Search Results (370)

This article examines how Sephardic Jewish delegations from Livorno and Senigallia framed their petitions to the Bourbon court during the negotiations for their resettlement in the Kingdom of Naples (1739–1740). Drawing on forty-four chapters presented by the Livornese representatives and complementary Senigallian requests, this study explores the legal and rhetorical strategies employed to secure corporate rights: judicial autonomy, exemption from corporation jurisdictions, commercial privileges, and the right to self-govern through elected Massari and rabbinical courts. While rooted in the contractual language of privileges and capitulations, these petitions also evoke a sacred lexicon, implicitly referencing biblical and halakhic categories such as the ger (resident foreigner), exile, divine providence, and covenantal continuity. This dual register—juridical and religious—allowed Jewish elites to legitimize their claims within a framework recognizable to Bourbon authorities while reinforcing a resilient communal identity. Analyzing the intersection of legal discourse and sacred rhetoric, this paper situates the Sephardic negotiations within the broader dynamics of eighteenth-century Catholic statecraft and minority governance. It argues that these petitions reveal not only pragmatic strategies to secure economic and legal stability but also a conscious use of covenantal and scriptural motifs to articulate endurance and justify corporate autonomy in a contested socio-political environment. These petitions, overall, must be situated within a longer continuum of forced displacement. The negotiations of 1739–1740 emerge not merely as administrative exchanges but as the latest chapter in a centuries-long history of expulsion, conditional return, and regulated residence. In this sense, the Sephardic petitions articulate a legal response to the structural precarity produced by forced migration. Full article

This study investigates emotional patterns in state government disaster guideline documents using keyword-level emotion analysis and TF–IDF based topic modeling, framing disaster policy communication as an emotional–cognitive dual structure, drawing from Situational Crisis Communication Theory. The findings demonstrate a strong negative relationship between fear and neutrality, indicating a functional separation between risk awareness and administrative clarity. Nine topics were identified and organized into clusters centered on operational support, administrative structures, and policy frameworks, while content related to hazards and recovery emerged as a distinct semantic category based on cosine similarity analysis. In the integrated analysis of sentiment and topics, neutral language predominates, reflecting the cognitive dimension of government guidelines, with fear and sadness appearing as secondary but systematically patterned emotions. Fear concentrates in topics addressing hazardous conditions and risk-related content. Emotionally neutral language has traditionally been privileged in public administration, but the findings highlight disaster policy communication shaped by governance objectives that privilege specific emotional orientations aligned with coordination, participation, and risk management. State disaster guidelines function not only as technical instructions but also as structured communicative instruments that operate along a dual cognitive–emotional model, shaping public attention and response. Full article

In contemporary debates on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, there is growing recognition that artificial intelligence (AI) may contribute meaningfully to SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), particularly by enhancing the efficiency of food aid distribution and resource allocation. However, such optimism must be critically situated within the broader institutional and ethical contexts in which AI operates. This study argues that the effectiveness of AI in conflict-affected settings is contingent not only on technical capacity but also on governance structures, ethical safeguards, and institutional trust, dimensions closely aligned with SDG 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions). Using the Gaza Strip as a case study, this article demonstrates that AI-driven food assistance mechanisms may inadvertently reinforce structural vulnerabilities. Specifically, algorithmic targeting of aid risks deepening dependency, exacerbating digital exclusion, and weakening already fragile governance systems. The absence of robust data accountability frameworks further complicates these dynamics, raising concerns regarding transparency, fairness, and long-term sustainability. The findings caution against privileging technical efficiency at the expense of socio-political stability. Rather, they highlight that the sustainability of AI interventions in humanitarian contexts fundamentally depends on the credibility and legitimacy of institutions. Accordingly, this study proposes a conceptual model for AI in hunger relief and digital humanitarianism that integrates technical innovation with institutional accountability and social trust. This study presents a narrative review informed by structural searching that examines the influence of AI on food security interventions in fragile contexts. This analysis applies a combined ethical governance and sustainability lens to assess current applications and risks. This research advances a broader analytical framework that moves beyond purely technical interpretations of AI, emphasizing its role as a socio-political tool, through identifying five key pillars for sustainable AI governance: data sovereignty, algorithmic accountability, inclusive system design, community-led governance, and market integrity. Full article

