Front-line workers mediate law on the books and law in action, translating higher-level laws into local policy. One important mediating institution is the police. Whereas most research analyzes how the law empowers police to label certain denizens “criminals” – both within and outside criminal legal contexts – this article demonstrates how policing also affects who is recognized as an innocent crime victim. Synthesizing existing scholarship, I theorize three paths through which police can affect legal recognition of crime victims: criminalization, minimization, and legal estrangement. I then test the extent to which these processes affect victims’ access to public benefits provided under victim compensation law. Drawing on never-before-analyzed administrative data from 18 U.S. states (N = 768,382), I find police account for more than half of all victim benefits denials. These denials are racialized and gendered: Police are significantly more likely to criminalize and be estranged from Black male victims and significantly more likely to minimize the injuries of Black female victims. Additional qualitative data suggest police systematically perceive Black men as not truly innocent and Black survivors of gender-based violence as not truly victims. These findings advance our understanding of the expansive role of police in society as well as the porous boundary between social provision and social control.

This research article addresses the hypothesis that vehicles used for cattle transport are contaminated with Escherichia coli, a potential foodborne pathogen, despite current regulations on sanitation practices. Dairy cattle and calves are regularly transported to auction markets, calf rearers and slaughterhouses. UK Government guidelines require livestock transport vehicles to be cleaned and disinfected within 24 hours of use or before re-use within that period. It is feasible, however, that if cleaning fails to eradicate bacteria, then transport vehicles can act as a fomite in the spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) pathogens. In this study, 13 trailer-loads (TLs) of calves were transported for 40–60 minutes. Trailers were then cleaned and disinfected within 20 minutes of unloading. Five sites within the trailer were swabbed after pressure washing and again 30 minutes after application of disinfectant. A bacterial count for E. coli was performed through growth on selective agar, and species identification was confirmed by MALDI-TOF. A subset of 30 isolates was selected for antibiotic susceptibility screening to a panel of veterinary and human antibiotics. E. coli were recovered from all TLs and sites; however, not all sites were contaminated in each TL. E. coli count was significantly reduced, but not eliminated, following application of disinfectant. Furthermore, high prevalence of resistance to sulphonamides, first-generation cephalosporins, and tetracyclines was observed. Forty percent of screened isolates were also classified as multidrug-resistant (MDR) (i.e. resistant to at least one antibiotic from three or more antibiotic classes). Application of disinfectant did not increase the risk of recovering an MDR isolate. This study demonstrates that livestock trailers can harbour potential zoonotic pathogens with AMR properties. Disinfection in accordance with current guidelines is an important step in reducing, but not eradicating, bacterial populations in these vehicles. Improved cleaning and/or disinfection policies are required to mitigate the potential for AMR transmission.

Non-autonomous self-similar sets are a family of compact sets which are, in some sense, highly homogeneous in space but highly inhomogeneous in scale. The main purpose of this paper is to clarify various regularity properties and separation conditions relevant for the fine local scaling properties of these sets. A simple application of our results is a precise formula for the Assouad dimension of non-autonomous self-similar sets in $\mathbb{R}^d$ satisfying a certain “bounded neighbourhood” condition, which generalises earlier work of Li–Li–Miao–Xi and Olson–Robinson–Sharples. We also see that the bounded neighbourhood assumption is, in few different senses, as general as possible.

This study compared a culture-based protocol in which only cows identified as having intramammary infections due to major pathogens (major IMI) were treated with dry cow antibiotics (DCAT) compared with the current New Zealand somatic cell count (SCC) and mastitis-based algorithm. Healthy multiparous pregnant lactating cattle (n = 1541) were enrolled from three spring-calving New Zealand farms. A composite four-quarter milk sample was collected aseptically prior to the last milking before dry-off. Samples underwent standard culture and a culture using a novel, custom-made agar plate. Enrolled animals were classified as having a major IMI on 1) standard culture; 2) novel culture and 3) having SCC > 150,000 cells/ml at the last herd test and/or clinical mastitis (CM) in the current lactation. The sensitivity and specificity of novel culture and SCC/mastitis history for identifying cows with major IMI (compared with standard culture) were calculated. Cows were then blocked by standard culture results (major, minor or no growth) and randomly allocated to treatment based on either novel culture results (cult-SDCT) or SCC/mastitis history (alg-SDCT). Cows allocated to cult-SDCT whose novel culture result was major pathogen positive or contaminated received DCAT, while for alg-SDCT cows, all cows with either SCC > 150,000 cells/ml at the last herd test or CM in the current lactation received DCAT. The sensitivity (0.80 vs 0.67) and specificity (0.91 vs 0.81) for major IMI prediction were greater for cult-SDCT than alg-SDCT. After accounting for farm, age and dry-off SCC, alg-SDCT cows had marginal mean SCC at first herd test post-calving of 129,000 (95% CI 116–143,000) cells/ml, whereas the equivalent for cult-SDCT cows was 113,000 (95% CI 101–126,000) cells/ml. Compared to alg-SDCT, using cult-SDCT correctly identified a higher proportion of major IMI identified by standard culture and did not result in an increase in post-calving SCC.

