The International Regulations for the Prevention of Collisions at Sea (IRPCS) provide a comprehensive set of instructions for watchkeeping officers to follow and prevent collisions at sea. This study compares how six newly qualified deck officers and six Master Mariners, who were all trained at the same college, applied the IRPCS. Individual, semi-structured interviews were used to uncover how the 12 participants applied and interpreted the rules for three authentic scenarios. Phenomenography was used to capture the qualitatively different means by which participants interpreted the IRPCS. For basic collision avoidance situations, the results indicated little difference between the cohorts' ability to interpret and apply the IRPCS. However, when the scenarios became more complicated, Master Mariners outperformed newly qualified deck officers. In these cases, Master Mariners displayed a greater capacity to assess the overall situation, whereas newly qualified deck officers tended to simplify by focusing on a single rule. These findings indicate that training needs to focus on developing situational awareness; and training scenarios need to incorporate multiple vessels in authentic scenarios to enhance newly qualified deck officers' capacities to interpret the IRPCS.

Sorghum halepense (L.) Pers. (Johnsongrass), an invasive tallgrass, actively inhabits grassland ecosystems of North America. The grasslands ecoregions of the southern Great Plains are particularly susceptible to S. halepense invasion and dominance because of its preferential growth in continental climate zones coupled with its ability to readily colonize recent disturbances associated with declining livestock grazing and anthropogenic energy and housing development. Controlling S. halepense via chemical or mechanical inputs can reduce plant species’ abundance temporarily, but are typically followed by S. halepense re-establishment. S. halepense does, however, provide high quality forage and appears to withstand the frequent drought and flooding events associated with climate change in southern Great Plains ecosystems. In this review, the benefits and drawbacks of S. halepense in southern Great Plains grassland ecosystems are discussed and areas where research on this species could be expanded are identified.

Researchers have argued that grouping heterogeneous linguistic profiles under a dichotomous condition might mask the cognitive effects of bilingualism. The current study used two different analysis approaches (i.e., continuous versus dichotomous) to examine inhibitory control in a sample of 239 young adult bilinguals. Dividing the sample into dichotomous groups based on L2 proficiency (i.e., high-proficient versus low-proficient) and L2 AoA (i.e., early versus late) did not lead to reliable group differences in any of the measurements used. However, the use of a continuous measure revealed that higher L2 proficiency predicted better visual inhibition and earlier L2 AoA was associated with better auditory inhibition. Furthermore, the observed differences were limited to tasks involving stimulus–stimulus competition, but not stimulus–response competition. These findings shed new light on the importance of conceptualising bilingualism as a continuous measure rather than a dichotomous measure and previous research on bilingual performance in different cognitive tasks.

The experimental 7AD rotor blade is assessed for flutter stability in hover to identify the influence of aerodynamic contributions related to blade aerofoil, rotor inflow and wake periodicity on flutter onset. For the aeroelastic analyses, the multibody model is tightly coupled with an unsteady aerodynamic model based on Wagner’s function and related enhancements for the general motion of an aerofoil section considering heave and pitch. The mathematical setup of the approximated Wagner function in state space is extended for axial flow to include unsteady effects related to rotor inflow and wake periodicity. Since the aerodynamic model is based on indicial response functions, a separation of these contributions is possible and allows for the study of their impact on rotor blade flutter. The according flutter results are extracted in terms of frequency and damping behaviour for three test cases that differ in the unsteady aerodynamic model for circulation comprising blade aerofoil, rotor inflow and wake periodicity. As known for articulated rotor blades, also the 7AD blade exhibits a classical bending-torsion coupling. The lowest flutter onset is found for unsteady aerodynamics limited to blade aerofoil, whilst the cases with added rotor inflow and wake periodicity show both the same flutter onset at a 5% larger rotor speed. Here, the influence of rotor inflow plays the major role, since it increases the torsion damping within the critical flutter coupling. Added wake periodicity neither changes frequency nor damping and, hence, does not affect the aeroelastic coupling.

