ABSTRACT
Gender biases in fictional dialogue are well documented in many media. In film, television and books, female characters tend to talk less than male characters, talk to each other less than male characters talk to each other, and have a more limited range of things to say. Identifying these biases is an important step towards addressing them. However, there is a lack of solid data for video games, now one of the major mass media which has the ability to shape conceptions of gender and gender roles. We present the Video Game Dialogue Corpus, the first large-scale, consistently coded corpus of video game dialogue, which makes it possible for the first time to measure and monitor gender representation in video game dialogue. It demonstrates that there is half as much dialogue from female characters as from male characters. Some of this is due to a lack of female characters, but there are also biases in who female characters speak to, and what they say. We make suggestions for how game developers can avoid these biases to make more inclusive games.
ABSTRACT
Females are underrepresented in the science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (STEMM) disciplines globally and although progress has been made, the gender gap persists. Our aim was to explore gender parity in the context of gender representation and internal collaboration at the Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics (CING), a leading national biomedical organisation accredited as an equal opportunity employer. Towards this aim we (1) explored trends in gender parity within the different departments, positions and qualifications and in student representation in the CING's postgraduate school and, (2) investigated the degree of collaboration between male and female researchers within the Institute and the degree of influence within its co-authorship network. We recorded an over-representation of females both in the CING employees and the postgraduate students. The observed female over-representation in pooled CING employees was consistent with a similar over-representation in less senior positions and was contrasted with an observed male over-representation in only one middle rank and culminated in gender equality in the top rank in employee hierarchy. In terms of collaboration, both males and females tended to collaborate with each other without any significant preference to either inter-group or intra-group collaboration. Further comparison of the two groups with respect to their influence in the network in terms of occupying the positions of highest centrality scores, indicated that both gender and seniority level (head vs non-head) were significant in shaping the authors' influence, with no significant difference in those belonging in the same seniority level with respect to their gender. To conclude, our study has validated the formal recognition of the CING's policies and procedures pertinent to its egalitarian culture through the majority of the metrics of gender equality assessed in this study and has provided an extendable paradigm for evaluating gender parity in academic organizations.
Subject(s)
Academies and Institutes , Neurology , Authorship , Cyprus , Female , Humans , Male , MathematicsABSTRACT
The aim of this study was to determine the effect of image normalization on plaque classification and the risk of ipsilateral ischemic neurologic events in patients with asymptomatic carotid stenosis. The first 1,115 patients recruited to the Asymptomatic Carotid Stenosis and Risk of Stroke (ACSRS) study with a follow-up of 6 to 84 months (mean 37.1 months) were included in this study. Duplex ultrasonography was used for grading the degree of internal carotid artery stenosis and for plaque characterization (types 1-5), which was performed before and after image normalization. One hundred sixteen ipsilateral ischemic hemispheric events occurred. Image normalization resulted in 60% of plaques being reclassified. Before image normalization, a high event rate was associated with all types of plaque. After image normalization, 109 (94%) of the events occurred in patients with plaque types 1 to 3. For patients with European Carotid Stenosis Trial (ECST) 70 to 99% diameter stenosis (equivalent to North American Symptomatic Carotid Endarterectomy Trial [NASCET] 50-99%) with plaque types 1 to 3, the cumulative stroke rate was 14% at 7 years (2% per year), and for patients with plaque types 4 and 5, the cumulative stroke rate was 0.9% at 7 years (0.14% per year). The results suggest that asymptomatic patients with plaque types 4 and 5 classified as such after image normalization are at low risk irrespective of the degree of stenosis.
