Microplastics pollution is a widely recognized issue, although significant analytical challenges remain to be overcome in order to achieve a more comprehensive ecological understanding. The complex nature of this pollutant, with its variable physical and chemical properties, presents considerable challenges when it comes to establishing standardized methods for studying it. One crucial factor that influences its toxicity is particle size, yet even this parameter lacks a well-established framework, especially in the case of nanoplastics. Although the size range limits are already proposed in the literature, where the most acceptable values for microplastics are from 1 to 5,000 μm and for nanoplastics are from 1 to 1,000 nm, we propose narrowing these limits to 0.1–1,000 μm and 10–100 nm, respectively. We based our discussion on conceptual terminology, polymer structure and toxicity, highlighting the significance of accurately defining their size range. The standardization of these limits will allow the development of more efficient approaches to studying this pollutant, enabling a comprehensive understanding of its ecological consequences and potential risks.

To bring linguistic theory back in touch with commonplace observations concerning the resilience of language in use to language change, language acquisition and ungrammaticality, Pullum and colleagues have argued for a ‘model-theoretic’ theory of syntax. The present paper examines the implications for linguists working in standard formal frameworks and argues that, to the extent that such theories embrace monotonicity in syntactic operations, they qualify as model-theoretic under some minor modifications to allow for the possibility of unknown words.

Oloyede and colleagues advocate for updating haematological monitoring requirements for clozapine, arguing that current protocols overestimate the risk of clozapine-induced agranulocytosis. Their research suggests that stringent monitoring may unnecessarily limit access to clozapine, a crucial treatment for resistant schizophrenia. The editorial supports calls for international consensus to carefully weigh the pros and cons of relaxing monitoring guidelines while ensuring comprehensive care for patients.

Bioethics as a philosophical discipline deals with matters of life and death. How it deals with them, however, depends on the kind of life particular bioethicists focus on and the kind of value they assign to it. Natural-law ethicists and conservative Kantians emphasize biological human life regardless of its developmental stage. Integrative bioethicists also embrace nonhuman life if it can be protected without harming humans. Liberal and utilitarian moralists concentrate on life that is sentient and aware of itself, to the exclusion of biological existence devoid of these. Extinctionist and antinatalist philosophers believe that life’s value is negative and that its misery should be alleviated and terminated by not bringing new individuals into existence. As the last-mentioned approach reverses the idea of life’s positive value, it could be called oibethics.

Numerous differences exist between and within research projects related to assessment and operationalization of potentially traumatic events (PTEs) for youth, especially when measuring polyvictimization. However, few studies have systematically examined how polyvictimization measurement differences influence PTE’s relation to functioning. This study sought to address these knowledge gaps by conducting a secondary data multiverse replication (SDMR) to systematically (re)evaluate PTE polyvictimization measurement approaches. Participants included 3297 adolescents (Mage = 14.63; 50.59% female; 65.15% white) from the National Survey of Adolescents-Replication study who completed a structured interview on PTE exposure and emotional and behavioral health (i.e., posttraumatic stress and major depressive disorder, drug and alcohol use, and delinquency). Results indicated that PTE operationalizations using a count variable tended to demonstrate better model performance and prediction of youth at-risk of emotional and behavioral health challenges, compared to models using a binary (yes/no) PTE operationalization. Differences in model performance and prediction were less distinct between models examining multiple forms of a single type of PTE (e.g., maltreatment, community violence), compared to models examining multiple PTE types. These findings emphasize the importance of using multidimensional approaches to PTE operationalization and the need for more multiverse analyses to improve PTE evidence-based assessment.

This paper presents geomorphological and historical records of the surge-type behaviour of Hansbreen, one of the most studied tidewater glaciers in Svalbard. The surge-type behaviour of the glacier has not been considered before due to the lack of evidence of this phenomenon. We integrate geomorphological mapping of the terrestrial and submarine forefields with historical data from the 19th and 20th centuries to reconstruct the glacier dynamics and identify the possible timing of surging. Landform assemblages are representative of the surging glacier landsystem, including crevasse-squeeze ridges (CSRs) and submarine streamlined glacial lineations. Abundant CSRs in the outer part of the terrestrial forefield were also documented in the 1980s, but most have been obliterated since then. We suggest the identified surge landsystem was produced during a surge of Hansbreen detected from photographs taken during the Austro-Hungarian expedition in 1872. Historical photogrammetric photos from the Norwegian expedition in 1918 revealed surge-diagnostic features in the glacier surface, including a folded medial moraine and a dense, complex network of crevasses. A potential next surge remains questionable in the following decades due to the low-lying accumulation area of the main stream hindering the mass build-up, but potential surges of the tributary glaciers should not be excluded.

We show how a complete mathematical model of a physical process can be learned directly from data via a hybrid approach combining three simple and general ingredients: physical assumptions of smoothness, locality and symmetry, a weak formulation of differential equations and sparse regression. To illustrate this, we extract a complete system of governing equations of fluid dynamics – the Navier–Stokes equation, the continuity equation and the boundary conditions – as well as the pressure-Poisson and energy equations, from numerical data describing a highly turbulent channel flow in three dimensions. Whether they represent known or unknown physics, relations discovered using this approach take the familiar form of partial differential equations, which are easily interpretable and readily provide information about the relative importance of different physical effects. The proposed approach offers insight into the quality of the data, serving as a useful diagnostic tool. It is also remarkably robust, yielding accurate results for very high noise levels, and should thus be well suited for analysis of experimental data.

