Twenty years ago Dan Rudolph gave a seminar talk at the University of Maryland in which he discussed his discovery that if one restricts the shift invariant measures on a finite alphabet shift space to have entropy greater than or equal to c > 0, then the generic measure there defines a process that has entropy c and is isomorphic to a Bernoulli shift. He never published a proof of this theorem. In the following note we will present a proof of this result.

Division of labor in reproduction in eusocial insects is governed by delicate and context- dependent mechanisms, yet the regulatory processes remain largely unclear. Here, we investigate social cues involved in the establishment of reproductive dominance in bumble bee (Bombus terrestris) workers. We reveal the roles of two alkenes, (Z)-9-nonacosene (Z9- C₂₉) and (Z)-9-hentriacontene (Z9- C₃₁) in the activation of ovarian development. These alkenes are found throughout the queenright bumble bee colony, including wax, workers, drones, and gynes, and their levels are positively correlated with colony size. They act as quorum-sensing pheromones that facilitate ovary maturation in a threshold-dependent manner under queenright conditions. A synergistic interaction between the perception of these two alkenes and the occurrence of dominance contests is essential for the ovary development of worker bumble bees, independent of temporal sequence. Artificial addition of these two alkenes into colonies confirms their stimulatory effects on the ovarian developmental potential of worker bees, even in the presence of a queen. Our findings highlight a quorum-sensing-like mechanism that primes the initiation of worker ovary development, providing insights into the complex regulation of context-dependent reproductive plasticity in social insects.

THE WORKPLACE is a complex and dynamic environment that mirrors societal relations and interactions. Given the inherent imbalance of power between employers and workers, as well as the lack of bargaining power of any individual worker, worker unions have emerged to provide workers with a collective voice and place them on more even footing with their employers, allowing them to achieve more than any single worker could on their own (Bok, 1971). Through the assertion of their members’ collective rights, worker unions have played a pivotal role in promoting rights such as fair wages, safe work conditions, health benefits, and insurance (Weil, 2005).

Conventional wisdom perceives patent protection as a necessary evil. Patent protection, the argument goes, raises the prices of patented products and processes, thus restricting access to innovation. But without it, not enough innovation will be produced. Hence, generations of scholars have sought ways to curb the market power of patentees via various legal interventions, such as prizes, compulsory licenses, and other forms of regulation. All have tacitly assumed that eroding the market power of patentees would result in a competitive market for innovation that would put an end to the allocative inefficiencies and distributional inequities that emanate from patent protection.

The present Article sets out to challenge the accepted understanding of innovation, showing that patentholders ordinarily operate in markets of monopsonistic nature, namely, markets characterized by a single purchaser or a highly concentrated demand side. Crucially, this finding involves the most prominent patent-inhabiting industries, including pharmaceuticals, agriculture and biotechnologies, defense technologies, infrastructural equipment and other sectors. The existence of monopsonies in markets for patented technologies implies that commentators have thus far overlooked the actual structure of the marketplace for patents, which routinely features a bilateral monopoly: a single seller along with a single buyer. After highlighting this phenomenon and assessing its pervasiveness, this Article introduces a blueprint for analyzing patent monopsonies. It shows that under extant market structure, the monopsonistic counterforces may reinstate competitive pricing of inventions, whereas in other cases, the presence of patent monopsonies might prove disadvantageous to society at large.

The new market picture this Article portrays gives rise to several important policy implications. First, it shows that the high prices consumers pay in some industrial sectors are due to the existence of monopsonies, not patents. Second, in contrast with conventional wisdom, it counsels against the use of compulsory licenses in monopsonistic industries because they reduce innovation without generating any real benefits to consumers. Third, it demonstrates that the existence of monopsonies is a core reason for suppression, non-commercialization, and distortion of innovation. It also discusses legal interventions that can help alleviate this problem.

