We present the first results from the COS-EDGES survey, targeting the kinematic connection between the interstellar medium and multi-phase circumgalactic medium (CGM) in nine isolated, near-edge-on galaxies at $z\sim0.2$, each probed along its major axis by a background quasar at impact parameters of $D=13-38$ kpc. Using VLT/UVES and HST/COS quasar spectra, we analyse Mgi, Mgii, Hi, Cii, Ciii, and Ovi absorption relative to galaxy rotation curves from Keck/LRIS and Magellan/MagE spectra. We find that low ionisation absorption for 8/9 galaxies lies below the halo escape velocity, indicating bound inflow or recycling gas, while 6/9 galaxies have high ionisation gas reaching above the halo escape velocity, suggesting some unbound material. We find that at lower $D/R_{\textrm{vir}}$ ($0.12\leq D/R_{\textrm{vir}} \leq0.20$), over 80% of absorption in all ions lies on the side of systemic velocity matching disk rotation, and the optical-depth–weighted median velocity ($v_{abs}$) is consistent with the peak rotation speed. At higher $D/R_{\textrm{vir}}$ ($0.21\leq D/R_{\textrm{vir}} \leq0.31$), the kinematics diverge by ionisation state: For the low ionisation gas, the amount of co-rotating absorption remains above 80%, yet $v_{abs}$ drops to roughly 60% of the galaxy rotation speed. For the high ionisation gas (Ovi), only 60% of the absorption is consistent with co-rotation and $v_{abs}$ drops to 20% of the galaxy rotation speed. Furthermore, the velocity widths, corresponding to 50% of the total optical depth ($\Delta v_{50}$) for low ionisation gas is up to 1.8 times larger in the inner halo than at larger radii, while for Ciii and Ovi $\Delta v_{50}$ remains unchanged with distance. The 90% optical-depth width ($\Delta v_{90}$) shows a modest decline with radius for low ionisation gas but remains constant Ciii and Ovi. At high $D/{R}_{\textrm{vir}}$, both $\Delta v_{50}$ and $\Delta v_{90}$ increase with ionisation potential. These results suggest a radially dependent CGM kinematic structure: the inner halo hosts cool, dynamically broad gas tightly coupled to disk rotation, whereas beyond $\gtrsim 0.2 R_{\textrm{vir}}$, particularly traced by Ovi and Hi, the CGM shows weaker rotational alignment and lower relative velocity dispersion. Therefore, low-ionisation gas likely traces extended co-rotating gas, inflows and/or recycled accretion, while high-ionisation gas reflects a mixture of co-rotating, lagging, discrete collisionally ionised structures and volume-filling warm halo, indicating a complex kinematic stratification of the multi-phase CGM.

A growing literature explores the representational detail of infants’ early lexical representations, but no study has investigated how exposure to real-life acoustic-phonetic variation impacts these representations. Indeed, previous experimental work with young infants has largely ignored the impact of accent exposure on lexical development. We ask how routine exposure to accent variation affects 6-month-olds’ ability to detect mispronunciations. Forty-eight monolingual English-learning 6-month-olds participated. Mono-accented infants, exposed to minimal accent variation, detected vowel mispronunciations in their own name. Multi-accented infants, exposed to high levels of accent variation, did not. Accent exposure impacts speech processing at the earliest stages of lexical acquisition.

Situated at the junction of Cognitive Semantics and Experimental Phenomenology, this study investigates how participants perceive the structure of 18 perceptual dimensions of opposites across the visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory and olfactory sensory modalities. The structures include three components: two poles (high; low) and an intermediate (neither high nor low). Participants were asked to provide examples of contexts for each dimension for which they could experience the five sensory modalities and then describe their experiences of the structures with respect to whether the poles were experienced as a single property (Point), or a range of properties with or without a precise limit (Bounded Range or Unbounded Range respectively). For the intermediate region, they described if they experienced a single property (Point) or many (Range) or none (No Intermediates). The study centres on two main questions. Is the perceptual structure invariant across the sensory modalities? If not, how do the structures differ? The study shows that the overall structure of all dimensions was stable in at least two of the modalities, and many structures were stable across more than two modalities. Stability was particularly pertinent across the visual and tactile modalities, and the gustatory and olfactory modalities.

