The James Ross Basin, situated in the northwestern portion of the Antarctic Peninsula, holds one of the most complete sedimentary records of the Cretaceous, and hosts exceptionally well-preserved and diverse fossil assemblages, particularly notable for high southern latitudes. The Santa Marta Formation (Santonian–Campanian) harbors a rich decapod crustacean fauna, including Anomura, Astacidea, Achelata, Brachyura, and Glypheidea. Among brachyuran crabs, only four families have been described on James Ross Island: Homolodromiidae, Necrocarcinidae, Prosopidae, and Raninidae. This work focuses on a brachyuran from the Marambio Group, a part of the Santa Marta Formation. The material presented here was collected during the 41st Brazilian Antarctic Operation by researchers of the PALEOANTAR project. The site consists of a sequence of intercalated volcanic sandstones, siltstones, and tuffs, interpreted as a set of volcanoclastic deposits formed in a deltaic environment. The specimen described here with a well-preserved ventral surface, Sabellidromites santamarta new species, is assigned to the Dynomenidae based on uropods as calcified dorsal plates, a reduced, obliquely subdorsal fifth pereopod (fourth pereopod not reduced), and characteristics of the dorsal carapace. The occurrence of Sabellidromites santamarta n. sp. in the Santonian–Campanian of Antarctica suggests biogeographic exchanges of the dynomenid fauna between the Northern and Southern hemispheres during the Late Cretaceous.

UUID: http://zoobank.org/5c53c84a-af78-432f-ba1a-795008a3db70

Microbial O2 production via oxygenic photosynthesis was vital in oxygenating the Earth’s surface environment during the Great Oxygenation Event (GOE) ca. 2.5 to 2.3 billion years ago. However, geochemical, paleontological and genomic data suggest the emergence of oxygenic photosynthesis precedes the GOE by at least 500 million years. This demonstrates that the first appearance of microbial O2 in the environment cannot explain the timing of atmospheric oxygenation. Instead, the GOE was facilitated by Earth’s geodynamic evolution, expanding cyanobacterial habitats and the changing redox state of the mantle, decreasing the abundance of reduced surface rocks, volcanic gases and aqueous solutes. These trends ultimately resulted in magnified O2 production rates and diminished O2 consumption rates. Thus, the GOE can be understood as a misbalance between O2 sources and sinks. One of the most critical O2 sinks on modern Earth is microbial O2 consumption via aerobic respiration, and accumulating evidence suggests its emergence well before the GOE. However, the role of aerobic microorganisms as an O2 sink delaying the GOE remains poorly explored. Here, we review the redox evolution of Earth’s mantle and surface environments, as well as the Archean evolution of aerobic microbial metabolisms. Oxygenic photosynthesis released O2 to the environment, but the secular oxidation of the solid Earth was critical in allowing O2 accumulation. Aerobic respiration expanded in response to the GOE, but our survey suggests it could have been a critical O2 sink even earlier. Hence, aerobic respiration can be seen as geobiological feedback to changes in the Earth system from deep in the mantle up to the surface. However, the timing and rate of O2 consumption by aerobic respiration before the GOE remain poorly constrained. We conclude by highlighting open questions and future research directions to understand the role of the aerobic O2 sink in delaying the GOE.

Despite growing interest in African varieties of French, few attempts have been made to examine them from a variationist perspective. This contribution aims to use phonetic variation as a vantage point for exploring language ideologies surrounding the use of French in postcolonial contexts. The study focuses on the French variety spoken in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and draws on a bilingual Lingala–French dataset elicited from L1 Lingala speakers. The sample reflects a key social distinction in Kinshasa: that between long-term urban residents and recent rural migrants. Are there multiple phonetic varieties of Kinshasa French? To what extent do their forms merely reflect variation in Lingala? The study finds that the most focused variety of Kinshasa French is strongly associated with urban women and is approximated to varying degrees by rural migrants, particularly women. In addition to features with likely origins in either rural or urban Lingala, Kinshasa French exhibits hypercorrect forms and features that may mirror variation trends in Parisian French.

