A long-standing classification problem in archaeology is determining the type of weapon delivery system used by people in the past. This is usually done by comparing archaeological points to known dart and arrow points from the ethnographic and archaeological record. There are no simple criteria to discriminate between these two states and the challenge is to identify a subset of traits and their interactions to solve this problem. Here we introduce a Bayesian technique of classifying dart and arrow. Using machine-learning feature selection, we first find the optimal set of variables for classification. We then use a Generalized Additive Model to model the interaction of these variables in a Bayesian logistic framework to capture the nonlinear decision boundary between darts and arrows and assign probabilities of a point belonging to either state. To counteract the imbalance of having more arrows than darts, we adjust the typical decision cutoff using an iterative approach that balances sensitivity and specificity. We increase the sample of known arrow and dart points with 102 previously published specimens from the West. The code for our model is available and easily accessible through an online application. We apply our model to published dart-versus-arrow classifications to demonstrate its utility.

How do populist publics visually represent themselves, and how have shifts in visual technologies altered this process? While research on the visual politics of populism has largely focused on ‘top-down’ uses of imagery by populist leaders and parties, less attention has been paid to how ‘the people’ depict themselves from the ‘bottom up’. This article addresses this gap by theorising the concept of the visual self-mediation of ‘the people’ and tracing its evolution across two emblematic episodes in which contested claims to popular sovereignty were visually enacted: the 2002 Venezuelan coup attempt against Hugo Chávez and the 2021 US Capitol riots. Through a structured, diachronic comparison, the article identifies a broader historical shift – from televisual mediation of ‘the people’, dependent on elite controlled platforms, to digitally enabled self-mediation, wherein publics broadcast themselves as ‘the people’ in real time via smartphones and social media. It analyses how populist publics visually presented themselves, as well as the intended and unintended audiences for these visuals. In foregrounding this transformation, the article contributes to ongoing debates in visual politics, media ecologies, and populism by illustrating how digital infrastructures have reconfigured the visibility, performativity, and legitimacy of populist publics in the twenty-first century.

This article explores the experiences of social participation among Indigenous, migrant and older people with disabilities in Chile. While substantial evidence shows the importance of social participation in ageing policy, research on how diverse groups of older people in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) perceive and engage in it is limited. The article examines the participatory practices of these populations and the challenges they face in accessing and being included in their chosen spaces of engagement. Six focus groups were held with key informants from government offices and community-based organizations, and individual in-depth interviews were conducted with older people. The collected data were then analysed using an inductive content analysis approach. Findings show that several historical and structural factors influence social participation among the three studied groups, particularly their vulnerability to precarity and discrimination in the Chilean context. The dominant perspective of key informants on social participation – as a means of staying healthy, keeping busy and finding contentment – should be contrasted with the actual social, cultural and economic circumstances. Indeed, most of the older participants in this study stated that they use social participation as a means of exercising agency, as it allows them to develop significant and supportive relationships that facilitate their daily lives and provide opportunities for individual and collective empowerment. This article contributes to the development of social gerontology in the Global South by integrating diversity into research design and enhancing understanding of the conditions under which people in Chile age and participate in society.

Climate change affects not only temperatures but also rainfall patterns, which can either accentuate or mitigate the effects of warming on water stress in terrestrial insects. Water stress is more likely to affect eggs and larvae due to their small size. Hemlock looper (Lepidoptera: Geometridae) overwinters as eggs, and first-instar larvae must move to settle on host trees in the spring. Their survival depends both on their energy and water reserves that remain after overwintering and on the abiotic conditions present each spring. The effects of humidity (40, 60, and 80%) on the hatching success, time to hatch, and lifespan of unfed first-instar hemlock looper larvae were assessed at two temperatures, at 10 °C and at 22 °C. Lower humidity levels reduced hatching success and increased time to hatch, suggesting that humidity modulates development. On the other hand, higher temperatures reduced hatching success and time to hatch. The survival probability of unfed first-instar larvae was not influenced by ambient humidity but was longer for larvae from eggs reared at high humidity and 10 °C, suggesting that the physiological state of larvae at the time of hatching influences their survival. The ecological significance of these results and how they can influence our management tools are discussed.

