Design, analysis, and fabrication of the technology integration box beam

Numerous design concepts, materials, and manufacturing methods were investigated analytically and empirically for the covers and spars of a transport wing box. This information was applied to the design, analysis, and fabrication of a full-scale section of a transport wing box. A blade-stiffened design was selected for the upper and lower covers of the box. These covers have been constructed using three styles of AS4/974 prepreg fabrics. The front and rear T-stiffened channel spars were filament wound using AS4/1806 towpreg. Covers, ribs, and spars were assembled using mechanical fasteners. When they are completed later this year, the tests on the technology integration box beam will demonstrate the structural integrity of an advanced composite wing design which is 25 percent lighter than the metal baseline

Migrant workers and human resource development practices in the hotel sector: a case of Cyprus

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the human resource development (HRD) practices amongst migrant workers using a cross-national survey. The literature review has shown that there is a need to provide a comprehensive understanding of the significance of HRD in the hotel sector and its role in developing migrant workers skills. Moreover, hotels that have training and development opportunities tend to support their employees in training their people-to-people and other soft skills. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopted a quantitative approach using a self-administered questionnaire, employing a purposive sampling strategy to target key participants (hotel managers/supervisor/owners) across Cyprus. Findings: The findings show that most hotels only provide operational, informal level training to all their migrant workers. The key findings present a sector that currently does not plan for sustainable HRD practices and learning with casualisation being the dominant strategy to cope with changing demand for labour. Those few hotels that do have long-term HRD practices have seen an impact on their organisational performance as well as increased migrant workers skills. Practical implications: In practice, Cypriot hotels need to focus their attention on their long-term strategic goals. The development of their migrant employees may help enhance organisational performance in the long-term. However, further research is needed to explore current perceptions amongst migrant workers and how they perceive their long-term role in the industry. Originality/value: This paper contributes to the existing HRD literature since the training and development of migrant employees in Cypriot hotels have not been researched during the recession. HRD insights will enable policy makers and employers to improve current training infrastructure for migrant workers and add to the debate around the importance of HRD strategy in advancing organisational performance in such a transformational business environment

Exploring General Gauge Mediation

We explore various aspects of General Gauge Mediation(GGM). We present a reformulation of the correlation functions used in GGM, and further elucidate their IR and UV properties. Additionally we clarify the issue of UV sensitivity in the calculation of the soft masses in the MSSM, highlighting the role of the supertrace over the messenger spectrum. Finally, we present weakly coupled messenger models which fully cover the parameter space of GGM. These examples demonstrate that the full parameter space of GGM is physical and realizable. Thus it should be considered a valid basis for future phenomenological explorations of gauge mediation.Comment: 27 pages, minor changes, typos fixed in appendix

A Consistent Food Demand Framework for International Food Security Assessment

We present a parsimonious demand modeling approach developed for the annual USDA-ERS International Food Security Assessment. The assessment focuses on chronic food insecurity. The approach incorporates price effects, food quality variation across income deciles, and consistent aggregation over income deciles and food qualities. The approach is based on a simple demand approach for four food categories. It relies on the existing sparse data available for the Assessment, complemented by own-price and income elasticities and available price data. Beyond consistent aggregation, the framework exhibits desirable characteristics: food quality is increasing with income; price and income responses become less sensitive with increasing income; and increasing income inequality decreases average per capita food consumption. The proposed approach is illustrated for Tanzania. We then use the calibrated model to decompose the impact of income, prices, and exchange rates on food consumption. Next, we assess future food insecurity in Tanzania using the calibrated model and two alternative characterizations of the income distribution (decile based and continuous). Food-insecure population is estimated as well as the implied distributional gap in calorie per day per food insecure person and in total annual food volume in grain equivalent. The latter gauges the depth of the chronic food insecurity

Recent respiratory infection and risk of venous thromboembolism: case–control study through a general practice database

Background The association between respiratory infection and risk of heart attacks and strokes is well established. However, less evidence exists for an association between respiratory infection and venous thromboembolism (VTE). In this article, we describe the associations between respiratory infection and VTE