Monogamous Research Articles

‘Fix Her Mistake’: Abortion and Parenting Narratives in <i>Jane the Virgin, Riverdale, Pretty Little Liars,</i> and <i>The Fosters</i>

Recognising the impact that fictional stories can have in shaping viewers’ beliefs about abortion in the United States, I analyse unplanned pregnancy storylines in four popular television shows (Jane the Virgin, The Fosters, Riverdale, and Pretty Little Liars) with large young adult and adolescent audiences to critique how this issue is contextualised for this specific viewing demographic. The unintended pregnancy of each character is part of a larger, complex, and highly dramatic storyline that includes sex outside of a monogamous relationship, murder, rape, and forced or accidental insemination. Additionally, dialogue in two of the four shows does not include the word ‘abortion’. Pregnancy is shown as a punishment for bad behaviour in all four shows. Lastly, three of the five (60%) characters decide not to have an abortion, challenging the findings of current research where abortion is the most frequent pregnancy outcome. These findings imply that shows with large adolescent and young adult viewing audiences are more likely to show adolescent and young adult women choosing parenting over abortion, while simultaneously supporting and challenging existing research on abortion portrayals in television shows.

How Volunteer Commitment Differs in Online and Offline Environments

The contemporary media environment transforms the organization-volunteer relationship by attenuating the formation of organizational belonging, often thought to be the result of direct interactions and face-to-face meetings. We examine and compare factors that influence offline and online volunteering. We investigate the ties for communicating about volunteering that bind individuals to nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and the ways that multiple levels of identification influence volunteer commitment to these NPOs. Using structural equation modeling, the results from an online survey of 816 volunteers suggest that online volunteers, unlike offline volunteers, are not motivated to volunteer more by exclusive relationships with organizational members or their volunteer identity. Their volunteering is related to their communication ties with both members and nonmembers and their identification with both the organization and the social issue. We discuss implications regarding how the changed dynamics in online volunteering complicates the traditional organization-volunteer relationship.

Dyadic Movement in an Adult Male and Female Argentine Black and White Tegu (Salvator merianae) in South Florida

Reptiles exhibit a wide diversity of social systems, and while not very common, exclusive and consensual mating relationships have been documented in several lizard species including lizards from the Teiidae family. Here, we document dyadic movement behavior between an adult male and female Salvator merianae (Argentine Black and White Tegu), a large, omnivorous lizard native to Brazil, Uruguay, eastern Paraguay, and Argentina that became established as an invasive species in Florida, in the southeastern United States. Using global positioning system and very high frequency telemetry data, we documented 8–9 days of joint movement between a reproductively active male and female Tegu in Miami-Dade County, FL.

South–South Knowledge Production and Hegemony: Searching for Africa in Chinese Theories of IR

Abstract There is a growing community of international relations (IR) scholars who argue for the importance of investigating Global South approaches to IR scholarship, making room for theories and concepts that challenge the discipline's Eurocentricity, and debating the merits and pitfalls of globalizing IR by including perspectives from various Global South locations. In addition to acknowledging this existing critical scholarship that aims at resisting mainstream epistemologies and methodologies of knowing and doing IR, this article's central contribution is to probe the epistemic hegemony and knowledge-production hierarchies that are emerging from within the Global South. The article does not seek to uncover the truth about the representation of Global South actors by Global South IR communities. Instead, it is interested in demonstrating how epistemic hegemony and knowledge-production hierarchies do not exist only in relationships of exclusion and Othering but also in relations of inclusion and Selving. We illustrate our argument with an analysis of the representations of “Africa” in China-based IR intellectual communities. We find that Chinese discourses on solidarity, friendship, community, and shared history lead to a narrative of sameness and Selving whereby Chinese postcolonial experiences are taken to be expandable and applicable to other developing states, making Chinese perspectives seem representative of others, thereby silencing and representing African voices at once.

Interplay Between the Salience and the Default Mode Network in a Social-Cognitive Task Toward a Close Other.

