The outsourcing of traditionally military functions in Africa to private military companies (PMCs) such as the Wagner Group and the Africa Corps has been accompanied by violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. According to the International Law Commission’s Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, state responsibility for these violations can be imputed to the states that employ PMCs to function as their agents, to exercise government authority or to act in the vacuum left by official authorities. States that do not intervene to prevent these abuses fail their obligations of due diligence through persistent non-action and should not be excused from demanding accountability by immunity agreements between the host and hiring states. We explore the possibility of the communitarian invocation of state responsibility by third-party states, on behalf of victims, in order to end impunity, drive accountability and secure effective redress for victims.

This cluster of short essays discusses Kathy Psomiades’s Primitive Marriage: Victorian Anthropology, the Novel and Sexual Modernity (Oxford University Press, 2023), winner of the North American Victorian Studies Association’s 2023 Subsequent Book Prize, along with a response from the author.

In this article I look at the collaboration between Dickens and his greatest illustrator, Hablot K. Browne (Phiz), in Dombey and Son, David Copperfield, and especially Bleak House. In these works, text and image cluster around themes of fallen sexuality, feminine transgression, and the problematic identity of woman as both protagonist and narrator or author. I argue that Browne’s illustrations offer not a counternarrative to Dickens’s but a submerged one, especially in relation to controversial or taboo material. The text and plates work in unison to make manifest what might be present but only subtly telegraphed by Dickens’s words. My piece culminates in speculation about Dickens’s creation of the first-person narrator, Esther Summerson, in Bleak House: was Dickens responding to the proliferation of women-authored texts and women narrators? And were Dickens and Browne signaling in repeated depictions of a faceless Esther that the sex and identity of authorship were mysterious and unsettlingly mutable?

Engaging residents of long-term care homes (LTCHs) in their home’s environment, programs, and operations is required in some jurisdictions and could improve resident quality of life and other outcomes. This scoping review summarized existing research on resident engagement in LTCH organizational design and governance, including associated enablers, barriers, approaches, and outcomes. The database search yielded 5,580 records (after deduplication), and 62 articles covering 59 studies were included. These studies predominantly described Residents’ Councils (n = 38; 64%) and enablers or barriers pertaining to resident and home perspectives, as well as implementation and sustainability infrastructure. Few studies described approaches to considerations of resident diversity (n = 8; 14%) or the presence of dementia and/or cognitive impairment (n = 12; 20%). Ten studies reported quantitative data evaluating resident engagement, and only four with resident-reported outcomes. Robust, evidence-informed frameworks that are co-designed with residents, staff, and others in the LTCH sector are needed to engage residents in their LTCHs.

This article charts the intellectual development and application of communication theology, centering two church-led communication training programs in Nyegezi (Tanzania) and Nairobi (Kenya), from their founding amid East African decolonization in the 1960s through to the challenges of Africanization in the 1970s–1980s. This has implications for two growing bodies of scholarship. First, speaking to histories of Christian thought—particularly on ecumenism, secularization, and localization in the context of decolonization—I show that these training centers, their African staff, and their students enabled the elaboration of communication theology, and revealed its contradictions. Second, speaking to intellectual histories of attempts to decolonize information and communications, I reinsert theology into an often state-centric narrative, suggesting how these training programs informed debates about relevance and self-reliance in the media. I thus make the case for locating intellectual histories of both communications and Christianity in regions of the decolonizing world.

The touchstone of judicial review in Lesotho for a long time has preeminently been the ultra vires principle. The modern conception of the doctrine of legality as a constitutional device to control the exercise of public power has not been a prominent feature of Lesotho’s public law. It has only gained traction recently. The superior courts in Lesotho – the High Court and the Court of Appeal – have ruled that the expansive doctrine of legality is now the cornerstone of constitutionalism in the country. In this new trajectory, they rely mainly on the well-developed South African legality jurisprudence. This development of constitutional law in Lesotho is laudable. However, the extent to which South African jurisprudence can inform Lesotho on this subject remains a matter of controversy. This article examines the “importation” of South African jurisprudence on legality into Lesotho, the lessons that Lesotho can derive and the future development pathways for legality in the country.

