Effective justice seeks for the truth and consequently must be founded on an analysis of all relevant evidence. Only where a manifestly greater societal interest intrudes, can there be a privilege against the production of testimony. For the Court of Justice of the EU, however, an activist interpretation of Article 8 of the EU Charter, promoting security of data, has become an elevated privacy right which justifies nullifying crucial information, thus shielding criminals, undermining civil trials and obstructing searches for missing persons. No convincingly apodictic conclusion emerges from the several judgments of the court, while the exceptions identified undermine, rather than support, any articulated core principle.

Over the past decade, archaeological research in Roman-period Macedonia has seen significant advances, driven by the emergence of Roman archaeology as a distinct discipline focused on spatial organization, identity, and provincial dynamics within the Mediterranean context. Large-scale infrastructure projects, such as Thessaloniki’s Metro and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline, have provided unprecedented opportunities to investigate both urban and rural landscapes, revealing dense settlement patterns, economic networks, and cultural continuity from the Hellenistic to the Late Antiquity periods.

Urban excavations in key Macedonian sites such as Thessaloniki, Dion, Philippi, Edessa, and Amphipolis have refined our understanding of urban development, architectural sophistication, and resilience amid political and natural challenges. The Thessaloniki Metro project stands out for uncovering well-preserved urban grids, monumental public architecture, and diverse burial grounds, highlighting the city’s evolution and enduring cultural vitality. Similarly, discoveries of elite residences, public buildings, and monumental statues across Macedonia reveal the complexity and transformation of provincial urban centres. In parallel, public work-facilitated archaeological investigations have exposed a vibrant countryside marked by small cemeteries, artisanal workshops, agricultural estates, and infrastructure such as roads and bridges. These findings challenge traditional villa-centric models, emphasizing continuous rural habitation, intensified agricultural activity, and sophisticated land management strategies. Interdisciplinary approaches, including geoarchaeology and bioarchaeology, further illuminate the socio-economic networks and daily lives of rural communities. Despite challenges such as economic constraints and publication delays, recent archaeological efforts have fostered a holistic understanding of Macedonian antiquity, integrating technological innovation and collaborative methodologies. The cumulative research underscores the resilience and adaptability of both urban and rural populations, revealing a complex, interconnected landscape that reshaped our perceptions of ancient life in this key Roman province.

This introduction presents the structure and contents of the current issue of Archaeological Reports. It also offers an overview (not meant to be exhaustive) of archaeological activity in Greece over the past 12 months, focusing on major exhibitions and other cultural events as well as important recent publications.

High-temperature short-time (HTST, 72°C, 15 s) pasteurization can be successfully used for human milk (HM) preservation. The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of different HTST heating methods: microwave (MHTST) and standard convective (CHTST) on macronutrients, fatty acids (FAs), lactoferrin (LF), vitamin C, lysozyme (LZ), α-amylase (α-A) activity, lipid oxidation and antioxidant properties of HM. Regardless of the heating methods, the macronutrients and FA content, LZ activity and antioxidant properties of HM proved to be insensitive to HTST treatment, while the concentration of vitamin C decreased by 42.6% and 50.2%, and the activity of α-A by 6.0 and 7.2% when using MHTST and CHTST, respectively. LF content changed significantly only when CHTST was used (42.3% reduction). There were no negative effects of microwave heating under controlled conditions on the HM components. Satisfactory results regarding the impact of MHTST on HM composition and potential economic benefits suggest that this technology can be applied in HM banks to ensure adequate safety and quality.

Another scholarly journal has apparently decided that no book should be reviewed by somebody named in the book’s acknowledgements. Margaret Bent has over seventy names in her main list, and she warmly thanks or praises dozens of others in the course of her book, which is a definitive report on the state of play in research on the motet repertory of the years 1300–1420. It is safe to say that nobody who is at all qualified to review the book is omitted. That is partly because Bent has been inviting authorities from across the world to speak at her monthly All Souls seminars for over thirty years, and since the time of the Covid lockdown the seminars have been seen internationally on Zoom, with respondents also from across the world. An astonishing and massive public has contributed to making her book what it is. (Declaration: I am indeed named, but I learnt so much from the book that I feel required to make my statement.)

The programme of radiocarbon dating undertaken at Stanwick, Northamptonshire, demonstrates the value of scientific dating of Romano-British sites, including those with good pottery sequences and large numbers of datable coins and other finds. It has refined and clarified the chronology and phasing of the site, particularly in its final phase of occupation. It confirmed some of our original dating of the human burials, and showed other dates were significantly wrong. It also addresses issues relating to the calibration of radiocarbon dates and dietary isotopes in the period. This has enabled us to identify activities, material culture and burial practices current at Stanwick and elsewhere in the immediate post-Roman period.

