ABSTRACT This theoretical article draws on more than a decade of the authors’ collective and individually published research on emotion in racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse English classrooms and community organizations. The authors argue that students’ acts of refusal to perform their own vulnerability and to endorse the myth of racial progress are affective strategies for addressing racialized relations of power. Drawing on Ahmed’s scholarship on complaint, happiness, and the politics of good feeling, it presents two extended examples, preceded by a summary of a third to illustrate how racialized emotions shape subjectivities in multimedia learning contexts. Across these settings, critical reading and production of multimedia texts entailed moments of intense and sometimes uneasy coexistence, revealing the emotional border-crossing youth must undertake as they navigate expectations to display positive feelings within the so-called progressive democracy of schooling as an ultimately white institution. The youth navigated these tensions by engaging in acts of refusal and negotiation, adopting varied and shifting stances that drew on their resources and their resolve to imagine more agentive and liberatory futures. These refusals led to alliances, and in the end, managed to preserve the social connections they valued in each learning community.

Public service announcements (PSAs) increasingly position men as key agents in preventing gender-based violence (GBV), yet their ideological foundations remain underexplored. This study critically analyses two London-based PSAs – Have a Word and Maaate – through a discourse analytic lens to examine how they construct responsibility and masculinity. We introduce the concept of responsibilised masculinity to describe a hybrid formation that blends progressive gender ideals with neo-liberal self-regulation. While the campaigns promote male intervention, they represent a broader trend that risks individualising responsibility and obscuring the structural conditions that sustain GBV. We argue that these PSAs discipline masculinities through moral governance, reinforcing dominant power relations while appearing transformative. The article calls for prevention efforts that move beyond responsibilisation towards systemic, relational and abolitionist approaches to gender justice.

The expansion of Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in Indonesia, particularly in the nickel downstream sector, has reshaped local political and social dynamics in resource-rich regions. This article critically examines the relationship between Chinese companies and local actors through a case study of Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP) in Central Sulawesi. Employing Alvin Camba’s concept of social embeddedness, the study analyzes how Chinese investment is sustained through interactions among firms, state elites, local governments, and civil society. Based on qualitative analysis of policy documents, media reports, and interviews, the findings reveal that IMIP’s operations are strongly embedded within Indonesia’s central government coalition elites, whose political support facilitates regulatory flexibility and minimizes local resistance. This elite alignment enables investment continuity but simultaneously weakens environmental governance and limits meaningful community participation. While IMIP contributes to local economic growth, it also generates social tensions related to labor practices, environmental degradation, and limited technology transfer. Corporate social responsibility and strategic communication are used to manage, rather than resolve, these structural issues. The article argues that Chinese investment in Indonesia is less driven by market efficiency alone than by political embeddedness within a strong regime. This dynamic highlights the asymmetric power relations between investors, the state, and local communities, raising critical questions about the long-term sustainability and social justice of resource-based development under the Belt and Road Initiative.

ABSTRACT International infrastructure projects are deeply ensconced in debates about power, intentions, and imaginaries of progress that also stir debate about what it means to decolonize international relations and projects that nominally build improvements in low-income environments. Traditional prioritization of technical expertise, the criticality of contextual knowledge, and the dynamics of uneven partnerships involved are all central elements of these pronounced tensions in the practice of international infrastructure development. This paper instead describes an international infrastructure project that is centred on community stewardship and co-design. The infrastructure project Living Data Hubs (LDH), highlighted here, is a small-scale information and communication technology (ICT) and data management project in the informal settlement of Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya. In its development, equal attention was afforded to technical, conceptual, and procedural knowledge production, ensuring that both universal and contextual elements of the ICT infrastructure and data management were explicitly discussed and valued. We argue that international partnerships like LDH that give space to technical, conceptual, and procedural capacity building alike can produce community stewarded infrastructure that is sustainable and puts forward a pathway for diminishing uneven power relations and enhancing community well-being.

