Individual Representations Research Articles

Televizyon Reklamlarinda Yaşlılık Temsili

The media has a crucial role in the formation of perceptions toward older individuals and the development of various stereotypes. This research aims to identify and analyze older individuals’ representations in the media through commercials. The study population of the research is composed of commercials with older individuals’ representations by Saatchi & Saatchi agency which has carried out advertising campaigns for different cultures in more than 67 countries around the world. This study uses the homogenous sampling technique for the purposive sampling method. The study sample consists of commercials with older individuals’ representations broadcasted in five countries between 2015 and 2020 by Saatchi & Saatchi agency. The commercials are analyzed by the semiotic analysis method over Roland Barthes' concepts of denotation and connotation to comprehend the process of creating meaning. The study shows that commercials include negative and positive representations of older individuals. In the commercial with positive representations of older individuals, there is an attitude to break down the stereotype of the negative older individuals’ representation to oppose it. However, in most commercials, the negative stereotype of older individuals is reinforced.

Portraying people with disability in Indonesian online news reports: a corpus-assisted discourse study

This article investigates representations of individuals with disabilities in Indonesian news media by drawing on corpus-assisted discourse study, social actor analysis, and news models of disability. The data comprises news articles which refer to disability published on popular Indonesian online news platforms over a ten-year period (2011–2020). The findings reveal prevalent portrayals of disabled people as passive beneficiaries and objects of representation, which implies a tendency to diminish their active involvement in society, supporting the social pathology model of disability. The progressive models, including the civil rights and consumer models, which highlight the active participation of disabled people, are limited. The article concludes by emphasising the need for a more balanced portrayal of disabled individuals by incorporating more news articles that underscore their agency. It also recommends the integration of diverse viewpoints from individuals with disabilities to attain a more comprehensive understanding of their challenges and perspectives.

How well does the Index of Race-Related Stress-brief function in a trauma-exposed Black community sample? An item response theory examination of discrimination and difficulty parameters.

Race-related stress negatively impacts the mental health of Black Americans to a greater degree than other racialized groups. Additionally, trauma exposure is associated with more severe levels of posttraumatic stress disorder for individuals who also experience race-related stress. Therefore, an accurate assessment of race-related stress in a trauma-exposed sample of Black Americans is necessary to ensure the validity and reliability of empirical findings regarding race-related stress and intervention efficacy. The Index of Race-Related Stress (IRRS) is one of the most commonly used measures to assess race-related stress among Black Americans. Due to a lack of psychometric support for the abbreviated version of IRRS-brief (IRRS-B) on a trauma-exposed sample of Black Americans, our study aims to address this gap in literature. We used item response theory (IRT) to assess item difficulty, discrimination, and factor structure in a sample of trauma-exposed Black Americans (n = 226). We employed a multidimensional graded response model with corresponding items loaded on to the three previously established factors of the IRRS. The most discriminating items asked about observing harsh treatment of Black individuals, experiencing less courtesy in establishments, and being stared at as though you do not belong. The item with the lowest difficulty described negative media representation of Black individuals while the item with the highest difficulty described lack of positive media portrayals of Black Americans. These results indicate that items varied considerably in the degree to which they adequately captured race-related stress. Future research should use IRT with newly worded questions to further improve the assessment of race-related stress in Black Americans. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The Status of Students, Faculty, and Leadership Diversities in US Pharmacy Schools/Colleges

ObjectiveThe purpose of this research is to address knowledge gaps on diversity in the United States (US) population, pharmacy students, faculty, and school/college leadership. MethodThe population data were collected from the US Census Bureau. The pharmacy student and faculty data were collected from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy enrollment and faculty profiles to compute Diversity Indices (DIs). To delve further into observed DI values, different ratios were calculated by dividing the total number of people in a racial/ethnic group of a particular category (eg, students) by the total number of people in the same racial/ethnic group in a different category (eg, faculty). Two factors (ratios among racial groups and changes in ratios over time) ANOVA without replication was conducted using Excel. ResultsThe students are the most diverse category (average DI = 69%), followed by the US population (average DI = 58%), faculty diversity (average DI = 54%), assistant/associate dean (average DI = 42%) and dean (average DI = 31%). The ratio analyses among student, faculty, and leadership categories reveal a disproportionately high representation of White individuals in faculty and leadership roles when compared to other racial groups, resulting in low DI values in these categories. ConclusionA significant ratio difference was found among various racial groups each year. However, there was no significant change observed in ratios over time. The academic community must develop hiring practices that increase the DI values among faculty and leadership categories to reduce the gap and promote student success.

