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This article examines how racialised memes circulating on X revive scientific racism, demonstrating that hybrid formats reconfigure biological essentialisation within contemporary digital culture. Using a corpus of 68 viral items and 4 case studies, our analysis applies Shifman’s content–form–stance model, informed by cognitive psychology. We show that these memes adopt common scientific conventions while relying on visual polarisation, whereby rapid perceptual contrasts stand in for arguments. Familiar templates, reinforced by selective algorithmic amplification, create a sense of perceptual legitimacy through fast categorisation and pre-attentive processing. We also trace how these cognitive shortcuts provide the basis for a regime of racialisation tailored to digitally immersed male audiences, producing gendered behavioural stereotypes and disappearance anxieties. A further pattern is the recoding of older racial hierarchies into neutral-sounding language of competence, allowing these ideas to travel across racialist, masculinist, techno-elitist, and anti-DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) communities. In this environment, memes work as micro-infrastructures of classification that align claims to objectivity with affect and platform incentives, making inequality appear natural and necessary. We conclude that effective critique must meet these images on their own terrain, with a pedagogy of the gaze that teaches publics how to recognise and challenge persuasion in meme-driven spaces.
A key task in conducting systematic reviews is deduplicating the results from database searching. Deduplication using reference management software can be time-consuming and prone to error, while automated tools can be expensive and lack transparency. To support review teams, we evaluated eight deduplication tools: (1) The Automated Systematic Search Deduplicator (ASySD); (2) Covidence; (3) Deduklick; (4) EPPI-Reviewer; (5) PICO Portal; (6) Rayyan; (7) The Systematic Review Accelerator (SRA) Deduplicator: Focused; (8) The SRA Deduplicator: Relaxed. Five randomly selected Cochrane reviews had their searches rerun to create five gold standard sets. We compared the gold standard sets to the outputs of the eight deduplication tools and evaluated the results for: (1) unique records removed; (2) duplicate records retained; (3) time taken to deduplicate. Summed across all five reviews, the unique records removed in error ranged from 2 to 22. The three best tools were: (1) Rayyan; (2) Covidence; (3) SRA Deduplicator: Focused. The duplicate records retained in error ranged from 34 to 280, the three best tools were: (1) ASySD; (2) Rayyan; (3) EPPI-Reviewer. The time taken to deduplicate ranged from one minute to 20 hours and 34 minutes, the three fastest tools were: (1) SRA Deduplicator: Relaxed; (2) Deduklick; (3) Covidence. No tool performed so poorly that we don’t recommend using it. But, as all the tools had strengths and weaknesses, some are expensive while others require large amounts of manual checking time, we recommend review teams compare the tools across all three outcomes and choose the tool that best suits their needs.
Bilinguals tend to have slower response times in picture naming than monolinguals in both their first and second languages. Naming speed interacts with item frequency, suggesting that the bilingual disadvantage may be due to less frequent exposure to each language. We measure response speed in a Picture Naming and a Picture-Word-Interference paradigm among 98 bilinguals and 83 monolinguals, looking for interactions between word frequency and frequency of use of both L1 and L2. We confirm previous findings that monolinguals outperform bilinguals, and that the bilingual disadvantage is stronger for low- than for high-frequency items. While immersed bilinguals seem to have an advantage in L2 naming over non-immersed speakers, self-reported use of either language does not affect naming in either language, and the L1 is not affected by the immersed vs. non-immersed distinction. We conclude that frequency remains an elusive factor in bilingual development, and particularly in L1 attrition.
The physical structures in which urban life occurs are an underappreciated determinant of how grassroots urban politics unfolds. In many rapidly growing cities, housing scarcity forces residents into multifamily buildings that create daily exposure to neighbors. We argue that these exposures affect political behavior by shaping residents’ access to political information and capacity for collective action. We focus on the informal, vernacular architecture of West Africa’s dominant urban housing form—the compound house. Compound house residents in urban Ghana participate more in politics than similar residents of other housing types. Leveraging an original survey, including novel measures of tenants’ spatial network centrality within their residential buildings, we suggest that key mechanisms for this relationship emerge from the effects of architectural design on visibility and social ties among co-tenants. Ultimately, built environments must be studied alongside demographic environments to best understand contextual effects on political behavior.
Antipsychotic medications are recommended for schizophrenia spectrum disorders, yet their long-term effects on functional recovery remain unclear, with conflicting evidence often derived from between-subject comparisons vulnerable to confounding by indication.
