What is it to treat people with respect when commenting upon their appearance? What duties does widespread vulnerability to body anxiety impose on us concerning the remarks we make about people’s looks? I provide partial answers to these questions by engaging with three proposals. First, the account of aesthetic exploration developed by Sherri Irvin. Second, the principle of the unmodified body defended by Clare Chambers. Third, the ideal of body reflexivity advocated by Kate Manne. I argue that none of the moral duties these accounts point towards can be justified straightforwardly as a requirement of treating people with equal respect, but the idea that it is disrespectful to treat a person’s appearance as inadequate can be defended when hierarchies of attractiveness translate into differences in perceived moral status. Furthermore, qualified versions of each can be justified by the protection they provide when body shaming is liable to cause debilitating anxiety.

Bien qu’il soit tentant de s’attarder surtout sur les événements marquant la suite des élections américaines tant les deux derniers mois de l’année ont modifié le paradigme en ce qui concerne le droit du commerce international, cette chronique tentera de décrire et d’analyser l’année 2024 dans sa globalité. On pourrait ainsi diviser l’année en deux: l’avant et l’après 5 novembre 2024.

I am pleased to rise in the House today in support of this historic legislation to implement the modernization of the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement. This is an incredibly important agreement for both Canada and Ukraine, and I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate what this legislation would accomplish.

We study Langevin-type algorithms for sampling from Gibbs distributions such that the potentials are dissipative and their weak gradients have finite moduli of continuity not necessarily convergent to zero. Our main result is a non-asymptotic upper bound on the 2-Wasserstein distance between a Gibbs distribution and the law of general Langevin-type algorithms based on a Liptser–Shiryaev-type condition for change of measures and Poincaré inequalities. We apply this bound to show that the Langevin Monte Carlo algorithm can approximate Gibbs distributions with arbitrary accuracy if the potentials are dissipative and their gradients are uniformly continuous. We also propose Langevin-type algorithms with spherical smoothing for distributions whose potentials are not convex or continuously differentiable and show their polynomial complexities.

In this paper, a single passage unsteady numerical simulation is carried out. Three different self-recirculating casing treatment structures with circumferential coverage ratios of 20%, 40% and 60% were designed. The calculation results show that as the circumferential coverage ratio increases, the stability enhancement ability of the self-recirculating casing also increases. Especially when the circumferential coverage ratio increases to 60%, the self-recirculating casing achieves the largest increase in stall margin, with an increase of 49.05%, but the decrease in the peak efficiency is 1.33%. An increase in the circumferential coverage ratio enhances the suction capacity of the self-recirculating casing. This enables it to better suppress the expansion of the leakage flow and reduce the degree of blockage within the passage. The self-recirculating casing can inhibit the occurrence of vortex breakdown in the tip passage. However, at the low flow rate point, it cannot effectively eliminate the interaction between the leakage streamlines. When the circumferential coverage ratio is relatively large, it can suppress the airflow separation phenomenon. The flow separation near the blade trailing edge and the mixing of the leakage flow within the tip passage are important reasons for the internal flow instability of the self-recirculating casing compressor.

Numerous phenomena prompt inquiries into their origins, spanning from the cosmos and life, to species, civilizations, and pandemics. Answering these questions entails offering origin explanations. Here, I explore the distinctive characteristics of origin explanations that distinguish them from other types of explanations. I explicate the concept of an origin phenomenon and suggest conceptualizing an origin explanation as a specific form of causal explanation—one that reveals a bottleneck in the causal network leading to an origin phenomenon. The resulting framework highlights the specificity of origin explanations across disciplines, pinpointing distinctive topological features within the causal structure of the world.

Aerial lidar (light detection and ranging) has been hailed as a revolutionary technology in archaeological survey because it can map vast areas with high-precision and seemingly peer beneath forest cover. This excitement has led to a proliferation of lidar scans, including calls to map the entire land surface of earth. Highlighting how the growth of aerial lidar is tied to fast capitalism, this article seeks to temporarily pause the global rush for data collection/extraction by focusing on the ethical dilemmas of remotely scanning Indigenous homelands and heritage. Although lidar specialists must obtain federal permissions for their work, few engage with people directly in the path of their scans or descendant stakeholders. This oversight perpetuates colonial oppression by objectifying Indigenous descendants. To address Indigenous objectification, I argue that aerial lidar mapping should be preceded by a concerted, culturally sensitive effort to obtain informed consent from local and descendant groups. With the Mensabak Archaeological Project as a case study, I demonstrate how aerial lidar can become part of a collaborative, humanizing praxis.

The United States has long been a global power deeply entangled in regions like Europe and the Middle East, where its foreign policy has been anchored in clear ontological scripts – defender of democracy, bulwark against terrorism, guarantor of order. In contrast, the Arctic has historically lacked this symbolic and strategic integration into US identity. Despite its formal status as an Arctic state since the 1867 purchase of Alaska, the region has remained ontologically peripheral to US strategic imagination. This paper explores the implications of that absence. Through discourse and content analyses of Arctic strategy documents and congressional hearings from 1867 to 2024, I identify four distinct eras of US Arctic engagement and examine how the region’s underdefined identity position has generated scattered and inconsistent policy. The paper argues that this form of ontological ambiguity has given rise to growing anxiety, particularly status anxiety, amid rising Arctic investments by Russia and China. Rather than paralyzing decision-making, however, this anxiety has begun to function as a catalyst, prompting renewed attention to the Arctic’s strategic, environmental, and symbolic relevance.

