ABSTRACT This article reviews the constitutional arrangements between the United Kingdom (UK), the Crown Dependencies and the Overseas territories (CDOTs) in the context of international tax reform. These reforms occupy a hybrid space between domestic and international affairs, leaving a tension in current constitutional arrangements. It highlights extra constitutional actions by the UK and responses from the CDOTs resulting from this tension. It concludes that the UK’s behaviour amounts to ‘intervention by the back door’, including threats of sanctions in the form of defensive measures and threats from senior politicians. All whilst the UK holds the power to directly intervene in legisdlation. The article ultimately appeals for a constitutional convention wherein the rights and obligations of the parties are properly delineated, providing measurable outcomes and a maximisation of self government whilst protecting the UK’s position as the state responsible for enacting international commitments on the part of the CDOTs.

ABSTRACT Western archaeology (and cultural-heritage-related disciplines) and reproductions have a long-standing relationship. As often happens with lasting liaison, this encompasses periods of both positive and negative reception, related to the issue of authenticity and to the state of reproductions as objects in themselves. Surprisingly, this debate never seemed to explicitly include reproductions of human remains, though substituting original human remains on display with replicas is a solution praised by many and is traditionally perceived as ‘ethically issue-free’. In this paper, I investigate what happens when applying existing debates on reproductions to human remains while also analysing new ethical issues professionals encounter when settling for this solution. What position do replicas of human remains occupy in the spectrum of ‘objects of science-lived lives’? Where do they stand, in the push towards Open Access? How do we address the need for originals? Are replicas free of the colonial burden that permeates some human remains?

In the direct election of the mayor of Ludwigshafen in 2025, the candidate of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was not allowed to stand for election because of doubts about his loyalty to the constitution. The AfD criticized this as “a party ban through the back door”. The exclusion of the AfD candidate was made possible because the Rhineland-Palatinate Municipal Code stipulates loyalty to the constitution as a prerequisite for candidates for the office of mayor. This is verified by the election committee in the run-up to the election. The essay first shows that, from a democratic and constitutional perspective, there are good reasons to verify loyalty to the constitution only after the election and then only for the candidate who is ultimately elected. The result of this review should then determine whether the candidate is appointed. Furthermore, an analysis of the election results in the city districts shows that AfD supporters in the Ludwigshafen mayoral election reacted to the exclusion of their candidate in part by casting invalid votes, in part by abstaining from voting, and in part by voting for the SPD candidate.

Since the concept of crypto-colonialism was first proposed in 2002, it has become increasingly clear that it should be treated as a heuristic device, not as part of a new classification. The new term, however, does provide greater clarity than earlier coinages such as “semi-colonialism,” particularly in respect of two key elements. The first concerns how local bourgeoisies, whose regional influence is linked to their willingness to create national culture in terms acceptable to the European colonial powers, benefited significantly from their mediating role. The second is that each crypto-colony, operating in terms of the colonial “civilizing mission”, has sought to reproduce the inequalities of colonialism at its own back door, treating neighboring countries and/or internal areas of active ethic difference as culturally retrograde and in need of guidance. Internally, the emergence of a code of manners is directly linked to the imitation of colonial values, which sometimes produces the seemingly paradoxical effect of insisting that local people must adopt European mannerisms and habits in order to prove their adherence to the national culture. The cultural dimension of crypto-colonialism is thus far from “soft,” but serves as an instrument of domination at multiple levels. The reshaping of local culture often resembles what happens in post-colonial states, but with the important difference that it occurs in the context of societies that explicitly deny ever having been colonized at all.

ABSTRACT Nowadays, information warfare and discourse are key elements of the geopolitical toolbox. China is among the most effective in adopting a multi-track approach to geopolitics, which relies not only on economic, security and diplomatic means, but sees communication and discourse as key dimensions of geopolitical efforts. Understanding the geopolitical challenge posed by China requires evaluating How is China’s identity narrative perceived within EU media debates? By combining a strategic narratives approach with a politicization perspective, this contribution firstly analyzes China’s identity narrative, encompassing its story, values and goals. Secondly, it assesses the perceptions – in terms of sentiment and themes – of China’s identity as a global actor in the media debates of 13 EU Member States between 2017 and 2019. Finally, it analyzes EU media debates by determining the levels of domestic politicization and societal geopoliticization surrounding China’s identity narrative. This research finds that there is variation in the perception of China across EU Member States’ media debates and that in some instances, there are parallels between China’s projected narratives and discursive elements in EU debates. Within a broader context of the EU’s geopolitical turn, these findings point to a potential vulnerability stemming from its enduring fragmentation.