The development of autonomous vehicles has stimulated research into preferences in sacrificial moral dilemmas. Studies such as the Moral Machine Experiment, which has attracted enormous attention in both philosophy and psychology, have been criticized for an important methodological flaw: forcing participants to choose between two options, like killing a man or a woman. It has been shown that many people actually prefer a third option, namely treating people “equally”. While this is an important improvement, we argue that “equal” treatment can be understood in different ways. Instead of “equality”, we propose to use the concept of impartiality and argue that impartiality needs to be complemented with action-guiding decision rules. To support this conceptual point, we conducted a vignette study. Our results suggest that impartiality is indeed the main preference and that the most attractive decision rule to complement impartiality is not random choice, as many papers suggest, but inaction.

Biological invasions pose major ecological and economic threats, and extensive research has been dedicated to understanding and predicting their dynamics. Most studies focus on the biological invasion of single species, and only in recent years has it been realized that multi-species interactions that involve native and invasive host species and their microbial symbionts can play important roles in determining invasion outputs. A theoretical framework that treats these interactions and their impact is lacking. Here we offer such a framework and use it to explore possible dynamics that may emerge from the sharing of native and non-native symbionts among native and non-native host species. Thus, for example, invasive plants might benefit from native microbial communities in the soil, or might be particularly successful if they carry with them parasites to which competing native hosts are susceptible. On the other hand, invasion might be hindered by native parasites that spread from native to invasive individuals. The mathematical framework that we present in this study provides a new mechanistic, cohesive, and intuition-enhancing tool for theoretically exploring the ways by which the subtleties of host-microbe relationships can influence invasion dynamics. We identify multiple pathways through which microbes can facilitate (or prevent) host invasion, microbial invasion, and the invasion of both hosts and their co-introduced microbes. We disentangle invasion outcomes and suggest possible ecological dynamics that may be underexplored in current invasion biology literature. Our work sets the foundations for invasion theory that includes a community-level view of invasive and native hosts as well as their microbial symbionts.

Traditional trait-based leadership research relies on generic personality models, overlooking the context-specific nature of personality. We used the lexical approach to develop a leadership-focused personality taxonomy. We identified 199 adjectives for describing leaders (Study 1) and factor analyzed leaders’ (Study 2, N = 402) and followers’ (Study 3, N = 421) ratings of these adjectives. Analyses revealed five dimensions shared across groups, closely related to, yet distinct from the Big Five and HEXACO factors: Energy, Psychopathy, Organization, Irritability, and Intellect. Two follower-specific dimensions—Supportiveness and Weakness—also emerged. Relationships with the Big Five, HEXACO, and leadership criteria supported construct and concurrent validity. Study 4 replicated the structure in samples of military (N = 226) and religious (N = 202) leaders.

Amphibians are the most endangered group of vertebrates, facing numerous threats, and detailed data are required to identify stressors and prioritize conservation efforts. While these data exist for many species, gaps remain, especially in understudied regions. Citizen science is an approach that can vastly increase the available data for informed decision-making. This study aims to use such an approach to investigate the population dynamics of two amphibian species in urban environments. We used the program MARK to perform a capture-mark-recapture analysis on two datasets: a large dataset collected in a multiyear citizen-science program, focused on two urban near eastern fire salamander (Salamandra infraimmaculata) populations, both found within a large city; and a second dataset, collected in a 1-year survey, focused on two green toad (Bufotes sitibundus) populations in an urban park and in a nearby nature reserve. Individuals of both species have unique patterns of dorsal spots, allowing for noninvasive recapture identification. Using repeated measurements of recaptured salamanders, we derived a species-specific growth curve that converts body length into an age estimate. Combined with a survival analysis of the capture–recapture dataset, this age estimate revealed a prolonged period of increased vulnerability during the salamanders' terrestrial phase, from metamorphosis until they reach full size. Additionally, the two case studies suggest that exotic fish introduction can have highly detrimental impacts on these amphibian species and should be the focus of future studies.

Introduction

Among the religious factors that significantly contribute to believers’ well-being, research on the personal experience of divine forgiveness (DF) remains in its infancy. The aim of this study was to investigate similarities and differences in the conceptualization of DF, its conditional/unconditional nature, and the understanding of sin across the three main monotheistic religions.

