In Ray Cummings's loony 1922 novel The Girl in the Golden Atom, a man known only as the Chemist discovers a beautiful woman in a subatomic world in the gold of his mother's wedding ring. Smitten, he figures out how to shrink himself to join her. Upon his return to our world, he finds that although seven days passed for him while “in the ring,” he has arrived back only forty hours after leaving. Over drinks, the Banker asks him to explain how the difference is possible. The Chemist replies, “To get a conception of this change you must analyze definitely what time is. We measure and mark it by years, months, and so forth, down to minutes and seconds, all based upon the movements of our earth around its sun. But that is the measurement of time, not time itself.” He then turns to the Big Business Man and asks, “How would you describe time?” “The Big Business Man smiled. ‘Time,’ he said, ‘is what keeps everything from happening at once.’”

Amur honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii) is an aggressive invader of forests throughout the eastern United States. While self-pollination has been identified as an important trait of invasive plant species, this trait is understudied, and Amur honeysuckle is anecdotally described as lacking this characteristic. To examine the ability of Amur honeysuckle to self-pollinate, we selected 171 individual shrubs distributed across nine sites. Each site was grouped into one of three invasion types: heavy, light, and sprouting (sites on which a basal cutting treatment previously occurred, but Amur honeysuckle was allowed to reestablish). We compared the number of berries, seeds per berry, and seed germination rates of self- and open-pollinated flowers by pairing branches covered with pollination bags prior to flower emergence with uncovered branches on the same individual shrub. Out of 171 individuals, 48 produced berries from self-pollination within pollination bags (28%), with 48% of bagged branches exhibiting some degree of necrosis or chlorosis, presumably due to increased temperature and humidity. Berries from self-pollination produced 1.5 ± 1.4 (mean ± 1 SD) seeds per berry, whereas berries resulting from open-pollination produced 3.3 ± 1.5 seeds per berry. In a germination trial, 47.3% of self-pollinated seeds germinated, compared to 41.7% of open-pollinated seeds. This study has shown that Amur honeysuckle can self-pollinate and set viable seed, providing the species with an important mechanism to increase population abundance during the early stages of invasion.

We establish hyperweak boundedness of area functions, square functions, maximal operators, and Calderón–Zygmund operators on products of two stratified Lie groups.

One of the issues for determination in All Progressives Congress v Bashir Sheriff and Others was whether the first respondent won the primary election that was conducted according to the Electoral Act 2022. This issue, however, was not addressed because the Supreme Court set aside the suit because the first respondent failed to initiate it through the proper originating process. This decision contrasts with its previous judgment in Ekanem v The Registered Trustees of the Church of Christ the Good Shepherd, where it held that an inappropriate originating process does not undermine the competence of a suit. By departing from this previous decision, this note argues that there is a high possibility that the Supreme Court may have aided in the subversion of the Constitution. It recommends that the Electoral Act 2022 be amended to restrict the court's authority to dismiss election disputes if they were initiated through inappropriate originating processes.

Paediatric functional gastrointestinal disorders (P-FGIDs) are common, affecting up to 25% of children worldwide. They are characterised by chronic abdominal pain and/or altered bowel habits without an underlying disease pathology. P-FGIDs are often associated with co-occurring anxiety and depression across all ages and treating P-FGIDs may provide an opportunity to develop a young person's wider emotion regulation capacities. Using a fictitious case vignette, we outline the range of psychosocial and biomedical treatments for the disorder and the need for an integrated and holistic approach. We propose that by intervening early and enabling children to be curious about, rather than fearful of, their bodily sensations, clinicians may be able to alter harmful illness trajectories in both pain and psychiatric domains.

Avian Plasmodium parasites can be pathogenic to their vertebrate hosts. Although cases of anaemia are frequently reported in parasitized birds, the potential damage caused by the parasite during the exoerythrocytic reproduction phase remains poorly investigated. Here, we report 2 individuals of red-legged seriemas (Cariama cristata) infected with 2 different lineages of Plasmodium huffi, one of them exhibiting potential malarial-compatible tissue lesions in the spleen, liver, brain and lungs, alongside molecular confirmation of parasite presence in the spleen. Previously classified as specific to birds from the order Piciformes, this parasite has shown different associated lineages amplified across diverse host orders in South America (Anseriformes, Charadriiformes, Columbiformes, Galliformes, Pelecaniformes and Passeriformes). Those infections, however, were defined as abortive due to the absence of gametocytes visualized in blood smear slides. Herein, we confirm P. huffi as a generalist parasite based on the first morphological characterization in the peripheral blood of a bird outside the Piciformes order. This is also the first morphological and molecular description of a Plasmodium species in Cariamiformes. In addition to the morphological analyses, we have also proposed a novel phylogenetic hypothesis based on the partial cytb gene and the near-complete mitochondrial genome of this parasite. Our findings support that the division of the genus Plasmodium into subgenera is not monophyletic, as P. (Huffia) huffi and its associated lineages cluster more closely with Plasmodium (Haemamoeba) gallinaceum than with Plasmodium (Huffia) elongatum.

The chronology of the Bronze Age in the Carpathian basin is largely based on relative chronologies, i.e. stylistic analysis of ceramic (and other) materials. While the number of radiocarbon dates is generally increasing, certain important sites are still poorly dated. One of the largest necropolises from this period, i.e. Mokrin necropolis, which traditionally belongs to Maros culture, is dated only with 6 radiocarbon dates. Here we synthesize the previous 6 radiocarbon dates with 13 new radiocarbon dates, with two goals in mind: 1) to explore the absolute chronology of the site, specifically to determine its chronological limits; and 2) to test hypotheses about the spatio-temporal organization of the site. Our data show that the chronological limits of the necropolis were most probably between 2073 and 1822 BC. Concerning traditional relative chronologies, none of the previous hypotheses about the internal chronological development of the necropolis is supported by data. Our results suggest that all parts of the necropolis were used relatively simultaneously.

