Organizational climate in air traffic control Innovative preparedness for implementation of new technology and organizational development in a rule governed organization

A positive and innovative organizational climate is of great importance in order to manage and adapt to change. Such a climate seldom evolves in organizations closely governed by rules and regulations. Because of ongoing organizational and technical changes within the Swedish Air Navigation Services Provider, a study concerning the organizational climate for changes and innovations was conducted to investigate the organization's capacity to cope with changes. Study locations were the two Swedish main air traffic control centers and parts of the civil aviation administration headquarters. In the study 390 subjects took part and the CCQ questionnaire was used to measure the organizational climate. The results show that the organizational climate is quite positive despite the rule-governed work. The results also show that administrative personnel assess the organizational climate as more positive than operative personnel. Comparisons between management positions did not result in any differences.     

Pancreatic xanthomatous neuropathy associated with hyperlipidemia: a cause of abdominal pain mimicking chronic pancreatitis

"Hyperlipidemic crisis" is a term used to describe episodic abdominal pain in patients with hyperlipidemia. The morphologic correlates of this phenomenon have not been investigated and the etiology of the disorder is uncertain. We report a unique histologic finding in the pancreas of a 34-year-old woman with a 17-year history of episodic abdominal pain, sometimes accompanied by hyperamylasemia. At the age of 18 years, grossly elevated cholesterol and triglyceride levels were documented and type V hyperlipidemia was diagnosed. At the age of 34 years, subtotal pancreatectomy was performed for intractable abdominal pain. Histologic examination identified an increased number of enlarged pancreatic nerves that were infiltrated by foamy macrophages and encircled by fibrous tissue; endoneurial infiltration with macrophages occasionally split nerves into individual fascicles. Otherwise, the pancreas had only minimal fibrosis, nesidioblastosis, mucinous metaplasia of some pancreatic ducts, and scattered small collections of chronic inflammatory cells, subtle features suggesting very mild chronic pancreatitis. We propose that this novel xanthomatous neuropathy mimicked pancreatitis and was one of the underlying pathophysiologic mechanisms of abdominal pain in this patient. Further studies are necessary to document the prevalence of this new entity in patients with hyperlipidemia and to correlate its occurrence with "hyperlipidemic crisis" in those individuals.     

Carrot cropping on organic soil is a hotspot for nitrous oxide emissions

The emissions of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N₂O) were measured from a non nitrogen fertilized carrot (Daucus carota ssp. sativa) field on an organic soil in Sweden during one cropping and post-harvest season. The cumulative emission during the measuring period of 149?days was 41 (±2.8) kg N₂O ha^?1. Dividing the measuring period into a cropping and a post-harvest period revealed that the presence of carrots strongly stimulated N₂O emissions, as the emission during the cropping period was one order of magnitude higher compared to the post-harvest period. The N₂O emission from the carrot field were higher than fluxes reported from cereal crop and grass production, but in the same order as reported fluxes from vegetable cropping on organic soils. In conclusion, our results indicate that the cultivation of root vegetable, such as carrots, on organic soil can be a high point source for N₂O emissions.     

Nanointerfacial strength between non-collagenous protein and collagen fibrils in antler bone

Antler bone displays considerable toughness through the use of a complex nanofibrous structure of mineralized collagen fibrils (MCFs) bound together by non-collagenous proteins (NCPs). While the NCP regions represent a small volume fraction relative to the MCFs, significant surface area is evolved upon failure of the nanointerfaces formed at NCP–collagen fibril boundaries. The mechanical properties of nanointerfaces between the MCFs are investigated directly in this work using an in situ atomic force microscopy technique to pull out individual fibrils from the NCP. Results show that the NCP–fibril interfaces in antler bone are weak, which highlights the propensity for interface failure at the nanoscale in antler bone and extensive fibril pullout observed at antler fracture surfaces. The adhesion between fibrils and NCP is additionally suggested as being rate dependent, with increasing interfacial strength and fracture energy observed when pullout velocity decreases.     

