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Article
Publication date: 14 November 2023

Donna Ellen Frederick

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how retracted scientific papers become zombie papers and why they are problematic and to encourage librarians to become active in…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how retracted scientific papers become zombie papers and why they are problematic and to encourage librarians to become active in addressing these problems.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper explains what zombie papers are, how they are created and the potential impact they can have on the body of scientific literature. It explains how and why they are different than other common types of misleading scientific publications. It also explores recent developments such as the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and changes to organizations that make data about paper retractions available.

Findings

While journal retractions are as old as scientific publishing itself, the seriousness of retractions persisting and being used in the body of scientific literature has recently been recognized as a serious concern. The rise of new AI technologies such as ChatGPT has made the presence of zombie papers in the data used to train large language models (LLMs) extremely concerning.

Originality/value

While librarians are well-aware of journal retractions and most include information about them in their information literacy training, concerns around zombie papers and their potential presence in the data used to train LLMs will likely be a new consideration for most.

Book part
Publication date: 13 March 2019

Nadine Dannenberg

A lot has been written on zombies lately and on the rather conservative US-American TV Show The Walking Dead (AMC, 2010–) in particular. A lot less has been written on the…

Abstract

A lot has been written on zombies lately and on the rather conservative US-American TV Show The Walking Dead (AMC, 2010–) in particular. A lot less has been written on the SyFy-Show Z Nation (2014–), although it is a sophisticated feminist take on the zombie lore. Centring around a group of survivors, who escort a human–zombie–cyborg across the US and Mexico, the show not only undermines the patriarchalism of its archetype, but also raises questions of post-humanism by the means of Donna Haraway or Rosi Braidotti. With the help of media-self-reflexive parody and pastiche, the series comments on its extradiegetic world as much as on its own genre and offers a deconstruction of stereotypical (gendered) tropes and conventions. In the following chapter, I use a selective close reading of the text and its representation politics to demonstrate how a feminist deconstruction of zombie-horror can come into being and how an (academic) distinction between Quality and Trash TV can be just as regressive as productive in this process.

Details

Gender and Contemporary Horror in Television
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-103-2

Keywords

Expert briefing
Publication date: 18 January 2021

Low interest rates and easy financing conditions in major economies have triggered a search for yield on the part of investors flushed with liquidity and this has allowed…

Details

DOI: 10.1108/OXAN-DB258826

ISSN: 2633-304X

Keywords

Geographic
Topical
Article
Publication date: 13 February 2023

Andrew Pressey, David Houghton and Dogá Istanbulluoglu

We have witnessed an evolution in the use of smartphones in recent years. We have been aware for some time of the potentially deleterious impact of smartphones on users' lives and…

Abstract

Purpose

We have witnessed an evolution in the use of smartphones in recent years. We have been aware for some time of the potentially deleterious impact of smartphones on users' lives and their propensity for user addiction, as reflected in the large and growing body of work on this topic. One modern phenomenon – the distracted mobile phone user in public, or “smartphone zombie” – has received limited research attention. The purpose of the present study is to develop a robust measure of smartphone zombie behaviour.

Design/methodology/approach

The research deign comprises three studies: A round of focus groups (n = 5) and two online surveys (survey one n = 373, survey two n = 386), in order to develop and validate a three-factor, 15-item measure named the Smartphone Zombie Scale (SZS).

Findings

Following the round of focus groups conducted, Exploratory Factor Analysis and a Confirmatory Factor Analysis, the SZS measure (Cronbach's α = .932) is demonstrated to be robust and comprises three factors: Attention Deficit (Cronbach's α = .922), Jeopardy (Cronbach's α = .817) and Preoccupation (Cronbach's α = .835), that is shown to be distinct to existing closely related measures (Smartphone Addiction scale and Obsessive Compulsive Use).

Originality/value

The present study represents the first extant attempt to produce a measure of smartphone zombie behaviour, and provides us with a reliable and valid measure with which we can study this growing phenomenon.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 37 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Terror, Leisure and Consumption: Spaces for Harm in a Post-Crash Era
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78756-526-5

Book part
Publication date: 13 March 2019

Lauren Stephenson

Brooker’s mini-series Dead Set displays numerous representations of British masculinity in crisis. Released just as the zombie narrative was regaining momentum, the series uses…

Abstract

Brooker’s mini-series Dead Set displays numerous representations of British masculinity in crisis. Released just as the zombie narrative was regaining momentum, the series uses the threat of an apocalypse to expose British men as weak, cowardly and ultimately monstrous. Initially set within the confines of the Big Brother house, the characters have willingly come under scrutiny for the delectation of a scandal-hungry public. The men are seen to self-consciously perform their own brands of masculinity. However, when people quickly descend from figuratively devouring each other into actually devouring each other, these masculine ideals are left in tatters, and without them, the surviving men are in constant peril.