The seed science community currently defines germination as radicle emergence of 2 mm from the dispersal unit. Consequently, most seed researchers abruptly terminate germination experiments after radicle emergence, concluding that the seed has germinated. However, this approach underestimates epicotyl dormancy and often leads to dormancy misclassification, or worse, a failure to identify epicotyl dormancy altogether. To address these limitations, we propose extending germination studies to the point of first leaf emergence; we term this the “full germination” period. Our methodology involves germinating fully matured, freshly collected seeds and depending on the time required for radicle emergence, the seeds are categorized into (1) viviparous, where seeds germinate prematurely while they are still attached to the parent plant or within the fruit; (2) Morphological dormancy (MD) or Non-dormant (ND), where seeds germinate within 30 days; and (3) physiological dormancy (PD) and morphophysiological dormancy (MPD), where germination does not occur within 30 days. The absence of shoot emergence within 30 days following radicle protrusion indicates the presence of epicotyl dormancy. Thus, species initially classified as ND, MD, or viviparous may be miscategorized if shoot emergence is not assessed. Likewise, seeds exhibiting PD or MPD may possess an additional epicotyl dormancy component, possibly leading to placing them in incorrect subclass or level. A comprehensive assessment of shoot development is imperative for accurate dormancy characterization. We strongly recommend monitoring seed germination until first true leaf emergence should be adopted to ensure correct conclusions about dormancy, plant life cycles and ecological adaptations.

Italian ryegrass [Lolium perenne L. ssp. multiflorum (Lam.) Husnot], a pernicious weed in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) fields, has evolved severe resistance to the acetolactate synthase (ALS)-inhibiting herbicides, like pyroxsulam. Here, the derived cleaved amplified polymorphic sequence (dCAPS) markers were developed to detect two distinct mutations at the 197th position of the ALS gene. The method was used to examine and purify the resistant population. Homozygous populations with different 197 site mutations from the same population were obtained, and the target site–resistance mechanisms were investigated. Whole-plant dose–response bioassays show that the resistance index (RI) of the Pro-197-Thr mutant population to pyroxsulam was 508.92, whereas that of the Pro-197-Gln population was 9.75. Similar trends were observed for different herbicides within same mode of action. In vitro ALS assays demonstrated that the Pro-197-Thr population exhibited lower sensitivity to pyroxsulam than the Pro-197-Gln population, consistent with plant bioassays. Furthermore, ALS gene expression of the Pro-197-Thr population analysis is significantly higher than that in the Pro-197-Gln population, which may also explain why the Pro-197-Thr population exhibits a higher resistance level than the Pro-197-Gln population. Our findings suggest that different amino acid substitutions at one ALS gene locus can confer herbicide resistance with different levels in L. perenne ssp. multiflorum. This study provides valuable insights into the mechanisms of herbicide resistance in L. perenne ssp. multiflorum.

Party system classifications have been central in political science, especially until Sartori's influential typology in 1976. However, recent years have seen diminished attention to such classifications. Western European party systems have significantly transformed, particularly over the last 15 years due to multiple crises, affecting their core structure, or what Sartori termed ‘patterns of interparty competition.’ This raises questions about whether these changes have undermined the very concept of systemness, making classifications irrelevant. This research note redefines party systems based on the number and composition of relevant political poles (governing alternatives) and, through a long-term analysis of Western Europe (20 countries since 1945), assesses their degree of systemness. Results indicate that many systems have become ‘non-systems,’ with fluctuating and unstable party poles. Most Western European systems have exhibited this ‘non-system’ type for at least half of legislatures since 1989, thus making classifications only short-lived snapshots and inevitably useless for long-term accounts.

