The food multimix concept: potential of an innovative food based approach on nutritional status in pregnant women in resource-poor communities

RATIONALE & OBJECTIVES: The food multimix (FFM)concept states that limited food resources can be combined using scientific knowledge to meet nutrient needs of vulnerable groups at low cost utilizing the ‘nutrient strengths’ of individual or candidate foods in composite recipes within a cultural context. METHODS: The method employed the food-to-food approach for recipe development using traditional food ingredients. Recipes were subjected to proximate and micronutrient analysis and optimized to meet at tleast 40% of recommended daily intakes. End products including breads, porridge and soup were developed. RESULTS: FMM products were employed in a feeding trial among 120 healthy pregnant women in Gauteng, South Africa resulting in improvements in serum iron levels from baseline values of 14.59 (=/-7.67) umol/L and 14.02 (=/-8.13) umol/L for control and intervention groups (p=0.71), to 16.03 (=/-5.67) umol/L and 18.66 (=/-9.41) umol/L (p=0.19). The increases from baseline to post-intervention were however statistically significant within groups. Similarly Mean Cell Volume values improved from baseline as well as serum ferritin and transferritin levels. CONCLUSION: The FMM concept has potential value in feeding programs for vulnerable groups including pregnant and lactating mothers.

Zinc polycarboxylate dental cement for the controlled release of an active organic substance: proof of concept

The potential of employing zinc polycarboxylate dental cement as a controlled release material has been studied. Benzalkonium chloride was used as the active ingredient, and incorporated at concentrations of 1, 2 and 3% by mass within the cement. At these levels, there was no observable effect on the speed of setting. Release was followed using an ion-selective electrode to determine changes in chloride ion concentration with time. This technique showed that the additive was released when the cured cement was placed in water, with release occurring by a diffusion mechanism for the first 3 h, but continuing beyond that for up to 1 week. Diffusion coefficients were in the range 5.62 × 10(−6) cm(2) s(−1) (for 1% concentration) to 10.90 × 10(−6) cm(2) s(−1) (for 3% concentration). Up to 3% of the total loading of benzalkonium chloride was released from the zinc polycarboxylate after a week, which is similar to that found in previous studies with glass-ionomer cement. It is concluded that zinc polycarboxylate cement is capable of acting as a useful material for the controlled release of active organic compounds.

The food multimix concept: new innovative approach to meeting nutritional challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa

Food insecurity, chronic hunger, starvation and malnutrition continue to affect millions of individuals throughout the developing world, especially Sub-Saharan Africa. Various initiatives by African governments and International Agencies such as the UN, the industrial nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation to boost economic development, have failed to provide the much-needed solution to these challenges. The impact of these economic shifts and the failures of structural adjustment programmes on the nutritional well-being and health of the most vulnerable members of poor communities cannot be over-emphasised. The use of ad hoc measures as an adjunct to community-based rural integrated projects have provided little success and will be unsustainable unless they are linked to harnessing available local resources. The present paper therefore focuses on exploring alternative ways of harnessing the scant agricultural resources by employing a scientific approach to food-related problem-solving. The food multimix (FMM) concept offers a scientific contribution alongside other attempts currently in use by the World Food Programme, WHO and FAO to meet the food insecurity challenges that confront most of the developing world in the twenty-first century. It is an innovative approach that makes better use of traditional food sources as a tool for meeting community nutritional needs. The FMM concept employs a food-based approach using traditional methods of food preparation and locally-available, cheap and affordable staples (fruits, pulses, vegetables and legumes) in the formulation of nutrient-enriched multimixes. Developed recipes can provide >= 40% of the daily nutritional requirements of vulnerable groups, including patients with HIV/AIDS and children undergoing nutrition rehabilitation. The FMM approach can also be used as a medium- to long-term adjunct to community-based rural integration projects aimed at health improvement and economic empowerment in Sub-Saharan Africa.

