The development of corporate real estate practices in India : a survey of CRE professionals

Business process outsourcing (BPO) is transforming Western companies? corporate real estate (CRE) requirements. When business processes move to a developing country there are consequences for that country?s CRE practice. This paper considers the effects of western BPO on Indian CRE. Qualitative and quantitative analysis was used to analyze data from a survey of professionals operating in Indian CRE. Location issues, quality of workspace, and the availability of human resources were identified as important in establishing BPO activities in India. Suburban, and campus or built-to-suit facilities, were increasingly preferred locations and styles of workplace that were transforming Indian CRE practice. Also, the effect of western BPO was impacting on the types of CRE services being offered. With the continuing growth in BPO to ?secondary cities? the transformational effects on local CRE practice are likely to spread and further transform CRE practice in India

Behavioural mechanisms underlying parasite-mediated competition for refuges in a coral reef fish

Parasites have been increasingly recognized as participants in indirect ecological interactions, including those mediated by parasite-induced changes to host behaviour (trait-mediated indirect interactions or TMIIs). In most documented examples, host behaviours altered by parasites increase susceptibility to predation because the predator is also a host (host-manipulation). Here, we test for a TMII in which a parasitic copepod modifies the predator-prey interaction between a small goby host and several larger predatory fish. Gobies compete for crevices in the reef to avoid predation and goby mortality increases more rapidly with increasing refuge shortage for parasitized gobies than for those free of parasites. We found interactive effects of refuge shortage and parasitism on two behaviours we predicted might be associated with parasite-mediated competition for refuges. First, as refuge-shortage increases, the rate of aggression among gobies increases and parasitism intensifies this interaction. Second, goby proximity to refuges increases as refuges become scarce, but parasitism nullifies this increase. In combination, these parasite-induced changes in behaviour may explain why parasitized gobies are poor competitors for refuges. Because the parasite is not trophically transmitted via host manipulation, these altered behaviours in parasitized gobies are likely coincidental to infection

A comparative evaluation of avidin-biotin ELISA and micro SNT for detection of antibodies to infectious bovine rhinotracheitis in cattle population of Odisha, India

Aim: The present study was undertaken to serologically detect Infectious Bovine Rhinotracheitis (IBR) in the cattle population of Odisha, India using micro-Serum neutralization test (micro SNT) and Avidin-Biotin Enzyme linked immuno sorbent assay (AB ELISA) and finding out their comparative efficacy to serve as a suitable diagnostic tool in field condition. Materials and Methods: The study was carried out using serum samples (n=180) collected randomly from cattle populations of nine districts of Odisha. Similarly vaginal swabs (n=26) from cattle having history of repeat breeding, abortion, vulvo-vaginitis and nasal swabs (n=8) from calves with respiratory symptoms and nasal discharge were collected aseptically, to ascertain the circulation of virus among the cattle population. Results: Virus isolation by cell culture and subsequent confirmation by polymerase chain reaction confirmed four isolates. Screening of serum samples revealed 9.44% and 12.22% samples positive for IBR antibodies in micro SNT and AB ELISA respectively. The sensitivity and specificity of AB ELISA test was found to be 88.23% and 95.70% respectively taking micro SNT as gold standard and the kappa value between the two tests was 0.75. Conclusion: Screening of serum samples revealed 9.44% and 12.22% samples positive for IBR antibodies in micro SNT and AB ELISA respectively, thus highlighting the circulation of virus among the livestock population of Odisha and that AB ELISA could be more efficiently applied for the sero-diagnosis of IBR virus infections at field conditions, with demand for more study on faster, efficient and large scale screening of the infected animals

