Maternal hyperglycemia is associated with higher risk of metabolic diseases in offspring. Despite various hypotheses, the exact mechanisms remain unclear and the neural implication is yet to be fully investigated. The hypothalamus plays a critical role in energy regulation. In utero exposure to maternal hyperglycemia might selectively affect the developing hypothalamus. To test this hypothesis, we investigated associations between in utero exposure to maternal hyperglycemia and hypothalamic volume at 10–12 years of age. We included 82 mother–child pairs from the Gen3G prospective birth cohort, followed up 10–12 years after birth. Women underwent a 75g Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT) at 24–30 weeks of gestation, and we calculated the area-under-the-curve of glucose (AUCgluc) from maternal glucose measurements at fasting, 1h and 2h during OGTT to reflect prenatal hyperglycemia exposure. During the follow-up visit at 10–12 years of age, a subsample of children (n = 82) completed 3 T brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to quantify brain volumes with FreeSurfer 7. We used Pearson correlations and partial correlations with adjustments to test associations between the AUCgluc and offspring hypothalamic brain volumes. We found that higher maternal AUCgluc was associated with greater total offspring hypothalamic volume (r = 0.30; p = 0.006). In comparison, no other brain region was significantly correlated with the maternal AUCgluc. Correlations remain significant when adjusted for maternal or offspring’s variables. Overall, we found that higher maternal glycemic response following OGTT in pregnancy appears associated with larger offspring hypothalamic volume. Our results suggest that prenatal exposure to hyperglycemia may lead to hypothalamic programming.

While M. NourbeSe Philip is often regarded as a black-feminist language poet, her concern about place is equally significant and deserves more critical attention. This essay reads Philip as an Afro-Caribbean poet of place and ponders the geographical implications of her abstract, black-feminism-inspired poetry. Specifically, I focus on her reasoning about “center” and how it engenders formal or verbal matrices in her poems. For Philip, “center” denotes not only the metropole dominating the periphery, but also a place of sufficient being, wholeness, and self-becoming. The second sense of “center” marks the telos of her poetics of place, which, I argue, consists in prevalent and ambiguous uses of the preposition “in” in works like She Tries and Zong!. Center entails an inwardness in response to colonialism-begotten displacement, and Philip’s choreography of “in” affords possibilities for conceptualizing the “placedness” of the Caribbean as well as blackness and black femininity in place.

Silverleaf nightshade, a highly invasive perennial weed, poses a serious threat to crops and orchards in Mediterranean regions. This weed reproduces both sexually, through seeds, and asexually, via an extensive rhizome network, contributing to its persistence and spread. Managing silverleaf nightshade is particularly challenging, requiring integrated chemical and non-chemical approaches. This study evaluated the effectiveness of preemergence and postemergence herbicides and thermal control methods applied to silverleaf nightshade at three growth stages: 2 to 3 TL, 4 to 6 TL, and 7 to 10 TL (where TL represents the true-leaf stage). Seven preemergence herbicides were tested in a dose-response experiment at rates between 0.0625× and 2× of the recommended label rate on seedling emergence from three populations. Metribuzin, pyroxasulfone, pendimethalin, and sulfosulfuron suppressed seedling emergence by 80% to 90% at 28 d after treatment. Seven postemergence herbicides were tested on the same three seed populations, and on plants grown from rhizomes. Treatments were applied at three rates: the recommended label rate (1×), and two exploratory rates, 0.5× and 2×. The biomass of the weed was reduced by more than 90% at all growth stages when aminopyralid and glufosinate were applied the 1× and 2× rates. Weed biomass was further reduced by 95% when fluroxypyr and imazapic at all application rates were applied to the weed at the 2- to 3-TL growth stage. At the 4 to 6 and 7 to 10 TL growth stages, biomass reduction >90% was achieved only at the 2× rate. Propane flaming at 33.3, 50, and 100 kg ha−1 and electrocution with 18, 45, and 90 J (which correspond to the 0.5×, 1×, and 2× application rates) were tested across the three growth stages. Both thermal methods were highly effective at the 2 to 3 TL stage by reducing biomass by >95%. The results highlight the importance of early intervention, because the efficacy of both herbicide and thermal treatments declined significantly as the weeds matured. Integrating preemergence and postemergence herbicides with thermal treatment could improve the long-term management of silverleaf nightshade in Mediterranean cropping systems.

