This article re-examines democratic experimentalism through the philosophy and practice of Jane Addams. Inspired by John Dewey’s pragmatism, democratic experimentalism emphasizes institutional reform through policy experimentation and participatory mechanisms. Yet both Dewey and Addams conceived democracy as a way of life grounded not only in institutions, but also in habits, dispositions, and affective ties. Addams developed this integrated vision through the situated experience of Hull House, where daily coexistence with socially marginalized groups shaped a distinctive mode of interpreting and enacting democratic life. Drawing on Addams’s writings and on practices at Hull House, the article shows how democratic legitimacy was transformed into a cooperative, affective, and situated practice with direct institutional consequences. In this sense, sympathetic and cooperative dispositions emerge as a practical condition for democratic participation and institutional transformation. While contemporary democratic experimentalism offers powerful institutional procedures for addressing complex social problems, Addams’s work reveals that such procedures become democratically effective only when sustained by sympathetic and imaginative dispositions. The article concludes by connecting Addams’s approach to contemporary feminist practices and by proposing a cooperative feminist experimentalism capable of renewing her insights within present-day institutional contexts.

We study the topological dynamics of the action of an acylindrically hyperbolic group on the space of its infinite index convex cocompact subgroups by conjugation. We show that, for any suitable probability measure $\mu $, random walks with respect to $\mu $ will produce elements with strong mixing properties for this action asymptotically almost surely. In particular, when the group has no finite normal subgroups, this implies that the action is highly topologically transitive. Along the way, we prove technical results about convex cocompact subgroups that allow us to extend some results on random walks of Abbott and the first author.

This article distinguishes and critically evaluates a distinctive class of objection to the Argument from Inductive Risk. “Expertise-objections” question the fitness of scientists to engage in moral decision making during research, on grounds of deficiencies in scientists’ relative expertise. Such critiques bring considerations of inductive risk into important dialogue with wider literature from moral philosophy; but, once contextualized therein, it becomes apparent that expertise-objections fail to decisively prohibit the articulation of moral duties for scientists.

On June 22, 2024, the coastal town of Stintino in Sardinia, Italy, became home to the first “Statue of Peace” (“comfort women” memorial) installed in Italy. This paper examines how this Korean memorial reached a small town of 1,600 residents, analyzing the local actors involved, community responses, and ensuing tensions. Based on fieldwork conducted in May–June 2025, including interviews with Mayor Rita Limbania Vallebella and project initiator Rosamaria Caiazza, the study shows how a retired teacher’s interest in Korean culture aligned with a feminist mayor’s commitment to combating gender violence, creating a powerful alliance for historical memory and women’s rights.

This is very important to prioritize nodes for immunization in controlling infectious disease outbreaks. In this paper, we propose a new immunization strategy for multiplex networks; we specifically model two separate layers: the physical layer where infection propagates and the virtual layer where information is transmitted. We assume that each layer has a different “context” and use that to identify the most suitable centrality measure for each. For the infection layer, we choose PageRank, as it has shown certain effectiveness in determining those nodes crucial for reducing transmission. For the awareness layer, we show how closeness centrality is a better measure of quality for the passing of information along short paths. We, therefore, propose Multiplex Combined PageRank, or MCPR, combining the centralities from both layers to immunize the most important nodes. The simulations employ the extended SIR-UA model, which exploits the interaction between infection and awareness dynamics, to scenarios on measles and smallpox. Validation on both synthetic networks and the real-world Copenhagen Networks Study dataset demonstrates consistent superiority of MCPR over classical methods. In terms of epidemic size in simulations with very limited immunization budgets, MCPR indeed resulted in better outcomes than the single-layer PageRank immunization strategy and the existing Multiplex PageRank method. Real-world validation shows epidemic size reductions of 2.2% for measles and 7% for smallpox at 10% immunization coverage, with parameter optimization yielding improvements up to 9.5%. The sensitivity analysis demonstrates that increasing transmission of awareness and the quality of information can help control the infection immensely.

