Reflections on the legacy of ‘Jacobin egalitarianism’ in post-Thermidorian France can be seen as following one of three strands: conservative, communist, or democratic. By shedding light on the democratic trajectory, this article addresses the historiographical imbalance that has disproportionately focused on conservative and communist perspectives. This study thereby pursues a renewed understanding of the relationship between the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the evolution of political economy. Through an analysis of Étienne-Géry Lenglet’s treatise, De la propriété (1798), the contexts and content of democratic political economy during the revolutionary decade are identified. Lenglet’s politics formed an intervention in the debates during the Directory on the dynamics of property, morality, the franchise, and the principles of modern polities. His thought exemplifies a Condorcetian egalitarianism that grappled with the dilemmas posed by the rise of commerce and standing armies. This analysis of Lenglet’s work challenges the notion that the radicals of the French Revolution operated outside of Enlightenment political economy: De la propriété was deeply rooted in Enlightenment and revolutionary rhetoric. Lenglet’s politics emerges as a crucial component of diverse reform projects that contradicts reified depictions of Enlightenment political thought.

Field experiments enable researchers to investigate the impacts of both natural and anthropogenic crop production factors on soil respiration (SR), the largest contributor of CO2 emissions from terrestrial ecosystems to the atmosphere. The hypothesis of this study was that the influence of two key anthropogenic factors – applied fertilizers and cultivated crops – on the respiration rate of arable soils could be separated in a field experiment. The objective was therefore to quantify the influence of these factors on SR and assess its dependence on soil characteristics. The study was conducted on the territory of the long-term field experiment at the Timiryazev Academy (Moscow, Russia), where the use of plots of crop rotation involving rye, barley, potatoes and fallow, with liming and various fertilizer types applied, was considered. Measurements were taken using the closed chamber technique and a portable infrared gas analyser from May 2023 to November 2024. During the vegetation periods, SR varied significantly and was not statistically different for most plots (0.063–0.276 g C/(m2·h)), except for the NPK + manure variant (0.371–0.430 g C/(m2·h)). During the bare soil period, SR was similar between fertilizer variants and 10–20 times lower under snow cover than during the vegetation period (0.006–0.018 g C/(m2·h)). A direct dependence of respiration on soil organic carbon and particulate organic matter content was observed (R = 0.552–0.650). Two-way PERMANOVA revealed significant effects of fertilizers (17.2–24.0% of the variance) and crops (6.5–7.1%) on SR, although their interaction was insignificant. Our research could form the basis for developing carbon sequestration compensation measures in response to specific fertilizer doses.

This article examines the local production of statistics of workers recruited by the Portuguese colonial administration in Portuguese Guinea (now Guinea-Bissau) during the last years when the Native Labor Code was in force. By enquiring the statistics produced by commissioners of post in the district of Cacheu in their monthly service journals, it consideres the purposes of the workforce statistics at a moment Portugal had just ratified the International Labor Organization’s Convention on forced labor and compiling reliable statistical records became crucial. Examining statistical production and registration allows us to explore the expectations and tensions within the colonial state regarding the management of forced labor and the functioning of the colonial administration. Rather than a tool for controllling the African workforce, counting workers was a way of controlling and monitoring the performance of colonial administrators. Moreover, statistics could become part of a strategy of hiding and concealing less palatable aspects of daily colonial rule and labor recruitment practices. Indeed, the workforce recruited by the colonial state remained fairly invisible (and thus subject to abuse), be it due to inconsistent record-keeping or the lack of statistics on workforce recruitment altogether.

This article aims to analyse the historical, political, and socio-cultural significance of the Alash Orda movement in shaping Kazakh national identity and the quest for autonomy during the early 20th century. The research draws on a range of primary sources, including archival documents and speeches, as well as scholarly works by Kazakh and international historians. It analyses how Alash leaders developed a multifaceted political strategy to secure autonomy amidst the chaotic transition from imperial rule to revolutionary governance. Central to their approach was diplomacy: the Alash Orda government sought to establish ties with the Russian Provisional Government and A. Kolchak’s White Army, aiming to build alliances supportive of Kazakh autonomy. The movement also reached out to international organisations, seeking external recognition and assistance. Despite these efforts, the study demonstrates that Alash Orda ultimately failed to achieve lasting success in establishing a stable autonomous Kazakh state. Alongside this political narrative, the study highlights the cultural and educational initiatives of Alash Orda, particularly its promotion of the Kazakh language and national identity in the face of Russification policies.

