Search Results (208)

Growing up without parental care may negatively affect adolescents’ behavioral and emotional development, particularly among adolescents in conflict with the law. In a selected secure care center in the Vhembe District, limited research has explored the lived experiences and behavioral impact of growing up without parents. This study aimed to explore and describe the behavioral and emotional impact of growing up without parents among adolescents in conflict with the law in a child and adolescent secure care center in Limpopo Province. A qualitative, explorative, descriptive, and contextual research design was employed. Purposive sampling was used to recruit twelve (12) adolescents aged 15–17 years admitted to a secure care center in the Vhembe District. Data was collected through individual semi-structured interviews conducted in Xitsonga or Tshivenda, depending on participants’ preferred language. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, translated into English, and analyzed using Tesch’s eight steps of data analysis. Ethical considerations and measures to ensure trustworthiness were observed throughout the study. The findings revealed that adolescents experienced low self-esteem, diminished self-confidence, early initiation of substance use, poor educational engagement, survival-oriented delinquent behavior, and feelings of neglect. These findings highlight the need for an integrated intervention approach to ensure coordinated psychosocial, educational, behavioral, and socio-economic support for this population. Full article

Deaf people experience significant barriers to education, healthcare, employment, and information access, resulting in inequities across a myriad of contexts. To better understand these disparities, our all-deaf research team conducted semi-structured interviews with deaf and hearing (parents, caregivers, and educators) adults across Ecuador, exploring how structural, institutional, and social factors influence daily life and well-being. Participants (n = 36) described systemic exclusion from education and employment, limited access to interpreters and assistive technologies, and constrained autonomy due to insufficient family support and institutional resources. These barriers compound health risks by restricting access to care, information, and social participation. Participants’ narratives highlighted how political and economic instability, institutional neglect, and discrimination create structural vulnerabilities that extend beyond individual-level factors. Findings underscore the importance of public health interventions that address structural and communicative inequities, including inclusive education, accessible health services, and community-based support, to improve health equity and quality of life for deaf populations in Ecuador. Full article

Background and Objectives: Child dental neglect is a clinically significant form of maltreatment that frequently reflects broader challenges related to caregiving within the family environment. Although oral manifestations have been described in prior research, the socio-behavioral profile of responsible caregivers remains insufficiently characterized, particularly in Central and Eastern European contexts. This study aimed to identify caregiver-level socio-behavioral characteristics associated with child dental neglect and to examine their relationships with clinical outcomes. Materials and Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional analytical study was conducted on 333 children (aged 4–17 years) diagnosed with dental neglect, presenting at a municipal hospital and a private dental practice in Oradea, Romania (2020–2024). Caregiver-level variables included age, educational attainment, socioeconomic status, health condition, substance use, and family structure. Associations were analyzed using Fisher’s Exact Test, Pearson Chi-Square, and Mann–Whitney U test, with Bonferroni correction applied where appropriate. Results: Most caregivers were young adults (93.1%), with low educational attainment (40.2% had no formal schooling) and high rates of alcohol use (47.1%). Low family income was present in 89.2% of cases and was significantly associated with non-adherence to the dental treatment plan (p  =  0.039). Caregivers without formal education were associated with neglect in rural areas (43.4% vs. 26.2%; p  <  0.001). Children of drug-using caregivers were significantly older at presentation (median: 12 vs. 8 years; p  =  0.014), and caregiver drug use was more prevalent in urban settings (18.0% vs. 1.8%; p  <  0.001). Over half of the children (52.9%) came from disrupted family environments. Conclusions: Dental neglect was consistently associated with young, poorly educated, and financially disadvantaged caregivers exhibiting high rates of substance use and unstable family structures. These factors may interact in complex ways, highlighting the multifactorial nature of dental neglect. Dental professionals are well positioned for early identification and have a professional and ethical responsibility to integrate child safeguarding into routine clinical practice. Full article

