Possible Role of N-Acetylglucosamine for Induction of Polyhydroxybutyrate Depolymerase in Streptomyces sp. SFB5A

Streptomyces sp. SFB5A is a filamentous, Gram-positive bacterium that makes a polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) depolymerase to degrade PHB for energy usage. Its life cycle begins as spores germinate to form vegetative mycelia. Starvation prompts formation of aerial mycelia and ultimately spores after 5-7 days. During starvation, Streptomyces may use peptidoglycan hydrolases to degrade its own cell walls, releasing N-Acetylglucosamine (NAG). PHA depolymerase activity is detected during growth of strain SFB5A on NAG as the sole carbon source, suggesting that NAG induces PHA depolymerase synthesis. To test this hypothesis, strain SFB5A was grown for 4 days on PHB, and a colorimetric assay for NAG was performed on culture supernatants from samples taken every 12 h. NAG concentration peaked at about 24-36 h, when cells might be expected to autolyze. However, absorbance readings were only slightly above the hypothetical limit of detection, most likely due to very low NAG concentrations. Increasing the final concentration of borate buffer in the assay increased the assay sensitivity 2-fold, and suggested that culture supernatants could be concentrated at least 2-fold to increase detection. To detect peptidoglycan hydrolase secreted during autolysis, samples of culture supernatants were spotted onto agarose gels containing heat-killed cells. However, no clearing zones appeared after 6 h incubation. Instead, cells grew in the spotted areas after 24 h, probably because of residual cells in the supernatants. Concentrating supernatants by freeze drying might increase sensitivity and filtration of supernatants would remove residual cells

Investigating how Students Think About and Learn Quantum Physics: An Example from Tunneling

Much of physics education research (PER) has focused on introductory courses and topics, with less research done into how students learn physics in advanced courses. Members of The University of Maine Physics Education Research Laboratory (PERL) have begun studying how students in advanced physics courses reason about classical mechanics, thermal physics, and quantum physics. Here, we describe an investigation into how students reason about quantum mechanical tunneling, and detail how those findings informed a portion of a curriculum development project. Quantum mechanical tunneling is a standard topic discussed in most modern physics and quantum physics courses. Understanding tunneling is crucial to making sense of several topics in physics, including scanning tunneling microscopy and nuclear decay. To make sense of the standard presentation of tunneling, students must track total, potential, and kinetic energies. Additionally, they must distinguish between the ideas of energy, probability density, and the wave function. They need to understand the complex nature of the wave function, as well as understand what can and cannot be inferred from a solution to the time-independent Schrödinger equation. Our investigations into student understanding of these ideas consisted of a series of interviews, as well as a survey. Both centered around asking students to reason about energy, probability, and the wave function solutions for the standard square potential energy barrier scenario presented in most textbooks. We describe ideas that students seem to successfully learn following standard instruction, as well as common difficulties that remain. Additionally, we present multiple data points from a small population of physics majors over three years and describe how some of their reasoning about tunneling changed, while other portions seemed to remain unaffected by instruction. We used the results of these investigations to write tutorials on tunneling and applications of tunneling. The tutorials were part of a course on introductory quantum physics for non-science majors. In this course, most of the ideas were introduced in the small-group, student-centered tutorial-labs. We present evidence that this population can learn some basic ideas of quantum physics, and on certain tunneling questions perform as well or better than advanced undergraduate students

The Telecommunications Act of 1996: the policy\u27s impact on southeastern jurisdictions that had lawsuits overturn public hearing decisions

This study examines fourteen southeastern Telecommunication Act of 1996 lawsuits, which occurred between February 1996 and September 1998. In order for the lawsuit to be analyzed it had to involve a situation where a telecommunication company had been denied a permit to erect a new tower. The applicable cases analyzed situations where a local-level government had been denied a tower permit through an administrative decision, variance, special use permit hearing, conditional use permit hearing, or moratorium. Additional research was conducted on the seven local-level jurisdictions that had a Telecommunication Act of 1996 lawsuit overturn one of their decisions. The purpose of this research was to verify if tower ordinances or tower approval rates would change in a specific jurisdiction after a lawsuit had reversed a decision. This research should be extremely interesting to planners and telecommunication companies because it gives insight into what kinds of cases have been reversed and what kind of cases have been upheld

Improved Optimal and Approximate Power Graph Compression for Clearer Visualisation of Dense Graphs

