The green tree python is quite a favorite pet for sale on the international market. The species is therefore protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES). Since the illegal poaching of large numbers of specimens in the wild might lead to the detriment of native populations, and wildlife breeding farms were found to be serving as conduits to funnel wild-caught green tree pythons out of Indonesia, a forensic tool to distinguish wild-caught from captive-bred specimens could support the enforcement of CITES protections. To disrupt the illegal trade of green tree pythons, we have developed an effective tool to distinguish the animals supposedly bred in captivity from those caught in the wild, based on the strontium isotope composition in conjunction with trace element data. Like in human hair, 87Sr/86Sr values seem to vary according to the relative contribution of endogenous and exogenous sources. Thus, we infer that if there is enough sustainable strontium available for the analysis, it might be possible to use the 87Sr/86Sr values in parallel with trace elements to distinguish wild-originated specimens from the in captivity-bred ones. Indeed, our pilot study on the shed skins of animals where the geographic origin was either the Czech Republic or Indonesia, confirms that shed skins can be effectively used for further forensic Sr radiogenic isotope analyses.

This paper presents the results of recent geophysical survey work in the vicinity of the Roman town of Isurium Brigantum (Aldborough, North Yorkshire). It combines results from research projects with information from developer-funded work to assess the nature of settlement in the area at the time of the foundation of the Roman town and through the period of its use. The work confirms that there was no major pre-Roman Iron Age centre in the area at the time of Roman annexation. It does, however, provide new evidence to show that the landscape was heavily exploited and occupied by rural settlements. The evidence revealed suggests that Iron Age society in this area may have been heterarchical.

This study examines how Egyptian law recognizes and deals with land that is stipulated as state property, but has been informally used and/or acquired by individuals as private property. A case in point is Warraq Island in Egypt, whose land became the target of the government’s initiative to remove illegal occupations on the so-called state-owned land. In July 2017, government forces arrived on the island to enforce the order, but they encountered fierce resistance from the residents. Since then, both parties have been involved in negotiations to agree on a viable solution. It is important to note that in Egypt, the state often exerts control over the legal system, based on its own interests. However, such actions tend to fail in light of legal challenges by various actors or widespread demonstrations that may not be legally sanctioned.

Sit-to-stand (STS) motion is an essential daily activity. However, this motion becomes increasingly difficult for older adults as their muscle strength declines with age. To assist individuals in standing up while maximizing their muscle strength based on the assist-as-needed (AAN) strategy, assistive devices must detect early STS intent, specifically before the buttocks leave the chair, to ensure timely assistance. This study proposes a novel method for detecting STS intent by applying external mechanical stimuli to the toes and analyzing the resulting changes in heel and toe-reaction forces. Moreover, a structured detection framework was developed by utilizing predefined thresholds for the change rate and magnitude of the heel and toe-reaction forces to detect STS intent. Offline tests for threshold setting of STS-intent detection were established in the offline tests: change rate and magnitude of the reaction forces on the heel and toes. The thresholds for each criterion were determined using the Pareto optimization method. Using the determined thresholds, these criteria were then applied in online tests to evaluate the performance of the proposed intent detection method. The results demonstrated that mechanical stimuli improved the performance of STS-intent detection, providing accurate and stable detection. This method can be applied to STS-assistive devices to effectively implement AAN functionality for standing assistance.

Sexual dimorphism of the mineralised part (shell, carapace) of invertebrate animals is recognised in many fossil groups; for example, in ammonoids, trilobites and especially in ostracod crustaceans, arguably the most species-rich and specimen-abundant group of arthropods in the fossil record. Shell dimorphism in ostracods is most stark in several major Palaeozoic groups. Beyrichioidean ostracods are known abundantly worldwide from hundreds of genera in Ordovician to Carboniferous deposits and are characterised by a distinctive well-defined shell dimorphism in which the presumed female of the species develops a so-called brood pouch (crumina) on each valve. However, Ametrobeyrichia schizopyge, a Silurian ostracod species from the UK, challenges the definition of the group: it is, ostensibly, a non-dimorphic beyrichioidean. Reasons for its seemingly non-dimorphic nature include heterochronic mechanisms. Apparently not all beyrichioideans had cruminal brood care strategy.