As authoritarianism has spread globally, government efforts to stifle civic space have increased dramatically. Among the most alarming tactics has been the spread of restrictive laws targeting NGOs. While such laws threaten the core objectives of many foreign donors, they have become especially common in aid-dependent nations. How do foreign donors react to this assault on their local and international implementing partners? On the one hand, democracy-promoting donors might push back, ramping up support for advocacy in defiance of draconian measures. Alternatively, when aspiring autocrats make it difficult to work with local partners, donors might back down, decreasing support for democracy promotion. Testing these arguments using dyadic data on aid flows, an original data set of NGO laws, and a variety of research designs, we find that the donors most committed to democracy promotion back down in the face of restrictive NGO laws, reducing democracy aid by 70 percent in the years after laws are enacted. Our findings suggest that donor behavior creates strong incentives for backsliding governments in aid-receiving countries to use legislation to crack down on civil society.

Scholars have been sharply divided over the legal status of temple cult in the fourth century. This is due to a large body of evidence that appears in some ways to be contradictory. However, insufficient attention has been paid to Libanius’ claim (Or. 30.33–6) that the civic cults of Rome and Alexandria were exempt from the bans that were in effect elsewhere. The hypothesis derived from this testimony is capable of explaining all of the evidence, resolving the apparent contradictions. To simplify the matter somewhat, all aspects of temple cult were legal in Rome and Alexandria until 391, but, except for the period from late 361–c. 366/372, the central ritual of public sacrifice (at a minimum) had been illegal in the rest of the Empire since the latter years of Constantine’s reign.

The extent to which the English common law protected civil liberties in the past is widely debated. Were the judges protectors of core freedoms such as liberty and the right to protest or were they allies of the executive in their hostility towards them? Since at least Dicey, the common law has had a vision of itself as the former, but what does practice reveal? This article explores the many ways in which the advocates of female suffrage in the 10 years or so before the First World War interacted with executive and judicial authority in their effort to use what they saw as their ancient freedoms to protect their campaigning for the vote for women. The suffragette campaign generated a series of conflicts between the judicial and executive branches of the state while also testing the depth of the common law’s commitment to civil liberties.

We study functions f on $\mathbb{Q}$ which satisfy a ‘quantum modularity’ relation of the shape $ f(x+1)=f(x)$ and $f(x) - {| {x} |}^{-k} f(-1/x) = h(x)$, where $h:\mathbb{R}_{\neq 0} \to \mathbb{C}$ is a function satisfying various regularity conditions. We study the case $\operatorname{Re}(k)\neq 0$. We prove the existence of a limiting function, denoted by $f^\triangleleft$ or $f^\triangleright$, depending on the sign of $\operatorname{Re}(k)$, which extends continuously f to $\mathbb{R}$ in some sense. This means, in particular, that in the $\operatorname{Re}(k)\neq0$ case, the quantum modular form itself has to have at least a certain level of regularity. We deduce that the values $\{f(a/q), 1\leqslant a<q, (a, q)=1\}$, appropriately normalized, tend to equidistribute along the graph of $f^\triangleleft$ or $f^\triangleright$, and we prove that, under natural hypotheses, the limiting measure is diffuse. We apply these results to obtain limiting distributions of values and continuity results for several arithmetic functions known to satisfy the above quantum modularity: higher weight modular symbols associated to holomorphic cusp forms; Eichler integral associated to Maaß forms; a function of Kontsevich and Zagier related to the Dedekind $\eta$-function; and generalized cotangent sums.

Between 2023 and 2024, the Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa (EAMENA) project and the Libyan Department of Antiquities (DoA) collaborated to apply the newly-developed EAMENA Machine Learning Automated Change Detection (MLACD) method to a series of case studies across Libya. The first of these case studies concerns the region of Lefakat, south of Benghazi, which is facing rapid urbanization, placing heritage sites under immediate threat. An initial desk-based assessment was conducted to identify archaeological sites and apply the MLACD method. Following the remote sensing analyses, a team of Libyan archaeologists from the DoA conducted fieldwork to verify and validate the results. The work involved archaeological and condition assessments of the sites. The remote sensing and fieldwork survey documented 30 archaeological sites, primarily dating from the Roman period, recording new information about these sites. The threats affecting them related primarily to urbanization and vegetation growth, looting and rubbish dumping. The approach highlighted in this article combines advanced remote sensing technologies with fieldwork validation, providing a robust framework for monitoring and safeguarding archaeological sites.

There have been three generations of foreign, comparative, and international law (FCIL) librarians in the United States (US) in the postwar era. FCIL librarians of the first generation were foreign lawyers who emigrated to the US after World War II. Those of the second generation were American lawyer-librarians who built the infrastructure of FCIL librarianship into what it is today. The third generation of FCIL librarians includes the authors of this article. We perform many of the same research tasks as our predecessors, but we do so primarily online through an ever-evolving array of new and emerging technologies. This article discusses some core skills of FCIL librarianship that have remained constant over three generations and highlights some select “cool tools” that FCIL librarians of each generation have utilized to perform their work.

