In the digital information age, artificial intelligence is increasingly being applied to national governance and judicial decision-making assistance. Existing studies lack case studies and empirical analyses of the effectiveness of large models in aiding judicial decisions. To address this research gap, this study designs a comprehensive evaluation framework encompassing five core task dimensions: Task-oriented Information Extraction, Legal Article Citation, Event Extraction, Judicial Decision Generation, and Legal Opinion Generation. By using carefully crafted prompts to activate the legal reasoning capabilities of the models, we conducted extensive testing on 13 mainstream large language models (LLMs). The experimental results demonstrate that large models perform excellently in processing legal texts and providing preliminary legal opinions, but still exhibit shortcomings in complex legal reasoning and precise decision-making. On this basis, we applied a weakly supervised learning strategy to fine-tune the LLMs for targeted improvements. The results indicate that introducing a small amount of task-specific learning can significantly enhance the performance of LLMs in judicial tasks. This further underscores the critical role of data and the acquisition of domain-specific knowledge in applying AI technology to judicial tasks. Additionally, this study briefly discusses the issue of the boundaries of AI’s involvement in judicial activities, aiming to provide theoretical foundations and practical guidance for the deep integration of AI technology with legal practice.

The roles of structural and lexical similarity in cross-linguistic influence in the L3 at higher proficiency levels are under researched. This study investigates the L3 Norwegian of such speakers. In alignment with the Linguistic Proximity Model (Westergaard et al., 2017), we assume that L3 structures are initially weak representations, becoming increasingly target-like with further input and use. We investigate what target this represents – the prescriptive rules of the language or movement towards L1-like use from community interaction and input. The properties investigated are the indefinite article and third person and reflexive possessives, by L1 Polish–L2 English and L1 English speakers. These categories provide fertile ground for investigation due to the (dis)similarities with the target language. The methodology consisted of an Acceptability Judgement Task. Results indicated possible structural-similarity based CLI and adherence to grammatical rules in intermediate-to-advanced proficiency L3ers – though this does not necessarily equal L1-like choices.

The dhole Cuon alpinus was historically one of the most widespread large carnivores in Asia, but it has declined across its range as a result of habitat loss, hunting and prey depletion. There are few recent confirmed records of the species in Vietnam, and it has been reported as possibly extirpated. Here, we report a new camera-trap record of a dhole in Pu Hoat Nature Reserve, in Nghe An province, north-central Vietnam. To our knowledge, this is the first confirmed record of the dhole in Vietnam in > 20 years. We are unable to determine whether the record represents a vagrant animal or a remnant population. However, this new record should be viewed in the wider context of the species’ decline across Vietnam. During 2014–2024, in addition to our study, 3,231 camera-traps were set in 1,657 stations across 31 sites that would have been within the species’ historical range but the dhole was not recorded. We conclude that, despite this new record, the species is likely extirpated across most protected areas in Vietnam.

Maternal hyperglycemia is associated with higher risk of metabolic diseases in offspring. Despite various hypotheses, the exact mechanisms remain unclear and the neural implication is yet to be fully investigated. The hypothalamus plays a critical role in energy regulation. In utero exposure to maternal hyperglycemia might selectively affect the developing hypothalamus. To test this hypothesis, we investigated associations between in utero exposure to maternal hyperglycemia and hypothalamic volume at 10–12 years of age. We included 82 mother–child pairs from the Gen3G prospective birth cohort, followed up 10–12 years after birth. Women underwent a 75g Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT) at 24–30 weeks of gestation, and we calculated the area-under-the-curve of glucose (AUCgluc) from maternal glucose measurements at fasting, 1h and 2h during OGTT to reflect prenatal hyperglycemia exposure. During the follow-up visit at 10–12 years of age, a subsample of children (n = 82) completed 3 T brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to quantify brain volumes with FreeSurfer 7. We used Pearson correlations and partial correlations with adjustments to test associations between the AUCgluc and offspring hypothalamic brain volumes. We found that higher maternal AUCgluc was associated with greater total offspring hypothalamic volume (r = 0.30; p = 0.006). In comparison, no other brain region was significantly correlated with the maternal AUCgluc. Correlations remain significant when adjusted for maternal or offspring’s variables. Overall, we found that higher maternal glycemic response following OGTT in pregnancy appears associated with larger offspring hypothalamic volume. Our results suggest that prenatal exposure to hyperglycemia may lead to hypothalamic programming.

