Research on the Participation of Chinese Sports Cultural Elite in Ice and Snow Sports

Governments have a responsibility to provide equal opportunities for sport and physical activity to all people of population. Chinese governments have issued many policies, such as “exhibition in the south, expansion in the West and East” of ice and snow sports to promote and stimulate the participation of the broad masses of the people. As a high-cost sport, the participants of ice and snow sports are usually socially elite groups. This study investigated the participation of cultural elite groups in ice and snow sports and investigated the social mobilization effect of ice and snow sports participation promotion policies by using binary regression and sequential regression models. The research shows that there are two different stages of one-time and continuous participation in the development of ice and snow sports in China. The one-time participation of ordinary people in ice and snow sports is mainly in response to the social mobilization of government policies. At the same time, it is positively correlated with site restrictions and knowledge of ice and snow sports. In the continuous participation group, gender, income, perception of ice and snow culture, and convenience near the site were highly positively correlated with consumption level. According to the results, low- and middle income people are less likely to participate in these activities because of their income. Therefore, this policy can increase inequalities.

Expansion of the core business of traditional media companies in Spain through SVOD services

The strategic importance of the internet for television became evident in the early 2000s, even destabilizing its very concept and finally resulting in convergence towards a profound transformation of the sector. The introduction of global over-the-top (OTT) media services into local markets has led to strategic changes in multimedia groups. This study considers the subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services of Atresmedia and Mediaset España, the two main traditional media organizations in Spain that form a duopoly in the country’s commercial television sector, with the aim of understanding and evaluating their positioning strategy in this market and the results obtained through the diversification of their core business. Based on an analysis of their content, price, and promotion policies and the results in terms of subscriptions and revenues, slight differences emerge regarding the strategy and scope of these two groups in their own environment in the sector. They compete for customers to achieve growth in the audiovisual market while seeking to retain a cross-media, multiplatform audience, as well as expand their core business of commercial linear television against a background of a reduction of advertising spend on television and the expected increase of hybrid financing models.

La transformación del Ensanche Heredia en Soho. Ciudades creativas, gentrificación y promoción cultural en Málaga

The Director Plan of Art District - Soho Malaga (2011-2014) is an example of the assisted transformation of the neighborhood of Ensanche Heredia by the public administration of Malaga City Hall. The Ensanche’s conversion into Art District helped as a tool to create a city branding associated with the touristic and cultural consumption, stimulating by doing so themed public spaces and privatization process. With these cultural promotion policies, and by following the logics of creative industries, Malaga intends to put itself globally on the competitive map of touristic cities, fundamentally by urban interventions with a special focus on the productive role of the city’s culture. This way, the borough, advertised as a city of museums, with the production of Soho contributed to promoting the gentrification process that the center suffers, in which culture, understood as a strategic asset commodity, has a key role. El Plan Director del Barrio de las Artes - Soho Málaga (2011-2014) supuso un ejemplo de transformación asistida del barrio del Ensanche Heredia por parte de la gestión pública del Ayuntamiento de Málaga. Esta conversión del Ensanche en barrio de las artes contribuyó a la creación de una marca de ciudad ligada al consumo turístico y cultural, estimulándose de esta manera procesos de tematización y privatización del espacio público. Con estas políticas de promoción de la cultura, y siguiendo las premisas de la industria creativa, Málaga busca posicionarse globalmente en el mapa competitivo de las ciudades turísticas, principalmente por medio de intervenciones urbanas que priman el rol productivo de la cultura en la ciudad. De esta manera, la administración municipal, publicitándose como ciudad de los museos, terminó contribuyendo con la producción del Soho a los procesos de gentrificación que sufre el centro, en los que la cultura, entendida como un activo estratégico de mercado, toma un rol principal.

