This study uniquely explores the impact of militarization on carbon emissions in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries from 1985 to 2019 using panel econometric techniques. NATO countries, characterized by substantial defense budgets, advanced technologies, high industrialization, and significant energy consumption, offer a unique context for examining these factors. Employing the Pooled Mean Group Autoregressive Distributed Lag (PMG-ARDL) and FMOLS models, the research analyzes the long-term and short-term dynamics across three groups: traditional NATO members (Group 1), new NATO members (Group 2), and a combined group (Group 3). Relevant variables used in the estimation are industrialization, technological innovation, energy consumption, and economic growth. Findings reveal that in Group 1, military expenditure and energy consumption significantly increase carbon emissions, while industrialization and technological innovation reduce them. In Group 2, increased military spending and industrialization reduce emissions, but energy consumption and technological innovation increase them. For Group 3, economic growth significantly drives emissions, whereas industrial advancements and selective technological innovations mitigate them. The study underscores the need for tailored environmental policies and technological advancements to reduce carbon emissions, contributing to sustainable development within military alliances. These insights are crucial for policymakers aiming to balance defense needs with environmental sustainability in NATO countries.

Specialists globally employ various clinical scales and instruments to assess balance, gait, and motor functions in children with cerebral palsy (CP). Selecting appropriate assessment tools is essential for planning studies, developing effective treatment strategies, and tracking clinical outcomes. Given the diversity in assessment needs – whether evaluating dynamic, functional, or static balance – there is a need to identify the most suitable tools for each aspect. Therefore, the primary objective of this review is to critically analyze current clinical and instrument-based assessment methods in the literature to determine the most effective approaches for pediatric CP. This systematic review retrieved 1,812 papers, of which only 23 met the inclusion criteria and presented assessment methods for evaluating balance and motor functions in pediatric CP. These methods were further organized into clinical and instrument-based assessment groups. Among clinical examinations, the Pediatric Balance Scale and Gross Motor Function Measures were considered gold standards and featured in eight studies. In contrast, postural sway measured with the Biodex Balance System, Gait Stability Indices from the GAITRite system, and EMG sensing were the predominant instrument-based observations. Despite this variety, a consensus on the best assessment methods remains lacking. This review highlights the potential of integrating AI-driven metrics that combine clinical and instrument-based data to enhance precision and individualized care. Future research should focus on creating integrated, individualized profiles to better capture the unique capabilities of children with CP, enabling more personalized and effective intervention strategies.

Aims: The Default Mode Network (DMN) is a network of brain regions that are functionally connected and become active during self-directed thought, introspection, and rumination. Rumination refers to the repetitive and passive focus on distressing thoughts, often linked to negative emotional states. Specifically, an increase in the brooding type of rumination is associated with severity of depression. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research offers a unique perspective on how the functional connectivity of the DMN is involved in rumination, shedding light on its neurobiological underpinnings. This systematic review aims to synthesise existing literature that explored the functional connectivity of the DMN in individuals with depressive disorders during episodes of rumination.

Methods: This systematic review investigated activity in DMN in patients with depression using resting state fMRI scans. Literature search was done on PubMed, Medline and Cochrane using search terms “depression OR Major Depressive Disorder OR depressive episode” AND “ruminat*” AND “functional MRI OR fMRI”. 324 studies were identified from the three databases, and after removing 42 duplicates, 274 studies were selected for title and abstract screening.

Abstracts were assessed for eligibility using the following inclusion criteria: original studies in peer-reviewed journals, clinical diagnosis of depressive disorder, measurement of rumination using a validated scale and resting state or task-based fMRI. 193 studies were excluded, and 58 studies were moved to full-text review. Intervention studies were also excluded at this stage. Following the above criteria, 25 studies were selected for full-text review.

Results: Out of the 25 studies, 9 used task-based fMRI and 16 used resting state fMRI. Only resting state fMRI studies were included for data extraction. Results from the 16 studies showed that depressed people had both increased and decreased functional connectivity between different regions of the brain during brooding rumination. The connectivity within the DMN was increased, while connectivity between DMN and other areas of brain, including between DMN and TPN (task-positive network) was reduced, when compared with healthy controls.