Abstract Recurrence occurs in approximately 90% of glioblastoma (GBM) patients, in part due to the tumors becoming resistant to cell death in response to existing therapies. These therapies often trigger apoptosis; however, apoptosis is only one of several different forms of cell death. We hypothesize that activating non-canonical death mechanisms could provide a back door to killing treatment-resistant GBM cells. To test this hypothesis, we first developed a new imaging-based high-throughput method to directly quantify cell death in 3D models. Using this method, we find patient-derived GBM spheroids to be resistant to the induction of cell death in response to various standard-of-care and experimental therapeutic compounds. To further investigate mechanisms underlying this resistance, we screened a panel of extracellular protein ligands for the modulation of cell death response. We find that bone morphogenic protein (BMP) signaling increases resistance to several apoptosis-inducing compounds, including temozolomide and tyrosine kinase inhibitors. Intriguingly, BMP signaling simultaneously enhanced sensitivity to non-apoptotic cell death triggered by the small molecule CIL56. Efforts are ongoing to further understand how BMP signaling governs apoptotic and non-apoptotic cell death mechanisms. Nevertheless, our results suggest a novel approach to treating GBM, centered upon the modulation of BMP signaling combined with the use of agents that induce non-apoptotic cell death.

Nebraska has made racism a way of life through most of its history. It is still the way of life for many. In 2020, a Nebraska columnist wrote the following about Nebraska: “[T]he issues stemming from racism can seem like foreign concepts, confined to the larger cities (or the American South) and relics of a distant past.”2 The column goes on to show that these issues were not confined to large cities or to the South; they rested on our back door in Nebraska. Yet, one often heard back as far as one could remember that Nebraska is not and was never a racist state. The chapters in this study do not allow this perception to stand. Nebraska’s land was stolen from the Native American nations that preceded the United States. In 1879, a federal court had to tell Nebraska that a Nebraska Native American, Standing Bear, was a person in the “full meaning of the law.”3 Less than seventy years ago a person of color and a white person did not have the right to marry one another under Nebraska law.4 Until the 1960s, federal housing rules applied in Nebraska with respect to lending practices did not allow financial institutions to lend to people of color who were mostly Blacks who wished to buy a house in most neighborhoods in Nebraska.5 The state accepted the situation; hence perpetuating segregated housing in many of its cities and towns. Three Blacks and two Hispanics during the late 1800s and early 1900s were among the fifty-seven total lynchings accounted for in Nebraska.6 Hispanic people worked “to the bone” in the fields of Nebraska without serious governmental labor protections until the mid-twentieth century.

This study investigates the use of implicature and speech acts in Erbil City courtroom. Implicature is the implied meaning in addition to literal meaning of expressions, while speech acts are communicative actions such as asserting, commanding, or promising. This study aims at investigating how both the judicial and non-judicial participants in the courtroom are able to manipulate these pragmatic tools, thereby influencing legal communication. The study employs a mixed method design. Based on verbal casual observation of real litigation in courtrooms involving judges, lawyers, plaintiffs, defendants and witnesses. The paper builds upon Grice (1975)'s implicature theory and Searle 's typology of speech acts. Data were obtained from eight court observations in Erbil. The significance lies in enhancing forensic linguistics by revealing how pragmatic awareness can improve fairness, clarity, and effectiveness in legal settings. The study concludes that there is a significant dominance of conversational implicature over conventional implicature and expressive speech acts were the most prevalent. Defendants and witnesses rely heavily on implicatures to hedge their bets or to prevaricate, and apportion responsibility by the back door; and that the judges and lawyers make extensive use of directive and assertive speech acts to take charge and assert authority.

What is it about early childhood education and care that makes it a good place to be and become for most children? This question motivates the authors’ research and they believe that it should guide all knowledge-creation processes in education. Currently, however, it seems that the dynamics of the field of education, the field of early childhood education and care, and subsequent research are moving with and influenced by what Gregory Bateson (1904–1980) called the mechanics of schismogenesis. This is a mechanics in which the space for intermediate positions is shrunk as one is pressed into categorical positions. It describes the formation of social divisions and differentiations in which personalities are dissolved and disappear. The authors ask: Have we forgotten that education is also an affective project? Have we forgotten to ask what the content is of- and what kind of research we perform and politically implement for whom? Drawing on their long academic lives and field experiences, they write a multi-ethnographic article about the real and the ridiculous of early childhood education and care research (and policies). Do we really see the definitions, factors and indicators behind the chosen dominant research perspectives and what they represent and do? Are there other perspectives that might serve the child, the early childhood education and care professional, researchers and politicians well? Because it seems that while we speak of and hunt for knowledge, that same knowledge – what we know and what we do with what we know – slips out of the back door and into oblivion, gradually drying up our sources of knowledge with the rippling effects this might have. This article explores how knowledge is created or lost in academic studies, and perhaps what is considered real and ridiculous from various perspectives.

