Search Results (1,078)

Transgender individuals face unique challenges in vascular health due to the complex interactions between gender identity, psychosocial determinants of health, and medical interventions such as gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT). Growing evidence indicates that transgender populations may exhibit distinct patterns of vascular disease risk compared with cisgender individuals; however, available data remain limited and heterogeneous. A narrative review of the literature was conducted using major biomedical databases to identify studies examining the vascular and cardiovascular effects of gender-affirming hormone therapy in transgender individuals. This review provides a comprehensive overview of vascular health in transgender people, with particular attention to both venous and arterial disease. We summarize current epidemiological evidence on vascular outcomes and explore biological mechanisms through which exogenous sex hormones, including estrogens, anti-androgens, and testosterone, may influence endothelial function, vascular remodeling, inflammation, and coagulation pathways. Specific emphasis is placed on venous disorders, such as thromboembolic disease and chronic venous disease (CVD), as well as arterial conditions, including chronic peripheral arterial disease (PAD). In addition, we discuss the contribution of traditional vascular risk factors, minority stress, disparities in healthcare access, and social determinants of health in shaping vascular risk profiles. Clinical implications for vascular risk assessment, prevention strategies, and long-term monitoring in transgender individuals receiving GAHT are addressed. Finally, key knowledge gaps and priorities for future research are identified, underscoring the need for robust, longitudinal studies to support personalized and evidence-based vascular care in transgender populations. Full article

The increasing prevalence of digital communication has made students a primary target for various cyber threats, including identity deception and impersonation techniques that can lead to data breaches and financial loss. In Saudi Arabia, where the youth population is digitally active and integrated into online learning environments, understanding their vulnerability to such threats is paramount. This paper investigates university students’ awareness, confidence, and behavioral responses to different types of spoofing attacks, including email, SMS, caller ID, and website spoofing, in Saudi Arabia. A survey was conducted to gather data from 1437 students at Saudi Electronic University, and it was analyzed using a quantitative research methodology and different statistical tests, such as Chi-square tests, Friedman tests, Kruskal–Wallis tests, correlation analysis, and regression models. The analysis results indicate that students exhibit a relatively high level of awareness. However, awareness and confidence vary across demographic groups, with significant differences associated with gender and age group. The results also reveal a significant gap between perceived confidence and detection ability in scenario-based assessments, highlighting that self-reported awareness does not necessarily translate into practical identification skills. The study emphasizes the importance of strengthening practical cybersecurity education, simulation-based training, and effective awareness delivery methods to improve students’ ability to recognize impersonation-based cyber threats in the Saudi educational sector. Full article

Currently, identity formation is undertaken in hyper-individualized virtual microsystems, such as TikTok. Here, content creators set the boundaries of adolescents’ identity exploration and construction. However, few studies have engaged with the content adolescents actively choose to follow to understand the behaviors and messages that are circulated and modeled by TikTok creators. To bridge this gap, 127 TikTok videos from accounts that a sample of 328 Romanian adolescents (M_age = 16.99, SD_age = 0.78; 60.4% male) reported following were thematically analyzed. This resulted in a novel codebook that went beyond surface-level content typologies to reveal exposure to positive content, such as awareness raising, family values, and motivational videos, as well as negative content, such as age-inappropriate behaviors, materialistic values, and gender stereotypes. Results suggest that master and alternative narratives are portrayed by TikTok creators, generating tensions between conforming to norms that might be potentially harmful and following less common identity scripts. Full article

This article analyzes how twentieth- and twenty-first-century Afro-Colombian women poets from the Pacific region challenge and reframe the feminization of the land and the naturalization of the Black female body within colonial and Eurocentric epistemologies. Drawing on a framework that conceptualizes body, territory, spirituality, and community as an interdependent continuum, the article conducts close textual analysis to demonstrate how these poets construct territory and the Black female body as sentient sites. These sites are simultaneously shaped by historical violence, forced displacement, extractive economies, and racialized gender constructs, while preserving ancestral knowledge and collective memory. The findings show that Valencia Córdoba develops the body–territory through metaphor and anaphora as a generative space; Grueso Romero deploys orality and the sea as transatlantic archives of ancestry and identity; and Truque articulates urban displacement as an ontological rupture that affects memory and Black subjectivity. Ultimately, the article advances the concept of body–territory as a decolonial aesthetic and analytical tool through which Afro-Colombian women’s poetry articulates environmental justice, gendered racialization, and forms of resistance within the Afrodiasporic diaspora. Full article

