Despite general public support, efforts to build affordable housing often encounter stiff resistance due to “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) attitudes, which are often rooted in false or unsupported beliefs about affordable housing and its impacts on surrounding communities. Would correcting these misperceptions increase support for building affordable housing? To answer this question, we conducted a preregistered survey experiment measuring how support for affordable housing in the U.S. varies at different distances from where respondents live (one-eighth of a mile away, two miles away, or in their state). Our results indicate that correcting stereotypes about affordable housing and misperceptions about its effects increase support for affordable housing. Contrary to expectations, these effects are often larger for affordable housing near the respondent’s home (rather than at the state level), suggesting that debunking myths about affordable housing may help to counter NIMBY attitudes.

Le régime québécois d’encadrement du lobbyisme exclut actuellement de son champ d’application les lobbyistes travaillant au sein d’organismes à but non lucratif (OBNL). Cette exception fait l’objet de critiques de la part de plusieurs acteurs du milieu. Le Commissaire au lobbyisme du Québec suggère d’ailleurs au législateur de modifier la loi afin d’inclure plus de lobbyistes dans son champ d’application, ce à quoi s’opposent plusieurs OBNL. La récente initiative médiatique du Commissaire au lobbyisme visant à promouvoir le droit à la transparence et à proposer une réforme de l’encadrement du lobbyisme au Québec constitue une occasion propice pour analyser l’idée d’assujettir tous les OBNL à la Loi sur la transparence et l’éthique en matière de lobbyisme. Pour éclairer cet enjeu, l’analyse vise à déterminer les impacts potentiels d’une modification législative sur la légitimité des OBNL en tant que groupes d’intérêt. L’article offre ainsi une nouvelle perspective sur le débat relatif à l’inclusion des lobbyistes travaillant au sein d’OBNL dans le champ d’application du régime québécois d’encadrement du lobbyisme.

This article develops a model to explain the emergence and persistence of shared memory, providing a practical toolkit for empirical research in memory studies. It begins with a review of the concepts of individual and collective memory, highlighting their limitations. In response, the article introduces two alternative concepts – subjectivised memory and hegemonic memory – that capture the interdependence of individual and collective memory while moving beyond their dichotomy. These concepts form the theoretical basis of the proposed model. The article applies the model to the example of Holocaust remembrance in Germany, illustrating how memory becomes hegemonic and persists over time.

This article demonstrates how international human rights treaties have the potential to fill the gaps in constitutional provisions and constitute therefore the extension of the constitutional bill of rights. Since human rights are formulated in approximately the same way in both the Francophone countries’ constitutions and in regional and international human rights treaties, through a casuistic approach, the article argues that the decisions of the human rights treaty bodies should serve as a guide to the interpretation of constitutional provisions by the Beninese constitutional judges. By being reluctant and disinterested in the decisions of its treaty monitoring bodies, the Beninese Constitutional Court deprives itself of an interpretation technique that is susceptible to strengthening the court’s legitimacy and independence. Hence, the article posits a dialogue between the Constitutional Court and the regional and international human rights treaty bodies. If at the global level, the use of UN treaties in constitutional adjudication is an essential step towards judicial globalization in human rights adjudication, at the regional level, the use of African Union treaties in constitutional adjudication is a strong signal of African “judicial” integration and therefore of Pan-Africanism.

A national food guide for the UK, providing food based dietary guidelines was first issued in 1995. It was last revised and published as the Eatwell Guide in 2016. The Guide is a pie chart indicating the proportions of foods from different food groups that should make up the ideal diet from a health perspective. The number of segments for the pie chart, the names of the food groups that comprise those segments and the list of individual foods that fit into the wider food groups was in essence decided in around 1995 and have remained essentially unchanged since then. The 2016 edition of the guide – the Eatwell Guide – was the first to employ optimisation modelling to calculate the angles of the segments of the pie chart. This was a significant improvement to the scientific basis to the guide. But still the Eatwell Guide leaves much to be desired and it is time for its revision. This review paper outlines the aims of the guide, provides a brief history of the Eatwell Guide, outlines its strengths and weaknesses and suggests some ways by which the Eatwell Guide might be improved.

Quasi-periodic X-ray eruptions (QPEs) are a new class of repeating nuclear transient in which repeating X-ray flares are observed coming from the nuclei of generally low-mass galaxies. Here, we present a comprehensive summary of the radio properties of 12 bona-fide quasi-periodic eruption sources, including a mix of known tidal disruption events (TDEs) and AGN-like hosts. We include a combination of new dedicated radio observations and archival/previously published radio observations to compile a catalogue of radio observations of each source in the sample. We examine the overall radio properties of the sample and compare to the radio properties of known TDEs, given the apparent link between QPEs and TDEs. Overall we find compact, weak radio sources associated with 5/12 of the QPE sources and no signatures of strong AGN activity via a luminous radio jet. We find no radio variability on hour- to day-timescales corresponding to the X-ray QPEs, but do detect significant changes over year timescales in some sources, implying that the mechanism that produces the X-ray flares does not generate strong radio-emitting outflows. The compactness of the radio sources and lack of correlation between radio luminosity and SMBH mass is very unusual for AGN, but the radio spectra and luminosities are consistent with outflows produced by a recent TDE (or accretion event), in both the known TDE sources and the AGN-like sources in the sample.

