To examine cross-linguistic influences during bilingual lexical processing, a word type frequently used is cognates (i.e., translation equivalents with an overlap in form and meaning, such as English-German tomato-Tomate). Cognates have been found to be processed faster and more accurately than translation equivalents without such overlap (i.e., noncognates, such as English-German potato-Kartoffel). This cognate facilitation effect (CFE) is considered evidence for language co-activation in bilinguals and has been studied mostly in children and adults. The aim of the current study was to examine this effect in a more heterogeneous group of adolescent L2 learners and explore its potential modulation by L2 proficiency and stimulus frequency. For this purpose, 68 L1 German low-intermediate learners of L2 English participated in an English lexical decision task on cognate and noncognate words. Notably, CFEs could not be replicated in this group of learners. However, further analysis revealed that word recognition was modulated by both participants’ L2 English proficiency and target word frequency. The results of the present study add to the literature on modulating factors of the CFE, expand them to a population of early second language learners, and underline the need for future research on factors influencing cross-linguistic activation.

Regulatory sandboxes emerged as prominent tools for fostering financial innovation, particularly in jurisdictions where regulatory rigidity may hinder technological advancements. This article examines the Brazilian Central Bank’s experience with regulatory sandboxes between 2021 and 2024, analyzing their role in balancing market modernization with institutional oversight. While often presented as a panacea for regulatory challenges in emerging markets, the effectiveness of these frameworks remains a subject of debate. By situating its approach within broader discussions on regulatory experimentalism, this study explores whether sandboxes serve merely as deregulatory mechanisms or can function as state-led instruments for fostering financial innovation. Drawing from the concept of the entrepreneurial state, the article investigates how specialized regulatory agencies can collaborate with private actors to drive technological development in financial markets. The findings suggest that, while the BCB’s regulatory sandbox challenges the traditional dichotomy between regulation and innovation, offering a model where legal oversight and market experimentation coexist, it also raises concerns about regulatory capture, market concentration, and the potential erosion of consumer protections. Although sandboxes can stimulate innovation, their long-term success depends on mitigating these risks and ensuring that financial experimentation does not come at the expense of broader public interest objectives.

Guided by steeling and hormesis models, this paper examined parenting adversity as a quadratic predictor of children’s emotion knowledge and effortful control and, in turn, their internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Participants were 238 mothers, partners, and their preschool children (Mage = 4.38 years; 52% female). Multiple methods (i.e., observations, interviews, surveys, q-sorts) and informants (i.e., trained observers, experimenters, mothers, children, teachers) were used in a longitudinal design with three annual measurement occasions. Supporting the first link in the mediational cascade, lagged, autoregressive analyses indicated that a quadratic composite of parenting adversity derived from trained observer ratings of parenting at Wave 1 was a significant predictor of children’s emotion knowledge and effortful control at Wave 2. In the second part of the proposed cascade, children’s Wave 2 emotion knowledge predicted lower levels of their Wave 3 internalizing symptoms, while their Wave 2 effortful control predicted lower levels of their Wave 3 externalizing symptoms. Consistent with steeling effects, curvilinear findings in the first part of the cascade indicated that moderate levels of exposure to parenting adversity predicted the highest levels of children’s subsequent emotion knowledge and effortful control. Children also exhibited substantially diminished emotion knowledge and effortful control as their exposure to family adversity increased from moderate to high levels.

The paper examines job quality in South Korea by applying a novel wellbeing-based approach to defining ‘bad jobs’, extending methodology previously validated in European labour markets. The study analyses Korean Working Conditions Survey (2014–2023) data to investigate the relationship between job quality and worker wellbeing. The analysis reveals a significant discontinuity in the marginal effects of job quality on wellbeing at the bottom decile, where improvements yield distinctly larger wellbeing gains for workers moving above this threshold, providing empirical support for this approach to defining ‘bad jobs’. The prevalence of bad jobs shows a declining trend between 2014 and 2023, reflecting both economic growth and policy interventions. While the sectoral distribution of bad jobs shows similarities with European patterns, distinctive features emerge in South Korea’s labour market structure, characterised by the unique role of large business conglomerates (chaebols) and institutional arrangements. This study represents the first application of a wellbeing-based approach to defining bad jobs in an Asian context, demonstrating both its international applicability and the importance of national context in understanding the patterns of bad jobs. The findings carry significant implications for labour market policy in South Korea’s rapidly evolving economy, particularly for addressing persistent disparities in job quality across different segments of the labour market.