Conclusion: This review shows widespread associations between depression, rumination and functional connectivity within and between various brain regions. Increase of functional connectivity within the DMN during depression might be responsible for the increase in brooding rumination seen in depressed individuals. A decrease in connectivity of DMN to other areas of the brain might result in difficulties for depressed individuals to switch from a ruminating state into the executive network mode. Overall, this review provides an overview of the neurobiological underpinnings for the increase in brooding rumination in depression.

Aims: Changes in the hippocampus and amygdala are associated with psychotic illnesses. However, there is little research examining the output tracts of these regions in psychosis. The fornix connects the hippocampus to the basal forebrain anteriorly and to the hypothalamus posteriorly, while the stria terminalis (ST) connects the amygdala to these same areas. The anterior commissure divides these tracts into anterior (pre-commissural) and posterior (post-commissural) fibres. This study investigates these two tracts and their pre- and post-commissural fibres in young adolescents with psychotic experiences (PEs) as compared with controls across two timepoints (TP), 2 years apart.

Methods: 51 young adolescents with PEs (37 female) and 43 healthy controls (25 female) underwent high angular diffusion imaging at TP1, while 39 adolescents with PEs and 29 healthy controls underwent same at TP2. Images were processed using ExploreDTI and, using a bespoke method, the fornix and ST were separated and pre-commissural and post-commissural fibres isolated. Analysis of covariance was performed correcting for age, sex and intracranial volume.

Results: Right pre-commissural fornical Mean Diffusivity (MD) (p=0.035) and Radial Diffusivity (RD) (p=0.009) were increased, with decreased Fractional Anisotropy (FA) (p=0.045) at TP1. There was increase across MD (p=0.004), RD (p=0.005) and Axial Diffusivity (AD) (p=0.042) at TP2. Only right pre-commissural fornix MD and RD increases at TP2 survived Bonferroni correction at p=0.0083. No ST differences survived correction for multiple comparisons.

Conclusion: This study uses a novel method to separate the stria terminalis and fornix, using an anatomically driven approach. The results show that the hippocampal output fibres are involved in early psychosis, while the amygdala fibres are not affected. Of the hippocampal fibres, it is the fibres going to the basal forebrain, responsible for motivation and behaviour, that are specifically impacted. These changes in adolescents are entirely right sided, reflecting similar right sided hippocampal changes found in adults with psychotic illnesses. The right basal forebrain is known to influence vigilance, attention and emotional processing, which are affected in patients with psychosis. The findings from this study suggest that the right basal forebrain is affected in children and adolescents with psychotic experiences, which are common in people who go on to develop psychotic illnesses, and thus supports the neurodevelopmental theory of psychosis.

Law & Society scholars often dismiss Law & Economics (L&E) as insoluble with our core beliefs about distributive justice, culture, and social solidarity. This reaction has yielded missed opportunities for new theory emergent between the fields. One such opportunity came in 1978, when Guido Calabresi and Philip Bobbitt argued that societies make “tragic choices” about scarce resource allocations so as to reconcile such choices with core culture, ethics, and values. In Calabresi’s later words, their book was a “more or less explicit appeal to anthropology for help.”1 Today, sociolegal studies remain well-poised to answer this appeal. Taking theory about moral costs from Calabresi in L&E and adding anthropological thought on the meaning of “value,” this essay presents situated valuation – a contextualized notion of value that accounts for the moral costs of inequalities while supporting principled scrutiny of redistributive policies meant to reduce inequality but sometimes worsening it. This discussion highlights the importance of interpretive social science in the study of distributive inequality, while showcasing a neglected but generative link between mutually imbricated interdisciplinary communities.

