Where dual-numbers forward-mode automatic differentiation (AD) pairs each scalar value with its tangent value, dual-numbers reverse-mode AD attempts to achieve reverse AD using a similarly simple idea: by pairing each scalar value with a backpropagator function. Its correctness and efficiency on higher-order input languages have been analysed by Brunel, Mazza and Pagani, but this analysis used a custom operational semantics for which it is unclear whether it can be implemented efficiently. We take inspiration from their use of linear factoring to optimise dual-numbers reverse-mode AD to an algorithm that has the correct complexity and enjoys an efficient implementation in a standard functional language with support for mutable arrays, such as Haskell. Aside from the linear factoring ingredient, our optimisation steps consist of well-known ideas from the functional programming community. We demonstrate the use of our technique by providing a practical implementation that differentiates most of Haskell98. Where previous work on dual numbers reverse AD has required sequentialisation to construct the reverse pass, we demonstrate that we can apply our technique to task-parallel source programs and generate a task-parallel derivative computation.

While speakers are theorized to ideally not include unnecessary information (redundancy) in their utterances, in reality, they often do so. One potential reason is that linguistic redundancy facilitates language communication, especially when the addressee (interlocutor) is linguistically less competent (e.g., an artificial system). In three experiments, we examined whether linguistic redundancy may arise as a result of people’s tendency to use similar linguistic features as their interlocutor does during communication (i.e., linguistic alignment) and whether redundancy alignment (if any) differs with a human interlocutor versus a computer interlocutor. We also examined whether redundancy alignment is affected by the perceived competency of the interlocutor, participants’ abilities in theory of mind (ToM), and if redundancy alignment varied across time during the experiment. Participants carried out a picture matching and naming task with a human or computer interlocutor who either always or never included redundancies in their utterances. Redundancy alignment was found across all experiments, in that speakers produced more redundancies with a redundant interlocutor compared to a non-redundant one. This alignment was also modulated by the perceived competency of the interlocutor, the time course of the interaction, and ToM abilities, suggesting that redundancy usage is affected by both automatic and strategic mechanisms of linguistic alignment.

In 1919, the League of Nations and the Mandate System were established through the Treaty of Versailles. Shy of 100 years later, the International Rights of Nature Tribunal gathered in the same city to establish itself as an international peoples’ tribunal, taking form outside the international legal order. For all their differences, these institutions shared some commonalities. Both institutions claimed to be concerned with the ‘wellbeing’ of ‘peoples’ through international law. Both also claimed to represent some kind of international legal community. For the League, this was a community of states. For the Tribunal, it was a community of peoples. This article reads these institutional moments together and considers what they tell us about the discipline of international law. It traces how both institutions constituted and authorized themselves as if speaking for an already given international legal community – and how they did so precisely by mobilizing competing ideas of ‘nature’, ‘peoples’, and ‘statehood’. The article argues that the institutions deployed similar legal techniques and narratives that limited what the international legal domain might, and might not, look like. Namely, they presented their ideas of ‘nature’ and ‘peoples’ as part of a natural order of things, authorizing themselves as vanguards for whatever form of international legal order they saw as ‘natural’. Ultimately, the piece complicates our understanding of the international legal domain and peoples’ tribunal in it, inviting a reflexivity over what it means to speak law in the name of an international community – be it as ‘states’, ‘peoples’ or ‘nature’ itself.

We study dependence and independence concepts found in quantum physics, especially those related to hidden variables and non-locality, through the lens of team semantics and probabilistic team semantics, adapting a relational framework introduced in [1]. This also leads to new developments in independence logic and probabilistic independence logic.

This article studies the importance of corporate boards through a learning model in which capital markets learn about incoming directors’ quality. The model’s predictions are tested across a large sample of director appointments. Estimates show that governance-related uncertainty accounts for about 10% of stock return volatility when a new director joins. The learning framework provides a theoretically grounded approach to identify when directors matter more to investors. The analysis shows that director importance varies with board composition and firm attributes: Investors perceive directors as more important on boards with greater generational diversity, in smaller firms, and firms with higher knowledge capital.

