This article reflects on performing A Taste of Millefeuille, a visual theatre piece by Éric de Sarria that develops the aesthetic and pedagogical legacy of Compagnie Philippe Genty. Focusing on the 2024 production at Theatre YOUNG (Shanghai), it examines how physical manipulation, gendered presence, and material interaction were adapted to linguistic, cultural, and performative contexts. Using a practice-based and auto-ethnographic lens, it explores how memory, rhythm, and performer–object relations were negotiated in rehearsal and performance. These reflections are placed within wider debates on intercultural theatre-making and visual dramaturgy, showing how meaning can emerge across cultures through non-verbal performance.

This article introduces a symposium on teaching qualitative research methods to undergraduate students. Qualitative methods have an important role in both the discipline and the professional development of students but do not occupy a commensurate space in research pedagogy. This is due in part to the lack of resources for effectively teaching qualitative methods—a lack this symposium seeks to address. We identify four common themes in the four symposium contributions: (1) the importance of including the ethical and epistemological foundations of qualitative work; (2) the possibilities of teaching qualitative methods across the entire research cycle; (3) the importance of carefully structuring and designing active and experiential learning in research pedagogy; and (4) the unique opportunities of moving beyond the classroom in teaching qualitative research.

Epistemological positioning is foundational to any analysis, yet pluralist epistemologies are taught unevenly in political science methods courses. This article draws attention to this crucial foundation and suggests that a basic grounding in positivist and interpretivist research paradigms would give students conceptual tools to adjudicate between competing claims and contradictory evidence in the empirical world—even as it would highlight comparative advantages of different approaches to knowledge production. Using an optical illusion as a heuristic guide, the article proposes a practical classroom exercise to illustrate the central differences between positivist and interpretivist approaches to political science and to elucidate how these differences play out in research design and inquiry.

This study aims to evaluate the thermal behaviors of surface materials in arid climates to enhance environmental sustainability and energy efficiency. Conducted over 1 year at Dokumapark in Antalya, Turkey, it examines surface temperatures of asphalt, concrete, granite, wood, grass, and soil using thermal using a FLIR-C5 thermal camera. Measurements were taken in the morning, noon, and evening, capturing images from sunny and shaded areas, which were processed with custom Python software. A total of 1728 temperature values were statistically and visually analyzed based on surface–air temperature differences.

Seven machine learning models were used for evaluation, with the neural network model achieving the highest accuracy (R2: 0.9848) and minimal error. The model assessed thermal variations across different periods. Grass and wood exhibited low heat retention, while asphalt and brick reached higher temperatures, with asphalt predicted to exceed 50 oC in summer, potentially impacting thermal comfort. Grass was the most efficient material with minimal temperature fluctuations.

This study highlights the importance of thermal properties in enhancing energy efficiency and user comfort, as well as the necessity of selecting materials for sustainable cities. It suggests that combining artificial intelligence and thermal imaging techniques can be a beneficial tool for ecological and sustainable architectural design.

Personal autonomy is increasingly challenged by institutional rules and societal demands. This research examines how institutional restrictions on what people do, when they do it, and how they do it influence their experience of agency. Across two experimental studies, participants indicated their experienced agency in everyday scenarios where institutions determined one or more of these three components. The results indicate that experienced agency is most strongly undermined when institutions decide what goal a person must pursue. The more components were restricted, the lower the experienced agency, revealing a cumulative effect. The second study further tested whether framing the achievement of a goal as an opportunity to experience freedom could buffer against these effects. This manipulation did not attenuate the impact of restrictions, suggesting that immediate control over decision-making plays a more critical role in shaping experience of agency than anticipated future freedoms. These findings offer insight into how institutional rules shape people’s experience of agency and may help guide the design of policies that better respect and preserve personal autonomy.

While Kantian readers consider Hegel’s discussion of the significance of Kant’s account of apperception as the key to understanding what he means by the concept of the concept, the so-called metaphysical readers have warned against identifying these accounts too swiftly, urging instead that the concept is an onto-logical structure which needs to be conceived through the genuinely Hegelian notion of absolute negativity. In this paper, I reject the problematic underlying assumption shared by both interpretative strands that Hegel’s notion of self-negation sits uncomfortably with conceiving Hegel’s concept of the concept in terms of the unity of apperception. Contrary to both one-sided readings, I seek to preserve their insights by arguing first that Hegel’s conception of the concept, or thinking only thinking itself, and its absolute negativity, can be understood as the radicalization of Kant’s account of apperception, or self-relation of thinking, and its original emptiness. Second, I will show that the absolute negation provides the conceptual resources to understand how pure thinking can determine itself and thus give itself concrete conceptual content.

