Differential item functioning (DIF) screening has long been suggested to ensure assessment fairness. Traditional DIF methods typically focus on the main effects of demographic variables on item parameters, overlooking the interactions among multiple identities. Drawing on the intersectionality framework, we define intersectional DIF as deviations in item parameters that arise from the interactions among demographic variables beyond their main effects and propose a novel item response theory (IRT) approach for detecting intersectional DIF. Under our framework, fixed effects are used to account for traditional DIF, while random item effects are introduced to capture intersectional DIF. We further introduce the concept of intersectional impact, which refers to interaction effects on group-level mean ability. Depending on which item parameters are affected and whether intersectional impact is considered, we propose four models, which aim to detect intersectional uniform DIF (UDIF), intersectional UDIF with intersectional impact, intersectional non-uniform DIF (NUDIF), and intersectional NUDIF with intersectional impact, respectively. For efficient model estimation, a regularized Gaussian variational expectation-maximization algorithm is developed. Simulation studies demonstrate that our methods can effectively detect intersectional UDIF, although their detection of intersectional NUDIF is more limited.

In this paper a part of a new multi-proxy results obtained from the Kotoń landslide fen deposits (the Beskid Makowski Mountains, the Outer Western Carpathians, S Poland), including loss on ignition analysis, plant macrofossil analysis and radiocarbon dating is presented. The aim of the study was to verify whether the reconstructed local palaeoecological stages of the Kotoń fen development could be correlated with the Bølling-Older Dryas-Allerød sequence and to verify whether the rarely recognised short GI-1d/Older Dryas climate cooling affected the regional and local palaeoecological record of the Kotoń deposits. Results showed that four palaeoecological stages of development (poor-in-vegetation waterbody, waterbody with aquatic succession, calcareous extremely rich fen and moderately rich fen) determined for the Kotoń landslide fen deposits between ca. 14,600–13,500 cal BP stay in agreement with the earlier pollen division of the Kotoń deposits and with the extraregional chronology of the Greenland ice cores. The influence of GI-1d/Older Dryas climate cooling on the surrounding and regional vegetation was recognised for the deposits of Kotoń and other localities in a form of open-space habitats with herbs, shrubs and sparse tree stands, e.g. steppe-tundra, reflecting the cold and dry climatic conditions. In case of local vegetation and palaeohydrological changes, the Older Dyas climatic oscillation was recorded as a shallowing of the existing palaeo-waterbodies. Although for other localities this process was attributed to the dry climatic conditions, in case of Kotoń site more detail multi-proxy research is necessary to distinguish the climatic impact from the autogenic succession.

We present an automated search method for radio transients on the minute timescale focused on the emerging long period transients (LPTs) in image-plane radio data. The method is tuned for use with the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) and tested on archival observations from the GaLactic and Extragalactic All-Sky MWA Extended Survey (GLEAM-X) in the 70–300 MHz range. The images are formed from model-subtracted visibilities, before applying three filters to the time series of each pixel in an image, with each filter designed to be sensitive to a different transient behaviour. Due to the nature of radio interferometry and the refraction of the fluctuating ionosphere, the vast majority of candidates at this stage are artefacts which we identify and remove using a set of flagging measures. Of the 336 final candidates, 7 were genuine transients: 1 new LPT, 1 new pulsar, and 5 known pulsars. The performance of the method is analysed by injecting modelled transient pulses into a subset of the observations and applying the method to the result.

This article conducts a theoretical exploration of how the materiality of ‘the digital’, and, more specifically, the immaterial nature of ‘the digital’, imposes on the securitisation of cyber. Starting from the observation that the implementation of new, draconian cybersecurity policy – illustrated with the Norwegian bulk interception controversy – is legitimised with reference to the immateriality of digital threats and digital transformations, I ask how we may we understand the material agency of immaterial matter in the context of cybersecurity. To address this problem, I turn to existing constructivist and new materialist accounts of the immateriality of cyber (in)security, and build on these to offer my own account of digital immateriality. In particular, I mobilise Yuk Hui’s reading of Jean-Francois Lyotard’s notion of im/materials to suggest that ‘the digital’ can be seen as a material force which concretises imperceptible relations by keeping the invisible invisible, and hence by abstracting and obscuring cyber threats and digital insecurities. In this way, ‘the digital’ engenders a new logic of cyber securitisation which I label ‘exceptionality without urgency’, where cybersecurity policy is aimed at countering fundamental, long-term, and rather vague transformations of politics and society rather than immediate, concrete threats.

