Sporobolus natalensis (Steud.) T. Durand & Schinz. and Sporobolus pyramidalis P. Beauv., generally known as giant rat’s tail grasses, are two significant weed species that invade summer fields and pastures in the eastern regions of Australia. This study was conducted to examine seed germination behavior, seedling emergence, and the response of these species to various herbicides. Seed germination and seedling emergence were assessed in response to environmental factors, including alternating temperature regimes (15/5, 20/10, 25/15, 30/20, and 35/25 C), light conditions (dark and light/dark), osmotic potentials (0, −0.1, −0.2, −0.4, −0.8, and −1.6 MPa), and seed burial depths (0, 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 cm). Furthermore, the efficacy of several post-emergence herbicides was evaluated in pots under outdoor environmental conditions. Germination was higher under light/dark (12-h light/12-h dark) conditions than under continuous darkness (24 h). The seeds of both species exhibited significantly higher germination (>95%) under 12-h light at higher temperatures (35/25 C) compared with low (20/10 C) or medium (25/15 C) temperatures. The osmotic potential required to inhibit 50% of maximum germination was −0.77 MPa for S. natalensis and −0.59 MPa for S. pyramidalis. Seedling emergence decreased with increasing burial depth, with no emergence observed from seeds buried at depths of 4 cm. Applying herbicides significantly reduced both species’ seedling survival and dry matter. The most effective herbicides for controlling spring-germinated S. pyramidalis and S. natalensis were haloxyfop, clethodim, butroxydim, glyphosate, glufosinate, and paraquat, which provided satisfactory control of both species. The findings from this study can be used to develop effective management strategies for controlling S. pyramidalis and S. natalensis in agricultural systems.

The word “thug” entered the common English language in a slew of texts published in London across the 1830s. These works—narrative accounts as well as social histories—cataloged the so-called cult of Indian thugs, a newly “discovered” band of highway robbers believed to operate throughout the Indian subcontinent. This essay traces a literary and cultural history of these representations; yet, I argue, many of their roots are to be found less in Indian social history than in the existing discursive structures of London. In particular, medico-literary frameworks of sensibility—in existing use to construct and mediate metropolitan sensationalism—came, consequentially, to inform both these imperial representations and the associated conceptualizations of national boundaries.

Patient and public involvement (PPI) increasingly features in the shaping, design, and conduct of mental health research. This review identifies and synthesizes evidence of barriers and facilitators of PPI in mental health research within university settings. The search strategy followed PRISMA guidance and involved keyword searches in eight peer reviewed databases, grey literature, hand searching two journals, requests to national mental health organizations, and backwards and forwards citation searching. We included primary mental health studies on patient and public involvement, with data on facilitators and barriers. Data were extracted capturing author, date and country of publication, study aim, participant and research team composition, data collection and analysis methods, and levels of PPI. Quality appraisal was conducted using the CASP Checklist for Qualitative Research, with an additional item on intersectionality. We conducted an inductive thematic analysis, before holding a peer-debriefing session with a lived experience working group. The final dataset included 51 articles that were either of a qualitative design or contained analyzed qualitative data. Barriers and facilitators were grouped around the following themes: the structure of the research environment, organizational culture, and individual needs. Good practice exists, but the wider research environment and power imbalances within universities constrain PPI. For PPI in mental health research to reach its full potential, the redistribution of power, building capacity for all, the provision of safe working environments, and widening inclusion in the research process are necessary. This review involved researchers with lived experience of mental ill health.

This short essay considers Kathy Psomiades’s recent book, Primitive Marriage: Victorian Anthropology and the Novel, from a feminist perspective.

This study challenges the predominantly positive view of entrepreneurial team diversity by exploring its negative effects on start-up survival across different development stages. Drawing on secondary data from interviews of failed start-ups retrieved from the Failory database, triangulated with additional publicly available sources of evidence, the research employs an inductive qualitative analysis grounded in the Gioia method and a retrospective approach, to examine which demographic, informational, personality, and cognitive diversity characteristics contribute to failure during the idea, product development, and launch stages. Findings reveal that personality and cognitive diversity are critical in idea development, personality and informational diversity during product development, and personality and demographic diversity during the launch stage. Adopting a dynamic perspective, the study deepens the understanding of team dynamics and venture survival in the entrepreneurial context. The findings guide managers and policymakers on leveraging diversity as a strategic asset while addressing challenges throughout the venture’s lifecycle.

Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship, Endurance, was crushed by Antarctic sea ice and sank in November 1915. Since then, it has been widely considered that Endurance was the strongest polar ship of its time and was lost because ice tore away the rudder. Based on expedition diaries, Shackleton’s correspondence, and structural analysis, this paper shows that Endurance was not among the strongest ships of its time and that the rudder was not the main cause of the vessel sinking. While the final reason was tearing off the keel, Endurance sank because the vessel was simply crushed in compression by ice. This is not surprising, Endurance was not designed for compressive conditions in the Antarctic pack ice, but for easier conditions at the ice edge in the Arctic. The weakest part of its hull was the engine room area, which was not only larger than in other early Antarctic ships but also lacked beams to give strength against compression by ice. Comparison with other wooden polar ships is not favourable for Endurance: ships designed for compressive pack ice were stronger. It is also evident from archive research that Shackleton was well aware of the weaknesses of Endurance even before his expedition set sail for Antarctica.

