The impact of financial incentive mechanisms on motivation in Australian government large non-residential building projects

The use of financial incentives mechanisms (FIMs) in Australian government large nonresidential building projects is seen as a way to improve project motivation and outcomes and reinforce long-term commitment between participants. Yet very little empirical research has been conducted into how FIMs should be applied in the context of construction projects and what determines their impact on motivation. The primary aim of this research was to identify the motivation drivers impacting on the achievement of FIM goals. This allowed for the formulation of recommendations to improve Australian government building procurement strategies, creating the potential for better project outcomes. The research involved four major case studies of large construction projects. Analysis of motivation drivers on each project was based on interviews with senior project participants, secondary documentation and site visits. Once the motivation drivers were identified, they were ranked by the weighted number of motivation indicators impacted, to give an indication of their relative importance. The results provide Australian government clients with key areas for policy direction. The findings indicate that the following motivation drivers (in order of impact) were more important than FIM design in achieving FIM goals: equitable contract risk allocation and management scope for future project opportunities with the client harmonious project relationships early contractor involvement in design stages value-driven tender selection processes. A consequence of ignoring these key procurement initiatives can be a less than ideal FIM goal performance, despite the nature of FIM design, including the strength of the reward on offer. FIMs have the potential to be a valuable addition to any project procurement strategy. Yet, the main message of this thesis is: If clients rely solely on financial incentives as the driver of motivation it will likely result in failure

CODEHOP-mediated PCR – A powerful technique for the identification and characterization of viral genomes

Consensus-Degenerate Hybrid Oligonucleotide Primer (CODEHOP) PCR primers derived from amino acid sequence motifs which are highly conserved between members of a protein family have proven to be highly effective in the identification and characterization of distantly related family members. Here, the use of the CODEHOP strategy to identify novel viruses and obtain sequence information for phylogenetic characterization, gene structure determination and genome analysis is reviewed. While this review describes techniques for the identification of members of the herpesvirus family of DNA viruses, the same methodology and approach is applicable to other virus families

Ice Caps and Ice Belts: The Effects of Obliquity on Ice−Albedo Feedback

Planetary obliquity determines the meridional distribution of the annual mean insolation. For obliquity exceeding 55°, the weakest insolation occurs at the equator. Stable partial snow and ice cover on such a planet would be in the form of a belt about the equator rather than polar caps. An analytical model of planetary climate is used to investigate the stability of ice caps and ice belts over the widest possible range of parameters. The model is a non-dimensional diffusive Energy Balance Model, representing insolation, heat transport, and ice-albedo feedback on a spherical planet. A complete analytical solution for any obliquity is given and validated against numerical solutions of a seasonal model in the "deep-water" regime of weak seasonal ice line migration. Multiple equilibria and unstable transitions between climate states (ice-free, Snowball, or ice cap/belt) are found over wide swaths of parameter space, including a "Large Ice-Belt Instability" and "Small Ice-Belt Instability" at high obliquity. The Snowball catastrophe is avoided at weak radiative forcing in two different scenarios: weak albedo feedback and inefficient heat transport (favoring stable partial ice cover), or efficient transport at high obliquity (favoring ice-free conditions). From speculative assumptions about distributions of planetary parameters, three-fourths to four-fifths of all planets with stable partial ice cover should be in the form of Earth-like polar caps

Development of a real-time QPCR assay for the detection of RV2 lineage-specific rhadinoviruses in macaques and baboons

BACKGROUND: Two distinct lineages of rhadinoviruses related to Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV/HHV8) have been identified in macaques and other Old World non-human primates. We have developed a real-time quantitative PCR (QPCR) assay using a TaqMan probe to differentially detect and quantitate members of the rhadinovirus-2 (RV2) lineage. PCR primers were derived from sequences within ORF 60 and the adjacent ORF 59/60 intergenic region which were highly conserved between the macaque RV2 rhadinoviruses, rhesus rhadinovirus (RRV) and Macaca nemestrina rhadinovirus-2 (MneRV2). These primers showed little similarity to the corresponding sequences of the macaque RV1 rhadinoviruses, retroperitoneal fibromatosis herpesvirus Macaca nemestrina (RFHVMn) and Macaca mulatta (RFHVMm). To determine viral loads per cell, an additional TaqMan QPCR assay was developed to detect the single copy cellular oncostatin M gene. RESULTS: We show that the RV2 QPCR assay is linear from less than 2 to more than 300,000 copies using MneRV2 DNA, and is non-reactive with RFHVMn DNA up to 1 billion DNA templates per reaction. RV2 loads ranging from 6 to 2,300 viral genome equivalent copies per 10(6 )cells were detected in PBMC from randomly sampled macaques from the Washington National Primate Research Center. Screening tissue from other primate species, including another macaque, Macaca fascicularis, and a baboon, Papio cynocephalus, revealed the presence of novel rhadinoviruses, MfaRV2 and PcyRV2, respectively. Sequence comparison and phylogenetic analysis confirmed their inclusion within the RV2 lineage of KSHV-like rhadinoviruses. CONCLUSIONS: We describe a QPCR assay which provides a quick and sensitive method for quantitating rhadinoviruses belonging to the RV2 lineage of KSHV-like rhadinoviruses found in a variety of macaque species commonly used for biomedical research. While this assay broadly detects different RV2 rhadinovirus species, it is unreactive with RV1 rhadinovirus species which commonly co-infect the same primate hosts. We also show that this QPCR assay can be used to identify novel RV2 rhadinoviruses in different primate species

