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The Internet has revolutionised information exchange. Its rapid connection of users and materials locally and globally make it an ideal health promotion medium, for both the public and professionals. However, the mechanisms through which it might contribute to health improvement are unclear. This paper provides an overview of Internet developments and presents findings from research carried out on behalf of the Health Education Board for Scotland, illustrating some of the assumptions implicit in using the Internet for health promotion. In the absence good evidence on the effects of delivering health promotion online, this paper argues that good practice requires greater responsiveness to user needs and circumstances at the planning stage, better quality assurance, more clearly defined indicators of “success” and the pathways to it, and more comprehensive evaluation of short‐ and long‐term impacts and outcomes.

Between the 1830s and 1990s, thousands of Irish women were incarcerated without due process in magdalen asylums for sexual behaviour that violated the Catholic Church’s moral code. The asylums were operated by congregations of nuns that sought to protect society from the contagion of “wayward” women while simultaneously attempting to reform them through a harsh regimen of laundry work and devotional rituals. Some penitents, as the inmates were often called, embraced the institutional life of labour and prayer with such sincerity that they advanced to the nun‐like status of the Sisters Magdalen. Most simply endured lives of drudgery indistinguishable from slavery until either death or release upon the intervention of relatives. The asylum system had no basis in law and its shadowy existence, its ability to avoid scrutiny or regulation, and its survival until very recent times, illustrate in a striking manner the hegemonic power of the Church in Ireland.

This paper aims to examine the relationships between anthropomorphic cues (i.e. degrees of the humanized profile picture and naming) in artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots and business types (utilitarian-centered business vs hedonic-centered business) on consumers’ attitudes toward the AI chatbot and intentions to use the AI chatbot app and to accept the AI chatbot’s recommendation.

An online experiment with a 2 (humanized profile pictures: low [semihumanoid] vs high [full-humanoid]) × 2 (naming: Mary vs virtual assistant) × 2 (business types: utilitarian-centered business [bank] vs hedonic-centered business [café]) between-subjects design (N = 520 Mturk samples) was used.

The results of this study show significant main effects of anthropomorphic cues (i.e. degrees of profile picture and naming) in AI chatbots and three-way interactions among humanized profile pictures, naming and business types (utilitarian-centered business vs hedonic-centered business) on consumers’ attitudes toward the AI chatbot, intentions to use the AI chatbot app and intentions to accept the AI chatbot’s recommendation. This indicates that the high level of anthropomorphism generates more positive attitudes toward the AI chatbot and intentions to use the AI chatbot app and to accept the AI chatbot’s recommendation in the hedonic-centered business condition. Moreover, the mediated role of parasocial interaction occurs in this relationship.

This study is the original endeavor to examine the moderating role of business types influencing the effect of anthropomorphism on consumers’ responses, while existing literature overweighted the value of anthropomorphism in AI chatbots without considering the variation of businesses.

This paper argues that human services should move towards self‐directed support. If people have more control over their own individual support, they will be better able to control the quality of the support and to participate in community life. This hypothesis is being tested by the In Control programme.

Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence down into manageable chunks, covering: age discrimination in the workplace; discrimination against African‐Americans; sex discrimination in the workplace; same sex sexual harassment; how to investigate and prove disability discrimination; sexual harassment in the military; when the main US job‐discrimination law applies to small companies; how to investigate and prove racial discrimination; developments concerning race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; developments concerning discrimination against workers with HIV or AIDS; developments concerning discrimination based on refusal of family care leave; developments concerning discrimination against gay or lesbian employees; developments concerning discrimination based on colour; how to investigate and prove discrimination concerning based on colour; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; using statistics in employment discrimination cases; race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning gender discrimination in the workplace; discrimination in Japanese organizations in America; discrimination in the entertainment industry; discrimination in the utility industry; understanding and effectively managing national origin discrimination; how to investigate and prove hiring discrimination based on colour; and, finally, how to investigate sexual harassment in the workplace.

This collection of stories captures the lives of people whose lives have changed as a consequence of the policy to close long‐stay hospitals. Not everyone lived in a long‐stay hospital, but those who haven't probably would have if they were still around. They give a snapshot of the impact of probably the most important public policy in the UK to affect people with learning difficulties over the last 40 years.

Examines the question of whether private library funds — often acquired by libraries through fundraising efforts — threaten the allocation of local public funds. Reports interviews with US librarians and government officials selected by convenient sampling. It is clear that concerns exist despite earlier statistical studies giving no basis for concern. Discusses protection of funds by means of funding partnerships, certain safeguards in setting up library foundations, and appropriate library advocacy. Lesgislators indicate they are listening to libraries' needs. Suggests that librarians take the initiative in protecting funds.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the design of skin surface electrodes for functional electrical stimulation using an isotropic single layered model of the skin and underlying tissue. A concentric ring electrode geometry was analysed and compared with a conventional configuration, specifically to localise and maximise the activation at depth and minimise the peak current density at the skin surface.

The mathematical formulation determines the spatial electric potential distribution in the tissue, using the solution to the Laplace equation in the lower half space subject to boundary conditions given by the complete electrode model and appropriate asymptotic decay. Hence, it is shown that the electric potential satisfies a weakly singular Fredholm integral equation of the second kind which is then solved numerically in MATLAB for a novel concentric ring electrode configuration and the conventional two disk side-by-side electrode configuration.

In both models, the electrode geometry can be optimised to obtain a higher activation and lower maximum current density. The concentric ring electrode configuration, however, provides improved performance over the traditional two disk side-by-side electrode configuration.

In this study, only a single layer of medium was investigated. A comparison with multilayer tissue models and in vivo validation of numerical simulations are required.

The developed mathematical approaches and simulations revealed the parameters that influence nerve activation and facilitated the theoretical comparison of the two electrode configurations. The concentric ring configuration potentially may have significant clinical advantages.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the methodological approaches adopted in cross‐cultural service quality (CCSQ) research and the extent to which these approaches have adhered to the general principles of established cross‐cultural research methodology.

A search was conducted to identify CCSQ papers published between 1995 and 2009. The authors searched four well‐known online databases: ABI Inform (Proquest Direct), Emerald Library, ScienceDirect, and EBSCOhost. This search identified 40 studies, which were examined according to three broad groups of methodological issues: research design, instrumentation and data collection, and data analysis and measurement.

Despite the acknowledged contributions that these selected studies have made to the services‐marketing field, it is evident from this review that researchers have frequently overlooked many important aspects of cross‐cultural research methodology. These methodological deficiencies are discussed and various remedies are suggested.

There has been a growing research interest in comparative cross‐cultural service‐quality in recent decades. As this relatively new branch of service‐quality research becomes more prominent, it seems opportune to examine the methodological approaches adopted in these studies and the extent to which these approaches have adhered to the general principles of established cross‐cultural research methodology. This is the first work to examine such a large number of CCSQ studies.