This article examines the longevity of interpersonal ties in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Britain, and their impact on the structure of social networks incorporating individuals separated by rank. Using the example of a protracted patronage relationship involving the explorer James Cook, his family, and the wealthy naturalist and president of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks, it shows how social ties formed in life continued to exert an influence on behaviour when a key member of a network was dead. Cook, who died in 1779, remained associated with Banks many years later, the consequence of a powerful and recognized bond combining qualities of friendship and patronage. This bond motivated appeals to Banks to assist Cook’s impoverished family, initiating an affair with which this article is concerned, and whose granular study illuminates the operation of genteel norms conditioning lasting interpersonal ties. In showing the representative value of this case, the article tracks actions motivated variously by friendship, kinship, and patronage, demonstrating how they unfolded across time and in surrogate fashion.

The conflict that erupted in Sudan in mid-April 2023 has had a profound impact on scholars, university staff, academic institutions, and academic freedom in the country. It also has had a deep impact on scholars displaced because of war or political repression since the 1990s, who now constitute a significant part of the Sudanese diaspora. The war has devastated the country’s population, landscape, services, and infrastructure, including both general and higher education sectors. In the half-decade that preceded the current conflict, Sudan witnessed an uprising in 2018, in which students, academics, and academic associations played an important role, followed by a short transitional period (2019–21) and a subsequent coup (2021). The latter consolidated the power of the army and its allies and narrowed the space for academic freedom that had expanded during and after the uprising. Although an incident that occurred at the University of Khartoum toward the end of 2025 shows that there may be a degree of freedom of intramural expression (the right to challenge the workings of the university), other events in Sudan suggest little respect for freedom of extramural expression (the right to engage in public expression without negative repercussions), because of the nature of governance arrangements, among other factors. This particularly affects academics and professionals currently in Sudan who call for peace.

The maximum take-off weight (MTOW) affects many aspects of aircraft design, such as performance, stability and control. It is the first and most important design variable that affects numerous aircraft design decisions. Understanding how parametric changes to the major design variables would likely affect the MTOW in the early stages of the preliminary design phase is crucial. This research introduces a ground-breaking approach to precision weight estimation in light aircraft design. Employing a statistical approach, specifically multilinear regression alone and coupled with p-value analysis, the study focuses on predicting the MTOW using datasets from aircraft still ‘in production’ and/or ‘in service’. The aircraft are categorised by landing gear arrangement and number of engines. Eight crucial design parameters that influence aircraft weight are used to determine the empirical models. The developed models successfully predict the MTOW with an error of less than 5% and outperform existing weight estimation techniques, empowering designers to conduct parametric studies that include essential design parameters at the early stages of aircraft design. The proposed methodology represents a paradigm shift in the field, offering a reliable and practical means of achieving precision in light aircraft weight predictions.

This article critically examines the broad claims of the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties (ATCPs) that the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) is the ‘competent’ and ‘comprehensive’ framework for governing marine biodiversity in the area covered by its constituent instruments, implying that the Agreement on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement) is therefore inapplicable within that same area under the ‘not undermine’ clause in its Article 5(2). Focusing on the specific topic of marine bioprospecting governance, our analysis breaks down ‘competence’ into spatial (where the ATS has legal authority to govern) and functional (the activities or subject matter it is empowered to regulate) dimensions and evaluates whether existing competences, as exercised, result in ‘comprehensive’ governance. We find the ATCPs’ claims to be legally and practically unsubstantiated to justify the complete or de facto exclusion of the BBNJ Agreement’s application in the area covered by the constituent instruments of the ATS: the jurisdictional competence of the ATS is fragmented, its functional competence is narrowly confined to the early, in situ dimensions of bioprospecting regulation, and its operational record of governing marine bioprospecting is negligible, relying on generic, non-tailored rules long recognized as inadequate. As such, the Antarctic marine bioprospecting case illustrates that a regime’s exclusionary claims regarding the BBNJ Agreement should be viewed with scepticism. Failing to do so may conceal the very gaps that the BBNJ Agreement was created to address.