How should the responsibility for refugees be distributed among states? While scholars have proposed various sources of responsibility to make the distribution more equitable, they have not provided guidance on how to weigh each principle within a composite scheme. This is an important problem to resolve because the principles often implicate different actors, resulting in distinct distributions of responsibility. Moreover, states are particularly able to obfuscate their level of responsibility when multiple principles exist. To remedy this problem, I specify the range of possible solutions to the weighting problem, based on the principles of liability, community, and capacity. This argument identifies the relative importance of each principle based on the stated goals of a particular framework. These goals include whether the scheme is intended to operate under ideal or non-ideal assumptions, or if it intends to optimize state or refugee interests. By focusing on how to weigh various sources of responsibility, this paper paves the way for scholars to develop determinate schemes that can identify each state’s fair share in contexts where multiple principles apply.

Ghostwriting autobiographies has gained so high a profile that novels and films focus on the ghost. To deepen understanding of such collaborations in science and medicine, this article reconstructs the making of A Matter of Life (1980), ‘the sensational story of the world’s first test-tube baby’. Although critiqued by feminist scholars, revised through research and embellished in fiction, this double autobiography of Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe is still the standard history of the British team’s work to achieve in vitro fertilisation (IVF). It is thus high time to investigate the debt acknowledged only by ‘gratitude for his invaluable help’ to the physician and poet Dannie Abse. I use previously unexploited manuscripts to illuminate relationships among authors, rewriter, and editor, and among those they cast as involved in the research. The records show that Abse rewrote underwhelming drafts for a publisher that had bought and sold the doctors’ story of the ‘baby of the century’ and needed a bestseller. To engage readers, he reworked the text so that alleviating infertility appeared as a career-long quest. As a result of adding vivid scenes with characters and expository dialogue, Abse began to give women—wives, assistants and patients—larger roles in the drama. The objections of Edwards and his circle to various literary references and factual claims were overruled. Yet the authors came across more sympathetically, and IVF was promoted more effectively, than in their own drafts. The process puts recent retellings of the story into perspective and exemplifies how collaboration can shape scientific and medical autobiographies.

We present an explicit subset $A\subseteq \mathbb{N} = \{0,1,\ldots \}$ such that $A + A = \mathbb{N}$ and for all $\varepsilon \gt 0$,

\begin{equation*}\lim _{N\to \infty }\frac {\big |\big \{(n_1,n_2): n_1 + n_2 = N, (n_1,n_2)\in A^2\big \}\big |}{N^{\varepsilon }} = 0.\end{equation*}

This answers a question of Erdős.

In the 1950s and 1960s, changes in the international situation, such as decolonization in Asia, led some Australians to question the usefulness of keeping the ‘White Australia Policy’, the basis for the country’s immigration system since Federation in 1901. Some argued that Australia’s international reputation, especially with newly independent countries in Asia and Africa, could be harmed by the maintenance of this policy. Events such as the Sharpeville Massacre in apartheid South Africa in 1960 caused further introspection into Australia’s racialized system. However, as pushes to reform the policy grew, others used international events to resist reforms. Using speeches by politicians and documents produced by policymakers, this article will show how events, such as the Notting Hill riots in Britain, the Little Rock controversy in the United States, and the Sharpeville massacre, were used as warnings about Australia potentially introducing similar ‘racial problems’ if it allowed more non-white migration. This article argues that these concerns tapped into a transnational whiteness that shared anxieties about decolonization, civil rights and non-white immigration in the post-war period, bringing a racialized solidarity forged at the turn of the twentieth century into the Cold War era.

The failure of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) has been attributed to various organized interests, including the New Right and insurance companies. This study examines trends in lobby efforts regarding the amendment and correlations between lobby efforts and roll call votes among state legislators. Lobbyists active on the amendment appeared most often in states they perceived were most likely to approve. A second data set consisting of 6,952 votes reveals that explicitly pro- and anti-ERA lobby efforts were correlated with votes cast only by Republican state legislators. Lobby efforts by insurance companies were not correlated with any votes. The efforts of pro- and anti-amendment lobbyists, however, likely had no effect on the ultimate fate of the proposed amendment. Women and non-white legislators voted more often for the amendment, regardless of party. Moreover, changes in public support for the amendment led to partisan differences in legislators’ votes.