Accurate recognition of human emotions is crucial for human–computer interaction, and speech, as an important external manifestation of emotion, has attracted significant attention. Existing speech emotion recognition (SER) methods are predominantly based on single-task learning, which inadequately model speaker variability and other latent factors in speech, thereby limiting recognition performance. In this paper, a multi-task learning-based SER method leveraging a pre-trained acoustic model is proposed. Speech emotion recognition is treated as the primary task, while speaker recognition, gender recognition, and automatic speech recognition are introduced as auxiliary tasks. A multi-task learning framework based on hard parameter sharing is constructed to guide the model to learn shared acoustic representations that simultaneously encode emotional category characteristics, speaker identity, and other relevant information. Experiments conducted on the IEMOCAP dataset demonstrate that the proposed model achieves weighted accuracy (WA) and unweighted accuracy (UA) of 83.24% and 83.36%, respectively, under five-fold cross-validation, and 83.86% and 84.23%, respectively, under ten-fold cross-validation. In both settings, the proposed method consistently outperforms the baseline models, confirming its effectiveness in improving speech emotion recognition performance. Full article

In her final novel, Daniel Deronda (1876), George Eliot (1819–1880) repeatedly stages moments in which gentile characters project expectations onto Jewish women, drawing on inherited cultural representations from literature, history, and the performing arts. These moments reveal how limited their real-world knowledge of Jews—particularly Jewish women—was, and how readily they relied on cultural templates rather than lived experience. George Eliot herself, however, had undertaken extensive study of Jewish history, religion, and culture in preparation for the novel, including research into the Talmud, Mishna, kabbalah, and halacha (Jewish law). Yet this knowledge is purposefully not afforded to her characters. This article examines George Eliot’s increasing understanding of Jewish society, and her shifting attitudes towards Judaism, and explores how allusions to Jewish women in history, literature, and performance shape the gentile characters’ othering of Mirah Lapidoth, a young Jewish woman fleeing enforced familial exploitation, whom Daniel rescues from drowning in the Thames. Two significant conceptual terms underpin my argument. Objectification refers here not only to eroticisation or aestheticisation, but to the broader process by which Mirah is perceived as a symbolic figure—as an image, a type, or role—rather than a fully realised person. Othering denotes the interpretative habit by which gentile characters position Mirah through pre-existing stereotypes or literary precedents, instead of understanding her as a subject with her own history and interiority. Rescue describes the narrative mechanisms by which Mirah is brought into focus, first through Daniel’s intervention, then through her placement within the Meyrick household, and finally through marriage, though always within structures that continue to idealise, discipline, or contain her. I argue that George Eliot’s deployment of familiar stereotypes does not reinforce them; instead, she exposes them as cultural constructions that must be deconstructed or exorcised before she reconstructs her own version of Jewish culture and identity, which she referred to as “the inner life of modern Judaism” in her notebooks. I also argue that Daniel’s rescue of Mirah, rather than an act of pure benevolence, becomes a further site of objectification, othering her as an idealised model of Jewish womanhood rather than acknowledging her as an autonomous individual. Full article

Background: Family-centered care (FCC) is a foundational principle in pediatric healthcare, yet its implementation in culturally specific contexts remains poorly understood. In Saudi Arabia, Islamic values, collective family structures, and gendered caregiving norms shape how mothers engage with pediatric intensive care in ways that existing Western-derived FCC models do not fully capture. The aim of this study was to explore Saudi mothers’ experiences of family-centered care during their children’s pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) admissions, focusing on perceived barriers, cultural negotiations, and evolving advocacy strategies. Methods: A qualitative descriptive study was conducted with 17 Saudi mothers whose children had been admitted to PICUs across major hospitals in Saudi Arabia within the preceding 12 months. Semi-structured interviews lasting 40–70 min were conducted in Arabic using a pilot-tested, 15-item guide. Data were analyzed through Braun and Clarke’s six-phase reflexive thematic analysis. Trustworthiness was strengthened through member checking, reflexive journaling, negative case analysis, and investigator triangulation. Reporting adheres to the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ). Result: Five interconnected themes emerged: (1) confronting crisis and uncertainty, (2) renegotiating maternal identity, (3) brokering culture within biomedicine, (4) forging trust with care teams, and (5) evolving into advocates. These themes trace a developmental arc from initial disorientation through progressive empowerment, shaped at every stage by culturally grounded resources and constraints. Mothers functioned as cultural brokers performing invisible labor that healthcare systems neither recognized nor supported. Conclusions: Saudi mothers in PICUs engage in sophisticated cultural mediation between family systems and biomedical institutions under conditions of acute stress. Findings underscore the need for structurally embedded cultural responsiveness in PICU policy, including continuous cultural assessment, care-team continuity, and family advocacy support. Full article

