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The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of self-affirmation on African American smokers' intentions to quit smoking sooner and desire to stop smoking altogether in response to viewing graphic cigarette warning labels. It also tested the mediating role of perceived susceptibility and self-efficacy in explaining the impact of self-affirmation.

African American smokers (N = 158) were recruited to participate in a controlled experiment. Participants first completed a short questionnaire about their demographic background and smoking-related attitudes and behavior. They were then randomly assigned to engage in either a self-affirmation task or a control task and viewed two graphic cigarette warning labels subsequently. Participants then responded to a questionnaire about their perceived susceptibility to smoking-related diseases, perceived self-efficacy to quit smoking, intentions to quit smoking and desire to stop smoking altogether.

Results showed that engaging in self-affirmation prior to exposure to graphic cigarette warning labels increased African American smokers' perceived susceptibility to smoking-related diseases, but decreased their perceived self-efficacy to quit smoking. Furthermore, self-affirmation indirectly enhanced smokers' intentions to quit smoking sooner and desire to stop smoking altogether through increased perceived susceptibility. It also had an unexpected negative indirect effect on intentions to quit smoking sooner through decreased self-efficacy.

This study is one of the few studies that investigates the effect of self-affirmation on African American smokers' responses toward graphic cigarette warning labels.

Testing technologies for policing is costly and laborious. Previous research found that police can be reticent about technology adoption. The purpose of this paper is to examine law enforcement adoption of programmatic innovations focused on particular crime types (radiological and nuclear threats).

First, an expert police panel explored readiness to adopt an advanced technology (personal radiation detectors (PRDs)). A survey was then developed from the panel findings (n=101 sampled from East Coast metropolitan police).

Results indicated that on-duty device adoption was likely, but not off-duty. In addition, concerns about ease of carrying PRDs, personal health and security issues, and concerns about job performance were raised. Furthermore, findings suggest that police respond negatively to financial incentives, and focus instead on how innovations can contribute to their own safety and that of their immediate families. Additionally, results indicate that false positives are not a significant barrier to adoption, but device training is important.

This work gives insight how to engage officers more meaningfully in technology adoption for benefit of policing in the field.

This work expands previous police adoption literature and advances understanding of the increasing role officers are taking in counter-terrorism efforts in the USA with applications around the world.

Previous studies have documented that exposure to stereotypical information about certain social groups leads to unfavorable perceptions and feelings toward that group. Integrating insights from the mental illness stigma and the social identity perspective literatures, the purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of eating disorder public service announcements (ED PSAs) that employ stigma formats through the lenses of the stereotype content model (SCM) and the Behaviors from Intergroup Affect and Stereotypes (BIAS) Map.

The study followed an experimental control group design. Participants were exposed to either a stigmatizing or a non-stigmatizing PSA.

Exposure to the stigmatizing PSA resulted in lower perceptions of warmth and competence being attributed to people who have an ED which further predicted greater feelings of contempt toward these individuals. The stigmatizing PSA also directly predicted greater feelings of contempt.

The findings suggest that using stereotypes about EDs in PSAs aimed at preventing such diseases may elicit perceptions of low warmth and competence, further associated with increased feelings of contempt toward people who have an ED in healthy individuals.

The stereotyping effects of PSAs may reduce the social and emotional support that people with EDs receive and may exacerbate their emotional distress.

From a theoretical point of view, these results extend the understanding of mental illness stereotypes from an intergroup, SCM and BIAS Map perspective as it applies to EDs. More importantly, this study draws attention to possible unintended consequences of PSAs, a matter that is rarely researched, but that can have severe implications.

The purpose of this paper is to test the effects of cigarette warning labels that used text-only or text-plus relevant graphics. The labels were framed in terms of either the negative consequences of smoking (loss frame) or the benefits of not smoking (gain frame). The role of smoking identity – the centrality of being a smoker to one's self-concept – in the effects of the warning labels was also examined.

