In a propensity-matched cohort of adult cardiac or neurosurgical procedures (n = 1,342), infection was less frequent with continuous infusion (1.8%) versus intermittent cefazolin (2.4%), though the difference was statistically non-significant (−0.6%, 95% CI−2.3 to 1.1; p = 0.57). The 0% infection rate among cardiac cases receiving continuous cefazolin infusion warrants further investigation.

Analysis of the projectile points from the Arroyo Seco 2 site allows us to evaluate their design and use from the Early to the Late Holocene in the Pampas region. The Arroyo Seco 2 projectile points are associated with events of interpersonal violence as well as hunting. Based on the techno-morphological and typological analysis and the interpretation of weapon systems, it enables us to establish differences and similarities of several point designs. The results are integrated with projectile point information from other sites in the eastern Pampas to develop a chronological sequence from the Late Pleistocene through the Holocene of projectile designs that were used throughout the period.

Shmuel Nili’s Beyond the Law’s Reach? is an inquiry into the moral duties of the world’s established democracies in a world rife with violent and undemocratic states. Nili argues that these “consolidated” democratic states are “entangled” with the leaders of such violent polities—and uses this entanglement to derive an elegant and plausible series of political duties. In response, this essay seeks to undermine the distinction between the established democracies and the violent states, by showing that some democratic states—including, most centrally, the United States—are as violent as those societies considered by Nili as the focus of international moral obligation. This fact, however, does not impugn the moral obligations identified by Nili; instead, it demonstrates that Nili’s duties might demand something like a necessary form of moral hypocrisy—in which a democratic state might be effectively able to undermine violence abroad, even while incapable of effectively eliminating that violence on its own territory.

In this paper, we prove the integrality conjecture for quotient stacks arising from weakly symmetric representations of reductive groups. Our main result is a decomposition of the cohomology of the stack into finite-dimensional components indexed by some equivalence classes of cocharacters of a maximal torus. This decomposition enables the definition of new enumerative invariants associated with the stack, which we begin to explore.

As emerging markets rise, some incumbent firms that once occupied follower positions are now striving for industry leadership, surpassing competitors to become new frontrunners. These firms must overcome both competitive barriers and organizational identity (OI) challenges, constructing a leading organizational identity (LOI) that aligns with their new roles. This study delves into these transformations through the temporality lens of OI, using a comparative analysis of two Chinese firms, and identifies two distinct modes: progressive evolution and radical change. The progressive evolution mode adopts a more gradual, layer-by-layer iterative transition, whereas the radical change mode follows a ‘break and (re)build’ logic to identity structure. Both modes demonstrate a ripple effect of OI’s three structural layers, radiating outward from the core. Temporal dynamics play a pivotal role: the progressive evolution mode aligns with a more stable environment and a future-oriented, long-term temporal perspective, while the radical change mode is linked to a dynamic, unstable environment and a past-oriented, short- and long- term interactive temporal pattern. This study highlights how temporal orientation and temporal horizon shape the construction of an LOI, advancing research on OI construction and its temporal dynamics while providing insights into high-position leaps in emerging markets.

The use of ultrafiltration remains a subject of ongoing debate among pretreatment methods employed in radiocarbon dating of mammalian archaeological bone. However, such discourse had not previously extended to the archaeology of the Canary Islands (Spain), where detailed descriptions of laboratory processing methods for collagen purification often remain absent. Our study presents a case study involving a new set of radiocarbon dates obtained from the remains of ancient natives of Tenerife Island. For the first time in this region, we compared the results of ultrafiltered with non-ultrafiltered collagen from the same individuals, focusing on the method’s implications for dating accuracy in the Canaries. Through an examination of the cleaning protocols of ultrafilters and an assessment of the reliability of radiocarbon dating outcomes, we have found that ultrafiltration may influence the accuracy of results. However, given the additional handling required and the potential risk of contaminating the samples, its application should be carefully considered. In the context of the Canary Islands, ultrafiltration may be most relevant for samples associated with early human occupation, though further research is needed to assess its necessity across different biogeographical contexts. This communication further contributes to a broader understanding of preparation methods for radiocarbon dating bone from various environmental contexts, emphasizing the uniqueness of each case. Furthermore, we discuss the implications of our findings for archaeological research in the Canary Islands, highlighting the methodological gaps that persist in the region and underscoring the importance of ensuring the accuracy and reliability of chronological interpretations in archaeological investigations.

