Professionalism and Ethics in Hospitality

In their discussion - Professionalism and Ethics in Hospitality - by James R. Keiser, Associate Professor and John Swinton, Instructor, Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management, The Pennsylvania State University, Keiser and Swinton initially offer: “Referring to “the hospitality profession” necessitates thinking of the ethics of that profession and how ethics can be taught. The authors discuss what it means for the hospitality industry to be a profession.” The authors will have you know, a cursory nod to the term or description, profession and/or professional, is awarded to the hospitality industry at large; at least in an academic sense. Keiser and Swinton also want you to know that ethics, and professionalism are distinctly unique concepts, however, they are related. Their intangible nature does make them difficult, at best, to define, but ethics in contemporary hospitality has, to some degree, been charted and quantified. “We have left the caveat emptor era, and the common law, the Uniform Commercial Code, and a variety of local ordinances now dictate that the goods and services hospitality offers carry an implied warranty of merchantability,” the authors inform you. About the symbiotic relationship between ethics and professionalism, the authors say this: The less precise a code of ethics goes, the general rule, the fewer claims the group has to professional status.” The statement above may be considered a cornerstone principle. “However, the mere existence of an ethical code (or of professional status, for that matter) does not ensure ethical behavior in any group,” caution Keiser and Swinton. “Codes of ethics do not really define professionalism except as they adopt a group\u27s special, arcane, exclusionary jargon. Worse, they can define the minimum, agreed-upon standards of conduct and thereby encourage ethical corner-cutting,” they further qualify the thought. And, in bridging academia, Keiser and Swinton say, “Equipped now with a sense of the ironies and ambiguities inherent in labeling any work professional, we can turn to the problem of instilling in students a sense of what is professionally ethical. Students appear to welcome this kind of instruction, and while we would like to think their interest comes welling up from altruism and intellectual curiosity rather than drifting down as Watergate and malpractice fallout, our job is to teach, not to weigh the motives that bring us our students, and to provide a climate conducive to ethical behavior, not supply a separate answer for every contingency.” Keiser and Swinton illustrate their treatise on ethics via the hypothetical tale [stylized case study] of Cosmo Cuisiner, who manages the Phoenix, a large suburban restaurant. Cosmo is “…a typical restaurant manager faced with a series of stylized, over-simplified, but illustrative decisions, each with its own ethical skew for the students to analyze.” A shortened version of that case study is presented. Figure 1 outlines the State Restaurant Association Code of Ethics

Pulling Back the Veil: What Determines HBCU Campus Enrollments

Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are among the least researched sectors of American higher education. This article addresses a portion of this knowledge deficit by focusing on the determinants of the full-time equivalent enrollments of 50 HBCUs between fiscal year FY 2005 and FY 2018 and then comparing them to a broad sample of 182 non-HBCUs. The most noteworthy specific results generated by our analyses are: (1) increased recruitment of white students by HBCUs may not hold the key to HBCU enrollment success; (2) the incomes of the households from which students emanate have a major positive influence on HBCU enrollments; (3) HBCU campuses whose resource allocations pay more attention to the instruction and student services have higher enrollments; (4) intercollegiate athletic expenditures in general and the operation of an Football Championship Subdivision (FBS)-level football program, in particular, are massively important determinants of HBCU enrollments; and (5) the predicted FY full-time equivalent enrollment (FTE) of an HBCU is less than one-half of what would hold true for a comparably situated non-HBCU

Historically Black Colleges and Universities are Vital and Valuable to the United States

Though Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are little recognized, both in the United States and internationally, rigorous empirical analysis reveals that given their circumstances, they typically perform at a high level. This is the first comprehensive empirical analysis that has examined the performance of HBCUs

