Local Power Play: The Post-Election Repression And Local Governance

We explore the aftermath of electoral defeats for incumbents in competitive authoritarian regimes, positing that they escalate repression in response. While prevailing research on competitive authoritarian regimes typically analyses incumbent repression at the national level, we focus on its effects on local political actors. Our argument centres on subnational variation in repression, influenced by the incumbent’s strength within the local city council. Specifically, incumbents tend to employ legislative blockage to hinder opposition mayors from efficiently delivering public goods when their party holds a majority of seats in the city council. We present original data on legislative proposals in city councils and employ a mixed-method approach to investigate this phenomenon. The 2019 local elections in İstanbul offer a unique opportunity to probe the dynamics of repression against the opposition at the local level. Our findings underscore that repression neutralizes emerging political leaders, thereby undermining municipal administration in the process

The Anatomy of Resistance: Jewish Life, Struggle, and Revolt in the Vilna and Warsaw Ghettos

On September 1, 1939, the Germans invaded Poland, marking the start of WWII. In the following months, the Nazis established an inconceivable array of ghettos meant to concentrate the Jewish population and facilitate their deportation to killing centers across continental Europe. Of the over 1,000 ghettos set up throughout Nazi-occupied territory, this paper focuses on two, Vilna and Warsaw. Despite the hellish conditions imposed on the Jews in the Vilna and Warsaw ghettos—conditions rivaled only by the killing centers that awaited most of their inhabitants—an important phenomenon took form: the Jews of the ghettos resisted. How, it must be contended, could Jewish victims of ghettoization have resisted Nazi cruelty in the context of such dehumanizing conditions? This paper explores the history of Jewish life and resistance in the Vilna and Warsaw ghettos, with particular emphasis on the factors that allowed or disallowed resistance to occur. By carefully constructing their stories of resistance, it aims to answer why the Jews of Warsaw were able and willing to fight back in a violent uprising, while the Jews in Vilna were not

How Cultural Input Shapes The Development Of Idealized Biological Prototypes

Young children in the U.S. tend to hold narrow, idealized prototypes for animal and social categories, focusing on ideas about how categories should be and ignoring category variability. The current studies tested how children’s (N = 281) reliance on idealized prototypes might be shaped by adults’ communication of common essentialist and teleological biases. In Study 1, 7- to 8-year-old U.S. children viewed more average members of novel animal categories as prototypical when they heard a teacher correct a generic statement about a characteristic feature and highlight how varied features serve varied functions. In Study 2, explanations about varied functions alone explained this effect for novel animals, with mixed effects for familiar animals; there was no additive effect of correcting generic language. Children in Study 2 also expected functionally ideal features to be more frequent among category members, suggesting that idealized prototypes reflect mistaken assumptions that category members homogeneously share ideal features. Children in Study 2 did not explicitly disapprove of nonconformity, suggesting that idealized prototypes do not reflect an inability to dissociate how things are from how they should be. Together, these results support the proposal that U.S. children’s idealized prototypes are shaped by common conceptual biases perpetuated by cultural input

Regeneration In Planarians Modifies Behavioral Switching

The planarian Dugesia japonica responds differently to localized stimuli: anterior regions turn, middle regions elongate, and posterior regions contract. If cut into several pieces, each piece immediately produces the same three responses. Over several days, each piece regenerates all transected body parts. This study tested how the pieces coordinate behavioral responses during regeneration. We first determined the locations of the turning/elongation and elongation/contraction behavioral switches. Immediately, all transections moved both switching sites away from the cut sites so that the worm pieces produced the same three responses as intact worms. During regeneration, the sites of behavioral switching moved progressively closer to the transection (now regeneration) sites. These results show that the immediate effects of transection (likely physiological) are coordinated with the addition of regenerating tissue (anatomical) to maintain as normal an animal as possible. Other animals that regenerate body parts, such as amphibians and reptiles, may use similar coordination mechanisms

Election Reflections—And What Comes Next

A curated collection of essays tracking the pulse of American democracy as the second Trump Administration comes into power, this special section considers the campaigns that were waged and previews the battles yet to come

Draft Genome Sequences Of \u3cem\u3eBurkholderia\u3c/em\u3e And \u3cem\u3eParaburkholderia\u3c/em\u3e Strains Isolated From \u3cem\u3ePanicum virgatum\u3c/em\u3e Soil And Roots At The Lux Arbor Reserve In Michigan, USA

We present draft genomes of two Paraburkholderia strains and two Burkholderia strains. Three strains were isolated from surrounding soils and one from roots of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) in Michigan, USA

In Sickness and In Health: Care and Complacency in Aid Efforts for Migrant Youth in Eastern France

This thesis examines the perspectives of educators working with unaccompanied migrant minors (MNAs) in eastern France, focusing on how they perceive and navigate the care system and creates their own communities of care within the gaps of the bureaucratic French system. Through qualitative analysis, it explores how educators interpret the structural challenges MNAs face, including access to healthcare, social integration, and legal protections. By centering educators’ voices, this study highlights their role as intermediaries between MNAs and the French system that determines their access to essential services. It interrogates how these professionals negotiate institutional constraints, advocate for the well-being and growth of MNAs, and challenge policies that fail to account for the ever-changing needs of young migrants. Ultimately, this thesis underscores the necessity of a more inclusive, holistic framework that recognizes MNAs not just as legal subjects but as individuals with diverse care experiences that need a place and accompaniment in order to be cultivated

Inverting Doux Commerce : The Paradox of Rhetoric Surrounding European Jewish Commerce

This paper investigates the inherent contradictions in the Doux Commerce thesis as articulated by Montesquieu, which argues that commerce civilizes and morally enriches its participants, using the historical experiences of the French Jewish community as a case study. Despite the Enlightenment’s promotion of commerce as a path to societal gentility and tolerance, French Jews remained targets of economic and social marginalization, which persisted into the 19th century. The analysis centers on the rhetorical dissonance exhibited by philosophers such as Voltaire, who extolled the virtues of commerce for its ability to unify diverse religious and cultural groups, yet simultaneously endorsed and propagated anti-Semitic stereotypes. By examining the economic activities and contributions of Jewish merchants alongside their continued denigration and exclusion from the supposed ethical benefits of commerce, this study highlights the selective application of Enlightenment ideals. This paper demonstrates that the Doux Commerce thesis, while promoting an ethical economic framework, failed to dismantle entrenched prejudices, instead often reinforcing them

The Amalgamation: A Complete Open-Source Pair of Smart Glasses

There are many open-source smart glasses projects across the internet, all with interesting features and individual sets of hardware and software. While impressive, these projects are generally single-purpose; they focus on one feature and the rest of the product is mediocre in quality. We have produced a design and (nonfunctional) prototype for a new design combining several of these individual concepts: The Amalgamation. Our product includes a high-resolution OLED microdisplay, a high-quality, hobbyist-reproducible frame, a custom PCB for hardware addition and power regulation, an IMU for data and control, and a custom plugin-based software suite with a simple interface and industry-standard libraries. While our display fails to initialize, our work presents a foundation upon which to build a version that does function