Sheep (Ovis aries) are stoic, prey animals that have evolved to mask signs of pain and vulnerability, making behavioural indicators of poor welfare difficult to detect. Body condition scoring (BCS) remains one of the most practical, animal-based indicators of chronic undernutrition and compromised welfare in grazing ruminants. Disruption of the incisor apparatus due to dental disorders or tooth loss can impair grazing efficiency, resulting in reduced nutritional intake and contributing to poor body condition. Despite this, there has been little research into the prevalence or welfare impact of dental disorders in sheep. This preliminary study aimed to assess the prevalence of incisor wear in extensively grazed Dohne Merino ewes, examine its distribution across age groups, and evaluate associations with bodyweight and BCS. A total of 818 ewes aged 2 to 10 years were evaluated during routine husbandry. Incisor wear was scored based on dentine exposure using a 0–3 ordinal scale. BCS was determined through hands-on palpation, and liveweight was recorded. Wear affecting more than one-third of tooth enamel was present in at least one incisor in 99% of ewes over five years of age. Greater incisor wear was significantly associated with lower bodyweight and BCS in ewes over two years, irrespective of age. These findings underscore the potential role of incisor wear as a contributing factor to nutritional compromise and welfare risk in older sheep. Monitoring incisor health may facilitate more accurate welfare assessments and enhance management strategies in extensive systems.

Knowledge of the status of ecosystems is vital to help develop and implement conservation strategies. This is particularly relevant to the Arctic where the need for biodiversity conservation and monitoring has long been recognised, but where issues of local capacity and logistic barriers make surveys challenging. This paper demonstrates how long-term monitoring programmes outside the Arctic can contribute to developing composite trend indicators, using monitoring of annual abundance and population-level reproduction of species of migratory Arctic-breeding waterbirds on their temperate non-breeding areas. Using data from the UK and the Netherlands, countries with year-round waterbird monitoring schemes and supporting relevant shares of Arctic-breeding populations of waterbirds, we present example multi-species abundance and productivity indicators related to the migratory pathways used by different biogeographical populations of Arctic-breeding wildfowl and wader species in the East Atlantic Flyway. These composite trend indicators show that long-term increases in population size have slowed markedly in recent years and in several cases show declines over, at least, the last decade. These results constitute proof of concept. Some other non-Arctic countries located on the flyways of Arctic-breeding waterbirds also annually monitor abundance and breeding success, and we advocate that future development of “Arctic waterbird indicators” should be as inclusive of data as possible to derive the most robust outputs and help account for effects of current changes in non-breeding waterbird distributions. The incorporation of non-Arctic datasets into assessments of the status of Arctic biodiversity is recognised as highly desirable, because logistic constraints in monitoring within the Arctic region limit effective population-scale monitoring there, in effect enabling “monitoring at a distance”.

The recent rise of authoritarian populist and far-right parties in Western democracies has raised concerns about democratic stability in these countries. While existing research often focuses on electoral outcomes, we argue this approach inadequately captures citizens’ regime preferences due to the complexities of electoral processes and national politics. To address this limitation, we examine the relationship between immigration and regime preferences through a democratization framework using structural equation modelling across 17 established Western democracies between 2008 and 2020. Our findings reveal a positive association between immigrant population rates, individuals’ authoritarian predisposition and anti-immigrant sentiments, with stronger anti-immigrant attitudes correlating with increased support for authoritarian governance models such as dictatorship and army rule. This relationship appears particularly pronounced among individuals with low authoritarian predispositions, underscoring the mobilizing effect of immigration. This research offers insights into the recent political landscape in Western democracies, contributing to debates on democratic resilience and challenges posed by changing demographics.

Despite constituting around 16% of the world’s population, we know little about the extent to which political parties encourage people with disabilities to participate in political parties. This article aims to fill that gap by providing a comparative analysis of political parties in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. The research develops a framework for assessing the accessibility of political parties. The research finds evidence of activity in a small number of parties but finds relatively little evidence to suggest that parties are prioritizing this issue, especially when compared with the participation of other social groups. The article argues that we need greater research into the relationship between disability and political parties, concluding with a future research agenda.

The Digital Services Act (Regulation 2022/2065, “DSA”) creates a new national administrative authority to enforce the DSA across member states: the Digital Services Coordinator (“DSC”). DSCs perform a linchpin role in the DSA enforcement. DSCs have a number of tasks that interact with the content moderation process, such as certifying trusted flaggers or participating in drafting codes of conduct. They also have significant investigatory- and sanctioning powers to enforce the DSA vis-à-vis platforms, shaping content moderation processes and protecting users’ rights against platform misconduct. These interactions with content moderation affect users’ freedom of expression. This contribution scrutinises the role of the DSC in light of that freedom, describing how DSCs shape freedom of expression online through their powers in the DSA, and identifying instances where exercise of DSA powers can lead to different levels of protection for freedom of expression across Member States in the decentralised enforcement network. Finally, it proposes avenues in the DSA to anchor protection of freedom of expression in the application of the DSA by DSCs, through pursuing centralisation in cases with significant fundamental rights impact, and encouraging better usage of guideline competencies.