This study examines how two French and two U.S. companies engage in self-praise in press releases. Drawing on politeness theory and previous research on press releases, it focuses on salient forms of self-praise (sentences containing at least one intensified subjective or objective linguistic element) and explores how these are pragmatically mitigated.

The results show several shared tendencies across the French and U.S. corpora. Roughly half of all salient self-praise remains pragmatically unmitigated, while explicit self-praise clearly dominates. Mitigation strategies mainly operate through shifts in perspective, including third-party praise, self-quotation, and several forms of implicit self-praise that redirect attention to benefits for third parties, product qualities, or emotional stances.

Despite these similarities, cross-cultural differences emerge. U.S. press releases contain a significantly higher density of self-praise markers than French ones, suggesting a greater tolerance for assertive self-promotion. Differences also appear in the use of point-of-view distancing and self-quotations. Overall, the findings suggest that the modesty principle operates not only in interpersonal facework but also in the management of professional face in institutional communication.

Multilingual experience is seen as a cognitive reserve factor that may protect against neurodegeneration. Accurate language use measurement is essential to understand its cognitive and neural effects. Traditional assessments often rely on a single retrospective questionnaire, which may not reflect the dynamic, context-dependent nature of multilingualism. This study introduces complementary tools – Language History Questionnaire (LHQ), Daily Report Form (DR), Online Messages (OM) and In-lab Language Tasks (EXP) – to assess language use across social contexts in native and non-native languages. Correlational, ANOVA and network analyses showed that self-report tools had high internal consistency, while objective and experimental methods varied in sensitivity to context and modality. Consistency across tools was higher for native language use, especially when aggregating data across contexts. In contrast, non-native English assessments were more affected by contextual variability and tool-specific biases. Findings highlight the need for multimodal, context-rich assessments to improve validity and comparability in real-world multilingual research.

During 1930, the British government ordered that special intercessory prayers appointed by leaders of the English Protestant churches were not to be said by naval, army and air force chaplains. This order provoked widespread ecclesiastical and political protests. Ironically, since the intercessions were concerned with religious persecution in Soviet Russia, the government order infringed the principle of freedom of worship. This article considers the reasons for the government ban, and why the controversy did not provoke a crisis in relations between the churches, the military authorities and the state. It is particularly concerned with the attitudes of free church leaders, those most sensitive towards the principle of religious liberty, and especially with their apparently paradoxical acceptance of compulsory attendance at religious services in the armed forces. It connects this episode with a general change in free church attitudes towards the state, the Church of England and national institutions.

Consuming fruit juice/smoothies could help overcome barriers to fruit and vegetable (F&V) intake. However, their contribution towards F&V intake within a healthy diet is contentious. We investigated how F&V intake is affected by UK 5-a-day advice, with and without one portion/d of fruit juice/smoothies and explored how these interventions impacted markers of health. Healthy individuals (n 42) with low F&V intake (≤ 2 servings/d) completed a 4-week, parallel-group randomised controlled trial (ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT06628401). Participants were randomised to (1) control, (2) whole F&V (FV) or (3) whole F&V plus fruit juice/smoothies (FV + FJ). All groups received weekly financial support (to remove financial barriers to F&V purchase in the intervention groups). FV and FV + FJ also received a co-designed educational booklet. We investigated the intervention effects on self-reported F&V intake (primary outcome), biomarkers of intake and metabolism, mood, gut symptoms and acceptability. Post-intervention F&V intake differed between groups (P < 0·001; ηp2 = 0·62). It was significantly higher in FV ((estimated marginal means (se)); 8·9 (0·64) portions/d, P < 0·001) and FV + FJ (6·6 (0·64), P < 0·001) v. control (2·45 (0·64)), but there was no difference between FV and FV + FJ (P = 0·051). Both interventions showed good acceptability. Depression symptoms differed between groups (P = 0·01; ηp2 = 0·21); they were significantly lower in FV + FJ than control. There were no differences in anxiety or gut symptoms, nor in intake or metabolic biomarkers. A financial and educational intervention based on UK 5-a-day recommendations, with or without fruit juice/smoothies, significantly increased short-term F&V intake and benefited mood without adversely impacting health markers in the short-term. Funder: Fruit Juice Science Centre.