This article explores the economic and aesthetic dimensions of Resurrección María de Azkue’s (1864–1951) Basque operas, focusing on the tension between artistic ambition and financial constraints in the early twentieth-century Basque Country. Drawing on the example of the operas Ortzuri (1911) and Urlo (1914), this article explores how industrialisation and bourgeois interests influenced the definition of Basque opera. It also assesses the viability of this project by analysing its internal infrastructure, including the theatre landscape and repertoire, while underscoring the role of critics in shaping aesthetic norms for composers. By integrating both local and transnational perspectives, this article situates Azkue’s Basque operas within a broader context, relating it to contrasting models of modernity represented by Italian opera and Wagnerism, and demonstrating how peripheral regionalist and nationalist movements navigated these trends to try to assert a position of centrality.

Let $\Omega$ be a lattice in $\mathbb C$ with invariants $g_2,g_3$ and let $\wp(z), \zeta(z)$ be the associated Weierstrass elliptic and zeta functions, respectively. In this paper, we prove that if $\omega$ is any non-zero period of $\wp(z)$ and $u_1,u_2$ complex numbers such that $u_1,u_2, \omega$ are $\mathbb{Q}$-linearly independent with $({\mathbb{Z}} u_1+{\mathbb{Z}} u_2)\cap\Omega=(0),$ then at least two of the numbers

\begin{equation*}g_2,g_3,\omega, \eta,u_1,u_2,\wp(u_i),\zeta(u_i)~~(1\leq i\leq 2)\end{equation*}

$\mathbb{Q},$

$\eta$

$\zeta(z)$

$\omega.$

Since the 1980s opera and fashion directors have earnestly explored the potential for symbiotic relationships as a way to sustain performance institutions and showcase forward-thinking approaches to operatic works, as evidenced by collaborations between the creative directors of Missoni, Versace, Fendi and Armani with La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera and the Royal Opera House. In addition, fashion companies such as Dolce&Gabbana have found inspiration from opera’s long and celebrated histories within Italy, using operatic works as a platform for haute couture runway design.

This article studies three projects from Maison Valentino which are among the most recent fashionable forays into the genre of opera. In addition to collaborating on the 2016 production of La traviata with the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Valentino highlighted operatic heroines on the runway in 2014, and in 2018 created a collection inspired by Maria Callas, who inspired a number of repertorial revivals in the twentieth century. Valentino’s sartorial re-imaginings of nineteenth-century operatic culture on the stage and runway – achieved in both instances through incarnations of Callas – have sought to position Italian operatic history as a practical aspect of contemporary material culture. By showcasing the economic, political and social ramifications of Valentino’s collaborative efforts, I show how the company’s reformulations of operatic materials have impacted both conventional and unconventional structures of contemporary performance.

How and why is comparative law and society imperative to legal education? In the 21st century, legal education displays a paradox: despite the rise of Asia economically, socially and politically, the study of comparative law rarely includes Asian laws outside of law schools in Asia. In this article, I contribute to the debate over legal education by arguing for the imperative of comparative law and society, and its benefits for law students. I examine how law schools commit practically to comparative law and society by hiring scholars with relevant expertise and offering such subjects. I illustrate this commitment with a case study of Asian legal studies in Australia over the past seven decades (1960s-2020s). I find that Asian legal studies remains concentrated at a handful of law schools, resulting in a problem I describe as the ‘Asian Century gap’ in legal education. Closing this gap requires a renewed commitment to the study of comparative law and society as Asian legal studies through hiring choices and subject offerings. Such a commitment is necessary to ensure that our law students gain the benefits that an education in comparative law and society has to offer.

This paper elucidates the firm and corporation’s institutional coevolution via the firm-corporation linkage debate between legal institutionalism (LI) and world power system theory (WPS). To drive a sustainability transition, it proposes ‘regenerative characteristics’ – extending multidomain, multitemporal, and ecosystem characteristics. Employing a transdisciplinary approach, the study synthesises LI’s ‘emergentist’ and WPS’s ‘separation’ views through comparative institutional analysis (CIA). Integrating corporate actor theory with an Ostromian perspective, it extends CIA to identify position as the generative mechanism linking micro-level actions to macro-level institutions. Theoretically, law structures coevolutionary governance, joint production demands an agreement of joint responsibility, and ‘negotiated governance’ emphasises capability evolution. Rejecting shareholder primacy, policies must tie legal recognition to external responsibilities, foster education for moral judgement, and incentivise regenerative characteristics. Ultimately, negotiated governance transforms the firm-corporation linkage into a responsible constituent of the global commons.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments recommended quarantine to those who had close contact with infected individuals. We conducted a large-scale retrospective survey to study the consequences of such quarantine for labor outcomes. A sizable fraction of quarantined workers experienced reductions in hours worked and earnings, not only during quarantine but also after quarantine. Even uninfected workers experienced negative labor impacts, likely capturing the pure effects of quarantine independent of the effects of COVID-19 symptoms. Non-regular workers and workers without remote work options were more negatively affected by quarantine. We estimate that the quarantine resulted in a large reduction in the aggregate hours and that the reduction is mainly due to the scarring effects.

