Agency Creativity: Teams and Performance: A Conceptual Model Links Agency Teams' Knowledge Utilization, Agency Creativity, and Performance

Agency creativity is a product of team efforts where they interact to share knowledge, skills, and expertise to produce creative campaigns. For an agency, this is an invaluable resource. Using a multi-disciplinary approach, the authors of the current paper propose a conceptual model is proposed that links teams’ knowledge utilization, agency creativity, and performance. By considering incremental and radical creativity, it also builds on the idea that creativity is a multi-dimensional construct. The framework is presented to act as a catalyst upon which to build future empirical research on the nature of team creativity within advertising agencies

Soil enzyme activities in the rhizosphere of field-grown sugar beet inoculated with the biocontrol agent Pseudomonas fluorescens F113

The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com . Copyright Springer DOI : 10.1007/s003740050397Pseudomonas fluorescens F113, which produces the antimicrobial compound 2,4-diacetylphloroglucinol is a prospective biocontrol agent. Soil enzyme activities were used to investigate the ecological impact of strain F113 in the rhizosphere of field-grown sugar beet. There were distinct trends in rhizosphere enzyme activities in relation to soil chemistry (studied by electro-ultrafiltration). The activities of enzymes from the phosphorus cycle (acid phosphatase, alkaline phosphatase and phosphodiesterase) and of arylsulphatase were negatively correlated with the amount of readily available P, whereas urease activity was positively correlated with the latter. Significant correlations between electro-ultrafiltration nutrient levels and enzyme activity in the rhizosphere were obtained, highlighting the usefulness of enzyme assays to document variations in soil nutrient cycling. Contrary to previous microcosm studies, which did not investigate plants grown to maturity, the biocontrol inoculant had no effect on enzyme activity or on soil chemistry in the rhizosphere. The results show the importance of homogenous soil microcosm systems, used in previous work, in risk assessment studies, where inherent soil variability is minimised, and where an effect of the pseudomonad on soil enzymology could be detected.Peer reviewe

Rhizosphere soil enzymes as indicators of perturbations caused by enzyme substrate addition and inoculation of a genetically modified strain of Pseudomonas fluorescens on wheat seed

Comparative assays for determining chitobiosidase, N-acetyl glucosaminidase, acid phosphatase, alkaline phosphatase, phosphodiesterase, aryl 2 sulfatase and urease activities from small samples of soil were developed. The enzyme assays and ATP biomass assessments were used to monitor perturbations caused by the presence of Pseudomonas fluorescens in the rhizosphere of wheat. Microbial biomass as well as the measured enzyme activities decreased with depth, except for acid phosphatase activity which was similar at all depths. A combined substrate mix addition of urea, colloidal chitin and glycerophosphate significantly increased N-acetyl glucosaminidase, chitobiosidase, aryl sulfatase and urease activities but did not cause a significant difference in acid and alkaline phosphatase and phosphodiesterase activities. Inoculation of seeds with P. fluorescens resulted in significant increases in rhizosphere chitobiosidase and urease activities at 5-20 cm depth and a significant decrease in alkaline phosphatase activity. Inoculation with the bacterium in the presence of substrate mix gave opposing effects to those treatments without substrate mix addition: chitobiosidase, aryl sulfatase and urease activities were significantly lower and alkaline phosphatase was significantly higher at the 5-20cm depth interval with inoculation of bacteria. Biomass values for the combined bacteria and substrate mix treatment were significantly higher than the substrate mix alone treatment

Functional impact of genetically modified micro-organisms on the soil ecosystem

Most attempts to monitor the effects of introductions of Genetically Modified Micro-organisms (GMMs) have centred on the enumeration of specific populations. However for a significant perturbation to be measured, changes of between 100% and 300% (0.3 and 0.5 on a log scale) are necessary for the impact to be significant. Standard population measurements, assessing the survival, dissemination and effect on total indigenous populations do not give an indication of the functioning of the ecosystem. There is very little literature regarding the functional impact of GMMs, for instance the effect upon nutrient cycling or functionally important groups of organisms. Through out this review a number of methods for the detection of perturbation in the rhizosphere/soil ecosystem are assessed. A range of non functional methods are summarised first, including molecular and non molecular genetic population diversity studies. Functional methodology, for example nutrient cycling, is then assessed for application as indicators of impact in the soil ecosystem and the significance of measuring functional impact is highlighted. These functional methods are classified into those relying upon the culturability of the target organisms and those that do not. Non culture methods discussed include biomass, respiration, nutrient cycling, mRNA studies and soil enzyme assays. Recently a range of soil enzyme assays have been used as alternatives to population measurements. The impact of a chromosomally marked Pseudomonas fluorescens (SBW25), on soil chitobiosidase, N-acetyl glucosaminidase, acid and alkaline phosphatases, phosphodiesterase, aryl sulphatase and urease were studied. Using these enzyme assays impacts of less than 20% could be detected. A series of interactions were observed which depended on whether a mixture of soil enzyme substrates were added to soil. Generally, microbial inoculation increased the enzyme activity of the biomass, but effects are likely to be 2 dependent upon the nature of the genetic modification. The environmental implications of these effects are discussed

Measurement of the Charged Multiplicities in b, c and Light Quark Events from Z0 Decays

Average charged multiplicities have been measured separately in $b$, $c$ and light quark ($u,d,s$) events from $Z^0$ decays measured in the SLD experiment. Impact parameters of charged tracks were used to select enriched samples of $b$ and light quark events, and reconstructed charmed mesons were used to select $c$ quark events. We measured the charged multiplicities: $\bar{n}_{uds} = 20.21 \pm 0.10 (\rm{stat.})\pm 0.22(\rm{syst.})$, $\bar{n}_{c} = 21.28 \pm 0.46(\rm{stat.}) ^{+0.41}_{-0.36}(\rm{syst.})$ $\bar{n}_{b} = 23.14 \pm 0.10(\rm{stat.}) ^{+0.38}_{-0.37}(\rm{syst.})$, from which we derived the differences between the total average charged multiplicities of $c$ or $b$ quark events and light quark events: $\Delta \bar{n}_c = 1.07 \pm 0.47(\rm{stat.})^{+0.36}_{-0.30}(\rm{syst.})$ and $\Delta \bar{n}_b = 2.93 \pm 0.14(\rm{stat.})^{+0.30}_{-0.29}(\rm{syst.})$. We compared these measurements with those at lower center-of-mass energies and with perturbative QCD predictions. These combined results are in agreement with the QCD expectations and disfavor the hypothesis of flavor-independent fragmentation.Comment: 19 pages LaTex, 4 EPS figures, to appear in Physics Letters