Introduction: Sexual violence against children has long-term impacts and reflects systemic failures in protection, especially when perpetrators are family members. Despite existing regulations, cases continue to rise, and victims often remain silent due to social pressure. This study is needed to understand the root causes and develop more effective prevention strategies.Purposes of the Research: This study aims to analyze the contributing factors of sexual violence committed by close family members against children and to examine the efforts made to address the issue.Methods of the Research: The method used is empirical juridical research with a descriptive qualitative approach.Findings of the Research: The research findings reveal that the main factors contributing to sexual violence within families include economic dependence, power dynamics, individual factors, family dysfunction, and socio-cultural influences. Common modus operandi used by perpetrators involve power relations, threats and intimidation, emotional manipulation, normalization of abuse, and creating opportunities for violence. In terms of curative approaches, relevant institutions provide psychological support and rehabilitation, legal aid and advocacy, medical care and recovery, temporary shelters, as well as social reintegration and family support.

Abstract Thermal flow measurement is commonly used for microflow detection. However, MEMS flow sensors have disadvantages such as complex fabrication, high cost, and potential blockage of microchannels. This paper presents the development of a low-cost and sensitive thermal microflow sensor with a replaceable capillary tube for microflow detection. The sensor is composed of a capillary tube, a heating resistor, two temperature sensors, and a control system. To establish a functional relationship between temperature difference and flow rate, a syringe pump is used to provide accurate target flow rates for the calibration of the proposed microflow sensor. Experiments are conducted to measure the temperature differences in capillary tubes with different inner diameters under various target flow rates, and a power relation between the flow rate and temperature difference is found by fitting. The influences of capillary tube diameter, ambient temperature, and distance between the heating resistor and the temperature sensor on flow rate are investigated. It is found that the microflow sensors have good sensitivity and are suitable for long-term flow measurement. We also find that shortening the heating distance as much as possible is helpful to realize accurate flow detection at ambient temperature. Finally, the microflow sensor is applied to control sample flow in a microfluidic system for achieving high-throughput and precise particle separation. The proposed microflow sensor holds promising potential for microfluidic applications with accurate flow detection and control.

Theta activity as a marker of cognitive development in infancy: A longitudinal study across the first two years of life.

Abstract: Language educators play a significant role in either challenging or perpetuating ideologies in the classroom, curriculum, and profession. Due to the historically persistent ideological positioning of Latinx/Hispanic and Spanish-speakers in the United States and the lack of professional preparation for educators working with these populations, this paper argues for the inclusion of critical language awareness (CLA), or “the understanding of how language is imbued with social meaning and power relations” (Leeman 2018: 345), as a core goal, tool, and outcome guiding language teacher education. In this article, we begin by discussing the theoretical underpinnings of CLA, its historical trajectory, and why CLA is a fundamental principle underlying social justice for Spanish language teaching in the United States. Then, we describe various examples for implementing CLA across different institutions and provide evidence of their impact through localized case studies. We conclude by discussing ongoing challenges in critically oriented teacher training, as well as identifying future directions for building a collective liberatory praxis.

Rethinking geography and power in transboundary water relations: A critical reading and integration of physical, social and political geography

This work aimed to develop and validate an emotion-inducing video dataset for the Chinese elderly. The dataset was constructed by video collection, psychological evaluation, and elderly examination. 18 videos across six emotions (neutrality, sadness, anger, happiness, boredom, and tension) were selected for emotional induction. The effectiveness of the dataset was evaluated in 37 subjects, with two groups, 21 healthy controls (HC group) and 16 individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI group), who were assessed in a three-session experiment. Each session comprised one pretest and six emotion-inducing videos. The electrocardiogram (ECG) and electroencephalography (EEG) signals were synchronously recorded. After viewing each video, the subjects provided self-reports of discrete emotion labels, valence, and arousal scores using a modified Self-Assessment Manikin scale. Discrete emotion analysis, valence/arousal analysis, and ECG feature analysis were conducted by the ANOVA method. EEG feature analysis was assessed with a linear mixed-effects model. Discrete emotion analysis confirmed that happiness and sadness induced by the dataset show high agreement rates (e.g., happiness: HC 0.79, MCI 0.85 and sadness: HC 0.81, MCI 0.71), whereas boredom (HC 0.38, MCI 0.29) showed a comparatively lower consistency. Valence/arousal analysis revealed significant group differences for tension and boredom emotions. ECG feature analysis revealed significant differences in the baseline-normalized mean heart rate between HC and MCI groups in specific sessions. EEG feature analysis revealed that the MCI group exhibited higher relative band power values than did the HC group in the and bands. The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11571-025-10318-x.

