Hannah Arendt did not live to complete her anticipated work on judgment, a faculty she considered essential for resuscitating political life against the threat of totalitarianism. Scholars have attempted to reconstitute it, primarily through her Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy. Yet when discussing her turn to judgment, Arendt cites the ancient Greek historian Herodotus as a model, claiming that recovering the ancient sense of histor (judge) is crucial to reclaiming human dignity. Herodotus is in fact central to her depiction of the Greeks throughout her work. Excavating his influence not only helps clarify her theory of judgment; it also reveals how she both distances herself from Heidegger and yet retains certain core agreements. Her reading of Herodotus thus helps delineate the intellectual relationship between two of the twentieth century’s foremost thinkers, while inviting us to reflect on how and why to read the Greeks today.

Health Technology Assessment (HTA) informs resource allocation and policy decisions, particularly to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC). Recognizing the increasing demand for evidence-informed decision-making, the HTAsiaLink network was established in 2011 as a regional platform to strengthen individual and institutional capacity in HTA research and facilitate the integration of HTA evidence into policy decisions across the Asia-Pacific.

Over the years, HTAsiaLink has expanded to over fifty members from twenty economies. In 2024, a structured strategic planning process was undertaken to ensure its continued growth and strengthen its impact on HTA development and implementation. This process involved a targeted review of strategic plans from international networks, alongside comprehensive member engagement, to develop a data-driven and adaptable plan responsive to the evolving healthcare landscape and member needs. As a result, five strategic priorities, corresponding action items, and success indicators were identified.

This commentary outlines the needs and processes involved in developing the network’s first-ever strategic plan, emphasizing the critical role of member engagement in shaping its future direction. We believe that this experience offers transferable insights for other HTA networks, particularly those operating in low- and middle-income country contexts, on the collaborative development of strategic plans that are responsive to shared objectives, accommodate varying institutional capacities, and align with regional priorities.

Living chondrichthyans comprise only a fraction of their historical diversity represented in the fossil record, but together they provide insights into the evolution of this ancient clade. Using a theoretical morphology approach, we sought the evolutionary drivers of mandible morphology, a key factor in the feeding ecology of the clade, across their more than 400 million year evolutionary history. Using an empirical sample of 122 extant and 95 extinct species across 35 orders, we created a theoretical morphospace that encompasses, and expands beyond, sampled variation. We sampled morphologies from this theoretical morphospace and subjected them to biomechanical analysis of speed and strength, deriving landscapes of functional performance and optimality into which we projected a phylomorphospace. We examined how the optimality landscape has been navigated by chondrichthyan evolution and how it has been occupied by taxa characterized according to habitat and trophic level. The empirical chondrichthyan morphospace occupation was dispersed from the trade-off optimality peaks. Early chondrichthyans occupy morphospace characterized by narrow, curved jaws before expanding to more robust morphologies through time. This move toward robust morphologies does not follow the most optimal trade-off morphologies, instead avoiding areas that are least optimal. Deep-water species occupy the largest morphospace area, while higher trophic level species stay closer to the trade-off optimality peaks. Our study shows that chondrichthyans, rather than being living fossils, have explored increasingly specialized jaw morphologies, likely related to shifts in ecology such as increased numbers of durophagous taxa, as opposed to a more generalist optimization of component biomechanical constraints.

Archaeologists have long identified quarries as a ubiquitous part of the landscape in which precolonial Maya populations built their world. Yet, it is only recently that scholars have begun to move away from viewing these quarries simply as places where stones were extracted to recognizing them as important nodes in the social, political, and cultural fabric of the Maya Lowlands. The four articles in this Special Section discuss some of the most recent insights into the lives of those who intimately worked with limestone, inhabited the cratered landscapes created by its extraction, and crafted their worlds through the relationships forged and maintained in the practices of quarrying, processing, and utilizing this material. In this introductory paper, we set the scene by reviewing previous research and outlining the main approaches involved in the documentation, analysis, and interpretation of Maya limestone quarries and production loci. We continue with a discussion of the relevance of quarry investigations for the general study of precolonial Maya societies. We conclude with a brief overview of current methodological trends, followed by a look ahead to the ways in which researchers could take such investigations forward and integrate them into future research agendas.

Long-acting injectable antipsychotics (LAIs) can lead to improved outcomes for people with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and bipolar disorder, as they guarantee medication delivery during the injection interval. Contemporary guidance on the use of LAIs includes considering not only patients with poor or uncertain adherence but also patients who would prefer monthly administration (or longer) of their maintenance medication, including those in their first episode of illness. This narrative review discusses the incorporation of LAIs in treatment planning across different settings: acute inpatient units, community mental health outpatient clinics, and jails. Implementing this treatment modality requires the recognition of eligible patients, providing information to patients and their families about the benefits and drawbacks of LAIs, and educating all members of the treatment team.