Introduction Electroencephalography (EEG) based emotion recognition is pivotal for advancing mobile health monitoring and real-time affective interaction. However, current methodologies face a critical trade-off between modeling the complex, multi-scale dynamics of brain activity and maintaining the computational efficiency necessary for edge deployment. Existing approaches often rely on fixed temporal scales and neglect hierarchical spatial connectivity, which limits both classification robustness and scalability in practical settings. Methods To address these challenges, we propose the Multi-Scale Spatiotemporal Graph Mamba (MSGM). Specifically, it employs multi-window temporal segmentation to extract relative power spectral density (rPSD) features, mimicking the brain's multi-scale processing to capture both transient emotional fluctuations and sustained mood. Spatially, it constructs bimodal global and local graphs refined by multi-depth Graph Convolutional Networks (GCNs), intuitively modeling hierarchical brain connectivity rather than isolated sensors. These features are synthesized via a token embedding fusion module and processed by a single-layer MSST-Mamba module, which leverages state-space modeling to ensure linear computational complexity, avoiding Transformer latency bottlenecks to facilitate real-time clinical monitoring. Results Assessed on the SEED, THU-EP, and FACED datasets under subject-independent protocols, MSGM outperforms baseline approaches, attaining competitive accuracy and F1 scores (e.g., 83.43% accuracy and 85.03% F1 score on SEED). Leveraging a single MSST-Mamba layer, MSGM demonstrates robust generalization and efficiency, achieving millisecond-level inference (151 ms) on the NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX edge device, confirming its suitability for real-time applications. Discussion The capability of MSGM to capture complex spatiotemporal dynamics with low computational overhead highlights its suitability for real-time monitoring and interactive interfaces. By integrating neuroanatomical priors into the selective state-space modeling, the framework effectively maintains spatial intelligence and topological consistency throughout the classification process. This approach not only improves recognition accuracy but also ensures neurophysiologically grounded interpretability. Future research will focus on multimodal integration and further optimization of hierarchical spatial modeling to address the challenges of cross-subject variability. To support research reproducibility, the source code of MSGM will be made available at https://github.com/liuguangyunjizero/MSGM .

Politeness is not merely a pragmatic strategy in interpersonal communication but also a discursive practice shaped by power relations, ideology, and social context. This study examines politeness as a discursive practice in the film “Dear John” (2010) using a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework. The goal of the study is to reveal how politeness strategies are constructed, negotiated, and contested through language in intimate relationships portrayed in the film. Employing a qualitative descriptive method, the data consist of selected dialogues between the main characters, John and Savannah, which contain politeness-related expressions. The analysis integrates Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory with Fairclough’s three-dimensional model of CDA: textual analysis, discursive practice, and social practice. The findings show that politeness strategies in “Dear John” function not only to maintain interpersonal harmony but also to reflect unequal emotional power, moral positioning, and ideological assumptions about love, sacrifice, and gender roles. Positive politeness dominates the interactions, while negative politeness and off-record strategies emerge in moments of conflict and emotional distance. The novelty of this study lies in its integration of politeness theory and CDA to demonstrate how politeness operates as an ideological and discursive resource within romantic narratives. This study contributes to discourse studies, pragmatics, and literary discourse analysis.

Based on the theory of “space production,” the space of traditional innovation and entrepreneurship education is a relatively closed classroom, presenting a one-way structure of teacher-podium-student seats, which is essentially the materialization of the one-way transmission relationship of educational power and the relationship between knowledge authority and passive recipient. The social relationship between teachers as the leaders of knowledge and resources and students as passive recipients solidifies the direction of knowledge transmission through spatial layout. According to the particularity of the innovation and entrepreneurship education process, spatial factors are regarded as the key variables of participating in positive emotions, which is conducive to restoring the significantly heterogeneous innovation and entrepreneurship education environment and clarifying the key factors that may affect the integration of positive emotions into innovation and entrepreneurship education. Based on the phased characteristics of innovation and entrepreneurship education, the spatial model with ideological and political knowledge and innovation and entrepreneurship education as the content is a supplement to the traditional point-line-surface positive emotion implantation model.

Organizations can gain substantial knowledge synergies from their alliance portfolios, and research suggests firms may benefit even more when their partners compete directly with each other. However, firms can only capture such synergies if their own inventors are allowed to freely exchange knowledge obtained from these partners to create novel combinations. We challenge this premise and argue that, because partners in such configurations are more concerned about the risks of knowledge leakage to their rivals, they will pressure the focal firm into imposing credible safeguards that restrict the access and handling of knowledge inside its organization. We predict that the constraints imposed by these safeguards will be reflected in a higher disconnectedness in the focal firm’s inventor collaboration network, with the extent of these constraints tied to the relative technological bargaining power the focal firm holds over its partners. Importantly, these safeguards are not costless, and we predict that the disconnectedness induced will affect the focal firm’s innovation performance by undermining its ability to create and appropriate inventive value. Using a longitudinal sample of pharmaceutical firms, we find consistent support for these arguments. Our study contributes to research on interfirm alliances, intraorganizational networks, and innovation while offering practical insights for managers. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2022.17230 .