Our work owes its origin to a recent note of Ram Murty [‘Irrationality of zeros of the digamma function’, Number Theory in Memory of Eduard Wirsing (eds. H. Maier, R. Steuding and J. Steuding) (Springer, Cham, 2023), 237–243], in which he proves that all the zeros of the digamma function are irrational with at most one possible exception. We extend this investigation to higher-order polygamma functions.

In this work, we develop an integral representation for the partial L-function of a pair $\pi \times \tau $ of genuine irreducible cuspidal automorphic representations, $\pi $ of the m-fold covering of Matsumoto of the symplectic group $\operatorname {\mathrm {Sp}}_{2n}$ and $\tau $ of a certain covering group of $\operatorname {\mathrm {GL}}_k$, with arbitrary m, n and k. Our construction is based on the recent extension by Cai, Friedberg, Ginzburg and the author, of the classical doubling method of Piatetski-Shapiro and Rallis, from rank-$1$ twists to arbitrary rank twists. We prove a basic global identity for the integral and compute the local integrals with unramified data. Our global results are subject to certain conjectures, but when $k=1$ they are unconditional for all m. One possible future application of this work will be a Shimura-type lift of representations from covering groups to general linear groups. In a recent work, we used the present results in order to provide an analytic definition of local factors for representations of the m-fold covering of $\operatorname {\mathrm {Sp}}_{2n}$.

Pearl millet is a climate-resilient grain and forage crop. Weeds pose a major constraint to its successful production. Limited herbicide options for grass weed control in pearl millet is a serious problem. The objectives of this study were to 1) evaluate the sensitivity of pearl millet parental lines to POST-applied clethodim (136 g ai ha-1), quizalofop-p-ethyl (QPE) (77 ai g ha-1), imazamox (52 g ai ha-1) and nicosulfuron (70 g ai ha-1), and 2) characterize the sensitivity of selected lines to imazamox and nicosulfuron. A total of 56 parental lines were tested. Three lines with low sensitivity to imazamox (ARCH35R, 45R, and 73R), two to nicosulfuron (ARCH45R and 73R), one line with high sensitivity (ARCH21B), and a susceptible sorghum (SOR) hybrid (P84G62) to both herbicides were characterized. All parental lines were sensitive to clethodim and QPE (only four lines showed 2 to 12% survival with 90 to 95% injury at 21 d after application [DAA]). However, all parental lines showed variable sensitivity to imazamox and nicosulfuron (70 to 100% survival with 5 to 70% visible injury and shoot dry biomass reduction at 21 DAA). Dose-response assays revealed that ARCH35R, 45R, and 49R had 7.7 to 12.2 and 3.2- to 12.2-fold reduced sensitivity to imazamox compared to the ARCH21B and SOR, respectively. Similarly, ARCH45R and 49R had 2.5 to 6.0 and 1.5- to 3.7-fold reduced sensitivity to nicosulfuron compared to ARCH21B and SOR, respectively. These findings confirm the first report of reduced sensitivity to imazamox and nicosulfuron among pearl millet lines, suggesting their potential use for in-season grass weed control.

The nature of Indonesia’s foreign policy has long been understood as non-aligned. It has been associated with the basic tenet of bebas aktif (being independent and active) and the evolving international relations of the state, which demonstrated continuity in its non-side-taking position in the Cold War. However, recently, new trends in Indonesia’s regional and global conduct have emerged, including the diversification of multilateral engagements beyond ASEAN, the strengthening of various forms of strategic partnerships with major Indo-Pacific powers, and the adoption of normative hedging policies in response to sensitive international issues. What explains these developments? The conception of Indonesian foreign policy as being defined by non-alignment is no longer appropriate. This article argues that Indonesia now employs a partial multi-alignment strategy. Nevertheless, limited national power and persistent threat perceptions prevent the state from pursuing a fully multi-aligned strategy.

