This study aims to explore the significance of discrepancies in crown-rump length (CRL) and abnormal cord insertion in predicting selective fetal growth restriction (sFGR) in monochorionic (MC) twin pregnancies. Special attention was paid to determining the potential value of these factors in early pregnancy for predicting sFGR. A retrospective analysis included 131 pregnant women diagnosed with MC twin pregnancies. CRL was measured using a GE E8 color Doppler ultrasound instrument. Groups were compared based on the discrepancy in CRL (≥6 mm difference group, n = 26; <6 mm normal group, n = 105) and the presence of abnormal cord insertion (abnormal group, n = 27; normal group, n = 104). The study found no significant association between CRL discrepancy and postnatal birth-weight discordance suggestive of sFGR (p > .05). In contrast, abnormal cord insertion was significantly associated with an increased occurrence of sFGR-related outcome (p < .001). Specifically, sFGR-related outcome occurred in 12 of 27 cases (44.4%) in the abnormal cord insertion group, compared with 7 of 104 cases (6.7%) in the normal cord insertion group. In this retrospective MC twin cohort, abnormal cord insertion was associated with an increased risk of postnatal birth-weight discordance suggestive of sFGR, whereas CRL discrepancy showed limited discriminative ability. Because of the retrospective design, limited number of outcome events, and use of postnatal rather than standardized antenatal Doppler-based sFGR criteria, these findings should be interpreted as exploratory and require validation in larger prospective studies.

The triglyceride-glucose (TyG) index is a reliable composite marker of insulin resistance, which holds important clinical significance. Existing studies have predominantly focused on identifying TyG index-related genetic loci and single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-based polygenic risk scores, however, the overall contribution of genetic factors to TyG index variation at the population level is still unclear. To address this gap, we conducted a classic twin study using data from the Qingdao Twin Registry in China. The study included 381 middle-aged and older Chinese twin pairs (241 monozygotic and 140 dizygotic), comprising 370 males and 392 females. The median age of participants was 50 (interquartile range: 12) years. Structural equation modeling was applied to estimate the heritability of the TyG index after adjusting for age, gender, and body mass index (BMI). Model fitting identified the AE model as the best-fitting one. Additive genetic effects (A) accounted for 60.48% (95% CI [52.46, 67.24]) of the total variance, while unique environmental effects (E) explained 39.52% (95% CI [32.76, 47.54]). A sex-limitation model was subsequently used to test for sex differences in TyG. The results showed that heritability was higher in females (67.2%) than in males (54.0%). This twin-based study provides robust evidence for a moderate‑to‑high heritability of the TyG index in a Northern Chinese population, underscoring the substantial genetic contribution to this composite insulin resistance marker. Notably, the sex difference in heritability reflects larger unique environmental variance in males, highlighting the differential contribution of environmental factors across sexes.

Central banking and monetary policy face particular challenges in heterogenous and multilevel currency areas. And yet, most literature on central banking, like most modern central banks themselves, assumes the validity of a unitary monetary authority implementing uniform monetary policy, even in compound polities. Here, I explore the dilemmas of central banking and monetary policy in politically decentralized currency areas by analyzing the origins of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and its provisions for a multilevel governance structure and decentralized monetary policy. The origins of the Federal Reserve remain puzzling because its decentralized structure is often dismissed as a failed experiment or a political compromise that nobody truly wanted. However, I find that its design was the product of a deliberate political effort to reimagine central banking in a federal society, and I trace the idea of a decentralized “central” bank to a distinct interpretation of the American political-constitutional tradition.

Radiocarbon dating of disarticulated human remains from Brading Roman villa (Isle of Wight, UK) assigns them to a single event or multiple events within a short duration in the Late Roman period, c. 220/50–360/400. The evidence of the coins suggests the possibility of a brief abandonment of the villa following a potentially murderous event in the 340s or 350s, perhaps to be linked to reprisals taken by Constantius against supporters of Magnentius. This event may in turn coincide with a significant reorganisation of space in the west range of the villa.

