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Guest editorial: Beyond tech gimmicks: omni-digital touchpoints for products and brands
No full textDigital technologies have evolved remarkably in recent years. They have expanded in number, scope and capabilities, thereby providing an extensive array of tools for brands in the swiftly transforming digital marketplace. For example, artificial intelligence (AI) technology plays an increasingly critical role in the digital marketplace by enabling personalized customer experiences, optimizing marketing strategies and automating interactions across multiple digital touchpoints to ensure consistency and efficiency. From extended reality applications like virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to wearable technology, the realm of fully digital solutions presents substantial potential for brands.
However, many marketers still perceive these technologies as mere “gimmicks” designed to attract attention or capitalize on novelty. This perspective overlooks the opportunity to integrate these technologies into a comprehensive omni-digital customer journey for products and brands. Instead of treating digital technologies as isolated tools with limited value, an omni-digital approach would seamlessly connect various digital touchpoints, enhancing the customer journey in meaningful and engaging ways and ultimately enhancing the value of products and brands
Prioritization of Research on Drought Assessment in a Changing Climate
Get PDFDrought is a period of abnormally dry weather that leads to hydrological imbalance. Drought assessments determine the characteristics, severity, and impacts of a drought. Climate change adds conceptual and quantitative challenges to traditional drought assessments. This paper highlights the challenges of assessing drought in a climate made non-stationary by human activities or natural variability. To address these challenges, we then identify 10 key research priorities for advancing drought science and improving assessments in a changing climate. The priorities focus on improving drought indicators to account for non-stationarity, evaluating drought impacts and their trends, addressing regional differences in non-stationarity, determining the physical drivers of drought and how they are changing, capturing precipitation variability, and understanding the drivers of aridification. Ultimately, improved drought assessments will inform better risk management, adaptation strategies, and planning, especially in areas where climate change significantly alters drought dynamics. This perspective offers a path toward more accurate and effective drought management in a non-stationary climate system
Minority stress and structural stigma predict well-being in European LGBTQ+ parents
No full textObjective: This study tested whether exposure to minority stress and structural stigma across multiple levels of the family system were associated with two indicators of well-being (life satisfaction, depressive symptoms) in LGBTQ+ parents across 19 European countries. Background: Minority stress (i.e., identity-based stress resulting from systemic oppression) and structural stigma (i.e., hostile legal environments, prejudicial social attitudes) are heterogeneous, yet well-documented risk factors of reduced well-being within LGBTQ+ populations. However, a comprehensive assessment stratifying both concepts across multiple levels of the family system (i.e., the individual, couple, and family level) is lacking for LGBTQ+ parents. Method: Using data from the EU LGBTI Survey 2019, a sample of 3808 LGBTQ+ parents from 19 European countries was analyzed. Associations between self-reported minority stress indicators, objective structural stigma indicators, sociodemographic predictors, and well-being were tested using non-linear, machine learning-based techniques (gradient boosted decision tree models). Results: Supporting preregistered hypotheses, exposure to individual-level minority stress and individual- and family-level structural stigma predicted life satisfaction and depressive symptoms. Couple-level minority stress predicted life satisfaction, but not depressive symptoms, and family-level minority stress predicted neither. Trans parents and those facing economic burdens were particularly vulnerable to low well-being. Conclusions: Exposure to minority stress and structural stigma, particularly within highly stigmatizing regions, are risk factors for LGBTQ+ parents\u27 well-being. Future research should examine the role of family-level minority stress using validated measures
Two coacting shadow enhancers regulate twin of eyeless expression during early Drosophila development
Get PDFThe Drosophila PAX6 homolog twin of eyeless (toy) sits at the pinnacle of the genetic pathway controlling eye development, the retinal determination network. Expression of toy in the embryo is first detectable at cellular blastoderm stage 5 in an anterior–dorsal band in the presumptive procephalic neuroectoderm, which gives rise to the primordia of the visual system and brain. Although several maternal and gap transcription factors that generate positional information in the embryo have been implicated in controlling toy, the regulation of toy expression in the early embryo is currently not well characterized. In this study, we adopt an integrated experimental approach utilizing bioinformatics, molecular genetic testing of putative enhancers in transgenic reporter gene assays and quantitative analysis of expression patterns in the early embryo, to identify 2 novel coacting enhancers at the toy gene. In addition, we apply mathematical modeling to dissect the regulatory landscape for toy. We demonstrate that relatively simple thermodynamic-based models, incorporating only 5 TF binding sites, can accurately predict gene expression from the 2 coacting enhancers and that the HUNCHBACK TF plays a critical regulatory role through a dual-modality function as an activator and repressor. Our analysis also reveals that the molecular architecture of the 2 enhancers is very different, indicating that the underlying regulatory logic they employ is distinct
“Es por ellos que estoy aquí”: Exploring Cultural Stress Coping in Latina Immigrant Mothers