The educational curriculum has evolved. What was once considered a tool for planning student instruction is now seen as an arena where political, ideological, and ethical considerations converge. This article aims to analyze the transformation of the curriculum in the Latin American context, with a focus on Mexico. There, a pragmatic crisis is forcing a rethinking of the curriculum's foundations and role in traditional schools. For this reason, two Mexican curriculum models are discussed: Key Learning 2017 and the New Mexican School proposed for 2022. The curriculum is not neutral; it never has been. It is a living space where power relations, imposed knowledge, and real possibilities for transformation intersect. Thus, the curriculum is no longer viewed as a rigid set of topics but as a living, situated social practice. This approach is committed to epistemic justice and a more humane education while remaining attentive to the challenges it faces. Teachers take on an epistemic role, transforming the prescribed curriculum into one that is truly experienced and adapted to the needs of society.

ABSTRACTBackgroundNut consumption has been associated with a reduced risk of functional decline, but evidence from randomised controlled trials to support functional benefit is lacking. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate whether daily supplementation of peanut butter over 6 months, relative to usual care, can improve physical function in community‐dwelling older adults.MethodsOne hundred and twenty older adults (aged ≥ 65 years) at risk of falls were randomly assigned to receive peanut butter (43 g/day, n = 60) or maintain usual care (control, n = 60) for 6 months. Outcomes assessed at baseline and 6 months included physical function (4‐m gait speed [primary outcome], standing balance test, four‐square step test [FSST], five times sit‐to‐stand [5STS] test time and muscle power, 30‐s sit‐to‐stand (30‐s STS) and timed up and go [TUG] tests), muscle strength (handgrip [HGS] and isometric knee extensor strength tests [KES]) and anthropometry/body composition (weight, body mass index [BMI], total lean and fat mass and appendicular lean mass). Linear regression models, adjusting for age, sex, baseline value of the dependent variable, BMI, physical activity and diet quality, estimated intention‐to‐treat intervention effects.ResultsA total of 108 (90%) participants completed the study. At baseline, 70% were female, and the mean ± SD age and BMI were 76.1 ± 4.6 years and 27.5 ± 4.2 kg/m2, respectively. At 6 months, there were no significant treatment effects on the primary outcome of gait speed or other measures of physical function (p > 0.05), with the exception that 5STS time and muscle power improved significantly more in the peanut butter compared to control group (estimated treatment effect: time, −1.23 s [95% CI, −2.09, −0.37], p = 0.006; absolute power, 22.0 W [95% CI: 7.1 to 36.9], p = 0.004; relative power, 0.27 W/kg [95% CI: 0.10 to 0.45], p = 0.002). Changes in HGS, KES, weight, BMI, total fat mass, total lean mass or appendicular lean mass did not differ between groups. In the peanut butter group, among those who completed the follow‐up, the mean (SD) adherence was 86.0 (13.8) %.ConclusionIn community‐dwelling older adults at risk for falls, daily peanut butter consumption for 6 months improved 5STS time and muscle power based on 5STS, but not gait speed, muscle strength or body composition.Trial Registration: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials: ACTRN12622001291774

This article analyzes the creation process of the Pico do Marumbi State Park (PEPM), between the 1940s and 1990s, with emphasis on environmental struggles, legal processes, conflicts, and alliances among different political and social actors, which converged in the official establishment of the park in 1990 through State Decree nº 7,300. The protected area, covering 2,342 hectares, is located in the Paraná section of the Serra do Mar mountain range and includes the municipalities of Morretes, Piraquara, and Quatro Barras, within the Marumbi Area of Special Tourist Interest. The research is grounded in Claude Raffestin's relational theory, which supports the interpretation of power relations and strategic interactions among subjects with distinct interests. Methodologically, this is an applied, exploratory, and documentary study with a qualitative approach. Data collection was based on document analysis, conducted in two stages: collection and processing of historical documents, followed by interpretation using content analysis techniques. The results highlight three main dimensions: the legal and administrative processes surrounding the park’s creation; the roles played by social, political, and environmental actors; and the conflicts between environmental preservation and economic interests along the coast of Paraná. It is concluded that the creation of PEPM resulted from a complex articulation of forces, in which environmental discourses gained strength amid territorial disputes.

