Skill is the ability to do a challenging behaviour well. We examined how contest skill influences contest success, costs and whether skilful behaviour enhances welfare. We measured skill across three domains: accuracy, appropriateness (selecting suitable agonistic tactics when the optimal choice varies) and efficiency, alongside vigour, sex and body weight. Skill was weakly correlated across domains. Winners were heavier relative to their opponent, displayed greater vigour and were more skilful at blocking, but other skill measures did not predict contest win/loss outcome. Appropriate blocking by winners reduced the number of lesions received by reducing exposure to attacks, suggesting it can both reduce costs and improve competitive success, with potential welfare benefits. Losers received more lesions when they adopted appropriate postures after submission; however, this unambiguous submission may have resulted from more costly contests. For winners, being heavy relative to the opponent tended to reduce skin lesions received, but otherwise, having a weight advantage did not reduce contest costs. Fighting with increased vigour led to a considerable increase in contest costs, particularly in losers. Compared to other resource-holding potential traits, skill has moderate effects on winning and injuries but nevertheless modulated energetic costs of fighting.
Anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) testing is used as a biomarker of fertility potential, despite limited evidence supporting its predictive value. This article examines how AMH testing is used and contested in Turkey through an analysis of online discussions on a women's forum. We analyze how women report doctors' claims and recommendations regarding low AMH values, how they collectively interpret test results, and how they negotiate anticipatory medicine. The findings show that interpretive contests over AMH testing emerge between patients and doctors and are shaped by multiple temporal frameworks, including references to past experiences and reproductive futures. These contests reflect a double movement: the expansion of anticipatory medicine through AMH testing and subsequent recommendations for assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs), and resistance to this expansion. While some women embrace AMH testing for reproductive planning, many resist ART recommendations based primarily on low AMH values in the absence of an infertility diagnosis. Women's shared interpretations draw on experiential knowledge that is often consistent with evidence-based understanding of AMH as an unreliable predictor of fertility. We argue that these interpretive contests constitute a key site through which women engage with and resist anticipatory medicine within a private reproductive healthcare context marked by perceived commercial pressures.
This article examines Zaina Arafat's You Exist Too Much (2020) as a postcolonial queer work that explores the intersection of Arab female desire, displacement, and bisexual identity within conditions of cultural and emotional exile. While existing scholarship on Arab diasporic literature largely focuses on themes of exile, belonging, and national identity, and queer theory often relies on Western paradigms of sexual liberation, little critical attention is paid to bisexuality and ambivalence within postcolonial Arab narratives. Addressing this gap, the analysis examines the shaping of the protagonist's subjectivity at the intersection of familial ostracization, Arab patriarchy, and Western discourses of othering, producing patterns of oscillation, conflict, and ambivalence. The article draws on postcolonial and queer theories to show the novel's aestheticization of shame and fragmentation as central to the formation of postcolonial queer subjectivity. Through doing this, the article contributes to postcolonial literary and queer studies through accentuating the ways contemporary Arab writing negotiates the politics of sexuality, affect, and belonging within transnational contexts. The analysis shows that Arafat's novel exposes the intricacies of existing "too much" in cultures that continue to police both Arabness and desire instead of reproducing Western paradigms of liberation.
Elucidating the multifaceted effects of plant metabolites sequestered by animals from plants for non-nutritional purposes, known as pharmacophagy, is fundamental to understanding the evolution of acquired chemical defences. Some herbivorous species do not only take up plant metabolites from plants but also engage in antagonistic interactions to acquire precious metabolites from conspecifics that had access to the plant chemicals. We investigated behavioural and molecular consequences of pharmacophagy using the turnip sawfly, Athalia rosae. Adults are known to be attracted to the plant Ajuga reptans. Using behavioural assays and chemical analysis, we showed that the sawflies acquire clerodanoids by licking the leaves. Moreover, aggressively licking conspecifics that had acquired plant clerodanoids resulted in the transfer of these metabolites between individuals. Transcriptomic analyses revealed that the acquisition of clerodanoids from leaves led to only minimal upregulation of known detoxification genes and pathways. In contrast, the aggressive licking of conspecifics resulted in the upregulation of metabolic pathways associated with elevated energy consumption or detoxification. Thus, individuals attack conspecifics to acquire clerodanoids despite the apparent metabolic costs. Changes in the metabolic phenotype of A. rosae individuals have profound consequences for the individuals' physiology and interactions with conspecifics, with possible impacts on the social niche.
