An Integrated EMBA for an Integrated World

Internal and external stakeholders to the academic community have expressed concern about the MBA and have urged systemic transformation in curriculum content and course delivery. Corporations want business leaders who can provide creative solutions for problems that cut across business functions. Organizations want business graduates who have been taught how to think about business not as a series of functional smokestacks but as an integrated whole

Integrating the Core: A New Management Curriculum to Empower our Students

This paper follows Kennesaw State University\u27s (KSU) faculty journal in developing a new integrated core curriculum for their Management majors that will empower the students and meet the needs of today\u27s employers. Curriculums must change to stay current. Depending on the amount of change, this can be a huge undertaking for a department ensconced in an existing curriculum paradigm, and can be met with resistance. In this paper we look for answers to: 1) Why is the change necessary? 2) What are we changing to? We will follow up with some thoughts about 3) how will we make these changes

The Effects of Adhering to ACSM Physical Activity Guidelines on Female University Employees

Despite the well-established benefits of regular physical activity (PA), 50.9% of Americans do not meet the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) guidelines for cardiorespiratory, resistance, and flexibility exercise. Physical inactivity, low cardiovascular fitness (CVF), obesity and body fat percentage (BF%) are risk factors for increased cardiometabolic morbidity and mortality. Universities, despite the increased educational awareness, create sedentary environments that do not promote PA, thus jeopardizing their employees’ health. PURPOSE: To educate university employees about the health-related benefits of PA and the time frame is needed to start seeing changes by meeting the minimum of the ACSM PA guidelines. METHODS: Female physical inactive university employees were targeted (Age 40 ± 11 yrs, Body weight 76.9 ± 4.4 kg). Participants underwent basic anthropometric (body weight, waist circumference, waist hip ratio), mean arterial pressure, body composition (using bioelectric impedance analysis) measurements, and a submaximum oxygen consumption test (using a Bruce protocol) as baseline measurements. Participants were given the ACSM guidelines and instructed to follow these for 12 weeks. No other control was made on participants’ lifestyle factors between the pre- and post-measurements, other than the day before to replicate their diet, PA and sleep patterns. They were given a Fitbit(c) tracker to record and monitor their PA activity levels so they meet the weekly PA guidelines. This is an ongoing funded project from the Advancement of Interprofessional Collaboration and Education (ADVICE) project, and the reported results reflect pre- and post-values from end of week 1 to end of week 4 (N=4). Thus, all measurements were repeated after 4 weeks of the intervention. One-way factorial ANOVA by time was used to detect changes between Week 1 and Week 4. Significance was set at p \u3c 0.05. All analyses were performed using SPSS(c). RESULTS: BF% was significantly reduced by 38.8% (F1,5 = 9.943, p = .025, η2 = .665). All the remaining examined variables were improved by week-4 presenting practical but were not statistically significant (p \u3e .005). Lean mass was increased by 15.6%, mean arterial pressure was reduced by 9.6%, waist circumference was reduced by 5.7%, waist hip ratio was reduced by 20.7%, minutes of being physically active were increased by 13.7%, and predicted maximum oxygen consumption was increased by 4%. CONCLUSION: Following the ACSM PA guidelines for just 4 weeks and increasing the minutes of being physically by 13.7% it was enough to improve BF% and other associated cardiometabolic disease risk factors. Even though these results represent preliminary data from small sample size the practical significance of this study is that university employees can improve their risks factors for cardiometabolic morbidity and mortality by adhering to the ACSM PA guidelines for even 4 weeks

In situ GISAXS study of the growth of Pd on MgO(001)

The morphology of growing Pd nano-particles on MgO(001) surfaces have been investigated in situ, during growth, by grazing incidence small angle x-ray scattering, for different substrate temperatures. The 2D patterns obtained are quantitatively analyzed, and the average morphological parameters (shape, size) deduced. Above 650 K, the aggregates adopt their equilibrium shape of truncated octahedron, and the interfacial energy is deduced.Comment: 10 pages, 1 Table, 2 Figure

