Clearly, Nigeria is currently facing rising security challenges that include community conflicts, kidnapping, farmer–herder clashes, terrorism, banditry, ritual killings, and so on. One of the established institutions tasked with curbing such issues, managing conflicts among or between members of a community, and preserving the customs and traditions of the people through established laws and customs is the traditional rulership. This study assessed the role of traditional rulers in tackling security challenges, with a focus on Yewa North Local Government Area in Ogun State, Nigeria. The objectives of this study were to examine the role of traditional rulers in security management, evaluate their effectiveness in addressing security challenges, and identify the challenges they face in maintaining security. A descriptive survey research design was adopted, and a purposive sampling technique was used to select 400 respondents. Data was collected through a structured questionnaire and analysed using descriptive statistics. Findings revealed that traditional rulers play significant roles in intelligence gathering, conflict resolution, community policing, and mediation in security matters. However, their efforts are constrained by a lack of constitutional recognition, inadequate resources, political interference, and poor collaboration with formal security agencies. The study concludes that traditional rulers remain vital actors in grassroots security governance. It recommends that the government should formally integrate them into the national security framework, provide adequate resources for community-based security initiatives, and enhance collaboration with security agencies to improve effectiveness.

Background: Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) causes severe central vision loss in adults >55 without direct ocular pain, but impairs autonomy and quality of life. In long-term care, AMD disproportionately burdens women due to longevity, biological/hormonal, and sociocultural factors, worsening access to care/rehabilitation and amplified multimorbidity (musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, and frailty), falls, dependence, isolation, and caregiver load—all driving secondary chronic pain (physical from immobility/falls; psychosocial/emotional from autonomy loss). Objective: We examined gender patterns in perceived health and functional domains among 314 institutionalized AMD residents (EDAD 2023, INE, Spain), highlighting non-visual limitations as key drivers of secondary pain, with greater female impact. Methods: Secondary analysis of sociodemographics and functional subscales was conducted (high reliability, Cronbach’s α >0.88). Bivariate Pearson correlations (p<0.01) linked difficulties (with/without assistance) to ordinal perceived health. Results: Women predominated (79.3%, n=249), and were older (88.56 ± 8.14 vs. 85.51 ± 13.39 years), with higher severe disability and poorer health perceptions. Strongest correlations were found with negative health: mobility (assisted while walking outside r=0.336*), self-care (assisted eating r=0.376*), and communication/learning (assisted understanding r=0.406*). Visual items were weaker (reading r=0.228*), mitigated by aids, indicating that pain from functional/multimorbid consequences disproportionately affects women. Conclusions: Institutionalized women with AMD face amplified vulnerabilities, poorer health, and higher secondary chronic pain risk from mobility/self-care deficits and multimorbidity. Prioritizing gender-sensitive holistic pain assessment, non-visual interventions, equitable rehabilitation, caregiver VR empathy training, and psychosocial support can reduce the burden in this female-majority group. Future gender-stratified models for personalized care are needed.

Introduction: Crime investigation and detection have been age-long practices in society. African communities have enriching strategic intelligence in crime management rooted in their indigenous knowledge system. This traditional method of crime apprehension was prevalent in the pre-colonial era. The efficacy of this method finds its root in African religious systems. With the colonial administration came orthodox security agencies and measures. Thus, in this modern era, the prevailing usage of orthodox security measures deeply rooted in Western security intelligence has not been able to eradicate crime in the society. Nigeria is rated as one of the most unsafecountries in the globe. This raises the question of the efficacy of modern or orthodox security measures in apprehending or combating criminal activities in this country. Against this background, this study explores the relevance of engaging ASSI and OSM in mitigating criminal activities in Nigeria.

Methods: Purposive sampling was employed in selecting participants, including African custodians of indigenous knowledge, popularly called babalawos in southwest Nigeria, and selected members of the Nigeria Police Force, using the methods of in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Thematic data analysis was used to analyse the data from the interviews and focus group discussions.

Results: The findings of this study reveal that the unique characteristics of criminal activities in Nigeria require both methods, as each proved inadequate without the other. It was also revealed that these criminals evade modern security detection by using traditional fortification mechanisms.

Conclusion: The study concludes that for effective and successful crime investigation and criminal apprehension, there is a need for a blend of both ASSI and orthodox methods.