In June 1838, five female dancers and three male musicians left Pondicherry for France, from where they travelled onwards to England, Austria, Belgium, and Germany. As they travelled, the dancers became bayadères, a European hegemonic construct that shaped Indian women as both sexual property and morally debauched. Through this racialised construct, Europeans, in particular the British and French, became positioned as morally superior to India and therefore legitimate imperialists. Within this context, I am interested in how images of the languid arms of the Indian temple dancers function as a site of archival resistance to their co-optation as the bayadère. I suggest that a close reading of the newspaper illustrations and affiliated articles, noticing details and making connections, undercuts the dancers’ repeated sexualisation and their refusal to be confined to the space demarcated for them in European hegemonic narratives. I argue that this archival resistance also counters the later dominant caste appropriation and embodiment of the temple dancer’s artistic practice as a form of Indian classical dance.

Infertility and involuntary childlessness are often accompanied by psychological distress. Such distress exhibits gendered patterns: women typically experience greater infertility-related suffering, including while they undergo procedures like IVF, and when such procedures fail. Early feminist critics of reproductive technologies sought to locate and address this suffering in the totality of women’s experience under patriarchy. Contemporarily, a liberal approach to this issue emphasizes the importance of an individual’s reproductive autonomy to engage in infertility procedures as they see fit. In this paper, I suggest that a hidden assumption within this liberal argument, serving as an operant justification for the development and provision of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), is that ARTs promote welfare, or well-being, through the alleviation of infertility-related distress. I explore whether ARTs do appropriately attend to welfare and so meet this justificatory aim. I suggest that IVF, where it is not successful, that is, in the vast majority of cases, does not serve to promote well-being. A comprehensive picture of welfare requires examining the social context in which infertility-related distress operates and in which well-being is thus compromised. Such considerations are essential to forming a holistic picture of well-being and in assessing whether ARTs can meet their welfarist aims.

The near-axis theory for quasi-isodynamic stellarator equilibria is reformulated in terms of geometric inputs to allow greater control of the ‘direct construction’ of quasi-isodynamic configurations and to facilitate understanding of the space of such equilibria. This includes a method to construct suitable magnetic axis curves by solving Frenet–Serret equations and an approach to controlling magnetic surface shaping at first order (plasma elongation), which previously has required careful parameter selection or additional optimisation steps. The approach is suitable for studying different classes of quasi-isodynamic stellarators including different axis ‘helicities’ and topologies (e.g. knotted solutions), and as the basis for future systematic surveys using higher order near-axis theory. As an example application, we explore a family of configurations with per-field-period axis helicity equal to one half, demonstrating an approximate scaling symmetry relating different field period numbers.

When did marriage become strongly assortative? I use a uniquely suitable database from Quebec 1800–1970 to provide the long-run perspective necessary to answer this question. First, I develop a novel method that reveals that marriage was highly assortative as far back as the early nineteenth century. Next, I show this matching depends on the individual human capital of women, not just on family backgrounds. Finally, I show that mothers had an effect on child outcomes independent of the fathers. Thus, despite deeply conservative gender norms, marriage matching—and women—have always mattered for social mobility.