Methods
We conducted a nationwide register-based cohort study of 65,630 individuals with incident schizophrenia spectrum disorders in Denmark (1998–2023). We modeled antipsychotic exposure against ‘productive engagement’ (employment or education). We used two analytical approaches: (1) within-subject stratified Cox models with time-varying covariates to eliminate time-invariant confounding; and (2) Fine–Gray competing risks models with baseline exposure, accounting for mortality and emigration.
Results
Over 26.9 million person-weeks, the overall productive engagement rate was 48.2%. Integration of hospital pharmacy data revealed 6.1% exposure misclassification in studies relying solely on community records. The primary within-subject analysis revealed significant temporal heterogeneity: medication use was associated with reduced engagement rates in the acute (0–2 years; HR = 0.908) and consolidation phases (2–5 years; HR = 0.946), but reversed to a small positive association in the maintenance phase (5+ years; HR = 1.019). The between-subject Fine–Gray model, which estimates cumulative engagement probabilities, yielded an SHR of 1.002 (95% CI = 0.988–1.015), a population-level average that obscured these phase-specific dynamics.
Conclusions
Antipsychotic pharmacotherapy exerts a time-dependent, biphasic impact on vocational recovery. We identified a window of vulnerability during the post-acute ‘consolidation’ phase (years 2–5) where treatment is associated with a transient reduction in productive engagement, before becoming protective after 5 years. These findings challenge the assumption that symptomatic stability automatically facilitates functional reintegration.
Self-harm and suicide are major public health concerns and leading causes of mortality worldwide, highlighting a pressing need for policymakers to identify and implement cost-effective interventions. This systematic review (PROSPERO registration #CRD42023460339) followed the PRISMA guidelines and aimed to synthesize the available cost-effectiveness evidence for the prevention of self-harm and suicide. Systematic searches were performed in MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Econlit, and ProQuest to identify full economic evaluations and return-on-investment studies on preventive interventions for self-harm and suicide published up to January 15, 2026. Methodological quality was assessed using Drummond’s 10-item checklist, and findings were synthesized narratively. A total of 69 eligible studies evaluated 22 types of interventions: three universal, five selective, five indicated, and nine multi-level. Most studies were rated as high-quality (n = 61/69) and conducted in high-income countries (HICs) (n = 63/69), primarily assessing the cost-effectiveness of universal interventions like means restriction (n = 6), selective and indicated interventions like psychotherapy (n = 30), support services (n = 15), and medication (n = 5). Evidence consistently found that interventions for self-harm and suicide prevention were generally cost-effective or cost-saving. Strong evidence supported the cost-effectiveness of several universal (e.g. awareness training), selective (e.g. psychotherapy, support services), indicated (e.g. suicide risk screening, support services, psychotherapy for adults in HICs like Australia, US, Canada), and multi-level interventions. However, more economic evaluations are needed for interventions targeting older adults and children in all countries, especially in low- and middle-income countries, where evidence is lacking.
This study presents a generalised theory that describes the thermodynamical processes during mixing of a moist aircraft exhaust with the ambient air and allows one to decide whether or not a contrail forms. Usage of alternative fuels like hydrogen or ammonia increases the moisture content in aircraft plumes compared to current kerosene combustion. Our analysis compares the thermodynamic plume evolution for the classical mixing line and a novel generalised formulation. Additionally, both formulations are used to evaluate the limiting ambient temperature, above which an aircraft does not produce a contrail. We find that the inaccuracies introduced by the classical mixing line cancel each other out, leading to negligible differences between both formulations. Furthermore, the impact of potential heat and water vapour recuperation systems on contrail formation behind fuel-cell-propelled aircraft is investigated. Reducing the exhaust’s thermal energy by technical means increases the contrail formation propensity. Especially, if fuels with high hydrogen content are used, plumes with reduced heat content could reach supersaturation values above $ 500{\%}$. This can trigger liquid water droplet formation directly from the gas phase, a process absent in conventional contrail scenarios, and may increase the number of formed ice crystals drastically. A concurrent increase in ice crystal numbers and contrail formation propensity would increase the contrail-cirrus climate impact. To mitigate this scenario, our analysis identifies requirements on the reduction of exhaust water vapour to suppress contrail formation by technical means and reduce the potential contrail climate impact by fuel-cell-propelled aircraft.
