The free-living, stalkless comatulids make up the bulk of living crinoid diversity and are the only crinoids remaining in shallow water, but compared to the stalked crinoids their fossil record is fragmentary and understudied, especially outside Europe. We present new Albian fossil comatulids from the Glen Rose Formation, central Texas, and study them using computed tomography, scanning electron microscopy, morphometry, and cladistic analysis of discrete and continuous characters. New material comprises the previously described Decameros wertheimi and Semiometra klari? and the new taxa Semiometra alveoradiata n. sp. and an extremely unusual new form Castaneametra hodgesi n. gen. n. sp. In addition to being exceptionally variable, this species is the largest known comatulid, has the most cirri of any known comatulid, and exhibits unique architectural features and voluminous, through-going coelomic cavities. We reconstruct its paleobiology, infer its phylogenetic affinities, argue for its origin from small Semiometra-like ancestors in a brief Albian North American radiation, and suggest new interpretations of early comatulid phylogeny based on our findings. Adaptive allometry related to respiratory demands, along with an origin by peramorphosis, may explain some features of this odd, short-lived giant.

This study investigates the impact of communication delays and recruitment selection stages on candidates’ perceptions of fairness and recruitment selection outcomes and explores the moderating role of employability. Employing a mixed-method approach across two independent studies involving 264 and 259 mid-level position candidates, two variables – communication timeliness and recruitment stages – are manipulated, while employability is investigated as a moderating variable. Our results indicate that timely communication of rejection, especially during the initial selection stages, significantly enhances candidates’ satisfaction, fairness perceptions, intentions to reapply, and intentions to recommend the organisation to others. Employability moderates the relationship between perceived fairness and recruitment outcomes, strongly influencing the likelihood of peer referrals and reapplication intentions. These findings underscore the importance of strategic communication management in recruitment selection processes to enhance employer branding and the job candidate experience.

Longevity risk is threatening the sustainability of traditional pension systems. To deal with this issue, decumulation strategies alternative to annuities have been proposed in the literature. However, heterogeneity in mortality experiences in the pool of policyholders due to socio-economic classes generates inequity, because of implicit wealth transfers from the more disadvantaged to the wealthier classes. We address this issue in a Group Self-Annuitization (GSA) scheme in the presence of stochastic mortality by proposing a redistributive GSA scheme where benefits are optimally shared across classes. The expected present values of the benefits in a standard GSA scheme show relevant gaps across socio-economic groups, which are reduced in the redistributive GSA scheme. We explore sensitivity to pool size, interest rates and mortality assumptions.

This article uses online genealogy data from the United States over the nineteenth century to estimate period and cohort-based sex differences in longevity. Following previous work, we find a longevity reversal in the mid-nineteenth century that expanded rapidly for at least a half-century. For measures of conditional survival past childbearing age, females enjoyed a longevity advantage for the whole century. Unlike most mortality databases of this period, genealogical data allow analysis of spatial patterns and the impacts of fertility on longevity. Our results suggest very limited evidence of spatial (state) variation in these patterns. We do, however, find evidence that the associations between fertility and longevity partially explain the trends.

A late Eocene (Priabonian) decapod crustacean (Arthropoda: Malacostraca: Decapoda) faunule from the sandstones and siltstones of the Tomášovce Member (Borové Formation) of northern Slovakia (Western Carpathians) is presented. Several decades of collecting at the Ďurkovec quarry in the Spišská Nová Ves district, the stratotype locality of the Tomášovce Member, yielded four decapod species, including an axiidean shrimp Ctenocheles sp. indet. (Ctenochelidae), and three brachyuran crabs Amphoranina hazslinszkyi (Reuss, 1859) new combination (Raninidae), Calappilia tridentata (Beurlen, 1939) (Calappidae), and Coeloma vigil A. Milne-Edwards, 1865 (Polybiidae). The faunule is dominated by A. hazslinszkyi and Coeloma vigil. The specimens often represent more-or-less intact individuals with preserved claws and walking legs, suggesting rapid burial and minimal to no postmortem transport. Additionally, specimens of A. hazslinszkyi are in some cases preserved perpendicularly to the bedding planes and interpreted as being covered by large amount of sediment while being buried in the substrate, causing death of the animals. The presence of trace fossils assigned to Thalassinoides Ehrenberg, 1944 are indirectly linked with the burrowing shrimp Ctenocheles sp. indet. The decapod faunule inhabited a shallow marine environment with the depth likely not exceeding 100 m.

In 2018, David Laitin and Pål Kolstø engaged in a discussion at the Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Nationalities held at Columbia University, New York. The panel was a 20-year retrospective on Identity in Formation: the Russian-speaking populations in the Near Abroad (Laitin 1998).

The Parthenon’s structure suggests a thought-out design particularly attentive to light. This includes the orientation of the building towards the rising sun, the placement of windows, the use of barriers and grilles, the translucent marble ceilings, the skylights, and even ‘reflective’ pools of various liquid. These are all devices that, alongside bright materials, may have been used to enhance the experience of visitors to the temple and their encounter with the colossal gold and ivory statue of the goddess Athena. To test the validity and the effect that each of these purported design strategies produced, this article proposes an experiment using advanced 3D digital technologies, along with physically based lighting simulations, to recreate the ambient and architectural conditions that existed in the original temple design. The results suggest that this temple, contrary to long-standing beliefs that imagined the interior as a ‘bright marble space’, was generally quite dark and dim. The subsequent discussion and concluding remarks suggest that the illumination of the chryselephantine statue’s materials through the glow of a lamp, and on rare occasions from the sun, probably represented the pinnacle of the viewing encounters.

The article examines efforts to improve socioeconomic conditions in the Soviet Union during the late twentieth century. It does so to understand Soviet socialism’s capacity to evolve. Drawing on national and regional archival documents and newspapers, it contests the argument that the Soviet system was too rigid to survive in the world of computerised, post-Fordist ‘flexible’ production. Focusing on the enterprise level, this article demonstrates that the Communist Party inaugurated its own variation of flexible production; in doing so, it inadvertently created the conditions of possibility for the transition from state socialism to capitalism on the factory floor.

This article argues that the 1918 flu appeared so suddenly, spread so rapidly, killed so quickly and disappeared so swiftly that Europeans’ focus on their immediate circumstances led them to experience and interpret it as a local health crisis rather than as a global or continental pandemic. It also demonstrates that Europeans were so inured to privation and death; so isolated by anaemic and dysfunctional media and medical regimes; and so distracted by economic, political and social chaos that they were either unaware of or unconcerned with the flu’s origin. It takes as its source base nearly 1,000 memories of the 1918 flu collected from individuals across ten European countries and archival materials from federal, municipal, religious and diary archives in France (an Allied power in the First World War), Germany (a Central power in the First World War) and Switzerland (a neutral power in the First World War).

The evaluation of services has become a common strategy in service management, and there is a wide variety of tools available. The objective was to evaluate user satisfaction at a sports center using the Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) techniques, comparing the information provided by each. To this end, this study involved 1,433 users of a sports center, analyzing the responses to the NPS® tool and subsequently to the IPA tool developed ad hoc with 11 attributes. The NPS® tool revealed 29.58% detractors, 30.36% passives, and 40.06% promoters, highlighting a negative impact on the overall score. The IPA tool offered detailed insights into attributes varying across the three NPS groups, identifying four critical attributes requiring strategic attention, enabling segmented marketing strategies. This research demonstrates the complementary value of combining NPS and IPA tools for strategic service management, providing actionable insights to enhance customer satisfaction and competitive positioning.