This study presents a comprehensive systematic analysis of a cold-water brachiopod fauna from the upper Cisuralian (lower Permian) Kharnuden Formation, exposed at the Hovsugol section in southeastern Mongolia. Taxonomic investigation identifies 40 species belonging to 28 genera, including three newly described taxa: Paramarginifera pentagona n. sp., Linoproductus planiconvexus n. sp., and Jilinmartinia hovsugolensis n. sp. Biostratigraphic evidence tentatively indicates a Kungurian age, with possible extension down into the Artinskian. The assemblage likely originated along the southern margin of the Siberian Craton, within the Paleo-Asian Ocean (PAO). The fauna exhibits strong biogeographic affinities with contemporaneous faunas from the Beishan orogenic belt (northwestern China), Inner Mongolia, South Primorye (Russia), and selected Japanese terranes, yet differs significantly from assemblages in Transbaikal and central-northeastern Mongolia. These contrasts support the presence of the Sino-Mongolian Seaway—a transitional marine corridor within the closing PAO. The fauna is characterized by elements of the northern Boreal biogeographic realm, with a dominance of cold-adapted and endemic taxa and a complete absence of paleotropical elements. Associated paleoecological indicators suggest the influence of cool-temperate conditions at a relatively high-latitude paleogeographic position as well as geographic isolation. This paleobiogeographic pattern sheds light on the responses of Permian marine ecosystems to plate convergence, latitudinal climate gradients, and oceanic current reorganization during the final stages of the PAO closure.

UUID: http://zoobank.org/67bcfb84-2b08-46a7-a117-d86b79837c75

A computable topological presentation of a space is given by an effective list of a countable basis of non-empty open sets so that the intersection of the basic sets is uniformly effectively enumerable. We show that every countably-based $T_0$-space has a computable topological presentation, and that, conversely, every (formal) computable topological presentation represents some Polish space. In the compact case, we give a computable uniform list of computable topological presentations such that every compact Polish space is represented by exactly one presentation from the list. Note that none of these results assume that the Polish (or $T_0$) spaces are effective. Quite surprisingly, the effectively compact topological presentations turn out to be rather well behaved. Not only do such presentations allow one to construct a $\Delta ^0_2$ (complete) metric compatible with the topology, but also, under a mild extra condition, they can be turned into a computably compact Polish presentation of the space.

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, robotics, as its core branch, has attracted extensive attention from researchers. This paper designs and develops a robotic arm learning system based on multi-source sensor information fusion, which investigates the autonomous learning capability of robotic arms by closely integrating deep reinforcement learning (DRL) as the core framework for skill acquisition. By incorporating imitation learning as a source of expert prior and leveraging DRL’s intrinsic ability for policy optimization through environmental exploration, the proposed system achieves both rapid learning and robust generalization. Specifically, we introduce the gradient penalty mechanism from Wasserstein generative adversarial networks (WGANs), a technique that improves the stability of adversarial training by penalizing gradients that deviate from a specified norm. This mechanism is incorporated into the soft actor-critic (SAC) algorithm, a widely used off-policy DRL method known for its sample efficiency and robust performance in continuous control tasks. The resulting SAC-GP (SAC-gradient penalty) algorithm benefits from both SAC’s stable policy learning and WGAN’s improved training regularization, leading to superior convergence speed and system stability. Furthermore, this paper proposes a hybrid learning framework by combining generative adversarial imitation learning (GAIL) with SAC-GP, enabling the agent to benefit from both demonstration-based policy initialization and continuous self-improvement via reinforcement learning. Finally, a door-opening experiment is designed to verify the learning and execution capabilities of the system in both virtual and real environments. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed learning system possesses excellent learning and motion execution abilities in practical applications. This achievement not only provides new insights for research in robot learning but also lays a solid foundation for the future development of robotic technology.

This study focuses on the carriage and antibiotic-susceptibility profiles of Gram-positive bacteria in dromedary camel milk. A total of 103 milk samples were collected from apparently healthy female dromedaries in southern Tunisia. Bacterial growth was observed only in 82 of these samples, yielding 86 Gram-positive bacterial isolates. Staphylococcus was the most frequently isolated genus (54/86, 62.8%) with 13% of coagulase-positive staphylococci (CoPS) represented by S. aureus and S. intermedius and 87% of coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) (n = 47) identified as S. simulans, S. xylosus, S. warneri, S. hominus1, S. capitis, S. sciuri and S. equorum. Cellulomonas spp. (16, 18.6%), Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis (8, 9.3%), Aerococcus viridans (7, 8.5%) and Kocuria rosea (1, 1.1%) were also identified. Staphylococcus species showed the highest resistance to chloramphenicol (50% of samples), followed by clindamycin (42.6% of samples), neomycin and nalidixic acid (40.7% each). No resistance genes were detected for the low levels of resistance to penicillin, oxacillin and cefoxitin. Cellulomonas spp., L. lactis subsp. lactis and A. viridans isolates exhibited moderate frequency of resistance, particularly to aminoglycosides and tetracycline. However, resistances to sulphonamide-trimethoprim, ciprofloxacin, nitrofurantoin, tylosin and rifampicin were rarely detected. Multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria were identified in 11.7% of the total isolates, with the higher rates observed for L. lactis subsp. lactis (25% of samples), A. viridans (14.2% of samples) and Cellulomonas spp. (6.25%), while 11% of Staphylococcus isolates were MDR, significantly more in CoPS (28.5%) than CoNS (8.5%). Additionally, MDR rate was higher in older female (p = 0.042) and those raised alongside ruminants (p = 0.030). All tested MDR bacteria exhibited significant combinations of resistance genes, including aph3-IIIa and ant6-Ia for aminoglycosides, cat(pC221) for chloramphenicol, ermA for erythromycin and clindamycin, tetK for tetracycline and drfA for trimethoprim-sulphonamide. Further, comprehensive studies are needed to understand MDR bacteria emergence within camel milk.

