This study examines how business activity responds to local taxation, specifically property tax and local sales tax, in Nevada. Using county-level data for the period 1999–2014, we assess the impact of these taxes on various business activity indicators, including employment, annual payroll, the number of establishments, and the number of small establishments categorized by size. Unlike previous studies that primarily focus on state-level taxation, our research delves into the effects of local tax instruments. By analyzing different components of the property tax (e.g., school district, county, and special district rates) and evaluating the specific effects of local sales tax changes, we provide a nuanced understanding of the local tax–business activity relationship. To address potential policy endogeneity in the sales tax rate, we instrument the sales tax rate using the lagged share of registered Democrats and implement an IV (control-function) spatial Durbin framework, ensuring robust estimates of within-period associations and spatial spillovers. Our analysis is intentionally confined to the 1999–2014 institutional regime, when Nevada businesses were primarily exposed to property and sales taxes. The estimates should, therefore, be interpreted as evidence on how the local tax mix and its components correlate with business activity under this pre-2015 fiscal structure, rather than as a direct forecast for the post-2015 environment shaped by subsequent policy changes and macroeconomic shocks. Across specifications, the IV-identified total effect of the sales tax rate is consistently negative for establishment-related outcomes. Nonetheless, the results remain informative for current debates on the design of local revenue systems because the underlying tax–service bundle and cross-jurisdictional spillover mechanisms continue to be central to local public finance.

ABSTRACT Integrating insights about Shakespeare as text, data and/or computer code from the digital humanities, textual studies and software studies, this article contributes to current debates about the impact of digital technologies on literature and the humanities by discussing connections and disjunctions between Shakespeare's works and computer programs, literary language and computer code in an analysis of ambiguity and abstraction in the Shakespeare Programming Language (SPL). As an esoteric programming language, the SPL adapts Shakespeare's plays into a language for programming a computer to perform logical operations electronically, creating a version of Shakespeare that is both uniquely open and tightly circumscribed by the technical and cultural protocols of computation. In the adaptation process from dramatic text to programming language, the SPL abstracts from the literary ambiguity that characterises Shakespeare's works and words, resulting in a drastic reduction of meaning. Despite its obvious limitations, however, this article argues that the SPL's radical mode of digital adaptation allows Shakespeare's works to expand into an entirely new dimension, creating a mode of interaction with Shakespeare in which the user comes to write, rather than read, Shakespearean plays – as computer programs.

Abstract This article argues that enactivism, integrated with feminist and posthumanist perspectives, provides a unified framework for addressing both the ecological crisis and the ethical challenges posed by artificial intelligence. Current debates—from the Anthropocene to human-centered AI—call for a critical redefinition of the human, yet they often evolve in parallel, producing a “split gaze” that neglects the profound hybridization of humans, environments, and technologies. With its relational understanding of cognition, sense-making, and agency, enactivism offers conceptual tools for overcoming the human versus Nature dualism as well as the human versus machine dualism. By reassessing intelligence as embodied, emergent, and environmentally embedded, it enables a shift toward relational ecological ethics grounded in interdependence and care. Applied to AI, this perspective treats digital technologies as components of an evolving human niche rather than external tools, thereby reframing responsibility in terms of socio-material practices rather than abstract principles. The article concludes by proposing a “networked humanity” and an “ecologically expansive community” as guiding concepts for multispecies and technological coexistence.

Compositional convection is one of the primary physical processes responsible for redistributing solute during the solidification of crystal mushes from multicomponent melts, a phenomenon frequently encountered in geological fluid mechanics, in particular during the cooling of magma intrusions. The key factor controlling solidification is the rate of cooling through contact with the surroundings. In this study, we focus on understanding the interplay between the cooling history, compositional convection, and the growth of a crystal mush driven by local supercooling. We analyze a mathematical model that describes the growth of the mushy region cooled from below, bounded from above by a melt region of finite volume. The melt region is assumed to have a well-mixed composition as a result of compositional convection. Contrary to initial expectations, we found that increasing the rate of bottom cooling does not necessarily result in a thinner mush with a higher solid fraction. Instead, the response depends on the kinetic law governing the mush growth rate as a function of local supercooling. Our results contribute to the current open debate within the volcanological and petrological communities about the effects of compositional convection on magma crystallization.

