Dietary Supplements and Structure-Function Claims: The Dysfunctional Structure of Current Regulation

Twenty percent of Americans report using one of the more than thirty thousand dietary supplement products generated by an estimated one thousand manufacturers, contributing to an industry exceeding twenty billion dollars globally. Fueled by increasing public interest in individual health, dietary supplement manufacturers in the United States (U.S.) continue to exploit the weaknesses in the way the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates these products. Dietary supplement manufacturers perpetuate the perceived safety of supplements through the advertisement of structurefunction claims, which many consumers mistakenly assume to be the same as FDA-regulated health claims

As the PMI Turns: A Tool For the Supply Chain Manager

Supply chain managers use the PMI, an index of business activity and proxy for the general business cycle, to obtain valuable information important to strategic managerial planning. This research explores a methodology to provide managerial insight into the general business cycle by tracking and forecasting cycle turns in the PMI. A regression model is developed based on inherent cycles in the PMI between 12 and 65 months to forecast turning points for the index and anticipate changes in the business cycle, which is superior to the more commonly used Box-Jenkins forecasting technique. Strategic planning using this knowledge allows management to optimally adjust long-term levels of production, inventory, employment and orders as necessary

Solvable Leibniz algebras with triangular nilradical

A classification exists for Lie algebras whose nilradical is the triangular Lie algebra $T(n)$. We extend this result to a classification of all solvable Leibniz algebras with nilradical $T(n)$. As an example we show the complete classification of all Leibniz algebras whose nilradical is $T(4)$.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1307.844

Employer Health Benefits 2016 Annual Survey

This annual survey of employers provides a detailed look at trends in employer-sponsored health coverage including premiums, employee contributions, cost-sharing provisions, and employer opinions. The 2016 survey included almost 1,900 interviews with non-federal public and private firms.Annual premiums for employer-sponsored family health coverage reached $18,142 this year, up 3 percent from last year, with workers on average paying$5,277 towards the cost of their coverage, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research & Education Trust 2016 Employer Health Benefits Survey. The 2016 survey includes information on the use of incentives for employer wellness programs, plan cost-sharing as well as firm offer rate. Survey results are released here in a variety of ways, including a full report with downloadable tables on a variety of topics, summary of findings, and an article published in the journal Health Affairs

Energy in Motion

In a gym or exercise facility, the kinetic energy produced can be is often not utilized. This study seeks to harness this wasted motion by using energy generating exercise bikes and/or elliptical machines in the new athletic facility at WPI. Energy generating exercise machines can be beneficial, by reducing the energy footprint of the new facility by power light fixtures, as well as educating the WPI community on energy generation.https://digitalcommons.wpi.edu/gps-posters/1297/thumbnail.jp

Indiana Secondary School Athletic Directors Perceptions of Athletic Training Services and Influences on Hiring Athletic Trainers

Indiana Secondary School Athletic Directors Perceptions of Athletic Training Services and Influences on Hiring Athletic Trainers Purpose: The purpose of this investigation was to examine ADs perceptions on satisfaction of current care provided, factors influencing the hiring of ATs, and the roles and responsibilities of ATs. Methods: We used a mixed methods design with an online survey (Qualtrics®, Provo, UT), which we distributed to Indiana secondary school ADs (n = 410) with publicly available emails. The survey remained open for 5 weeks with reminder emails sent weekly. We used a panel (n=2) with experience in survey research and/or the secondary school setting. The survey included both quantitative (7 items) and qualitative (8 items) data. Participants were asked to share their perceptions on the roles/responsibilities of ATs as well as experiences with the challenges, barriers, and benefits of hiring ATs in open-ended questions. We used Kruskal-Wallis one-way ANOVAs to compare employment status, type of employer, and school size on satisfaction. We coded the open-ended responses using inductive coding with multi-analyst triangulation and auditing to establish trustworthiness. Results: We identified significant differences relative to employment status of the AT on satisfaction with overall care, whereby those with full-time athletic training services were more satisfied with care than those with per-diem, part-time services (p=0.010). When participants were asked about factors influencing the decision to provide services ADs reported liability, cost, and workload as major considerations. Conclusions: Consistent with previous research, financial challenges continue to play a role in the hiring of ATs in the secondary school setting, participants also identified the benefits of ATs in promoting safety, reducing liability, as well as the increased workload and cost. Access to qualified athletic healthcare continues to be a public health concern in America and all stakeholders should reconsider how to offer both a comprehensive athletics program and the healthcare needed to ensure safety in that participation

Distributed control of wind farm power set points to minimise fatigue loads

The quantity and size of wind farms continue to grow as countries around the world strive to meet ambitious targets for renewable electricity generation such as the UK government's Net Zero target of increasing offshore wind energy from current levels (circa 6 GW) to circa 75 GW by 2050. With increasing size and quantity of wind farms, there is a growing requirement to use wind farm level control both to help with grid integration and to minimise the loads on the turbines in the farm. In this paper, a methodology of distributing power set points through a wind farm to minimise the loads on the turbines whilst meeting a delta power set point for the farm is presented. The methodology in this paper uses a hierarchical control structure, in which a network wind farm controller calculates the required change in wind farm power and then passes this value on to a distributed controller that defines the change in power required from each wind turbine. The network wind farm controller calculates a delta change in wind farm power that the wind farm holds in reserve. The distributed controller allocates the reductions in power output by first setting a baseline reduction that considers the steady state tower loads. The baseline is then adjusted to meet the required change in power, distributing the additional change in one of two ways; either proportional to the square of each turbines estimated wind speed or proportional to the initial baseline. Performance is assessed using the StrathFarm simulation tool. The wind turbine models incorporated into StrathFarm are sufficiently detailed to provide the tower and blade loads and the wind field model is sufficiently detailed to represent turbulence, wind shear, tower shadow and wakes and their interaction. The performance of the proposed wind farm controllers are assessed for a range of wind conditions for two 4x4 wind farms of 5MW wind turbines, one closely spaced (500m) and one less closely spaced (1000m). Both the accuracy of the change in power output from the wind farm and the change in turbines DELs are discussed. Depending on the wind conditions, the approach is found to reduce the tower and blade loads by about 10% more than the case in which each turbine is simply allocated the same change in power. There is good accuracy in the change in power at higher wind speeds. Below rated wind speed, wake effects reduce the accuracy of the change in power

Using rotor inertia as stored energy in below rated wind farms to provide primary frequency response

The objective of this work is to present a method for providing ancillary services to the grid with minimal reduction in power output from the turbines in a wind farm by utilising the stored energy in the turbine rotors. By first demonstrating an approach of extracting energy from a single turbine's rotor, it can be shown that this could lead to increased energy yields while still being able to provide primary response provision compared to curtailing each turbine by 10%. Following this, when this approach is tested at the wind farm level there is considerable evidence that considering the energy stored in the turbine rotors across a wind farm can lead to increases in energy capture while not significantly increasing damage equivalent loads for either towers or blades