The EU–Mercosur agreement is one of the longest and most complex trade negotiations in modern economic diplomacy. Launched in 1999 and finally concluded in December 2024, it offers a unique lens through which to understand trade negotiations in an era of geopolitical uncertainty, domestic contestation, and multilateral fragmentation. Drawing on the authors’ direct experience in trade policy and negotiation, this article argues that the agreement was not delayed because technical solutions were unavailable, nor concluded because underlying conflicts disappeared. Rather, it moved forward when changing international conditions increased the political value of closure for both sides. Agricultural sensitivities, sustainability concerns, competitiveness debates, and Mercosur’s internal coordination challenges remained. What changed was the cost of failing to reach an agreement. The case suggests that trade agreements today are no longer merely instruments of market access; they also serve as tools of strategic positioning, regulatory reassurance, and geopolitical signaling. In this context, uncertainty can become not only a constraint, but also a catalyst for cooperation and agreement
Even though political conflict on inter-territorial inequality appears to play a crucial role in understanding salient political developments in Western democracies, we still have a limited understanding of how individuals form inter-territorial redistributive preferences. We argue that relative regional income – meaning the degree of equally shared economic growth across places – serves as a cue for voters to evaluate their individual future benefits from inter-territorial redistribution. We propose that absolute regional income, defined as a region being richer or poorer today, polarizes preferences over inter-territorial redistribution under contexts of rising inequality in relative income gains. We test this argument with a factorial survey experiment in France and Germany, where respondents are randomly exposed to different information about relative and absolute regional income. We find that absolute regional income is an important determinant of preferences for inter-territorial redistribution as relative income gains are skewed to the richest areas. The difference in absolute income, however, loses explanatory power for redistributive preferences as relative income gains are distributed more equally, demonstrating that equality in economic gains can unite poor and rich areas in their redistributive preferences. This interactive relationship between relative and absolute regional income is also found in an observational study of inter-territorial redistributive preferences across 146 regions from nine European countries, underlining the external validity of our findings.
Turbulent convection is a fundamental transport process that shapes weather and climate, powers flows in planetary interiors and stars, and limits the performance of energy and heat-transfer technologies. Yet how these flows organise simultaneously into large-scale ‘superstructures’ and small-scale near-wall patterns remains unclear. Here, using Rayleigh–Bénard convection with large domain size, we show that both structures are captured by optimal linear modes that maximise transient energy amplification, identified via linear analysis based on turbulent mean profiles. Two amplification regimes emerge with clear scale separation: large-scale modes spanning the full central domain with horizontal wavelengths ${\sim} 6$ times the plate separation and small-scale modes confined near the walls at ${\sim} 11$ times the thermal boundary layer thickness. These results indicate that linear energy amplification plays an important organising role in multiscale turbulent convection and establish a unifying link to analogous non-modal processes in wall-bounded shear turbulence.
A persistent puzzle in the study of public opinion is why political information often produces minimal attitude change despite reliably influencing beliefs. We argue that this duality reflects belief relevance—the extent to which specific beliefs bear on attitudes. Using conversations with large language models (LLMs), we elicit deeply held issue attitudes and the “focal beliefs” people use to justify those attitudes. We then randomly assign participants to receive an LLM-generated counterargument targeting either their focal belief, an issue-relevant but unmentioned belief (“distal belief”), or a placebo. In experiments with two large online convenience samples, counterarguments targeting the aforementioned beliefs successfully decrease belief strength, with effects persisting after 10 days. More importantly, focal belief counterarguments produce larger and more durable attitude change than distal counterarguments. These findings suggest that political information can successfully shift political attitudes and provide new evidence for the role of belief relevance in persuasion.
In this paper, we show that for each sufficiently large integer $H$, there is a real cubic number $\alpha$ and a rational number $r$, both of height smaller than $H$, such that $0\lt \alpha -r\lt 272/H^4$. The exponent $4$ of $H$ in this inequality is best possible. The numbers $\alpha$ and $r$ are both constructed explicitly. We also show that a necessary and sufficient condition on $(u,v)$ under which there is a positive constant $c_1=c_1(d,u,v)$ such that the inequality $|\alpha -\beta | \geq c_1 H(\alpha )^{-u} H(\beta )^{-v}$ holds for all real algebraic numbers $\alpha$ of degree $d \geq 2$ and all real algebraic numbers $\beta$ of degree $d-1$ is $u \geq d-1$ and $v \geq d$.
