Search Results (575)

Externalizing problems are influenced by family dynamics, yet the specific mechanisms linking parental control to distinct externalizing problem behaviors remain unclear. This study examined the effects of parental behavioral control on proactive aggression, reactive aggression, and delinquent behavior, focusing on the mediating role of child disclosure. Data were collected from 3818 adolescents (aged 10–18) and their parents in Hong Kong. Results revealed that child disclosure served as a robust mediator. For mothers, full mediation was observed across all three outcomes. For fathers, full mediation was found for both subtypes of aggression, whereas partial mediation was observed for delinquent behavior. The indirect pathways were invariant across gender, suggesting the mechanism is universal. Notably, the model significantly predicted reactive aggression through a full mediation model from both mother and father. The study highlights the unique dual-pathway role of fathers—combining structural deterrence for delinquent behavior with relational communication for aggression and supports the efficacy of trust-based interventions for diverse externalizing problems. These findings suggest that effective parenting operates primarily by fostering a disclosure-promoting context rather than mere surveillance. Full article

Background: Street food vending plays a central role in urban nutrition and informal employment across South Africa; however, its sustainability largely depends on consumer trust, which is strongly influenced by perceptions of hygiene. Objectives: This paper investigates customer expectations, observed hygiene behaviours, and purchasing decisions within Johannesburg’s informal food economy. Drawing on the Health Belief Model and behavioural economics, this study examines how visible hygiene practices shape customer trust, repurchase behaviour, and gendered risk perceptions. Methods: A cross-sectional mixed-methods study was conducted among 110 consumers of street-vended food in Johannesburg’s inner city. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive statistics and chi-square tests to assess associations between observed hygiene practices, trust, and purchasing behaviour, while qualitative open-ended responses were analysed thematically. Results: Seventy-four per cent of customers reported preferring vendors with visible hygiene practices, defined as the use of gloves or aprons, clean food displays, and observable handwashing. However, only 41% consistently observed handwashing between transactions, and just 45% had seen any form of hygiene certification displayed. An association was observed between customer trust and repeat purchases (p < 0.001) and between PPE use and customer trust (p = 0.011). Women were significantly more hygiene-sensitive (p = 0.029), expressing greater concern about exposed food, hand contact, and environmental conditions. Thematic analysis revealed that over half of the respondents indicated that trust, once compromised by unhygienic conditions, frequently resulted in permanent customer loss. Conclusions: Customer trust in street food vendors is contingent on hygiene. Hygiene visibility is a core driver of loyalty, especially among female consumers. Interventions to improve food safety should incorporate behavioural insights, vendor-customer feedback loops, and public-facing certification strategies. Full article

Since the deployment of the Internet of Things (IoT), it has transformed everyday life by enabling intelligent environments that improve efficiency and automate services in domains such as agriculture, healthcare, smart cities, and industry. However, the rapid proliferation of IoT devices has introduced significant security challenges, largely driven by the heterogeneity of devices, resource constraints, and the increasing exposure of network communications. This work proposes a lightweight security protection mechanism for IoT networks based on trust modelling. The proposed approach integrates machine learning techniques to evaluate IoT node behavior using network-layer (Layer 3) traffic features under different labeling granularities, including binary, categorical, and subcategorical classifications. By focusing on network-layer observations, the model remains applicable across heterogeneous IoT devices while preserving a low computational footprint. In addition, the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) is incorporated as a standardized vulnerability severity metric, enabling the integration of probabilistic security evidence with contextual information about potential impact. This combination allows the estimation of trust to reflect not only the likelihood of anomalous behavior but also its associated severity. Experimental evaluation was conducted using a representative IoT traffic dataset, multiple preprocessing strategies, and several classical machine learning models. The results demonstrate that aggregating traffic-based intrusion detection outputs with vulnerability severity metrics enables a more robust, flexible, and interpretable trust estimation process. This approach supports the early identification of potentially compromised nodes while maintaining scalability and efficiency, making it suitable for deployment in heterogeneous IoT environments. Full article