The 1970s saw intense discussions among feminists about the patriarchal family. While radical feminists called for complete withdrawal from marriage and motherhood, others attempted to reconfigure the roles of parents and children in the light of feminism. A particularly vibrant discussion unfolded in the feminist magazine Effe, published in Rome between 1973 and 1982, evolving from a largely negative to a more nuanced view of motherhood by the late 1970s. The notion of love was central. Effe writers asked how love could be separated from care and if it was really so natural. They stressed how maternal love needed to be balanced with children’s need for freedom and autonomy and reflected on their experiences as daughters as well as mothers. While excessive love could be harmful, there was radical potential in the notion of the loved and wanted child. Many proposed collective solutions to child-rearing, while others stressed the sensual pleasures of motherhood. Using a history of the emotions lens, this article teases out the complexities and contradictions of Italian feminist thinking about motherhood. Although the space for more positive evaluations expanded over time, Effe was ultimately more successful in reclaiming pregnancy as a feminist experience than motherhood itself.

Microbial O2 production via oxygenic photosynthesis was vital in oxygenating the Earth’s surface environment during the Great Oxygenation Event (GOE) ca. 2.5 to 2.3 billion years ago. However, geochemical, paleontological and genomic data suggest the emergence of oxygenic photosynthesis precedes the GOE by at least 500 million years. This demonstrates that the first appearance of microbial O2 in the environment cannot explain the timing of atmospheric oxygenation. Instead, the GOE was facilitated by Earth’s geodynamic evolution, expanding cyanobacterial habitats and the changing redox state of the mantle, decreasing the abundance of reduced surface rocks, volcanic gases and aqueous solutes. These trends ultimately resulted in magnified O2 production rates and diminished O2 consumption rates. Thus, the GOE can be understood as a misbalance between O2 sources and sinks. One of the most critical O2 sinks on modern Earth is microbial O2 consumption via aerobic respiration, and accumulating evidence suggests its emergence well before the GOE. However, the role of aerobic microorganisms as an O2 sink delaying the GOE remains poorly explored. Here, we review the redox evolution of Earth’s mantle and surface environments, as well as the Archean evolution of aerobic microbial metabolisms. Oxygenic photosynthesis released O2 to the environment, but the secular oxidation of the solid Earth was critical in allowing O2 accumulation. Aerobic respiration expanded in response to the GOE, but our survey suggests it could have been a critical O2 sink even earlier. Hence, aerobic respiration can be seen as geobiological feedback to changes in the Earth system from deep in the mantle up to the surface. However, the timing and rate of O2 consumption by aerobic respiration before the GOE remain poorly constrained. We conclude by highlighting open questions and future research directions to understand the role of the aerobic O2 sink in delaying the GOE.

The dignity owed to every person should not cease with death.1 The processes by which individuals and societies across cultures and religions care for, honour and mourn their dead provide the necessary closure to families and their communities. When this is disrupted through improper protection and/or disrespectful treatment of the dead, it harms individuals and societies and, in the case of unlawful deaths, it undermines or impedes the victims’ rights to truth, justice and reparation. With the increasing complexity of mass fatality incidents, especially as a result of conflict, migration, pandemics and natural disasters (including those caused by climate change), the need to respectfully protect the dead is of growing importance.2

The specific means by which protection of the dead occurs in practice are usually contextually adapted to the beliefs and customs of each community and State. To be universally effective, however, it is recommended that they always be guided by principles of respect, dignity and decency toward the dead and their families. This will ensure the fulfilment of applicable international human rights, humanitarian law and criminal law obligations, and help to ease the pain that families, communities and societies face with the loss of their loved ones.