Domestic fruit and vegetable producers contend that rising imports during seasonal harvesting windows have negatively impacted domestic prices and revenue. This study simulates producers’ revenue with the removal of above-average imports as defined by the U.S. International Trade Commission. Results indicate significant additional revenues to domestic producers in the simulated scenario. Also, additional revenues to producers by state and season show substantial heterogeneity with robustness checks revealing similar patterns. Options such as risk management and technological improvements are needed to enhance the competitiveness of U.S. fresh produce industries instead of limiting imports in the absence of illegal dumping.

The global rise in twinning rates poses health challenges due to increased risks for infants and mothers. Despite the benefits, breastfeeding rates among multiples are low, with exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) particularly scarce compared to singletons. Our study focuses on the mothers of twins in a unique population in Kodinhi village, Kerala, India, known for its high twinning rates, which aims to contribute to existing knowledge of breastfeeding practices and perspectives in a high twinning environment and offer valuable insights to promote optimal breastfeeding among mothers of twins. A retrospective cross-sectional survey was adopted. Seventy-five mothers with twins under 3 years of age from Kodinhi and neighboring areas were interviewed face to face using structured validated tools. Data collection focused on quantitative data supplemented by narrative descriptions. Most women delivered preterm (57.3%), operative delivery (58.7%), and had a late initiation of breastfeeding (32.9% within 24 hours). Colostrum feed was common (86.7%). The EBF rate was 4%, with 47.9% initiating nonexclusive breastfeeding before 3 months, and most of the twins (46.6%) were breastfed for 1−2 years. Fatigue (69.9%) and low milk supply (38.7%) were chief concerns. While 16.4% of mothers opted for a tandem breastfeeding technique, many preferred consecutive feeding as tandem was challenging. Mothers in Kodinhi demonstrated commendable efforts in breastfeeding twins; despite the low rate of EBF, breastfeeding extended to 1−2 years. Evidence-based interventions and personalized support, primarily focusing on maternal perspectives of milk insufficiency, fatigue and breastfeeding techniques, are crucial for sustaining optimal breastfeeding practices among mothers of twins.

Chromosomal 2q37 deletion syndrome, marked by developmental delays, distinctive facial features, and a spectrum of congenital anomalies, presents significant challenges in the cardiac management of affected individuals. This paper details the case of an 8-month-old male with 2q37 deletion syndrome, manifesting atrial and ventricular septal defects, patent ductus arteriosus, and right ventricular outflow tract stenosis, leading to a demanding postoperative course. Despite an initially stable post-surgery phase, the onset of junctional ectopic tachycardia necessitated prolonged veno-arterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support, highlighting the syndrome’s potential for intricate postoperative courses. The complexities encountered in this case, including extended renal replacement therapy and delayed thoracic closure, underscore the syndrome’s multisystem impact and the critical need for tailored, multidisciplinary care approaches. This report contributes to the growing body of knowledge on the cardiac implications of 2q37 deletion syndrome, emphasising the importance of individualised surgical strategies and the ongoing exploration of genotype–phenotype correlations in this rare genetic disorder.

The dewetting of thin nanofilms is significantly affected by thermal fluctuations, liquid–solid slip and disjoining pressure, which can be described by lubrication equations augmented by appropriately scaled noise terms, known as stochastic lubrication equations. Here molecular dynamics simulations along with a newly proposed slip-generating method are adopted to study the instability of nanofilms with arbitrary slip. These simulations show that strong-slip dewetting is distinct from weak-slip dewetting by faster growth of perturbations and fewer droplets after dewetting, which cannot be predicted by the existing stochastic lubrication equation. A new stochastic lubrication equation considering the strong-slip boundary condition is thus derived using a long-wave approximation to the equations of fluctuating hydrodynamics. The linear stability analysis of this equation, i.e. surface spectrum, agrees well with molecular simulations. Interestingly, strong slip can break down the usual Stokes limits adopted in weak-slip dewetting and bring the inertia into effect. The evolution of the standard deviation of the film height $W^2(t)={\overline {h^2}-{\bar {h}}^2}$ at the initial stage of the strong-slip dewetting is found to be $W\sim t^{1/4}$ in contrast to $W\sim t^{1/8}$ for the weak-slip dewetting.

The overall system of interest is an infinite half-space in which a compressible ocean is the top layer and an elastic seafloor (together with the crust beneath) forms a semi-infinite bottom layer. Whereas water-column compression waves and seafloor waves individually have received considerable attention, not much is known about their propagation as groups. This work utilizes the group behaviour of these waves to derive energy balance relations for wavenumber spectra for wave groups propagating through a mildly non-uniform water-column–seafloor system. Dispersion relations for the coupled system are derived using known kinematic and kinetic conditions at the interface, and free and forced wave solutions for the wavenumber spectra are obtained, with particular attention to the case when certain frequency–wavenumber combinations in the forcing excite the two-media system into resonance. Wavenumber spectra predicted using the theory for mildly non-uniform media are found to be close to those predicted assuming uniform media, though the effect of non-uniformity becomes more noticeable as the groups propagate farther from the generation area. Here, nonlinear interactions among stationary, random multi-directional surface-wave fields provide the forcing for groups of compression waves in the water and surface waves on the seafloor. The formulation includes the cumulative effect of multiple generation areas along the group propagation direction. Comparisons with observational data from a sensor array in the Atlantic Ocean indicate that the theory can be applied to reconstruct plausible combinations of generation areas and interaction times that are consistent with the measured data, for deriving approximate predictions at down-wave distances along the group propagation directions. Implications of this and other findings are discussed for (i) the potential for energy conversion from water-column compression waves on the seafloor, (ii) tracking of tropical cyclones from the seafloor, and (iii) quantification and comparative assessment of low-frequency mid-ocean ambient noise and microseism activity.