Politicians appeal to social groups to court their electoral support. However, quantifying which groups politicians refer to, claim to represent, or address in their public communication presents researchers with challenges. We propose a supervised learning approach for extracting group mentions from political texts. We first collect human annotations to determine the passages of a text that refer to social groups. We then fine-tune a transformer language model for contextualized supervised classification at the word level. Applied to unlabeled texts, our approach enables researchers to automatically detect and extract word spans that contain group mentions. We illustrate our approach in two applications, generating new empirical insights into how British parties use social groups in their rhetoric. Our method allows for detecting and extracting mentions of social groups from various sources of texts, creating new possibilities for empirical research in political science.

The Chan–Robbins–Yuen polytope ($CRY_n$) of order n is a face of the Birkhoff polytope of doubly stochastic matrices that is also a flow polytope of the directed complete graph $K_{n+1}$ with netflow $(1,0,0, \ldots , 0, -1)$. The volume and lattice points of this polytope have been actively studied; however, its face structure has received less attention. We give generating functions and explicit formulas for computing the f-vector by using Hille’s (2003) result bijecting faces of a flow polytope to certain graphs, as well as Andresen–Kjeldsen’s (1976) result that enumerates certain subgraphs of the directed complete graph. We extend our results to flow polytopes of the complete graph having arbitrary (non-negative) netflow vectors and recover the f-vector of the Tesler polytope of Mészáros–Morales–Rhoades (2017).

I raise two concerns about Bergmann’s philosophical methodology: the first is a parity problem for his intuition-based “autodidactic” approach; the second is a tension between that approach and the commonsense tradition in which he situates it. I then use his approach to reflect on the limits of rational argument and set it alongside an alternative that likewise emphasizes the personal nature of philosophical inquiry while remaining more neutral about the rational standing of competing intuitions.

Joe Arroyo’s music, specifi cally his carnival compositions, generates modes of solidarity that transcend national and temporal boundaries. His “musical mechanism,” employing the clave rhythm and improvisational structures, facilitates a collective reinhabitation of the past, a redemptive challenging of colonial divisions between the living and the dead. Arroyo’s work, therefore, demonstrates the transformative power of music to forge solidarity across carnival participants.

This study examines whether Americans are more supportive of immigration when migrants share their partisan preferences. To address this question, we embedded a preregistered experiment in a nationally representative survey that was fielded the week before the 2024 US Presidential Election. The main experimental treatment provided information that some immigrant groups tend to favor Donald Trump and the Republican Party. This information reduced support for immigration among Democrats and increased support for immigration among Republicans. Our findings suggest that immigrants’ political identities impact public support for immigration. They also suggest that Trump’s apparent gains among immigrant voters in the 2024 election have the potential to reduce partisan polarization over immigration in the future.

It was found that a significant number of patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) did not respond to the treatment, leading to high ongoing costs and disease burden. The main objective of this study was to find neurobiological indicators that can predict the effectiveness of antidepressant treatment using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). A group of 103 patients who were experiencing their first episode of MDD were included in the study. After 2 weeks of SSRI treatment, the group of patients was split into two categories: ineffectiveand effective. The FMRIB Software Library (FSL) was used for diffusion data preprocessing to obtain tensor-based parameters such as FA, MD, AD, and RD. Tract-Based Spatial Statistical (TBSS) voxel-wise statistical analysis of the tensor-based parameters was carried out using the TBSS procedure in FSL. We conducted an investigation to determine if there were notable variations in neuroimaging attributes among the three groups. Compared to HC, the effective group showed significantly higher AD and MD values in the left CgH. Correlating neuroimaging characteristics and clinical manifestations revealed a significant positive correlation between CgH-l FA and clinical 2-week HAMD-17 total scores and a significant positive correlation between CgH-r FA and clinical 2-week HAMD-17 total scores. Functional damage to the cingulum bundle in the hippocampal region may predispose patients to MDD and predict antidepressant treatment outcomes. More extensive multicenter investigations are necessary to validate these MRI findings that indicate treatment effectiveness and assess their potential significance in practical therapeutic decision-making.