The paper reinterprets the East India Company’s state-building effort in late eighteenth‑century Bengal by foregrounding the intertwined evolution of fiscal capacity and institutional reform. It argues that the Permanent Settlement of 1793 emerged not from a desire to follow Indian or English precedent, but from the Company’s struggle to concentrate fiscal powers. A debate on the need to obtain information on taxpayers, which delayed the reform, reveals this struggle. Repeated failures in data collection pushed the state to anchor the reform in an expanding judicial system capable of producing actionable information. The Settlement strengthened revenue flows, enabling the financing of a centrally controlled army and contributing to Britain’s wider imperial expansion. However, its long-term rigidity limited fiscal flexibility and impeded broader developmental outcomes.

We hypothesize that the public assesses U.S. Supreme Court nominees in light of the contemporaneous Court’s partisan composition. In a preregistered conjoint experiment (n = 9,895), we find that Democrats and Republicans weigh nominee partisanship more heavily when their party is losing the Court and less heavily when their party already enjoys a secure majority. Consistent with affective polarization and threat-based political psychology, however, they care just as much about partisanship when the Court is split as when the other party enjoys a strong majority – even though the new Justice would swing the Court only in the former scenario.

Lexical acquisition often occurs through reading, yet little research has compared how cognates, false cognates, and noncognates are learned contextually through reading. To this end, we conducted a week-long pretest-training-posttest study with 54 adult Polish learners of English. During three sessions on consecutive days, participants read 45 short stories (170–317 words) containing 90 target keywords (30 cognates, 30 noncognates, 30 false cognates). We examined how word type, context informativeness, and number of keywords occurrences affected keyword learning. Additionally, participants were randomly assigned to a control or awareness-raising group, the latter trained to notice cross-linguistic similarities. Mixed-effects models showed learning of all word types at immediate posttest, with cognates being learned the most and false cognates the least. Higher context informativeness and more keyword occurrences improved learning for all keywords, but false cognates benefited the most from contextual clues. However, raising awareness of cross-linguistic similarity did not enhance contextual learning.

The discipline of political science lacks a systematic understanding of how scholars studying Middle East politics prepare for and navigate in-country research, even as fieldwork plays a vital role in contemporary scholarship about the region. Drawing on evidence from an original survey of scholars studying the Middle East and North Africa, we identify a training–practice misalignment wherein 38% of respondents reported having received no formal training before entering the field despite almost all respondents claiming to have conducted fieldwork. Qualitative evidence from open-ended responses reveals the frustration that many scholars experience due to their lack of formal training and subsequent dependence on informal networks and knowledge. Conflict, authoritarianism, state surveillance, and repression in public space—characteristics that increasingly are prevalent in many parts of the world—have long shaped the practice of fieldwork in the Middle East, rendering our findings significant beyond this region alone. The article discusses implications of this misalignment for this subfield and the discipline more broadly, as well as potential pathways forward.

This study investigated information retrieval of preprint records in the context of evidence synthesis work and compared 12 sources used to discover preprints. Identification of grey literature is often required or recommended in evidence synthesis guidance, and preprints are categorized as grey literature. The purpose of this work is to inform how and where to search for preprints to maximize coverage (through exploration of preprint server across aggregators and databases) while balancing search efficiency. Authors selected aggregators and databases hosting two or more preprint servers and then tested search functionality and extracted characteristics and features. Authors analyzed and compared the selected sources, tabulated the number of essential features, and created comparison tables reflecting database and aggregator features. The study protocol was registered in Open Science Framework registries. Preprint aggregators and databases differ in their content coverage, and their ability to design a comprehensive and reproducible search strategy. Limitations such as character or word limits for queries, limited advanced search operators, and missing export functionality affect the usability of aggregators for evidence synthesis searches. Ongoing updates to search interfaces and functionality and differing approaches to versioning make it challenging to study discovery of preprints across sources. The recommendations and scenarios in this article will assist searchers engaged in evidence synthesis to make informed decisions about where to search for preprints.