The Economics of Natural Gas

ABSTRACT Natural gas has long been a vital energy source, but in recent years, it has increasingly gained significance as a financial asset. The growing use of financial derivatives, the trading mechanisms developed in regulated markets, the inclusion of natural gas in well‐diversified portfolios, and events such as the Russia‐Ukraine war have been key drivers of this trend. The aim of this paper is to systematically review the economic and financial aspects of natural gas. By analyzing 126 papers published between 1997 and 2024, we examine the supply‐demand balance of natural gas, the significance of the forward curve and its relationship with spot and future prices, hedging mechanisms, interconnections with oil and other asset classes, potential diversification benefits, and the most important regulatory aspects. Additionally, we propose several questions to guide future research in this field.

Territory, values, and health law in a devolved United Kingdom: examining the role of the gift in opt‐out organ donation

Abstract Devolution since 1998 has seen administrations in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales gain distinct powers over a range of policy fields, with health prominent among them. This poses two pressing questions for socio‐legal scholarship that we address in this article: to what extent are changing territorial arrangements significant for the substance of United Kingdom (UK) health law and the values by which it is oriented, and what role is played by devolved health law in redefining territories and values within the UK? Informed by perspectives from human geography and policy studies, and drawing on our own qualitative empirical research, we examine recent lawmaking processes in relation to organ donation reform. ‘Opt‐out’ or ‘presumed consent’ schemes, adopted in sequence in each of the UK countries, appear to challenge the centrality of voluntary altruism, extolled as a fundamentally British value in Richard Titmuss’ post‐war work on social policy. Our findings confirm that there has been a reterritorialization of values under devolution, with greater emphasis on sub‐state identities. However, they also indicate the persistence of a common space of policy learning across the UK and an enduring concern with altruism in this area.

Legal mobilization and anti‐fluoridation campaigning in post‐war Britain

Abstract The fluoridation of public water supplies to improve dental health is often cited as an example of an ‘intractable controversy’ in public health, reflecting deeply held principles about rights and the public sphere. This article examines legal mobilization to prevent fluoridation in Britain, from the first pilot studies in the mid‐1950s through to McColl v. Strathclyde in 1983 and the subsequent Water (Fluoridation) Act 1985. I argue that efforts to evade the objections of anti‐fluoridationists helped to create an ambiguous legal position from the outset, generating an opportunity for campaigners to use the law to stop fluoridation schemes. I show that, despite there being no decisive legal judgments in their favour, the legal campaigns of anti‐fluoridationists were remarkably successful in terms of their indirect effects. Finally, building on recent work that highlights legal mobilization by conservative causes, this historical case study offers insight into the rights claims of a politically diverse populist movement.

Resettlement and Relational Adjustment: Gender and Liberian Couple Relationships After Forced Migration

ABSTRACT Objective The goal of this study was to explore key informant and community members' perspectives on relational adjustment in one of the largest Liberian communities in the U.S., including ways that cultural and gender norm changes influenced couples post‐resettlement. Background Displacement, resettlement, and acculturation challenge traditional cultural norms and family processes. Gendered notions, or common family‐ and community‐level beliefs, values, and practices, are often upended and must be re‐negotiated after resettlement. Method Hermeneutic phenomenology procedures informed the current study design. Across a total of 40 participants, 20 engaged in individual key informant interviews and 20 individuals participated in one of three focus groups for women ( n  = 6) and men ( n  = 6) above 25 years of age, or young adults 18–25 years of age ( n  = 8). Hermeneutic coding and data analysis protocols emphasized meaning‐making within participants' shared observations of their lived contexts. Results Qualitative perspectives on gender and Liberian couple relationships yielded common themes in two contexts: pre‐migration ( traditional beliefs and values, division of labor, and power and control) and post‐migration ( changes in beliefs and values, division of labor, power and control). An additional theme, relational outcomes, and two sub‐themes, financial acculturation and violence awareness , emerged as uniquely salient to post‐migration contexts. Conclusion Resettled Liberians managed complex adjustment challenges following war‐related displacement and navigated salient changes in gendered norms and other sociocultural values that had observable impacts on couple relationships. This study expands socioecological perspectives on refugee resettlement. We discuss research, clinical, and policy implications, with considerations for interventions with forcibly displaced couples, families, and communities.

Risk of Temporomandibular Disorders and Orofacial Pain Among Palestinian Adults in the Gaza Strip During the War

