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The purpose of this study is to review the evolution of drug use in South East Scotland over the period since 1980 and from the clinical experience and to consider the implications of early and evolving clinical practice and related policy on outcomes for individual cases. Also, this study derives conclusions about the success or failure of practice and policy on the medical and social outcomes for individuals, families and communities.

This paper is a mixed method review of cases in clinical practice and publications carried out over the time period. The authors have published extensively in clinical journals and public health publications and draw on these experiences to describe a series of scenarios and observations which are a unique combination in the more general global pandemic of HIV/AIDS and the evolution of a modern substance use environment.

Clinical practice in the community and in specialist services was unprepared for a rapidly rising number of people using injectable heroin. The introduction of the HIV agent into this community was also met with medical, social and criminal justice systems which had to react rapidly to a situation which, at the time, was seen as a threat to the whole population. So many unknowns required a national (and international) response. What has been learned from what is now seen as a historical disaster is considered in the current policy and political framework.

The events described energized the academic and research communities. To say that we now live in a different environment is an underestimate of the impact of HIV/AIDS and substance use on how we conduct research and the ethical framework which has evolved compared to earlier times. The need for involvement of lived experience and the independence of research from political or ideological control and influence is self-evident from the paper that is presented.

Interpretation of clinical experience needs to be an integral part of planning projects. Structural changes allow early implementation of projects which link frontline services with specialist care and academic institutions. Unfortunately, silos still exist, and in a time of economic restraint, cooperation is curtailed by lack of interdisciplinary working. Learning from the events described in this paper should be helpful for clinicians, policymakers and funding agencies.

The social implications are enormous and almost too wide ranging to encapsulate in a few words. Since the 1980s, patient management and relationships have changed beyond recognition. Social norms have seen a revolution in attitudes to sexuality, drugs and relationships. Political and management practice has had to adjust and modernize to accommodate these changes. Unfortunately, these changes have not always penetrated the disadvantaged communities, and the lessons from the past have to be revisited. Hopefully, this paper will draw attention to ongoing inequalities.

Although it is in some ways relating to events past, it is strangely contemporary in its message and the implications for policy and research communities. While dramatic improvements have been made, there are forces which still need to be overcome and warnings of the dangers of not learning from past mistakes should be highlighted. The recent COVID pandemic was a global shock which again suggested changes outlined in this paper from the HIV/AID pandemic (which is still a threat).

To elaborate the nature of fact-checking in the domain of political information by examining how fact-checkers assess the validity of claims concerning the Russo-Ukrainian conflict and how they support their assessments by drawing on evidence acquired from diverse sources of information.

Descriptive quantitative and qualitative content analysis of 128 reports written by the fact-checkers of Snopes – an established fact-checking organisation – during the period of 24 February 2022 – 28 June, 2023. For the analysis, nine evaluation grounds were identified, most of them inductively from the empirical material. It was examined how the fact-checkers employed such grounds while assessing the validity of claims and how the assessments were bolstered by evidence acquired from information sources such as newspapers.

Of the 128 reports, the share of assessments indicative of the invalidity of the claims was 54.7%, while the share of positive ratings was 26.7%. The share of mixed assessments was 15.6%. In the fact-checking, two evaluation grounds, that is, the correctness of information and verifiability of an event presented in a claim formed the basis for the assessment. Depending on the topic of the claim, grounds such as temporal and spatial compatibility, as well as comparison by similarity and difference occupied a central role. Most popular sources of information offering evidence for the assessments include statements of government representatives, videos and photographs shared in social media, newspapers and television programmes.

As the study concentrated on fact-checking dealing with political information about a specific issue, the findings cannot be extended to concern the fact-checking practices in other contexts.

The study is among the first to characterise how fact-checkers employ evaluation grounds of diverse kind while assessing the validity of political information.

Digital influencers, besides being a personal branding phenomenon, constitute, nowadays, important partners for brands in the digital environment. Despite the benefits for both parties, the brand and the endorser, there is a risk when the individuals or the brand take part in some scandal or questionable activity, which causes a loss of credibility and reputation. The contagious effect of personal or corporate brand crisis with the partners is well reported in the literature. However, there are no studies about such occurrence in the digital environment, considering that the phenomenon of digital influence has some particularities differing from traditional celebrity endorsement. This chapter focuses on the research of the consequences of a change in the credibility of influencers or brands, after the occurrence of a negative situation, and the way in which this change affects the two parties involved, the brand and the influencer. We conducted a netnographic study of the social media pages of three digital influencers and the social media pages of a recognized fast fashion brand recognized in the digital world. We analyzed 1500 social media comments from their audiences and found that influencers suffer from a loss in sympathy and credibility by scandals while crisis communication strategies in corporate brands can prevent such damages. Strategic implications for brand managers and digital influencers managing their endorsements are addressed in the discussion.