The performance of elite athletes is at the forefront of attention in sports science, with a predominant focus on technical, physiological, mental, or contextual factors that can be leveraged to optimize athlete performance. Athletes’ off-sports activities, however, remain largely unexplored. What is it that elite athletes do in their off-sports time, and how are their off-sports activities related to sports experiences and outcomes? With this qualitative study, we aim to illuminate athletes’ off-sports activities and their implications for sports outcomes. We collected listings of off-sports activities from 46 professional soccer players and interviewed 15 elite speed skaters about their off-sports activities and their potential to enrich or interfere with their sports domain. The resulting category framework of off-sports activities comprises eight categories, reflecting social, cognitive, and physical off-sports activities. Next, the speed skaters described beneficial spillover experiences for active, high-effort mastery-oriented off-sports activities. However, such activities could also cause fatigue if not balanced with sufficient, more passive, restful activities. In all, athletes did experience spillover from non-sports to sports and their qualitative accounts reveal several antecedents, mechanisms, and outcomes of spillover, supporting the process view of the work–home resources (W-HR) model (Ten Brummelhuis & Bakker, 2012).

What it means to create a world in which “many worlds fit,” as the Zapatistas declared, has increasingly been taken up across the humanities and social sciences, introduced by decolonial theorists. This article focuses on some of the practices that allow for the enaction of the pluriverse: prayer and attachments to sacred space. I focus on a prayer camp organized by the Coalition to Save the Lemay Forest to the south of Winnipeg, showing that broadly construed notions of prayer can be understood as a pluriversal methodology wherein worlds are navigated through shared—yet still positionally aware—attachments to place. In the prayer camp, prayer—as plea/appeal, practice, action, communication, or commitment—is comfortable with divergent cosmological perspectives, rooted in (un)common attachments to sacred space: both in shared goals of protecting the space and honoring its legacy but also through an engagement with an “uncommon commoning” of that which is sacred and/or otherworldly. I argue that the sacred is an integral part of coalition building within the space; in turn, coalition building can also serve to reinvigorate connections to sacred space and worlds.

This article examines teachers’ experiences in implementing a pedagogical model designed to promote ocean citizenship in primary education. Conducted during the 2021/2022 school year, the study involved 23 teachers from 10 Portuguese public schools who applied the model through citizen science and coastal monitoring activities. The results highlight the model’s effectiveness in fostering ocean citizenship by enhancing teachers’ pedagogical practices, strengthening interdisciplinary approaches, and raising environmental awareness among students. Teachers reported improved motivation, engagement, and critical thinking skills while addressing real-world marine conservation issues. However, the study also highlighted challenges such as transportation and resource constraints, difficulties in curriculum integration for 6th-grade students, and limited community activism initiatives. To address these challenges and enhance the model’s effectiveness, recommendations include reducing field trips, forming local partnerships, and adapting the model for different educational levels. Additionally, incorporating quantitative assessments in future research is recommended to evaluate broader impacts on teacher practices and student outcomes. The study underscores the model’s potential to embed ocean citizenship in school curricula, aligning with global initiatives like the Decade of Ocean Science and the 2030 Agenda, offering a scalable framework to advance ocean literacy worldwide.