Eighteenth-century Stockholm saw a rise in illegitimate births. Yet, premarital sex was illegal, and the early modern household offered few private spaces. Where did unmarried people meet for courtship, intimacy and sex in the early modern city? In this article, we explore the spaces used for illicit sex through a database containing baptismal records of illegitimate children in eighteenth-century Stockholm. We use these records to map the locations where and approximate times when mothers stated their children were conceived. We find that shared households and workplaces were the most common meeting places for couples, that sexual activity took place towards the city centre and not on its outskirts and that urban households in the eighteenth century appear to have been characterized by a porousness and openness that allowed for the creation of pockets of privacy. Lastly, we find little evidence for any organized sex trade in the sources.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the critical need for robust crisis standards of care (CSC) protocols to handle extreme strain when scarce resources require rationing. Evaluating how such policies might perform in the real world remains paramount; however, to date, study of their performance has been limited to retrospective cohort designs using virtual simulations.1,2 The Sequential Organ Failure Assessment score (SOFA)—a composite 0-24 score of organ dysfunction incorporating neurologic, pulmonary, cardiovascular, hematologic, hepatobiliary, and renal subscores—remains ubiquitous in nearly all crisis standards of care protocols3,4,5 despite concerns regarding the utilization and potentially exacerbating existing racial inequities.5 Existing simulation studies have handled missing SOFA values by either imputing zero or assuming data are missing at random, followed by complex computational statistical modeling.6,7 This approach may introduce significant bias, with larger outcome implications than missing data in other forms of medical research, as these values directly affect decisions on who receives life-sustaining therapies. Our study aims to better understand the frequency, structure, and consequence of missing data in CSC simulation studies.

Liquid hydrogen (LH2) is a promising energy carrier to decrease the climate impact of aviation. However, the inevitable formation of hydrogen boil-off gas (BOG) is a main drawback of LH2. As the venting of BOG reduces the overall efficiency and implies a safety risk at the airport, means for capturing and re-using should be implemented. Metal hydrides (MHs) offer promising approaches for BOG recovery, as they can directly absorb the BOG at ambient pressures and temperatures. Hence, this study elaborates a design concept for such an MH-based BOG recovery system at hydrogen-ready airports. The conceptual design involves the following process steps: identify the requirements, establish a functional structure, determine working principles and combine the working principles to generate a promising solution.

In firefighting missions, human firefighters are often exposed to high-risk environments such as intense heat and limited visibility. To address this, firefighting robots can serve as valuable agents for autonomous navigation and flame perception. This paper proposes a novel visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) framework, Fire SLAM, tailored for firefighting scenarios. The system integrates a flame detection and tracking thread-based on the YOLOv8n network and Kalman filtering-to achieve real-time flame detection, tracking, and 3D localization. By leveraging the detection results, dynamic flame regions are excluded from the SLAM front-end, allowing static features to be used for robust pose estimation and loop closure. To validate the proposed system, multiple datasets were collected from real-world and simulated fire environments. Experimental results demonstrate that Fire SLAM improves localization accuracy and robustness in fire scenes with flame disturbances, showing promise for autonomous firefighting robot deployment.

This study included postpartum women who survived the earthquake that occurred on February 6, 2023, with epicenters in Kahramanmaraş, and assessed their experiences, psychosocial needs using a qualitative research method. The findings were organized under 5 key themes: “psychological processes experienced during and after the earthquake,” “experiences related to pregnancy and childbirth,” “biopsychosocial problems experienced after the earthquake,” “experiences related to s workers,” and “expectations and needs of earthquake-affected mothers.” Codes were established for women that were specific to their emotional responses following the earthquake: fear, sorrow, anxiety, difficulty in controlling anger, hopelessness, exhaustion, and inability to experience the mourning process; concerning their emotional reactions at the moment of the earthquake: extreme fear, helplessness, shock, and grief response; and regarding the traumatic effects of the earthquake: post-traumatic growth and post-traumatic stress disorder. During and after an earthquake, pregnant and postpartum women have biopsychosocial needs such as shelter, food, clothing, hygiene, support, and care, and these needs should be prioritized. Early psychological interventions should be provided to help women deal with the negative traumatic experiences they encounter during this process. Relevant institutions should create individual care-focused support systems and early intervention to deliver comprehensive care following earthquake.

