Jarociński and Karadi (2020) proposed a straightforward method to deconstruct monetary policy surprises into pure monetary policy shocks and central bank information shocks by exploiting the opposite-signed co-movements between stock price surprises and the two shocks. They highlighted that each shock brings about significantly different effects on the economy. Expanding upon their approach, this paper examines and compares a variety of alternative instruments, including New Keynesian- and Fama–French factor-based, for the decomposition of monetary policy surprises. Our results collectively suggest that Fama–French’s high-minus-low factor is a promising navigator, almost comparable to stock price surprises.

This article investigates the structural hybridization of technocracy and democracy in European governance. Moving beyond normative and binary accounts that frame the two as mutually exclusive, we conceptualize their relationship as a systemic, relational, internal, and processual dynamic. Building on this framework, we develop a typology of four ideal-type governance configurations – techno-dominant, demo-dominant, high-intensity hybrid, and low-intensity hybrid – which captures the co-evolution and institutional entanglement of democratic and technocratic logics. Empirically, we construct original composite indices of technocracy and democracy using V-Dem data, and apply them to 893 country-year observations across the EU27 and the United Kingdom (1989–2024). The findings reveal significant regional variation and temporally differentiated trajectories of hybrid governance, shaped in part by major crises. Our typology offers a replicable tool for classifying governance regimes and invites further inquiry into how hybrid forms condition democratic legitimacy, institutional resilience, and the evolving architecture of political authority in the twenty-first century.

This article identifies a lunar day count in Zapotec inscriptions at Monte Alban. The lunar records that are accompanied by dates in the Mesoamerican 52-year cycle make it possible to determine intervals between recorded events. Seven placements of the resulting series of intervals in absolute time are consistent with dates of the lunar crescent’s first visibility at Monte Alban between 650 and 50 BCE; just one is also consistent with the seventeenth-century Zapotec calendar. The data show that Zapotec divinatory calendar dates likely began around noon, as in the sixteenth century, and that the return of the year-bearer on the year’s 261st day was celebrated in the afternoon by 222 BCE.

Design and innovation processes primarily synthesize the knowledge of existing technological artifacts. Understanding the foundations of such artifact-level knowledge is essential for enabling the knowledge retrieval and representation that govern these syntheses. In this study, we analyze a large, stratified sample of 33,881 patent descriptions across the total technology space. We populate knowledge graphs of these descriptions by combining factual triplets (entity:: relationship:: entity) extracted at the sentence level. From these knowledge graphs, we uncover the linguistic and structural foundations of the knowledge of technological artifacts. Linguistically, we identify syntactic patterns that explain how entities and relationships are constructed at the term level. Structurally, we identify motifs, including dominant 3-node and 4-node subgraph patterns, that reveal how entities and relationships are combined locally in artifact descriptions. Delving into these motifs reveals that natural language artifact descriptions primarily capture the design hierarchy of artifacts. At a local level within artifact descriptions, the motif analyses reveal that only abstract technical knowledge is captured, indicating potential limitations of relying on text-mining for knowledge-intensive tasks. Based on these observations, we propose and demonstrate knowledge specification strategies that can help simplify and modularize knowledge structures populated from technological artifact descriptions.

This study revisits Paula D. McClain and Joseph Stewart Jr.’s (1995) framework of competition and coalition among racial and ethnic minorities to analyze Black American responses to immigration in Chicago. It contends that contemporary perspectives reveal complicated solidarities, which are tensions between racial solidarity and material preservation shaped by globalization, neoliberal urban governance, and evolving political narratives. Using qualitative analysis of municipal documents, public debates, and media coverage, this article demonstrates that institutional neglect and racialized governance shape how Black communities interpret migrant inclusion. The findings extend McClain and Stewart’s (1995) framework by centering intra-Black diversity, structural inequality, and urban policy as key dimensions of race and immigrant politics in twenty-first-century America.

In this Article, I delve into a development I call the emergence of new humans in European technology regulation and ethical discourses. This means that instead of natural persons, bureaucrats or civil servants, “humans” are assigned legal assignments and power. Humans are required to be in the loop, on the loop, or in command. This is reflected in legal requirements such as “human intervention,” “human oversight,” or “human judgment.” In the Article, I aim to make two contributions. First, I show and problematize the emergence of “new humans” as a corollary of digital technologies. I argue that this “human” is a conceptual transplant from the discourses of technology and its incorporation into law is uneasy. Second, I suggest that the emergence of “new humans” and the following reimagining of legal professionals give rise to a novel framing: Adopting a wide conception of legal technology. Through this conception, we could dismantle the human/machine distinction in public administration and approach all—digital tools and humans and human legal labor, even mindsets—as legal technologies. I argue that this would add value by making visible the naïve human exceptionalism embedded in our legal thinking and would question its sustainability.

