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With almost one-quarter of the 21st century behind us, it's a good opportunity to assess how far we personally, the financial industry, and professionals have progressed in coping with and responding to the present, and planning for the future. So far, it certainly has been both a joyride and a roller-coaster ride for most of us. A century ago, our forebears were dealing with world conflict, economic gyrations, cultural upheaval, lifestyle evolution, and technological disruption. Sound familiar? But they also looked forward to the opportunities that a new century offered along with all the challenges noted. Renowned gerontologist Matilda White Riley was uniquely qualified in 1990 to take on the challenge of assessing where the preceding century had been in regard to aging and where the approaching century not only might be but could be if it reached for its full potential if we focus on optimism, opportunities, and change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Out-of-school youth sport in the United States is bigger, more varied, and more impactful than ever before. In dialogue with existing scholarship, this paper uses multisite, collaborative fieldwork to identify core elements of program variation and develop a composite typology of this organizational field. The typology is based on a distinction between "sport-focused" programs and programs oriented toward nonsport social and developmental goals. Our primary insight is that programs within these domains exhibit two different organizational logics, one hierarchical, the other categorical. We also argue that variabilities of funding, social context, and reliance on public facilities are additional factors that impact the operation and effectiveness of these program types including their ability to address the racialized challenges of access, equity, and inclusion. Theorizing these differential configurations and their underlying characteristics can help parents, policymakers, practitioners (including coaches), and sports researchers engage youth sports more effectively under increasingly competitive neoliberal conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role should libraries play to ensure citizens develop the competencies they need to fulfill their vital civic roles in our democracy? Alarms raised over widening civic knowledge gaps have prompted a renewed commitment to building more civically literate, active citizens. Like their counterparts in schools and universities, librarians teach many of the skills and dispositions that citizens need to participate in civic life. Yet their information literacy frameworks equip twenty-first century learners primarily for success in college and career, not citizenship. With schools and colleges launching new initiatives to bolster civic participation, librarians must join forces with other civic literacy proponents to empower citizens to emerge as civic agents that cocreate their future together. While the nation's great experiment in democracy undergoes a momentous test, libraries must assert their role in fostering civic literacy as central to their mission as cornerstones of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, Christina Heatherton asks how racist conditions have persisted despite the proliferation of liberal antiracist language in the twenty-first century. Drawing on Arun Kundnani's book, she describes how racist conditions have multiplied just as antiracist organizers have been robbed of the very language to describe them. She considers how the book intervenes against impasses in critical theory. She also describes how Kundnani's work speaks to a currently evolving period of political struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Groupwork is a crucial aspect of work contexts and a key twenty first century skill. Assessment of groupwork provides a persistent challenge for educators in university contexts with students reporting experiences of unfairness from their peers during groupwork. This study developed a novel Peer Assessment Fairness Instrument to explore factors driving students' perceptions of fairness during groupwork processes. The results showed that students perceived fairness of groupwork in relation to (1) the grading outcomes they received (i.e. grade congruence), (2) the procedures based on which groups contributed to groupwork (i.e. performative group dynamics), and (3) the relationships based on which group members interacted (i.e. interpersonal treatment). The findings provide student-driven directions to promoting fairer peer assessments within groupwork contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indo-Pacific is a laboratory of foreign policy signaling. It has seen a plethora of novel diplomatic phrasings and formats emerging in the recent past – from the adoption of the Indo-Pacific terminology itself, to a series of strategy papers from regional as well as extra-regional governments to varying multilateral naval exercises. Playing host to the rivalry between the US and China that is set to define 21st century world politics, it is not surprising that both major Asian and external powers have intensified their foreign policy signaling towards and within the Indo-Pacific region. What is more puzzling is the simultaneity of often very public signals and their vagueness. In fact, a multipolar Asia replete with interdependencies from safe sea lanes to infrastructure investments and arms supplies is one that is full of ambiguous signaling – raising questions about the reasons for this as well as its consequences and effectiveness. The introduction of this special issue highlights this central feature of signalling in the Indo-Pacific. Moreover, with reference to the rich signalling literature it suggests an understanding of foreign policy signalling outside immediate crises as communication that is costly, public, and intentional for the contributing authors to work with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Harriet Martineau's early sociological publication, How to observe Morals and Manners (1838a) has received attention as one of the works that provided a more diverse foundation for the social sciences. This article examines the content of this pre-disciplinary text and explores the value of a simple and valuable concept Martineau offers: the Traveller. It is argued that theorisation of this concept contributes to a more diverse foundation for the history of the social sciences by (1) highlighting the subject of the researcher, (2) rediscovering a set of requisites for research inspired by skilled scepticism and (3) opening up more communicative knowledge production, that is, knowledge that is in line with 21st century dialogical sociology and public understanding of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The editorial "Divergent futures – a geography of unequal concerns" explores the disparities in how the Global North and Global South envision the future, particularly regarding climate change and sustainability. While the Global North focuses on innovation and mitigation strategies, the Global South grapples with survival amidst climate vulnerability and socioeconomic challenges. The article emphasizes the need for geography and environmental education to address these inequalities, foster global citizenship, and empower students to navigate diverse futures with empathy and solidarity. Additionally, it highlights research on climate change learning, immersive virtual environments, and strategies for enhancing environmental initiatives to inspire action and sustainable solutions. [Extracted from the article]

