Communications Media

The first complete map of drug related web-sites on the Internet is under construction. Dr Fabrizio Schifano and colleagues at St George`s Hospital Medical School in Tooting, London, will collect and analyse data from web-sites relating to the design and sale of recreational and illicit substances. The purpose is to provide healthcare professionals in the European community with as much information as possible on the latest drugs – drugs that are often unrecorded in medical textbooks.

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Hope for shareholders; warning for salesmen

In these roller coaster times for the economy, there is qualified hope: operations researchers report that peoples’ reaction to a sequence of occurrences in which an initial event is unexpectedly reversed is more favorable if the first event is a loss than if it is a gain, according to a study in a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®). “Our research supports the casual observation that

More Internet information means more disinformation,warns a Dartmouth engineering professor

Why is the stock market fluctuating wildly these days? Is it poor earnings reports? Is it questionable accounting practices or CEO inefficiency? Or do investors trade frantically after they’ve read something on the Internet? If an investor reads a seemingly authoritative report about a company’s performance, he or she might be influenced to buy or sell stock.

Sometimes what

Viewing of internet ads does lead to future sales

Contrary to popular e-wisdom, measuring Internet banner ads only by the number of times that viewers click through is faulty, according to a paper presented today at a conference of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®).

The paper contends that the more often consumers see online banner ads, the more likely they are to make a purchase, even if they don’t click through immediately to the

The siting of radio masts is one of the topics that today seem guaranteed to grab the attention of both the public and the newspapers. With passionately held views springing from all sides, sometimes accompanied by graphic accusations, how should businesses and professionals involved in this potentially controversial area try to steer a course in dealing with public perceptions of risk?

The answer to is be guided by a set of `golden rules` of communication, according to Dr Simon Gerrard, a s

We`ve got digital television. Next comes digital cinema. Thanks to ESA, cinema-goers in five European countries will be able to get an early taste of the new technology later this summer. As part of an ESA-funded project, ten cinemas in Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK will be screening movies transmitted and played digitally rather than by the conventional analogue method.

The advantage to the cinema-goer should be no blemishes on the moving image and greater and consistent clarity