Festive culture is often analysed as a manifestation of spontaneity, creativity, popular culture, and humour, as well as an opportunity to express territorial identity. However, these rituals and their artistic expressions can also manifest hateful and contemptuous discourses toward national and cultural minorities, as observed in some European carnival celebrations. In the case of Valencia, from the Francoist dictatorship onwards, the festive culture was controlled by a political and social elite right and extreme right group, which instrumentalised the celebration as a political tool. Thus, these phenomena can be observed with the proliferation of hate speech against social and political minorities as Catalan and Valencian nationalists, depicting them as animals, traitors and enemies of Valencian and Spanish identity and exposing them in public space to shame them. This phenomenon was radicalised at the end of 2015 with the mobilisation of the Spanish right and far right to counter the left and nationalist government of the city, despite the Fallas’ adherence to UNESCO principles to promote understanding and dialogue between cultures and nationalities.

Schur functions are a basis of the symmetric function ring that represent Schubert cohomology classes for Grassmannians. Replacing the cohomology ring with K-theory yields a rich combinatorial theory of inhomogeneous deformations, where Schur functions are replaced by their K-analogs, the symmetric Grothendieck functions. We initiate a theory of the Kromatic symmetric function $\overline {X}_G$, a K-theoretic analog of the chromatic symmetric function $X_G$ of a graph G. The Kromatic symmetric function is a generating series for graph colorings in which vertices receive any nonempty set of colors such that neighboring color sets are disjoint. Our main result lifts a theorem of Gasharov (1996), showing that when G is a claw-free incomparability graph, $\overline {X}_G$ is a positive sum of symmetric Grothendieck functions. This suggests a topological interpretation of Gasharov’s theorem. Kromatic symmetric functions of path graphs are not positive in any of several K-analogs of the e-basis, demonstrating that the Stanley–Stembridge conjecture (1993) does not have such a lift to K-theory and so is unlikely to be amenable to a topological perspective. We define a vertex-weighted extension of $\overline {X}_G$ which admits a deletion–contraction relation. Finally, we give a K-analog for $\overline {X}_G$ of the monomial-basis expansion of $X_G$.

An exawatt-class peak-power laser architecture, based on a single, large-aperture Nd:mixed-glass amplifier combined with a technique called chirped pulse juxtaposed with beam amplification (CPJBA) is proposed to significantly extend laser capabilities beyond the present 10 PW state-of-the-art for ultra-high-intensity lasers. CPJBA utilizes a space–time coupled chirped-beam pulse to enhance the temporal compression of a fixed-aperture grating pair in a novel six-grating compressor arrangement. With this, an appropriately structured, 20-ns stretched pulse can be compressed to a transform limit of 100 fs using a maximum grating aperture of 2 m. This enables the extraction of 25 kJ of energy from a single, large-aperture Nd:glass beamline while staying below the B-integral threshold. This paper presents the numerical modeling of the various novel sub-systems required for this exawatt-class laser architecture. In particular, the unique spatial and temporal pulse distortions present during amplification using CPJBA, and the strategies used to mitigate them, are discussed.

This article analyzes how A. Dean Byrd, an assistant commissioner of LDS Social Services, advanced reparative therapy for Latter-day Saint (LDS) men at the turn of the twenty-first century. Byrd argued that Mormon men’s “unwanted same-sex attractions” stemmed from deficient gender identities that could be “repaired” by cultivating traditional masculinity. Rather than originating these ideas, he synthesized gender-essentialist themes from LDS pastoral discourse into a systematic therapeutic program grounded in the doctrine of eternal gender. Reading Byrd’s writings along the grain, this article shows how his model masculinized Mormon patriarchs while rendering women less visible as therapeutic subjects, framing conversion therapy in LDS contexts as a gendered project aimed at restoring male ecclesiastical authority. Byrd’s collaborations with Catholic and evangelical therapists through organizations such as the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality further reveal reparative therapy as a shared gender ideology that united conservative Mormons with a broader family values coalition amid a moral panic over homosexuality. Yet Byrd’s distinctly Mormon cosmology exposed the limits of conservative Christian ecumenism. Situating Byrd at the intersection of LDS soteriology, gender, and the religious right, this article illuminates how one Mormon therapist participated in and unsettled the networks shaping late twentieth-century responses to queer belonging.

