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Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) experience alarming HIV disparities alongside sub-optimal engagement in HIV interventions. Among MSM, stigma toward anal sexuality could interfere with engagement in HIV prevention, yet few studies have examined MSM perspectives on anal sex stigma or its health-related sequelae. Guided by theory, we aimed to characterize anal sex stigma, related sexual concerns, and barriers to health seeking, like concealment. We elicited community input by purposively interviewing 10 experts in MSM health and then 25 racially, ethnically, and geographically diverse cisgender MSM. Participants reported experienced, internalized, and anticipated forms of anal sex stigma that inhibited health seeking. Experienced stigma, including direct and observed experiences as well as the absence of sex education and information, contributed to internalized stigma and anticipation of future devaluation. This process produced psychological discomfort and concealment of health-related aspects of anal sexuality, even from potentially supportive sexual partners, social contacts, and health workers. Participants characterized stigma and discomfort with disclosure as normative, pervasive, and detrimental influences on health-seeking behavior both during sex and within healthcare interactions. Omission of information appears to be a particularly salient determinant of sexual behavior, inhibiting prevention of harm, like pain, and leading to adverse health outcomes. The development of measures of anal sex stigma and related sexual concerns, and testing their impact on comfort with disclosure, sexual practices, and engagement in health services could identify modifiable social pathways that contribute to health disparities among MSM, like those seen in the HIV epidemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two separate systems of law govern secrets. The first one concerns trade secrets: confidential business information that provides an enterprise with a competitive edge. The unauthorized use of a trade secret by persons other than the holder is regarded as an unfair practice and a violation of the trade secret. The second system protects personal secrets. This system is information privacy law. Information privacy law deals with the regulation, storing, and use of personal information of individuals. While both systems concern secrets, the laws that govern them comprise entirely different regimes, and have almost nothing in common. This Article aims to examine the different ways in which the law protects commercial and private secrets. The most fundamental difference is that the trade secrets regime forbids the unauthorized use of a business's confidential information, while privacy law does not forbid the unauthorized use of a person's confidential information. If a firm takes measures to protect information of value, the law forbids the use of this information. Yet, as to personal secrets, the mere fact that someone has taken measures to protect their privacy does not create an obligation to avoid misappropriation of their information. This asymmetry of protection is especially troubling when these two systems collide. For example, certain information can be subject to a trade secret of a company, while at the same time strongly 'belong' to an individual. Trade secret laws often prevent individuals from learning about uses that firms conduct with their own private information. This Article explores the extent to which the distinction between the two laws is justified, and analyzes whether the law of information privacy can be modified to resemble trade secrecy more closely. This exploration is particularly relevant under today's climate of commodification of private information, where both users and companies make transactional use of personal data on a regular basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the changing meaning and use of the word "transparent." It examines how the term has been co-opted in contemporary discourse, particularly in corporate and political settings, and argues that complete transparency is neither achievable nor desirable in human relationships and leadership and the balance of opacity and transparency, along with the preservation of personal boundaries and secrets, is essential for healthy interactions and a sense of individuality.