Deciphering spatial domains from spatially resolved transcriptomics with Siamese graph autoencoder.

Cell clustering is a pivotal aspect of spatial transcriptomics (ST) data analysis as it forms the foundation for subsequent data mining. Recent advances in spatial domain identification have leveraged graph neural network (GNN) approaches in conjunction with spatial transcriptomics data. However, such GNN-based methods suffer from representation collapse, wherein all spatial spots are projected onto a singular representation. Consequently, the discriminative capability of individual representation feature is limited, leading to suboptimal clustering performance. To address this issue, we proposed SGAE, a novel framework for spatial domain identification, incorporating the power of the Siamese graph autoencoder. SGAE mitigates the information correlation at both sample and feature levels, thus improving the representation discrimination. We adapted this framework to ST analysis by constructing a graph based on both gene expression and spatial information. SGAE outperformed alternative methods by its effectiveness in capturing spatial patterns and generating high-quality clusters, as evaluated by the Adjusted Rand Index, Normalized Mutual Information, and Fowlkes-Mallows Index. Moreover, the clustering results derived from SGAE can be further utilized in the identification of 3-dimensional (3D) Drosophila embryonic structure with enhanced accuracy. Benchmarking results from various ST datasets generated by diverse platforms demonstrate compelling evidence for the effectiveness of SGAE against other ST clustering methods. Specifically, SGAE exhibits potential for extension and application on multislice 3D reconstruction and tissue structure investigation. The source code and a collection of spatial clustering results can be accessed at https://github.com/STOmics/SGAE/.

Preserved tactile distance estimation despite body representation distortions in individuals with fibromyalgia.

Our mental representation of our body depends on integrating various sensory modalities, such as tactile information. In tactile distance estimation (TDE) tasks, participants must estimate the distance between two tactile tips applied to their skin. This measure of tactile perception has been linked to body representation assessments. Studies in individuals with fibromyalgia (FM), a chronic widespread pain syndrome, suggest the presence of body representation distortions and tactile alterations, but TDE has never been examined in this population. Twenty participants with FM and 24 pain-free controls performed a TDE task on three Body regions (upper limb, trunk, lower limb), in which they manually estimated the interstimuli distance on a tablet. TDE error, the absolute difference between the estimation and the interstimuli distance, was not different between the Groups, on any Body region. Drawings of their body as they felt it revealed clear and frequent distortions of body representation in the group with FM, compared to negligible perturbations in controls. This contrast between distorted body drawings and unaltered TDE suggests a preserved integration of tactile information but an altered integration of this information with other sensory modalities to generate a precise and accurate body representation. Future research should investigate the relative contribution of each sensory information and prior knowledge about the body in body representation in individuals with FM to shed light on the observed distortions.

Notions of success and its causes among men and women with different expressions of the motive for striving for success

One of the features of the modern world is the idealization of a person’s individual success. Therewith, a society’s understanding of success does not always correlate with its individual representation. We conducted a study aimed at establishing interpretations of success and its causes in various fields of life among men and women with different expressions of the motive for striving for success. Methods: survey; content analysis; testing (methodology of A. Megrabian); cross section method; statistical data processing methods. Results: It was found that the interpretation of success in the professional, family and hobby fields is identical for men and women, regardless of the level of expression of their motive for striving for success; in other fields, the interpretation of success varies with different expressions of said motive. Conclusion: studying notions of success is important for understanding the life aspirations of young people and ideas about their life guidelines. As has been shown, with high achievement motivation, success is primarily explained by one’s personal characteristics, and not by their experience and knowledge, which raises the question of the need to pay attention to personality development.

