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Tackling discrimination, stigma and inequalities in mental health is a major UK government objective. Surveys have suggested that mental health services are institutionally racist. Most research has focused on stigma associated with schizophrenia despite well‐documented prejudice against people with other psychiatric disorders.The aim of this study was to assess stigmatised attitudes towards people from two ethnic groups with substance use disorder and learning disability. The 20‐point Attitude to Mental Illness Questionnaire (AMIQ) was used to assess stigmatised attitudes. A representative panel of members of the general public were randomised to receive a questionnaire with a picture of a European or African‐Caribbean man and a fictitious description of alcoholism (first round) or Down's syndrome (second round) six months later. Results were received for over 198 subjects (response rate 79‐84%). There was no difference between the score for the African‐Caribbean vignette or the European vignette for either alcoholism (mean AMIQ score 0.43 standard error = 0.39; n = 100 Vs 0.98 standard error = 0.53; n = 110; effect size r = 0.11; p = 0.2059;) or learning disability (mean 1.71 standard error = 0.22; n = 100 Vs 1.98; standard error = 0.30; n = 98; effect size r = 0.07; p = 0.2559).The study showed that ethnic origin had no significant difference on stigmatised attitudes towards someone with alcoholism or learning disability. Although a larger study would have increased power to detect a statistically significant difference it seems unlikely that a difference of the observed magnitude would be of any practical relevance.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and rank the success attributes and success factors of the construction organisations.

The viewpoints of the experts engaged in Indian construction industry were used to apply factor analysis and fuzzy preference relation with the help of a questionnaire survey.

The findings indicate that project factor is the most important factor, whereas favourable market and marketing team is the least important factor. Among the success attributes, the availability of qualified staff is the most important attribute, and health and safety management plan is the least important attribute.

Findings of this study are based on the viewpoint of the experts of construction organisations engaged in building projects in India.

The study can be used as a yardstick for the top management of construction organisations to manage their resources efficiently and to develop a strategy to be successful in this business.

Indian construction industry provides direct and indirect employment to the people of India. Hence, the success of construction organisation will contribute to the development of the society and ultimately the nation.

In the earlier studies, researchers have used various statistical tools to identify and evaluate the alternatives for the success factors of construction organisations, but very few of them have tried to assign weights to those alternatives. The simple ranking of alternatives using various statistical analyses, such as mean and standard deviation, relative importance index, etc., is not much useful unless their relative weights are known. With the help of the present study, the authors have tried to overcome the shortcomings of the previous research works.

This study aims to analyze notable distribution dispute cases from Islamic law history. The authors will assess these alongside resolutions proposed by historical authorities, some of which evolved into established Islamic case law. In addition, the authors intend to apply classic fair division rules to these cases, providing alternative solutions. Using a game-theoretical approach, the authors plan to compare Islamic solutions with traditional division rules through axiomatic analysis. The goal of this study is to systematically explore the unique principles underpinning Islamic distributions.

In this study, the authors collate Islamic inheritance law disputes involving conflicting claims, unresolvable by primary Islamic law sources, from historical and modern texts. The authors formally model these as claims problems, surplus-sharing problems and adapted claims problems. Concurrently, the authors gather the proposed solutions and historical backgrounds offered by the era’s authorities and jurists. These solutions are axiomatically generalized into rules, while the axioms characterizing distribution rules are checked if they are aligned with Islamic norms and values. This approach facilitates a comparison between Islamic distributions and classic division rules.

The 'Awl and Radd doctrines, used in Islamic inheritance law, are axiomatically equivalent to the Proportional Rule, a prevalent non-Jewish division rule. These doctrines present solutions impervious to manipulation by legal heirs through rights transfer, unlike other possible distributions. Ibn 'Abbas' solution for Awliyya cases uses sequential priorities and diverges uniquely from classic fair division rules in the literature. In addition, it is established that Abu Yusuf's (b. 729) distribution for a legal dispute is axiomatically identical to Abraham ibn Ezra's (b. 1089) division rule.

There is a noticeable dearth of comprehensive studies investigating contentious disputes concerning resource claims within Islamic law. Many of these studies are lacking in-depth analyses of diverse cases, casting doubts on their reliability. As a result, a robust focus is needed on case collection prior to any analytical process. Future research should concentrate on collating instances of fair division problems throughout Islamic history, as well as separately collecting methods of Islamic sharing. This procedure may lead to the characterization of various Islamic regulations, thereby emphasizing distinct Islamic principles. In forthcoming studies, conducting an exhaustive axiomatic evaluation of the cases and proposed resolutions is imperative.

This research illuminates existing knowledge gaps, setting a course for novel research trajectories. It underlines the fair division literature’s oversight of disputes within Islamic law, despite the plentiful existence of contentious cases. The research underscores the relevance of cooperative game theory as a tool for dissecting Islamic legal disputes. By accounting for unique Islamic norms and principles, this study lays a foundation for a nuanced comprehension of the dynamics and outcomes of legal disputes. By integrating an interdisciplinary approach, this research strives to bridge the gap between game theory and Islamic law.

