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This paper explores an opportunity for luxury fashion brands to strengthen their engagement with consumers through the arts and without undermining the exclusivity of the luxury product.

This paper is based on an interpretive qualitative approach aiming to specifically investigate Fondazione Prada – a contemporary art gallery owned and managed by the fashion brand Prada. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and a focus group implemented with the “mystery shopper” technique. Template analysis was used to analyse the data.

Fondazione Prada has the potential for a deep engagement, but specific lack of dialogue and interaction needs to be addressed. Learning from and sharing values with the public through a two-way peer conversation elicited by contemporary art will benefit both the foundation and the fashion brand, in generating value as the result of a spillover effect. Thus, a significant competitive advantage might be gained.

This paper extends work on consumer brand engagement in physical and non-commercial “brand's places”, by evaluating the engagement provided by contemporary art foundations owned by luxury fashion brands. By leveraging the engaging nature of contemporary art, luxury fashion brands could provide an inclusive and engaging experience without undermining the characteristic of exclusivity of the luxury product and hence, gain a significant competitive advantage for the brand.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a serious mental health condition that is frequently misdiagnosed and left untreated for extended periods. A contributing factor may be the lack of awareness regarding OCD’s heterogeneous symptom presentations in nonpsychiatric medical providers (MPs). Nonpsychiatric MPs are often consulted by those with OCD and are thus in a key position to first identify the symptoms in a person. Thus, the purpose of this study is to assess nonpsychiatric MPs’ ability to recognize varying symptom presentations of OCD.

The current study examined OCD recognition rates in 105 nonpsychiatric MPs practicing on Guam – a rural island community with limited mental health resources. Participants were randomly assigned to read one of six vignettes describing a common obsessional theme within OCD (i.e. contamination, symmetry, religion, homosexuality, pedophilia or aggression) and asked to provide their diagnostic impressions.

Over half of participating MPs (58.1%) did not recognize the condition in the vignettes as OCD. As groups, vignettes describing taboo obsessions were significantly less likely to be recognized as OCD than those describing contamination and symmetry obsessions. Overall, results reveal that MPs are largely unaware of the diversity of OCD symptoms.

Few studies have examined nonpsychiatric MPs’ awareness of varying OCD symptom presentations, and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no studies to date have been conducted on MPs practicing in rural settings. The findings of this study can inform training programs for MPs to help decrease OCD misdiagnoses in medical settings.

Patrick Blessinger is the founder and Executive Director of the International Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association and a Research Fellow at the School of Education at St. John's University in Queens, New York, USA. He has taught over 150 college and university courses and he has served as a program chair at colleges and universities in the US and EU. He consults with HE institutions in the areas of technology innovation and internationalization and he serves as an academic and accreditation advisor for HE institutions. He is the co-founder and co-director of the Institute for Meaning-Centered Education. He is the founder and editor of the International HETL Review and co-editor of the Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education. He is co-editor of several volumes within the Cutting-edge Technologies in Higher Education book series (Emerald) and co-editor of the book, Meaning-Centered Education: International Perspectives and Explorations in Higher Education (Routledge: 2013). He attended Auburn University, Georgia Tech, and the University of Georgia. He is a peer-recognized expert and thought leader in the field of teaching and learning and he has received several academic awards including a Fulbright Scholarship from the US Department of State and a Governor's Teaching Fellowship from the State of Georgia, USA.

This register of current research in social economics has been compiled by the International Institute of Social Economics. The register does not claim to be comprehensive but is merely an aid for research workers and institutions interested in social economics. The register will be updated and made more comprehensive in the future but this is largely dependent on the inflow of information from researchers in social economics. In order to facilitate this process a standardised form is to be found on the last page of this register. Completed forms, with attached sheets as necessary, should be returned to the compiler: Dr Barrie O. Pettman, Director, International Institute of Social Economics, Enholmes Hall, Patrington, Hull, N. Humberside, England, HU12 OPR. Any other comments on the register will also be welcome.

The BEKK GARCH class of models presents a popular set of tools for applied analysis of dynamic conditional covariances. Within this class the analyst faces a range of model choices that trade off flexibility with parameter parsimony. In the most flexible unrestricted BEKK the parameter dimensionality increases quickly with the number of variables. Covariance targeting decreases model dimensionality but induces a set of nonlinear constraints on the underlying parameter space that are difficult to implement. Recently, the rotated BEKK (RBEKK) has been proposed whereby a targeted BEKK model is applied after the spectral decomposition of the conditional covariance matrix. An easily estimable RBEKK implies a full albeit constrained BEKK for the unrotated returns. However, the degree of the implied restrictiveness is currently unknown. In this paper, we suggest a Bayesian approach to estimation of the BEKK model with targeting based on Constrained Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (CHMC). We take advantage of suitable parallelization of the problem within CHMC utilizing the newly available computing power of multi-core CPUs and Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) that enables us to deal effectively with the inherent nonlinear constraints posed by covariance targeting in relatively high dimensions. Using parallel CHMC we perform a model comparison in terms of predictive ability of the targeted BEKK with the RBEKK in the context of an application concerning a multivariate dynamic volatility analysis of a Dow Jones Industrial returns portfolio. Although the RBEKK does improve over a diagonal BEKK restriction, it is clearly dominated by the full targeted BEKK model.

In this paper, the authors seek to investigate the dynamics of Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum and Ripple daily returns and volatilities.

In this paper, the authors apply the MS-ARMA model on daily returns of Bitcoin (19/04/2013-13/02/2018), Ripple (05/08/2013-14/02/2018), Litcoin (29/04/2013-14/02/2018) and Ethereum (08/02/2015-14/02/2018). This model allows capture of the nonlinear structure in both the conditional mean and the conditional variance of cryptocurrency returns.