Algorithmic management has become a dominant managerial mechanism in gig work, yet its implications for workers and the future of digital employment remain fragmented in the literature. This study aims to systematically examine and synthesize prior research on algorithmic management in gig work by identifying its core mechanisms, benefits, challenges, unresolved research gaps, and implications for developing fair and inclusive algorithmic systems. This study adopts a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) design guided by the PRISMA framework. Peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2020 and 2025 were identified through structured searches of major academic databases. Following the PRISMA stages of identification, screening, eligibility assessment, and inclusion, a final sample of 34 eligible studies was retained for qualitative synthesis. Data were extracted using a structured coding scheme and analyzed through a combination of deductive Input–Process–Output (IPO) mapping and inductive thematic analysis, leading to the development of an extended Input–Process–Output–Outcomes (IPOO) analytical model. The findings indicate that algorithmic management has rapidly evolved into a central managerial system that reshapes power relations, performance evaluation, worker autonomy, and well-being through data-driven control, monitoring, and decision-making. While algorithmic systems enhance efficiency and structure short-term worker behavior, they also generate long-term social, ethical, and human sustainability challenges. These challenges highlight that the future of digital work increasingly depends on fairness, transparency, and human-centered governance in algorithmic systems. The originality of this study lies in extending the traditional IPO framework into the IPOO model to capture both immediate mechanisms and long-term consequences of algorithmic management in the gig economy.

In the digital age, philanthropy is increasingly mediated by platform microcelebrities who mobilize audiences for social good. This study examines the novel philanthropic model of YouTube creator Jimmy Donaldson as a case of outsourced activism , characterized by a dual-outsourcing structure: audiences transfer charitable intent and contributions (via attention-as-currency) to Donaldson, who acts as a central agent and then outsources execution to NGOs and collaborators. Using a mixed-methods design combining a walkthrough, multimodal discourse analysis of 101 videos, and topic modeling of 11,208 comments, we demonstrate how sentimental and digital spectacles sustain this process as tools for activism. The mechanism forms a new connective practice, creating a network of moral delegation and affective investment among audiences, creators, sponsors, and NGOs. Yet, it raises ethical concerns, including depoliticizing social issues and reinforcing unequal power relations. The study advances theories of media activism, connective action, and digital philanthropy by identifying a replicable logic that redefines agency, accountability, and civic participation in platform societies.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the dynamics of ethnopolitical processes in two subregions of the North Caucasus – Stavropol Krai and Karachay-Cherkess Republic. The purpose of the article is to clarify medium-term forecasts of the dynamics of the ethnopolitical situation in the two territories, taking into account the latest threats and challenges. The study is based on a combination of three approaches: conflictological approach, risk studies and geopolitical paradigm. The empirical base was formed on the basis of long-term monitoring of the ethnopolitical situation and confessional processes. Content analysis of regional information resources, event analysis of the regional ethnopolitical situation, factor analysis based on the study of statistical data, and expert surveys were used. The results presented in the article are based on research work conducted in 2022-2025. Factors of destabilization of the ethnopolitical situation are organized into three blocks: threats to the constitutional order; risks in the political and administrative sphere; risks in the socio-economic sphere. It was concluded that the authorities in two regions managed to curb the sharp increase in threats and risks to ethnopolitical stability caused by the aggravation of geopolitical processes. The dynamics of factors determining the development of the regional ethnopolitical situation in the middle of the third decade of the 21st century, the absence of resonant conflicts with ethnic component and protest activity make it possible to steadily prolong the positive conflict scenario in Stavropol Krai for the second half of the decade. For Karachay-Cherkessia, the most likely is an inertial moderate conflict scenario. Thus, Stavropol Krai and the Karachay-Cherkessia Republic are the "western pole of stability" in the North Caucasus. The analysis showed a much more complex determination of the regional ethnopolitical process compared to traditional explanatory models. Economic factors, traditionally considered as one of main sources conflict generators, do not show a significant impact on the dynamics of ethnosocial and ethnopolitical processes. At present, such role play specific features of functioning of regional political regimes: the effectiveness of authorities, the mechanism for the formation of power, the depth of clan ties, corruption. An important factor in ensuring stability in the communities of the two territories is the dominance of secularism both in power relations and in public life in general.

