Workers with a vulnerable position on the labour market face difficulties finding and maintaining decent work. An increasing body of research on the demand-side of the labour market investigates the involvement of employers in active labour market policies, often referred to as employer engagement. However, the concept of employer engagement varies, causing ambiguity in its definition and use in research. This scoping review investigated sixty-three documents (e.g., peer reviewed scientific papers and grey literature) on employer engagement and outlines the current conceptualisations of employer engagement. By combining the conceptualisations taking a stakeholder-oriented approach, a four stakeholder group perspective on employer engagement was developed. With the organisation as an entity, HRM, line managers, and institutional stakeholders. This review deepens the understanding of employer engagement and contributes to the literature by taking an interdisciplinary approach and offers suggestions for future research.

People’s decisions may change when made in a foreign language (FL). Research testing this foreign language effect (FLE) has mostly used scenarios where uncertainty is expunged or reduced to a form of risk, whereas real-life decisions are usually characterized by uncertainty around outcome likelihood. In the current work, we aimed to investigate whether the FLE on decision-making extends to uncertain scenarios. Moreover, as it is still unclear what linguistic and psychological factors contribute to the FLE, we tested the effects of participants’ FL background, cognitive style and risk-taking attitude on decision processes under certain and uncertain conditions. Overall, we report null effects of language context (native versus foreign language) and problem condition (certain versus uncertain prospects) on participants’ choices. In addition, we found that both FL background and decision makers’ traits modulated participants’ choices in a FL, without emerging into the ‘classic’ FLE on decision-making. However, the direction of such effects was complex, and not always compatible with previous FLE theories. In light of these results, our study highlights the need to reconceptualize the FLE and its implications on decision-making.

Recent crises have cast doubt on the legitimacy of technocratic power, yet its role in global economic governance remains poorly understood. Revisiting the collapse of Bretton Woods, we propose a dynamic theory of global monetary governance to explain how expanding central bank discretion can destabilise systems. While most studies attribute the postwar system’s failure to power-political struggles, institutional weaknesses, or shifting economic ideas, they overlook the policies designed to manage and stabilise it. Drawing on historical institutionalism, we show how coordination tensions between rule-bound and discretionary policymakers – and the mutually reinforcing adaptation risks they faced – produced responses that appeared stabilising in the short term but ultimately eroded long-run stability. New archival evidence from the International Monetary Fund, Bank for International Settlements, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reveals how tools like the London Gold Pool and currency swap lines extended central bank power, concealed macroeconomic imbalances, and crowded out political momentum for structural reform. As technocratic authority grew misaligned with political support and functional economic adjustment, it became a liability. In building this theory, we highlight the sociological, agent-level sources of instability rooted in technocratic policy discretion and interpersonal ties among central bankers – challenging the dominant view that technocratic actors are inherently superior in managing global economic policy.

This article explores the evolution and shifting interpretations of the dissolution of the Kingdom of Hungary and the creation of its successor states as reflected in the historiographies of Central European nations. It analyses the complex interaction between politics and the socio-cultural milieu, on the one hand, and historiography, on the other. A palpable tension exists between the national narratives and the efforts to construct a commonly accepted story. Inspired by the entangled history approach, the paper identifies common features within these historiographies, which exist despite ostensibly distinct points of departure. Additionally, major interpretative trends in the area up to the present day are characterised, and the impact of the socio-cultural turn and the recent centenary of the First World War critically assessed. The article argues for the practicality of moderate national narratives, which should take into consideration recent developments in the discipline and can help bridge the divide between nation-states on sensitive issues.

The magnitude and duration of the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for countries to continuously reflect and improve on their ongoing response. The World Health Organization (WHO) introduced the guidance for conducting COVID-19 intra-action reviews (IARs) in July 2020. As of November 25, 2022, 136 IARs have been conducted by 78 countries in all 6 WHO regions. IARs are country-led and outcomes country-owned, with the flexible methodology enabling countries to focus on COVID-19-related priority issues in their national and subnational contexts. WHO’s approach to promoting the use of IARs recognizes the importance of 3 learning modalities: countries learning through self-reflection, countries learning from each other, and WHO and partners learning from countries to improve WHO guidance and tools. Moving forward, the value of reflective learning in public health emergencies can be further enhanced by institutionalizing an ongoing learning mindset and translating reflective learning-based recommendations into policy change and action.

Nineteenth-century sanitary and burial reform were motivated by public health concerns and transformed the Victorian landscape with two forms of new infrastructure: sewers and out-of-town cemeteries. However, the history of burial reform ‘always sat awkwardly’ (in the words of Julie Rugg) with that of sanitary reform. In this article, we re-examine the campaigning career of George Alfred Walker (1807–84), a surgeon-apothecary who made public health the core of his argument for burial reform, to demonstrate that burial and sanitary reform were deeply intertwined via sanitary science, politics and science communication. We argue that Walker represented city graveyards as a nuisance similar to poor sewerage, utilising Thomas Southwood Smith’s heterodox fever theory to make his argument amenable to Edwin Chadwick’s goals and solutions: infrastructure ahead of poor relief. Walker’s solutions gave the medical profession positive reasons to support sanitary reform, as they proffered much-needed employment via burial reform. At the same time, his extremely active and varied campaigning throughout the 1840s took inspiration and strategy from the broader sanitation movement. By providing a comprehensive account of his campaigning for the first time, we show that sanitary reform politics was central to changing British burial management as a contested scientific theory was utilised to fit political ends.

