The presence of children in eighteenth-century English voluntary hospitals is an area of increasing interest and attention. The Northampton Infirmary admission records detail inpatient and outpatient ages from 1744 to 1804, allowing for longitudinal investigations of children in the institution. The most common distempers affecting children were surgical infections, infectious diseases, and skin diseases; fifty-six per cent of the child patients were male and 43.3 per cent were female. Nearly seventy-five per cent of children left the hospital ‘cured’. This article outlines the Northampton Infirmary Eighteenth Century Child Admission Database, and demonstrates how the patterning of distempers within and among children provides insight into the health journeys of eighteenth-century children through the lens of their bodies, their parents, and their institutional recommenders.

This article contributes to research on pragmatic borrowings through its exploration of their prosodic features in interactional turns. The pragmatic borrowings focused on are actual or enacted responses that demonstrate a stance towards the interlocutor’s previous turn. The data are drawn from podcast conversations in Finland Swedish. The qualitative exploration of the data, which draws on principles from Interactional Linguistics and uses sequential and acoustic analyses, focuses on an in-depth analysis of four examples of response tokens. Our analysis illustrates that borrowed response tokens are not used frequently, but when they are used, they are marked by speakers prosodically, rendering them stylistically salient within the context of the interaction. The borrowed response tokens demonstrate specific interactional meanings, such as affect, humor, farce and upgrading. These findings demonstrate that, like other pragmatic borrowings, responses are integrated into the overall repertoire of the receiving speech community, serving as stylistic variants alongside heritage forms.

According to the orthodox comparativist approach in rational choice theory, the ultimate conative basis for an agent’s preference ordering – and thus for their rational choice – is their comparative evaluation among competing options. However, it has been shown extensively in experimental psychology that an agent’s judgments about an option can be distorted by the contrast effects from their contextual reference point, which can sometimes be provided by the very competing option that they compare with. Such contrast effects from competing option, I argue, raise a new problem for comparativism: Sometimes an agent’s comparative evaluation might favor an option A over another option B only because their judgments about A’s appealing intrinsic features are distorted by B’s contrast effects. Such a comparative evaluation from contrast effects, however, is not only epistemically defective but also likely to lead to post-choice disenchantment with option A once the contrast effects from the competing option B are removed. While comparativists can either rationalize the choices made on the basis of comparative evaluations from contrast effects or idealize the type of comparative evaluations they appeal to, I argue that both strategies still face significant problems.

Visible satellite imagery (VIS) is essential for monitoring weather patterns and tracking ground surface changes associated with climate change. However, its availability is limited during nighttime. To address this limitation, we present a discrete variational autoencoder (VQVAE) method for translating infrared satellite imagery to VIS. This method departs from previous efforts that utilize a U-Net architecture. By removing the connections between corresponding layers of the encoder and decoder, the model learns a discrete and rich codebook of latent priors for the translation task. We train and test our model on mesoscale data from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) West Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) sensor, spanning 4 years (2019 to 2022) using the Conditional Generative Adversarial Nets (CGAN) framework. This work demonstrates the practical use of a VQVAE for meteorological satellite image translation. Our approach provides a modular framework for data compression and reconstruction, with a latent representation space specifically designed for handling meteorological satellite imagery.

Clinicians across medical disciplines are intimately familiar with an unusual feature of descriptive diagnoses. The diagnostic terms, despite their non-aetiological nature, seem to offer an explanatory lens to many patients, at times with profound effects. These experiences highlight a striking, neglected and unchristened medical phenomenon: the therapeutic effect of a clinical diagnosis, independent of any other intervention, where clinical diagnosis refers to situating the person’s experiences into a clinical category by either a clinician or the patient. We call this the Rumpelstiltskin effect. This article describes this phenomenon and highlights its importance as a topic of empirical investigation.

Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) are key regulators of vascular homeostasis in both health and disease, playing a crucial role in regenerating the human vascular lining throughout life. These circulating cells can differentiate into mature endothelial cells and are increasingly recognized as important biological markers of vascular function and cumulative risk for various diseases, including cardiovascular conditions. In recent decades, the role of EPCs, particularly the endothelial colony-forming cells (ECFCs) subtype, in pregnancy-related disorders and maternal and neonatal endothelial health has garnered significant attention. Evidence suggests that ECFCs may serve as predictor of future endothelial health in women and their offspring following pregnancy complications, making them particular relevant for research and therapeutic applications in adulthood, as well as potential indicators of vascular health. This review summarizes the evidence on EPCs, specifically ECFCs, as biomarkers of endothelial health in pregnancy, pregnancy-related diseases and ageing, with a focus on maternal and foetal endothelial abnormalities that may serve as prognostic factors for the development of future diseases.

