Legal provisions in trade agreements, including those related to intellectual property (IP), can impede access to medicines. The 12-party Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) is currently undergoing a review. This provides an opportunity to update the CPTPP’s Intellectual Property Chapter to remove certain provisions that were negotiated in the context of its precursor, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), many of which have been suspended. These include several ‘TRIPS-Plus’ provisions – IP provisions exceeding the requirements of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). This paper reviews the CPTPP’s TRIPS-Plus provisions, including those suspended and those still in place, and argues for their removal based on evidence of their likely effects on medicines access and recent changes in the political environment. Since the CPTPP was signed in 2018, accumulated evidence has demonstrated that TRIPS-Plus provisions negatively impact access to medicines. Lack of access to COVID-19 medical products in low- and middle-income countries has highlighted major problems with TRIPS. Furthermore, the US has diverged from a TRIPS-Plus agenda, rendering the suspended provisions obsolete. Removing the CPTPP’s TRIPS-Plus provisions, while challenging, would preserve Parties’ policy flexibility to design their laws in ways that protect access to medicines.

In this paper, we study the class of polytopes which can be obtained by taking the convex hull of some subset of the points $\{e_i-e_j \ \vert \ i \neq j\} \cup \{\pm e_i\}$ in $\mathbb {R}^n$, where $e_1,\dots ,e_n$ is the standard basis of $\mathbb {R}^n$. Such a polytope can be encoded by a quiver Q with vertices $V \subseteq \{{\upsilon }_1,\dots ,{\upsilon }_n\} \cup \{\star \}$, where each edge ${\upsilon }_j\to {\upsilon }_i$ or $\star \to {\upsilon }_i$ or ${\upsilon }_i\to \star $ gives rise to the point $e_i-e_j$ or $e_i$ or $-e_i$, respectively; we denote the corresponding polytope as $\operatorname {Root}(Q)$. These polytopes have been studied extensively under names such as edge polytope and root polytope. We show that if the quiver Q is strongly-connected, then the root polytope $\operatorname {Root}(Q)$ is reflexive and terminal; we moreover give a combinatorial description of the facets of $\operatorname {Root}(Q)$. We also show that if Q is planar, then $\operatorname {Root}(Q)$ is (integrally equivalent to) the polar dual of the flow polytope of the planar dual quiver $Q^{\vee }$. Finally, we consider the case that Q comes from the Hasse diagram of a finite ranked poset P and show in this case that $\operatorname {Root}(Q)$ is polar dual to (a translation of) a marked order polytope. We then go on to study the toric variety $Y(\mathcal {F}_Q)$ associated to the face fan $\mathcal {F}_Q$ of $\operatorname {Root}(Q)$. If Q comes from a ranked poset P, we give a combinatorial description of the Picard group of $Y(\mathcal {F}_Q)$, in terms of a new canonical ranked extension of P, and we show that $Y(\mathcal {F}_Q)$ is a small partial desingularisation of the Hibi projective toric variety $Y_{\mathcal {O}(P)}$ of the order polytope $\mathcal {O}(P)$. We show that $Y(\mathcal {F}_Q)$ has a small crepant toric resolution of singularities $Y(\widehat {\mathcal {F}}_Q)$ and, as a consequence that the Hibi toric variety $Y_{\mathcal {O}(P)}$ has a small resolution of singularities for any ranked poset P. These results have applications to mirror symmetry [61].

The Kurdish movement in Turkey illustrates a complex struggle for political recognition and decolonization. The article examines this dual strategic orientation, focusing on the peace process initiated in October 2024 between the Turkish state and Kurdish representatives. Through a detailed and symptomatic reading of the two texts by Abdullah Öcalan, February Call and Perspektif, the article aims to demonstrate that the movement both interacts with the state to secure democratic prerequisites for political participation and continues to promote a radical critique of capitalist modernity and nation-state structures. Drawing upon Axel Honneth’s recognition theory and Étienne Balibar’s concept of “equaliberty,” the struggle for recognition is no longer seen just to result in a depoliticization through governmental control, but is rethought as building the capacity to stage an ongoing, performative process that manages the constitutive tension between equality and autonomy within Kurdish decolonial practice. This approach raises questions about how the movement navigates state structures while promoting alternative social institutions and epistemic spaces, including the problematic site of communes as a form of democratic autonomous experimentation.

A candidate for the effective 2-topos is proposed and shown to include the effective 1-topos as its subcategory of 0-types.

