Despite the recent methodological advancements in causal panel data analysis, concerns remain about unobserved unit-specific time-varying confounders that cannot be addressed by unit or time fixed effects or their interactions. We develop a Bayesian sensitivity analysis (BSA) method to address the concern. Our proposed method is built upon a general framework combining Rubin’s Bayesian framework for model-based causal inference (Rubin [1978], The Annals of Statistics 6(1), 34–58) with parametric BSA (McCandless, Gustafson, and Levy [2007], Statistics in Medicine 26(11), 2331–2347). We assess the sensitivity of the causal effect estimate from a linear factor model to the possible existence of unobserved unit-specific time-varying confounding, using the coefficients of the treatment variable and observed confounders in the model for the unobserved confounding as sensitivity parameters. We utilize priors on these coefficients to constrain the hypothetical severity of unobserved confounding. Our proposed approach allows researchers to benchmark the assumed strength of confounding on observed confounders more systematically than conventional frequentist sensitivity analysis techniques. Moreover, to cope with convergence issues typically encountered in nonidentified Bayesian models, we develop an efficient Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm exploiting transparent parameterization (Gustafson [2005], Statistical Science 20(2), 111–140). We illustrate our proposed method in a Monte Carlo simulation study as well as an empirical example on the effect of war on inheritance tax rates.

The latest books by Martha Nussbaum and Peter Franklin, on the music and life of Benjamin Britten, both come from positions notionally outside music studies. Nussbaum – the liberal philosopher, as close to an academic celebrity as one can find nowadays – writes about the War Requiem (1962) as a (mostly) appreciative visitor to the discipline. Franklin, by contrast, is well known in nineteenth- and twentieth-century music studies. Britten Experienced nevertheless adopts the institutionally detached, less inhibited perspective of the emeritus. It would not be too far from the truth to call Franklin’s book a career retrospective. Crucially, though, it takes in not only the things that he has taught and published over the years, but also the personal encounters and enthusiasms that have (often invisibly) shaped this teaching and scholarship – the very things, in other words, that typically lie outside the professional purview of music studies.

This study offers a phenomenological exploration of unchosen pregnancy as a distinct temporal experience. By bracketing the traditionally dominant concept of pregnancy as culminating in birth, this study unveils the unique temporal contours of early pregnancy, particularly when it is not chosen. Through a critical phenomenology analysis, this study demonstrates how unchosen pregnancy is characterized by extreme temporal disorientation, a heightened experience of multiple temporal layers, and a profound loss of temporal grounding. This description of unchosen pregnancy is intended to open new pathways of thought on the ethical issue of abortions and expand the phenomenological understanding of pregnancy.

The Tropical Andes stand out as one of the mountain regions most affected by global warming. Here, we present a synthesis of recent glacier evolution in the Cordillera Blanca, based on the glaciers that have been monitored with in situ glaciological measurements over the past decades. In particular, we describe the evolution of the Glacier Yanamarey, a reference glacier in the Peruvian Andes in the World Glacier Monitoring Service database. This glacier is currently on the verge of vanishing—similar to several other glaciers in the Cordillera Blanca. Finally, we address the current state of glacier monitoring in the region and the main challenges to ensure the continuity and sustainability of these monitoring programs.

The Sundarbans in the short stories by Dalit writer Shyamal Kumar Pramanik is not some geographical setting but is instead a living environmental being that reinvents the relationship between man and the nonhuman world. Dalit, a word translating to “oppressed” and applied to groups that were traditionally marginalised by the caste system of India, becomes a key category through which Pramanik explores the ethics of survival, belonging and ecological resistance. This paper argues that the mangrove forest in Pramanik’s narratives such as “Life in the Forest” and “In Dakshin Rai’s Land” operates as a responsive vegetal agent that shapes the social, ethical and ontological dynamics of forest life for marginalised communities. Drawing on Michael Marder’s Plant-Thinking (2013), J. C. Ryan’s (2018) botanical imagination, Jeffrey T. Nealon’s Plant Theory (2015) and Matthew Hall’s (2011) articulation of vegetal life as a moral force – this paper develops the concept of “Dalit Botanics” – a term for a theoretical framework that understands forest life as a pedagogical and ethical system in which trees act as epistemic agents, to theorise the Sundarbans as a sentient pedagogical ecology and to examine how caste and plant life co-constitute each other in Dalit experience.

Hate speech is widely seen as a significant obstacle to constructive online discourse, but the most effective strategies to mitigate its effects remain unclear. We claim that understanding its distribution across users is key to developing and evaluating effective content moderation strategies. We address this missing link by first examining the distribution of hate speech in five original datasets that collect user-generated posts across multiple platforms (social media and online newspapers) and countries (Switzerland and the United States). Across these diverse samples, the vast majority of hate speech is produced by a small fraction of users. Second, results from a pre-registered field experiment on Twitter indicate that counterspeech strategies obtain only small reductions of future hate speech, mainly because this approach proves ineffective against the most prolific contributors of hate. These findings suggest that complementary content moderation strategies may be necessary to effectively address the problem.