DEVELOPMENT OF A NOVEL HIGH TEMPERATURE FAN HUB DESIGN

As the process temperature of a fan system increases, the amount of heat that gets transmitted to the bearings and/or motor increases. If this is not accounted for, it can lead to catastrophic failure. The main heat conduction path is through the shaft, and certain mechanisms must be considered when looking for new solutions. These include; how heat is transmitted through the shaft or increasing the thermal resistance of the shaft, and dissipating heat as it is conducted through the shaft. These aspects must always be considered in addition to the impact of the manufacturing complexity. In the present study, an existing heat dissipation arrangement is reviewed and replaced by a new hub which reduces the time taken to machine the part, and ultimately the overall cost of the product. Techniques are employed to determine in detail the manufacturability of the existing design and determining what should be done to reduce the overall cost to manufacture. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) based techniques have been adopted to simulate the stresses the model experiences under the operating loads. Computation Fluid Dynamics (CFD) based techniques have been used to numerically simulate the designs under operating conditions, and the resulting heat transfer through the shaft compared with respect to the heat dissipation properties are analysed. Currently, a special hub is utilised for high temperature applications such as within industrial ovens and furnaces in order to dissipate heat. The hub connects the impeller to the motor shaft, the impeller would be subjected to the high temperatures whilst the motor would remain below 70°C. According to Fourier’s law heat transfer will take place through the shaft. The material the shaft is manufactured from and its geometric properties both affect the shafts overall temperature. Should the temperature become too high at the point along the shaft where the motor bearings sit, permeant damage will occur and result in bearing failure. The current hub utilised is designed to reduce the heat within the shaft through the use of fins. The is current hub design is quite labour intensive to produce leading to potentially unnecessary costs. Subsequently a new hub has been created that can be easily machined, thus reducing the overall manufacturing time leading to cost savings. The results demonstrate that although the new hub is less effective at dissipating heat, it provides a substantial cost reduction compared to the existing design, while substantially reducing the impact of the design on various aspects of production

Effect of manufacturing method of a centrifugal fan hub on its heat dissipation characteristics.

As the process temperature of a fan system increases, the amount of heat that gets transmitted to the bearings and/or motor increases. If this is not accounted for, it can lead to catastrophic failure. The main heat conduction path is through the shaft, and certain mechanisms must be considered when looking for new solutions. These include; how heat is transmitted through the shaft or increasing the thermal resistance of the shaft, and dissipating heat as it is conducted through the shaft. These aspects must always be considered in addition to the impact of the manufacturing complexity. In the present study, an existing heat dissipation arrangement is reviewed and replaced by a new design which reduces the time taken to machine the part, and ultimately the overall cost of the product. Computation Fluid Dynamics (CFD) based techniques have been used to numerically simulate the designs under operating conditions, and the resulting heat transfer through the shaft compared with respect to the heat dissipation properties. The results demonstrate that although the new design is less effective at dissipating heat, it provides a substantial cost reduction compared to the existing design, while substantially reducing the impact of the design on various aspects of production

Effect of Manufacturing Method of a Centrifugal Fan Hub on its Heat Dissipation Characteristics

As the process temperature of a fan system increases, the amount of heat that gets transmitted to the bearings and/or motor increases. If this is not accounted for, it can lead to catastrophic failure. The main heat conduction path is through the shaft, and certain mechanisms must be considered when looking for new solutions. These include; how heat is transmitted through the shaft or increasing the thermal resistance of the shaft, and dissipating heat as it is conducted through the shaft. These aspects must always be considered in addition to the impact of the manufacturing complexity. In the present study, an existing heat dissipation arrangement is reviewed and replaced by a new design which reduces the time taken to machine the part, and ultimately the overall cost of the product. Computation Fluid Dynamics (CFD) based techniques have been used to numerically simulate the designs under operating conditions, and the resulting heat transfer through the shaft compared with respect to the heat dissipation properties. The results demonstrate that although the new design is less effective at dissipating heat, it provides a substantial cost reduction compared to the existing design, while substantially reducing the impact of the design on various aspects of production

Individual participant data meta-analysis provides no evidence of individual response variation in individuals supplementing with beta-alanine.

Currently, little is known about the extent of inter-individual variability in response to beta-alanine (BA) supplementation, nor what proportion of said variability can be attributed to external factors, or to the intervention itself (intervention response). To investigate this, individual participant data on the effect of BA supplementation on a high intensity cycling capacity test (CCT110%) were meta-analysed. Changes in time to exhaustion (TTE) and muscle carnosine (MCarn) were the primary and secondary outcomes. Multi-level distributional Bayesian models were used to estimate the mean and standard deviation of BA and placebo (PLA) group change scores. The relative sizes of group standard deviations were used to infer whether observed variation in change scores were due to intervention or non-intervention related effects. Six eligible studies were identified, and individual data were obtained from four of these. Analyses showed a group effect of BA supplementation on TTE (7.7[95%CrI:1.3 to 14.3 s]) and MCarn (18.1[95%CrI:14.5 to 21.9 mmol·kgDM-1]). A large intervention response variation was identified for MCarn (σ_IR= 5.8 [95%CrI: 4.2 to 7.4 mmol·kgDM-1]); however, equivalent change score standard deviations were shown for PLA (16.1[95%CrI:13.0 to 21.3 s]) and BA (15.9[95%CrI:13.0 to 20.0 s] conditions, with the probability that standard deviation was greater in PLA being 0.64. In conclusion, the similarity in observed change score standard deviations between groups for TTE indicates the source of variation is common and therefore unrelated to BA supplementation, likely originating instead from external factors, which may include, for example, nutritional intake, sleep patterns or training status