This article examines how WhatsApp functions as a space where people shape collective memory and challenge dominant sociopolitical narratives. Focusing on Nigeria’s Obidient movement, a youth-led campaign that supported Peter Obi in the 2023 presidential election, this article seeks to understand how everyday online interactions on WhatsApp produced alternative ways of remembering and forgetting. In other words, this articles asks, How did members of an unofficial Obidient WhatsApp group enact counter-memory practices regarding Nigeria’s 2023 general elections? To answer this question, this study deployed the ethnographic approach and drew from Foucault’s concept of counter-memory and assemblage theory to understand how memory, technology, and social interaction converged in dynamic ways. The results indicate that members of the WhatsApp group construct and circulate alternative narratives that challenge mainstream sociopolitical accounts. These results are discussed in two central themes: ‘Counter-memory and the construction of alternative narrative’ and ‘WhatsApp as a mnemonic community and assemblage’. Through practices of circulating first-hand experiences and lived testimonies, evidence of electoral misconducts, and memories of past elections and protests, members collectively produced what the author described as a ‘mnemonic community’, a space where memory is created, negotiated, and sustained through interaction. However, these practices are not independent but are shaped by the interconnectedness of human (members of the group) and non-human (WhatsApp, smartphones, or multimedia content) factors. Overall, this article argues that messaging apps, such as WhatsApp, significantly shape how people remember and interpret sociopolitical movements and participation.
Rock climbing performance is affected by psychophysiological stress that can vary based on route difficulty relative to the climber’s ability. The purpose of this study was to investigate psychophysiological, emotional, and performance differences between climbers attempting a lead route above (CLLabove), at (CLL) or below (CLLbelow) their on-sight ability level. 61 intermediate to advanced climbers completed a single on-sight lead ascent. Measurements of climbing performance (technique, tactics, etc.), psychophysiological (heart rate, cardiovascular reactivity, cortisol, etc) and psychometric variables (somatic and cognitive anxiety, self-confidence) were taken before and after receiving the task instructions; and pre, during and post climb. The main findings of this study were: a) significant improvements in climbing performance with increased ability relative to the route (geometric entropy: p = .013); b) greater intensity of somatic (p < .005) and cognitive anxiety (p = .005) and lower self-confidence (p < .005) between CLLabove and CLL and CLLbelow; c) a significant difference in anticipatory HR between CLLabove and CLLbelow (p = .002), but no significant differences in salivary cortisol. Results suggested that increased difficulty relative to a climber’s ability, yielding an increased likelihood of a climber falling or being unable to complete the route, was likely to elicit a negative emotional response, increase anxiety, decrease self-confidence and disrupt performance.
Accurately assessing dietary intake in children and adolescents is essential for understanding dietary patterns and informing public health strategies. In Latin America, rapid nutrition transitions and increasing childhood obesity highlight the need for culturally appropriate, validated dietary assessment tools (DATs). However, methodological challenges and limited regional data hinder effective dietary surveillance. This scoping review identified and characterised DATs used among children and adolescents (5–18 years) in Latin America, examining tool types, features, validation and regional coverage. Following Joanna Briggs Institute and PRISMA-ScR guidelines, comprehensive searches were conducted in EMBASE, Web of Science, PubMed, and LILACS (April 2024) in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. Eligible studies included original research developing, validating, or applying DATs in Latin American populations. Of 13,946 records screened, 105 reports met the inclusion criteria. Brazil and Mexico contributed the most studies, while six countries (Paraguay, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras, and Belize) had none. Forty-three DATs were identified, 77% of which were food frequency questionnaires (FFQs). Half targeted adolescents, 39% children, and 11% both groups. Most were interviewer-administered (58%) and applied in person (49%), with only 19% conducted online, reflecting regional digital limitations. Validation was reported for 70% of tools, primarily against 24 HR. The DAT landscape in Latin America remains dominated by FFQs and traditional administration methods, with limited use of digital platforms. Developing age-appropriate, validated and culturally adapted digital DATs is essential to strengthen dietary surveillance and guide effective nutrition policies across the region.
Livelihood diversification is widely viewed as a key pathway for enhancing rural resilience in contexts marked by environmental stress and agrarian uncertainty. This paper examines whether India’s National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM), the world’s largest poverty-alleviation program, contributes to livelihood diversification among rural households in Assam, a flood-prone and agriculture-dependent state in Northeast India. Drawing on primary household survey data from three districts representing upper, middle, and lower Assam, the study compares livelihood portfolios of NRLM participants and nonparticipants. The results show that program participation is positively associated with greater diversification into nonfarm wage employment, self-employment, and service activities alongside agriculture. Education, skill training, proximity to urban centers, and engagement in nonfarm occupations significantly shape diversification outcomes. Women’s participation through Self-Help Groups emerges as a critical institutional mechanism facilitating access to skills, credit, and collective learning. The findings suggest that NRLM contributes to rural resilience primarily by strengthening institutional and human capital rather than through income effects alone. The paper highlights the importance of place-specific infrastructure and skill investments for enhancing the diversification impacts of large-scale livelihood programs in environmentally vulnerable regions.