In recent years, there has been increased public concern surrounding the mental health of young people in Barbados. A significant challenge for young people experiencing mental health conditions is stigma, which is a key barrier to help-seeking. This study aimed to explore how young Barbadians with mental health conditions experience and respond to mental health stigma and help-seeking. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted in 2022 with 28 Barbadians aged 18–24 years who reported being diagnosed with a mental health condition, or self-identifying as having experienced mental health challenges. The data were analysed through reflexive thematic analysis. The findings highlighted the importance of culture in how mental health is perceived, and the role of anticipated and experienced stigma deterring help-seeking. Social networks acted as both facilitators and barriers to stigma and help-seeking, and mixed experiences and opinions of formal services raised concerns regarding the quality of care and accessibility. These findings highlight the need for locally informed, culturally relevant strategies and interventions to address and reduce stigma, facilitate help-seeking and improve care outcomes within the community in Barbados.

The role of different forms of inequality in Populist Radical Right (PRR) voting, such as income and health inequalities, is not examined consistently. Therefore we conducted a scoping review aiming to examine whether and why income and health inequalities are associated with PRR voting in Europe. We systematically searched Web of Science, Scopus and ScienceDirect for publications between 2015 and 2024. Eleven studies were ultimately included in our review. Data were extracted and analysed qualitatively. We identified seven studies that support an association between income inequality in PRR voting, while two studies did not find evidence for this relationship. Although no studies examined the role of health inequalities, we found two studies that suggest a role for welfare policies and life dissatisfaction. The overall results offer a more comprehensive understanding of how income inequality is related to PRR voting, highlighting perceived risks of economic, social or cultural loss. Our findings tie theories on social hierarchies to theories on PRR voting. While social hierarchies can lead to health problems related to anxiety and stress, more research is needed to analyse whether and how pre-existing health inequalities contribute to the rise of social hierarchies, institutional distrust and PRR voting.

Les interventions basées sur la pleine conscience (IBPC) sont reconnues comme des approches pertinentes auprès de personnes vieillissantes à risque de déclin cognitif. Toutefois, peu d’études ont exploré l’expérience vécue de participants présentant un déclin cognitif accompagné de symptômes anxiodépressifs. Cette étude qualitative vise à comprendre l’expérience de 13 adultes de 55 ans et plus ayant participé à une IBPC de groupe. Des entrevues semi-dirigées menées après l’intervention ont été analysées selon une approche inductive pour dégager les thèmes émergents. Les résultats révèlent une trajectoire expérientielle en trois temps : une surprise initiale face aux pratiques, une évolution progressive de leur vécu, tant individuel qu’interpersonnel, notamment grâce au groupe, puis un sentiment d’élucidation et de satisfaction à l’égard du programme. L’analyse met en lumière des processus individuels et relationnels importants, soulignant la nécessité de considérer divers facteurs dans l’étude des mécanismes et effets des IBPC auprès des personnes vieillissantes.

Verb doubling constructions in Mandarin such as CHI, wo (shi) chi le ‘As for eating, I (did) eat’, where the first verb is stressed, are perceived as incomplete if not followed by a continuing clause, but only when the copula shi is present do these constructions require a contrastive continuation marked by the coordinator keshi or buguo ‘but’. This article addresses these two puzzles by (i) analyzing verb doubling constructions as contrastive topic constructions where the initial stressed verb is a contrastive topic triggering a set of polar questions, and (ii) taking the copula shi to be a marker associated with contrastive topic. In particular, shi in a verb doubling construction presupposes that (a) there is at least one polar question Q which is an alternative of the current question under discussion, CQ, and entails CQ, and (b) Q has a negative answer. It is shown how the proposal accounts for the puzzles, and how it can be extended to VP doubling and object preposing constructions, both of which demonstrate similar incompleteness effects.

This paper explores how homestay policies for displaced Ukrainians can be structured around hospitality and shaped by dynamics of reciprocity. Drawing on 29 interviews in Poland and 26 in the UK with individuals hosting Ukrainian war refugees, we apply Komter and van Leer’s (2012) hospitality framework to examine the selectivity, reciprocity, and potential for power imbalances within host–guest relationships. The article highlights how hospitality is selectively extended, with a clear preference for Ukrainian refugees, and how policy can facilitate selectivity (e.g. when hosts can choose their guests). We show that despite differences in contexts, hosting policy and practice in the two countries, reciprocity remains a central organising principle. Our findings also demonstrate the risks of dependency and unequal power relations inherent in hospitality-based arrangements. We argue for a greater role for the state in mediating these exchanges through financial support and regulatory safeguards, ensuring more equitable and secure hosting practices.