This article examines a case of phonological opacity in Uyghur resulting from an interaction between backness harmony and a vowel reduction process that converts harmonic vowels into transparent vowels. A large-scale corpus study shows that although opaque harmony with the underlying form of a reduced vowel is the dominant pattern, cases of surface-apparent harmony also occur. The rate of surface-apparent harmony varies across roots and is correlated with a number of factors, including root frequency. These data pose problems for standard accounts of opacity, which do not predict such variation. I propose an analysis where variation emerges from conflict between a paradigm uniformity constraint mandating that the harmonising behaviour of a root remains consistent, and surface phonotactic constraints. This is implemented in a parallel model by scaling constraint violations according to certainty in a root’s harmonic class. This aligns with past work suggesting some opacity is driven by paradigm uniformity.

Older adults aged 75 and older (75+) represent the fastest-growing demographic in the USA yet remain underrepresented in prevention-focused clinical research. This scoping review evaluated recruitment strategies used in healthy aging clinical trials targeting this population, with particular attention to technology-enabled and belonging-focused approaches.

A PubMed search initially identified only four US-based studies focused on adults aged 75+. To broaden the scope and enrich the analysis, additional studies involving adults aged 65+ and those with pre-existing conditions were included, yielding a total of 23 relevant studies. Recruitment strategies were analyzed using the Design for Belonging framework to assess how inclusion and engagement were fostered.

Findings revealed that adults aged 75+ preferred traditional methods – targeted mailings, phone calls, and in-person outreach – due to barriers related to digital access and usability. In contrast, adults aged 65+ showed greater receptivity to digital tools such as electronic health records, social media, and web-based enrollment. Community engagement and culturally tailored materials are effective across all age groups. However, few studies addressed later-stage engagement strategies like advocacy and trust repair.

These results underscore the importance of tailoring recruitment strategies to aging subgroups, combining personalized outreach with inclusive design to enhance equity and retention in clinical research.

The American War for Independence scrambled the concept of political allegiance and belonging. In James H. Kettner’s apt phrase, “subjects became citizens.” Where British law denied the possibility that a subject could renounce the obedience owed to their sovereign, Americans asserted through force of arms “the right to choose their allegiance.”1 Influenced by a contractual notion of political compact and by the mayhem of a violent civil war, people shuffled and sometimes reshuffled into camps of revolutionaries, loyalists, and neutrals.2

Meta-analytic confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is a type of meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM) that is useful for evaluating the factor structure of measurement scales based on data from multiple studies. Modeling the factor structure is just one example of the many potentially interesting research questions. Analyzing covariance matrices allows for the evaluation of measurement properties across studies, such as whether indicators are functioning the same across studies. For example, are some indicators more indicative of the common factor in certain types of studies than in others? The additional analysis of means of the observed variables opens up many other research questions to consider such as: “Are there mean differences in mental health between clinical and non-clinical samples?” To answer such questions, it is necessary to analyze both the covariance and the mean structure of the indicators. In this paper, we present, illustrate, and evaluate a method to incorporate the means of variables in the MASEM analyses of such datasets. We focus on meta-analytic CFA, with the aim of testing differences in latent means across studies. We provide illustrations of the comparison of latent means across groups of studies using two empirical datasets, for which data and analysis scripts are provided online. The performance of the new model was tested in a small-scale simulation study. The results showed adequate performance under the tested conditions. Finally, we discuss how the proposed method relates to other analysis options such as multigroup or multilevel structural equation modeling.

Recent studies have drawn attention to the importance of pre-electoral coalitions in multiparty presidential democracies. Despite this, much scholarship has neglected the period during which pre-electoral coalitions turn into governing coalitions. Through a systematic cross-case analysis of Latin American cases, this paper examines why some coalition governments largely resemble the pre-electoral pacts that preceded them while others do not. The results lend credence to the legislative status granted by pre-election coalition members to the government, the low polarization among pre-electoral coalition members and the high ideological polarization in the legislature to explain the resemblance between pre- and post-electoral coalitions. Intriguingly, case-based analysis suggests that the temporal distance to government inauguration plays, at best, a marginal role in this process. These findings contribute to the still-growing literature on pre-electoral coalitions in presidential democracies by shedding light on the complex causation behind the pathway from pre-electoral bargaining to fully developed coalition governments.

