Search Results (323)

This paper examines the effect of trade openness on corporate tax revenue in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, where increased economic integration might incite more business activity and expand taxable corporate income but also intensify losses due to practices such as profit shifting. The study follows a quantitative empirical approach and applies a panel ARDL model to secondary data collected from international databases (World Bank and IMF), such as GDP, trade openness (exports and imports as % of GDP), inflation, corporate tax revenues, foreign direct investment inflows and tax evasion via informal economies, for a sample of ten developing countries from the MENA region, including Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, over the period 2010–2023. We employ a PMG ARDL model to study our panel data, allowing the analysis of both short-run and long-run effects to investigate the relationship between trade openness and tax revenues. Our results show that in the long run, export-driven economies generate higher corporate tax revenues by expanding profitability and the tax base, and imports also positively affect revenues, indicating that trade openness stimulates economic activity. Conversely, FDI inflows reduce corporate tax revenues, consistent with profit shifting and tax incentives in developing countries. GDP growth does not necessarily increase tax receipts, likely due to tax elasticity effects and growth-oriented tax structures. Also, tax evasion appears to decline, likely reflecting improved compliance, and no significant short-run effects are observed. The results contribute to the literature on tax compliance and economic integration in the case of open economies in developing countries. From a practical perspective, our findings have implications for policymakers and tax regulators in the MENA region, as they highlight the dual nature of globalization for developing countries and their tax systems and underscore the need for effective compliance measures in trade and investment policies. Full article

Genotoxic stress, which includes DNA damage and the mis-localization of DNA and RNA, is a defining feature of tauopathies, Alzheimer’s disease, and several other neurodegenerative disorders. Recent findings indicate that activation of the innate immune system in response to genotoxic stress can drive harmful neuroinflammation, compromise neuronal integrity, and promote neurodegeneration. Multiple innate immune sensors of genotoxic stress have recently been discovered, but the contributions of many of these emerging nucleic acid–sensing pathways in neurodegenerative disease pathogenesis remain largely unexplored. Z-DNA binding protein 1 (ZBP1) is one such recently discovered genotoxic stress sensor that has been shown to incite various forms of cell death as well as proinflammatory cytokine production in response to left-handed Z conformations of DNA (Z-DNA) and RNA (Z-RNA). Here, we show that ZBP1 deletion provides protection against tau pathology and neuronal loss in the PS19 mouse model of tauopathy. Moreover, we find that this rescue of tauopathy seen with ZBP1 ablation is associated with dampened activation of microglia and astrocytes. These findings identify ZBP1 as a pivotal genotoxic stress sensor that drives tau pathology, gliosis, and neuronal loss in tauopathy. This work further suggests that targeting ZBP1 may offer a therapeutic strategy to treat tau-mediated neurodegenerative disease. Full article

In Molly Keane’s 1934 novel Devoted Ladies, the young Irish character Piggy Browne is dismissed as a “fat, hungry virgin”, an insult that incites the text’s denouement. This article uses the figure of Piggy Browne to juxtapose virginity and fatness in Keane’s writing, asking how fat can inform our understanding of the single Irish woman in Keane. I set up both fat and virginity as relevant concerns to Keane’s work, drawing on a range of her fiction as well as writing about virginity, land, and time. Focussing on Piggy in Devoted Ladies demonstrates how the novel is interested in the emotional lives of women, however satirically. Moreover, ideas of virginity, fat, and hunger become useful ways of thinking about Piggy’s role in the ending of Devoted Ladies. Keane ultimately emphasizes a fall, not a culmination, concluding on a moment of agency, if not progress. Full article

In Côte d’Ivoire, parent–child communication (PCC) about sexual and reproductive health (SRH) is often hindered by cultural and social norms. We aimed to explore parental communication on sexual and reproductive health in the Haut-Sassandra region, Côte d’Ivoire. We used an interpretive description approach. Participants were parents (mothers and fathers), recruited through purposive sampling. Data were collected through individual interviews. We performed a thematic analysis. Overall, 63 parents participated in the study. The mean age of parents was 41.2. Sexuality remains a taboo subject. Sociocultural factors that hinder PCC are tradition, the need for intergenerational respect, and the fear of incitement. Reasons that explain the gap between intention and actual practice are the young age of the child, low parental self-efficacy, child gender, shame and intergenerational respect. Parents who communicate address the following topics: relationships (e.g., stay away from boys); values, rights, culture and sexuality (e.g., don’t date someone else’s husband); skills for health and well-being (e.g., sex has advantages and disadvantages); the human body and development (e.g., menstruation management); sexuality and sexual behaviour (e.g., practice abstinence); and sexual and reproductive health (e.g., protect oneself against disease). This study highlights the need to support parents in their educational role. Full article