This study examines the sustainability and climate resilience of tourism in Small Island Developing States (SIDS), with a primary focus on the Maldives. While tourism has played a crucial role in the economic development of many SIDS, it has also contributed to environmental degradation, social inequality, and institutional fragmentation. Employing a narrative literature review approach, this paper explores how tourism in the Maldives interacts with three key domains essential to sustainability in SIDS: environmental vulnerability, social inclusion and climate resilience, and governance and policy coherence. The analysis reveals that tourism development has placed significant pressure on environmental ecosystems through reef damage, inadequate waste management, and excessive freshwater consumption. Although community-based tourism initiatives show potential, they are still constrained by unequal power relations and insufficient institutional support. Furthermore, governance challenges—such as fragmented inter-agency coordination and regulatory capture—continue to hinder long-term sustainability efforts. The findings highlight that building a climate-resilient tourism sector requires the integration of community participation in environmental governance, the incorporation of Indigenous knowledge systems, and enhanced policy coherence between tourism and environmental objectives. These insights underscore the need for future research aimed at expanding empirical understanding of localized adaptation strategies and evaluating the long-term impacts of governance reforms intended to strengthen resilience in tourism-dependent SIDS.

ABSTRACT This paper reports findings from a research study carried out with older adults and their educators participating in a non-formal education programme. Drawing on educational, sociological and psychological perspectives, it aims to explore the motivations, goals, perceived benefits, and barriers to participation among older learners in the Adult Education Centers (AECs), the most significant non-formal adult education programme, in the Republic of Cyprus. It adopts a qualitative bottom-up approach, as it gives voice to older adults and their educators and makes meaning out of later life learning experiences. The analysis reveals that older adults’ motivations and goals for engaging in non-formal education is shaped by a critical awareness of their life stage, influenced by societal structures and power relations surrounding aging. In parallel, participants gain cognitive, social, and psychological benefits, which are interconnected but often constrained by ageist attitudes and structural barriers within the AECs context.

Western capitalism asserts that knowledge is power, a political tool, something created by entrepreneurs, or a prize acquired and owned by the marketplace through predation. Gaining control of knowledge through cultural appropriation and co-optation enables the marketplace to commodify meaningful symbols and claim that its brands provide an authentic identity. Consequently, Marxist theories of co-optation suggest division and exacerbated imbalanced power dynamics between them versus us, which leads to value co-destruction (VCD) and the creation of parallel marketplaces by the dispossessed. The purpose of this article is to reframe the anti-logic inherent in existing formal and Marxist co-optation theories to further develop assertions of interdependent relationships, value co-creation (VCC), and authenticity in contemporary consumer culture by replacing Western concepts of extracting information with the sharing of knowledge founded on notions of Indigenous relational power. In doing so, the article argues for a paradigm shift in how brands choose to involve consumers in co-optation processes. Deeply rooted in its situation, a history of surf culture is interwoven with findings from a 20-year ethnography of cold-water surfing to explain how the cycle of boom-and-bust VCD power dynamics caused by formal and Marxist co-optation can be averted if Indigenous relational power is used to share knowledge with collective accountability for co-creating authentic representations. The significance of the relational co-optation theory introduced in this article is its capacity for the marketplace and its consumers to escape the power dynamics at play in persistent discussions of deliberate and inadvertent cultural appropriation and destructive co-optation.

ABSTRACT Our study explored regional volunteer sport board member role identities relative to performance regimes and power relations. Specifically, we explored the intersection between board members’ role identities (conscious and unconscious) and power relations and how they shaped the adoption or resistance of performance regimes. Guided by a critical ethnographic perspective, data were collected by observing 58 board meetings and 30 semi-structured interviews. Key findings illustrated how board members with similar role identities exercised the most power on their board and directed how they subscribed to performance regimes, creating in-groups and out-groups on boards based on conscious and unconscious role identities. Further, board members’ relationships with others within the provincial governing body (i.e. volunteer or employee) were influenced by their role identities and, in turn, their compliance with or resistance to performance regimes. Finally, role identities and power relations defined board members’ criteria for success in performance regimes, which occurred both in board in-groups and individually. This study makes a theoretical contribution to sport studies literature by applying role identities theory to understand who exercises power on volunteer sport boards and how the adoption or resistance of performance regimes was shaped by identities and power relations in sport board governance.

Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka was written as a play that provides a rich representation of the interconnection between tradition, personality and colonialism in the culture of the Yoruba community. Analyzing the sociological aspects of the play, this paper considers the aspects of ritual, personal and collective accountability, gender and power relations, and the collision of cultures and their influence on the shape of identity. Thus, through these themes, the work points to the importance of ritual as a means of social cooperation and cultural continuity. In moving the playground from its native territory to the world of the colonial masters, Soyinka underlines the brutal consequences of cultural imperialism and the epistemological closure of colonial and neo-colonial reasons over indigenous African wisdom. The paper also provides more insight into the parts Iyaloja and Olunde play as characters who represent the utilisation and preservation of Yoruba culture. Ancestors’ spiritual authority, demonstrated by Iyaloja and Olunde’s claim to collective liability, encourages Indigenous principles as methods of constructing identity and managing the disruption of society. This paper shows that Death and the King’s Horseman were written as a critique of colonialism and as a way to celebrate Indigenous culture. Similarly, through the culturally complex presentation of Yoruba cosmology, Soyinka presents the problem and seeks to show how cultural rivalry and imposition can be destructive when the value of cultural difference is not recognized. Consequently, this study will make a contribution to other ongoing discourses in postcolonialism, cultural heritage and tradition in maintaining societal fabric.

ABSTRACT Since its establishment in 1945, UNESCO’s approach to gender equality in education has progressed through four key phases: legal provision for equal access to educational resources, education to enable female participation in economic development, addressing power dynamics to advance female development, and gender mainstreaming for empowerment. These shifts reflect a dynamic interaction between institutional frameworks, global priorities, and evolving theoretical perspectives. However, the gender equality strategies promoted by UNESCO have not fundamentally addressed the structural inequities within educational systems. The limitations of these strategies include the reproduction of gendered power relations, biases in global universalist narratives, and the absence of intersectional perspectives. UNESCO’s reliance on a liberal feminist framework tends to reduce complex gender politics to technocratic solutions that align with neoliberal ideals, thus limiting more radical critiques of the Global North’s dominant discourse. To foster true gender equality, it is essential to transform educational systems, decolonize knowledge, and strengthen the agency and voice of intersectionally marginalized groups.

This article analyzes the phenomenon of political buzzers in Indonesia through the lens of Matthew 28:11–15, which recounts the “Lie of the Sanhedrin.” The author begins by describing buzzers as actors who disseminate political narratives, including hoaxes and hate speech, often used to manipulate public opinion. Using a hermeneutical approach, the article explores the political background of Matthew 28:11–15 and interprets the chief priests’ act of bribing Roman soldiers to spread a false story about Jesus’ resurrection. The discussion highlights that the story of the guards at Jesus’ tomb is unique to Matthew’s Gospel and serves as a counter-apologetic response to accusations that Jesus’ body was stolen. The author interprets this as a form of resistance by the Jewish-Christian community against the religious-political authorities of the time. The article also explores the irony of power relations among Pilate, the Roman soldiers, and the Jewish leaders, showing how Matthew exposes injustice and conspiracy. As a contribution to contextual theology, the author proposes two attitudes: “responding” (critically engaging with buzzer narratives) and “unveiling” (exposing the interests behind such narratives).

Employing a post-colonial lens, this study investigates the lived experiences of land reform claimants in the Musekwa and Kuvule in the Vhembe District, Limpopo, South Africa, regarding the Akkerland farm. Through qualitative analysis of semi-structured interview data, the findings reveal that claimants have not received their land after more than 28 years of land claim. Instead, it was sold to the mining company without consultation. This study argues that land reform follows a top-down approach, where black communities are passive receivers of policies, reflecting entrenched power relations. This study recommends a more participatory, transparent and community-driven approach to land reform.

The planning of unbalanced three-phase distribution networks increasingly requires the coordinated integration of distributed energy resources, such as photovoltaic (PV) generators and static compensators (D-STATCOMs), to enhance system performance and reduce costs. This planning task is inherently challenging, as it leads to a mixed-integer nonlinear optimization problem driven by nonconvex voltage–current–power relationships, phase unbalances, and the temporal variability of demand and solar irradiance. This work proposes an exact Mixed-Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP) framework for the joint siting and sizing of PV units and D-STATCOM devices, with an objective function based on the minimization of the equivalent annual cost of energy purchases and investments. The methodology is applied to 25- and 37-bus unbalanced test systems and benchmarked against four state-of-the-art metaheuristic algorithms. The results show that the exact MINLP consistently attains the global optimum, yielding reductions in equivalent annual cost of USD 392,855 (14.36%) and USD 436,361 (14.90%) for the respective test systems, whereas the metaheuristics provide near-optimal but slightly dispersed solutions. These findings highlight the potential of exact optimization as a robust and economically sound tool for long-term distribution network planning, combining technical reliability with guaranteed global optimality.

