This article reconstructs the history of the ‘Centro per gli Studi sullo Sviluppo Economico’ created through a collaboration between the SVIMEZ (Associazione per lo sviluppo dell’industria nel Mezzogiorno) and the Ford Foundation and active between 1958 and 1969. Through the analysis of unpublished documentation from the SVIMEZ archives, the article shows how the ‘Italian laboratory’ of Southern Italy became an international case study in the context of the Cold War and the dawn of development economics. The Centre played a crucial role in training economists and officials and in disseminating the Italian experience at the Mediterranean and global levels, combining international theoretical approaches with the empirical legacy of policies for the ‘Mezzogiorno’. The paper highlights how this experience represented a meeting point between American philanthropy, Western modernisation and bottom-up development practices, contributing to the construction of transnational networks and the spread of development culture in the era of decolonisation.

The Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) hypothesis highlights the pivotal role of early-life nutrition in shaping lifelong health and disease risk. Low birth weight (LBW) remains a major public health issue associated with increased susceptibility to metabolic and cardiovascular disease, underscoring the need for early nutritional interventions. We investigated whether dietary supplementation with soy protein isolate (SPI) during lactation could mitigate adverse developmental programming in a rat model of LBW induced by maternal calorie restriction. Dams received an SPI-supplemented diet during lactation, and offspring were evaluated for postnatal growth, circulating IGF-1 and corticosterone concentrations, and pituitary expression of Gas5 lncRNA, miR-23b, and Pomc. Stress responsiveness and glucocorticoid receptor sensitivity were also assessed. SPI supplementation restored postnatal growth and IGF-1 concentrations in female offspring, and in males, it normalized pituitary Gas5 lncRNA and Pomc mRNA expressions, reduced stress-induced corticosterone hypersecretion, and improved pituitary glucocorticoid sensitivity. These findings indicate that SPI intervention during lactation can partially reverse epigenetic dysregulation of the stress and somatotropic axes caused by fetal undernutrition. Nutritional modulation during lactation thus represents a critical window for early intervention in LBW offspring. SPI supplementation may enhance endocrine and metabolic resilience, providing a practical nutritional programming approach to reduce future disease risk, consistent with the DOHaD paradigm.

This paper analyses a dispute that flared up in the 1790s about whether Kant’s moral theory leaves room for the possibility of imputable wrongdoing. Contra Paul Guyer’s reading, I argue this was not merely a matter of mutual misunderstanding but reflected its participants’ varying perceptions of an arguably genuine dilemma for Kantian ethics: that what he needs to say to explain how imputable action contrary to duty is possible within his framework is prima facie incompatible with what he needs to say to establish that the moral law is categorically binding. In addition to presenting my interpretation of the controversy, I offer a suggestion as to how Kant might be able to escape the dilemma and further suggest we have good reason to think that Kant himself was both aware of the danger and endorsed the proffered solution.

Quantifying the rate at which a stratified turbulent flow mixes a density field is of crucial importance for many environmental and industrial applications. In the absence of molecular diffusion $\kappa$ (i.e. in the absence of irreversible mixing), a stratified turbulent flow forced so as to have a constant kinetic energy will converge towards a statistical steady state whose density field geometric properties depend on the Richardson number $Ri$ (defined as the ratio of the kinetic energy in the flow to the amount of energy required to overturn the full water column). This statistical steady state is reached after vertically disturbed fluid parcels have explored the depth that is accessible energetically and have returned to their neutrally buoyant position, i.e. after a ‘resetting time’ $t_{R}$. The magnitude of $t_{R}$ is controlled by stratification strength $N$ and the buoyancy Reynolds number $Re_{b}$, quantifying the ratio between the Kolmogorov and Ozmidov scales, and hence the range of scales effectively unaffected by stratification. When $\kappa \neq 0$, a second time scale needs to be considered: the mixing time scale $t_{M}$. Within a mixing time, diffusion smooths the density field. We show that the ratio of the mixing and resetting times $t_{M}/t_{R}$, as well as $Ri$, control how fast stratified turbulent flows mix a density field into a fully homogeneous state and, hence, the history of mixing in such flows. In particular, we identify three regions in the $(Ri,t_{M}/t_{R})$ parameter space for which the time evolution of measures of mixing is controlled by different algebraic combinations of $t_{M}/t_{R}$ and $Ri$. These scaling laws are compared with idealised direct numerical simulations. Using these findings, we propose a simple model for the time evolution of the density histogram in stratified turbulent flows.

