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It is no news that severe losses have been incurred by independent chemists over the last five to ten years, both in terms of numbers and share of turnover, and that to a great extent this has been due to increased competition from supermarkets and grocery multiples. In the past, research has been done into the distribution of retail pharmacies, but now a new study has been carried out by Peter McGoldrick and Emily Chan of UMIST. Their project has a rather different purpose. Instead of looking at shifts in share of trade, they choose to focus on the pharmacy customer, her shopping problems and attitudes, and this approach has pointed up ways in which the pharmacist as retailer can effectively develop his ‘over‐the‐counter’ trade — precisely that part of his business which up to now has been eroded by supermarkets and grocery multiples.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the emergence of civil disobedience (CD) movements in Hong Kong in the context of the notion of civil society (CS).

The paper begins by rigorously defining the notion of CD, as well as the concept of CS and tracing its development in Hong Kong over the past several decades. By using a model of CS typology, which combines the variables of state control and a society’s quest for autonomy (SQA), the paper aims to outline the historical development of CD movements in Hong Kong. It also discusses the recent evolution of CS and its relationship with CD movements, particularly focusing on their development since Leung Chun-ying became the Chief Executive in 2012. Finally, by using five cases of CD witnessed in the past several decades, the relationship between the development of CS and the emergence of CD in Hong Kong has been outlined.

Four implications can be concluded: first, CD cannot emerge when the state and society are isolated. Second, the level of SC and the scale of CD are positively related. Third, as an historical trend, the development of SQA is generally in linear progress; SQA starts from a low level (e.g. interest-based and welfare-based aims) and moves upwards to campaign for higher goals of civil and political autonomy. If the lower level of SQA is not satisfied, it can lead to larger scale CD in future. Fourth, the CD movement would be largest in scale when the state-society relationship confrontational and when major cleavages can be found within CS itself.

This paper serves to enrich knowledge in the fields of politics and sociology.

Metadiscourse is an important dialogue technique used in productive knowledge building to help a group evaluate and advance their knowledge progress. Previous studies have identified and defined various types of metadiscourse. However, there is scant knowledge about how different metadiscourse types emerge among different groups or what implicit correlations lie between progressive discourse and metadiscourse. Moreover, research on how different types of metadiscourse influence groups' knowledge advancement and artifacts is still inadequate. Therefore, this study aims to further examine the roles that different types of metadiscourse play in the collaborative knowledge building community on both a fine-grained (i.e. progressive discourse) and coarse-grained (i.e. group knowledge advancement and group artifacts) level.

Data for this study are drawn from the behaviour of undergraduate students participating in a 12-week course at a key university in China. On the fine-grained level, epistemic network analysis (ENA) is applied to illustrate how metadiscourse promotes the development of progressive discourse. On the coarse-grained level, two different chi-square tests are conducted to examine the roles of different types of metadiscourse in groups' knowledge advancement and artifacts.

The analysis allowed several conclusions to be drawn. First, the types of metadiscourse that students most often adopted were reflecting on ideas development (RD) and commenting on ideas (CI); they less frequently adopted setting group goals (SG) and making group plans (MP). Second, most types of metadiscourse correlated with developments in progressive discourse, particularly RD and CI. Third, the metadiscourse types RD, CI and coordinating group efforts (CE) played essential roles in knowledge advancement. Fourth, higher-quality artifacts could be created by using the metadiscourse type reviewing the state of knowledge building progress (RP).

A more profound comprehension of the role that metadiscourse plays in the collaborative knowledge building community not only contributes to the literature in the knowledge building field but also carries a significant meaning in regulating community, promoting learner agency and sustained knowledge, and consequently improving collaborative learning performance.

This paper aims to test a model examining precursors and outcomes of nurses’ leadership self-efficacy, and their aspirations to management positions.

A cross-sectional survey of 727 registered nurses across Canada was conducted. Structural equation modelling using Mplus was used to analyse the data.

Results supported the hypothesized model: χ²(312) = 949.393; CFI = 0.927; TLI = 0.919; RMSEA = 0.053 (0.049-0.057); SRMR 0.044. Skill development opportunities (ß = 0.20), temporary management roles (ß = 0.12) and informal mentoring (ß = 0.11) were significantly related to nurses’ leadership self-efficacy, which significantly influenced motivation to lead (ß = 0.77) and leadership career aspirations (ß = 0.23). Motivation to lead was significantly related to leadership career aspirations (ß = 0.50).

Nurses’ leadership self-efficacy is an important determinant of their motivation and intention to pursue a leadership career. Results suggest that nurses’ leadership self-efficacy can be influenced by providing opportunities for leadership mastery experiences and mentorship support. Leadership succession planning should include strategies to enhance nurses’ leadership self-efficacy and increase front-line nurses’ interest in leadership roles.