This article considers the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel; the development of the Law Commission’s recommendations on offences against religion and public worship in 1985 (which ultimately led to the abolition of the offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel in England and Wales in 2008); and proposals from various international bodies which now argue for similar reform.

Scholarship in World Englishes has been prolific over the past several decades, and today, English is accepted as the world’s ‘hypercentral’ language (de Swann 2002). Despite legitimizing varieties of English used in diverse parts of the world, however, the focus of most World Englishes scholarship has been on educated varieties of English, perpetuating the hegemony of the educated elite. Scholarship on varieties of English used by uneducated/less educated users has been neglected, even in contexts like India, where the number of less educated users of English far exceeds the educated. This paper studies the English used at the grassroots by multilingual Indians in urban India and Oman, a country with a large migrant labor population from India. This qualitative study analyses a small corpus of public and restaurant signs and WhatsApp messages produced by Indians at the grassroots levels in urban India and Oman, and focuses on categorizing the features employed to communicate (successfully). Features are categorized as orthographic, lexical, and grammatical. The study concludes with a discussion on the necessity of including English at the grassroots in World Englishes scholarship to capture the reality of the Englishes used around the world.

Research shows that parenting plays an important role in the development of callous-unemotional (CU) traits in children. Yet, the specific aspects of positive parenting that may offer the strongest protection against the development of CU traits, as well as the potential role of child attachment to parent in this protection, remain poorly understood. This longitudinal multi-informant study aimed to investigate the mediating role of early mother–child attachment security in the prospective associations between three aspects of maternal sensitivity (positivity, attunement, availability) and subsequent CU traits in children. Maternal sensitivity and mother–child attachment security were observed in the home when children were 12 and 15 months old respectively. Child CU traits were reported by mothers, fathers, and teachers at age 4 years. Analyses revealed that maternal attunement was linked to lower levels of CU traits indirectly through the mediating role of attachment security. There was also a direct, non-mediated negative association between maternal availability and CU traits. Consistent with the notion of equifinality, these findings suggest that different aspects of parenting may be linked to child CU traits via distinct mechanisms, with some but not all of those mechanisms involving parent–child attachment.

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, screening was initiated in several settings to mitigate asymptomatic transmission of SARS-CoV-2. However, this practice was later discouraged by the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. This single-center retrospective study demonstrates limited utility of SARS-CoV-2 screening tests in asymptomatic HCT and CAR T-cell patients.

This article explores the history of the Tibetan and Mongolian Morse codes, devised by the Nationalist government between 1934 and 1937, by situating them within the infrastructural and political transformations that took place in China and Tibet during these four years. On the one hand, it demonstrates that the engineering of Tibetan and Mongolian Morse codes coincided with the global emergence of shortwave radio telegraphy which, for the first time, enabled communications between geographically distinct regions, such as Tibet and China. On the other hand, it also shows that the codes were devised at a critical political moment in Sino-Tibetan relations: with the death of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama in 1933 and the subsequent political ascendance of the Ninth Panchen Lama, the government believed that the Tibetan and Mongolian Morse codes would help the party rule over the Buddhist frontiers through an alliance with the Ninth Panchen Lama. This plan ultimately failed, as the Panchen Lama died in 1937, before he could take control of Tibet. In short, the government-funded coding project offers a lens into pondering the infrastructural politics of state-building in China.