In vivo anthelmintic assay models are essential for evaluating candidate compounds in target species. Several rodent-helminth systems have been developed, with the Cobb-Wistar rat-T. colubriformis model emerging as promising for early-stage screening. Although this model has demonstrated utility, the development of an alternative model using a more widely accessible rat strain represents a valuable opportunity for advancing in vivo screening of anthelmintics. This study evaluated different immunosuppressants and regimens to identify treatments yielding the highest and most consistent worm burdens in experimentally infected Sprague-Dawley rats. Thirty rats were assigned to five groups (n = 6). Group 1 received unmedicated feed (negative control), while Groups 2, 3, and 4 received hydrocortisone acetate (HCA) in their diet at 60 ppm, 80 ppm, and a two-phase regimen of 200 ppm followed by 60 ppm, respectively. Group 5 received intramuscular methylprednisolone acetate (MPA) on three occasions. All animals were orally infected with T. colubriformis third-stage larvae, and necropsies were performed on Day 13 post-infection to recover worm burdens. Treatment had no effect on worm counts. The 80-ppm HCA group produced the highest mean burden with high variance; the 200:60 ppm group showed lower counts but less variance, and the 60-ppm HCA and MPA groups were comparable to controls. There was insufficient evidence to support the Sprague-Dawley rat-T. colubriformis model but, given the results of this study, further investigation and development are warranted.
This paper analyzes the practice of writing inscriptions on munitions, termed “bomb mail,” with a focus on inscriptions on artillery shells used in the Ukraine–Russia conflict and in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. To better understand bomb mail’s enigmatic appeal, I examine its uncanny and quasi-magical affordances. First, through the medium of writing, bomb mail offers the inscriber a form of distributed personhood that extends into the weapon. Second, in bomb mail, violence becomes a vehicle for augmenting verbal meaning, while the words’ meanings are inseparable from the violence itself. This intertwining may contribute to the impression that bomb mail possesses a kind of spell-casting power. Third, bomb mail gives rise to an uncanny enemy other, a target shaped by an uneasy simultaneity of humanizing and dehumanizing stances. Working in tandem, these three qualities make bomb mail compelling and encourage cosmopolitan militarism among civilians, while embodying a form of political communication that shuts dialogue down altogether.
Sir W. M. Flinders Petrie's lifelong beliefs in race science and eugenics underlay his significant work as an archaeologist and Egyptologist. His detection of race in ancient art provided a basis for other scholars’ construction of racial typologies. His commitment to colonialist paradigms of excavation moved numerous objects, and human remains, from Egypt and Palestine to Britain. In the 1930s, in two letters to The Times and the Palestine Post, the aging Petrie came out against Nazi understandings of race, arguing that 'foreign migration has been the making of Britain’. Petrie's claims reflected his understanding of civilisation, in antiquity and today, as a product of the 'right sort’ of racial mixing through migration of the fit, hearty, and talented. This critical reflection considers the role of archaeology in constructing race, taking Flinders Petrie’s work on migration as a case study and situating it in wider intellectual trends of the time. Understanding how Petrie’s racial logic allowed him to oppose Nazism while promoting eugenic ‘weeding’, allows us to move beyond simplistic understandings of early twentieth century race science. We can then detect the pernicious persistence of frameworks from this discipline in popular discourses about migration and culture in Britain today.
Genomic biobanks are increasingly embedded in the United States’ criminal justice system and scientific research institutions. Yet, we do not clearly understand how much the public supports these societal uses, why they do (or do not), and whether public perspectives are even meaningful given minimal familiarity with biobanks. Few studies have queried representative samples of the U.S. public, and almost all address only one moment in time and one of the two uses. In contrast, we draw on original survey data that (1) address scientific and forensic biobanks, (2) are representative of the U.S. public, (3) include re-interviews several years later, and (4) mix qualitative and quantitative measures of opinion. We find a public using value-based reasoning to express a mix of optimism and caution. We conclude that well-constructed surveys enable policymakers and experts to consider lay views as they craft policy relevant to genomics.