Search results
1 – 10 of 112Helen Sharpe, Peter Musiat, Olivia Knapton and Ulrike Schmidt
Pro‐eating disorder websites are online communities of individuals who do not consider eating disorders to be serious mental illnesses requiring treatment. People visit these…
Abstract
Purpose
Pro‐eating disorder websites are online communities of individuals who do not consider eating disorders to be serious mental illnesses requiring treatment. People visit these websites to meet other like‐minded individuals, to share tips and tricks on how to lose weight and how to otherwise maintain the symptomatology of the disorder. This paper aims to review what is actually known about the risks associated with visiting these websites and provides recommendations for dealing with pro‐eating disorder material.
Design/methodology/approach
Relevant peer‐reviewed papers were located by means of searching three online journal databases (SCOPUS, PubMed, Web of Knowledge), and through carrying out reference checking. Key words for the search were: pro‐anorexia, pro‐ana, pro‐bulimia, pro‐mia and pro‐eating disorders.
Findings
Pro eating disorder websites are common and visited by a significant proportion of patients with eating disorders and non‐patients. The sites may be perceived beneficial, as they provide support and a sense of community. Although there is evidence for the harmfulness of pro‐eating disorder content on the internet, there is no clear indication that such sites promote the development or maintenance of eating disorders. Therefore, banning pro eating disorder websites seems inappropriate and unpractical, but measures for web‐hosting companies should be in place allowing them to remove such content. Instead, bodies creating alternative websites for young people should be supported. Clinicians and parents should be made aware of the existence of pro eating disorder websites and how to deal with them.
Originality/value
This paper provides an overview of the research in this field and discusses possible ways in which health professionals and the general public may respond to the existence of these web sites.
Details
Keywords
Anwar ul Haq, George Magoulas, Arshad Jamal, Asim Majeed and Diane Sloan
E-learning environments and services (ELES) adoption and success rates challenge ELES designers, practitioners and organisations. Enterprise decision makers continue to seek…
Abstract
Purpose
E-learning environments and services (ELES) adoption and success rates challenge ELES designers, practitioners and organisations. Enterprise decision makers continue to seek effective instruments in launching such systems. The purpose of this paper is to understand users’ perceptions of ELES effectiveness and develop a theoretical framework which improves understanding of success factors for adoption.
Design/methodology/approach
Grounded theory method is used to reflect on the relationships between changing users’ requirements and expectations, technological advances and ELES effectiveness models. A longitudinal study collecting data from social media blogs over four years was authenticated based on the context evaluation, language structure and conversational constructs.
Findings
Identification of a new core dimension named “Concept Functionality” which can be used to understand the relationships between e-learning effectiveness factors including the relationships with other domains such as security. The findings are also used to validate major existing models for the success of ELES.
Practical implications
The new framework potentially improves system design process in the fields of education technology, enterprise systems, etc.
Originality/value
Concept functionality dimension can offer more insights to understand ELES effectiveness and further improve system design process in a variety of domains including enterprise systems, process modelling and education technology.
Details
Keywords
Helen Xu, Eric C. Lin and John W. Kensinger
The issue of risk premium in commodity futures market has long been examined since Keynes’ (1930) normal backwardation hypothesis. We further examine the normal backwardation…
Abstract
The issue of risk premium in commodity futures market has long been examined since Keynes’ (1930) normal backwardation hypothesis. We further examine the normal backwardation hypothesis in the gold futures market, using a Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI) approach. We find no evidence that risk premium exists in the gold futures market over the period 1980–2005. Finally, we provide further explanations as to why there is no risk premium in the gold futures market by investigating the actual gold futures positions taken by gold mining firms. We contend that lack of hedging activity by gold miners may explain the lack of risk premium in gold market.
This study presents evidence of a statistically significant negative correlation between crude oil and equities over the past 20 years. Including proper proportions of negatively…
Abstract
This study presents evidence of a statistically significant negative correlation between crude oil and equities over the past 20 years. Including proper proportions of negatively correlated assets in a diversified portfolio can improve the ratio of reward relative to risk, and therefore, adding crude oil with equities into a diversified portfolio can provide superior portfolio performance, compared with equities alone. Because crude oil prices held stable for nearly a century before the oil crisis of 1973, and oil derivatives did not begin trading actively on public markets until the 1980s, the diversification value of oil is a relatively new phenomenon. Also contributing to the phenomenon, the majority of oil reserves and the majority of crude oil production capacity worldwide are held by entities that are not traded in public equity markets, and therefore, the diversification benefits of oil cannot be fully realized by holding a portion of the global market portfolio of equities.