Plastics have emerged as a significant pollutant, posing a serious threat to the sustainability of the soil ecosystem and food security because of their long-term persistence, resilience, and robustness under different environmental conditions. The present investigation explored the impact of different doses of polypropylene (PP) on lentil plants and attenuation of the adverse impacts of PP by the application of pineapple fruit peel biochar (PBC). Lentil (Lens culinaris) plants exposed to PP treatment reduced morphological traits and relative water contents, reflecting photosynthetic injuries, a rise in lipid peroxidation, and electrolyte leakage. Utilization of PBC derived from waste biomass enhanced the growth attributes of lentils and alleviated PP-incited oxidative stress impacts. Polypropylene stress enhanced oxidative stress and increased enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidant variables in lentil plants. Antioxidant enzymes superoxide dismutase, catalase, ascorbate peroxidase, glutathione reductase, and glyoxalase enzymes were markedly upregulated in lentil after PBC amendment in PP3-treated soil. There was a significant reduction in methylglyoxal content by the activities of glyoxylase enzymes, minimizing the negative impacts of PP. Therefore, soil amendment with PBC protected lentil plants from PP-instigated oxidative disruption by modulating activities of antioxidant defense and glyoxalase system. Production of PBC from biomass wastes results in a safe, cost-effective, and ecofriendly material that can be used at the industrial level for the cultivation of crops in PP-contaminated soil. The novelty of the present research lies in promoting soil management practices and fostering our understanding of waste materials reutilization as renewable assets to combat the ecological implications of plastic pollution, and it emphasizes the treatment of plastic wastes with other waste materials and their practical applications to overcome plastic pollution. Full article

This paper introduces Saudi Dialects Cyber Violence Detection (SD-CVD) corpus, a large-scale, class-balanced Saudi-dialect corpus for fine-grained cyber violence detection on online platforms. The dataset contains 88,687 Saudi Arabic tweets annotated using a three-level hierarchical scheme that assigns each tweet to one of 11 mutually exclusive classes, covering benign sentiment (positive, neutral, negative), cyberbullying, and seven hate-speech subtypes (incitement to violence, gender, national, social class, tribal, religious, and regional discrimination). To mitigate the class imbalance common in Arabic cyber violence datasets, data augmentation was applied to achieve a near-uniform class distribution. Annotation quality was ensured through multi-stage review, yielding excellent inter-annotator agreement (Fleiss’ κ > 0.89). We evaluate three modeling paradigms: traditional machine learning with TF–IDF and n-gram features (SVM, logistic regression, random forest), deep learning models trained on fixed sentence embeddings (LSTM, RNN, MLP, CNN), and fine-tuned transformer models (AraBERTv02-Twitter, CAMeLBERT-MSA). Experimental results show that transformers perform best, with AraBERTv02-Twitter achieving the highest weighted F1-score (0.882) followed by CAMeLBERT-MSA (0.869). Among non-transformer baselines, SVM is most competitive (0.853), while CNN performs worst (0.561). Overall, SD-CVD provides a high-quality benchmark and strong baselines to support future research on robust and interpretable Arabic cyber-violence detection. Full article

Background: Body physique refers to body size, structure, and composition. PS is used to describe the profile of athletes in different sports. Aims: To determine body physique and body fat percentage in elite athletes using the Hattori chart and to identify the elite zone. Methods: Scoping review. The search was performed in PubMed, Google Scholar, Ovid Books, CAB eBooks, Clarivate InCites, MyiLibrary, Web of Science, Taylor & Francis Online, Core Collection, and Scopus. The search strategy was “body physique” OR “anthropometric” OR “body composition” AND “elite athlete” OR “athlete” OR “elite”. Results: Using indirect methods, elite athletes showed intermediate solid body physique (male) and lean intermediate body physique (female), and 13.6% ± 3.6% (male) and 22.3% ± 2.8 (female) body fat. Using doubly indirect methods, elite athletes showed lean intermediate body physique (male), and intermediate body physique (female), and a percentage of body fat of 13.7% ± 5.2% (male) and of 21.7% ± 4.3% (female) of body fat. Conclusions: Hattori’s chart facilitates the visualization of changes in body mass index, fat-free mass index, fat mass index, and percentage of body fat, helping personalize training, monitor composition changes, and guide nutrition programs to optimize performance and health. Full article