While M. NourbeSe Philip is often regarded as a black-feminist language poet, her concern about place is equally significant and deserves more critical attention. This essay reads Philip as an Afro-Caribbean poet of place and ponders the geographical implications of her abstract, black-feminism-inspired poetry. Specifically, I focus on her reasoning about “center” and how it engenders formal or verbal matrices in her poems. For Philip, “center” denotes not only the metropole dominating the periphery, but also a place of sufficient being, wholeness, and self-becoming. The second sense of “center” marks the telos of her poetics of place, which, I argue, consists in prevalent and ambiguous uses of the preposition “in” in works like She Tries and Zong!. Center entails an inwardness in response to colonialism-begotten displacement, and Philip’s choreography of “in” affords possibilities for conceptualizing the “placedness” of the Caribbean as well as blackness and black femininity in place.

Silverleaf nightshade, a highly invasive perennial weed, poses a serious threat to crops and orchards in Mediterranean regions. This weed reproduces both sexually, through seeds, and asexually, via an extensive rhizome network, contributing to its persistence and spread. Managing silverleaf nightshade is particularly challenging, requiring integrated chemical and non-chemical approaches. This study evaluated the effectiveness of preemergence and postemergence herbicides and thermal control methods at three growth stages (2-3, 4-6, and 7-10 true-leaf stages [TL]) of silverleaf nightshade. Seven preemergence herbicides were tested in a dose-response experiment at rates between 0.0625X and 2X of the recommended label rate on seedling emergence from three populations. Metribuzin, pyroxasulfone, pendimethalin, and sulfosulfuron suppressed seedling emergence by 80-90% at 28 days after treatment. Seven postemergence herbicides were tested on the same three seed populations, and on plants grown from rhizomes. Treatments were applied at three rates: the recommended label rate (1X) and two exploratory rates 0.5X and 2X. At the 1X and 2X rates, aminopyralid and glufosinate reduced biomass by more than 90% at all growth stages. Fluroxypyr and imazapic reduced biomass by more than 95% at the 2-3 TL growth stage across all application rates. At the 4-6 and 7-10 TL growth stages, biomass reduction >90% was achieved only at the 2X rate. Propane flaming at 33.3, 50 and 100 kg ha⁻¹ and electrocution with 18, 45 and 90 J (correspond to 0.5X, 1X and 2X application rates) tested across the three growth stages. Both thermal methods were highly effective at the 2-3 TL stage, reduced biomass >95%. The results highlight the importance of early intervention, as both herbicide and thermal treatments efficacy declined significantly as the weeds matured. Integrating pre and postemergence herbicides with thermal treatment could improve the long-term management of silverleaf nightshade in Mediterranean cropping systems.

In June 1838, five female dancers and three male musicians left Pondicherry for France, from where they travelled onwards to England, Austria, Belgium, and Germany. As they travelled, the dancers became bayadères, a European hegemonic construct that shaped Indian women as both sexual property and morally debauched. Through this racialised construct, Europeans, in particular the British and French, became positioned as morally superior to India and therefore legitimate imperialists. Within this context, I am interested in how images of the languid arms of the Indian temple dancers function as a site of archival resistance to their co-optation as the bayadère. I suggest that a close reading of the newspaper illustrations and affiliated articles, noticing details and making connections, undercuts the dancers’ repeated sexualisation and their refusal to be confined to the space demarcated for them in European hegemonic narratives. I argue that this archival resistance also counters the later dominant caste appropriation and embodiment of the temple dancer’s artistic practice as a form of Indian classical dance.

