The present study compares several lexical diversity (LD) measures to determine which measure, or measures, best predict receptive lexico-grammatical ability in written L2 Spanish, and whether a composite LD score is better than any single measure. We analyzed 1,225 written responses with eight different LD measures: six popular measures, a composite score based on Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of those six measures, and the traditional TTR to be used as a baseline against which to compare the other measures. Other predictor variables included the age and gender of the writers, the age of first exposure to Spanish, the number of years studying Spanish, and study abroad participation. The results of a series of mixed-effect logistic regression models suggest that the composite LD measure is best, and that among the LD measures studied, two predicted lexico-grammatical ability nearly equally well. We conclude with the recommendation that L2 language researchers use multiple LD measures, including a composite measure based on PCA, rather than any single LD measure.

This article contributes to ongoing attempts to move historical understanding of Christian attitudes to Jews beyond a dichotomy between philo- and antisemitism. Employing the history of emotions, it examines how ‘love’ was understood in the specific religious, social and historical contexts in which it was advocated. Focusing on the Church of Scotland’s 1839 ‘Mission of Enquiry to the Jews’, it shows how the Church advocated a system of shared feeling towards Jews among believers. This ‘love’ engaged a variety of different emotional states linked to contemporary internal tensions within the Church of Scotland, and prophetic hopes for their resolution.

Which social groups do political parties appeal to? This is an important question, yet a lack of comparative data has constrained research. To address this gap, we introduce the Parties’ Social Group Appeals (PSoGA) Database, which includes two novel datasets covering 791 election manifestos from 139 parties across Austria, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom from 1970 to 2025. This article outlines the methodology for constructing and validating the datasets, demonstrates compatibility with policy-focused resources like MARPOR, and highlights key aspects. This database provides researchers with unprecedented insight into representation dynamics across space and time by documenting the groups that parties speak about and appeal to.

Microfluidic systems enable precise control of fluids at the microscale, yet most are designed without consideration of reuse, cleanability, or material sustainability, leading to short device lifetimes and increased waste. Among microfluidic systems, microdroplet generators represent a particularly stringent test case for reusability due to their narrow channels, sensitivity to surface contamination, and widespread use across chemical, biological, and materials processing. Here, we present a scalable and cost-effective microfluidic platform designed explicitly for reuse, demonstrated using a flow-focusing microdroplet generator as a proof of concept. Mass-manufactured microchannel networks are integrated into a reusable housing composed of mechanically compressed polycarbonate and silicone layers, enabling uniform sealing, robust leak-free operation, and rapid disassembly for cleaning. The modular housing supports component-level replacement rather than full device disposal and allows individual microchannel networks to be reused across multiple operational cycles with minimal impact on performance. To demonstrate recoverability under conditions that would conventionally necessitate device disposal, we examine droplet generation using a high-fouling agar dispersed phase during controlled cooling to the point of gelation, where blockages can be readily cleared and the system reused. These results establish a reusable, mass-manufacturable microfluidic platform that applies circular design principles to microscale fluid handling.

This work proposes a band-switchable electrically small antenna (ESA) system for a wearable health monitoring device. The system operates at multiple 5G-NR bands (875–934 MHz and 1.72–2.2 GHz) using a switchable configuration. The antenna consists of multi-resonant shorted strips that have been miniaturized to fit in meandered form into an area of 63.2$\times$25 mm$^2$ (0.19$\times$0.08$\lambda^2$) available in the intended health monitoring device. To enable operation at two distinct modes, the antenna feedline has been integrated with a switch, which is then matched using lumped matching components. Results indicate that the ESA system operates at 875–900 MHz in Configuration 1, and at 898–934 MHz and at 1.72–2.2 GHz in Configuration 2. The device has been fabricated and integrated into a compact 3D printed casing prior to experimental evaluations. In addition to studying the switchable reflection and radiation performance, the ESA is also evaluated in the presence of a human body phantom. Simulated specific absorption rate levels are less than 0.47 W/kg averaged over 1 g of tissue, which complies with international standards.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its project of Indian Knowledge System (IKS) have been trying to cast a sanitized and monolithic understanding of Indian culture, centered on high-caste Vedic Hinduism. In the name of curricular and pedagogical innovations, BJP is promoting myths as realities, pseudo-sciences as sciences, and erasing selective histories. This article elaborates on how the idea of “Indian tradition” is being distorted, fictionalized, and cherry-picked to align it with the high-caste Hindu ideological foundations of the BJP. Such an approach has generated problematic frameworks of sanitized knowledge-making mechanisms. The article also proposes that the Plural Knowledge Systems of India can be considered an alternative knowledge system to address the challenges posed by the IKS.

Simon Franz Ewers, in the pages of this journal, has recently undertaken a critique of my philosophical account of the holding of claim-rights. In this short response to Ewers, I defend that account against some significant misrepresentations or misapprehensions in Ewers’s article.

This study analyses land inequality in mid-19th-century Aragon, northeastern Spain, focusing on land in a predominantly agrarian, pre-industrial society. Using a micro-database from the amillaramientos (wealth cadastres) covering 635 municipalities and 150,000 taxpayers, it reconstructs inequality through wealth shares (top 10%, 1%, and 0.1%), the Gini coefficient, and ownership rates. Results show stark disparities: the top 10% held 60.9% of land wealth, while the bottom 50% owned less than 5%. Institutional and geographic factors – such as market access, terrain, and state presence – significantly shaped land concentration in this context.