We review here the findings from an empirical study of yield ratios between plant and animal foods grown organically compared to either conventional or low-input peasant farming methods. Our 2007 study demonstrated that organic yields were sufficiently large, in principle, to provide much of the global food supply in terms of calories across all major food groups. Publication of the study encountered strong opposition from reviewers as well as support. Once published, the findings were widely cited and well received by practitioners of sustainable agriculture and agroecologists. Several follow-up studies using larger datasets and newer analytical methods found yield ratios (yield gaps) similar to or somewhat larger than ours. Most of these studies also concluded that organic production methods could make a major contribution to the global food supply. In a food-system context, organic production could also contribute to carbon sequestration and maintenance of native biodiversity, particularly if less land were devoted to growing livestock feed or crops for biofuels, and if less food were wasted. Organic agriculture is often more profitable for farmers, boosts rural employment, and improves social connections among farmers and between farmers and consumers. Together, these elements contribute to the kind of food system that simultaneously serves people and nature.

Ultra-processed foods, as classified by NOVA, provide a substantial and rising share of dietary energy worldwide. Manufactured from cheap refined ingredients and cosmetic additives, they are engineered for hyper-palatability, long shelf life and profit and are widely perceived as convenient, low-cost options. This commentary argues that such perceptions of ‘cheapness’ are misleading once health, equity and environmental impacts are considered.

Humans can forget that they inhabit what the philosopher Mary Midgley called ‘mixed communities’. Nonetheless, at times of crisis and during periods of shared suffering, such as wars, our community with non-human animals becomes difficult to ignore. At such times, people have pressed churches – institutions that have traditionally emphasized the distance between humans and non-humans – to give fuller recognition in prayer and worship to human-animal relationships. This article examines this phenomenon through a study of Britain in the First World War. During this conflict and afterwards, the religious public asked the Christian churches to recognize the service of military animals through prayers, memorials and ceremonies. The article argues that, and explains why, Britain’s national churches struggled to accommodate requests to recognize the wartime mixed community. By exploring the churches’ awkward relationship with military animals, the article explores the reasons why prayers and rituals involving animals and animal themes have occurred at the margins of institutional religion.

The present study investigated Thai speakers’ perceptions of native English accents and Thai-accented English (TaE) in two contexts: language teaching and everyday communication. Using a direct attitudinal approach, data from 125 Thai speakers revealed attitudinal patterns toward native Englishes and TaE. Native accents were viewed as highly desirable in the academic setting and served as models for participants’ aspiration. Unlike Thai teachers with TaE, those with a native-like accent received high levels of acceptance, nearly comparable to native English teachers, despite their non-native speaker status. Thus, having native(-like) accent appears to be a critical factor for suitability as a language teacher to a greater extent than nativeness. In addition, while TaE was generally accepted by most participants, this acceptance did not extend to considering TaE speakers suitable as language teachers. The present study extends the native speaker fallacy by proposing the native accent fallacy which suggests that ideal language teachers are defined by their native(-like) accents. Implications are discussed within the Global Englishes Language Teaching (GELT) paradigm to mitigate native-speakerism and language-based discrimination in teacher recruitment and pedagogy.

As boards engage with the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), including agentic AI to drive operational efficiencies, this presents new opportunities for profit maximization. AI adoption is increasingly identified with employee role displacement in companies, and the interests of employees as stakeholders require exploration. A novel question posed is whether, in an age of AI ascendancy, AI may warrant being given stakeholder status as its role in the company approximates or eclipses that of human employees. The article probes four distinct models of corporate purpose within the directors’ duty to act in the best interests of the company – the shareholder primacy model, the Enlightened Shareholder Value model, the stakeholder friendly model and the stakeholder value model, highlighting the available scope for directors to accommodate the interests of employees around AI adoption in decision-making by boards around AI. It is concluded that, given the degree to which directors are insulated from legal scrutiny in relation to their best interests duty, adopting a wider law in context approach to promote employee welfare would serve the interests of employees, directors and companies alike. This would see directors engaging meaningfully with employees and providing opportunities for reskilling to adapt to the age of AI.