Permanency planning, an approach to the placement of children in out-of-home care, is central to child and family system practice, policy and law. Using the example of legislative reforms in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, this article explores how privileging legal permanence leads to ongoing failures to account for Aboriginal worldviews and child-rearing practices. Drawing on qualitative research, including Yarning Circles and semi-structured interviews that I conducted with Aboriginal community members in NSW, the findings contribute to limited evidence on permanence from Indigenous perspectives, revealing how familial and cultural connectedness shape belonging and social and emotional wellbeing and highlighting the importance of children’s ongoing connections with extended Aboriginal family, community and culture. Aboriginal understandings of permanence align more closely with cultural, relational and physical domains than with the construct of legal permanence that predominates in permanency planning approaches. Prioritizing legally permanent care arrangements above other domains poses long-term risks to Aboriginal children’s social and emotional wellbeing, demonstrating the need for “deep-level” cultural adaptation in child welfare law, policy and practice. The findings have implications for decolonizing child protection and repositioning Aboriginal conceptualizations of permanence as the foundation for legislation, policy and practice—reforms that must be Indigenous-led, culturally grounded from the outset, and anchored in full implementation of principles embedding self-determination and Indigenous children’s fundamental rights. Full article

This article examines how algorithmic classification systems participate in the production of meta-identities, understood as operational classificatory constructs that mediate the visibility, circulation, and interpretation of digital content and its authors. The study employs a mixed-methods design combining controlled analytical simulation with qualitative interpretive analysis, systematic thematic coding, and comparative statistical procedures. Empirical data are derived from the analysis of 150 audiovisual works produced in formative workshops and interpreted by four types of agents: authors, peers, specialized human analysts, and two Large Language Model-based AI systems (ChatGPT and Gemini). Interpretations were analyzed across micro, meso, and macro levels, using a consolidated system of thematic categories with hierarchical weighting and normalization procedures to ensure inter-agent comparability. The results demonstrate a systematic and structural divergence between human and algorithmic classifications. While human agents preserve semantic plurality and contextual anchoring, AI systems tend to reorganize thematic hierarchies through semantic aggregation and stabilization, thereby privileging broad, reusable categories. This process produces recurring, opaque classificatory patterns that serve as infrastructural references for subsequent algorithmic decisions. The article contributes methodologically by offering a replicable framework for comparing human and algorithmic regimes of meaning production in digital environments. Full article

Kernel attacks are still one of the most severe threats to modern operating systems (OS) due to the kernel’s privileged control over hardware, memory, and process management. This study reviews some significant kernel-level security mechanisms regarding vulnerability detection, as well as the prevention and mitigation of exploitation in today’s OSs. Using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology, a total of 30 high-quality, peer-reviewed studies were examined and analyzed in detail using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) quality framework. Discussion about the leading research directions emanated from three central questions of this review: What are the predominant kernel attack vectors? How are the techniques for protection and detection that are currently available assessed? What are the emerging research directions? The study identifies the following as the principal sources of kernel compromise: memory corruption, privilege escalation, rootkits, and race condition exploits. It also identifies several techniques for kernel hardening, such as Mandatory Access Control (MAC), the use of SELinux and AppArmor, kernel integrity monitoring, secure and measured boot, fuzz testing, and hardware-assisted protection. Some of these emerged as having a great deal of promise for proactive defense against zero-day vulnerabilities, including machine learning-based detection and live kernel patching. Issues regarding scalability, detection accuracy, and securing containerized and virtualized environments need to be solved. This paper aims to provide relevant, structured, and up-to-date research on kernel security synthesis and offer valuable guidance on the development of robust, adaptive, and novel OS defense mechanisms. Full article

