The GOODSTEP project: General Object-Oriented Database for Software Engineering Processes

The goal of the GOODSTEP project is to enhance and improve the functionality of a fully object-oriented database management system to yield a platform suited for applications such as software development environments (SDEs). The baseline of the project is the O2 database management system (DBMS). The O2 DBMS already includes many of the features regulated by SDEs. The project has identified enhancements to O2 in order to make it a real software engineering DBMS. These enhancements are essentially upgrades of the existing O2 functionality, and hence require relatively easy extensions to the O2 system. They have been developed in the early stages of the project and are now exploited and validated by a number of software engineering tools built on top of the enhanced O2 DBMS. To ease tool construction, the GOODSTEP platform encompasses tool generation capabilities which allow for generation of integrated graphical and textual tools from high-level specifications. In addition, the GOODSTEP platform provides a software process toolset which enables modeling, analysis and enaction of software processes and is also built on top of the extended O2 database. The GOODSTEP platform is to be validated using two CASE studies carried out to develop an airline application and a business application

Determination of phosphorus in small amounts of protein samples by ICP-MS

Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) is used for phosphorus determination in protein samples. A small amount of solid protein sample (down to 1 micro g) or digest (1-10 micro L) protein solution was denatured in nitric acid and hydrogen peroxide by closed-microvessel microwave digestion. Phosphorus determination was performed with an optimized analytical method using a double-focusing sector field inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-SFMS) and quadrupole-based ICP-MS (ICP-QMS). For quality control of phosphorus determination a certified reference material (CRM), single cell proteins (BCR 273) with a high phosphorus content of 26.8+/-0.4 mg g(-1), was analyzed. For studies on phosphorus determination in proteins while reducing the sample amount as low as possible the homogeneity of CRM BCR 273 was investigated. Relative standard deviation and measurement accuracy in ICP-QMS was within 2%, 3.5%, 11% and 12% when using CRM BCR 273 sample weights of 40 mg, 5 mg, 1 mg and 0.3 mg, respectively. The lowest possible sample weight for an accurate phosphorus analysis in protein samples by ICP-MS is discussed. The analytical method developed was applied for the analysis of homogeneous protein samples in very low amounts [1-100 micro g of solid protein sample, e.g. beta-casein or down to 1 micro L of protein or digest in solution (e.g., tau protein)]. A further reduction of the diluted protein solution volume was achieved by the application of flow injection in ICP-SFMS, which is discussed with reference to real protein digests after protein separation using 2D gel electrophoresis.The detection limits for phosphorus in biological samples were determined by ICP-SFMS down to the ng g(-1) level. The present work discusses the figure of merit for the determination of phosphorus in a small amount of protein sample with ICP-SFMS in comparison to ICP-QMS

Effects of glyphosate on the bacterial community associated with roots of transgenic Roundup Ready^® soybean.

Introduction of glyphosate-resistant soybean plants into agricultural systems has greatly increased the application frequency of glyphosate. Because glyphosate is able to inhibit 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (EPSPS) not only in plants but also in different microorganisms, its application could lead to shifts in rhizosphere microbial communities in farming soils. In this study, greenhouse experiments were conducted with the objective to evaluate the effects of glyphosate on the composition and diversity of rhizosphere bacterial communities of transgenic soybean. This was especially relevant, because foliar applied glyphosate is transported down to the roots and exuded into the rhizosphere. After two foliar herbicide applications, root samples of treated and untreated plants were analysed by 16S rRNA gene T-RFLP analysis. Multivariate statistical analysis of the data and diversity indices were used to assess changes in the microbial populations in response to glyphosate applications. A comparison of rhizosphere communities revealed that the abundance of a T-RF representing microbes related to Burkholderia sp. significantly decreased under glyphosate application, while the abundance of a T-RF representing uncultured Gemmatimonadetes significantly increased. Interestingly, the bacterial community associated with soybean roots after glyphosate application not only demonstrated effective resilience after the disturbance but in addition, T-RF diversity also increased in comparison to the untreated control samples. The results suggest that bacterial diversity was even stimulated in the rhizosphere after glyphosate application