Financial institutions spanning Global North and South are increasingly adopting an agenda of ‘women’s financial inclusion’. The women’s inclusion agenda in finance reflects dynamics of deep marketization that prescribe common economic policy solutions, transcending formerly significant distinctions of geography and social context. In this case, the closing of gender gaps is the universally proscribed policy. Yet this agenda elicits vastly different practices in ‘high’ finance registers where women are recruited as professionals, and microfinance registers where women are incorporated as borrowers. Relating multisited ethnographic materials from a US gender diversity organization and microfinance institutions in India, we ask: on what terms does inclusion take place? First, we examine how gender is constructed across finance institutions by essentializing women as virtuous. These constructions play out according to context-specific gender politics on questions of women’s economic empowerment – concerning neoliberal iterations of feminism in the US case, and financialization of social reproduction in India. Second, what do women’s everyday engagements with the inclusion agenda indicate about the terms of financial inclusion? Women contend with characterizations of themselves as risk-averse professionals and responsible borrowers, respectively, with ambivalence. Their contextually located ambivalent responses are points of both leverage and critique for the financial inclusion agenda.

This article investigates the developments of hawker discourse and movements across the Malay(si)an peninsula in the first decade of independence. Looking at news coverage and municipal records, it examines the contingent, gendered, and egalitarian qualities of hawking as labour which led to its adoption by people experiencing hardship, and influenced the ways in which municipal authorities and the public discussed hawkers. In effect, hawkers, long significant to the historical and cultural systems of Malayan trade, were recharacterized as vulnerable subjects at the urban margins. The article then explores how local administrations understood and regulated hawkers through categories of location, race, and food, shaping the politics and governance of hawkers in public spaces. To engage with such governance, hawkers formed associations that protested against injustice and established dialogue with municipal and town councils, impelling authorities to consider a more significant inclusion of hawking in street planning. Throughout the period, the potential and limits of hawker inclusion in post-colonial public spaces became subject to significant debate between municipal authorities, political representatives, and hawkers. As local administrations eventually deepened their commitment to support hawkers, they also expanded their regulation, signifying a cautious imperative to legitimate hawkers and influencing the logic of post-independence planned spaces.

Thrust changes near walls and the ground plane are influenced by the rotor’s position in indoor flight environments. This study evaluates variations in rotor thrust near a corner, which includes one wall and the ground plane, as well as a vertex, which involves two walls and the ground plane; these phenomena are referred to as the corner and vertex effects, respectively. Additionally, the rotor wake in the vertex effect was visualised using the laser sheet method, and wake velocity was measured with a hot-wire probe. The thrust change in the corner effect on the ground side was minimal, primarily depending on the ground effect. In the vertex effect, thrust decreased to 93% of the thrust outside the vertex effect when the rotor height above ground was 2.5 times the rotor radius, and the rotor was distanced from the two walls by 1.5 times the rotor radius. Flow visualisation and hot-wire velocimetry results suggest that the thrust decrease was caused by the flow recirculation structure between the fountain flow developed along the vertical corner and rotor inflow. The thrust decreases under conditions where the circulation structure appears, and fountain flow velocity accelerates the recirculation. These findings aid in planning the flight path of small multirotors in indoor flight conditions by providing guidance on distances that do not alter rotor thrust near corners and vertices.

What is ontological (in)security? Recent scholarship on ontological security in International Relations has increasingly turned to the concept's theoretical origins in psychoanalysis and existential philosophy to address the field's (meta)theoretical limitations. This article argues that this development also necessitates an interrogation of the concept of ontological security itself to address the field's theoretical tensions. Further developing the nascent Kleinian approach to ontological security, this article conceptualises ontological (in)security as two distinct positions that denote the different ways in which subjects, be they individuals, groups, or states, manage anxiety. To develop this proposition, the article draws on Melanie Klein's work on the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions to elucidate these positions of ontological (in)security, their respective defence mechanisms against anxiety, and their socio-political implications. This Kleinian approach facilitates a clear theoretical distinction between security and insecurity, providing an analytical toolbox to differentiate the various ways in which anxiety is managed in different positions. This framework particularly underscores the ethical, reparative, and transformative potential of the position of ontological security, aspects that have received limited theoretical and empirical attention to date.

The Asian corn borer, Ostrinia furnacalis (Guenée), emerges as a significant threat to maize cultivation, inflicting substantial damage upon the crops. Particularly, its larval stage represents a critical point characterised by significant economic consequences on maize yield. To manage the infestation of this pest effectively, timely and precise identification of its larval stages is required. Currently, the absence of techniques capable of addressing this urgent need poses a formidable challenge to agricultural practitioners. To mitigate this issue, the current study aims to establish models conducive to the identification of larval stages. Furthermore, this study aims to devise predictive models for estimating larval weights, thereby enhancing the precision and efficacy of pest management strategies. For this, 9 classification and 11 regression models were established using four feature datasets based on the following features geometry, colour, and texture. Effectiveness of the models was determined by comparing metrics such as accuracy, precision, recall, F1-score, coefficient of determination, root mean squared error, mean absolute error, and mean absolute percentage error. Furthermore, Shapley Additive exPlanations analysis was employed to analyse the importance of features. Our results revealed that for instar identification, the DecisionTreeClassifier model exhibited the best performance with an accuracy of 84%. For larval weight, the SupportVectorRegressor model performed best with R2 of 0.9742. Overall, these findings present a novel and accurate approach to identify instar and predict the weight of O. furnacalis larvae, offering valuable insights for the implementation of management strategies against this key pest.