Deception is essential to and inherent in cyber operations of all kinds. In defensive cyber operations, deception is the third line of defence after authentication and access control. Deception can be supported by intrusion detection systems monitoring for suspicious activity. Honeypots are the most obvious technique for misleading intruders, but delaying execution of commands, giving false excuses, and lying about the results may be more effective in some circumstances. Proactive defences also depend on deception. In offensive cyber operations, the attacker may manipulate someone to gain information. He/she may masquerade as an authorised user to access the target system or escalate privileges, install a rootkit to conceal his/her actions, bypass access control by installing a back door, or exfiltrate collected data within normal traffic. There is a wealth of theories of deception, overwhelmingly based on the physical world. Some theories are generic, others are specific to military operations, but few are specific to cyber deception. Some focus on the entities involved, while others focus on the deception process, which itself may be organisational or psychological. Several authors warn that analogies drawn from the physical environment may be counterintuitive in cyberspace. As Miller, Brickey and Conti (2012) memorably express it: “weapons can be reproduced instantly, ‘bullets’ travel at near the speed of light, destroyed targets can be brought back from the dead, and a seventeen year old can command an army”. This warning also applies to deception theory. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate key theories of deception for applicability to cyber operations in a multi-domain environment. There are five chapters. After the Introduction, Chapter 2 summarises relevant theory and doctrine. Chapter 3 summarises seven key theories of deception. Chapter 4 evaluates them, and outlines an ideal theory. Finally, Chapter 5 draws conclusions and recommends further work.

Vehicles in Indonesia are an important part of moving people or goods from one place to the destination, one of which is the transportation of boxed goods. However, the lack of security for boxed goods transport vehicles has always been the target of burglary of goods cargo in the area of Jalan Perniagaan Barat Roa Malaka Tambora, West Jakarta, perpetrators of goods theft from boxed goods cars that are traveling. Therefore, it is necessary to have a security system that can notify the driver when the back door of the vehicle is broken into, namely a Security Detection Tool on Iot-Based Goods Transport Vehicles Using Telegram this tool is able to detect the movement of the thief and evidence will be sent via Telegram. The research method used in this research is research adopting the ADDIE model R&D method, namely Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation (assessment) of the reference model (ADDIE). In implementing the design of a Security Detection Tool on Iot-Based Goods Transport Vehicles Using Telegram Using the Esp32 Cam Microcontroller, MCU Node, and PIR sensors. Based on the Security Detection Tool, the transportation of box goods works well. Using the PIR Sensor, which is tested and applied directly to the vehicle. The tool is capable of sending telegrams in the form of messages, locations, and photos of the break-in.

Further Stories from the Back Door of <i>Elements</i>: Final Decisions and the Launch

Water quality management is a critical aspect of environmental sustainability, particularly in arid and semi-arid regions such as Iran where water scarcity is compounded by quality degradation. This study delves into the causal relationships influencing water quality, focusing on Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) as a primary indicator in the Karkheh River, southwest Iran. Utilizing a comprehensive dataset spanning 50 years (1968–2018), this research integrates Machine Learning (ML) techniques to examine correlations and infer causality among multiple parameters, including flow rate (Q), Sodium (Na+), Magnesium (Mg2+), Calcium (Ca2+), Chloride (Cl−), Sulfate (SO42−), Bicarbonates (HCO3−), and pH. For modeling the causation, the “Back door linear regression” approach has been considered which establishes a stable and interpretable framework in causal inference by focusing on clear assumptions. Predictive modeling was used to show the difference between correlation and causation along with interpretability modeling to make the predictive model transparent. Predictive modeling does not report the causality among the variables as it showed Mg is not contributing to the target (TDS) while the findings reveal that TDS is predominantly positive influenced by Mg, Na, Cl, Ca and SO4, with HCO3 and pH exerting negative (inverse) effects. Unlike correlations, causal relationships demonstrate directional and often unequal influences, highlighting Mg as a critical driver of TDS levels. This novel application of ML-based causal inference in water quality research provides a cost-effective and time-efficient alternative to traditional experimental methods. The results underscore the potential of ML-driven causal analysis to guide water resource management and policy-making. By identifying the key drivers of TDS, this study proposes targeted interventions to mitigate water quality deterioration. Moreover, the insights gained lay the foundation for developing early warning systems, ensuring proactive and sustainable water quality management in similar hydrological contexts.

ABSTRACT The diplomacy of Lusophone African liberation movements in the 1960s and early 1970s is usually studied with regard to state actors and institutions, particularly in the Eastern bloc, Cuba, and other socialist countries. Yet, an important part of the outreach activities and relationship-building efforts of the movements – what can be called revolutionary public diplomacy – targeted western civil society and media. In those countries that were sponsoring Portugal’s war effort through the back door of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the support of activist organisations, opposition parties, and individuals served to pressure their own governments and provided solidarity infrastructures for the liberation movements. This article analyses how liberation movements from the former Portuguese colonies built connections with activists in the United Kingdom and managed to construct solidarity networks to increase their visibility and legitimacy as international actors. Drawing on archival material from different activist organisations, the article reveals how coalitions between civil society groups were created to domesticate anti-colonial demands and deal with substantive issues that went beyond political decolonisation, such as economic dependency between the global north and south or (Western) notions of foreign aid.

