Manufacturing advisory service in the East Midlands – historical evaluation

A report on the longitudinal evaluation of the Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS) covering the period from its establishment in 2005. The evaluation looks at net economic impact and the appropriateness of the design and delivery of the service, in addition to identifying any areas for improvement

Evaluation of business link in the East Midlands

An evaluation of activities delivered through the Business Link service in the East Midlands region between April 2007 and March 2010, focussing on: net economic impacts; Strategic Added Value (SAV); and potential lessons for the future delivery of business support services

Spatial mapping of hepatitis C prevalence in recent injecting drug users in contact with services.

In developed countries the majority of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections occur in injecting drug users (IDUs) with prevalence in IDUs often high, but with wide geographical differences within countries. Estimates of local prevalence are needed for planning services for IDUs, but it is not practical to conduct HCV seroprevalence surveys in all areas. In this study survey data from IDUs attending specialist services were collected in 52/149 sites in England between 2006 and 2008. Spatially correlated random-effects models were used to estimate HCV prevalence for all sites, using auxiliary data to aid prediction. Estimates ranged from 14% to 82%, with larger cities, London and the North West having the highest HCV prevalence. The methods used generated robust estimates for each area, with a well-identified spatial pattern that improved predictions. Such models may be of use in other areas of study where surveillance data are sparse

Oculomotor examination of the weapon focus effect: does a gun automatically engage visual attention?

A person is less likely to be accurately remembered if they appear in a visual scene with a gun, a result that has been termed the weapon focus effect (WFE). Explanations of the WFE argue that weapons engage attention because they are unusual and/or threatening, which causes encoding deficits for the other items in the visual scene. Previous WFE research has always embedded the weapon and nonweapon objects within a larger context that provides information about an actor's intention to use the object. As such, it is currently unknown whether a gun automatically engages attention to a greater extent than other objects independent of the context in which it is presente

Fast gates for ion traps by splitting laser pulses

We present a fast phase gate scheme that is experimentally achievable and has an operation time more than two orders of magnitude faster than current experimental schemes for low numbers of pulses. The gate time improves with the number of pulses following an inverse power law. Unlike implemented schemes which excite precise motional sidebands, thus limiting the gate timescale, our scheme excites multiple motional states using discrete ultra-fast pulses.We use beam-splitters to divide pulses into smaller components to overcome limitations due to the finite laser pulse repetition rate. This provides gate times faster than proposed theoretical schemes when we optimize a practical setup

Successful Weight Management: Barriers and Facilitators to Maintaining Weight After Weight Loss Via a Meal Replacement Program

Purpose: Meal replacement programs (MRPs) facilitate weight loss. Unfortunately, a large percentage of individuals that lose weight through MRP are not successful at maintaining their weight. Weight regain one year following weight loss via meal replacements has been as high as 40-50%, demonstrating a critical need to improve weight maintenance in MRP participants. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify barriers and facilitators of weight maintenance after reaching a goal weight in MRP participants. Methods: Seven focus groups of ≤8 clients were conducted to discuss barriers and facilitators of weight maintenance prior to reaching a point of saturation. Participants were thirty-two MRP participants (31-82 years old) who had reached their goal weight via a proprietary MRP that included an element of health coaching. Statistical Analysis: Data were analyzed with NVivo10 qualitative software using content analysis theory to identify emerging themes. Results: “Program logistics” was the most commonly discussed program barrier, which included subthemes of nutrition and physical activity education, support from health coaches, and confidence in health coach knowledge. “Outside influence” emerged as the second most robust barrier discussed, which included work environments and social interactions. “Interpersonal relationships” emerged as a primary weight maintenance facilitator, which encompassed interactions from family, friends, and coworkers. Health coaches also emerged as a facilitator of weight maintenance in terms of support, knowledge, and consistency. Conclusions: While different themes emerged as the most prominent barriers and facilitators to weight maintenance, strengths and weaknesses were noted within each theme highlighting the vast variation in participant needs. MRPs should consider adding a program screening tool to learn about the needs of program participants in order to tailor the program to each individual and thus, maximize weight maintenance

A Comparison of the Decision Quality of Group Decisions Made in a Face-to-Face Environment with Decisions Made Using a Distributed Group Decision Support System

The Air Force is increasingly turning to a team approach for decision making. When team members are geographically separated it can be expensive for them to meet in a traditional face to face setting. Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS), designed to help groups make decisions, may be able to support these groups in a distributed mode. The assertion of this thesis is that a GDSS can indeed support such distributed processes and that these processes will be of higher quality than decisions made in a face to face environment. This study explores decision quality in terms of quality of the outcome, and acceptance of the decision by group participants. Through a laboratory experiment, groups of three or four members met to solve a management problem. Results suggest that quality of the decision depends upon the type of group interaction, the order of that interaction and the scenario difficulty. The analysis found no statistically significant difference for decision quality in either type of group interaction. Additional research is necessary to examine the potential for Air Force use of distributed GDSS to reduce travel costs without reducing decision quality