Background/Objectives: Neglect of children’s oral health is a major concern at international, national, and regional levels. Of all the health problems that can occur in childhood, dental ones are among the most common. Tooth decay, for example, is a chronic condition in children and can have long-term consequences, especially in otorhinolaryngology and pediatric diseases if not treated properly. Methods: The data collection method was questionnaire. Questionnaires were administered to parents regarding oral hygiene habits and access to dental services; data were collected in dental offices across Timiș County, encompassing urban, peri-urban, and rural settings. Children enrolled in the study underwent clinical dental examinations to assess their oral health status (dental caries, gingival diseases, developmental anomalies). Results: Parental education level was not significantly associated with the habit of annual dental check-ups (χ², p = 0.092); however, a directional trend was observed. Total monthly family income was significantly associated with the stated reason for not attending dental check-ups (one-way ANOVA, p = 0.043): families with lower incomes more frequently cited financial and logistical barriers, whereas higher-income families cited lack of time or perceived lack of necessity. Parental education level (p < 0.001) and family income (p < 0.001) were both significantly associated with daily tooth-brushing frequency. Conclusions: The efforts of specialists must be increased through coherent policies, adapted education, and real support for vulnerable groups. An informed child, with supported parents, is a child with a real chance at a healthy life. This is not just a professional opinion, but a collective responsibility. Full article

This study examines whether the association between parenting styles and adolescent adjustment reflects universal principles or culturally embedded processes, comparing adolescents from Germany (n = 395) and Spain (n = 331). Grounded in the bidimensional model of parental socialization (warmth × strictness), four styles were identified: authoritative, indulgent, authoritarian, and neglectful. Participants (Mage = 15.6 years) completed measures of parental socialization (ESPA29) and multidimensional self-concept (AF5); academic achievement was obtained from school records; and substance use was self-reported. A cross-sectional design was employed. Multivariate analyses of variance that revealed warmth was positively associated with all self-concept domains and negatively with substance use, whereas strictness showed weak or negative links. Significant Parenting Style × Country interactions emerged for academic self-concept, achievement, and substance use. In the Spanish sample, indulgent parenting exhibited a distinct pattern, particularly with respect to academic self-concept. Among German adolescents, both indulgent and authoritative styles yielded favorable outcomes, with authoritative parenting demonstrating protective effects against substance use. These findings suggest that the effectiveness of the authoritative style may not be uniform across contexts and underscore the importance of cultural factors in defining optimal parenting, supporting a contextualist model of adolescent socialization across European contexts. Full article

Placement of children in alternative care is to ensure that they are protected while social workers address the circumstances that led to their removal. However, in the rendering of family reunification services, social workers have realised that some instances make it challenging for some families to be reunified with their children in alternative care. As such, permanency planning should be prioritised for those children to ensure their stability. This article explores factors that seem to make family reunification a distant possibility for some children in alternative care. Social workers employed by five child protection organisations in South Africa participated in the study. Employing a mixed-methods research design, data were gathered by means of interviews and questionnaires, and analysed using Creswell’s model of thematic analysis and a statistical package for the social sciences. The findings indicate that factors that contribute to challenges in reunifying some children in alternative care range from the circumstances of parents to the preferences of children. Although the reunification of a child with the family of origin is every child’s human right, such a right must be balanced with the child’s right to be protected from all forms of harm and neglect. We conclude that it is not all children in alternative care that family reunification services should be rendered to. It is recommended that further studies be conducted to explore how a rights-based approach can be used in identifying children and families that are not eligible for family reunification. Moreover, proper permanency plans and strategies should be put in place for such children. Full article

The rapid evolution of the Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) architecture and the exponential growth in specification complexity create significant barriers for researchers translating 5G standards into practical implementations. Existing evaluation frameworks for large language models, such as ORAN-Bench-13K, focus predominantly on the theoretical comprehension of regulatory documents while neglecting the critical aspect of software execution. This disparity results in a profound semantic gap, defined here as the structural and conceptual misalignment between abstract normative requirements and their concrete realization in the source code of open platforms like srsRAN. To bridge this divide and enable advanced cognitive reasoning, this paper presents a Hybrid Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) framework designed to unify two heterogeneous knowledge domains: the O-RAN/3GPP specification corpus and the srsRAN C++ codebase. The proposed architecture leverages a hierarchical Parent–Child Chunking strategy to preserve the structural integrity of complex code and normative protocols. Additionally, it introduces a probabilistic Semantic Query Routing mechanism that dynamically selects the relevant context domain based on query intent. This routing actively mitigates semantic interference—a phenomenon where merging conflicting cross-domain terminology introduces informational noise, which our baseline tests showed degrades response accuracy by 4.7%. Empirical evaluation demonstrates that the hybrid approach successfully overcomes this, achieving an overall accuracy of 76.70% and outperforming the standard RAG baseline of 72.00%. Furthermore, system performance analysis reveals that effective context filtering reduces the average response generation latency to 3.47 s, compared to 3.73 s for traditional RAG methods, rendering the framework highly suitable for real-time telecommunications engineering tasks. Full article

