Today, few political news outlets receive universally favorable evaluations from the American public. In retaining broad public approval, local media remain a notable exception that is important to understand. We consider the durability of local news trust to criticism from politicians, focusing on Republican elites because they generally are more willing to attack the media than Democrats. In a survey experiment, we find that exposure to a Republican politician’s attack on a local newspaper dramatically reduces the public’s trust in and intent to use local news. This attack is particularly effective among Republicans, although it also leads Democrats and Independents to negatively shift their views of the local newspaper. Among those exposed to elite criticism of local news, overall trust and partisan divides between Republicans and Democrats resemble those for national media. This shows that the credibility of local news depends on the absence of elite criticism rather than resilience to it.

The 2016 peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP, and the demobilization of the latter, dismantled the governance structures in regions formerly under rebel control. Drawing from a relational security framework, this article explores how, across three case-studies, communities use their former experience of rebel governance as a framework through which they could express expectations and dissatisfaction with new types of order. This blueprint is also used to make specific demands to new or reconstituted armed groups and to take direct action to address governance gaps, reproducing and co-constructing order post-demobilization. However, we observe that both the organization of the community and the capacity and ideology of armed groups could also be limiting factors to the community’s reproduction of order post-demobilization. From a peacebuilding perspective, this means that there can be pressure from below in favor of remobilization, as a predictable insurgent order may be preferable to uncertainty.

Discourses and how they construct policy ‘problems’ delimit ‘solutions’, including the scale, shape and structure of services. This article discusses how the adult social care sector in England is presented as a policy problem, with the greater use of technology the associated ‘common-sense’ solution – both to the ‘crisis of care’ in a society with an ageing population and as a means to stimulate the national economy. It draws upon critical discourse analysis to examine English policy documents and other government texts published between 2020 and 2022. In doing so, it de-objectivises and de-universalises semiotic claims around care and technology and explores omitted alternatives. In discourse, ageing and care are framed as both problems to be solved and opportunities for entrepreneurship. Technologies are bound together with efficiency, with limited exploration of how use of the former necessarily entails the latter. Technology is, in addition, presented as agentic, inevitable and unassailable, closing off debates as to whether other, less seemingly ‘innovative’ options for reform and change could entail more favourable outcomes. Discourse thus limits the role of the state to stimulating the environment required for technological advancement.

As discovered by W. Thurston, the action of a complex one-variable polynomial on its Julia set can be modeled by a geodesic lamination in the disk, provided that the Julia set is connected. It also turned out that the parameter space of such dynamical laminations of degree two gives a model for the bifurcation locus in the space of quadratic polynomials. This model is itself a geodesic lamination, the so called quadratic minor lamination of Thurston. In the same spirit, we consider the space of all cubic symmetric polynomials $f_\unicode{x3bb} (z)=z^3+\unicode{x3bb} ^2 z$ in three articles. In the first one, we construct the cubic symmetric comajor lamination together with the corresponding quotient space of the unit circle. As is verified in the third paper, this yields a monotone model of the cubic symmetric connectedness locus, that is, the space of all cubic symmetric polynomials with connected Julia sets. In the present paper, the second in the series, we develop an algorithm for generating the cubic symmetric comajor lamination analogous to the Lavaurs algorithm for constructing the quadratic minor lamination.

Cytogenetic analyses have been widely used to understand evolutionary processes and to resolve taxonomic uncertainties in insects. In particular, the mapping of specific chromosomal regions can provide insights about the genome organisation and interspecific relationships. Considering the importance of this approach and the scarcity of chromosomal data in some groups of Hymenoptera, this study provides the first cytogenetic characterisation of the parasitoid wasp, Brachymeria (Pseudobrachymeria) vesparum Bouček, 1992 (Hymenoptera: Chalcididae). This species was characterised by 2n = 10 metacentric chromosomes. The heterochromatin was located at pericentromeric and terminal regions, being particularly conspicuous due to occupying a large part of chromosomes from pair 2. In addition, guanine–cytosine-rich blocks (GC+) were detected in the interstitial region of two chromosomal pairs. The data obtained were found to be useful for inferring the chromosomal rearrangements involved in speciation within Brachymeria, in addition to providing cytotaxonomic markers for further comparative cytogenetic studies.

Recently, the World Health Organization recommendation for abstinence time for semen analysis has been challenged in some studies and many of them have supported the advantages of a second short abstinence ejaculation. More evidence is needed to approve this for clinical use. This study aimed to compare the average routine abstinence time (2–7 days) with the short time (1–2 h) on sperm quality based on functional parameters in a population of oligo-astheno-teratozoospermia (OAT) men. The semen samples were retrieved from 50 men with OAT two times: one standard 2–7 days (long ejaculation) and short duration trimming (1–2 hours later the first ejaculation). All semen parameters as well as sperm DNA integrity were compared between groups. Results showed that mean sperm concentration (10.40 vs. 8.76), total sperm count (28.53 vs. 12.24) and mean semen volume (2.69 vs. 1.40) were higher in the first ejaculation (2–7 days of abstinence), while progressive motility (20.52 vs. 13.32), non-progressive motility (53.46 vs. 48.86), morphology (2.46 vs. 1.46) and viability (83.90 vs. 77.96) were significantly higher in the second ejaculation (P < 0.05). The second sample also showed lower immotile (26.82 vs. 38.02) and DNA fragmentation (19.5 vs. 26.96) (P < 0.05). Taking all data into account, an additional short abstinence period (AP) may be a simple and helpful strategy to obtain better sperm quality in couples with male infertility causes, especially in OAT patients. The recommended current guidelines regarding the AP may need to be revisited in severe male factors.