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Abstract Storing and communicating secret and/or private information has become part of our daily life whether it is for our employment or personal well-being. Therefore, secure storage and transmission of the secret information have received the undivided attention of many researchers. The techniques for hiding confidential data in inconspicuous digital media such as video, audio, and image are collectively termed as Steganography. Among various media types used, the popularity and availability of digital images are high and in this research work and hence, our focus is on implementing digital image steganography. The main challenge in designing a steganographic system is to maintain a fair trade-off between robustness, security, imperceptibility and higher bit embedding rate. This research article provides a thorough review of existing types of image steganography and the recent contributions in each category in multiple modalities. The article also provides a complete overview of image steganography including general operation, requirements, different aspects, different types and their performance evaluations. Different performance analysis measures for evaluating steganographic system are also discussed here. Moreover, we also discuss the strategy to select different cover media for different applications and a few state-of-the-art steganalysis systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this mixed methods study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 3–5-year-olds (n = 21) in a university-sponsored preschool programme and children completed a theory of mind (ToM) task. After grouping children into pass/no pass groups for the ToM tasks, analyses using interpretive phenomenology indicated that preschool children explain their understanding of secrets and secret hiding places differently, depending on their ToM ability. Children in the ‘pass' group had more detailed narratives, showed more imagination, and required less prompting in their discussions of secret hiding places, regardless of age. Those in the ‘no pass' group had more concrete examples of secret hiding places and relied more heavily on their drawings to explain those places. Implications for children's social competence are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This investigation examined the process by which people decide to disclose secrets. Two competing models tested the order that people consider outcome expectancies and efficacy assessments when making disclosure decisions. Participants (N = 349) answered questions about a currently held secret and related cognitions. Two months later, people indicated whether they disclosed the secret by that time. Communication efficacy and outcome expectancies predicted disclosure in both models, but coping efficacy only predicted disclosure when modeled exogenously to outcome expectancies. Model comparisons provided moderate support for the latter model as more preferable, suggesting that outcome expectancies may mediate the effect of communication and coping efficacy on the decision to disclose secrets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until recently in Japan, mental health issues have been carefully guarded as personal and family secrets. In 2014, however, the government passed a revision of the Labor Safety Hygiene Law and institutionalized "stress checks" for workers across the nation. This mental health screening was installed as a response to the high number of depressed and suicidal workers in a country plagued by recession since the 1990s. The screening was also prompted by a grassroots movement that helped establish state and corporate responsibility for protecting workers' mental health. These changes have initiated a web of corporate surveillance practices, pressuring workers to self-disclose, turning their psychology into a new object of rehabilitation and resilience training. At the same time, there are signs of the emergence of therapeutic spaces where psychiatrists and workers explore new forms of silence and ways of retaining a sense of a private, secret self, thereby enabling a "rebirth of secrets." By investigating the rise of depression as a workplace psychopathology and emerging forms of "care of the self," I ask what happens to people's subjectivities when their minds and bodies become the repository of valuable secrets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study has investigated the potential influence of Social and Emotional Loneliness and Self-Concealment on sensation seeking. Data were collected from a sample of 447 adolescents. In this research, Pearson correlation coefficient was utilized to determine the relationships between variables. Multiple regression analysis assessed the contributions of the social and emotional loneliness and self-concealment to sensation seeking in adolescents. Sensation seeking correlated with social and emotional loneliness, and self-concealment positively. Regression analysis showed that social and emotional loneliness and self-concealment were significant predictors of the sensation seeking. The significance and limitations of the results were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In HIV prevention and care programmes, disclosure of status by HIV-positive individuals is generally encouraged to contain the infection and provide adequate support to the person concerned. Lack of disclosure is generally framed as a barrier to preventive behaviours and accessing support. The assumption that disclosure is beneficial is also reflected in studies that aim to identify determinants of disclosure and recommend individual-level measures to promote disclosure. However, in contexts where HIV infection is stigmatised and there is fear of rejection and discrimination among those living with HIV, concealment of status becomes a way to try and regain as much as possible the life that was disrupted by the discovery of HIV infection. In this study of HIV-positive women and children in India, concealment was considered essential by individuals and families of those living with HIV to re-establish and maintain their normal lives in an environment where stigma and discrimination were prevalent. This paper describes why women and care givers of children felt the need to conceal HIV status, the various ways in which people tried to do so and the implications for treatment of people living with HIV. We found that while women were generally willing to disclose their status to their husband or partner, they were very keen to conceal their status from all others, including family members. Parents and carers with an HIV-positive child were not willing to disclose this status to the child or to others. Understanding the different rationales for concealment would help policy makers and programme managers to develop more appropriate care management strategies and train care providers to assist clients in accessing care and support without disrupting their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

An essay is presented on how a man confesses to his wife about the vandalism he committed in school after 54 years. Topics discussed by the author include the story told by her husband about the Catholic school he studies, her husband's experience in his sixth grade, and the return of her husband to the school to reminisce the things he done during his stay at the school.

When people discover their romantic partner is keeping a secret from them but allow their partner to believe the secret is still unknown (creating what Caughlin, Scott, Miller, and Hefner referred to as a putative secret), this can have negative implications for their relationship. This study examined how putative secrets influence conflict in romantic relationships over time and whether certain factors (including perceived reasons for the secrecy, use of deception, and relationship satisfaction) moderate this association. The sample consisted of 305 dating individuals. Participants reported on a current putative secret, a putative secret kept in the past, or no secret, and then completed 3-week online diary entries tracking their conflict. The results revealed that individuals who were currently managing a putative secret had higher levels of conflict and more changes in conflict in their relationship over time than individuals who experienced a putative secret in the past or no putative secrets at all. Although individuals' attributions for their partner's secret keeping were important, they often depended on relationship satisfaction and currency of the putative secret. Relationship satisfaction significantly moderated the association between putative secrets and conflict, such that individuals who reported current putative secrets and were more dissatisfied reported the most intense conflict and the greatest changes in conflict over time. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A literary criticism is presented for "The Age of Innocence" by Edith Wharton. Topics discussed include the secret love affair that is depicted in the novel, the ways in which the novel deals with the relationship between privacy and what is public, and the ways in which the novel represents the promise of America.