In early 2025, the Falsterbo Horse Show entered a title sponsorship agreement with Al Shira'aa Stables in the United Arab Emirates, prompting extensive Swedish media coverage and strong public reactions. This controversy offers an opportunity to examine how sport sponsorship becomes a site for moral and geopolitical boundary-making. Drawing on a Foucauldian understanding of discourse as a meaning-making practice, the study analyses 210 Swedish newspaper articles published between February and April 2025 to explore how power/knowledge operates through language and how sponsorship is discursively framed. The analysis identifies three interconnected discourses: the sold-out soul and sportwashing, dirty money and postcolonial morality, and pure money and Swedish nostalgia, that frame the sponsorship as morally and geopolitically contentious. Across these discourses, processes of fetishization and reduction imbue sponsorship funds with moral significance based on their origin. Media portrayals construct money from the UAE as symbolically contaminated, linked to gender inequality, LGBTQ+ rights, human rights violations, and animal welfare, while simultaneously idealizing Swedish sponsorship through nostalgic narratives of national integrity and moral coherence. These judgements draw on broader affective and historical formations, including white melancholia, which position Sweden as a nation losing an imagined ethical distinctiveness. Rather than evaluating the sponsorship itself, the article shows how sponsorship functions as an affective practice shaped by capitalism's identity-producing machinery, delineating which sponsors become imaginable or legitimate. By situating media reactions within wider cultural and geopolitical imaginaries, the study contributes to sport management and sponsorship research by showing how sponsorship is implicated in discourses of morality, identity, and belonging.
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To explore how children, caregivers and healthcare providers experience shared decision-making in real time within an interdisciplinary paediatric feeding clinic in multicultural Singapore. A qualitative ethnographic approach was used. Data collection involved one-time participant observations of interdisciplinary feeding clinic consultations, observations of healthcare providers-only debrief and follow-up interviews with caregivers. Data were collected from July 2024 to November 2024. Participants included caregivers, healthcare providers and otherwise well children presenting with feeding difficulties. Fieldnotes, including observational matrices, reflexive journals and interview transcripts, were analysed thematically using Braun and Clarke's six-step process for thematic analysis. Twenty observations and 11 interviews were conducted. Four themes were identified: (1) Centring the child: building trust and respect; (2) Tensions and teamwork: negotiating expertise and expectations; (3) Feeding across cultures; and (4) Parenting under pressure: the social context of feeding choices. In an interdisciplinary feeding clinic, shared decision-making extends beyond the clinical encounter, reflecting relational, cultural and structural realities. The feeding clinic modelled effective shared decision-making through child-centred care practices, balancing biomedical expertise with lived experiences, actively engaging caregivers and codesigning culturally responsive and sustainable feeding strategies with the family. However, divergent perceptions of what problematic feeding entails, caregivers' hesitancy in taking on an active role in consultations, and the external pressures caregivers contended with constrained this process. These findings highlight the need for inclusive, culturally responsive care models and more caregiver support interventions that acknowledge the full complexity of feeding care. Nurses, with their central role in relational and communicative care, are uniquely positioned to bridge tensions between medical paternalism and collaborative, family-centred approaches. By facilitating trust, clarifying goals and supporting caregiver participation in feeding decisions, they play a critical role in advancing child health outcomes while strengthening caregiver agency within multicultural healthcare systems. This study revealed how cultural, familial and systemic pressures shape caregiving practices, often constraining caregiver participation and shared decision-making in clinical encounters. Shared decision making in an interdisciplinary feeding clinic comprised of child-centred care practices, balancing biomedical expertise with lived experiences, actively engaging caregivers and codesigning culturally responsive and sustainable feeding strategies with the family. This study expounds on the potentially critical role nurses could play within the multidisciplinary team to negotiate expectations, foster caregiver agency and contribute to culturally responsive, family-centred feeding care. The reporting of this study is guided by the Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (SRQR). This study did not include patient or public involvement in its design, conduct or reporting.
The idea of 'quality' in education and training, forms the basis of both regulation and teaching and learning. 'Quality' therefore directly affects how residents and their teachers and supervisors spend their time. However, the derivation of these ideas remains largely unexamined. There is almost no robust evidence to suggest what the characteristics of good quality postgraduate medical education might be. Ideas change over time, following dominant social values and political imperatives, as an examination of the history, definition, uses, limitations and effects of 'quality' in PGME show. Ideas of quality inform interventions which are used differently by different interested parties, ranging through quality improvement, quality management, quality control, quality assurance, controls assurance, accreditation and regulation. Whichever level is involved, the idea of 'quality' is inherently political. But despite regulatory power being removed from the profession, responsibility for quality remains squarely in its corner.