A realization is a triple, $(A,b,c)$, consisting of a $d-$tuple, $A= (A_1, \cdots , A_d )$, $d\in \mathbb {N}$, of bounded linear operators on a separable, complex Hilbert space, $\mathcal {H}$, and vectors $b,c \in \mathcal {H}$. Any such realization defines an analytic non-commutative (NC) function in an open neighbourhood of the origin, $0:= (0, \cdots , 0)$, of the NC universe of $d-$tuples of square matrices of any fixed size. For example, a univariate realization, i.e., where A is a single bounded linear operator, defines a holomorphic function of a single complex variable, z, in an open neighbourhood of the origin via the realization formula $b^{*} (I-zA)^{-1} c$.

It is well known that an NC function has a finite-dimensional realization if and only if it is a non-commutative rational function that is defined at $0$. Such finite realizations contain valuable information about the NC rational functions they generate. By extending to infinite-dimensional realizations, we construct, study and characterize more general classes of analytic NC functions. In particular, we show that an NC function is (uniformly) entire if and only if it has a jointly compact and quasinilpotent realization. Restricting our results to one variable shows that a formal Taylor series extends globally to an entire or meromorphic function in the complex plane, $\mathbb {C}$, if and only if it has a realization whose component operator is compact and quasinilpotent, or compact, respectively. This motivates our definition of the field of global (uniformly) meromorphic NC functions as the field of fractions generated by NC rational expressions in the ring of NC functions with jointly compact realizations. This definition recovers the field of meromorphic functions in $\mathbb {C}$ when restricted to one variable.

This article documents adverse selection in Ginnie Mae issuers’ early buyout decisions. Conditional on default, we find a 1 percentage point increase in interest rate spread increases the probability of an early buyout by 7–9 percentage points. Issuers buy out higher interest rate spread loans because they generate greater economic gains when they reperform. We illustrate how issuers acquire private soft information that provides direct insight into the likelihood of reperformance. Although the soft information is ostensibly collected on behalf of investors during the delinquent loan servicing process, issuers can exploit the information in their early buyout decisions.

These excerpts from Inbetweenness, an upcoming hopepunk novel, intertwine eco-social justice narratives and Indigenous education through climate fiction. Inbetweenness challenges Western-centric paradigms by highlighting diverse voices and posthumanist perspectives, focusing on the tension between contemporary environmental crises and Indigenous knowledge systems. It features characters like Joanne Penderwith, a graduate student navigating social justice, ecological connection, and decolonial praxis, inviting readers to reflect on allyship and positionality within activism. The novel also juxtaposes human-centric actions with the voices of other-than-human entities, using multi-species ethnography to embody ecological storytelling. A pivotal segment details Joanne’s transformative experience at a salmon ceremony led by the W̱SÁNEĆ First Nations, showcasing the resilience of Indigenous practices and their potential to guide sustainable futures. Inbetweenness uses fiction-based research methods grounded in 20 years of transdisciplinary research. It critiques performative allyship and advocates for authentic relationships with Indigenous communities, proposing a hopeful approach to environmental education and climate action.

In the region of Cyrenaica is located the rural sanctuary of Martuba, where two altars and a set of statues have been discovered that have traditionally been linked to the goddess Isis. However, through a comparison with other elements belonging both to the region and to Numidian and Phoenician-Punic areas, as well as Egypt, this paper defends their identification not with the Egyptian divinity, but with the one with which a process of hybridisation or religious bricolage took place at some point prior to Herodotus, the puissance divine called for convenience ‘Luna’ (Moon). This suggests the presence of two intertwined cultural traditions that have contributed to the formation of an innovative and distinct local reality. The resultant cultural artefact is characterised by a synthesis of influences from dominant cultures, such as Roman and Egyptian, while retaining distinctive elements that are unique to the Libyan-Phoenician tradition.

