Variables in the Hiring Equation: Ensuring that the Right Candidate is Hired

When making the decision to hire one of several equally qualified candidates, IS managers fall back on their instincts and choose the candidate that “feels right.” They rely on personal chemistry, which is one of the variables in the hiring equation. Other equally important elements are: aptitude, attitude, and motivational factors.     

Using statistics to make expert systems “user-acquainted”

The user-acquainted feature collects user-specific data regarding the types of advice that have been sought over time and uses this historical information to update the probabilities to affect the firing of its rules and the ordering of the recommendations of the expert system. These updates are done on auser-specific basis so that the expert can more closely emulate a true expert by providing more informed advice. One example of a place where evidence suggests that such a feature would be useful is in the area of debugging of computer programs, especially in support of novice programmers who tend, as individuals, to commit similar classes of errors over time, but who, as a group, commit very different types of errors. We conjecture that the user-acquainted feature, which can keep track of the tendencies of the users and take them into account in the evaluation of diagnostics, will be more effectiveand efficient in determining the fault. In this paper, we discuss the statistical analyses necessary to implement this feature in an expert system for debugging errors in SAS.     

Local pH variation as an initial step in bacterial surface-sensing and biofilm formation

The development of surface-associated layers of matrix-embedded microbial populations, called biofilms, is a serious problem in many medical and industrial settings. These contaminations are difficult to eradicate because of the high resistance level acquired by the cells in their particular environment. From the very beginning of the colonization process, modifications of gene expression are observed and could, at least partially, explain biofilm resistance. In order to develop anti-biofilm molecules and surface treatments, it is of pivotal importance to identify the physico-chemical parameters which activate the sensor systems of pioneering microbes when they come into contact with a surface. The aim of our study was to examine the pH variations in the local micro-environment created between the cell layer and the surface after bacteria adhesion. Using an ion-sensitive field effect transistor (ISFET), as a substratum, colonized by a curli hyperproducing strain known to form biofilms, we observed that the evolution of the pH change was significantly different in the micro-compartment in contact with the electrochemical sensor compared to that within the liquid phase.     

The impact of a sewage treatment plant's effluent on sediment quality in a small bay in Lake Geneva (Switzerland–France). Part 2: Temporal evolution of heavy metals

The Bay of Vidy is the most contaminated area of Lake Geneva, Switzerland, as a result of the release of treated and untreated waste water from the municipal sewage treatment plant of the city of Lausanne and its surroundings. The reconstruction of the historical deposition of heavy metals in the sediment of the bay has been performed by the analysis of several dated (radiocaesium) sediment cores. The presence of sewage‐derived contaminants in the Bay of Vidy since the beginning of the sewage treatment plant's operations in 1964 is clearly observed, when a sharp increase in heavy metal contents is recorded, with maximum concentrations of cadmium, copper, zinc and lead occurring between the late 1960s and early 1970s. Despite considerable improvement in recent times, the present concentrations of the investigated heavy metals in sediments of the Bay of Vidy are still higher than concentrations measured at the centre of the lake, the latter close to Lake Geneva's natural background values. It is concluded that the quantity of heavy metals deposited in the bay is considerable and, because of sediment instability, will constitute a potential hazard for biota.     

pH‐Cleavable Nucleoside Lipids: A New Paradigm for Controlling the Stability of Lipid‐Based Delivery Systems

Lipid‐based delivery systems are an established technology with considerable clinical acceptance and several applications in human. Herein, we report the design, synthesis and evaluation of novel orthoester nucleoside lipids (ONLs) for the modulation of liposome stability. The ONLs contain head groups with 3′‐orthoester nucleoside derivatives featuring positive or negative charges. The insertion of the orthoester function in the NL structures allows the formation of pH‐sensitive liposomes. ONL‐based liposomes can be hydrolyzed to provide nontoxic products, including nucleoside derivatives and hexadecanol. To allow the release to be tunable at different hydrolysis rates, the charge of the polar head structure is modulated, and the head group can be released at a biologically relevant pH. Crucially, when ONLs are mixed with natural phosphocholine lipids (PC), the resultant liposome evolves toward the formation of a hexadecanol/PC lamellar system. Biological evaluation shows that stable nucleic acid lipid particles (SNALPs) formulated with ONLs and siRNAs can effectively enter into tumor cells and release their nucleic acid payload in response to an intracellular acidic environment. This results in a much higher antitumor activity than conventional SNALPs. The ability to use pH‐cleavable nucleolipids to control the stability of lipid‐based delivery systems represents a promising approach for the intracellular delivery of drug cargos.     

Numerical investigation of DQMoM-IEM as a turbulent reaction closure

This paper investigates a mean reaction rate closure for turbulent reacting flows called the Direct Quadrature Method of Moments using the Interaction by Exchange with the Mean micromixing model (DQMoM-IEM). The method was first introduced for reacting flows by Fox (Computational Models for Turbulent Reacting Flows, Cambridge University Press, 2003). We present a systematic study that considers several important new aspects of the method. In particular we introduce a new analytic expression for the DQMoM-IEM source terms. We present a rigourous numerical investigation and discuss problems of boundedness and singularity in detail. We introduce a filter function to overcome these issues in the general case and present analytic integrals for special cases of specific terms. We extend the methodology to take advantage of these developments and show details of the implementation in a commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code. We present an extensive set of numerical experiments and validation. The method is proven for a problem known from the literature which includes an isothermal dimerisation process. Experimental and transported probability density function (PDF) data compare reasonably well. The method is discussed critically and areas for further research are suggested to make the method more practical.     