This paper provides a comprehensive case study of Israel’s emerging regulatory sandbox frameworks for AI applications. Drawing from policy white papers, legislative materials, and implemented frameworks, it documents how Israel is adopting sector-specific regulatory sandboxes as experimental mechanisms to balance innovation with public interest concerns. The paper maps the growing appeal of regulatory sandboxes across Israeli AI policy documents since 2018 and provides a detailed analysis of three key implementations: autonomous vehicles, fintech, and general legislative guidelines. It examines Israel’s pioneering AV regulatory sandbox, which grants specific exemptions from traffic regulations (including steering wheel control requirements and international standards compliance) while maintaining safety oversight through control centers and incident reporting. The paper analyzes the proposed fintech sandbox’s multi-regulator committee structure and dual-track system for licensing and oversight relief. It also evaluates the recently published general regulatory sandbox legislative guidelines that establish a technology-neutral four-phase lifecycle framework. The analysis reveals Israel’s preference for adapting existing regulatory structures rather than creating comprehensive AI-specific governance mechanisms. While this sector-specific approach facilitates targeted innovation, it may inadequately address broader AI governance concerns such as algorithmic accountability and human oversight. The paper critically examines institutional design challenges, including inter-agency coordination difficulties in the fintech framework and the tension between innovation facilitation and consumer protection. It concludes that Israel’s approach represents a pragmatic response to technological uncertainty, though questions remain about implementation effectiveness and the adequacy of sector-specific frameworks for comprehensive AI governance. The study contributes to comparative regulatory literature by documenting an understudied jurisdiction’s approach to regulatory experimentation.

The Russia-Ukraine war generates fear, depression, loneliness, burnout and substance misuse among civilians. Our study examines mental health among Ukrainian university female students during 3 years of war. A total of 3,467 students were surveyed on three occasions: August to October 2022 (T1, n = 1,416), March to July 2023 (T2, n = 747) and September to November 2024 (T3, n = 1,304). The respondent’s average age was 19.3 years, 25.3% identified as secular and 36.9% were married/partnered. The respondents included 81.2% who were not relocated, 10.7% who were internally displaced and 8.1% who were refugees. Valid and reliable survey instruments were used to gather data. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) shows a significant decrease in fear of war, depression and burnout in 2023 compared to 2022; however, there was a marked increase in 2024. Regardless of the survey period, one-way ANOVA shows a significant difference in fear of war and burnout scores associated with depression and loneliness levels. Stepwise regression analysis shows fear of war, depression and loneliness associated with burnout. This study provides usable information for mental health services planning and intervention purposes associated with young women affected by war in Ukraine. Additionally, it has relevance for training to address client and service personnel needs, for academic curriculum development and course instruction, and as a reference source for mental health personnel addressing student needs.

Identifying causal directions among variables via data-driven approaches is a research hotspot. Researchers now focus on detecting causal direction heterogeneity among multiple variables (variables more than two) when covariates cause such heterogeneity. This study combines the structural equation likelihood function (SELF) method with a recursive partitioning method to achieve an interpretable model of multivariate causal direction heterogeneity in multivariable settings. Through simulation, we compared the performance of the SELF-Tree model in terms of the identification about heterogeneous causal direction under different conditions. Using a public drug consumption dataset, we demonstrated its real data application. The SELF-Tree model offers researchers a new way to understand variable causal direction heterogeneity.

Mao’s violent collectivization and forced labour campaigns during China’s Great Leap Forward (1958–1962) led to as many as 45 million deaths in what is widely regarded as the worst famine in human history. Drawing on a corpus of over 300 interviews with famine survivors, I apply a mixed-methods approach to examine the impact of mass state repression on how such survivors speak about a repressive regime that remains in power. Exploiting variation in county-level mortality rates, I find that interviewees exposed to more intense state violence do not publicly voice more explicitly negative attitudes towards the state, but they do possess more latent negative sentiments. Furthermore, I use the establishment and subsequent dissolution of communal canteens – a key repressive institution through which the state functioned as the sole food distributor during a time of extreme scarcity – as an analytical lever to show that although some survivors may be unwilling to express grievances directly against an enduring regime that perpetrated mass violence, they readily express negativity towards a long-dead institution.