Early-life adversity (ELA) disrupts brain development and is linked to poor health outcomes across species, including humans and rodents. A growing body of work suggests that impaired attachment to a caregiver—arising from erratic, neglectful, or abusive parenting—mediates a substantial portion of ELA’s long-term effects. Despite the conceptual and clinical appeal of this idea, the neural mechanisms by which ELA disrupts attachment and how altered attachment in turn produces diverse psychiatric and medical sequelae remain incompletely understood. In this review, we synthesize recent randomized controlled trials showing that strengthening caregiver–child attachment can ameliorate a broad range of ELA-related outcomes. We also highlight key animal studies that illuminate the biology of attachment and outline critical priorities for future research. Full article

Background: Since the onset of the HIV epidemic, over 40 million individuals have died from AIDS-related illnesses, leading to nearly 14 million children aged 0–17 losing one or both parents to AIDS by 2022. In 2023, Namibia had 250,000 vulnerable children and 72,000 children aged 0–17 orphaned due to HIV and AIDS. Without parental support, orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) face heightened risks, including neglect, distress, and compromised decision-making. These vulnerabilities can increase their susceptibility to risky behaviors, such as sexual experimentation. This study used data from the Project HOPE Namibia (PHN) OVC program to assess HIV testing rates and associated factors among OVC. Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional secondary analysis study used data from PHN’s OVC program implemented from 1 August 2023 to 30 November 2024. Data were analyzed using Chi-square tests and binomial and multinomial logistic regression. Results: Among the 16,995 participants included in this analysis, 15,014 (88.3%) participants had ever been tested for HIV (95% confidence interval (CI): 87.8–88.8%). Participants with an increased likelihood of having ever tested for HIV included those who had been in the program for 0–6 months (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 1.31, 95% CI (1.17–1.47)), and those from households experiencing little or moderate hunger (AOR = 1.29, 95% CI (1.12–1.50), AOR = 1.51, 95% CI (1.33–1.72), respectively. Conclusions: A multi-pronged approach involving all stakeholders is required to increase HIV testing among OVC. Such an approach should include community-based HIV testing, providing male-friendly healthcare services, and reducing household hunger through economically empowering vulnerable households. Full article

Background/Objectives: This study examined the prevalence of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) among patients with myasthenia gravis (MG) and explored associations between ACE exposure and psychological outcomes. In addition, this study conducted a preliminary evaluation of an online “Positive Mental Health BMI Learning Program” and its association with changes in psychological well-being. Methods: A total of 77 patients with MG were included, with data collected between January 2024 and January 2025. Sociodemographic characteristics, ACE exposure, and psychological and disease-related indicators were assessed, including the Myasthenia Gravis Activities of Daily Living Scale (MG-ADL), the Myasthenia Gravis Quality of Life 15-item scale (MG-QOL15), the indicator of mental health BMI on well-being (mBMI), and the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). Using a single-group pre–post design, this exploratory pilot study examined associations between ACEs and psychological outcomes, along with pre–post changes among participants who completed the online program. Results: Among the 32 participants who completed the online program, mBMI scores showed an increase, primarily reflecting improvements in emotional stability (21.41 ± 4.70 to 23.03 ± 4.49, p < 0.01); however, in the absence of a control group, these changes cannot be attributed solely to the intervention. In contrast, no significant pre–post changes were observed in PHQ-9, MG-ADL, and MG-QOL15. Across the full sample, higher ACE exposure was associated with greater depressive symptom severity, as measured by the PHQ-9 (p < 0.05). Overall, 42.9% of participants reported at least one ACE, with emotional abuse being the most frequently endorsed, followed by parental separation or divorce and emotional neglect. Conclusions: ACE exposure was common among patients with MG and was associated with greater depressive symptoms. Participation in the online positive mental health BMI learning program was associated with improvements in positive psychological well-being. Full article