Abstract screening, a labor-intensive aspect of systematic review, is increasingly challenging due to the rising volume of scientific publications. Recent advances suggest that generative large language models like generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) could aid this process by classifying references into study types such as randomized-controlled trials (RCTs) or animal studies prior to abstract screening. However, it is unknown how these GPT models perform in classifying such scientific study types in the biomedical field. Additionally, their performance has not been directly compared with earlier transformer-based models like bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT). To address this, we developed a human-annotated corpus of 2,645 PubMed titles and abstracts, annotated for 14 study types, including different types of RCTs and animal studies, systematic reviews, study protocols, case reports, as well as in vitro studies. Using this corpus, we compared the performance of GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 in automatically classifying these study types against established BERT models. Our results show that fine-tuned pretrained BERT models consistently outperformed GPT models, achieving F1-scores above 0.8, compared to approximately 0.6 for GPT models. Advanced prompting strategies did not substantially boost GPT performance. In conclusion, these findings highlight that, even though GPT models benefit from advanced capabilities and extensive training data, their performance in niche tasks like scientific multi-class study classification is inferior to smaller fine-tuned models. Nevertheless, the use of automated methods remains promising for reducing the volume of records, making the screening of large reference libraries more feasible. Our corpus is openly available and can be used to harness other natural language processing (NLP) approaches.

The ontological complexity of the twentieth-century Cold War motivates this special issue’s investigation of how social scientists conceptualize institutional novelty and change. We begin by noting the peculiar elision of the Cold War as an explanatory mechanism in mainstream sociology, even while sociologists have theoretical tools for making sense of the phenomenon: war, schema, field, world systems, and empire. All are useful; none are sufficient. We locate the explanatory problem in a tension between notions of structure and event that has organized debate in historical social science for several scholarly generations, and offer a new intellectual tool – medium durée – as a way forward. Medium durée describes phenomena that have sufficient cohesion as ideas and relationships to endure over time, yet remain sufficiently unfixed and ambiguous as to enable multifarious action and sensemaking. Our notion of medium durée is substantially informed by the articles and commentaries assembled for this special issue, which represent three years of dialogue among the authors as well as audiences in serial panels at the 2022 and 2023 annual meetings of the Social Science History Association.

Chinese stellara (Stellera chamaejasme L.) is an indicator plant of degraded grasslands. With its robust vitality, once it emerges in grassland ecosystems, it undergoes extensive growth and rapid expansion, inevitably leading to grassland degradation. The establishment and invasion of S. chamaejasme disrupts the ecological balance of grasslands in the Qilian Mountains. This study was conducted in a grassland on the eastern slope of the Qilian Mountains, employing point pattern analysis to investigate the spatial distribution patterns of S. chamaejasme and the relationships among different age classes. The population was categorized into three growth stages: young, subadult, and mature plants. The results revealed that the spatial distribution of this population is primarily dominated by subadult plants, accounting for up to 75.48% of the total, with an overall transition trend from aggregated to random distribution. No significant spatial correlations were observed among different age groups (young, subadult, and mature plants), indicating that mature plants do not exert significant inhibitory effects on the growth of young individuals. In high-density areas, the population exhibited a distribution radiating outward from mature plants as the center, with high-density cores predominantly concentrated within 0 to 5 m. Significant density variations were observed between regions, with the highest total density estimated at approximately 9.57 plants m−2 and the lowest at 2.68 plants m−2. The invasion mechanism of S. chamaejasme is closely associated with the spatial independence of its age groups and a distribution pattern dominated by subadult plants. During the initial invasion phase, S. chamaejasme spreads predominantly around mature plants. After securing sufficient growing space (0 to 1 m), it further competes for territory through shifts in distribution patterns—transitioning from aggregated to random distribution. Additionally, significant differences in distribution density and expansion patterns across regions provide critical theoretical foundations for targeted ecological management strategies.

Folds within layered rock systems are critical for comprehending the historical processes of deformation and the rheological behaviour of rocks. The current study employs finite element modelling to investigate the development of folds in a layered rock system, with a particular focus on the impact of thinner layers on the folding of adjacent thicker layers and their subsequent interactions. The analysis indicates that harmonic folds can evolve into polyharmonic or disharmonic configurations because of the intricate interactions occurring within the contact strain zone of the thinner layer. Our numerical findings demonstrate that the geometry of folds is significantly affected by the reciprocal interactions between thinner and thicker layers, initiated by the folding of the thinner units and their consequent influence on the thicker layers, and vice versa. This dynamic interplay, however, may frequently diverge from predictions made by more simplistic models, as suggested by earlier studies. Furthermore, this research highlights the potential of utilizing higher-order fold geometries to estimate the relative viscosity between the layers and the embedded medium.