The multiple-choice (MC) item format has been adapted to the cognitive diagnosis (CD) framework. Early approaches simply dichotomized the responses and analyzed them with a CD model for binary responses. Obviously, this strategy cannot exploit the additional diagnostic information provided by MC items. De la Torre’s (2009, Applied Psychological Measurement, 33, 163–183) MC-DINA model was the first for the explicit analysis of MC items. However, the q-vectors of the distractors were constrained to be nested within the key and each other, which imposes serious restrictions on item development. Relaxing the nestedness-constraint, comes at a price. First, distractors may become redundant: they do not improve the classification of examinees beyond the response options already available for an item. Second, undesirable diagnostic ambiguity can arise from distractors that are equally likely to be chosen by an examinee, but have distinct attribute profiles pointing at different diagnostic classifications. In this article, two criteria, plausible and proper, are developed for detecting these problematic cases. Two theorems that permit for the detection and amendment of improper and implausible items are presented. An R function serving this purpose is used in several practical applications. Results of simulation studies and real data analysis are also reported.

In this paper, we consider a reaction-diffusion equation that models the time-almost periodic response to climate change within a straight, infinite cylindrical domain. The shifting edge of the habitat is characterised by a time-almost periodic function, reflecting the varying pace of environmental changes. Note that the principal spectral theory is an important role to study the dynamics of reaction-diffusion equations in time heterogeneous environment. Initially, for time-almost periodic parabolic equations in finite cylindrical domains, we develop the principal spectral theory of such equations with mixed Dirichlet–Neumann boundary conditions. Subsequently, we demonstrate that the approximate principal Lyapunov exponent serves as a definitive threshold for species persistence versus extinction. Then, the existence, exponential decay and stability of the forced wave solutions $U(t,x_{1},y)=V\left (t,x_{1}-\int ^{t}_{0}c(s)ds,y\right )$ are established. Additionally, we analyse how fluctuations in the shifting speed affect the approximate top Lyapunov exponent.

Depression is a highly common condition (World Health Organisation, 2022). Although many people demonstrate recovery there are marked levels of relapse. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is effective in preventing relapse. To date, the majority of studies do not primarily focus on the cost-effectiveness of MBCT within health care utilisation and workplace absenteeism. This study aims to explore the effectiveness of MBCT for prevention of depression relapse in patients attending a UK NHS primary care service. An observational (pre–post and follow-up) study of patients (n=23) who experienced at least three depressive episodes were provided with MBCT. Cost-effectiveness was assessed using self-report measures of service utilisation and employment absence. These were assessed before MBCT, following, and 6 months post. Secondary outcomes assessing clinical effectiveness included measures of depression (PHQ-9), anxiety (GAD-7), and functional impairment (WSAS). There was a significant reduction in absenteeism at work and in health care usage and expenditure at the end of treatment. These improvements were continued during the follow-up period. Secondary outcomes indicated clinical improvements on depression, anxiety and functioning were maintained to follow-up.

Key learning aims

1. (1) MBCT is a potentially cost-effective intervention in reducing absenteeism and health care usage for clients with recurrent depression.

2. (2) In line with previous observations, MBCT is a clinically effective intervention for relapse prevention in recurrent depression as recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

3. (3) Clinicians can consider the use of MBCT for clients with mild depression and recurrent depression within their services as recommended by NICE.

The Interplay of Genes and Environment across Multiple Studies (IGEMS) is a consortium of 21 twin studies from 5 countries (Australia, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and United States) established to explore the nature of gene–environment interplay in cognitive, physical, and emotional health across the adult lifespan. The combined data from over 145,000 participants (aged 18 to 108 years at intake) has supported multiple research projects over the three phases of development since its inception in 2010. Phases 1 and 2 focused on launching and growing the consortium and supported important developments in data harmonization, analyses of data pooled across multiple studies, incorporation of linkages to national registries and conscription data, and integration of molecular genetic and classical twin designs. IGEMS Phase 3 focuses on developing appropriate infrastructure to maximize utilization of this large twin consortium for aging research.

Hypertension (HTN) is the primary cause of preventable cardiovascular-related deaths globally, representing the most important modifiable risk factor for preventing such deaths. Nearly 700 million of the 1.3 billion adults with HTN worldwide remain untreated, most of whom live in low-and middle-income countries, including East Africa. Barriers to the diagnosis of HTN also impact treatment adherence after diagnosis and the initiation of treatment. This scoping review used a qualitative synthesis method to describe studies examining the cultural and contextual factors influencing HTN treatment adherence in East Africa and the lived experiences of patients with HTN to gain a better understanding of these factors in the region. A total of 34 studies, 25 qualitative and 9 mixed-methods designs from five East African nations were included in the final review. Reported influencing factors are classified into individual, structural, and social factors. Lack of HTN literacy and limited risk perception were often cited as individual barriers to adherence, along with mental health challenges, including fear of stigma, while trust and HTN literacy enhanced adherence. Inconsistent healthcare delivery, lack of access, and financial constraints were the most reported structural factors. Social norms surrounding health behaviours and attitudes towards HTN treatment were identified as key determinants of adherence at the social level. The findings underscore the complex interplay of individual, structural, and social factors associated with HTN treatment adherence in East Africa, offering practical ways to enhance adherence in the region at all three levels.