ABSTRACT
Violence and discrimination against women are serious problems that affect today's society regardless of culture or social environment. Educational and government programs addressing these gender issues are difficult to scale up, insufficient or, in some cases, nonexistent. Digital resources can contribute to address discrimination against women and different technological initiatives are being carried out around the world. Videogames and digital resources have proven their effectiveness as tools to educate, prevent and raise awareness about social problems. This article presents a systematic literature review of digital resources such as videogames, apps and simulations that address gender issues including violence and stereotypes. Throughout the review, we analyze multiple characteristics of the resources found (development tools, platforms, location, target audience) to classify the studies found. The main goal of this review is to present the status of gender-focused digital resources, their evaluation studies, including the metrics used and samples, as well as the acceptance and impact of their application. Most of the studies reviewed aimed to raise awareness about gender-based violence using serious games targeted at teenagers. For the resources evaluated, pre-post questionnaires were commonly used. However, many of the projects reviewed did not have evaluation studies or the resources were not openly available, thus limiting their massive application and their potential impact on society. We consider that our results provide a starting point to better understand the role of digital resources in raising awareness about gender issues, highlighting their current limitations, and providing recommendations for future research in gender-based digital resources.
ABSTRACT
In this paper we discuss, with a new analysis of published data, the phylogenetic hypothesis of two genotypes of Taenia solium previously suggested. Sequences of mitochondrial (co1, cob, nad) and nuclear (18S+ITS1+5.8S, LMWA1 and LMWA2) T. solium DNA from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania deposited in GenBank international databases were analyzed for diversity and genetic structure. Overall, we found that percentages of polymorphic and informative sites were comparatively less in mitochondrial genes, and minimum or null values of nucleotide diversity and nucleotide polymorphism were also observed. Analysis of co1 populations showed two associations of particular interest: Asia/Latin America and Africa/Latin America; with minimal differentiation between them and a constant genetic flow. Bayesian phylogenetic trees built with the available sequences for co1+cob showed two clusters, one for Asia and another one for Africa/Latin America while with ribosomal sequences only one cluster was obtained that grouped Asian and Latin American populations. The haplotype network tree built using co1+cob showed two major clades, one clustering African and Latin American parasite populations and the other grouping Asian populations, hallmarking Mexican/Peruvian and the Indian populations as dispersion centers, respectively. The haplotype network tree built with ribosomal sequences exhibited Philippines and Peru/Mexico/Colombia as the two major dispersion centers, with several Latin American haplotypes diverging from the latter. Our results suggest that the gene flow within the different T. solium populations has the same dispersion pattern than the main maritime trade routes used between the XV and XIX centuries.