Mechanics of Oil Sands Slurry Flow in a Flexible Pipeline System

Slurry transportation is an economic haulage system in oil sands and coal-mining operations characterized by long haulage distances and rugged terrain. In such conditions, the ton-km-hr limits are exceeded creating extreme tire wear and high maintenance costs. Steep haul grades and rugged terrain also cause mechanical wear and tear, which decrease haulage equipment economic life. Hydraulic transportation is a proven and viable technology for slurry transportation in such conditions. Currently, stationary pipeline transportation is being used in transporting minerals in many mines. There is an increasing demand to create slurrified minerals at the mining faces to be transported to the processing plant. However, stationary pipelines are not capable for dealing with the rapidly changing configuration of the mining faces. In this paper, the authors develop the ground articulating pipeline (GAP) technology to address this problem. The GAP system consists of pipelines connected together with flexible joints in each pipe section, which allows deflection to avoid torsional stresses from the adjoining frames. This flexible arrangement accommodates the horizontal and vertical displacements of the mobile system as it follows the hydraulic shovels in the excavation process. The mechanics of the GAP system, as well as the production–economic function, are formulated and simulated over an extended period using data and information from Syncrude’s North Mine. The results show that the GAP system is technically and economically viable for productivity between 6,300 and 6,500 tons per hour. The simulated head loss for the GAP system is 15.66 m per 400 m, which compares with 20 m per 400 m for the existing stationary system at Syncrude. The pressure gradient-radius curves are asymptotic to the pipe boundaries, which indicates steep axial pressure gradient in these areas.     

Predicting metamorphic relations for testing scientific software: a machine learning approach using graph kernels

Comprehensive, automated software testing requires an oracle to check whether the output produced by a test case matches the expected behaviour of the programme. But the challenges in creating suitable oracles limit the ability to perform automated testing in some programmes, and especially in scientific software. Metamorphic testing is a method for automating the testing process for programmes without test oracles. This technique operates by checking whether the programme behaves according to properties called metamorphic relations. A metamorphic relation describes the change in output when the input is changed in a prescribed way. Unfortunately, finding the metamorphic relations satisfied by a programme or function remains a labour‐intensive task, which is generally performed by a domain expert or a programmer. In this work, we propose a machine learning approach for predicting metamorphic relations that uses a graph‐based representation of a programme to represent control flow and data dependency information. In earlier work, we found that simple features derived from such graphs provide good performance. An analysis of the features used in this earlier work led us to explore the effectiveness of several representations of those graphs using the machine learning framework of graph kernels, which provide various ways of measuring similarity between graphs. Our results show that a graph kernel that evaluates the contribution of all paths in the graph has the best accuracy and that control flow information is more useful than data dependency information. The data used in this study are available for download at http://www.cs.colostate.edu/saxs/MRpred/functions.tar.gz to help researchers in further development of metamorphic relation prediction methods. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Recombinant tropomyosin from Penaeus aztecus (rPen a 1) for measurement of specific immunoglobulin E antibodies relevant in food allergy to crustaceans and other invertebrates

Immunoglobulin E (IgE)-mediated food allergy to crustaceans and mollusks is relatively common and affected individuals typically react to a range of different species. The only known major allergen of shrimp was first described over 20 years ago and later identified as the muscle protein tropomyosin. This protein may be useful as a defined and relevant diagnostic marker for allergic sensitization to invertebrate foods. In order to generate an assay reagent suitable for this purpose, tropomyosin from the shrimp Penaeus aztecus (Pen a 1) was produced as a recombinant protein in Escherichia coli and characterized with respect to IgE antibody binding properties in comparison to natural shrimp tropomyosin. Hexahistidine-tagged rPen a 1 accumulated as a predominantly soluble protein in the E. coli expression host and a two-step chromatographic procedure provided a high yield of pure and homogeneous protein. rPen a 1 displayed chromatographic and folding characteristics similar to those of purified natural shrimp tropomyosin. Serum preincubation with serial protein dilutions revealed similar capacity of recombinant and natural tropomyosin to compete with immobilized shrimp extract for IgE binding. rPen a 1 was further shown to extensively and specifically compete for IgE binding to extracts of other crustacean species, house dust mite and German cockroach.     

Design of a sea thermal energy power plant

A unique 8000-kw gross power and sea water conversion plant is described which uses the temperature difference of the ocean to produce usable energy and fresh water. This plant has been designed by the research and development department, Clearing Division of U.S. Industries, Inc., for installation along coastlines in a semitropical area. Estimated cost for the sea thermal energy plant is 2.5 to 3 million dollars, including building and erection costs. This is equal to $310 to $375 per kw, amounts which are competitive with fossil-fuel burning plants in remote areas.