This report outlines the workflow, challenges, and key roles involved in operationalizing a complex, disruptive, acute clinical trial protocol requiring multidisciplinary collaboration. Yale University School of Medicine and the Neuroscience Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Yale New Haven Hospital (YNHH) leverage interdisciplinary collaboration to successfully enroll patients into complex clinical trials, including the Biomarker and Edema Attenuation in IntraCerebral Hemorrhage (BEACH) trial (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT05020535). Successful execution of the BEACH trial relies on five key domains: ensuring patient safety, optimizing screening and enrollment, acquiring pharmacokinetics, identifying signals of efficacy, and adapting to operational challenges. These domains require precise coordination, communication, and adaptability within dynamic patient care environments. By streamlining workflows, all members of the care delivery team and the research team maximize efficiency and optimize patient enrollment while upholding the highest standards of ethical research and patient care. Implementation of the BEACH trial at the Yale research center exemplifies the critical role of interdisciplinary collaboration in clinical research. By integrating research into patient care, the team improves trial efficiency and contributes to innovative treatment strategies for intracerebral hemorrhage. Lessons learned can inform best practices for future acute trials and improve patient outcomes.

This paper explores the relationship between entrepreneurship, measured by the number of new firms per million inhabitants, and modern economic growth in Spain between 1886 and 2000. Following Audretsch and Keilbach’s methodology, our analysis seems to confirm that entrepreneurship has had a positive and statistically significant effect on GDP per capita and labor productivity. This finding challenges the traditional view that the entrepreneurial factor has hindered the country’s economic growth. Additionally, using data on the size and legal form of start-up firms, our results suggest that neither characteristic has been an important driver of Spain’s long-term economic growth. However, we find that the impact of both variables differs depending on the years studied. To our knowledge, this study is the first attempt to test econometrically the long-term contribution of entrepreneurship to Spain’s economic growth.

The quality of information that informs decisions in expert domains such as law enforcement and national security often requires assessment based on meta-informational attributes such as source reliability and information credibility. Across 2 experiments with intelligence analysts (n = 74) and nonexperts (n = 175), participants rated the accuracy, informativeness, trustworthiness, and usefulness of information varying in source reliability and information credibility. The latter 2 attributes were communicated using ratings from the Admiralty Code, an information-evaluation system widely used in the defence and security domain since the 1940s. Ratings of accuracy, informativeness, and likelihood of use were elicited as repeated measures to examine intraindividual reliability. Across experiments, intraindividual reliability was best when levels of source reliability and information credibility were moderately consistent compared to when they were maximally inconsistent (i.e., one low and one high) or maximally consistent (both high or low). As well, trustworthiness ratings depended more on source reliability than on information credibility. Finally, the likelihood of using information was consistently predicted by accuracy ratings and not by judged informativeness or trustworthiness. The current findings offer insights into the ability of experts and novices to reliably use information-evaluation systems for structuring human judgments about intelligence.

Research on citizens’ democratic support predominantly relies on surveys. However, the possibility of social desirability biases (SDBs) raises doubts about whether such instruments capture sincere attitudes. We search for evidence of SDB in measures of democratic attitudes in three studies. The first two leverage variations in survey mode (self-completion vs. face-to-face) in the European Social Survey’s Democracy module, drawing on evidence that interviewer absence encourages voicing socially undesirable opinions. The third uses a double-list experiment to estimate the prevalence of an anti-democratic attitude. Using data from as many as 24 European countries, we find no evidence that SDB inflates survey measures of democratic attitudes. These results contribute to our understanding of democratic attitudes and to methodological toolkit for interested scholars.

This article concerns the interpretation of refuse dumps discovered at three abandoned Soviet tactical nuclear bases in Poland and how their analysis prompted a reassessment of archaeological remote sensing results. The study employed a range of methods to document the remnants of these secret sites, including declassified spy satellite images, aerial photographs, airborne and terrestrial laser scanning, UAV prospection, and field surveys, supplemented by CIA reports and Warsaw Pact military documents. These data bridge significant gaps in archival records, offering valuable insights into the history of these sites. However, the discovery of Cold War-era refuse dumps near the bases containing materials that do not conform to other evidence present an interpretative challenge. It exposed ‘survivorship bias’ in the dataset, prompting a re-evaluation of earlier conclusions.