Drawings of highly connected (dense) graphs can be very difficult to read. Power Graph Analysis offers an alternate way to draw a graph in which sets of nodes with common neighbours are shown grouped into modules. An edge connected to the module then implies a connection to each member of the module. Thus, the entire graph may be represented with much less clutter and without loss of detail. A recent experimental study has shown that such lossless compression of dense graphs makes it easier to follow paths. However, computing optimal power graphs is difficult. In this paper, we show that computing the optimal power-graph with only one module is NP-hard and therefore likely NP-hard in the general case. We give an ILP model for power graph computation and discuss why ILP and CP techniques are poorly suited to the problem. Instead, we are able to find optimal solutions much more quickly using a custom search method. We also show how to restrict this type of search to allow only limited back-tracking to provide a heuristic that has better speed and better results than previously known heuristics.Comment: Extended technical report accompanying the PacificVis 2013 paper of the same nam

Integrating sustainability into new product development: The role of organizational leadership and culture

While corporate sustainability research continues to grow, we contend that key organizational factors influence the ability of firms to strategically integrate sustainability orientation to the performance of new products. Using data from 349 product developers, this paper examines organizational factors that instill a sustainability orientation leading to market performance of new products. Specifically, we construct a model where organizational leadership (i.e., leadership practices, employee incentives, and a focus on patents), and culture (i.e., innovation culture and geocentricity) lead to sustainability orientation that results in the translation of firm resources into improved new product development outcomes. Our results support our contention; sustainability orientated firms are likely to realize improved market performance of new products as these firms benefit from an innovative organizational culture exposed to the global environment with complementary leadership that provides focus and reward mechanisms for employees

Exceeding Regulatory Compliance in Procedure Management: A Journey towards Operational Excellence

PresentationProving compliance to well defined and explicitly stated regulations regarding process safety sounds simple, however in practice it involves a huge effort. The sheer volume of information required to be compliant in highly regulated environments can be overwhelming. The large number of people involved compound the complexity, and legacy systems simply don’t cut it anymore. Here we will outline the use of a procedure life-cycle management tool used to improve an organizations ability to comply at a reduced effort and cost. The unique ability to automatically track documentation activities, as well asindividual procedure completions, step-by-step, and record all procedure use for simple and fast reporting is at the core of a recently completed compliance management initiative by a leading energy and petro chemical firm. Additional benefits of this approach to procedure management include improved operator efficiency, decreased human factor errors, facilitated continuous improvement, increased consistency of standard work, and reduced effort in authoring and content management will also be explored. Going beyond compliance, we will outline how leading content management practices and tools can position an organization to seamlessly adopted new technology as they are commercialized and introduced to the market. Highlights of this approach to procedure management have been empirically measured and include reduced volume of content (up to 40%), reduced procedure review cycle time (up to 25%), reduction in authoring and updating effort (up to 90%), and streamlined process safety management compliance

The Digital Transformation and Disruptive Technologies: Challenges and Solutions for the Electricity Sector in African Markets

The rise of disruptive technologies is profoundly transforming systems of production and management across sectors and industries, but primarily in wealthy countries. This paper considers how disruptive technologies could help improve power sector reform and development in African markets. In particular, it explores the role that might be played by the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and advanced analytics. After reviewing current trends in disruptive technologies, the paper illustrates the application of key elements with use cases in the areas of power infrastructure planning, power sector operations, and off-grid electrification. Finally, the paper looks at context-specific challenges to the widespread implementation of disruptive technologies. While disruptive technologies offer innovative ways of tackling some of the main challenges of traditional approaches to power sector development, their widespread adoption hinges on a concerted effort across public and private players to lend support to key aspects such as improved broadband connectivity, a vibrant startup scene and surrounding technology ecosystem, or simply the right to Internet access

A Customized ERP/SAP Model for Business Curriculum Integration

The use of ERP systems can provide a variety of benefits in a business school curriculum. Among the most important benefits is the ability of ERP systems to serve as a focal point for integration of knowledge across functional areas. This paper describes one school\u27s experience with the use of ERP systems in core business classes with particular focus on a promising integration technique based upon the development of a hypothetical example company. A common general description of the company\u27s products, organizational structure, and operations is used across multiple core courses. An SAP instance is populated with sample data designed to illustrate key concepts and case study style materials are used to set the context for analysis of the company\u27s data

MMIC amplifier based receivers for Earth remote sensing

We have developed amplifier based receivers using Indium Phosphide high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) technology. These compact receivers are designed with atmospheric temperature and humidity sounding requirements in mind, operating at 100-125 GHz around the 118 GHz oxygen line, and at 160-185GHz near the 183 GHz water line, with average noise temperatures of 1600 and 1200K respectively. They are intended for applications where small volume and power consumption are critical. We will present laboratory data on the noise temperature of these receivers operated at room temperature and preliminary field data