Search results

Online health communities (OHCs) are attracting more and more healthy consumers, including patients, their families, caregivers and the general public. This paper aims to explore the themes and characteristics of patient-generated content (PGC) in Chinese OHCs.

Baidu Tieba for hypertension was selected as the research site. Online ethnography (netnography) approach was utilized to explore the PGC and health communication in the online hypertension community. The final database included 300 randomly sampled threads and their 3,187 reply posts and was further analyzed from three perspectives: health information needs, attitudes and psychological reactions to hypertension and social support exchange.

The members' health information needs were mainly concentrated on five aspects: causes, symptoms, measuring instrument, tests and diagnosis and treatment. Their attitudes and psychological reactions to hypertension varied with the context, for example, disease stage, health condition. Within the health communication, three types of social support – information support, emotional support and network support – were generated, transmitted and exchanged among members.

OHCs are able to serve as important source of health information and tool for health education. The implications and suggestions for health promotion of individuals, health information services optimization of OHCs and national health strategy plans were also discussed.

This is the first netnography study in information field on Chinese online hypertension community. This study provides a new perspective to explore the needs, attitudes and social support behaviors of Chinese hypertension population and also enables the Chinese experience of using OHCs to reduce health disparities to come to the world.

Public private partnerships (PPPs) are a relatively new policy that some governments now use to secure infrastructure assets. The objective of this paper is to document the construction and development of a Victorian state government hospital, Casey Hospital (CH), to identify the essential features of this contract and the relationship between the government and the private sector provider.

A case study approach is employed. The boundaries of the CH case study are limited to the identification of the service or program that was/is subjected to PPP, the reasons for adopting the PPP policy in this instance and what the criteria were that led to a successful/unsuccessful outcome for this project. Data collection methods included interviews with key participants and analysis of archival documentation.

The findings suggest that clear outcomes as specified in the contract specifications, previous experience in the hospital sector and a willingness to be flexible were key factors that resulted in a successful outcome. The government defines success for PPP projects as being built on time and within budget.

Given that governments in Australia and in many developed countries worldwide have now accepted the procurement model known as public private partnerships, further research is required to ensure that future projects meet defined objectives. This study provides an analysis of one case study and further research needs to be carried out for a thorough assessment of this policy.

Casey Hospital was the first hospital in Australia to be constructed and its ancillary facilities operated under the auspices of a PPP policy. This study is significant as public sector managers can use the findings of this report to help inform future decision making with respect to PPP projects.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how some of the information and communication practices of the Tech Media and specifically of Facebook, constitute media corruption. The paper will examine what the professional role of Facebook is regarding its information/communication practices and then demonstrate that Facebook is essentially a media company and not merely a “platform,” therefore liable to the same normative responsibilities as other media companies.

Applying the dual obligation information theory (DOIT), a normative information and communication theory that applies generally to all media companies that disseminate and share information, the paper demonstrates that Facebook’s role of mediating and curating the information of its users places upon it a normative editing responsibility, to ensure both the preventive detection and corrective editing of fake news, as well as other forms of misinformation disseminated on its platform. Finally, applying a philosophical model of media corruption the paper will demonstrate that Facebook’s role in the Cambridge Analytica case was not only unethical but moreover, constituted media corruption.

The paper concludes that Facebook’s media corruption illustrated in the Cambridge Analytica case is not a one-off case but the result of a systemic and inherent conflict of interest between its business model of selling users’ information to advertisers and its normative media role rendering the conflict of interest between those two roles conducive to media corruption.

The paper's originality is twofold. It demonstrates that Facebook is a media company normatively accountable on the basis of an original theory the DOIT and moreover, on the basis of an original media corruption theory its actions in the Cambridge Analytica case constituted media corruption.

Despite the growing interest in innovation within low-tech herbal manufacturing from strategic and policy standpoints, little empirical research exists on their innovation capability. The purpose of this study is to explore innovation capability and its effect on product innovation performance of small low-tech herbal manufacturing companies.

Innovation capability has been important to large companies in general, and to some small companies in particular, to address the issues of survival and profitability. A case study method is adopted to explore the process of innovation capability of low-tech manufacturing companies.

Analysis of the two case studies reveals that collaborating with institutional agents, customers, suppliers and competitors in interactive learning, coupled with idea management and idea implementation, are factors that have influenced innovation capability. Also, cognitive ability and social interaction were identified to be crucial for innovation capability.

This study analysed two homogenous companies from the same geographical area. It could be fruitful to extend the scope to include companies in other geographical areas and different industries, where the theoretical arguments advanced in this study can be tested further.

Although the volume of research into innovation capability is growing, few attempts have been made to explore innovation capability and its effect on product innovation performance within small low-tech herbal manufacturing companies.

The effects of Opuntia ficus indica (OFI) cladodes on uricemia level, endothelial dysfunction and oxidative damage were studied in young rats fed a cafeteria diet (CD).

A total of 16 young male Wistar rats (weighing 110 ± 20 g and four weeks old) were divided into two homogenous groups. The first group received a CD containing 50% of hyperlipidic diet and 50% of junk food mix (processed mix: hyper-fat, hyper-salted and sweetened) (CD group), and the second group (CD + OFI nopalitos) received the same diet supplemented with 50 g of fresh OFI nopalitos (young cladodes) for 30 days.

OFI nopalitos regulate the hyperuricemia, improve the endothelial dysfunction by raising the bioavailability of nitric oxide(NO) and reduce prooxidant markers by reducing lipid peroxidation and protein oxidation (p < 0.05) and boosting antioxidant capacity and enhancing the antioxidant enzymes activities (p < 0.05) in blood and aorta tissues of rats early fed with a high-fat diet /junk food.

By-products of OFI have specific functional properties that may be beneficial in metabolic disorders and offer a better alternative with an economic and sustainable development perspective.

By-products of OFI highlight potential functional properties mainly based on its potent antioxidant capacity. By-products of OFI can be used as a promising nutraceutical resource to prevent various metabolic disorders in relation with cardiovascular diseases or hyperuricemia in subjects consuming junk food and or living in the Western society to reach the objectives of health policy and maintain a sustainable health system development.