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1 – 10 of 10Teresa Di Filippo, Lucia Parisi and Michele Roccella
Impairment of intelligence in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) patients was described by Duchenne de Boulogne himself in 1868. Further studies report intelligence disorders with…
Abstract
Impairment of intelligence in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) patients was described by Duchenne de Boulogne himself in 1868. Further studies report intelligence disorders with mayor impairment of memory. The aim of the present study was to assess the presence of affective and personality disorders in a group of children affected by DMD. Twenty six male DMD patients, mean age eleven and four months years old, were assessed for their affective and personality disorder. Only eight subjects had a total IQ below average with major difficulties in verbal and visual-spatial memory, comprehension, arithmetic and vocabulary. All the subjects presented some disorders: tendency to marginalization and isolation, self-depreciation, sense of insecurity, hypochondriac thoughts and marked state of anxiety. These disorders are often a dynamic prolongation of a psychological process which starts when the diagnosis is made and continues, in a slow and latent fashion, throughout the evolution of the disease.
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Alec Davies, Les Dolega and Daniel Arribas-Bel
Twenty-first century online retailing has reshaped the retail landscape. Grocery shopping is emerging as the next fastest growing category in online retailing in the UK, having…
Abstract
Purpose
Twenty-first century online retailing has reshaped the retail landscape. Grocery shopping is emerging as the next fastest growing category in online retailing in the UK, having implications for the channels we use to purchase goods. Using Sainsbury’s data, the authors create a bespoke set of grocery click&collect catchments. The resultant catchments allow an investigation of performance within the emerging channel of grocery click&collect. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
The spatial interaction method of “Huff gravity modeling” is applied in a semi-automated approach, used to calculate grocery click&collect catchments for 95 Sainsbury’s stores in England. The catchments allow investigation of the spatial variation and particularly rural-urban differences. Store and catchment characteristics are extracted and explored using ordinary least squares regression applied to investigate “demand per day” (a confidentiality transformed revenue value) as a function of competition, performance and geodemographic factors.
Findings
The findings show that rural stores exhibit a larger catchment extent for grocery click&collect when compared with urban stores. Linear regression finds store characteristics as having the greatest impact on demand per day, adhering to wider retail competition literature. Conclusions display a need for further investigation (e.g. quantifying loyalty).
Originality/value
New insights are contributed at a national level for grocery click&collect, as well as e-commerce, multichannel shopping and retail geography. Areas for further investigation are identified, particularly quantitatively capturing brand loyalty. The research has commercial impact as the catchments are being applied by Sainsbury’s to decide the next 100 stores and plan for the next five years of their grocery click&collect offering.
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Abdulkhaliq Alazzawie and Noureldin Mohamed Abdelaal
Adopting the split complementizer phrase (CP) hypothesis, the paper aims at providing an account for object cliticization in Standard Arabic (SA) as an instance of object…
Abstract
Purpose
Adopting the split complementizer phrase (CP) hypothesis, the paper aims at providing an account for object cliticization in Standard Arabic (SA) as an instance of object displacement. Kayne's proposal on cliticization is adopted here to account for the type of displacement in SA that objects clitics in SA, like full determiner phrases (DPs), obligatorily move from their base position as independent complements of the verb to the specifier of Foc first before attaching to the verb under the tense node.
Design/methodology/approach
This research adopts a qualitative interpretive research design (Creswell, 2007, 2010). The majority of the samples chosen for the study involve dependent pronominal objects obligatorily attached to the verb. The samples were judged to be grammatical based on the author's judgment as an native speaker of Arabic. Moreover, all the examples were checked for grammaticality by two full professors of Arabic grammar who are native speakers.
Findings
The analysis proposed that, like lexical DP's, pronominal objects originate as separate maximal projection (XP) constituents and move from their base position as verbal complements to the focus position [Spec, Foc]. In other words, both are able to move out of VP, targeting the same specifier position of a functional projection. This movement is focus-driven, that is, triggered by the edge feature on Foc. Pronominal objects at a later phase crucially higher than V0 (possibly in phonetic form (PF)) get cliticized to the verb which has adjoined to T.
Originality/value
Unlike displaced lexical DP objects in SA syntax, displaced pronominal objects, however, have received less critical attention especially within Rizzi's (1997, 2004) left periphery theory and, therefore, some areas of these constructions remain poorly understood.
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Anna Aleksandra Lupina-Wegener, Shuang Liang, Rolf van Dick and Johannes Ullrich
Building on social identity theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine how European managers construct their multiple identities after being acquired by a Chinese firm and to…
Abstract
Purpose
Building on social identity theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine how European managers construct their multiple identities after being acquired by a Chinese firm and to determine the key factors contributing to the changing dynamics of multiple organizational identities.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents a qualitative, single case study of a Chinese acquisition of a European manufacturing firm at two points in time.