The ‘Problem of Unconceived Alternatives’ – essentially the idea that we can never know when a radically different but better explanation is available – goes to the heart of what is involved in trying to understand the cosmos given our limited capacities for observation, and the challenges of interpreting the data. This article rethinks large-scale cosmological interpretation (in effect, ‘metaphysics’) as a process of modelling ‘protectorates’ of past experience in terms of ‘typicalities’ found in our own local range of empirical data, and then of making it available as a tool for understanding and prediction. Based on the role of examples and analogies (dṛṣṭānta) to build ontologies explaining the cosmos in the history of Indian metaphysics, it argues for a broadly structural realist account. When we ask whether something is a physical object, a material, a force, a field, or some other as-yet-unconceived kind of thing, we use best-fit models that are schematic of the structure of evidence, rather than descriptive of the thing in itself. Given this, Indian metaphysical history suggests strategies for finding unconceived alternative better explanatory models, by stretching the imagination towards novel schemas. In this light, the ‘problem’ becomes a ‘promise’ that unconceived alternatives with ever-better explanatory power await us, subject to more innovative, imaginative interpretations.

Laminar–turbulent transition in shear flow is complicated and follows many possible routes. In this study, we seek to examine a scenario based on three-dimensional (3-D) waves (Jiang et al., 2020, J. Fluid Mech., vol. 890, A11) in compressible mixing layers, and elucidate the role of 3-D waves in generating streamwise vorticity. The Eulerian–Lagrangian coupled method is used to track the evolution of flow structures. Qualitative evidence shows that localised 3-D waves travel coherently with vortex structures at the early transition stage, which is consistent with the behaviours of 3-D waves in boundary layer transitions. To examine the local flow events surrounding 3-D waves and investigate the cause and effect relationships inherent in wave–vortex interaction, the finite-time Lyapunov exponent and components of the strain rate tensor are integrated into evolving Lagrangian material surfaces. The formation of high-shear layers in the flanks of the 3-D waves is observed, driven by fluid ejection and sweep motions induced by the amplification of 3-D waves. The $\Lambda$-shaped vortices are found born in the vicinity of high-shear regions and then stretched into hairpin-shaped vortices farther downstream. Statistical findings reveal that streamwise vorticity develops concurrently with the significant growth of the oblique mode, while the normal motion of wave structures induces a high strain rate layer in the surrounding region. In addition, conditional statistics underscore the significance of high shear in enstrophy generation. Finally, a conceptual model is proposed to depict the evolution of coherent structures based on the relationship among the 3-D waves, high-shear/strain layers, and $\varLambda$-vortices, providing insights into their collective dynamics within transitional mixing layers.

Given a morphism $\varphi \;:\; G \to A \wr B$ from a finitely presented group G to a wreath product $A \wr B$, we show that, if the image of $\varphi$ is a sufficiently large subgroup, then $\mathrm{ker}(\varphi)$ contains a non-abelian free subgroup and $\varphi$ factors through an acylindrically hyperbolic quotient of G. As direct applications, we classify the finitely presented subgroups in $A \wr B$ up to isomorphism and we deduce that a finitely presented group having a wreath product $(\text{non-trivial}) \wr (\text{infinite})$ as a quotient must be SQ-universal (extending theorems of Baumslag and Cornulier–Kar). Finally, we exploit our theorem in order to describe the structure of the automorphism groups of several families of wreath products, highlighting an interesting connection with the Kaplansky conjecture on units in group rings.

Congenital extrahepatic portosystemic shunt (CEPS) is an uncommon condition in which the portal vascular system drains into the systemic veins. We describe an unusual case of CEPS with congenital heart disease, presenting with aneurysmal enlargement of the pulmonary artery and symptoms of airway compression, highlighting the importance of evaluating for additional pathology in case of unexplained oxygenation defect or pulmonary hypertension.

This paper investigates the dynamics of legislative politics within the unique political context of the Macau Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China. Drawing on recently collected data from roll-call votes and committee deliberations taken during the fifth and sixth legislative assemblies, this study shifts the focus from electoral processes and resolution proposals to an analysis of bill proposals with the potential to become law. The findings reveal a structural dichotomy between a large, cohesive pro-establishment faction and a smaller, more fragmented opposition, which contrasts with the findings of previous research that suggest a more balanced opposition. Further analysis of committee deliberations indicates that this stable dichotomy allows regime loyalists to voice dissent without appearing rebellious, enabling ruling elites to gauge and respond to constituents’ preferences on non-sensitive issues. This dynamic highlights the distinct legislative practices of Macau SAR under the “one country, two systems” framework.

