The optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) sensitivity of quartz ranges across five orders of magnitude. Previous studies suggested that quartz OSL sensitivity is enhanced by solar exposure–burial irradiation cycles. Spatially resolved luminescence measurements and laboratory illumination–irradiation experiments were used to investigate the OSL sensitivity of quartz crystals from a granodiorite cobble and quartz grains from a fluvial sand. Quartz from the granodiorite cobble has low OSL sensitivity, showing an approximately linear sensitization path that resulted from laboratory illumination–irradiation cycles. The mean OSL sensitivity of quartz sand grains (100 grains) increased from ∼40 to 80 counts after 1260 illumination–irradiation cycles. Each grain has a specific sensitization trajectory due to illumination–irradiation cycles, suggesting that quartz crystal composition heterogeneities drive the OSL sensitization of their daughter sediment grains. Maximum OSL sensitivity of quartz sand grains is reached after illumination–irradiation cycles representing an accumulated dose of around 4000 Gy. This dose corresponds to sediment burial time of 2–4 Ma, which is unlikely to occur during a single sediment transport route. This study suggests that illumination–irradiation cycles are unable to produce quartz sand grains with OSL sensitivity up to five orders of magnitude higher than the sensitivity of parent crystals in igneous or metamorphic rocks.

This paper studies efficiency in the housing market in the presence of search frictions and endogenous entry of buyers and sellers. These two features are essential to explain the housing market stylized facts and to generate an upward-sloping Beveridge Curve in the housing market. Search frictions and endogenous entry create two externalities in the market. First, there is a congestion externality common to markets with search frictions. Sellers do not internalize the effect of listing a house for sale on other sellers’ probability of finding a buyer. Second, the endogenous entry of buyers leads to a participation externality, as new entrants in the market raise search costs for all buyers. The equilibrium is inefficient even when the Hosios-Mortensen-Pissarides condition holds. Using a calibration to the US housing market, we quantify the size of these externalities and how far the housing market is from the optimal allocation. The optimal vacancy rate and time-to-sell are about half their equilibrium counterparts, whereas the optimal number of buyers and homeowners are above their decentralized equilibrium values. Finally, we investigate how housing market policies restore efficiency in the housing market.

Digital health services in Kenya comprise mobile health applications (mHealth apps), electronic health records, telehealth and telemedicine, which form part of an expanding digital health assemblage. These are shaped by transnational development agendas and donor-driven public health interventions. This paper discusses the for-profit turn in the digitalisation of health care – what I term the ‘appisation’ of health – as a site of intensified commodification where users are reconfigured as digitised health consumers. While other scholars have argued that digitalisation functions as extractive in deepening market penetration into spheres of life we rely on, I extend these arguments by claiming that, far from enhancing access, these technologies exploit vulnerabilities through opaque governance mechanisms and algorithmic decision-making, while transferring responsibility for health from the state to the individual, thus creating new dependencies on market-mediated platforms. Using discursive interface analysis of two health apps in Kenya, I examine how consumer health apps embed vulnerabilities while consumer law remains structurally limited in confronting the collective harms they generate.

Blood culture contamination (BCC) leads to increased costs and patient harms. We reviewed 525 BCC cases and found 71.2% of BCC cases were ordered for indications with low risk for bacteremia and most received unnecessary tests and antibiotics. Diagnostic stewardship of blood cultures may reduce BCC and its associated costs.

Wheat production is increasingly threatened by high-temperature stress. The Tarai belt of eastern India, a non-traditional wheat-growing region, remains understudied regarding heat stress impacts. This study evaluated five wheat cultivars under late-sowing-induced terminal heat stress (THS) condition, assessing physiological, biochemical, and agronomic traits and their interrelationships. Three late-sowing environments (LSE) were tested: 15-day (LSE-I), 30-day (LSE-II), and 45-day (LSE-III) delay, compared to timely-sown control (NSE). A 15-day delay had minimal impacts, whereas 30- and 45-day delays significantly reduced grain number per ear, ear length, and 1000-grain weight, resulting in 24% and 51% yield losses, respectively. Under LSE-II and LSE-III, substantial increases were recorded in flag leaf catalase (166-214%), peroxidase (191-227%), and proline (88-105%), while membrane stability index (MSI), relative water content (RWC), and chlorophyll index (SPAD) declined by 23-28%, 9-14%, and 7-17%, respectively. Prominent changes in antioxidant enzyme activities, proline, and phenol content were observed between anthesis and the soft-dough stage. Multivariate linear regression models indicated that yield was positively associated with RWC, MSI, SPAD, and canopy temperature, whereas enzymatic and secondary metabolite effects on yield were comparatively less pronounced. Among the cultivars, HD 2967 and K 0370 performed best under late-sown conditions, with HD 2967 showing the highest stability. Overall, the results highlight that sowing before 5 December and selecting suitable cultivars are essential for alleviating THS in the Tarai region of eastern India. RWC, MSI, and SPAD emerge as key physiological traits conferring resilience to THS, warranting their validation across a broader genotypic pool in future studies.