Organic materials able to detect analytes

The present invention generally relates to polymers with lasing characteristics that allow the polymers to be useful in detecting analytes. In one aspect, the polymer, upon an interaction with an analyte, may exhibit a change in a lasing characteristic that can be determined in some fashion. For example, interaction of an analyte with the polymer may affect the ability of the polymer to reach an excited state that allows stimulated emission of photons to occur, which may be determined, thereby determining the analyte. In another aspect, the polymer, upon interaction with an analyte, may exhibit a change in stimulated emission that is at least 10 times greater with respect to a change in the spontaneous emission of the polymer upon interaction with the analyte. The polymer may be a conjugated polymer in some cases. In one set of embodiments, the polymer includes one or more hydrocarbon side chains, which may be parallel to the polymer backbone in some instances. In another set of embodiments, the polymer may include one or more pendant aromatic rings. In yet another set of embodiments, the polymer may be substantially encapsulated in a hydrocarbon. In still another set of embodiments, the polymer may be substantially resistant to photobleaching. In certain aspects, the polymer may be useful in the detection of explosive agents, such as 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) and 2,4-dinitrotoluene (DNT)

GAtor: A First Principles Genetic Algorithm for Molecular Crystal Structure Prediction

We present the implementation of GAtor, a massively parallel, first principles genetic algorithm (GA) for molecular crystal structure prediction. GAtor is written in Python and currently interfaces with the FHI-aims code to perform local optimizations and energy evaluations using dispersion-inclusive density functional theory (DFT). GAtor offers a variety of fitness evaluation, selection, crossover, and mutation schemes. Breeding operators designed specifically for molecular crystals provide a balance between exploration and exploitation. Evolutionary niching is implemented in GAtor by using machine learning to cluster the dynamically updated population by structural similarity and then employing a cluster-based fitness function. Evolutionary niching promotes uniform sampling of the potential energy surface by evolving several sub-populations, which helps overcome initial pool biases and selection biases (genetic drift). The various settings offered by GAtor increase the likelihood of locating numerous low-energy minima, including those located in disconnected, hard to reach regions of the potential energy landscape. The best structures generated are re-relaxed and re-ranked using a hierarchy of increasingly accurate DFT functionals and dispersion methods. GAtor is applied to a chemically diverse set of four past blind test targets, characterized by different types of intermolecular interactions. The experimentally observed structures and other low-energy structures are found for all four targets. In particular, for Target II, 5-cyano-3-hydroxythiophene, the top ranked putative crystal structure is a $Z^\prime$=2 structure with P$\bar{1}$ symmetry and a scaffold packing motif, which has not been reported previously

Over winter microbial processes in a Svalbard snow pack:an experimental approach

International audienceSnow packs cover large expanses of Earth’s land surface, making them integral components of the cryosphere in terms of past climate and atmospheric proxies, surface albedo regulators, insulators for other Arctic environments and habitats for diverse microbial communities such as algae, bacteria and fungi. Yet, most of our current understanding of snow pack environments, specifically microbial activity and community interaction, is limited to the main microbial growing season during spring ablation. At present, little is known about microbial activity and its influence on nutrient cycling during the subfreezing temperatures and 24-h darkness of the polar winter. Here, we examined microbial dynamics in a simulated cold (−5°C), dark snow pack to determine polar winter season microbial activity and its dependence on critical nutrients. Snow collected from Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard was incubated in the dark over a 5-week period with four different nutrient additions, including glacial mineral particles, dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN), dissolved inorganic phosphorus (DIP) and a combined treatment of DIN plus DIP. Data indicate a consumption of dissolved inorganic nutrients, particularly DIN, by heterotrophic communities, suggesting a potential nitrogen limitation, contradictory to phosphorus limitations found in most aquatic environments. 16S amplicon sequencing also reveal a clear difference in microbial community composition in the particulate mineral treatment compared to dissolved nutrient treatments and controls, suggesting that certain species of heterotrophs living within the snow pack are more likely to associate with particulates. Particulate phosphorus analyses indicate a potential ability of heterotrophic communities to access particulate sources of phosphorous, possibly explaining the lack of phosphorus limitation. These findings have importance for understanding microbial activity during the polar winter season and its potential influences on the abundance and bioavailability of nutrients released to surface ice and downstream environments during the ablation season

