A review was carried out of studies on the diet of various Mediterranean teuthivorous predators (marine mammals, chondrichthyans, osteichthyans, seabirds, turtles, crustaceans, and cephalopods) and their cephalopod prey. Data extracted from the literature were analysed using multivariate statistical techniques. Three distinct groups of predators were identified according to the cephalopod species consumed. The most common prey of the predators are the ‘unidentified Cephalopoda’, followed by the sepiolid Heteroteuthis dispar and the ommastrephid squid Illex coindetii. The most important cephalopod predators are the striped dolphin, Stenella coeruleoalba, the chondrichthyans Scyliorhinus canicula and Galeus melastomus, the swordfish Xiphias gladius, and the ommastrephid squid Todarodes sagittatus. The dietary preferences of the different teutophages, their geographical distribution and some ecological implications are discussed.

Grassroots participation in Nigeria’s democratic governance, through the local government system, has remained a problem, even with the Constitution guaranteeing democratically elected local government councils and their autonomous operation as a third tier of government. The state governments have continued to encroach upon the autonomy of the local governments, thus hindering effective grassroots participation in democratic governance. To address this, the Supreme Court, in a majority judgment in Attorney General of the Federation v Attorney General of Abia State and 35 Others, reaffirmed the democratic status and autonomy of local government councils. This article examines the extent to which the judgment guarantees the independence of the local governments; it finds that the judgment has been more symbolic than impactful in resolving the issues of local governments’ autonomy. It therefore advocates for constitutional alterations to explicitly define the status and functions of the local governments in Nigeria.

This article explores how psychiatrists conceptualised the role of family relations and emotional atmospheres in the context of schizophrenia research in the second half of the twentieth century. It traces how families became the primary site to be mined and measured to explain schizophrenia’s onset, course and outcome, and zooms in on global psychiatric investigations of expressed emotion in families of schizophrenic patients, which aimed to offer a theoretical framework for understanding one of the most intriguing and influential findings of transcultural psychiatry: that schizophrenia appeared to have a shorter course and favourable recovery rates outside the Western world. The article engages with a wealth of research materials from schizophrenia and expressed emotion studies, and a variety of voices – clinicians, patients, families – which shaped these investigations. It also draws a comparison between this discussion of ‘traditional’ families as a beneficial environment for schizophrenia, and critical psychiatric and psychoanalytic discourses from the middle decades of the century which focused on the reportedly extreme psychopathological potential of ‘schizophrenogenic’ family relations in the Western world. Analyzed through this prism, expressed emotion research constructed the Global South as a preferable, even romanticized, alternative to the Western model of family interaction. On closer inspection, however, this idealization of the traditional family involved a variety of essentializing and romanticizing ideas which reinforced the ever-present binary of the modern West versus backward Global South, and perpetuated the belief in the decolonising and developing world’s cultural and intellectual simplicity.

Suspense is an important aspect of cognitive-emotional narrative text comprehension. We adopt a text-centered, linguistic approach, investigating how the information structure of a narrative text as modeled by its erotetic structure instigates suspense. We report on two studies that reveal a strong correlation between the presence of what we term ‘potentially inquiry-terminating questions’ (PITQs) and the level of experienced suspense. PITQs are binary questions that hold a unique role in the erotetic structure of a narrative: the reader perceives one possible answer to resolve a broader, pivotal plot-related question and the other answer to leave it temporarily unresolved. While previous research has proposed that information structure is a factor in deriving narrative suspense, in this paper, we show that it is the role of PITQs specifically that allows us to effectively predict suspense. Our research shows that PITQs are a linguistic notion that has a clear cognitive-emotional correlate. Thus, PITQs should receive future attention in linguistic theory, pragmatics and interdisciplinary studies. While our approach is specifically concerned with written texts, the flexibility of erotetic theories of interpretation in principle allows us to extend the scope of the present approach to any other medium of narrative presentation.