As of mid-2026, 11 objects have been discovered prior to impacting the Earth, with warning times between 2 and 20 hours. Using real metre-sized Earth impactors from the last decade, we ask the question: ‘If the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) had been operating over the last decade, how many imminent impactors would it have observed and discovered pre-impact, and how early would these discoveries have been made?’ We use the LSST Solar System Survey Simulator Sorcha and a population of real fireballs observed by orbital sensors over the last decade to investigate which events would have been observed pre-impact. We find that the LSST would have observed 30 (13.9%) of the 216 simulated objects, with most objects receiving 2–4 observations. Using the default linking algorithm, only two (0.9%) of these objects would have been ‘discovered’ pre-impact. Using a modified linking algorithm better suited to fast moving objects, this increases to eight (3.7%). Based on this, we predict that the LSST will discover 8 $\pm$ 2 imminent impactors over its nominal 10-year survey, at the low end of previous estimations. However, we predict these objects to be discovered $\sim$4 days pre-impact, substantially earlier than the current average. This will bring significant opportunities for telescopic follow-up, targeted fireball observations, planetary defence planning, and public engagement. There is also significant potential for precovery for impactors observed by the LSST but discovered by other surveys, instantly lengthening observation arcs and thereby reducing the orbital and impact location uncertainties. In some cases, these observations may also enable the linkage of telescopic observations with observed fireballs post-impact, providing valuable pre-impact astrometric and photometric data. This has significant implications for both asteroid research and planetary defence.

Leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula L.) and yellow toadflax (Linaria vulgaris Mill.) are pervasive weeds of pasture and rangeland in the Northern Great Plains. There are few effective herbicides to manage these species. Saflufenacil is a contact herbicide that is labeled to suppress perennial weeds when applied alone; however, saflufenacil+imazapic is labeled to effectively manage E. esula. While there are no currently published data regarding the effectiveness of saflufenacil alone or in mixtures with various herbicides, mixing herbicides with different modes of action can increase management effectiveness. Therefore, mixtures containing saflufenacil and various herbicides may effectively manage E. esula and L. vulgaris. Experiments were conducted to determine the effectiveness of mixing commonly applied herbicides (E. esula: imazapic and picloram; L. vulgaris: aminocyclopyrachlor and picloram) with saflufenacil to manage these weed species. Saflufenacil alone was the least effective on both species, as expected, due to the contact activity of the herbicide. Herbicide mixtures provided equal or greater responses (control estimates, height and stem reductions) than the tested herbicides applied alone. Mixing saflufenacil with the tested herbicides resulted in additive control estimates, plant height, and stem density reductions for both species 1 yr after treatment (YAT). Stem density reductions for E. esula never exceeded 79%, while L. vulgaris stem reductions were as much as 90% with herbicides at 1 YAT when compared with the nontreated. The results of these experiments suggest that saflufenacil could be mixed with commonly applied herbicides to increase the effectiveness of managing E. esula and L. vulgaris. However, additional management tactics will likely be necessary after 1 yr to successfully further reduce the infestations of these weed species.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a serious and urgent global health challenge that is often presented as a war on “superbugs.” The implicit message is that certain pathogenic microbes should be eliminated. With a focus on AMR innovation, I explain how microbes have been relegated to an abstract notion of property that may be controlled, manipulated, and owned. In this context, the treatment of microbes merely as an exploitable resource renders redundant ecological evaluation since only anthropocentric needs matter. Drawing on insights and concepts from the humanities and social sciences, I explain what ecological equity means when microbes are recognised to have moral value, creative agency, and situated knowledge. By this view, the patent system becomes inherently unfair because it neither considers nor rewards the inventive contributions of microbes. It also does not consider the ecological impact that an invention may have. Social institutions (like patent systems) that apply to AMR innovation must shift away from the human–nonhuman divide and adopt an ecological or biocentric approach to allow both human and microbial environments to flourish. I argue that the attribution of rights to microbes not only helps to realise this end but also enables conceptual cross-pollination across law, the humanities, and social sciences and steers the “greening” of legal regimes that apply to AMR innovation.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently harmonized its regulatory criteria for waivers and alterations of informed consent with the U.S. Common Rule. We conducted a systematic review of clinical trials in the two highest-impact clinical journals in the U.S. to better understand practice-changing trials that are being conducted in the U.S. without prospective written informed consent. One in ten trials in our sample were conducted without prospective written informed consent. Such trials accounted for 93.1% of patient-subjects in our sample, enrolling nearly 3 million individuals. Further guidance would support socially valuable research while ensuring appropriate oversight.

Informal volunteering remains underrecognized in both research and public discourse, partly due to two interconnected issues: an analytical focus on who volunteers and what they gain from volunteering, and persistent measurement challenges that make it difficult for respondents and researchers to define and identify informal volunteering. Both issues originate from frameworks of volunteering developed in the context of formal volunteering and the assessment of informal volunteering through the conceptual lens of formal volunteering, emphasizing individual benefits and organizational affiliation. This article argues for a shift in analytical attention from a volunteer-centered framework to a task-centered framework that focuses on what volunteers do and accomplish through volunteering. Such a task-centered framework contributes to volunteering literature by including recipients of volunteering, and by providing a framework to approach informal volunteering on equal terms with formal volunteering.

This article explores the career of Aruna Asaf Ali, (1909-1996), a prominent figure on the Indian Left in the first two decades after independence. Tracing her path from ‘Congress socialism’ to communism, it examines the development of her thinking and how it impacted her work as a journalist and an activist in transnational networks such as the peace movement and the Women’s International Democratic Federation. Aruna saw domestic and international issues as intrinsically linked and believed that the Soviet Union was both a model for and guarantor of Indian postcolonial freedom. However, this article resists the framing of Aruna’s career as a Cold War history instead arguing for the significance of anti-colonial principles and domestic priorities in shaping her interventions. This enriches the historiography of the Left in postcolonial India and contributes to a decentred global history of decolonisation that is shaped, but not determined, by the priorities of Cold War power blocs.