Seasonal variation in cotyledoside concentration of Tylecodon wallichii (Harv.) Tolken subsp. wallichii sampled in a krimpsiekte-prevalent region

Krimpsiekte, an economically important neuromuscular affliction of small stock, follows upon ingestion of certain members of the Crassulaceae (plakkies) containing cumulative neurotoxic bufadienolides. Tylecodon wallichii (Harv.) Tolken subsp. wallichii is probably the most important species of the group of plants causing krimpsiekte. The growing tip of the stem and various other plant parts of T. wallichii, when available, were collected monthly. The seasonal variation in cotyledoside content of the plant was measured. Cotyledoside concentration was determined by high performance liquid chromatographic-electrospray mass spectrometry analysis (HPLC-ESMS). The cotyledoside concentration in the plant stems fluctuated substantially during the year, but tended to be higher in the cold winter months and increased again in the spring and early summer. Elevated plant stem concentrations corresponded with natural field outbreaks of krimpsiekte, which usually occur during the winter to early summer. The highest cotyledoside concentrations were detected in the flowering stalk. Cotyledoside was not the only component of this type in the plant, as mass spectrometry revealed the presence of other, possibly related, compounds.The articles have been scanned in colour with a HP Scanjet 5590; 600dpi. Adobe Acrobat v.9 was used to OCR the text and also for the merging and conversion to the final presentation PDF-format.mn201

Biological nitrate removal from synthetic wastewater using a fungal consortium in one stage bioreactors

A series of lignocellulosic fungi, capable of cellulase and/or xylanase production, were isolated from soil to be used for cellulose degradation and nitrate removal from nitrate-rich wastewater in simple one-stage anaerobic bioreactors containing grass cuttings as source of cellulose. The fungal consortium, consisting of six hyphomycetous isolates, some of which belong to the genera Fusarium, Mucor and Penicillium, was able to remove a significant portion of the nitrate from the treated water. The results were obtained for three bioreactors, i.e. FR, FRp and AFRp, differing in volume and mode of grass addition. Bioreactor AFRp received autoclaved grass, instead of non-autoclaved grass containing natural microbial consortia, as supplied to FR and FRp. Nitrate removal in FR amounted to 89% removal efficiency, while this was 65% and 67% in FRp and AFRp, respectively. The residual chemical oxygen demand (COD) concentration in FR was higher than 600 mg/l, while it was 355 and 379 mg/l in FRp and AFRp, respectively. The similar nitrate removal results for AFRp and FRp indicated that the micro-organisms attached to grass cuttings did not seem to affect the nitrate removal in the reactor. This observation has led to the conclusion that the fungal consortium was, except for being able to degrade cellulose within the grass cuttings, also responsible for nitrate removal from the synthetic nitrate-rich wastewater.Articl

A Framework for Document-Driven Workflow Systems

Abstract. We propose and demonstrate the feasibility of a framework for document-driven workflow systems that requires no explicit control flow and the execution of the process is driven by input documents. The framework can assist workflow designers to discover the data de-pendencies between tasks in a process and achieve more efficient control flow design. The framework also provides an architecture to separate the workflow system from application data and facilitate inter-organizational processes. Document-driven workflow systems are more flexible than tra-ditional control flow processes, easier to verify and work better for ad hoc workflows. We also implemented a prototype workflow system using the framework entirely in a RDBMS using Transact-SQL in Microsoft SQL Server 2000. A detailed comparison with control driven workflows has also been done.

Room Temperature Surface Bio-Sulfurisation via Natural Sativum Annilin and Bioengineering of Nanostructured CuS/Cu2S

In this contribution, we report, for the first time, on the surface bio-sulfurisation of metallic surfaces at room temperature via natural sativum annilin. More precisely, this bio-sulfurisation is validated on bioengineered nanostructured Cu2-XS surfaces using natural organosulfur compounds emitted from Sativum allium L. as efficient sulfurisation chemical agents. It is validated that virgin copper surfaces can be sulfurised at room temperature without adding any extra chemical or physical processes. In addition to the validation of the green sulfurisation process of the copper surface, the bioengineered Cu2-XS exhibited a multiscale 1-D tubular morphology with Cu2-XS nanotubules and nanocones. Such a nanostructured Cu2-XS surface exhibited an excessive optical selectivity, a superhydrophobicity response in addition to a remarkable site selective mercury adsorption

Towards comprehensive support for organizational mining

Process mining has emerged as a way to analyze processes based on the event logs of the systems that support them. Today's information systems (e.g., ERP systems) log all kinds of events. Moreover, also embedded systems (e.g., medical equipment, copiers, and other high-tech systems) start producing detailed event logs. The omnipresence of event logs is an important enabler for process mining. The primary goal of process mining is to extract knowledge from these logs and use it for a detailed analysis of reality. Lion's share of the efforts in this domain has been devoted to control-flow discovery. Many algorithms have been proposed to construct a process model based on an analysis of the event sequences observed in the log. As a result, other aspects have been neglected, e.g., the organizational setting and interactions among coworkers. Therefore, we focus on organizational mining. We will present techniques to discover organizational models and social networks and show how these models can assist in improving the underlying processes. To do this, we present new process mining techniques but also use existing techniques in an innovative manner. The approach has been implemented in the context of the ProM framework and has been applied in various case studies. In this paper, we demonstrate the applicability of our techniques by analyzing the logs of a municipality in the Netherlands.close306