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Measurements of the variation of anisotropic flow-plane angles (Ψn) with rapidity, commonly known as the flow-plane decorrelation, provide important insights into the initial conditions of the matter produced in heavyion collisions. In this paper, using data collected by the STAR experiment, we report the first measurement of the four-plane correlator observable (Formula presented.), where superscripts a, b, c, and d denote sequential pseudorapidity (η) regions with a corresponding to the most backward region, b and c close to midrapidity with nb < 0 and nc > 0, and d being the most forward. The measurement is performed for the elliptic and triangular flow (i.e., n = 2 and 3) in Au + Au and isobar (Ru + Ru, Zr + Zr) collisions at (Formula presented.) = 200 GeV. The goal of calculating the correlation of the flow-plane angle variations from backward to midcentral, and from midcentral to forward regions, is to probe the systematic variation of flow angle over a wide П range. In midcentral collisions (10-30 % centrality), we find T2{ba; dc} = —0.004 ± 0.001 (stat) ± 0.002(syst) independent of the collision system. Such a small value of T2 favors a “random-walk” variation of the flow-plane angles, where the rapidity correlation length is smaller than the entire region under study. These measurements provide new information on the decorrelation patterns in the system and offer a quantitative estimate of possible systematic variations in anisotropic flow angles such as “twist” between forward and backward regions. This opens new opportunities for understanding the three-dimensional structure and the time evolution of the quarkgluon plasma created in heavy-ion collisions. © 2026 American Physical Society

The correlation between the mean transverse momentum, [p T], and the squared anisotropic flow, vn2, on an event-by-event basis has been suggested to be influenced by the initial conditions in heavy-ion collisions. We present measurements of the variances and covariance of [p T] and vn2, along with their dimensionless ratio, for Au+Au collisions at various beam energies: sNN = 14.6, 19.6, 27, 54.4, and 200 GeV. Our measurements reveal a distinct energy-dependent behavior in the variances and covariances. In addition, the dimensionless ratio displays a similar behavior across different beam energies. We compare our measurements with hydrodynamic models and similar measurements from Pb+Pb collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). These findings provide valuable insights into the beam energy dependence of the specific shear viscosity (η / s) and initial-state effects, allowing for differentiating between different initial-state models. © 2026 The Authors.

Philosophers have long speculated that individual differences in temperament influence philosophical thinking, yet empirical research has rarely explored the role of neurodivergent traits in this domain. In this large online study (N = 1,254), we investigated whether participants with training in philosophy differ from the general population when it comes to six psychological traits–autism, ADHD, aphantasia, anendophasia, anauralia, and representational manipulation–and also whether these traits correlate with responses to two widely studied philosophical thought experiments: the “trolley problem” and the “rollback deterministic universe.” Compared to the general population, participants with training in philosophy had higher scores on measures of ADHD, internal verbalization, and representational manipulation, but lower scores on measures of visual imagery. These cognitive traits were also correlated with participants’ moral and metaphysical judgments (independent of their level of philosophical training)–e.g. participants who scored higher in visualization were less likely to judge that hitting the switch in the trolley problem is permissible but not obligatory, and also less likely to attribute free will and moral responsibility to agents in the rollback universe. Finally, we employed machine learning to develop predictive models that classify a randomly selected participant as either a philosopher or a non-philosopher. Models trained solely on responses to measures for neurodivergent traits achieved better performance than models trained solely on responses to philosophical thought experiments. This suggests that stable, trait-level neurodivergent characteristics may be more diagnostic of philosophical interest, aptitude, or training than judgments philosophers make on domain-relevant problems. © 2026 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Learn to make friends and stop scaring people away with this clever book inspired by the hit manga Komi Can’t Communicate.Do you find it hard to sp...

