This article offers a new chapter in the history of the Severan Miaphysite church, the ancestor-institution of the modern-day Syriac Orthodox. It employs the consecration lists in Michael the Syrian’s 12th-century chronicle to investigate changing patterns of authority, and relationships between monasteries and episcopal sees, in a period poorly served by narrative sources. The home monastery of the Miaphysite patriarchs corresponds to shifts in political authority from Abbasid Raqqa, to Hamdanid Aleppo, to Byzantine Melitene, but this did not preclude the survival of local patterns of patronage. Clusters of patronage, identified using historical network analysis, are not geographically segregated, and this helps to explain the relative stability of the network, which did not see major attempts at secession in this period. The patterns in these lists help us to establish the places where narrative sources highlight unusual phenomena, and where the phenomena they report are typical features of the relationships between bishops and monasteries.

The Practical Self offers a new and gripping account of the conditions on being self-conscious subjects. Gomes argues that self-conscious subjects are required to have faith in themselves as the agents of thinking, sustained and supported by worldly practices. I argue that that Gomes leaves open either theoretical or alternative practical grounds to justify being the agents of thinking and so does not motivate an appeal to faith as the mode of assent. And I ask whether we can make available an alternative account of the tight relation between communal practices and self-consciousness that preserves it, absent faith.

We report the introduction of Juxtacribrilina mutabilis, a nonindigenous marine encrusting bryozoan, to eastern Canada. Previously reported as a nonindigenous species (NIS) in Europe and Maine, USA, this species is of potential ecological concern due to its propensity to foul eelgrass (Zostera marina), an ecologically important habitat-forming coastal species. By compiling prior unpublished records, re-evaluating existing specimens, and collecting new records of J. mutabilis, we discovered that the species has a widespread distribution in eastern Canada. Specimen reclassification efforts in our study indicate that J. mutabilis has been present in eastern Canada since at least 2013, but the species largely escaped notice until 2024, likely due to its similarity to other encrusting bryozoan species and other factors inhibiting its detection. In light of the distributional and genetic data collected in this study, we reconstruct the possible invasion history of J. mutabilis in eastern Canada, including potential introduction mechanisms, timing, and source regions. We also discuss the ecology of J. mutabilis in eastern Canada, evaluating the factors influencing the morphology of the bryozoan, assessing its potential to detrimentally impact its eelgrass substrate, and estimating its environmental niche. Further research into the distribution, ecology, and potential impacts of J. mutabilis in eastern Canada is recommended. This case study highlights the importance of diversity in the habitats surveyed and methods used when monitoring for marine NIS, the need for horizon scanning to raise awareness of potential NIS, and the advantages of multi-party collaboration and citizen science for early detection of such species.

This article tells the story of how high-ranking officials in New York State, during the early nineteenth century, designed and revised an institutional structure for a statewide public school system that offered, even demanded, a significant role for local residents in governing and operating their schools. This statebuilding initiative was pursued with equal vigor by members of the various political factions of the time. The educational system it produced was built by government action, rather than primarily growing out of civil-societal forces and voluntary/spontaneous efforts. Politicians in charge of the system consistently tried to encourage citizen engagement. Their goal was not just to improve the schools, but also to enhance self-government in American life more generally. The story anticipates debates in the contemporary field of theory and practice known as participatory governance, contributing to discussions about the possibilities for meaningful citizen control within large bureaucratic structures. Since participatory democracy presupposes and relies upon policy feedbacks, the article discusses feedbacks that emerged—or were hoped for but did not—and how they facilitated or obstructed participatory goals. It also contributes to scholarship on the activism of nineteenth-century government and speaks to conversations in the history of American education.

Cannabis use increases the risk of psychosis, but cannabis-based medicinal products may provide additional therapeutic opportunities. Decriminalisation of cannabis has led to wider availability in certain jurisdictions, while in the UK regulated medicinal preparations are not readily accessible. A more balanced approach could reduce harms while maximising potential therapeutic benefits.

