Development and piloting of a food-based intervention to increase vitamin E intake in pregnant women in a randomised controlled trial

Acknowledgement This study was funded by the University of Aberdeen and an unrestricted grant from Baxters Food Group Ltd. LC acknowledges funding from the RESAS programme of the Scottish Government.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Strategic design of service orientated web-based supply chain infrastructure

The traditional \u27make and sell\u27 attitude of industrial manufacturing organisations has now almost entirely given way to customer orientated \u27sense and respond\u27 service philosophies to the extent where this has become a major competitive key success factor in a global manufacturing industry. In order to become service orientated, manufacturing industry is increasingly dependent on efficient and effective supply relationships. This trend is compounded by needs for waste avoidance, minimal inventory, cost efficiency and appropriate service to the customer. This paper considers the strategic opportunities for large engineering project firms that have identified a need to establish advantages over their competitors by designing and implementing novel service orientated supply chain strategies, using internet technology. Rather than relying on functional hierarchy and command and control governance where a chain of commitments are poorly connected and difficult to reconfigure, this paper proposes more flexible strategic process designs around a \u27state of the art\u27 service based architecture. Complexity reduction is traditionally a philosophy widely used by industrial engineers that thus far has been also applied in attempts to enable efficient supply chain relationships between different manufacturing supply partners. However, in this work, those traditional industrial engineering ideas are challenged. When a supply chain is simplified, it is inevitable that it will not offer optimum performance, especially in terms of customer service because the complex nature of customer requirements is not reflected in its entirety. The architecture developed by the authors and demonstrated here explores ideas of complexity absorption. The architecture is built on the premise that necessary complexity absorption creates an organisation that is strategically superior because it becomes a complex adaptive system that is unique to a group of organisations that constitute a supply chain or supply network. A case study will be presented based on a major industrial gas pipeline procuring organisation that illustrates an application consisting of Manufacturing Portal and Service Orientated Architecture. This model is internet-based, has three main constituents of Web Services, Portal and Client Services and is described in detail in this paper. The authors conclude by discussing the unique competitive advantages that are achievable by designing unique, responsive and adaptive supply chain architecture in this way

The Imperative of High-Quality Education in Juvenile Corrections : An Introduction to the Special Section

Non peer reviewe

Efficient table-top dual-wavelength beamline for ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy in the soft X-ray region.

We present a table-top beamline providing a soft X-ray supercontinuum extending up to 370 eV from high-order harmonic generation with sub-13 fs 1300 nm driving pulses and simultaneous production of sub-5 fs pulses centered at 800 nm. Optimization of high harmonic generation in a long and dense gas medium yields a photon flux of  ~ 1.4 × 106 photons/s/1% bandwidth at 300 eV. The temporal resolution of X-ray transient absorption experiments with this beamline is measured to be 11 fs for 800 nm excitation. This dual-wavelength approach, combined with high flux and high spectral and temporal resolution soft X-ray absorption spectroscopy, is a new route to the study of ultrafast electronic dynamics in carbon-containing molecules and materials at the carbon K-edge

A Survey of Social Media Usage Integrating Daily Facebook Participation Time with In-Person Social Interaction among College Undergraduate Students

The initial stage of this academically-sanctioned research study gathered basic demographic information from a selected sample of university undergraduate students in an array of courses administered by faculty members and research members of this study. The stated questions elicited student responses in twenty-four aspects of the social networking spectrum involving student opinions, concerns, attitudes, practices, personal participation and usage parameters. The research model is based on the resulting relationship of the dependent variable, which is the frequency of Facebook usage, and the independent variables of religion/ethnicity, academic major, access device, and employment status. From these data, four null hypotheses were developed and tested. Usage hours were compared and correlated across the four independent variables. Conclusions were statistically derived, resulting in the retention of two null hypotheses, and the rejection of two null hypothesis.

Upper Bounds for the Clock Speeds of Fault-Tolerant Distributed Quantum Computation using Satellites to Supply Entangled Photon Pairs

Despite recent advances in quantum repeater networks, entanglement distribution on a continental scale remains prohibitively difficult and resource intensive. Using satellites to distribute maximally entangled photons (Bell pairs) between distant stations is an intriguing alternative. Quantum satellite networks are known to be viable for quantum key distribution, but the question of if such a network is feasible for fault tolerant distributed quantum computation (FTDQC) has so far been unaddressed. In this paper we determine a closed form expression for the rate at which logical Bell pairs can be produced between distant fault-tolerant qubits using a satellite network to supply imperfect physical Bell pairs. With generous parameter assumptions, our results show that FTDQC with satellite networks over statewide distances (500-999 km) is possible for a collective clock rate on the order of 1 MHz while continental (1000-4999 km) and transcontinental (5000+ km) distances run on the order of 10 kHz and 100 Hz respectively.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Detained and committed youth: Examining differences in achievement, mental health needs, and special education status

Currently, there is limited research about the relationship between academic, mental health needs, and special education status among populations of incarcerated youth. Additionally, little is known about differences between special education and general education students, or about differences between detained and committed populations. This article reports the results of an investigation of the academic achievement, mental health history, and special education status of 555 detained and incarcerated boys in one mid-Atlantic state. Descriptive data and results from a logistic regression analysis are reported. We found that mean standard scores of participants on standardized achievement tests were one standard deviation below the population mean. We also found high rates of participants with disabilities, and high rates of participants reporting prior therapy and prior use of psychotropic medication. In addition, we found that student academic and mental health characteristics obtained through an intake screening protocol were predictive of special education status, but not of placement in detention or commitment settings. Finally, we found that African American students had a significantly higher risk of being committed than Caucasian students. Implications for future research and practice are discussed

The Role of Demographic Characteristics in Health Care Strategic Security Planning

The purpose of this paper is to foster understanding of the perception of members in healthcare organizations concerning three specific dimensions in the realm of security: strategic planning for security, proactive initiatives for security controls, and training preparedness for security perspective within the context of HIPAA compliance. The research data was collected using a survey instrument with 43 items of demographic information. The data collected was analyzed using demographic characteristics such as age, gender, education and relevant work experience. The aim of the analysis is to assess whether any significant differences exist between groups regarding the perception of security strategic planning, proactive initiatives and training issues. The statistical results are presented in tabular form with descriptive analysis applied to each of the categories. Data-based conclusions are drawn and future research directions are indicated and discussed