Traditionally, early life adversity research has focused on negative outcomes. Contrastingly, the hidden talents framework asserts that many individuals develop specialized abilities as a direct result of their adversity exposure. This framework serves as the foundation for the current study, which systematically reviews extant empirical studies investigating hidden talents or stress-adapted skills in individuals who have experienced early adversity. Synthesizing data through a developmental lens, this review examines how these skills manifest at different stages of development. Guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses, we searched four databases and identified 45 eligible studies. Data on country of origin, sample size, predictor and outcome themes, and participant characteristics were extracted. Categorized into cognitive, social, and physiological domains, findings reveal that early adversity was associated with adaptive skills aligned with environmental demands (e.g., heightened emotional awareness, intuitive decision-making, empathy). While cognitive adaptations were the most studied, social and physiological adaptations remain underexplored. Some studies also reported null effects. Future directions include calls for examination of developmental pathways, longitudinal designs, diverse sampling, and culturally responsive approaches to better understand hidden talents and inform strength-based interventions.

We contribute to the recent debate on the instability of the slope of the Phillips curve by offering insights from a flexible time-varying instrumental variable (IV) approach robust to weak instruments. Our robust approach focuses directly on the Phillips curve and allows general forms of instability, in contrast to current approaches based either on structural models with time-varying parameters or IV estimates in ad-hoc sub-samples. We find evidence of a weakening of the slope of the Phillips curve starting around 1980. We also offer novel insights on the Phillips curve during the recent pandemic: The flattening has reverted and the Phillips curve is back.

Scores of young men and women were killed by regime forces during the Arab Spring in Egypt (2011–2013). Their photographs assumed iconic proportions, meandering online and off through countless acts of creative remediation. This essay examines the different kinds of social and political work that these photographs came to play during this period, including as indexes of the revolutionary cause and as mediators of revolutionary subjectivities at a distance. This essay departs from extant studies of visual cultures of secular martyrdom or funerary portraiture framed by notions of commemoration, and instead stresses contingent presence grounded in the specific liminal temporality of the revolutionary process. In this temporal limbo, photographs of martyrs often blurred conventional boundaries between representations and their referents. Established visual conventions of funerary portraiture were turned upside down, and portraits of martyrs were understood not as representations of the dead, but as alive and present, sometimes more alive than the dwindling group of dedicated revolutionaries.

The Hooded Vulture Necrosyrtes monachus, a Critically Endangered species, faces population declines across its range, yet limited data exist on its nesting ecology and causes of breeding failure. This study used camera trapping and systematic nest searches to locate and monitor nests in southern Ghana to investigate nest-site characteristics and causes of nest failure. Eight active nests were found, mostly on tall native or introduced trees, with an average tree height of 24.94 ± 3.68 m. The nests were positioned at an average hight of 18.7 ± 4.73 m above the ground, typically in a fork formed by at least three branches. Nest-sites were in areas with greater canopy cover, that were closer to water, and with taller surrounding trees compared with non-nesting sites. Nesting success was high with a 75% fledging rate from the studied nests. Camera traps revealed that egg failures at two nests were caused by inadvertent crushing of the eggs by adult vultures while arranging nest materials, and one chick mortality resulted from parental cannibalism. However, adults at one nest successfully re-laid and fledged a chick after the initial egg loss. The findings show higher nest placement in southern Ghana than in previous studies from savanna regions, reflecting differences in habitat structure and available tree species. The study also identified nest destruction by humans and targeted tree removal as major threats to nest success in the study area. The findings highlight the complexity of natural nesting environments, where even unintentional behaviours, such as egg crushing, can affect reproductive outcomes. They also underscore the need to integrate behavioural studies into vulture conservation strategies. Addressing anthropogenic threats, including persecution, nest removal, and loss of nesting and roosting trees, is critical for the survival of this Critically Endangered species.