Tomato plant diseases pose a significant threat to agricultural productivity, resulting in substantial economic losses. Early and accurate diagnosis is crucial for effective disease management. This paper describes the design and implementation of expert systems for tomato disease detection using the CLIPS (C Language Integrated Production System) platform. The tool is designed to help farmers and agronomists accurately identify diseases affecting tomato crops by simulating knowledge from professional experts. We carefully developed a set of rules to distinguish leaf blight symptoms from those of other tomato diseases and provided recommendations to minimize crop losses and maximize yields. The expert system was developed using a forward-chaining inference engine, and its performance was evaluated through a set of real-world test cases, demonstrating a high level of accuracy and consistency in decision-making. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2026.

With the increasing interest in natural language processing, text summarization has become essential for condensing large volumes of data into concise and meaningful summaries. Extractive summarization, which involves selecting key sentences based on textual features, has gained attention due to its efficiency and effectiveness. This research explores extractive summarization using multiple machine learning classifiers, including Support Vector Machines (SVM), Logistic Regression (LR), Decision Trees (DT), K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), and Random Forest (RF). Our findings indicate that the Random Forest model achieved the highest accuracy, reaching 80% in classifying sentences for summary generation. Additionally, we evaluated text classification on the same BBC dataset using ChatGPT, which attained an accuracy of 62%. Furthermore, comparisons with results from prior research confirm the competitive performance of our approach, reinforcing the potential of machine learning models in extractive summarization. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2026.

High-energy, heavy-ion collisions can create local domains of chirality-imbalanced quarks, reflecting the topological features of quantum chromodynamics. The chiral magnetic effect (CME) predicts an electric charge separation of quarks in such topological domains along the magnetic field (B) generated by the passing of two high-Z nuclei. We use a correlation observable Δγ112 between charged meson pairs to detect the CME-induced charge separation and a novel event shape selection (ESS) method to mitigate the background effects related to elliptic flow (v2). The ESS method classifies events based on the emission pattern of final-state particles and determines Δγ(Formula presented) from the zero-flow limit. We reconstruct the B field direction from the spectator nucleons, which minimizes backgrounds unrelated to the collective motion of the system. In this work, we report the measurements of Δγ112 and a background indicator Δγ132 in Au + Au collisions from the Brookhaven National Laboratory Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) Beam Energy Scan phase II and at the top RHIC energy. After background suppression, Δγ(Formula presented) aligns with zero, and Δγ(Formula presented) is reduced to no more than 20% of Δγ112. We observe a finite residual charge separation with 2.5σ, 3σ, and 3.2σ significance in the 20-50% centrality range of Au + Au collisions at 11.5, 14.6, and 19.6 GeV. The results at 17.3 and 27 GeV also show positive values but with a lower significance of 1.3σ and 1.1σ, respectively. The corresponding ΔγΈ5ΕΕ values at 7.7, 9.2, and 200 GeV are consistent with zero within uncertainties. © (2026), (American Physical Society). All right reserved.

Rapidity-odd directed flow v 1 measurements are presented for K ± and KS0 in Au + Au collisions for sNN from 3.0 to 3.9 GeV with the STAR experiment. For comparison, v 1 of π ± , protons, and Λ from the same collisions are also discussed. The mid-rapidity v 1 slope dv1/dy|y=0 for protons and Λ is positive in these collisions. On the other hand, v 1 slope of kaons exhibits a strong pT dependence: negative at pT< 0.6 GeV/ c and positive at higher pT. A similar pT dependence is also evident for the v 1 slope of charged pions. Compared to the spectator-removed calculations in Au+Au collisions at sNN= 3.0–3.9 GeV, the JAM model demonstrates a pronounced shift of the v 1 slopes of mesons towards the negative direction. It suggests that the shadowing effect of the spectators plays an important role in the observed kaon anti-flow at low pT in the high baryon density region of non-central collisions. © 2026 The Authors.