The impact of business outsourcing on corporate real estate in India

Driven by Western companies\u27 requirements for efficiency and effectiveness, a trend towards outsourcing of business activities to India and other low-cost countries commenced in the early 1990s and has continued to grow at a surprisingly fast pace. In a relatively short timeframe India has become a global hub for back-office services, although the effect on the urban cities is yet to be fully comprehended. As American and European companies continue to relocate their information technology services and other back office works to the subcontinent, there has been a considerable flow-on effect on Indian corporate real estate. This paper addresses two key questions. Firstly, the factors important for Western companies\u27 outsourcing of organisational activities to India, and secondly, the effect of business outsourcing on corporate real estate locational requirements in India. A survey of corporate real estate representatives in India and the UK was conducted with the results providing an insight into the present state and possible future direction of outsourcing for India. This research presents a unique insight into the impacts of Western business outsourcing on corporate real estate in India, and presents findings that are useful to both organisations seeking to relocate business activities to India and for property market analysts looking to understand drivers behind this sustained demand for Indian corporate real estate

Integration of biomass formulations of genome-scale metabolic models with experimental data reveals universally essential cofactors in prokaryotes

The composition of a cell in terms of macromolecular building blocks and other organic molecules underlies the metabolic needs and capabilities of a species. Although some core biomass components such as nucleic acids and proteins are evident for most species, the essentiality of the pool of other organic molecules, especially cofactors and prosthetic groups, is yet unclear. Here we integrate biomass compositions from 71 manually curated genome-scale models, 33 large-scale gene essentiality datasets, enzyme-cofactor association data and a vast array of publications, revealing universally essential cofactors for prokaryotic metabolism and also others that are specific for phylogenetic branches or metabolic modes. Our results revise predictions of essential genes in Klebsiella pneumoniae and identify missing biosynthetic pathways in models of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This work provides fundamental insights into the essentiality of organic cofactors and has implications for minimal cell studies as well as for modeling genotype-phenotype relations in prokaryotic metabolic networks.J.C.X. was sponsored by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Portugal [Grant SFRH/BD/81626/2011]. This study was supported by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit, COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01–0145-FEDER-006684) and BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01–0145-FEDER-000004) funded by European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte2020 - Programa Operacional Regional do Norte. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant agreement no 686070

Natural computation meta-heuristics for the in silico optimization of microbial strains

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>One of the greatest challenges in Metabolic Engineering is to develop quantitative models and algorithms to identify a set of genetic manipulations that will result in a microbial strain with a desirable metabolic phenotype which typically means having a high yield/productivity. This challenge is not only due to the inherent complexity of the metabolic and regulatory networks, but also to the lack of appropriate modelling and optimization tools. To this end, Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) have been proposed for <it>in silico </it>metabolic engineering, for example, to identify sets of gene deletions towards maximization of a desired physiological objective function. In this approach, each mutant strain is evaluated by resorting to the simulation of its phenotype using the Flux-Balance Analysis (FBA) approach, together with the premise that microorganisms have maximized their growth along natural evolution.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>This work reports on improved EAs, as well as novel Simulated Annealing (SA) algorithms to address the task of <it>in silico </it>metabolic engineering. Both approaches use a variable size set-based representation, thereby allowing the automatic finding of the best number of gene deletions necessary for achieving a given productivity goal. The work presents extensive computational experiments, involving four case studies that consider the production of succinic and lactic acid as the targets, by using <it>S. cerevisiae </it>and <it>E. coli </it>as model organisms. The proposed algorithms are able to reach optimal/near-optimal solutions regarding the production of the desired compounds and presenting low variability among the several runs.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results show that the proposed SA and EA both perform well in the optimization task. A comparison between them is favourable to the SA in terms of consistency in obtaining optimal solutions and faster convergence. In both cases, the use of variable size representations allows the automatic discovery of the approximate number of gene deletions, without compromising the optimality of the solutions.</p