Background: Interstitial lung disease (ILD) involves numerous chronic pulmonary conditions that damage the lung parenchyma and alveolar interstitium. ILD has overlapping clinical and radiological features with other commonly seen cardiac and respiratory conditions. If not identified and treated in a timely manner, it may lead to irreversible fibrosis and a poor prognosis in the patient. The current diagnostic methods are either invasive or reliant on imaging or specialist interpretation, which can lead to diagnostic delay, increased radiation exposure, and healthcare costs. Lung crackles, often under-recognized as a non-specific feature of ILD, may serve as an important diagnostic clue in identifying not only the early stages of ILD but also its subtypes. This review explores the potential of analyzing the lung sounds in ILD through AI-based auscultation. Objective: To provide a comprehensive analysis of the pathophysiological stages of lung injury in ILD, the specific acoustic features, and the location associated with each ILD subtype and to evaluate the current state-of-the-art non-AI and AI methodologies that are used to diagnose ILD. This review aims to analyze the limitations associated with the current modalities and to envision AI-integrated auscultation as a powerful, cost-effective, non-invasive, radiation-free screening tool for early detection of ILD and its subtypes. Content Overview: The review begins with a detailed analysis of the lung sound pathophysiology, exploring the two-stage mechanism of alveolar epithelial injury and fibrosis formation. Existing hypotheses explaining the mechanism behind crackle production and the role of structural anatomy and surface tension in the generation of pathological lung sounds are examined. A tabulated summary of common ILD subtypes is provided, including their inciting events, pathogenesis, anatomical auscultation locations, and prognostic implications. Current diagnostic modalities for ILD, both non-AI and AI-based, are summarized along with their limitations, emphasizing the need for improved diagnostic tools. Discussion: Existing studies suggest that AI-based auscultation can match or exceed the current modalities in its sensitivity and specificity for detecting ILD-related crackles. Clinicians can identify the specific sound pattern and then correlate it with the ILD subtype and understand the prognosis in real time, thereby providing timely intervention to the patient. Additionally, AI-based auscultation can be used in resource-limited settings and can potentially reduce dependence on pulmonology expertise and radiation-based imaging for monitoring the condition. Conclusions: This literature review highlights the clinical potential of AI-based auscultation for early and accurate diagnoses of ILD. Understanding the associated pathological sounds, biomarkers, and genetic mutations linked to different subtypes opens avenues for future development of non-invasive diagnostic panels for ILD in clinical practice. Full article

Hate speech is a form of communicative expression that promotes or incites unjustified violence. The increase in hate speech on social media has prompted the development of automated tools for its detection, especially those that integrate emotional tone analysis. This study presents a systematic review of the literature, employing a combination of PRISMA and PICOS methodologies to identify the most used Machine Learning techniques and Natural Language Processing emotion classification in hostile messages. It also seeks to determine which models and tools predominate in the analyzed studies. The findings highlight LLaMA 2 and HingRoBERTa, achieving F1 scores of 100% and 98.45%, respectively. Furthermore, key challenges are identified, including linguistic bias, language ambiguity, and the high computational demands of some models. This review contributes an updated overview of the state of the art, highlighting the need for more inclusive, efficient, and interpretable approaches to improve automated moderation on digital platforms. Additionally, it includes techniques, methods, and future directions in this topic. Full article