We prove that the Drinfeld center $\mathcal {Z}(\operatorname {Vec}^{\omega }_{A_5})$ of the pointed category associated with the alternating group $A_5$ is the unique example of a perfect weakly group-theoretical modular category of Frobenius–Perron dimension less than $14400$.

This article sketches an answer to the call for a normative foundation for the paradox perspective on corporate sustainability and also enriches an understanding of firm objectives that ought to be otherwise than profit by offering a rendering of Aristotelian virtue ethics—what I call the virtuous life of pleasure—that highlights how contemplative activity or theorein cultivates, and is essential to, virtue and eudaimonia. My claim is that the virtuous life of pleasure not only characterizes how to live the most meaningful and pleasant life, rendering it good and thus worth pursuing, but it is also, as a flourishing life, the normative foundation for safeguarding the intrinsic value of nonfinancial corporate aims, as the paradox perspective prescribes. It does so by establishing a principle of enough, which seeks to preserve integral, interdependent parts as ends in themselves and as constitutive of a larger ecosystem.

Scholars have extensively studied the diffusion of criminal laws across the American states, and this paper examines an overlooked story of penal diffusion: the mid-twentieth-century spread of habitual offender laws. These laws, which escalated sentences for repeat offenders, proliferated across the states decades before the enactment of the three-strikes laws to which they bore remarkable resemblance. But whereas prior research has traced the legislative diffusion of habitual offender laws, this article alternatively explores how state courts’ interpretations of habitual offender laws diffused across jurisdictions. Using an innovative theoretical framework blending judicial diffusion research with literatures in neo-institutional theory, this article reveals how state courts borrowed legal decisions from other states to interpret, legitimize, and alter laws within their own jurisdictions. This reveals how state courts can shape the trajectory of legislative diffusion in enduring and profound ways. This study’s unique theoretical framework uses the history of habitual offender laws as a case study to explore underappreciated features and dynamics of the diffusion process that have shaped the development of American criminal law.

In the past decade, there has been increasing scholarly interest in language teachers’ emotional experiences, how they regulate and manage their emotions, and how their experiences and emotion-related practices are related to their cognition, practice, well-being, and professional development. A systematic and critical review is needed to help language teaching professionals to benefit from the insights generated by these studies. This review aims to explore this growing body of research on the emotions of language teachers published between 2015 and 2024 by outlining four major research themes: 1) emotional experience; 2) emotion labour; 3) emotion regulation; and 4) emerging emotion-related concepts. This review critically discusses these themes and draws on relevant research findings to visualise the results in an emotion-focused map of language teachers’ professional development. It concludes by proposing a research agenda to stimulate further inquiry into the emotions of language teachers.

Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) is a vital legume crop with significant global importance, yet its productivity is highly sensitive to environmental variability. This study employed advanced statistical modelling to identify key environmental drivers of chickpea yield and water-use efficiency (WUE). Field trial data from 29 experiments across 10 Australian locations were analysed, focusing on 19 climatic variables across four growth stages: sowing to flowering, flowering to podding, podding to maturity and the critical period around flowering. Using correlation analysis and Exclusive LASSO regression, the study quantified relationships between environmental factors, growth stages and chickpea performance metrics. Key findings identified soil evaporation and soil moisture supply-demand ratio during the sowing-to-flowering stage, along with frost during the critical period, as significant determinants of yield. Frost negatively impacted WUE across multiple growth stages, while mean photothermal quotient during early growth positively influenced transpiration-based WUE. Predictive models developed using daily climate data demonstrated strong performance (R2 > 0.68–0.72) for yield and WUE predictions. The study provides actionable insights for optimising chickpea production under varying environmental conditions, offering practical tools for farmers and agronomists to enhance crop management strategies, supporting sustainable and profitable chickpea farming in Australia and beyond.