Political economists have long recognized the power of ideas to influence economic adjustment by shaping public policy and fostering inter-firm coordination. This article extends this argument, demonstrating how ideas can have a direct and unmediated impact on economic restructuring. More specifically, it identifies discursive cooperation, or collective storytelling, as a distinct logic of collective action, separate from policy concertation and inter-firm coordination. Examining twenty first century Iceland, this article illustrates how shared narratives accelerated the country's movement into financial services and tourism by facilitating the diffusion of new business models and attracting external resources. Absent inter-firm coordination, policy concertation, or supportive public policies, however, stakeholders struggled to invest in public goods. Instead of incremental upmarket movement, Iceland was characterized by volatile boom-bust dynamics. In illustrating the transformative power of storytelling in small open economies, this article simultaneously highlights the perils of relying on discursive cooperation alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an editorial introduction to a special issue of Studies in East European Thought devoted to neopatristics. The circumstances of the creation of the neopatristic synthesis announced by Georges Florovsky during the First Orthodox Congress in Athens are considered. The main philosophical and theological aspects that are currently discussed in the context of patristic renewal are also addressed. In particular, it is shown that the sophiology of Sergius Bulgakov also fits into the patristic paradigm. Finally, the topics of the articles included in this special issue are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid proliferation of informal settlements in the twenty-first century has challenged the ways in which planners envision, design and think about urban development. While I acknowledge that planning in South Africa continues to be mainly practised by technocrats, I argue this is at the expense of considering the human factors involved. Using a case study, I attempt to demonstrate the specific ways in which the overemphasis on reaching upgrading targets within a specified time frame leaves little to no room for considerations of the psychological and emotional implications of upgrading for informal settlers. This article calls for a detailed consideration of the humanising implications for present and future planning. The case study explores, the nature of the role of planners in, and their collaboration with, the management of Thembalethu Phase 1 Upgrading of Informal Settlement Programme (UISP), between 2010 and 2014, in George municipality with a focus on the space, or lack thereof, of human considerations in this collaborative process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comprehensive Summary: Indolizine is a nitrogen‐containing heterocycle with strong aromaticity, possessing a delocalized 10π‐electron system. Based on the indolizine scaffolds, numerous molecules with biological activity and organic functional materials have been synthesized. Since 2016, over 110 papers have been published on the synthesis of indolizine scaffolds, but the reviews on synthesizing indolizine scaffolds have been incomplete and not up‐to‐date. Herein, from the perspective of the structure of indolizine with the combination of pyrrole and pyridine ring, we focus on the construction of indolizine scaffolds through the diversity of starting substrates, including pyridine derivatives (N1‐substituted pyridinium salt derivatives, C2‐substituted pyridine derivatives, N1‐ and C2‐free substituted pyridine derivatives), pyrrole derivatives and unoriginal ring substrates. Furthermore, the corresponding reaction mechanisms of synthetic methodologies are also elaborated. Therefore, this review not only paves the way for indolizine synthesis but also provides insight into exploring new reaction modes for constructing nitrogen‐containing heterocycles. Key Scientists: Indolizine was discovered by Angeli in 1890 and first prepared by Scholtz in 1912 from α‐picoline and acetic anhydride. A general approach was developed by Chichibabin in 1927, that is of practical value for the preparation of 2‐alkyl‐ or 2‐arylindolizines. The Chichibabin reaction was the ring closure of quaternary pyridinium halides. At the begining of the 21st century, Basavaiah introduced a new dimension in the Baylis‐Hillman chemistry leading to a novel facile convenient methodology for synthesis of indolizine scaffolds in one‐pot operation. In 2010, Barluenga reported Cu(I)‐catalyzed regioselective [3+2] cyclization of unsubstituted pyridines toward alkenyldiazoacetates leading to functionalized indolizine derivatives, that was the first successful example of metal‐catalyzed cyclization of a π‐deficient heterocyclic system with alkenyldiazo compounds. In 2019 and 2022, Xi and Liu exploited the methods of non‐pyridine derivatives as starting materials to synthesize indolizines, respectively. In 2022, Guo developed an environmentally benign electrooxidative approach for constructing formyl‐ and acyl‐substituted indolizines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates dubbing strategies used in Korean-to-English film translations to identify differences between on-screen and off-screen dubbing. The data comprises 12 original and English-dubbed Korean film DVDs released in North America in the 21st century. Using a multimodal corpus ELAN, the film texts are segmented into individual shots, with the dubbed dialogue analyzed based on shot sizes and sound types. Findings reveal that the dubbing of on-screen and off-screen dialogue is independent of each other, indicating the use of distinct approaches in dubbing Korean film dialogue into English. Reduction emerges as the most prevalent translation strategy, regardless of whether the characters are on-screen or off-screen. The study further explores how the linguistic characteristics of the English and Korean