Advertisements play a key role in shaping perceptions of gender identity, which are influenced by biological traits and cultural beliefs. In India, practices like arranged marriages have historically defined gender roles, but younger generations are increasingly challenging these norms, especially through dating apps. This study examines how dating app advertisements address gender dynamics and societal challenges in India. By applying Barthes’ Semiotic theory, we analyzed a popular Bumble ad. The findings reveal how the ad promotes female agency, subverts gender norms, and portrays men as emotionally expressive. By blending modern technology with family values, the ad presents dating as empowering and respectful, challenging rigid societal norms. The study promotes inclusivity and shows how ads reshape gender narratives, and offers insights for creating socially responsible campaigns.

Ponzi schemes are financial frauds that are pervasive throughout the world. Since they cause serious harm to society, it is of interest to study them so that they can be prevented. Typically, a Ponzi scheme is instigated by a promoter who promises above-average investment returns. He uses funds from the early investors to pay his later investors. These scams can occasionally last a long time, but they are ultimately unsustainable. This paper describes some well-known Ponzi schemes and identifies their common characteristics. We also review some of the approaches used to model Ponzi schemes.

Visual-Language (VL) models offer potential for advancing Engineering Design (ED) by integrating text and visuals from technical documents. We review VL applications across ED phases, highlighting three key challenges: (i) understanding how functional and structural information is complementarily expressed by text and images, (ii) creating large-scale multimodal design datasets and (iii) improving VL models’ ability to represent ED knowledge. A dataset of 1.5 million text-image pairs and an evaluation dataset for cross-modal information retrieval were developed using patents. By Fine-tuning and testing the CLIP base model on these datasets, we identified significant limitations in VL models’ capacity to capture fine-grained technical details required for precision-driven ED tasks. Based on these findings, we propose future research directions to advance VL models for ED applications.

Worldbuilding is a concept that has been used to describe the creation of immersive landscapes in fiction and games and is deeply resonant with archaeological knowledge construction. This article argues for worldbuilding in archaeology as a creative intervention that encourages an exploration of archaeological data throughout the process of creation, interpretation and dissemination to generate past worlds, shaped through community storytelling. Through the examples of Çatalhöyük in Second Life, Other Eyes and the Avebury Papers projects, I explore a playful practice that closely interrogates reuse of archaeological data and encourages lateral thinking amongst students and other archaeological storytellers.

To support the transition towards a circular economy in hospitals, this qualitative study aimed at understanding how the adoption of reusable surgical gown can be facilitated. It investigates design features that enhance usability and promote sustained (re)use. A wearing test identified difficulties in wearing reusable gowns. Data collection included observations of 34 surgeries and a survey completed by 73 respondents. Thematic analysis revealed opportunities to improve usability, such as optimising packaging to speed up donning, a wider neck opening to reduce discomfort, and incorporating ‘tearable’ closures to simplify doffing. Innovation strategies relevant to the users involve thermal regulation, monitoring gown performance, and including reusable gowns in custom procedure tray packaging. These findings are discussed in relation to design adjustments and value-chain partners.

CAD tasks require engineering designers to manage cognitive, perceptual, and motor demands while solving complex design problems. Understanding the relationship between workload (WL) and CAD performance is essential for improving design outcomes and processes. However, this relationship, particularly under varying task complexities, remains insufficiently explored. This study investigates WL-performance relationships in two CAD modelling tasks of differing complexity. WL was measured with NASA TLX, including its individual components. CAD performance was evaluated and described through outcomes and processes using multiple metrics. The results revealed significant monotonic relationships between WL and performance, with stronger correlations in the high-complexity task.

After medical marijuana legalization (MML) by U.S. states, firms’ cost of equity (COE) decreases, especially for those with more growth opportunities, higher productivity, or a more skilled workforce. This policy change also reduces firm risk and leads to an increase in labor supply through increased labor force participation, employment, hours worked, and net migration. Further, home prices rise after MML, reflecting increased local housing demand due to a growing supply of workers. These findings align with theoretical models that link asset prices to labor markets and suggest that MML can lower firms’ COE by mitigating labor search frictions.