Over the past few decades, there has been a massive expansion of the internet across both developed and developing economies. Despite a growing body of research exploring its effect on firm performance, much less is known about its impact on educational outcomes. This paper examines the impact of 3G mobile broadband coverage on basic literacy among Nigerian children aged 5-12 years, as measured by a binary indicator of the ability to read and write. The analysis draws on a geographically matched mobile network coverage map and three waves of panel data from the Nigerian General Household Survey, conducted in 2010–11, 2012–13, and 2015–16. Exploiting the quasi-experimental variation generated by the staggered rollout of 3G infrastructure, this study employs the Callaway and Sant’Anna (2021) difference-in-differences estimator, which accounts for treatment effect heterogeneity across time and units. We found a robust and statistically significant positive association between mobile broadband coverage and literacy attainment among primary-school-aged children. The effects are particularly pronounced among boys, children from economically disadvantaged households, and those who were younger and enrolled in school at baseline. Our findings provide suggestive evidence that the impacts operate directly through enhanced parental aspirations and indirectly through an increase in household income. Overall, this study highlights the essential role of digital technologies in promoting educational equity.

Keywords: Literacy, mobile broadband, Nigeria

Introduction. Helping professions are often assumed to provide greater exposure to workplace technology and fewer barriers to reliable internet access because many such roles involve routine use of computers, electronic records, and online platforms. Yet digital inequality research suggests that internet access is shaped not only by adoption but also by context, autonomy, and the continuity of use across settings. This study examined whether adults in helping professions were more likely to have broader internet access contexts in midlife and later life. Methodology. Data were drawn from the 2023-2025 Current Population Survey (CPS) Internet Use Supplement, a nationally representative federal household survey in the U.S., and focused on adults aged 50 and older (N = 14,507). Internet access was classified into three categories: access limited to home, access across home and outside settings, and access limited to outside settings. Helping profession status was recoded from CPS occupation codes using occupational groupings informed by O*NET, a U.S. occupational information system, including healthcare, education, community and social services, and related helping roles. Results. Survey-weighted multinomial logistic regression models were estimated, adjusting for age, sex, education, and race/ethnicity, with outside-only access as the reference group. Contrary to expectation, helping profession status was not significantly associated with either access limited to home (RRR = 0.88, 95% CI [0.69, 1.12], p = .302) or access across home and outside settings (RRR = 0.93, 95% CI [0.75, 1.14], p = .474). In contrast, educational attainment was more strongly associated with access patterns. Conclusion. These findings suggest that occupational identity alone may be a weak indicator of digital continuity in midlife and later life. Technology-dependent services should assess actual access conditions rather than infer digital readiness from the profession.

Introduction: Seasonal migrant labour sustains much of Southern European agriculture, yet harvest campaigns often depend on severe housing exclusion. In DOCa Rioja (Spain), the 2024 grape harvest exposed the intersection of homelessness, irregular status and criminal labour exploitation. This study analyses "Operation Espasmo" (Villamediana de Iregua, October 2024) to examine how coercive accommodation arrangements can enable exploitation in seasonal labour markets.

Methods: We conducted a qualitative case study combining the documentary analysis of publicly available sources (official communications regarding the police operation, third-sector materials and press reporting) with three informal first-hand testimonies collected from Villamediana residents to contextualise local patterns of overcrowded housing during harvest seasons. The analysis is framed by the FEANTSA/ETHOS typology of housing exclusion and by Loic Wacquant's account of the punitive management of poverty, focusing on how legal vulnerability and residential insecurity increase dependence and reduce effective access to protection mechanisms.

Results: The operation uncovered around 60 male workers (at least 15 in an irregular administrative situation) living in an illegally occupied property lacking basic habitability conditions. Housing functioned as a control device: workers reportedly paid EUR 120-140 per month for mattress space and additional charges (e.g., transport to vineyards) while working long days and facing wage deductions by intermediaries. The case also involved intimidation and severe violence, including the reported assault and running over of a worker who resisted a pay cut.

Conclusions: The Villamediana case suggests that homelessness in seasonal agriculture is not merely incidental but can become functional to exploitation. Prevention requires complementing reactive raids with coordinated labour inspection, enforceable accommodation standards and rights-based protection for workers regardless of administrative status.

The accelerating integration of artificial intelligence into military, economic, and strategic decision-making is transforming the foundations of power in international politics. This paper develops the concept of algorithmic power to explain how AI-driven capabilities reshape strategic autonomy and regional security dynamics. Focusing on the Eastern Mediterranean as an emerging arena of geopolitical competition, the study examines how states increasingly rely on algorithmic systems—from intelligence analysis and surveillance to autonomous platforms and data-driven decision architectures—to enhance strategic leverage and influence regional balances of power.