This article explores the extent to which listeners vary in their ability to notice, identify and discriminate variable linguistic features. With a view to improving speaker evaluation studies (SES), three types of experiments were conducted (noticing tasks, identification tasks and discrimination tasks) with regard to variable features using word- or sentence-based stimuli and focusing on three variables and their variants – (ING): [ɪŋ], [ɪn]; (T)-deletion: [t], deleted-[t]; (K)-lenition: [k], [x]. Our results suggest that the accurate noticing, identifying and discriminating of variants is somewhat higher in words than in sentences. Correctness rates differ drastically between variants of a variable. For (ING), the non-standard variant [ɪn] is more frequently identified and noticed correctly. Yet, for the variables (T)-deletion and (K)-lenition, the standard variants are identified and noticed more successfully. Results of the current study suggest that a more rigorous elicitation of identification and noticing abilities might be useful for a more complete understanding of the nature of social evaluation.

Plastics have come to symbolize the lifestyle and technological advancements of the 20th century, representing modern convenience and progress. In recent years, global plastic production surpassed 360 million tons in 2018 and is projected to reach between 500 and 600 million metric tons by 2025. This plastic accumulates as waste in freshwater, marine and land environments, leading to habitat disruption, alterations in nutrient cycles and harm to wildlife through exposure to toxic substances, entanglement and ingestion which pose significant ecological and health risks. The long-term ecological changes resulting from this pollution are likely irreversible. Developing countries in the Global South, including Bangladesh, are particularly vulnerable to the challenges of poorly managed plastic waste due to a lack of institutional, financial and technical resources to combat plastic pollution. The Aquatic Zoology Research Group has focused on addressing plastic pollution in Bangladesh and adopted a comprehensive strategy to tackle plastic pollution, starting with identifying the issue through various methods, followed by a thorough assessment of the plastic pollution situation and finally proposing solutions for mitigation. Our review of the current state of plastic pollution in Bangladesh’s aquatic systems highlighted significant research gaps, despite the country’s early ban on plastic bags. As a conservation research team from a developing nation facing the severe impacts of plastic pollution, we studied and listed specific expectations for the upcoming INC 5.2 meeting, highlighting challenges faced by many similar countries. We hope that INC 5.2 will move beyond mere statements to implement concrete and equitable actions.

We have initiated a large project on identifying the requirements for developing a realistic and ground-up approach to simulating the formation of terrestrial planets in our solar system. As the first phase of this project, we present here the criteria that any model of planetesimal growth needs to fulfill in order to be self-consistent and produce reliable results. We demonstrate how these criteria emerge by revisiting runaway growth and carrying out a thorough analysis of its results. As our goal is to identify the pathway to a realistic model, we focus analysis on simulations where at the beginning, planetesimals are not artificially enlarged. We show how using uninflated planetesimals, as the first requirement for a realistic model, will result in a set of criteria naturally emerging from the evolution of the system. For instance, the growth times in simulations with uninflated planetesimals become comparable to the time of giant planet formation implying that any realistic simulation of planetesimal growth, in addition to using real-size planetesimals, needs to include the perturbation of the growing giant planets as well. Our analysis also points to a strong connection between the initial distribution of planetesimals and the final outcome. For instance, due to their natural expansion, initially isolated distributions, or a collection of initially isolated distributions, such as rings of planetesimals, do not produce reliable results. In a self-consistent and realistic model, where the initial conditions are supported by basic principles and do not include simplifying, ad hoc assumptions, the entire disk of planetesimals has to be simulated at once. We present the results of our analyses and discuss their implied criteria.

Hepatitis B virus vaccination is currently recommended in Australia for adults at an increased risk of acquiring infection or at high risk of complications from infection. This retrospective cohort study used data from an Australian sentinel surveillance system to assess the proportion of individuals who had a recorded test that indicated being susceptible to hepatitis B infection in six priority populations, as well as the proportion who were then subsequently vaccinated within six months of being identified as susceptible. Priority populations included in this analysis were people born overseas in a hepatitis B endemic country, people living with HIV, people with a recent hepatitis C infection, gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, people who have ever injected drugs, and sex workers. Results of the study found that in the overall cohort of 43,335 individuals, 14,140 (33%) were identified as susceptible to hepatitis B, and 5,255 (37%) were subsequently vaccinated. Between 26% and 33% of individuals from priority populations were identified as susceptible to hepatitis B infection, and the proportion of these subsequently vaccinated within six months was between 28% and 42% across the groups. These findings suggest further efforts are needed to increase the identification and subsequent vaccination of susceptible individuals among priority populations recommended for hepatitis B vaccination, including among people who are already engaged in hepatitis B care.