The present article provides a diachronic analysis of the negation and contraction patterns of will and would in British and American English. It contrasts nineteenth- and twentieth-century data from British and American fiction, comparing the collocational preferences of negated versus non-negated and contracted versus non-contracted modals. Utilising Configural Frequency Analysis, we explore frequency differences as well as variety-specific association patterns. Results reveal predominantly commonalities. The spread of the modal contractions ’ll and ’d as well as the spread of the contracted negator n’t proceeded at similar speeds in both varieties. The analysis at the level of cotextual configurations shows the emergence of several emancipated subschemas that are each differentially entrenched and conventionalised.

This paper presents the first demonstration of a mid-infrared (MIR) Fe:ZnSe laser gain-switched by a non-critical phase-matched potassium titanyl arsenate optical parametric oscillator and amplifier at 3.47 μm. A novel improvement in slope efficiency was achieved by this new pump source, which significantly promoted the quantum efficiency compared to the conventional pump wavelength near 2.9 μm. The slope efficiency of 70.7% is a new record for Fe:ZnSe lasers with an output energy of 86 mJ and pulse width of 6.7 ns at 10 Hz. The output wavelength was tunable from 3.9 to 4.5 μm by changing the crystal’s temperature from 80 to 300 K. The influence of the pump beam size on transverse parasitic oscillation and crystal damage was investigated considering the dynamic absorption effect in Fe:ZnSe. This unique design provides an advancing and promising method of high-energy and short-pulse-width MIR lasers for extreme applications requiring both high-energy density and high-peak-power intensity.

Management of infants with hypoplastic left heart syndrome is resource-intensive. Trends in initial Stage 1 palliation choice and associated hospital cost and outcomes over time are unclear.

Using a retrospective cohort of infants <30 days of age (2004–22) from the Paediatric Health Information Systems database, we analysed the annual prevalence of Stage 1 palliation choice, as well as the association between palliation choice and outcomes and resource use. Prevalence of palliation choice was calculated, and Mann–Kendall tests evaluated linear trends. Study outcomes were pooled across years and compared by palliation choice. Associations over time between palliation choice and outcomes and resource use were evaluated with generalised linear mixed models.

Of 7701 patients, 67.45% (n = 5194) underwent a Norwood with modified Blalock-Taussig shunt, (NmBT) 22.06% (n = 1699) underwent a Norwood with right ventricle to pulmonary artery conduit (NRVPA), and 10.49% (n = 808) underwent a hybrid procedure. The annual prevalence of NRVPA surpassed that of NBT in 2017. In the pooled analysis, infants undergoing NRV-PA had the lowest in-hospital mortality (11.2%, P < 0.0001) and lowest cost at $335,406 (IQR: $208,624 to $583,322 (P = 0.001). A trend for increased median estimated hospitalisation cost was observed across time for all procedure choices (P for trend <0.0001 for all).

These data suggest that the NRV-PA is the preferred palliation choice, has the lowest in-hospital mortality, and is the most cost-effective option. Our findings suggest that all Stage 1 palliation options have become more expensive with no observed change in mortality.

The digital and sustainable transitions represent two strategic drivers of growth and innovation for micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises. This is especially relevant for micro-firms, which significantly lag behind larger firms in these areas. Financial literacy can play a key role in guiding small entrepreneurs to make sound financial choices and make the so-called twin transition successful. We exploit a survey conducted by the Bank of Italy in 2021 – involving about 2,000 non-financial firms with less than 10 employees – to investigate whether financial literacy acts as a driver for the twin transition. Through instrumental variable estimation, we find evidence of a causal link between financial literacy and both digitalisation and engagement in sustainable activities.

This paper focuses on a type of underdetermination that has barely received any philosophical attention: underdetermination of data. I show how one particular type of data—RNA sequencing data, arguably one of the most important data types in contemporary biology and medicine—is underdetermined, because RNA sequencing experiments often do not determine a unique data set. Instead, different ways of generating usable data can result in vastly different, and even incompatible, data sets. But, since it is often impossible to adjudicate among these different ways of generating data, ‘the data’ coming out of such experiments is underdetermined.

