Vaccination against hepatitis B virus (HBV) is effective at preventing vertical transmission. Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea are hyperendemic West African countries; yet, childhood vaccination coverage is suboptimal, and the determinants of incomplete vaccination are poorly understood. We analyzed national survey data (2018–2020) of children aged 4–35 months to assess complete HBV vaccination (receiving 3 doses of the pentavalent vaccine) and incomplete vaccination (receiving <3 doses). Statistical analysis was conducted using the complex sample command in SPSS (version 28). Multivariate logistic regression was used to identify determinants of incomplete immunization. Overall, 11,181 mothers were analyzed (4,846 from Sierra Leone, 2,788 from Liberia, and 3,547 from Guinea). Sierra Leone had the highest HBV childhood vaccination coverage (70.3%), followed by Liberia (64.6%) and Guinea (39.3%). Within countries, HBV vaccination coverage varied by socioeconomic characteristics and healthcare access. In multivariate regression analysis, factors that were significantly associated with incomplete vaccination in at least one country included sex of the child, Muslim mothers, lower household wealth index, <4 antenatal visits, home delivery, and distance to health facility vaccination (all p < 0.05). Understanding and addressing modifiable determinants of incomplete vaccination will be essential to help achieve the 2030 viral hepatitis elimination goals.

Target date funds (TDFs) provide retirement investors, many of whom are unsophisticated or inattentive, with age-appropriate exposures to different asset classes like stocks and bonds. To maintain exposures, TDFs trade actively against market returns, buying stock funds when the stock market does poorly, and selling when the market does well (Parker et al., 2023, Journal of Finance). This paper shows that trading by TDFs was a significant stabilizing force in US equity markets during the unprecedented economic volatility of the COVID-19 pandemic period. Specifically, TDFs – now comprising a quarter of all 401(k) plan assets – caused significant contrarian investment flows across asset classes, flows that were not undone by enrollment of TDF investors or by discretionary actions by TDF managers. Mutual funds with large ownership by TDFs had more stable funding through the pandemic, and stocks that had greater indirect ownership by TDFs had lower co-movement with the market and lower volatility during the pandemic period.

This rejoinder responds to a commentary (Horak et al., 2023) on our article ‘De-Linking from Western Epistemologies: Using Guanxi-Type Relationships to Attract and Retain Hotel Guests in the Middle East' (2022). We thank the authors for engaging with our work and are grateful to the editor for the chance to respond. Firstly, we do not accept the central assertion that we imposed the Chinese concept of guanxi on a Middle Eastern context. Some aspects of guanxi extend beyond China, and we consider it part of our role as researchers to explore universal behavioral aspects that transcend specific cultural settings. While we described guanxi to introduce the variables, we drew a clear distinction between guanxi itself and guanxi-type relationships, and provided on page 859 an explicit statement about what we meant by the term ‘guanxi-type relationships’, i.e. the networks of interpersonal ties found in the Middle East. While this distinction could have been more clearly emphasized in places, we consider that the article as a whole made it abundantly clear.

The ever-growing body of research on trans-Eurasian exchange during the third–first millennium bce continues to improve understanding of mechanisms that facilitated the movement of objects, materials, ideas, and even people. However, whether bronze mirrors in Central Asia and China represent the exchange of technological knowledge or movement of the objects themselves remains unresolved, as researchers require extensive knowledge of huge quantities of data generated during the Soviet Central Asia campaigns of the mid twentieth century. The often confusing, impenetrable excavation reports, combined with required knowledge of Chinese, Russian and English, have caused much confusion about dates and contexts. This article presents and compares data published in Russian and Chinese reports. By clarifying the chronology for mirrors in Central Asia and China, we challenge simplistic theories of object diffusion and spread that persist in studies of trans-Eurasian exchange. We argue that the early second-millennium bce appearance of mirrors in western and northwestern China resulted from different exchange mechanisms specific to each local socio-cultural context. This demonstrates not only the complexity of interactions at the group and individual levels, but also how these factors can be integrated with data-driven analyses to explore the role they played in large-scale Bronze Age exchange networks.