This article develops the first dynamic method for systematically estimating the ideologies and other traits of nearly the entire federal judiciary. The Jurist-Derived Judicial Ideology Scores (JuDJIS) method derives from computational text analysis of over 20,000 written evaluations by a representative sample of tens of thousands of jurists as part of an ongoing, systematic survey initiative begun in 1985. The resulting data constitute not only the first such comprehensive federal-court measure that is dynamic, but also the only such measure that is based on judging, and the only such measure that is potentially multi-dimensional. The results of empirical validity tests reflect these advantages. Validation on a set of several-thousand appellate decisions indicates that the ideology estimates predict outcomes significantly more accurately than the existing appellate measures, such as the Judicial Common Space. In addition to informing theoretical debates about the nature of judicial ideology and decision-making, the JuDJIS initiative might lead courts scholars to revisit some of the lower-court research findings of the last two decades, which are generally based on static, non-judicial models. Perhaps most importantly, this method could foster breakthroughs in courts research that, until now, were impossible due to data limitations.

‘Giant’ handaxes are a widely recognized but infrequently investigated phenomenon of the Acheulean period. The scale of their distribution and the selective pressures underpinning their production are not well explored. Here, we report new data from a large-scale experimental study that identifies the point at which handaxes become too large to use with a single hand, alongside a review of known Acheulean assemblages displaying ‘giant’ handaxes. On the understanding that most ‘regularly sized’ Acheulean handaxes were gripped in one hand, if handaxes require bimanual grips, alternative explanations for their production—beyond unimanual butchery and woodworking tasks—should be sought. Our data identify clear mass, length and thickness thresholds for bimanual gripping. It is revealed that spatially and temporally diverse archaeological sites display ‘giant’ artefacts that exceed these thresholds. We suggest these atypically large handaxes would most plausibly have been utilitarian tools used for cutting, but in alternative ways to more regularly sized bifaces. This includes when worked materials were secured by another individual or structure, during digging activities, or when used as a stationary cutting ‘plane’ secured on the ground.

The article begins by understanding Karl Marx’s theory of primitive accumulation (PA) as a historical process integrated by both internal and external components. Situating itself within the Marxist tradition that views PA as an originating, historical process that experienced closure by the end of the colonial period, it draws on history and theory to delineate how the external dimension of PA, British colonialism, unfolded in Punjab. Operating in cahoots with local actors, this colonial form of the “original sin” succeeded in subordinating the pre-capitalist modes of production to capitalism and established a new private property order as well as permanent agricultural settlements, using political, legal, ideological, and coercive means. It makes a distinctive contribution to the debates around PA by arguing that the external of PA (in British Punjab) differed radically from its internal (in England): the accumulation project involved mass sedentarization as opposed to mass expropriation. The article concludes by examining how the dialectics between dissolution and conservation form the dominant feature of colonialist PA in Punjab and how that can help us redefine PA in colonies.

Incorrect estimation of own absolute and relative abilities is common and can have detrimental effects on a person’s educational, social, employment, and financial outcomes. It is not yet fully understood from where interpersonal differences in overconfidence emerge. In this paper, we estimate the heritability of two types of overconfidence, overestimation, and overplacement, in a sample of 1120 twins. We find that the genetic heritability of overestimation (overplacement) is about 19% (17%) and that most of the interindividual variation in overconfidence is due to individual-specific environmental factors.

A well-defined territorial boundary is essential for the design and implementation of social policies, as it defines the scope of the political community. In states where territorial boundaries are contested, the contours of sovereignty remains ambiguous. This paper studies the effects of contested perceptions of territory on welfare states. The paper distinguishes between institutional solidarity (support for formal welfare arrangements) and intergenerational social solidarity (willingness to help the other generation at a personal cost) and argues that territorial state identity independently influences both, aside from national identities and nationalism. Employing Taiwan’s social security reform as the case, and using observational data derived from the 2019 nationally representative Taiwan Image Survey alongside data from an original survey administered in Taiwan in 2023, the article demonstrates that territorial state identity enhances support for both institutional solidarity and intergenerational social solidarity. This effect persists even when controlling for nationalism. This research underscores the importance of recognising territorial boundaries consistent with the welfare apparatus for the sustainability of welfare states.

Despite the appeal of screening travellers to prevent case importation during infectious disease outbreaks, evidence shows that symptom screening is largely ineffective in delaying the geographical spread of infection. Molecular tests offer high sensitivity and specificity and can detect infections earlier than symptom screening, suggesting potential for improved outcomes. However, they were used to screen travellers for COVID-19 with mixed success. To investigate molecular screening’s role in controlling COVID-19, and to quantify the effectiveness of screening for future pathogens of concern, we developed a probabilistic model that incorporates within-host viral kinetics. We then evaluated the potential effectiveness of screening travellers for influenza A, SARS-CoV-1, SARS-CoV-2, and Ebola virus. Even under highly optimistic assumptions, we found that the inability to detect recent infections always limits the effectiveness of traveller screening. We quantify this fundamental limit by proposing an estimator for the fraction of transmission that is preventable by screening. We also demonstrate that estimates of ascertainment overestimate reductions in transmission. These results highlight the essential role that quarantine and repeated testing play in infectious disease containment. Furthermore, our findings indicate that improving screening effectiveness requires the ability to detect infection much earlier than current state-of-the-art molecular tests.