In this paper, we design a novel axiomatic approach to evaluating the joint risk of multiple insurance risks under dependence uncertainty. To be precise, we first establish a joint risk measure for non-negative multivariate risks, which we refer to as a (scalar) distortion joint risk measure. Then, we characterize it via a new set of axioms. Moreover, we introduce a new class of vector-valued distortion joint risk measures for non-negative multivariate risks and discuss their basic properties. Finally, comparisons with some existing vector-valued multivariate risk measures are made. It turns out that those vector-valued multivariate risk measures have forms of vector-valued distortion joint risk measures, respectively. This paper provides some relevant theoretical results about the evaluation of joint risk under dependence uncertainty.

In a time of mass global e-waste production, a re-evaluation of re-purposing and recycling practices feels particularly relevant not only in life but also in art-making processes, especially in temporarily mounted installations, both sonic and visual. What is junk and what is useful material? Can the use of salvaged materials also encourage creativity and innovation? This paper, weaving in theoretical frameworks from sound studies, media archaeology and eco-sonic aesthetics, suggests that using mismatched ‘garbage’ loudspeakers and unconventional loudspeaker arrays can offer sound artists creative opportunities for the exploration of new aural spaces and spatial and timbral possibilities, through the formation of sounding sculptures. Examining Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council-funded sound and art installation Waste Whisperer (2023) as a case study, which involved a bespoke 40 loudspeaker set-up of salvaged ‘trash’, the article also explores the work of artists such as Benoit Maubrey, John Wynne and Nor Tijan Firdaus, who use discarded e-waste as their primary sculptural materials, as well as Paul Rogers’ research around the concept of ‘sonic junk’. In addition, the concepts of transparency and ‘realism’ in the audio medium are discussed, positing critical reflections on prevailing techno-utopian narratives in contemporary audio communities around ‘matching’ loudspeakers and spatialisation conventions.

In soundscape composition, environmental sounds form a ‘language’ that highlights the voices of the environment for everyone’s contemplation. Ideally, they create an atmosphere and space of listening that allow us to grapple with and perceive more deeply the ecological imbalances, social inequalities, cultural gaps, and political issues in which we find ourselves. With the help of compositional examples, the author traces ways in which soundscape compositions can be a forum for ‘speaking back’ in protest, making oppositional voices heard while simultaneously exploring artistic-poetic expressions for a deeper listening engagement with the sonic complexity of environmental sounds and the meanings they carry within them. Furthermore, the author considers whether and how a soundscape composition can be a relationship-builder between environment and listener: can it be an agent for listening to the land, to the natural world, in ways that make urgent and necessary changes of human behaviour possible?

Let $p$ be a prime, let $1 \le t \lt d \lt p$ be integers, and let $S$ be a non-empty subset of $\mathbb{F}_p$. We establish that if a polynomial $P:\mathbb{F}_p^n \to \mathbb{F}_p$ with degree $d$ is such that the image $P(S^n)$ does not contain the full image $A(\mathbb{F}_p)$ of any non-constant polynomial $A: \mathbb{F}_p \to \mathbb{F}_p$ with degree at most $t$, then $P$ coincides on $S^n$ with a polynomial that in particular has bounded degree-$\lfloor d/(t+1) \rfloor$-rank in the sense of Green and Tao. Similarly, we prove that if the assumption holds even for $t=d$, then $P$ coincides on $S^n$ with a polynomial determined by a bounded number of coordinates.

Some may dismiss the prospect of a decolonial transnational surrogacy as a contradiction in terms. After all, there is a parasitic takeover and expansion of the foetus into the host’s body; and the labor is often extracted by those in the Global North from those in the Global South on exploitative terms. However, I claim that a decolonial surrogacy is not necessarily a misnomer nor unimaginable. To either ban surrogacy entirely or allow it fully under the current system falls into the trap of discussing binaries within limited frameworks that decolonialism seeks to resist. I argue that, if there is to be a decolonial surrogacy, it entails a different system altogether. As such, I present a “tripartite-hybrid” model to decolonize surrogacy: an expanded relational unit, basic services, and targeting multiple norm-based hierarchies. While requiring fundamental changes to current conceptions of family and to broader social structures, the proposals together are ways to deal with the “ontological difference” (limki 2018) in surrogacy and to meet decolonial feminist aims. If, and only if, these requirements are met, is a decolonial surrogacy possible.