An increasing number of older adults require residential care. Concurrently, older adults’ alcohol use is increasing. This review explored the perspectives of all relevant stakeholders on older adults’ alcohol use within residential care settings, through a systematic review and thematic synthesis of qualitative studies. Eight databases were searched for qualitative studies focusing on older adults’ alcohol consumption (defined as aged ≥ 50) within residential care settings, sampling any involved stakeholders, published up until January 2024. Quality appraisal utilised the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme checklist and included 15 studies of mainly moderate quality across seven high-income countries, reporting data from a range of stakeholders and representing varied older adults’ alcohol histories. Three themes were identified: alcohol use by older adults is socially acceptable and purposeful in residential care settings; alcohol helps in the pursuit of an ‘ideal’ outcome; and decision-making around older adults’ alcohol use varies depending on the involvement, knowledge, skills and beliefs of the participating stakeholders, who also vary. Reports of problematic alcohol use were rare and older adults in residential care settings should be supported to exercise their own choice in determining their alcohol use. However, residential care settings face particular challenges in managing the alcohol intake of older adults with limited mental capacity and alcohol dependency; owing to a lack of guidance, front-line staff make subjective decisions. Future research should develop guidance that involves all relevant stakeholders, including family members. Limitations include lack of generalisability to low- and middle-income countries and limited availability of raw data.

Amidst the global digital transformation and the expanding IT sector, particularly in Ukraine, it is essential to examine how digitalization affects structural shifts within the national economy. This study aims to analyze the impact of digitalization on the growth of Ukraine’s IT sector, focusing on comparing the economic metrics of freelancing and outsourcing and providing strategic recommendations to enhance entrepreneurial activity in this area. During the research, the methods of expert evaluations, economic-mathematical modelling, comparative analysis, and statistical data analysis were used. The research revealed that digitalization significantly influences structural changes in the national economy, particularly through the advancement of the IT sector. It was established that outsourcing has significant advantages compared to freelancing in terms of such indicators as the share of the GDP of the IT sector and the volume of exports of IT services. By analyzing the economic indicators of freelancing and outsourcing, specific recommendations were developed for the continued growth of Ukraine’s IT sector, aimed at boosting entrepreneurial activity and creating new job opportunities. The key factors influencing IT specialists’ employment choices were summarized, which is crucial for the continued development of the national economy in the context of digitalization. The practical value of this research is that its findings can be utilized to enhance Ukraine’s IT sector, particularly by backing outsourcing businesses and promoting the expansion of freelance platforms.

Research quality assessment is a cornerstone of academic practice, yet the criteria that inform such judgments are often assumed rather than critically examined through empirical research. This article draws on a global survey of international relations (IR) scholars (N = 820) to analyze the cognitive dimensions underlying research quality evaluation and their variation across sociological and epistemological factors. We identify seven distinct quality factors: theoretical significance, logical style and structure, practical significance, methodological rigor, contribution and value for future research, interest and topicality, and challenge to existing knowledge. Our results suggest that, while personal preferences, disciplinary norms, and professional practices—shaped by variables such as gender, nationality, and political orientation—influence evaluations, research quality judgments are ultimately grounded in shared cognitive frameworks. Our study offers robust evidence that quality assessments, though subject to sociological variation, reflect deeper, common cognitive structures across scholarly communities.

An often-used normative argument for increasing judicial diversity is that it will enhance public confidence in courts. This paper tests competing perspectives about whether the descriptive representation of women in the federal judiciary will improve institutional trust, using a nationally representative survey experiment. The findings suggest that, in the post-Dobbs era, descriptive representation for gender on low visibility courts yields a positive effect on institutional trust, but that the magnitude of the effect is quite small, time limited, and restricted to Democrats and to those who already have higher levels of trust.

The current study provides a holistic analysis of voice quality and how it is employed via affective stancetaking through high performance of non-player characters on Critical Role, a popular Dungeons and Dragons digital media ‘actual-play’ series. Specifically, we ask how a character's moral stance is indexed through improvised performed speech. We show that current acoustic methods for voice quality have the potential for underrepresentation of sociolinguistically meaningful variation when relying solely on acoustic data. By incorporating both acoustic and auditory data, we find that constricted laryngeal settings (and whisperiness in particular) are used to signal evilness and negative moral stance, while unconstricted laryngeal settings (breathiness in particular) are employed to signal friendliness and positive moral stance. The two general vocal settings show nuanced variation linked to affective stancetaking, including one-off changes in characters’ stances as well as their habitual styles. (Voice quality, stance, methods, affect, morality)*

The application of a tube combustion system (pyrolyzer) for the batch combustion of low carbon content environmental matrices, such as soil and sediment, for determining 14C specific activity is examined. The samples were combusted at 600°C, and the CO2 species produced were trapped in 3N NaOH, precipitated as BaCO3 by adding BaCl2, and subjected to acid-hydrolysis to transfer the CO2 species to the absorber-scintillator mixture for liquid scintillation counting (LSC). The method was validated by analyzing the samples by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) method. The minimum detectable activity (MDA) for the method, at 2σ confidence level, was 10 Bq kg–1C (4 pMC) for a counting time of 500 min and 7 Bq kg–1C (3 pMC) for 1000 min. The capability of the method to quantify a small excess of 14C specific activity (a few Bq kg–1C or pMC) in the environment of a nuclear facility, when compared to the ambient natural background level, was demonstrated by analyzing a total of 23 soil and 7 sediment samples from the vicinity of a pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR) nuclear power plant (NPP) at Kaiga, India. The maximum excess 14C specific activity values recorded for soil and sediment matrices were 37 ± 7 Bq kg–1C and 11 ± 7 Bq kg–1C, respectively, confirming minimal radioecological impact of the operation of the NPP on the environment. The 14C specific activity ratio for the recently fallen leaf litter and the soil underneath at most of the sampling points in the vicinity of the NPP had a mean value of 1.03 with an associated standard deviation of 0.07. Statistical tests confirm that the mean values of the data set of 14C specific activity of leaf litter and underlying soil are not significantly different.

One of the important problems in algebraic number theory is to study the monogenity of number fields. Monogenic number fields arise from the roots of monogenic polynomials. In this article, we deal with the problem of monogenity of the composition of two monic polynomials having integer coefficients. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the composition to be monogenic together with a further sufficient condition. At the end of the paper, we construct an infinite tower of monogenic number fields.

A decades-long debate has sought to determine whether judicial elections are detrimental to the impartiality of judges and public support for state court systems. We contribute to that discussion by assessing whether elections work to hold errant judges accountable. We use a novel dataset of judicial scandal, including newspaper reports of misconduct against elected state supreme court justices. Our data examines the effect of scandal from 2000–2023 to determine whether controversy affects voter support for incumbents. We find voters pay attention to the harmful effects of scandal on judiciaries and that impacted incumbents experience diminished support, relative to other incumbents.