Development of an Analysis Method to Identify the Root Causes of Finding from the Air Force Environmental Compliance Assessment and Management Program (ECAMP)

The Air Force is committed to being a national leader in achieving environmental compliance. This commitment is exemplified by the Air Force Chief of Staffs goal of no \u27notices of violation.\u27 This goal, however, has proven to be elusive. In the early 1990s, the number of Air Force notices of violation (NOVs) increased by 73%, from 103 to 178. One of the reasons may be findings from the Environmental Compliance Assessment and Management Program (ECAMP) are not being utilized effectively. This research developed an analysis method to identify root causes of ECAMP findings. The model emphasized the use of performance management standards to evaluate performance based problems by the ECAMP process. The model incorporated motivational theory, job description, and performance analysis to identify these problems. The research also established a relationship between human performance problems and ECAMP findings. The results from the analysis of the external ECAMPs of 33 ACC bases conducted from FY91- FY93 indicated that 79 percent of the ECAMP findings were performance based. Based on the research, it has been concluded that there is a need for methods that use performance management standards to identify causes of ECAMP findings

Picoliter-volume inkjet printing into planar microdevice reservoirs for low-waste, high-capacity drug loading.

Oral delivery of therapeutics is the preferred route for systemic drug administration due to ease of access and improved patient compliance. However, many therapeutics suffer from low oral bioavailability due to low pH and enzymatic conditions, poor cellular permeability, and low residence time. Microfabrication techniques have been used to create planar, asymmetric microdevices for oral drug delivery to address these limitations. The geometry of these microdevices facilitates prolonged drug exposure with unidirectional release of drug toward gastrointestinal epithelium. While these devices have significantly enhanced drug permeability in vitro and in vivo, loading drug into the micron-scale reservoirs of the devices in a low-waste, high-capacity manner remains challenging. Here, we use picoliter-volume inkjet printing to load topotecan and insulin into planar microdevices efficiently. Following a simple surface functionalization step, drug solution can be spotted into the microdevice reservoir. We show that relatively high capacities of both topotecan and insulin can be loaded into microdevices in a rapid, automated process with little to no drug waste

Measuring diet in primary school children aged 8-11 years: validation of the Child and Diet Evaluation Tool (CADET) with an emphasis on fruit and vegetable intake.

Background/Objectives:The Child And Diet Evaluation Tool (CADET) is a 24-h food diary that measures the nutrition intake of children aged 3-7 years, with a focus on fruit and vegetable consumption. Until now CADET has not been used to measure nutrient intake of children aged 8-11 years. To ensure that newly assigned portion sizes for this older age group were valid, participants were asked to complete the CADET diary (the school and home food diary) concurrently with a 1-day weighed record. Subjects/Methods:A total of 67 children with a mean age of 9.3 years (s.d.: ± 1.4, 51% girls) participated in the study. Total fruit and vegetable intake in grams and other nutrients were extracted to compare the mean intakes from the CADET diary and Weighed record using t-tests and Pearson's r correlations. Bland-Altman analysis was also conducted to assess the agreement between the two methods. Results: Correlations comparing the CADET diary to the weighed record were high for fruit, vegetables and combined fruit and vegetables (r=0.7). The results from the Bland-Altman plots revealed a mean difference of 54 g (95% confidence interval: -88, 152) for combined fruit and vegetables intake. CADET is the only tool recommended by the National Obesity Observatory that has been validated in a UK population and provides nutrient level data on children's diets. Conclusions:The results from this study conclude that CADET can provide high-quality nutrient data suitable for evaluating intervention studies now for children aged 3-11 years with a focus on fruit and vegetable intake

Maternal iron status in early pregnancy and birth outcomes : insights from the Baby's Vascular health and Iron in Pregnancy study

Date of Acceptance: 16/03/2015 Acknowledgements N. A. A. was funded by a Wellcome Trust Research Training Fellowship (WT87789). H. J. M. and H. E. H. are supported by the Scottish Government’s Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services. N. A. B. S. is supported by Cerebra. The authors’ contributions are as follows: N. A. A. was responsible for organising the study conduct, data collection and database management, performed the statistical analysis, interpreted the results and drafted the paper. N. A. A., N. A. B. S., J. E. C., H. J. M. and D. C. G. contributed to the study concept and design, and interpretation of results. H. J. M. and H. E. H. analysed the laboratory samples. J. E. C. and D. C. G. provided advice on statistical strategy and analysis. All authors have fully participated in the reporting stage and have critically reviewed and approved the final draft of the paper. The authors declare no conflict of interestPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Side Cutting Biopsy Needle for Endoscopes

Develop a side cutting biopsy needle that fits through the working channel of the endoscope similar to stereotactic needle with syringe suction to overcome the small biopsy samples due to instrument size limitations. The problem users are facing is that the biopsy samples through the endoscope are small secondary to instrument size limitations. The idea for this problem is to develop a side cutting biopsy needle that fits through the working channel of the endoscope similar to stereotactic needle, syringe suction

Phosphorus export as influenced by placement method in two contrasting sites in south-central Saskatchewan

Non-Peer Reviewe

Strong coupling of localized plasmons and molecular excitons in nanostructured silver films

We report on the resonant coupling between localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs) in nanostructured Ag films, and an adsorbed monolayer of Rhodamine 6G dye. Hybridization of the plasmons and molecular excitons creates new coupled polaritonic modes, which have been tuned by varying the LSPR wavelength. The resulting polariton dispersion curve shows an anticrossing behavior which is very well fit by a simple coupled-oscillator Hamiltonian, giving a giant Rabi-splitting energy of ~400 meV. The strength of this coupling is shown to be proportional to the square root of the molecular density. The Raman spectra of R6G on these films show an enhancement of many orders of magnitude due to surface enhanced scattering mechanisms; we find a maximum signal when a polariton mode lies in the middle of the Stokes shifted emission band.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted PR

Forecasting the quality of AMF communities

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