The seed science community currently defines germination as radicle emergence of 2 mm from the dispersal unit. Consequently, most seed researchers abruptly terminate germination experiments after radicle emergence, concluding that the seed has germinated. However, this approach underestimates epicotyl dormancy and often leads to dormancy misclassification, or worse, a failure to identify epicotyl dormancy altogether. To address these limitations, we propose extending germination studies to the point of first leaf emergence; we term this the “full germination” period. Our methodology involves germinating fully matured, freshly collected seeds and depending on the time required for radicle emergence, the seeds are categorized into (1) viviparous, where seeds germinate prematurely while they are still attached to the parent plant or within the fruit; (2) Morphological dormancy (MD) or Non-dormant (ND), where seeds germinate within 30 days; and (3) physiological dormancy (PD) and morphophysiological dormancy (MPD), where germination does not occur within 30 days. The absence of shoot emergence within 30 days following radicle protrusion indicates the presence of epicotyl dormancy. Thus, species initially classified as ND, MD, or viviparous may be miscategorized if shoot emergence is not assessed. Likewise, seeds exhibiting PD or MPD may possess an additional epicotyl dormancy component, possibly leading to placing them in incorrect subclass or level. A comprehensive assessment of shoot development is imperative for accurate dormancy characterization. We strongly recommend monitoring seed germination until first true leaf emergence should be adopted to ensure correct conclusions about dormancy, plant life cycles and ecological adaptations.

Italian ryegrass [Lolium perenne L. ssp. multiflorum (Lam.) Husnot], a pernicious weed in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) fields, has evolved severe resistance to the acetolactate synthase (ALS)-inhibiting herbicides, like pyroxsulam. Here, the derived cleaved amplified polymorphic sequence (dCAPS) markers were developed to detect two distinct mutations at the 197th position of the ALS gene. The method was used to examine and purify the resistant population. Homozygous populations with different 197 site mutations from the same population were obtained, and the target site–resistance mechanisms were investigated. Whole-plant dose–response bioassays show that the resistance index (RI) of the Pro-197-Thr mutant population to pyroxsulam was 508.92, whereas that of the Pro-197-Gln population was 9.75. Similar trends were observed for different herbicides within same mode of action. In vitro ALS assays demonstrated that the Pro-197-Thr population exhibited lower sensitivity to pyroxsulam than the Pro-197-Gln population, consistent with plant bioassays. Furthermore, ALS gene expression of the Pro-197-Thr population analysis is significantly higher than that in the Pro-197-Gln population, which may also explain why the Pro-197-Thr population exhibits a higher resistance level than the Pro-197-Gln population. Our findings suggest that different amino acid substitutions at one ALS gene locus can confer herbicide resistance with different levels in L. perenne ssp. multiflorum. This study provides valuable insights into the mechanisms of herbicide resistance in L. perenne ssp. multiflorum.

Party system classifications have been central in political science, especially until Sartori's influential typology in 1976. However, recent years have seen diminished attention to such classifications. Western European party systems have significantly transformed, particularly over the last 15 years due to multiple crises, affecting their core structure, or what Sartori termed ‘patterns of interparty competition.’ This raises questions about whether these changes have undermined the very concept of systemness, making classifications irrelevant. This research note redefines party systems based on the number and composition of relevant political poles (governing alternatives) and, through a long-term analysis of Western Europe (20 countries since 1945), assesses their degree of systemness. Results indicate that many systems have become ‘non-systems,’ with fluctuating and unstable party poles. Most Western European systems have exhibited this ‘non-system’ type for at least half of legislatures since 1989, thus making classifications only short-lived snapshots and inevitably useless for long-term accounts.