From a critical feminist perspective, it is hypothesised that the gender digital divide may be related to new forms of virtual gender-based violence that particularly affect girls and young women. If this is the case, these forms of violence would fall within the dimension of exploitation or quality of use of technologies that characterises the digital divide. To test this hypothesis, a documentary analysis of the phenomenon was carried out by reviewing different cases reported in various media outlets, which show that the well-being of girls and adolescents is at risk when technology is involved. Four categories emerge that reflect situations in which technology becomes a tool for promoting self-harm and suicide among minors through exposure to harmful content, grooming, sexting and/or sextortion; the digital sexual exploitation of underage girls through deepfakes or intimate images generated with artificial intelligence; the consumption of violent and hateful content in mass chats; and the incitement of gender-based violence through video games. The results show the reproduction and perpetuation of gender-based violence in the digital world. To guarantee safe, inclusive and equitable digital environments, various measures are essential, including European policies or plans aimed at guaranteeing digital security and rights, and those related to critical digital literacy with a gender perspective in formal education (school and university) and informal education (parents, carers and guardians). Finally, we urge that the focus be placed on personal digital resilience, since thinking of a completely secure digital world is a naive and unattainable utopia. Full article

In the winter of 1991, the frenzied scandal around Bret Easton Ellis’s serial killer smash American Psycho overshadowed another, no less serious literary controversy. Published less than two months after Ellis’s blockbuster, Dennis Cooper’s transgressive queer classic Frisk may have been largely ignored in mainstream cultural outlets, but in the queer community the scandal was deadly serious. Seemingly connecting queer sexuality with serial murder and pedophilia, the novel incited intensely angry demands for censorship. The controversy culminated in a very public death threat against Cooper from members of Queer Nation, a gay rights group known for its shock tactics. The critical response has mostly dismissed the scandals surrounding the novels as based on a particular kind of misreading or misinterpretation. Both works use similar narrative strategies to shock and scandalize their audience but aim to mitigate this response through the strategic use of unreliable narration. While scholars have often made the argument that the violence in the novels should be interpreted as mere fantasies of their unreliable narrators, this kind of nuanced interpretation was wholly absent in the scandalized response to the novels. The common critical defense, however, is itself based on a misunderstanding of the scandals. Fictionality and narrative reliability as such have little to do with the responses of imaginative resistance and moral disgust prompted by the representation of extreme violence. In this article, I analyze and compare the public and scholarly receptions of the novels, highlighting how scholarly discourse has often overlooked how the novels anticipated and aimed to incite the scandalized public response they ultimately provoked. Full article

Chronic inflammation constitutes a significant characteristic of sustained infections caused by viral and fungal pathogens, with a strong correlation to the development of cancer, autoimmune disorders, and tissue fibrosis. Viral proteins such as HIV-1 Tat, HBV X (HBx), HPV E6/E7, and EBV LMP1 modulate the host’s immune signaling pathways, primarily through the activation of the NF-κB signaling cascade and the disruption of cytokine equilibrium. These molecular interactions result in a pro-inflammatory microenvironment that facilitates viral persistence, immune evasion, and the process of oncogenesis. Structural investigations have elucidated the mechanisms by which these viral proteins interact with host signaling complexes, thereby highlighting their potential as viable therapeutic targets. Similarly, fungal proteins, including secreted aspartyl proteases (Saps), ribotoxin Asp f1, and chitin-binding proteins, incite chronic inflammation by activating pattern recognition receptors and triggering inflammasome activation. Despite the limited structural information of these fungal proteins, emerging models and bioinformatic analyses identified conserved motifs that are crucial for host interactions. Biologic therapies, encompassing antiviral and antifungal peptides as well as monoclonal antibodies, are currently under development to disrupt these protein-host interactions and modulate inflammatory responses. This review provides structural and functional insight into viral and fungal inflammatory proteins and evaluates the potential of biologics as targeted therapeutic interventions for chronic inflammation associated with infections. We discuss the ongoing clinical trials involving neutralizing antibodies targeting HIV, peptide vaccines aimed at HPV and other promising molecules. Finally, we discuss the current limitations of biologics and possible solutions to translate these promising therapeutics into clinical practice. Full article

