The influence of exchangeable alkali cations on glucose uptake, interlayer reorganization and ionic transport was investigated in homoionic Wyoming montmorillonite exchanged with the complete alkali series (Li+, Na+, K+, Rb+ and Cs+). Glucose adsorption was rapid during the initial stage and reached equilibrium after ∼6 h. Under the investigated conditions, the equilibrium uptake was highest for the Li- and Cs-exchanged forms, whereas the Na-exchanged form showed the lowest adsorption amount. X-ray diffraction, differential thermal analysis and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy collectively support partial accommodation of glucose within the interlayer region without major disruption of the aluminosilicate framework, although the magnitude of the structural response depended strongly on the exchangeable cation. The largest basal expansion was observed for the Li- and Na-exchanged forms, showing that interlayer opening does not directly parallel adsorption capacity across the alkali series. Broadband impedance spectroscopy further indicates thermally activated ionic transport and a marked cation dependence of both direct current (DC) conductivity and activation energy after glucose loading. In particular, glucose adsorption altered the conduction environment more strongly in the Li- and Na-exchanged systems than in the K-, Rb- and Cs-exchanged forms under the same thermal conditioning. Taken together, the results suggest that glucose uptake, interlayer expansion and ionic transport are governed by coupled effects involving cation hydration, interlayer accessibility and local structural organization rather than by a single cation property alone. This comparative dataset provides a basis for understanding how exchangeable cations regulate saccharide–clay interactions in montmorillonite.

In recent years, mental health policy and legislation have changed dramatically, allowing for more human rights-based and recovery-orientated services to come into being. One example of this is the enactment of The Assisted Decision Making (Capacity) Act 2015 which allowed for conversations to begin within mental health about respecting the wishes of the person, even when they are in crisis. Within health discourse, this can be achieved through the creation of an advance healthcare directive. However, to date, within mental health services, clinicians, and service users do not have a recognised template that can be adapted for this purpose when a service user loses capacity to make decisions about their own life and care they receive. This paper proposes that Wellness Recovery Action Planning (WRAP), and particularly the crisis and post-crisis planning section of the programme should be used as a potential structure for such advance healthcare directives to be formulated. This is potentially plausible due to how engrained WRAP is in Irish mental health services, the evidence base backing for WRAP as well as the ease of use of the initiative to support overall well-being. As such, this paper has laid out how such plans can be used as an advance healthcare directive in an Irish setting and is also likely to be applicable internationally.

Exclusive breastfeeding in the first 6 months of life is crucial for the health of mothers and babies in low-and middle-income countries. Milk mid-chain fatty acids (MCFA) are potential biomarkers of milk production in other settings. This study investigates MCFA as markers of exclusive breastfeeding in low-and middle-income countries. This was an ancillary observational analysis of human milk fatty acids from a parent randomised controlled trial of vitamin D supplementation in Bangladesh. We categorised mothers as currently exclusively or non-exclusively breastfeeding based on weekly infant feeding questionnaires. We analysed milk fatty acids at 3 months postpartum by GC and modelled longitudinal exclusive breastfeeding using milk fatty acids in repeated-measures Poisson regression. Fatty acids are reported as % total fatty acids. The prevalence of currently exclusive breast-feeding was 76 % at 3 months and 43 % at 6 months (n 587). Both C6:0 and C15:0 were higher with exclusive breastfeeding (C6:0, P = 0·001; C15:0, P = 0·007), while C12:0 and C14:0 were lower (C12:0, P < 0·001; C14:0, P < 0·001). We combined these into an MCFA index defined as ((C6:0 + C15:0)/(C12:0 + C14:0)) × 1000 (Excl: 25 ± 0·50, Non-excl: 20 ± 0·60, P < 0·001). Mothers in the highest and lowest MCFA index tertiles had an exclusive breastfeeding prevalence at 3 months of 95 % and 60 %, respectively (P < 0·001), and remained different until 6 months. In secondary analysis, vitamin D supplementation during lactation was moderately associated with exclusive breastfeeding (relative prevalence: 1·17 (95 % CI 1·04, 1·32)). Milk MCFA were markers of exclusive breastfeeding in this cohort, and the milk MCFA index at 3 months predicted exclusive breastfeeding from 3 to 6 months postpartum.