E-government adoption rates in emerging economies remain persistently low despite substantial infrastructure investments. Understanding adoption drivers requires synthesizing fragmented empirical evidence on technology acceptance and service quality factors across diverse contexts. Purpose: This study aimed to quantify relationships between (a) perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, (b) perceived usefulness and behavioral intention, and (c) service quality and user satisfaction in emerging economy e-government contexts. Methods: Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, we systematically searched Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar (January 2021–October 2024) for peer-reviewed studies reporting standardized path coefficients from structural equation models examining e-government adoption in emerging economies. Two independent reviewers screened 191 records; 15 studies (23 effect sizes; 6732 participants across 10 countries) met inclusion criteria. Three separate random-effects meta-analyses using restricted maximum likelihood estimation assessed pooled effects, heterogeneity, publication bias, and sensitivity to influential observations. Results: Perceived ease of use strongly predicted perceived usefulness (β = 0.385, k = 7, N = 2516), perceived usefulness moderately predicted behavioral intention (β = 0.289, k = 10, N = 3846), and service quality predicted user satisfaction (β = 0.261, k = 6, N = 3151). All effects were statistically significant (p < 0.001) with substantial heterogeneity across studies, and sensitivity analyses confirmed robustness. All prediction intervals remained entirely positive, and sensitivity analyses confirmed robustness. Conclusions: Technology acceptance and service quality constructs consistently predict e-government adoption in emerging economies, though effect sizes are attenuated compared to developed-country benchmarks. The systematic heterogeneity gradient (I²: 89.5%→69.5%→58.4%) indicates that technology acceptance constructs require greater contextual adaptation than service quality dimensions. Policymakers should prioritize interface simplification and address ecosystem barriers to connectivity, digital literacy, and institutional trust alongside system design. Full article

This study examines the traditional food exchange practice carried out between villages in the Aşağıırmaklar basin in the Ardanuç district of Artvin and villages around Ardahan during the autumn months in the context of rural sustainability, alternative economy, and livelihood strategies. The aim of the research is to reveal the structure, functioning, and sustainability of this exchange system, which has not been documented in the literature before, in its socioeconomic, cultural, and managerial dimensions. The barter practice in question involves exchanging fruits such as apples, pears, plums, and mulberries that grow naturally in the Ardanuç region, along with molasses and dried products made from them, for wheat, barley, and various animal products grown in the surrounding villages of Ardahan. The barter process operates without any official institution, written contract, or formal organization, based on reciprocity, trust, and unwritten rules. The research was structured as an interpretive case study within the framework of a qualitative research approach. Data were obtained through semi-structured in-depth interviews and field observations with five individuals actively involved in the barter process. The collected qualitative data were analyzed to reveal the analytical dimensions through which the exchange practice functions as a strategy for life and livelihood. The findings show that food exchange offers an alternative exchange mechanism that reduces food waste in rural areas and utilizes local production surpluses. Furthermore, it was found that the practice is sustained within an informal yet functional coordination structure that adapts to geographical and seasonal conditions, and is transmitted across generations through social relationships based on mutual trust. The study highlights the strategic importance of non-market exchange practices in rural areas in terms of sustainability, local economy, and community resilience. Full article

Background: Street sex workers (SSWs) experience some of the highest levels of health inequality in the UK, yet face persistent barriers to accessing NHS healthcare. These barriers are shaped by structural disadvantage, stigma, and the complex realities of their lives. Despite significant health needs, engagement with services remains low, and existing models of care often fail to accommodate the lived experiences of this population. Aims: This study explores how SSWs access, experience, and navigate NHS healthcare. It aims to understand the barriers and enablers of access, identify areas for improvement, and offer recommendations to inform the development of more inclusive service provision. Methods: An ethnographic approach was undertaken within a South Yorkshire charitable organisation. Data collection involved participant observation and an arts-based scrapbook intended to facilitate trauma-informed, flexible engagement. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data, organised around a dynamic, processual approach using the candidacy framework. Findings: Barriers to care were present across all stages of healthcare engagement, including minimisation of health needs, administrative exclusion, lack of continuity, and stigma from professionals. Participants frequently described systems as inaccessible. Key enablers included supportive organisational staff and consistent, trusted relationships with specific providers. Areas for Improvement and Recommendations: Findings highlight the need to simplify registration processes, provide in-person options, and reduce reliance on digital communication. Greater continuity of care and gender-sensitive, trauma-informed approaches were consistently requested. Services should not be evaluated solely by uptake but by how well they accommodate marginalised users. Healthcare settings that prioritise safety, trust, and consistency were shown to improve engagement. SWs spoke of the work of accessing care, which for many was too hard to gain. Conclusions: SSWs are not disengaged from healthcare but are routinely excluded by systems that fail to meet their needs. Service redesign must begin from the realities of those who are most marginalised, through co-production, to reduce health inequity and build meaningful access. Full article