contribute to the necessity of reduction in dubbing to match the length of speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fire has been a widely used tool in habitat and landscape management, mainly associated with land use dynamics of deforestation, pasture renewal, hunting and reclaiming new agriculture and rangeland areas. Ancient societies followed norms and rules regarding the used of fire. However, as these societies developed and land ownership changed, the conflicts generated by using fire triggered the need to regulate this practice by establishing the first laws. Such laws became of a broader type and narrower application over time until the twenty-first century. This research hypothesises that imposing constraints and regulations on using agro-silvopastoral fire through legislation in Portugal did not discourage its traditional use by communities. Through the historical legislative reconstruction of fire uses from before Portugal's Foundation until 2021, it was possible to confirm the hypothesis and conclude that a paradigm change is needed by means of setting up an adequate legal framework for the different uses of fire in the land. This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to develop a political economy approach able to examine the multiple, global crises of our times, a crisis of global capitalism, a crisis of global labour relations, a crisis of global gender relations, a crisis of global race relations and a crisis of global ecology. Based on the philosophy of internal relations, I make three claims in this paper. First, we need a historical materialist approach to comprehend the historical specificity of capitalism. Second, we need an expanded conceptualization of capitalist accumulation, understanding that capitalist reproduction depends not only on the exploitation of wage labour in the sphere of production, but equally on different forms of expropriation in the sphere of social reproduction. Third, to reveal the internal relations between these different crises, we need to focus on class struggle in our analysis, defining both class struggle and labour movement broadly when doing so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractSeveral studies have been conducted to understand preservice and qualified mathematics teachers’ intention to use GeoGebra, a dynamic mathematics software, in their classrooms. The current study aimed to determine whether mathematics students would develop the intention to be taught by means of a mother-tongue version of GeoGebra in their classrooms. To achieve this purpose, the study attempted to address three key questions derived from the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The study attempted to determine the impact of attitudes, perceived social pressure and perceived ease or difficulty of using an isiXhosa version of GeoGebra by students whose mother tongue was isiXhosa. The Xhosas are some of the indigenous peoples of South Africa found mostly in the southeastern parts of the country. The language they speak is referred to as isiXhosa and is one of the 11 official languages spoken by 18% of the population. Overall, students had a negative attitude toward the isiXhosa version of the GeoGebra software because of a perceived shortage of mathematics vocabulary in the mother tongue as well as the prominent role played by English in the twenty first century. Regarding perceived social pressure, the students knew teachers were in favor of using the mother-tongue version of GeoGebra because teachers were concerned with epistemological access. The students thought their parents would likely not approve of using a mother-tongue version of GeoGebra for the same reasons that made them reluctant to adopt it. The parents would be concerned about their children’s ability to cope in a world where higher education institutions teach in English, textbooks are written in English, and interviews in places of work are conducted in English. Hence, perceived behavioral control (subjective norm) plays a significant role in students’ decision-making. The 21st-century students who participated in the study were not particularly concerned about the perceived difficulty of using an English version of GeoGebra. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In East African drylands, agro-pastoralists are continuously dealing with recurrent droughts and floods damaging to their livelihoods. Although droughts and floods have been widely studied as separate phenomena, little attention has been paid to agro-pastoral experiences of the relations between successive droughts and floods over time. Yet when floods follow a drought, they are likely to exacerbate or alleviate the impacts of the preceding drought. To address this, we conducted a study in southeastern Kenya's drylands, organizing storytelling sessions with 213 agro-pastoralist participants. By reconstructing a history of droughts and floods experiences from the 1940s to the early 2020s, we found that droughts and floods are strongly interrelated and ambivalent phenomena. During the latter half of the 20th century, agro-pastoralists narrated droughts as severely disruptive, distinct periods that frequently concluded with flooding, which both alleviated and intensified drought impacts. In the 21st century, however, droughts and floods are no longer experienced as discrete, named events but rather as a new normal. Floods after drought have become more frequent, short-lived, intense, and erosive, their regenerative function diminishing. The participants articulated how they adapt to droughts and floods amidst rapid socio-economic and socio-environmental changes. We found that various drought adaptation measures, largely initiated by (non)governmental organizations operating in drylands, have introduced flood risks. As droughts and floods are expected to become even heavier and frequent in future East African drylands and beyond, the stories underscore a need for adaptation approaches that benefit from the regenerative potential of floods after drought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing accounts of the relationship between brevity and the literary have been historically permeated with ambiguity. In contemporary culture, fiction and scholarship, brevity and the semantically interrelated notions around it, such as simplicity, attention, or immediacy, have become a growingly contentious object of discussion. This article aims to contribute to existing accounts on brevity by focusing on how late twentieth century and early twenty-first century literature have problematized narrative’s relationship with length. To do so, it first reviews three existing papers on the matter of brevity in narrative: Norman Friedman’s “What Makes a Short Story Short?” (1958), Paul Zumthor’s “Brevity as Form” (1983), and William Nelles’ “Microfiction: What Makes