Cultural and social capital in the rural revitalization: The production of public cultural space and power relationship in Dananpo Village

Abstract The selection of electrical stimulation parameters for bio-robots currently relies primarily on empirical trial-and-error rather than neurophysiological principles. This study explored a method for selecting electrical stimulation parameters by analyzing the dynamic characteristics of local field potentials (LFP) in the carp brain motor area during movement.By time-frequency analysis, frequency band relative power calculation, sample entropy and Lempel-Ziv complexity analysis, the response characteristics of carp LFP under static, moving and recovering static state are analyzed systematically. The results show that the relative power of LFP in high frequency band (Theta, Alpha, Beta, Gamma and High Gamma) increases significantly (P<0.05), while that in low frequency band (Delta) decreases significantly (P<0.05), and the signal complexity decreases significantly. Building on these findings, the stimulation frequency significantly affects motor control: optimal performance was achieved at 50–70 Hz, whereas higher or lower frequencies impaired control efficacy. This study establishes a link between LFP features and motor behavior, offering a signal-based parameter selection method to advance precise control of aquatic bio-robots.

What happened to agroecology? Tracing Actors’ (Power) relations and the seeming dissipation of transition dynamics in Argentina’s Río Negro Valley

Validation of the Tena pregnancy phantom and fetal dose assessment in proton scanning beam therapy.

Visual characteristics of foliage plants are increasingly recognized as important factors influencing human psychological and physiological responses; however, empirical evidence regarding the effects of specific leaf shapes remains limited. This study investigated humans’ psychophysiological and psychoemotional responses to visual stimuli from foliage plants of various shapes to address this research gap using objective and subjective measures. Thirty adults (24.86 ± 2.68 years old) participated in the experiment conducted at a laboratory in Konkuk University designed explicitly for this study. The foliage plants used in the experiment were classified into five groups based on leaf shape and plant shape: round ( Ficus elastica; Peperomia obtusifolia ), upward linear ( Sansevieria trifasciata; Sansevieria stuckyi ), downward linear ( Dracaena draco; Dracaena marginata ), palmate ( Fatsia japonica; Schefflera arboricola ), and downward compound ( Nephrolepis exaltata; Adiantum raddianum ). Participants took a 3-minute rest before the experiment began, and their brain waves were measured while they observed each plant for 90 seconds. Ten plants were presented randomly. Immediately after observing each plant, the Semantic Differential Method (SDM) assessed psychoemotional responses. The collected data were analyzed using a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Duncan’s post hoc test. Comparisons among the five plant groups revealed that observing palmate and downward compound plants significantly increased relative gamma and spectral edge frequency 90% in the left parietal lobe, indicating improved concentration ( P < 0.05). In addition, observing plants compared with empty spaces significantly activated the relative high-beta power spectrum in the left and right parietal lobes ( P < 0.05), with no differences observed among plant shapes. The SDM analysis showed that participants felt most comfortable and stable when viewing round-shaped plants ( P < 0.001) and experienced the most enjoyment when viewing palmate-shaped plants ( P < 0.001). These findings demonstrate that foliage plant leaf shape differentially influences human psychophysiological and psychoemotional responses and provide evidence for shape-based indoor green design.

Political theory occupies a central position in the systematic analysis of political systems, offering the conceptual clarity, normative benchmarks, and interpretive depth necessary for rigorous political inquiry. In recent decades, the increasing dominance of empirical, behavioural, and data-driven approaches within political science has often relegated political theory to a peripheral role. This article argues that such a separation is analytically unsustainable. Political theory is indispensable not only for defining and classifying political systems but also for evaluating their legitimacy, performance, and transformative potential. Drawing upon classical, modern, and contemporary theoretical traditions, this article demonstrates how political theory enriches the study of political systems by clarifying key concepts, interrogating power relations, enabling comparative analysis, contextualizing institutions historically, and providing critical perspectives for democratic reform. The article seeks to reassert the relevance of political theory within mainstream political system analysis and contributes to ongoing debates on methodological pluralism in political science