Violence against minors remains a significant, often under-reported public health crisis. This study evaluated the incidence and clinical management of child abuse within the Verbano-Cusio-Ossola area (Northwest Italy) from January 2017 to August 2023. A retrospective descriptive analysis was conducted using two primary data streams: (1) Territorial data: records from the multidisciplinary “Maltrattamento, Trascuratezza, Abuso” (“Maltreatment, Neglect, Abuse”) team. (2) Hospital data: Pediatric Emergency Department admissions in Verbania and Domodossola, screened via diagnostic filters and ICD-related codes. At the territorial level, 161 minors were identified. While the territorial network demonstrated high activation rates (96.25%) and legal reporting (92.55%), a history of missed reports was noted in 8.13% of cases. Parental risk factors were prevalent: 72% of caregivers reported adverse childhood experiences and 27% presented with psychiatric comorbidities. In contrast, hospital data revealed a diagnostic gap. Out of 1,586 pediatric ED admissions, only one case was explicitly recorded as child abuse. Furthermore, none of the discharges utilized specific maltreatment diagnostic codes, despite several patients presenting with recurrent “accidental” traumas. These findings highlight a disconnect between community services and acute clinical settings. Enhancing intrahospital surveillance and implementing specialized training for healthcare providers are essential to bridge this diagnostic gap and ensure a coordinated, multidisciplinary response to child maltreatment. Full article

Against the dual backdrop of the rural revitalization strategy and the pursuit of high-quality, balanced urban–rural education, optimizing rural campus spaces has emerged as an important lever for addressing educational resource disparities and improving pedagogical quality. However, conventional evaluation of campus space optimization faces two systemic dilemmas. First, top-down decision-making often neglects the authentic needs of diverse stakeholders and place-based knowledge, resulting in spatial interventions that lose regional distinctiveness. Second, routine public participation is constrained by geographical barriers, time costs, and sample-size limitations, which can amplify professional cognitive bias and impede comprehensive feedback formation. The compounded effect of these challenges contributes to a disconnect between spatial optimization outcomes and perceived needs, thereby constraining the distinctive development of rural educational spaces. To address these constraints, this study proposes a novel method that integrates regional spatial feature recognition with digital media-based public perception assessment. At the data collection and ethical governance level, the study strictly adheres to platform compliance and academic ethics. A total of 12,800 preliminary comments were scraped from major social media platforms (e.g., Douyin, Dianping, and Xiaohongshu) and processed through a three-stage screening workflow—keyword screening–rule-based filtering–manual verification—to yield 8616 valid records covering diverse public groups across China. All user-identifying information was fully anonymized to ensure lawful use and privacy protection. At the analytical modeling level, we develop a Transformer-based deep learning system that leverages multi-head attention mechanisms to capture implicit spatial-sentiment features and metaphorical expressions embedded in review texts. Evaluation on an independent test set indicates a classification accuracy of 89.2%, aligning with balanced and stable scoring performance. Robustness is further strengthened by introducing an equal-weight alternative strategy and conducting stability checks to indicate the consistency of model outputs across weighting assumptions. At the scenario interpretation level, we combine grounded-theory coding with semantic network analysis to establish a three-tier spatial analysis framework—macro (landscape pattern/hydro-topological patterns), meso (architectural interface), and micro (teaching scenes/pedagogical scenarios)—and incorporate an interpretive stakeholder typology (tourists, residents, parents, and professional groups) to systematically identify and quantify key features shaping public spatial perception. Findings show that, at the macro level, naturally integrated scenarios—such as “campus–farmland integration” and “mountain–water embeddedness”—exhibit high affective association, aligning with the “mountain-water-field-village” spatial sequence logic and suggesting broad public endorsement of ecological campus concepts, whereas vernacular settlement-pattern scenarios receive relatively low attention due to cognitive discontinuities. At the meso level, innovative corridor strategies (e.g., framed vistas and expanded corridor spaces) strengthen the building–nature interaction and suggest latent value in stimulating exploratory spatial experience. At the micro level, place-based practice-oriented teaching scenes (e.g., intangible cultural heritage handcraft and creative workshops) achieve higher scores, aligning with the compatibility of vernacular education’s “differential esthetics,” while urban convergence-oriented interdisciplinary curriculum scenes suggest an interpretive gap relative to public expectations. These results indicate an embedded relationship between public perception and regional spatial features, which is further shaped by a multi-actor governance process—characterized by “Government + Influencers + Field Study”—that mediates how rural educational spaces are produced, communicated, and interpreted in digital environments. The study’s innovative value lies in integrating sociological theories (e.g., embeddedness) with deep learning techniques to fill the regional and multi-actor perspective gap in rural campus POE and to promote a methodological shift from “experience-based induction” toward a “data-theory” dual-drive model. The findings provide inferential evidence for rural campus renewal and optimization; the methodological pipeline is transferable to small-scale rural primary schools with media exposure and salient regional ecological characteristics, and it offers a new pathway for incorporating digital media-driven public perception feedback into planning and design practice. The research methodology of this study consists of four sequential stages, which are implemented in a systematic and progressive manner: First, data collection was conducted: Python and the Octopus Collector were used to crawl online comment data related to Fuwen Township Central Primary School, strictly complying with the user agreements of the Douyin, Dianping, and Xiaohongshu platforms. Second, semantic preprocessing was performed: The evaluation content was segmented to generate word frequency statistics and semantic networks; qualitative analysis was conducted using Origin software, and quantitative translation was realized via Sankey diagrams. Third, spatial scene coding was carried out: Combined with a spatial characteristic identification system, a macro–meso–micro three-tier classification system for spatial scene characteristics was constructed to encode and quantitatively express the textual content. Finally, sentiment quantification and correlation analysis was implemented: A deep learning model based on the Transformer framework was employed to perform sentiment quantification scoring for each comment; Sankey diagrams were used to quantitatively correlate spatial scenes with sentiment tendencies, thereby exploring the public’s perceptual associations with the architectural spatial environment of rural campuses. Full article