Myoelectric activity during electromagnetic resistance alone and in combination with variable resistance or eccentric overload.

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of electromagnetic resistance alone, as well as in combination with variable resistance or accentuated eccentric methods, with traditional dynamic constant external resistance exercise on myoelectric activity during elbow flexion. The study employed a within-participant randomized, cross-over design whereby 16 young, resistance-trained male and female volunteers performed elbow flexion exercise under each of the following conditions: using a dumbbell (DB); using a commercial electromagnetic resistance device (ELECTRO); variable resistance (VR) using a setting on the device that attempts to match the level of resistance to the human strength curve, and; eccentric overload (EO) using a setting on the device that increases the load by 50% on the eccentric portion of each repetition. Surface electromyography (sEMG) was obtained for the biceps brachii, brachioradialis and anterior deltoid on each of the conditions. Participants performed the conditions at their predetermined 10 repetition maximum. The order of performance for the conditions was counterbalanced, with trials separated by a 10-minute recovery period. The sEMG was synced to a motion capture system to assess sEMG amplitude at elbow joint angles of 30°, 50°, 70°, 90°, 110°, with amplitude normalized to maximal voluntary isometric contraction. The anterior deltoid showed the largest differences in amplitude between conditions, where median estimates indicated greater concentric sEMG amplitude (~7 to 10%) with EO, ELECTRO and VR compared with DB. Concentric biceps brachii sEMG amplitude was similar between conditions. In contrast, results indicated a greater eccentric amplitude with DB compared to ELECTRO and VR, but unlikely to exceed a 5% difference. Data indicated a greater concentric and eccentric brachioradialis sEMG amplitude with DB compared to all other conditions, but differences were unlikely to exceed 5%. The electromagnetic device tended to produce greater amplitudes in the anterior deltoid, while DB tended to produce greater amplitudes in the brachioradialis; amplitude for the biceps brachii was relatively similar between conditions. Overall, any observed differences were relatively modest, equating to magnitudes of ~5% and not likely greater than 10%. These differences would seem to be of minimal practical significance

Gaining more from doing less? The effects of a one-week deload period during supervised resistance training on muscular adaptations.

Based on emerging evidence that brief periods of cessation from resistance training (RT) may re-sensitize muscle to anabolic stimuli, we aimed to investigate how a 1-week deload interval at the midpoint of a 9-week RT program affected muscular adaptations in resistance-trained individuals. Thirty-nine young men (n=29) and women (n=10) were randomly assigned to one of two experimental, parallel groups: An experimental group that abstained from RT for 1 week at the midpoint of a 9-week, high-volume RT program (DELOAD) or a traditional training group that performed the same RT program continuously over the study period (TRAD). The lower body routines were directly supervised by the research staff while upper body training was carried out in an unsupervised fashion. Muscle growth outcomes included assessments of muscle thickness along proximal, mid and distal regions of the middle and lateral quadriceps femoris as well as the mid-region of the triceps surae. Adaptations in lower body isometric and dynamic strength, local muscular endurance of the quadriceps, and lower body muscle power were also assessed. Results indicated no appreciable differences in increases of lower body muscle size, local endurance, and power between groups. Alternatively, TRAD showed greater improvements in both isometric and dynamic lower body strength compared to DELOAD. Additionally, TRAD showed some slight psychological benefits as assessed by the readiness to train questionnaire over DELOAD. In conclusion, our findings suggest that a 1-week deload period at the midpoint of a 9-week RT program appears to negatively influence measures of lower body muscle strength but has no effect on lower body hypertrophy, power or local muscular endurance