Light scattering study of human serum albumin in pre-denaturation:relation to dynamic transition in water at 42°C

Protein functional motions are ultimately connected to water dynamics. The goal of this study is to link the conformational dynamics of albumin to a dynamic transition taking place at ∼ 42°C in water. We report the results of dynamic light scattering measurements of albumin aqueous solution in the temperature interval 20-65°C. The processing of the experimental data produced the temperature dependence of the macromolecular hydrodynamic radius. We demonstrate that the growth of the macromolecular size in this temperature range can be divided into two stages that are connected to the dynamical properties of water. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Dementia with Lewy bodies:Clustering of Lewy bodies in human patients

Clustering of Lewy bodies (LB) was studied in four regions of the medial temporal lobe in 12 cases of dementia with LB (DLB). LB exhibited clustering in 67/70 (96%) brain areas analysed. In 34/70 (49%) analyses, LB were present in a single large cluster ≤6400 μm in diameter, in 33/70 (47%) LB occurred in smaller clusters 200-3200 μm in diameter which exhibited a regular periodicity relative to the tissue boundary and in 3/70 (4%), LB were randomly distributed. A regular pattern of LB clusters was observed equally frequently in the cortex and hippocampus, in upper and lower cortical laminae and in 'pure' cases of DLB with negligible Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology compared with cases of AD with DLB. In cortical regions, there was no significant correlation between LB cluster size in the upper and lower cortical laminae. The regular periodicity of LB clusters suggests that LB develop in relation to the cells of origin of specific cortico-cortical and cortico-hippocampal projections.

Factors affecting human reliability in the chemical process industry

This research was concerned with identifying factors which may influence human reliability within chemical process plants - these factors are referred to as Performance Shaping Factors (PSFs). Following a period of familiarization within the industry, a number of case studies were undertaken covering a range of basic influencing factors. Plant records and site `lost time incident reports' were also used as supporting evidence for identifying and classifying PSFs. In parallel to the investigative research, the available literature appertaining to human reliability assessment and PSFs was considered in relation to the chemical process plan environment. As a direct result of this work, a PSF classification structure has been produced with an accompanying detailed listing. Phase two of the research considered the identification of important individual PSFs for specific situations. Based on the experience and data gained during phase one, it emerged that certain generic features of a task influenced PSF relevance. This led to the establishment of a finite set of generic task groups and response types. Similarly, certain PSFs influence some human errors more than others. The result was a set of error type key words, plus the identification and classification of error causes with their underlying error mechanisms. By linking all these aspects together, a comprehensive methodology has been forwarded as the basis of a computerized aid for system designers. To recapitulate, the major results of this research have been: One, the development of a comprehensive PSF listing specifically for the chemical process industries with a classification structure that facilitates future updates; and two, a model of identifying relevant SPFs and their order of priority. Future requirements are the evaluation of the PSF listing and the identification method. The latter must be considered both in terms of `useability' and its success as a design enhancer, in terms of an observable reduction in important human errors.

Individual differences in human-computer interaction

This thesis initially presents an 'assay' of the literature pertaining to individual differences in human-computer interaction. A series of experiments is then reported, designed to investigate the association between a variety of individual characteristics and various computer task and interface factors. Predictor variables included age, computer expertise, and psychometric tests of spatial visualisation, spatial memory, logical reasoning, associative memory, and verbal ability. These were studied in relation to a variety of computer-based tacks, including: (1) word processing and its component elements; (ii) the location of target words within passages of text; (iii) the navigation of networks and menus; (iv) command generation using menus and command line interfaces; (v) the search and selection of icons and text labels; (vi) information retrieval. A measure of self-report workload was also included in several of these experiments. The main experimental findings included: (i) an interaction between spatial ability and the manipulation of semantic but not spatial interface content; (ii) verbal ability being only predictive of certain task components of word processing; (iii) age differences in word processing and information retrieval speed but not accuracy; (iv) evidence of compensatory strategies being employed by older subjects; (v) evidence of performance strategy differences which disadvantaged high spatial subjects in conditions of low spatial information content; (vi) interactive effects of associative memory, expertise and command strategy; (vii) an association between logical reasoning and word processing but not information retrieval; (viii) an interaction between expertise and cognitive demand; and (ix) a stronger association between cognitive ability and novice performance than expert performance.

Changing employment relation systems in Japan:cases of the Mitsubishi Chemical Group and the Federation of Shinkin Banks

Over the past decade or so a number of changes have been observed in traditional Japanese employment relations (ERs) systems such as an increase in non-regular workers, a move towards performance-based systems and a continuous decline in union membership. There is a large body of Anglo-Saxon and Japanese literature providing evidence that national factors such as national institutions, national culture, and the business and economic environment have significantly influenced what were hitherto three ‘sacred’ aspects of Japanese ERs systems (ERSs). However, no research has been undertaken until now at the firm level regarding the extent to which changes in national factors influence ERSs across firms. This article develops a model to examine the impact of national factors on ER systems; and analyses the impact of national factors at the firm level ER systems. Based on information collected from two different groups of companies, namely Mitsubishi Chemical Group (MCG) and Federation of Shinkin Bank (FSB) the research finds that except for a few similarities, the impact of national factors is different on Japanese ER systems at the firm level. This indicates that the impact of national factors varies in the implementation of employment relations factors. In the case of MCG, national culture has less to do with seniority-based system. Study also reveals that the national culture factors have also less influence on an enterprise-based system in the case of FSB. This analysis is useful for domestic and international organizations as it helps to better understand the role of national factors in determining Japanese ERSs.

Relation discovery from web data for competency management

In current organizations, valuable enterprise knowledge is often buried under rapidly expanding huge amount of unstructured information in the form of web pages, blogs, and other forms of human text communications. We present a novel unsupervised machine learning method called CORDER (COmmunity Relation Discovery by named Entity Recognition) to turn these unstructured data into structured information for knowledge management in these organizations. CORDER exploits named entity recognition and co-occurrence data to associate individuals in an organization with their expertise and associates. We discuss the problems associated with evaluating unsupervised learners and report our initial evaluation experiments in an expert evaluation, a quantitative benchmarking, and an application of CORDER in a social networking tool called BuddyFinder.

Founders' human capital and the performance of UK new technology based firms

This paper investigates the role of entrepreneurs' general and specific human capital on the performance of UK new technology based firms using a resource based approach to the entrepreneurship theory. The effect of entrepreneurial human capital on the performance of NTBFs is investigated using data derived from a survey of 412 firms operating in both high-tech manufacturing and the services sectors. According to the resource based theory it is found that specific human capital is more important for the performance of NTBFs in relation to general. More specifically individual entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial teams with high levels of formal business education, commercial, managerial or same sector experience are found to have created better performing NTBFs. Finally it is found that the performance of a NTBF can improve through the combination of heterogeneous but complementary skills, including, for example, technical education and commercial experience or managerial technical and managerial commercial experience. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

Why resilience managers aren’t resilient, and what human resource management can do about it

Prior resilience research typically focuses on either the individual or the organisational level of analysis, emphasises resilience in relation to day-to-day stressors rather than extreme events and is empirically under-developed. In response, our study inductively theorises about the relationships between individual and organisational resilience, drawing upon a large-scale study of resilience work in UK and French organisations. Our first-hand accounts of resilience work reveal the micro-processes involved in producing resilient organisations, and highlight the challenges experienced in doing resilience work in large organisations. We show that these micro-processes have significant implications for resilience at both individual and organisational levels, and draw implications for how HRM interventions can help to promote individual, and thus organisational, resilience.