This study explores how youth masculinities are constructed in Eswatini’s high schools. Using hegemonic masculinity theory as an analytical lens, data were coded to identify patterns of dominance, strength, and gender hierarchy, thereby highlighting the study’s original contribution to understanding the local manifestation of hegemonic masculinity and advancing theoretical knowledge in this context. Data were collected through a qualitative case study approach involving 36 adolescents aged 16 to 18, comprising equal numbers of 18 boys and 18 girls, from six coeducational high schools. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups revealed that hegemonic masculinity shapes perceptions of gender roles, often promoting aggression in boys and marginalising girls. Sports, especially rugby, are key symbols of masculinity, emphasising strength, dominance, and competitiveness, while girls are excluded from these activities, reinforcing gender inequalities. Institutional practices like task allocation and disciplinary methods further sustain stereotypes, influencing youth identities within cultural and peer pressure contexts. The findings highlight persistent gendered power dynamics and stereotypes that perpetuate inequality. The study makes a significant contribution to the scientific literature by demonstrating how hegemonic masculinity manifests uniquely in Eswatini’s educational and cultural context, thus extending regional studies and providing insights for broader applications. It recommends gender-transformative curricula, increased girls’ participation in male-dominated sports, and gender-neutral disciplinary practices to foster more inclusive, equitable environments. Full article

Social media in Hong Kong Christian communities has been viewed in terms of social equalization, allowing laity to shape theology and community practices. But how is social media an equalizer for religious communities, and along which social dimensions? Drawing on Heidi A. Campbell’s “layers” and Pauline Hope Cheong’s “logics” of power, we offer a framework for examining how social media affects leadership roles, community practices, ideology and identity, and approaches to religious texts, in terms of whether these impacts are continuous with and complementary to existing power structures, displace traditional authority, or involve a dialectic between the two. Through case studies of Hong Kong Christian Key Opinion Leaders (KOL), we show displacements of official roles by lay leaders interacting with an underlying logic of continuity along traditional lines such as gender, social class, and sexual orientation. Online structures of community practice complement existing power structures, reinforcing traditional hierarchies of identity, ideology, and religious texts. We conclude by considering how theological approaches to dispossession may help Hong Kong Christian communities to enter a dialectic of challenges and opportunities for equality. Full article

Digital-avatar systems still provide limited control over emotionally expressive behavior in human–computer interaction, especially in Large Language Model (LLM)-based chatbots and virtual assistants with personalized visual embodiments. To address this problem, we propose Multimodal Avatar Generation (MAVAGEN), a multimodal avatar generation framework for synthesizing upper-body digital avatars with personalized appearance and controllable emotional expression. The user specifies the desired gender and age, as well as provides a short text input from which the target emotional state is inferred. MAVAGEN then retrieves an identity image from the HaGRIDv2-1M corpus and generates an avatar clip with synchronized facial expressions, hand gestures, and expressive speech. The framework uses the following six feature streams: textual features, emotion-distribution features, landmark-based pose features, depth-geometry features, RGB-appearance features, and acoustic features. In a quantitative evaluation against recent human animation methods, MAVAGEN achieves the best overall avatar quality, with FID 48.20, FVD 592.00, SSIM 0.741, Sync-C 7.40, HKC 0.929, HKV 25.30, CSIM 0.563, and EmoAcc 0.88. Ablation results show that emotion and acoustic features contribute most to emotional agreement, while landmark-based pose and depth features improve geometric and motion stability. These results support the practical use of MAVAGEN in personalized LLM-based assistants and other emotion-sensitive interactive systems. Full article

Objective: Using a two-point design, this study examined five parental identity development processes as predictors of personal growth following birth among first-time expecting mothers and fathers. Background: Although personal growth during the transition to parenthood has been documented and several factors promoting it have been identified, much remains unknown about what enables people to grow through this experience. Parental identity development, which has been linked to positive adjustment and well-being during this transition, represents an unexplored framework for understanding personal growth during this critical period. Method: A total of 169 first-time expectant parents (97 women, Mage = 31.9, SD = 3.46; 72 men, Mage = 32.1, SD = 3.43) participated in this two-point design study: 1–3 months before birth (T1) and 3–5 months after birth (T2). Results: Women showed an increase in personal growth following birth, while men showed a decrease. Only Identification with Commitment—one of the five parental identity processes—measured before birth predicted personal growth after birth for both genders. Among men, increases in three of these processes were associated with decreases in personal growth. Conclusions: These findings highlight the complex and gendered relationship between parental identity development and personal growth during the transition to parenthood, suggesting that these two frameworks are mutually informative: parental identity processes predict the emergence of personal growth, while personal growth outcomes reveal the complexity and nuance of parental identity formation during this pivotal period. Full article

