They are all so into you:How pig butchering and approval phishing fraud are national security issues

Romance scams and cryptocurrency investment fraud are no longer merely financial crimes; they now pose significant national security threats. Two interrelated forms are “pig butchering” fraud—a unique type of cyber-enabled investment and romance scam—and "approval phishing”—a variant of relationship investment fraud that coerces access to digital wallets—that have become increasingly sophisticated. These scams exploit digital trust, utilise mass telemarketing and platform-as-a-service business models, and facilitate large-scale money laundering, cybercrime, and economic interference. Drawing from open-source reporting and secondary research on illicit financial flows, this phenomenological study examines how these frauds undermine national security through social, economic, and geopolitical instability. This study explores the emergence of pig butchering and approval phishing fraud as hybrid threats. These networks depend on globally dispersed professional enablers and third-party corporate structures, including money services businesses, social media platforms, and web hosting providers, to execute their illicit activities offshore and across multiple jurisdictions. The fraud operations exploit international human trafficking and money laundering networks often orchestrated within Special Economic Zones across ASEAN countries, and leverage guanxi, a culturally embedded social system of implied personal trust and reciprocity within the global Chinese diaspora, to groom victims and exploit digital human trust. Particular attention will be given to the challenges faced from the viewpoints of law enforcement and regulatory oversight authorities of Five Eyes and NATO countries as they combat these schemes. The presentation will address dynamic and institutional issues impacting the effectiveness of current enforcement strategies and emphasise the urgent need for a coordinated, cross-sector response through target hardening and proactive influence countermeasures

The Ambiguous Ecologies of Agri-Alternatives:Exploring the Calculus of Social Reproduction in Rural India

This paper advances scholarship on agri-alternatives by probing the gap between romanticised narratives of how alternative farming transitions ought to be and the actual practices farmers enact in their fields. Focusing on moments when such alternatives encounter on-the-ground realities, we propose ambiguous ecologies as a lens to explore the various elements shaping farmers' decisions and their complex dynamics. Centering social reproduction, we argue that transitions to agri-alternatives are contested processes whereby farmers renegotiate productive and reproductive agrarian relations amidst uneven risks. Drawing on ethnographic insights from India, we contribute to feminist theorisation on the calculus guiding farmers' practices in two ways. First, by positing that ecologies and their materialities are key to how farmers navigate their engagement with agri-alternatives, and second, by showing how ambiguous ecologies work as sites of agency where farmers make intimate calculations to construct liveable socio-ecological relations against the grain of industrialised farming regimes.</p

Biological nitrogen cycling within terrestrial hot springs: A Mars analogue system

Noachian-age (4.1–3.7Ga) hot spring deposits have been identified on Mars, in addition to fixed nitrogen compounds within Martian surface materials, yet the planet’s nitrogen cycle remains enigmatic and implicates the plausibility of a Martian biosphere. On Earth’s surface, nitrogen is cycled almost exclusively by biological processes which create distinctive isotopic fractionations. We combine geochemical and metagenomic analysis to investigate biological nitrogen cycling within four Mars analogue geothermal systems in Iceland ranging in temperature from 37.8 to 57.1 °C, and propose the geochemical parameters that control biological nitrogen fixation as the primary source of nitrogen into the microbial communities present. We find complete nitrogen fixation and ammonium assimilation gene clusters at all sites, which are also the most abundant nitrogen-cycling genes present. Isotopic fractionations (Δ15 N) of ∼6 ‰ between locally dissolved N2 gas and biomass are most parsimoniously explained by organisms relying on Mo-independent nitrogenases for fixation of dinitrogen (N2). This hypothesis is supported by the presence of genes encoding these enzymes in three out of four sites included in this study, in addition to the more commonly used MoFe nitrogenase. Finally, we find that molybdenum availability is low in the Icelandic hot springs investigated, and potentially therefore in Martian hot springs. This may inhibit conventional Mo-dependent nitrogen fixation in such settings and highlights the influence of wider geological conditions on local biochemistry

Can any model be fabricated? Inverse operation based planning for hybrid additive-subtractive manufacturing

This paper presents a method for computing interleaved additive and subtractive manufacturing operations to fabricate models of arbitrary shapes. We solve the manufacturing planning problem by searching a sequence of inverse operations that progressively transform a target model into a null shape. Each inverse operation corresponds to either an additive or a subtractive step, ensuring both manufacturability and structural stability of intermediate shapes throughout the process. We theoretically prove that any model can be fabricated exactly using a sequence generated by our approach. To demonstrate the effectiveness of this method, we adopt a voxel-based implementation and develop a scalable algorithm that works on models represented by a large number of voxels. Our approach has been tested across a range of digital models and further validated through physical fabrication on a hybrid manufacturing system with automatic tool switching

Are Caring, Collaborative, and Creative Research Practices possible in the Western Academy?

This paper reflects on a set of exploratory feminist research practices used by a cross‑disciplinary group of adult education practitioners and academic researchers in a recent project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the United Kingdom (UK). The authors, one of whom is a paid home care worker, consider if caring, collaborative, and creative research practices are actually possible in the west‑ern academy (at least in the UK) based on their experiences in the current project. They conclude that while there are still significant changes needed, “mobilizing the feminist imaginary” from within the academy is one way to begin these experiments in creating moments of equality

Berry-Esseen inequality for random walks conditioned to stay positive

We consider random walks conditioned to stay positive. When the mean of increments is zero and variance is finite it is known that their distribution converges to the Rayleigh law. In the present paper we derive a Berry--Esseen type estimate and show that if the third absolute moment is finite then the rate of convergence is of order $n^{-1/2}$

Talent management in the hospitality and tourism industry: the role of societal and organisational culture

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the role of societal and organisational culture on talent management (TM) within the Greek hospitality and tourism (H&amp;T) industry. Specifically, this study tests societal culture’s effect on TM approaches and the mediating role of organisational culture.Design/methodology/approachIn this quantitative study, the questionnaire sample included employees of all hierarchical levels from three hotels located in northern, central and southern Greece (n = 188). Data analyses were carried out by using the PROCESS Version 4 macro in SPSS.FindingsThe results show that neither societal nor organisational culture are decisive factors in impacting the perceived TM approach. This might be due to the organisations imitating other firms without pre-establishment of societal and organisational fit.Practical implicationsThis study emphasises TM’s alignment with both societal and organisational culture. Given the context-specific nature of TM, achieving culture fit can enhance talent acquisition, retention and engagement, ultimately leading to improved talent and overall organisational performance.Originality/valueThis study integrates more centrally a cultural lens into the TM discourse. It provides empirical evidence of TM approaches in the Greek H&amp;T industry, drawing on a multi-stakeholder sample including managers and talents

A HIGH-EFFICIENCY DIELECTRIC WAKEFIELD ENERGY BOOSTER FOR CLARA

Structure-based wakefield acceleration, using dielectriclinedor corrugated waveguides, is a novel accelerationmethod currently being explored by several research groupsglobally. This technology facilitates the transfer of energyfrom a high-charge drive beam to a lower-charge main bunchwith high accelerating gradients. In this study, we proposean energy booster for the Compact Linear Accelerator forResearch and Applications (CLARA) at Daresbury Laboratory,utilising dielectric wakefield acceleration (DWA). Oursimulation study optimises the drive beam and structureto achieve maximal energy efficiency across varying mainbeam energies, enabling the delivery of a main beam withadjustable charge and final energy. Additionally, we haveconsidered the stability of both the accelerated and drivebeams, selecting the geometry and layout of acceleratingstructures to maximise accelerated beam quality and mitigatethe development of beam breakup instability in thedrive beam