Social cognition relies on two main subsystems to construct the understanding of others, which are sustained by different social brain networks. One of these social networks is the default mode network (DMN) associated with the socio-cognitive subsystem (i.e., mentalizing), and the other is the salience network (SN) associated with the socio-affective route (i.e., empathy). The DMN and the SN are well-known resting state networks that seem to constitute a baseline for the performance of social tasks. We aimed to investigate both networks' functional connectivity (FC) pattern in the transition from resting state to social task performance. A sample of 38 participants involved in a monogamous romantic relationship completed a questionnaire of dyadic empathy and underwent an fMRI protocol that included a resting state acquisition followed by a task in which subjects watched emotional videos of their romantic partner and elaborated on their partner's (Other condition) or on their own experience (Self condition). Independent component and ROI-to-ROI correlation analysis were used to assess alterations in task-independent (Rest condition) and task-dependent (Self and Other conditions) FC. We found that the spatial FC maps of the DMN and SN evidenced the traditional regions associated with these networks in the three conditions. Anterior and posterior DMN regions exhibited increased FC during the social task performance compared to resting state. The Other condition revealed a more limited SN's connectivity in comparison to the Self and Rest conditions. The results revealed an interplay between the main nodes of the DMN and the core regions of the SN, particularly evident in the Self and Other conditions.

Relationship Banking and Monetary Policy Transmission: Evidence from India

AbstractThough the monetary policy transmission and financial intermediation literature have highlighted the role of the “bank credit channel” and relationship banking, respectively, the effect of relationship banking on the transmission of monetary policy has not been investigated. In this paper, we study the impact of relationship banking on the transmission of monetary policy. Theoretically, relationship banking could ameliorate or exacerbate the effects of monetary policy shocks. Using unique and comprehensive data on bank–borrower relationships in India, we find that firms that enjoy an exclusive banking relationship are less susceptible to monetary policy shocks than firms that bank with multiple banks.

Mutually exclusive mutation profiles define functionally related genes in muscle invasive bladder cancer.

Muscle Invasive bladder cancer is known to have an abundance of mutations, particularly in DNA damage response and chromatin modification genes. The role of these mutations in the development and progression of the disease is not well understood. However, a mutually exclusive mutation pattern between gene pairs could suggest gene mutations of significance. For example, a mutually exclusive mutation pattern could suggest an epistatic relationship where the outcome of a mutation in one gene would have the same outcome as a mutation in a different gene. The significance of a mutually exclusive relationship was determined by establishing a normal distribution of the conditional probabilities for having a mutation in one gene and not the other as well as the reverse relationship for each gene pairing. Then these distributions were used to determine the sigma–magnitude of standard deviation by which the observed value differed from the expected, a value that can also be interpreted as the ‘p-value’. This approach led to the identification of mutually exclusive mutation patterns in KDM6A and KMT2D as well as KDM6A and RB1 that suggested the observed mutation pattern did not happen by chance. Upon further investigation of these genes and their interactions, a potential similar outcome was identified that supports the concept of epistasis. Knowledge of these mutational interactions provides a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying muscle invasive bladder cancer development, and may direct therapeutic development exploiting genotoxic chemotherapy and synthetic lethality in these pathways.

Evaluation of Epididymo-Orchtis-A Study of 100 Cases

Background: Acute epididymo-orchitis is a common clinical problem in urological practice. It is not an uncommon disease in our country to cause work loss particularly in active group of people. Aim of the study: The aim of this study was to see the predisposing factors involved, aetiopathology and progression of disease process.Methods:This prospective study was conducted in department of surgery, Kumudini Women’s Medical College Hospital, Tangail from April 2008 to March 2009. Hundred patients of inflammation of epididymis and testis were included in this study.Results:Out of 100 patients, majority (48%) were in monogamous relationship. All patients (100%) had scrotal pain, 22% had scrotal swelling, 59% had fever, 32% had dysuria and 11% had urethral discharge. All patients presented with tenderness of the testis and epididymis and 82% cases had both epididymal and testicular swelling. Thirty two percent cases had urinary tract infection, trauma and promiscuous sexual contact were associated with the disease in 2% and 18% cases, respectively. History of masturbation was noted in 18% cases. By urine routine microscopy 28% had pus cell and 03% had RBC in urine, 16 cases were positive in urine culture, among 15% were E.coll and 01% were found Klebsiela. Forty patients were tested Chlamydial CFT and 16(40%) were found positive, out of 12 Filarial CFT tested 01(8.33 %) was found positive, Gram staining of urethral discharge revealed Neisseria gonorhhoae in 02(18.18%) cases. In maximum cases no actiological factor was found. Majority cases under 35 years were infected with Chlamydia and patients older than 35 years were mostly infected with E.coli.Conclusion:This study reflects that maximum of our study patients report to hospital nearly at right time with relatively better health status and outcome of available treatment facilities are satisfactory.