This article explores the underlying causes of vigilantism, moving beyond existing explanations to propose a novel perspective: state absenteeism. Drawing upon an original dataset collected at the subnational level in Guatemala, the study utilizes police station data as a proxy measure of state presence. This research article sheds light on the intricate dynamics driving vigilantism by analyzing the interplay between state actions, security provision, and the emergence of extralegal justice mechanisms. Empirical findings suggest that existing theories do not fully explain the surge in vigilantism, underscoring the importance of considering state provision of security at the subnational level. This theoretical and empirical contribution highlights the role of uneven state presence in shaping responses to insecurity and calls for more equitable and locally responsive security provision to address the root causes of extralegal justice.

This paper explores the employment implications of integrating service robots in waste management. Using the scenario technique method, 14 critical influencing factors were identified and analyzed to develop a Best-Case, Worst-Case, and Trend scenario. A SWOT analysis was used to identify implications and develop measures. The findings indicate that service robots can enhance working conditions and enable service expansion but pose risks like job displacement without proper education and reskilling. The study underscores the need for regulatory frameworks, workforce adaptation, and education to ensure socially sustainable robotic integration.

A design catalog is a repository of design problems and their solutions, enabling designers to explore and discover applicable solutions for their specific design challenges. Creating such catalogs has depended on human knowledge and implicit judgment, with no systematic approach established. This study aims to develop a systematic method to create a design catalog from patent documents. We utilize a large language model (LLM) to extract problem-solution pairs described in the documents, presenting them as general purpose-means pairs. Subsequently, we create a design catalog by classifying the problems using similarity-based clustering, enhanced by the LLM’s semantic text similarity capabilities. We demonstrate a case study of creating a design catalog for martial arts devices and generating new design concepts based on the catalog to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Extending the lifetime of products is one objective of a Circular Economy. The lifetime of a vehicle is limited not only by wear, but also by declining customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is related to the different types of quality. Components aim for different types of quality. That is why modularization is seen as a possible enabler to facilitate both durability and adaptability in the vehicle structure. Additionally, extending their lifetime integrates passenger vehicles into a Circular Economy. This paper aims to define classes of components to support the development of a modular structure for passenger vehicles that is suitable for a Circular Economy. It provides four classes based on the relevance of components to customer satisfaction and their expected lifetime. This enables the targeted development of R-strategies for components.

The EU AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) represents a significant departure from the EU’s traditionally restrained regulatory approach to commercial arbitration. The Act classifies certain use cases of AI in arbitration as potentially “high-risk” and introduces stringent compliance obligations for legal tech providers, arbitral institutions and arbitrators. This article argues that the Act’s application to arbitration disrupts the long-standing balance between party autonomy, procedural flexibility and regulatory oversight that has characterised the EU’s treatment of the field. It also highlights the challenges of reconciling its rigid framework with key aspects of arbitration – namely, party autonomy, confidentiality and procedural flexibility. The article concludes by proposing a full or partial carve-out of commercial arbitration from the scope of the AI Act’s high-risk provisions.

Organizational capability is key to achieving strategic goals and adaptability. This study applies the TASKS framework to evaluate taskload, affect, skills, knowledge, and stress using a questionnaire developed through the Environment-Based Design (EBD) methodology. A structured perception-centered evaluation was conducted to assess employees’ perceptions of organizational alignment, with middle managers’ responses serving as a reference. Findings emphasize the need for better communication, leadership engagement, and goal clarity to enhance transformation readiness. The TASKS framework’s perception-centered evaluation assesses organizational capability and identifies role-based misalignments. Future research will expand the framework’s application to validate its effectiveness and refine strategies for enhancing organizational capability.

