Biddability, Constructability, Operability, and Environmental Analysis at the Engineer Research and Development Center

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) created a checklist to ensure all proposed government projects meet a minimum set of guidelines. They coined the checklist BCOE: Biddability, constructability, operability, and environmental. This project management review process incorporates a plethora of constantly changing input from USACE employees around the globe. The most current construction practices, the newest building configurations, the most recent ingenious method to perform are all captured by the USACE database to support the BCOE process. Using case studies of projects carried out at the Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), this paper investigates how proper utilization of the USACE\u27s BCOE project management process can reduce conflicts, oversights, cost overruns, and other deleterious actions that can inversely affect the successful outcome of a project. The utilized methodology utilized encompassed three interdependent steps where the authors collected project data for five projects that were carried out in ERDC, analyzed the efficiency and effectiveness of the BCOE process, and consequently collected additional project data for another 15 ERDC projects for further indepth analysis. When properly executed, the BCOE review process was proven beneficial to ensuring the successful completion of a project through improved communication

Functional Plasticity in the Type IV Secretion System of Helicobacter pylori

Helicobacter pylori causes clinical disease primarily in those individuals infected with a strain that carries the cytotoxin associated gene pathogenicity island (cagPAI). The cagPAI encodes a type IV secretion system (T4SS) that injects the CagA oncoprotein into epithelial cells and is required for induction of the pro-inflammatory cytokine, interleukin-8 (IL-8). CagY is an essential component of the H. pylori T4SS that has an unusual sequence structure, in which an extraordinary number of direct DNA repeats is predicted to cause rearrangements that invariably yield in-frame insertions or deletions. Here we demonstrate in murine and non-human primate models that immune-driven host selection of rearrangements in CagY is sufficient to cause gain or loss of function in the H. pylori T4SS. We propose that CagY functions as a sort of molecular switch or perhaps a rheostat that alters the function of the T4SS and “tunes” the host inflammatory response so as to maximize persistent infection