This study investigated the factors influencing growers in the selection of seed suppliers in the Amhara region of Ethiopia. A total of 385 grower were selected using simple random sampling method. A mixed logit regression model was used to the analysis data that have 1284 observation. The result reveal that high seed purity was negatively related to the selection of alternative supplier. As the rating of seed purity increased, the probability of selecting very high-quality seed suppliers also increased. The availability of tree seeds during the desired time period had a significant influence. Higher perceived availability, categorized as high or very high, decreased the likelihood of promptly obtaining seeds from suppliers compared to when the seeds were not available. The evaluation rating of germination increases the probability of choosing suppliers with high or very high germination rates in the respective category. Growers with more experience are more likely to choose private enterprise suppliers. The implementation of appropriate quarantine measures has a positive influence on supplier selection for the groups AFE and EFD-CEC. Training in tree seed collection reduces the likelihood of choosing enterprise and AFE suppliers. Moreover, the successful production of a greater number of tree species in the nursery positively influences the probability of sourcing from enterprise suppliers. This analysis highlights the significance of seed purity, germination, quarantine measures, and the number of species produced, as factors that influence the likelihood of selecting alternative seed suppliers.

To delay paying wages to seamen, the late Stuart Navy issued them instead with “tickets” to be redeemed for cash after months or years of delay. Seamen often sold the tickets at deep discounts to ticket buyers, who became government creditors for unpaid wages, one of the largest items in the national debt. Ticket buyers were savagely attacked in pamphlets. This article is a preliminary exploration of ticket buying, focusing on the large minority of buyers who were women. It shows that many of them were in fact the wives and widows of the seamen, working in the crowded streets around the Navy Office and in the cottages of the maritime communities nearby. Navy pay books are introduced as a key source; the business of one trader is evaluated using her financial papers, and the work of others assessed from probate records. Ticket buying opened up related opportunities for women as brokers of deals and as professional receivers of wages. But while pawning could be used as protection against the growing hazard of unpaid tickets, even with deep discounts it was difficult to make even a moderate return in the trade. Ticket buying was not a route to fortunes.

We investigate the end extendibility of models of arithmetic with restricted elementarity. By utilizing the restricted ultrapower construction in the second-order context, for each $n\in \mathbb {N}$ and any countable model of $\mathrm {B}\Sigma _{n+2}$, we construct a proper $\Sigma _{n+2}$-elementary end extension satisfying $\mathrm {B}\Sigma _{n+1}$, which answers a question by Clote positively. We also give a characterization of the countable models of $\mathrm {I}\Sigma _{n+2}$ in terms of their end extendibility, similar to the case of $\mathrm {B}\Sigma _{n+2}$. Along the proof, we introduce a new type of regularity principle in arithmetic called the weak regularity principle, which serves as a bridge between the model’s end extendibility and the amount of induction or collection it satisfies.

We collected data on every tenure-track (TT) faculty member in the 122 PhD-granting political science departments in the United States to identify which graduate programs place faculty members in our discipline’s research universities. The top 20% of departments produced 75% of all faculty and the bottom 50% accounted for less than 5% of all TT faculty members at a research university. Forty-nine programs did not have a single graduate placed in a TT position at a PhD-granting department in the past 10 years, and 18 programs did not have a single graduate in a TT position at a PhD-granting department at all. The overwhelming majority of TT faculty members are at a lower or equally ranked department. The results have important implications for prospective graduate students and the future of our discipline.

A novel high-selectivity ultra-wideband (UWB) balanced bandpass filter (BPF) with harmonic suppression characteristics is proposed. The differential-mode UWB passband is constructed using quarter-wavelength asymmetrical parallel-coupled transmission lines, resulting in sharp filtering selectivity, while common-mode noises are suppressed by loading the T-type stubs. A simple design method of integrating bandstop filter branches into the BPF for third harmonic suppression without increasing the circuit size is described and confirmed. A planar high-selectivity balanced BPF prototype is manufactured and measured at 2.6 GHz with a measured 3-dB fractional bandwidth of 108% to validate the framework principle. More importantly, with third harmonic suppression characteristics, the measured out-of-band rejection is more than 20 dB, spanning 4.35 GHz until 12.4 GHz.

The January 6th insurrection at the U.S. capital was an eye-opening moment for many Americans. With the 2024 election cycle in swing, members of the Democratic Party are using January 6th as a rallying call for the need to protect democracy. But were the events of January 6th viewed equally among liberals? We argue that the events of January 6th resonate for a particular demographic well-informed liberal White voters. We argue that liberal minority voters will feel the racial undertones of January 6th more than White liberals. Furthermore, we examine how voters of different races viewed the events of January 6th and how views on race relations impact their perceptions of January 6th. We find that White liberals are less angry about race relations in the aftermath of January 6th, and while they viewed January 6th as an insurrection and blamed Trump and Republicans in Congress for their role, they are less likely to say that racism and White Supremacy motivated the insurrectionists. This paper indicates that race plays a key role in political perceptions, even among those who hold similar political ideologies.

We examined the association between influenza vaccination policies at acute care hospitals and influenza vaccination coverage among healthcare personnel for the 2021–22 influenza season. Mandatory vaccination and masking for unvaccinated personnel were associated with increased odds of vaccination. Hospital employees had higher vaccination coverage than licensed independent practitioners.

Is smaller better for economic development? We argue that states’ past population size can be a powerful determinant of current development. Among states that gained independence shortly after World War II, states with smaller populations in their early years of independence had stronger incentives to adopt more open trade policies and employ larger public sectors. These policies “embedded” smaller newly independent states into the global economy during the Cold War, building the foundations for more inclusive economic institutions and greater political stability. When the Cold War ended, smaller newly independent states were more likely to have developed the institutional infrastructure to prosper in the globalizing yet politically volatile early twenty-first century. We test this argument by examining the developmental trajectories of 83 states that became independent between 1946 and 1975. Newly independent states with smaller populations during this period have had on average higher levels and rates of post-Cold War development. They also had more open trade policies and larger public sectors during the Cold War. These policies correlate with more inclusive economic institutions and greater political stability in the post-Cold War era. A comparative case study of Oman and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen illustrates the mechanisms linking the size of newly independent states at independence and their post-Cold War development.

In the second half of the ninth century, a new period of confrontation between the Armenian and Byzantine Churches began. The goal of Byzantine religious policy was the abolition of the independence of the Armenian Church and its unification with the imperial Church. In his letters addressed to the ecclesiastical and political leaders of Armenia, the patriarch Photios proposed that they abandon Monophysitism and accept Chalcedonianism. Under this religious veil were disguised the empire's real political, cultural and socio-economic goals. Although Photios could not achieve the final unification of the two Churches, his mission did bring about a temporary religious rapprochement between the Armenians and the Greeks.