a Very Short Story Very Short?” (2012). Departing from the analysis of these three texts and the demarcation of the tense visions of brevity and its characteristics that they reveal, this article argues that the simultaneous use of brevity-related (intensity, epiphanic closures, condensation, openness) and length-related (density, ergodicity, complexity, diachronicity) features can be attested to in contemporary prose fiction across genres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asian American designers have received increased attention in the twenty-first century as fashion scholarship has broadened its inclusivity. However, most of this research focuses on Asian American designers after the 1980s and excludes the contributions of Japanese American designers during the mid-twentieth century. Out of the considerable number of Japanese American designers and seamstresses of the mid twentieth century one of the most successful creators was Linda Kinoshita. Similarly, to other Japanese Americans during World War II Kinoshita was forced into internment. After she was released, her career accelerated when she started working with English-American fashion designer Charles James. In 1955 Kinoshita opened her own atelier in New York and dressed some of the most fashionable women of New York City including former Vogue fashion editor Babe Paley. Kinoshita’s most prominent period of design occurred in the 1950s and 1960s, and she was most coveted for her skilled construction and creative design. The following research resurfaces Kinoshita’s life and career in efforts to form a more holistic understanding of American fashion history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high summer of the post-war British consensus is often seen as a period of social promise, in which the opportunity for social mobility was made available to all through the technocratic basis of the new welfare state: empirical measurement of work and ability promised a perpetual dynamism of just social organisation. The demand for all relationships to pass through algorithmic validation is by now familiar; but roots of a more recent acceptance of arithmetic belonging date back to this reconstruction. By the late ‘40s the push for a new organicism had been adapted to the new productivity of the welfare state, to be subjected to critique, largely but not solely, by a post-Soviet, post-Suez, ‘New’ left. Here we look at a range of three stories of meritocracy from this critical period: Michael Young’s The Rise of the Meritocracy (1957), Muriel Spark’s The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1960), and Raymond Williams’s Border Country (1960). The evaluative logics picked apart by these fictions, whether comically or more darkly, are powerfully suggestive of ‘post-class’ ideologies familiar from the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 21st century has been an opportune time for building African universities by engendering innovative scholarship, teaching, and research. The complexity found in these universities, though, is reflected in the several ways in which intellectuals are dappling with knowledge production. This article focuses on why universities in Africa should employ what Wa Thiong’o refers to as ‘globalectics’ or interconnectedness as they enhance globally significant research. The interconnectedness of knowledge should help bring Africa’s marginalised knowledges to the centre. Research is generally, dominated by Western philosophies which tend to exclude indigenous and African philosophies. This study focuses on how African researchers can utilise concepts usually captured in the Ubuntu maxim, ‘I am because you are.’ This concept is endemic to all African cultures having been a way of life from precolonial times. Using the theory adaptation research methodology, the discussion examines how Ubuntu philosophy enhances indigenous African knowledges. The findings demonstrate that transformation in research should not be accidental; instead, researchers should use existing theory to envision new approaches. Major conclusions reveal that progressive intellectuals in Africa should use relevant approaches to advance African knowledge production. Ecologies of knowledge would be able to minimise the dominant epistemologies from the Global North. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovative learning environments are educational settings that promote flexibility, and collaboration, thereby necessitating a shift in teachers’ mindsets to effectively foster inclusivity in these dynamic spaces. Mindsets are our beliefs about human attributes, including abilities. The article investigates the degree to which in-service teachers, enrolled in a postgraduate inclusive education course, enact a growth mindset in response to an assessment task. Notably, the study reveals that although 80% of the participants self-reported having a growth mindset, only 44% demonstrated such a mindset in their assignment. The article underscores the need for a deeper understanding of mindsets among teachers to meet the challenges of aligning teachers’ mindsets with their actual teaching practices. Implications for teachers in meeting the demands as responsive practitioners is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the twentieth century, many historians and sociologists tried to explain “Why the West?” At the end of the century, two major historians offered profoundly opposing explanations for the decisive differences: culture vs. environmental factors. Post-colonialists welcomed the latter (which won the Pulitzer Prize) and condemned the former as “Eurocentric.” Over the course of the opening decades of the new millennium, that attitude hardened into a dogma that so dominated the field, that to even espouse a cultural perspective got denounced as loathsome racism. This article examines how a form of politically correct “therapeutic” history has weaponized knowledge, damaged the ability to do historical analysis, and thoroughly disoriented Westerners at a particularly dangerous time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractIn 2012, two keystone scholarly institutions in U.S. public administration, NASPAA and Public Administration Review (PAR), began describing themselves as global enterprises, concerned with research and teaching on a globally inclusive basis. At first glance, this promise of a shift from national to global focus might reassure Global South scholars concerned about longstanding U.S. hegemony in public administration scholarship. However, these claims about a shift toward globality are unsupported by the evidence that has accumulated over the past decade. Neither NASPAA nor PAR has adequately addressed barriers to participation by the Global South in their activities, and neither has strong incentives to do so. In fact, false claims about global inclusivity may reinforce U.S. dominance within the field of public administration around the world. To promote diversity and inclusion within public administration scholarship, we must begin by questioning globality claims made by institutions like NASPAA and PAR, and adopting an approach to dialogue built on the principle of epistemic pluralism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scientific interest in the chemical modification of chitosan to increase its solubility and application has led to its conjugation with Schiff bases, which are interesting scaffolds endowed with diverse biological properties. The resultant chitosan-based Schiff bases (CSBs) are widely studied in scientific literature due to the myriad of activities exerted, both catalytic and biological, including anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and especially antimicrobial ones. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the major public health challenges of the twenty-first century because it represents a threat to the prevention and treatment of a growing number of bacterial, parasitic, viral, and fungal infections that are no longer treatable with the available drugs. Thus, in this review, we present a brief outline of the biological activities of CSBs as well as their complexes with metals, with a particular focus on the recent literature regarding the antimicrobial effect of these captivating derivatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Since the twenty-first century, the political landscape of the United States has undergone dramatic changes. One of the key manifestations is the rise of evangelical Christian nationalism and its significant internal and external political consequences. While the causes behind the rise of evangelical Christian nationalism in the United States and its resulting political effects are multifaceted, fundamentally, these developments are closely linked to issues that have existed throughout the history of the American nation-building process, such as the ambiguity of national objectives and the conflict of value systems. The root cause lies in the instability and multifaceted nature of the American national characteristics. Since its founding, the U.S. has consistently wavered in its national characteristics, presenting three competing models of the modern American state: the empire of liberty, the liberal civic state, and the Anglo-Saxon Protestant nation. The positioning of these three national characteristics, which are seemingly contradictory yet often coexisting, has, on the one hand, shaped the unique character of the United States, while on the other hand, it has exposed the U.S. to periodic conflicts and crises. It is important to note that the rise of evangelical Christian nationalism in the twenty-first century, coupled with the increasing polarization of American politics, may disrupt the previously existing balance of conflicting yet coexisting national identities. With the continuous decline in the population of the white majority, this balance is likely to break down further, potentially resulting in prolonged internal strife within the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First introduced as a funerary option in the early twenty-first century but initially limited to North America, the reach of alkaline hydrolysis (AH) is now growing year on year, with the number of US states, Canadian provinces and other countries around the world introducing legislation to permit its use regularly increasing. While AH has largely been framed as an environmental alternative to cremation, the reasons for its appeal stretch far beyond this ‘selling point’. Arguably more pertinent reasons for its appeal are grounded in the new ritual-symbolic opportunities that AH affords. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in the United States of America in 2022, this paper discusses some of the reasons why AH has been chosen and explores how the innovative possibilities it offers may bolster its appeal as its availability becomes more widespread. Amongst other reasons explored in this paper, my research found that the choice of AH has been driven by four key motivations, grounded in the perception of AH as an environmental, gentle, water-based and natural choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the most pressing problems societies face today are economic inequality and the erosion of democratic norms and institutions. In fact the two problems--inequality and democratic erosion--are linked. In a large cross-national statistical study of risk factors for democratic erosion, we establish that economic inequality is one of the strongest predictors of where and when democracy erodes. Even wealthy and longstanding democracies are vulnerable if they are highly unequal (though national wealth might provide some resiliency). The association between inequality and risk of democratic backsliding is robust, and holds under different measures and structures of both income inequality and wealth inequality. The association is unlikely to be a case of reverse causation. For concerned citizens seeking to understand why so many democracies are eroding and how to stop this process, our study indicates that policies for ameliorating inequality are a promising path forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the recent history of the United Kingdom—Australia defence relationship in context of the Australia—United Kingdom—United States (AUKUS) submarine agreement. Drawing on defence and foreign-policy white papers as well as public polling, it analyses the framing and significance of the UK as a defence partner in the early 21st century, tracing changes against the unfolding War on Terror, the rise of China as a major power, the election of Donald Trump and the Brexit referendum. The article shows that insecurities about the US alliance and the perceived threat from China corresponded with a turning back towards the UK as a source of safety, drawing on the imperial nostalgia evident in Brexiteers’ “Global Britain” campaign to normalise the dynamic. The article argues that imperial nostalgia works to neutralise Australian anxieties about overdependence on the US by conceptualising the former colonial parent as an equal ally within the AUKUS triad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More knowledge is needed on the performance and readiness of the European public financial architecture to best tackle the formidable socio-economic, geo-political and climate change-related challenges that Europe and the rest of the world face. We identify five core areas of concern and, specifically, how effectively the European public financial architecture: serves its member state shareholders; coordinates its lending; promotes green finance; fosters sustainable development; and facilitates development in