We utilize Bayesian model averaging to estimate a stochastic discount factor (SDF) for single-stock options. A Bayesian model averaging SDF outperforms reduced-form benchmark models in-sample and out-of-sample in pricing option return anomalies and portfolios. We document that the SDF is dense in characteristics with the implied-realized volatility spread, option return momentum, and jump risk emerging as the most likely included factors. The option SDF exhibits a distinct business cycle pattern and aligns more closely with its counterpart in the stock market than in the bond market.

Indigenous archaeology and archaeology of Indigeneity are paramount in the contemporary world. We certainly need more of it across the archaeological scale and across the archaeological globe. Archaeology’s unhealthy attachment to colonialism, colonial administration and imperialism keeps on affecting our discipline on all levels. It is therefore encouraging to read Felix Acuto’s call for an engaged and activist Indigenous archaeology of Latin America. It is certainly needed, but depressing to learn about the recurrent atrocities against Indigenous peoples in Argentina.

This article chronicles the roundtable held at LUISS University in Rome on 23 May 2025, marking the eightieth anniversary of the Italian Resistance. Organised alongside the launch of the special issue of Modern Italy titled ‘The Italian Resistance: Historical Junctures and New Perspectives’, the event gathered prominent scholars to revisit the legacy of the Resistance in contemporary historical, cultural and political discourse. Contributions highlighted emerging research on marginal actors, transnational perspectives, gendered memory and the symbolic dimensions of antifascism. Discussions revealed a shared concern with pluralising memory and resisting reductive narratives. This reflection emphasises the enduring relevance of the Resistance as a site of democratic imagination and critical historical inquiry, as well as the journal’s continued commitment to fostering innovative and inclusive scholarship on modern Italy.

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing by police in 2020, polls showed White Democrats as the most racially progressive group of Americans. In this paper, we examine this group’s racial progressiveness. Using the racial resentment scale deployed in the American National Election Studies, we show that the youngest generation of White Democrats has become more liberal on race when compared to older generations of Democrats and both younger and older generations of Republicans. We examine White Democrats’ racial attitudes further using four framing experiments that we embed in a nationally representative survey. The experiments demonstrate that younger generations of Democrats are often, but not always, the group most supportive of progressive racial rhetoric when compared to older Democrats, Republicans in their generation, and older Republicans. Older Democrats often mirror the attitudes of their younger counterpart. Thus, we find that racial attitudes are shaped not just by generation but also by partisan cues. Last, when it comes to reparations, young Democrats are merely less hostile to the policy than other groups in our sample but do not endorse reparations. Overall, our findings thus suggest that while younger generations of Democrats are sometimes more progressive in their racial attitudes than other groups, their racial attitudes are somewhat inconsistent. While they support racially egalitarian rhetoric, they do not express the same level of support for a policy designed to create equal material conditions.

Kōmei School was the first public school for children with physical disabilities in Japan and emerged from reformist, child-centered influences during the 1920s to early 1930s. This work examines the school’s history to reveal the place of children with disabilities in Japan’s compulsory school system. Administrative exemptions for decades blocked children with disabilities from “compulsory” education, denying them access to school. Kōmei School was established to provide opportunities to a few of many young Japanese individuals with physical challenges and proved to be a source of innovation. However, “abled” Japanese schoolchildren in compulsory schools were considered future national resources, and children with disabilities were not. Consequently, abled pupils were evacuated from Tokyo and other cities to safety in the 1944 mass evacuation policy, while Kōmei’s children with mobility challenges were abandoned to face air raids in Tokyo. Under a regime that assessed children as nascent military resources, the nationality of Kōmei’s pupils was denied, and even their humanity was questioned. After the war, children with physical disabilities remained devalued by the rapidly growing economy. As a result, the designation “compulsory” that would secure their right to an education, require their attendance in school, and guarantee that government would assure their place in school was not codified until 1979.

This essay considers the contributions that Primitive Marriage makes to psychoanalytic theory and the history of sexuality. It also explores the ways that Kathy Psomiades’s emphasis on the Victorian anthropology of marriage complicates our understanding of the histories of structuralism and critical theory in the present.