Seabirds are largely used as indicators of Ocean health and are final hosts of several helminth parasites. However, the helminth fauna of seabirds is still poorly studied. Here, we quantified the diversity of gastrointestinal parasites in 52 individuals belonging to 10 seabird species with different habitat preferences and feeding strategies from the North-East Atlantic and Antarctica. Fresh carcasses were collected in Northern France and at Svarthamaren (Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica), helminth parasites were extracted from the gastrointestinal tract, and were identified by morphological inspection and DNA barcoding. In total, we identified 13 helminth taxa. North-East Atlantic seabirds hosted parasites from four helminth groups (Acanthocephala, Cestoda, Nematoda, Trematoda), while Antarctic seabirds hosted Acanthocephala and Cestoda only. The largest parasite diversity was found in northern fulmars Fulmarus glacialis (9 species), European shags Gulosus aristotelis (5 species), razorbills Alca torda (4 species), and black-legged kittiwakes Rissa tridactyla (4 species). Co-infections with multiple parasite species in single hosts were common. Oceanic diving species were found to be the most parasite-poor, with common guillemots Uria aalge and Atlantic puffins Fratercula arctica hosting no parasites. In contrast, oceanic surface-feeding seabirds had a large parasite diversity, which notably included trematodes, and was comparable to that of coastal species. To the best of our knowledge, this study identified 9 new host-parasite associations: Andracantha sp. in northern fulmars and south polar skuas Stercorarius maccormicki, C. septentrionale in northern fulmars and black-legged kittiwakes, a species of Microphallidae in black-legged kittiwakes, Cardiocephaloides longicollis in European shags, Cryptocotyle lingua in Sandwich terns Thalasseus sandvicensis, and a clophyllidean species in south polar skuas and Antarctic petrels Thalassoica antarctica.

Gaussian Process (GP) modeling is a probabilistic, non-parametric framework for describing spatio-temporal dependence that is well-suited for fitting risk-related surfaces. I summarize the main emerging actuarial use cases of GPs, including their applications in longevity modeling, insurance contract valuation, and loss development. The editorial also discusses further contexts with potential for GP-based approaches.

The scope of an arbitration agreement shapes and determines an arbitrator’s jurisdiction, making it a key issue in international arbitration theory and practice. Courts in pro-arbitration countries usually interpret the scope of an arbitration agreement broadly to cover all disputes related to the contract between the parties. This ensures that arbitration can function as an effective and efficient ‘one-stop’ forum for business entities. China is a crucial player in the international arbitration system. Despite having maintained an overall pro-arbitration stance, the Supreme People’s Court of China (SPC) misconceptualises the scope of an arbitration agreement by equating it with the boundaries of the contract between the parties. This misconception leads the SPC to adopt two problematic legal doctrines. First, it develops a literal approach to interpretation that focuses on an arbitration agreement’s exact wording. Second, it conflates the existence of an arbitration agreement with its scope. As a result, the SPC frequently interprets scope narrowly, and wrongly applies the New York Convention and the relevant Chinese law. These problematic approaches stand in stark contrast to the international trend to interpret scope broadly and the SPC’s otherwise consistent pro-arbitration stance. So far, this has not received the necessary attention from legal academics. This article identifies the SPC’s misconception and the problematic doctrines it has developed, and argues that the SPC should reconsider its case law. Only by doing so can the SPC bring its jurisprudence in line with international practice, strengthen its pro-arbitration stance, and further facilitate economic cooperation between China and other countries. In addition, by exposing the misconception of the SPC, this article will inform business entities around the world and enable them to avoid possible pitfalls when engaging in commercial dealings with China. At the same time, courts in countries striving to build a pro-arbitration reputation can learn from the mistakes of their Chinese counterparts and reflect on how best to interpret the scope of arbitration agreements.

Worldviews can serve as a resource or an obstacle when navigating intellectual and existential challenges encountered in life. My objective in this article is to identify and analyse the various ways in which people’s worldviews can shift, break down, evolve, or be strengthened by their life experiences. The proposed model of worldview formation identifies five outcomes that an encounter with what I refer to as existentially significant life events can have: worldview compartmentalisation, integration, revision, conversion, and confirmation. I will explain the content and function of these categories, provide concrete examples, and discuss their rationality.