Across three studies involving more than 5,000 participants, we provide a comprehensive analysis of the effects of incentivizing responses in the Krupka-Weber norm elicitation task. We consider both the potential benefits of incentivization (higher response quality and mitigation of response biases) and its possible drawbacks (distortion of responses in the direction of norm-unrelated focal points and materialistic values). We find no evidence of undesirable effects of incentives. While we report only modest improvements in response quality, we also show that incentives effectively mitigate response biases that arise when participants’ self-serving motivations conflict with accurate responding.

We introduce the notion of adjacency in three-manifolds. A three-manifold Y is n-adjacent to another three-manifold Z if there exists an n-component link in Y and surgery slopes for that link such that performing Dehn surgery along any nonempty sublink yields Z. We characterize adjacencies from three-manifolds to the three-sphere, providing an analogy to Askitas and Kalfagianni’s results on n-adjacency in knots.

Theodicies aim at explaining why an omnipotent, omniscient, and wholly good God might enable the existence of evil and the suffering it causes. I draw on an idea from eighteenth-century Italian Jewish philosopher and kabbalist Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto to develop a ‘world-building theodicy’. The main idea is that God wanted his creatures to participate in the creation of the world and manifest themselves as godlike mini creators. Therefore, God created an unfinished world full of natural dangers and evil-doing people, leaving creatures to develop the world into a utopia through their own hard work. This theodicy is designed to account for all types of worldly evil and any finite amount, all without controversial doctrines about free will.

This article revisits the diachrony of the genitive alternation, the alternation between ’s and prepositional phrases headed by of in Present-Day English. It is usually assumed to have developed around 1400 CE. For Old English (c. 650–1000 CE), a different alternation between pre-modifying and post-modifying genitive-case-marked noun phrases is suggested to be the genitive alternation. Building on descriptions of competition between genitive-case-marked noun phrases (gen) and prepositional phrases with of (of) in Old English, and unpicking some of the preconceptions about the alternation in Old English, we propose a bottom-up method for systematically identifying possible alternation between of and gen in the York–Toronto–Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Old English Prose (Taylor et al. 2003). Our findings indicate that there is plausibly an alternation in Old English that stands in continuity with Present-Day English and suggest a more complex diachrony for the alternation characterized by continuity and discontinuity in the alternants and the envelope of variation.

Positive food consumption remains one of the most common challenges among older adults in the UK with at least 10% in community settings and up to 45% in care homes affected by malnutrition. It is strongly associated with frailty, functional and health decline. Tracking and understanding the impact of diet is not easy. There are problems with monitoring diet and malnutrition screening such as difficulty remembering, lack of time, or needing a dietician to interpret the results. Computerised tailored education may be a positive solution to these issues. Due to the rise in smartphone ownership the use of technology to monitor diet is becoming more popular. This review paper will aim to look at the issues with current methods of dietary monitoring particularly in older adults, it will present the benefits and barriers of using to monitor food intake. It will discuss how a photo food monitoring app was developed to address the current issues with technology and how it was tested with older adults living in community and care settings. The prototype was co-developed and incorporated automated food classification to monitor dietary intake and food preferences and tested with older adults. The prototype was usable to both older adults and care workers and feedback on how to improve its use was collected. Key design improvements to make it quicker and more accurate were suggested for future testing in this population. With adaptions this prototype could be beneficial to older adults living in both community and care settings.

Growing demand for social care and resource constraints compel decision-makers to decide how to allocate public resources to social care. Such decisions may result in differences in access to social care between groups in society. In this study we conducted a secondary analysis of articles included in a systematic review on the underpinnings of resource allocation decisions in social care, extending that work to examine the potential consequences of such decisions. We conducted the review in accordance with the PRISMA framework. Through a thematic framework analysis of 37 of the 42 articles included in the parent review, we identified five groups in society that may be disproportionately affected by the consequences of resource allocation decisions on social care: (1) individuals with long-term social care needs (2) informal caregivers, (3) lower socio-economic groups, (4) individuals with limited health literacy skills, and (5) individuals living across different regions. Our findings highlight that allocation decisions in social care particularly affect women and individuals facing language barriers and may create local variation in provision of social care. These findings suggest potential for inequitable access to social care in society and underscore the need for decision-makers to consider the consequences of their allocation decisions.