When most people think of the use of animals in traditional systems of medicine, what springs to mind is one kind or another of megafauna such as rhinoceros, bears, sharks, and others. Sometimes more mundane creatures such as pangolins are included. However, invertebrates and substances produced by them have been used in Asian systems of medicine since the earliest records of materia medica from the region were created. Animals used range from shellfish and crustaceans to various insects and insect products such as cocoons, honey, and beeswax. In terms of their role in the food chain, and as pollinators, invertebrates are as crucial to the health, indeed the survival, of ecosystems in Asia and elsewhere as are megafauna. Loss and degradation of habitat is probably affecting more invertebrates than medicalization. Still, the expansion of medicalization in Asia and beyond is contributing to the danger many populations of invertebrates currently face. This article gives an overview of the place of invertebrates in Vietnamese traditional medicine and then presents a case study of two varieties of honey- and beeswax-producing bees found in northern mainland Southeast Asia and southern China: Apis dorsata F. and Apis cerana. © C. Michele Thompson, 2026. Published with license by Koninklijke Brill BV

We report measurements of charmonium sequential suppression in Ru+Ru and Zr+Zr collisions at sNN=200 GeV with the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The inclusive yield ratio of ψ(2S) to J/ψ as a function of transverse momentum is reported, along with the centrality dependence of the double ratio, defined as the ψ(2S) to J/ψ ratio in heavy-ion collisions relative to that in p+p collisions. In the 0-80% centrality class, the double ratio is found to be 0.41±0.10 (stat)±0.03 (syst)±0.02 (ref), lower than unity with a significance of 5.6 standard deviations. This provides experimental evidence that ψ(2S) is significantly more suppressed than J/ψ in heavy-ion collisions at RHIC. This sequential suppression pattern seems to increase from peripheral to central collisions, but with no significant dependence on the transverse momentum. © 2026 American Physical Society.

The same dataset can be analysed in different justifiable ways to answer the same research question, potentially challenging the robustness of empirical science1-3. In this crowd initiative, we investigated the degree to which research findings in the social and behavioural sciences are contingent on analysts' choices. We examined a stratified random sample of 100 studies published between 2009 and 2018, in which, for one claim per study, at least five reanalysts independently reanalysed the original data. The statistical appropriateness of the reanalyses was assessed in peer evaluations, and the robustness indicators were inspected along a range of research characteristics and study designs. We found that 34% of the independent reanalyses yielded the same result (within a tolerance region of ±0.05 Cohen's d) as the original report; with a four times broader tolerance region, this indicator increased to 57%. Of the reanalyses conducted, 74% reached the same conclusion as the original investigation, 24% yielded no effects or inconclusive results and 2% reported the opposite effect. This exploratory study indicates that the common single-path analyses in social and behavioural research should not be simply assumed to be robust to alternative analyses4. Therefore, we recommend the development and use of practices to explore and communicate this neglected source of uncertainty. © 2026. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.

The Solenoidal Tracker at RHIC (STAR) experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider reports new measurements of jet quenching based on the semi-inclusive distribution of charged-particle jets recoiling from direct photon (γdir) and neutral pion (π0) triggers in pp and central Au + Au collisions at √sNN = 200 GeV for triggers in the range 9 < ET trig < 20 GeV. The datasets have integrated luminosities of 3.9 nb−1 for Au + Au and 23 pb−1 for pp collisions. Jets are reconstructed using the anti-kT algorithm with resolution parameters R = 0.2 and 0.5. The large uncorrelated jet background in central Au + Au collisions is corrected using a mixed-event approach, which enables precise charged-particle jet measurements at low transverse momentum pch T,jet and large R. Recoil-jet distributions are reported in the range pch T,jet < 25 GeV/c. Comparison of the distributions measured in pp and Au + Au collisions reveals strong medium-induced jet yield suppression for R = 0.2 with markedly less suppression for R = 0.5. Comparison is also made to theoretical models incorporating jet quenching. These data provide new insight into the mechanisms underlying jet quenching and the angular dependence of medium-induced jet-energy transport and provide new constraints on modeling such effects. © 2025 American Physical Society