Africa. We provide a number of solutions designed to build a stronger financial architecture for Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the twenty-first century, we have witnessed multiple coronavirus pandemics. Despite declining SARS-CoV-2 cases, continued research remains vital. We report the discovery of sydowiol B, a natural product, as a dual inhibitor of SARS-CoV-2 main protease (Mpro) and papain-like protease (PLpro). Sydowiol B interacts with the nano-channel at the Mpro dimer interface and the PLpro active site. Molecular dynamics simulations suggest that sydowiol B inhibits Mpro by limiting active site expansion rather than inducing collapse. Furthermore, sydowiol B binding may amplify the fluctuation of two loops coordinating with the structural Zn2+ in PLpro, displacing Zn2+ from the zinc finger domain to the S2 helix. Sydowiol B and its analogue, violaceol I, exhibit broad-spectrum antiviral activity against homologous coronaviruses. Given the conservation of Mpro and PLpro, sydowiol B and violaceol I are promising leads for designing and developing anti-coronavirus therapies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the evolution of changes in surface ultraviolet (UV) radiation globally, emphasizing the significant impacts of key factors influencing its variability, i.e., total column ozone, aerosols, clouds, and surface reflectivity. Simulations of UV radiation were performed by the UVSPEC radiative transfer model and span from the mid-twentieth century to the end of the twenty-first century. Input data were derived from eleven Earth System Models that participated in the 6th Phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6). The UV Index (UVI) simulations for the late twentieth century indicate an increase in UVI levels relative to the 1950s in the Southern Hemisphere's mid and high latitudes, attributed to ozone depletion, and decreases in southeastern Asia due to increases in aerosols. Projections of changes in UVI for the last decade of the twenty-first century were derived for three Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs): SSP1–2.6, SSP3–7.0, and SSP5–8.5. Under SSP1–2.6, the scenario with the lowest greenhouse gas (GHG) and aerosol emissions, UVI is projected to increase relative to the 1950s by up to 20% in Europe and North America and to decrease by as much as − 10% over tropical and polar regions. Under SSP3–7.0 and SSP5–8.5, scenarios with higher GHG and aerosol emissions, UVI changes are generally negative globally due to ozone recovery and increases in aerosol optical depth, while localized positive changes are found over Central and South America, Europe, Africa, and the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The changes in the biologically effective solar irradiance for plant growth exhibit similar geographical patterns to UVI with slight differences, due to weaker sensitivity to changes in ozone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El SFI of the Canary Islands reports a greater decrease than that of Spain in the first 8 triennia of the 21st century (32,3% vs 5,7%), associated with a greater decrease in the fertility of women under 35 years of age and a smaller increase in the fertility of women over 35 years of age. The age at first motherhood has been delayed by 2.43 years in Spain and 3.16 years in the Canary Islands. The relative weight of births to foreign mothers increased by 164.3% in Spain and 125.8% in the Canary Islands, although their SFI fell by 27.4% and 43.8%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Helping people to better understand and respond to the complexities and multiplicities of twenty-first century realities requires higher education systems to break free from persistent hierarchical binaries and knowledge silos. Rosi Braidotti's posthuman feminist vision, rooted in radically relational ways of being, offers a generative lens for reimagining higher education. As scholar-educators working in academic spaces, we have responded to Braidotti's call to engage in creative experimentations for disrupting Humanism's individualistic, competitive, and cogni-centric framings of learning and teaching. In this dialogue, we co-authors share stories about how ruptures in our experiences as educators led to rethinking theories from our field of adult learning through posthuman feminist concepts. We discuss how the theoretical resonances we found inspired us to reimagine our own research and teaching practices in ways that present possibilities for how posthuman feminist lenses can help us collaboratively reimagine higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The populations of Dactylorhiza hatagirea are shrinking fast across the north-western Himalayas. Although the effects of contemporary anthropic factors on its distribution are well documented, the impacts of anticipated climate change have not been evaluated. In the present study, the maximum entropy modelling (MaxEnt) was used to quantify the impact of climate change on the distribution of D. hatagirea over the next 50 years under representative concentration pathways (RCP) 4.5 and 8.5, using ensemble mean of four general circulation models, viz. CCSM4, CNRM, MRI, and GFDL. The results exhibited a fairly good model performance, with D. hatagirea attaining the highest suitability when 'annual mean temperature' and 'annual precipitation' peaks at ca. 11.5 °C and 1,250 mm, respectively. The variables with greater influence (%) were annual precipitation (40.7), mean temperature of the wettest quarter (22.9), precipitation seasonality (16.6), and mean annual temperature (10.4). Under the current climate, about 790 km2 that spread across Kashmir (274.1 km2) Jammu (210.5 km2), and Ladakh (305.6 km2) were identified as high potential habitat (HPH) areas. The predicted distribution showed that for RCP 4.5 the HPH areas would decrease by 4.2 and 5.4%, by 2050 and 2070, while for RC P8.5 the decrease would be 18.1 and 8.7%, respectively. The shrinkage may be more obvious across tropical and temperate regions, while the species may gain new HPH areas across cold arid areas. Although HPH shrinkage for D. hatagirea appears mild, but as it exhibits high habitat specificity and grows inherently slow, this insignificant shrinkage may enhance its risk of local extinction. Therefore, an integrated approach involving in-situ measures across regions, where the species may disappear, and ex-situ measures, where it may expand, is hugely important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Racial authoritarian preemption occurs when state governments overturn, override, and alter the governing power of racially diverse municipalities. Using Tennessee as a case study, this article looks at the convergence of race, authoritarian governance, and state preemption. Three components of racial authoritarian preemption