ABSTRACT Background Temporomandibular disorders (TMD) and orofacial pain (OFP) are influenced by behavioural and psychosocial stressors. The Gaza Strip's prolonged conflict provides a critical context for estimating burden and correlates. Objectives To estimate the prevalence of self‐reported TMD/OFP symptoms and identify independent risk factors among adults in Gaza during wartime. Methods Cross‐sectional survey of 1000 adults (500 women, 500 men) equally allocated across five governorates. A structured questionnaire captured self‐reported facial/TMJ/ear pain, jaw function, parafunctional behaviours (e.g., bruxism, oral habits) and psychological symptoms (tension, mood, sleep) was used. Analyses used descriptive statistics, chi‐square tests and multivariable logistic regression adjusted for sex. Results TMD‐related pain was reported by 33.1% ( n  = 331). Neck pain occurred in 41.0% and morning facial stiffness in 28.2%. In bivariate analyses, men more often reported jaw dysfunction (limited opening, chewing difficulty, joint sounds), while women more often reported psychological symptoms; sex was not an independent predictor. Independent predictors were morning facial stiffness (AOR 2.57–5.27 across frequency categories), limited mouth opening (AOR 3.03; 95% CI 1.75–5.28), joint noises (AOR 3.13; 95% CI 2.08–4.72), sleep bruxism (AOR 2.33; 95% CI 1.51–3.60) and daily somatic pain elsewhere (AOR 2.99; 95% CI 1.53–5.84). Gum chewing showed an inverse association (AOR 0.62–0.31). Tension, sadness, global sleep disturbance, daytime bruxism, smoking, alcohol use, orthodontic history and governorate were not independent predictors. The multivariable model showed good performance (AUC = 0.882; Nagelkerke's R 2  = 0.519). Conclusions During active war, self‐reported TMD and OFP symptoms are prevalent among adults in Gaza and are strongly associated with parafunctional habits and psychological distress, both potentially intensified by war‐related stress. These findings underscore the need for integrated dental and mental health interventions in conflict‐affected populations.

Exploring coping strategies among adolescents during COVID ‐19 and war displacement: A qualitative analysis comparing two crisis settings

Abstract Adolescence is a critical period for developing coping capacities, yet global crises like the COVID‐19 pandemic and war displacement impose unprecedented stressors that can overwhelm existing resources. This study qualitatively explored and compared how adolescents in Germany ( N  = 20 experiencing pandemic lockdown, aged 11–16; N  = 25 Ukrainian refugees experiencing displacement, aged 12–18) coped with these distinct adversities. Drawing on an integrated theoretical framework (combining the transactional model of stress and coping with a risk and resilience framework), we analyzed semi‐structured interviews using reflexive thematic analysis to explore the connections among contextual stressors, their impact on resources, and reported coping strategies. Findings revealed that while both crises elicited common coping functions—including adapting routines, emotion regulation, maintaining/rebuilding social connections, and positive reframing—the specific form and feasibility of these strategies appeared to be linked to how each crisis uniquely impacted adolescents' personal, social, and material resources. Crisis‐specific strategies were also identified, which seemed to correspond to the distinct resource challenges associated with pandemic confinement (e.g., purposeful engagement with idle time) versus war displacement (e.g., focus on educational continuity amidst profound loss and acculturative demands). These findings underscore that adolescent coping is a dynamic, context‐dependent process contingent on available resources. Understanding these connections between stressors, resources, and coping is crucial for developing interventions that are both broadly applicable and tailored to the specific challenges adolescents face in diverse crisis situations, considering their developmental needs.

Disconsolate Suffering: Joe Sacco's Comics Journalism and the Ambivalence of Humanitarian Witnessing

ABSTRACT Through a close reading of Joe Sacco's seminal work of graphic journalism, Palestine , this article argues that Sacco unsettles the consoling effects of mass media by disrupting dominant narratives of difference, otherness, and spectacularized violence. Unlike popular journalistic accounts that distort and normalize trauma, Sacco uses the comics medium to fracture the comfortable frames of war and spectacle that distance viewers from the realities of conflict. Palestine offers a sustained critique of the media's role in shaping perception through spectacle, historical amnesia, racism, and cultural distancing. Engaging with broader debates in literary and visual studies about whether art should provide comfort in dark times, the article examines how Sacco deliberately provokes unease, forcing readers to grapple with the ethics of witnessing and the inadequacy of consolatory narratives. His approach insists that graphic journalism can challenge viewers to confront the structures that produce suffering rather than merely observe its symptoms. Through historicization, juxtaposition, and metanarrative commentary, Palestine foregrounds the systemic violence of occupation and demonstrates the necessity of a more sustained and discomforting engagement with the ongoing realities of dispossession, conflict, and media complicity.

The Primacy of Processes and the Causes of the Russo‐Ukrainian War: A Rejoinder to ‘Patrimonial Imperialism’

ABSTRACT Pierzynski and Joseph explain the Russo‐Ukrainian war through systemic and individual‐level accounts but argue these are incomplete without addressing Russia's internal structure, which they term ‘patrimonial imperialism’. While their taxonomy mirrors the traditional IR ‘levels of analysis’, I suggest it obscures relational and historical dynamics. In this rejoinder, I also critique their rigid distinction between the actual and the real and between process and structure. Causal complexes are historically grounded relational processes. Alongside metatheoretical argumentation, I outline a process‐ontological and holistic critical realist explanation of the Russo‐Ukrainian war—one that situates it within global political‐economic dynamics, while also invoking concepts such as world time. This perspective allows for a nuanced attribution of responsibility and broadens the scope of normative considerations.

Casus Belli

ABSTRACT This article proposes that wars are fought to bring about and monitor mutual reductions of overinvestment in broadly defined military preparedness. If two potential combatants are overinvested in military preparedness, it is in their individual interest to scale down in order to use their resources in politically more desirable ways. However, unilateral disarmament exposes one to the risk of extortion by the not‐yet‐disarmed side. Wars can therefore be a politically desirable way of monitoring the other side's disarmament. This hypothesis predicts fewer civilian deaths from war the more specialized the combatants are, the exceeding rarity of three‐way wars, and also offers a number of additional implications.

Maraña: War and disease in the jungles of Colombia By