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The purpose of this paper is to foreground and analyse the views of people in custody about the management of the COVID-19 pandemic within the Scottish Prison Estate. The project is unique in using a correspondence participatory action methodology to engage with a group of people in custody at one Scottish prison.

At the time of ethical approval (early April 2020), all face-to-face research projects facilitated by the Scottish Prison Service were paused. In response to these methodological challenges, a participatory correspondence methodology was designed to allow people in custody to influence the direction of this project by suggesting research questions and themes. Eight participants were selected due to previous participation in research projects at one Scottish prison. All participants were adult males and serving long-term sentences. After consent was given via post, eight letters were distributed to participants with questions about their COVID-19 experiences. Methodologically, this project illustrates the potential for correspondence methods to facilitate insights into life in custody during what emerges as a particularly challenging time.

Participant suggested questions were used across six subsequent letters to elicit unique insights into the COVID-19 pandemic, of lockdown and subsequent easing of lockdown conditions in custody. The main project findings relate to challenges that the participants faced in relation to communication, feelings of heightened isolation and detachment from family, friends and the normal rhythms of life in prison. Analysis of letters provides unique insights into the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic in custody enhanced the pains of imprisonment, increasing the “tightness”, “depth” and “weight” of participants’ time in custody.

This paper is methodologically, epistemologically and theoretically original in foregrounding the views of people in custody about the management of COVID-19 in prison and using a correspondence participatory action research method. The conclusion considers the extent to which views from what might be considered the bottom of hierarchies of power within prison settings are able to influence the direction of prison policy around the management of COVID-19 and future pandemics.

The purpose of this paper is to present near set theory using the perceptual indiscernibility and tolerance relations, to demonstrate the practical application of near set theory to the image correspondence problem, and to compare this method with existing image similarity measures.

Image‐correspondence methodologies are present in many systems that are depended on daily. In these systems, the discovery of sets of similar objects (aka, tolerance classes) stems from human perception of the objects being classified. This view of perception of image‐correspondence springs directly from Poincaré's work on visual spaces during 1890s and Zeeman's work on tolerance spaces and visual acuity during 1960s. Thus, in solving the image‐correspondence problem, it is important to have systems that accurately model human perception. Near set theory provides a framework for measuring the similarity of digital images (and perceptual objects, in general) based on features that describe them in much the same way that humans perceive objects.

The contribution of this paper is a perception‐based classification of images using near sets.

The method presented in this paper represents a new approach to solving problems in which the goal is to match human perceptual groupings. While the results presented in the paper are based on measuring the resemblance between images, the approach can be applied to any application that can be formulated in terms of sets such that the objects in the sets can be described by feature vectors.

The aim of this paper is to construct a systematic way of thinking about correspondence as a documentary form and discuss the role its persistent representation features play in management, preservation and access of email correspondence.

Using the method of diplomatic analysis as a guiding theory, the paper conducts a historical review of correspondence recordkeeping and email systems in the American context, analyzes the evolution of its persistent representation features and discusses the implications on current email management and archival practices.

Correspondence as a document form and its persistent representation features have played an important role in traditional correspondence recordkeeping and electronic mail management. The design of systems to manage, preserve and access email records should reflect the characteristics and functionality of email records, capable of retaining email correspondence as a documentary form supported by its persistent representation features.

The research in this paper mostly covers secondary sources with a regional focus. The analysis covers important historical developments in correspondence and email recordkeeping and archival practices. The study uses examples of email archives available online, and further research can be developed when more email archival collections are processed and constructed.

A systematic analysis of persistent representation of traditional correspondence and electronic mail provides a useful perspective to reflect on the characteristics of correspondence as a document form and offers some food for thought for records management and archival professionals and assists them in developing systems to better manage, preserve and provide access to email correspondence.

This study aims at understanding academic practice in the field of physical office environment research and providing recommendations for further enhancement of the field. It shows which effects of the physical office environment on employee outcomes are studied by which disciplines, and which methodologies are used by whom and on which variables. Existing gaps in research that are confirmed by these analyses are discussed and “assigned” to obvious, best suited combinations of future multi-disciplinary research projects to call for studies that would help practice in better decision-making.

After a systematic search and selection of studies, an exploratory analysis of 134 empirical studies from 50 different journals (and other sources) was performed. The selected studies were entered into a database with information on the empirical parameters of the study, the methodology and author information. From this database, cross-tables were built and tested with Canonical Correspondence analyses.

Results of the analyses showed that each discipline has its preferred topics and methods of research. In general, questionnaires are preferred over hard data from physical and physiological recordings. Still many important gaps exist in fully clarifying workplace effectiveness. This paper suggests which disciplines would be capable of taking up which challenges in future studies through interdisciplinary cooperation to further advance the field and corporate real estate management/FM in practice.

The Correspondence analyses not only confirmed important gaps for future research but also identified which disciplines would be best suited to take up these challenges.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate tourist destinations’ image based on the attributes obtained from the extant literature using correspondence analysis.

