The kinetic stability of collisionless, sloshing beam-ion ($45^\circ$ pitch angle) plasma is studied in a three-dimensional (3-D) simple magnetic mirror, mimicking the Wisconsin high-temperature superconductor axisymmetric mirror experiment. The collisional Fokker–Planck code CQL3D-m provides a slowing-down beam-ion distribution to initialize the kinetic-ion/fluid-electron code Hybrid-VPIC, which then simulates free plasma decay without external heating or fuelling. Over $1$–$10\;\mathrm{\unicode{x03BC} s}$, drift-cyclotron loss-cone (DCLC) modes grow and saturate in amplitude. The DCLC scatters ions to a marginally stable distribution with gas-dynamic rather than classical-mirror confinement. Sloshing ions can trap cool (low-energy) ions in an electrostatic potential well to stabilize DCLC, but DCLC itself does not scatter sloshing beam-ions into the said well. Instead, cool ions must come from external sources such as charge-exchange collisions with a low-density neutral population. Manually adding cool $\mathord {\sim } 1\;\mathrm{keV}$ ions improves beam-ion confinement several-fold in Hybrid-VPIC simulations, which qualitatively corroborates prior measurements from real mirror devices with sloshing ions.

National Action Plans (NAPs) are a possible implementation measure for the Global Plastics Treaty, through a NAP-based approach. Their effectiveness in other international agreements is contested, and their current format allows for weak, voluntary measures with limited accountability. By analysing stakeholder and country submissions to the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) secretariat ahead of INC-2 negotiations in Paris, June 2023, conducting a literature review, and interviewing key actors, this study aims to determine the support that governments and stakeholders have for a NAP-based approach in the Treaty, and identify the key enablers needed to ensure that NAP-based approaches, if adopted in the Treaty, are effective. Results indicate that by INC-2, more than 85% of countries supported a NAP-based approach, suggesting a high chance of this approach being selected as the means of implementation of the Treaty. However, interviewees and literature reviews indicate that NAPs in their current form are not likely to be effective at delivering ambitious Treaty targets. Six key enablers to improve the effectiveness of plastics NAPs are identified. These enablers should be integrated into any plastics NAPs both independently, and as potential requirements of the Treaty to ensure that NAP-based approaches are effective and have the impact intended.

The field of Galactic archaeology in the Milky Way (MW) has been significantly transformed by the advent of proper motions (PMs), but PM studies are still in their early stages in the M31 system. Measuring PMs in the M31 system poses a challenge for Gaia, limiting HST and JWST as the only reliable options. PM measurements of M31 satellites enable the estimation of M31’s total mass, examination of the dynamical stability of the Great Plane of Andromeda, and establishing connections to M31 substructures. We have successfully measured the PMs of NGC 147 and NGC 185 using multiepoch HST imaging data. Recently, we have obtained second-epoch HST imaging data for seven additional satellites through the HST program GO-16273. We present preliminary results from the PM measurements of these galaxies along with the implications. Finally, we discuss the future prospects of measuring PMs at the distance of M31.

In the field of psychopathology there is still a lack of consensus on how mental disorders, such as depression, should be classified and explained. Many of our current classifications suffer from disorder heterogeneity and are conceptually vague. While some researchers have argued that mental disorders are better explained from a biological perspective, others have made the case for pluralistic and integrative explanations. Using depression as an extended example, we explore the challenges in classifying and explaining psychopathology. We begin by evaluating the current approaches to classification, including frameworks for what we consider a mental disorder. This is followed by a detailed summary of current explanatory perspectives in psychiatry. The relationship between classification and explanation presents unique theoretical challenges in understanding mental disorders. We suggest that by adjusting our focus from understanding syndromes to clinical phenomena we can advance our understanding of mental disorders.

Given an $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}>1$ and a $\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}$ with unbounded continued fraction entries, we characterize new relations between Sturmian subshifts with slope $\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}$ with respect to (i) an $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}$-Hölder regularity condition of a spectral metric, (ii) level sets defined in terms of the Diophantine properties of $\unicode[STIX]{x1D703}$, and (iii) complexity notions which we call $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}$-repetitiveness, $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}$-repulsiveness and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}$-finiteness—generalizations of the properties known as linear repetitiveness, repulsiveness and power freeness, respectively. We show that the level sets relate naturally to (exact) Jarník sets and prove that their Hausdorff dimension is $2/(\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}+1)$.

Clinical reasoning is one of the central components of psychological assessment. The identification of a client's psychological difficulties and the subsequent depiction of their onset, development, and interrelationships enables clinicians to plan treatment in a systematic and effective manner. In an article (Ward, Vertue, & Haig, 1999), we outlined the abductive theory of method (ATOM) and argued that it offered a useful framework for highlighting and integrating the major phases of psychological assessment. These phases involve detecting clinical phenomena, postulating psychological mechanisms, developing a case formulation, and evaluating a case formulation. In this article we present a revised version of the adaptation of ATOM and elaborate on the related clinical dimensions of assessment.

Necessary and sufficient conditions for the symbolic dynamics of a given Lorenz map to be fully embedded in the symbolic dynamics of a piecewise continuous interval map are given. As an application of this embedding result, we describe a new algorithm for calculating the topological entropy of a Lorenz map.

We show how multifractal properties of a measure supported by a fractal F⊆[0,1] may be expressed in terms of complementary intervals of F and thus in terms of spectral triples and the Dixmier trace of certain operators. For self-similar measures this leads to a non-commutative integral over F equivalent to integration with respect to an auxiliary multifractal measure.