Neuroimaging research must reflect the diversity of the populations it aims to serve. This scoping review examines the demographic characteristics (age, sex, race and ethnicity, and geographic representation) of participants in brain MRI and positron-emission tomography studies conducted in Quebec, Canada, between 1992 and 2023. A total of 1,549 studies, representing 62,555 participants, were identified through searches of Medline, Embase and Google Scholar, following JBI methodology. The vast majority of studies (92.7%) were conducted in Montreal, with limited representation from other urban centers and almost none from rural areas. Reporting of demographic variables was inconsistent: 22.1% of studies failed to report participant age adequately, and 20.3% did not fully report sex. Race and ethnicity were the most poorly documented, with fewer than 4% of studies reporting this information. Among the 2,396 participants with recorded race and ethnicity, 94.2% were categorized as White, highlighting a significant mismatch with Quebec’s population diversity. Healthy participant samples were largely concentrated in the 20–35 age range, while clinical populations generally aligned with the expected age of disease onset. These findings reveal major gaps in demographic representation and reporting in Quebec-based neuroimaging research. Improving diversity and transparency is essential to ensure that neuroimaging findings are generalizable, equitable and clinically meaningful. We recommend the adoption of standardized demographic reporting formats, such as the Brain Imaging Data Structure, and broader recruitment efforts to capture underrepresented groups, including rural residents and racial and ethnic minorities.

One cannot justifiably presuppose the physical salience of structures derived via decoherence theory based upon an entirely uninterpreted use of the quantum formalism. Non-probabilistic accounts of the emergence of probability via decoherence are unconvincing. An alternative account of the emergence of probability involves the combination of a partially interpreted decoherence model and an averaging of observables with respect to a positive-definite quasi-probability function and neglect of terms of $O\left( \hbar \right)$. Our analysis delimits the context in which the combination of decoherence and a semi-classical averaging allows us to recover a classical probability model within an emergent coarse-grained description.

Despite ongoing affective polarization in the United States, support for Taiwan has somehow remained unscathed; Democrats and Republicans unanimously endorse US-Taiwan foreign policy. This is reflected both in public opinion surveys of American voters and support for Taiwan from elected officials. Theories of foreign policy and public opinion suggest that whether voters take top-down or bottom-up cues on foreign policy, we should expect some level of polarization on a salient issue like Taiwan. Utilizing two preregistered survey experiments in the United States, this study tests how robust bipartisan support for Taiwan persists when Taiwan is framed as either a Republican or Democratic issue. When presented as a partisan issue, do American voters still support Taiwan? Contrary to theoretical expectations, Taiwan presents a complex reality. Some foreign policy issues related to Taiwan can become partisan when framed along party lines while others remain bipartisan. Specifically, support for diplomatic and military policy may be affected by partisan framing, but support for economic policy remains bipartisan. This study contributes to theories of public opinion and foreign policy, particularly for scholars focused on US-Taiwan and US-China relations.

We present a novel method to differentiate stream-like and shell-like tidal remnants of stellar systems in galactic halos using the density-based approach of the clustering algorithm AstroLink. While previous studies lean on observation, phase-space, and action-space based criteria for stream and shell determination, we introduce AstroLink’s ordered-density plot and cluster identification as a viable tool for classification. For a given data set, the AstroLink ordered-density plot reveals the density-based hierarchical clustering structure from which the resultant clusters are identified as being statistically significant overdensities. Using simulations of sub-halo disruptions in an external potential to generate samples of tidal structures, we find that the curvature of the ordered-density plot is positive for stream-like structures and negative for shell-like structures. Comparisons with more standard classification techniques reveal strong agreement on which structures typically fit into stream-like and shell-like categories. Furthermore, we investigate the properties of clustered stream and shell samples in radial phase space and energy-angle space. Given the sensitivity of stellar tidal structures to their host dark matter (DM) halos, the identification and subsequent classification of these structures provide exciting avenues of investigation in galactic evolution dynamics and DM structure formation.

We present a proof-of-principle study of active beam-pointing control for the Zettawatt-Equivalent Ultrashort pulse laser System (ZEUS) using a piezo-actuated 16-inch mirror. To the best of our knowledge, this is the largest actively controlled mirror reported in a high-power laser system. A simple proportional feedback control was implemented based on a field-programmable gate array, which reduced the standard deviation of beam-pointing fluctuations by 91% to 0.075 μrad in the horizontal direction and by 78% to 0.25 μrad in the vertical direction. We also demonstrated the elimination of long-term pointing jitter caused by temperature drift using the same apparatus.

Standard conceptions of discrimination cannot account for all that is morally wrong about discrimination, as they cannot explain how individual acts of discrimination wrong not only their direct target but also all members of the targeted social group. In response to this lacuna, I develop a comprehensive account according to which discrimination consists of two interdependent wrongs: to discriminate against B, A must, first, treat B worse than C in a way that is grave enough to make this differential treatment morally wrong; and second, A must do so in a way that is disrespectful to B and to the social group B is perceived to belong to.