are examined: anti-federal nullification, administrative fiefdoms, and municipal containment. I focus on the period of 2010–2024, when the Tennessee legislature was captured by conservative Republicans, who then used preemption to revoke locally based civil rights, racial equity initiatives, and redistributive measures championed by minoritized communities. In examining preemption, this article draws from primary and secondary sources, including legislative records and the General Social Survey administered by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. The article demonstrates that preemption has been weaponized in the twenty-first century to augment the power of far-right state officials and to disempower cities and municipalities that are racially diverse or dominated by Black-led and multi-racial governing institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first decades of the twentieth century saw the rise of an elite class of Chinese scientists who were educated in Europe and North America and occupied positions of authority in China. Historians of science have used the concept of scientific nationalism to frame the phenomenon and discuss how patriotism had motivated Chinese scientists to produce modern science in order to strengthen their nation. This article focuses on the logistics of science, which can help conceptualize modern Chinese science as not only a situated knowledge but also a broad, distilled context of "pure" transactional value – that of naming, displaying, and managing animals and epizootic diseases. Through the lens of "animals" as an emerging scientific category, the article examines how conceptual and epistemological shifts resulted from new urban, curatorial, and scientific practices, all of which transformed animals into an object of expert analysis in Republican China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To move beyond the hyper-individualism of popular neoliberal understandings of self-care, we must reconceptualize self-care as social-self care—care for fundamentally social selves. First, I examine how self-care has—and has not—been conceptualized around sociality by tracing historical lineages in modern medical discourse, Black Feminist thought, Ancient Greek and Foucauldian philosophy, the popular self-help tradition, and contemporary literatures of refusal. Next, I explore current popular neoliberal conceptualizations of "self," "care," and "self-care" that prioritize the individual and depoliticize wellbeing, trapping people in myopically individualistic worldviews. Finally, I argue that the social psychological concept of the "social self" (Cooley; Mead) as well as Mills' "sociological imagination" necessitate a reframing of self-care to social-self care. This reframing emphasizes sociality and relationality and has the potential to free people from neoliberal disconnection and promote resistance against systemic injustice—positioning social-self care as transformative and counter-hegemonic. Desires to protect financial interests, pass blame, and retain individual autonomy stand as barriers to this reframing. Still, reconceptualizing self-care around a fundamentally social self is imperative, holding the potential to shape daily lived experience and broader understandings of wellbeing in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observational evidence has shown that precipitation extremes are expected to increase over Southeast Asia (SEA) under climate change. The physical mechanism of the future changes in precipitation extremes has remained largely unclear, which is a great challenge to project the future hydrologic cycle. In this study, the changes in precipitation extremes over SEA by the end of the 21st century (2071–2100) were estimated based on simulations from CMIP6 (Phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project) models. Results showed that the spatiotemporal intensity of precipitation extremes is expected to increase significantly over SEA, as compared to the historical period of 1985–2014. The frequency and intensity of precipitation extremes in Kalimantan is projected to increase markedly in 2071–2100. Moreover, the wet and dry periods will be intensified in SEA, which is consistent with the "wet-get-wetter, dry-get-drier" mechanism. We further investigated the thermodynamic and dynamic contributions to the enhanced precipitation extremes using a physical scaling diagnostic method, and results showed thermodynamic factors accounting for approximately 77% (75%) of the total scaling change under the SSP2-4.5 (SSP5-8.5) scenario, but dynamic components constituting around 18% (15%). Alterations in thermodynamic scaling prevail as the primary contributor to amplified precipitation extremes. Furthermore, it was verified that the change in saturation specific humidity of thermodynamic scaling is intensified, and the model simulation consistency of thermodynamic scaling is better than that of dynamic scaling, revealing the effects of atmospheric thermodynamics and dynamics in the change of precipitation extremes over SEA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reading practices in medieval manuscripts have often been the subject of critical analysis in the past. Recent technological developments have extended the range of analytical possibilities; one such development is that of eye tracking. In the present article, we outline the results of an experiment using eye tracking technologies which were carried out recently in Spain. The analysis points to particular trends in the ways in which modern readers interact with medieval textual forms and we use this analysis to point to future possibilities in the use of eye tracking to broaden and deepen our understanding of the workings of the medieval page. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Commons. Commons, postcapitalism and ecosocial transition" from the Spanish Journal of Sociological Research presents a deep analysis of the commons as a key element in discussions about social transformation in the 21st century. César Rendueles highlights the importance of the commons as collaborative institutions that organize collective resources, countering capitalist commodification. The relevance of figures such as Elinor Ostrom in defending the commons against pessimistic views on human nature is mentioned. The book advocates for a democratic, egalitarian, and post-capitalist project based on the commons. [Extracted from the article]