Progressive Multi-Scale Vision Transformer for Facial Action Unit Detection.

Facial action unit (AU) detection is an important task in affective computing and has attracted extensive attention in the field of computer vision and artificial intelligence. Previous studies for AU detection usually encode complex regional feature representations with manually defined facial landmarks and learn to model the relationships among AUs via graph neural network. Albeit some progress has been achieved, it is still tedious for existing methods to capture the exclusive and concurrent relationships among different combinations of the facial AUs. To circumvent this issue, we proposed a new progressive multi-scale vision transformer (PMVT) to capture the complex relationships among different AUs for the wide range of expressions in a data-driven fashion. PMVT is based on the multi-scale self-attention mechanism that can flexibly attend to a sequence of image patches to encode the critical cues for AUs. Compared with previous AU detection methods, the benefits of PMVT are 2-fold: (i) PMVT does not rely on manually defined facial landmarks to extract the regional representations, and (ii) PMVT is capable of encoding facial regions with adaptive receptive fields, thus facilitating representation of different AU flexibly. Experimental results show that PMVT improves the AU detection accuracy on the popular BP4D and DISFA datasets. Compared with other state-of-the-art AU detection methods, PMVT obtains consistent improvements. Visualization results show PMVT automatically perceives the discriminative facial regions for robust AU detection.

Ostvarivanje i zaštita prava na porodičnu penziju vanbračnog partnera, ili šta NAM sve zakonodavac nije rekao?

The amendments to the Pension and Disability Insurance Act, enacted at the end of 2019, envisage that the right to a family pension can also be exercised by the surviving extramarital partner. Thus, extramarital partners have been equated (for the first time) with spouses in matrimonial relations. In order to be entitled to a survivor's pension, both spouses and extramarital partners must inter alia spend at least three years in marriage or extramarital union, or have a child together. The existence of an extramarital union is determined in a non-litigious proceeding. Although this statutory specification of the constitutional norm on the equality of marriage and extramarital union is praiseworthy, the authors point out that the new legal provision raises a number of issues. The situation is indisputable if a man and a woman were in an exclusive extramarital relationship that lasted for a long time, and particularly if they have at least one child together. However, in the event that one of them was in a parallel extramarital union with another person, or if the condition of gender differentiation does not exist or has ceased to exist, it raises the question how the existence of an extramarital union will be proven in non-litigious proceedings. The authors examine whether the existing legal framework provides for achieving the goal of the provision envisaged in the Pension and Disability Insurance Act, and how possible abuses of this right can be prevented in order to protect the conscientious (bona fides) users acting in good faith. Although the Serbian legislator finally decided to fully equalize marital and nonmarital unions in terms of exercising the right to a family pension, we believe that the existing solution needs to be improved in order to avoid confusion in practice and prevent possible abuses. Only the nominal introduction of the provision on the equality of married and non-marital partners with reference to the non-litigation procedure has already opened a number of questions in practice. In this paper, we point to some issues concerning the method of determining the quality of an extramarital union and the competition between two extramarital unions. An innovative solution, which would represent not only a concretization of the constitutional provision but also a qualitative contribution to the pension and disability insurance system, calls for amending the existing solution in the Pension and Disability Insurance Act, detailed regulation of the procedure for determining the existence of extramarital union as a named procedure in the Non-litigation Procedure Act, and the introspection what the legislator actually wants for and from an extramarital partner. Although it sounds like a serious task, the importance of an institution such as extramarital union certainly deserves not such an approach.