We compute the $K$-theory of the ${C}^{*}$-category generated by order zero, equivariant, properly supported, classical pseudodifferential operators acting on sections of homogeneous bundles over the symmetric space of a real reductive Lie group $G$. Our result uses the Connes-Kasparov isomorphism for $G$, and in fact it is equivalent to the Connes-Kasparov isomorphism. We relate our computation to David Vogan’s well-known parametrization of the tempered irreducible representations of $G$ with real infinitesimal character. When the reductive group $G$ has real rank one, we formulate and prove a Fourier isomorphism theorem for equivariant order zero pseudodifferential operators on the symmetric space, and use it to prove a $K$-theoretic version of Vogan’s theorem.

The paper proposes an interpretation of the Table of Nothing in the Critique of Pure Reason, which relates the table closely to the tables of the categories and the principles of the pure understanding. The paper argues that the fourth type of nothing on Kant’s table should not be identified with the impossible of the rationalist tradition, i.e. with the object of a contradictory concept. The break between Kant and his rationalist predecessors with regard to the question of possibility, or to the distinction between something and nothing, is concluded to be more radical than often assumed.

This article analyses how Danish newspapers portray Greenland drawing on Critical Race Theory, focusing on interest convergence and whiteness as a normative framework. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative content analysis of contemporary Danish media coverage of political, economic, and social debates concerning Greenland, the findings reveal a consistent pattern of instrumentalization. Across most articles, Greenland is portrayed less as an autonomous political actor than as a strategic asset, while coverage prioritizes Danish perspectives and only marginally includes Greenlandic voices. This reflects interest convergence, in which recognition of Greenlandic autonomy appears primarily when aligned with broader Danish or Western strategic priorities. By contrast, whiteness as norm operates in more uneven, context-dependent, and subtle ways. The study shows that media discourse not only reflects but also actively reproduces systemic inequalities and colonial power asymmetries, shaping how Greenlandic self-determination is publicly understood and contested.

This study employs radiocarbon measurements (Δ14C) to detect fossil fuel CO2 (CO2ff) in the megacity Delhi from 2018 to 2022, offering unique insights into fossil fuel emissions. Our measurements reveal varying Δ14C values ranging from −56.2‰ to 7.5‰ and CO2ff values ranging from 0.3 ppm to 25.2 ppm. We observed a distinct seasonality in Δ14C and CO2ff, with higher CO2ff (lower Δ14C) values during winter and post-monsoon seasons and lower CO2ff (higher Δ14C) in summer and monsoon seasons. We have determined emission ratios (RCO and RNOx), and compared them with other studies worldwide. Our study also examines the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown periods on CO2ff and observed a notable decrease of 5.6 (4.8) ppm during the pandemic’s first (second) waves. These findings enhance our understanding of CO2 emission inventories in megacity Delhi.

A central finding of social epistemology is that phenomena desirable at the individual level might have hidden undesirable effects that emerge on the social level. These emergent effects have important implications for the management of values in science. Using a historical case study of the safety of hormonal pregnancy tests, I argue that the meta-analysis of studies risks compounding value-influence in undesirable ways. In statistical analysis, researchers must either constrain values such that they do not impact the measure of central tendency or accept that they have created “bespoke knowledge”, knowledge which cannot be reused or exported to other contexts.

The increase in the mobilization power of public sector unions is one of the most puzzling features of twenty-first-century labor politics in both advanced and emerging market democracies. We posit that public labor mobilization is driven by economic, institutional, and political factors. Mobilization decreases during the expansionary phase of the economic cycle, when incumbents can placate public unions with state resources; when collective bargaining is mandatory; and when governments share a common partisan identity with a unified labor leadership, facilitating a “political exchange” in which union moderation is traded for wage and non-wage concessions. Based on a qualitative, subnational comparative case-study approach, we trace union organizational dynamics and coalition building process in Argentina’s education sector, and seek to identify their effects on teacher union militancy or moderation across the country’s provinces between 2006 and 2019. We illuminate the causal mechanisms and temporal sequences of union mobilization/moderation by examining both “typical” and “deviant” cases of our general theory

