This paper develops a framework based on Bourdieusian principles to analyse the formation of a trans-cultural colonial community in Sinope (Türkiye) by highlighting spaces where social competition was performed. A case study based on the Greek colonial settlement of Sinope in the Black Sea highlights five gathering spaces: the city wall, cemeteries, the city plan, domestic architecture, and the marginal lands beyond the agricultural catchment. This framework is intended to be equally useful for analysing the sharing of cultural elements across Greek and non-Greek settlements in a complex colonial world. Focusing on the changing dynamics of social, cultural and economic capital in community formation, the ‘ethnicity’ of cultural forms is downplayed and the social stimulus of cross-cultural contact illuminated. The ultimate goal is to develop a framework that applies to a broad range of trans-cultural situations including ancient and modern colonialism, pilgrimage and refugeeism.

This study examines the direct and indirect effects of corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) on profitability, with a focus on the role of company size as a mediator. The impact of CSRD and company size on profitability and CSRD on company size was examined using panel data regression for 48 companies listed on the Palestine Stock Exchange between 2012 and 2023. In addition, Baron and Kenny’s method was used to evaluate the mediation effect. The analysis was repeated using the one-step generalised method of moments to address potential endogeneity issues. The results reveal a significant positive relationship between CSRD, company size, and their impact on profitability, as well as a significant positive correlation between CSRD and company size. Furthermore, the findings show that the relationship between CSRD and profitability in Palestinian companies is partially mediated by company size. The research outcomes are significant for experts and policymakers on corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure policies and profitability. The positive results may lead to enhancing CSR disclosure policies within Palestinian companies and adopting sustainable practices that benefit society and the environment. This, in turn, may increase the chances of Palestinian companies of attracting investments.

This article examines the European Community pavilion at Expo 92 as a strategic instrument of public communication aimed at shaping perceptions of the European institutions. Set against the backdrop of the Maastricht Treaty, the pavilion employed architectural symbolism and immersive exhibition design to present a unified vision of European identity at a charged political moment. Drawing on archival documents, oral history interviews and visual sources, this study reveals how the pavilion fused the symbolic practices of nation-building with the supranational rhetoric of the European Community. By centring its exhibition on historical narratives, especially the Renaissance and Europe’s so-called Age of Discovery, the pavilion reinforced a Eurocentric and at times imperialist worldview. The pavilion’s monumental structure embodied the Community’s aspirations for global influence, presenting European integration as not only a vital internal project but also a model for international governance. Situating the participation within broader debates on European identity and memory politics, this article demonstrates how the European Community sought to legitimise its political authority through symbolic and affective means with its presence at Expo 92.

Polarized particle sources have a plethora of applications, ranging from deep-inelastic scattering to nuclear fusion. One crucial challenge in laser–plasma interaction is maintaining the initial polarization of the target. Here, we propose the acceleration of spin-polarized helium-3 from near-critical density targets using high-intensity Laguerre–Gaussian laser pulses. Three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations show that magnetic vortex acceleration with these modes yields high polarization at the $90\%$ level, while also providing low-divergence beams.

Up to 1616, when the Copernican theory of heliocentrism was prohibited, Galileo had never asserted its truth. But the pope and cardinals of the Roman Inquisition assumed that he had, and he was required to repudiate it. In contrast, Copernicus’s book was only lightly corrected and allowed to be read. Galileo continued his practice of not asserting the reality of heliocentrism in his Dialogue on the two world systems, but he was put on trial nevertheless, in 1633. However, instead of being charged with a crime to be proved, as required by canon law, he was subjected to pre-trial interrogation and intimidation, and he confessed to a made-up crime. His conviction entailed another repudiation of the static sun, on pain of harsh punishment. In subsequent years, even though he was reckless in expressing preference for the condemned theory, he still did not advocate it. In fact, in writing to the Tuscan ambassador to Venice in 1641, he insisted that the Copernican system was false, because theologians said so. However, he went on to say that the opposing Ptolemaic view was actually erroneous, while the other was merely insufficient – because stellar parallax (which would prove the earth’s orbit) could not yet be measured.

Terrestrial isopods (Isopoda: Oniscidea), also known as sowbugs or woodlice, are one of the few groups of crustaceans with fully terrestrial members. Sowbugs are readily transported by human activity, with many species having been introduced worldwide. Although nonnative sowbugs have been present in Canada for more than 150 years, the study of sowbugs in Canada has been largely overlooked, especially in the Prairie Provinces. We conducted the first survey of sowbug species in Alberta, with additional collections from British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and Newfoundland. We compiled an updated Canadian species checklist of 32 species from 12 families, including seven new species records for Canada since the previous 2001 checklist. Species with older records tend to occupy more provinces than species recorded more recently. Nine sowbug species occur in Alberta: all are nonnative and originate from Europe or Asia. Our collection of Nagurus cristatus (Dollfus, 1899) (Trachelipodidae) from Edmonton represents the first record from Canada. We support our identifications with molecular data (cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 barcode region). Further surveys of sowbugs in the Prairie Provinces may uncover additional species; we encourage reporting of sowbug bycatch from arthropod surveys and note the utility of community science platforms for conducting sowbug surveys.

Drawing on the example of a novel flat-fare public transport ticket, this study explores the potential of behavioral insights to contribute to the success of traditional policy instruments. The ticket is evaluated using the EAST framework to identify attributes that are aligned with recommendations from behavioral science. The impact of these attributes on the decision to use the ticket is analyzed with a representative survey of German citizens. The results highlight the importance of nonmonetary attributes for using the ticket, especially those that are associated with simplicity and flexibility. These behaviorally aligned attributes are found to be particularly important for new subscribers and to differ in relevance for respondents of different income groups. Notably, a ‘flat-rate bias’ is indicated by a discrepancy between the stated importance of relevant attributes and stated usage. The study underscores the necessity for policymakers to integrate behavioral insights into the design of public transport policies.

