This paper introduces a parallelizable lossless image compression algorithm designed for three-channel standard images and two-channel pathology images. The proposed algorithm builds on the Quite OK Image Format (QOI) by addressing its limitations in parallelizability and compression efficiency, thereby enhancing both the compression ratio and processing speed. By incorporating image context and optimizing pixel traversal sequences, the algorithm enables effective parallel processing, achieving rapid compression of million-pixel pathology images within milliseconds, and is scalable to larger whole-slide images. It also delivers exceptional performance in terms of both speed and compression ratio for standard images. Additionally, the low complexity lossless compression for images (LOCO-I) context prediction algorithm used in joint photographic experts group lossless standard (JPEG-LS) is parallelized to improve compression efficiency and speed. By implementing full-process parallelization across the entire compression workflow rather than confining parallelization to individual steps, this approach significantly enhances overall time performance.

A large-scale outcrop was exposed along the newly constructed road access to the Kumamoto Earthquake Museum “KIOKU” (former Tokai University Aso Campus). Multiple layers of tephra and paleosols cover the Sawatsuno lava (27 ± 6 K-Ar ka) in this outcrop. Three (3) characteristic tephra layers: Kusasenrigahama Pumice (Kpfa: ca. 32.5 cal ka BP) from Kusasenrigahama crater in Aso caldera, Aira Tn (AT: ca. 30 cal ka BP) and Kikai Akahoya (K-Ah: ca. 7.3 cal ka BP) from southern Kyushu are intercalated between thick sandy volcanic ash layers erupted from the post-caldera volcanoes of Aso caldera. Thirteen (13) radiocarbon ages were obtained from soil samples and charcoal fragments. Among these, a sample just below AT shows a younger age, indicating that the upper soil/tephra sequence including AT, was re-deposited on ground surface at the time immediately after ca. 13.4 cal ka BP indicated by this age. This suggests that the duplicated sequence, confirmed by our detailed dating is a product of either near-surface hidden faulting or a small local landslide associated with one of the paleoseismic events similar to the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake.

Since the mid-20th century, medical devices have proliferated in clinical care, operating rooms, and in everyday life via home health and wearable technologies. Medical devices include a broad range of technologies such as imaging devices, genomic assays, surgical implants, assistive devices, and health monitors. Unlike pharmaceuticals, food, and cosmetics, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did not prioritize medical device regulation in the early 1900s; devices only became a site of concern post-World War II as more complex and invasive technologies were developed and used in health care. Drawing on analysis of FDA regulations, government documents, historical media coverage, and FDA oral histories, this article traces the evolution of medical device regulation, historicizing persistent debates that position technological innovation and regulation in tension with one another. We demonstrate how limited legal authority prior to 1976 positioned FDA as lagging behind the proliferation of medical devices, which continues to haunt device regulation today. We then analyze the values embedded in device risk classifications and regulatory pathways, considering the consequences for the public’s safety and trust.

This article attempts a first historical periodisation of the checkered history of the French Southern Islands in the Indian Ocean. Beginning with early extractive activities during the 18th and 19th centuries and followed by colonial ambitions during the first half of the 20th century, the article also discusses the more recent efforts of the French government to reinforce sovereignty in the form of permanent bases, especially during the 1950s and 1960s. The most recent period covered of scientific affirmation and ecological restoration (1970s–2006) introduces a solid historical perspective on the still ongoing efforts (from 2006 onwards) of reinforced patrimonialisation and environmental protection of the French Southern Islands. Throughout all periods, our main attention is directed towards various forms of projects. Indeed, the project perspective allows to uncover largely forgotten ambitions and shows that the history of the French Southern Islands is closely connected to larger historical developments in the entire Antarctic and sub-Antarctic region.

Loess–paleosol sequences (LPSs) provide valuable archives of Quaternary paleoenvironments. Here we present new data from the Baix LPS, comprising the entire Late Pleistocene. The Baix LPS is located at the western edge of the Rhône Rift Valley, France, in the transition zone from the presently temperate to the Mediterranean region of Europe. This LPS provides a missing link between the analyzed LPSs in the presently temperate regions farther north and those in the Mediterranean region. Reddish Btg horizons of a Stagnic Luvisol at the base of the Baix LPS represent the remains of an MIS 5 pedocomplex formed under warm and, at least temporarily, relatively moist conditions. Two brown Bw horizons of truncated Cambisols have been preserved in the overlying MIS 5a/4 to MIS 3 deposits. The upper Bw horizon is associated with large carbonate nodules, indicating that considerable amounts of calcium carbonate were leached from a former MIS 3 Cambisol and accumulated in the underlying loess unit. This truncated MIS 3 Cambisol is very similar to the MIS 3 paleosol remains in the LPS Collias that we investigated 87 km farther south in the present Mediterranean climate. No paleosols were observed in the late MIS 2 deposits.