Abstract screening, a labor-intensive aspect of systematic review, is increasingly challenging due to the rising volume of scientific publications. Recent advances suggest that generative large language models like generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) could aid this process by classifying references into study types such as randomized-controlled trials (RCTs) or animal studies prior to abstract screening. However, it is unknown how these GPT models perform in classifying such scientific study types in the biomedical field. Additionally, their performance has not been directly compared with earlier transformer-based models like bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT). To address this, we developed a human-annotated corpus of 2,645 PubMed titles and abstracts, annotated for 14 study types, including different types of RCTs and animal studies, systematic reviews, study protocols, case reports, as well as in vitro studies. Using this corpus, we compared the performance of GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 in automatically classifying these study types against established BERT models. Our results show that fine-tuned pretrained BERT models consistently outperformed GPT models, achieving F1-scores above 0.8, compared to approximately 0.6 for GPT models. Advanced prompting strategies did not substantially boost GPT performance. In conclusion, these findings highlight that, even though GPT models benefit from advanced capabilities and extensive training data, their performance in niche tasks like scientific multi-class study classification is inferior to smaller fine-tuned models. Nevertheless, the use of automated methods remains promising for reducing the volume of records, making the screening of large reference libraries more feasible. Our corpus is openly available and can be used to harness other natural language processing (NLP) approaches.

The ontological complexity of the twentieth-century Cold War motivates this special issue’s investigation of how social scientists conceptualize institutional novelty and change. We begin by noting the peculiar elision of the Cold War as an explanatory mechanism in mainstream sociology, even while sociologists have theoretical tools for making sense of the phenomenon: war, schema, field, world systems, and empire. All are useful; none are sufficient. We locate the explanatory problem in a tension between notions of structure and event that has organized debate in historical social science for several scholarly generations, and offer a new intellectual tool – medium durée – as a way forward. Medium durée describes phenomena that have sufficient cohesion as ideas and relationships to endure over time, yet remain sufficiently unfixed and ambiguous as to enable multifarious action and sensemaking. Our notion of medium durée is substantially informed by the articles and commentaries assembled for this special issue, which represent three years of dialogue among the authors as well as audiences in serial panels at the 2022 and 2023 annual meetings of the Social Science History Association.

Chinese stellara (Stellera chamaejasme L.) is an indicator plant of degraded grasslands. With its robust vitality, once it emerges in grassland ecosystems, it undergoes extensive growth and rapid expansion, inevitably leading to grassland degradation. The establishment and invasion of S. chamaejasme disrupts the ecological balance of grasslands in the Qilian Mountains. This study was conducted in a grassland on the eastern slope of the Qilian Mountains, employing point pattern analysis to investigate the spatial distribution patterns of S. chamaejasme and the relationships among different age classes. The population was categorized into three growth stages: young, subadult, and mature plants. The results revealed that the spatial distribution of this population is primarily dominated by subadult plants, accounting for up to 75.48% of the total, with an overall transition trend from aggregated to random distribution. No significant spatial correlations were observed among different age groups (young, subadult, and mature plants), indicating that mature plants do not exert significant inhibitory effects on the growth of young individuals. In high-density areas, the population exhibited a distribution radiating outward from mature plants as the center, with high-density cores predominantly concentrated within 0 to 5 m. Significant density variations were observed between regions, with the highest total density estimated at approximately 9.57 plants m−2 and the lowest at 2.68 plants m−2. The invasion mechanism of S. chamaejasme is closely associated with the spatial independence of its age groups and a distribution pattern dominated by subadult plants. During the initial invasion phase, S. chamaejasme spreads predominantly around mature plants. After securing sufficient growing space (0 to 1 m), it further competes for territory through shifts in distribution patterns—transitioning from aggregated to random distribution. Additionally, significant differences in distribution density and expansion patterns across regions provide critical theoretical foundations for targeted ecological management strategies.

Folds within layered rock systems are critical for comprehending the historical processes of deformation and the rheological behaviour of rocks. The current study employs finite element modelling to investigate the development of folds in a layered rock system, with a particular focus on the impact of thinner layers on the folding of adjacent thicker layers and their subsequent interactions. The analysis indicates that harmonic folds can evolve into polyharmonic or disharmonic configurations because of the intricate interactions occurring within the contact strain zone of the thinner layer. Our numerical findings demonstrate that the geometry of folds is significantly affected by the reciprocal interactions between thinner and thicker layers, initiated by the folding of the thinner units and their consequent influence on the thicker layers, and vice versa. This dynamic interplay, however, may frequently diverge from predictions made by more simplistic models, as suggested by earlier studies. Furthermore, this research highlights the potential of utilizing higher-order fold geometries to estimate the relative viscosity between the layers and the embedded medium.