This paper analyses the precarious balance between the economic demands of landowners and the defence of public interest in the Tuscan Maremma in a significant time frame for Italian land reclamation (from the 1860s to the 1950s). Increasing productivity in marginal lands was the primary reason for reclamation work, but the considerable investment involved did not always ensure significant gain in land value. Landowners exerted powerful pressure on the state to contribute to the implementation of more complex projects, but the state also needed their co-operation for its territory-wide plans. This new land acquisition fitted into a complex socio-economic context in which poverty, social tensions, health, and sanitation challenges as well as migration demanded incisive political policies which could not always be fully implemented. This essay shows that certain economic factors outweighed others and that, more often than not, the public social policies adopted played into the hands of private economic interests, and the large-scale reclamation work implemented in the Maremma led to the almost total disappearance of a deeply rooted farming tradition, the silvo-pastoral economy.

This article challenges the OECD’s dominant downstream-centric framework on plastic pollution by drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in India, Indonesia and the Philippines. While OECD policies emphasize mismanaged waste and littering in low- and middle-income countries as primary causes of plastic leakage, the authors argue this perspective obscures the structural role of upstream plastic production, driven largely by petrochemical interests in the Global North. Through field data, the article reveals how “leaky” infrastructures – such as incineration plants in India, public–private waste partnerships in Indonesia and grassroots upcycling in the Philippines – fail to contain plastic waste, often exacerbating pollution and exposing communities to toxic emissions and microplastics. The study introduces a conceptual framework of “material and structural leakiness,” emphasizing how plastics and the infrastructures designed to manage them are inherently porous. It critiques the notion of shared responsibility, highlighting how it disproportionately burdens marginalized communities. The authors call for a paradigm shift away from recycling and clean-up as core solutions, advocating instead for upstream interventions like production caps and chemical regulation. The article underscores that without legally binding global commitments to reduce virgin plastic production, the toxic burden of plastic pollution will continue to fall on the most vulnerable populations.

Humanity faces an unprecedented challenge in the necessity to rapidly change behaviors across various life domains to address multiple environmental crises, such as climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. This includes the behavior of individuals at work and within organizations. Industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology is uniquely positioned to provide evidence-based recommendations for changing organizational decision-making and behavior toward greater environmental sustainability. Although a substantial body of research on this topic has emerged over the past decade, the discipline has yet to realize its full potential because the topic is currently not prioritized and the practical and societal impact of previous research is limited. This article aims to propel research on environmental sustainability at work forward. To do so, it (a) outlines the interconnections between organizations and environmental sustainability; (b) portrays previous research efforts on environmental sustainability at work, resulting in an integrative conceptual framework across micro, meso, macro, and magno levels; and (c) provides actionable recommendations for high-impact future I-O psychology research and practice related to environmental sustainability. Following an “impact-first” rationale, we identified 10 areas for future research across the four levels of the conceptual framework. For each area, we present relevant theoretical perspectives, methodological approaches, and connections to related disciplines. Finally, we provide suggestions for effective science–practice transfer. Overall, the article seeks to spark discussion on this crucial topic within the community and to inspire I-O psychology researchers and practitioners to contribute to environmental sustainability.

This case note analyzes the arbitral tribunal’s assessment in Gabriel Resources v. Romania, focusing on the investors’ “second alternative claim” that Romania’s nomination and subsequent inscription of the Roșia Montană Mining Landscape on the World Heritage List constituted a breach of its obligations under the applicable bilateral investment treaties. It examines whether the tribunal’s reasoning aligns with prior investment case law involving the World Heritage Convention, and it reflects on certain aspects of the award that may warrant closer scrutiny, particularly in light of the potential normative tensions between the protection of host states’ heritage and the rights of foreign investors.

Although choice-of-jurisdiction clauses are routinely enforced by courts in the United States, there are circumstances where they are subject to special scrutiny. One of these circumstances is when the party resisting the clause was not provided with proper notice as to the existence of the clause or the identity of the chosen jurisdiction. This Article first reviews the existing case law in this area and shows that while some U.S. courts have refused to enforce clauses for lack of notice, others do so as a matter of course. It then discusses several decisions where U.S. courts have held that notice may serve as a substitute for consent to bind parties to choice-of-jurisdiction clauses in agreements that they never signed.