The topic of secrets will be expanded here to apply to complex secrets of the body, sex, and gender kept by both patients and analysts. Their detection is made harder by our field's current lack of interest in them compared to Freud's curiosity. We tend to ignore body narratives these days, with both men and women, keeping secret from ourselves daily challenges to theory that do indeed exist. Dora's case will be used to examine her own, her father's, and Freud's expectations of what constitutes a sexed and gendered portrait of grown-up males and females, and how they behave together. Contemporary embodied questions will emerge in discussion of Dora and her mother(s), the men in the story, and some male case vignettes. Ordinary secrets, hidden in broad daylight in both 1905 and in 2014, will be 'revealed.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using path analysis, we examined the mediating effect of personality traits on the relationship between self-concealment and subjective well-being. Participants were 291 undergraduates who completed the Chinese versions of the Self Concealment Scale, NEO Five-Factor Inventory, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, and General Well-Being Schedule. Our results showed that both self-concealment and neuroticism had negative effects on subjective well-being, while extraversion had a positive effect on subjective well-being. Self-concealment affected subjective well-being indirectly via personality traits. These findings suggest that self-concealment has both direct and indirect effects on subjective well-being, and that personality traits are directly associated with subjective well-being. This indicates that personality traits may mediate the association between self-concealment and subjective well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present studies are the first in which social psychological methods were used to test the popular claim that the experience of concealing a stigmatized social identity leads to a "divided self." For people with concealable stigmas, concealment in public settings makes the public-private dimension of self- expression particularly salient, leading them to organize self-relevant information along this dimension. The result is a strengthened cognitive distinction between public and private aspects of the self, what we have termed public-private schematization. We developed and tested a measure of the cognitive accessibility of the distinction between public and private seif-schemas by measuring how quickly participants sorted trait attributes into self-in-public (e.g., self-at-work) and self-in-private (e.g., self-at- home). People with more accessible distinct public and private self-schemas should be faster at categorizing trait attributes into public and private-self aspects than those with more integrated public and private self-schemas. Relative to people without such identities, people with concealable stigmas (Study Ia, sexual orientation; Study lb, religiosity at a secular college), show greater public-private schematization. This schematization is linked to concealment (Study 2) and to the experimental activation of concealable versus conspicuous stigmatized identities (Study 3). Implications of distinct public and private self-schemas for psychological well-being are explored in Studies 4 and 5. Two different measures of distress—perceived social stress (Study 4) and depressive symptoms (Study 5)—provided evidence showing that the accessibility of the distinction between public and private self-schemas accounted for the association of concealment on heightened distress. Implications for research on concealment and self-structure are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the treatment of trade secrets in the context of public corporations and private individuals and also offers a new way of thinking about corporate and personal secrets. According to the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, a trade secret is any confidential information that confers a competitive advantage and value to its holder by virtue of its secrecy. It discusses the concept of Executive Trade Secrets, a theoretical framework for unlocking the problems of executive disclosures.

Understanding self-concealment, the tendency to actively conceal distressing personal information from others, may be important in developing effective ways to help individuals with suicidal ideation. No published study has yet assessed the relation between self-concealment and suicidal behaviors. Additionally, most self-concealment research has been conducted solely with younger adults. The relation between self-concealment and depressive symptoms among older adults (age 65 and older), and between self-concealment and suicidal behaviors among both younger (college student) and older adults, was investigated in this study. As predicted, self-concealment was significantly related to suicidal behaviors in younger adults. Furthermore, self-concealment was significantly related to depressive symptoms in older adults. Interestingly, the association between self-concealment and suicidal behaviors in this age group was not significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a colloquium on journalism ethics regarding the action of political editor Laurie Oakes involving the secret affair of former Senator Cheryl Kernot with former Parliamentarian Gareth Evans. It states that colloquium was divided into five sub-topics including legitimacy of secrecy, motives for public domain, and portrayal of Kernot in media as high political woman in Australia. It adds the use of public interest of journalists to justify offending stories.

The article presents the patient sketches on the secret of a long life.