The sixth annual meeting of the African Studies Association was held at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco. The opening plenary session included three papers concerned with North African affairs. Benjamin Rivlin of Brooklyn College, considering “The Maghreb and Pan-Arabism,” began with a series of questions. Were the aspirations of the Maghreb states for Arab unity incompatible with their African vocation? Ought the Maghreb to be considered as a part of Africa, or was this precluded by the region's commitment to the Arab East? What was the extent of this commitment, and what identity did the Maghreb seek?

This article argues that the late Ottoman Empire saw the rise of a novel concept of difference, the “millet,” that fundamentally reordered the lives of the empire’s many subjects. Rather than a term with clearly identifiable content—“religion,” “nation,” “ethnicity,” or otherwise—millet should be understood instead as auguring the emergence of history as the organizing principle of the late Ottoman politics of difference. Unlike the Islamic distinction between Muslim and non-Muslim that had previously structured Ottoman rule, the millet paradigm did not stipulate any predetermined set of terms through which difference had to be articulated. Instead, it issued an injunction to Ottoman subjects to merely say who they were, to declare the name they went by—to confess. This simple injunction, however, which appeared to require nothing other than assent to the reality of history itself, tended to misfire. When it did, Ottoman subjects confronted the anxious truth that history—the purported ground of the millet paradigm of difference—was no ground at all.

This case note highlights fundamental errors of law committed by Mabuse J in MM v OM [2024] (3) SA 133 (GP). It demonstrates that the judge failed to appreciate that the phrase “pension interest” as defined in the Divorce Act refers to a benefit held by a retirement fund that only becomes due to be shared when the court dissolves a marriage where one of the spouses is a member of the retirement fund. Most importantly, it is shown that Mabuse J ignored the binding precedent of the Supreme Court of Appeal and failed to consider other judgments of the High Court, which clearly explain that where an exit event from the fund is anything but divorce, there can be no pension interest that the court can order to be shared. This note argues that the law was incorrectly applied in this case, and its approach, reasoning and conclusion must be rejected.

Spaceflight missions must limit biological contamination on both the outbound and return legs to comply with planetary protection requirements. Depending on the mission profile, contamination concerns may include the potential presence of bioactive molecules as defined by NASA’s Planetary Protection policies. Thus, the present study has examined the temperature and time requirements for sufficient inactivation/degradation of an infectious, heat-stable prion protein (Sup35NM), which serves as a model bioactive molecule. Bovine serum albumin was used to establish the method parameters and feasibility. Differential scanning calorimetry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, analytical reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography, and mass spectrometry were utilized to analyze heat-treated samples, with non-treated samples serving as controls. Heat treatment at 400°C for 5 seconds was found to result in substantial decomposition of Sup35NM. In addition to the disruption of the protein backbone amide bonds, the side chain residues were also compromised. Fragments of molecular weight <4600 were observed by mass spectrometry but the impact of treatment on both the backbone and side chains of Sup35NM suggested that these fragments would not self-associate to create potentially pathogenic entities. The present methodology provided insight into the protein degradation process and can be applied to a variety of treatment strategies (e.g., any form of sterilization or inactivation) to ensure a lack of protein-based contamination of isolated extraterrestrial specimens.

We present a deep learning architecture that reconstructs a source of data at given spatio-temporal coordinates using other sources. The model can be applied to multiple sources in a broad sense: the number of sources may vary between samples, the sources can differ in dimensionality and sizes, and cover distinct geographical areas at irregular time intervals. The network takes as input a set of sources that each include values (e.g., the pixels for two-dimensional sources), spatio-temporal coordinates, and source characteristics. The model is based on the Vision Transformer, but separately embeds the values and coordinates and uses the embedded coordinates as relative positional embedding in the computation of the attention. To limit the cost of computing the attention between many sources, we employ a multi-source factorized attention mechanism, introducing an anchor-points-based cross-source attention block. We name the architecture MoTiF (multi-source transformer via factorized attention). We present a self-supervised setting to train the network, in which one source chosen randomly is masked and the model is tasked to reconstruct it from the other sources. We test this self-supervised task on tropical cyclone (TC) remote-sensing images, ERA5 states, and best-track data. We show that the model is able to perform TC ERA5 fields and wind intensity forecasting from multiple sources, and that using more sources leads to an improvement in forecasting accuracy.

The trap vowel /æ/ is known to display a complex variable duration in many English dialects, but this phenomenon is understudied in Australian English. Previous analyses suggest that trap duration is sensitive to the effects of following phonetic environments in complex ways, but that a lexically specific effect may also operate in determining duration. This study aims to investigate phonetic and lexical effects through an acoustic analysis of trap duration in Australian English. Speakers from a range of areas in Sydney that vary in their ethnic and linguistic diversity produced the trap vowel in select phonetic contexts. Results suggest that trap exhibits a complex hierarchy of durations which are conditioned by the characteristics of the following coda, as well as a notably long duration in the affective adjectives mad and sad compared to other words with coda /d/ that were tested. However, these effects were found to be relatively less pronounced among speakers from more ethnically and linguistically diverse regions of Sydney. This may be attributed to high levels of language and dialect contact occurring in more diverse areas resulting in a gradual reduction in the degree of trap durational variability.

In March 2024, the East Midlands Health Protection Team was notified of a case of invasive Group A Streptococcus (iGAS) infection in an elderly care home resident. Twenty-two days later, another case in a resident from the same floor of the care home was notified. In accordance with national guidelines, an outbreak was declared, and a multidisciplinary outbreak control team (OCT) was urgently convened. Screening for GAS throat carriage was undertaken for staff and residents, excluding those receiving end-of-life care. All isolates were strain typed and characterised. Infection prevention and control (IPC) visits were undertaken to provide ongoing support. Screening identified five residents and five staff members positive for GAS. Antibiotic prophylaxis was provided to all staff throughout the setting (n = 74) and all residents on the affected floor (n = 35). Three individuals were positive on repeat screening. All staff and residents screened negative after 4 months and the two clinical cases recovered. Eleven of the 12 GAS isolates were identified as emm 3.93. This outbreak highlighted the importance of rapid screening, possible only through the deployment of a dedicated team, and rescreening post-decolonising treatment, as a means to contain such outbreaks.

Titanium clips (TC) have previously been successfully used for dural repair and closure in spinal surgeries. Meanwhile, minimally invasive spine surgery (MIS) has widely expanded its indications. At our institution, MIS has become the preferred approach for most spine intradural lesions. While the technique has yielded favorable clinical outcomes, we have successfully incorporated the use of TC for dura closure as an alternative to traditional suturing. This technical note outlines the step-by-step application of TC for duroplasty and emphasizes the factors that make their use advantageous in MIS. We present our experience and discuss relevant literature and key nuances.

This article investigates the scientization process in central banks, using the Bank of England (BoE) as a case study. Its main goal is to clarify the interactions and tensions among three dimensions of scientization: contributory, policymaking and legitimizing. To do so, we outline an ideal type of contributory scientization in central banks, whereby they become active contributors to science. The article derives empirically observable characteristics for this ideal type, regarding leadership and staff profiles, use of internal resources, composition of external networks, and publication and discursive outputs. The BoE is then contrasted to this ideal type of a central bank thoroughly involved in contributory scientization. The empirical material includes archives and interviews as well as three databases providing quantitative information from the 1970s to 2019. We find that the development of contributory scientization is strategically motivated, often generating tensions with policymaking and legitimizing dimensions. Our findings suggest that scientization in central banks is best understood as a three-dimensional, non-linear process, rather than a steamroller.