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Abstract: Do voters’ assessments of the government's foreign policy performance influence their vote intentions? Does the ‘clarity of responsibility’ in government moderate this relationship? Existing research on the United States demonstrates that the electorate's foreign policy evaluations influence voting behaviour. Whether a similar relationship exists across the advanced democracies in Europe remains understudied, as does the role of domestic political institutions that might generate responsibility diffusion and dampen the effect of foreign policy evaluations on vote choice. Using the attitudinal measures of performance from the 2011 Transatlantic Trends survey collected across 13 European countries, these questions are answered in this study through testing on incumbent vote the diffusion‐inducing effects of five key domestic factors frequently used in the foreign policy analysis literature. Multilevel regression analyses conclude that the electorate's ability to assign punishment decreases at higher levels of responsibility diffusion, allowing policy makers to circumvent the electoral costs of unpopular foreign policy. Specifically, coalition governments, semi‐presidential systems, ideological dispersion among the governing parties and the diverse allocation of the prime ministerial and foreign policy portfolios generate diffusion, dampening the negative effects of foreign policy disapproval on vote choice. This article contributes not only to the debate on the role of foreign policy in electoral politics, but also illustrates the consequential effects of domestic institutions on this relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The flat wasp Apenesia Westwood is one of the largest genera in Pristocerinae with 190 species worldwide. The lack of a single diagnostic morphological character has resulted in many distinct ground plans within Apenesia. Some authors have suggested Apenesia as polyphyletic. Here we aimed to investigate and delimit the genus based on morphological and molecular data. We analysed 163 morphological characters on tnt using ‘traditional search’, whereas Bayesian (BI) and maximum likelihood (ML) inferences were performed on 1553 concatenated nucleotide base pairs from COI and 28S sequences. Apenesia was recovered as polyphyletic in all analyses with up to 10 different lineages spread throughout the tree. We mapped female morphological characters onto the molecular tree to enlighten morphological evolution in the apterous females. Based on our morphological and molecular analyses, and on the taxonomic revision of holotypes and specimens, we propose six new genera in the Pristocerinae and revalidate the generic status of two: Acrenesia gen.n., Austranesia gen.n., Cleistepyris stat. rev., Dracunesia gen.n., Eleganesia gen.n., Epynesia gen.n., Pristonesia gen.n., and Propristocera stat. rev. We also propose four new generic synonymies: Neoapenesia syn.n. under Apenesia, Dipristocera syn.n. under Cleistepyris, Afrocera syn.n. and Neopristocera syn.n. under Propristocera. At the species level, we indicate Apenesia minor syn.n. under Propristocera tagala. In all, 162 new combinations, eight reinstated combinations and one new name to avoid homonymy are proposed. Apenesia is now defined as flat wasps having males with the mesoscutum gibbous, the genitalia with the paramere narrow and densely hairy, and the aedeagus with the ventral apical lobe elliptical and covered with lumps. Females of Apenesia can be distinguished from other Pristocerinae by having the head wider than the mesosoma, the antennae short, the mandible long, and the clypeus surpassing the toruli in the frons. This study reinforces the difficulties in defining Apenesia and other Pristocerinae genera. This published work has been registered in ZooBank, http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:65FB3087‐0F30‐4851‐B1BA‐ED6E4518B958. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT: This article provides a first sketch of Marshallese English, a variety which developed through contact between speakers of English and the Marshallese language. Our objectives are two‐pronged: (i) we attempt to position the varieties of English spoken in the Marshall Islands with regard to Kachru's Three Circles model of world Englishes; and (ii) we provide a first linguistic sketch of Marshallese English. Both of these aims have obvious applications for language policy and the development of educational resources and benchmarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The upsurge of press titles in eighteenth‐century Britain provided unprecedented public arenas to discuss socio‐political issues within a global context. Imperial sovereignty became an item of debate infusing as much the commentaries on current affairs as the fictional pieces that contributed to the popularity of newspapers and magazines. This article explores a selective stock of press narratives where Britain's imperial aspirations are set against the backdrop of the fall of the Inca Empire, a theme that became increasingly popular in the wider literary spectrum. This corpus is examined in light of the transnational circulation bearing on the Andean utopia discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education increases political engagement because it bolsters motivations and cognition on the one hand, and relative resources on the other. However, personality traits have recently been found to partially confound the education effect. Focusing on internal and external political efficacy allows