An experiment was conducted online with 132 college smokers. Participants were randomly assigned to viewing either graphic or text-only labels that were either gain or loss framed. Smoking identity was measure prior to viewing. Message evaluations and smoking intentions were assessed after exposure as dependent measures.

A consistent interaction between graphics and framing emerged across a number of dependent measures. For graphic warning labels, the loss frame was more advantageous than the gain frame. For text-only warning labels, framing did not make any difference. This two-way interaction was further qualified by smoking identity for some, but not all, dependent measures.

Findings from this study support the use of graphic warning labels that focus on the negative health consequences of smoking.

Experimental research on graphic cigarette warning labels is limited and rarely considers the roles of framing and smoking identity. This study offered an initial test of the complex interaction among these message and audience variables as they jointly influence message reception and smoking intentions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the physico-chemical properties of the groundwater surrounding the Solous (solid waste dumpsite) at Isheri, Lagos, Nigeria.

In total, 40 groundwater samples were collected from ten pre-determined sampling stations. Three sample stations were established before the dumpsite; three sample stations were located in the vicinity of the dumpsite in the direction of the leachate plume, while the remaining four sample stations were situated further away and acted as a control. Sampling was carried out four times during the study period (twice each in the rainy and dry seasons). The parameters measured in situ were air and water temperatures (using mercury-in-glass bulb thermometer) and pH (using pH meter). Calcium and magnesium contents were measured using the Ca-Mg indicator; sodium content was measured using the flame emission spectrophotometry and phosphate was measured using the flame photometry. The selected heavy metals (copper, iron, lead, cadmium, zinc and manganese) were measured by using the atomic absorption spectrometer. The oxygen parameters, such as dissolved oxygen, biological oxygen demand, chemical oxygen demand and organic matter, were determined titrimetrically. The data obtained were subjected to descriptive statistics and analysis of variance (ANOVA).

The results showed that many parameters had higher values in the dry season than in the rainy season. Temperature (27.75±0.95°C), alkalinity (211.37±82.78 mg/LCaCO₃), phosphate (0.30±0.07 mg/L) and sulfate (2.78±0.35 mg/L), sodium ion (41.95±18.86 mg/L), dissolved oxygen (2.98±0.57 mg/L) and COD (33.54±4.50 mg/L) had higher mean values in the dry season than in the rainy season. On the other hand, the mean values of electrical conductivity (1,224.85±370.63), nitrate (0.01±0.003 mg/L), chloride (98.76±21.58 mg/L), calcium ion (5.38±0.68 mg/L), magnesium ion (3.05±0.05 mg/L), BOD (22.37±2.20 mg/L) and pH (6.31±0.18) were higher in the rainy season than in the dry season. The heavy metals (iron 1.10±0.05 mg/L, lead 0.12±0.07 mg/L, manganese 0.01±0.004 mg/L, copper 0.15±0.003 mg/L, zinc 0.07±0.004 mg/L and cadmium 0.02±0.02 mg/L) were fairly uniform all year round. There was also a marked decline in the values as one moved away from the dumpsite.

The implication of the findings is that human health is remarkably dependent upon safe and clean drinking water. Preserving the water resources and hindering them from pollution is preferred to the treatment of polluted water and rendering it suitable for consumption. The high electrical conductivity values obtained in the groundwater samples near the dumpsites are an indication of the effect of leachate on the groundwater quality. The high concentrations of dissolved solids in the groundwater may decrease the palatability and may cause gastro-intestinal irritation in humans, and laxative effect particularly on transits.

The pollutants from the various waste components disposed at the dumpsite percolate into the ground to pollute the groundwater. The groundwater is transported in the line of flow away from the vicinity of the dumpsite to pollute the groundwater in the area. The extent of contamination level of groundwater quality due to leachate percolation depends upon a number of factors like chemical composition of leachate, rainfall, depth and distance of the well from the dumpsite. Groundwater samples of different depths and distances from dumpsites were analyzed in the present study to understand the level of a combination.