Que “Macho” é Esse?: “Anormalização”de Subjetividades em Videoclipes de Bregafunk

Abstract The entertainment industry is featured by discursive productions of ideological nature. Accordingly, different music genres work as identity vectors; thus, it is possible perceiving the representation of male individuals as the dominant gender in some of them. Bregafunk music stands out among these genres, since its music videos highlight straight and virile men, by showing women, LGBTQIAPN+ individuals and fat bodies in a stigmatized way. Based on the Foucauldian theory, the current study addresses the subjectivity “abnormalization” process carried out by another socially dominant subjectivity as way to defend and maintain its position. In order to do so, the current research presents the following investigative question: how do bregafunk music video productions represent alterities to male subjectivity? In total, 777 bregafunk music videos posted on YouTube between September 2012 and September 2020 were herein investigated, based on the foucauldian discourse analysis, in order to answer this question. Results have evidenced the dominant discourse of “male bregafunk music artists”, which is anchored in a strategy focused on perpetuating stereotypes and chauvinism. Thus, it was possible concluding that this subjectivity is a variation of the alpha male, who resorts to his cultural repertoire and social context to consolidate himself as the dominant identity by subjugating other identities through a double move comprising self-affirmation and denial of others. In addition, it was possible inferring that targeting women, LGBTQIAPN+ and fat individuals may be a defense strategy to address the growing political space gained by these identities in recent decades.

Screening of Streptococcus suis in swine workers of selected states in Peninsular Malaysia.

Streptococcus suis is a zoonotic pathogen that is highly associated with contact between live pigs and raw pig material. In view of the recent reports of human infections in Malaysia, epidemiological data on the status of S. suis in the human population, especially among people working closely with pigs and/or raw pork, should be provided. The aim of this study was to detect S. suis among individuals working in the swine industry in several major pig production areas in Peninsular Malaysia. Demographic information, exposure determinants, and oral swabs were collected from swine personnel, including farmers, butchers, and veterinarians. Oral swabs were subjected to bacterial isolation and conventional polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays for S. suis detection. The study included 40 participants working in the swine industry, with a predominant representation of males (62.5%) and Malaysian Chinese individuals (60.0%) who consumed pork (92.5%). Notably, none of the participants reported consuming raw or partially cooked pork. In spite of their occupational exposure risk, none of the oral swabs showed positive results for S. suis infection. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report and detection study of S. suis using oral swabs obtained from swine personnel in Peninsular Malaysia.

An Interactive Allyship and Privilege Workshop for Trainees in Medicine.

Despite growing efforts to increase diversity in recruitment and to teach principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), representation of individuals underrepresented in medicine continues to fall short. This demonstrates a need for efforts that target the work environment and culture to increase retention alongside existing recruitment initiatives. We designed this interactive allyship workshop with a focus on building skills necessary for being an ally that has been missing in existing allyship curricula. This workshop was led by multidepartmental faculty with experience in DEI training. Participants engaged in a number of interactive activities to reflect on their own identities and privilege and practiced ways to engage in difficult conversations. Prior to the workshop, participants completed a survey that was repeated at the workshop's completion to evaluate their perspective change and understanding of allyship. We also collected responses to a self-reflective exercise during the workshop. Participants included 68 anesthesia and surgery attendees, 53 of whom (78%) completed the postsurvey. Participants strongly agreed that this workshop was important to the workplace and medical training. Themes from the self-reflective exercises included endorsement of sponsorship and mentorship activities, community support, and advocacy. Interactive skill-building activities are important and effective at helping trainees develop as allies. Long-term follow-up is needed to assess longitudinal knowledge retention and translation into behavioral change to create a more inclusive and supportive work environment.

A Psycho-Social Exploration of Cross-Border Mobilities. A Mixed-Method among Franco-Luxembourgish Commuters

The application of the psycho-social paradigm of social representations in geographical studies is rather recent. However, this approach is considered to complement the work conducted in social geography where non-directive interview methods are often used. The main hypothesis of this paper is that mobility practice is not only influenced by the accessibility to transport infrastructures, but also structured by social representations about mobility, housing, and job. Based on a corpus of semi-structured interviews with 69 Franco-Luxembourgish cross-border commuters, the Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) is employed to explore relations between different types of social representations and mobility practice. This mixed method allows to integrate both quantitative statistical data and qualitative discursive data. It is concluded that social representations can be envisaged as a theoretical approach to understanding mobility practice, and that the daily mobility practice is socially structured depending on various social representations of individuals which are also shaped by their social positions or social trajectories. Challenges related to the use of mixed methods in the research are also addressed in the methodological discussion.