In Beyond the Law’s Reach? Shmuel Nili examines the moral responsibilities of affluent democracies toward poorer countries to whose misfortunes they contributed. Because of their entanglement, Nili argues, affluent democracies are (often, but not always) morally barred from pursuing policies more obviously aligned with their moral preferences when another policy would benefit the weakened state more. In this essay, I discuss some of the challenges of trying to repay a moral debt between states. The affluent democracy has incentives to underestimate the extent of its moral debt, while the weakened state benefits from overestimating the harm it suffered. Moreover, since the state is not a unitary actor, different members of a state might disagree on which actions should count as proper forms of atonement. I argue that moral debts cannot ever be fully repaid, but that such impossibility does not undermine the moral requirement to try to pay them; and, further, that the inability to fully settle a moral debt is not a shortcoming to lament, but closer to a blessing in disguise, because acknowledging past misdeeds and embracing the moral implications of deep entanglement may foster greater reciprocity and solidarity in the international realm.

This article reinterprets Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s invasions of Korea (1592–1598) as a project of revisionist order-building undertaken by a liminal polity situated between two competing systems: the declining Ming-centered Chinese international system and the advancing Spanish–Portuguese imperial order. Rather than viewing the invasions as products of domestic consolidation, megalomania, or simple expansionism, the study situates them within Japan’s systemic dilemma of in-betweenness. From this perspective, Hideyoshi’s campaigns represented an attempt to construct a Japan-centered international system designed to assert autonomy, deter Iberian colonization, and reconfigure regional hierarchy. Drawing on the concept of liminality in international relations (IR), the paper shows how actors at the margins of overlapping systems can exercise strategic agency – not only adapting to dominant orders but seeking to create alternative ones. Hideyoshi’s vision combined elements of the Chinese international system and deterrent signaling aimed at European powers, producing a hybrid order neither Confucian nor colonial. Although the project collapsed after his death, it temporarily deterred European expansion and reshaped East Asian political dynamics. Theoretically, this case extends debates on revisionism and liminality, demonstrating that order-building from the margins can be both creative and destructive, illuminating broader dynamics of plural international orders.

In The Emperor’s New Mind [7], Roger Penrose proves a variant of the halting problem, and uses it to argue that humans have cognitive capacities beyond the computable. In this short note, I explicate his argument, and show how it fails, via a corollary of his result. My response to Penrose is in fact of a kind with a number of prior responses: he assumes human powers, that (as the corollary shows) no computer could have. However, as far as I am aware, no one has previously addressed this specific form of the argument, in the direct way that I will.

The co-occurrence of mental illness and substance use disorders (SUDs) presents a significant public health challenge with affected individuals facing compounded stigma that leads to poor health outcomes, social exclusion, and systemic neglect. Despite growing recognition of stigma as a social determinant of health in people with comorbid mental illness and SUDs, current responses remain largely confined to clinical and academic settings. This article argues that civil society, particularly groups led by individuals with lived experience, represents an underutilized yet powerful force in combating stigma. Drawing from historical movements such as HIV/AIDS activism and contemporary examples from peer-led movements, we highlight how civil society organizations (CSOs) have reshaped public discourse, influenced policy, and fostered inclusive research. We examine emerging efforts in low resource settings and explore the transformative potential of digital civil society spaces. We advocate for a shift in stigma reduction paradigms to those that center lived experience, supports cross-sectoral collaboration, and recognizes both physical and digital civil society as essential to inclusive and sustainable change. To addressing the complex and intersecting stigmas associated with comorbid mental illness and SUDs, we recommend investing in CSOs, especially those grounded in participatory, culturally relevant approaches, particularly in low- and middle-income settings.