The authors of this article believe that the time is ripe for the development of a set of guiding principles, framed under international human rights law (IHRL), for the dignified management and protection of the dead, and they propose seven key areas to build such principles upon. In addition to filling a conspicuous gap in human rights protection, these guiding principles will help fulfil States’ duties to respect and protect the rights of families of the deceased under IHRL. While not exhaustive, the authors believe that these guiding principles, which should be read as lex ferenda, develop a framework for stronger IHRL protections of deceased persons.

This article builds on a recent thematic report on the protection of the dead presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council in June 2024 by one of the co-authors.3

In recent years, the increasing accumulation of radiocarbon dating data in Jomon research has progressed, creating a foundation for more detailed chronological estimates of the Jomon period’s high-resolution typo-chronology. However, there remains a gap between relative chronologies based on typology and radiocarbon data. A key issue arises from discrepancies between the concept of keishiki (“type” in Japanese) as a time unit of relative chronology, defined based on production period, and the radiocarbon dates, which reflect various events that occurred to the pottery after its production. To overcome the gap, this study introduced a new Bayesian chronological model, the one-sided sequential model, which sequentially orders only the start boundaries of each typological group. When this model was applied to a case study from the Middle Jomon period in the Kanto region, it estimated more reasonable date ranges for each phase of the typo-chronology than the contiguous model. Additionally, the resulting estimated duration of each pottery type was shorter during periods of higher estimated populations and longer during periods of lower estimated populations, providing new insights into the temporal aspects of Jomon society While Bayesian chronological modeling is not prevalent in Jomon research, appropriate models make it possible to make chronological estimates consistent with the high-resolution Jomon chronology, which is considered to approach a generational scale. Such attempts enable detailed clarification of various social and cultural changes. The temporality of the past thus revealed provides a new approach to a deeper understanding of Jomon society.

Despite growing interest in African varieties of French, few attempts have been made to examine them from a variationist perspective. This contribution aims to use phonetic variation as a vantage point for exploring language ideologies surrounding the use of French in postcolonial contexts. The study focuses on the French variety spoken in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and draws on a bilingual Lingala–French dataset elicited from L1 Lingala speakers. The sample reflects a key social distinction in Kinshasa: that between long-term urban residents and recent rural migrants. Are there multiple phonetic varieties of Kinshasa French? To what extent do their forms merely reflect variation in Lingala? The study finds that the most focused variety of Kinshasa French is strongly associated with urban women and is approximated to varying degrees by rural migrants, particularly women. In addition to features with likely origins in either rural or urban Lingala, Kinshasa French exhibits hypercorrect forms and features that may mirror variation trends in Parisian French.

Factorization structures occur in toric differential and discrete geometry and can be viewed in multiple ways, e.g., as objects determining substantial classes of explicit toric Sasaki and Kähler geometries, as special coordinates on such or as an apex generalization of cyclic polytopes featuring a generalized Gale’s evenness condition. This article presents a comprehensive study of this new concept called factorization structures. It establishes their structure theory and introduces their use in the geometry of cones and polytopes. The article explains a construction of polytopes and cones compatible with a given factorization structure and exemplifies it for the product Segre–Veronese and Veronese factorization structures, where the latter case includes cyclic polytopes. Further, it derives the generalized Gale’s evenness condition for compatible cones, polytopes, and their duals and explicitly describes faces of these. Factorization structures naturally provide generalized Vandermonde identities, which relate normals of any compatible polytope, and which are used to find examples of Delzant and rational Delzant polytopes compatible with the Veronese factorization structure. The article offers a myriad of factorization structure examples, which are later characterized to be precisely factorization structures with decomposable curves, and raises the question if these encompass all factorization structures, i.e., the existence of an indecomposable factorization curve.

Political parties in EU member states are situated in a complex multilevel polity, having to engage with their domestic political reality together with EU politics and international linkages with fellow European parties. But how do these parties organize? This research intends to understand how competing, though not mutually exclusive logics of political behaviour can help explain the variations in how parties apprehend this multilevel context. Relying on a rich empirical strategy with 68 semi-structured interviews with European and national party elites in 19 national political parties from Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands, supplemented by a party statutes investigation and data gathering in the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, we conduct a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). It starts from the broad assumption that parties’ multilevel organization needs to be contextually understood, relying on both past and current party dynamics, as well as the actions of the (senior) individuals populating party organizations. Our analysis shows that parties’ different multilevel organization is the result of an interaction between various factors, crucially party genetics and individual agency.