This article addresses the relationship between financial instability and wealth inequality in a twofold perspective. First, it is an attempt to explain why the two phenomena, despite being nowadays equally relevant as empirical concerns, do not attract equal attention from researchers and are usually studied separately or conceived as independent levers affecting cycles or growth. We suggest the adoption of implicit methodological paradigms, instead of 'historical momentum' as the likely reason. Secondly, we present a theoretical framework grounded on the work of Piero Ferri (Aggregate Demand, Inequality and Instability — New Directions in Modern Economics. Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, UK, 2016) with a medium-run dynamic demand-led model set for a monetary economy of production, where corporate debt is introduced into the financial account of firms. Minsky and Piketty come instrumentally to support the two perspectives: on one side they become our opposite representatives of heterodox and orthodox method; on the other side, as the model specification makes the work of Thomas Piketty (Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2014, and Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Technical Appendix. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2014) directly comparable with the financial instability hypothesis, our exercise sheds light on the dynamic role of retention rates and capital share during the cycle phases, qualifying the conditions under which financial instability may lead to inequality. Connecting the implications of the two argumentative lines, the call emerges for a significant rethinking in macroeconomics studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study scrutinizes the common wisdom concerning Turkey's crucial geopolitical significance and central physical location against the backdrop of four global transformations that are taking place in the twenty-first century. These tectonic shifts include China's rise and the ongoing Sino-US rivalry, trade routes and supply chains favoring the Asia-Pacific, technological changes brought by the fourth Industrial Revolution and finally, the decarbonization process. Based on an examination of these new dynamics, the article concludes that Turkey's geographical location and its traditional 'bridge' status between Asia and Europe no longer provides it the strategic leverage it had enjoyed in the twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses high-resolution, convection-permitting, dynamically downscaled regional climate simulation output to assess how long-lived, convectively induced, extratropical windstorms known as derechos may change across the CONUS during the twenty-first century. Three 15-yr epochs including a historical period (1990–2005) and two separate late-twenty-first-century periods (2085–2100) employing intermediate (RCP4.5) and pessimistic (RCP8.5) greenhouse gas concentration scenarios are evaluated. A mesoscale convective system (MCS) identification and tracking tool catalogs derecho candidates across epochs using simulated radar reflectivity and maximum 10-m wind speed as a proxy for near-surface severe wind gusts. Results indicate that MCS-based windstorms, including derechos, are more frequent, widespread, and intense in both future climate scenarios examined for most regions of the central and eastern CONUS. Increases are suggested across all parts of the year, with significant changes in populations concentrated during the early spring and summer months, suggesting the potential for a longer, more extreme MCS windstorm season. This research provides insights for forecasters, emergency managers, and wind-vulnerable stakeholders on how these events may change across the twenty-first century so that they may mitigate, adapt to, and become resilient against severe convective storm perils. Significance Statement: Long-lived, thunderstorm-induced, damaging wind events known as derechos may increase across most portions of the central and eastern United States in the future, with projections indicating a near doubling or tripling of annual cases in the Midwest, eastern Great Plains, and Mississippi and Ohio Valley regions by the end of the twenty-first century. Modeling projections suggest that future derechos could generally be longer-lived, more expansive, and capable of producing more severe wind gusts and damage, which will ultimately increase risk to life, infrastructure, and wind-sensitive industries affected by these extreme thunderstorm events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gwendolen Bishop is a name that appears in the margins of my recent account of the English avant-garde theatre. Prior to that she barely made it even into the margins, and then often with some rather significant indecision as to how actually to spell her name. The aim of this essay is to retrieve her from the margins and bring her more centrally into view. In doing so I consciously weave together her arts practices and her personal life, for these are deeply connected. The making of an avantist culture in early twentieth-century England was done not simply by arts experiments but also by kinds of behavior that challenged dominant ideas. In our Western twenty-first century we note and make much of Edwardian behaviors that contested assumptions about gender and sexuality, but we should note, alongside that, some equally striking challenges to ideas about class. Both are apparent in the Bishop story, which I tell more or less as a biographical narrative. The danger when one recovers a person from the shadows is that, in trying to situate them among their contemporaries, one writes overmuch about those contemporaries, such that our person fades again into the mists. With our biographical focus fixed solidly on her we can, I hope, discover how Gwendolen Bishop made her very particular contribution to this exciting cultural period on the eve of modernism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Arctic is among the most rapidly warming regions on Earth, and climate change has triggered widespread alterations to its cryosphere and ecosystems. Among these, high Arctic lakes are highly sensitive to rising temperatures due to the influence of ice cover on multiple limnological processes. Here, we studied the sediments of three lakes on northern Ellesmere Island (82.6°N), at the terrestrial limit of the Last Ice Area, to produce records of past environmental change. The colonization of the lakes by diatoms, as well as subsequent diversification and the appearance of planktonic forms, marked important ecological shifts due to warming temperatures and lengthening ice-free periods. A subsequent meta-analysis of 25 circumpolar diatom records revealed compositional shifts that paralleled those of temperature, including a notable acceleration since the turn of the twenty-first century that eclipses shifts previously observed since the mid-nineteenth century. Projections for sustained amplified warming imply that the accelerating changes we observed are likely to continue, as rising temperatures and lengthening ice-free seasons push Arctic lakes across further ecological thresholds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]