New military recruits, typically emerging adults, must rapidly adapt to the stressors of basic combat training (BCT) – a developmentally significant and intentionally stressful experience. Drawing on a developmental psychopathology framework of risk and resilience, we prospectively examined predictors of psychological adaptation in a longitudinal sample of recruits (age mean = 19.0, SD = 3.0) assessed before and after BCT (59.7% of those eligible for follow-up; N = 657). Pre-registered hierarchical linear regressions tested direct and moderating effects of individual difference variables previously linked to risk and resilience. Higher levels of prior adversity, worse self-regulatory difficulties, and (unexpectedly) higher general cognitive ability at baseline were associated with worsening post-BCT internalizing distress, after accounting for baseline symptoms. Gender, baseline social support, and baseline Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) scales were not associated with longitudinal changes in internalizing distress, and no moderation effects were found. Our findings suggest that bolstering emotion regulation skills, especially among those with prior adversity, may be important for preventing the emergence of psychopathology and promoting more successful adaptation to military roles. The unexpected association between cognitive ability and distress may reflect context sensitivity, suggesting that the demands of BCT may alter the typical adaptive function of cognitive strengths.

Recent commentaries on Iran have stressed attacks on workers and wages by a neoliberal regime bent on slashing costs in response to sanctions, stagnation, and inflation. At the same time, Iranian political elites and government experts uniformly advocate for higher minimum pay. Underneath this paradox lies a complex shift of class inequality away from salary scales determined by firms and government agencies toward a single minimum wage set every year by the Supreme Labor Council, the central body responsible for employment policy. The result is not labor discipline or wage repression but an unruly wage containment state. Integrating archival sources, interviews, and statistical data, the article examines how elite conflicts, societal interests, and economic forces have structured the politics of pay in Iran. Framed comparatively, Iran’s wage containment state is a product of the way in which politics, development, and international relations have shaped Iranian capitalism.

British bioprospecting in the last decades of imperial China was propelled not merely by natural history and commerce, but significantly by China’s evolving foreign relations under international treaties. This article unravels the legal dimension of British naturalists’ collecting activities in late Qing China, challenging indiscriminate associations of their presence with imperialist or illicit plunder of natural resources. While the Sino-British treaties did not explicitly address plant collecting, they authorized British naturalists, as travelers, to move from Guangzhou to treaty ports and subsequently, under passports, into the interior. In practice, their expeditions encompassed both licit travel and illicit transgressions; and plant collecting was either officially acquiesced to or incorporated into the general regulation of travel for pleasure, coupled with lax inspection of plant outflow. From 1863, initially under British influence, Qing authorities even legalized international trade in tea seeds and plants, thus diminishing their control of a species economically vital to China. However, an international legal consensus on sovereign resource rights remained absent. The evolving legal environment for the botanical connection between the British Empire and late Qing China preceded the integration of natural resources into the agenda of international law, nuancing understanding of the politics of nature.

We consider the relationship between soil characteristics and crop insurance losses. Note that crop insurance losses are typically considered to be a reliable measure of overall yield risk. Our results indicate that several soil characteristics linked to erosion are related to overall loss ratios in the federal crop insurance program. If premium rates adequately account for the risks associated with soil characteristics, there should be no relationship between loss ratios and soil characteristics. Thus, our results indicate that gains in the accuracy of insurance premium rates may be achievable from a greater focus on soil characteristics. We also consider the relationship of specific hazards with soil characteristics and find that different soil factors have varied relationships with specific causes of loss in the federal crop insurance program.

Latent class models (LCMs) are widely used for identifying unobserved subgroups from multivariate categorical data in social sciences, with binary data as a particularly popular example. However, accurately recovering individual latent class memberships remains challenging, especially when handling high-dimensional datasets with many items. This work proposes a novel two-stage algorithm for LCMs suited for high-dimensional binary responses. Our method first initializes latent class assignments by an easy-to-implement spectral clustering algorithm, and then refines these assignments with a one-step likelihood-based update. This approach combines the computational efficiency of spectral clustering with the improved statistical accuracy of likelihood-based estimation. We establish theoretical guarantees showing that this method is minimax-optimal for latent class recovery in the statistical decision theory sense. The method also leads to exact clustering of subjects with high probability under mild conditions. As a byproduct, we propose a computationally efficient consistent estimator for the number of latent classes. Extensive experiments on both simulated data and real data validate our theoretical results and demonstrate our method’s superior performance over alternative methods.

This model proposes that clinical complexity is defined with respect to treatment complications, not just client characteristics. In complex cases, there are significant barriers in the working alliance between the client and the therapist, and this limits the gains the client can receive. In any course of therapy, client, therapist, healthcare and contextual factors interact to facilitate or complicate the therapeutic process. Each participant has facilitative factors that are therapy-enabling, and complexity factors that challenge the therapeutic process. Some clients have multiple complexity factors and it is helpful to specify them and try to mitigate them. However, identifying clients as complex cases can overlook facilitative factors and take attention away from therapist and service variables. Overcoming alliance barriers relies on bringing attention to them, reflecting on the various factors that influence them, and communicating explicitly about them in supervision and therapy. Practical applications are explored for clients, therapists and services using a case example to illustrate the key points.