This article is a proof-of-concept that archaeologists can now disseminate archaeological topics to the public easily and cheaply through video games in teaching situations or in museum or heritage communication. We argue that small but realistic, interactive, and immersive closed- or open-world 3D video games about cultural heritage with unscripted (but guardrailed) oral conversation can now be created by beginners with free software such as Unreal Engine, Reality Capture, and Convai. Thus, developing tailor-made “archaeogames” is now becoming extremely accessible, empowering heritage specialists and researchers to control audiovisual dissemination in museums and education. This unlocks new uses for 3D photogrammetry, currently mostly used for documentation, and could make learning about the past more engaging for a wider audience. Our case study is a small game with two levels, one built around 3D-scanned Neolithic long dolmens in a forest clearing and an archaeologist and a prehistoric person, who are both conversational AI characters. We later added a more open level with autonomous animals, a meadow, and a cave with a shaman guiding the player around specific cave paintings. We tested the first level on players from different backgrounds whose feedback showed great promise. Finally, we discuss ethical issues and future perspectives for this format.

For the most part, the ongoing Thomistic debate over the nature of lying presupposes that speech has one primary end: to reveal the speaker’s mind or soul. Within this framework, a lie is disordered speech. In this paper, I formulate a polyvalent Thomistic theory of speech acts that affirms that human vocalizations have multiple ends in the order of nature, including functions that do not involve signification, a claim supported by evidence from studies of primate vocalization and by evidence from studies of contemporary speech act theory in the philosophy of language. With this theory in hand, I propose that not every deliberately willed spoken falsehood constitutes a lie, including false claims made to enemy spies and Nazi officers, because not every spoken falsehood involves disordered speech.

This essay approaches Palestine not as a laboratory or a problem to be solved, but as a paradigm that elucidates the persistent and cumulative violence of settler colonialism, genocide, and dispossession. The author explores the collapse and distortion of time under siege, the fragmentation and resilience of bodies amid relentless violence, and the radical power of storytelling in the face of attempted erasure. Weaving together images from Gaza’s hospitals, refugee camps, schools, prisons, and graveyards, this essay documents both the horror and tenacity of everyday Palestinian life. It situates the ongoing Nakba within global trends of authoritarianism and repression, including the assault on academic freedom and criminalization of solidarity. Ultimately, this essay argues that Palestinian defiance, memory, and narrative offer vital lessons in apocalyptic times.

In item response theory (IRT), the conventional latent trait scale ($\theta $) is inherently arbitrary, lacking a fixed unit or origin and often tied to specific population distributional assumptions (e.g., standard normal). This limits the direct comparability and interpretability of scores across different tests, populations, or model estimation methods. This article introduces the “bit scale,” a novel metric transformation for unidimensional IRT scores derived from fundamental principles of information theory, specifically surprisal and entropy. Bit scores are anchored to the properties of the test items rather than the test-taker population. This item-based anchoring ensures the scale’s invariance to population assumptions and provides a consistent metric for comparing latent trait levels. We illustrate the utility of the bit scale through empirical examples: demonstrating consistent scoring when fitting models with different $\theta $ scale assumptions, and using anchor items to directly link scores from different test administrations. A simulation study confirms the desirable statistical properties (low bias and accurate standard errors) of Maximum Likelihood-estimated bit scores and their robustness to extreme scores. The bit scale offers a theoretically grounded, interpretable, and comparable metric for reporting and analyzing IRT-based assessment results. Software implementations in R (bitscale) and Python (IRTorch) are available and practical implications are discussed.

The Generalised Baker–Schmidt Problem (1970) concerns the Hausdorff measure of the set of $\psi$-approximable points on a non-degenerate manifold. Beresnevich-Dickinson-Velani (in 2006, for the homogeneous setting) and Badziahin-Beresnevich-Velani (in 2013, for the inhomogeneous setting) proved the divergence part of this problem for dual approximation on arbitrary non-degenerate manifolds. The divergence part has also been resolved for the $p$-adic setting by Datta-Ghosh in 2022, for the inhomogeneous setting. The corresponding convergence counterpart represents a challenging open question. In this paper, we prove the homogeneous $p$-adic convergence result for hypersurfaces of dimension at least three with some mild regularity condition, as well as for some other classes of manifolds satisfying certain conditions. We provide similar, slightly weaker results for the inhomogeneous setting. We do not restrict to monotonic approximation functions.