With extraordinary preservation, the bivalved Cassicaris clarksoni gen. et sp. nov. from the early Cambrian (Stage 3) Xiaoshiba Lagerstätte in Kunming, China, is characterised by having an anterior cardinal spine and a heavily segmented body, including an abdomen with a heavily sclerotised shell. Anatomically, the antennulae are small and the antennae are robust with seta-bearing podomeres, possibly of predatory function, followed by the other five pairs of biramous cephalic limbs. There are about 11 pairs of thorax segments, each corresponding to a pair of biramous limbs, including a multi-segmented endopod with feather-like podomeres and terminal spines, and a small paddle-shaped exopod fringed with setae. The bulbous, stalked eyes, which exhibit fineness of vision, infer adaptation to a vagile epibenthic lifestyle. Functionally, such assorted appendages may indicate an efficient suspension-feeding strategy for capturing tiny zooplankton. The median eye is presumably not a typical ocellar system but another compound eye, which may offer further insights into the evolution of compound eyes. Cladistic analysis implies that Cassicaris is a sister taxon to Pectocaris and Jugatacaris; these intriguing euarthropods are critical for discerning their body plan and living habits. Our findings offer fresh insights into the early evolution of Cambrian euarthropods, characterised by notable morphological disparity and ecological diversity. These fossils, including not only many intact individuals but also a few with well-preserved soft parts, form well-characterised groupings, making the broad pattern of Cambrian arthropod systematics increasingly consensual.

In this article I question a long-established, common-sense belief. Namely, that words contain meanings. This belief is the absolute presupposition underpinning the familiar question: ‘What does that word mean? Backed by John Locke, I argue that words don’t mean. Or as Locke puts it: ‘Words are an insignificant noise.’ Words become significant, meaningful, once we have each processed them through our own minds. In short, we subjectively make our own meanings. The role of words is to trigger the meanings we have made for ourselves. This is where the inescapable roots of misunderstanding lie. The words that do the triggering are public. The meanings we create for those words are unavoidably private and mobile. The bulk of the rest of the article addresses the question: ‘How far can we curb misunderstanding?’

Back in 1982, when I started studying with Samuel Scheffler, a major subject of debate was whether – and, if so, exactly why and how – the existence of agent-relative reasons for action justifies making fundamental changes to consequentialist moral theory. How dramatically the tables have turned in the years since! Now the question tends to be whether – and, if so, exactly why and how – agent-neutral reasons for action can have a significant role to play in contractualist moral theory. In the first half of this paper, I offer some arguments for thinking that agent-neutral reasons do exist and that they are more basic than reasons of other sorts. In the second half of the paper, I offer some arguments for thinking that such reasons, being more basic, must have a central role to play in contractualist moral theory.

We investigate the optimal asset allocation and repayment strategy of an agricultural loan under a guaranteed repayment condition in a continuous-time setting. We propose two forms of the problem: an analytically solvable “separable” problem and a more realistic “nominal” problem that is investigated numerically. In the numerical study, we calibrate our model to publicly available farm data and explore various forms of repayment structures. While the widely used constant repayment structure has a surprisingly outstanding performance, we also design two repayment structures for the nominal problem that perform quite well.

In this paper, I argue that we do not know how to implement abstract principles of liberal egalitarian justice. Starting with Scheffler’s Rawlsian diagnosis of the retreat of liberal democracy in the United States, I argue that it may be due to our lack of knowledge about how to institutionalize a Rawlsian just liberal society. To illustrate the difficulty or challenge, I examine several policy proposals to help build human capital for property-owning democracy and argue that they can fail for various reasons. The main problem is that the changing ways in which diverse individuals respond to policies and interact with one another affect policy consequences, but their complexity surpasses our limited knowledge. The ignorance gives us reason to be patient with the slow pace of building an ideal liberal society, tolerant of those who are sceptical about interventions to implement liberal egalitarian principles, and open to policy experimentation and learning. I further argue that we should publicly acknowledge our ignorance about policy outcomes, as it can reduce political polarization, by moderating policy positions and interpreting policy disagreements as empirical rather than moral, and counter democratic backsliding.