As the heterogeneity in life expectancy by socioeconomic status increases, many pension systems imply a wealth transfer from short- to long-lived individuals. Various pension reforms aim to reduce inequalities that are caused by ex-ante differences in life expectancy. However, these pension reforms may induce redistribution effects. We introduce a dynamic general equilibrium-overlapping generations model with heterogeneous individuals that differ in their education, labor supply, lifetime income, and life expectancy. Within this framework we study six different pension reforms that foster the sustainability of the pension system and aim to account for heterogeneous life expectancy. Our results highlight that pension reforms have to be evaluated at various dimensions. Reforms that may increase the sustainability of the pension system are not necessarily conducive to reduce the redistributive wealth transfers from short- to long-lived individuals. Our paper emphasizes the need for studying pension reforms in models with behavioral feedback and heterogeneous socioeconomic groups.

In recent years, various crises such as the financial crisis, Brexit, and the Covid-19 pandemic have shed light on citizens’ (dis)satisfaction with international organisations (IOs). Yet, despite their crucial importance for the support of IOs, individual citizens’ connection to these organisations remains understudied. This article contributes to the literature on emotion research in International Relations (IR) by exploring the everyday emotions of ordinary individuals about IOs and their repercussions on world politics, moving beyond the state or community level to examine how citizens actually experience international politics. It does so by (i) theorising individuals’ emotional attachments to IOs and demonstrating how they shape perceptions and preferences that impact the future of organisations, and (ii) advocating for the use of focus groups as a research method to study emotions in IR. Contributing to the ‘everyday turn’ in emotion research in IR, it uses the European Union as a case study and analyses 21 focus groups with individuals from four different countries (Belgium, France, Italy, and Portugal). The article’s insights provide a deeper understanding of the micro-political foundation that enables and legitimises government action, and against whose background international relations are conducted.

We propose an economic reformulation of contribution policy integrating: (1) formalization of sustainability as the steady-state contribution rate, incorporating both the expected return on risky assets and a low-risk discount rate for liabilities; (2) derivation of contribution adjustment policies required for convergence toward the target funded ratio and contribution rate; and (3) a stylized optimization framework for simultaneous determination of the target portfolio return and funded ratio. This analysis provides new theoretical insights into the basis for pre-funding vs. pay-as-you-go, resting on the convexity of the long-run risk–return relationship, and also potentially practical guidelines for contribution policy.

Musculoskeletal disorders have the highest prevalence of work-related health problems. Due to the aging population, the prevalence of shoulder pain in workers in physically demanding occupations is increasing, thereby causing rising costs to society and underlining the need for preventive technologies. Wearable support structures are designed to reduce the physical work load during physically demanding tasks. Here, we evaluate the physiological benefit of the DeltaSuit, a novel passive shoulder exoskeleton, using an assessment framework that conforms to the approach proposed in the literature.

In this study, 32 healthy volunteers performed isometric, quasi-isometric, and dynamic tasks that represent typical overhead work to evaluate the DeltaSuit performance. Muscle activity of the arm, neck, shoulder, and back muscles, as well as cardiac cost, perceived exertion, and task-related discomfort during task execution with and without the exoskeleton were compared.

When working with the DeltaSuit, muscle activity was reduced up to 56% (p < 0.001) in the Trapezius Descendens and up to 64% (p < 0.001) in the Deltoideusmedius. Furthermore, we observed no additional loading on the abdomen and back muscles. The use of the exoskeleton resulted in statistically significant reductions in cardiac cost (15%, p < 0.05), perceived exertion (21.5%, p < 0.001), and task-related discomfort in the shoulder (57%, p < 0.001).

These results suggest that passive exoskeletons, such as the DeltaSuit, have the potential to meaningfully support users when performing tasks in overhead postures and offer a valuable solution to relieve the critical body parts of biomechanical strains for workers at high risk of musculoskeletal disorders.