The threshold values of visceral fat area (VFA) proposed by existing studies for predicting metabolic syndrome (MetS) are contentious, necessitating further empirical evidence. We conducted a cross-sectional study to assess VFA using bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) technology among middle-aged and elderly individuals in the Sichuan area of China. Firstly, we compared the predictive ability of VFA, waist circumference (WC), and body mass index (BMI) among participants with MetS (excluding WC). In males, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) was 0.680 for VFA, 0.670 for WC, and 0.665 for BMI, with corresponding optimal cut-off values of 77.45 cm2, 83.50 cm, and 24.19 kg/m2. In females, the AUC values and optimal cut-offs were 0.628 (103.55 cm2) for VFA, 0.671 (77.50 cm) for WC, and 0.643 (24.32 kg/m2) for BMI. Additionally, for MetS defined with WC included, the AUC of VFA for prediction was higher in males (0.785) than in females (0.717), with optimal cut-offs of 85.15 cm2 (males) and 109.55 cm2 (females). Further age-stratified analysis revealed gender-specific VFA cut-offs: in males, 80.95 cm2 (45-59 years), 85.15 cm2 (60-74 years), and 77.50 cm2 (≥75 years); in females, 109.65 cm2 (45-59 years), 112.15 cm2 (60-74 years), and 103.05 cm2 (≥75 years). In conclusion, VFA is an effective predictor of MetS, with its optimal cut-off value varying by age and being higher in females than in males.

This paper seeks to understand the different conceptual representations of R. Murray Schafer’s ideas in scholarly literature and their relevance within framework of transversal competences as a perspective of education in the 21st century. A systematic review of the literature was carried out using the PRISMA guidelines as a reference. Five multidisciplinary databases were searched between 2000 and 2024 in English, Spanish and Portuguese. The 29 scientific papers included in the review present perspectives from four continents, diverse areas of knowledge and different educational focuses and levels. The results show the relevance of three concepts: listening as a disposition, creative music education as a procedure and soundscape as an interdisciplinary resource. These concepts are approached from the artistic-musical and transdisciplinary fields, and represented from different perspectives: inclusive, aesthetic, social and economic. It is concluded that M. Schafer’s ideas are characterised by their topicality due to the transversal approach they promote, where creativity, social and environmental commitment, and the participation of all in musical learning are coherent with the challenges of musical education and training to which we aspire.

The inclusion of legumes in crop rotations can provide numerous benefits to crop productivity and environmental sustainability. However, these benefits have primarily been documented in systems that involve regular fertilization, limiting our understanding of legume effects under low-input or long-term unfertilized conditions. Though soybean (Glycine max L.) is one of the globally most important cultivated legumes, data on its effect on subsequent common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) crop in low-input European systems are scarce. This study builds on long-term historically consistent trails of two rotation systems: maize-winter wheat (M-W) and maize-soybean-winter wheat (M-S-W) under rainfed conditions on a Chernozem in Serbia, maintained without fertilization for over 70 years. The aim of our work was to evaluate the effect of soybean as pre-crop on wheat yield and yield components and accumulation of Fe, Zn, Cu and Mn in grain. Over five growing seasons, the soybean pre-crop effect resulted in a grain yield increase ranging from 43% to 301%. Results showed that three-fold higher soil mineral N promoted productive tillering, spike development and grain setting in M-S-W. Two-year data on micronutrient concentrations in grain revealed significantly higher levels of Zn and Cu in M-S-W, as well as grain protein content. However, the yield dilution effect in the M-S-W rotation led to reduced levels for both Fe and Mn in one growing season. This long-term field experiment underscores the agronomic and environmental significance of soybean-based rotations, enhancing soil N fertility and carbon sequestration, and offering a sustainable solution for winter wheat production.

In this paper, we are concerned with the following Dirichlet problems for nonlinear equations involving the fractional $p$-Laplacian:

\begin{equation*}\begin{cases}(-\Delta)_p^\alpha u=f(x,u,\nabla u),\ \ u \gt 0,\ \ \text{in}\ \ E,\\\ \ \ \ \ \ u\equiv0, \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \text{in}\ \ \mathbb{R}^{n}\setminus E,\end{cases}\end{equation*}

where $E \subseteq \mathbb{R}^{n}$ is a coercive epigraph, i.e., there exists a continuous function $\phi: \, \mathbb{R}^{n-1} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ satisfying

\begin{equation*}\lim_{|x'|\rightarrow+\infty}\phi(x')=+\infty,\end{equation*}

such that $E:=\{x=(x',x_{n}) \in \mathbb{R}^{n}|\,x_{n} \gt \phi(x')\}$, where $x':= (x_{1},...,x_{n-1}) \in \mathbb{R}^{n-1}$. Under some mild assumptions on the nonlinearity $f(x,u,\nabla u)$, we prove strict monotonicity of positive solutions to the above Dirichlet problems involving fractional $p$-Laplacian in coercive epigraph $E$.