Sarcopenia, the age-related decline in muscle mass and strength, is a contributor to frailty and reduced quality of life. Emerging evidence suggests an emerging role of the gut microbiome in modulating skeletal muscle through microbial species and metabolites, such as short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), potentially influencing inflammation, nutrient absorption, and glucose and protein metabolism. This review considers the potential of probiotics, prebiotics, and synbiotics as interventions to mitigate sarcopenia based on animal and human studies, while providing a critique of present barriers that need to be addressed. Preclinical models, including germ-free mice and faecal microbiota transplantation, demonstrate that gut microbiota from healthy or young donors may enhance overall muscle health via reductions in inflammatory and muscle atrophy markers. Limited human studies show that probiotics such as Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium could improve branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) bioavailability and potentially sarcopenia indices, although findings have been inconsistent. Particularly, challenges including inconsistent microbial assessments, lack of dietary control and interindividual variability due to diet, age, genetics, comorbidities and medications may hinder progress in this field. Delivery methods (e.g. capsules, fermented foods or fortified products) could further complicate efficacy through probiotic stability and dietary restrictions in older adults. Standardised protocols [e.g. Strengthening The Organisation and Reporting of Microbiome Studies (STORMS) checklist] and multi-omics approaches may be critical to address these limitations and identify microbial signatures linked to sarcopenia outcomes. While preclinical evidence highlights mechanistic pathways pertinent to amino acid metabolism, translating findings to humans requires rigorous experimental trials.

Humans possess the capacity to make sense of stories unfolding across different and difficult times with nuanced understanding and to unlearn and relearn what once seemed familiar. All human beings are storytellers, and the narratives of minorities deserve recognition and value within Westernised contexts. Drawing on sociocultural perspectives and employing a narrative inquiry approach, I share stories from my lived experiences as a former graduate student and current educator. These stories focus on pedagogical practices, dynamic identity formation and reflective engagements with place as valid and vital ways of knowing, doing, being and becoming. I highlight how choice often entails challenge, how agency and struggle can be intertwined with empowerment, and how marginalisation can coexist with celebration. This inquiry aims to reveal the layered complexity and sometimes paradoxical dimensions of learner and teacher identities within the assemblage of learning and teaching in higher education.

The Taiwan Incident of 1874 – a prolonged Sino-Japanese confrontation over the killing of Ryukyu castaways, whom Japan claimed as its subjects – marked the full maturation of a new mode of Qing war preparation. This mode was characterized by global coordination, domestic and international competition, and the swift mobilization of personal connections to secure foreign weapons and loans – resources that were often interconnected. Facilitated by the efforts of various actors, this internationalized approach became a standard practice during the empire’s final decades. As the empire could no longer rely on domestic self-sufficiency in arms and funding, Qing military operations came to reflect the broader influence of global military and financial resources. The Qing empire’s capacity to mobilize global resources in pursuit of national objectives helps explain its resilience in an era dominated by imperial powers.

Anomalously high amounts of orthopyroxene are an unexpected feature of some depleted peridotite xenoliths from the cratonic lithosphere. This investigation presents new petrographic, geochemical and thermodynamic modelling data for silica-rich spinel harzburgites and one garnet–spinel harzburgite from the Kaapvaal Craton, South Africa, to constrain the pressure–temperature (P–T) conditions of orthopyroxene formation. At the time of sampling by the host kimberlite, the garnet–spinel harzburgite resided on the geotherm at 25 kbar, 765°C, wheras the compositionally similar garnet-free samples probably equilibrated at broadly comparable P–T conditions. The samples are subdivided into ‘bronzite type’ peridotites characterised by orthopyroxene with micrometre scale exsolutions of spinel ± clinopyroxene, and ‘normal type’ peridotites in which orthopyroxene does not contain visible exsolved phases. The presence of these exsolved phases indicates unmixing from a more Al-Cr-(Ca)-rich precursor orthopyroxene i.e. an original orthopyroxene that precipitated from, and was, in equilibrium with the Si-enriching agent at high temperature, before cooling and undergoing sub-solidus re-equilibration to form the exsolved orthopyroxene we observe now. Major and trace element compositions, geochemical interpretation and thermodynamic modelling of the samples show that the precursor orthopyroxene coexisted with melt at high pressure and temperature (~40–50 kbar, 1600–1700°C) within the garnet stability field. We consider these to be the conditions of orthopyroxene formation, and thus silica enrichment. These conditions, together with the refractory composition of the host peridotite (olivine forsterite contents > 92) suggest that silica enrichment is a secondary process potentially resulting from interaction with komatiitic melts. Our observations demonstrate that orthopyroxene enrichment in spinel-facies peridotites is not limited to low-pressure processes but can also occur via high-pressure melt–rock interaction, offering new insights into the thermal and chemical evolution of the sub-cratonic lithospheric mantle.