Methods

This was achieved by interviewing theologians (N = 3) through a focus group and having lay believers (N = 229, 63.8% female, Mage = 33.09 years, SD = 13.81) from Christianity, Islam, and Judaism complete a self-report questionnaire.

Results

The theologians’ and believers’ perspectives revealed that while there are shared aspects across religions (e.g., God’s mercy is greater than His justice), some differences are evident (e.g., the pathways to seek and achieve DF).

Discussion

These findings make a significant contribution to the psychology of religion, shedding light on universal and culturally specific dimensions of this multidimensional phenomenon.

As the performance of artificial intelligence (AI) enabled algorithms to improve, so too increases the potential for them to be used to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of human resource management (HRM) decisions. Yet, public distrust in AI algorithms could keep organizations from using this technology to improve HRM decision-making. Here, we examine one factor that may influence the perceived trustworthiness of AI algorithms used in HRM, specifically those used in personnel selection decisions. Drawing from organizational justice and trust theories, we posit that knowledge of how the algorithm compares with human recruiters in terms of hiring members of traditionally discriminated demographic groups serves as a fairness heuristic that affects the algorithm's perceived trustworthiness by increasing its perceived ability, benevolence, and integrity. In three experimental studies (N = 1382), we show that when people are informed that an algorithm used in personnel selection results in more women or racial minorities being hired, as compared to selection decisions made by human recruiters, they perceive it as having higher ability, benevolence and integrity, and are more willing to adopt it and to follow its recommendations. The opposite is true when the algorithm is said to decrease the number of women and racial minorities being hired. Our research suggests that auditing personnel selection decisions made using AI algorithms and communicating how they compare with human recruiters in terms of their diversity, equity, and inclusion outcomes is important for the perceived trustworthiness and public acceptance of this technology.

Existen numerosas obras sobre cada una de las doce emociones analizadas por Eva Illouz en su último libro, Modernidad explosiva (Gallimard, 2025). La originalidad del enfoque de la socióloga radica en mostrar cómo la modernidad democrática, la industria del desarrollo personal y las redes sociales han contribuido a reconfigurar nuestras emociones hasta el punto de conferirles una centralidad que ha sustituido a otras instancias que gobiernan nuestras vidas. La hemos entrevistado para comprender mejor el poder social de nuestra vida emocional y los riesgos de su instrumentalización.

While empathy is often seen as a resilience factor, emotional resonance with others’ suffering may increase psychological vulnerability during mass trauma exposure, particularly in youth. Since the role of early empathy as a prospective risk factor remains understudied, we used a decade-long longitudinal design to examine whether empathic reactions in childhood predicted early adolescents’ internalizing (depression and anxiety) symptoms following the October 7th attack and the Israel–Hamas war. Empathic distress was assessed at age 1.5 years and age 3 years through observational tasks. Emotional empathy and internalizing symptoms were self-reported at age 11 years, before the war, and reported again after its outbreak. Findings showed substantial internalizing symptoms during the war, with 31% of participants exceeding the clinical cutoff for anxiety and 23% for depression. Non of the empathy measures predicted internalizing symptoms before the war. However, during the war, empathic distress at age 1.5 and emotional empathy at age 11 predicted internalizing symptoms, controlling for negative emotionality and prior internalizing symptoms. Path analysis also linked empathic distress at age 3 to internalizing symptoms during war. Findings suggest that early empathic reactions may increase vulnerability to internalizing symptoms during mass trauma but not in non-traumatic contexts, aligning with a diathesis-stress model. Understanding empathy’s role in risk and resilience can inform interventions for youth exposed to war.