Politics and policy are centrally implicated in the socio-historical construction of youth justice responses, yet the contexts, mechanisms, and processes influencing the ‘making’ of youth justice policy remain under-researched and poorly understood. The limited research evidence base devoted to youth justice policy-making (YJPM) has tended towards reductionist conceptualisations of ‘policy’ as restricted, static outcomes produced by governmental policy ‘actors’. However, privileging the YJPM status and role of senior governmental policy actors serves to reify their claims to being the ‘expert’ youth justice knowledge holders. This legitimises their exercise of power and ‘governance’ over non-governmental groups (e.g., civil servants, frontline practitioners, and academics) by dominating knowledge creation and claims to expertise in policy-making contexts. This research, therefore, seeks to identify and elaborate these complex, relational, and dynamic contexts and the attendant mechanisms of change that interact to drive YJPM. Semi-structured interviews with different stakeholder groups across youth justice contexts identified distal (macro) and proximal (meso/micro) contexts—mechanism relationships that drive YJPM. We conclude that the dynamic influence of organisational and professional identity (i.e., self-identity and identity assigned to others) is significant across contextualised mechanisms of YJPM, particularly the perceived identity, status, and role of the expert who attributes the credentials to contribute effectively to policy-making processes. This, in turn, leads us to discern and discuss three distinct characterisations of the youth justice policy–evidence–expertise nexus, namely: (i) evidence-endorsed policy; (ii) evidence-based policy; and (iii) evidence-enhanced policy. Full article

Background/Objectives: Protein kinases play a crucial role in cancer initiation, progression, and therapeutic resistance by regulating signalling pathways involved in tumour growth and survival. Consequently, they represent major targets in anticancer drug discovery. Among heterocyclic scaffolds explored in kinase inhibitor design, benzimidazole has emerged as a privileged structure due to its strong hydrogen-bonding capability and structural resemblance to purine moieties. Triazole motifs are also widely incorporated into bioactive molecules because of their metabolic stability, favourable electronic properties, and ability to establish key interactions within kinase active sites. This review aims to summarise and critically discuss benzimidazole- and triazole-based kinase inhibitors, both as individual scaffolds and as hybrid systems, with emphasis on their kinase targets and multitarget potential. Methods: The relevant literature was surveyed from major scientific databases focusing on studies describing the synthesis, biological evaluation, and molecular modelling of benzimidazole- and triazole-containing kinase inhibitors. Results: Numerous studies demonstrate that both benzimidazole and triazole scaffolds exhibit significant kinase inhibitory activity against oncogenic targets, including EGFR, cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs), and components of the PI3K/Akt/mTOR signalling pathway. Hybrid molecules combining these pharmacophores frequently enhance binding interactions and facilitate the development of multitarget kinase inhibitors. Structure–activity relationship trends indicate that pharmacophore accessibility, substitution patterns, and linker architecture influence inhibitory potency and selectivity. Conclusions: Overall, benzimidazole- and triazole-based scaffolds represent promising platforms for developing next-generation multitarget anticancer agents and provide valuable insights for the rational design of improved kinase inhibitors. Full article

The legislative framework of labor law is generally described as gender-neutral based on universal presumptions about employment availability, work productivity, and the ability to work without interruption; in actuality, this gender-neutral framework remains contingent on the existence of the non-menstruating body. This paper analyzes the concept of menstruation as the blind spot in labor law, exploring whether the gender-neutral framework of the legal system has the ability to achieve true gender equality while turning a blind eye to the cyclical body, which has been identified to negatively impact the lives of many menstruators. Methodologically, this research takes a normative approach, incorporating feminist legal theories, principles of substantive equality, and socioeconomic and medical studies on menstruation. The results of this research prove that the concept of menstruation cannot be described or characterized by frameworks such as illness or disability, leaving the normative regulatory space for menstruators to experience structural inequality. The formal equality of labor law rules thus produces unequal effects in practice by privileging an implicit model of uninterrupted work capacity. This article concludes that the legal silence surrounding menstruation is not neutral but reinforces gendered patterns of disadvantage. Making menstruation visible within labor law is therefore not a matter of special treatment but a necessary step towards substantive equality and embodied gender justice, and a prerequisite for any future regulatory responses aimed at addressing workplace inequality. Full article