Abstract Social trust is a key component of the social fabric behind institutions and economic outcomes. We contribute to this literature by looking at the role of social trust vis-a-vis corporate innovation performance across Chinese provinces. China, though very likely the most extraordinary emerging economy of the XXI century, is an insightful context, a vast territory with a remarkable socio-economic and institutional heterogeneity, particularly across its provinces. Using multiple data sources covering the period 2012–2017 our baseline model shows an increase in patents (applications and granted) in provinces with higher level of social trust. These results remain consistent to several sensitivity analyses including controlling for annual and industry fixed effects, and to a specific identification strategy using 2SLS estimation. Further model extensions also suggest that social trust is more impactful in provinces with lower quality of formal institutions, among non-state owned rather than state-owned firms, and among firms exhibiting more financial constraints. We argue that this work enriches the current debate regarding the role of cultural traits within different institutional frameworks. It also supports the perspective that policies formulated around the mobility of knowledgeable individuals across regions and institutions, along with collaborative research initiatives, can play a pivotal role.

This article analyzes the position of the liberal political perfectionist proposal, understood as the state promotion of liberal political virtues, in relation to its practical necessity and feasibility. Initially, the authors present their proposal for liberal political perfectionism, emphasizing its fundamental practical importance for the maintenance and flourishing of liberal democracies. Then, in light of the current debate between ideal theories, non-ideal theories, and political realism, this article shows how such perfectionism, although based on markedly realist descriptions, should be considered a non-ideal theory due to its prior commitment to the normativity of egalitarian political liberalism, yet remaining capable of guiding political action. Finally, it argues that this commitment to the normativity of egalitarian political liberalism and the consequent departure from political realism do not lessen its effective applicability in liberal democratic societies.

There are two primary arguments against placing human beings in restricted housing units within carceral institutions, and one overarching argument for the practice. The arguments opposing restricted housing rest on the explicit and implicit harm caused to individuals via the practice (Haney, 2018; Luigi et al., 2020) and the lack of positive outcomes that the practice yields (Cloud et al., 2021; Woo et al., 2019). These contentions generally stem from research scientists from psychology, social work, criminology, and sociology and humanitarian advocates working with or for a litany of non-profit and governmental organizations. On the other hand, penal institutions and their associated staff and stakeholders typically favor using restricted housing as a means of instituting control, safety, and/or security within carceral environments to ensure the well-being of both staff and incarcerated individuals (Labrecque, 2015). Framing the current arguments against the use of restricted housing, this paper uses rigorous scientific/research findings to suggest that this practice is not only harmful to incarcerated individuals and does not yield better outcomes (such as misconduct reduction) but it is also a hugely inefficient and ineffective process that resembles organizational irrationality rather than sound decision making in carceral spaces. The paper concludes with background regarding decision biases and how to overcome these challenges to improve both correctional practice and human lives.

The rapid integration of ChatGPT into English language classrooms has introduced a troubling pedagogical shift in which learners increasingly outsource cognitive effort to artificial intelligence, bypassing processes of intellectual struggle, retention, and independent language development. This article critically examines how generative artificial intelligence, while often celebrated for accessibility and linguistic support, can foster learner dependency and undermine the development of sustained cognitive engagement. Drawing on extended classroom observations and reflective teaching practice within a United Arab Emirates higher education context, the study identifies recurring patterns of disengagement, superficial linguistic understanding, and a growing reluctance to grapple with language complexity. These behaviors are conceptualized through the notion of the Brat Brain, a metaphor used to describe a learner mindset that resists effort and critical thinking, demands instant solutions, and privileges convenience over intellectual growth. Rather than asking how to improve their writing or speaking, students increasingly question why such effort is necessary when artificial intelligence can produce faster and seemingly superior outputs. Reframing artificial intelligence use through the good, the bad, and the (educationally) evil, the article offers a critical lens for evaluating both the affordances and the unintended consequences of artificial fluency in language education. The study’s significance lies in its contribution to current debates on artificial intelligence in education by highlighting the pedagogical risks of uncritical adoption and arguing for a recalibration of instructional practices grounded in critical digital literacy, intellectual responsibility, and human-centered learning.