As a fairy tale is adapted to fit with current cultural discourses, drastic changes occur. One of these changes is the erasure of the old man. The wise old man, the doddering old fool, and many more tropes that older men fill have been altered. The eccentric Merlin and the mad Hatter have been replaced with younger versions in Merlin (2008–2012) and the Syfy miniseries Alice (2009). While the grandfather is technically found in Disney's Once Upon a Time in the form of Rumpelstiltskin, it is rarely discussed. In the Beauty and the Beast (2017), Maurice is no longer the town oddity as he goes from tinkering with odd inventions, to being a music box maker. His creativity and quirky idiosyncrasies have been erased.

This chapter delves into this disappearance of the older man in modern fairy tale adaptations, and the repercussions this has in the representation for the older man. Furthermore, this chapter seeks to show how toxic ageist notions in Hollywood have impacted the role of the old man as he is replaced with the stereotypical younger man, due to the increased objectification of men in film and the subsequent conformity to the ‘ideal masculine form’. This objectification can be seen through the slow ‘reinvigoration’ of the Mad Hatter from Disney's Alice in Wonderland (1951) to the Hatter in Syfy's Alice (2009), Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter, Tarrant Hightopp, in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010), and finally Sebastian Stan's Mad Hatter in Once Upon a Time (2011–2018).

Oppositional brand loyalty poses a challenge to the management of virtual communities. This study aims to categorize these loyalty behaviors into positive (willingness to pay a price premium and brand evangelism) and negative (schadenfreude and anti-brand actions) dimensions. It then explores how customer engagement and moral identity influence these dimensions in the context of brand competition.

Structural equation modeling was conducted to analyze the main and moderating effects, using survey data obtained from 498 valid responses out of a total of 636 responses from Xiaomi's virtual communities.

The results indicate that customer engagement significantly influences all four dimensions of oppositional brand loyalty. The relationship between customer engagement and brand evangelism is notably stronger among customers with a strong moral identity. Conversely, the effects of customer engagement on schadenfreude and anti-brand actions are attenuated for these customers.

Anchored in theories of brand tribalism, social identity and brand polarization, this study bifurcates oppositional brand loyalty into directions of preference and antagonism, empirically showcasing moral identity's moderating effect. It contributes to the literature on antagonistic loyalty and moral identity, offering strategic insights for companies to navigate schadenfreude and anti-brand actions in online communities.

The concept of ‘intelligence’ used to differ between human and machines, until the disruption of artificial intelligence (AI). The field of AI is advancing far more rapidly than the establishment of rules and regulations, which is causing certain fear. However, slowing down this progression to avoid economic crisis is not an option because of open-source AI, which facilitates faster development processes and collective contributions to codes and algorithms. Public policies, such as the ‘European Union AI Act (EU AI)’, ‘Whitehouse AI’, and the G7's ‘Hiroshima Artificial Intelligence Process’ (HAP), are already drafted. Regulators need to adopt a dynamic approach given AI's rapid advancement, and they need to eventually strive for international harmonisation in their rules and regulations for better collaborations. The EU's AI Act is the ‘world's first comprehensive law’ and it focuses on five main pillars similar to other countries drafts: ensuring AI usage is safe, transparent, traceable, non-discriminatory and environmentally friendly. They portray four risk categories against which citizens can file complaints: (1) Unacceptable risk (2) High risk (3) Generative AI (4) Limited risk. The US AI policies include ‘The Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights: Making Automated Systems Work for the American People’ and the ‘Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence’. This conceptual study extensively reviews the concept of AI and compares pioneering draft laws while providing recommendations on ethics and responsible AI. The contribution of this study is that it sheds light on the evolving evolution of AI and the challenges posed by the rapid advancement of AI technology, emphasising the necessity for flexible and adaptive regulatory frameworks. This is the first paper to explore AI from the academic and political perspective.