Contest competition for mates and female reproductive energetics influence body size and sexual dimorphism across many primates; nevertheless, some monomorphic species defy these patterns. These deviations may reflect biological anthropology's focus on body mass and adult size as defining features of sexual dimorphism. Using ontogenetic data, we test whether sexual monomorphism in adult body mass necessitates monomorphism across all traits and evaluate whether mate competition and female energetics explain sex-specific developmental patterns and adult morphology in a monomorphic primate. We built sex-specific growth curves using generalized additive mixed models to examine levels of sexual dimorphism in 14 morphological measurements across development in Verreaux's sifaka (Propithecus verreauxi) at Ankoatsifaka Research Station in western Madagascar. Sifaka exhibited male-biased dimorphism in upper arm and thigh circumference at adulthood and across growth, but not in other contest-related traits. Adult females had significantly longer hindlimbs and thighs and exhibited bimaturism and increased growth rate in these and several other traits. We found limited support for our hypotheses that female reproductive energetics or male-male contest competition drive adult size, sex differences, and growth trajectories in Verreaux's sifaka. However, male-male contest competition likely drives male-biased dimorphism in muscle mass, and longer female hindlimbs may represent an adaptation to infant carrying, reflecting a species-specific suite of dimorphic traits. This study demonstrates that sexual dimorphism exists at finer scales even in monomorphic species, and that adult size and sex differences are the result of a mosaic of selective pressures acting on individual traits.
This paper examines Nietzsche's concept of agon a competitive yet creative, rule-bounded struggle rooted in ancient Greek contests as a framework for understanding identity formation through disciplined conflict. By integrating Nietzsche's philosophy (primarily from Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Homer's Contest, and On the Genealogy of Morals) with psychological theories such as Erikson's psychosocial development model and Deci and Ryan's self-determination theory (SDT), the study proposes an explicit agonistic selfhood model. This model conceptualizes identity as a dynamic, cyclical process shaped by reciprocal contests (external or internal) that foster resilience, autonomy, and value-creation through self-overcoming. The model specifies boundary conditions, observable signatures, and differentiation from related constructs such as post-traumatic growth (PTG) and generic adversity. The paper clarifies conceptual boundaries, maps philosophical constructs onto psychological analogs with attention to constraints, and highlights parallels with identity crises and post-traumatic growth (PTG) while acknowledging measurement debates. It argues that constructive, structured engagement with conflict enhances authenticity and creativity, offering implications for therapeutic, educational, and organizational contexts. Despite critiques of elitism, the framework defends agon's potentially inclusive character when properly bounded by reciprocity and mutual recognition.
Motivation for social or resource-related rewards is regulated by areas of the brain that control executive functioning and regulate attention, including the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and temporoparietal junction (TPJ). Testosterone and cortisol are two steroid hormones that influence behaviors related to motivation in social competition and are thought to do so via their independent and interactive effects on these same brain networks. Yet there remains relatively limited evidence for functional hormone-brain correspondence during status contests in humans. In ~120-130 participants, we measured frontal-temporal cortical patterns of neural activity via functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), salivary testosterone and cortisol, and task performance in a competitive key-pressing contest for rewards in which the cognitive difficulty of the task was varied. Participants completed the task under one of three conditions for incentivizing performance: a cash prize, positive social judgement, or negative social judgement. The competitive task was associated with increased neural activity bilaterally across the PFC and decreased TPJ activity, especially as task difficulty increased. Individuals who performed better showed greater frontal cortical activation overall and were more likely to have increasing testosterone across the task, but only if cortisol levels simultaneously declined. While hormone change across the task had limited direct ties to brain activity, basal testosterone predicted right vlPFC activation, while the interaction of basal testosterone and cortisol predicted activity in the right TPJ depending on task difficulty. Incentive condition had no clear effects on patterns of brain activity or hormone-brain relationships. These findings support an emerging model of testosterone and cortisol's influence on implicit brain processes underlying attention and goal salience when pursuing social goals. More broadly, this research raises new directions for understanding the neuroendocrine mechanisms behind social and reward-seeking behavior.