Findings
We find that multiple identities initially trigger ambivalence toward the acquisition, but over time, the ambivalence diminishes. The reduction of ambivalence results from concurrent integration and separation: a newly constructed boundary spanning the organization separates positive identities from negative ones, and integration interventions foster the development of a new, shared identity.
Originality/value
The findings reveal that organizational identity change is facilitated by the aligning of a post-merger identity with the acquired organization's historical identity and by creating an ambivalent boundary spanning identity.
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The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.
Design/methodology/approach
The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.
Findings
The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.
Originality/value
In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.
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Sissel Horghagen, Tore Bonsaksen, Unni Sveen, Anne Stine Dolva and Cathrine Arntzen
Reforms in the health-care system may impact how health-care professionals perceive and enact their roles. This study aims to examine the way in which occupational therapists…
Abstract
Purpose
Reforms in the health-care system may impact how health-care professionals perceive and enact their roles. This study aims to examine the way in which occupational therapists experience and describe their roles in municipalities after the implementation of a health reform (the Coordination Act) in Norway.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative study was designed within the perspectives of social constructivism. Data was collected through focus group interviews with 10 community-working occupational therapists. A thematic framework analysis was used to examine the participants’ experiences.
Findings
The following four themes emerged: external factors that framed and shaped the occupational therapists’ roles in municipalities; the strengths and dilemmas of the generalist; the problematic generic position and the strengths; and dilemmas of the specialist.
Originality/value
The study suggests that occupational therapy practitioners should identify new opportunities and adapt to health reform changes. They also need to renegotiate their roles as the health reforms require more specialized competences. Greater emphasis must be placed on the core knowledge and competences of occupational therapists to strengthen their professional identity in the municipalities.
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Judit Végh, Andrea Dúll and Lan Anh Nguyen Luu
This qualitative study explores how trailing spouses form their relationships before and after a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic and what patterns can be observed. It…
Abstract
Purpose
This qualitative study explores how trailing spouses form their relationships before and after a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic and what patterns can be observed. It explores their significant relationships with friends and extended family, focusing on dynamics and change.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with seven trailing spouses in Malaysia: before the pandemic, in the beginning and at the end of the first year of the pandemic. The authors used longitudinal interpretative phenomenological analysis (LIPA).
Findings
Being aware of the limits of resources emerged as a key factor in how trailing spouses develop and maintain relationships with friends and extended family. The fact that the pandemic changed the dynamics of their social networks illuminates how crucial these relationships or their absence are in their adjustment and readjustment process. Children play a significant role in these relationships.
Research limitations/implications
Comparative research into the friendships and relationships of different groups of trailing spouses in various locations could capture more specificity of the relationship dynamics.
Practical implications
The explored patterns can promote a better understanding of the relationship dynamics of trailing spouses' networks, which can, in turn, support and facilitate both adjustment and repatriation processes. They can help explain how and what kind of social networks best support trailing spouse transition during a time of crisis or adjustment. These findings could be incorporated into intercultural training programs.
Originality/value
No current study that the authors know of has explored trailing spouses' relationship dynamics in a longitudinal study before and during a crisis.
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Emmanuel Garnier and Florence Lahournat
The paper focuses on an aspect of disaster often overlooked by experts: that of disaster memory both as a prevention tool and one potentially contributing to the resilience of…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper focuses on an aspect of disaster often overlooked by experts: that of disaster memory both as a prevention tool and one potentially contributing to the resilience of vulnerable communities in Japan. The objective is, more specifically, to explore one specific source of disaster memory in Japan, namely the disaster-related stone monuments scattered throughout the archipelago.
Design/methodology/approach
To achieve the goals, the authors have studied several types of materials. First, the authors have used the “Natural Disaster Monument” online database compiled by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GIS), data upon which the authors based the field research study, focused on water-related disaster in Otsu city (Shiga Prefecture). Simultaneously, the authors have systematically searched Japanese newspapers since the middle of the 19th century as well as the archives of Shiga prefecture in order to collect additional information on the statistical reality of these monuments, the context of their creation and in order to better estimate the severity of our case studies.
Findings
First, the findings show that stone monuments are indeed structuring elements of disaster memory in Japan. Not only are they present throughout the archipelago, but in addition, they are still for the most part visited by local communities. Second, the findings show how this material culture of disaster, as a vector of disaster memory, could be used as a tool to better understand and bring awareness to the occurrence of specific hazards, especially to future generations.
Originality/value
The authors promote an interdisciplinary approach by associating anthropology and history. The study offers a new and original character about an object of study relating to both the cultural and historical fields but still often neglected as a tool and object of research in DDR. The authors provide a method and suggest ways to integrate these stone monuments into DDR policies. Finally, the authors propose to better integrate these monuments into the overall reflection on disaster awareness and disaster mitigation.
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