World History as the Approach to and the Rejection of Love

On the basis of a wide range of sources the author offers an original interpreta- tion of world history, considering as its key events episodes of approaching to the understanding and realization of love, followed by periods of retreat, repulsion from it with subsequent discovery of other ways. The first such episode in the course of Homo sapiens evolution was the emergence of love as an unpredictable affec- tive connection to a specific, unique person, first through looking (thanks to mirror neurons) and then bodily (in connection with procreation). The reaction to this phe- nomenon and the suffering it generates was the social institution of marriage, uni- versal for humanity and built on guarantees (according to calculation and the choice of relatives or the community), in which love was, as it were, put out of the equa- tion. The second episode is connected to Christianity, when the appearance of the incarnate and personal God, who not only preached but was personally understood as love, caused a backlash — a mixture of love and lust, devaluation of marriage, hos- tility toward the body as the source of evil. The paradoxical solution was the uncom- promising prohibition on divorce, established in the West thanks to Saint Augustine, that is, the idea of eternal love, but not Platonic and abstract, but inscribed in the very concrete, corporeal level of social life. On this foundation, love first became the key theme of Western culture and then, in the course of the Romantic Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries, the main criterion for choosing a spouse and the basis of the family. The radical idea of mar- riage for love spread around the world for 150 years along with globalization, but in the last 50 years it has been rapidly eroding. This process intensified with the spread of contraception and the shift from monogamous marriage to serial monogamy and/ or free relationships that can break up at any moment. The result was the third rejec- tion: while in traditional cultures protection from the unpredictable power of love and the suffering associated with it was sought in arranged and forced marriages, in the 21st century it is sought in the withdrawal from serious relationships, in the dis- placement of love by contractual relationships on comfortable terms, and the prac- tice of “living solo,” where any relationship (even purely sexual) is seen as too dangerous and traumatic.

Some Oxidative Stress Biomarkers among Patients with Prostate Cancer in Sokoto, North Western Nigeria

Globally, prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common malignancy and the second leading cause of cancer-related death in men. It is a significant contributor to the burden of diseases and affects over a million men. This study investigated the levels of malondialdehyde and plasma total antioxidant capacity among patients with prostate cancer in Sokoto. This case-control study was conducted among 28 confirmed prostate cancer patients attending the Urology clinics in Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital and Sokoto Specialist Hospital in North Western Nigeria. Twenty-eight age-matched healthy males were monitored as controls. Determination of Total Antioxidant Capacity (TAC) was determined using Ferric Reducing Antioxidant Power (FRAP) reagent while the Malondialdehyde in serum was determined as a conjugate with Thiobarbituric acid (TBA) acid. Data were collected using a semi-structured interviewer-administered questionnaire. Data were processed using SPSS version 20 and results were reported as Mean ± Standard deviation. The malondialdehyde level was significantly increased (p s evidence of redox imbalance. Subjects in monogamous relationships compared to polygamous, rural dwellers, farmers, individuals of Hausa ethnicity and subjects who reported no family history of the disease were more predisposed to prostate cancer. Further epidemiological studies are needed to determine the predisposing factors and the potential role of these markers in the diagnosis, prognosis and management of prostate cancer patients in Sokoto in particular and Nigeria in general. We recommend that Malondialdehyde and Total Antioxidant Capacity be routinely monitored among patients with prostate cancer patients in the area.

Preparation and characterization of AZ63A/Boron Nitride composites using hybrid mechanical and ultrasonic assisted stir casting

Magnesium (Mg) is become progressively used in the transportation business because of its low weight. The poorer mechanical properties of magnesium (Mg) compared to aluminium and steel limit its widespread use. Improved mechanical properties can be achieved through grain refinement in cast alloys. Particle substrates can be added to the liquid melt to serve as nucleation sites for the formation and development of grains, resulting in a finer grain size. Mechanical stirring (MS) with impeller is most common technique for dispersing inoculants into the molten metal. However, it is difficult to achieve uniform dispersion of inoculants using this method. Ultrasonic treatment (UST) has also been investigated as an alternative to MS treatment. Particle inoculants BN were studied to see how they would disperse inside the alloy AZ63A Mg in this study. To create the cast composites, either MS or UST were used. Thermal tensile tests and theoretical models were used to determine the mechanical properties of these materials. The UST-treated specimens outperformed the base alloy and the MS-produced samples in terms of mechanical properties. Inoculant dispersion in sonicated samples was shown to be improved due to the use of finer grains, a thermal development discrepancy between the refiner and matrix, and other factors. Using sonication and grain refinement, researchers were able to make a exclusive relationship between theoretic strengthening mechanism forecast models and the actual outcomes they attained. The mechanical properties of Mg alloy can be improved by utilising cutting-edge new technologies, such as UST, in the production of cast alloys.