In the context of volatile markets, characterised by a need for continuous product development involving module-wise product modifications, the importance of flexibility as an attribute of products and their production system has been increasing. This paper presents a methodological approach focusing on the flexibility evaluation of modules regarding their interfaces. The subject encourages engineers and researchers to analyse and rethink the interface design and the location of module boundaries regarding change propagation. The method was validated using the Design Method Validation System (DMVS) to determine its usefulness, applicability and acceptability. The design workshop for validation was applied to a product family of trunk lids by employees of a German car manufacturer.

Computer-aided design (CAD) has become essential for hardware product development in our industrial age. However, increasing complexity, shorter lead times, and cost pressures present new challenges. While generative AI has gained significant attention and transformed various business functions, its application in engineering design with CAD remains underdeveloped. Our research aims to explore why generative AI has not yet reached its potential in CAD, despite its prominence in other fields, by identifying key challenges through case studies and a literature review. These challenges include small datasets, difficulty representing mixed data types, proprietary file formats, and lack of advanced CAD modeling commands. We propose future developments such as high-quality datasets, a vendor-neutral format, novel neural network architectures, and expanded generative methods.

This study examines the integration of values into design methodologies, essential for guiding value-driven design processes. Values, spanning ethical, economic, and functional dimensions, influence decision-making and project outcomes. Through Principal Component Analysis (PCA), five clusters of design methodologies were identified, each addressing distinct aspects of value integration. Interviews with designers highlighted challenges in defining, formalizing, and adapting values due to their inherent subjectivity and volatility. This study, by adopting a values-centered perspective, enriches our understanding of design methodologies and paves the way for more informed methodological choices across various contexts.

Can observing opposing partisans engage in dialogue depolarize Americans at scale? Partisan animosity poses a challenge to democracy in the United States. Direct intergroup contact interventions have shown promise in reducing partisan polarization, but are costly, time-consuming, and sensitive to subtle changes in implementation. Vicarious intergroup contact—observing co-partisans engage with outparty members—offers a possible solution to the drawbacks of direct contact, and could potentially depolarize Americans quickly and at scale. We test this proposition using a pre-registered, placebo-controlled trial with a nationally representative sample of Americans. Using both attitudinal and behavioral measures, we find that a 50-minute documentary showing an intergroup contact workshop reduces polarization and increases interest but not investment in depolarization activities. While we find no evidence that the film mitigates anti-democratic attitudes, it does increase optimism about the survival of democratic institutions. Our findings suggest that vicarious intergroup contact delivered via mass media can be an effective, inexpensive, and scalable way to promote depolarization among Americans.

Various methods, such as LCA, LCC, or circularity indicators, are used to integrate sustainability into product development. However, these approaches often require extensive expertise in both processes and sustainability, which is not always available in combination. This paper introduces a framework based on the double diamond model, structured into (1) a preliminary assessment, (2) a collaborative workshop, and (3) a prioritization process. It aims to help engineers identify sustainability improvements without requiring prior expertise. A case study on an industrial digital printing system identified five opportunities for enhancing sustainability. Three measures were validated using LCA and the RPR metric. The study resulted in seven principles for sustainable printer design, with a lightweight door design, reduced number of rivets, and logistical improvements as key outcomes.

The ability to modify designs, personalize nutrition, and improve food sustainability makes 3D food printing (3DFP) an exciting emerging technology. Food materials’ complex chemistry and mechanics make it difficult to consistently print designs of different shapes. This research uses two methods to assess printed food fidelity: Manual and automated image analysis with custom-developed algorithm. Fidelity based on printed area was measured for three overhang designs (0°, 30°, and 60°) and three food ink mixtures. The manual method provided a baseline for analysis by comparing printed images with CAD images. Both methods showed consistent results with only ±3% differences in analyzing printed design areas. While the computational method offers advantages for efficiency and bias reduction, making it well-suited for fidelity assessment to assess designs.