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The making of the New World: examining the role of Franco-British geopolitical rivalry and settler colonialism in US state formation, 1606-1787
No full textThis doctoral thesis – the first of its kind from the discipline of International Relations(IR) – contributes to the emerging field of enquiry that investigates the settler colonial origins of the interstate order, primarily through an in-depth reconstruction of the making of the United States (US), circa 1606-1787. Theoretically informed by a Historical Sociology of International Politics, as opposed to International Historical Sociology, this thesis is grounded in a radical historicist reading of Political Marxism that incorporates the role of foreign policy and grand strategy: Geopolitical Marxism. Challenging extant IR accounts that either neglect the US case or view it as a derivative of the general dynamics operating throughout the international system, this thesis argues that competing modalities of settler colonialism provided the specific preconditions underpinning the origin of the US. Rather than representing a distinct break from the colonial period, it was the entanglements emerging from these competing modalities of power, in particular Britain’s policy of ‘intra-imperial free trade’, and the active indigenous resistance to such power, which shaped the strive for independence and the federal/republican reformation of the state. Two key preconditions are identified in the thirteen colonies, including the specific arrangement of class relations and the institutional network of the assembly system. Collectively, these preconditions were integral to ensuring that resistance to the British metropole at the end of the 18th century was more radical and provincial than in other colonial contexts, while the prevailing arrangement of class relations produced specific antagonisms which meant that once independence was secured, planters and merchants collided over the future of the state. The open-ended outcome of such class conflict ultimately resulted in the re-institutionalisation of the assembly system in the Constitutional Settlement of 1787, further demonstrating the intrinsic connection between settler colonialism and the shape of democracy in the US.</p
Is every cognitive phenomenon computable?
No full textAccording to the Church–Turing thesis, the limit of what is computable is bounded by Turing machines. Following from this, given that general computable functions formally describe the notion of recursive mechanisms, it is sometimes argued that every organismic process that specifies consistent cognitive responses should be both limited to Turing machine capabilities and amenable to formalization. There is, however, a deep intuitive conviction permeating contemporary cognitive science, according to which mental phenomena, such as consciousness and agency, cannot be explained by resorting to this kind of framework. In spite of some exceptions, the overall tacit assumption is that whatever the mind is, it exceeds the reach of what is described by notions of computability. This issue, namely the nature of the relation between cognition and computation, becomes particularly pertinent and increasingly more relevant as a possible source of better understanding the inner workings of the mind, as well as the limits of artificial implementations thereof. Moreover, although it is often overlooked or omitted so as to simplify our models, it will probably define, or so we argue, the direction of future research on artificial life, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and related fields.</p
Kinship norms and household behaviour: insights for development programmes
No full textThis research, through studies in Nepal, Uganda, and Zambia, examines how kinship structures and intra-household dynamics shape food security and poverty reduction outcomes – in particular from entrepreneurship and agricultural extension programmes. The first chapter explores how kinship intensity, proxied by historical cousin marriage norms in Nepal, moderated the effects of the Micro-Enterprise Development Programme (MEDEP). Using panel data and a difference-in-differences approach, the study finds that while these kinship-intensive groups started with lower income, employment, and life satisfaction, they benefited most from MEDEP. However, improvements remained confined to the agricultural sector, suggesting that while the programme leveraged dense, local networks for small-scale farming, it was insufficient to help households transition into more profitable non-agricultural enterprises. The narrower social networks may have reduced access to opportunities outside agriculture. The second chapter investigates whether youth can act as conduits of agricultural knowledge to their households in rural Uganda. Results from an RCT with secondary school students showed that exposure to agricultural videos led to a 16% increase in household knowledge, with gains strongest in poorer and more traditional households. However, joint decision-making limited knowledge acquisition, particularly in male-led households, pointing to the influence of gender norms and conflict-avoidance mechanisms. The final chapter evaluates the effectiveness of animated agricultural videos and highlights the role of smallholder farmers as information broadcasters within local networks in Zambia. Camps with video projections recorded 27–30% higher knowledge, largely spread through farmer word-of-mouth. Impacts were stronger where women influenced input decisions and youth engaged in farm work. Consistent with the Uganda study, collective decision-making hindered knowledge dissemination. This highlights the importance of targeting women – and enhancing their bargaining power – and youth to increase households’ agricultural knowledge. Together, the studies show that development programmes’ success is shaped by the sociocultural contexts in which they operate, highlighting the importance of considering the prevailing networks and intra-household bargaining power.</p
Communication with friends and non-friend peers: an examination of dyadic connectedness across two play contexts
No full textChildren’s peer interactions provide an important setting for their developing communication skills. The current study analyses connectedness – the topical coherence of children’s conversational turns – to explore how children coordinate their interactions across two play contexts. We coded the observed connected talk of 82 same-gender dyads (N = 152 children, 58.6% male, Mage = 6.79 years, SD = 0.38) during both freeplay and goal-directed contexts through repeated measures. We then modelled the rates of connected talk in relation to dyad gender (girl, boy) and friendship status (friends, non-friend peers) with a between-subjects multi-level analysis. There was a significantly higher rate of connectedness in the goal-directed context than in freeplay (β = -0.04), which was qualified by a friendship status by context interaction (β = 0.10). Subsequent simple effects analysis showed that only non-friend dyads engaged in significantly more connected talk during the goal-directed context than in freeplay (β = -0.11), with equivalent connectedness across context for friend dyads (β = -0.02). These findings highlight the role of dyadic characteristics and contextual features for children’s play and communication.</p