With an aging nurse leader workforce, it is important to understand factors influencing nurses’ leadership aspirations to develop and sustain nursing leadership capacity. This research study makes an important contribution to the nursing literature by showing that nurses’ leadership self-efficacy appears to be an important determinant of their motivation to lead and desire to pursue a career as a nurse leader.

Existing research has highlighted the need for influential leaders to respond to the evolving social, economic and environmental constraints on the construction industry. Studies on leadership in other sectors have shown that influential leaders tend to demonstrate a high level of emotional intelligence. Little or no research examining relationships between leadership style and emotional intelligence has been conducted specific to construction project managers. This study aims to identify the prevalent leadership style adopted by construction project managers and investigate potential correlations between leadership style and emotional intelligence.

An online questionnaire including a mix of open and closed questions was adopted to address the research objectives. The group studied comprised project managers currently working in the construction industry in New Zealand and the UK.

The research found that transformational leadership style is prevalent among project managers examined in this study. Significant positive relationships were found between project managers’ emotional intelligence and their likelihood of adopting a transformational leadership style.

The research results provide the construction industry with a benchmark against which individuals with high emotional intelligence, and so most suited to the challenges of the project management role, can be identified and trained. Recommendations including suitable methods for identifying, recruiting and training project managers, as well as secondment and mentoring options, were suggested for improving leadership capabilities in the construction industry.

This paper aims to report a case study in flexible learning with multicomponent blended learning mode in an undergraduate chemistry course. Traditional chemistry courses usually include lectures, tutorials and laboratory sections. For a course “Advances in Organic Synthesis” at undergraduate level, it consists of advanced information in organic chemistry such as reaction mechanisms, asymmetric catalysis, retrosynthesis and applications in synthesis of natural products. This course is a difficult subject and requires deep understanding of contents. After learning this course, students should have comprehensive knowledge in advanced strategies of organic synthesis and have an ability to apply them to real cases. This “flexible learning with multicomponent blended learning mode” was implemented by the authors to enhance student engagement and self-motivation in their studies.

The authors hoped to enhance students’ engagement in “flexible learning” – a mixed concept with “blended learning” and “flipped classroom” – and called this approach as “multicomponent blended learning mode.” Blended learning combines face-to-face and e-learning components with interactive Web-based components and technical experimental videos were developed. The knowledge integrated in different components provides a natural environment to link the different synthetic methods together, which help students to get a better understanding of the complicated knowledge and strengthen their skills. For flipped classroom, students participated in the case studies of the organic synthesis and shared their findings to other classmates in oral presentations.

In this study, both course evaluation score and students’ academic performance in the “multicomponent blended learning mode” were increased significantly when comparing with traditional teaching methods in 2011. It was found that students’ engagement and their self-motivation in learning were enhanced.

The positive feedback from the students and the enhancement of their academic performance supported the value in this research. Besides, most universities in Hong Kong have suspended all face-to-face classes and conducted all teaching in online mode during COVID-19 outbreak. As the multicomponent blended learning mode of this course has already been conducted for eight cohorts, the authors are confident that this feature can minimize the sudden change in the learning habits for the students. As social factors and individual variations in students’ learning and study mode may affect the learning outcomes, these interactive multicomponent e-learning components in this special period make students excited when they can study and digest the knowledge according to their own pace.

The purpose of this study is to investigate what sustainability initiatives are being implemented by Canadian independent restaurants and to determine if the initiatives represent all 10 categories of a sustainable restaurant as established by a sustainability initiative framework.

The study uses a qualitative approach of semi-structured interviews with 15 small to medium enterprise (SME), independent restaurant owners and operators across Canada. The data was digitally transcribed and thematic analysis was performed.

Results indicated that most initiatives aligned with the categories of “sustainable food/menu” and “waste reduction and disposables” which shows that the operators were inclined to pursue initiatives in customer view. Restaurants put limited focus on water supply, chemicals and pollution reduction, furniture and construction materials. Some of the barriers to implementing, measuring and learning about initiatives were: cost, lack of access to programs, supply chain complications, not having buy-in from owners and lack of time to implement.

The study recommends that governments provide incentives to implement sustainability initiatives that are out of sight to the customer. For example, implementing composting, energy efficient equipment and water saving processes. It is also recommended that third-party restaurant organizations provide more accurate, evidence-based guidance and education on implementing a wide-range of sustainability initiatives.

This research contributes to the literature on sustainability in restaurants and applies a sustainability initiative framework in a practical context. The study provides a unique assessment of the current state of restaurant sustainability and states where restaurants need to improve their efforts.