While international humanitarian law (IHL) offers protections for infrastructure indispensable to civilian survival, the personnel who operate, maintain and repair these systems remain largely invisible in legal frameworks and humanitarian discourse. Drawing on operational experience, this article examines the systemic threats faced by essential services personnel in contemporary urban warfare, including direct attacks, mobility constraints and the cumulative effect of protracted conflict, all of which undermine the resilience of essential services. Through exploring existing legal frameworks, recent political initiatives and practical measures already undertaken by humanitarian actors and service providers to enhance personnel safety, the article argues that safeguarding essential services personnel is not only a legal and moral imperative but also an operational necessity for preserving civilian life during conflict. While the authors acknowledge the lack of explicit special protection of essential services personnel under IHL, they advocate for a principled, good-faith interpretation and application of IHL that embraces its humanitarian spirit, arguing that the protection of “objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population” must logically extend to the people who keep those objects and services functioning. The article concludes by proposing future avenues for strengthening protection, including improved visibility, multidisciplinary and essential service provider-centred preparedness planning, and the potential recognition of a distinctive sign for essential services personnel. Ultimately, the article calls for essential services personnel to be better recognized as indispensable to the survival of civilian populations and urges all actors to move beyond infrastructure to protect the systems – including the people – that sustain life in war.

Collective memories of intergroup history persist as dynamic structures that shape how societies perceive foreign others. This article proposes a framework for understanding stereotypes rooted in collective memory as both premises for journalistic coverage – guiding story selection – and tools within it, offering adaptable templates for framing. Analysing Israeli media’s coverage of Poland across two decades of conflict, conciliation, and routine reporting, I show how journalists reproduce and renegotiate stereotyped perceptions, clarifying their dual role as memory agents: sustaining stereotype-laden perceptions anchored in collective memory, while recalibrating these perceptions in light of shifting political and narrative contexts. The study foregrounds journalism’s dual role in carrying forward and adapting the collective memory structures through which foreign nations are perceived.

To evaluate ultraviolet-C (UV-C) disinfection, we interviewed 34 personnel at 22 Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals. Barriers included safety concerns, patient volumes, staffing, and costs. Facilitators included education and interprofessional communication. An implementation toolkit, interprofessional collaboration, and leadership support could optimize UV-C integration into VA infection prevention.

The Dwarka Basin in the Kathiawar Peninsula, western margin of the Indian subcontinent, offers crucial insights into marine sedimentation processes and faunal evolution during the Miocene epoch. This research employs a combination of biostratigraphy, microfacies analysis and geochemical data to examine the Gaj Formation, a major stratigraphic unit of the Dwarka Basin, with the aim of reconstructing the paleoclimatic and depositional conditions. Foraminiferal biostratigraphy suggests that the Gaj Formation ranges from the Aquitanian to the Langhian stage, with the intermediate Burdigalian stage comprising most of the succession. Microfacies analysis reveals that the formation was primarily deposited in shelf environments, influenced by regional tectonic and climatic factors. The fossil assemblages and morphological adaptations observed in foraminiferal shells provide clear evidence of the Middle Miocene Climatic Optimum (MMCO). Climate-driven global warming during this climatic phase caused morphological evolution (e.g., dwarfism) and decreased faunal diversity in response to environmental stress. This study also aims to reconcile discrepancies in stratigraphic classification in the basin through lithostratigraphic data and high-resolution faunal analyses. Results highlight the dynamic nature of marine depositional environments as impacted by global sea-level changes, regional tectonics and climatic fluctuations. The study foregrounds the importance of multi-proxy analyses in reconstructing complex depositional histories and Miocene climatic transitions and their effects on regional marine ecosystems.

This article presents the results of excavations in Early Bronze Age levels at the site of Hamoukar in northeastern Syria. During the 2008 and 2010 field seasons, excavations in the lower town at Hamoukar uncovered evidence for three distinct architectural phases dating to the second half of the third millennium B.C. Prior to these excavations, attention had been focused on the final phase of Early Bronze Age occupation in the lower town, when the settlement was violently destroyed and then abandoned. It is now possible, however, to provide a backstory for the settlement’s violent end and also a more complicated––if still preliminary––account of exactly how the urbanisation process played out at the site. This article presents a summary of the Early Bronze Age stratigraphic sequence in the lower town at Hamoukar and, at the same time, a description of new evidence for the evolution of social, economic, and ritual practice across three phases of urban development. A brief comparison with urban trajectories at two other contemporary sites highlights the heterogeneity of cities and urban dynamics in Early Bronze Age northern Mesopotamia.

The use of multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) panels for diagnosis of clinical syndromes is rapidly growing despite limited data on optimal use cases. We retrospectively reviewed the clinical impact and consequences of the inclusion of herpesvirus targets on the meningitis/encephalitis PCR panel.

This research note explores an iconic female fraudster, who achieved celebrity criminal status with a substantial fanbase, by analyzing her status as an empowering female figure and the sociocultural context in contemporary Japan. In due course, we attempt to fill the notable research gap regarding the phenomenon of a female fraudster becoming a “celebrity criminal” from a post-feminist perspective. By analyzing online and interview materials, this article demonstrates that the highlighted otherness in Young’s “transgressive other” (Young 2007, 2011) is hardly applicable. We shed light on instrumentalized femininity shared among young women challenging the pre-existing normative femininity in contemporary Japan.