Climate conditions are known to modulate infectious disease transmission, yet their impact on measles transmission remains underexplored. In this study, we investigate the extent to which climate conditions modulate measles transmission, utilizing measles incidence data during 2005–2008 from China. Three climate-forced models were employed: a sinusoidal function, an absolute humidity (AH)-forced model, and an AH and temperature (AH/T)-forced model. These models were integrated into an inference framework consisting of a susceptible–exposed–infectious–recovered (SEIR) model and an iterated filter (IF2) to estimate epidemiological characteristics and assess climate influences on measles transmission. During the study period, measles epidemics peaked in spring in northern China and were more diverse in the south. Our analyses showed that the AH/T model better captured measles epidemic dynamics in northern China, suggesting a combined impact of humidity and temperature on measles transmission. Furthermore, we preliminarily examined the impact of other factors and found that population susceptibility and incidence rate were both positively correlated with migrant worker influx, suggesting that higher susceptibility among migrant workers may sustain measles transmission. Taken together, our study supports a role of humidity and temperature in modulating measles transmission and identifies additional factors in shaping measles epidemic dynamics in China.

Let $(X,\Delta )$ be a normal pair with a projective morphism $X \to Z$ and let A be a relatively ample $\mathbb {R}$-divisor on X. We prove the termination of some minimal model program on $(X,\Delta +A)/Z$ and the abundance conjecture for its minimal model under assumptions that the non-nef locus of $K_{X}+\Delta +A$ over Z does not intersect the non-lc locus of $(X,\Delta )$ and that the restriction of $K_{X}+\Delta +A$ to the non-lc locus of $(X,\Delta )$ is semi-ample over Z.

In recent years, the question of naturalism in the study of religions has been increasingly debated. Primarily, these discussions converge in the widely held view that naturalism is the only way for religious studies as an academic enterprise to exclude supernaturalist assumptions from its methodology. While I fully agree with this view, I argue that naturalism is usually formulated with the help of metaphysical assumptions, which are problematically embodied in the location problem, that is, the problem of how to locate certain phenomena, such as meanings and values, in the order of nature. By unfolding the dynamic between the elements of the location problem, I show that the kind of naturalism based on Wittgenstein’s thought prevents the location problem from arising and can serve as a balanced version of naturalism for use in the study of religion. While metaphysical naturalism often leads to dilemmas, within Wittgenstein’s kind of naturalism, it seems possible both to maintain anti-supernaturalism in the study of religion and to resist the metaphysical temptations hidden in our assumptions about language. These two features make Wittgenstein’s naturalism truly methodological.

Scholars increasingly conceptualize populism by whether politicians use people-centric and anti-elite appeals that pit a homogeneous people against a corrupt elite. These appeals reflect “thin” ideology because they offer no programmatic content and thus politicians must pair these appeals with more substantive positions, termed their “host” (or thick) ideology, which often consists of nativism on the right (e.g., espousing anti-immigrant positions) and socialism on the left (e.g., prioritizing redistribution). An emerging literature has thus sought to estimate whether populists garner support due to their thin ideology or their substantive host ideology. To date, no research has validated whether populism treatments (1) truly operationalize populist thin ideology, and (2) do so without manipulating host ideology. Results from three conjoint validation experiments fielded in both the United States and the United Kingdom show that thin ideology treatments successfully manipulate the underlying concepts but caution that some operationalizations also affect perceptions of host ideology.

Several proposals to modernize obligations and contracts law in the Spanish Civil Code have not succeeded. However, Spanish contract law has evolved through judicial interpretation, which has reformulated existing rules and recognized new ones. This article deals with major transformations in general contract law and special contracts. Additionally, the Civil Code has been affected by its interaction with EU law, as interpreted by the CJEU. Updating the Civil Code in this manner has created conceptual obscurity and has increased legal uncertainty. Formal modernization of the Civil Code would be welcome, provided it treats Spanish private law as an integral part of the pluralistic legal order of the EU.