Reclaiming time, reclaiming space: decolonial feminist leadership in the creative industries of Post-Soviet Kazakhstan
No full textCan leadership within the creative industries transcend market logics to become an act of cultural reclamation and collective sovereignty? This study introduces the concept of decolonial feminist leadership to explore how Kazakh women entrepreneurs engage in cultural reclamation and community revitalization through craft-based enterprises. Drawing on 21 in-depth interviews with women-led ventures, this study develops a three-layer process model: Rediscovering the Self Through Cultural Memory, Creating Relational Infrastructures of Care, and Embodying Rooted Enterprise. This model illustrates how temporal sovereignty, community-based leadership, and distributed cultural stewardship subvert market-driven expectations of growth and individualism. Employing a decolonial feminist lens, the findings reveal how these women transform entrepreneurship into a practice of collective memory preservation and economic sovereignty, crafting spaces of resistance within a rapidly modernizing economy. This study extends theories of leadership by foregrounding time as a site of political struggle and collective agency as a driver of cultural survival, offering pathways for rethinking leadership in marginalized contexts globally.</p
'Menopausal women are MAD': menopause and mental health in late twentieth-century Britain
No full textPopular understanding of menopause in late twentieth-century Britain often focused on physical signs such as hot flushes but was also underpinned by a persistent mythology of menopausal ‘madness.’ This article examines the lived experience of menopausal mental ill-health and its popular discourse, exploring the impact on individuals, families and medical encounters. I argue that the myth of menopausal insanity not only instilled fear but also obscured the hormonal origins of other psychological symptoms, preventing women from recognising them as menopausal. Crucially, women’s distress was frequently dismissed by doctors, compounding their struggles to access appropriate care, with sometimes life-threatening consequences. Despite increased attention through women’s health activism and media coverage, many women continued to perceive a culture of silence and misunderstanding. This article contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of women’s health during a period of significant social change, while exposing enduring myths and assumptions that shape contemporary attitudes towards menopause.</p
Normalisation of wage and benefit theft in the Bangladeshi garment industry
No full textNo description supplied</p
SEC-influential politicians and perceived crash risk
No full textCongress members who serve on committees overseeing the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) can exert influence that leads to enforcement inaction toward firms in their constituencies. We find that such inaction reduces investors’ perceived crash risk. This effect is stronger for firms whose CEOs face greater career concerns and have shorter-duration compensation contracts, but weaker for firms with opaque financial reporting and higher information asymmetry. Additional analyses show that SEC-influential politicians also reduce firms’ exposure to undisclosed SEC investigations. Overall, our results suggest that SEC-influential politicians provide political insurance that shields firms from regulatory risk; this incentivizes managers to adopt a long-term perspective, thereby lowering expected crash risk. Furthermore, this effect extends beyond investor expectations to actual market outcomes, leading to reduced realized crash risk.</p
Optimising prescription of treatment in older patients with mild hypertension at increased risk of serious adverse events (OPTIMISE2): Protocol for a primary care based, open-label, randomised controlled non-inferiority trial
No full textBackground: Antihypertensive treatment is effective at reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, but is associated with adverse events, particularly in older patients with frailty. As a result, deprescribing antihypertensive medications is recommended in some clinical guidelines despite limited evidence from a few small randomised controlled trials. The aim of the OPTIMISE2 trial is to examine the safety, efficacy and cost-effectiveness of deprescribing antihypertensive treatment in older adults with controlled systolic blood pressure, who are at higher risk of adverse events. Methods: The OPTIMISE2 Trial aims to enrol 3,014 participants into the trial and actively follow them up for one year. Participants are aged 75 years and above and taking two or more blood pressure lowering drugs, with controlled blood pressure readings (systolic blood pressure Discussion: It is expected that these findings will inform clinical guidelines and practice about deprescribing of antihypertensive medications in older adults with frailty, who have controlled systolic blood pressure but are at higher risk of adverse events.</p
Beringian flora and fauna from sedaDNA at Duvanny Yar, Sakha Republic, during marine isotope stages 2 and 3
No full textBeringia’s extensive late Quaternary deposits of yedoma silt provide rich floristic and faunal records. Sampling of frozen yedoma exposures typically uses multiple baydzherakhs (residual silt heaps developed as conical thermokarst mounds) that collectively straddle vertical and horizontal space in thaw slumps. We used radiocarbon-dated vertical and horizontal transects to assess stratigraphic and sampling consistency at Duvanny Yar (a critical late Pleistocene stratotype). Most samples are ascribed to later marine isotope stage (MIS) 3 or to MIS 2 (ca. 40,000 to 20,000 years ago). The horizontal (MIS 3) transect revealed an undulating paleolandscape. Sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) from frozen yedoma revealed floristic composition in time and space. Metabarcoding and shotgun metagenomic molecular floras and pollen spectra are ecologically consistent. Floristically, little separates MIS 3 and 2; xeric, treeless vegetation, dominated by grasses and forbs including disturbance indicators, characterizes both stages. Holocene samples have a distinct, woody-dominated flora. Ordination of metabarcoding samples from the horizontal transect shows samples are highly variable but do not form a discernible spatial gradient or mosaic, possibly reflecting microtopographically driven plant distribution across a largely homogeneous landscape. Mammals identified from MIS 3 and 2 include horse, steppe bison, woolly rhinoceros, woolly mammoth, reindeer, hare, and vole.</p