The magnetohydrodynamic stability of plasmas with an anisotropic pressure component is analysed for a low magnetic field configuration of the large helical device. Magnetic equilibria are calculated by the anisotropic Neumann inverse moments equilibrium code, an extension of the three-dimensional variational moments equilibrium code. A modified version of the bi-Maxwellian is used to model the anisotropic particle velocity distribution. Magnetohydrodynamic stability calculations for the $n=1$ mode family are carried out by TERPSICHORE, which has been expanded by the Kruskal–Oberman energy principle. For on-axis particle deposition, the growth rate and plasma displacement show that the parallel dominant plasmas are significantly more stable than isotropic or perpendicular dominant plasmas. For off-axis particle deposition, the growth rate and the Mercier criterion in the peripheral region $\rho =0.9$, show that low field (LF) deposition perpendicular dominant plasmas are most unstable. For the most realistic off-axis deposition profile, it is found that parallel dominant plasmas are most stable for LF deposition, while perpendicular dominant plasmas are most stable for high field deposition. We conclude that, under low magnetic field conditions in the large helical device, tangential neutral beam injection heating has a stabilising influence on the plasma.

The geodetic mass balance of a glacier corresponds to glacier-wide volume changes, converted to mass changes using density assumptions. It is typically calculated by differencing multi-temporal digital elevation models. In this study, we show how the annual geodetic mass balance of a glacier can be derived from uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) data. The presented workflow is applied to two small- to medium-sized glaciers in the Kyrgyz Tien Shan (Central Asia): Bordu glacier and Sary-Tor glacier. The obtained geodetic mass balance is compared with the glaciological mass balance derived from a network of ablation stakes and snow pits. A previously calibrated mass-balance model is used to correct for the difference in acquisition dates. The results show that the determined geodetic mass balance matches closely with the glaciological mass balance. Besides, for both glaciers the geodetic mass balance does not seem to be particularly sensitive to the assumptions regarding volume-to-mass conversion. Therefore, our results demonstrate that UAVs can serve as a valuable instrument to quantify the annual geodetic mass balance and to validate the glaciological mass balance. The conventional glaciological mass-balance estimation often relies on interpolation and extrapolation methods, whereas UAVs offer the potential for direct data acquisition over the entire glacier surface.

Monte Perdido Glacier, located in the central Pyrenees, is one of the southernmost glaciers in Europe. Due to climate change, this glacier is suffering an accelerated mass loss, especially in the last decades. If the current trends persist, this glacier is expected to disappear in the next 50 years. As part of the efforts of the scientific community to increase the knowledge about this glacier, this research presents the first microstructural characterization of the Monte Perdido Glacier, focused on a high-impurity concentration segment that belongs to an ice core drilled in 2017. The results reveal the ice has a layering defined by air bubbles and non-soluble impurities. The bubble-defined layering exhibits features of both a primary (sedimentary) and a secondary (strain-induced) origin. We found a clear inverse correspondence between the particle concentration and the grains' size and roundness index. A preliminary micro-Raman characterization of the particles shows the occurrence of atacamite, anatase (likely related to ancient mining activities in the vicinity of the glacier) and quartz. The latter could be an indicator of mineral dust, probably suggesting the arrival of dust-laden air masses from the north of the African continent.

It may seem perplexing, in the beginning, to see Iranian poet Khayyām's rubaies and other Persian poems on the gravestones of Bidlis from the late nineteenth century. However, when scrutinizing Bidlis's political and cultural history, it is clear that Persian language and culture has deep, longstanding roots in this city and been integrated into high Iranian-Islamic culture in both respects. Based mainly on primary archival sources and inscriptions, I touch on the adventures and preponderance of Persian—the lingua franca of the rulers of Bidlis, a Kurdish principality located on the Ottoman-Iranian frontier—and its intellectuals after the city was integrated into the Ottoman world, and thus the decaying ascendancy of Persian.