Many countries have implemented a variety of pension reforms in response to the challenges posed by an aging population. These reforms typically involve a trade-off between ‘refinancing’ (i.e., increasing contributions) and ‘retrenchment’ (i.e., reducing benefits). The primary question addressed in this study is whether policymakers in the European Union (EU) possess the necessary capacity to sustain legislated pension reforms, particularly given the growing political influence of the elderly. To examine this issue, we develop a bargaining model designed to optimally allocate the economic burden of aging between successive cohorts of workers and retirees, incorporating retirement incentives. In a scenario where bargaining power remains constant, the optimal allocation rule dictates a fixed-contribution system, effectively shifting the full burden of aging onto the elderly. However, when bargaining power is allowed to fluctuate in response to changes in the relative size of the retiree population (i.e., the dependency rate), the optimal allocation rule involves a compromise between increasing contributions and reducing benefits. In the empirical analysis, we compare these theoretical optimal allocation rules with projections of pension benefit rates and dependency ratios from the 2021 Economic Policy Committee. By calculating the implicit bargaining power required to align projected pension benefits with the optimal sharing rule for each year, we demonstrate a growing divergence between projected pension benefits and the optimal levels in many EU countries, as demographic shifts progress. Furthermore, our findings indicate that for most countries, projected pension benefits are increasingly falling below optimal levels when bargaining power adjusts in accordance with population aging.

To anticipate relationships between future climate change and societal violence, we need theory to establish causal links and case studies to estimate interactions between driving forces. Here, we couple evolutionary ecology with a machine-learning statistical approach to investigate the long-term effects of climate change, population growth, and inequality on intergroup conflict among farmers in the North American Southwest. Through field investigations, we generate a new archaeological dataset of farming settlements in the Bears Ears National Monument spanning 1,300 years (0 to AD 1300) to evaluate the direct and interactive effects of precipitation, temperature, climate shocks, demography, and wealth inequality on habitation site defensibility—our proxy for intergroup conflict. We find that conflict peaked during dry, warm intervals when population density and inequality were highest. Results support our theoretical predictions and suggest cascading effects, whereby xeric conditions favored population aggregation into an increasingly small, heterogenous area, which increased resource stress and inequality and promoted intergroup conflict over limited productive patches. This dynamic likely initiated feedback loops, whereby conflict exacerbated shortfalls and fostered mistrust, which drove further aggregation and competition. Results reveal complex interactions among socioclimatological conditions, all of which may have contributed to regional depopulation during the thirteenth century AD.

This article argues that the Greek perception of doves underwent a significant evolution from Homeric times, when they were not yet considered sacred birds. The comparison of Homeric goddesses to doves does not necessarily imply that these birds held a sacred status. Only from the fifth century b.c.e. onwards do Greek authors explicitly associate doves with three deities: Aphrodite, Apollo and Zeus. The article offers a critical analysis and interpretation of the systematic frameworks addressed only briefly in previous scholarship and argues that there was a shift in perspective from Homeric times down to the Roman era.

This study explores the heterogeneous and asymmetric macro-financial effects of weather-related shocks in Central, Eastern and Southeastern European countries, depending on the level of underlying macro-financial vulnerabilities. Focusing solely on acute physical risks – those arising from extreme weather events – it employs panel quantile regression analysis to examine data from 2000Q1–2022Q4 for 17 countries in the region. Notably, we find that weather shocks – particularly droughts, floods, heatwaves and wildfires – exacerbate macroeconomic and financial imbalances, increasing the susceptibility of already vulnerable economies to additional risks. Specifically, countries with higher economic imbalances suffer more severe output disruptions and heightened inflationary pressures following a weather shock. While the immediate impact of climate shocks on external imbalances is limited, countries with existing vulnerabilities may still encounter longer-term pressures on trade and investment patterns. Additionally, extreme weather events can intensify financial vulnerabilities for countries that are already grappling with lower levels of financial resilience.