We use data on Latino children in the United States who have been randomly assigned calculation tests in English or Spanish to check for the so-called bilingual advantage, the notion that knowing more than one language improves individuals’ other cognitive skills. After controlling for different characteristics of children and their parents, as well as children's time in the US, we find a bilingual advantage among children who read or write in English and Spanish but not for those who only speak or understand both languages. In particular, bilingual readers or writers perform one-fourth to one-third of a standard deviation better than monolingual children, equal to learning gains of an additional school year. Applying the Oster test, we find that selection on unobservables would need to be 3–4 times stronger than selection on observables to explain away our results. The bilingual advantage is stronger among children in two-parent households with siblings and for those at the upper end of the ability distribution.

We present an agent-based model to study how the structure of a scientific network could affect the public uptake of science and how this impact is influenced by scientific uncertainty and affinity bias. For unbiased agents, a highly connected scientific network decreases the probability that the public favors the correct theory. For biased agents, however, a moderately connected scientific network causes the public to favor the correct theory more often. This results from the competition between the scarcity of information (for poorly connected agents) and the spread of misleading information (for highly connected agents). Adding more scientists strengthens both effects.

Three popular objections to reductionism about color, experience as of impossible colors, the unary/binary distinction, and structural mismatch, are issues just, I argue, for the (probably default) version of reductionism according to which colors reduce to sets of surface spectral reflectances. They are not problems for the version on which colors are dispositions to reflect coarse-grained intensities of light are—what in colorimetry are called “object colors.” This article sets out to demonstrate the virtues of the latter reductionism.

This article defends informed preference satisfaction theories of welfare against the most influential objections put forward in the economic and philosophy of science literatures. The article explicates and addresses in turn: the objection from inner rational agents; the objection from unfeasible preference reconstruction; the objection from dubious normative commitments; the objection from conceptual ambiguity; and the objection from conceptual replacement. My defence does not exclude that preference satisfaction theories of welfare face significant conceptual and practical challenges. Still, if correct, it demonstrates that philosophers/welfare economists are justified in relying on specific versions of such theories, namely informed preference satisfaction theories.

Total anomalous pulmonary venous return is a rare CHD that may present in the neonatal period with signs of congestive cardiac failure. First-line treatment is corrective surgery in the first months of life. The authors report the case of a 2-month-old infant with non-obstructive total anomalous pulmonary venous return submitted to a two-stage hybrid repair, involving cardiac surgery and interventional cardiology.

This case report discusses a 1-year-old female with severe growth retardation and multiple congenital anomalies, including a large patent ductus arteriosus and interrupted inferior vena cava. Successful percutaneous patent ductus arteriosus closure was achieved via the azygos venous route, overcoming anatomical challenges and highlighting the importance of individualized procedural strategies in complex cases.

Is gender violence considered a part of advancing Indigenous self-determination in Alaska? What are the key jurisdictional, institutional, infrastructural, and community level challenges in combating violence against Alaska Native women? Few studies have considered the relationship between gender violence and Alaska Native sovereignty. I address this gap by employing the theory of relational Indigenous self-determination and drawing on research interviews with Indigenous women in Alaska and analyzing the data in light of two recent legislative changes: the 2022 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, and the legislation that formally recognizes Alaska Native tribes in the state of Alaska. The findings demonstrate that persistent questions about Alaska Native jurisdiction stemming from the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) limit considering violence against Indigenous women and Indigenous self-determination as issues that need to be addressed in tandem.

We use recent advances in polynomial diffusion processes to develop a continuous-time joint mortality model for the actuarial valuation and risk analysis of life insurance liabilities. The model considers the stochastic nature of future mortality improvements and introduces a common subordinator for the marginal survival processes, resulting in a nontrivial dependence structure between the survival of pairs of individuals. Polynomial diffusion processes can be used to derive closed-form formulae for standard actuarial quantities. The model fits well with a classic dataset provided by a Canadian insurer and can be used to evaluate products issued to multiple lives, as shown through numerical applications.

From a comparative perspective, this paper argues that early Chinese empires lacked the concept of talion or tort law when malicious violence or intent became factors. Instead, wrongdoers were required to pay fines to the government or received punishment as hard labor for the state. Victims not only could not receive compensation but were sometimes punished along with the offender if their loss was perceived as a loss to the empire. I argue that the absence of corrective justice in criminal cases can be traced back to the philosophical underpinnings of the body politic, a prominent discourse in early China that viewed the emperor and the people as a single, organic entity. When people were conceived of as constituting a unified, singular entity, criminal actions against an individual were interpreted as damage to the empire. Therefore, punishments for offenders were designed to compensate the empire, not the individual. Furthermore, in the context of the body politic, the suffering of both victims and offenders was regarded as metaphysically equal, which justified frequently pardoning culprits on a large scale to secure harmony within the empire. Originally, the body politic was employed to admonish and criticize the throne, urging the emperor to align his interests with the well-being of his people, but in practice, it compromised the practice of justice.

In Hong Kong, the basic joint enterprise principle is recognised as an independent basis for attributing criminal liability. Although the principle has been recognised by the highest courts of the United Kingdom, Australia, and Hong Kong at different times, this article suggests that it does not have a historical foundation in common law. This article further argues that the basic joint enterprise principle (i) has no practical utility as it completely overlaps with traditional accessorial liability and the inchoate offence of conspiracy; (ii) necessarily requires the court to engage in circular reasoning; (iii) is unable to deal with situations of evidential uncertainty; and (iv) unjustifiably disrupts the principal-accessory distinction under common law. It is therefore recommended that the basic joint enterprise principle be abolished.

Autism spectrum disorder is defined by the presence of sustained problems in areas of social cognition and social understanding alongside repetitive and/or restricted patterns of behaviour. Behavioural presentations and developmental trajectories in autism are highly heterogeneous. For most, characteristics variably continue across the lifespan, and, for many, they overlap with numerous overrepresented comorbid combinations spanning behavioural, psychiatric and somatic domains. The current autism diagnostic systems (DSM-5, ICD-11) reflect this heterogeneity, focusing on discerning different assistance needs and symptom severity combinations. An emerging view on the pluralisation of autism – ‘the autisms’ – based on different severity levels and different developmental trajectories is gaining popularity, bolstered by the introduction of the grouping ‘profound autism’ and observations of non-persistence of autism for some. We advance the case for expanding the definition of the plural autisms based also on the numerous different aetiological routes that can lead to autism. Various genetic conditions, susceptibility to infectious agents, non-infectious environmental exposures and immune-mediated occurrences have all been observed to culminate in a diagnosis of autism. As a triad, aetiology, presentation intensity and developmental trajectory offer new ways to classify the autisms, with potentially important implications for research and practice.