Genetic Programming in Software Engineering: A Systematic Literature Review

Software Engineering is present in all the Software Development Life Cycle phases, implying a systematic and disciplined development process. Nowadays, there are optimization problems within the phases and activities of Software Engineering, problems in which a Genetic Programming (GP) approach can give better results due to its representation of individuals. This Systematic Literature Review aims to analyze the current state of the application of GP in Software Engineering by collecting the phases and activities of software development where Genetic Programming has been used and summarizing the advantages of using this technique. The results show that GP has been used in every phase of software development, although mainly in the construction phase. In addition, a promising area is Program Synthesis, which substantially impacts new fields such as Genetic Improvement.

ULUSAL HABER WEB SİTELERİNDE KİŞİLİK BOZUKLUKLARININ DAMGALAMA AÇISINDAN İNCELENMESİ

Societies consider the media as an important source of information on psychological disorders. Evaluated from this perspective, the content of news in the media may contribute to an increase in stigmatization. This study aims to examine the news related to personality disorders on the most traffic-receiving news websites in Turkey in terms of stigmatization. The content analysis method was employed in this research. Relevant news between January 1, 2019, and January 1, 2023, were included and evaluated. The news was segregated by researchers into four main themes: informative, crime-related, culture/art/events, and entertainment) based on similarities in content. In terms of stigmatization, the news content was assessed under headings such as murder, violence, threat/harassment, and others (deception, fraud, self-harm). The news content scanned in four media outlets between 2019 and 2023 was classified as negative or neutral. 54.26% of the news was negative, while 45.74% was neutral. According to the data, 54.26% of the news was negative, while 45.74% was neutral. The utilization of murder was observed in 20.00% of news articles with negative content, while violence was present in 25.71% of such articles. Among the negatively toned news, 20.00% was associated with murder, 25.71% with violence, 18.57% with threat/harassment, and 35.72% with other forms of stigmatization (deception, fraud, self-harm). In 60.00% of the news, the person’s photograph was included, while 54.29% included the person's name. These statistics suggest that these topics were employed to stigmatize certain individuals or groups. Photographic representations of individuals were employed in 60.00% of the news articles, while the mention of individuals’ names was seen in 54.29% of the news articles. Considering the scope of the issue and the stigmatizing content in the media, these results support the need for strong national and international alliances against stigma to coordinate the linguistic content in the news.

Keeping track of who knows what in multiparty conversation despite severe memory impairment

Language use has long been understood to be tailored to the intended addressee, a process termed audience design. Audience design is reflected in multiple aspects of language use, including adjustments based on the addressee's knowledge about the topic at hand. In group settings, audience design depends on representations of multiple individuals, each of whom may have different knowledge about the conversational topic. A central question, then, concerns how these representations are encoded and retrieved in multiparty conversation where successful conversation requires keeping track of who knows what. In the present research, we probe the biological memory systems that are involved in this process of multiparty audience design. We present the results of two experiments that compare language use in persons with bilateral hippocampal damage and severe declarative memory impairment (amnesia), and demographically matched neurotypical comparison participants. Participants played a game in which they discussed abstract images with one partner in conversation, and then discussed the images again with the same partner or with a new partner in a three-party conversation. Neurotypical participants' language use reflected newly formed representations of which partner was familiar with which images. Participants with amnesia showed evidence of partner-specific audience design in multiparty conversation but it was attenuated, especially when success required rapid alternations between representations of common ground. The findings suggest partial independence of the formation and use of partner-specific representations from the hippocampal-dependent declarative memory system and highlight the unique contributions of the declarative memory system to flexible and dynamic language use.