Reproduces the three winning entries in the Scottish schools essaycompetition. Entrants were asked to choose a character from a book andto write about what that character means to…
Abstract
Reproduces the three winning entries in the Scottish schools essay competition. Entrants were asked to choose a character from a book and to write about what that character means to them.
Details
Keywords
Andrew C. Worthington and Helen Higgs
The purpose of this paper is to examine the investment characteristics of works by leading Australian artists.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the investment characteristics of works by leading Australian artists.
Design/methodology/approach
About 35,805 paintings by 45 leading Australian artists sold at auction are used to construct individual hedonic price indices. The attributes included in each artist's hedonic regression model include the size and medium of the painting and the auction house and year sold.
Findings
The indexes show that average annual returns across all artists range between 4 and 15 per cent with a mean of 8 per cent, with the highest returns for works by Brett Whiteley, Jeffrey Smart, Cecil Brack and Margaret Olley. Risk‐adjusted returns are generally lower, with reward‐to‐volatility and reward‐to‐variability ratios averaging 1.5 and 5.8 per cent, respectively. The portfolio βs for individual artistic works average 0.41. The willingness‐to‐pay for perceived attributes in the artwork show that works executed in oils and gouache, and those auctioned by Deutscher‐Menzies, Sotheby's and Christies are generally associated with higher prices.
Research limitations/implications
The returns on a buy‐and‐hold strategy in the Australian art market are at least comparable to the Australian stock market. While total risk is greater, the very low market risk found in almost all artistic portfolios is suggestive of the possible benefits of portfolio diversification through art investment. Moreover, a number of artist's works offer very superior market and non‐market risk‐adjusted performance.
Originality/value
This is the first Australian study to construct measures of risk, return, β and Sharpe and Treynor ratios for individual Australian artists.
Details
Keywords
Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and…
Abstract
Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.
Details
Keywords
It will be recalled that in May, 1935, the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland appointed an Advisory Committee “to enquire into the fact, quantitatively and…
Abstract
It will be recalled that in May, 1935, the Minister of Health and the Secretary of State for Scotland appointed an Advisory Committee “to enquire into the fact, quantitatively and qualitatively, in relation to the diet of the people, and to report as to any changes therein which appear desirable in the light of modern advances in the knowledge of nutrition.” This appears to be the first occasion in history that a survey dealing with the diet of a whole nation has been set on foot by any government; yet no one can question the prime importance of the subject from a national standpoint.
In 2001, the rape of “baby Tshepang” triggered a media frenzy in the small community of Louisvale, located in the Northern Cape of South Africa. The purpose of this chapter is to…
Abstract
Purpose
In 2001, the rape of “baby Tshepang” triggered a media frenzy in the small community of Louisvale, located in the Northern Cape of South Africa. The purpose of this chapter is to explore how gender discrimination and colonial discourse framed the way the rape of Tshepang was reported in print media.
Design/methodlogy/approach
From the newspaper archives of the Cape Town National Library, the University of Cape Town Library as well as newspaper articles found online, this chapter offers a reading of articles printed between 2001 and 2004. Patterns of troping were identified from the articles examined, and a number of themes were selected to be further examined using a gender perspective. Work already done by African feminist scholars on the grammar of rape was applied to deconstruct the ways in which the media presented this specific case. This chapter works with Sara Ahmed’s (2004) thoughts on shame, Linda Alcoff’s (1991) writing on Othering, Helen Moffett (2003a, 2003b, 2003c, 2006) and Jane Bennett’s (1997) work on gender and rape, as well as Achille Mbembe’s (2001) notion of facticity within colonial discourse.
Findings
This chapter argues that the ways in which the media understood this event were through well-worn stereotypes of Africa and women. An overarching theme of shame dominated how journalists represented the event. The label “A Town of Shame” stuck onto Louisvale through the mobilization of colonial and gender discourse. Quickly the town was known for its “barbaric” and “savage” existence; a town with no future and a disgrace to the country. Essentialist thinking about women was used to condemn and blame the mother of Tshepang, concretizing the myth that rape is always the fault of women.
Social Implications
Through relying on palatable stereotypes that create a self and Other, we move further away from engaging in the difficult questions of understanding rape. When rape becomes a spectacle, detached from the greater global socioeconomic realities, we deny our responsibilities of difficult and multilayered engagement.
Details