Factorization structures occur in toric differential and discrete geometry and can be viewed in multiple ways, e.g., as objects determining substantial classes of explicit toric Sasaki and Kähler geometries, as special coordinates on such or as an apex generalization of cyclic polytopes featuring a generalized Gale’s evenness condition. This article presents a comprehensive study of this new concept called factorization structures. It establishes their structure theory and introduces their use in the geometry of cones and polytopes. The article explains a construction of polytopes and cones compatible with a given factorization structure and exemplifies it for the product Segre–Veronese and Veronese factorization structures, where the latter case includes cyclic polytopes. Further, it derives the generalized Gale’s evenness condition for compatible cones, polytopes, and their duals and explicitly describes faces of these. Factorization structures naturally provide generalized Vandermonde identities, which relate normals of any compatible polytope, and which are used to find examples of Delzant and rational Delzant polytopes compatible with the Veronese factorization structure. The article offers a myriad of factorization structure examples, which are later characterized to be precisely factorization structures with decomposable curves, and raises the question if these encompass all factorization structures, i.e., the existence of an indecomposable factorization curve.

Political parties in EU member states are situated in a complex multilevel polity, having to engage with their domestic political reality together with EU politics and international linkages with fellow European parties. But how do these parties organize? This research intends to understand how competing, though not mutually exclusive logics of political behaviour can help explain the variations in how parties apprehend this multilevel context. Relying on a rich empirical strategy with 68 semi-structured interviews with European and national party elites in 19 national political parties from Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands, supplemented by a party statutes investigation and data gathering in the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, we conduct a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). It starts from the broad assumption that parties’ multilevel organization needs to be contextually understood, relying on both past and current party dynamics, as well as the actions of the (senior) individuals populating party organizations. Our analysis shows that parties’ different multilevel organization is the result of an interaction between various factors, crucially party genetics and individual agency.

Numerous evolution equations with nonlocal convolution-type interactions have been proposed. In some cases, a convolution was imposed as the velocity in the advection term. Motivated by analysing these equations, we approximate advective nonlocal interactions as local ones, thereby converting the effect of nonlocality. In this study, we investigate whether the solution to the nonlocal Fokker–Planck equation can be approximated using the Keller–Segel system. By singular limit analysis, we show that this approximation is feasible for the Fokker–Planck equation with any potential and that the convergence rate is specified. Moreover, we provide an explicit formula for determining the coefficient of the Lagrange interpolation polynomial with Chebyshev nodes. Using this formula, the Keller–Segel system parameters for the approximation are explicitly specified by the shape of the potential in the Fokker–Planck equation. Consequently, we demonstrate the relationship between advective nonlocal interactions and a local dynamical system.

Quantum interactions exchanging different types of particles play a pivotal rôle in quantum many-body theory, but they are not sufficiently investigated from a mathematical perspective. Here, we consider a system made of two fermions and one boson, in order to study the effect of such an off-diagonal interaction term, having in mind the physics of cuprate superconductors. Additionally, our model also includes a generalized Hubbard interaction (i.e., a general local repulsion term for the fermions). Regarding pairing, exponentially localized dressed bound fermion pairs are shown to exist, and their effective dispersion relation is studied in detail. Scattering properties of the system are derived for two channels: the unbound and bound pair channels. We give particular attention to the regime of very large on-site (Hubbard) repulsions because this situation is relevant for cuprate superconductors.

The crystal structure of cabotegravir has been solved and refined using synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction data and optimized using density functional theory techniques. Cabotegravir crystallizes in space group P21212 (#18) with a = 31.4706(11), b = 13.4934(3), c = 8.43811(12) Å, V = 3,583.201(18) Å3, and Z = 8 at 298 K. The crystal structure consists of stacks of roughly parallel molecules along the c-axis. The molecules form layers parallel to the bc-plane. O–H···O hydrogen bonds link one of the two independent molecules into chains along the b-axis. The powder pattern has been submitted to the International Centre for Diffraction Data (ICDD®) for inclusion in the Powder Diffraction File™ (PDF®).

While opposition parties are expected to challenge the government and present alternatives, they often support government legislation. Synthesizing key theoretical explanations, this study examines how opposition parties weigh their goals of winning the next elections, joining or replacing the government and influencing policy. It is hypothesized that opposition parties are more likely to oppose bills when they see chances for boosting their electoral prospects or an early government alternation. Conversely, they support bills when they see chances for future coalition cooperation or policy influence. The analyses of parliamentary votes across four established democracies – Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom – over 75 years, show that opposition parties strategically prioritize these goals based on bill-specific factors and the institutional context. Most innovatively, office-seeking opposition parties’ strategic behaviour depends on the patterns of government alternation. These findings offer crucial insights into the complex trade-offs opposition parties navigate in parliament.