All the cryptocurrency markets show regime switching in the return-generating process. Market dynamics seem to be governed by two different states which differ from one cryptocurrency market to another in terms of mean return, volatility and interstate dynamics. These findings can be explained by investors’ behavior, i.e. speculative trading and herding behavior. By choosing to participate (or imitating some investors) in some cryptocurrency markets (in particular Bitcoin market), they affect the price movements and therefore the market dynamics in the short run.

Identifying the different market states provides information for investors to make more accurate portfolio decisions in the virtual market and follow the market timing strategy.

This paper attempts to analyze potential nonlinear structure in cryptocurrencies returns and analyze if there is a difference between the cryptocurrencies market cycles. So, the search for congruent and adequate specification to reproduce the stock returns dynamics in the virtual market still remains the concern of several empirical studies. This research not only examines the behavior of stock returns in the cryptocurrencies’ market but also highlights the existence of nonlinearity propriety as a stylized fact.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether a pattern of interlocking directorates is emerging following reforms in Mexican corporations, and who, if any, are the powerful actors in this network. Drawing on the Bourdieusian notion of social capital, the paper also analyses theoretically the interlocking directorates, networks and powerful actors, and their influences on and potential implications for corporate governance mechanisms.

The data used in the study consisted of 1,442 internal and external board members of the population of 126 Mexican corporations trading on the Mexican Stock Market as of January 2011. Use of social network analysis (SNA) demonstrates individuals’ links with corporations and allows the production of spatial maps to visualise the network structure of interlocking boards.

Using the measures of SNA developed by Freeman (1979 and Bonacich (1972), the authors identify the most powerful and influential directors in the network structure of board members in Mexico. Board members with the greatest number of connections occupy central positions in the network. The authors also find a catalogue of corporate governance scandals. The inclusion of independent directors seems to have had no influence in ensuring better corporate governance.

Mapping out the directors’ links might offer excellent opportunities for policy makers to see how many companies a single director represents, how they share boards, and the implications for minority shareholders of sharing boards, and to understand the workloads of directors in carrying out the monitoring tasks expected of them.

This paper makes an important contribution by employing SNA to illustrate interlocking directorates and the positions of powerful and influential actors. Examining networks of directors from a “social capital” point of view also provides an understanding of why the role of independent directors remains toothless in family-dominated corporations.

As well known, in the finite element method, the calculation and the location of the elements of the matrix C of the coefficients requires a lot of calculation times and memory employment especially for 3D problems. Besides, once the matrix C is properly filled, the solution of the system of linear equations is computationally expensive.

The paper consists of two parts. In the first part, to quickly calculate and store only the non‐null terms of the matrix of the system, a geometrical analysis on three‐dimensional domains has been carried out. The second part of the paper deals with the solution of the system of linear equations and proposes a procedure for increasing the solution speed: the traditional method of the conjugate gradient is hybridized with an adequate genetic algorithm (Genetic Conjugate Gradient).

The proposed geometrical procedure allows us to calculate the non‐null terms and their location within the matrix C by simple recursive formulas. The results concerning the genetic conjugate gradient show that the convergence to the solution of the linear system is obtained in a much smaller number iterations and the calculation time is also significantly decreased.

The approach proposed to analyze the geometrical space has been turned out to be very useful in terms of memory saving and computational cost. The genetic conjugate gradient is an original hybrid method to solve large scale problems quicker than the traditional conjugate gradient. An application of the method has been shown for current fields generated by grounding electrodes.

This article examines the effect of China's soft power projection through the Chinese media in Africa on the African audiences' perception of China's national image through a case study of the residents of Nairobi. It adopted Joseph Nye's soft power model and sought to address three fundamental questions : What is the extent and objective of China's media diplomacy in Africa? How has China's media “offensive” in Africa impacted African audiences' imagery of China? What are the implications, if any, of China's media diplomacy on the Kenyan public view of China?

This article used a mixed-methods research design, which deployed elements of positivism and interpretivism. It used a deductive approach and deployed the survey strategy, which entailed the collection of data from Nairobi city residents. The secondary data were collected from relevant academic literature sources. The primary data were analyzed empirically using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), while the secondary data were analyzed using discourse analysis.

China's soft power projection through the Chinese media in Africa is aimed at addressing the “misinformation” about China. China seeks its share of representation among the African public to correct negative perceptions of China. Kenyans had a generally positive attitude toward China. South Africa and Angola have “Fairly” positive perceptions of the Chinese media. However, this study did not reveal whether the perception was due to the influence of Chinese media. These findings implied that the African public's positive imagery of China cannot be fully attributed to Chinese media's influence.

This study is groundbreaking in that it is one of the few studies that have focused on China's public diplomacy in Africa and assessed the impact of Chinese media on the African public’s perception of China.

This study aims to demonstrate how governmental authorities can take interorganizational network responses to address unexpected situations developed by the breakdown of critical infrastructure, such as communication failure in a hyperconnected society.

This study uses social network analysis to investigate the performance of interorganizational response networks regarding the 2018 KT network blackout, a failure of telecommunication facility, compared to the planned network.

The national fire agency was the most prominent actor in the actual interorganizational network, while the actor was not significant in the planned network in addressing unexpected needs. Moreover, top government authorities were involved in the actual response network because of the national attention on the breakdown of the infrastructure as a focusing event.

Unexpected conditions in the actual response to a technological disaster, such as a critical infrastructure (CI) breakdown, require the involvement of emerging or non-significant actors in accordance with the findings related to other types of disasters. Particularly, communication failure in a hyperconnected society may involve prominent government authorities in the actual interorganizational response because of the event's broad and severe impact on the functions of society.