This study investigated the impact of war on personal religiosity and spirituality (R/S). From a Terror Management Theory perspective, mortality awareness might lead individuals to seek existential security not only by endorsing R/S, but also by adhering to cultural norms. Therefore, we expected that war would drive widespread R/S change, but the extent to which individuals increase or decrease R/S would depend on the culturally normative nature of R/S. We relied on data from 1,278 Jewish-Israeli students collected during the ongoing 2023–2025 Israel-Gaza war. Approximately half of the sample reported some change, with increases in R/S being more prevalent than decreases. However, this pattern varied by religious group affiliation and was especially true in contexts where R/S is more normative. Considering the culturally normative nature of R/S and both increases and decreases in R/S is important to contributing a fuller account of R/S change in the face of protracted stress.

The seminal discovery that in adults of the highly social honey bee (Apis mellifera), juvenile hormone (JH) regulates age-related division of labor (DoL) but not adult fertility, unlike in most insects, has led to the hypothesis that the evolution of insect sociality involved modifications in JH signaling. Recent studies examining JH functions across the Hymenoptera provide two main insights: First, significant progress in studies of the bumble bee Bombus terrestris, which exhibits an intermediate level of social complexity relative to honey bees, shows that JH regulates multiple tissues involved in reproduction, but not task performance. JH also seems to function as a primary gonadotropin in bees showing solitary lifestyles or low levels of social complexity, highlighting a marked contrast with its roles in honey bees. Second, this association between JH function and social complexity in bees does not generalize to other lineages. The few studies on JH function in highly social stingless bees are not consistent with the honey bee model. In wasps and hornets, JH typically influences both fertility and age-related DoL. There is substantial variability across ant species, offering no consistent model linking JH function to social complexity. We propose that although JH signaling is commonly modified in social insects, the specific changes differ between — and sometimes within — lineages. There is no one model linking JH function to social complexity across major lineages, likely due to changes in related pathways. These modifications enable social insects to circumvent the trade-off between reproduction and maintenance.

Vocal communication plays a critical role in understanding animal behavior, evolution, and cognition. We developed an automated system combining audio signal processing and machine learning (supervised and unsupervised) to characterize the vocal repertoire of the White Spectacled Bulbul (Pycnonotus xanthopygos), a widespread passerine in Israel known for its complex year-round vocal activity. Analyzing hundreds of field recordings using passive acoustic monitoring (PAM), our system identified thousands of calls, revealing a hierarchically structured vocal repertoire composed of distinct complex vocalizations (motifs) and base units (syllables). Our results show that different populations possess unique motif repertoires, primarily consisting of population-specific motifs built from syllables that are similar across genetically distinct populations. This study enhances our understanding of this understudied species and highlights the White Spectacled Bulbul's potential as a model organism for investigating vocal communication and social learning in animals.

The human brain supports complex behaviors through diverse functional connectivity patterns. We propose Pareto optimality as a novel framework to understand this functional organization. According to Pareto theory, systems optimizing multiple competing goals do so by balancing trade-offs along a low-dimensional "Pareto front" defined by archetypes that each optimize a single goal. Applying Pareto analysis to resting-state fMRI data (HCP, N=1200), we found that individual connectomes lie on a low-dimensional triangle. The three archetypes represent core computational goals: minimizing energetic cost, supporting cognitive control and goal-directed behavior, and enabling internal processing and memory. These goals are reflected in connectivity patterns, network topology, information flow, behavioral and clinical associations. The framework generalizes beyond rest to task-based brain states, and a simple neural model illustrates the trade-offs' computational basis. Pareto optimality offers a principled approach to decompose brain function into core computations across conditions, populations, and stages of life.

In this review, we examine developments in how organization members’ responses to change have been conceptualized, measured, and predicted, and the outcomes they have been shown to produce. We focus on quantitative studies and use four conceptual lenses to analyze them: the tripartite approach, the change response circumplex model, change ambivalence, and levels of analysis. Drawing on established classifications of change response antecedents, we present current understandings of the factors and the mediating and moderating mechanisms that explain responses to change. Particular attention is given to the roles of national culture and time in shaping responses and our understanding of them. We end with directions for future research and practice, emphasizing the need to consider response activation, ambivalence, and timing in understanding and managing responses to organizational change.