Sexually selected weapons can function as both combat tools and agonistic signals, depending on whether and how males assess rivals. We investigated the function of the enlarged male hindlegs in the New Guinean thorny devil stick insect, Eurycantha calcarata in male-male and male-female interactions. Field and laboratory observations showed that larger males with proportionally larger hindlegs were more likely to win fights and subsequently mate. Behavioral sequence analyses and contest cost predictors indicated that males likely use a mutual assessment strategy. Surprisingly, males did not appear to use their hindlegs as signals of fighting ability. Rather, rival assessment may be mediated by tactile and chemical cues, as suggested by frequent antennation observed during contests. Hindlegs were employed mainly to deliver powerful squeezes in rare, escalated fights. During copulation, males also used hindlegs to stabilize their position, but females did not appear to resist, providing no evidence for a coercive function. These findings suggest that enlarged male hindlegs in E. calcarata serve purely as force-delivering combat tools rather than signaling structures. These results highlight how understanding the specific functions and contexts of weapon use provides critical insight into the diversification of sexually selected traits.
Education has evolved from the traditional Gurukul system to formal, teacher-led classrooms, and now incorporates modern tools such as PowerPoint and role-play. With shifting learner preferences, the use of game mechanics in nongame contexts has emerged as a strategy to boost engagement, motivation, and retention. The International Public Health Management Development Program (IPHMDP) integrated gamification principles derived from the aforementioned frameworks into its training modules by employing a variety of gamified strategies, including contests, competitive games, and interactive tasks designed to promote engagement and active participation among healthcare professionals. Gamification improved participation, collaboration, motivation, and knowledge retention, supporting capacity-building objectives in public health training. The IPHMDP experience demonstrates its potential to enhance learning outcomes, making it a valuable approach in professional training for health practitioners.
Handheld ultrasound devices are increasingly used in battlefield and austere environments for point-of-injury diagnostics, but wireless-enabled models may emit detectable electromagnetic or radiofrequency (RF) signals that could compromise operational security. Three handheld ultrasound devices (GE VScan Air, Butterfly iQ, Philips Lumify) were evaluated using RF spectrum monitoring (9kHz-3GHz) in a Faraday enclosure and high-resolution computed tomography imaging. The Butterfly iQ and Philips Lumify, both wired devices, exhibited no detectable emissions and lacked wireless components. The GE VScan Air, a wireless device, demonstrated active Bluetooth and Wi-Fi emissions, with internal wireless modules, antenna, and wireless charging coil identified on CT. While within expected parameters, these emissions may be detectable in electronically contested environments. Wireless handheld ultrasound devices may present an RF signature risk in tactical operations. Mitigation strategies include limiting wireless use, enhancing shielding, and increasing awareness of emissions risk in training and procurement decisions.
Physical assistive robots are increasingly promoted in rehabilitation. However, it remains unclear how and for whom, physical assistive robots move from laboratory prototypes into rehabilitation practice, and whether this transition mitigates or reproduces existing inequalities in access to rehabilitation. To examine how moral reasoning and institutional arrangements shape who receives physical assistive robots in healthcare and with what consequences for equity in rehabilitation. We conducted semi-structured interviews with ten global developers and fifteen clinicians working within the Swedish healthcare system. Using the Economies of Worth framework, we undertook a theory-informed thematic analysis of how participants justify, contest and negotiate decisions about designing, prescribing and funding the development of physical assistive robots. We identified five interconnected patterns: (1) Marketable first, meaningful second; (2) Exclusion and inclusion through institutional rules; (3) Converging and conflicting with the 'universal body'; (4) Participation without power; and (5) Advocacy work under structural constraints. Our findings indicate that moral reasoning about physical assistive robots is organised mainly through industrial and market logics, which frequently overshadow civic and care-based values. Consequently, there is a risk of reproducing and amplifying existing inequalities in access to rehabilitation and the use of assistive physical robots. Our study contributes to the debate on health technology and equity by showing how justifications made by developers and clinicians help configure access to emerging technologies in rehabilitation.
Psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) are often associated with a history of mild traumatic brain injury, which may require differentiation with posttraumatic epilepsy, but usually there is a sufficiently long interval between an episode of trauma and their manifestations. Herein we report a case of a young female judo wrestler who experienced PNES immediately after minor head injury sustained during sport contest. It can be speculated that pathophysiological background of PNES in athletes may differ from general population and that disease in such cases may be related to stress of competition and fear to lose it. Early application of the video-electroencephalographic monitoring allows for timely diagnosis and initiation of appropriate treatment of PNES. J. Med. Invest. 73 : 265-269, February, 2026.