us to disentangle the different effects of education. It is argued in this article (a) that personal dispositions confound the cognitive and motivational effect of education, which is the predominant effect of education on internal efficacy, but not resource effects which are important for external but not internal efficacy; and (b) that resource effects are context-dependent whereas cognitive and motivational effects are not. Accordingly, the article shows that the competitive context in which individuals find themselves conditions the effect of education on external, but not on internal, efficacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Desulfatibacillum alkenivorans AK-01 serves as a model organism for anaerobic alkane biodegradation because of its distinctive biochemistry and metabolic versatility. The D. alkenivorans genome provides a blueprint for understanding the genetic systems involved in alkane metabolism including substrate activation, CoA ligation, carbon-skeleton rearrangement and decarboxylation. Genomic analysis suggested a route to regenerate the fumarate needed for alkane activation via methylmalonyl-CoA and predicted the capability for syntrophic alkane metabolism, which was experimentally verified. Pathways involved in the oxidation of alkanes, alcohols, organic acids and n-saturated fatty acids coupled to sulfate reduction and the ability to grow chemolithoautotrophically were predicted. A complement of genes for motility and oxygen detoxification suggests that D. alkenivorans may be physiologically adapted to a wide range of environmental conditions. The D. alkenivorans genome serves as a platform for further study of anaerobic, hydrocarbon-oxidizing microorganisms and their roles in bioremediation, energy recovery and global carbon cycling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two sugarcane cultivars (R570 and SP71-6163) naturally infected by Sugarcane yellow leaf virus (SCYLV) were each imported from several geographical locations into a sugarcane yellow leaf-free environment (Montpellier, France). Plants were grown as plant cane for 5–6 months and the experiment was repeated for three consecutive years (2003–2005) in a greenhouse. Several sugarcane-growth and disease characteristics were monitored to identify variation in pathogenicity of SCYLV. Depending on their geographical origin, sugarcane cvs R570 and SP71-6163 were infected by SCYLV genotypes BRA-PER or REU, or a mixture of the two. Severity of symptoms did not vary between plants of cv. R570, but variation in disease severity between plants of cv. SP71-6163 from different geographical locations suggested the occurrence of pathogenic variants of SCYLV. For each sugarcane cultivar, differences in stalk length, number of stalk internodes, virus titre in the top visible dewlap leaf, and percentage of infection of leaf and stalk phloem vessels were also found between plants from different geographical origins. However, these differences were not always reproducible from one year to another, suggesting occurrence of different plant responses to SCYLV isolates under varying environmental conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spread of Sugarcane yellow leaf virus (SCYLV) in sugarcane plants was studied on Réunion using virus-infected cuttings from four cultivars (R570, R575, R577 and R579). One month after the germination of cuttings in an insect-proof glasshouse, SCYLV was detected by reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and tissue-blot immunoassay (TBIA) in the leaves, shoots and roots of all cultivars. The distribution of SCYLV in the whole plant did not vary over a 10- to 11-month period of growth. In addition, the spread of SCYLV in sugarcane fields on Réunion was investigated during a survey conducted from 1998 to 2001. Samples were taken in three sugarcane-growing areas, and TBIA was used to detect SCYLV in the three major cultivars (R570, R575 and R579). The percentage of infected stalks varied according to cultivar and growing area, but remained relatively stable for a given cultivar in a given growing area over the 30-month survey period. Cultivar R575 was the most infected cultivar in all three growing areas (mean of 98% infected stalks). The percentage of infected stalks ranged from 16 to 94% in cv. R570 and from 21 to 92% in cv. R579. These results suggested that on Réunion: (i) infected sugarcane stools do not recover from the disease after harvesting; and (ii) the virus is mainly propagated by planting infected cuttings. SCYLV was detected by RT-PCR in the aphid Melanaphis sacchari, a potential vector of this virus. Two months after planting virus-free plants of susceptible cv. R575 in a field surrounded by sugarcane infected with SCYLV, 14% of plants were found infected with the virus. Four months later, 25% of plants were found infected with SCYLV, but no new infections were detected between 6 and 12 months after planting. In the first ratoon crop, 42% of plants were infected with SCYLV after 6 months of growth. Spatial distribution of infected plants suggested that, on Réunion, a small window of time (between 0 and 2 months after planting cuttings) exists during which primary infection can occur. Based on the results obtained in this study, the use of clean planting material for some cultivars and the use of tolerant cultivars should be an efficient means of controlling sugarcane yellow leaf on Réunion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A personal narrative which explores the author's experience researching the Canna yellow mottle virus is presented.