Fairness and Bias in Artificial Intelligence: A Brief Survey of Sources, Impacts, and Mitigation Strategies

The significant advancements in applying artificial intelligence (AI) to healthcare decision-making, medical diagnosis, and other domains have simultaneously raised concerns about the fairness and bias of AI systems. This is particularly critical in areas like healthcare, employment, criminal justice, credit scoring, and increasingly, in generative AI models (GenAI) that produce synthetic media. Such systems can lead to unfair outcomes and perpetuate existing inequalities, including generative biases that affect the representation of individuals in synthetic data. This survey study offers a succinct, comprehensive overview of fairness and bias in AI, addressing their sources, impacts, and mitigation strategies. We review sources of bias, such as data, algorithm, and human decision biases—highlighting the emergent issue of generative AI bias, where models may reproduce and amplify societal stereotypes. We assess the societal impact of biased AI systems, focusing on perpetuating inequalities and reinforcing harmful stereotypes, especially as generative AI becomes more prevalent in creating content that influences public perception. We explore various proposed mitigation strategies, discuss the ethical considerations of their implementation, and emphasize the need for interdisciplinary collaboration to ensure effectiveness. Through a systematic literature review spanning multiple academic disciplines, we present definitions of AI bias and its different types, including a detailed look at generative AI bias. We discuss the negative impacts of AI bias on individuals and society and provide an overview of current approaches to mitigate AI bias, including data pre-processing, model selection, and post-processing. We emphasize the unique challenges presented by generative AI models and the importance of strategies specifically tailored to address these. Addressing bias in AI requires a holistic approach involving diverse and representative datasets, enhanced transparency and accountability in AI systems, and the exploration of alternative AI paradigms that prioritize fairness and ethical considerations. This survey contributes to the ongoing discussion on developing fair and unbiased AI systems by providing an overview of the sources, impacts, and mitigation strategies related to AI bias, with a particular focus on the emerging field of generative AI.

Clinical Manifestations.

Racial and ethnic disparities in ADRD diagnosis are well documented but remain poorly understood. Clinical ADRD diagnosis relies on neuropsychological assessment, which is interpreted by comparing individual performance to demographically adjusted reference group norms. Differential use of demographic adjustment procedures and sources of normative data may compromise diagnostic accuracy of neuropsychological findings in diverse individuals. Using two different demographic adjustment approaches derived from two distinct normative samples, we generated cognitive impairment categories and evaluated their associations with longitudinal trajectories of independent executive functioning and memory scores. Participants were 717 older adults (age: 77.5±6.9, 56% women) enrolled in the Kaiser Healthy Aging and Diverse Life Experiences (KHANDLE) study who completed up to 3 annual visits. The main predictor was cognitive impairment category (no impairment, single-domain, multiple-domain) based on Uniform Data Set Neuropsychological Battery (UDSNB) scores at baseline. UDSNB scores were either demographically unadjusted or adjusted (age, sex, education, and race/ethnicity) using data from the National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center (NACC; N = 8313, 16% Black, 84% White) or KHANDLE (N = 397, 26% Asian, 18% Black, 30% LatinX, 26% White) samples. Linear mixed effect models were used to examine the associations between differentially derived cognitive impairment categories with longitudinal changes on episodic memory and executive functioning composites from an independent cognitive battery (Spanish and English Neuropsychological Assessment Scales, SENAS). Cognitive impairment categories derived from the KHANDLE sample were more strongly associated in all four racial and ethnic groups with longitudinal decline on episodic memory compared to the NACC sample-derived categories (Figure 1). Similar, albeit attenuated, effects were observed in relation to longitudinal decline on the executive function composite. There were no clear differences in the associations between cognitive impairment categories with executive functioning or memory decline using demographically adjusted vs. unadjusted scores. Our results highlight the need for greater representation of diverse individuals in normative samples underlining the limitations of the NACC-derived normative algorithms for cognitive assessment of individuals from diverse populations. Further investigations into the clinical value of the practice of demographic adjustments are also warranted.

