This paper examines the dependence structure and risk spillovers between oil prices and exchange rates in both oil-exporting and oil-importing countries. Using a flexible dependence switching copula model, we analyze both positive and negative dependence and transitions between the dependence regimes. Additionally, we investigate the directional risk spillovers between oil and currency markets in both their downsides and upsides. Based on empirical data from 1999 to 2024 for major oil-exporting and oil-importing countries, we find that oil price-currency dependence is predominantly positive for oil-exporting countries, with infrequent transitions, but mainly negative for oil-importing countries, with frequent transitions between the two dependence regimes. These transitions often occur around crisis or war times. Furthermore, we observe that during downturns in the oil market, tail dependence between oil prices and currencies becomes more pronounced than during upturns. Our results indicate the presence of risk spillovers between oil and currency markets, with the downside spillover effects outweighing the upside ones. Moreover, we find that risk spillover is stronger from oil markets to currency markets than the reverse direction. These insights substantially enrich the existing literature and would offer valuable implications for effective risk management strategies and policymaking.

As part of the effort to secure the release of the Dorchester Labourers, a group of agricultural workers sentenced in 1834 to penal transportation, London theaters hosted four fundraising evenings for the prisoners and their families. A turning point in the popular stage, these evenings marked a moment when commercial venues became willing to ally with working-class protest movements. At three of the four events, the theaters mounted nautical melodramas. Using Judith Butler's theories of the political possibilities of mourning, this article argues that melodrama effectively explored the twinned crises of social austerity and political repression while imagining radical transformation emerging from loss.

In this article I issue a challenge to what I call the Independence Thesis of Theory Assessment (ITTA). According to ITTA, the evidence for (or against) a theory must be assessed independently from the theory explaining the evidence. I argue that ITTA is undermined by cases of evidential uncertainty, in which scientists have been guided by the explanatory power of their theories in the assessment of the evidence. Instead, I argue, these cases speak in favor of a model of theory assessment in which explanatory power may indeed contribute to the stabilization of the evidential basis.

This study intends to provide a comprehensive review of the basic concepts, types, applications, and experimental studies of frequency selective rasorber (FSR) presented in the literature. Analyzing the characteristics of FSR became crucial for future adaptability when taking into consideration of immense development in RADAR, military, stealth, and electromagnetic interference applications. The rasorber was initially conceived as a radome for antennas and it was developed expeditiously in recent years. This survey is focused on evaluating the unit cell design (2D, 2.5D, and 3D), equivalent circuit model, polarization characteristics, fractional bandwidth, insertion loss, absorptivity, bandwidth enhancement for absorption, transmission, and their applications based on the FSR. Various techniques like exploiting lumped elements, magnetic materials, lumped components, dual/triple layer structures, varactor diodes, PIN diodes, and distributed elements (slots and stubs) are used to improve the novelty and performance of the FSR that are discussed in the works of literature. At last, these techniques, bandwidth, structures, and performances are compared based on their relative positions to feature the benefits and limitations.

The paper analyzes family-level wealth inequality and social mobility in Dudelange (Luxembourg) over five generations between 1766 and 1872, a period that saw the end of feudal social relations. While the integration of Luxembourg into the French revolutionary regime produced a reduction in the Gini coefficient for the ownership of land, the social mobility analysis reveals a relative stability of family positions within the land-wealth distribution throughout the period. This shows that family-level transmission mechanisms limit social mobility and strongly advantage those with ancestors owning property wealth, even when there are significant changes in the organization of property relations.

This paper presents an eight wire-driven parallel robot (WDPR-8) designed to serve as a suspension manipulator for aircraft models during wind tunnel testing. The precision of these tests is significantly influenced by the system’s stability and workspace, both of which are shaped by the geometric configuration of the structure and the tension in the wires. To acquire the efficiency principle of the suspension scheme design for the model, a kinematics model for a WDPR-8 was established. Based on the kinematics model, the stiffness of a WDPR-8 was theoretically studied, and the analytical expression of stiffness matrix of a WDPR was deduced. The stiffness matrix was composed of two terms, one of which is determined by the configuration of suspension system and the other term is determined by the wire tension. Based on the analysis result, a set of suspension scheme was discussed under the calculation of stiffness matrix and workspace analysis. In the discussion process, in addition to the stiffness-maximum calculation, another criterion as force closure is presented, which is useful for increasing the stiffness and workspace of the robot. Finally, a prototype was established according to the analysis result, and the workspace experiments are conducted. Test results indicate that the workspace meets the design requirements, validating the system suspension design method of a WDPR for aircraft model suspension in wind tunnel test considering of the systematic stiffness and workspace.

