Abstract We examined whether physical presence at the workplace contributed to racial disparities in COVID-19 mortality among working-age Californians. Using a case-control design, we compared all COVID-19 deaths (n=4,838) and non-COVID-19 deaths (n=21,453) in California between January 2020 and March 2021, among decedents aged 18–64 confirmed to be working based on employment records. Workplace presence was defined by occupation using a job-exposure matrix. Logistic regression assessed links between racial/ethnic identity, workplace presence, and COVID-19 mortality. These associations were also evaluated in a population-based cohort using Current Population Survey data. Mediation analysis was conducted using the CAUSALMED procedure. Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) had 39% higher odds of working in roles requiring physical presence compared to white workers (OR=1.39, 95% CI: 1.30–1.49), and over four times higher odds of dying from COVID-19 (OR=4.34, 95% CI: 3.93–4.79). Physical presence increased COVID-19 mortality risk (OR=1.22, 95% CI: 1.11–1.33) but did not meaningfully mediate the relationship between BIPOC status and mortality (Natural Direct Effect: OR=4.29, 95% CI: 3.87–4.73; Natural Indirect Effect: OR=1.01, 95% CI: 1.00–1.02). Findings highlight occupational segregation and the elevated risks faced by essential workers but suggest that racial disparities in mortality are largely driven by structural factors beyond exposure opportunities associated with physical presence at the workplace.

How do residents perceive alcohol availability and its impact on drinking behaviour? A qualitative study.

This paper examines a critical contradiction in public education systems: the assumption that regular school attendance automatically leads to meaningful academic achievement. In many government schools, improved enrolment and attendance figures are often celebrated as indicators of educational progress; however, these visible measures may conceal deeper concerns related to poor learning outcomes, weak foundational skills, and limited classroom engagement. This paper argues that physical presence in school does not necessarily translate into cognitive participation, conceptual understanding, or measurable scholastic improvement. By adopting a conceptual and analytical approach, the study explores the distinction between schooling and learning, and highlights how factors such as inadequate pedagogy, teacher absenteeism, overcrowded classrooms, socio-economic disadvantage, language barriers, and assessment limitations weaken the relationship between attendance and achievement. The paper further emphasizes that attendance should be treated as only one input in the educational process, while achievement reflects the true output of effective learning. Through a critical review of the attendance–achievement gap in government schools, the study reveals how an excessive policy focus on numerical indicators may create an illusion of educational success. The paper concludes by recommending a shift from attendance-based monitoring to competency-based evaluation, stronger foundational learning interventions, improved teacher effectiveness, and student-centered classroom practices. The study contributes to contemporary discourse on educational quality by arguing that the real success of schooling lies not in how many children are present in classrooms, but in how many actually learn.

Abstract Vessel traffic represents one of the most pervasive and escalating sources of disturbance in marine environments, affecting organisms through noise, physical presence, habitat degradation, collisions, and pollution. For some marine megafauna, including species of cetaceans, sirenians, fishes, pinnipeds, and marine reptiles, many of which are at high risk of extinction, effects of vessels are especially pronounced, well-documented, and recognized as a significant threat. Characterizing the potential effects of interactions between vessels and marine megafauna is necessary for effective science-informed management strategies. However, to-date these effects have not been comprehensively synthesized across species and ecosystems. To fill this gap, we conducted a global meta-analysis on the effects of vessels on marine megafauna, quantifying vessel effects on behavior, physiology, metabolism, and populations. Analysis of 1850 comparisons (‘vessel treatment and control scenarios’) across 204 peer-reviewed publications on 57 different species revealed that vessel effects vary widely across taxa and response types. Our systematic analysis provides a foundation for the development and implementation of multi-pronged management strategies to mitigate vessel-related threats to marine animals and enhance resilience in an era of increasing anthropogenic pressures.