How did smokers respond to standardised cigarette packaging with new, larger health warnings in the United Kingdom during the transition period? A cross-sectional online survey

Introduction: In the United Kingdom, standardised packaging for cigarettes was phased in between May 2016 and May 2017. We assessed whether there was an association between using standardised packs and warning salience, thoughts about the risks of smoking, thoughts about quitting, and awareness and use of stop-smoking websites. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional online survey with current smokers aged 16 and over (N = 1865) recruited in two regions of England between February-April 2017, when both standardised and fully-branded packs were on the market. Participants were asked about use of standardised packs, warning salience (noticing, reading closely), and whether the packs they were using increased thoughts of the risks of smoking and quitting. They were also asked about awareness of stop-smoking websites, source of awareness (including warnings on packs), and whether they had visited a stop-smoking website. Results: Most participants reported currently using standardised packs (76.4%), 9.3% were not currently using them but had previously used them, and 14.3% had never used them. Compared with never users, current users were more likely to have noticed the warnings on packs often/very often (AOR (95%CI) = 2.76 (2.10, 3.63)), read them closely often/very often (AOR(95%CI) = 2.16 (1.51, 3.10)), thought somewhat/a lot about the health risks of smoking (AOR(95%CI) = 1.92 (1.38, 2.68)), and thought somewhat/a lot about quitting (AOR(95%CI) = 1.90 (1.30, 2.77)). They were also more likely to have noticed a stop-smoking website on packs. Conclusions: Consistent with the broad objectives of standardised packaging, we found that it was associated with increased warning salience and thoughts about risks and quittingOutput Status: Forthcoming/Available Onlin

Near-Field Analysis of Terahertz Pulse Generation From Photo-Excited Charge Density Gradients

Excitation of photo-current transients at semiconductor surfaces by subpicosecond optical pulses gives rise to emission of electromagnetic pulses of terahertz (THz) frequency radiation. To correlate the THz emission with the photo-excited charge density distribution and the photo-current direction, we mapped near-field and far-field distributions of the generated THz waves from GaAs and Fe-doped InGaAs surfaces. The experimental results show that the charge dynamics in the plane of the surface can radiate substantially stronger THz pulses than the charge dynamics in the direction normal to the surface, which is generally regarded as the dominant origin of the emission

The Cross-Sectional Association between Diet Quality and Depressive Symptomology amongst Fijian Adolescents

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationship between diet quality and depressive symptomology amongst a community-based sample of Fijian adolescents. METHODS: Participants included 7,237 adolescents (52.6% girls; mean age 15.6 years) at baseline (2005) and 2,948 (56% girls; mean age 17.4 years) at follow-up (2007/2008), from the Pacific Obesity Prevention in Communities Project. Intervention schools (n = 7) were selected from Nasinu, near Suva on the main Fijian island Viti Levu, and comparison schools (n = 11) were chosen from towns on the opposite, west side of the island. A dietary questionnaire was used to measure diet quality. Factor analysis clustered dietary variables into two unique and independent factors, referred to as healthy diet quality and unhealthy diet quality. Depressive symptomology was assessed via the emotional subscale of the Paediatric Quality of Life Inventory. Both measures were self-reported and self-administered. Multiple linear regression was used to test cross-sectional associations (at baseline and follow-up) between diet quality and depressive symptomology. Variables controlled for included gender, age, ethnicity, study condition, BMI-z scores, and physical activity. FINDINGS: Strong, positive dose-response associations between healthy diet and high emotional scores (lower depressive symptomology) were found in cross-sectional analyses at baseline and follow-up, among boys and girls. No association was found between emotional health and unhealthy diet. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggests that cross-sectional relationships exist between a high quality diet during adolescence and less depressive symptoms, however more evidence is required to determine if these two variables are linked causally. Trial population health strategies that use dietary interventions as a mechanism for mental health promotion provide an opportunity to further test these associations. If this is indeed a true relationship, these forms of interventions have the potential to be inexpensive and have substantial reach, especially in Low and Middle Income Countries. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12608000345381