A Competence-Based Course Authoring Concept for Learning Platforms with Legacy Assignment Tools

This paper is concerned with several of the most important aspects of Competence-Based Learning (CBL): course authoring, assignments, and categorization of learning content. The latter is part of the so-called Bologna Process (BP) and can effectively be supported by integrating knowledge resources like, e.g., standardized skill and competence taxonomies into the target implementation approach, aiming at making effective use of an open integration architecture while fostering the interoperability of hybrid knowledge-based e-learning solutions. Modern scenarios ask for interoperable software solutions to seamlessly integrate existing e-learning infrastructures and legacy tools with innovative technologies while being cognitively efficient to handle. In this way, prospective users are enabled to use them without learning overheads. At the same time, methods of Learning Design (LD) in combination with CBL are getting more and more important for production and maintenance of easy to facilitate solutions. We present our approach of developing a competence-based course-authoring and assignment support software. It is bridging the gaps between contemporary Learning Management Systems (LMS) and established legacy learning infrastructures by embedding existing resources via Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI). Furthermore, the underlying conceptual architecture for this integration approach will be explained. In addition, a competence management structure based on knowledge technologies supporting standardized skill and competence taxonomies will be introduced. The overall goal is to develop a software solution which will not only flawlessly merge into a legacy platform and several other learning environments, but also remain intuitively usable. As a proof of concept, the so-called platform independent conceptual architecture model will be validated by a concrete use case scenario.

AUSTRALIA’S STRATEGIC CULTURE: An investigation of the concept of strategic culture and its application to the Australian case

The notion that each state in the international system approaches matters of war and peace somewhat differently because they each possess a unique strategic culture is not a new or obscure one – but it nevertheless remains controversial. While some scholars dismiss the utility or practicality of examining states’ cultures when seeking to explain or predict those states’ patterns of strategic decision-making, even amongst those who accept that we should pay attention to cultural differences between states when carrying out strategic analysis there remains a frustratingly eclectic range of offerings from scholars regarding how best to do so. In short, significant uncertainty remains regarding both whether strategic culture should be used as an analytical tool and, if it is so utilized, how one should go about doing so. This thesis therefore explores the concept of strategic culture in great detail, both theoretical and empirical. The opening three chapters examine why the more traditional rationalist/materialistic theories should not exclusively dominate strategic analysis, then the various existing strategic cultural offerings are considered and critiqued and, finally, a new conceptual model for strategic cultural analysis is proposed which draws from the hitherto largely neglected psychological and sociological literature. Both of these fields, it is submitted in Chapter 3, have spent more time and effort developing ways of understanding and analyzing culture than the field of IR has to date, and therefore the models and methods debated and developed in these fields should, it is argued, be ‘imported’ into IR to drive further strategic cultural research. The thesis then moves in the following six chapters to consider Australia’s strategic culture. The purpose of this part of the thesis is two-fold: first, it illustrates how the model offered in Chapter 3 works and, by implication, suggests how scholars may go about applying it to other cases. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the latter six chapters explore the twists and turns of Australia’s substantive strategic decision-making over the course of the last century or more, thereby explaining how Australia’s strategic history can be understood from a cultural perspective.

Modelling of aircraft manufacturing cost at the concept stage

The work presented is concerned with the estimation of manufacturing cost at the concept design stage, when little technical information is readily available. The work focuses on the nose cowl sections of a wide range of engine nacelles built at Bombardier Aerospace Shorts of Belfast. A core methodology is presented that: defines manufacturing cost elements that are prominent; utilises technical parameters that are highly influential in generating those costs; establishes the linkage between these two; and builds the associated cost estimating relations into models. The methodology is readily adapted to deal with both the early and more mature conceptual design phases, which thereby highlights the generic, flexible and fundamental nature of the method. The early concept cost model simplifies cost as a cumulative element that can be estimated using higher level complexity ratings, while the mature concept cost model breaks manufacturing cost down into a number of constituents that are each driven by their own specific drivers. Both methodologies have an average error of less that ten percent when correlated with actual findings, thus achieving an acceptable level of accuracy. By way of validity and application, the research is firmly based on industrial case studies and practice and addresses the integration of design and manufacture through cost. The main contribution of the paper is the cost modelling methodology. The elemental modelling of the cost breakdown structure through materials, part fabrication, assembly and their associated drivers is relevant to the analytical design procedure, as it utilises design definition and complexity that is understood by engineers.

Making 'party identification' more versatile: operationalising the concept for the multiparty setting

The conventional operationalisation of the concept of party identification is not appropriate for the multiparty setting. I offer new measures that facilitate multiple, and negative as well as positive, identities. Using survey evidence from Northern Ireland, these new measures are validated in a number of ways and their role in a comprehensive model of voting is illustrated.