While research on the politics of transitions has examined power dynamics, coalitions, and value contestations, the ‘hidden’ sides of operational governance, such as micro-political dynamics, strategies and tensions within decision-making spaces, remained largely underexplored. Considering the increased attention to politics in the governance of sustainability transitions, we argue for a better understanding of the complex, often messy policy processes behind the scenes. Drawing on insights from political science and policy studies, we propose a ‘policy-as-practice’ perspective for transition studies to explore how actors shape and negotiate the content of policies, and the often concealed arenas in which they operate. We discuss the roles of state and non-state actors, interest groups, policy advisors and experts, and how their day-to-day practices shape policy outcomes. Furthermore, we discuss hidden processes such as nondecisions, policy inaction and watering down of policy initiatives as research topics that highlight how a policy-as-practice perspective can provide valuable insights. These aspects of policymaking are difficult to observe from the study of policy documents, decisions or instruments, and require studying policy processes up-close and immersively. We also outline important ontological and methodological implications of our micro-political perspective for the field of transition policy studies.
Background: Suicide is a global public health concern, with the highest rates among older males in most countries. Access to mental healthcare is central to suicide prevention. This study examined mental healthcare contact among older adults who died by suicide compared with controls from the general population. Methods: Using Norwegian national health and administrative registries, we conducted a nested case-control study of individuals aged 60 and older who died by suicide between 2009 and 2021. Cases were matched on age and sex to controls from the general population. Mental healthcare contact and sociodemographic characteristics were described for cases and controls, and mental health diagnosis of cases in contact with mental healthcare services. Results: A substantial proportion of older adults who died by suicide (N = 2002) had prior mental healthcare contact. Specialized mental healthcare contact decreased with age and was more common among females than males (60-69: 50% vs. 38%; 70-79: 42% vs. 22%; 80+: 33% vs. 13%). Primary mental healthcare contact showed small sex differences and remained relatively stable (24-30%) across age. Depression or depressive symptoms were common among cases in both specialized (35%) and primary care (36%). Among those without mental health contact, cases more often were males, not married, and living alone than controls. Conclusion: Older adults who died by suicide received care across multiple healthcare levels and were often diagnosed with depressive symptoms, highlighting the need for prevention and treatment across mental healthcare settings. Improving prevention strategies, particularly among older males, may strengthen suicide prevention in later life.
Rapid thermal processing (RTP) is gaining attention as an efficient alternative to conventional annealing of materials for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. By delivering ultrafast heating and precise temperature control, RTP introduces non-equilibrium conditions that enable metastable phase formation, defect engineering, and interfacial control, while preserving transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) essential for PEC architectures. These advantages improve crystallinity, activate dopants, and enhance interfacial quality without the drawbacks of prolonged furnace treatments. Recent studies report two- to fourfold increases in photocurrent density and negative onset potential shifts up to 300 mV for RTP-treated photoanodes, highlighting RTP's potential to accelerate PEC performance toward industrial benchmarks. Despite these advantages, RTP remains underutilized in PEC research, with challenges in process optimization, atmosphere control, and scalability still unresolved. This review summarizes current progress on RTP for several oxide photoanodes, compares its performance with that of conventional annealing processes, and discusses mechanistic insights. Future directions include hybrid thermal strategies, real-time diagnostics, and data-driven design to enable scalable PEC device manufacturing and sustainable solar hydrogen production.
Background To assess uptake of salpingotomy for tubal ectopic pregnancy following revision of a national guideline recommending tube-preserving surgery where feasible, and to evaluate patient selection, surgical outcomes and preoperative ultrasound documentation. Materials and methods We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 457 consecutive operations for tubal ectopic pregnancy at a Norwegian tertiary hospital in 2018 and 2022–2025. Outcomes before and after guideline change in January 2024 included documented consideration, attempted and completed salpingotomy, conversion to salpingectomy, operative outcomes, patient selection and sonographic documentation. Results Salpingotomy was completed in 36/457 operations (7.9%). After guideline revision, documented consideration increased from 4.9% to 46.6%, attempts from 4.1% to 22.0%, and completed salpingotomy from 3.0% to 14.7% (all p < 0.001). Operative time and hospital stay were similar; operative time was mainly associated with hemoperitoneum and only marginally with operator expertise. Reoperation occurred after 3/36 salpingotomies (8.3%; one case of persistent trophoblast) and 3/421 salpingectomies (0.7%). Women with risk factors for tubal disease were no more likely to undergo salpingotomy than other women (6.6% vs 8.5%, p = 0.59). The ectopic pregnancy was not documented as directly visualized in 41.4% of preoperative ultrasound examinations, and maximum size was documented in 52.5%. Conclusions Salpingotomy increased substantially following guideline revision, but one third of attempts were converted and treatment was not preferentially directed towards women with reduced tubal reserve. Preoperative ultrasound documentation frequently lacked information needed for planned tube-preserving surgery. Guideline implementation should be accompanied by targeted surgical and ultrasound training.
We investigate the Cauchy problem for a two-component generalization of the Novikov equation with cubic nonlinearity—an integrable system whose solutions may develop strong nonlinear phenomena such as gradient blow-up and interactions between peakon-like structures. Our study has two main objectives: first, to analyze the generic regularity of global conservative solutions; and second, to construct a new metric that guarantees the Lipschitz continuity of the flow. Building on the geometric framework developed by Bressan and Chen for quasilinear second-order wave equations, we prove that the solution retains Ck regularity away from a finite number of piecewise Ck−1 characteristic curves. Furthermore, we provide a description of the solution behavior in the vicinity of these curves. By introducing a Finsler norm on tangent vectors in the space of solutions, expressed in the transformed Bressan-Constantin variables, we introduce a Lipschitz metric representing the minimal energy transportation cost between two solutions.