Introduction In badminton, anthropometric characteristics and physical capacities are essential to meet playing demands across ages and sexes. The objective of this study was to investigate age- and sex-related differences in anthropometric characteristics and physical capacities among highly trained junior badminton players, focusing on differences between (i) under (U) 13, U15, and U17 age groups, and (ii) sexes within each age group. Materials and methods Sixty-two Indonesian highly trained junior badminton players were tested over two sessions for body height, weight, fat mass, and body mass index (BMI), as well as balance, reaction time, hand grip strength, counter movement jump (CMJ) height, linear and non-linear sprint times, and anaerobic sprint and multistage fitness test performances. Traditional (one-way ANOVA or Kruskal–Wallis tests) and alternative statistical approaches (magnitude-based inferences) as well as effect size (ES) calculations were applied for statistical analysis. Results Regarding age-related differences, in males, U17 players had a statistically significant and most likely higher BMI ( p = 0.001; ES = very large), as well as statistically significant and most likely superior CMJ height, linear sprint performance, fatigue index, and relative peak power than the U13 players ( p ≤ 0.003; ES = large to very large). In females, U17 players had a statistically significant and most likely higher BMI and body fat mass ( p ≤ 0.002; ES = large to very large), as well as statistically significant and very likely inferior non-linear sprint performance and relative peak power than the U13 players ( p ≤ 0.005; ES = large). For sex-related differences, in U17 and U15 players, males had a statistically significant and most likely lower body fat mass ( p = 0.001; ES = very large), as well as statistically significant and most likely superior linear sprint performance and relative peak power than females ( p = 0.001; ES = large to extremely large). Conclusion This study shows that anthropometric characteristics and anaerobic capacities differ by age and sex, whereas aerobic capacity is similar among Indonesian highly trained junior badminton players. These findings can support training, testing, and talent identification to help develop highly trained juniors into world-class badminton players.

The paper examines the relationship between disciplinary power and subject formation in Religious Education through the theoretical insights of Michel Foucault. The general objective is to discuss how curriculum and pedagogy in Religious Education are engaged in the process of constructing normalized religious subjects through discipline, surveillance, and internalization. The reason behind such a focus is the need to critically analyze the unseen power relations that constitute pedagogical space and student identity. The paper analyzes relevant curricular texts and pedagogic practices and how they illustrate the functioning of knowledge-power relations within classroom space. Some of the findings point towards Religious Education, albeit unintentional, as a reproducing and normalizing ideological space. The review concludes by suggesting ways of change and resistance in the form of more participatory and reflexive pedagogical paradigms. The current paper adds to the literature on educational subjectivation with critical significance to teachers, researchers, and curriculum planners who are interested in democratic and emancipatory religious education.

The rapid integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into everyday social systems has reshaped long-standing sociological understandings of power, identity, and human agency. This paper explores AI not merely as a technological tool but as an emerging social actor capable of influencing behaviours, shaping decision-making processes, and redefining institutional practices. Drawing on theories of symbolic interactionism, actor–network theory, and critical sociology, the study examines how AI systems mediate social interactions, produce new forms of algorithmic authority, and contribute to shifting power relations between individuals, organisations, and the state. The analysis highlights how AI-driven classifications, predictions, and automated decisions reshape identities—through profiling, personalisation, and digital surveillance—while also raising concerns over autonomy, inequality, and ethical accountability. By conceptualising AI as a socially embedded actor, the paper argues that AI technologies have begun to co-produce social realities, redistribute control, and challenge the boundaries between human and machine agency. This reconfiguration demands renewed sociological attention toward digital governance, transparency, and the societal impacts of algorithmic systems in increasingly automated environments.

Educational inequality in Indonesia is not solely the result of economic limitations, but also a reflection of the inequality of cultural capital institutionalized within the social system. This study aims to analyze Pierre Bourdieu's thinking on cultural capital, habitus, and domain in the context of Indonesian education. Using a literature review approach to ten national and international articles, this study seeks to identify how social structures and cultural values inherited from families play a role in reproducing inequality in educational access and achievement. The analysis shows that schools, as social arenas, often serve as instruments of symbolic reproduction that reinforce the dominant position of privileged groups. Cultural capital in the form of language, thinking styles, and value orientations that are in accordance with the formal education system tend to benefit students from the upper middle class, while students from the lower classes experience symbolic alienation. Therefore, educational inequality in Indonesia can be understood not only as a policy issue, but also as a structural problem rooted in relations of symbolic power and social reproduction. This study concludes the urgency of applying a critical sociological approach to educational policy so that the education system can be more inclusive and socially just.

Life Skills and Suicidal Behavior among Adolescent Students in Mexico