Phase-space electron holes, recognised as fundamental nonlinear electrostatic structures in space plasmas, have recently been detected near the mantle boundary of the Venusian magnetosheath by both the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) and the Pioneer Venus Orbiter (PVO). To understand their origin and characteristics, we develop a hydrodynamic model coupled with reductive perturbation theory that incorporates a small population of non-isothermal trapped electrons together with the dynamical effects of solar-wind ions and electrons. This formulation yields a generalised Schamel–Korteweg de Vries equation supporting two distinct classes of nonlinear electrostatic modes: solitary waves and double layers. Using parameter ranges constrained by in situ measurements – including relative densities, drift velocities and temperature ratios – we conduct a detailed parametric investigation of both structures. For the solitary-wave solutions, the model predicts electric field amplitudes of ${\sim} 20$ mV m–1, temporal scales of ${\sim} (2.5{-}4.5)\,$ms and characteristic frequencies of ${\sim} (0.31{-}5.6)$ kHz. The double-layer solutions exhibit fields of ${\sim} 18$ mV m–1, durations of ${\sim} 4.5\,$ms and frequencies of ${\sim} (0.63{-}1.6)$ kHz. These results are in strong agreement with PSP and PVO observations, which report electrostatic fluctuations near 5.4 kHz with amplitudes of ${\sim} 20$ mV m–1. The present analysis therefore provides a consistent physical interpretation of electron-hole structures in the Venusian magnetosheath and highlights their role in mediating kinetic processes at unmagnetised planetary boundaries.

Excavations in the city center of the ancient city of Doliche in southeast Türkiye have brought to light the remains of a monumental apsidal building. Although the structure is poorly preserved due to looting and spoliation, the results of three seasons of excavation allow for an initial analysis and preliminary reconstruction. This article presents the building for the first time and discusses its importance in improving our understanding of monumental urban architecture in the region. The building is interpreted as a temple, and the article explores its potential links with apsidal temples in southern Syria and the Roman imperial cult.

Strategic autonomy has become a central objective of EU external economic policy, with de-risking serving as a key instrument through which the EU seeks to assert this autonomy by mitigating vulnerabilities amid intensifying trade wars. China has long been viewed as supportive of EU strategic autonomy, yet whether such support extends to the EU’s de-risking agenda remains unclear. Drawing on role theory and perceptual approaches, this article introduces an analytical framework to assess perception gaps between an actor’s self-image and external perceptions and applies it to examine the EU’s role projections and altercasting of China in the context of de-risking, as well as their validation by Chinese perceptions. It shows that, on the one hand, the EU uses de-risking to project itself as an autonomous actor vis-à-vis the United States, a defusing force in Sino–American competition, and a norm broker in economic governance, while implicitly altercasting China as an equal, normatively aligned, and responsible partner expected to act constructively in trade-war dynamics. On the other hand, Chinese perspectives contest these role claims and altercasted images, framing de-risking as a US-led containment strategy, rejecting its stabilising function, and denying its normative legitimacy – revealing clear limits to China’s support for EU strategic autonomy.

Hallyu, or the “Korean Wave,” has evolved from a regional phenomenon into a global force shaping media, consumption, and international perceptions of South Korea. As Korean cultural products circulate worldwide, they operate as instruments of soft power while being reinterpreted through local histories of race, gender, class, and nation. Moving beyond media and cultural studies approaches, this special issue foregrounds language and semiotics as central to processes of circulation, advancing a sociolinguistic and linguistic anthropological perspective on how Korean popular culture is localized, resemiotized, and negotiated across transnational digital networks. The contributions examine how mediatized discourse and diverse engagements with Korean genres shape the global circulation of Korean popular culture across linguistic, cultural, and ideological boundaries. Rather than treating hallyu as a homogenous export, the issue conceptualizes it as an ongoing set of projects in which various actors negotiate authenticity, modernity, and belonging, underscoring how language mediates global cultural flows.