Saflufenacil, atrazine, and pyroxasulfone represent herbicides with a relative field persistence of low, medium, and high, respectively. Field studies were conducted over 2 yr when herbicides and rates were assembled in a factorial arrangement of treatments, and herbicides were applied at rates of 100, 1,000, and 10,000 g ai ha−1. Soil samples were collected over the course of 365 d and analyzed to detect dissipation of the herbicides. Regression analysis was used to quantify the dissipation of each herbicide. The initial herbicide concentration had no effect on the observed dissipation rates of atrazine or saflufenacil; however, pyroxasulfone dissipation was slower at the highest field dosage in both years. Soils from Georgia, Illinois, and Tennessee were fortified with known concentrations of the three herbicides dissolved in water and incubated at 22 C for 154 d. Laboratory studies generally demonstrated slower dissipation compared to field studies, which is plausible because the important loss mechanisms of volatilization or photodegradation do not occur in the laboratory test system. Pyroxasulfone and saflufenacil exhibited no effect of half-life from various initial concentrations, but atrazine exhibited slower degradation occurring at lower initial concentrations. Findings from these studies suggest that initial herbicide concentration has a limited effect on the dissipation of some herbicides: pyroxasulfone in the field and atrazine in the laboratory. This finding is important for researchers who use herbicide degradation rates in simulation modeling because herbicide degradation is often assumed to be independent of the rate applied. Another aspect of this research was the application of each herbicide alone and in combination with the others. Under field and laboratory conditions, there was no change in dissipation if the herbicides were applied alone or in combination.

Pension systems play a crucial role in providing economic security and supporting well-being in later life. However, as governments implement reforms to ensure financial sustainability—such as raising the retirement age, reducing benefits, and shifting to defined-contribution schemes—these measures often overlook their psychological and social consequences. Pension insecurity has been linked to heightened stress, anxiety, and depression, as well as increased social isolation, particularly among vulnerable populations, including those in physically demanding jobs, low-income workers, and individuals with existing health conditions. Despite clear evidence of these effects, mainstream pension reform discourse prioritises fiscal concerns over social and mental health implications. This article examines pension reform through the Human Rights–Public Health Pension Framework (HRPHPF), integrating legal, public health, and policy perspectives to assess its impact on mental well-being. It situates pension rights within international human rights law, explores the psychological risks associated with pension insecurity, and advocates for a human rights-based approach to pension policymaking. The article calls for integrating mental health impact assessments into pension reforms to prevent adverse outcomes and ensure that policies promote dignity, social inclusion, and economic security in old age. A more balanced approach is necessary to align financial sustainability with broader well-being and human rights principles.

The ‘vorticity transport’ theory by G. I. Taylor states that, in two-dimensional (2-D) turbulent flows, it is not the momentum of the eddies which is conserved from one step of their random walk to the other (the so-called Reynolds–Prandtl analogy), but their vorticity, implying that the conservation laws for the time-averaged profiles for the velocity $u$ and concentration of a passive scalar $c$ must be different. This theory predicts that, across a 2-D wake or a jet, both fields (scaled by their maximal value) are exactly related to each other by $u=c^2.$ We reexamine critically this problem on hand of several experiments with plane and round turbulent jets seeded with high and low diffusing scalars, and conclude that the microscopic equations for $u$ and $c$ are identical, but that the differences between the $u$- and $c$-fields is a genuine mixing problem, sensitive to the dimensionality of the flow and to the intrinsic diffusivity of the scalar $D$, through the Schmidt number ($Sc=\nu /D$) dependence of the flow coarsening scale. We observe that $u=c^{\beta }$ with $\beta =2$ in plane jets irrespective of $Sc$, $\beta =3/2$ in round jets at $Sc=1$ and $\beta =1$ in round jets for $Sc\to \infty$. We explain why, because measurements dating back to the 1930s–40s were all made for heat transport in air ($Sc\approx 1$), agreement with Taylor‘s vision was only coincidental. The experiments and the new representation proposed here are strictly at odds with Reynolds’ analogy, although essentially an adaptation of it to eddies transporting momentum and mass, but liable to exchange mass with a smooth reservoir along their Brownian path.

Philosophy is a discipline which, perhaps more than any other, is preoccupied with its history. At the same time, this preoccupation has as much to do with maintaining and reclaiming traditions as with critiquing and transforming them. Some figures leave indelible marks on schools of thought, even while attributing credit to their forebears on whose shoulders they in turn innovate and critique. The legacy of these figures is instantiated through the generative role they play in inspiring new schools of thought. Such reception is by no means inherently positive. In fact, it is often disagreement rather than affirmation that sustains the lasting impact of an original thinker.