Molecular crowding effects of linear polymers in protein solutions

Measurement of protein-polymer second virial coefficients (B-AP) by sedimentation equilibrium studies of carbonic anhydrase and cytochrome c in the presence of dextrans (T10-T80) has revealed an inverse dependence of B-AP upon dextran molecular mass that conforms well with the behaviour predicted for the excluded-volume interaction between a spherical protein solute A and a random-flight representation of the polymeric cosolute P. That model of the protein-polymer interaction is also shown to provide a reasonable description of published gel chromatographic and equilibrium dialysis data on the effect of polymer molecular mass on BAP for human serum albumin in the presence of polyethylene glycols, a contrary finding from analysis of albumin solubility measurements being rejected on theoretical grounds. Inverse dependence upon polymer chainlength is also the predicted excluded-volume effect on the strength of several types of macromolecular equilibria-protein isomerization, protein dimerization, and 1 : 1 complex formation between dissimilar protein reactants. It is therefore concluded that published experimental observations of the reverse dependence, preferential reaction enhancement within DNA replication complexes by larger polyethylene glycols, must reflect the consequences of cosolute chemical interactions that outweigh those of thermodynamic nonideality arising from excluded-volume effects. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Beyond construction…..A cross-disciplinary approach to improved learning and teaching in built environment degrees

More than 3.4 million people die each year from water, sanitation and hygiene-related causes. Lack of access to clean water and sanitation kills those most vulnerable in the third world. Leadership in managing cross-disciplinary teams is required to present economical, viable community-based solutions. This project utilised the skills of undergraduates across different disciplines of construction, project management, engineering, design, and communication, to work alongside industry mentors in a team to design, build and present an innovative, sustainable water sanitation solution for a Bangladesh community. The semester-long project enabled undergraduate students to develop skills in client relationships, teamwork, and communication as well as discipline skills of project management and construction. The real-world problem necessitated a paradigm shift away from discipline-based knowledge transference towards skills for the future. The project utilised approaches such as negotiated curriculum and assessment; self-directed, flexible participation in learning; use of social media as a learning tool and cross-disciplinary teamwork. Results from student surveys and interviews indicate that this project directly enhanced students’ work-readiness skills and recognition of the importance of problem solving using cross-disciplinary understandings. Students reported greater self-confidence for tackling future workplace challenges. The results also illustrate strong levels of student satisfaction with the cross-disciplinary approach and the importance of skills in client relationships. The project and its outcomes have implications for how learning and teaching occurs in built environment disciplines and has the potential to create significant impact on the calibre of future built environment graduates.

Non-invasive methodology for the identification of plastic pieces in museum environment – a novel approach

The preservation of modern and contemporary art and costume collections in museums requires a complete understanding of their constituent materials which are often synthetic or semi-synthetic polymers. An extraordinary amount of quality information can be gained from instrumental techniques, but some of them have the disadvantage of being destructive. This paper presents a new totally integrated non-invasive methodology, for the identification of polymers and their additives, on plastic artefacts in museums. NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) and in-situ FTIR-ATR (attenuated total reflection infrared spectroscopy) combination allowed the full characterization of the structure of thesematerials and correct identification of each one. The NMR technique applied to leached surface exudates identified unequivocally a great number of additives, exceeding the Py–GC–MS analysis of micro-fragments in number and efficiency. Additionally, in-situ FTIR-ATR provided exactly the same information of the destructive μ-FTIR about the polymer structure and confirmed the presence of some additives. Eight costume pieces (cosmetic boxes and purses), dating to the beginning of the 20th century and belonging to the Portuguese National Museum of Costume and Fashion, were correctly identified with this new integrated methodology, as beingmade of plastics derived fromcellulose acetate or cellulose nitrate polymers, contradicting the initial information that these pieces were made of Bakelite. The identification of a surprisingly large number of different additives forms an added value of this methodology and opens a perspective of a quick and better characterization of plastic artefacts in museum environments.

Facial feature detection for in-car environment

Acoustically, vehicles are extremely noisy environments and as a consequence audio-only in-car voice recognition systems perform very poorly. Seeing that the visual modality is immune to acoustic noise, using the visual lip information from the driver is seen as a viable strategy in circumventing this problem. However, implementing such an approach requires a system being able to accurately locate and track the driver’s face and facial features in real-time. In this paper we present such an approach using the Viola-Jones algorithm. Using this system, we present our results which show that using the Viola-Jones approach is a suitable method of locating and tracking the driver’s lips despite the visual variability of illumination and head pose.

