The future of resilient supply chains

While supply chain resilience has been touched upon frequently, research remains (with the exception of often repeated anecdotal examples) relatively disparate on what disruptions actually are. This research aims to advance theoretical and managerial understandings around the management of supply chain disruptions. A two-stage research process is used which focuses first on polling academic experts. This stage is followed by the extraction of insights from practitioners in the automotive, electronics and food industries. Our findings coalesce around: (1) the types of disruptions that respondents are most concerned about; (2) the associated strategies suggested to cope with disruptions; and, (3) how resilience can be measured. It is apparent that there are some areas where academics and practitioners agree and others where they agree to a lesser extent. Both sets of actors tend to agree on how resilience can be quantified, with recovery time the preferred indicator. However, there is a discrepancy around how resilience is achieved within the supply chain. Academics emphasise the importance of redundancy while practitioners refer more to flexibility. Also, they disagree around what constitutes “key disruptions”: academics suggested high-profile events, while practitioners are more concerned with day-to-day problems

Do heavy metals counter the potential health benefits of wine?

The possibility that wine, consumed in modest amounts, can have health benefits has been highlighted frequently in the public and scientific press and was recently briefly reviewed in the South African medical literature.1 Much of the benefit is attributed to the antioxidant activity of wine. In contrast, concern was recently expressed about exposure to heavy metal ions in wines even at intakes of 250 mL/day, partly because they may promote oxidative stress. A brief review of heavy metals, their content in wine as well as in food, and their possible adverse effects on health is thus opportune. Cardiovascular disease is prevalent in the developed world and is rising in the developing world.3 Preventive measures that involve lifestyle are appropriate, with the possible inclusion of the consumption of wine. Trends and potential hazards of some heavy metals were updated recently,4 with a warning that intakes may still be on the increase, especially in the developing world. If the heavy metal content of wine is significant, the beneficial effect of wine to lessen cardiovascular risk may be outweighed by other adverse effects in the very long term.Keywords: heavy metals, lipid peroxidatio

The acute influence of a mediterranean-like diet with and without red wine on patients with the metabolic syndrome.

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The influence of a mediterranean diet with and without red wine on the haemostatic and inflammatory parameters of subjects with the metabolic syndrome.

Please help us populate SUNScholar with the post print version of this article. It can be e-mailed to: [email protected] Patologi

Creating high challenge/high support academic environments through constructive alignment: student outcomes

Higher education needs to provide challenging yet supportive learning environments catering for students with diverse academic needs. There is also an emphasis on using student-driven outcome measures to determine teaching effectiveness. How can these measures be used to reflect upon and evaluate teaching initiatives? Using an undergraduate occupational therapy programme as the site for exploration, this article reports on an application of constructive alignment principles and describes how available empirical data were used to explore student outcomes. A comparison was made between student evaluations and academic grades prior to, and after the implementation of the initiative. Results provide evidence of improvement in student satisfaction and academic grades as a result of implementing constructive alignment. Whilst it is acknowledged that changes in academic grades and student evaluations can be attributed to a number of factors, findings of this study support a view that constructive alignment facilitates students\u27 learning and experiences