The purpose of this study is to examine the interrelationships between public and corporate finance, gross value added (GVA), and the output of the agricultural sector in Bulgaria. The value of crop production shows a strong correlation with all financial indicators of the agricultural sector in Bulgaria—public, corporate, and total—as well as with corporate finance in the national economy. The value of the final output of the agricultural sector in Bulgaria also exhibits a strong correlation with national corporate finance, the corporate finance of the agricultural sector, and this sector’s total financial resources, both public and private. The regression analysis demonstrates that public funding plays a leading role in mobilising private capital in the agricultural sector. A strong dependency is observed between state support, corporate lending, and total financial resources, confirming that public funds promote trust and stimulate investment activity. Crop production is identified as the structural driver of productivity and gross value added (GVA) of the agricultural sector in Bulgaria. However, excessive public subsidies may reduce its efficiency. Private loans—particularly agricultural credits—are emerging as a key mechanism for transforming the potential of the agricultural sector into actual growth. The regression models indicate the possibility that 1 billion BGN in loans lead to the creation of more than 2 billion BGN worth of crop production output, and more than 6 billion BGN in terms of final products. These findings justify that the sustainable development of the agricultural sector in Bulgaria is based on a balanced interaction between public financing and active private investment. Full article

This study evaluates how legal and regulatory architectures shape banks’ digital transformation in Qatar relative to peer jurisdictions and isolates the regulatory components that most strongly predict observed differences in digital maturity. Employing a comparative mixed-methods design, the study links a structured legal-regulatory assessment to quantitative benchmarking of fifteen banks (five Qatar, ten international) using a Digital Maturity Index and inferential tests (descriptive statistics, independent-samples t-tests, and OLS regressions). International banks exhibit higher average digital maturity than Qatar banks, and across the sample, regulatory clarity and coherence are positively and significantly associated with digital maturity, whereas supervisory intensity alone shows no comparable effect; implementation frictions in open banking/interoperability, unified data protection, and approval timelines constrain collaboration and product rollout in Qatar. Moreover, the cross-sectional design, modest sample size, and index weighting choices limit causal inference and external validity, indicating the need for longitudinal and quasi-experimental designs to corroborate mechanisms and generalize findings. Policymakers should adopt risk-proportionate, outcomes-based rules, codify interoperable API standards, strengthen data rights and cloud/third-party governance, and establish sector-level KPIs to match supervisory expectations with bank execution and accelerate safe digitalization. Enhancements to privacy, data portability, and inclusive digital onboarding are likely to improve consumer trust, competition, and access, thereby advancing broad-based participation in digital financial services. The study integrates legal analysis with bank-level operational metrics through an analytically tractable index and a Qatar–international comparison, demonstrating the outsized role of regulatory clarity in advancing digital maturity. Full article

Background: Influencer marketing has become one of the most effective strategies in digital communication due to its capacity to generate trust, credibility and endorsement within segmented online communities. Within the tourism sector, travel influencers have been progressively integrated as key agents in destination and brand promotion, contributing to both the construction of tourism-related perceptions and travel decision-making. This study aims to analyse how travel influencers communicate and promote tourist destinations, focusing on their profiles, content formats, commercial transparency and audience engagement. Methods: The research is based on a quantitative content analysis of publications by leading Spanish travel influencers identified through the Forbes Best Content Creators 2025 ranking. The observation period covered March to July 2025. Analysis was structured around four analytical blocks comprising 17 variables related to influencer profile, format and content, commercial transparency and ethics, and interaction. Results: The results reveal consistent behavioural patterns associated with gender, destination type and narrative style. Male influencers are more frequently linked to adventure-oriented storytelling and natural landscapes, whereas female influencers tend to emphasise urban and cultural experiences. Short-form video emerges as the dominant format, generating higher interaction levels, while engagement proves to be a more informative indicator of effectiveness than follower count. Conclusions: The findings underscore the importance of prioritising specialisation, narrative coherence, authenticity and transparency when integrating influencers into their communication strategies. Full article

