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Open Access
Article
Publication date: 25 January 2010

Costa Vakalopoulos

Although first rank symptoms focus on positive symptoms of psychosis they are shared by a number of psychiatric conditions. The difficulty in differentiating bipolar disorder from…

Abstract

Although first rank symptoms focus on positive symptoms of psychosis they are shared by a number of psychiatric conditions. The difficulty in differentiating bipolar disorder from schizophrenia with affective features has led to a third category of patients often loosely labeled as schizoaffective. Research in schizophrenia has attempted to render the presence or absence of negative symptoms and their relation to etiology and prognosis more explicit. A dichotomous population is a recurring theme in experimental paradigms. Thus, schizophrenia is defined as process or reactive, deficit or non-deficit and by the presence or absence of affective symptoms. Laboratory tests confirm the clinical impression showing conflicting responses to dexamethasone suppression and clearly defined differences in autonomic responsiveness, but their patho-physiological significance eludes mainstream theory. Added to this is the difficulty in agreeing to what exactly constitutes useful clinical features differentiating, for example, negative symptoms of a true deficit syndrome from features of depression. Two recent papers proposed that the general and specific cognitive features of schizophrenia and major depression result from a monoamine-cholinergic imbalance, the former due to a relative muscarinic receptor hypofunction and the latter, in contrast, to a muscarinic hypersensitivity exacerbated by monoamine depletion. Further development of these ideas will provide pharmacological principles for what is currently an incomplete and largely, descriptive nosology of psychosis. It will propose a dimensional view of affective and negative symptoms based on relative muscarinic integrity and is supported by several exciting intracellular signaling and gene expression studies. Bipolar disorder manifests both muscarinic and dopaminergic hypersensitivity. The greater the imbalance between these two receptor signaling systems, the more the clinical picture will resemble schizophrenia with bizarre, incongruent delusions and increasingly disorganized thought. The capacity for affective expression, by definition a non-deficit syndrome, will remain contingent on the degree of preservation of muscarinic signaling, which itself may be unstable and vary between trait and state examinations. At the extreme end of muscarinic impairment, a deficit schizophrenia subpopulation is proposed with a primary and fixed muscarinic receptor hypofunction.

The genomic profile of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia overlap and both have a common dopaminergic intracellular signaling which is hypersensitive to various stressors. It is proposed that the concomitant muscarinic receptor upregulation differentiates the syndromes, being marked in bipolar disorder and rather less so in schizophrenia. From a behavioral point of view non-deficit syndromes and bipolar disorder appear most proximate and could be reclassified as a spectrum of affective psychosis or schizoaffective disorders. Because of a profound malfunction of the muscarinic receptor, the deficit subgroup cannot express a comparable stress response. None -theless, a convergent principle of psychotic features across psychiatric disorders is a relative monoaminergic-muscarinic imbalance in signal transduction.

Details

Mental Illness, vol. 2 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2036-7465

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 11 January 2021

Oliver Cruz-Milán

The purpose of this paper is to investigate specific marketing mix activities and influencing factors in hotels coping with falling room demand derived from drug cartel-related…

5985

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate specific marketing mix activities and influencing factors in hotels coping with falling room demand derived from drug cartel-related risk and insecurity.

Design/methodology/approach

A case study research was carried out using semistructured interviews with key informants (hotel managers) in two neighboring destinations at the US–Mexico border, an area where criminal organizations' drug trafficking-related violence has impacted the hospitality industry.

Findings

The research identifies factors that are internal (market segment diversification, type of ownership, magnitude of investments) and external (tourism promotion organizations, media coverage, tourist flow volume) to the firms as they affect their marketing mix implementation.

Research limitations/implications

The research developed a framework to better understand the use of marketing mix practices and influencing factors in criminal insecurity contexts, which could be further studied in other risk and conflict scenarios.

Practical implications

The pricing and communication tactics are employed more intensively, while product-service and distribution channel actions are used to a lesser extent. Greater emphasis should be placed on product-service, distribution and market segment diversification.

Social implications

Considering the positive impacts that tourism and hospitality businesses have on local communities, it is recommended that the hotel sector works together with government and industry associations to improve the safety and security at tourism destinations.

Originality/value

The research extends the extant knowledge in hospitality crisis management by investigating the full marketing mix tactics in hotels at destinations stricken by cartel-related organized crime, an understudied context in the literature.

Details

International Hospitality Review, vol. 36 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2516-8142

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 7 November 2018

Long Yin, Lin Wang, Lifang Huang, Jinxiu Wang, Hui Xu and Milan Deng

The purpose of this paper is to examine how advertising is used by real estate companies as an instrument for managing the adverse effects of a catastrophe.

2218

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine how advertising is used by real estate companies as an instrument for managing the adverse effects of a catastrophe.

Design/methodology/approach

Through a theoretical analysis, types of post-disaster advertising messages were identified. On the basis of the likely variations in post-disaster advertising, a content analysis was conducted of a sample of 4,150 property print advertisements to identify advertising messages related to the earthquake. Finally, the message changes in these earthquake-related advertisements were evaluated and compared with the dimension of time to explore the development of advertising strategies.

Findings

The authors found that 12 types of advertising messages were used by developers in response to the Wenchuan earthquake. The initial advertising strategy was mainly to manage public relations, then the strategy was to reduce or compensate for the increased earthquake risk perceptions of buyers.

Practical implications

The findings provide valuable references for helping enterprises adopt effective advertising messages and strategies to reduce the negative effects of disasters.

Originality/value

There are only a few studies on advertising campaigns, especially in the real estate industry, that have been conducted in the wake of catastrophes. This study sought to expand upon the scarce findings in this particular field.

Details

Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, vol. 28 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0965-3562

Keywords

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