A new species of Heligmostrongylus (Nematoda: Heligmonellidae) is described from the small rodents Ototylomys phyllotis (Cricetidae: Tylomyinae) and Heteromys gaumeri (Heteromyidae: Heteromyinae) in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, based on studies of light and scanning electron microscopy, and partial sequences of COI, ITS1 and 28S rRNA. Heligmostrongylus yucatanensis n. sp. is characterized by a synlophe of 13 interrupted ridges (except those forming careen) in both sexes at midbody; males with a ventral cuticle inflation at anterior region of copulatory bursa, rays 9 and 10 long, comparable in length, and rays 9 strongly curved laterally at a right angle crossing ventrally rays 8; and females with a torsion of 180° to left of the posterior extremity. These characteristics were shared with Heligmostrongylus nematodes reported previously from O. phyllotis and Peromyscus yucatanicus (Cricetidae: Neotominae) also in the Yucatan Peninsula. The absence of intraspecific sequence variations in COI, and the low variation in D2-D3 expansion segments of 28S rRNA and ITS1 among the specimens obtained from the different hosts provided strong support that the worms found in the three rodent species belong to the same new species. The nine previously known species of Heligmostrongylus have been reported from caviomorph rodents of the families Cuniculidae, Dasyproctidae, Echimyidae, and Erethizontidae from the Neotropics. The occurrence of H. yucatanensis in three phylogenetically distant rodent species suggests that this nematode species could have the ability to expand its host range by colonizing new hosts.

Gastrointestinal tract (GIT) nematode infections have a significant negative impact on the well-being and productivity of animals. While it is common for a host to be co-infected with multiple species of nematode parasites simultaneously, there is a lack of effective tools to study the composition of these complex parasite communities. We describe the application of the “nemabiome” amplicon sequencing to study parasitic GIT nematode communities in captive wildlife at the National Zoological Garden, South African National Biodiversity Institute. A total of 13 samples from Roan antelope (n=1), Eland (n=1), Sable antelope (n=9), Arabian oryx (n=1), and Blue duiker (n=1) were analysed for the presence of GIT nematode infections. A total of 256 operational taxonomical units (OTUs) were generated and compared to a curated database with ≥99% identity to sequences in the NCBI database. The OTUs found represented nematode species which are commonly associated with wild ruminants. These belonged to members of the genera Haemonchus, Trichostrongylus, and Cooperia, with a few OTUs classified as unidentified genera detected. These were further classified to species level, with Haemonchus contortus and Trichostrongylus colubriformis having high relative abundance across all captive ungulate species. Utilizing amplicon sequencing to examine the nemabiome holds great potential for enhancing our basic knowledge of the biology of gastrointestinal nematodes and monitoring infections. This improved understanding could guide the development of more efficacious preventive and control measures against these significant parasites, which negatively impact animal health and productivity on a global scale.

Species of the family Echinostomatidae use diverse gastropod taxa as first intermediate hosts. However, identification of echinostomatid larvae often proves difficult because of incomplete information on their life cycles and lack of molecular data that can link larvae to the corresponding known adults. Here, echinostomatids that were isolated from freshwater limpets in South Africa were described using light and scanning electron microscopy, and ribosomal (28S, ITS, and 18S) and mitochondrial (cox1) DNA sequences. The analyses revealed three species: Petasiger radiatus, Petasiger sp., and Echinostomatidae gen. sp. Considering the close morphological resemblance between cercariae of Petasiger spp., the current species were compared with data from literature. The results showed that cercarial size is generally unsuitable for species discrimination. The numbers of flame cells and refractile granules in the excretory system, and penetration gland cell patterns, may indicate, but do not prove species identity. Although papillary patterns were distinct between species, papillae were clearly discernible only using scanning electron microscopy and are known for only a few species. Phylogenetic reconstruction indicated that 28S rDNA sequences of Petasiger on GenBank are for P. exaeretus, P. phalacrocoracis, P. radiatus, and six unnamed species. Furthermore, the results revealed that multiple ITS rDNA and cox1 sequences labelled as Stephanoprora amurensis and P. phalacrocoracis on GenBank, are from isolates whose identities are questionable. Echinostomatidae gen. sp. could not be assigned to any currently known genus. Expansion of the genetic database of the family Echinostomatidae is necessary for the delineation of putative species and elucidation of intergeneric relationships.