Tungsten-based bcc-superalloys

Applications from nuclear energy to rockets and jet engines are underpinned by advanced high temperature materials. Whilst state of the art, the performance of current nickel-based superalloys is fundamentally limited to Ni’s melting point, T. Here, we develop an analogous superalloy concept but with superior high temperature capability by transitioning to a bcc tungsten base, T. This strategy involves reinforcing bcc -W by TiFe intermetallic compound, which results in impressive high temperature compressive strengths of 500 MPa at . This bcc-superalloy design approach has wider applicability to other bcc alloy bases, including Mo, Ta, and Nb, as well as to refractory-metal high entropy alloys (RHEAs). By investigation of the underlying phase equilibria, thermodynamic modelling, characterisation and mechanical properties, we demonstrate the capability of ternary W-Ti-Fe tungsten-based bcc-superalloys as a new class of high temperature materials

OptFlux: an open-source software platform for in silico metabolic engineering

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Over the last few years a number of methods have been proposed for the phenotype simulation of microorganisms under different environmental and genetic conditions. These have been used as the basis to support the discovery of successful genetic modifications of the microbial metabolism to address industrial goals. However, the use of these methods has been restricted to bioinformaticians or other expert researchers. The main aim of this work is, therefore, to provide a user-friendly computational tool for Metabolic Engineering applications.</p> <p>Results</p> <p><it>OptFlux </it>is an open-source and modular software aimed at being the reference computational application in the field. It is the first tool to incorporate strain optimization tasks, i.e., the identification of Metabolic Engineering targets, using Evolutionary Algorithms/Simulated Annealing metaheuristics or the previously proposed OptKnock algorithm. It also allows the use of stoichiometric metabolic models for (i) phenotype simulation of both wild-type and mutant organisms, using the methods of Flux Balance Analysis, Minimization of Metabolic Adjustment or Regulatory on/off Minimization of Metabolic flux changes, (ii) Metabolic Flux Analysis, computing the admissible flux space given a set of measured fluxes, and (iii) pathway analysis through the calculation of Elementary Flux Modes.</p> <p><it>OptFlux </it>also contemplates several methods for model simplification and other pre-processing operations aimed at reducing the search space for optimization algorithms.</p> <p>The software supports importing/exporting to several flat file formats and it is compatible with the SBML standard. <it>OptFlux </it>has a visualization module that allows the analysis of the model structure that is compatible with the layout information of <it>Cell Designer</it>, allowing the superimposition of simulation results with the model graph.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The <it>OptFlux </it>software is freely available, together with documentation and other resources, thus bridging the gap from research in strain optimization algorithms and the final users. It is a valuable platform for researchers in the field that have available a number of useful tools. Its open-source nature invites contributions by all those interested in making their methods available for the community.</p> <p>Given its plug-in based architecture it can be extended with new functionalities. Currently, several plug-ins are being developed, including network topology analysis tools and the integration with Boolean network based regulatory models.</p

Sensory Communication

Contains table of contents for Section 2, an introduction, reports on ten research projects and a list of publications.National Institutes of Health Grant 5 R01 DC00117National Institutes of Health Grant 5 R01 DC00270National Institutes of Health Grant 5 P01 DC00361National Institutes of Health Grant 2 R01 DC00100National Institutes of Health Grant 7 R29 DC00428National Institutes of Health Grant 2 R01 DC00126U.S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research Grant AFOSR 90-0200U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-90-J-1935National Institutes of Health Grant 5 R29 DC00625U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-91-J-145

Sensory Communication

Contains table of contents on Section 2, an introduction, reports on eleven research projects and a list of publications.National Institutes of Health Grant 5 R01 DC00117National Institutes of Health Grant 5 R01 DC00270National Institutes of Health Contract 2 P01 DC00361National Institutes of Health Grant 5 R01 DC00100National Institutes of Health Contract 7 R29 DC00428National Institutes of Health Grant 2 R01 DC00126U.S. Air Force - Office of Scientific Research Grant AFOSR 90-0200U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-90-J-1935National Institutes of Health Grant 5 R29 DC00625U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-91-J-1454U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-92-J-181