How do actors seek to modify international hierarchies and improve their position in international society? To answer this question, this article develops a novel analytical approach to study a phenomenon it calls ‘the middling of international hierarchies’. This phenomenon consists of actors attempting to produce, occupy, and claim the ‘middle’ position in international hierarchies. The article focuses on one pathway through which actors pursue this strategy: the invocation of ‘middle’ categories. Actors engaged in middling seek to transform binary hierarchies into trichotomous ones, producing and claiming the ‘middle’ position in such hierarchies in the process. In doing so, these actors distance themselves from those categorised in the lower rungs of the hierarchy without directly challenging those sitting atop international pecking orders. Making use of an ‘uncommon foundations strategy’, the paper develops its claims through two illustrative cases: the emergence of the ‘Dominions’ category in the early 20th-century British Empire and the re-popularisation of the label ‘Central Europe’ during the late Cold War. The paper presents a general and theoretically novel approach to how actors seek to modify international hierarchies, while also revealing unexpected commonalities between social categories in world politics that might otherwise appear unrelated.

Bacteria play a fundamental but often overlooked role in shaping insect communities in cattle (Bovidae) dung. To direct attention to this role, three experiments were performed with cattle dung autoclaved to reduce bacterial activity and the associated release of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that attract coprophilous insects to deposits. In the first experiment, and consistent with expectations, fewer insects were recovered in pitfall traps baited with autoclaved versus control dung. In the second experiment, there was generally lower recovery of insects developing in autoclaved versus control pats colonised in the field. This result was attributed to reduced oviposition and lower survival of immature insects in the autoclaved pats. In the third experiment, no effect of autoclaved versus control dung was detected on the reproductive success of the dung beetle Onthophagus taurus (Linnaeus) (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae), possibly because adults carry with them the requisite bacteria for larval development. In summary, faecal bacteria produce VOCs to directly affect the composition of the insect species that colonise and oviposit in cattle dung. The survival of their progeny is affected by faecal bacteria that provide a source of nutrients or may be pathogenic.

Children vary in environmental sensitivity, reflecting heightened responsiveness to positive and negative environments. It is commonly measured through the temperament trait of Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS). Currently, no instruments exist in the German language to assess SPS in children. The present study translated the 21-item Highly Sensitive Child Scale (HSC-21) into German and evaluated its psychometric properties using caregiver reports (n = 367) and child self-reports (n = 112). Confirmatory factor analyses supported a bifactor model with a general sensitivity factor and three specific subdimensions (i.e., Ease of Excitation, Low Sensory Threshold, Aesthetic Sensitivity). The German HSC-21 demonstrated full configural, metric and scalar measurement invariance across sex and age groups and good to excellent reliability (internal consistency, test-retest reliability, interrater agreement). HSC-21 scores moderately predicted internalizing problems but not externalizing problems. Consistent with environmental sensitivity theory, Ease of Excitation and Low Sensory Threshold were linked to internalizing problems, whereas Aesthetic Sensitivity predicted better school performance, fewer peer problems, and greater prosocial behavior. The HSC-21 demonstrated meaningful correlations with temperament and personality traits, including positive associations with neuroticism, behavioral inhibition, and sensory sensitivity, and negative associations with extraversion and activity level. Thus, the German HSC-21 represents a reliable and valid measure of SPS and environmental sensitivity.

This research article examines the licensing of complementizer agreement with nominals (namely thematic subjects and objects) in the left periphery, focusing on data from Jordanian Arabic (JA). It demonstrates that obligatory complementizer agreement with A-bar elements is evident in JA grammar due to the effects of the Agree Identification Condition, which enforces an agreement inflection on the probe when the goal is not phonologically overt (e.g., a pro). This enforcement also applies when the probe agrees with a chain consisting of two silent links (e.g., when the complementizer agrees with a wh- or a focused element). This finding supports the proposal that the morphological realization of Agree dependencies is ruled by interface conditions, which are also proven to be responsible for the presence of an obligatorily overt complementizer when extraction of the embedded nominal takes place.