Cognitive neuroscientists typically posit representations that relate to various aspects of the world, which philosophers call representational content. Anti-realists about representational content argue that contents play no role in neuroscientific explanations of cognitive capacities. In this paper, I defend realism against an anti-realist argument due to Frances Egan, who argues that for content to be explanatory it must be both essential and naturalistic. I introduce a case study from cognitive neuroscience in which content is both essential and naturalistic, meeting Egan’s challenge. I then spell out some general principles for identifying studies in which content plays an explanatory role.

This paper examines trends in wage, income, and consumption inequality in Turkey from 2002 to 2023, a period marked by unorthodox economic policymaking before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Using microdata from the Turkish Statistical Institute’s Household Budget Survey and the Survey of Income and Living Conditions, we document several salient distributional patterns. Wage inequality declined steadily over two decades, including during the recent episode of policy experimentation – coinciding with sustained minimum wage hikes and a rising share of university-educated workers. Income inequality also fell, though less markedly, before reversing in recent years due to widening disparities in capital and entrepreneurial income. In addition, consumption inequality rose dramatically during the unorthodox policy period, exceeding income inequality growth and driven primarily by a surge in durable goods consumption among top-decile households. These findings reveal the complex and multi-dimensional distributional consequences of unconventional economic policy in emerging markets and highlight the importance of examining inequality across multiple dimensions when evaluating policy effectiveness.

A growing body of evidence suggests that conditional cash transfers (CCTs) can shift voters’ electoral choices. Yet there remains a mismatch between reliance on aggregated municipal data and individual-level theories focused on retrospective rewards or reduced vulnerability to clientelism. Since CCTs also produce plausible spillovers on nonbeneficiaries, verifying who reacts, and how, is crucial to understanding their electoral effects. To empirically unbundle individual and spillover effects, the analysis exploits plausibly exogenous variation between beneficiaries of Brazil’s Bolsa Família and those on the waiting list. The evidence suggests that CCTs strengthen beneficiaries’ attitudes against clientelism, but they vote no differently than nonbeneficiaries. However, spillovers are strong: As CCT coverage expands, both beneficiaries and nonbeneficiaries turn against local incumbents. This pattern is inconsistent with existing theory, which relies on either polarization or positive spillovers. Instead, I propose a theory of collective confidence derived from strategic voting incentives in which CCT expansion fortifies all voters in resisting clientelism.

This descriptive and exploratory observational case series examined intestinal colonisation and subsequent bacteraemia due to ESBL-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae (ESBL-Kp) in preterm neonates in Morocco. Prospective bacteriological cultures and antibiotic susceptibility testing were supported by phenotypic methods, including Brilliance ESBL Agar and the NG-Test CARBA-5 assay, for the rapid detection of ESBL and carbapenemase producers. Molecular analysis using PCR was also undertaken to identify specific resistance genes. A total of 567 rectal swabs were collected from 339 preterm neonates, yielding 293 K. pneumoniae isolates. ESBL-producing strains were identified in 53.6% of the neonates (182/339). Detected resistance genes included blaSHV (26.3%), blaCTX-M-1 (42.8%), blaTEM (30.2%), blaOXA-48 (50.0%), blaNDM(15.3%), and blaVIM (4.9%). Principal risk factors for colonisation were low birth weight (OR 1.69), very preterm birth (OR 6.24), enteral tube feeding (OR 2.02), and prolonged use of third-generation cephalosporins (OR 1.26). Among the neonates studied, 32 (9.4%) developed healthcare-associated bacteraemia, with 56.2% of these cases preceded by intestinal colonisation with ESBL-Kp. Clinically, severe respiratory distress and alveolar haemorrhage were strongly associated with increased mortality (aRR = 29.32 and 4.45, respectively). The findings highlight the clinical importance of early screening to guide infection control and antimicrobial stewardship in neonatal intensive care settings.

Online panels have become an important resource for research in political science, but the compensation offered to panelists incentivizes them to become “survey professionals,” raising concerns about data quality. We provide evidence on survey professionalism exploring three US samples of subjects who donated their browsing data, recruited via Lucid, YouGov, and Facebook (total $n = 3,886$). Survey professionalism is common, but varies across samples: by our most conservative estimate, we find 1.7% of respondents on Facebook, 7.$\color {black}6$% on YouGov, and 34$\color {black}.7$% on Lucid to be professionals (under the assumption that professionals are as likely as non-professionals to donate data after conditioning on observable demographics available from all online survey takers). However, evidence that professionals lower data quality is limited: they do not systematically differ demographically or politically from non-professionals and do not exhibit more response instability. They are, however, somewhat more likely to speed, straightline, and attempt to take questionnaires repeatedly. To address potential selection issues in donating of browsing data, we present sensitivity analyses with lower bounds for survey professionalism. While concerns about professionalism are warranted, we conclude that survey professionals do not, by and large, distort inferences of research based on online panels.

To investigate the effects of vocabulary practice timing on lexical learning and neural processing during communication tasks, we engaged 80 Japanese learners of English (40 pairs) in information-gap tasks with vocabulary practice in the pre-task or post-task phase. Learning of verb-noun combinations was orally assessed through translation and narrative tasks one week later. To quantify neural coupling between participants during task-based interaction, hyperscanning with fNIRS was used to measure inter-brain synchronization (IBS). Results showed that pre-task vocabulary practice led to greater learning, while post-task practice resulted in higher IBS in the brain region underlying language processing. Better vocabulary practice performance predicted more automatic use of multiword expressions in the post-task condition. IBS in the brain regions underlying social cognition and language processing predicted multiword learning. These findings reveal how practice timing influences neural synchronization and language acquisition, highlighting the importance of balancing lexical learning with communication processes in task-based language teaching.