Japan experienced its largest outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) during the 2022–2023 season, with 84 cases on poultry farms and the culling of more than 17 million birds. Commercial layer farms were the most affected, with 58 cases caused by the H5N1 subtype of the HPAI virus. To identify the risk factors and support future outbreak preparedness, a case–control study was conducted. All 58 affected commercial layer farms were designated as case farms, whereas 26 unaffected farms located within a 5 km radius of the case farms served as control farms. Data were collected through structured interviews using a questionnaire for the control farms and from on-site investigation records for the case farms. For control farms, all poultry barns on the premises were included, whereas only the initially affected barns were analyzed in the case farms. Logistic regression using a generalized linear mixed model was performed to evaluate the associations between HPAI outbreaks and explanatory variables related to farm- and barn-level factors, such as farm characteristics, husbandry and hygiene practices, barn structure, and environmental factors, including wildlife presence. Farm location was included as a random effect. The analysis identified a large number of laying hens on the farm (≥100,000 birds) as a potential risk factor. In contrast, changing shoes at the barn entrance and changing shoes or avoiding the use of the back door were identified as potential protective factors. These findings provide evidence-based guidance for strengthening biosecurity measures and improving HPAI prevention strategies on poultry farms in Japan.

Has the high-leverage growth model continued after the demographic dividend in China? The ongoing debate at the macroeconomic level focuses on whether local government debt has played a significant role in sustaining high economic growth in China. This study examines the economic effects of local government debt governance reforms, using the 2015 comprehensive “self-issue and self-repayment” policy as a natural experiment. The analysis is based on a sample of 284 prefecture-level cities from 2010 to 2021. The results show that: (1) Both the “open the front door” and “block the back door” measures of local government debt governance have contributed to a reduction in regional economic growth rates. These findings provide some evidence for the notion that high leverage has been associated with high growth in China. (2) Heterogeneity tests, grouped by economic development level and city tier, indicate that the impact of local government debt governance is more pronounced in eastern and western regions, as well as in prefecture-level cities, where economic slowdown is more significant. In contrast, the effects are less pronounced in the central regions, sub-provincial cities, and provincial capitals. (3) Mechanism analysis further suggests that local government debt governance reduces regional economic growth through the "transformational effect" of the "open the front door" policy and the "contraction effect" of the "block the back door" policy. These results contribute to a deeper understanding of the factors behind China's economic growth trajectory.

Abstract Recurrence occurs in approximately 90% of glioblastoma (GBM) patients, in part due to the tumors becoming resistant to cell death in response to existing therapies. These therapies often trigger apoptosis; however, apoptosis is only one of several different forms of cell death. We hypothesize that activating non-canonical death mechanisms could provide a back door to killing treatment-resistant GBM cells. To test this hypothesis, we first developed a new imaging-based high-throughput method to directly quantify cell death in 3D models. Using this method, we find patient-derived GBM spheroids to be resistant to the induction of cell death in response to various standard-of-care and experimental therapeutic compounds. To further investigate mechanisms underlying this resistance, we screened a panel of extracellular protein ligands for the modulation of cell death response. We find that bone morphogenic protein (BMP) signaling increases resistance to several apoptosis-inducing compounds, including temozolomide and tyrosine kinase inhibitors. Intriguingly, BMP signaling simultaneously enhanced sensitivity to a novel non-apoptotic cell death pathway triggered by the small molecule CIL56. Efforts are ongoing to further understand how BMP signaling governs apoptotic and non-apoptotic cell death mechanisms. Nevertheless, our results suggest a novel approach to treating GBM, centered upon the modulation of BMP signaling combined with the use of agents that induce non-apoptotic cell death.

On May 9, 2002, a man with a handgun slipped inside the back door of B.B. King's Restaurant and Blues Club in Memphis, Tennessee.He headed toward the basement office where the restaurant kept its safe.

ABSTRACTBased on 35 comic strip dialogues with marginalized children in Italy, Norway and Slovenia, as well as three individual interviews with Italian practitioners, this article introduces a methodological approach that offers a ‘back door’ for exploring social problems embedded in the everyday lives of children. The analysis demonstrates the importance of adopting an everyday life perspective as an analytical strategy in conversations with children in marginalized life situations. This means shifting the focus away from solely examining risk factors and instead promoting a contextual understanding of risk, with an emphasis on amplifying the diverse voices of children.

Sneaking out the back door? Interrogating the role of governments in the global governance of SDG 4