Digitalization is a catalyst for the development of an information society, transforming how individuals interact with the world. However, its implementation across countries and regions has been uneven, contributing to social polarization and declining social trust. Among the most pressing concerns related to digitalization and inequality are the conditions of marginalized communities and persistent gender disparities. This study examines whether digitalization is associated with quality of life in marginalized areas and whether these effects differ between men and women. Using a quantitative approach, this study applies an ordinal regression model to data from two surveys conducted in 2021 and 2024 in a marginalized community in Mexico City. The results indicate that digitalization is significantly associated with quality of life: households possessing technological assets were 4.17 times more likely to report improvements in quality of life. Moreover, notable gender differences emerged. Although men’s quality of life increased by a factor of 35.7 in relation to digitalization, no statistically significant association was observed for women. The findings suggest a growing and statistically significant association between digitalization and quality of life in marginalized communities, but its benefits are distributed unevenly across genders. Full article

With the surge of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, autonomous Large Language Model (LLM)-based negotiator agents are being developed to negotiate on behalf of humans, particularly in commercial contexts. In human interactions, marginalized groups, such as racial minorities and women, often face unequal outcomes due to gender and social biases. Since these models are trained on human data, a key question arises: do LLM-based agents reflect existing biases in human interaction in their negotiation strategies? To address this question, we investigated the impact of such biases in one of the most advanced LLMs available, ChatGPT-4 Turbo, by employing a buyer–seller game approach using male and female agents from four racial groups (White, Black, Asian, and Latino). We found that when either the seller or buyer is aware of the gender and race of the other player, they secure more profit compared to when negotiations are gender- and race-blind. Additionally, we examined the influence of conditioning buyer agents to improve their negotiation strategy by prompting them with additional persona. Interestingly, we observed that such conditioning can mitigate LLM-based agents’ biases, suggesting a way to empower underrepresented groups to achieve more equitable outcomes. Based on the findings of this study, while LLM-generated text may not exhibit explicit biases, hidden gender and social biases in the training data can still lead to skewed outcomes for users. Therefore, it is crucial to mitigate these biases and prevent their transfer during dataset curation to ensure fair human–agent interactions and build user trust. Full article

The Social Internet of Things (SIoT) enables collaborative service provisioning among interconnected devices by leveraging socially inspired trust relationships. This paper proposes a socially driven SIoT protocol for trust-aware service selection, enabling dynamic friendship formation and ranking among distributed service-providing devices based on observed execution behavior. The protocol integrates detection accuracy, round-trip time (RTT), processing time, and device characteristics within a graph-based friendship model and employs PageRank-based scoring to guide service selection. Industrial computer vision workloads are used as a representative testbed to evaluate the proposed SIoT trust-evaluation framework under realistic execution and network constraints. In homogeneous environments with comparable service-provider capabilities, friendship scores consistently favor higher-accuracy detection pipelines, with F1-scores in the range of approximately 0.25–0.28, while latency and processing-time variations remain limited. In heterogeneous environments comprising resource-diverse devices, trust differentiation reflects the combined influence of algorithm accuracy and execution feasibility, resulting in clear service-provider ranking under high-resolution and high-frame-rate workloads. Experimental results further show that reducing available network bandwidth from 100 Mbps to 10 Mbps increases round-trip communication latency by approximately one order of magnitude, while detection accuracy remains largely invariant. The evaluation is conducted on a physical SIoT testbed with three interconnected devices, forming an 11-node, 22-edge logical trust graph, and on synthetic trust graphs with up to 50 service-providing nodes. Across all settings, service-selection decisions remain stable, and PageRank-based friendship scoring is completed in approximately 20 ms, incurring negligible overhead relative to inference and communication latency. Full article