For the purposes of this chapter, I will look specifically at three characters within the series and how their representations adhere to the ideas put forward by Anthony Clare, among others – that contemporary masculinity is in a period of crisis. I also wish to uncover how representations of masculinity within the series reflect contemporary social and political concerns within British society – a distrust of state apparatus and the rise of a particularly malicious, right wing ideology are both prevalent here. The zombie has long been acknowledged as an allegory for society’s ills – but this chapter asks: what can those fighting (or failing) against the zombie threat tell us?

Details

Gender and Contemporary Horror in Television
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-103-2

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Gender and Contemporary Horror in Comics, Games and Transmedia
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78769-108-7

Article
Publication date: 1 January 2013

Jenny Lynne Semenza, Regina Koury and Catherine Gray

This article aims to provide a comprehensive step by step plan on creating a Zombie Library, a physical collection of e‐books through the use of QR codes. Drawing on the…

Abstract

Purpose

This article aims to provide a comprehensive step by step plan on creating a Zombie Library, a physical collection of e‐books through the use of QR codes. Drawing on the collective authors' experience working with the QR codes creation, this article aims to help librarians interested in promoting e‐book collections and creating QR‐coded Zombie books in their libraries.

Design/methodology/approach

A literature review was performed using library databases, as well as consulting various online library subject guides on the use of QR codes in libraries. Between November 2011 and October 2012 Idaho State University (ISU) library executed a plan for creating QR codes for a Gale Virtual Reference Library e‐book collection.

Findings

The study found an increased usage of the e‐book collection. The actual physical production of the items was more time‐consuming than originally expected. The Zombie Library project received a lot of support and enthusiasm from the campus community. Plans are being made to expand this project to other e‐book collections and other physical media (posters, bookmarks, etc.). This article combines promoting e‐book collections with physical representations of the e‐book via QR codes.

Originality/value

This article is an inclusive step by step plan for promoting e‐book collections using QR codes.

Details

Collection Building, vol. 32 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0160-4953

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 October 2021

Nuno Azevedo, Márcio Mateus and Álvaro Pina

The linkages between credit allocation and productivity have particular relevance in Portugal. This study aims to investigate whether credit extended by the Portuguese banking…

Abstract

Purpose

The linkages between credit allocation and productivity have particular relevance in Portugal. This study aims to investigate whether credit extended by the Portuguese banking system has been allocated to the most productive firms within each sector.

Design/methodology/approach

With a data set covering 95% of total outstanding credit to non-financial corporations recorded in the Portuguese credit register, the authors investigate whether outstanding loans by resident banks to 64 economic sectors have been granted to the most productive firms. First, the authors estimate a baseline, reduced-form model of credit reallocation, where the parameter of interest gives the response of total credit granted to each firm to its level of productivity. Second, the authors assess how this response is affected by the share of credit allocated to unproductive firms. Third, the authors redo the analysis with credit granted to each firm by each banking group, instead of by the entire banking system, so that bank indicators can be taken on board.

Findings

The authors find evidence of misallocation, which reflects the joint effects of credit supply and credit demand decisions taken over the course of time, and the adverse cyclical developments following the accumulation of imbalances in the Portuguese economy for a protracted period. In 2008–2016, the share of outstanding credit granted to firms with very low productivity (measured or inferred) was always substantial, peaking at 44% in 2013, and declining afterwards with the rebound in economic activity and the growing allocation of new loans towards lower risk firms and away from higher risk firms. Furthermore, the authors find that misallocation is associated with slower reallocation. The responsiveness of credit growth to firm relative productivity is much lower in sectors with relatively more misallocated credit and when banks have a high share of such credit in their portfolios.

Originality/value

Banking system distortions are often mentioned as potential or likely culprits for capital misallocation, but they are not empirically analysed with credit data. The ability to explicitly analyse bank credit and link it to variables pertaining to both firms and banks is a novel feature relative to most previous studies, which largely rely on firm-level or sectoral data alone.

Details

Studies in Economics and Finance, vol. 39 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1086-7376

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 20 August 2020

Bethan Michael-Fox

This chapter offers a critical reading of a range of television narratives centred on diverse populations of the articulate dead, including grim reapers (Dead Like Me)…

Abstract

This chapter offers a critical reading of a range of television narratives centred on diverse populations of the articulate dead, including grim reapers (Dead Like Me), sort-of-ghosts (American Horror Story), zombies (iZombie), what appear to be ‘just regular dead people’ (The Good Place, Les Revenants) and some other creepy and unusual manifestations of the undead (Intruders, The Fades). It suggests that the preponderance of the articulate dead on television is symptomatic of a broader cultural desire to talk both about death and with the dead. It also suggests that there are numerous opportunities to learn from fictional engagement with death and the dead, foregrounding the ways in which televisual narratives can operate to reiterate, critique and engage with social and cultural messages. The chapter takes a playful approach and seeks to distil some key ‘self-help’ aphorisms that the dead in these series might offer the living about how to approach life, death and everything inbetween, as they tell their audiences to ‘look within’ to identify the greatest threats to their selfhood, to persevere because ‘it’s never too late to change’, and to ‘never forget’ the dead and what they might have scarified for the living.

Details

Death, Culture & Leisure: Playing Dead
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-037-0

Keywords

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