ABSTRACT The impact of violent crime has been shown to extend to business confidence, the timing and types of employment, and investments in human capital. The impact of violent crime on human behavior also potentially touches upon whether U.S. Representatives perform their legislative responsibilities or instead engage in shirking behavior. More specifically, the current political debate surrounding violent crime in Washington, D.C., gives rise to an interesting question: Do U.S. Representatives who reside in and represent notably dangerous Congressional districts view the nation's capital as a refuge from the violent crime that is persistent in those districts? To the extent they do, one would predict that the rates of vote‐skipping by U.S. Representatives from notably dangerous Congressional districts would be lower than those realized for all other U.S. Representatives. Using vote‐skipping (i.e., legislator shirking) data from the 118th Congress, this study undertakes such an investigation, finding that representatives from notably dangerous Congressional districts tend to skip almost 0.9%‐points fewer votes than representatives from all other Congressional districts. This impact represents almost 35% of mean percentage of votes skipped across all legislators in the U.S. House during the 118th Congress.

This article synthesises the theoretical framework of my paper “Il documento digitalizzato, tra ricerca storica, Archivistica e intelligenze artificiali”, which was discussed at the round table entitled “Beyond the Boundaries of the Past: Innovation and Interaction in the Age of Digital Archives”, held on 4 June 2025 in Modena, Italy, as part of the Seventh National Public History Conference of the Italian Association of Public History (AIPH), Storie in cammino. The paper deals with the current transformation of historical research through digital technologies, which cannot be adequately understood if “digitisation” denotes merely the conversion of analogue objects, signals, and documents into digital formats. Instead, it proposes a shift toward a notion of digitisation oriented explicitly toward computation, understood as the formalisation, structuring, and operationalisation of historical knowledge in ways that make it interrogable by machines without relinquishing its interpretive complexity. Taking the history of slavery as a sample phenomenon of observation, the paper situates contemporary digital projects within the long historiographical tradition of histoire sérielle, reinterpreted as a computational epistemology rather than a purely quantitative method. Through the analysis of invented archives, historical data infrastructures, and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools—particularly generative models—the paper aims to demonstrate that the decisive challenge for Digital History (DHy) lies not in technological adoption but in the construction of epistemically robust workflows, ontologies, and datasets. By engaging with the theoretical legacy of Richard Ennals and current debates on datafication and AI, the paper contends that only a computation-oriented approach to digitisation can ensure transparency, reproducibility, and critical control over historical knowledge in the “iAge of intelligent machines”.

ABSTRACT This article critically revisits a foundational early framework for managing emotional crises in outdoor learning and therapeutic programmes. The framework prioritises crisis prevention and structured management in line with the ethical principle of non-maleficence (doing no harm). The article argues that such approaches require deeper consideration of the ethical concerns surrounding the exposure of vulnerable individuals to emotional risks without a clear therapeutic or pedagogical rationale, linked to the principle of beneficence (promoting wellbeing). It further contends that non-maleficence and beneficence in outdoor learning and outdoor adventure therapies must be balanced with autonomy, the right of individuals to make informed decisions about their participation, which is crucial for ethical practice. By examining current ethical debates and psychological dimensions, this article provides a deeper understanding of ethical responsibilities beyond crisis management and highlights the importance of trauma-informed care as framework for supporting and promoting participant wellbeing.

The current debate on digital education is at a crossroads between the need for technological innovation and the growing concern about the impact of passive screen use. In this context, identifying sustainable pedagogical models that integrate Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in a meaningful and inclusive way is an urgent need. This article presents a case study of the Amara Berri System (ABS), aiming to analyze how inclusive and sustainable digital innovation is operationalized within the system and whether teachers’ length of service is associated with the implementation and perceived impact of inclusive ICT practices. The investigation is based on a mixed-methods sequential design. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of 292 teachers to collect data on their practices and perceptions. Subsequently, a focus group with eight teachers was conducted to further explore the meaning of their practices. Quantitative results show that the implementation and positive evaluation of inclusive ICT practices correlate significantly with teachers’ seniority within the system, which suggests that the model is formative in itself. Qualitative analysis shows that ICTs are not an end in themselves within the ABS, but an empowering tool for the students. The “Audiovisual Media Room”, managed by students, functions as a space for social and creative production that gives technology a pedagogical purpose. The study concludes that the sustainability of digital innovation requires coherence with the pedagogical project. Findings offer valuable implications for the design of teacher training contexts that foster the integration of technology within a framework of truly inclusive education.

ABSTRACT Automation in public administration is often seen as a recent, purely digital phenomenon that transforms decision‐making and governance. This article challenges that view by elucidating a historical continuum in the automation of administrative decision‐making. It introduces the concept of analog automation to highlight how complex social, organizational, legal, and historical factors have impacted decision‐makers' discretionary space and paved the way for digital automation. Drawing on public administration, science and technology studies, and sociolegal scholarship, the article uses analog automation to study the gradual yet significant change of automation in Finland's social assistance system over four decades. Analysis of legislative and policy documents shows how discretionary space has been gradually restricted by changes in organizational structures and practices and their adoption into legal obligations. The article provides historical context to current debates on digital transformation, showing how long‐standing institutional developments enable automation and how standardization and discretion have become increasingly intertwined.