This article examines the negotiation of ethnopolitical categories in wartime Nazi Germany by analyzing Gestapo investigations into accusations of “friendliness to Poland” against German citizens of Polish descent in the industrial Ruhr conurbation. By relying heavily on denunciations and informing, the Gestapo incentivized ordinary Germans in the Ruhr to identify perceived “dangerous outsiders” to the Volksgemeinschaft. Some therefore relied on longstanding anti-Polish tropes to frame accusations in the racial categories of the Nazi state. But while many such accusations alerted the Gestapo’s attention, they frequently masked a pursuit of personal issues and presented officers with significant investigatory difficulties. Unlike the generally brutal treatment of ethnolinguistic minorities in Nazi Germany, Gestapo officers often did not simply employ blanket repression in these cases. They frequently considered accused individuals’ socioeconomic productivity and “commitment” to Germany, characteristics that defendants stressed, thus highlighting the often contingent, unstable process of ethnic boundary formation in Nazi Germany.

Our analysis of 61 versions of the Great Basin (GB) Indigenous oral-history narrative, Theft of Pine Nuts, provides valuable new paleoecological insights into late Pleistocene (LP) and Holocene biogeography of pinyon pine (Pinus monophylla). Pinyon homelands indicated by Indigenous sources were located not only within the current pinyon distribution but also north of the known range, in northern California and Nevada, southern Oregon and Idaho, and western Wyoming. These extramarginal pinyon locations corroborate and expand a Western science hypothesis that proposed LP or Early Holocene refugial populations for pinyon in northern GB that subsequently became extirpated. The narratives also provide new evidence for pre-contact distributions of native mammals in the GB. From analysis of the “ice-barrier” accounts in the Indigenous narratives, we propose parts of this oral-history narrative may have been transmitted since LP times. Whereas most prior efforts have assessed Indigenous oral histories that describe catastrophic geologic events, we document that important ecological dynamics are also embedded in these stories. Our analysis joins other studies in recognizing that oral-history narratives can contain reliable eyewitness observations that are useful for reconstructing paleoenvironmental events and conditions.

Cardiac MRI confirmed ventricular dysfunction identified by echocardiography and additionally detected myocardial oedema and fibrosis in some paediatric patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, systemic scleroderma, and mixed connective tissue disease. These findings were followed by changes in immunotherapy in 3 of 11 patients, supporting the added diagnostic and clinical value of cardiac MRI in managing paediatric patients with rheumatologic disorders.

The design of subnational fiscal frameworks shapes how tax and spending choices affect fiscal sustainability. Using Scotland as a case, we show that its fiscal health depends crucially on how the UK Government manages its own sustainability. National and subnational fiscal sustainability are interconnected. Differences in factors like demographics and health between Scotland and the UK also influence fiscal outcomes. These dynamics must inform any debate on reforming the UK’s fiscal frameworks, especially if further devolution—including to English regions—is pursued.

After introducing the topic of antifascism on the internet and the issues that scientific publications encounter when facing the web, the first part of this contribution in Contexts and Debates examined the first of three digital history projects connected to this topic, the Atlante delle stragi naziste e fasciste. In this following section, the attention is focused on two more publications: IF – Intellettuali in fuga dall’Italia fascista, a project tied to the issue of mobility for people persecuted by the Fascist regime; and Memorie in Cammino, a project that approaches its content and the user’s interaction with it in an entirely non-linear manner, reconstructing the lives and actions of those who resisted the regime.

Hydrothermal explosions are a significant geological hazard in some active volcanic systems; however, the timing and triggering mechanisms of these explosions are poorly constrained. This study applies luminescence dating techniques to hydrothermal explosion deposits in the Yellowstone Plateau volcanic field to constrain explosion chronologies and evaluate potential triggering mechanisms. We tested four luminescence dating techniques: K-feldspar post-infrared infrared stimulated luminescence (pIRIR225), quartz blue light optically stimulated luminescence (BLOSL), quartz blue thermoluminescence (BTL), and quartz red thermoluminescence (RTL). The pIRIR225 and RTL protocols produce consistent age estimates that agree with independent radiocarbon ages and with the timing of the Pinedale deglaciation. This study focuses on two craters, Mary Bay, along the northern shore of Yellowstone Lake, and Pocket Basin in Lower Geyser Basin. The mean pIRIR225 ages from Mary Bay deposits (11.99 ± 0.68 ka) agree with previous radiocarbon constraints. The mean pIRIR225 results from Pocket Basin deposits (13.44 ± 1.06 ka) suggest a history of explosion following Pinedale deglaciation, followed by recent hydrothermal alteration. Luminescence dating techniques are a promising tool for reconstructing the timing of hydrothermal explosions in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene, helping to constrain recurrence intervals of the largest hydrothermal systems, informing risk, and improving hazard assessments.