Robust Feature Matching via Hierarchical Local Structure Visualization

Feature matching, which refers to seeking good correspondence between two feature point sets, is a critical prerequisite in many applications of remote sensing and photogrammetry. This work can be viewed as an extension of LSV-ANet. Traditional local structure visualization (LSV) descriptor is very sensitive to outliers existing in the small region around a feature point, which limits the ability of LSV-ANet to recognize fine-grained patterns and its generalizability for complex matching scenes. Thus, in this letter, we propose a hierarchical local structure visualization (HLSV) to solve this issue. Specifically, local structures of feature points are first decoupled by hierarchical tensor and then reconstructed in a learning fashion, which explicitly permits us to learn a nonmutually exclusive relationship for enhancement structure manipulation. In addition, in order to further improve the network generalization ability, we design a permutation-invariant network layer to ensure that the output of model is invariant to the input order. To demonstrate the robustness of the HLSV, extensive experiments on various real remote sensing image pairs for feature matching are conducted. The experiment results reveal that HLSV is superior to the current eight state-of-the-art alternatives.

Performing Genome-Wide Association Studies with Multiple Models Using GAPIT.

Genome-wide association study (GWAS) is based on the linkage disequilibrium (LD) between phenotypes and genetic markers covering the whole genome. Besides the genetic linkage between the genetic markers and the causal mutations, many other factors contribute to the LD, including selection and nonrandom mating formatting population structure. Many methods have been developed with accompany of corresponding software such as multiple loci mixed model (MLMM). There are software packages that implement multiple methods to reduce the learning curve. One of them is the Genomic Association and Prediction Integrated Tool (GAPIT), which implemented eight models including GLM (General Linear Model), Mixed Linear Model (MLM), Compressed MLM, MLMM, SUPER (Settlement of mixed linear models Under Progressively Exclusive Relationship), FarmCPU (Fixed and random model Circulating Probability Unification), and BLINK (Bayesian-information and Linkage-disequilibrium Iteratively Nested Keyway). Besides the availability of multiple models, GAPIT provides comprehensive functions for data quality control, data visualization, and publication-ready quality graphic outputs, such as Manhattan plots in rectangle and circle formats, quantile-quantile (QQ) plots, principal component plots, scatter plot of minor allele frequency against GWAS signals, plots of LD between associated markers and the adjacent markers. GAPIT developers and users established a community through the GAPIT forum ( https://groups.google.com/g/gapit-forum ) with over 600 members for asking questions, making comments, and sharing experiences. In this chapter, we detail the GAPIT functions, input data frame, output files, and example codes for each GWAS model. We also interpret parameters, functional algorithms, and modules of GAPIT implementation.

Misunderstanding of Polygamy Verses in the Qur’an

Lots of misunderstandings in addressing the current practice of polygamy, including faults in interpreting the verses of polygamy in the Qur’anic and misunderstandings in addressing the practice of polygamy by the Prophet Muhammad. This study examines the Qur’anic verses about polygamy and their respective interpretations, and how they relate to the current practice of polygamy. In addition, it also equipped this article with a discussion of the views of Islamic law and positive Indonesian law on polygamy, as well as the impact of polygamy on social life. The results of the study show that the principle of marriage in the concept of the Qur’anic and positive law in Indonesia is to adhere to a monogamous marriage system. The permissibility of polygamy is an obligation that is complicated and tightened and only for people who really need it in a very emergency and accompanied by the condition that they can do justice between wives. Prophet Mohammad Saw. did polygamy not because of sexual motivation, but because of religious, social, and humanitarian motivations. There are two wisdoms behind the Prophet Saw. practicing polygamy, namely to support the widows of war victims and as one of the Prophet’s political strategies to unite dispersed and hostile groups.