This study is aimed at measuring and illustrating destination image of tourism destinations perceived by domestic tourists. Five tourism destinations – Ooty, Shimla, Manali, Mussoorie and Mount Abu were selected as the subject of the study. Based on a representative sample of 800 respondents from the surveys across destinations, correspondence analysis was employed to illustrate an attribute based comparative analysis of the destination image of the tourist destinations.

Findings reveal that the attribute natural attraction was positively perceived by respondents across all destinations and the attribute infrastructure emerged as an area in need of dire attention. Further, the most dominant attributes which marked destinations’ positioning were – local cuisine and food outlets, hotels and restaurants, famous handicraft and parking facilities.

The findings of this study need to be integrated with qualitative studies to explore the underlying reasons for the perceived destination image.

These results provide direction to policy makers and practitioners to visualize their destinations’ competitive standing relative to their competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. This tourist-derived intelligence presents an opportunity to take advantage of its current position, or if necessary, optimally reposition itself.

This paper documents research that was the first to systematically capture and comparatively illustrate the destination image of Indian tourist destinations.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the performance of Malaysian Public Universities on the web using correspondence analysis.

Webometrics methods and correspondence analysis were used toanalyze the attributes of websites. In total, 20 Public University Websites were surveyed which were accessible on Malaysia Government Website.

The results show that Malaysian Public Universities have functioned pretty well on the web. As a whole, University of Malaya has performed properly in almost all criteria but University Pertahanan National Malaysia has had a weak function based on all evaluation criteria among other universities. Correspondence analysis classified the surveyed universities' websites into three groupings which were related based on some attributes.

The paper evaluates performance of Malaysian Public Universities' websites based on criteria obtained from Alexa databank.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate Iranian newspapers' web sites based on the criteria obtained from Alexa Search Engine using correspondence analysis.

A total of 55 newspaper web sites are selected from Iranian Magazines Information Bank (Magiran.com), the number of which, after investigating the web sites one by one, due to their print prevention, cessation or no coverage by Alexa, is decreased to 24 web sites.

Based on data obtained from Alexa, Iran newspaper has the highest traffic rank and the largest number of links among others. Bashirmazandaran newspaper has the largest number of foreign users whilst Karvakargar newspaper has no foreign users. The results of the study also show that most newspaper web sites' visitors come from the USA. Correspondence analysis classifies 24 web sites into three groupings gathered based on some common attributes.

The results of this research will be useful not only for administrators of Iranian newspapers' web sites but anyone with a need to increase usage of a web site and an interest in analyzing the use of web site which naturally includes librarians and those in charge of library web sites.

Defining and validating a map of related technologies is critical for managers, investors and inventors. Because of the increase in the applications of and demand for semiconductor lasers, analyzing the technological position of developers has become increasingly critical. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to adopt the technological position analysis to identify mainstream technologies and developments relevant to semiconductor lasers.

Correspondence analysis and k-means cluster analysis, which are data mining techniques, are used to reveal strategic groups of major competitors in the semiconductor laser market according to their Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) patent applications.

The results of this study reveal that PCT patent applications are generally obtained for masers, optical elements, semiconductor devices and methods for measuring and that technology developers have varying technological positions.

Through position analysis, this study identifies the technological focuses of different manufacturers to obtain information that can guide the allocation of research and development resources.

Presents the view that learning skills off‐site is the most effective way of training. Because of the high cost of college courses, correspondence training is promoted as an effective low cost approach for an employee to learn new skills. Explores the evolution of this approach from the traditional classroom method to on‐the‐job training using full‐time staff and to seminar‐type training. Explains the advantage of self study and correspondence training and its measurement of competence throughout the course. One example explains the introduction of a certification programme and elaborates on this trend in other trades. Self study courses are constructed for a rapidly changing subject area where information is constantly updated. Participation produces achievement through motivation, either corporate sponsored through bonus incentives or through the individuals′ own belief that value will be added to his job.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the role of employers in creating employment gaps among women returning to the labor market after parental leaves of different durations.

The authors use a controlled correspondence field experiment that orthogonally manipulates parental leave length and the quality of fictitious female job candidates. The experiment is complemented with a survey among human resource managers.

High-quality candidates receive more interview invitations when applying after a short parental leave, while low-quality (LQ) candidates receive more interview invitations when applying after a typical three years long parental leave. Survey results suggest that the difference in invitations between short and typical leave treatments is driven by a social norm that mothers should stay home with children younger than three. Productivity gains from employing a LQ job applicant with a shorter career break might not be high enough to outweigh the adverse social norm effect.

The presented results point toward the strong effect of prevailing social norms on job search prospects of women returning to the labor market after parental leave.

A correspondence experiment has not been used before to study the relationship between time spent on leave and the labor market prospects of mothers. It also extends research on social norms to the domain of hiring decisions.