Social isolation and loneliness have been linked to adverse health outcomes such as depression in old age. However, limited data exist on the association of loneliness and social isolation with probable depression (PD) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), while psychosocial mediators are largely unknown. This study investigates the individual and joint associations of social isolation and loneliness with PD among older adults in Ghana. It quantifies the extent to which psychosocial factors mediate the associations. Cross-sectional data from the Aging, Health, Well-being, and Health-seeking Behaviour Study were analyzed. PD was defined as moderate to severe depressive symptoms with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D-9) scale. Loneliness and social isolation were assessed with the University of California, Los Angeles 3-item loneliness scale and the Berkman-Syme Social Network Index, respectively. Multivariable logistic models and PROCESS macro bootstrapping mediation analyses were performed. Among the 1,201 adults aged ≥50 years (Mage = 66.1 ± 11.9 years, 63.3% women), 29.5% PD cases were found. The prevalence of social isolation and loneliness was 27.3% and 17.7%, respectively. Loneliness (OR = 3.15, 95% CI = 3.26–5.28) and social isolation (OR = 1.24, 95% CI = 1.10–1.41) were independently associated with higher odds of PD. The loneliness and PD association was modified by spatial location (Pinteraction = 0.021); thus, the association was more pronounced in rural areas (OR = 7.06) than in urban areas (OR = 3.43). Psychosocial factors (e.g. sleep problems) mediated the loneliness/social isolation and PD association. Loneliness and social isolation were independently associated with a higher likelihood of PD, and psychosocial factors mediated the associations. Interventions to reduce PD in later life should also consider addressing loneliness and social isolation, as well as sleep problems.

Soil acidity and the decline in organic matter content of the soil are among the major yield-limiting factors in the northwest highlands of Ethiopia. Therefore, a 4 × 4 factorial field experiment was conducted in a randomized complete block design in two dry seasons, under irrigation at the Koga Irrigation Scheme, in northwestern Ethiopia to examine the effect of carbonized rice husk application timing (CRHT) and soil amendments (SAs) on water use efficiency, lodging, and yield of tef. Treatments were four SAs: without SA (control), compost (10 t ha−1), lime (2.5 ton ha−1), and 10 t ha−1 compost + 2.5 t ha−1 lime (CL); four CRHT: control (no application), whole rate during sowing (CRHT2), equal splitting during sowing and tillering (CRHT3), and whole rate during tillering (CRHT4), with a total of 16 treatment combinations, replicated four times. The pooled mean ANOVA results showed that the SA significantly influenced lodging index (p < 0.01), leaf area index (p < 0.001), and aboveground biomass yield (p < 0.01), but not water use efficiency, plant height, panicle length, and number of plants per square meter (p > 0.05). The CRHT only significantly (p < 0.05) influenced chlorophyll content. The effect of lime on grain, aboveground biomass, and straw yield parameters was statistically similar to the application of compost. Compost and CL showed significantly increased sensitivity of tef to lodging, which ranged from 46.2% to 65.9%, compared with lime and control treatments. In conclusion, the application of CL significantly improved tef grain, aboveground biomass, and straw yields by 12.1%, 14.5%, and 15.2%, compared with lime, 12.3%, 9.3%, and 8.4%, respectively, from the control treatment.

Over the course of the eighteenth century, Russian rulers released dozens of decrees about petitions. First, the decrees regulated the format of petitions, emphasizing their formulaic nature and moving them away from the personal appeals with supplication and abasement that were present in earlier centuries. These decrees recognized that petitions were essential to the administrative functioning of the imperial Russian state but saw them as akin to forms or applications. Second, the decrees stated firmly that petitioners should not approach the ruler directly. In part, these decrees reflect the rulers’ irritation at being endlessly bothered by personal requests, but Russia’s rulers also gave a more serious justification for the ban on personal appeals: they had established the rule of law, which meant that their subjects did not need to bother them personally and instead should clearly know other authorities—courts, governors—to address for aid. While efforts to change the format of petitions largely succeeded, efforts to curtail petitions directly to the ruler largely failed. That failure likely reflects several factors: inefficiencies in the judicial or administrative system, contradictory laws that still made space for petitions because they were useful, and because they held the promise of getting help quickly.

An account of human subjectivity is built up from an analysis of the fundamental human desire for God. In conversation with Karl Rahner and Blaise Pascal, it is argued that this desire does not have any conceivable conditions of satisfiability. This leads to an account of human beings as fundamentally distractible, fragmented, opaque to themselves and non-self-identical; however, none of these are viewed as essentially problematic, arising instead out of the basic human–God relation rather than from a fallen condition. A range of implications for ethics and social criticism are briefly suggested.

