Demographic variation in nutrition knowledge in England

This paper describes a nutrition knowledge survey carried out on a cross-section of the adult population of England (n = 1040), looking at knowledge relating to current dietary recommendations, sources of nutrients, healthy food choices and diet-disease links. Serious gaps in knowledge about even the basic recommendations were discovered, and there was much confusion over the relationship between diet and disease. Significant differences in knowledge between socio-demographic groups were found, with men having poorer knowledge than women, and knowledge declining with lower educational level and socio-economic status. Possible reasons for these differences and implications for public education campaigns and socio-economic inequalities in health are discussed

An evaluation of cultural studies in foreign language learning

Cultural studies has come to occupy an important place in the field of foreign language learning. From 1990-93, Durham University and the Institut National de Recherche Pedagogique in Paris ran a project to design, implement and evaluate an experimental programme to teach culture in a structured way in schools and colleges. This thesis was written in the context of that project and is concerned with the evaluation of one part of the programme. After an introduction to the current situation of cultural studies in language learning, the first half of the thesis surveys the relevant theoretical foundations. Chapter 2 considers the theories important to cultural learning and progresses from definitions of culture in its broadest sense to specific techniques for teaching culture. Chapter 3 moves on to the theoretical background of evaluation, discussing various models, methods and issues in analysis and reporting. Chapter 4 makes the transition from the theoretical to the practical, drawing upon the theories already discussed to explain how this particular evaluation was designed and carried out. The second half of the thesis presents and analyses data collected during the evaluation. Chapters 5 and 6 discuss the aims of the programme and illustrate how these aims were carried through into the classroom. Chapters 7 and 8 focus on what the students learned and their opinions of the programme. The final chapter analyses the students' suggestions for change and considers the significance of the programme within the wider scope of foreign language learning

Becoming international in a Japanese junior high school : an ethnographic study.

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN013015 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Optical conductivity of filled skutterudites

A simple tight-binding model is constructed for the description of the electronic structure of some Ce-based filled skutterudite compounds showing an energy gap or pseudogap behavior. Assuming band-diagonal electron interactions on this tight-binding model, the optical conductivity spectrum is calculated by applying the second-order self-consistent perturbation theory to treat the electron correlation. The correlation effect is found to be of great importance on the description of the temperature dependence of the optical conductivity. The rapid disappearance of an optical gap with increasing temperature is obtained as observed in the optical experiment for Ce-based filled-skutterudite compounds.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, use jpsj2.cls, to appear in J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. Vol.73, No.10 (2004

Calculation of Optical Conductivity of YbB12_{12} using Realistic Tight-Binding Model

Based on the previously reported tight-binding model fitted to the LDA+U band calculation, optical conductivity of the prototypical Kondo insulator YbB$_{12}$ is calculated theoretically. Many-body effects are taken into account by the self-consistent second order perturbation theory. The gross shape of the optical conductivity observed in experiments are well described by the present calculation, including their temperature-dependences.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, use jpsj2.cls, to appear in J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. Vol.73, No.10 (2004

Physical Electronics

Contains reports on three research projects

Correlation Effects on Optical Conductivity of FeSi

Effects of electron correlation in FeSi are studied in terms of the two-band Hubbard model with the density of states obtained from the band calculation. Using the self-consistent second-order perturbation theory combined with the local approximation, the correlation effects are investigated on the density of states and the optical conductivity spectrum, which are found to reproduce the experiments done by Damascelli et al. semiquantitatively. It is also found that the peak at the gap edge shifts to lower energy region by correlation effects, as is seen in the experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

A theoretical and empirical investigation of nutritional label use

Due in part to increasing diet-related health problems caused, among others, by obesity, nutritional labelling has been considered important, mainly because it can provide consumers with information that can be used to make informed and healthier food choices. Several studies have focused on the empirical perspective of nutritional label use. None of these studies, however, have focused on developing a theoretical economic model that would adequately describe nutritional label use based on a utility theoretic framework. We attempt to fill this void by developing a simple theoretical model of nutritional label use, incorporating the time a consumer spends reading labels as part of the food choice process. The demand equations of the model are then empirically tested. Results suggest the significant role of several variables that flow directly from the model which, to our knowledge, have not been used in any previous empirical work

Physical Electronics

Contains reports on three research projects

Large‐scale calculations of excitation energies in coupled cluster theory : The singlet excited states of benzene

Algorithms for calculating singlet excitation energies in the coupled cluster singles and doubles (CCSD) model are discussed and an implementation of an atomic‐integral direct algorithm is presented. Each excitation energy is calculated at a cost comparable to that of the CCSD ground‐state energy. Singlet excitation energies are calculated for benzene using up to 432 basis functions. Basis‐set effects of the order of 0.2 eV are observed when the basis is increased from augmented polarized valence double‐zeta (aug‐cc‐pVDZ) to augmented polarized valence triple‐zeta (aug‐cc‐pVTZ) quality. The correlation problem is examined by performing calculations in the hierarchy of coupled cluster models CCS, CC2, CCSD, and CC3, as well as by using the CCSDR(3) perturbative triples corrections. The effect of triple excitations are less than 0.2 eV for all excitations except for the 2 1E2g state. The calculated excitation energies are compared with experiment and other theoretical [email protected]