Smoking has been confirmed to induce systemic inflammation and oxidative stress (OS) and is associated with higher odds of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Dietary antioxidants can reduce inflammation and OS. This study seeks to score the dietary antioxidant intake and then assess its impact on the association between smoking and COPD in adults. The data extracted from the 2007-2012 NHANES database were used. The Dietary Antioxidant Quality Score (DAQS) was evaluated by the total intake of vitamins A, C, and E, selenium, zinc, and magnesium in the daily diet. Smoking was used as the exposure variable, and COPD as the outcome variable. Weighted multivariable logistic regression was conducted to evaluate the associations of DAQS with smoking and COPD, as well as their joint effects on the odds of COPD. The relationships between dietary antioxidant quality score, smoking status, and COPD were subsequently assessed. Subgroup analyses were performed to explore associations between relevant covariates and smoking and COPD across DAQS strata. Current smoking was found to be linked to COPD (OR=4.06, 95% CI=3.14-5.27) in comparison to never smoking. Among smokers, significant associations were observed in both the medium-quality DAQS group (OR =3.48, 95% CI: 2.34-5.17) and the low-quality DAQS group (OR = 5.60, 95% CI: 3.58-8.76). In conclusion, high DAQS levels are inversely related to the odds of COPD in adult smokers. Our findings provide valuable insights for management strategies for COPD.

Alligatorweed, an invasive aquatic weed, has emerged as a major threat to sustainable crop production in various crop species. A two-year field study was conducted to investigate the impact of varied competition durations of alligatorweed on mungbean. The competition durations with alligatorweed included weed free conditions for first 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 weeks after crop emergence along with a full season weed free treatment and alternatively weedy conditions for the aforementioned durations along with a full season weedy treatment. Competition with alligatorweed led to significant uptake of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), with maximum uptake observed in the full season weedy treatment with N, P and K up to 65, 19, 56 kg ha-1, respectively. Additionally, significant accumulation of heavy metals (HMs) including copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), zinc (Zn) and arsenic (As) up to 20, 16, 30, 14 and 11 g ha-1, respectively, was observed. Full season weedy plots produced more alligatorweed biomass and caused reductions of up to 81% in mungbean yield components. Alligatorweed infestation resulted in significant mungbean grain yield losses of up to 44% during 2022 and 52% in 2023, respectively. Furthermore, the three-parameter log-logistic equations identified the period from 4.2 to 6.8 weeks after crop emergence (WACE) as the critical period of alligatorweed competition that could result in a 10% yield loss in mungbean. Hence, alligatorweed poses a significant threat to mungbean production due to its strong competitive ability. However, its potential for HM accumulation offers promising opportunities for phytoremediation in both aquatic and terrestrial environments.

Innovation in paediatric and adult congenital cardiology increasingly depends on collaboration among academia, industry, and professional communities. From this perspective, the author argues that clinical prediction represents a natural convergence point for these stakeholders, aligning safe, personalised care with economic incentives. The author discusses emerging evidence highlighting the promise of artificial intelligence-driven prediction across various cardiovascular domains, while highlighting current limitations related to narrow scope, static design, and weak integration into clinical decision-making. Medicine-based evidence and a high-quality, inclusive data infrastructure may help address these gaps. Together, these approaches, along with stakeholders upholding their responsibilities, define a path towards predictive innovation.

This forum continues the Journal of Public Policy’s series for debate and discussion of important ideas in the scholarly study of public policy. This exchange is anchored with an essay by Christopher Wlezien entitled, “On Policy Responsiveness: Conditions for Effective Demand and Supply.” Understanding the connection between the public and the officials meant to represent them is fundamental to democratic governance. While there is a voluminous literature from across the political science and policy studies spectrum, Wlezien offers a new framework for examining the “theoretical conditions for effective policy representation.” He develops the concepts of “input” as a function of public demand, and “output” as the result of policy supplied. Wlezien concludes that we observe a surprising amount of congruence between what the public wants and the policy it receives. This conclusion is in stark contrast to more pessimistic views prominent in the recent literature.