The analyzed data provide evidence for sound changes that involve cumulative effects in the phonologization of phonetic duration. The data come from Kashubian, an understudied, endangered language spoken in northwestern Poland, and illustrate two historical processes: preservation and loss of ultra-short vowels (jers) and compensatory lengthening. The unified analysis of the two processes hinges on a reinterpretation of phonetic vowel duration as phonological length. Phonetic duration is contextual: Vowels in head syllables, in open syllables, and before voiced consonants tend to be longer than vowels in non-head syllables, in closed syllables, and before voiceless consonants. The effects are cumulative in the sense that all three conditions must co-occur on a single vowel. The discussed changes provide support for phonological models that (i) allow phonological constraints to access fine-grained phonetic information and (ii) are capable of deriving cumulative effects. The data contribute to the typology of cumulative processes by providing novel evidence of alternations that are simultaneously conditioned by the prosodic and segmental context.

Epidemiologic evidence on the association between dietary choline and betaine and mortality risk remains limited, particularly among non-Western populations. We examined the association of dietary choline and betaine with all-cause mortality in Chinese adults using data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) 1991-2015. We included 9,027 men and 8,828 women without cardiovascular disease and cancer at baseline. Dietary intake was assessed using 3-day 24-hour dietary recalls in combination with a household food inventories. Death was ascertained through household surveys in each wave. We used time-dependent Cox proportional hazards regression models to estimate multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). During a median follow-up of 9.1 years, 891 men and 687 women were deceased. Higher total choline intake was associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality in both men [HRQ5 vs. Q1 = 0.58 (95% CI: 0.45, 0.74)] and women [HRQ5 vs. Q1 = 0.59 (95% CI: 0.44, 0.78)]. The dose-response curve followed a reverse J-shape in men and an L-shape in women (both P-nonlinear ≤ 0.005). Similarly, fat-soluble choline intake was inversely associated with the risk of all-cause mortality in both men [HRQ5 vs. Q1 = 0.59 (95% CI: 0.46, 0.75)] and women [HRQ5 vs. Q1 = 0.53 (95% CI: 0.40, 0.70)], showing reverse J-shaped patterns (both P-nonlinear < 0.001). A J-shaped association between dietary water-soluble choline and all-cause mortality was observed in women (P-nonlinear < 0.001), but a null association was found in men. Betaine intake was not associated with all-cause mortality in either sex. Our findings suggest that adequate choline intake, but not betaine, is linked to reduced all-cause mortality in Chinese adults with predominantly plant-based diets, with both insufficient and excessive choline intake potentially increasing mortality risk.

Ce numéro spécial est le résultat de la collaboration entre les membres du Groupe de recherche interuniversitaire sur la normativité (GRIN) durant l’année 2023-2024. Principalement situé dans les universités de l’île de Montréal, ce groupe a pour objectif d’explorer le thème de la normativité en philosophie selon trois axes principaux : normativité et société, normativité et affectivité, normativité et connaissance. Une visée commune s’est progressivement révélée au fil de nos rencontres : dévoiler de manière critique les différentes sortes de normativité qui ont été soit oubliées, soit ignorées. Cela nous a donc laissé croire que certaines normes pourraient avoir été perdues de vue, et c’est de là que nous sont venus le titre et le thème de ce numéro spécial : « À la recherche des normes perdues ». La présente introduction donne un aperçu des huit articles qui forment le numéro.

Special Ricci–Hessian equations on Kähler manifolds $(M,g)$, as defined by Maschler [‘Special Kähler–Ricci potentials and Ricci solitons’, Ann. Global Anal. Geom. 34 (2008), 367–380], involve functions $\tau $ on M and state that, for some function $\alpha $ of the real variable $\tau\kern-0.8pt $, the sum of $\alpha \nabla d\tau\kern-0.8pt $ and the Ricci tensor equals a functional multiple of the metric g, while $\alpha \nabla d\tau\kern-0.8pt $ itself is assumed to be nonzero almost everywhere. Three well-known obvious ‘standard’ cases are provided by (non-Einstein) gradient Kähler–Ricci solitons, conformally-Einstein Kähler metrics, and special Kähler–Ricci potentials. We show that, outside of these three cases, such an equation can only occur in complex dimension two and, at generic points, it must then represent one of three types, for which, up to normalizations, $\alpha =2\cot \tau\kern-0.8pt $, $\alpha =2\coth \tau\kern-0.8pt $, or $\alpha =2\tanh \tau\kern-0.8pt $. We also use the Cartan–Kähler theorem to prove that these three types are actually realized in a ‘nonstandard’ way.

This article describes how Egyptian state documents are scattered between governmental institutions, private collections, and the second-hand book and paper market. This scattering raises a practical question about the conditions under which official documents become discardable and commodifiable by bureaucrats, their families, and second-hand dealers. This scattering also raises a theoretical question about the nature of a state which takes uneven care in keeping a record of its own institutional past. After outlining the difficulties of access one faces in official archives in Egypt, the article fleshes out the sociological profile of different custodians of state paperwork—including families of bureaucrats, peddlers, and dealers—and the conditions under which state documents become commodified to this day. The overarching objective is not just to show the well-known limitations of national archives as a source of historical material, but also to show how actually existing “state archives” go well beyond the remit of official institutions, with notable consequences over our conception of the state.

Despite the affinity of monism and monotheism—and despite monism’s recent philosophical renaissance—few have defended the conjunction of the two claims, of what we might call ‘theistic monism’. I argue, first, that monism and monotheism are consistent, and second, that each one provides good reasons to accept the other one. Monotheists, qua monotheists, have good reason to be monists; and monists, qua monists, have good reason to be monotheists. There should be much greater overlap between the monist camp and the monotheist camp than there is at present.

Fostering diversity in political science careers is important. Undergraduate research experiences, coupled with an emphasis on career diversity, have the potential to increase relevant knowledge about and buoy tendencies toward pursuing a PhD among students from diverse backgrounds. This article describes components of a US National Science Foundation–funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program that highlighted career diversity. We find evidence of positive shifts in awareness of career opportunities for those with doctoral degrees alongside sustained interest in pursuing a PhD. We conclude that an emphasis on career diversity can be a useful component of efforts to shape students’ attitudes and inclinations toward a PhD.

Counting independent sets in graphs and hypergraphs under a variety of restrictions is a classical question with a long history. It is the subject of the celebrated container method which found numerous spectacular applications over the years. We consider the question of how many independent sets we can have in a graph under structural restrictions. We show that any $n$-vertex graph with independence number $\alpha$ without $bK_a$ as an induced subgraph has at most $n^{O(1)} \cdot \alpha ^{O(\alpha )}$ independent sets. This substantially improves the trivial upper bound of $n^{\alpha },$ whenever $\alpha \le n^{o(1)}$ and gives a characterisation of graphs forbidding which allows for such an improvement. It is also in general tight up to a constant in the exponent since there exist triangle-free graphs with $\alpha ^{\Omega (\alpha )}$ independent sets. We also prove that if one in addition assumes the ground graph is chi-bounded one can improve the bound to $n^{O(1)} \cdot 2^{O(\alpha )}$ which is tight up to a constant factor in the exponent.