Infertility and involuntary childlessness are often accompanied by psychological distress. Such distress exhibits gendered patterns: women typically experience greater infertility-related suffering, including while they undergo procedures like IVF, and when such procedures fail. Early feminist critics of reproductive technologies sought to locate and address this suffering in the totality of women’s experience under patriarchy. Contemporarily, a liberal approach to this issue emphasizes the importance of an individual’s reproductive autonomy to engage in infertility procedures as they see fit. In this paper, I suggest that a hidden assumption within this liberal argument, serving as an operant justification for the development and provision of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), is that ARTs promote welfare, or well-being, through the alleviation of infertility-related distress. I explore whether ARTs do appropriately attend to welfare and so meet this justificatory aim. I suggest that IVF, where it is not successful, that is, in the vast majority of cases, does not serve to promote well-being. A comprehensive picture of welfare requires examining the social context in which infertility-related distress operates and in which well-being is thus compromised. Such considerations are essential to forming a holistic picture of well-being and in assessing whether ARTs can meet their welfarist aims.

The near-axis theory for quasi-isodynamic stellarator equilibria is reformulated in terms of geometric inputs to allow greater control of the ‘direct construction’ of quasi-isodynamic configurations and to facilitate understanding of the space of such equilibria. This includes a method to construct suitable magnetic axis curves by solving Frenet–Serret equations and an approach to controlling magnetic surface shaping at first order (plasma elongation), which previously has required careful parameter selection or additional optimisation steps. The approach is suitable for studying different classes of quasi-isodynamic stellarators including different axis ‘helicities’ and topologies (e.g. knotted solutions), and as the basis for future systematic surveys using higher order near-axis theory. As an example application, we explore a family of configurations with per-field-period axis helicity equal to one half, demonstrating an approximate scaling symmetry relating different field period numbers.

When did marriage become strongly assortative? I use a uniquely suitable database from Quebec 1800–1970 to provide the long-run perspective necessary to answer this question. First, I develop a novel method that reveals that marriage was highly assortative as far back as the early nineteenth century. Next, I show this matching depends on the individual human capital of women, not just on family backgrounds. Finally, I show that mothers had an effect on child outcomes independent of the fathers. Thus, despite deeply conservative gender norms, marriage matching—and women—have always mattered for social mobility.

Seabirds are largely used as indicators of Ocean health and are final hosts of several helminth parasites. However, the helminth fauna of seabirds is still poorly studied. Here, we quantified the diversity of gastrointestinal parasites in 52 individuals belonging to 10 seabird species with different habitat preferences and feeding strategies from the North-East Atlantic and Antarctica. Fresh carcasses were collected in Northern France and at Svarthamaren (Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica), helminth parasites were extracted from the gastrointestinal tract, and were identified by morphological inspection and DNA barcoding. In total, we identified 13 helminth taxa. North-East Atlantic seabirds hosted parasites from four helminth groups (Acanthocephala, Cestoda, Nematoda, Trematoda), while Antarctic seabirds hosted Acanthocephala and Cestoda only. The largest parasite diversity was found in northern fulmars Fulmarus glacialis (9 species), European shags Gulosus aristotelis (5 species), razorbills Alca torda (4 species), and black-legged kittiwakes Rissa tridactyla (4 species). Co-infections with multiple parasite species in single hosts were common. Oceanic diving species were found to be the most parasite-poor, with common guillemots Uria aalge and Atlantic puffins Fratercula arctica hosting no parasites. In contrast, oceanic surface-feeding seabirds had a large parasite diversity, which notably included trematodes, and was comparable to that of coastal species. To the best of our knowledge, this study identified 9 new host-parasite associations: Andracantha sp. in northern fulmars and south polar skuas Stercorarius maccormicki, C. septentrionale in northern fulmars and black-legged kittiwakes, a species of Microphallidae in black-legged kittiwakes, Cardiocephaloides longicollis in European shags, Cryptocotyle lingua in Sandwich terns Thalasseus sandvicensis, and a clophyllidean species in south polar skuas and Antarctic petrels Thalassoica antarctica.

Gaussian Process (GP) modeling is a probabilistic, non-parametric framework for describing spatio-temporal dependence that is well-suited for fitting risk-related surfaces. I summarize the main emerging actuarial use cases of GPs, including their applications in longevity modeling, insurance contract valuation, and loss development. The editorial also discusses further contexts with potential for GP-based approaches.

