Management gaps analysis: a case study of groundwater resource management in New Zealand

The primary objective of this project is to identify gaps, whether real or perceived, that hinder effective groundwater management in New Zealand. These gaps show as gaps in information, gaps in implementation, gaps in technological and management tools, and gaps in understanding of fundamental processes. The secondary objective is to propose a management strategy to close the identified gaps. Several methods are used to meet these objectives: surveys distributed to selected staff in each regional council; the review of various written reports; the analysis of land-use databases; and private consultation within each regional council. Results show that groundwater management in New Zealand is generally reactionary with the main gaps being in strategic planning and national guidelines. Most gaps appear to be predominantly information and implementation issues. In some cases there are gaps in the understanding of fundamental processes within an aquifer system, including the long-term effects of land-use on groundwater quality. An adaptive management approach is suggested as a means of closing these gaps.     

Data management and analysis for high-throughput DNA sequencingprojects

The rapid advances in molecular biology have begun to shift many of the bottlenecks in genome research from the laboratory to the data analysis facility. The pace at which this has occurred creates a situation in which software development always has to catch up with the flow of data. Since such large-scale processes were not anticipated, the analysis infrastructure has not been fully established. Furthermore, most systems that have been built were designed by the biologists who collected the data. More recently, computer scientists, mathematicians, and engineers have taken an interest in this problem. This has had a positive effect, since it has created a tight synergy between the informatics and the biology. Several principles affected the design of the system developed at TIGR. Each of the sample preparation, sequencing, and analysis steps had to be managed, scheduled, and tracked. This information had to be made readily available to those who needed it for carrying out their tasks. Different skill levels of the users had to be taken into account. The degree of human intervention at each step had to be evaluated and built into the design. A mixed processing environment of Macintosh and Unix platforms had to be integrated. Most importantly, the system had to save time, reduce error, and ensure uniformity of the analysis and quality of the results. In the authors' experience, the tools they have built work well because of their early decisions as to which systems to use for development. The authors settled on a robust relational database management system (Sybase) and a portable development environment (C, C++)     

Screen‐printed biosensor for allergens

Allergen levels in indoor environments, leading to many diseases, eg asthma, rhinitis and conjunctivitis, affect a large and increasing fraction of the population. A quite effective and inexpensive method of a rough but very rapid overall assessment of total allergen level in the environment has been developed. The method involved estimation of protein in allergen extracts by screen‐printed electrodes using two different techniques. The biosensor comprised a rhodinised carbon working electrode, a silver/silver chloride reference electrode and a carbon counter electrode. In the first method the enzyme protease reacted with allergen protein to release amino acid, which produced hydrogen peroxide in the presence of amino acid oxidase. This was detected amperometrically. The second method used potassium bromide as electrolyte and the electrode was subjected to dual potential. Bromine, released due to electrolysis at higher potential, was consumed by the allergen protein at lower potential. In the first method, a unique technique was used to microencapsulate the enzyme protease and immobilise it on the surface of the electrode by in‐situ polymerisation to avoid contact with the amino acid oxidase. A total of seven allergens were tested and the results gave a good correlation with the standard protein measurement method. Environmental specimens from indoors, schools and workplaces can be evaluated for the aeroallergens produced by dust mites, animal hairs, cockroach debris, pollens, etc as a means of determining the exposure risk. Copyright © 2005 Society of Chemical Industry     

Gigabit pulse position bistability in semiconductor lasers

The paper briefly reviews the major forms of optical bistability in active optical devices compatible for use in gigabit optical communication systems, and reports an entirely new optical bistability for the first time. Unlike previous devices, the two bistable states of the optical device are each a series of picosecond optical pulses at 1 GHz or greater repetition rates, and are distinguished by a half period temporal shift between their temporal positions in relation to a clock pulse. The bistable device is based on a gain switched semiconductor laser. Theoretical studies suggest 100-ps switching speeds might be achieved, and experimental results are reported indicating optically triggered switching times of 500 ps.     

Properties and Performance of Cation-Doped Ceria Electrolyte Materials in Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Applications

Cation-doped CeO₂ electrolyte has been evaluated in single-cell and short-stack tests in solid oxide fuel cell environments and applications. These results, along with conductivity measurements, indicate that an ionic transference number of ∼0.75 can be expected at 800°C. Single cells have shown a power density >350 mW/cm². Multicell stacks have demonstrated a peak performance of >100 mW/cm² at 700°C using metallic separators.     

Reprocessing of Microcrystalline Cellulose Spheres with Low Drug Concentrations

Spherical dosage forms have been reported to be an efficient and effective method for delivering drugs into the body and controlling their dissolution rate. Substantial work has been conducted in these laboratories illustrating the advantages of microcrystalline cellulose-based spheres for these purposes. Through various methodologies, but most routinely the extrusion and marumerization technique, it has been determined by Funck, et al. that not more than 50% drug can be incorporated into a sphere formulation without the addition of other binders.

Because of the nature of the extrusion and marumerization manufacturing process, the type of drug being processed and the resultant particle size requirements of the spheres, the percent of spheres falling outside the desired particle size can range from between 3% and 20%. For this reason and the possibility of operator errors, our objective was to determine the parameters which needed monitoring when reprocessing was necessary.     

Gelling of alginate fibres

Equipment was developed to measure the time for complete gelling of sodium alginate fibres in calcium chloride solution, taken as the time to achieve maximum tensile strength. The effects of fibre diameter, alginate concentration, alginate composition and calcium chloride concentration on gelling time were investigated. A diffusional model, developed to predict the gelling time, agreed with experimental results except for the effect of calcium ion concentration which was modelled empirically.     

Work-site smoking policies: their population impact in Washington State

This article presents data from a population-based, random-digit dialing telephone survey of 1228 employed adults in Washington State, conducted 1989 through 1990. Eighty-one percent of men and 91% of women reported work-site smoking restrictions. Employees in work sites with no-smoking policies were less likely to be current smokers; men in work sites with policies restricting smoking smoked fewer cigarettes on both workdays and nonworkdays. Forty-eight percent of male and 53% of female smokers reported reduced smoking as a result of work-site policy. Work-site smoking policies, intended to protect against smoke exposure, may also reduce employee smoking.     

Applications of Telos

EuLisp has an integrated object system with reflective capabilities. We discuss some example applications which use these facilities to experiment with some advanced and powerful concepts, namely, finalization, virtual shared memory and persistence. A secondary goal is to attempt to illustrate the additional possibilities of metaobject programming over non-metalevel techniques.