The increasing participation of women in the labour market has highlighted significant advancements but also inequalities that negatively impact women’s happiness and job satisfaction. This study aims to analyse the existing literature on women’s workplace happiness through a bibliometric review, identifying trends, leading authors, research areas, and critical gaps. Employing a systematic bibliometric review methodology, 307 scientific articles published between 2010 and 2024 in the Web of Science Core Collection database were examined. Findings underscore a growing focus on factors external to the work environment, such as gender roles, double shifts, stress, and mental health. Furthermore, the results reveal considerable fragmentation in scientific production and a lack of established academic benchmarks. Conclusions stress the urgent need for organizational approaches that comprehensively address these inequalities, promoting policies of reconciliation, intersectional inclusion, and emotional well-being programmes. The study offers directions for future research and practical applications for fostering more equitable organizational management.

Ensuring adequate food intake among older people is essential for maintaining health and preventing malnutrition. This review explores strategies to enhance dietary intake in this population group. Several key interventions are highlighted, including offering high-energy and protein-fortified meals and snacks, optimising the visual appeal and presentation of foods, enhancing flavours, and providing finger foods or modified textures to support consumption. Familiarity with fortified foods may encourage acceptance and increase intake, while improving food aesthetics and incorporating varied flavours can enhance enjoyment and promote consumption. Flavour enhancement may help compensate for decline in smell and taste sensitivity often experienced by older people, helping to sustain interest in food and promote greater intake. Finger foods present a practical solution for older adults with physical impairments, allowing for easier handling and self-feeding. Additionally, for individuals with dysphagia or chewing difficulties, texture-modified diets tailored to their needs support safe food intake. Research suggests that refining food presentation through techniques such as moulding and 3D printing may improve palatability and appeal, potentially boosting consumption among older adults. Addressing sensory preferences and physical challenges associated with eating is critical to ensuring adequate nutrition and promoting overall wellbeing in the elderly population. This review underscores the importance of multifaceted dietary strategies, advocating for personalised interventions that align with older individuals’ needs and preferences to enhance food intake and nutritional status.

Private funding of U.S. federal elections is at record levels, with most money contributed by a few very wealthy individuals and organizations. Cross-partisan majorities of the American public consistently express concern, and proposed campaign finance reforms are introduced as frequently in Congress recently as earlier in time. Despite these facts, and that successful twentieth century reforms often were preceded by corruption scandal, that these continue today, that there remain political entrepreneurs for reform, that reformers continue to use corruption framing, and that the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision left some reform strategies open, no proposed campaign finance reforms to curb moneyed interests’ influence have been enacted since the 2002 BCRA. We address this puzzle through comparative process tracing of forty reform efforts receiving consideration in a congressional committee from 1907 to 2024. We identify three ideal-type reform trajectories—scandal as agenda-setter, the Supreme Court as agenda-setter, and a multiple legislative trajectories type—through which campaign finance reforms through 2002 sometimes were successful. We then show how and why a combination of changes in the political, media, and legal environments doomed reform efforts post-2002 and especially post-2010 to almost certain failure. We draw implications for federal political discourse and policy-making more generally.

The inter-war period was a time of mobilisation against syphilis in France and its colonial empire. The spread of the disease was perceived as a threat to the economic development of its colonies, particularly because of the labour shortages it might cause. In 1916, a new player appeared on the scene of the French efforts to control the disease: the Institut Prophylactique, founded by Arthur Vernes. Its project was nothing less than to eradicate the disease, and its activities in the colonies expanded significantly during the 1920s and 1930s. However, the Institut Prophylactique has been largely forgotten in the history of medicine. Although the project was a failure, this article shows that it played an important role in controlling syphilis, both in France and in its colonies. This historical study thus emphasises the importance of considering alternative and failed projects as part of the complex picture of health history.