Since early 2021, food prices in Britain have increased by 30%. Using monthly microdata, researchers have found that frictions in the UK’s new trade relationship with the European Union (EU) play an important part in this inflation. The trade relationship is evolving, with further changes expected in 2024. This article establishes a framework for identifying trade-related inflation in close to real time. Using programming techniques, we collect daily prices of over 100,000 supermarket items, covering 80% of the UK grocery market. We identify 1,200 products from 12 countries with a protected designation of origin (PDO). This allows us to link price changes to individual EU economies. Addressing the predominance of EU PDOs, we employ a large language model to discern product origins from additional web-scraped data, thus broadening our analysis to cover over 67,000 products. Since August 2023, we find that prices for EU-originating food products have increased at a rate of 50% higher than domestically sourced products. This study presents a unique methodological approach to dissecting food sector inflation, which is well-positioned to be used in a policy setting, allowing us to assess the possible impact of impending nontariff barriers at the GB-EU border in 2024.

This article explores Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s (1648–1695) strategic poetic approach, aimed at democratizing writing and knowledge among women during her period. It examines her engagement with the literary academy, Casa del Placer, believed to have included nuns from Portuguese convents and women of the nobility. Specifically, the study analyzes Sor Juana’s final poetic work, the Enigmas ofrecidos a la Casa del Placer (1695), comprising twenty unanswerable poetic enigmas. In this collection, Sor Juana departs from individual lyric expression, a shift I call a “poetics of dedication,” advocating for a communal cultural identity centered on her persona’s fame. Through this gesture, Sor Juana appropriates and challenges patriarchal narratives that labeled her as a “monster” due to her perceived exceptionalism. My article shows how, toward the end of her life, Sor Juana embraces and subverts discussions about her exceptional status and transatlantic identity, fostering a sense of transoceanic sorority among women writers of the colonial period.

Wall-climbing robots work on large steel components with magnets, which limits the use of wireless sensors and magnetometers. This study aims to propose a novel autonomous localisation method (RGBD-IMU-AL) with an inertial measurement unit and a fixed RGB-D camera to improve the localisation performance of wall-climbing robots. The method contains five modules: calibration, tracking, three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction, location and attitude estimation. The calibration module is used to obtain the initial attitude angle. The tracking and 3D reconstruction module are used jointly to obtain the rough position and normal vector of the robot chassis. For the location module, a normal vector projection method is established to screen out the top point on the robot shell. An extended Kalman filter (EKF) is used to estimate the heading angle in the attitude estimation module. Experimental results show that the positioning error is within 0⋅02 m, and the positioning performance is better than that of the MS3D method. The heading angle error remains within 3⋅1°. The obtained results prove its applicability for the autonomous localisation in low-texture and magnetically disturbed environments.

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of interference events in automotive scenarios based on radar systems equipped with communication-assisted chirp sequence (CaCS). First, it examines the impact of interference on radar and communication functionalities in CaCS systems according to the orientation of the investigated nodes. For this purpose, a graph-based approach is employed with MATLAB simulations to illustrate the potential occurrence of interference on the graph for communication functionality compared with their counterparts on radar. Second, the paper delves into the impact of interference on the synchronization between two communicating CaCS nodes. It extends a previous study to match the frequency of current radar sensors, where chirp estimation, an adjusted version of the Schmidl & Cox algorithm, and correlation are adopted to synchronize the transmitter and receiver of two CaCS communicating nodes in the time-frequency plane. The proposed synchronization method is finally verified by measurements at ${79}\,\mathrm{GHz}$ with a system-on-chip, where the resulting correlation metric and mean square error are illustrated as validation factors.

Building upon the classification by Lacini, we determine the isomorphism classes of log del Pezzo surfaces of rank one over an algebraically closed field of characteristic five either which are not log liftable over the ring of Witt vectors or whose singularities are not feasible in characteristic zero. We also show that such a surface is always constructed from the Du Val del Pezzo surface of Dynkin type $2[2^4]$. Furthermore, We show that the Kawamata–Viehweg vanishing theorem for ample $\mathbb {Z}$-Weil divisors holds for log del Pezzo surfaces of rank one in characteristic five if those singularities are feasible in characteristic zero.