The accelerated growth of social media is largely driven by the active participation of the millennial generation. Their high connectivity and digital habits have transformed these platforms into strategic channels for marketing and communicationdirected at this audience. In this context, the present study analyzes the effect of social media marketing on purchase decisions and customer satisfaction among Peruvian millennial consumers, with the aim of providing an in-depth understanding of online consumption patterns and offering valuable insights for the development of effective tailored business strategies. The results of the structural equation modeling (SEM), applied to a sample of 437 Peruvian millennials, reveal a positive effect of social media marketing on both purchase decisions and customer satisfaction. Entertainment, personalization, and service efficiency were also identified as having a significant influence on consumers' satisfaction. This study contributes to the current debate on digital marketing by enriching existing theories on millennial purchasing behavior in developing countries. The results have important implications for both the academic community and business practice. On the one hand, they inform policies directed at entrepreneurial initiatives targeting millennials; on the other, they guide companies in adapting their communication strategies to the needs of this specific market segment.

ObjectivesDespite calls for including pregnant and lactating people in clinical research, exclusionary practices persist. Current arguments for inclusion are fragmented and discipline-specific. This scoping review synthesised how inclusion and exclusion of pregnant and lactating populations in clinical research is framed across fields, and identified recommendations for responsible inclusion.DesignScoping review.Data sourcesWe searched eight databases from inception to 14 February 2024: MEDLINE, CINAHL, Family & Society Studies Worldwide, SocINDEX, Scopus, Web of Science, Embase and Global Health.Eligibility criteriaPapers about conceptual or empirical issues related to inclusion or exclusion of pregnant and lactating populations in clinical research. Eligible publications included conceptual analyses, reflections on regulatory and ethical guidance, primary research, review articles, commentaries, viewpoints and editorials.Data extraction and synthesisTwo reviewers independently screened and extracted data, developed article summaries and iteratively synthesised findings into themes.ResultsWe included 188 papers across bioethics, law and regulation, epidemiology, pharmacology and market and product development. We developed 10 themes: (1) narratives of vulnerability, (2) the injustice of exclusion, (3) risk and overprotection, (4) the unique physiology of pregnancy and lactation, (5) business risks in drug development, (6) informed consent and its limitations, (7) evaluating risks and benefits in maternal-fetal therapies, (8) reliance on animal studies for safety data, (9) designing studies for optimal safety and efficacy and (10) the challenges of detecting adverse events. Recommendations highlight early initiation of preclinical studies, consensus on terminology like ‘minimal risk’, standardised trial endpoints, dedicated funding for research networks, incentives for pharmaceutical companies, capacity strengthening for research ethics committees and partnerships with community-based and patient advocacy organisations.ConclusionChallenges to the responsible inclusion of pregnant and lactating populations arise across multiple stages of clinical research. Structural changes through coordinated interventions across the research pipeline are needed to change the status quo.

Abstract This paper examines how ethno-racially marginalised women in Australian workplaces continue to be constrained by enduring organisational norms that privilege whiteness, masculinity, and Western/Anglo-cultural modes of participation. Further, we show how mainstream diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives reproduce exclusion and marginalisation in unintended and new ways by misrecognising or sidelining intersectional experiences. Through an intersectional reading of survey and interview data, we show how DEI initiatives frequently reflect narrow settings for equity that privilege dominant norms while rendering others invisible or “risky”. We engage with Elizabeth Anderson’s theory of relational equality to show that the shortcomings of these initiatives result not from idiosyncratic error or oversight but from the foundational logics that underpin them, including a business-case rationale and a default to distributive justice logics. We suggest that DEI should be reimagined as a practice of enabling equal participation, mutual recognition, and interpersonal justifications within organisational life. In doing so, the paper contributes both empirically and theoretically to current debates on workplace justice, intersectional equality, and the ethics of inclusion.

