University of St Andrews

Discovery of an intrinsic non-Hermitian phase transition in a bulk condensed-matter system

Across regular phase transitions, systems remain in thermal equilibrium. However, when a system is driven far from equilibrium, non-Hermitian phase transitions may arise where the dynamical behavior—rather than steady properties—undergoes a qualitative change at a critical, so-ca...

Chimpanzees attribute agency to virtual animals, but not to self-propelled shapes

Discriminating agents from inanimate objects is essential for predicting others' behaviour. Although chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) differentiate between agents and objects, the cues underlying this ability remain unclear. We investigated chimpanzees' agency attribution using a vi...

Lifetime Justifications and Doing Harm

Our everyday lives are filled with constant opportunities to help anonymous strangers, by giving to charity, volunteering, and so on. They are also filled with constant opportunities to reduce the harm we do to anonymous strangers, via our carbon emissions, diets, shopping choice...

Location and neutrality

Abstract I characterize two different senses in which a formal theory of location can be said to be neutral: neutrality with respect to some locational principles, and neutrality with respect to some controversial cases that have been presented as counterexamples to some principl...

High-capacity associative memory in a quantum-optical spin glass

The Hopfield neural network stores memories using all-to-all-coupled spins and recalls those memories through equilibrium dynamics. Storing too many hampers recall because frustration causes an exponential number of spurious patterns to arise as the network becomes a spin glass....

Taking Jobs and Doing Harm

ABSTRACT In popular discourse and in the philosophical literature there is almost no reflection on the morality of doing harm in the context of doing one's job. To the contrary, workers are valorised simply for having a job, and typically individual workers are spared from blame,...

A Bayesian state-space model for estimating pup production in an asynchronous breeder: the grey seal (Halichoerus grypus)

Abstract For wide-ranging or cryptic species, abundance estimation often relies on counts when individuals aggregate during breeding or migration. When these events are asynchronous, counts represent an unknown proportion of the focal component of the population. Grey seals (Hali...

The genome sequence of Dermanura phaeotis (Chiroptera, Phyllostomidae, Stenodermatinae; Miller, 1902)

We present a genome assembly from an individual male Dermanura phaeotis (Chordata; Mammalia; Chiroptera; Phyllostomidae). The genome sequence is 2.2 Gb in span. The majority of the assembly is scaffolded into 30 chromosomal pseudomolecules, with the X and Y sex chromosomes assemb...

Firelight and the origins of spoken language

Language and fire are hallmarks of the human condition, but most scholars treat them as independent traits. We develop a theory for the origin of language that links both touchstones of human evolution. First, we show that precursors to language were probably rooted in the gestur...

The Effects of Immigration on Agricultural Development: Brazil in the Age of Mass Migration

We study the effects of immigration during the Age of Mass Migration (1855–1920) on Brazil’s agricultural development in 1920. Instrumenting for a municipality’s immigrant share using the interaction of aggregate immigrant inflows and the expansion of Brazil’s railway network, we...

Un/making protection: EU temporary protection and the governance of the Ukrainian displaced in Vienna in a global perspective

This article explores the reception of the Ukrainian displaced in Vienna following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, and the workings of temporary protection (TP). It analyses how response to the mass influx of displaced persons has been shaped jointly by the legacies of mana...

First detailed insights into harbour porpoise behaviour during a bycatch event

Abstract Bycatches in static nets are the greatest cause of anthropogenic mortality in small cetaceans globally; however, the mechanism underlying how animals with highly sophisticated biosonars become entangled in nets is still poorly understood and represents a key information...

The Housing Crisis as a Failure of Distribution: The Mismatch of Homes to Places and Space to People in England and Wales, 1991 to 2021

ABSTRACT The housing crisis in England and Wales is commonly explained as a national shortage of housing supply, leading to a policy focus on aggregate production targets. This paper challenges that narrative, arguing that this framing has obscured a parallel dimension: a growing...

Structural insights into the polytopic Escherichia coli phosphoglycosyl transferase WbaP

Abstract Host–pathogen interactions frequently depend on key components of the bacterial cell surface, such as capsules and lipopolysaccharides in Gram-negative bacteria. The first step in the synthesis of lipid-linked polysaccharides is the substitution of a uridine diphosphate...

Costs and benefits of group size for sperm whales of the open ocean

Abstract Individual feeding success can change with the size of a social group through competition, cooperation, recruitment and other processes. Female sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) live in long-term social units that themselves can form larger, temporary groups, but the...

Academic entrepreneurship: uncovering the role of formal and informal logics in the academic entrepreneurial space

Abstract This study integrates the embedded perspective of entrepreneurship with institutional logics theory to theorise AE as an embedded phenomena, sitting at the intersection of individuals within surrounding contexts. Drawing on qualitative data from STEM academics at three r...

Clearance of Treponema pallidum from oral and anal sites after treatment of secondary syphilis: results from a multi-centre, prospective, cross-sectional study

Background Syphilis is increasing worldwide, and secondary syphilis may represent its most infectious stage. Scarce data exist on Treponema pallidum clearance after treatment. We aimed to determine the frequency and load of T. pallidum mucosal shedding, and time to clearance foll...

Maximum Likelihood Thresholds of Generic Linear Concentration Models

Abstract. The maximum likelihood threshold of a statistical model is the minimum number of datapoints required to fit the model via maximum likelihood estimation. In this paper, we determine the maximum likelihood thresholds of generic linear concentration models. This turns out...

Will work for sardines: 20 years of animal-borne ocean observing by Australia’s Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) Animal Tagging Facility

The world’s ocean stores ~90% of the excess heat generated by anthropogenic global warming, making sustained ocean observations essential for understanding physical, biological and climate processes. Here, we describe how the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) Animal Taggi...

Impact on health outcomes of treating all eligible large B-cell lymphoma patients with axicabtagene ciloleucel in Portugal – A modeling approach

AIM: This study aimed to quantify the health benefits that can be achieved by treating axicabtagene-ciloleucel (axi-cel)-eligible large B-cell lymphoma patients with axi-cel instead of historical standard of care (hSoC) in Portugal. "Estimated Opportunity Lost" quantified the dif...