreb indices of an ER random graph are then obtained from this expression. Based on the asymptotic normality of the numbers of star graphs of various sizes, several joint limit laws are established for a finite number of generalized Zagreb indices with a phase transition for p in different regimes. Finally, we provide a necessary and sufficient condition for any single generalized Zagreb index of G(n, p) to be asymptotic normal.

Eels of the congrid genus Coloconger are rare and poorly known for their distributions. This study reports on the collection of the Indo-west Pacific short tail conger Coloconger scholesi Chan 1967 from Indian waters of the Arabian sea for the first time based on a single specimen collected from the deep waters off Kollam, Kerala and provides an additional report about Anguilliformes of India. Previously a single species of the genus Coloconger raniceps Alcock 1889 has been reported from Indian waters up to now. This study adds details about another Coloconger species, C. scholesi, a photograph of the specimen in fresh condition is provided, and comparison with its co-occurring in Indian waters congener C. raniceps is included.

Decisions about how to draw one’s pension are complex. Individuals with poor pension literacy may risk making suboptimal decisions, especially in the absence of financial advice. This study found actual and perceived pension literacy to have opposite effects on advice seeking. Where high actual pension literacy increased the propensity to seek advice, high perceived pension literacy decreased it. After participants completed a test of pension literacy, they became aware of their pension knowledge, and some changed their minds about seeking advice. The study highlights the importance of pension education and has implications for regulators and industry professionals wanting to increase the uptake of financial advice.

A single specimen of the Australian stargazer, Xenocephalus australiensis, was recently collected from the southwest coast of India, Arabian Sea. Since its original description, from northwest Australia, there have been no detailed reports on the species occurrence. The present study documents the first geographical record of X. australiensis in the Arabian Sea, Western Indian Ocean. Morphological characters are enumerated and compared with the voucher specimens from the original description. A detailed description of the specimen is provided, contributing valuable insights into the characteristics of X. australiensis in the Indian waters along with major distinguishing characters of the species in the genus Xenocephalus. This study extends the known geographic range of the species from northwest Australia, Eastern Indian Ocean, to the Arabian Sea, Western Indian Ocean.

Ongoing efforts among federal agencies to expunge public health data from websites and other media in line with Trump administration directives on “gender ideology” and other themes has led to widespread confusion, angst, and concern among health officials, medical practitioners, and patients. It has also generated legal claims seeking to reverse and stop public health data purges. Framed within statutory or constitutional limits, legal strategies countering these data policies help assure access to core public health information essential to specific services, care, and outcomes.

Councils of National Minorities (NMCs), connected with the concept of non-territorial autonomy, have been recognized in research as a safeguard of minority rights, offering potential solutions to ethnic tensions. NMCs could be important actors in countries such as Serbia where tensions over the Kosovo issue are still present. Despite various studies on NMCs in Serbia, the specific role of women in these councils and their contribution to peace-making has not been a primary focus. This 2024 research in Serbia examines the involvement of women from NMCs in challenging male/state-centric discourses on women as peacemakers through inductive thematic analysis of interviews with female NMCs’ representatives. The focus of the analysis is on intersections of nation and gender, the impact of women in NMCs on reducing tensions and fostering peace, and the gendered nature of these processes. This study contributes to understanding the role of women from NMCs in peacebuilding using non-territorial frameworks.