Pyrrolo[2,3-d]pyrimidine is a privileged fused heterocyclic scaffold that has attracted considerable attention in medicinal chemistry due to its diverse biological activities. Herein, we report an efficient synthesis strategy for the preparation of the pyrrolo[2,3-d]pyrimidine-based natural toyocamycin aglycone and pyrrolo[2,3-d]pyrimidine derivatives. The synthesis of toyocamycin aglycone features a key benzylamine nucleophilic substitution followed by a palladium-catalyzed cyanation reaction. From a key intermediate derived from this route, nineteen new pyrrolo[2,3-d]pyrimidine derivatives were rapidly synthesized via key Suzuki–Miyaura coupling and amine nucleophilic substitution reactions. Their cytotoxic activities were evaluated against Huh-7 and HepG liver cancer cell lines. Most derivatives were inactive after 24 h. However, 28a–28c, 28e and 28f exhibited moderate cytotoxicity with IC₅₀ values ranging from 5.7 to 62.6 μM. Among them, compound 28e displayed the highest potency against HepG cells, with IC₅₀ values of 5.7 μM. Compared with normal HEK293 cells, it showed a selectivity index (SI) of 3.60 against HepG cells. Preliminary structure-activity relationship analysis suggested that incorporation of a cyclopropyl group further improves antitumor activity. Full article

Radiotherapy is one of the conventional methods for the treatment of cancers. Boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) has emerged as a promising and well-recognized modality for treating certain types of cancers. BNCT is a binary radiotherapy that largely depends on neutron beams and ¹⁰B carriers. Although an “ideal” boron carrier should fulfill multiple criteria, high tumor/normal tissue ratio (T/N > 5) and high tumor uptake of boron (>20 μg/g) are critically important. First-generation (boric acid and derivatives) and second-generation (BPA and BSH) boron carriers suffer from poor T/N and extremely high dose in clinical use (500 mg/kg and usually >30 g for each patient). Glucose transporter 1 (GLUT1) is overexpressed on the membrane surface of multiple tumors and is a potential target for third-generation boron carrier to achieve high T/N and high tumor uptake of boron. However, the boron-bearing sugar derivatives designed in the last few decades have suffered from suboptimal T/N values and significant cytotoxicity. In the present study, a total of two categories comprising 6 series (28 in total) of boron-bearing sugar derivatives were designed and synthesized and their cellular boron uptake, T/N, and cytotoxicity were evaluated. The structure–activity relationship (SAR) of these target compounds was analyzed, and one of the target compounds, B3, a phenyl C-mannoside with an o-carborane moiety, exhibited the best boron-carrying profile, which featured 10.6-fold higher boron uptake by the SCC-9 cell line and a largely improved T/N (3.3 for B3 vs. 1.4 for BPA) compared with the current clinical gold standard BPA. Therefore, the chemical structure of B3 represents a privileged candidate structure for the future design of “ideal” boron carriers for BNCT. Full article

Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) is a lightweight publish–subscribe protocol widely deployed in Internet of Things (IoT) systems. Although MQTT defines authentication and authorization mechanisms, their enforcement accuracy, configuration sensitivity, and operational cost under controlled misconfiguration conditions remain insufficiently quantified. This study experimentally quantifies authentication enforcement behavior and Access Control List (ACL) misconfiguration impact within a standards-compliant MQTT deployment under controlled laboratory conditions. Rather than benchmarking a specific software product, the work measures protocol-defined security behavior—including authentication success rate, false acceptance rate (FAR), false rejection rate (FRR), privilege-boundary preservation, authentication latency, and broker CPU utilization—across systematically constructed operational and failure scenarios. Username/password and mutual TLS authentication were evaluated under valid and stress-induced connection conditions, alongside structured ACL policies incorporating wildcard over-permission. Across repeated trials, username/password authentication achieved higher observed connection reliability (≈0.95), while TLS-based authentication provided stronger cryptographic identity assurance at the cost of increased authentication latency (≈42.6 ms vs. 14.8 ms) and higher CPU utilization (≈23.7% vs. 9.4%). No false acceptances were observed within 100 unauthorized trials per configuration, corresponding to a 95% confidence upper bound of <3% for FAR under a binomial model. Under controlled ACL misconfiguration, 22 of 100 evaluated authorization operations accessed topics beyond the originally intended least-privilege scope, yielding a reproducible privilege expansion rate of 0.22. This expansion resulted from wildcard policy semantics rather than an enforcement malfunction. The results provide controlled empirical quantification of reliability–security trade-offs and configuration-driven privilege-boundary behavior within a standards-compliant MQTT deployment. While the findings reflect enforcement behavior as realized in the evaluated implementation and laboratory environment, the proposed measurement framework establishes reproducible criteria for assessing MQTT security enforcement accuracy under controlled conditions. Full article