The world is facing a global plastics crisis with more than 50% of plastics produced only being used once and then discarded. If nothing is done to put an end to plastic pollution, it is projected that by 2050, there will be more plastic (by weight) than fish in the ocean, affecting natural ecosystems, biodiversity and human health. While solutions often target governments and corporations, a crucial group is frequently ignored: informal waste pickers. Despite the limitations of recycling alone, waste pickers significantly impact the plastic recycling chain. This review addresses the gap in our understanding of their role. It argues that waste pickers are an essential component of the larger portfolio of solutions for the plastic crisis but face significant challenges.

How does the decline of traditional news outlets affect political polarization? We provide novel evidence on this question by examining the link between local newspaper exits, media consumption, and electoral behaviour in a multiparty setting. Our empirical analysis combines a unique panel of all German local newspapers between 1980 and 2009, electoral returns, and an annual media consumption survey of more than 670,000 respondents. Using a difference-in-differences design, we demonstrate that local newspaper exits increase electoral polarization. Additional analysis points to changes in media consumption as the underlying mechanism driving this result: following local news exits, consumers substitute local news with national tabloid news. Our findings extend prior results in the US context to a multiparty setting and shed new light on the causal chain running from changing local news landscapes to electoral behaviour.

A cross-sectional, mixed-method study was conducted in Badin, a rural area in southern Sindh, which is considered a high-risk disaster zone, to assess the vulnerability, preparedness, and disaster experiences of the coastal population. A multistage sampling technique was employed to select the villages, study area, and 3 distinct populations (I, II, and III). Family heads of households were recruited for population I, village heads for population II, and community support group leaders from selected clusters for population III. The survey was conducted through face-to-face interviews. The results revealed that the population of rural southern Sindh, Pakistan, is highly vulnerable to disasters and exhibits lower levels of preparedness. The statistics about the vulnerable population may prove helpful in designing policies targeting specific groups to mitigate hazards in the future.

Balochistan, Pakistan's largest province, faces a concerning rise in self-harm and suicide, exacerbated by socioeconomic challenges, political instability and events such as climate change and recent suicide bombings. Despite the alarming suicide mortality rate, it remains a neglected public health issue. This perspective paper highlights the need for a comprehensive approach, including suicide prevention initiatives, community-based mental health services, education and research. We also suggest establishing a suicide prevention task force, inclusion of life skills and mental health education in school and undergraduate curricula, conducting research into self-harm, and fostering empathetic media reporting. Additionally, suggestions for sustainable economic change include job creation, development of marketable skills and interest-free microfinance initiatives to empower the community economically.

The recent flood crisis in Pakistan has had significant impacts on the physical, mental and socioeconomic fabric of almost 33 million people. Floods in Pakistan are leading to a range of negative impacts on health and major disruptions to healthcare services. The lack of mental health and psychosocial support services (MHPSS) is a significant concern in rural areas of Pakistan in providing support to communities affected by floods. It is important for the government and mental health policymakers to work with academic coalitions and non-governmental organisations to replicate low-resource MHPSS models that will develop and advocate for effective, gender-sensitive mental healthcare throughout the country.

The sharp bound for the third Hankel determinant for the coefficients of the inverse function of convex functions is obtained, thus answering a recent conjecture concerning invariance of coefficient functionals for convex functions.

Can wars breed nationalism? We argue that civilians’ indirect exposure to war fatalities can trigger psychological processes that increase identification with their nation and ultimately strengthen support for nationalist parties. We test this argument in the context of the rise of the Nazi Party after World War 1 (WW1). To measure localized war exposure, we machine-coded information on 7.5 million German soldiers who were wounded or died in WW1. Our empirical strategy leverages battlefield dynamics that cause plausibly exogenous variation in the county-level casualty fatality rate—the share of dead soldiers among all casualties. We find that throughout the interwar period, electoral support for right-wing nationalist parties, including the Nazi Party, was 2.6 percentage points higher in counties with above-median casualty fatality rates. Consistent with our proposed mechanism, we find that this effect was driven by civilians rather than veterans and areas with a preexisting tradition of collective war commemoration.