This study aims to discuss the chronology of the Egyptian 5th dynasty of the Old Kingdom and the tentative date of accession of king Djedkare based on material from his royal necropolis at South Saqqara and non-royal cemetery of Abusir South, Egypt. A series of radiocarbon (14C) dates were established through analysis of archaeological material from several monuments at the necropolis, including the king’s pyramid complex, pyramid complex of his queen, and two elite tombs (Isesiankh and Khuwy). In addition, two samples from non-royal tombs in the Abusir South cemetery, were taken into consideration for further precision during the modeling, associated with king Huni (end 3rd dynasty) and king Niuserre (5th dynasty). The contextualized 14C dates together with re-evaluation of historical evidence on Djedkare’s rule, results in a new model of temporal probability density which can be further refined with any new data from archaeological research. It shows that Djedkare’s reign can be currently modelled between 2503 and 2449 BCE (95.4%), thus slightly older than expected by literature. This presented model provides a more precise chronological frame for the late 5th dynasty period of Egyptian history, which was period of a significant socio-economic transformation.

The acquisition of nonnative flora and fauna was long framed by horticultural historians as the result of great British derring-do and hand-to-hand conflict. Yet nineteenth-century plant extraction actually involved comparatively few feats of physical bravery or scenes of Boys’ Own high drama. The letters of Victorian commercial plant-hunters reveal that the removal and exportation of plants entailed the deployment of emerging colonial and national infrastructures together with complex regional and local networks and knowledge systems. Much of a plant-hunter's day-to-day life, tellingly, involved paperwork: submitting drafts and bills of exchange, sending letters and cables to employers, and completing bills of lading to ship plants, in stages, to Europe, where they were received at customs houses before journeying on, by rail and by road, to nurseries, collectors, and auction houses. At the same time, emerging colonial infrastructures only took hunters so far; local and traditional knowledge systems were essential as well. Plant-hunting depended upon the support, expertise, knowledge, and traditions of local people—a fact the enduring narrative of hand-to-hand conflict and triumphant British vanquishing seems structured carefully to conceal.

This essay makes a case for viewing curriculum and the historical assemblages of slavery, racialization, and migration as infrastructures of Victorian literary studies. It does so by taking the recent curricular revision that the English department at Lehman College, a public, Hispanic-Serving Institution in the Bronx, New York, underwent as its starting point. I reflect on how this curricular overhaul, which was catalyzed by student activism, helped me see not only how curriculum has operated as an infrastructure of whiteness in my department and English studies at large but also how disentangling Victorian studies from its white Anglo assumptions will require reconceptualizing the methodological, epistemological, and historical foundations of the field.

Species’ declines are caused by a combination of factors that affect survival and/or breeding success. We studied the effects of a set of environmental and anthropogenic variables on the disappearance of Canarian Houbara Bustards Chlamydotis undulata fuertaventurae on Fuerteventura (Canary Islands), once the main stronghold of this endangered bird. Of 83 male display sites detected in 1997–1998, only 29 remained occupied in 2020–2021 (a 65% decrease in only 23 years). We compared habitat quality, density of conspecifics, other steppe birds and crows, presence of human infrastructure, and degree of environmental protection between these 29 extant sites and the 54 extinct sites using univariate analyses and generalised linear models (GLMs). The most influential variable in the abandonment of display sites was the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), an indicator of green vegetation productivity, which suggests a strong effect of habitat aridification due to climate change on the population’s extinction process. Powerline density was the second most important factor. This suggests that houbaras have survived where a greater abundance of food resources has enabled a higher breeding success, and where powerline fatalities have caused lower mortality over the years. Higher densities of houbaras, and other steppe birds and crows at extant display sites confirmed the better habitat quality in these areas. Extant display sites, located generally in protected areas, also had lower densities of human infrastructure (e.g. buildings, roads). We discuss the conservation implications of these results and provide management recommendations for this endangered subspecies.

The global justice debate has increasingly moved toward the analysis of concrete issues in global politics, such as trade, migration, or climate change. This raises a methodological question: should the demands of justice in these domains be theorized independently or in conjunction with one another? Integrationists have championed the latter approach, arguing that it is better suited to guide our practical judgments. In contrast, internalists maintain that each domain is governed by its own set of principles. This paper defends the plausibility of the internalist approach against integrationist challenges. By examining different interpretations of internalism, it first seeks to provide a clearer overview of the methodological dispute. It then analyzes various arguments for integrationism, showing that their implications are more limited than their proponents believe. Finally, it focuses on the question of practical guidance, highlighting the value of idealized domain-specific theorizing in guiding transitions toward just arrangements.

Intensifiers are known for their dynamic nature, due in part to the expressive function they serve. However, while the quantitative patterning of English intensifiers has been studied extensively, the intensifier system of French has yet to be well documented. This study therefore examines intensifier use from a variationist sociolinguistic perspective in the ESLO corpus of spoken Hexagonal French. The quantitative distributions of adjective intensifiers are compared across two corpora collected in 1970 and 2010. Results show a significant decrease in intensification rate over time. Analysis of individual intensifiers show some to have decreased in use over time (e.g. très, tellement), others to have increased (e.g. vraiment, tout), and others to appear only in the later sample (e.g. super, hyper). Longitudinal change is also found in the adjectival function (predicative vs. attributive) and collocational width of intensifiers. Relating to social factors, no significant gender difference is found between female and male speakers’ intensification rate over time. Furthermore, très dominates as the preferred intensifier among older generations, while younger speakers favour more varied intensifiers. Analyzing such changes in the use of intensifiers over the past half century contributes to a better understanding of the structure and development of the French intensifier system.