Artificial intelligence (AI) requires new ways of evaluating national technology use and strategy for African nations. We conduct a survey of existing “readiness” assessments both for general digital adoption and AI policy in particular. We conclude that existing global readiness assessments do not fully capture African states’ progress in AI readiness and lay the groundwork for how assessments can be better used for the African context. We consider the extent to which these indicators map to the African context and what these indicators miss in capturing African states’ on-the-ground work in meeting AI capability. Through case studies of four African nations of diverse geographic and economic dimensions, we identify nuances missed by global assessments and offer high-level policy considerations for how states can best improve their AI readiness standards and prepare their societies to capture the benefits of AI.

Wearable pressure sensors with high sensitivity, fast response time, and low detection limit have great potential for blood pressure monitoring and early diagnosis of hypertension. This article introduces a piezoresistive pressure sensor based on carbon nanotubes (CNTs), polyaniline (PAni), and fabric (CNT/PAni/fabric) for health monitoring applications. This sensor is made by using two layers of linen fabric coated with CNT and PAni. These layers are placed on a polyester fabric substrate. One of the coated layers has a mesh structure, which increases the sensitivity of the sensor and lowers its detection limit. The CNT/PAni/fabric sensor has a high sensitivity of 2.035 kPa−1 at pressures from 0 to 0.2 kPa, a response time of 290 ms, and a detection limit of 1.5 Pa. These features make it suitable for measuring blood pressure. The results obtained by measuring blood pressure using the pulse transit time method on four people, compared with the values obtained using the digital sphygmomanometer, show a discrepancy ranging between 0.019% and 1.62%. Also, the average error and standard deviation for the sensor measurement in systolic and diastolic pressures are 0.56 ± 0.33 and 0.57 ± 0.46, respectively, which shows that measurement with this sensor can be an alternative to existing devices.

Revision of the type species of the Early Ordovician (Tulean, late Tremadocian) bathyurid trilobite Licnocephala Ross, 1951 demonstrates that it has significantly different morphology than that ascribed to it in the earlier literature, which was based largely on species now assigned to a different genus. In addition to the type species, L. bicornuta Ross, 1951, which is fully revised on the basis of new material, four species, all apparently new, have been recovered, two of which, L. ngi n. sp. and L. bradleyi n. sp., are well enough known to formally name. The overall phylogenetic structure of bathyurids is yet to be determined, but several apparent clades can now be recognized and are discussed. Among these is what is termed the “Chapmanopyge group,” including Chapmanopyge Fortey and Bruton, 2013, Punka Fortey, 1979, Uromystrum Whittington, 1953, and Licnocephala. These genera are united in the occurrence of much of the anterior cephalic border on the librigenal anterior projection, with most of the anterior margin of the cranidium representing the suture, the possession of very short (exsag.) strap-like posterior cranidial projections, and extremely narrow visual surfaces. A fifth genus of the group, Ibexocephala n. gen., is represented by two new species, I. lossoae (type species) and I. dekosterae. The taxon features a remarkable cranidial morphology involving a strong deflection of the posteriormost part of the cranidium from the anterior part in sagittal profile.

UUID: http://zoobank.org/ab9a8796-84c7-48b1-b0e5-84a22511a6b4

It is often claimed that gender data gaps (GDGs) are unjust, but the nature of the injustice has not been interrogated. We argue that injustices arising from such data gaps are not merely socio-political but also epistemic: they arbitrarily skew the epistemic landscape in favour of one group over another. GDGs place a greater epistemic burden on women and gender minorities; they have to do more to avoid error and the pay-off is worse: they have a smaller pool of true beliefs on which to act. We suggest that there are both pragmatic and conceptual reasons to differentiate the injustice arising from GDGs from other more familiar varieties (such as testimonial and hermeneutical injustice), and so we introduce the new concept of epistemic deprivation to capture this injustice.