In this paper, we initiate the study of higher rank Baumslag–Solitar (BS) semigroups and their related C*-algebras. We focus on two rather interesting classes—one is related to products of odometers and the other is related to Furstenberg’s $\times p, \times q$ conjecture. For the former class, whose C*-algebras are studied in [32], we here characterize the factoriality of the associated von Neumann algebras and further determine their types; for the latter, we obtain their canonical Cartan subalgebras. In the rank 1 case, we study a more general setting that encompasses (single-vertex) generalized BS semigroups. One of our main tools in this paper is from self-similar higher rank graphs and their C*-algebras.

In the context of climate change, conflicting legal claims are being articulated and adjudicated about who is owed reparations. Vulnerable individuals and states, primarily from the Global South, have advanced arguments in various forums that they are owed reparations or compensation for the harms caused by excessive emissions of high-emitting states or corporations. Yet concurrently, fossil fuel companies are utilizing international investment law and arbitration to seek compensation for government policies that promote a transition away from fossil fuels.

Ageing populations and slower growth have compelled governments in mature welfare states to implement fiscal adjustments, but uncertainty persists about whether these measures have successfully curtailed the size of the welfare state. This letter documents that fiscal adjustments reduce social spending more effectively than previously thought. Using data from sixteen advanced economies between 1978 and 2018 and the narrative identification of adjustment plans, I estimate cumulative multipliers with local projections. I find that fiscal adjustments persistently lower social spending, including key components of social consumption and social investment. To explain why austerity does not shelter the welfare state, I present stylized facts about the timing and composition of adjustment plans. First, while public investment cuts concentrate at the beginning of the adjustment period, social consumption cuts accumulate over time. Second, large budget deficits and financial crises are frequent antecedents of the most ambitious fiscal reforms.

As part of a larger campaign to end diversity, equity, and inclusion, President Donald Trump’s recent Executive Order 14173 eliminated EO 11246 “Equal Employment Opportunity.” In this brief, we provided background on the often-misunderstood EO 11246 and discuss the potential implications of its reversal considering previous state legislation banning affirmative action and the current political context.

The expectation that those impacted by violations of public international law will receive a remedy has ballooned in recent years. Such expectations have shaped international legal discourse in unexpected ways and generated concrete action. In DRC v. Uganda (2022), the International Court of Justice awarded US$330 million in damages for wartime violations.1 International climate change talks are increasingly preoccupied with a controversial fund to address loss and damage.2 In 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued its largest victims reparations order.3 These developments are celebrated as examples of realizing an individual’s international legal right to reparation. While an important starting point, this perspective fails to provide a full picture of these novel practices.

We study randomized generation of sequences of test inputs to a system using Prolog. Prolog is a natural fit to generate test sequences that have complex logical interdependent structure. To counter the problems posed by a large (or infinite) set of possible tests, randomization is a natural choice. We study the impact that randomization in conjunction with SLD resolution have on the test performance. To this end, this paper proposes two strategies to add randomization to a test-generating program. One strategy works on top of standard Prolog semantics, whereas the other alters the SLD selection function. We analyze the mean time to reach a test case and the mean number of generated test cases in the framework of Markov chains. Finally, we provide an additional empirical evaluation and comparison between both approaches.

Herbicide resistance poses an escalating challenge to successful weed management in contemporary cropping systems, prompting growing interest in integrated strategies to reduce reliance on herbicides. Although cover cropping has long been recognized for its potential to suppress weeds, it has recently gained renewed attention as a weed management tool and for its ability to help producers achieve broader goals of soil health and environmental sustainability. Although research on its efficacy in the midsouthern United States has accumulated, a meta-analytic synthesis has been lacking. This meta-analysis synthesized 746 effect sizes from 27 peer-reviewed studies (selected based on explicit reporting of weed suppression metrics, conducted in the midsouthern United States between 1991 and 2023) to assess cover crop weed suppression in the midsouthern region, which includes Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, eastern Oklahoma, Tennessee, and eastern Texas. Six key moderators and their two-way interactions were evaluated: tillage status of no-cover-crop controls, cover crop termination timing, weed control evaluation timing, cover crop type, weed functional group, and crop type, using a multivariate framework capturing study-level variation. The overall effect size was 36 (confidence interval [CI], 25–47], with most moderator levels showing positive effect sizes. Suppression was pronounced against no-till controls (mean difference [MD] = 43; CI, 30–55), while tilled controls exhibited moderated effects (MD = 27; CI, 14–39) due to the inherent weed suppression provided by tillage. Effects were greater for early evaluation timing (MD = 47; CI, 33–61) than late timing (MD = 34; CI, 20–48). Grass-legume mixtures provided the greatest suppression (MD = 70; CI, 56–84), while brassicas were ineffective (MD = 13; CI, 0–27). However, substantial two-way interactions among these moderators were prevalent, accompanied by high heterogeneity, indicating complex context specificity. Nonetheless, these findings highlight the weed suppression potential of cover crops and provide agroecologically informed quantitative insights into using cover crops for weed management in the region.