Taking Stock: An Analysis of the Publishing Record as Represented by the Journal of Engineering Education

The Journal of Engineering Education emerged in the engineering education community in 1993 as a continuation of the American Society of Engineering Education's journal, Engineering Education. The Journal of Engineering Education was to play a role in the broadening of engineering education culture by helping to bring the scholarship of engineering education to the same level of respect and recognition in the faculty reward system as traditional scholarship in engineering sciences. In doing so, the journal hoped to keep pace with and encourage the significant changes in engineering education needed to prepare for the challenges of 21st century practice. This paper discusses the engineering education environment as reflected in six years of papers published in the Journal of Engineering Education from 1996 to 2001. Topics of papers are identified, along with changes and trends in these topics during the six‐year period. In addition, characteristics of particularly convincing papers are enumerated and discussed. This paper is offered as a summary and review of this six‐year body of work on engineering education and should aid the engineering education community in reflecting on the success of the Journal in promoting and encouraging the scholarship of teaching.     

Sequence Analysis of the Candida albicans ADE2 Gene and Physical Separation of the Two Functionally Distinct Domains of the Phosphoribosylaminoimidazole Carboxylase

An ADE2 genomic clone from the pathogenic fungus, Candida albicans, was isolated by complementation of an Escherichia coli purK mutant and the gene was analysed by DNA sequencing. A 1707 bp open reading frame was identified encoding a polypeptide of 569 amino acids with significant homology to all the known yeast ADE2 genes. Sequence homology to both the E. coli purE and purK genes suggests that the C. albicans ADE2 gene is the result of an evolutionary fusion. The amino-acid sequence comparison showed that the N-terminal domain of the Ade2 protein has a 52·5% identity to PurK, whereas the C-terminal domain has a distinct 64·3% identity to PurE. In order to establish the functional relationship of these two regions, deletion mutants of the Ade2 protein were prepared by recombinant expression of the functional domains, which were tested by complementation of their respective E. coli auxotrophs. The sequence described in this paper has been deposited in the EMBL data library under the Accession Number U69606. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Inhibition of spoilage lactic acid bacteria by lysozyme during wine alcoholic fermentation

The efficacy of lysozyme against indigenous lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and four inoculated spoilage LAB cultures was investigated in laboratory scale Chardonnay winemaking trials (at pH 3.8). These LAB cultures included Lactobacillus kunkeei, Lactobacillus brevis, Pediococcus parvulus , and Pediococcus damnosus . Three concentrations of lysozyme were used: 0, 125 and 250 mg/L. Alcoholic fermentation of the grape juice was carried out at 20±0.5°C using Saccharomyces cerevisiae . Lysozyme did not have any negative impact on yeast growth and sugar reduction. This enzyme was found to be very effective in inhibiting the growth of all four LAB cultures investigated. Under the given experimental conditions, as high as an 8 log cell reduction was obtained for some of the strains. The acetic acid production by L. brevis and L. kunkeei was significantly reduced in the treatments with 125 and 250 mg/L lysozyme added ( P < 0.01). The effect of lysozyme on the cells of the LAB cultures was examined under a scanning electron microscope. It is evident that lysozyme had a detrimental impact on the cells of these cultures. Based on these observations, it is concluded that lysozyme may be a useful tool for winemakers to control the growth of spoilage LAB and to reduce the production of volatile acids. The addition of lysozyme may also prevent the increase of volatile acidity during stuck/sluggish alcoholic fermentation. This tool is particularly useful in high pH wines where SO₂ is less effective.