A ParasiteBlitz event offers a brief, intense opportunity to discover diverse parasite species and to reveal life cycles of heteroxenous parasite taxa. In this study, we describe Monomyxum ligophori n. sp., a hyperparasitic myxozoan (Monomyxidae) proliferating in two dactylogyrid monopisthocotylan flatworms (Ligophorus saladensis, Ligophorus mugilinus) infecting mugilid fishes (Mugil cephalus, Mugil curema) on the Atlantic coast of North America. Furthermore, we used DNA barcoding to infer the parasite’s complex life cycle, matching its hyperparasitic myxospore stages with actinospore stages infecting the polychaete Streblospio benedicti found in the same locality during the ParasiteBlitz and also reported previously from the same region. Thus we report the first life cycle of a myxozoan that most likely does not require a vertebrate host. Hyperparasitic myxozoans are rare with only five species reported worldwide to infect flatworms. This study provides more information on the previously discussed host specificity towards monopisthocotylan hosts of these monomyxid myxozoan hyperparasites. Notably, Monomyxum ligophori n. sp. was detected in two out of four gill-infecting parasitic flatworms (being absent in Ligophorus uruguayensis and Metamicrocotyla macracantha) found infecting the same fish individuals during the ParasiteBlitz. Our molecular data and phylogenetic analysis support the previously suggested common origin of Monomyxum species infecting monopisthocotylan flatworms, and contribute to understanding the life cycle and host interactions of this unique hyperparasitic myxozoan lineage.

In this retrospective case series, we present two patients with primary lateral sclerosis (PLS) and spasticity-related gait impairment. Both patients were assessed with 6-min walk tests (6MWT) and timed up and go (TUG) at baseline and after 4 weeks of oral levetiracetam. Following levetiracetam therapy, Patient 1 improved 27.3% (148.5 to 189 m) on 6MWT and 26.1% (23–17 s) on TUG. Patient 2 improved 18% (90 m in 4:29 min to 112 m in 6 min) on 6MWT and 10% (46–41 s) on TUG. Larger prospective trials of levetiracetam for spasticity and gait may be considered in PLS.

The burden of cancer worldwide is rising, with 20 million new cases diagnosed in 2022. In Europe, 1.2 million women are diagnosed with cancer annually and an estimated 600,000 women die from cancer each year. International research and data from Ireland demonstrate that women with cancer face a particular set of challenges, including increased psychological distress compared to men. As a result, Ireland’s Model of Care for Psycho-Oncology could usefully place greater emphasis on gender-specific provisions which address the increased psychological needs of women. To date, Ireland has made some progress in recognising the physical and mental healthcare needs of women and developing gender-informed policies. It is essential that such policies are implemented fully so as to reduce and eliminate disparities in care. A more tailored, gender-informed approach would also help ensure the provision of gender-aware psycho-oncological care for all women and men as they navigate their cancer journeys.

This article investigates the organization of a transnational criminal enterprise through a detailed case study of Operation Singapore, a network producing and trafficking falsified pharmaceuticals from China to the United Kingdom. Drawing on law enforcement records, court transcripts, digital communications, and expert interviews, the study maps the structure and strategies of this criminal enterprise. It applies Peter Reuter’s theory of criminal organization, and Niles Breuer and Federico Varese’s typology of network forms to show how functional roles shape organizational structure: production was hierarchical and security-driven, while distribution was decentralized and transactional. Trust was not based on kinship or ethnicity but constructed through moral appeals and restricted information flows. The case reveals how criminal actors exploit legal frameworks and commercial infrastructures to mask illegal activity and blur boundaries between legal and illegal markets. These findings challenge static models of organized crime and call for a more dynamic, relational understanding of criminal enterprise.

In a propensity-matched cohort of adult cardiac or neurosurgical procedures (n = 1,342), infection was less frequent with continuous infusion (1.8%) versus intermittent cefazolin (2.4%), though the difference was statistically non-significant (−0.6%, 95% CI−2.3 to 1.1; p = 0.57). The 0% infection rate among cardiac cases receiving continuous cefazolin infusion warrants further investigation.

Analysis of the projectile points from the Arroyo Seco 2 site allows us to evaluate their design and use from the Early to the Late Holocene in the Pampas region. The Arroyo Seco 2 projectile points are associated with events of interpersonal violence as well as hunting. Based on the techno-morphological and typological analysis and the interpretation of weapon systems, it enables us to establish differences and similarities of several point designs. The results are integrated with projectile point information from other sites in the eastern Pampas to develop a chronological sequence from the Late Pleistocene through the Holocene of projectile designs that were used throughout the period.