Beyond addressing a significant research lacuna, this study carries extensive societal implications. By shedding light on enduring debates within Islamic law, it encourages a rejuvenated understanding of the evolution and interpretation of legal disputes. The axiomatic disparities between rulers’ and jurists’ methods provide invaluable insights within the Islamic context, bolstering the understanding of sociocultural dynamics that influence legal decision-making. This research has the potential to shape legal discourse, guide policymaking and spur scholarly, juristic and societal dialogue. Consequently, it may foster a more comprehensive and enlightened approach toward the resolution of legal disputes in Islamic law.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine Islamic law’s historical legal disputes from a game-theoretical standpoint. Existing studies rarely collect distribution disputes systematically, and none scrutinize the axiomatic rationales underlying authorities’ and jurists’ distributions, opting instead to focus on historical backgrounds. While the fair division literature extensively examines disputes, it often overlooks those originating from Islamic law, which presents a rich source of disputes that can be modeled as fair division problems. This research makes a distinct contribution by incorporating disputes from Islamic law into the existing body of cooperative game theory literature.

Recent public health initiatives have promoted accumulating 10,000 steps per day. Little previous research has evaluated the using pedometer in sustaining the physical activity level during worksite intervention. Hence, this study aims to the step changes of pedometer in a multicomponent worksite intervention.

This trial enrolled 43 participants recruited from brochures at outpatient clinic. Throughout the 12-week multidisciplinary lifestyle program, participant required to wear a pedometer and reported daily step count at baseline, 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th and 12th week. The primary outcome measure was the step goal over the 12th week of intervention.

All subjects regardless men and women prior enter into the intervention recorded less than 5,000 of average steps count per day which is sedentary. At the 12th week of intervention, there were only 9.3 per cent subjects are sedentary. Majority of subjects (55.8 per cent) had achieved at least somewhat active, followed by low active (23.3 per cent). There were only 11.6 per cent subjects are classified as highly active at the end of the intervention. The result indicated the changes of average steps per day from baseline to 2nd (p < 0.01), 4th (p < 0.01), 6th (p < 0.01), 8th (p < 0.01), 10th (p < 0.01) and 12th (p < 0.01) week were significant. Likewise, the changes of average steps per day from previous time were significant at 4th (p < 0.01) week and 10th (p < 0.001) week.

This study did not associate the improvement health parameter and step counter as the core stone of this study intervention were extensive individual dietary regime and reinforcement of ZUMBA participation among participants through motivational interviewing counseling. Third, there was no control group in this study, where no pedometer and goal setting were provided to the control group in the previous reported effectiveness study (Jian Pei et al., 2017).

The step goal during a multicomponent worksite intervention in primary health-care setting has not been clearly defined. Besides, there are no clear data of generally daily step among primary health-care employees.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between a firm’s net trade cycle, its size and liquidity.

The relation between the firm’s net trade cycle and its liquidity is examined using Generalized Method of Moment Dynamic Panel-Data System Estimation with Robust Standard Errors for a sample of 5,802 US non-financial firms listed in the New York Stock Exchange, American Stock Exchange, NASDAQ Stock Market and Over the Counter Market for the period 1990-2004 (87,030 firm-year observations). The analysis is applied at the levels of the full sample and divisions of the sample by size.

The results show negative and significant relationship between net trade cycle, as a comprehensive measure of efficiency in working capital management, and liquidity for small firms.

Most of the existing literature focusses on the large firm’s experience of working capital management. Small firms generally face liquidity problems and have limited access to external capital, and studies on their efficiency in working capital management are scant. Thus the present study is useful in understanding the relation between the firm’s net trade cycle and liquidity of small firms.

Overweight, obesity, and physical inactivity have in recent years become an important public health problem worldwide. Investigations that study obesity using a systemic approach in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are limited. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to study the nutritional stages dynamics within the Colombian urban population.

The authors used a population-level systems dynamics (SD) model that captures the transitions of population by body mass index (BMI) categories. The authors proposed a heuristic to estimate the transference rates (TRs) between BMI categories using data from the Colombian Demographic and Health Survey 2005 and 2010.

The Colombian urban population is moving to overweight and obese categories. The TRs from not overweight to overweight and from overweight to obese (0.0076 and 0.0054, respectively) are higher than the TRs from obese to overweight and from overweight to not-overweight (1.025×10e−7 and 3.47×10e−7, respectively). The simulation results show that the prevalences of overweight and obesity will increase by 6.2 and 7.5 percent by 2015, and by 13.4 and 18.9 percent by 2030, respectively.

Investigations that study obesity using a systemic approach in LMICs are limited. A SD model was proposed to examine changes in the population’s nutritional stages using population accumulation structures by BMI categories. The authors propose a heuristic to estimate the TRs of individuals between BMI categories. The proposed model can be used to study the effects of policy interventions to prevent overweight and obesity. The authors analyze a few policy intervention strategies.

The Mediterranean diet (MD) is a sustainable and healthy diet. However, compliance to the MD is still poor. Given this, the authors created a Web app to promote the MD. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of the Web app YourPappa in terms of adherence to the MD.

The authors developed a Web app, YourPappa, with the aim of encouraging virtuous dietary habits through a reward mechanism. After that, a randomized controlled study was conducted. All participants were given written advice on correct nutrition. Moreover, the case group was trained on the use of the app. The MD adherence was evaluated by a validated questionnaire (Medi-Lite).

Cases found an average increase in the Medi-Lite scores of +7.1%, whereas controls showed an increase of +0.7% (p = 0.06; effect size 0.60). For most of the users, the Web app helped them to think about what they were buying and to promote the MD.

Obesity and related diseases are a topical problem. New strategies are needed to counter it. This study showed interesting and encouraging results, which need further research and insight to be validated and supported.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that has evaluated the use of a Web app to stimulate the adoption of the MD through a reward mechanism.