The search for biosignatures of past microbial life has promoted the interest in halophilic archaea trapped inside fluid inclusions of salt crystals. These hypersaline environments are promising targets for the preservation of microbial cell envelope biomolecules. In this study, we focused on the preservation of bacterioruberin, a carotenoid pigment found in the cell envelope of Halobacterium salinarum, within fluid inclusions of salt crystals mimicking early Mars environments and modern Earth. Halite (NaCl) and sylvite (KCl) crystals were subjected to Mars-like proton irradiation, and the preservation of carotenoids was assessed using in situ and ex situ Raman spectroscopy. Our findings demonstrate that Raman spectroscopy efficiently detected carotenoids within fluid inclusions in non-irradiated crystals. However, post-irradiation analyses posed great challenges due to fluorescence induced by the formation of colour centres in the crystal lattice, which suppressed the carotenoid signal. Cleavage of irradiated crystals revealed preserved carotenoid pigments beyond the radiation penetration depth, suggesting potential preservation of biomolecules in deeper inclusions within larger crystals. Furthermore, in some cases, carotenoids were detected even within fluorescent zones, suggesting extensive preservation. This study underscores the potential of Raman spectroscopy for the detection of carotenoids as biosignatures in planetary exploration contexts, particularly as a preliminary screening tool. However, it also highlights the need for optimized protocols to overcome fluorescence-related limitations. These findings contribute to the methodologies for detecting and interpreting biosignatures in salt deposits, advancing the search for possible traces of past microbial life beyond Earth.

Robots need a sense of touch to handle objects effectively, and force sensors provide a straightforward way to measure touch or physical contact. However, contact force data are typically sparse and difficult to analyze, as it only appears during contact and is often affected by noise. Therefore, many researchers have consequently relied on vision-based methods for robotic manipulation. However, vision has limitations, such as occlusions that block the camera’s view, making it ineffective or insufficient for dexterous tasks involving contact. This article presents a method for robotic systems operating under quasi-static conditions to perform contact-rich manipulation using only force/torque measurements. First, the interaction forces/torques between the manipulated object and its environment are collected in advance. A potential function is then constructed from the collected force/torque data using Gaussian process regression with derivatives. Next, we develop haptic dynamic movement primitives (Haptic DMPs) to generate robot trajectories. Unlike conventional DMPs, which primarily focus on kinematic aspects, our Haptic DMPs incorporate force-based interactions by integrating the constructed potential energy. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated through numerical tasks, including the classical peg-in-hole problem.

Trisomy 21 is the most common chromosomal anomaly worldwide, and nearly half of the affected individuals are born with CHD, making cardiac complications a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in this population. Over the past century, the management of CHD in patients with Trisomy 21 has evolved dramatically, shaped by shifting societal attitudes, advances in diagnostic and surgical techniques, and landmark legal and ethical milestones. Historically, children with Trisomy 21 faced significant barriers to cardiac care, including delayed referrals and denial of surgical intervention, often rooted in discrimination rather than medical evidence. However, improvements in perioperative management and early surgical repair have led to survival outcomes for many forms of CHD that now approach those of the general population. Despite these advances, challenges persist, particularly in access to heart transplantation, where disparities in referral and eligibility remain. This review provides a historical overview of the evolution of CHD management in individuals with Trisomy 21, highlighting key medical, ethical, and societal developments that have shaped current standards of care.

Human-centric uncertainty remains one of the most persistent yet least quantified sources of risk in aviation maintenance. Although established safety frameworks such as SMS (safety management system), STAMP (Systems-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes), and FRAM (Functional Resonance Analysis Method) have advanced systemic oversight, they fall short in capturing the dynamic, context-dependent variability of human performance in real time. This study introduces the uncertainty quantification in aircraft maintenance (UQAM) framework – a novel, predictive safety tool designed to measure and manage operational uncertainty at the task level. The integrated uncertainty equation (IUE) is central to the model, a mathematical formulation that synthesises eight empirically derived uncertainty factors into a single, actionable score. Using a mixed-methods design, the research draws on thematic analysis of 49 semi-structured interviews with licensed maintenance engineers, followed by a 12-month field validation across four distinct maintenance tasks. Results demonstrate that the IUE effectively distinguishes between low, moderate and high-risk scenarios while remaining sensitive to procedural anomalies, diagnostic ambiguity and environmental complexity. Heatmap visualisations further enable supervisory teams to identify dominant uncertainty drivers and implement targeted interventions. UQAM enhances predictive governance, supports real-time decision-making and advances the evolution of next-generation safety systems in high-reliability aviation environments by embedding quantitative uncertainty metrics into existing safety architectures.