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This review outlines the progress and challenges of transition metal electrocatalysts in C–N coupling from N-sources like N 2 and NO x − , emphasizing the need for mechanistic studies and improved stability.

Geographic neighbours of sanctioned countries (targets) may suffer from indirect effects of sanctions or benefit by helping targets circumvent restrictions. I study the effects of sanctions on trade among neighbours and targets using data from BACI for 2002-2022 and separately accounting for export of sensitive goods: arms, dual use goods and machinery. I find that export of dual use goods (in value) and machinery (in value and weight) from benevolent neighbours to targets increases when sanctions are in place. Additionally, I show that the weight of arms exported by neighbours to Iran, as well as value of dual use goods and weight of machinery exported to Russia were significantly higher with sanctions in place suggesting that their neighbours were not innocent bystanders.

Purpose This paper aims to explore prompts and prompting in large language models (LLMs) as dynamic semiotic phenomena, reconceptualizing the practice from a technical input mechanism to a communicative and epistemic act that involves iterative sign formation, interpretation and refinement. Design/methodology/approach The theoretical foundation rests on Peirce's semiotics, utilizing the triadic model of signs (representamen, object, interpretant), his nine sign types and the Dynacom model of communication. Analytically, the LLM is positioned as a semiotic resource generating interpretants in response to user prompts to participate in meaning-making within a shared universe of discourse. Findings Prompting constitutes a semiotic and communicative process that redefines how knowledge is organized, searched, interpreted and co-constructed in digital environments. Originality/value This perspective invites a reimagination of the philosophical foundations of meaning, interpretation and epistemic agency in an age defined by human–machine communication and computational semiosis.

U.S. boundary enforcement has long been organized around an effort to redirect unauthorized border crossing into remote and inhospitable expanses of desert terrain. Using southern Arizona's West Desert corridor as a case study, this article explores how these two conditions have been actively cultivated over time. First, we describe the twentieth-century use of military and conservation rationales to remove indigenous O'odham, Mexican-American, and Anglo-American residents from their villages and ranchlands. Then, we examine the contemporary evolution of what we call the U.S. selective access regime, one that restricts public access and criminalizes humanitarian intervention even as the government aggressively expands its own ability to circulate across previously difficult-to-access areas of federally managed land. To understand the implications for unauthorized border crossers, we apply a model of human water loss from temperature and locomotion-induced perspiration associated with pedestrian movement across these desert lands. Our findings reveal, first, how remoteness is a relational phenomenon that must be continuously reproduced and defended; and second, how governmental efforts to do so measurably increase the risk of human mortality. Selective access also obscures the scale of this phenomenon, however, contributing to the disappearance of thousands of unauthorized border crossers over time.

This paper follows 8 scientists who ventured into the world of psychedelics on a quest to find transformational pathways forward. Each have worked on aspects of global environmental change for decades, and observing environmental crises converging into a global polycrisis/metacrisis with genuine potential for collapse, we have all carried psychological burdens, including fatigue, anxiety, grief, and hopelessness. Psilocybin offers potential for alleviating and transforming these burdens, and for shining light towards creative ways forward. Through professional connections and quiet conversations, we came together to conduct a participatory self-study to directly explore this potential. The study was conducted in Oregon, which offers a legal framework for the administration of psilocybin. We embarked with thoughtful preparation, group intention setting, and integration protocols. This paper recounts our journey together, including vignettes of our experiences; a preliminary synthesis of learnings; and a glimpse of insights that continue today. We emerged with a powerful, common insight: it is impossible to learn “right relations” outside of relationship, and that righting of relations for our transformed, collective future is an act of love. We tell our story in the hope of enlivening conversations, actions, and further investigation of psychedelic-assisted approaches for fostering resilience and realizing transformative change.