ABSTRACT This article investigates the tactical use of temporality for altering the legal geographies of asylum in Europe, that is by obstructing migrants from becoming asylum seekers. It does so by analysing how administrative measures arbitrarily enforced by Greece, such as the legal fiction of non-entry, have been systematised and turned into obligations under the new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum. The article argues that state authorities enforce spatiotemporal disguises, meaning by that a tactical use of geography and temporality in order to hamper migrants from getting access to asylum. Engaging with migration scholarship on temporal borders, the piece begins by conceptualising spatiotemporal disguises, exploring how these disjoin migrants’ physical presence from the legal one, positing that migrants are not there, yet. The article then focuses on three Greek islands – Crete, Gavdos and Lesvos: it illustrates how Greek authorities have tactically manipulated temporality and geography to widen the scope for enforcing discretionary measures. Spatiotemporal disguises have been put in place by lengthening rescue operations (Crete and Gavdos) and by deferring migrants’ identification (Lesvos). The final section situates spatiotemporal disguises within a broader colonial legacy of governing racialised populations and contends that any critique of the border regime should take into account the invisible temporal bordering mechanisms that disjoin migrants’ physical presence from the legal one.

Under the strong selective pressure of parasitism, hosts have evolved the strategy to recognize and reject parasitic eggs or chicks. Although studies have shown that hosts use multiple egg recognition mechanisms, it remains unclear whether they can flexibly deploy specific strategies across different parasitism contexts. Here, we explored the strategies of egg recognition and rejection of the grey bushchat (Saxicola ferreus haringtoni), a host of the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus), across different stages of egg-laying. The results indicated that the grey bushchat employed an "onset of laying" mechanism to recognize foreign eggs during the pre-laying stage, with significantly higher rejection rates in this period than post-laying. Additionally, the grey bushchat could remember the phenotype of its own eggs through a short learning process during the first egg-laying episode, without requiring physical presence of their own eggs in the nest. Furthermore, the host's rejection behavior was shaped by the degree of egg mimicry and trade-offs associated with nest desertion costs. Our study reveals that the grey bushchat flexibly adopts distinct egg recognition and rejection strategies in response to varying parasitic contexts. Future research should incorporate individual variation in host reproductive background to better understand the evolution of plastic egg-recognition mechanisms.

The rapid development of digital technology has heightened the urgency of adopting electronic signatures in legal transactions, including notarial practice. However, regulatory disharmony between the Notary Law (UUJN) and the Electronic Information and Transactions Law (ITE Law) creates legal uncertainty in its implementation. The UUJN requires physical presence and manual signatures for authentic deeds, while the ITE Law recognizes the legal validity of electronic signatures. This study aims to analyse the regulatory disharmony between these two laws and to formulate a harmonisation framework for the implementation of electronic signatures in notarial practice. This research employs a normative juridical method, drawing on statutory and conceptual approaches. Data were collected through library research on primary and secondary legal materials and analysed qualitatively using the Miles and Huberman technique. The findings reveal three main aspects of disharmony: physical presence requirements, signature form specifications, and document authentication procedures. The study concludes that regulatory harmonization can be achieved through amendments to the UUJN that accommodate certified electronic signatures for official reports (akta relaas), while maintaining physical presence requirements for party deeds (akta partij). The harmonization framework requires electronic certification standards supervised by the National Cyber and Encryption Agency (BSSN), technical guidelines from the Indonesian Notary Association, and public education regarding the validity of digital documents. This research contributes to the legal discourse on modernizing notarial practice in Indonesia while maintaining legal certainty and document authenticity.