Mohammad Amin Riyāhī's book, Nofūz-e zabān o adabīyāt-e Fārsī dar qalamrov-e Osmānī, is a well-known study in this respect, but mostly focuses on the adventures of Persian in and around court circles. Another comprehensive book on the subject, The Persianate World: The Frontiers of a Eurasian Lingua Franca, illustrates the frontiers of Persian's usage in the vast geography stretching from China, Central Asia, and India to the Ottoman world. By focusing on a limited area like Bidlis, the region's most prestigious principality, this article attempts to elucidate the impact of Persian in the Ottoman-Iranian frontiers, unearthing its influence as a language of both diplomacy and literature as well as a lingua franca of Bidlis intellectuals in the lands ruled by Kurdish rulers.

Ministers may be powerful policy initiators, but they are not equally powerful. Cabinet control mechanisms have become a crucial part of cabinet governance, which can serve to contain agency loss and consequently constrain ministers in the policymaking process. However, empirical studies have not focused on the impact of such control mechanisms on individual ministers’ political outcomes. I turn attention to certain cabinet committees as intra-cabinet control mechanisms and argue that members of these enjoy a policymaking advantage compared to nonmembers. Analyzing ministers’ number of laws proposed to parliament in Denmark from 1975 to 2022, I look beyond parties as unitary actors and provide evidence for this causal relationship. Membership of the Economic Committee increases ministers’ legislative activity. Thus, even within parties in cabinet, ministers have unequal possibilities to act as policy-seeking. These findings offer new insights into political parties in governments, cabinet governance, policymaking, and legislative processes.

We explored ecological aspects of the early establishment of the association between the Japanese beetle, Popillia japonica (Newman) (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae), and the adult tachinid parasitoid, Istocheta aldrichi (Mesnil) (Diptera: Tachinidae), in the province of Québec, Canada. The Japanese beetle started its invasion in the late 1930s, whereas I. aldrichi was detected only in 2009. It is assumed that I. aldrichi spread in the province from its introduced range in the northeastern United States of America. Throughout the summer, we used baited traps in eight localities of southern Québec (2018–2019) and in 13 raspberry (Rubus idaeus) fields (2022) localised along a latitudinal gradient to describe the distribution and seasonal occurrence of both species and the parasitism rates of I. aldrichi. We also mapped observational data from the online platform iNaturalist to further describe the current distribution of both the host and its parasitoid. Results indicate that I. aldrichi is well spread in southern Québec and along the St. Lawrence River in most areas where the Japanese beetle is present. Parasitism mostly occurs from late June to mid-July, before the peak of Japanese beetle populations, and levels of total seasonal parasitism range from 3.9 to 27.3% across sampled sites. Together, trap captures and data from iNaturalist provide evidence that I. aldrichi is now established in most areas of the province of Québec where the Japanese beetle is present.

Product data sharing is fundamental for collaborative product design and development. Although the STandard for Exchange of Product model data (STEP) enables this by providing a unified data definition and description, it lacks the ability to provide a more semantically enriched product data model. Many researchers suggest converting STEP models to ontology models and propose rules for mapping EXPRESS, the descriptive language of STEP, to Web Ontology Language (OWL). In most research, this mapping is a manual process which is time-consuming and prone to misunderstandings. To support this conversion, this research proposes an automatic method based on natural language processing techniques (NLP). The similarities of language elements in the reference manuals of EXPRESS and OWL have been analyzed in terms of three aspects: heading semantics, text semantics, and heading hierarchy. The paper focusses on translating between language elements, but the same approach has also been applied to the definition of the data models. Two forms of the semantic analysis with NLP are proposed: a Combination of Random Walks (RW) and Global Vectors for Word Representation (GloVe) for heading semantic similarity; and a Decoding-enhanced BERT with disentangled attention (DeBERTa) ensemble model for text semantic similarity. The evaluation shows the feasibility of the proposed method. The results not only cover most language elements mapped by current research, but also identify the mappings of the elements that have not been included. It also indicates the potential to identify the OWL segments for the EXPRESS declarations.