This article analyzes the Romanian transition to communism in the late 1940s. The cultural turn in political sociology shows that state building has a strongly symbolic and performative element. Less attention has been paid to the symbolic aspects of regime change, which involves the need to not just accrue power but also diminish that of others. This article starts with a processual understanding of the state, one where a regularity such as the state needs to be validated with reference to time and space. Preexisting understandings, however, are sticky and potentially path-dependent. Regime change is therefore not simply (or always) a matter of failing to validate old understandings – but also actively elaborating and promoting their replacement. To justify regime change, Romanian communists thus worked to elaborate new historical and contextual understandings of the state, engineering a turning point that effectively established a new version of the Romanian state. Without reifying institutions, we can nonetheless make space for process itself to accumulate and (momentarily, incompletely) stabilize, such that social change is a difficult though not impossible achievement.

Diagnosis of cases of Mycoplasma mastitis is particularly challenging due to their unique biological characteristics, which complicate diagnosis and treatment. Hence, accurate and quick diagnostic tests for early detection of Mycoplasma mastitis are essential to initiate appropriate interventions or culling. The objective of this research is to estimate the diagnostic performance of the molecular microarray assay (MMA) against bacterial culture for the diagnosis of bovine intramammary infections (IMI) with Mycoplasma spp., using a gold standard approach and the Kappa agreement coefficient. A total of 395 quarter milk samples were collected from cows in 31 dairy herds with conventional milking systems in California, USA. Following dairy personnel practices, milk samples were collected from the lactating cows showing abnormal milk characteristics and shipped within 24 hours to the laboratory for bacterial culture and MMA examination. Milk samples with positive growth were confirmed via PCR test to eliminate misdiagnosis of Acholeplasma spp. Eighty-seven cows (22%) were positive for Mycoplasma spp. IMI and the test accuracy was 88.4%. The sensitivity of MMA was 90.8% (95% CI (Confidence Interval): 82.68–95.95), and the specificity was 87.66% (95% CI: 83.46–91.12). The positive predictive value of MMA in these herds was 67.52% (95% CI: 60.51–73.83), and the negative predictive value was 97.12% (95% CI: 94.57–98.49). Calculated Kappa coefficient was 0.70 (95% CI: 0.618–0.778). The high estimates of sensitivity and specificity of MMA suggest its usefulness as a routine and quick test for accurate diagnosis of Mycoplasma spp. IMI in dairy cows. Our findings indicate that MMA holds promise for enhancing the detection of Mycoplasma spp. and could potentially revolutionize diagnostic practices in the dairy industry and supports udder health management.

Autonomy theories of contract are influential and have many attractions, not least their compatibility with liberal ideals. However, such theories cannot account for basic features of the common law of contract, in particular: the role of established transaction types, the doctrine of consideration and the phenomenon of contractual obligation. An exchange theory of contract can account for those features of the law. This theory’s liberal credentials can be established by connecting it to an alternative intellectual strand in the liberal tradition, sometimes known as commercial liberalism.

As the leading journal for studies of Roman Britain for over 50 years, Britannia has proved a successful publishing outlet for papers that have arisen from the UK developer-funded archaeology sector. This level of interest should encourage the sector to submit more papers to Britannia, but it could also encourage influential journals to improve inclusivity in the publishing traditions of the sector, which are discussed in terms of a widespread failure to acknowledge intellectual property and expertise and to encourage wider involvement in analysis and publishing. The authors use three case studies from their own areas of work to illustrate current problems surrounding authorship, leadership and gendered practice. We then propose ways in which these issues could be tackled.

In the pharmaceutical sector an increasing number of new medicines are large-molecule products, namely biologics derived from living organisms, rather than small-molecule drugs synthesised from chemicals. Unlike small-molecule medicines, which are relatively easy to manufacture, large-molecule products are less stable and harder to produce. We investigate whether the current UK legal system provides an appropriate balance between the protection provided to technology owners and the public interest in accessing medical technologies, especially in times of emergencies. At present, UK law facilitates compulsory licensing of patents but has no equivalent scheme for trade secrets. Our analysis of the legal constraints on potential reforms suggests that a mechanism for compulsory licensing of trade secrets would be compatible with UK domestic law, the European Convention on Human Rights, the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights and other international agreements, provided appropriate safeguards are put in place to balance the rights of intellectual property holders with the public interest. The article contributes a detailed framework for the compulsory licensing of trade secrets, drawing parallels with voluntary technology transfer agreements, including provisions for defining the scope of transfer, maintaining confidentiality, restricting future use, providing fair compensation and ensuring enforceability.