Socio-economic inequalities in women's fruit and vegetable intakes: a multilevel study of individual, social and environmental mediators

Objective: This study employed a multilevel design to test the contribution of individual, social and environmental factors to mediating socio-economic status (SES) inequalities in fruit and vegetable consumption among women. Design: A cross-sectional survey was linked with objective environmental data. Setting: A community sample involving 45 neighbourhoods. Subjects: In total, 1347 women from 45 neighbourhoods provided survey data on their SES (highest education level), nutrition knowledge, health considerations related to food purchasing, and social support for healthy eating. These data were linked with objective environmental data on the density of supermarkets and fruit and vegetable outlets in local neighbourhoods. Results: Multilevel modelling showed that individual and social factors partly mediated, but did not completely explain, SES variations in fruit and vegetable consumption. Store density did not mediate the relationship of SES with fruit or vegetable consumption. Conclusions: Nutrition promotion interventions should focus on enhancing nutrition knowledge and health considerations underlying food purchasing in order to promote healthy eating, particularly among those who are socio-economically disadvantaged. Further investigation is required to identify additional potential mediators of SES-diet relationships, particularly at the environmental level. © The Authors 2006.

South African football tours at the turn of the twentieth century:Amateurs, pioneers and profits

Academic and popular studies of South African sport generally reveal a bias towards cricket and rugby and this perpetuates the myth that these games are the most popular in South Africa. This in turn is often viewed through the lens of 'race' in which the simplifications of sport along racial lines occur. This paper argues that football was more important in South Africa among all South Africans in the late 19th and early 20th century than has been previously acknowledged. It reveals that not only was the game important and popular in South Africa but its teams and administrators played a significant role in globalising the game during this period. Tours to and from South Africa were important politically, financially and for sporting reasons. Five ground breaking football tours took place during a ten year period and these serve as the basis of discussion in this paper.

Hymer and uneven development revisited:Foreign Direct Investment and regional inequalities

Picking up on one of Hymer's key contributions, this paper examines the impact that inward foreign direct investment (FDI) into the UK has on the patterns of development, both within and across regions. Using a panel of data for the manufacturing sector, the paper illustrates that even where one isolates the effect on the domestic sector alone, inward investment acts to increase the demand for skilled, relative to unskilled labour, and also generates the expected agglomeration effects in terms of the demand for capital investment. The paper then goes on to draw certain policy comparisons between these findings and the desired aim of attracting FDI, notably to increase demand for labour in those regions suffering structural unemployment, and secondly to reduce the disparities between regions.

Inequalities in retail choice: exploring consumer experiences in suburban neighbourhoods

Focuses on deprived neighbourhoods where instances of “food deserts” have been found and explores, through focus groups, consumer experiences of food store choices. Focusing on suburban neighbourhoods in Portsmouth, identifies significant differences in experiences of choice both between and within neighbourhoods. In some localities, the research also finds dissatisfaction with the (supposedly-coveted) “small local store”. Shows that choice is very different from provision, and conceptualises how consumers’ circumstances, situation and individual characteristics can significantly reduce a broad theoretical provision of food stores to a limited set of perceived real choices.

Detecting plagiarism in the forensic linguistics turn

This study investigates plagiarism detection, with an application in forensic contexts. Two types of data were collected for the purposes of this study. Data in the form of written texts were obtained from two Portuguese Universities and from a Portuguese newspaper. These data are analysed linguistically to identify instances of verbatim, morpho-syntactical, lexical and discursive overlap. Data in the form of survey were obtained from two higher education institutions in Portugal, and another two in the United Kingdom. These data are analysed using a 2 by 2 between-groups Univariate Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), to reveal cross-cultural divergences in the perceptions of plagiarism. The study discusses the legal and social circumstances that may contribute to adopting a punitive approach to plagiarism, or, conversely, reject the punishment. The research adopts a critical approach to plagiarism detection. On the one hand, it describes the linguistic strategies adopted by plagiarists when borrowing from other sources, and, on the other hand, it discusses the relationship between these instances of plagiarism and the context in which they appear. A focus of this study is whether plagiarism involves an intention to deceive, and, in this case, whether forensic linguistic evidence can provide clues to this intentionality. It also evaluates current computational approaches to plagiarism detection, and identifies strategies that these systems fail to detect. Specifically, a method is proposed to translingual plagiarism. The findings indicate that, although cross-cultural aspects influence the different perceptions of plagiarism, a distinction needs to be made between intentional and unintentional plagiarism. The linguistic analysis demonstrates that linguistic elements can contribute to finding clues for the plagiarist’s intentionality. Furthermore, the findings show that translingual plagiarism can be detected by using the method proposed, and that plagiarism detection software can be improved using existing computer tools.