Health perception, health conditions, and smoking cessation in Brazil

Background Smoking cessation is strongly associated with motivational factors. It is possible that individuals who have successfully stopped smoking have different conditions and judgments about their own health. Objective To evaluate the relationship between tobacco-related diseases, health perception, and successful smoking cessation in Brazil. Method Cross-sectional observational study using data from the 2013 National Health Survey (PNS - 2013). Sociodemographic and health-related variables were considered in this study. Logistic regression modeling was carried out considering smoking cessation as outcome. Results Successful smoking cessation attempt was associated with age (OR=2.9, p=0.004), marital status (OR=1.69, p<0.001), level of education (OR=1.34, p<0.001), socioeconomic status (OR=1.58, p<0.001), census status (OR=1.07; p<0.001), access to pro-tobacco advertising (OR=1.74, p<0.001), anti-tobacco campaigns (OR=3.30; p<0.001) and, in particular, living with other smokers (OR=9.65; p<0.001). Conclusion Knowledge about sociodemographic and census status variables is relevant to the assessment of future specific health promotion policies.

Health Literacy Promotion and Its Institutional Arrangements: Rethinking collaborative health promotion in Thailand

This research explores institutional arrangements that govern health literacy promotion policies in Thailand since 2014. This study sets the main questions as what are the main institutional arrangements that governed health literacy promotion policies in Thailand since 2014 and can these arrangements be viewed as collaborative health governance? This paper argues that the military coup in 2014 transformed institutional-governing arrangements on health system management and health promotion greatly as many legal-political institutions and various social-political agencies were involved and brought together to promote health and health literacy. A so-called principle of ‘collaborative governance’ has been employed and implemented to promote health in Thailand recently, however, this study argues that the institutional constraints under authoritarian regime offer a ‘fictitious-collaborative health governance’ instead. Furthermore, deliberative processes on health literacy promotion regulated by many legal - institutional constraints had characteristics of ‘pseudo-deliberation’. This work is qualitative research, and it analyzes and explains research results by looking through theoretical concepts of institutionalism and collaborative governance. This study argues that to reach the goal of health literate community and society, Thai health agencies and authorities should re-approach health and health literacy promotion from the bottom-up perspective. Also, overcoming fictitious collaborative health promotion and pseudo-deliberation are necessary. To do that, we need a long-term project of building up a ‘critical health regime’ based on critical education and anti-authoritarianism as major principles. (*The paper was presented at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s College of Professional and Continuing Education (CPCE) Conference “Post-pandemic health and long-term care: A new paradigm”. September 2021)

Journal selection behavior among early-career academicians in Iran: how they choose the most appropriate journal for their publications

Purpose Journals are the essential tools of researchers, especially academicians, to present their scientific findings. So, choosing the right journal helps not only science development but also their academic promotion. The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that Iranian medical researchers consider when selecting scholarly journals in which to submit their work. Design/methodology/approach A self-administered online questionnaire was emailed in May 2021, with 101 responses received. The sample included all the faculty members with the role of “lecturer” in Iranian medical universities and who have 1–5 articles in the Scopus database as early-career Iranian medical researchers. The questionnaire consisted of 36 items, divided into five sections: basic information, attitudes and beliefs, ways to choose a journal, problems and familiarity with the components of scientometrics/validity metrics related to journals. Findings The findings indicate that these researchers value the expertise of experienced researchers and professionals, like librarians, when selecting publication venues. They often use journal indexes to guide journal selection. They also consider factors like the length of typical peer review and the complexity of submission guidelines when making decisions. Research limitations/implications The study of one country, though detecting requirements of journal selection behavior, cannot be generalized to the entire region. Practical implications The current study has academic implications as far as decisions on journal selection are concerned. University policymakers in Iran may consider re-examining their emphasis on academicians’ promotion policies at Iranian universities of medical sciences. Originality/value These findings may support the work of early-career researchers and those individuals (e.g., librarians) that serve them, as well as publishers and editors of scholarly journals.