Professional education in built environment and design

Early and rich conversations with a range of stakeholders – academics, professionals and graduates in their early years of practice – quickly clarified that the singular challenge for most parties centres on the ways in which courses prepare graduates for the pace, diversity and flux of contemporary professional practice.---------In pursuing understanding of this central challenge this study has focused on new graduates in BED disciplines by canvassing their views and those of two other major stakeholder groups (academic staff and professional practitioners in the disciplines studied). The first crucial years of a young graduate’s life in the workforce are shaped by a number of factors including the quality of the transition-to-work experience. The quality of this life-shaping transition is dependent on a range of factors including the ways in which graduates are educated in universities, their personal developmental characteristics and those of the professional people around them and the preparedness of workplaces and other professional groups to guide new recruits through the transition experience. This study makes recommendations about how the variations in transition experience, resulting from the vagaries of all these factors across a range of worksites, may be better understood, perhaps normalised, and, at least, supported. . Early and rich conversations with a range of stakeholders – academics, professionals and graduates in their early years of practice – quickly clarified that the singular challenge for most parties centres on the ways in which courses prepare graduates for the pace, diversity and flux of contemporary professional practice. The study proceeded through literature review, focus group interviews, national online survey and workshops. Through all these methods a number of challenges and factors essential to the transition experience, and the quality of education which precedes it, were identified. Firstly the study found further evidence of the importance of higher-order graduate capabilities, namely, the development of judgment, critical enquiry and strategic thinking. Alongside these capabilities the importance of the development of emotional intelligence, particularly interpersonal and social skills, was stressed by all stakeholders. At the time of writing the global economic crisis was providing challenges to the sector and its young graduates. This phenomenon proved the value of the development of resilience and persistence in graduates, the education system was called upon by all stakeholders as a place where the future-proofing of neophytes would ensure that the unknown challenges of the future could also be confronted. The study found that the challenges of transition to work are best supported by authentic undergraduate experiences both on and off campus, inside and outside classrooms, and that commencing professional life is made easier for new graduates when university courses and workplace settings develop, sustain and support high standards and high expectations of students. All these findings indicate the importance of stakeholder expectations, roles and responsibilities in respect of the transition-to-work experience. Whilst full agreement about how these things should occur is not necessary, a process (amongst stakeholders) which seeks value alignment around transition through discussion, debate and agenda-setting would probably assist to address what is seen as a major challenge in built environment and design education.

Lip detection for audio-visual speech recognition in-car environment

Acoustically, car cabins are extremely noisy and as a consequence audio-only, in-car voice recognition systems perform poorly. As the visual modality is immune to acoustic noise, using the visual lip information from the driver is seen as a viable strategy in circumventing this problem by using audio visual automatic speech recognition (AVASR). However, implementing AVASR requires a system being able to accurately locate and track the drivers face and lip area in real-time. In this paper we present such an approach using the Viola-Jones algorithm. Using the AVICAR [1] in-car database, we show that the Viola- Jones approach is a suitable method of locating and tracking the driver’s lips despite the visual variability of illumination and head pose for audio-visual speech recognition system.

Micro-family-owned businesses in hostile environment : future engine for growth?

Using panel data from the four waves of the Indonesia Family Life Survey in 1993, 1997, 2000 and 2007 we investigate the prerequisite for and contribution of micro-family-businesses to economic development. We find that family-owned firms are on average fairly profitable compared with the industrial sector profit standard. Failure rates between 1997 and 2000 are very low (about 10%), while the industrial sector experimented a massive shakeout of about 33% in the wake of the 1997 crisis (Ter Wengel & Rodriguez, 2006), with an increase in the number of family-businesses between the two years of observation. This paper contributes to the economics of entrepreneurship studies by continuing the discussion of entrepreneurship in hostile business environments (Baumol, 1990; Sobel, 2008).

Clinical factors and technological barriers as determinants for the intention to use wireless handheld technology in healthcare environment: an Indian case study

Abstract]: Traditional technology adoption models identified ‘ease of use’ and ‘usefulness’ as the dominating factors for technology adoption. However, recent studies in healthcare have established that these two factors are not always reliable on their own and other factors may influence technology adoption. To establish the identity of these additional factors, a mixed method approach was used and data were collected through interviews and a survey. The survey instrument was specifically developed for this study so that it is relevant to the Indian healthcare setting. We identified clinical management and technological barriers as the dominant factors influencing the wireless handheld technology adoption in the Indian healthcare environment. The results of this study showed that new technology models will benefit by considering the clinical influences of wireless handheld technology, in addition to known factors. The scope of this study is restricted to wireless handheld devices such as PDAs, smart phones, and handheld PCs Gururajan, Raj and Hafeez-Baig, Abdul and Gururajan, Vijaya

Can audio-visual speech recognition outperform acoustically enhanced speech recognition in automotive environment?

The use of visual features in the form of lip movements to improve the performance of acoustic speech recognition has been shown to work well, particularly in noisy acoustic conditions. However, whether this technique can outperform speech recognition incorporating well-known acoustic enhancement techniques, such as spectral subtraction, or multi-channel beamforming is not known. This is an important question to be answered especially in an automotive environment, for the design of an efficient human-vehicle computer interface. We perform a variety of speech recognition experiments on a challenging automotive speech dataset and results show that synchronous HMM-based audio-visual fusion can outperform traditional single as well as multi-channel acoustic speech enhancement techniques. We also show that further improvement in recognition performance can be obtained by fusing speech-enhanced audio with the visual modality, demonstrating the complementary nature of the two robust speech recognition approaches.

Scripting versus emergence : issues for game developers and players in game environment design

This paper defines and discusses two contrasting approaches to designing game environments. The first, referred to as scripting, requires developers to anticipate, hand-craft and script specific game objects, events and player interactions. The second, known as emergence, involves defining general, global rules that interact to give rise to emergent gameplay. Each of these approaches is defined, discussed and analyzed with respect to the considerations and affects for game developers and game players. Subsequently, various techniques for implementing these design approaches are identified and discussed. It is concluded that scripting and emergence are two extremes of the same continuum, neither of which are ideal for game development. Rather, there needs to be a compromise in which the boundaries of action (such as story and game objectives) can be hardcoded and non-scripted behavior (such as interactions and strategies) are able to emerge within these boundaries.