In Southern Chile, sewer- and septic tank-based sanitation dominates public discourse and expectations, while in practice it often fails under local environmental and social conditions. This study explores the adoption of composting toilets by households as a practical response to these challenges. Drawing on autoethnographic and ethnographic research (2020–2026) in the Los Lagos Region, it examines how people implement composting toilets and the transformative potential and limits of living with these infrastructures. By situating composting toilets within global imaginaries of ecological, sustainable, and circular sanitation, it suggests that they have the potential to act as socioenvironmental cauteries—localized efforts to contain harm and sustain life. Composting toilets in this study reshape relations among excrement, bodies, and environments while depending on individual initiative, technical know-how, and social privilege. Thus, they can reinforce neoliberal rationales of individual responsibility for collective issues that ultimately require structural changes. The study concludes that just and sustainable sanitation requires support for user-driven innovations and the development of frameworks adapted to local socioecological contexts, while actively addressing social inequalities. Full article

The discovery of novel anti-infective agents is a continuous challenge in medicinal chemistry, particularly due to the rise in resistant fungal and viral strains. Within this context, the biphenyl subunit has been identified as a highly versatile privileged structure capable of interacting with diverse protein targets via hydrophobic and π-interactions. The purpose of this study is to review the pharmacological potential of biphenyl-based compounds, focusing on their application as anti-infective agents. We comprehensively analyzed recent literature and rational design strategies concerning biphenyl derivatives, examining structure-activity relationships, molecular docking insights, and structural optimizations aimed at enhancing both pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics. The reviewed studies demonstrate that incorporating biphenyl moieties yields compounds with potent antifungal and antiviral activities. Specifically, optimized biphenyl derivatives exhibit strong inhibitory effects against resistant Candida strains and crucial viral targets, including mutant variants of the HIV-1 reverse transcriptase and protease enzymes. Furthermore, strategic modifications, such as scaffold hopping and the introduction of specific substituents, successfully mitigated cytotoxicity and improved metabolic stability against cytochrome P450 enzymes. Biphenyl serves as a robust and adaptable scaffold for drug design. Its rational structural optimization provides a viable pathway to overcome drug resistance and develop effective, metabolically stable anti-infective therapeutics. Full article

The Camino de Santiago is one of the most important cultural routes in the world and a privileged laboratory for analysing the challenges of sustainability in long-distance heritage destinations. The aim of this research is to understand the underlying dynamics of the Way, as well as its degree of sustainability. To achieve this, we examine the recent evolution of tourist demand for the Way from a territorial and sustainability perspective, integrating official statistical data with digital interest indicators from Google Trends (2004–2025). The methodology combines quantitative analyses of trends, seasonality, spatial diversification and internationalisation of demand, applying robust techniques such as the Theil–Sen slope and the Mann–Kendall test. The results show structural growth and high resilience of the Jacobean tourism system, even after the disruption caused by COVID-19, together with a growing internationalisation of flows. However, this tourism success is accompanied by strong spatial and temporal imbalances, with a marked concentration on the French Way and in the summer months, which increases environmental and social pressure on the most travelled territories. The analysis of digital interest also reveals a progressive decline in the importance of Holy Years as a driving force for attraction, especially in international markets. Full article