Post-seeding vegetation management is critical for restoring grasslands dominated by invasive species, yet few studies have evaluated these strategies in the Aspen Parkland ecoregion. We tested the effects of no treatment (Control), mowing-only (Mow), herbicide-only (Herbicide; aminopyralid 52.5% + metsulfuron-methyl 9.45% at 230 g ai ha−1), and mowing and herbicide application (Combination) on plant community composition, diversity, and biomass over two growing seasons following seeding of seven cool-season native grass species. The study was conducted on a disturbed site in Edmonton, AB, Canada, where non-native Canada thistle [Cirsium arvense (L.) Scop.], field sowthistle (Sonchus arvensis L.), and smooth brome (Bromus inermis Leyss.) dominated before treatment. Treatments with aminopyralid + metsulfuron-methyl (aminopyralid + metsulfuron-methyl alone and Combination) significantly reduced noxious and introduced species richness and cover (P < 0.001), eliminated forbs, and shifted plant composition toward greater dominance by seeded and native grasses. However, these treatments also eliminated native shrubs [Woods’ rose (Rosa woodsii Lindl.) and western snowberry (Symphoricarpos occidentalis Hook.)], reduced litter biomass, and increased bare ground. The Mow treatment maintained high species richness and forb biomass, with noxious and introduced species remaining dominant and seeded species establishment improving slightly relative to the control. Despite differential species responses, overall seeded species richness, diversity, and cover did not differ significantly among treatments. Needle and thread grass [Hesperostipa comata (Trin. & Rupr.) Barkworth], Western wheatgrass [Pascopyrum smithii (Rydb.) Á. Löve], and green needle grass [Nassella viridula (Trin.) Barkworth] showed moderate establishment under treatments with aminopyralid + metsulfuron-methyl, while Plains rough fescue [Festuca hallii (Vasey) Piper], Idaho fescue (Festuca idahoensis Elmer), Rocky Mountain fescue (Festuca saximontana Rydb.), and June grass [Koeleria macrantha (Ledeb.) Schult.] established less in any treatment. Community composition diverged most between treatments with aminopyralid + metsulfuron-methyl and the Control treatment. These results highlight trade-offs between invasive species control and impacts on non-target natives and ecosystem function. Among the treatments, aminopyralid + metsulfuron-methyl alone provided the most balanced outcome, suppressing invasive species while minimizing soil disturbance and improving seeded grass recruitment. This study highlights the importance of integrating vegetation treatments with species-specific seeding when restoring heavily invaded grasslands in the Aspen Parkland.

This research reconsiders the true nature of Japanese military comfort stations and comfort women. To summarize the discussion in this paper, comfort stations were military facilities, and comfort women were the third unit of the Japanese military, after soldiers and direct civilian employees of the Army and Navy. The Japanese military recognized the comfort stations as an essential element of military operations, and institutionalized and formalized their comfort stations by incorporating them into innumerable detailed regulations.

Democratic theorists and social epistemologists often celebrate the epistemic benefits of diversity. One of the cornerstones is the “diversity trumps ability” result by Hong and Page (2004). Ironically, the interplay between diversity and ability is rarely studied in radically different frameworks. In particular, the diversity–expertise trade-off has not been studied systematically for small, deliberative groups facing binary classification problems. To fill this gap, I will introduce a new evidential sources framework and study whether, when, and (if so) why diversity trumps expertise in binary classification problems. The newly gained insights are used to revisit the epistemic credentials of deliberative democracy.

This article describes how relational processes of telling and listening to stories were central to the establishment of a doctoral project by a Larrakia traditional owner working with Indigenous and non-Indigenous supervisors. The project explores the topic of education about living with crocodiles, a totem animal for the Larrakia people. The first stage of the project involved a week-long visit by the research team to Larrakia Country, Northern Territory, in order to develop relationships with Larrakia people and Country, and to gain cultural permission prior to gathering data. Stories from the visit are recalled and their significance analysed using the Indigenous research methods Thought Ritual and Storying. The stories shared during the trip are shown to involve more than simple capture and retell; instead, through close listening and deep reflection on meaning, stories proved to be the main conduit for demonstrating respect, exchanging knowledge and building relationships. We argue for the value of such story-based approaches to education about crocodiles, including the reframing of crocodile-human relations as part of a web of connections with Country and all that live in/on it – a shift in perspective personally experienced by the research team during their visit.