Today, there is an ongoing discourse on the notion of carbon farming on an international scale. The underlying factors contributing to this phenomenon are numerous. Firstly, the degradation of intensively farmed soils is increasing, and secondly, there is a clear need to restore their biodiversity. A multitude of pollutants stemming from agricultural production have incited the implementation of targeted measures, notably by the European Commission. Consequently, the adoption of the European Green Deal in Poland has prompted the agricultural sector to implement a series of modifications to its practices, with the objective of enhancing soil cultivation and animal husbandry methods. In response to these changes, the introduction of carbon farming practices is being proposed. These practices, which are to be implemented in Polish agriculture with the support of EU subsidies, are intended to mitigate the effects of climate change. This prompts further inquiry into the potential evolution of carbon farming practices and the extent of farmer interest in them. According to the available data, in Poland, 56% of the total agricultural area was covered by payments under the carbon farming eco-scheme. However, support was accessed by barely 31% of farms with an area of more than 1 ha. In turn, from a regional perspective, data analysis reveals significant regional differences in the use of support. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the structural, environmental, and production reasons behind differences in the use of the “Carbon farming and nutrient management“ eco-scheme across the Polish territory. The headline result is that participation is strongly associated with farm structure, moderately with production performance, and only weakly with environmental status. Full article

After the end of the Second World War, Hungary, like other war-torn countries, was left with countless orphaned children. The collapsed state structures were unable to care for them, so only various private or church initiatives—such as Gaudopolis, a children’s home set up by the Lutheran pastor Gábor Szehló—provided a means of survival. However, in East-Central Europe—including Hungary, Poland and Romania—where the Soviet Union had a sphere of influence, the emerging Soviet-style system was aimed at the political re-education of society. Ideological goals categorically excluded the possibility of churches being involved in the care and education of youth beyond the existing legal framework. Any person who engaged in such activities was cracked down upon. This study examines the role and responsibility of church persons in the care and upbringing of orphaned children through the fate of the Roman Catholic priest István Regőczi. In the decades of communist dictatorship, István Regőczi repeatedly reorganised orphanages, where he carried out youth education activities based on principles similar to scouting. The values he imparted to the children—such as the Christian religion, family protection, mutual help and social solidarity—were all values of Christian socialism. However, the communist dictatorship—promoting its own political ideology, Marxism—sought to take control of the upbringing and education of children by nationalising all institutions involved in this activity. Anyone who resisted this—as István Regőczi did—was made impossible in the people’s democracy of the 1950s and 1960s, and his child-saving, educating and teaching activities were prevented, even if the courts sentenced him to longer or shorter prison sentences for the crimes of illegal youth organisation, incitement and the abuse of freedom of association. This study, comparing what is described in István Regőczi’s memoirs with the surviving archival sources, shows how during these terrible decades it was possible to save orphaned, needy children and raise them in a Christian spirit, even against the will of the authorities. Full article

Background/Objectives: Overnutrition increases comorbidities such as gestational diabetes during pregnancy that can have detrimental consequences for both parent and progeny. We previously reported that high-fat (HF) diet and late-gestation diabetes (DM) incite mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, and cardiometabolic disease in first generation (F1) rat offspring, partially through epigenomic and transcriptomic programming. Primordial germ cells, which become the second generation (F2), are also exposed, which could incite generational risk. This study aimed to determine whether the F2 transcriptome already has genomic variation at the preimplantation embryo stage, and whether variations normalize, persist or compound in the third generation (F3). Methods: F0 female rats were fed a control or HF diet, then DM was induced in HF-fed dams on gestational day (GD)14, exposing F1 offspring and F2 primordial germ cells to hyperlipidemia, hyperglycemia and fetal hyperinsulinemia during the last third of pregnancy. F1 pups were reared by healthy dams and bred to produce F2 embryos (F2e) and F2 pups. F2 offspring were bred to produce F3 embryos (F3e). Embryos were assessed by a novel grading method, live cell imaging, and single-cell RNA sequencing. Results: Embryo grades were not different, but HF+DM F2e had more cells while F3e had fewer cells and overall fewer embryos. HF+DM F2e had similar mitochondria quantity but a downregulation of genes involved in lipid metabolism and more oxidative stress, consistent with mitochondrial dysfunction. They also had an upregulation of chromatin-remodeling genes. The predicted developmental effect is accelerated embryo aging and epigenetic drift. In contrast, HF+DM F3e had an adaptive stress response leading to increased mitochondria quantity and an upregulation of genes involved in mitochondrial respiration, metabolism, and genomic repair that led to a predicted developmental effect of delayed embryo maturation. Conclusions: Although pathways vary, both generations have metabolically linked differentially expressed genes that influence cell fate and developmental pathways. In conclusion, HF+DM pregnancy can program the early embryonic transcriptome for three generations, despite an intergenerational healthy diet. Full article