In the Nejapa region of Oaxaca, places now categorized by some as archaeological ruins have retained power and meaning through time. Ruins often retain vibrancy and are (and were) typically treated respectfully and carefully. Although many of the sites may no longer be occupied by humans, these ruined or palimpsest places should not be considered entirely abandoned or uninhabited. Some sites in Nejapa, such as Los Picachos and Cerro del Convento, were charged with spiritual valency that inspired people to leave offerings at the sites. Other long unoccupied archaeological sites, such as the ruins of La Baeza, Casa Vieja, and the Pueblo Viejo, were viewed in multiple ways: sometimes approached with trepidation or purposely avoided, and at other times viewed with nostalgia and reverence. Part of what makes ruins powerful and layered with meanings is their association with ancestors and their common connections to memorable, and often difficult, historical events. Thus, ruins play active roles and can at times inspire social actions and at other times entail intentional avoidance.

In contemporary politics, the rise of a leadership style centered on “gaslighting”—persuasion through systematic besmirching, belittling, and the inversion of shared norms—poses profound challenges to democracy. This essay traces the conceptual roots of gaslighting and its uptake as a style of leadership, explores its distinguishing features compared to other manipulative political tactics, and uses the current American situation (that is, the rhetoric of Donald Trump and JD Vance) alongside international examples to illustrate its consequences. Against this backdrop, “adaptive leadership” is advanced as a normative counterweight—one that invites honest engagement with adaptive challenges and bolsters civic trust. The contrast illuminates the stakes for democratic culture as gaslighting erodes the very fabric of orientation, accountability, and mutual respect. It is no exaggeration here to speak of a battle for the soul of democracy.

Cultural heritage occupies a paradoxical position in law: It is protected as property but experienced as a repository of identity, memory, and dignity. This article examines whether cultural heritage could, in principle, be recognized as a subject of law, drawing on emerging developments in environmental and nonhuman personhood. After tracing the historical and conceptual evolution of legal personhood—from human and corporate subjects to nature and ecosystems—it explores the moral, relational, and symbolic dimensions that might justify extending personhood to heritage. The analysis highlights both the potential benefits of such recognition, including stronger ethical and representational protections, and the associated risks, such as legal inflation, state appropriation, and conflicts with ownership and restitution law. Ultimately, it argues that rethinking heritage through the lens of relational personhood reveals the need for a more pluralistic and ethically responsive legal imagination.

The main goal of this article is to show how disco polo’s entry into the mainstream disrupted the existing cultural hierarchy in Poland and how it influenced the attitudes and narratives surrounding the genre. Disco polo is a subgenre of Polish electronic folk music characterised by a simple rhythm and a clear melodic line. It is often criticised for its vulgar lyrics and simplistic musical structure, and its audience is commonly associated with lower class and poor taste. Drawing on empirical data from a qualitative study conducted in 2021, we demonstrate that disco polo’s temporary promotion to mainstream during 2016-2023 was superficial and, to some extent, artificial, driven by politically motivated programming decisions made by public media authorities. However, we argue that disco polo fans benefited from this phenomenon, as it strengthened their sense of self-worth, helped them cope with class-related stigma, and reinforced their integration as a community.

Given a weakly almost additive sequence of continuous functions with bounded variation ${\mathcal {F}}=\{\log f_n\}_{n=1}^{\infty }$ on a subshift X over finitely many symbols, we study properties of a function f on X such that $\lim _{n\to \infty }({1}/{n})\int \log f_n\,d\mu =\int f\,d\mu $ for every invariant measure $\mu $ on X. Under some conditions, we construct a function f on X explicitly, and study a relation between the property of ${\mathcal {F}}$ and some particular types of f. As applications, we study images of Gibbs measures for continuous functions under one-block factor maps. We investigate a relation between the almost additivity of the sequences associated to relative pressure functions and the fiber-wise sub-positive mixing property of a factor map. For a special type of one-block factor maps between shifts of finite type, we study necessary and sufficient conditions for the image of a one-step Markov measure to be a Gibbs measure for a continuous function.

The poet of the Odyssey exhibits great artistic flexibility in his handling of the highly conventional elements of early Greek epic: larger themes and narrative patterns, character and episodic doublets and triplets, type-scenes, and even short formulaic phrases. The poet’s presentation of a sequence of ‘just as a father to his own son’ formulas over the course of the Odyssey is examined here, with a view to illustrating how they interact with one another to convey sentiments that are at first genuinely pathetic, arousing in the audience sadness and sympathy, but then increasingly ironic and even sarcastic.