Polarimetric observations at sub-GHz frequencies offer unique access to the magnetised universe through Faraday rotation and depolarization studies, but achieving reliable polarization calibration at these frequencies remains challenging. We report the identification and resolution of a systematic polarization calibration instability in the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT) Band 4 (550–750 MHz). Through diagnostic observations of multiple calibrators, we discovered that the cross-hand phase response varies with the fractional polarization of the observed source, violating the fundamental assumption of calibration transferability in radio interferometry. Systematic engineering tests traced this behaviour to the quadrature hybrid (QH) polariser in the frontend signal chain. We conducted a controlled experiment in which the QH was bypassed in seven antennas, converting them to linear polarization feeds. The bypassed system shows dramatically improved performance: instrumental leakage reduced from 10–15% to 2–5%, residual leakage after calibration reduced from $\sim$0.5% to less than $0.2\%$, and stable cross-hand phases independent of source polarization. For the polarised source DA 240 (RM $=$ 3.3 rad m$^{-2}$), the QH-bypassed system accurately recovers the expected $25^\circ$ polarization angle rotation across the band, which the with QH system fails to reproduce. These results establish that the QH polariser is the dominant source of polarimetric instability in uGMRT Band 4 and demonstrate that its removal enables reliable sub-GHz polarimetry. We recommend the linear feed configuration for science cases requiring accurate polarization angle and rotation measure measurements.

International actors working to implement the UN’s Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda emphasize the importance of partnership with local women’s organizations and activists. Building on data from Myanmar, this study examines how and when women in conflict contexts are understood as ideal participants in – and vehicles for – the WPS agenda. Drawing on interviews with international donors, gender experts, and Myanmar women activists, the analysis demonstrates how both desirable and undesirable participant subject positions are produced through the discourses and funding choices of WPS donors. In particular, we identify and discuss three undesirable subject positions prominent in donor-driven discourses: the oppositional woman, the fearful woman, and the apolitical woman. We also find that how (un)desirability is framed depends on changing factors that include shifts in local political context and in the foreign policy goals of international donors – shifts that may be particularly dramatic and abrupt in conflict-affected contexts. Critically examining the production of these three undesirable subject positions, we discuss what kinds of local women can be recognized as desirable participants in the implementation of the WPS agenda and draw attention to persistent power relations that shape political space and inclusion in peacebuilding.

Family businesses play an important role in philanthropic responses to disasters due to their distinctive combination of business, family, and community logics. Drawing on an institutional logics perspective and based on interviews with family business owners, we assess how three key logic features—collective identities, resources, and governing practices—affect the philanthropic responses of family businesses following the Beirut port explosion in 2020. The findings demonstrate the importance of non-financial contributions and reveal the inventiveness of family businesses in mobilizing a variety of assets distinctive to their business. This creativity, coupled with their knowledge of and embeddedness in community, resolves the paradox of how family businesses can respond so effectively to disasters with seemingly limited financial resources. Socioemotional wealth serves as a building block in the creation of civic wealth and is a key factor in explaining the enduring engagement of family businesses in later stages of disaster response. While family businesses pay significant attention to integrating institutional logics in their governance of disaster philanthropy, they often struggle with striking an appropriate balance between a personal, family-held approach and a more professionalized one. Practical implications for family businesses in Lebanon point to the challenges of resilience of philanthropic efforts in the context of a weak state and recurring crises.

Decentralization sought to bring effective, people-centric local governance to post-colonial societies that were predominantly centrally planned. Tamil Nadu has been an emblem of effective decentralization, ranking in the top three of India’s Panchayat Devolution Index 2024–2025. It thus stands to reason that the state would be useful in telling us the story of how decentralization could manifest in the global South. However, bringing the CAGE (cultural, administrative, geographic, economic) framework into dialogue with interviews conducted with farmers in Tamil Nadu reveals that decentralization has not bridged the gap between governments and farmers and has instead created distance between them. The paper contributes to the rich corpus of scholarship on policy studies by examining the Tamil Nadu example and its implementation of Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (national micro-irrigation policy) as a case study of agricultural decentralization in the Global South. It draws on fieldwork over three years in the districts of Kanchipuram, Chengalpattu, and Tiruvallur in Tamil Nadu.