Dysregulation of fatty acids metabolism has been associated with the risk of osteoarthritis (OA), yet current evidence from epidemiological or genetic studies remains inconclusive. We aimed to investigate the phenotypic association and genetic architecture between total fatty acids, saturated fatty acids (SFA), MUFA, PUFA and OA. Leveraging individual-level data from the UK Biobank, combined with the hitherto largest genome-wide association studies of fatty acids (n 136 016) and OA (n 826 690) in European individuals, we implemented a comprehensive analytical framework. This included observational and genetic analyses, incorporating phenotypic associations, genetic correlations, cross-trait meta-analysis, enrichment analysis and Mendelian randomisation (MR). Observational analysis identified SFA as a risk factor, while MUFA and PUFA as protective factors for OA. Despite a lack of genome-wide genetic correlation, statistically significant local signals were detected within three specific genomic regions. Cross-trait meta-analysis identified sixty-eight pleiotropic loci shared between fatty acids and OA, of which nine were novel. Enrichment analysis revealed the shared genes were enriched in lipoprotein metabolism, immune response and inflammation regulation pathways. Two-sample MR provided evidence for a causal relationship of MUFA and PUFA on OA that survived false discovery rate correction. This study supports associations between circulating fatty acids and OA, with MUFA and PUFA exerting a protective role. Our findings provide new perspectives into OA prevention especially regarding the potential dietary interventions.

Marine ice cliff instability (MICI) is the hypothesis that self-sustained retreat of ice sheets can be initiated when sufficiently tall ice cliffs are exposed. Projections, including MICI, suggest a substantial risk of large sea-level rise in the coming centuries. However, to date, the number of modelling studies exploring this possibility is limited. Here, we investigate the role of calving in ice loss and frontal retreat of the Amundsen Sea glaciers, West Antarctica, using a high-resolution ice-flow model. This study employs a cliff-height-dependent calving parametrisation from DeConto and Pollard (2016). Numerical convergence tests reveal that mesh resolutions finer than 2 km are essential for robust simulation of grounding line migration and frontal dynamics. Simulations assuming initial loss of ice shelves show spatially varied glacier response. For tall marine-terminating fronts, initial retreat driven by exposed cliffs is rapidly reversed as ice deformation lowers cliff height. In contrast, the same parametrisation produces frontal retreat in slow-flowing grounded regions where cliff heights presently exceed 80 m. In those regions, however, no such retreat is currently observed. These findings suggest that direct application of this calving scheme both contradicts existing observational evidence and is unlikely to drive sustained frontal retreat in fast-flowing marine-terminating glaciers under current conditions.

As Ukraine works to modernize its healthcare system and align with international standards, integrating health technology assessment (HTA) into the national decision-making process has become a strategic priority. While HTA practices for pharmaceuticals have advanced, substantial gaps persist in the evaluation of medical devices (MDs), which require distinct methodological approaches given their characteristics. This article presents the rationale, development, implementation, and results of a comprehensive online training program aimed at building national capacity in the MD assessment. The program targeted 71 Ukrainian professionals with prior experience in pharmaceutical evaluation but limited exposure to MD. Through 40 hours of live online sessions delivered from September to December 2024, the course emphasized interactive learning, contextual adaptation, and international best practices. Assessments showed significant knowledge gains, with 87 percent of participants completing the program successfully. The initiative demonstrates that targeted, competency-based training can enhance national HTA capacity and may serve as a model for other transitioning healthcare systems.

This study explores the characteristics of musical and communicative interactions – primarily vocal – between parents and children aged 6 to 36 months in Barcelona, Spain. Five families participated. Data were gathered using LENA® audio recordings across full days and semi-structured interviews. Episodes were analysed using a validated instrument and thematic coding. Findings reveal mismatches between parental perceptions and observed behaviours, highlight children’s active participation, and identify underreported functions and settings of musical interaction. This research underscores the importance of combining parental accounts with data gathered from real-life scenarios to understand everyday family musicality as a shared, dynamic, and reciprocal phenomenon.