Healthy ageing and longevity have emerged as urgent public health priorities amid global population ageing and declining birth rates. This review synthesises empirical evidence highlighting the essential role of diet and nutrition in preventing chronic diseases and supporting functional independence in later life. The review was organised using a problem-solving approach to address three core questions: ‘What’ evidence links food and nutrition with positive health outcomes; ‘Why’ do specific dietary components affect biological ageing – via mechanisms such as nutrient sensing, inflammation modulation and caloric restriction; and ‘How’ culturally tailored, person-centred dietary interventions should be developed for better adoption. Findings from centenarian populations suggest that low-energy (i.e. foods with low energy density, such as fruit and vegetables, whole grains), nutrient-rich and diverse diets may help prevent or delay age-related diseases, supporting the notion that food could be used as medicine. Moreover, addressing barriers such as food insecurity and limited access to culturally appropriate healthy food options, particularly in low-income and rural communities, is crucial for achieving equitable health outcomes. Finally, the review calls for integrating personalised nutrition strategies into clinical care and public health initiatives. These efforts can enhance healthspan, improve quality of life and reduce the broader social and economic burdens associated with ageing populations.

Visual Analogue scales (VASs) are increasingly popular in psychological, social, and medical research. However, VASs can also be more demanding for respondents, potentially leading to quicker disengagement and a higher risk of careless responding. Existing mixture modeling approaches for careless response detection have so far only been available for Likert-type and unbounded continuous data but have not been tailored to VAS data. This study introduces and evaluates a model-based approach specifically designed to detect and account for careless respondents in VAS data. We integrate existing measurement models for VASs with mixture item response theory models for identifying and modeling careless responding. Simulation results show that the proposed model effectively detects careless responding and recovers key parameters. We illustrate the model’s potential for identifying and accounting for careless responding using real data from both VASs and Likert scales. First, we show how the model can be used to compare careless responding across different scale types, revealing a higher proportion of careless respondents in VAS compared to Likert scale data. Second, we demonstrate that item parameters from the proposed model exhibit improved psychometric properties compared to those from a model that ignores careless responding. These findings underscore the model’s potential to enhance data quality by identifying and addressing careless responding.

Public attitude surveys provide invaluable insights into societal views on women’s rights, democracy and other critical issues. However, many research studies do not account for biases introduced by the gender of the interviewer, which can distort estimates of public opinion and key relationships among covariates of interest. This article examines gender-of-interviewer effects on public support for women’s rights to work, own and inherit land, as well as support for democracy and feelings of closeness to opposition (versus ruling) parties, using Afrobarometer data from 34 African countries. In line with prevailing conservative social norms in Africa, the analysis reveals significant gender-of-interviewer effects, with respondents reporting more gender-unequal attitudes when interviewed by male interviewers. Additionally, gender-of-interviewer effects appear in responses to questions on support for democracy and feelings of closeness to opposition (versus ruling) parties, with respondents more likely to voice pro-democratic attitudes and close affiliation with opposition parties to male interviewers, regardless of their own gender. These findings highlight the importance of accounting for such biases to ensure the validity of public opinion research and analyses based on these political variables.

We present quasi-continuous-wave (QCW) diode-pumped yellow–orange microchip lasers based on cooperative multi-phonon coupling and self-frequency doubling in Yb3+-doped YCa4O(BO3)3 crystals. QCW pumping at 100 Hz introduces cooling intervals that effectively suppress thermal accumulation. By optimizing the pump duty cycles, microchip yellow lasers at 565 nm and orange lasers at 590 nm were realized with peak powers of 125 and 102 W, respectively. The corresponding single-pulse energies were 4 mJ (yellow) and 2.4 mJ (orange). To the best of our knowledge, these results represent the highest reported peak power and single-pulse energy among all QCW yellow–orange microchip lasers. As a demonstration, the compact orange source was used to excite the fluorescent dye Cyanine 3.5, yielding a 20-fold enhancement in photoluminescence compared to conventional green lasers, indicating its great potential for flow cytometry applications with new laser wavelengths.

The phrase “much ado about nothing” in popular discourse attempts to dispel suspicion, including in response to high-profile sexual assault allegations such as those against Harvey Weinstein. This article explores how Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing speaks to this trend. In the play, Claudio falsely accuses Hero of infidelity, abandoning her at the altar. For this play to be a comedy with a “happy” ending, Claudio must admit that he was mistaken. He discovers that consent (or, in the play’s vocabulary, “good will”) is a relational agreement between two equals, not a mediated exchange of property. Claudio’s mistake, the subject of Beatrice and Benedick’s teasing, is inherent to Weinstein’s defense arguments and other usages. Much Ado About Nothing provides a model for reforming our cultural concept of consent.