Shmuel Nili’s Beyond the Law’s Reach? is an inquiry into the moral duties of the world’s established democracies in a world rife with violent and undemocratic states. Nili argues that these “consolidated” democratic states are “entangled” with the leaders of such violent polities—and uses this entanglement to derive an elegant and plausible series of political duties. In response, this essay seeks to undermine the distinction between the established democracies and the violent states, by showing that some democratic states—including, most centrally, the United States—are as violent as those societies considered by Nili as the focus of international moral obligation. This fact, however, does not impugn the moral obligations identified by Nili; instead, it demonstrates that Nili’s duties might demand something like a necessary form of moral hypocrisy—in which a democratic state might be effectively able to undermine violence abroad, even while incapable of effectively eliminating that violence on its own territory.

In this paper, we prove the integrality conjecture for quotient stacks arising from weakly symmetric representations of reductive groups. Our main result is a decomposition of the cohomology of the stack into finite-dimensional components indexed by some equivalence classes of cocharacters of a maximal torus. This decomposition enables the definition of new enumerative invariants associated with the stack, which we begin to explore.

As emerging markets rise, some incumbent firms that once occupied follower positions are now striving for industry leadership, surpassing competitors to become new frontrunners. These firms must overcome both competitive barriers and organizational identity (OI) challenges, constructing a leading organizational identity (LOI) that aligns with their new roles. This study delves into these transformations through the temporality lens of OI, using a comparative analysis of two Chinese firms, and identifies two distinct modes: progressive evolution and radical change. The progressive evolution mode adopts a more gradual, layer-by-layer iterative transition, whereas the radical change mode follows a ‘break and (re)build’ logic to identity structure. Both modes demonstrate a ripple effect of OI’s three structural layers, radiating outward from the core. Temporal dynamics play a pivotal role: the progressive evolution mode aligns with a more stable environment and a future-oriented, long-term temporal perspective, while the radical change mode is linked to a dynamic, unstable environment and a past-oriented, short- and long- term interactive temporal pattern. This study highlights how temporal orientation and temporal horizon shape the construction of an LOI, advancing research on OI construction and its temporal dynamics while providing insights into high-position leaps in emerging markets.

In Beyond the Law’s Reach? Shmuel Nili examines the moral responsibilities of affluent democracies toward poorer countries to whose misfortunes they contributed. Because of their entanglement, Nili argues, affluent democracies are (often, but not always) morally barred from pursuing policies more obviously aligned with their moral preferences when another policy would benefit the weakened state more. In this essay, I discuss some of the challenges of trying to repay a moral debt between states. The affluent democracy has incentives to underestimate the extent of its moral debt, while the weakened state benefits from overestimating the harm it suffered. Moreover, since the state is not a unitary actor, different members of a state might disagree on which actions should count as proper forms of atonement. I argue that moral debts cannot ever be fully repaid, but that such impossibility does not undermine the moral requirement to try to pay them; and, further, that the inability to fully settle a moral debt is not a shortcoming to lament, but closer to a blessing in disguise, because acknowledging past misdeeds and embracing the moral implications of deep entanglement may foster greater reciprocity and solidarity in the international realm.

This article reinterprets Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s invasions of Korea (1592–1598) as a project of revisionist order-building undertaken by a liminal polity situated between two competing systems: the declining Ming-centered Chinese international system and the advancing Spanish–Portuguese imperial order. Rather than viewing the invasions as products of domestic consolidation, megalomania, or simple expansionism, the study situates them within Japan’s systemic dilemma of in-betweenness. From this perspective, Hideyoshi’s campaigns represented an attempt to construct a Japan-centered international system designed to assert autonomy, deter Iberian colonization, and reconfigure regional hierarchy. Drawing on the concept of liminality in international relations (IR), the paper shows how actors at the margins of overlapping systems can exercise strategic agency – not only adapting to dominant orders but seeking to create alternative ones. Hideyoshi’s vision combined elements of the Chinese international system and deterrent signaling aimed at European powers, producing a hybrid order neither Confucian nor colonial. Although the project collapsed after his death, it temporarily deterred European expansion and reshaped East Asian political dynamics. Theoretically, this case extends debates on revisionism and liminality, demonstrating that order-building from the margins can be both creative and destructive, illuminating broader dynamics of plural international orders.