The golden age of protein: an initial teacher training perspective on the biological role of proteins in our everyday lives

We make use of proteins in all aspects of our daily lives from biological washing powders to soft‐centred sweets, yet their fundamental role in our diet is often misunderstood. This paper draws on the findings of a three‐phase research project into Initial Teacher Trainee's perception of food and eating, where students demonstrated several similar misconceptions about the food they eat and in particular, the role of proteins. More than 50% of the students thought that protein was a primary source of energy and were confused about the relationship between proteins, amino acids and nitrogen, and the role of DNA in synthesizing proteins. These misconceptions were often translated into practice in the diet the students consumed and the messages they passed on, with confidence, to their pupils. In addition to the misconceptions, teaching approaches used by the students were highly mechanistic, with little reference being given to the relationship between food and the circumstances in which it is eaten. The relationship between dietary intake and lifestyle is explored in secondary schools within Food Technology lessons. However, it is often too late to rectify the deeply entrenched misconceptions, attitudes and eating habits that school children have developed in their primary years. This paper makes the recommendation that we should reconsider how nutrition education is delivered in schools, especially at a primary level: emphasizing the need to relate teaching and learning to everyday experiences. The paper concludes by suggesting possible strategies by which this may be achieved, with proteins featuring centre‐stage.     

Developing a distinctive consumer marketing organization

Marketing excellence is a key success factor in virtually any industry or company focused on consumer products or services. Defining what marketing excellence really means and how to mobilize the organization to achieve that goal, however, can be extremely challenging. This article examines the changing nature of the relationship between consumer and marketer and identifies the characteristics of excellent consumer marketing companies. While there is clearly no single right answer in designing marketing organizations, a number of companies in a variety of consumer industries have begun experimenting with promising results. While the solutions are different in each case, a number of common themes—including a clear linkage between strategy and marketing skills, seamless integration across the business system, and a clear marketing culture—are beginning to emerge.     

Food,exercise and lifestyle: an initial teacher training perspective

All too often, we are told via the media that our children are overweight, under‐exercised and eating poor diets. This is disconcerting at the best of times but even more so when we, as a country, are reviewing our farming and food production practices. So what is our perception of food and how does this relate to the lives we lead? These questions were put to initial teacher‐trainees (ITT) at the University of Gloucestershire. They will be the teachers of tomorrow, playing a significant role in the development and lifestyles of our children. The answers received were varied; both encouraging and giving cause for concern. This paper describes an action research project based around the analysis of those answers in the light of current research into food and health. Throughout the paper, published research findings relating to school children's perception of food and nutrition are compared with the trainee teachers’ views. The comparison draws striking similarities. The implications of this point to the way we teach food and nutrition in schools and on our ITT programme at the University of Gloucestershire. Whilst praising the good practice that already exists, this paper recognises that there is a need to adequately equip trainee teachers, especially at primary level, to educate children towards a more holistic understanding of the food we eat and how it relates to the lifestyles we lead.     

Human resource management and performance in the Barbados hotel industry

This article measures the effect of human resource management (HRM) on performance in the hotel industry in Barbados. It used a quantitative survey covering 46 hotels out of a population of 75 hotels. The respondents were hotel's management, being either a general manager, human resource (HR) manager or line manager. Similar to Hoque's study of UK hotels, the impact of internal and external fit and the universal relevance of HRM were tested. The findings showed no major support for external fit, universal relevance and internal fit in the Barbados hotel industry. All the hotels perceived themselves as performing well, given the focus on quality and targeting high spending tourists. A quest for high service pushes the industry more towards best-practice ‘HRM’ rather than best fit.     

Patent Standards Under TRIPS and the Pharmaceutical Industries in Brazil and India

The legal and economic environment of the pharmaceuticals industry is analyzed in the context of the development of national and international legal standards for the protection of intellectual property. Empirical studies on the relationship between intellectual property laws and economic growth are used to examine the actual outcomes under differing approaches to legal protections for the industry in two countries.     

The Cross-Section of Expected Stock Returns: New Evidence from an Emerging Market

Over 300 factors have been found to explain the cross-section of expected stock returns. Empirical studies also show that findings from multifactor asset-pricing models have not been consistent in an emerging market. Using DuPont analysis and a residual income valuation model for 284 nonfinancial companies on Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange during the period 2008–2014, findings suggest that the return on equity and its change are informative for stock returns in Vietnam. In addition, the level of capital turnover, financial cost ratio (FCR), and changes in capital and in the FCR contain incremental explanatory power for stock returns.     

Networks In Open Systems Of Governance

Abstract

This article focuses on an abortive attempt to co-ordinate a local governance network in the domain of older persons' care in England. It locates a key source of failure in pressures in the policy context. Exogenous factors are analysed using a tiered (macro-/meso-/micro-) model linking context and agents. People occupy specific positions in the policy system and can respond differently to erratic contextual prompts. This putative autonomy imposes limits on the assumed trajectory and ontology of whole-networks in socially contested arenas and delimits the strategic space for network governance. Networks are thus as often effects as causes of social change.