ObjectiveTo explore experiences with learning yoga through synchronous, online instruction among midlife and older women participating in a trial of therapeutic yoga for urinary incontinence.MethodsWe conducted an embedded qualitative study and assessed process outcomes within a multi-site randomized controlled trial of a group-based therapeutic pelvic floor yoga program vs physical conditioning program for midlife and older women with urinary incontinence. Participants were recruited from the San Francisco Bay Area from 2019 to 2022. The trial included twice-weekly small group instruction delivered via telehealth using the videoconference platform Zoom. Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to assess satisfaction and explore experiences of learning yoga in an online format. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and a hybrid deductive/inductive qualitative thematic analysis approach.ResultsQuestionnaire results showed 96% of respondents (n = 51) rated their overall experience with online yoga as “good to excellent.’’ Interview participants (n = 24) identified key challenges including navigating technology, configuring home environments, limited social connection, and not being in the physical presence of the yoga teacher. However, these challenges were offset by facilitators such as convenience, privacy, and perceived mind-body benefits, including improved incontinence symptoms. Effective teaching strategies contributing to a positive experience included detailed verbal instructions, visual demonstrations, solicitation of questions, and individualized feedback.ConclusionSynchronous, videoconference-based yoga instruction was effective at engaging midlife and older women in managing urinary incontinence. The online format provided convenience and privacy, making therapeutic yoga more accessible. Tailored teaching strategies and technical support significantly enhanced learning and satisfaction. This study suggests the potential for broader application of online therapeutic yoga programs for specific health conditions.

The rapid advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has created a polarised public response, oscillating between utopian visions and existential fear. This analysis refutes these extremes, arguing that such anxiety is not a new phenomenon but a recurring historical cycle associated with the externalisation of human faculties. By examining historical precedents, the text reframes the AI challenge as a manageable variable rather than an uncontrollable force. The Socratic critique of writing, which warned of cognitive atrophy from externalised memory, is presented as an ancient parallel to modern concerns about AI fostering superficial competence. Similarly, the 19th-century Luddite movement is reinterpreted not as an irrational opposition to technology, but as a rational response by skilled artisans to the deskilling of their labour and the degradation of product quality-an analogue to fears that AI will devalue human expertise. Further parallels from the 20th-century "calculator wars" in education illustrate how curricula shifted from rote computation to higher-order problem-solving. These historical examples collectively argue that technological disruptions compel a redefinition of human competence and create new opportunities, rather than simply leading to cognitive or economic decline. Building on this historical perspective, the analysis proposes that the antidote to technological anxiety is a disciplined, managerial approach grounded in rigorous contingency planning. Through corporate case studies-contrasting Kodak’s strategic inertia with Fujifilm’s successful diversification, alongside the proactive pivots of Intel and Netflix-the text illustrates that organisational resilience depends on the ability to critically reassess core capabilities and cannibalise legacy models when necessary. This evidence informs a comprehensive, tiered risk management framework designed for professionals and institutions. "Plan A" focuses on Mitigation and Integration, advocating a "Centaur" model in which humans and AI collaborate as distinct but complementary agents, preserving human authority and using cognitive forcing functions to prevent automation complacency. "Plan B," a Contingency and Diversification strategy, involves developing multi-skilled, "M-shaped" professionals and cultivating an "analogue hedge" in roles requiring physical presence or legal accountability. Finally, "Plan C" outlines a strategy for Resilience and Sovereignty, serving as a last resort against systemic failure through the development of technological sovereignty via locally controlled AI and the willingness to execute a radical pivot to entirely new sectors. The overarching thesis is that by establishing these explicit contingency plans, organisations can transform existential risk into a manageable operational procedure, navigating the AI revolution with strategic preparedness rather than reactive panic.

Rapid advancements in Information Technology (IT), mobile computing, the Internet, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have revolutionized human life. While digital technologies have provided immense benefits in productivity, connectivity, and convenience, they have also contributed to shifts in social behaviors, human values, emotional expression, and interpersonal relationships. This paper examines how digital presence increasingly overshadows physical presence, the psychological and social consequences of this shift, and the ethical implications for society. Using multidisciplinary perspectives from psychology, sociology, and technology studies, the research argues that the overreliance on digital interactions reduces emotional richness, dilutes social responsibility, and challenges long-standing human values. The conclusion offers recommendations to balance digital engagement with physical human connection.