The scope of an arbitration agreement shapes and determines an arbitrator’s jurisdiction, making it a key issue in international arbitration theory and practice. Courts in pro-arbitration countries usually interpret the scope of an arbitration agreement broadly to cover all disputes related to the contract between the parties. This ensures that arbitration can function as an effective and efficient ‘one-stop’ forum for business entities. China is a crucial player in the international arbitration system. Despite having maintained an overall pro-arbitration stance, the Supreme People’s Court of China (SPC) misconceptualises the scope of an arbitration agreement by equating it with the boundaries of the contract between the parties. This misconception leads the SPC to adopt two problematic legal doctrines. First, it develops a literal approach to interpretation that focuses on an arbitration agreement’s exact wording. Second, it conflates the existence of an arbitration agreement with its scope. As a result, the SPC frequently interprets scope narrowly, and wrongly applies the New York Convention and the relevant Chinese law. These problematic approaches stand in stark contrast to the international trend to interpret scope broadly and the SPC’s otherwise consistent pro-arbitration stance. So far, this has not received the necessary attention from legal academics. This article identifies the SPC’s misconception and the problematic doctrines it has developed, and argues that the SPC should reconsider its case law. Only by doing so can the SPC bring its jurisprudence in line with international practice, strengthen its pro-arbitration stance, and further facilitate economic cooperation between China and other countries. In addition, by exposing the misconception of the SPC, this article will inform business entities around the world and enable them to avoid possible pitfalls when engaging in commercial dealings with China. At the same time, courts in countries striving to build a pro-arbitration reputation can learn from the mistakes of their Chinese counterparts and reflect on how best to interpret the scope of arbitration agreements.

Worldviews can serve as a resource or an obstacle when navigating intellectual and existential challenges encountered in life. My objective in this article is to identify and analyse the various ways in which people’s worldviews can shift, break down, evolve, or be strengthened by their life experiences. The proposed model of worldview formation identifies five outcomes that an encounter with what I refer to as existentially significant life events can have: worldview compartmentalisation, integration, revision, conversion, and confirmation. I will explain the content and function of these categories, provide concrete examples, and discuss their rationality.

Post-seeding vegetation management is critical for restoring grasslands dominated by invasive species, yet few studies have evaluated these strategies in the Aspen Parkland ecoregion. We tested the effects of no treatment (Control), mowing-only (Mow), herbicide-only (Herbicide; aminopyralid 52.5% + metsulfuron-methyl 9.45% at 230 g ai ha⁻¹), and mowing and herbicide application (Combination) on plant community composition, diversity, and biomass over two growing seasons following seeding of seven cool season native grass species. The study was conducted on a disturbed site in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, where non-native Cirsium arvense, Sonchus arvensis, and Bromus inermis dominated prior to treatment. Treatments with aminopyralid+metsulfuron-methyl (aminopyralid+metsulfuron-methyl alone and Combination) significantly reduced noxious and introduced species richness and cover (p < 0.001), eliminated forbs, and shifted plant composition toward greater dominance by seeded and native grasses. However, these treatments also eliminated native shrubs (Rosa woodsia and Symphoricarpos occidentalis), reduced litter biomass, and increased bare ground. The Mow treatment maintained high species richness and forb biomass, with noxious and introduced species remaining dominant, and seeded species establishment improving slightly relative to the control. Despite differential species responses, overall seeded species richness, diversity, and cover did not differ significantly among treatments. Hesperostipa comata, Pascopyrum smithii, and Nassella viridula showed moderate establishment under treatments with aminopyralid + metsulfuron-methyl, while Festuca hallii, F. idahoensis, F. saximontana, and Koeleria macrantha established less in any treatment. Community composition diverged most between treatments with aminopyralid + metsulfuron-methyl and the control treatment. These results highlight trade-offs between invasive species control and impacts on non-target natives and ecosystem function. Among the treatments, aminopyralid + metsulfuron-methyl alone provided the most balanced outcome, suppressing invasive species while minimizing soil disturbance, and improving seeded grass recruitment. This study highlights the importance of integrating vegetation treatments with species-specific seeding when restoring heavily invaded grasslands in the Aspen Parkland.