The increasing demand for accurate toxicity assessment and to minimise or eliminate the use of animal testing has accelerated the development of numerous computational models, AI/ML models, and online resources that support research in computational toxicology. This review addresses toxicity prediction and chemical safety evaluation, focusing on computational models and data coverage, Molecular Descriptors, QSAR models, AI/ML-based approaches, Explainable AI, predictive methodologies, regulatory relevance, and accessibility. This collectively enables the identification, prediction, and analysis of chemical toxicity across various biological endpoints. In addition, the review highlights AI/ML tools for predicting toxicity endpoints, such as neurotoxicity, hepatotoxicity, cardiotoxicity, genotoxicity, and environmental toxicity. Regulatory limitations vary significantly among countries and jurisdictions, exhibiting a marked absence of convergence. Current debates regarding regulatory norms focus on achieving global conformity. Regulatory adaptability is the key as AI evolves rapidly. The promotion of AI/ML tool integration and interoperable frameworks could substantially enhance the future of predictive toxicology.

Abstract In this article we develop a social theoretical conception of the boundaries of public speech. There is a vivid debate concerning supposed shifts of these boundaries. Some argue that boundaries are contracting, causing formerly accepted conservative positions to be excluded as extremist. Others argue that boundaries are expanding and shifting to the right, causing formerly unspeakable far-right ideology to be normalized. Unfortunately, there is a lack of long-term empirical studies that systematically compare sayability boundaries over the decades, making it difficult to validate or invalidate either of these contradicting claims. The social theoretical conception of the boundaries of public speech developed in this article is designed to enable such empirical research. After naming the relevant strands of research literature and evaluating their contribution to the research of sayability boundaries, we develop our conception of discourse and its boundaries. First, we deploy conceptions from Foucault and Offe to distinguish different types of boundaries, with normative boundaries being the ones that are most pertinent to current debates. The concept of normative boundaries refers to discursive rules marking certain statements as socially undesirable. Second, we argue that normative boundaries should not be conceptualized as a single line separating a normatively sayable inside from a normatively unsayable outside. Instead, we devise a tiered system of six normative boundaries creating seven degrees of normative sayability, which differ from one social context to another. Third, we turn toward the ways in which boundaries are anchored in social practice and social structures distinguishing the subjective, the intersubjective, and the objectified level, as well as different degrees of formalization. Finally, we outline pathways through which this conception can be used in empirical research that builds on and goes beyond the existing research literature.

The regulation of gamete donation in Spain is currently framed within a biomedical perspective that prioritises technical and medical aspects, leaving aside social and ethical dimensions of increasing relevance. This article analyses the need for legislative reform to address existing gaps, especially in relation to donor anonymity and its implications for the rights of donorconceived individuals. Through a multidisciplinary methodology that combines legal analysis, empirical studies and comparisons with other jurisdictions in the European Union, significant shortcomings in the Spanish regulatory framework are identified, such as the lack of mechanisms to guarantee thealtruistic nature of donations, insufficient transparency in donor registries and inadequate information provided to donors and recipients. Based on empirical data and international case studies, the authors propose the abolition of donor anonymity and the creation of a centralised agency to regulate gamete donation in Spain. These reforms would align national practices with European Union human standards, improve transparency and ensure ethical practices in assisted reproduction. This paper seeks to contribute to the current debate by making concrete recommendations for a fairer and more transparent legislative framework on gamete donation in Spain.

ABSTRACT Second language learning motivation (L2) research has a strong nomothetic tradition. However, such research is inherently limited when applied to specific classrooms and/or individual learners. Accordingly, growing attention has been paid to relationships between trait-like and situational aspects of motivation, foregrounding the role of context in research. In recent years, motivation and other learner differences (LDs) have been conceptualized as dynamic, interacting continuously, and manifesting differently at different timescales. Idiodynamics was developed to capture represenations of learners’ in situ motivation(s) (or other LDs) as they fluctuate on a second-to-second basis. Participant(s) are videoed taking part in a learning/communication event. The participant reviews the video and continuously reports changes in their motivational status (idiodynamic ratings) using specialized software. These ratings are then used in a stimulated recall interview, eliciting rationale for changes in the participant’s status. The current article reviews epistemological arguments for using the idiodynamic method as a stand-alone method and alongside existing, nomothetic methods. Idiodynamics has ecological and time validity that encourages researchers to revisit prior L2 motivational theories and findings. We consider six ways in which idiodynamic research may be juxtaposed with – and complement – such work. We describe some of the key empirical idiodynamic findings concerning L2 motivation and related affective variables showing the range, scope, and potential of this research approach. Data analysis and visualization are discussed along with limitations. To promote and facilitate future idiodynamic studies, we finally discuss future directions and innovative adaptations of the approach.