The paper argues that algorithmic power constitutes a new layer of geopolitical competition that intersects with traditional military balances while simultaneously reshaping deterrence, escalation management, and alliance politics. As technological capabilities expand, states increasingly seek to integrate artificial intelligence into national security strategies in order to improve situational awareness, predictive analysis, and strategic planning. Through strategic analysis and open-source intelligence assessment, the research explores how AI-enabled capabilities influence regional power relations and the evolving structure of international security governance.

The findings suggest that algorithmic power is emerging as a critical determinant of strategic autonomy and regional stability. The study highlights how technological competition is likely to redefine strategic interaction, alliance dynamics, and the broader architecture of contemporary international order.

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, such as ChatGPT, in education has the potential to support students’ understanding of complex subjects, such as physics. However, empirical evidence regarding how the quality of AI-generated explanations influences students’ learning confidence remains limited. This study investigates whether the quality of explanations generated by ChatGPT predicts students’ confidence in learning physics among high school students. A total of 167 high school students in Indonesia participated in the study. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire that measured students’ perceptions of ChatGPT's explanation quality and their confidence in learning physics. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression. The results indicated that female students rated ChatGPT’s explanations more positively than male students. Regression analysis revealed that explanation quality dimensions related to understanding basic principles and accurate application of physics concepts were significant predictors of students’ confidence in physics learning, particularly in relation to exam readiness. These findings indicate that certain dimensions of ChatGPT explanation quality, particularly those related to conceptual clarity and accurate application of physics concepts, are associated with higher levels of students’ perceived confidence in learning physics. The study contributes to the emerging literature on artificial intelligence in science education by identifying specific dimensions of AI-generated explanation quality that are associated with students’ perceived confidence in learning physics.

Studies on informality—often defined as the art of bypassing the state—tend to emphasize non-state actors and their survival strategies. Informal and illegitimate activities carried out by the state apparatus are often overlooked. This study shifts the analytical focus to the circuit of social actors and the moral system that enables or constrains informality. Drawing on a case of levy collections in a traditional market in Magelang City, Indonesia, this paper documents the changes of informal behavior from levy collectors (street-level bureaucrats) and small-scale merchants (citizens) following the introduction of a new levy collection system integrating a digitalization and financial service system named e-retribusi. Prior to e-retribusi, the local government implemented a manual ticketing system, where small-scale merchants were required to pay the levy in cash to levy collectors, creating an opportunity for petty corruption. After the introduction of e-retribusi, the city bureaucracy and the local bank developed an incentive-based model that redefines the levy collectors. Now serving as intermediaries, these street-level bureaucrats receive legitimate financial incentives from the local bank, replacing illicit income from the manual ticketing system. This ethnographic study has revealed that the role of digital governance and financial services can transform illegal practices from the street-level bureaucrats. The finding contributes to the debates on informal governance by exploring how digital technologies and financial systems reshape the behavior of social actors, constrain informality, and help eradicate corruption in the public sector.

This article examines how the rejection of established scientific knowledge on vaccination by public policy actors in Slovakia contributed to broader societal, public health, and economic consequences during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis is situated at the intersection of scholarship on vaccine hesitancy, science denial, populist communication, and the mainstreaming of extremist narratives. Within this framework, science denial is understood as a political and discursive process through which empirically validated claims concerning vaccine safety, effectiveness, and risk–benefit balance are contested and delegitimized in the public sphere.

Methodologically, this study employs a qualitative case study of Slovakia based on the systematic analysis of publicly available and verifiable sources, including the international academic literature on vaccine hesitancy, Slovak survey-based research on public attitudes and institutional trust, epidemiological evidence, official policy documents, and analyses of the economic costs associated with low vaccination uptake. This multi-source approach enables the examination of linkages between political communication, institutional distrust, and vaccination-related outcomes.

The findings suggest that vaccine hesitancy in Slovakia is shaped less by educational attainment than by political distrust, low institutional confidence, and susceptibility to conspiratorial narratives. A key mechanism identified is the mainstreaming of antivaccine discourse, whereby narratives initially associated with extremist and conspiracy-oriented actors gradually gained legitimacy within broader populist politics and, at times, informed policy signals. These dynamics contributed to the erosion of trust in scientific and public institutions, intensified social polarization, adverse health outcomes linked to persistently low vaccine uptake, and rising economic burdens.

Theoretically, this study contributes to the existing literature by conceptualizing vaccine hesitancy as a politically mediated and institutionally reinforced process. Practically, it underscores the importance of evidence-based health governance, stronger political accountability, and coordinated state-level strategies to counter health misinformation and rebuild public trust.