This article examines the role of physicians in reinforcing structures of violence in the slaveholding society of nineteenth-century São Luís, Maranhão. Focusing on two cases, it shows how medical professionals collaborated with elite slaveholders, particularly Ana Rosa Viana Ribeiro and Carlos Fernando Ribeiro, in concealing the abuse, torture, and deaths of enslaved individuals. The study analyzes both the denial of medical care to the enslaved woman Carolina by Dr. Paulo Saulnier de Pierrelevée and the fabrication of forensic evidence by Dr. Antonio dos Santos Jacintho to cover up the murder of the enslaved boy Inocêncio. In Brazil, where medical institutions developed within the broader framework of slavery, such complicity was neither exceptional nor incidental. Rather than merely exposing tensions between scientific authority and the brutality of slavery, these cases reveal how medical legitimacy was used to justify violence and reinforce the impunity of the slaveholding class. Drawing on newspapers, police reports, court records, and forensic documents, the article demonstrates the complicity of medical discourse in sustaining enslavement and legitimizing its power.

Chlorine formed the basis of milking equipment cleaning protocols for decades on farms in the Republic of Ireland as it is an exceptional cleaning and disinfection agent but concerns around chlorine-based residues, primarily chlorate and trichloromethane led to the imposition of chlorine-free cleaning of milking equipment in 2021. In contrast to the versatility of chlorine-based cleaning protocols, chlorine-free cleaning requires the proper employment of several elements for effective cleaning: adequate hot water temperature, washing time and solution concentration. The objective of this study was to ascertain if the essential elements of chlorine-free cleaning are being employed as recommended on farms and if not, is it impacting on the delivery of farm bulk milk of a high microbiological standard, as measured by total bacteria (TBC) and thermoduric counts. Participating farms with TBC >15,000 cfu/mL were considered to produce poor quality milk from a TBC perspective, as were farms with a thermoduric count of >200 cfu/mL. A high percentage of farms were not using sufficient volumes of detergent (38%), acid (53%) and hot water with a starting temperature >75°C (69%) to achieve effective chlorine-free cleaning. Of the farms that were using insufficient volumes of chlorine-free detergent when ‘hot washing’ (n = 39), 62% had ‘build-up’ present on the internal surfaces of claw-bowls. Moreover, the probability of having a TBC >15,000 cfu/mL (OR = 1.67) and a thermoduric count >200 cfu/mL (OR = 1.09) was numerically higher when insufficient volumes of acid were used. Approximately half the farms visited were producing low-quality milk due largely to suboptimal chlorine-free cleaning practices being employed on those farms. This research reiterates that chlorine-free cleaning will facilitate the production of high-quality milk at farm level, but it is critical that the chlorine-free washing protocols are correctly implemented.

The study investigates the potential role that films may play in raising awareness and motivation to act for climate change mitigation. The study was conducted amongst middle school children based in Kangra District of Himachal Pradesh, India (n = 135). The selected students were classified into higher and lower exposure groups based on their level of exposure to climate vulnerabilities. All the participants were given an educational intervention through a short film designed to enhance the student’s understanding of climate change issues. Data were analysed using GLMM with fixed effects of time, exposure and their interaction. Knowledge increased significantly from pre- to post-test on all items (McNemar’s tests, all p < 0.001). Although both groups improved, gains were consistently larger in the high-exposure group. Model-predicted probabilities rose from 38.1%→52.5% in the lower-exposure group and from 33.1%→69.3% in the high-exposure group, a statistically significant 21.8 percentage-point greater gain for high-exposure students. The study demonstrates that film-based interventions have significantly improved climate knowledge among the middle-school students, with larger gains observed in those with higher lived exposure to climate vulnerabilities.

We study totally disconnected, locally compact (t.d.l.c.) groups from an algorithmic perspective. We give various approaches to defining computable presentability of a t.d.l.c. group, and show their equivalence. In the process, we obtain an algorithmic Stone-type duality between t.d.l.c. groups and certain countable ordered groupoids given by the compact open cosets. Several natural groups, such as $\mathrm {Aut}(T_d)$ and $\mathrm {SL}_n(\mathbb Q_p)$, have computable presentations. We provide a criterion based on the duality when a computable presentation of a t.d.l.c. group is unique up to computable isomorphism. We show that many constructions leading from t.d.l.c. groups to new t.d.l.c. groups have algorithmic versions that stay within the class of computably presented t.d.l.c. groups; most prominently, quotients by computable closed normal subgroups. We study whether objects associated with computably t.d.l.c. groups are computable: the modular function, the scale function, and Cayley–Abels graphs in the compactly generated case.

Given a finite group G, we denote by $\nu (G)$ the probability that two randomly chosen elements of G generate a nilpotent subgroup. We prove that if $\nu (G)> {1}/{12},$ then G is solvable.