The postpartum period is a critical phase in a woman's life, marked by physical, emotional, and social changes. In Nepal, where labor migration is prevalent, many women experience this transformative period without their husbands' physical presence, who often work abroad to support their families. This study explores the lived experiences of these women, shedding light on the intersection of motherhood, migration, and socio-cultural contexts in Nepal. A deductive and inductive qualitative approach was adopted to capture the subjective lived experiences of women with labor migrant husbands during the postpartum period. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 16 participants, and thematic analysis was used to identify patterns, themes, and insights emerging from the data. An interview guide was developed based on the Biopsychosocial Model to explore and gain a deeper understanding of women's postpartum experiences. The findings reveal a myriad of challenges faced by women with labor-migrant husbands during the postpartum period. Four themes were identified: the emotional landscape of motherhood, the struggles of new mothers facing postpartum challenges without spousal support, the power of community: stories of support during the postpartum journey, and coping strategies. While the qualitative approach of this study provided valuable insights into women's lived experiences, it may not allow for generalization to the population of postpartum women with labor migrant husbands in Nepal. The results of this study further highlight the need for an inquiry into the long-term impacts of spousal absence on maternal mental health and child development.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant disruptions in the care of breast cancer patients, affecting diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up. Restrictions on medical visits and diagnostic tests led to delays in diagnosis and detection of early stages of disease. Oncologists adapted to limited resources by modifying treatment regimens, postponing non-urgent procedures, and prioritizing high-risk patients. Surgical management underwent significant changes, with postponements and new safety protocols to limit exposure to SARS-CoV-2. An increase in advanced stages was recorded during the first year of the pandemic, along with a need for more adjuvant therapy. At the same time, the use of health services was restricted, affecting patients' mental and physical health with increased levels of anxiety and reduced quality of life. Telemedicine and alternative forms of monitoring have highlighted new possibilities for ensuring continuity of care, limiting physical presence in hospitals. These experiences underscore the need for flexible, person-centered models of care that combine medical, psychosocial, and cultural dimensions, providing lessons for future crises in oncology care.

The integration of information technology into notarial practice commonly referred to as cyber notary has encountered fundamental challenges within the Indonesian legal system, particularly due to normative tensions between the Law on Notarial Office, which requires physical presence, and the Law on Electronic Information and Transactions, which embraces digital flexibility. This study examines the extent of legal certainty afforded to digital deeds and seeks to reconstruct the role of notaries in ensuring the validity and authenticity of electronic transactions. This research employs a normative juridical method, utilizing statutory and conceptual approaches to critically reassess the function of notaries within Indonesia’s evolving digital transaction framework. The findings reveal that the absence of specific and technical regulatory instruments has resulted in a degradation of evidentiary strength, whereby digital deeds that should possess the status of authentic instruments are effectively equated with private deeds. Such regulatory gaps generate legal uncertainty that may impede the development of the digital economy. Accordingly, this study underscores the urgent need for a clear and integrated regulatory framework to optimize the notarial function in the digital era. It concludes that the traditional concept of physical appearance must be reconceptualized to encompass verified virtual interactions supported by stringent digital security standards. As a policy recommendation, the study advocates for regulatory harmonization through the adoption of integrated verification systems that strengthen the notary’s role in guaranteeing identity validity and the genuine intent of the parties in digital transactions.

Personality traits prediction from text has broad applications in various fields such as recruitment, job performance analysis, adaptive learning and personalised systems. Although traditional psychological assessments are widely used today, they may be subjective and impractical for large-scale deployment because they require the physical presence of a psychologist. This study presents an automated personality prediction model utilising text data. To address class imbalance, a significant factor that degrades model performance on the personality text dataset, a two-tier oversampling strategy has been implemented. The primary contribution of this study is to systematically evaluate the efficacy of various Deep Learning Architectures, including Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), and Bidirectional LSTMs, for MBTI prediction. Additionally, we have explored various ensemble learning approaches by combining separable CNNs, LeNet-5, and LSTM and BiLSTM models, thereby further improving prediction accuracy and generalisation. The experimental results show that integrating the proposed oversampling technique ensemble with the ensemble learning framework achieves higher accuracy, exceeding 87 percent, and outperforms previous models based solely on a single architecture or machine learning methods. The proposed method enables large-scale personality assessments to be deployed anywhere, at any time, reducing the need for the physical presence of psychologists.