The purpose of this paper is to respond to the need for comparative studies on methodologies for implementing Crime Prevention through Urban Design and Planning (CP-UDP) at the local level, particularly in peripheral Europe where CP-UDP’s top-down standards have poor dissemination and acceptance. This paper debates how local partnerships can help reduce crime and how a CP-UDP-based model can be introduced into municipal planning.

The paper discusses the challenge of CP-UDP in the framework of a post-crisis Europe and Europe 2020. Because there is a large gap between theory and practice, lack of a shared holistic approach, and scepticism, or lack of knowledge, of public authorities, at local-level planning professionals and the police have devised bottom-up initiatives based on interdisciplinary partnerships with the community. The paper describes, discusses and compares the implementation of such approaches in Lisbon (Portugal) and Vilnius (Lithuania).

The paper addresses the processes and challenges of establishing synergies and working relationships between police officers, public officials and the community, and it discusses six main causes for its (un)success. When these conditions were met, crime and social constraints reduced.

Lessons learned are deemed crucial to disseminate knowledge and best practices, paving the way for proper top-down policies and planning legislations in these and other countries.

This paper analyses the potentialities and shortcomings of local-level implementation of CP-UDP strategies as an alternative to failed top-down strategies in two realities mostly unknown of the international scientific community. The case study material is previously unpublished internationally.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the link between board structure and performance of public companies in Russia – an emerging market with unique institutional background and a variability of corporate governance (CG) practices across its companies.

Panel data analysis was applied on a sample of 207 Russian companies that frequently traded in the Russian Trading System during the period 2007-2011, in order to test hypotheses on the relationships between board size, board independence, gender diversity, presence of board committees and financial performance, as measured by Tobin’s Q.

The results show a positive relationship between Tobin’s Q and the board’s gender diversity. The analysis demonstrates that smaller and bigger boards are associated with a greater Tobin’s Q value.

The findings provide additional evidence of how board structure is related to its effectiveness and corporate performance in countries with concentrated ownership, highly variable CG practices and a lack of proper implementation of corporate law and governance codes. The paper contributes to the existing empirical evidence on the advantages of small and large-sized boards and on gender diversity, and is the first investigating the relationship between Russian companies’ board committees and market-based performance. The results regarding board independence and committees suggest that these mechanisms are still not widely recognized for their role in CG and company performance in Russia.

This study aims to reveal the perspectives of the management and senior accountants on the subject regarding the effects of climate change on the business world, within the framework of utilisation of tools like strategic cost management and strategic management. An electronic form was sent repeatedly to the e-mail addresses of public companies listed on the Borsa Istanbul (BIST), which were obtained from the Public Disclosure Platform (PDP), between June 2018 and June 2019. According to the data obtained from the survey of this study, it is not possible to comment that these tools are effectively utilised in Turkey. Besides, it is also early to say that top management is fully aware of the need to manage climate change. This study contributes to the literature by revealing the view of management accountants and finance experts in Turkey on climate change.

During the last two decennia ‘disability’ increasingly has been considered by various academic disciplines like sociology, literature, social sciences, geography and history as a fresh and innovative analytical category with the transformative potential of race, gender, class and sexuality. At the heart of this development is a comprehensive transformation of what is understood by ‘disability’. Traditionally, ‘disability’ was considered to be nothing more than an objective and invariable part of the human body. Nowadays ‘disability’ is primarily presented as the contingent result of the complex and manifold interactions between an individual’s body and its surrounding multilayered reality. This new meaning of ‘disability’ especially has been put forward by what has come to be known as Disability Studies.

When established markets in the West are stagnating or in crisis, companies increasingly look to emerging markets, especially the so-called BRICs, for growth potential. However, these new markets also pose unique challenges, for which the best practices and assumptions of Western managers are not automatically suited. Setting up supply chains in new regions confronts firms with multiple challenges in terms of regulation, resources, culture, and infrastructure. In this case study, students will accompany a successful German FMCG manager as he plans his company’s expansion into Russia, and is forced to look at the opportunities and challenges from a new perspective.