What is happening in Gaza now is a total displacement of any form of normality. This displacement of the normal has been effected by a population-wide project of social reproduction. Every Gazan, including children, is solicited to reproduce life, to survive. At the same time, social reproduction in Palestine has always also entailed insurgent possibilities, where this form of labour has indeed sustained and reproduced Palestinian revolutionary action. From collective kitchens to local initiatives of care for children, to using drones as musical instruments to distract children from the deafening violence of its soundscape, social reproduction is iterated as both survival and insurgency. This short intervention tries to think through the question of how to make sense of social reproduction as capitalist oppression through the unwaged housework, and as colonial violence through the mass extermination of a population, without leaving behind its potential for insurgency?

Herbert Butterfield’s The Whig Interpretation of History (1931) is universally received as sceptical of ‘whig’ teleology in historical accounts and, therefore, of politically charged narratives of history. This view stands in need of a basic correction. Butterfield’s work targets teleological accounts which involve a determinate conception of progress such as would arm a partisan politics. He calls this the politics of the ‘general proposition’. Nevertheless, he does defend a conception of progress involving an indeterminate concept. The historian finds, intimated in the detail of the past, that progress is the fruit of interactions between opposing parties. The imperative for the statesman in the present, then, is to facilitate such interactions. In short, The Whig Interpretation of History is a positive work of political thought. Looked at this way, Butterfield’s later, controversial work, The Englishman & His History, does not appear to be in contradiction with the earlier book so much as a polemical expression of it. The two books together present what may be called Butterfield’s politics of historiography. Histories which present progress as a straight line, to be co-opted by one party, encourage precisely the political action which impedes progress. Butterfield, in short, is still a kind of ‘whig’.

Finite-amplitude spiral vortex flows are obtained numerically for the Taylor–Couette system in the narrow limit of the gap between two concentric rotating cylinders. These spiral vortex flows bifurcate from circular Couette flow before axisymmetric Taylor vortex flow sets in when the ratio $\mu$ of the angular velocities of the outer to the inner cylinder is less than −0.78, consistent with the results of linear stability analysis by Krueger et al. (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 24, 1966, pp. 521–538), while the boundary of existence of spiral vortex flows is determined not by the linear critical point, but by the saddle-node point of the subcritical spiral vortex flow branch for $\mu \lessapprox -0.75$, when the axial wavenumber $\beta =2.0$. It is found that the nonlinear spiral vortex flows exhibit the mean flow in the axial direction as well as in the azimuthal direction, and that the profiles of both mean-flow components are asymmetric about the centre plane between the gap.

Gorstian sediments in south-central Wales preserve an asymmetric, compound mixed-process delta system north of the Carreg Cennen Disturbance and east of the Golden Grove Axis. The 30 km SW-NE outcrop, extending from the Cennen Valley to Y Pigwn, is oblique to the NNE delta progradation direction. The Hafod Fawr Formation comprises subaqueous delta slope deposits. Sandstone bed amalgamation indicates shoaling and wave/storm influence within the overlying subaqueous delta platform deposits of the Cwar Glas Member. The succeeding Mynydd Myddfai Sandstone Formation contains shoreline delta lithofacies within three geographical tracts. An embryonic Golden Grove Axis shed shoal water shoreline fan-delta and alluvial fan lithofacies (of the Trichrug Formation) in the Cennen Valley Tract. The SW Tract (Cilmaenllwyd to Banc Celynog) was deposited on the updrift flank of the asymmetric delta, with longshore drift to the NE. Amalgamated sandstone bedsets dominate in the mouth bar and terminal distributary channel lithofacies. Pen y Bicws preserves the axial gravel bed distributary channel lithofacies, which created a headland and palaeogeographic divide between the SW and NE tracts. The latter (Sawdde Gorge to Y Pigwn) records deposition in a low-energy bay that hosted cycles of heterolithic lithofacies. Collectively, these tracts occupied part of a sediment supply route to deeper facies of the subsidence-prone Clun Forest Sub-Basin. Emergent delta plain deposits become dominant within the overlying Trichrug Formation. Thin, locally preserved deposits of the Cribyn Du Member record delta abandonment and transgression during the Ludfordian associated with basin reconfiguration and expansion of the Caer’r mynach Seaway.