This paper develops a geometric and analytical framework for studying the existence and stability of pinned pulse solutions in a class of non-autonomous reaction–diffusion equations. The analysis relies on geometric singular perturbation theory, matched asymptotic method and nonlocal eigenvalue problem method. First, we derive the general criteria on the existence and spectral (in)stability of pinned pulses in slowly varying heterogeneous media. Then, as a specific example, we apply our theory to a heterogeneous Gierer–Meinhardt (GM) equation, where the nonlinearity varies slowly in space. We identify the conditions on parameters under which the pulse solutions are spectrally stable or unstable. It is found that when the heterogeneity vanishes, the results for the heterogeneous GM system reduce directly to the known results on the homogeneous GM system. This demonstrates the validity of our approach and highlights how the spatial heterogeneity gives rise to richer pulse dynamics compared to the homogeneous case.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second deadliest cancer worldwide, posing a great threat to human health and a social burden. Various genetic and epigenetic alterations can activate tumourigenesis-related signalling pathways, leading to CRC development and progression. Over the past two decades, the understanding of the role of S100 family proteins in different types of cancer has received great attention. S100 proteins, as intracellular and extracellular, play important roles in regulating various cellular processes, such as calcium homeostasis, apoptosis, tumour cell proliferation, invasion and motility. It is well documented that alteration in expression of S100 proteins can be associated with tumourigenesis and cancer progression. These proteins play important roles in CRC carcinogenesis by activating different signalling pathways, especially the nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) signalling pathway, which is involved in cell proliferation, invasion and migration. In this review, we describe the functions of S100 proteins in the context of inflammation, tumourigenesis, cancer progression, metastasis, and drug resistance in CRC. We also discuss the potential of targeting different S100 proteins as prognostic factors and therapeutic agents for CRC treatment. This narrative review will increase our understanding of the role of S100 proteins in the progression of CRC and provide insights into the use of S100 proteins as new biomarkers and therapeutic targets for CRC therapy.

This paper introduces Choice Trees (CTrees), a monad for modeling nondeterministic, recursive, and impure programs in Rocq. Inspired by Xia et al.’s ((2019) Proc. ACM Program. Lang. 4(POPL)) ITrees, this novel data structure embeds computations into coinductive trees with three kinds of nodes: external events, internal steps, and delayed branching. This structure allows us to provide shallow embedding of denotational models with nondeterministic choice in the style of ccs, while recovering an inductive LTS view of the computation. CTrees leverage a vast collection of bisimulation and refinement tools well-studied on LTSs, with respect to which we establish a rich equational theory. We connect CTrees to the ITrees infrastructure by showing how a monad morphism embedding the former into the latter permits using CTrees to implement nondeterministic effects. We demonstrate the utility of CTrees by using them to model concurrency semantics in two case studies: ccs and cooperative multithreading.

As the capital of medieval Makuria, Old Dongola, Sudan was one of the largest sites in the region and a center of religious and cultural importance. The annex to the monastery on Kom H at Old Dongola, functioning from the 6/7th through 14/15th c. CE, contains three distinct burial crypts that have been proposed as having been utilized for the burials of social elites, quite likely Makurian Church or monastic officials. Each crypt contains multiple burials, ranging from five (Crypt 3) to seven (Crypts 1 and 2), bringing forth questions of temporality and re-use. Medieval Makurian burials do not typically contain grave goods or personal items, reducing the possibility of establishing temporality through relative dating. In the absence of substantial grave goods allowing for seriation and temporal affiliation of interments, and with only the epitaph of Georgios providing a date of 1113 CE, it has thus far not been possible to differentiate the timeframes of interment for the individuals interred within Crypts 1–3 on Kom H at Old Dongola nor the establishment of these crypts in relation to the monastery. To gain further insight to the periods of use of these crypt burial spaces, 18 human bone collagen samples were submitted for radiocarbon dating at Poznań Radiocarbon Laboratory. The results of radiocarbon dating provide novel insights to the use of Crypts 1–3 at the Kom H monastery, allowing for periodization of this burial environment in relation to the larger adjacent medieval cemetery and Old Dongola community.

Schistosoma mansoni is a parasitic helminth that is vectored through freshwater snails. While the anti-schistosome defense of the South American snail, Biomphalaria glabrata, is well studied, little is known about the immune response of the African snail, Biomphalaria sudanica. We measured expression of five candidate immune genes in B. sudanica 8, 24, and 72 hours post-exposure to S. mansoni using reverse transcription quantitative PCR. Expression patterns of incompatible snails were compared to compatible snails and those sham exposed. We also assessed how diet (lettuce vs. pellet) affected expression of three genes, given prior findings that pellet-fed snails were more susceptible to S. mansoni. Results indicated that incompatible snails constitutively expressed higher levels of superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) than compatible snails at multiple time points, and of toll-like receptor (TLR) and granulin (GRN) at a single time point. Parasite-induced expression occurred at 8 hours in SOD1, biomphalysin 2, thioester protein 1 (TEP1), and granulin (GRN); however, for biomphalysin 2 and TEP1, induced expression was only detected for susceptible snails. At 24 hours, biomphalysin 2 expression increased in exposed resistant snails, and at 72 hours, all exposed snails decreased biomphalysin 2 expression compared to controls. Parasite-induced expression of SOD1, biomphalysin 2, TEP1, and GRN supports the hypothesis that these genes play a role in B. sudanica anti-schistosome defense; however, increased expression does not necessarily yield clearance of S. mansoni. SOD1 expression was higher in lettuce-fed snails at 8 and 24 hours, consistent with their greater resistance. Together, these results demonstrate the conserved and unique aspects of the B. sudanica anti-schistosome response.