Numerous evolution equations with nonlocal convolution-type interactions have been proposed. In some cases, a convolution was imposed as the velocity in the advection term. Motivated by analysing these equations, we approximate advective nonlocal interactions as local ones, thereby converting the effect of nonlocality. In this study, we investigate whether the solution to the nonlocal Fokker–Planck equation can be approximated using the Keller–Segel system. By singular limit analysis, we show that this approximation is feasible for the Fokker–Planck equation with any potential and that the convergence rate is specified. Moreover, we provide an explicit formula for determining the coefficient of the Lagrange interpolation polynomial with Chebyshev nodes. Using this formula, the Keller–Segel system parameters for the approximation are explicitly specified by the shape of the potential in the Fokker–Planck equation. Consequently, we demonstrate the relationship between advective nonlocal interactions and a local dynamical system.

Quantum interactions exchanging different types of particles play a pivotal rôle in quantum many-body theory, but they are not sufficiently investigated from a mathematical perspective. Here, we consider a system made of two fermions and one boson, in order to study the effect of such an off-diagonal interaction term, having in mind the physics of cuprate superconductors. Additionally, our model also includes a generalized Hubbard interaction (i.e., a general local repulsion term for the fermions). Regarding pairing, exponentially localized dressed bound fermion pairs are shown to exist, and their effective dispersion relation is studied in detail. Scattering properties of the system are derived for two channels: the unbound and bound pair channels. We give particular attention to the regime of very large on-site (Hubbard) repulsions because this situation is relevant for cuprate superconductors.

The crystal structure of cabotegravir has been solved and refined using synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction data and optimized using density functional theory techniques. Cabotegravir crystallizes in space group P21212 (#18) with a = 31.4706(11), b = 13.4934(3), c = 8.43811(12) Å, V = 3,583.201(18) Å3, and Z = 8 at 298 K. The crystal structure consists of stacks of roughly parallel molecules along the c-axis. The molecules form layers parallel to the bc-plane. O–H···O hydrogen bonds link one of the two independent molecules into chains along the b-axis. The powder pattern has been submitted to the International Centre for Diffraction Data (ICDD®) for inclusion in the Powder Diffraction File™ (PDF®).

This article addresses the question of experiential dimensions of space in sound, in electroacoustic music and sound arts practices in particular. We suggest that these practices are limited by the generalised way that spatial audio techniques are communicated, and we attempt to develop a tentative method that would enable discussion and sharing of spatial aspects in sonic environments. These modes of articulation would permit a translation of the experience of space in sound into other modalities. Reporting from a series of workshops, we outline a three-phase method that moves through the stages of listening, describing, recreating and imagining the sonic spaces. In the final stage, a speculative design approach shows that shared sonic spatial experiences are essentially relational. Topics relating to expectations, biases and language – such as memory and imagination – and the methods of mapping and speculative design are addressed in the discussion. Through the explorations presented in this article it becomes evident that different artistic musical practices still show the same need to develop articulations that enable the integration and communication of spatial relationships. The divide between the development of new technologies for spatial audio and the conceptual frameworks for understanding and communicating spatial sonic knowledge can be bridged, and eventually the development of spatial audio should be fuelled by the dynamics between these two poles.

Let $X$ be a very general Gushel–Mukai (GM) variety of dimension $n\geq 4$, and let $Y$ be a smooth hyperplane section. There are natural pull-back and push-forward functors between the semi-orthogonal components (known as the Kuznetsov components) of the derived categories of $X$ and $Y$. In this paper, we prove that the Bridgeland stability of objects is preserved by both pull-back and push-forward functors. We then explore various applications of this result, such as constructing an eight-dimensional smooth family of Lagrangian subvarieties for each moduli space of stable objects in the Kuznetsov component of a general GM fourfold and proving the projectivity of the moduli spaces of semistable objects of any class in the Kuznetsov component of a general GM threefold, as conjectured by Perry, Pertusi, and Zhao.