In this article we trace a biography of vacuum aspiration in Spain between the 1960s and 1980s. Analysing the local but transnationally connected history of vacuum aspiration during late Francoism and the democratic transition, we argue that this technology was since the mid-1960s reincarnated in mainstream medical discourse as vacuum curettage, presented as a major medical innovation in diagnosis and therapy. While abortion activists working at the end of the 1970s emphasized the group and political components of a technique they called the ‘Karman method’, doctors performing illegal abortions within the family planning network defined vacuum aspiration in terms of safety and medical innovation. As we demonstrate, this technique embodied meanings that at times overlapped, at others conflicted, contingent on whether aspirations were linked to medical innovation, pro-abortion activism, or social justice.

International law has become a fixture before the courts of the United Kingdom (UK). But how is it actually used and how does this use relate to its means of reception into domestic law? Scholarship has tended to focus on how judges interpret and apply international law, to the exclusion of how it is deployed by litigants. In doing so, it also overlooks the relationship between the way an international norm is received into domestic law and its use in court. This article asks whether there are differences in the kinds of international law readily available to different litigants and how this plays out in the cut and thrust of domestic litigation—whether it is used as a sword or a shield, on the basis of domestic statute or the common law and what kinds of arguments are run in the absence of domestic footholds. This raises a broader point about the politics of statutory transposition, the practice of argument and the difficulties of litigating unincorporated international law.

A recent fluorescence of geophysical and archaeological research in Catholic cemeteries illustrates the benefits and challenges of community-engaged projects. Focusing on four ongoing case studies in coastal Virginia and Maryland (the Chesapeake region)—St. Mary’s Basilica (Norfolk, Virginia); Brent Cemetery (Stafford County, Virginia); Sacred Heart Church (Prince George’s County, Maryland); and St. Nicholas Cemetery (St. Mary’s County, Maryland)—this article explores a variety of archaeological strategies in the context of community engagement. These approaches are shaped by the physical characteristics of cemetery sites, the Catholic diocesan or church communities that oversee them, and the African American descendant communities affected by them. The built environment of cemeteries highlights the way that racism and segregation have shaped both the landscape and public memory of Catholic cemeteries in the Chesapeake region.

Amia Srinivasan is interviewed about her classic paper ‘The Aptness of Anger’, which challenges a common response to those who express anger at injustice: that their anger is counterproductive.

This small project was initiated to create a broader understanding of the working properties of sarsen and its challenges. This notoriously durable coarse-grained sandstone is most familiarly associated with the Phase 3 monument at Stonehenge, Wiltshire, although its exploitation persisted into the twentieth century. Discussion has focused on the probable methods employed in prehistory to work the stone: splitting, flaking and pecking. These techniques have rarely been applied in practice, but have been considered broadly in this project. The preliminary results, obtained from a single block of saccharoidal sarsen, have reawakened understanding and appreciation of the potential provided by shock waves to split and shape this intractable silicate successfully and repeatedly using direct percussion, techniques that were familiar to Neolithic communities to work flint. The flaking properties of the stone are considered together with attributes of hammer mode in comparison with data from prehistoric stone assemblages at Stonehenge. The discussion questions to what extent flaking could be controlled repeatedly to form a major part of monolith production. Results derived from the laborious nature of pecking supplement previous attempts to recreate dressed surfaces at Stonehenge. Efficiency was not improved by applying heat to the surface of the stone; indeed, it confirmed that uncontrolled, excessive heat shatters the structure of sarsen, rendering it unworkable.

This article explores how water conditions in geographical contexts could influence the construction of teachers’ professional identities and, consequently, their knowledge and beliefs about water sustainability. Water sustainability is defined as the responsible management of water from a perspective that integrates environmental, social and economic sustainability principles. This quantitative study employed an ad hoc questionnaire, inspired by the New Water Culture principles as a conceptual sustainability framework. The instrument, designed with Google Forms, was administered to 221 secondary school teachers from two cities with contrasting water and cultural conditions: Bogotá (Colombia) and Melilla (Spain). Results indicate that teachers’ knowledge and beliefs in both cities are not aligned with water sustainability principles, with no significant differences between the two groups due to their different water conditions. However, there are partial differences related to the respective personal experiences: in Bogotá, teachers show greater concern for water quality, whereas in Melilla the focus is more on the quantity available. These findings underline the importance of promoting teachers’ professional development in water sustainability aligned with professional identities, as a key strategy for nurturing aware and engaged citizens. This approach is fundamental to tackle water stress challenges and foster a paradigm shift towards more responsible, sustainable lifestyles globally.