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Is there a secret recipe for economic growth?

No, there is no recipe, but we can extrapolate some pieces of advice from Adam Smith.

An economy can leave behind its “dull” stagnant state and grow when its markets expand, when the productivity of its workers increases thanks to high compensations, which are seen as incentives to work harder and when lobbying and cronyism are kept at bay. Luck plays a role too, but these three ingredients are necessary, even if not sufficient, for an economy to grow and thus be “cheerful.”

These three aspects – expansion of market, liberal compensation of workers and lobbying – especially combined, have often been underestimated in Smith’s understanding of the possible sources of economic growth.

In times of crisis, such as the Covid-19 global pandemic, journalists who write about biomedical information must have the strategic aim to be clearly and easily understood by everyone. In this study, we assume that journalistic discourse could benefit from language redundancy to improve clarity and simplicity aimed at science popularization. The concept of language redundancy is theoretically discussed with the support of discourse analysis and information theory. The methodology adopted is a corpus-based qualitative approach. Two corpora samples with Brazilian Portuguese (BP) texts on Covid-19 were collected. One with texts from a monthly science digital magazine called Pesquisa FAPESP aimed at students and researchers for scientific information dissemination and the other with popular language texts from a news Portal G1 (Rede Globo) aimed at unspecified and/or non-specialized readers. The materials were filtered with two descriptors: “vaccine” and “test.” Preliminary analysis of examples from these materials revealed two categories of redundancy: paraphrastic and polysemic. Paraphrastic redundancy is based on concomitant language reformulation of words, sentences, text excerpts, or even larger units. Polysemic redundancy does not easily show material evidence, but is based on cognitively predictable semantic association in socio-cultural domains. Both kinds of redundancy contribute, each in their own way, to improving text readability for science popularization in Brazil.

An in-depth literature review was undertaken to uncover (1) what are described as the desired outcomes for 20 minute neighbourhoods (20MNs) – the normatively based ends which planners, architects and decision-makers want 20MNs to achieve; (2) the means (the mechanisms, levers, triggers and causal factors) that have to be correctly assembled and lined up for 20MNs to operate as intended and (3), in order to avoid naive environmental determinism, the behavioural changes required to support the operation of 20MNs even where the required configuration of means can be achieved. The content analysis was conducted following guidelines offered by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) criteria.

Growing interest in the urban design concept of the “20MNs” has been greatly accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been presented as a way of increasing the quality of local environments by enabling people to meet their daily needs through access to safe walking and cycling routes or by public transport. Internationally, it has captured the imagination of political decision-makers, built-environment practitioners and communities alike, as a life-affirming post-pandemic vision, held up as achieving environmental, health and economic improvements as well as reducing inequalities experienced by many. This paper's overall purpose is to separate the ends pursued in 20MNs from means available for achieving them.

The paper concludes that the ambition to see the 20MNs widely woven into existing urban, suburban and rural neighbourhoods will require significant effort to ensure all that all the component parts of, and key players in, planning's place-delivery systems are aligned and mutually supportive. Even where this can be achieved, further guidance will be needed on (1) how to operationalise the practical implementation of 20MNs and (2) how their success can be measured.

The originality of the paper lies in its efforts to discriminate between ends and means – between desired outcomes of 20MNs and the means available for achieving them. The significance of the paper lies here in this attempt to initiate a discussion on possible causal relationships between what is wanted and what would need to be done to achieve it. Without clarity about these relationships, misunderstanding, confusion and barriers to communication may arise across the many different organizations, stakeholder groups and actors involved. This lack of clarity could undermine trust and confidence, potentially undermining both the process and to its outcomes.

The paper aims to empirically test a framework to predict the desire and intention to engage with an elective health-care procedure and implement a methodology to test the anticipated positive and negative emotions in hedonic adaptation to an elective procedure.

Two studies in USA and Australia (N = 1,200) confirmed the psychometric properties of the key constructs under the chemical peel condition. Two further studies in the USA and Australia (N = 1,100) explored the research question and hypotheses in the adapted model of goal-directed behaviour under the Botox condition. A survey was self-administered to online panels who had previously engaged in such elective procedures.

The findings highlighted the pragmatic implications for communication and activation strategies to safeguard consumer interests and retain their loyalty.

From the authors’ best understanding, neither a methodology nor a theoretical framework exists to explore hedonic adaptation to recurring engagement with elective health care. A methodology and theoretical framework will highlight the mood states and factors that predict desire and intention to engage. This can advance the research on hedonic adaptation and decision-making and offer pragmatic suggestions for communication and activation strategies to safeguard consumer interests and retain their loyalty.

This chapter investigates resistance initiated by trans athletes and their allies and evaluates developments in policies and practices at the international, national and local levels of sport. The limitations of liberal approaches to trans inclusion are identified, and examples of radical, transformative approaches grounded in intersectional feminism are presented, together with an analysis of the crucial roles of solidarity work provided by allies and accomplices. The potential offered by boxing as a route to empowerment for trans and nonbinary participants is examined. An overview of recent media coverage of trans athletes suggests that global resistance is having an important impact on mainstream journalism. Finally, this chapter outlines how a successful campaign challenging a trans-exclusive Sport Canada's 2022 opinion survey and a recent report by Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport provide further evidence of effective resistance to trans exclusion in sport.

Discussions in contemporary spirituality frequently highlight a phenomenon of spiritual seeking; moreover, people often describe their spiritual journeys in terms of a search. This paper takes a closer look at this metaphor by presenting a study that analysed spiritual seeking and its informational features in contemporary non-institutionalised settings.

In this study, the authors conducted semi-structured interviews with thirteen spiritual teachers and speakers who were asked questions about spiritual seeking in contemporary non-institutionalised spirituality.

The authors' participants explained that contemporary spiritual seekers sought spiritual information as a result of affective, developmental and metaphysical concerns. Moreover, their analysis indicated that spiritual information-seeking behaviour incorporated practices such as prayer, yoga and meditation, and contemporary spiritual information interactions were facilitated through spiritual retreats, meditation classes, yoga classes and online social platforms.

Since the authors focused on spiritual seeking in contemporary non-institutionalised settings, their findings cannot exhaustively represent all spiritual pursuits in contemporary society. Their study (1) identifies the informational features of contemporary spiritual seeking, (2) explains spiritual seeking as an activity that may theoretically reside within a broader framework of profound information interactions and (3) helps theorise the concept of qualitative profundity in information science research.

This study provides an intuitive contextual approach for undertaking information research in under-explored domains such as contemplation and spirituality.

This study aims to investigate the moderating role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) commitment in the relationships between antecedents and outcomes of consumer situational scepticism towards luxury brands.

The study used a questionnaire administered through a consumer panel, using established scales. A 2 (fictional, non-fictional) × 2 (low commitment, high commitment) factorial experimental design with four cells was implemented.

The results revealed that values-driven motives were associated with lower consumer situational scepticism, whereas egoistic-driven motives were linked to higher levels of consumer situational scepticism, regardless of the CSR commitment level of the luxury brand. However, the impact of strategic-driven motives and stakeholder-driven motives on consumer situational scepticism was only significant within the low commitment condition. Consumer situational scepticism was found to lead to lower brand resonance and resilience to negative information in both low and high commitment conditions.

This study contributes new knowledge by highlighting the crucial role of motives in shaping consumer perceptions, including scepticism, brand resonance and resilience to negative information, ultimately influencing consumer advocacy. The study further demonstrates that high commitment weakens the relationship between strategic-driven and stakeholder-driven motives and consumer scepticism. Moreover, high commitment also weakens the relationship between scepticism and the key outcomes examined in the study.