While typical Necrotizing Soft Tissue Infections (NSTI) are clinically overt, atypical and subacute presentations pose a complex diagnostic challenge. These forms-characterized by subacute evolution, deceptive local signs, or atypical pathogens-often defy standard recognition patterns. The Laboratory Risk Indicator for Necrotizing Fasciitis (LRINEC) score is frequently utilized for emergency risk stratification; however, its sensitivity remains contested in contemporary literature. We conducted a retrospective observational study (2007-2025) of 37 confirmed NSTI patients at a regional tertiary Plastic Surgery referral center. We analyzed admission physiology, microbiological profiles, and calculated retrospective LRINEC and SIARI (Site, Immuno, Age, Renal, Inflam) scores. To validate findings against potential data handling bias, a sensitivity analysis comparing zero-imputation versus complete case analysis was performed. Despite high clinical severity (43.2% septic shock), the LRINEC score yielded a false negative rate of 18.9% (7/37 patients classified as "Low Risk"). These failures correlated with atypical profiles: head and neck localization, prior administration of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID), and subacute pathogens (Cutibacterium acnes, Actinomyces). Sensitivity analysis confirmed the statistical stability of these findings (P=0.66). Conversely, the SIARI score correctly reclassified all LRINEC false negative cases as high risk (Score ≥ 3). The LRINEC score exhibits insufficient negative predictive value to safely exclude atypical and subacute NSTIs, potentially causing hazardous delays in surgical intervention. We propose a stratified clinical algorithm designed to enhance surgical vigilance and reduce the risk of missed diagnosis.
To assess the extent to which large language models (LLMs) amplify or attenuate inaccurate or contested narratives in radiation contexts and to evaluate their potential influence on public risk perception, patient communication in radiotherapy, and radiation protection policy implementation. We developed a structured framework to extract agreement and sentiment from LLMs. This was applied to OpenAI's GPT family of models to examine susceptibility to strong or misframed radiological opinions, cultural and linguistic bias on controversial radiological topics, and philosophical or moral alignment in radiation-related scenarios. Additionally, GPT-4o mini was used to analyze sentiment trends in the r/Radiation subreddit (February 2021-December 2023). A novel model, AntiRadiophobeGPT, was created to counter radiophobic and myth-driven narratives and evaluated against real user comments. Smaller LLMs (e.g. GPT-4o mini) exhibited significantly higher risk assessment of potentially radiophobic statements than their larger counterparts in general domain radiological risk assessment questions and higher agreement with controversial expert domain questions. Use of Chinese-language prompts or models further increased bias toward culturally sensitive radiological topics. All tested models showed deontological tendencies in moral alignment, with variations across scenarios. Subreddit analysis indicated that health-related myths were most prevalent, but overall community-wide radiophobia and hostility declined over the 3 years. AntiRadiophobeGPT effectively addressed misconceptions with high factual accuracy and demonstrated significantly lower levels of radiophobia and antagonism compared to user-generated responses. These findings underscore the importance of careful LLM deployment in radiological contexts to avoid misinformation propagation and support effective science communication. Overall, this work bridges artificial intelligence and radiation biology by demonstrating how LLM-driven communication can influence radiation risk perception and inform radiological safety practices.
In the context of accelerating environmental degradation, human-nature relationships have gained renewed attention. In and around protected areas, these relationships are marked by contestation, war and conflict. This study explores the relationships between residents of Kisandji Village, near Upemba National Park (UNP) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the natural resources they depend on. Using mixed participatory methods, we examined resource use and perceptions of conservation versus livelihoods. Residents emphasized provisioning services as essential to daily needs, identity and security. This dependence, alongside institutional and historical constraints and threats of extractive activities, has shaped a feeling of exclusion and precarity. While some view UNP as limiting their livelihoods, others support conservation when it includes participatory management and acknowledges local needs. The findings highlight that the need for inclusive conservation strategies that align ecological goals with community priorities is even more crucial when other drivers of extractive activities threaten.
Patterns of social organisation and gender differentiation in past societies are difficult to reconstruct from material culture data alone, are prone to modern interpretation biases, and often remain subjects of controversy. An important aspect of social organisation is patterns of post-marital residence, for example, matrilocality and patrilocality. To date, archaeological studies have recognised mostly patrilocal communities, with rare contested exceptions that were considered 'outliers' to the established rule of patrilocality. The advent of ancient DNA analysis has made it possible to evaluate past social structures from a genetic perspective as well, with the majority of ancient DNA studies identifying patrilocal communities and highlighting genetic patriline connections. Recently, three studies reported genetic evidence for matrilocality and genetic matriline connections across broad geographical and temporal scales. Here, we draw on these three studies to explore past social organisation forms in light of new evidence and reconsider preconceptions that continue to endure over time.