In the 1990s, faced with the crisis of the humanistic spirit and the inward tendency of literary theory under the background of market economy, cultural poetics fell into the dilemma of reality intervention under the framework of “aesthetic center theory”. In order to break through this limitation, academic circles have put forward the theoretical concept of “critical poetics”. By integrating the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, Zhao Yong advocates the establishment of a “two-winged” research path between “aesthetic analysis” and “ideology criticism” in order to cure the “insufficiency of intervention” in cultural poetics. Sun Shicong proposed “returning to Adorno”, emphasizing that through historicization and institutional analysis, the critical edge should be directed at the power network that shapes artistic production, injecting critical poetics with problem awareness and methodological vitality to deal with China’s reality. The vigorous practice of contemporary non-fiction writing provides a solid textual carrier and realization path for the concept of critical poetics. It takes interventionist gestures as its core, responds to the call for “intervention in reality” through the “physical presence” of the writer, and practices “historical and institutional analysis” through solid field work. Through the in-depth description of marginal experiences and the connection with critical theory, non-fiction writing elevates individual dilemmas to structural criticism and explores the ethical possibility of “reconnection” in “collaborative writing”. It has thus become the realistic fulcrum of the critical poetics conceived by Zhao Yong and Sun Shicong. It not only embodies critical theory in Chinese experience, but also provides an operational practical paradigm for theory to intervene in reality.

The article is devoted to the study of the theoretical and legal foundations for adapting Ukrainian tax legislation to the conditions of the digital economy and transformations caused by the development of digital technologies and the emergence of new value creation models. The paper analyzes changes in the structure of economic activity, in particular the growing role of intangible assets, remote forms of service provision, platform interaction, and high capital mobility, which complicate the application of traditional categories of tax law. The article examines the problems of determining tax jurisdiction in the context of “economic presence without physical presence” and the need to clarify approaches to establishing tax ties. The article highlights international trends in tax reform in the digital environment, in particular the Pillar One and Pillar Two concepts within the OECD/BEPS initiatives aimed at redistributing tax rights between jurisdictions and introducing a global minimum tax rate. The impact of these approaches on national systems is analyzed, including the requirements for harmonizing substantive and procedural law. At the level of Ukrainian legislation, regulatory acts that form the basis for the development of the digital economy are considered, in particular, the Law of Ukraine “On Stimulating the Development of the Digital Economy in Ukraine” and the special regime “Diy.City.” The article separately examines the peculiarities of taxation of electronic services provided by non-residents, the procedure for their registration as VAT payers, problematic aspects of administering such transactions, and the need to unify procedures. The article also analyzes the directions of development of tax transparency and reporting of digital platforms based on a model of rules similar to the European DAC7 directive. The role of digital tools in the modernization of tax administration is outlined, including the introduction of e-invoicing, SAF-T, electronic services, and the use of analytical technologies to identify risky transactions. In summary, the adaptation of the tax system to the digital economy requires a comprehensive update of material, procedural, and institutional norms, harmonization with international standards, and the formation of an effective tax administration infrastructure. The article reflects key trends, challenges, and possible directions for further improvement of Ukraine’s tax policy in the context of digital transformation.

DNA molecular circuits offer significant promise for biomedical applications by combining computational functionality with inherent biocompatibility. However, their operational logic fundamentally differs from electronic systems as they utilize the physical presence or absence of DNA strands rather than voltage levels to encode information. This distinction creates a critical barrier for implementing single-rail NOT gates. Consequently, existing systems typically employ dual-rail architectures that increase the complexity and elevate leakage risks. To address this limitation, we developed optically and thermally controlled NOT gates that perform rapid logical inversion while maintaining compatibility with both polymerase-driven and toehold-mediated circuit systems. We validated these gates in multilayer computational networks and demonstrated their practical utility across diverse biosensing applications, including molecular diagnostics and live-cell imaging. This work establishes a robust platform for scalable DNA computing with direct translational potential in biological environments.