"I think it's communication and trust and sharing everything": Qualitative evidence for a model of healthy intimate relationships in Black women living with HIV and men in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

In South Africa, couple-based interventions (CBIs) have been used to increase HIV testing, reduce HIV transmission, and shift relationship dynamics. To understand local definitions of healthy relationships, this study sought to collect qualitative data on a model of healthy relationships in a semi-rural area of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. We conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with HIV-positive women (n=15) and men of mixed HIV status (n=15) who were in heterosexual, monogamous relationships (not with each other). Thematic analyses guided coding. Three primary healthy relationship behaviour themes emerged, labelled open communication, couple-level problem-solving, and active relationship building, which were related to various relationship facets (trust, support, respect, commitment, and connection). We purposively explored contextual themes, namely the role of HIV, positive community involvement, and power dynamics, to better situate the healthy relationship behaviour themes. HIV was not central to relationship conceptualisations and three different power structures (shared power/flexible gender norms, shared power/traditional gender norms, male-dominated power/traditional gender norms) were described as being healthy. This model of healthy relationships is similar to observed definitions in other African countries and in high-income settings. Findings can inform HIV programming content for couples in KwaZulu-Natal, particularly the active relationship building component.

Decadence and relational freedom among China's gay migrants: Subverting heteronormativity by ‘lying flat’

Departing from the prevailing, individualist perspective of freedom, emphasizing individuals’ independence and the maximization of self-interest via unconstrained decision-making, this article applies the concepts of practised freedom and relational autonomy to explore the lived experience of Chinese rural-to-urban migrant gay men. Drawing on our ethnographic fieldwork in the ‘urban villages’ (城中村) of South China, we examine the ways in which rural migrant gay men achieve a sense of freedom, which is dependent on rural-to-urban migration, informal manufacturing jobs, and other queer peers, thus demonstrating a certain level of relational autonomy. Our article clearly shows how these men have come to identify as homeless guabi (挂逼, local slang for those who suffer a tragic and mysterious fate) and spend their days wandering, with no interest in stable work or long-term monogamous relationships. Our research offers a first-hand anthropological account of young adults from the rural working classes who prefer to ‘lie flat’ (躺平) – they refuse to strive for upward social mobility because they believe that upward social mobility is unattainable and a factory job too taxing.

Psychological impact of polygamous marriage on women and children: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BackgroundOver the last two decades, there has been significant growth in public, political, and academic awareness of polygamy. Polygamous families have distinct household problems, usually stemming from jealousy between co-wives over the husband’s affections and resources. This study aimed to ascertain the psychological impact of polygamous marriage on women and children worldwide.MethodsA systematic search was performed in MEDLINE (PubMed), Scopus, CINAHL (EBSCOhost), Google Scholar, and ProQuest using search terms such as “marriage” and “polygamy.” Studies published from the inception of the respective databases until April 2021 were retrieved to assess their eligibility for inclusion in this study. The Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Checklist was used for data extraction and the quality assessment of the included studies. The generic inverse variance and odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated using RevMan software.ResultsThere were 24 studies fulfilling the eligibility criteria, and 23 studies had a low risk of bias. The pooled meta-analysis showed women in polygamous marriages had a 2.25 (95% CI: 1.20, 4.20) higher chance of experiencing depression than in monogamous marriages. Children with polygamous parents had a significantly higher Global Severity Index with a mean difference of 0.21 (95% CI: 0.10, 0.33) than those with monogamous parents.ConclusionsThe psychological impact of polygamous marriage on women and children was found to be relatively higher than monogamous marriage. Awareness of the proper practices for polygamy should be strengthened so that its adverse effects can be minimized. The agencies involved in polygamous practices should broaden and enhance their understanding of the correct practice of polygamy.

After a Post-Heterosexual Mormon Theology: A Ten-Year Retrospective

After a Post-Heterosexual Mormon Theology: A Ten-Year Retrospective