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Chemsex is a phenomenon that has gained increasing attention in recent years. The purpose of this paper is to differentiate chemsex from other sexualized substance use, and clarify differences between recreational and problematic chemsex use. Despite plentiful publications, little has been published on underlying determinants that predispose individuals to chemsex, and their process toward problematic chemsex use.

During the second European Chemsex Forum, people who engage in chemsex, community organizers, researchers, clinicians, therapists, social workers and (peer) counselors discussed potential pathways to problematic chemsex. In this manuscript, we translate findings from these discussions into a framework to understand the initiation and process toward problematic chemsex.

Six stages (loneliness and emptiness, search for connection, sexual connection, chemsex connection, problematic chemsex and severe health impact) and a set of factors facilitating the transition from one stage to the next have been identified.

It is hoped that this “Journey towards problematic chemsex use” will stimulate reflection and debate, with the ultimate goal of improving prevention and care for people engaging in chemsex.

The current research aims to investigate the impact of coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) evolution, government stringency measures and economic resilience on stock market volatility in the Middle East and North African (MENA) emerging markets. Other macroeconomic factors were also taken into account.

Based on financial data from 10 selected MENA countries, we tested an integrated framework that has not yet been explored in prior research. The exponential generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (E-GARCH) was adopted to analyze data from March 2020 to February 2022.

Our research illustrates the direct and indirect effects of the virus outbreak on stock market stability and reports that economic resilience could alleviate the volatility shock. This finding is robust across the various proxies of economic resilience used in this study. We also argue that the negative impact of the pandemic on equity market variation gets more pronounced in countries with higher level of stringency scores.

Policymakers ought to strengthen their economic structures and reinforce the economic governance at the national level to gain existing and potential investors’ trust and ensure lower stock market volatilities in times of crisis. Our study also recommends some key economic factors to consider while establishing efficient policies to tackle unexpected shocks and prevent financial meltdowns.

Our findings add to the evolving literature on the reaction of economic and financial markets to the sanitary crisis, particularly in developing countries where research is still scarce. This study is the first of its kind to investigate the stock market reaction to stringency measures in the understudied MENA region.

In Sri Lanka, a limited number of buildings have been certified for incorporation of green features and the reasons are attributed to green building investors who continue to perceive that green buildings are expensive. Further, the green building investors fail to appreciate the subsequent benefits received by those buildings during the operational phase. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to compare the life cycle cost (LCC) of green certified industrial manufacturing buildings with a similar form of the conventional buildings to establish the economic sustainability of green buildings.

The study involved a comparative case study analysis of two green buildings and a similar natured conventional building. The data required to perform the LCC analysis were extracted through documentary analysis.

The comparative analysis shows that the construction cost of a green industrial manufacturing building is 37 per cent higher than that of a similar natured conventional building while operation, maintenance and the end life cost of green buildings result in 28, 22 and 11 per cent savings, respectively. This results in an overall cost saving of 21 per cent in green buildings.

The current study provides an assessment of the total LCC of green industrial manufacturing buildings. In Sri Lanka, green industrial manufacturing buildings offer LCC saving of 21 per cent over its lifetime compared to similar natured conventional buildings. Thus, comparative analyses would enable green investors to make informed decisions before commissioning their investment in green facilities and thereby promote sustainable construction in Sri Lanka.

This monograph reports and compares “desirable” leadership traits, and leadership traits actual exhibited by managers and supervisors as defined by responses on the original English and a Chinese language translation of the Ohio State University leadership behaviour description questionnaire XII (LBDQ XII). From anecdotal evidence and personal experience, the researcher found considerable difficulty in transferring research results from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore to useful practice in the interior of China and performed this study in an attempt to gain understanding for management training courses. Data was collected for 220 managers and supervisors in two hotels in the interior of China. Both expatriate and indigenous Chinese managers were included. All supervisors were Chinese. A significant (p < 0.05) difference between Chinese and non‐Chinese expatriates was observed for factor: Tolerance of Freedom, interestingly, with the Chinese managers indicating more tolerance of freedom than the expatriate managers. Nonetheless, Chinese supervisors believed the ideal manager should be even more tolerant of freedom than their managers (p < 0.01).