This study examines the consequences of the devastating fire that broke out in December 1784, which completely affected the Princely Court of Iaşi and brought an end to its medieval configuration. The research focuses on how this critical event influenced the physical arrangements used for the exercise of princely authority, analyzing the immediate reactions of the community and the princely administration, the provisional solutions adopted after the crisis, and the establishment of temporary residences for the rulers of Moldavia. Particular attention is given to the period 1795-1804, when the princely administration became the owner of houses purchased from Costache Ghica. The interpretation of historical sources highlights several aspects of this interval: the exact date of the sale of those houses, their use as official residences of the princes until the reconstruction of the new princely palace by Alexandru Moruzi, and the temporary use of the Church of Saint Spiridon as a princely church. By bringing together these documentary data and observations, the study provides a perspective on the impact and consequences of the 1784 fire on the physical presence and functioning of princely authority in Moldavia at the end of the eighteenth century.

The rapid development of the digital economy has transformed traditional contract formation and dispute resolution processes, creating both opportunities and challenges for legal certainty. In online transactions, the absence of physical presence, cross-border interactions, and reliance on automated systems complicate the determination of valid consent, evidence authenticity, and jurisdiction. This paper aims to examine the challenges to achieving contract certainty and effective dispute resolution in digital commerce, focusing on how digitalization affects contractual obligations, enforcement mechanisms, and consumer protection. Using a qualitative normative legal research method, this study analyzes legal frameworks, scholarly literature, and case precedents concerning electronic contracts and online dispute resolution (ODR). The findings indicate that ambiguity in digital contract terms, lack of uniform international standards, and limited consumer awareness remain major barriers to legal certainty. Furthermore, while ODR platforms offer efficiency and accessibility, they still face issues regarding data integrity, fairness, and enforcement of decisions across jurisdictions. The study concludes that strengthening digital signature legislation, harmonizing cross-border e-commerce regulations, and integrating artificial intelligence into dispute management systems can enhance contractual reliability and fairness. Practically, this research implies that policymakers and technology providers must collaborate to establish transparent and interoperable digital legal infrastructures that balance innovation with legal accountability.

Abstract Immersive virtual reality (IVR) systems play an increasingly significant role in design fields due to their physical presence and enhanced interaction mechanisms. Despite growing adoption, the effectiveness of three-dimensional (3D) modeling and design review in IVR remains relatively less examined. This study evaluated usability, cognitive load, time perception, task completion time, perceived enjoyment, and motivation in 3D modeling tasks across two environments: IVR and desktop (DE). It also examined design review processes across three environments: IVR, DE, and a hybrid environment (HE). Two experiments were conducted with architecture students, involving 34 participants in the first and 48 in the second, using SketchUp Pro 2024 and VR Sketch v.16. Data were collected through demographic surveys, in-task time estimation, task completion times, post-task questionnaires, and objective model precision analyses. In Experiment 1, IVR required greater physical effort, led to longer completion times, and systematically distorted time perception compared to DE. Task complexity further increased cognitive load, particularly in IVR. Model precision analyses revealed that DE outperformed IVR in simpler tasks (Tasks 1–2), while performance attained comparable levels in the most complex task (Task 3) where high cognitive load likely saturated performance. Time perception patterns indicated a lack of time compression. In Experiment 2, usability, motivation, and enjoyment remained consistent across DE, IVR, and HE environments. However, HE demonstrated clear efficiency advantages, with significantly shorter task completion times than DE. In addition, perceived durations were shorter than in DE and marginally shorter than in IVR. These findings suggest that while IVR offers immersive engagement, it introduces additional physical demand, longer task completion times, and consistent time overestimation during 3D modeling, which can reduce precision in simpler tasks. By contrast, hybrid environments can enhance efficiency in design review without imposing extra workload, aligning with prior studies on the benefits of hybrid media.