Laboratory studies into how glass-reinforced plastic (GRP) vat surfaces can be repaired without causing migration of styrene into foodstuffs

Glass–fiber-reinforced plastic (GRP) vats are used widely for the storage of foodstuffs and potable water. As the inner surfaces deteriorate during decades of use, they need to be repaired. The unsaturated polyester resins that are used for recoating are crosslinked with styrene which can cause taint and odor problems. This article describes some coating parameters that affect the content of residual styrene and its subsequent migration. The influences of cure temperature and duration, along with the effect of washing with warm detergent solution, were investigated. Cured specimens were tested for their residual styrene content and for styrene migration into the food simulants, distilled water, 3% acetic acid, and 15% ethanol. The dominant factor in reducing the amount of residual styrene is the temperature. The resin self-heats as it cures, typically up to 50°C. Thus, any further lowering of the styrene content requires a higher cure temperature than this. A 3-h cure at 80°C reduced both the residual content and the migration levels by about 100-fold. At lower cure temperatures, the heating effect of washing at 60°C is more important than the washing effect of the detergent. When less catalyst was used the residual styrene levels rose dramatically, from 70 to 360 to 1300 mg/kg for the normal dose, half and quarter the normal dose, respectively. There was a linear relationship between residual content in the GRP and the migration levels. This correlation could be used for monitoring the quality of vats repaired in situ, using styrene-based coating resins.     

A Mutant D‐Fructose‐6‐Phosphate Aldolase (Ala129Ser) with Improved Affinity towards Dihydroxyacetone for the Synthesis of Polyhydroxylated Compounds

A mutant of D ‐fructose‐6‐phosphate aldolase (FSA) of Escherichia coli, FSA A129S, with improved catalytic efficiency towards dihydroxyacetone (DHA), the donor substrate in aldol addition reactions, was explored for synthetic applications. The k_cat/K_M value for DHA was 17‐fold higher with FSA A129S than that with FSA wild type (FSA wt). On the other hand, for hydroxyacetone as donor substrate FSA A129S was found to be 3.5‐fold less efficient than FSA wt. Furthermore, FSA A129S also accepted glycolaldehyde (GA) as donor substrate with 3.3‐fold lower affinity than FSA wt. This differential selectivity of both FSA wt and FSA A129S for GA makes them complementary biocatalysts allowing a control over donor and acceptor roles, which is particularly useful in carboligation multi‐step cascade synthesis of polyhydroxylated complex compounds. Production of the mutant protein was also improved for its convenient use in synthesis. Several carbohydrates and nitrocyclitols were efficiently prepared, demonstrating the versatile potential of FSA A129S as biocatalyst in organic synthesis.     

Historical perspective of heavy metals contamination (Cd, Cr, Cu, Hg, Pb, Zn) in the Seine River basin (France) following a DPSIR approach (1950-2005)

The Driver-Pressures-State-Impact-Response approach is applied to heavy metals in the Seine River catchment (65,000 km(2); 14 million people of which 10 million are aggregated within Paris megacity; 30% of French industrial and agricultural production). The contamination pattern at river mouth is established on the particulate material at different time scales: 1930-2000 for floodplain cores, 1980-2003 for suspended particulate matter (SPM) and bed-sediments, 1994-2003 for atmospheric fallout and annual flood deposits. The Seine has been among the most contaminated catchments with maximum contents recorded at 130 mg kg(-1) for Cd, 24 for Hg, 558 for Pb, 1620 for Zn, 347 for Cu, 275 for Cr and 150 for Ni. Today, the average levels for Cd (1.8 mg kg(-1)), Hg (1.08), Pb (108), Zn (370), Cu (99), Cr (123) and Ni (31) are much lower but still in the upper 90% of the global scale distribution (Cr and Ni excepted) and well above the natural background values determined on pre-historical deposits. All metal contents have decreased at least since 1955/65, well before metal emission regulations that started in the mid 1970's and the metal monitoring in the catchment that started in the early 1980's. In the last 20 y, major criteria changes for the management of contaminated particulates (treated urban sludge, agricultural soils, dredged sediments) have occurred. In the mid 1990's, there was a complete shift in the contamination assessment scales, from sediment management and water usage criteria to the good ecological state, now required by the 2000 European Directive. When comparing excess metal outputs, associated to river SPM, to the average metal demand within the catchment from 1950 to 2000, the leakage ratios decrease exponentially from 1950 to 2000 for Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb and Zn, meanwhile, a general increase of the demand is observed: the rate of recycling and/or treatment of metals within the anthroposphere has been improved ten-fold. Hg environmental trajectory is very specific: there is a marked decontamination from 1970 to 2000, but the leakage ratio remains very high (10 to 20%) during this period. Drivers and Pressures are poorly known prior to 1985; State evolution since 1935 has been reconstructed from flood plain cores analysis; Impacts were maximum between 1950 and 1970 but remained unknown due to analytical limitation and lack of awareness. Some Responses are lagging 10 y behind monitoring and have much evolved in the past 10 y.     

The mechanism of intergranular corrosion of dilute zinc-aluminium alloys in hot water

On the basis of polarization studies, grain boundary corrosion rate measurements and metallographic results, a corrosion mechanism is advanced which allows for a full explanation of the corrosion behaviour of zin—aluminium alloys. Explanations are provided for the well-known detrimental effects of lead additions, and the beneficial effects of copper and magnesium additions to these alloys.