Lagrangian particle-tracking models are increasingly used to simulate radionuclide transport in marine environments, especially for assessing the consequences of accidental releases. However, existing models generally neglect radioactive decay chains, limiting their ability to reproduce the complete behavior of radionuclides and their progeny. To the authors’ knowledge, this work presents the first implementation of radioactive decay chains within a fully three-dimensional Lagrangian marine radionuclide transport model, explicitly coupling stochastic particle tracking with decay kinetics and dynamic sediment–water interactions, enabling a realistic simulation of parent–daughter transformations in the ocean. The approach is tested for the chain in the Western Mediterranean Sea, following a hypothetical nuclear accident. Results confirm that the stochastic treatment accurately reproduces analytical decay solutions and can be seamlessly incorporated into operational-scale transport simulations. The framework can be extended to other radionuclide series and marine domains, providing a versatile and computationally efficient tool for emergency response, environmental impact assessment, and safety analysis in nuclear engineering applications. Full article

Excluding child abuse and neglect, children may experience violence in their day-to-day lives, but little is known about the frequency of such experiences or the characteristics of those who perpetrate this violence. Some characteristics of the environment in which the child is reared, e.g., family economic disadvantage, or of the perpetrator, e.g., mental illness, may contribute to the level of violence children may routinely experience. This study examines children’s and adolescent’s experiences of criminal victimisation and identifies the perpetrators of these behaviours. Data are taken from a birth cohort study of pregnant women and the children to whom they gave birth. At 21 years of age, a sample of prospective parents (children born 1981–1984) were interviewed. Some 19 years later, the children of the children were interviewed about their recent experiences of criminal victimisation (N = 742 parent–children pairs). Predictors of perpetration are taken from the child’s parent before the birth of the child. Experiences of victimisation are reported by the child/adolescent. The perpetrators of child criminal victimisation are most frequently the friends/neighbours/teachers, siblings, strangers and the father of the child. Parents who have symptoms of mental illness at 21 years of age more often have children who, 19 years later, experience recent criminal victimisation. Children 16 to 17 years of age are disproportionately likely to experience criminal victimisation (OR = 2.01(1.18,3.40)) while fathers are more frequent perpetrators of violence experienced by older (18+) children (OR = 4.80(2.70,8.51)). Full article

The Syrian conflict has created one of the largest displacement crises of the twenty-first century, disproportionately affecting adolescent girls. Syrian girls have been primarily portrayed as victims of war or “the lost generation”, neglecting the plurality of their experiences. Building on Bandura’s social cognitive theory, Giddens’ structuration theory, Kabeer’s empowerment framework, and Mahmood’s modalities of agency, this study examines how Syrian refugee adolescent girls in Lebanon enact agency within contexts of forced displacement and how structural factors shape these processes. We conducted a secondary analysis of 293 first-person narratives from Syrian girls and mothers collected in 2016 using Cognitive Edge’s SenseMaker^®. Thematic analysis revealed seven structural barriers—restricted access to education, economic insecurity, inadequate infrastructure/living conditions, limited healthcare, gender and social norms, xenophobia, and lack of legal status—as well as key enablers including community services, parental support, and peer networks. Girls expressed agency through seven interconnected processes: awareness/acknowledgement of barriers, emotional navigation, resource identification, decision-making, future planning, reflection, and action execution. These processes were adaptive and recursive, highlighting that agency during displacement is dynamic, relational, and conditioned by structural forces. These findings inform approaches that both reduce structural barriers and enable refugee girls’ agency. Full article