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To tackle one of the main negative consequences of the sharing economy, namely, the growth of the informal sector, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate for the first time the impacts of the informal sector on the hospitality industry and then to discuss what needs to be done to prevent the further growth of the informal sector in this industry.

To evaluate the impacts of the informal sector on the hospitality industry, data are reported from 30 East European and Central Asian countries collected in 2013 in the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey.

The finding is that 23 per cent of hotels and restaurants in Eastern Europe and Central Asia report competing against unregistered or informal operators, and 13 per cent view these informal competitors as a major or severe obstacle. The larger the business, the greater is the likelihood that the informal sector is considered their biggest obstacle.

To prevent the further growth of the informal sector in the hospitality industry, regulation of the sharing economy will be required. To achieve this, it is shown that state authorities need to adopt both direct control measures that alter the costs of operating in the informal sector and the benefits and ease of operating formally, as well as indirect control measures that reduce the acceptability of operating in the informal sector.

This is the first paper to evaluate the impacts of the informal sector on the hospitality industry and to outline the policy measures required to prevent its further growth with the advent of the sharing economy.

Binder jetting is a promising route to produce complex copper components for electronic/thermal applications. This paper aims to lay a framework for determining the effects of sintering parameters on the final microstructure of copper parts fabricated through binder jetting.

The knowledge gained from well-established powder metallurgy processes was leveraged to study the densification behaviour of a fine high-purity copper powder (D₅₀ of 3.4 µm) processed via binder jetting, by performing dilatometry and microstructural characterization. The effects of sintering parameters on densification of samples obtained with a commercial water-based binder were also explored.

Sintering started at lower temperature in cold-pressed (∼680 °C) than in binder jetted parts (∼900 °C), because the strain energy introduced by powder compression reduces the sintering activation energy. Vacuum sintering promoted pore closure, resulting in greater and more uniform densification than sintering in argon, as argon pressure stabilizes the residual porosity. About 6.9% residual porosity was obtained with air sintering in the presence of graphite, promoting solid-state diffusion by copper oxide reduction.

This paper reports the first systematic characterization of the thermal events occurring during solid-state sintering of high-purity copper under different atmospheres. The results can be used to optimize the sintering parameters for the manufacturing of complex copper components through binder jetting.

Sexual violence prevention programs on college campuses have proliferated in recent years. While research has also increased, a number of questions remain unanswered that could assist campus administrators in making evidence-based decisions about implementation of prevention efforts. To that end, the field of prevention science has highlighted the need to examine the utility of booster sessions for enhancing prevention education. The purpose of this paper is to examine how two methods of prevention delivery – small group educational workshops and a community-wide social marketing campaign (SMC) – worked separately and together to promote attitude change related to sexual violence among college students.

The two-part study was conducted at two universities. Participants were from successive cohorts of first year students and randomly assigned to participate in a bystander based in-person sexual violence prevention program or a control group. Participants were later exposed to a bystander based sexual violence prevention SMC either before or after a follow-up survey. Analyses investigated if attitudes varied by exposure group (program only, SMC only, both program and SMC, no prevention exposure).

Results revealed benefits of the SMC as a booster for attitude changes related to being an active bystander to prevent sexual violence. Further, students who first participated in the program showed enhanced attitude effects related to the SMC.

This is the first study to look at the combination of effects of different sexual violence prevention tools on student attitudes. It also showcases a method for how to investigate if prevention tools work separately and together.

This second part of a companion paper seeks to extend the theory proposed to apply the hierarchy of fuzzy formal language to cope with the three major phenomenon of life: replication, control and shuffling of genetic information.

In order to cope with the proposal, three new classes of FFG are proposed: replicating grammars: to formalize properties and consequences of DNA duplication; self‐controlled grammars: to provide the tools to control the grammar ambiguity and to improve adaptability, and recombinant grammars: to formalize properties and consequences of the sexual reproduction to life evolution. Considering all these facts, FFG are proposed as the key instrument to formalize the basic properties of the chemical transactions supporting life.

The formalism of the model provides a new way to analyze and interpret the findings of the different genome sequencing projects.

The theoretical framework developed here provides a new perspective of understanding the code of life and evolution.

Research on the social determinants of health demonstrates that workers who feel insecure in their jobs suffer poorer health as a result. However, relatively few studies have examined the relationship between job insecurity and illegal substance use, which is closely related to health. In this study, we develop a theoretical model focusing on two intervening mechanisms: health and life satisfaction. Additionally, we examine differences in this relationship between women and men. We test this model using logistic regression models of substance use for women and men based on longitudinal data from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States. The results indicate that job insecurity is associated with a significantly higher probability of illegal substance use among women but not men. We interpret this as further evidence of the gendering of precarious employment. This relationship is not channeled through health or life satisfaction, but there is evidence that job insecurity has a stronger association with illegal substance use for women with poorer overall health.

In this chapter, we contribute to ongoing discussions surrounding decolonising research and teaching in higher education by considering the place of language and linguistic diversity within this decolonising turn. The question we explore is how academic researchers and lecturers can recognise and respect that a move to decolonise will involve engaging with epistemologies expressed in different languages and expressed from diverse worldviews. We take inspiration from the work of linguistic citizenship researchers who make explicit the links between knowledge systems, languages and issues of equality/inequality. In linguistic citizenship, research connections are made between the everyday practice of translanguaging, moving between different linguistic repertoires by multilingual speakers, and transknowledging or the fluid movement between differing systems of knowing. To explore the potential of using the concepts of translanguaging and transknowledging as tools in the task of decolonising higher education research and practice, we discuss in depth two published research studies for critical reflection.

The magnitude of the informal economy has been estimated using either indirect measurement methods that employ proxy indicators or small‐scale household surveys. This paper seeks to provide an analysis of the findings of the first direct survey in an advanced market economy of national business opinion on its magnitude and impacts.

This paper analyses the findings of a UK survey of business opinion on the prevalence of the informal economy in their sector and its impacts on their businesses, namely the Small Business Service's (SBS) 2004/05 Small Business Survey of 7,505 small businesses.

The finding is that 14 per cent of UK small businesses view themselves as negatively affected by the informal economy, with businesses estimating on average that 8 per cent of trade in their sector is conducted on an off‐the‐books basis. The sectors most affected by the informal economy are land transport, construction, the motor vehicle trade, and hotels and restaurants, with fledgling enterprises and businesses in peripheral regions most affected.

This survey records only business perceptions of the size of the informal economy in their sector rather than directly collecting data on the amount of informal work that businesses conduct.

This paper demonstrates that it is wholly feasible to conduct business surveys on the size and impacts of the informal economy and recommends modifications to the SBS survey method to improve data collection.

This paper reports the findings of the first survey in an advanced economy of national business opinion on the size and impacts of the informal economy.