No full textLatinx immigrant families in the United States face significant challenges and health disparities, encountering various stressors throughout the immigration process. These stressors, collectively termed “cultural stress,” profoundly affect the psychosocial, mental, and physical health of Latinx families. Latina immigrant mothers, in particular, bear a disproportionate burden of these effects, navigating challenges at the intersection of immigration, cultural values, gender roles, and motherhood. Nevertheless, the complex experience of cultural stress among Latina women, especially mothers, remains underexplored, leading to inconsistent findings in the existing literature. Drawing on cultural stress theory, this qualitative interview study utilized reflexive thematic analysis to explore how 15 Latina immigrant mothers cope with cultural stress and how their roles as mothers and cultural values shape these coping strategies. In the semistructured interviews, we asked participants about their experiences coping with cultural stress, their reflections on the influence of their relationship with their children in this process, and their views about factors that impact their bonds with their children. We noted three prominent themes: (a) Coping with the Negative Context of Reception: “Por mis hijos” Mindset, (b) Coping with Discrimination: Trying to Protect, and (c) Coping with Acculturation: Fostering Connection. Our findings discuss the nuanced interplay between interdependent motivations, motherhood, socioeconomic status, race, and cultural values in shaping cultural stress coping strategies. We discuss implications for theory, practice, social justice, and policy, aiming to enhance our ability to support Latinx immigrant families in the United States. © 2025 American Psychological Associatio
Mutware’s Story: (Re)centreing Humanism via Multispecies Storytelling in Post-Genocide Rwanda
No full textSince the precolonial era, the practice of oral storytelling has greatly shaped Rwandan society. Ranging in style, form, and content, stories, particularly elite-driven ones, have served as a means to record and pass down histories, memorialize particular figures and events, and widely disseminate collective values, sentiments and/or ideals. This continues to be apparent in post-genocide Rwanda. As scholarship has widely shown, Rwanda’s post-genocide government has actively constructed and imposed a singular hegemonic narrative that promotes a selective memory of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsis. Yet, as with all stories, the power of this narrative is neither total nor stable. Instead, other vernacular forms of remembering and narrating the past exist alongside of and in contention to “official” ones. As such, in order to more comprehensively understand Rwanda’s post-genocide society, we must turn to these more illegible but still influential stories and practices of storytelling. This article seeks to do so with a multispecies story–Mutware’s story. Detailing the life of Rwanda’s infamous elephant, the story describes Mutware’s experiences with genocidal violence, familial separation, trauma, and, eventually, imperfect recovery. The following argues that Mutware’s story serves as a vehicle of vernacular remembering that complicates Rwanda’s hegemonic narrative of the 1994 Genocide. By situating the more-than-human other as a social actor within human relationality, Mutware’s story obscures notions of collective memory/identity, alternatively centreing relationality in Rwanda’s post-genocide processes of reconciliation and recovery. Drawing on African humanism and multispecies ethnography, I will argue that constructing, relating, and sharing the story of Mutware not only challenges Rwanda’s hegemonic narrative, but highlights and even helps realize a more inclusive, holistic, and productive journey towards post-genocide societal healing. © 2025 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
Best Practices for Applying and Interpreting the Total Operating Characteristic
Get PDFThe Total Operating Characteristic (TOC) is an improvement on the quantitative method called the Relative Operating Characteristic (ROC), both of which plot the association between a binary variable and a rank variable. TOC curves reveal the sizes of the four entries in the confusion matrix at each threshold, which make TOC curves more easily interpretable than ROC curves. The TOC has become popular, especially to assess the fit of simulation models to predict land change. However, the literature has shown variation in how authors apply and interpret the TOC, creating some misleading conclusions. Our manuscript lists best practices when applying and interpreting the TOC to help scientists learn from TOC curves. An example illustrates these practices by applying the TOC to measure the ability to predict the gain of crop in Western Bahia, Brazil. The application compares four ways to design the rank variable based on the distance to either pixels or patches of either the presence or change of crop. The results show that the gain of crop during the validation time interval is more strongly associated with the distance to patches rather than pixels of crop. The Discussion Section reveals that if authors show the TOC curves, then readers can interpret the results in ways that the authors might have missed. The Conclusion encourages scientists to follow best practices to learn the wealth of information that the TOC reveals. © 2025 by the authors
Critical Teacher Agency through Relational Pivots: Insights from Latina Mothers
No full textThrough the perspectives of 22 Latina mothers with young children, this article illustrates how teachers can enact critical teacher agency in times of heightened political and social uncertainty. The article conceptualizes agency as a social practice, and links critical teacher agency to pivots or small shifts. Findings from focus group data suggest that Latina mothers value teacher agency in small, relational practices (between teacher and parent, teacher and student, and student and student), informed by their cultural model that emphasizes teaching and learning as social and relational. While the data come from Latina mothers with young children, the insights about critical teacher agency are relevant to K-12 teachers and teacher educators. © 2025, University of North Carolina at Greensboro. All rights reserved
Three people pose with their Athletic Awards trophies, circa 1982
No full textHughes trophy winner Catherine Desrosiers and Hebert Trophy winner Paul Saltzman with Cougar extraordinaire Joe Taylor at the Clark University Athletic Awards Banquet, 1982.
All photographs in this collection were digitized between 2022 and 2023.
The photographs in this collection are part of the Photographs and Media record group of Clark University’s Archives & Special Collections.https://commons.clarku.edu/athawardphotos/1000/thumbnail.jp
Baseball team group photo [2], circa 1980s
No full textA Clark University baseball team group photo, circa 1980s.
All photographs in this collection were digitized between 2022 and 2023. The photographs in this collection are part of the Photographs and Media record group of Clark University’s Archives & Special Collections.https://commons.clarku.edu/baseball/1036/thumbnail.jp