The informal street food sector serves as a vital component of urban economies in South Africa, providing affordable nutrition and employment. However, this industry struggles to comply with required health and safety practices and standards. This study protocol outlines a mixed-methods investigation into hygiene practices, regulatory compliance, and the intersection with business sustainability among informal food vendors in Johannesburg’s inner city. This study aims to investigate how vendors’ perceptions of health risks and benefits influence compliance behaviours and, in turn, how these behaviours impact operational efficiency, financial stability, and customer trust. Grounded in the Health Belief Model (HBM) and the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) framework, the research seeks to explore both behavioural drivers and performance outcomes associated with hygiene adherence. The study will employ structured stall observations, semi-structured vendor interviews, and customer surveys across high-density vending zones. Quantitative data will be analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics, while qualitative data will be thematically analysed and triangulated with observed practices. The expected outcome is to identify key barriers and enablers of hygiene compliance and demonstrate how improved food safety practices contribute to business resilience, customer trust, and urban public health. The findings aim to inform inclusive policy and innovative business support strategies that integrate informal vendors into safer and more sustainable food systems. Full article

Objectives: The purpose of the current research is to examine and analyze the attitudes of healthcare service users towards the integration of remote medical services into ophthalmology in Bulgaria, including teleglaucoma. Methods: A cross-sectional survey study was conducted among 902 healthcare users during the period from May 2023 until December 2024. Descriptive statistics, parametric, and non-parametric tests for hypothesis testing were used. Results: The present study outlined predominantly positive attitudes towards the use of telemedicine services in ophthalmology, with 69.6% of respondents reporting a positive overall opinion in the final assessment. The greatest support was observed during remote consultations with a familiar doctor (77.4%) and during continuous follow-up of eye conditions (55.2%). Willingness to use such services was lower in emergencies or when contacting an unfamiliar specialist. A significant correlation was established between socio-demographic characteristics and attitudes—respondents with greater education levels (p = 0.006), men, and younger participants were more positive towards telemedicine (p < 0.05). The high level of awareness about glaucoma, particularly among those with university-level education, served as a positive prerequisite for the implementation of teleophthalmology services related to its monitoring. Mobile applications and digital solutions were evaluated as beneficial means of facilitating communication and increasing adherence to treatment. Regarding the use of artificial intelligence, certain skepticism and insufficient awareness levels were observed, which required additional efforts to increase trust and digital literacy among users. Conclusions: The implementation of telemedicine services into ophthalmology has potential but outlines the necessity of considering the individual attitudes of applying coherent quality and safety standards and of directed awareness campaigns, especially towards the groups of lower technological and healthcare literacy. Full article

The container relocation problem (CRP) is a critical optimisation problem in maritime port operations, in which efficient container handling is essential for maximising terminal throughput. Relocation rules (RRs) are a widely adopted solution approach for the CRP, particularly in online and dynamic environments, as they enable fast, rule-based decision-making. However, the manual design of effective relocation rules is both time-consuming and highly dependent on problem-specific characteristics. To overcome this limitation, genetic programming (GP), a bio-inspired optimisation technique grounded in the principles of natural evolution, has been employed to automatically generate RRs. By emulating evolutionary processes such as selection, recombination, and mutation, GP can explore large heuristic search spaces and often produces rules that outperform manually designed alternatives. Despite these advantages and their inherently white-box nature, GP-generated relocation rules frequently exhibit excessive complexity, which hinders their interpretability and limits insight into the underlying decision logic. Motivated by the biomimetic observation that evolutionary systems tend to favour compact and efficient structures, this study investigates two mechanisms for controlling rule complexity, parsimony pressure, and solution pruning, and it analyses their effects on both the quality and size of relocation rules evolved by GP. The results demonstrate that substantial reductions in rule size can be achieved with only minor degradation in performance, measured as the number of relocated containers, highlighting a favourable trade-off between heuristic simplicity and solution quality. This enables the derivation of simpler and more interpretable heuristics while maintaining competitive performance, which is particularly valuable in operational settings where human planners must understand, trust, and potentially adjust automated decision rules. Full article