The impact of imported firearms on Southeast Asian states has been a topic of much debate, but is often discussed in relatively general terms. This article uses the archive of the Dutch East India Company to analyse the importation of muskets into late seventeenth century Ayutthaya, which took the form of diplomatic gifting, as well as their intended uses. Muskets are found to have been used mainly for the suppression of internal popular revolts, which was aided by extremely strict gun control aimed at keeping firearms a royal monopoly. The importation of these guns was responsive to immediate need and stopped once revolts became less frequent. The volume of the trade between 1658 and 1709 is found to have been surprisingly low.

Change point analysis (CPA) detects structural shifts in a response sequence by partitioning it into segments with different statistical properties. This paper proposes three CPA approaches based on the Schwarz information criterion (SIC; hereafter SIC-CPA): response data only, response time (RT) data only, and the combination of response and RT data, to detect the prevalent test speededness in time-limit tests. To comprehensively investigate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed approaches, six simulation studies were conducted under diverse conditions. Simulation results demonstrate that SIC-CPA can effectively enhance the power of change point detection and reduce Type I errors, while improving computational efficiency compared to the likelihood ratio and Wald tests. Moreover, the SIC-CPA combining response and RT data outperforms the SIC-CPA based solely on RTs, and the latter is substantially superior to the SIC-CPA based solely on responses. In addition, SIC-CPA accurately identifies two change points in RT patterns, corresponding to early warm-up and later test speededness. Using an iterative detect–clean–recalibrate procedure, SIC-CPA achieves more reliable Type I error control than likelihood ratio and Wald tests when item parameters are estimated from contaminated data. A real data analysis was conducted to show the application of the proposed approaches.

This Article analyzes the relevance of dissenting opinions issued on the judgments of constitutional courts, particularly the Spanish Constitutional Court, for dialogue between courts—especially the ECtHR—in the field of rights. The interpretative capacity of individual opinions is an important question in the case of the Spanish order, given that Article 10.2 of the Spanish Constitution requires that the rights guaranteed in the Constitution be interpreted in accordance with the treaties on rights signed by Spain. In this sense, the ECHR plays an essential role as the main instrument of interpretative reference in the domestic sphere. Therefore, we have sought to study the capacity of individual opinions to promote new developments in the field of rights based on the bridge generated with the doctrine of the ECtHR and to what extent this can have repercussions on the positions initially defended by the dissenting minority of the Spanish Constitutional Court becoming the majority position defended by the Court. This study is channeled through the freedom of expression in Fragoso Dacosta case because of its relevance in the multilevel context, analyzing the ruling 190/2020 of the Spanish Constitutional Court, December 15, and the ruling of the ECtHR in Fragoso Dacosta v. Spain, June 8, 2023.

Choosing coalition partners is not only about size but also revolves around policy. Although this claim is undisputed at the national and regional levels, the role of ideology in local coalition formation remains contested. This study examines how policy positions and issue salience influence coalition formation after two consecutive elections in 30 municipalities in the Belgian region of Flanders. We apply for the first time the concept of preference tangentiality – the degree to which parties prioritize different policy areas – to the analysis of coalitions at the local level. Our findings reveal that ideological proximity increases parties’ likelihood of forming coalitions, but only to the extent that they do not cooperate with the far-right Vlaams Belang. While preference tangentiality alone does not predict local coalition formation, it becomes important for ideologically coherent executives in which parties must differentiate themselves from their coalition partners. These findings enhance our understanding of policy-related factors in coalition formation at the local level.

Accurate estimation of an aircraft cruise range is a critical challenge in aeronautical engineering that directly influences fuel efficiency, operational costs and environmental sustainability. Traditional analytical models, such as the Bréguet range equation, provide simplified range estimates but often fail to capture the nonlinear dependencies between flight parameters, fuel consumption and aerodynamic efficiency. In this study, machine learning-based regression methods have been employed to model the aircraft cruise range using the cruise flight data of Boeing 737–400, which is one of the most widely used commercial aircraft. Based on the calculated performance metrics, it is determined that the Gaussian process regression model exhibits superior validation and test performance compared to the other models. The developed models provide deeper insight into range variations under various flight conditions by performing accurate and robust predictions.

To address the increasing need for volunteers in countries experiencing conflict and natural disasters, this study examined young adults’ willingness to volunteer abroad in a “higher risk” country. Young Australian adults (N = 163) completed an online survey of Prototype Willingness Model constructs, risk perceptions, and trust in the organization. Attitude, subjective norm (approval from others), perceived similarity to a typical volunteer, risk susceptibility, risk severity, and trust in the charitable organization significantly predicted volunteer willingness, with trust in the organization influencing a number of the antecedents to volunteer willingness. Risk susceptibility had an unexpected positive relationship with volunteer willingness, highlighting the importance of acceptance of associated risks for openness to volunteering in higher risk settings. This study contributes to our understanding of volunteering abroad in higher risk countries, informing efforts to increase the prevalence of international volunteering, essential to address the imbalance of resources globally.

If, following Hannah Arendt, we understand Canada’s public sphere as constituted by the basic human condition of plurality, then our public sphere must do more than follow the liberal strategy of containing potentially fractious religious differences. What might a more robust recognition of religious voices in Canada’s public sphere look like, especially considering the destructive historic role that Canada’s mainline Christian churches played in supporting Canada’s genocidal policy of cultural assimilation of Indigenous peoples? How might Canada’s religious voices become more publicly salient while also supporting the basic human condition of plurality?

Implementation of a 24-hour antimicrobial prophylaxis guideline for patients with delayed sternal closure significantly reduced broad-spectrum post-operative antimicrobial use without increasing surgical site infection risk in 75-patient cohort. The median duration of prophylaxis decreased from 120 to 45 hours, and surgical site infection rates were 3% pre-intervention versus 0% post-intervention.

Face-to-face (F2F) fundraising is employed by nonprofit organizations all around the world. We systematically review 50 years of literature on this technique, focusing on door-to-door and street fundraising, two types that allow for reaching a large, randomly assembled, and heterogeneous group of people, who typically have no personal relationship with recruiters. We provide both a quantitative and qualitative synthesis of 67 articles published in international peer-reviewed academic journals. Our review identifies several recurring research themes, integrates these into a F2F fundraising framework, and delineates articles based on this framework. We classify research themes into two categories: F2F fundraising outcomes (e.g., new donors, donation amount) and factors related to actors or contexts of campaigns affecting these outcomes (e.g., donors’ preferences, persuasion techniques). Articles in this review mainly focus on factors related to actors or context affecting outcomes, with this category being five times more often the primary focus compared to F2F fundraising outcomes. Finally, we create evidence-based guiding questions for fundraising professionals, uncover gaps in existing knowledge, and provide recommendations for future research agenda.