The ORF59 DNA polymerase processivity factor homologs of Old World primate RV2 rhadinoviruses are highly conserved nuclear antigens expressed in differentiated epithelium in infected macaques

Background ORF59 DNA polymerase processivity factor of the human rhadinovirus, Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV), is required for efficient copying of the genome during virus replication. KSHV ORF59 is antigenic in the infected host and is used as a marker for virus activation and replication. Results We cloned, sequenced and expressed the genes encoding related ORF59 proteins from the RV1 rhadinovirus homologs of KSHV from chimpanzee (PtrRV1) and three species of macaques (RFHVMm, RFHVMn and RFHVMf), and have compared them with ORF59 proteins obtained from members of the more distantly-related RV2 rhadinovirus lineage infecting the same non-human primate species (PtrRV2, RRV, MneRV2, and MfaRV2, respectively). We found that ORF59 homologs of the RV1 and RV2 Old World primate rhadinoviruses are highly conserved with distinct phylogenetic clustering of the two rhadinovirus lineages. RV1 and RV2 ORF59 C-terminal domains exhibit a strong lineage-specific conservation. Rabbit antiserum was developed against a C-terminal polypeptide that is highly conserved between the macaque RV2 ORF59 sequences. This anti-serum showed strong reactivity towards ORF59 encoded by the macaque RV2 rhadinoviruses, RRV (rhesus) and MneRV2 (pig-tail), with no cross reaction to human or macaque RV1 ORF59 proteins. Using this antiserum and RT-qPCR, we determined that RRV ORF59 is expressed early after permissive infection of both rhesus primary fetal fibroblasts and African green monkey kidney epithelial cells (Vero) in vitro. RRV- and MneRV2-infected foci showed strong nuclear expression of ORF59 that correlated with production of infectious progeny virus. Immunohistochemical studies of an MneRV2-infected macaque revealed strong nuclear expression of ORF59 in infected cells within the differentiating layer of epidermis corroborating previous observations that differentiated epithelial cells are permissive for replication of KSHV-like rhadinoviruses Conclusion The ORF59 DNA polymerase processivity factor homologs of the Old World primate RV1 and RV2 rhadinovirus lineages are phylogenetically distinct yet demonstrate similar expression and localization characteristics that correlate with their use as lineage-specific markers for permissive infection and virus replication. These studies will aid in the characterization of virus activation from latency to the replicative state, an important step for understanding the biology and transmission of rhadinoviruses, such as KSHV

Genetic variability of the envelope gene of Type D simian retrovirus-2 (SRV-2) subtypes associated with SAIDS-related retroperitoneal fibromatosis in different macaque species

BACKGROUND: D-type simian retrovirus-2 (SRV-2) causes an AIDS-like immune deficiency syndrome (SAIDS) in various macaque species. SAIDS is often accompanied by retroperitoneal fibromatosis (RF), an aggressive fibroproliferative disorder reminiscent of Kaposi's sarcoma in patients with HIV-induced AIDS. In order to determine the association of SRV-2 subtypes with SAIDS-RF, and study the evolution and transmission of SRV-2 in captive macaque populations, we have molecularly characterized the env gene of a number of SRV-2 isolates from different macaque species with and without RF. RESULTS: We sequenced the env gene from eighteen SRV-2 isolates and performed sequence comparisons and phylogenetic analyses. Our studies revealed the presence of six distinct subtypes of SRV-2, three of which were associated with SAIDS-RF cases. We found no association between SRV-2 subtypes and a particular macaque species. Little sequence variation was detected in SRV-2 isolates from the same individual, even after many years of infection, or from macaques housed together or related by descent from a common infected parent. Seventy-two amino acid changes were identified, most occurring in the larger gp70 surface protein subunit. In contrast to the lentiviruses, none of the amino acid variations involved potential N-linked glycosylation sites. Structural analysis of a domain within the gp22/gp20 transmembrane subunit that was 100% conserved between SRV-2 subtypes, revealed strong similarities to a disulfide-bonded loop that is crucial for virus-cell fusion and is found in retroviruses and filoviruses. CONCLUSION: Our study suggests that separate introductions of at least six parental SRV-2 subtypes into the captive macaque populations in the U.S. have occurred with subsequent horizontal transfer between macaque species and primate centers. No specific association of a single SRV-2 subtype with SAIDS-RF was seen. The minimal genetic variability of the env gene within a subtype over time suggests that a strong degree of adaptation to its primate host has occurred during evolution of the virus