This study examines Neltuma pallida wood from the Cerro Laguna archaeological site in coastal Peru to establish a floating chronology and absolute dating. Ten cross-sections yielded a 70-year chronology (CLAA1). Alpha-cellulose was extracted from five single growth rings from one sample for radiocarbon dating, then wiggle-matching in OxCal v4.4 using SHCal20. Results place the youngest ring at 1314–1330 CE (95.4% probability), situating the full sequence in the period between 1253 and 1322 (±8) CE. Statistical analyses show a robust dendrochronological signal, and ring-width data suggest strong El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events around 1300 CE. These findings confirm Cerro Laguna’s Late Intermediate Period occupation and allow us to assume that the entire 70-year period can be used to improve the calibration curve for the Southern Hemisphere.

This paper presents a comprehensive navigation strategy aimed at enabling autonomous and collision-free motion of automated guided vehicles (AGVs) in indoor environments. The work addresses limitations of conventional AGV systems which are often restricted by static routing and inadequate adaptability to dynamic obstacles. A framework on global–local motion planning is developed, optimising (i) a global path planner based on the Probabilistic Roadmap (PRM) algorithm, (ii) a local trajectory tracking using the Pure Pursuit (PP) controller, and (iii) a real-time obstacle avoidance method leveraging the vector field histogram (VFH) algorithm. The decision-making layer oversees the coordination between global routing and local manoeuvring, dynamically switching between planning and avoidance modes in response to environmental changes. The proposed framework is validated through real-world experiments on a physical AGV platform operating in a structured environment. Experimental results show that the proposed framework generates feasible and smooth paths, while PP-based trajectory tracking achieves high final positioning performance when supported by fused odometry. In free-path navigation, fused odometry reduced the average final percentage error to 0.61% and increased the average final positioning accuracy to 99.40%. In obstacle-path navigation, the integrated PP–VFH framework maintained high final positioning accuracy at 99.10% under varying obstacle configurations. The coordination of PRM, PP, and VFH enables smooth, adaptive, and safe navigation of the AGV within a structured workspace. The proposed framework contributes a unified, modular architecture that strategies to bridges global path planning, local motion control, and real-time reactive avoidance within a single system.

Within-person changes in racial attitudes influence presidential vote switching in the United States, but not all forms of racial attitude change are equally consequential. An analysis of a three-wave panel of American National Election Studies respondents from 2016, 2020, and 2024 contrasts two types of racial attitude change: perceptions of discrimination against Black Americans and relative racial affect (the difference in warmth toward white versus Black Americans). First, difference and fixed-effects models, which leverage within-person variation, reveal that decreases in perceived discrimination predict movement toward the Republican presidential candidate and shifts in relative racial affect show no association with vote choice. Reverse causality tests reinforce a directional effect from attitudinal change to vote change. There is minimal evidence that those who switched from voting for a Democrat to a Republican shift their racial attitudes in response. These findings demonstrate that dynamic grievance about racial injustice is a key driver of partisan realignment, highlighting that cognitive assessments of discrimination, rather than general racial affect, are central to understanding changes in electoral behavior.

In Spring 2024, we conducted a randomized controlled trial in Latino-majority communities in Arizona and Texas to test the impact and effects of voter registration campaigns run by local Registrars in high schools. We theorized that bringing election officials into schools dispels informational uncertainty, cultivates positive political attitudes and emotions, and ultimately boosts voter registration rates. Two partner schools were identified in each state and then randomized into treatment and control conditions. Before treatment, seniors at all four high schools were asked to complete a survey about their interest in and attitudes toward politics and voting. Registrars then conducted in-person visits at the two treatment schools. After treatment, the seniors again were asked to complete a survey. We find that the Registrars’ visits increased enthusiasm, encouragement, and interest around voting and decreased anxiety.