Thermal comfort in operating rooms is critical for staff performance and safety, but conflicting requirements among professional groups create complex challenges. In a real operating room with a unidirectional airflow system, air velocity and temperature were measured, and predicted thermal sensation as well as the proportion of dissatisfied staff were calculated according to international standards. Analyses included surgeons, technical assistants, and anesthesiologists, considering clothing insulation, task-specific activity, gender, body mass index, and the use of lead aprons of different weights. Gender, body mass index, and temperature strongly influenced thermal comfort, whereas variation in air velocity had only minor effects. Thermal comfort targets diverged markedly between professional groups. Under identical conditions in our operating room, up to 75% of male surgeons wearing lead aprons experienced pronounced heat stress, whereas approximately 22% of female anesthesiologists experienced predominantly cold discomfort. Female surgeons would require temperatures as low as 16 °C to achieve thermal comfort, while nearly 50% of male surgeons perceived even this temperature as uncomfortably warm. Removing lead aprons reduced heat stress in surgeons but increased cold stress in anesthesiologists. Higher body-mass index improved heat dissipation in surgeons but aggravated cold stress in anesthesiologists. These findings demonstrate that uniform temperature settings cannot ensure thermal comfort for all professional groups. Practical implications include the need for role-specific strategies, such as targeted personal cooling or warming measures and differentiated clothing systems, to improve working conditions and maintain patient safety in operating rooms. Full article

International graduate students studying Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) in the United States (U.S.) diversify universities and contribute to research and innovation. They are critical to the U.S. STEM pipeline, workforce and economy; therefore, it is important to understand their experiences. This systematic literature review investigated international graduate STEM students’ characteristics and the supports and barriers they experience while studying in the U.S., following PRISMA guidelines. Thirty-nine peer-reviewed articles were systematically selected from 552 articles for inclusion in this review. Ecological systems theory situated the study within the broader system of graduate education. Findings revealed great diversity, such as country of origin and cultural identity, gender, STEM fields, and prior experiences. Students expressed differences in their reasons to pursue U.S. education and their post-graduation intentions to remain in the U.S. or leave. Support came from institutions, faculty members/academic advisors, and peers. Reported barriers included unfamiliarity with norms and institutional resources, limited English proficiency and writing skills, issues with advisor and being a teaching assistant, underrepresentation, and family responsibilities. Themes were placed within the levels of the ecological framework; most were in the macrosystem, reflecting the strong influence of society, institutions, culture, and norms on students’ experiences. Full article

This paper investigates evaluative morphology in the modern dialect of Lesbos, focusing on the morphological strategies used for nominal evaluation, the range of meanings they express, and the characteristics that distinguish Modern Lesbian from other varieties. Special attention is given to borrowing and the integration of markers serving evaluative functions in the dialect. Dialectal data are drawn from available primary and secondary written sources. The analysis shows that Modern Greek dialects, Lesbian in particular, which have largely escaped the effects of diglossia and standardization, constitute an especially valuable resource for linguistic research, as they reveal prototypical tendencies of linguistic systems. These tendencies include the preference for specific gender values as defaults in the expression of diminution and augmentation, the overwhelming productivity of specific markers, closely linked to the local dialectal identity, the symmetrical distribution of suffixes and prefixoids in the realization of positive and negative evaluative meanings, and the creative adaptation of borrowed evaluative elements. Full article

This scoping review synthesises the current literature to explore the related concepts of victim blaming and bystander intervention in the context of image-based sexual abuse. Image-based sexual abuse refers to the creation, taking and distribution of non-consensual intimate images, including the threat to share or distribute. The databases Web of Science, ASSIA, ProQuest Dissertation & Theses and Scopus were searched in August 2024, with an updated search being conducted in December 2025. A supplementary search was conducted in Google Scholar, along with a hand search of four key journals within the topic area. The search focused on five geographical locations that share a common cultural background (UK, USA, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia). A total of 31 studies and reviews were included. The main findings were that: (a) there is limited research in relation to bystander intervention in the context of image-based sexual abuse; (b) there are no studies that examine the relationship between victim blaming and bystander intervention; (c) there appears to be a gendered dimension in relation to the phenomena (victim blaming and bystander intervention), which is reflected in the literature around image-based sexual abuse; (d) accountability and victim blaming are increased when a victim–survivor has created the images/videos themselves; (e) research within this area neglects the experiences of diverse communities, specifically sexual and gender minority people; and (f) there appears to be a disregard to capture the experiences of men who are victim–survivors, irrespective of sexual identity. Full article