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Implies that a balance of the different essential nutrients is necessary for maintaining health. The eight minerals that are usually analysed are Na, K, Ca, Mg, P, Fe, Cu, Zn. A comparison of the mineral content of 20 fruits and 20 vegetables grown in the 1930s and the 1980s (published in the UK Government’s Composition of Foods tables) shows several marked reductions in mineral content. Shows that there are statistically significant reductions in the levels of Ca, Mg, Cu and Na in vegetables and Mg, Fe, Cu and K in fruit. The only mineral that showed no significant differences over the 50 year period was P. The water content increased significantly and dry matter decreased significantly in fruit. Indicates that a nutritional problem associated with the quality of food has developed over those 50 years. The changes could have been caused by anomalies of measurement or sampling, changes in the food system, changes in the varieties grown or changes in agricultural practice. In conclusion recommends that the causes of the differences in mineral content and their effect on human health be investigated.

A key debate about the nature and role of ecommerce centres around the question of whether it is merely an old activity in a new form, or a discontinuous process that rewrites the ideas and assumptions of the ‘old’ economy. The objective of this exploratory and qualitative study is to shed some light on this issue through the lens of business ethics. We will examine whether established ethical principles still apply to e‐commerce, or instead if the ‘rule book’ now needs to be re‐written.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the data profile of manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with specific emphasis on understanding the data readiness of SMEs for discrete event simulation (DES) modelling.

Research was conducted through a review of literature and a survey research strategy of manufacturing SMEs.

This paper illustrates the data profile of manufacturing SMEs. Insight is provided on the types of data collected by SMEs, the collection methods used and how these data are stored by the SMEs. Additionally size and age effects are considered. Based on this data profile, conclusions are made regarding an indication of data readiness of manufacturing SMEs for DES modelling.

This research is focused specifically on manufacturing SMEs in Ireland, other countries and sectors are not investigated.

This paper provides owner-managers and senior management insight into the data profile of manufacturing SMEs and their potential for utilisation of DES for performance improvement and decision support.

This paper addresses the gaps that exist in the knowledge of the data profile of manufacturing SMEs and consequently the status of this profile with regard to the readiness of SMEs for DES modelling.

To investigate ethnographically how patient experience data, as a named category in healthcare organisations, is actively “made” through the co-creative interactions of data, people and meanings in English hospitals.

The authors draw on fieldnotes, interview recordings and transcripts produced from 13 months (2016–2017) of ethnographic research on patient experience data work at five acute English National Health Service (NHS) hospitals, including observation, chats, semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis. Research sites were selected based on performance in a national Adult Inpatient Survey, location, size, willingness to participate and research burden. Using an analytical approach inspired by actor–network theory (ANT), the authors examine how data acquired meanings and were made to act by clinical and administrative staff during a type of meeting called a “learning session” at one of the hospital study sites.

The authors found that the processes of systematisation in healthcare organisations to act on patient feedback to improve to the quality of care, and involving frontline healthcare staff and their senior managers, produced shifting understandings of what counts as “data” and how to make changes in response to it. Their interactions produced multiple definitions of “experience”, “data” and “improvement” which came to co-exist in the same systematised encounter.

The article's distinctive contribution is to analyse how patient experience data gain particular attributes. It suggests that healthcare organisations and researchers should recognise that acting on data in standardised ways will constantly create new definitions and possibilities of such data, escaping organisational and scholarly attempts at mastery.

The purpose of this paper is to examine two significant political advertising campaigns which used the “It’s Time” slogan and to reflect on how these related to official, popular and commercial nationalism in Australia. The paper is primarily concerned with two main issues: identifying and examining the variety of images of Australia in two key television advertisements, and exploring the methods by which advertising agencies created positive images of Australia and Australians in the two campaigns. It specifically highlights the significance of the “It’s Time” campaign, which is relevant for scholars and advertisers seeking to understand effective political communication.

This paper examines television advertisements by using semiotics as the principal methodology. The research methodology devised for the advertisements consists of two main components: a shot combination analysis, also known as a shot-by-shot analysis, and a semiological reading of the visual and acoustic channels of the advertisement.

This paper examines the use of commercial nationalism in television advertising. As one of many social and cultural influences, advertisements assist the individual in understanding their notion of themselves and their relationship with the wider community – be it local, national, regional or global. The primary focus of this research is the phenomenon of commercial nationalism – the adoption of national signifiers in the marketplace. However, by examining the more general discourse on nationalism, particularly the voice of official nationalism – the promotion of nationalism by the nation-state (or those aspiring to power), the symbiotic relationship between these two complementary brands of nationalism is explored.

The methodology adopted for analysing the two political advertising campaigns offers conceptual and practical value. It provides a consistent set of terms and concepts for further research to build upon. The paper provides insights for the marketing or examination of advertising campaigns. The paper demonstrates the power of market research to inform a framing strategy for a political campaign. The paper contributes to the body of knowledge in this area and thus society’s understanding of these important periods in the nation’s history. In particular, the paper provides an exploration into the “It’s Time” campaign and how it mobilised a broader cultural awakening to engineer success at the ballot box in 1972. The two case studies examined in this paper are relevant to political scientists and media and communication scholars.

The underdevelopment of the financial sector could be one of the barriers to the deployment of renewable energies in developing countries. The purpose of this paper is therefore to analyse the effect of financial development in the deployment of renewable energies in sub-Saharan African countries.

The empirical analysis is based on a production approach and a cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributive lag error correction model estimate for 25 sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1990–2018. The augmented mean group (AMG) and common correlated effects mean group (CCEMG) estimators were used for the robustness analysis.

Two results emerge: financial development contributes positively to renewable energy deployment in sub-Saharan African countries in the short and long run; and fossil fuel dependence impedes significantly renewable energy deployment in the short and long run. The robustness analyses using the AMG and CCEMG methods confirm these results.

These results suggest the need for policies to support and strengthen the development of the financial sector to improve its ability to effectively finance investments in renewable energy technologies.

The originality of this paper lies in the fact that the analysis is based on a renewable energy production approach. Indeed, the level of renewable energy deployment is measured by the production and not the consumption of renewable energy, unlike other previous work. In addition, this research uses recent econometric estimation techniques that overcome the problems of cross-sectional dependence and slope heterogeneity.