This article explores the evolution of the “creational body” motif in Iranian mythology, focusing on its transformation within Zoroastrian theological contexts. Drawing on Indo-European and Indo-Iranian cosmogonic narratives, the article examines two primary representations: Gayōmard, the human prototype, and āsrō-kirb, an enigmatic body described as the “form of fire”. While the original Indo-Iranian myths often portray the creation of the cosmos through the sacrificial dismemberment of a primordial being, Zoroastrian texts adapt this narrative to align with their dualistic theology. The dismemberment of Gayōmard is attributed to Ahriman and his demonic forces, dissociating Ohrmazd and the Beneficent Immortals from acts of violence. By contrast, āsrō-kirb’s narrative presents an abstract, faceless body dismembered by Ohrmazd, whose act is sanitized of its grotesque sacrificial elements. Through textual analysis of Pahlavi sources, this article investigates the theological motivations behind these alterations, highlighting how Zoroastrian priests sought to reconcile inherited cosmogonic myths with their ethical and doctrinal imperatives. The findings reveal a dual adjustment: the reinterpretation of Gayōmard’s narrative to condemn Ahriman, and the abstraction of āsrō-kirb to obscure its violent origins, while maintaining its creational function. These adaptations underscore the dynamic interplay between inherited mythology and evolving theological frameworks in the Zoroastrian tradition.

This article examines how the far-right political party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) mobilizes population replacement conspiracy theories, particularly the concept of Umvolkung, as a mode of political propaganda. While the genealogy of Umvolkung harks back to the Weimar Republic, and it is also tied to the racial and demographic engineering of the Nazi era, it has re-emerged in contemporary far-right discourse as a conspiracy theory of population replacement. In this article, I argue that the AfD’s deployment of population replacement conspiracy theories operates as biopolitical technologies seeking to legitimize exclusionary projects such as the “Remigration” program. Ultimately, I contend, population replacement conspiracy theories promote a biopolitical vision of protecting the national racially characterized social body from the existential threat of replacement through tightening border regimes, reconceptualizing concepts of citizenship and naturalization, and entertaining the political death of those racially characterized as non-Germans by means of exclusion-remigration imaginaries.

Upper limb rehabilitation exoskeletons face fundamental challenges achieving coordinated multi-joint assistance within portable configurations. Current cable-driven systems demonstrate effective single-joint support but lack coordinated shoulder-elbow capabilities due to anchor-point sensing constraints that limit workspace during simultaneous movements. To address these limitations, this paper presents a novel coordinated 3-Degree of Freedom (DOF) shoulder-elbow exosuit (3.3 kg) employing motor-proximal sensing architecture. Strategic load cell repositioning from anchor points to actuation unit locations eliminates spatial constraints, while geometric compensation algorithms maintain measurement accuracy, enabling coordinated assistance (shoulder flexion/extension, abduction/adduction, elbow flexion/extension) with preserved 0–$90^\circ$ kinematic workspace. Systematic development integrating product design specifications, multi-criteria decision-making, and biomechanical component dimensioning provided traceable design synthesis. Preliminary proof-of-concept tests with healthy participants (n = 5) provide an initial assessment of the system performance, demonstrating adequate sensing accuracy within the primary Activities of Daily Living (ADL) workspace, measurable muscle activation reduction, and preserved natural kinematics with minimal range-of-motion (ROM) constraint. An extensive experimental validation is out of the scope of this work. Results establish technical feasibility for coordinated cable-driven assistance, identifying requirements for future clinical translation.

A “two-regime” view of there being a strong positive relationship between money growth and inflation in high-inflation episodes and little relationship occurring between them otherwise has been restated of late. Using the P-star model, and Divisia money aggregates, we demonstrate money having explanatory power across US inflation’s conditional distribution over a near-60-year sample period. We find the price gap—the difference between the observed and the equilibrium price level—to be significant and of the expected sign, both when outliers are down-weighted and for most of the quantile range. While the impact of the price gap tends to be strongest when inflation is high, there is a significant monetary impulse to prices across the inflation distribution. Monetary transmission to prices occurs more strongly through the money market than the goods market. As well as providing evidence against the two-regime view, the novel quantitative approach to P-star estimation demonstrates the model’s versatility in showing money’s broadly-based influence on inflation.

In the homology cobordism group $\Theta_\mathbb{Z}^3$, it is not known if there are non-trivial linear dependences between Seifert fibered spheres. Based on involutive Heegaard Floer theory, Hendricks, Manolescu and Zemke introduced the local equivalence group $\mathfrak{I}$ along with the homomorphism $h\;:\;\Theta_\mathbb{Z}^3 \rightarrow \mathfrak{I}$. Using the work of Dai and Stoffregen, one can find non-trivial linear dependences between the images of Seifert fibered spheres under h. Therefore, it is interesting to ask if such dependences in $\mathfrak{I}$ originate from $\Theta_\mathbb{Z}^3$. In this paper, by employing the $r_s$-invariants from the filtered instanton Floer homology developed by Nozaki, Sato and Taniguchi, we provide certain conditions to guarantee that such relations are not realised even in the rational homology cobordism group. We also discuss the local equivalence class of the $\operatorname{Pin(2)}$-equivariant Seiberg–Witten Floer stable homotopy type.