Making the Invisible Visible: Investment Promotion and Multinational Production in Latin America and the Caribbean

Firms seeking to invest abroad must still confront important information barriers. As a consequence, a given country may provide suitable conditions for investment but remain invisible to multinational firms. Nearly all countries in the world have established investment promotion agencies (IPAs) to address these information barriers and put themselves on investors maps. Although IPAs are ubiquitous, the existing literature on the impacts of their activities is limited and only provides a view from the top, thus leaving governments without crucial inputs for designing and guiding their policy actions. Making the Invisible Visible fills in these knowledge gaps by zooming in on the effects of investment promotion policies and the mechanisms and channels thereof. To do so, it draws on the results of a highly detailed institutional survey of more than 50 IPAs and unique firm-level data on both the worldwide location of multinational firms foreign affiliates and IPA assistance for several LAC countries. Based on the results of impact evaluations using this novel micro data, the report presents robust new evidence on whether and how investment promotion works, what works in investment promotion, and when investment promotion works. In particular, it concludes that: (i) investment promotion has been (cost-)effective in attracting multinational firms and increasing LAC countries participation in multinational production; (ii) how IPAs are organized, what they do, and how they do it all influence these effects; (iii) the impact of IPA assistance has been greater when it consisted of specialized information services and was given to firms headquartered in countries and operating in sectors in which information barriers are more prominent. These findings can help countries in the region make better, more informed policy and operational decisions to take advantage of the opportunities that the current global context could create. They may thereby create a solid basis for long-term growth and sustainable development.

The impact of management transparency in promoting organizational citizenship behavior – Field study on administrative staff at King Abdul-Aziz University Hospital in Jeddah Province –: أثر شفافية الإدارة في تعزيز سلوك المواطنة التنظيمية – دراسة ميدانية على الموظفين الإداريين في مستشفى جامعة الملك عبد العزيز بجدة –

This study aimed to identify the impact of management transparency in promoting the behavior of organizational citizenship at King Abdul-Aziz University Hospital in Jeddah, as well as on the level of the hospital's commitment to transparency, the obstacles to adopting transparency in the hospital, and the most important ways to help promote the adopting of the principle of transparency at King Abdul-Aziz University Hospital. The analytical descriptive approach was used, and to achieve the objectives of the study, the data were collected using a designed questionnaire, and the study community was made up of 534 administrative staff at King Abdul Aziz University Hospital in Jeddah, where the study was applied to a random sample of 224 singles, paper questionnaire distributed to them. The number of the recovered and valid questionnaires for analysis was 208. The results showed that the majority of the staff of the study sample agreed with the level of the hospital's commitment to the application of transparency, where the response rates of the study sample on statements after the commitment ranged from 76% to 44%, and More than half of the study sample, at a rate of 53.4%, agreed that officials' resistance to the application of transparency and that there is an impact of management transparency on the conduct of organizational citizenship at King Abdelaziz University Hospital in Jeddah. The study reached some recommendations, the most important of which are: raising the level of efficiency of the regulatory agencies by granting them sufficient powers and supporting them with human and material cadres; updating systems and simplifying work procedures; adopting recruitment and promotion policies on clear and stated standards; instilling the values of professional ethics and Self-censorship.

Applying the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process Method to Evaluate Key Indicators of Health Promotion Policies for the Elderly in Taiwan

Investigation of the key indicators of health promotion policies for an aging society can shed light on the priority of the government’s health promotion efforts. This study applied the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method in an empirical analysis of the key indicators of the health promotion policies for Taiwan’s aging society. Based on a review of the literature and expert interviews, this paper first conducted a preliminary study and evaluation of major factors affecting health promotion policies and found 4 major evaluation aspects and 16 evaluation indicators. After employing an AHP expert questionnaire in an empirical investigation, the following findings were made: (1) “healthy living” was the most important evaluation aspect for Taiwan’s health promotion policies for its aging society. (2) The six leading key indicators of health promotion policies were “promotion of personal health awareness and behavior,” “promotion of home medical services,” “guaranteeing the economic security of the elderly,” “planning a family caregiver support service system,” “well-planned health promotion plans for the elderly,” and “training long-term care service personnel and providing professional medical care.” Following discussion, recommendations concerning these six key indicators are made as a reference for future evaluation of health promotion policies for an aging society.