The opioid overdose crisis has become a global public health emergency, claiming more than 100,000 lives each year. In North America, shifting opioid prescribing practices in response to the crisis have profoundly affected people living with chronic pain, who now face reduced access to prescription opioids. Against this backdrop, pain stakeholders have become increasingly active in policymaking arenas to shape how opioids and pain are understood. This study examines the Canadian Pain Task Force (CPTF) — a federal advisory body charged with creating a national pain strategy — by analyzing its reports, public and patient consultations, and internal documents. Through qualitative framing analysis, we find that stakeholders overwhelmingly depicted the overdose crisis as the result of illicit and irresponsible opioid use, while positioning stigma as both a driver and consequence of the crisis that compounded the challenges faced by people with chronic pain. From these problem definitions flowed policy proposals centered on expanding opioid access, reducing stigma, and advancing patient-centered care. These findings demonstrate how pain stakeholders shape, and are simultaneously shaped by, opioid policy debates — with consequences for both overdose prevention and chronic pain management.

During the Fascist period, the extractive industry played an important role in Italy’s economic and political landscape, and sulphur was considered the autarkic mineral par excellence. This article reveals how the rhetoric surrounding the vigorous extraction of sulphur in Sicily was part of a larger project of reconstruction and reorganisation, which involved the division of land, reclamation efforts, military operations and colonisation. Drawing on examples of visual and written narratives from public reports, essays, illustrated magazines and exhibitions of the time, the article demonstrates that extraction was both the actual site of resource extraction and the Fascist extractive logic of consensus. The use of specific discourses and definitions enabled and justified the portrayal of humans and lands as extractable resources, creating images and imaginaries that normalised exploitation and transformation, and the regime’s extractive force.

The emitted internal wave groups and generating source at a double ridge-valley topography on the Norwegian Continental Shelf are determined. The location is 69 degrees north and 14 degrees east on the eastern boundary of the Norwegian Sea. Combination of two data sources – an ocean general circulation model and a set of satellite images – predicts the dominant shelf/slope current, the tide and the density stratification. The internal linear long-wave speed provides the reference velocity. The particular flow–topography interaction results in two compact internal tidal troughs, extending across the shelf, orthogonal to the current and separated by the diurnal internal tidal wavelength. The strongly nonlinear trough emits the wave groups advancing upstream at the diurnal frequency. Satellite data determine the spatial frequency and the number of groups. The dimensionless nonlinear excess propagation speed of 0.32 of the wave groups is compared to KdV theory and the model of internal solitary waves. Possible instability and supply of nutrients for a downstream cold-water coral reef are discussed. The data from satellite in combination with ocean model calculations at the mesoscale is general for the identification of nonlinear internal wave generation and propagation.

The travelling wave with the peaked profile is usually considered as a limit in the family of travelling waves with the smooth profiles. We study the linear and nonlinear stability of the peaked travelling wave by using a local model for shallow water waves, which is an extended version of the Hunter–Saxton equation. The evolution problem is well-defined in the function space $H^1_{\rm per} \cap W^{1,\infty}$, where we derive the linearised equations of motion and study the nonlinear evolution of co-periodic perturbations to the peaked periodic wave by using the method of characteristics. Within the linearised equations, we prove the spectral instability of the peaked travelling wave from the spectrum of the linearised operator in a Hilbert space, which completely covers the closed vertical strip with a specific half-width. Within the nonlinear equations, we prove the nonlinear instability of the peaked travelling wave by showing that the gradient of perturbations grows at the wave peak. By using numerical approximations of the smooth travelling waves and the spectrum of their associated linearised operator, we show that the spectral instability of the peaked travelling wave cannot be obtained as a limit in the family of the spectrally stable smooth travelling waves.

Large-scale disasters, particularly when handled poorly, often spark popular outrage and threaten an autocrat’s hold on power. Autocrats frequently employ blame-shifting strategies to redirect public anger and weather these storms. We examine whether blame shifting after a large-scale disaster helps or hurts an autocrat’s popularity through a mixed-methods research design in the electoral autocracy of Turkey in April–July 2023, following the February 2023 earthquakes. An online survey experiment (n = 3,839) identifies the effects of blaming the aftermath of the earthquakes on the opposition, a force majeure, private construction companies, or a government minister, while focus groups explore the mechanisms behind these effects. We find that blaming the opposition or a force majeure leads to a backlash, especially among those more able to critically evaluate information. Focus groups reveal that these backlash effects are driven by voters’ dismay at electoral opportunism and the incumbent’s polarizing language following a large-scale disaster.

Salmonella Typhimurium sequence type (ST) 36 is a rare sequence type in Sweden. During August–November 2024, 100 cases of Salmonella Typhimurium ST36 were reported nationwide. The highest proportions of cases were observed among individuals aged 0–10 years (17%) and 41–50 years (20%), with females representing 65% of the total cases. Microbiological analysis of the S. Typhimurium ST36 isolates identified nine clusters and five individual strains clustering within 53 single-nucleotide polymorphisms. A matched case–control study found cases to be associated with the consumption of alfalfa sprouts (adjusted odds ratio = 8.94, 95% CI: 2.96–27.1). Trace-back investigation identified seeds used by two alfalfa sprout producers in Sweden as the likely source of the outbreak, although microbiological analysis of sprouted alfalfa seeds from the producers did not detect Salmonella. However, continued international investigations further implicated seeds sourced from the same origin, supporting that alfalfa seeds were the ultimate source of the Swedish outbreak. Our investigation and findings indicate that alfalfa sprouts may contain Salmonella and thus pose a health risk to consumers. We emphasize the need for primary producers of alfalfa seeds and sprouts to identify and prevent possible contamination points.