Dry ecosystems are critical to the global carbon cycle. Seasonally dry tropical ecosystems as a whole are botanically megadiverse, yet we have little understanding of how diversity impacts aboveground carbon, which is particularly noticeable for insular Asia. Across 133 vegetation plots on the seasonally dry tropical island of Flores, we used spatially explicit models to determine how land use impacts aboveground carbon stocks and whether this is dependent upon multidimensional diversity. Carbon is greatest in primary forests and least in agricultural landscapes. However, we find that land use interacts with phylogenetic and species diversity to shape carbon stocks. Across almost all models, quadratic effects of diversity were better predictors of carbon, indicating that whilst the initial build-up of diversity increases carbon, greater diversity causes carbon decline. Results suggest that future conservation plans will be needed to balance carbon storage with multidimensional diversity, which may offer distinct benefits for ecosystem resilience and services.

Andrews and El Bachraoui [‘On two-color partitions with odd smallest part’, Preprint (2024), arXiv:2410. 14190] recently investigated identities involving two-colour partitions, with particular emphasis on their connection to overpartitions, and posed questions regarding possible companion results. Subsequently, Chen and Zou [‘Combinatorial proofs for two-colour partitions’, Bull. Aust. Math. Soc. 113(1) (2025), to appear] obtained some companion results by employing q-series identities and generating functions. In addition, they presented a combinatorial proof for one of their own results and one of the results of Andrews and El Bachraoui. They posed questions regarding combinatorial proofs of the remaining companion results. In this paper, we provide such proofs.

“Embedded courts” explains how Chinese courts operate within the system of local bureaucratic organisation, raising concerns about how judges balance adjudicative functions with the expectations of local governance. Using 47,641 first-instance trademark judgments (2014–2021), we empirically examine adjudication in embedded courts and observe the following phenomenon: non-local plaintiffs are more likely to win but receive lower compensation; corporate defendants win more often yet face higher damages when they lose. Regional heterogeneity indicates that some courts exhibit lower support rates for local plaintiffs and well-known trademark holders. These findings reveal the strategic logic underlying local bureaucratic organisation. We develop a Judicial Behavior Index (JBI) and analyse Henan Province. The results suggest courts act as institutional actors responding to local governance incentives. By exercising discretion strategically, courts navigate local governance logics within the legal framework.

This article explores the logistics networks of the Qin state during its war of unification between 230 and 221 bce. First, the article investigates the Qin’s “assigned transfer” logistics system, which was comprised of two forms: the horizontal transfer of resources among regional administrative units, and the vertical transfer between the central and regional governments. Second, it examines the infrastructures and institutions underpinning this logistics system during the Qin conquest, exploring how the emergence of long-distance, empire-wide logistics networks contributed to the reforms to the Qin’s financial administration. Overall, this article analyzes not only the institutional reforms stimulated by the Qin’s war of unification but also the impact of war on economic developments.

We establish sufficient conditions for the existence of ground states of the following normalized nonlinear Schrödinger–Newton system with a point interaction:

\begin{equation*}\begin{cases}- \Delta_\alpha u + \omega u=w u+\beta u |u|^{p - 2}&\text{on} ~ \mathbb{R}^2;\\- \Delta w=2 \pi |u|^2&\text{on} ~ \mathbb{R}^2;\\\|u\|_{L^2}^2 = c,\end{cases}\end{equation*}

where $p \gt 2$; $\alpha, \beta \in \mathbb{R}$; $c \gt 0$ and $- \Delta_\alpha$ denotes the Laplacian of point interaction with s-wave scattering length $(- 2 \pi \alpha)^{- 1}$, the unknowns being $u \colon \mathbb{R}^2 \to \mathbb{C}$, $w \colon \mathbb{R}^2 \to \lbrack0, \infty\lbrack$ and the Lagrange multiplier $\omega \in \mathbb{R}$. Additionally, we show that critical points of the corresponding constrained energy functional are naturally associated with standing waves of the evolution problem

\begin{equation*}\mathrm{i} \psi' (t)=- \Delta_\alpha \psi (t)-(\log |\cdot| \ast |\psi (t)|^2)\psi (t)-\beta\psi (t)|\psi (t)|^{p - 2}.\end{equation*}

Much has been written about women as composers, performers, or teachers around the turn of the twentieth century. Less attention has been paid to how women could build portfolio careers by weaving musical practices together. This article focuses on a group of Scottish women who did not make their names solely as art music composers or stellar performers, and for whom piano teaching was only part of their musical work. Four were related to the Scottish music publishers Mozart Allan, James Kerr, and the Logan brothers; the fifth published with Allan and Kerr, and also self-published. All but one made their careers in Scotland. Their lives and achievements reveal the range of musical occupations open to upper working- or lower middle-class women in this era, and also provide insights into musical scenes beyond the English cities more typically the focus of British music histories.

In [3], Hjorth proved from $ZF + AD + DC$ that there is no sequence of distinct $\boldsymbol {\Sigma ^1_2}$ sets of length $\boldsymbol {\delta ^1_2}$. Sargsyan [11] extends Hjorth’s technique to show there is no sequence of distinct $\boldsymbol {\Sigma ^1_{2n}}$ sets of length $\boldsymbol {\delta ^1_{2n}}$. Sargsyan conjectured an analogous property is true for any regular Suslin pointclass in $L(\mathbb {R})$—i.e., if $\kappa $ is a regular Suslin cardinal in $L(\mathbb {R})$, then there is no sequence of distinct $\kappa $-Suslin sets of length $\kappa ^+$ in $L(\mathbb {R})$. We prove this in the case that the pointclass $S(\kappa )$ is inductive-like.

On 24 May 2024, member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) adopted the Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge. Mandating that contracting parties require that patent applicants disclose any genetic resources or associated traditional knowledge that their invention is based on, the treaty has been hailed as historic triumph. In this article, we analyze whether the treaty is so remarkable in relation to Aotearoa New Zealand’s existing law and practice. Finding that it is not, and that the treaty could place limits on the law, we argue that Aotearoa New Zealand should not sign the Treaty but could learn from it. We conclude that, while Aotearoa New Zealand must continue to partake in any ongoing international negotiations, it should continue to find ways to address the domestic situation.

Both historians of science and Americanists have depicted famed nineteenth-century astronomer and political economist Simon Newcomb as a relatively stern “mugwump,” impressive in his scientific achievement, yet at times stunted by a parochial arrogance. In histories of nineteenth-century liberalism, in particular, Newcomb makes cameos as a stand-in for an economically conservative wing. This article analyzes two facets of Newcomb’s postwar thinking that have been consistently left out: race and nationalism. After the Civil War, Newcomb pushed a nationalist discourse of American scientific progress in The North American Review that at times wavered between cultural and biological determinism. He spoke in terms of national styles and believed that American science, opposed to French, German, or English science, languished. His advocacy for an American science rested upon implicit “ethnoracial” nationalist assumptions. Contrary to his laissez-faire liberalism, it called for a more activist scientific state, and feared a nationalism of apathy that he believed pervaded both American science and politics. This article, moreover, argues that Newcomb’s thought was intimately tied to his experiences in postbellum Washington, suggesting the need for more localist and urban studies of the rise of state science after the Civil War.