A multipopulation multitasking evolutionary scheme with adaptive knowledge transfer to solve the clustered minimum routing cost tree problem

The advancement in communication technology nowadays has increased the number of networked devices exponentially. Thus, network applications begin to cluster terminals to address scalability, privacy, and device connectivity with low routing costs. A recently introduced NP-hard problem called the Clustered Minimum Routing Cost Tree (CluMRCT) problem is assessed to be a fundamental key in designing an efficient network with low routing costs. Lately, some evolutionary multitasking meta-heuristics have been proposed to tackle multiple CluMRCT problems concurrently. However, these previous studies still have some limitations, such as only being applicable to complete graphs or there is no mechanism for effective knowledge transfer between problems when solving them simultaneously. To overcome these limitations, this paper proposes a novel multi-population multitasking evolutionary framework to address the problem. The individual representation is developed based on Network random key scheme and can be applied to both sparse and complete graphs. Moreover, our proposal can adaptively exploit positive knowledge transfer by adjusting the number of individuals migrating from other populations to a particular task. Then, the proposed algorithm is experimented on various data types and compared with other state-of-the-art algorithms. The experimental results show the proposal's effectiveness in most cases of the dataset, followed by detailed comparison, evaluation, and analysis.

Quiet Spaces: Public Places – visual representation of vulnerable identities

This study examines the visual representation of vulnerable individuals in documentary photography while prioritising ethical considerations and aiming to avoid exploitation. By leveraging the power of symbolic commentary, the research aims to capture social situations that address vulnerability without revealing the identities of the subjects. Focusing on Bet Sheekoom: House of Restoration for Women and Children and Maranatha Mission Station, the documentary series portrays these environments and their residents without disclosing any personal identifiers. This approach safeguards the participants from potential harm and aims to ensure their anonymity, while still engaging in a meaningful societal dialogue. Drawing on principles from documentary photography, visual studies, and ethics, this research contributes to understanding responsible representation and power dynamics within the visual representation of vulnerable identities. By navigating the delicate balance between social commentary and ethical practices, the study offers insight into alternative methods of capturing and highlighting vulnerable populations. The findings shed light on the significance of ethical considerations in documentary photography, demonstrating the importance of respecting the dignity and privacy of vulnerable individuals. This study contributes to the broader discourse on visual representation, offering valuable insight for practitioners, scholars, and those interested in the ethical dimensions of photography.

Undecorated Tomb No. 18 at Beni Hassan and the Succession of Its Ruling Family


 
 
 The uninscribed and unfinished tomb No. 18 at Beni Hassan represents a key to understanding the architectural development of the tombs in this site as well as to the study of the succession of members of the nomarchic family of the 16th Upper Egyptian province. The location, approach, and design of the chapel, as well as the number and type of architraves and columns place the tomb immediately after the neighbouring one, No. 17, of Khety I, and make it likely that it belonged to the latter’s son, Khety II. It is argued that following the successive deaths of Khety I and Khety II, probably due to the bellicose conditions at the time, Khnumhotep I of tomb No. 14, a likely son or descendant of Baqet III of tomb No. 15, became a governor and cut his tomb adjacent to that of the latter. The architectural and artistic similarities between the two tombs are striking. An examination of the skeletal remains of Baqet II, Khety I, and probably Khety II, shows evidence of a possible involvement in wars and indicates that they died at young age. The representation of specific individuals and certain themes in a number of tombs at Beni Hassan suggests that these tombs belonged to members of the same family and that all date to a relatively short period in the second half of the Eleventh Dynasty and the first half of the Twelfth.
 
 

Critical Feminist Pedagogy in English Language Education: An Action Research Project on the Implementation of Feminist Views in a German Secondary School

AbstractBased on an action research project, this paper provides innovative teaching approaches for ELT to ensure gender equality through critical pedagogy. The qualitative study focuses on the reconstruction of students' perceptions through the analysis of group/peer talk allowing for the display of changing viewpoints after having dealt with feminist issues in class. Given the still limited representation of multiple individuals not only in society but also in secondary ELT coursebooks, critical educational practices have been concerned with the transformation of exclusionary schooling practices for the purpose of ensuring a just and equal future. Critical language education has been known to promote students' autonomy and sense of responsibility when it comes to the abolition of oppression and marginalization. Likewise, feminist approaches have the goal of fostering feminist principles and ethics of gender equality. The study, conducted in a German secondary school, reveals that the majority of learners welcome an exploration of feminist matters in the ELT classroom, because they recognize the significant connection between language learning and the exploration of societal issues. The implementation of critical and feminist ethics helped students become aware of prevailing gender inequalities; and their willingness for societal transformation highlights a visible increase in learner autonomy.