Interactive effects of personality and organizational politics on contextual performance

The authors explored the process of evaluating contextual performance in the context of a politically charged atmosphere. They hypothesized that the negative relationship between perceptions of organizational politics and contextual performance is weaker among workers high in three of the Big Five model of personality dimensions—agreeableness, extraversion, and conscientiousness. Data were collected from a matched sample of 540 supervisors and subordinates employed in the private sector. Results indicated that the interaction of politics and the personality dimension of agreeableness explained a significant incremental amount of variance in the interpersonal facilitation facet of contextual performance. These findings demonstrate the need to consider both the situation and the person as antecedents of contextual performance. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Thiolsulfonate functionalized polystyrene resin： Preparation and application in the isolation and identification of electrophilic mutagens

A new approach for isolation and identification of elecrtophilic mutagens from complex matrix was developed.Thiosulfonic anion was immobilized onto polystyrene beads and used as separation media.Potassium polystyryl-thiosulfonate,prepared from polystyryl- sulfonyl chloride and KHS,was observed to selectively react with model electrophilic mutagens such as alkyl halides,α-chloroketones andα-chloroesters to produce polystyryl-thiosulfonic esters.After separation from other nonreactive organic compounds,the beads then reacted with ethanethiol to produce unsymmetrical ethyl disulfides which are easily detected by GC/MS.For one mutagenic compound,only one unsymmetrical disulfide was found to contain its structure part.Thus,the structure of the parent mutagens could be deduced from that of the unsymmetrical disulfides.The degree of functionaiization of the potassium polystyryl-thiosulfonate resin was 1.11 mmol/g.Its reactivity was discussed and its recycling method was reported here.     

Geographic and ontogenetic variation in the diet and daily ration of the bonnethead shark, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Sphyrna tiburo</Emphasis>, from the eastern Gulf of Mexico

To examine variation in diet and daily ration of the bonnethead shark, Sphyrna tiburo (Linnaeus 1758), animals were collected from three areas in the eastern Gulf of Mexico: northwest Florida (∼29°40′N, 85°13′W), Tampa Bay near Anclote Key (∼28°10′N, 82°42.5′W), and Florida Bay (∼24°50′N, 80°48′W) from March through September, 1998–2000. In each area, diet was assessed by life stage (young-of-the year, juveniles, and adults) and quantified using five indices: percent by number (%N), percent by weight (%W), frequency of occurrence (%O), index of relative importance expressed on a percent basis (%IRI), and %IRI based on diet category (%IRI_DC). Diet could not be assessed for young-of-the-year in Tampa Bay or Florida Bay owing to low sample size. Diet analysis showed an ontogenetic shift in northwest Florida. Young-of-the-year stomachs from northwest Florida (n = 68, 1 empty) contained a mix of seagrass and crustaceans while juvenile stomachs (n = 82, 0 empty) contained a mix of crabs and seagrass and adult stomachs (n = 39, 1 empty) contained almost exclusively crabs. Crabs made up the majority of both juvenile and adult diet in Tampa Bay (n = 79, 2 empty, and n = 88, 1 empty, respectively). Juvenile stomachs from Florida Bay (n = 72, 0 empty) contained seagrass and a mix of crustaceans while adult stomachs contained more shrimp and cephalopods (n = 82, 3 empty). Diets in northwest Florida and Tampa Bay were similar. The diet in Florida Bay was different from those in the other two areas, consisting of fewer crabs and more cephalopods and lobsters. Plant material was found in large quantities in all stomachs examined from all locations (>15 %IRI_DC in 6 of the 7 life stage-area combinations, >30 %IRI_DC in 4 of the 7 combinations, and 62 %IRI_DC in young-of-the-year diet in northwest Florida). Using species- and area-specific inputs, a bioenergetic model was constructed to estimate daily ration. Models were constructed under two scenarios: assuming plant material was and was not part of the diet. Overall, daily ration was significantly different by sex, life stage, and region. The bioenergetic model predicted increasing daily ration with decreasing latitude and decreasing daily ration with ontogeny regardless of the inclusion or exclusion of plant material. These results provide evidence that bonnetheads continuously exposed to warmer temperatures have elevated metabolism and require additional energy consumption to maintain growth and reproduction. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

Membrane-based treatment of shale oil and gas wastewater: The current state of knowledge

• Shale oil and gas production generates wastewater with complex composition. • Membrane technologies emerged for the treatment of shale oil and gas wastewater. • Membrane technologies should tolerate high TDS and consume low primary energy. • Pretreatment is a key component of integrated wastewater treatment systems. • Full-scale implementation of membrane technologies is highly desirable. Shale oil and gas exploitation not only consumes substantial amounts of freshwater but also generates large quantities of hazardous wastewater. Tremendous research efforts have been invested in developing membrane-based technologies for the treatment of shale oil and gas wastewater. Despite their success at the laboratory scale, membrane processes have not been implemented at full scale in the oil and gas fields. In this article, we analyze the growing demands of wastewater treatment in shale oil and gas production, and then critically review the current stage of membrane technologies applied to the treatment of shale oil and gas wastewater. We focus on the unique niche of those technologies due to their advantages and limitations, and use mechanical vapor compression as the benchmark for comparison. We also highlight the importance of pretreatment as a key component of integrated treatment trains, in order to improve the performance of downstream membrane processes and water product quality. We emphasize the lack of sufficient efforts to scale up existing membrane technologies, and suggest that a stronger collaboration between academia and industry is of paramount importance to translate membrane technologies developed in the laboratory to the practical applications by the shale oil and gas industry.     

Effect of long-term application of biosolids for land reclamation on surface water chemistry

Biosolids are known to have a potential to restore degraded land, but the long-term impacts of this practice on the environment, including water quality, still need to be evaluated. The surface water chemistry (NO3-, NH4+, and total P, Cd, Cu, and Hg) was monitored for 31 yr from 1972 to 2002 in a 6000-ha watershed at Fulton County, Illinois, where the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago was restoring the productivity of strip-mined land using biosolids. The mean cumulative loading rates during the past 31 yr were 875 dry Mg ha(-1) for 1120-ha fields in the biosolids-amended watershed and 4.3 dry Mg ha(-1) for the 670-ha fields in the control watershed. Biosolids were injected into mine spoil fields as liquid fertilizer from 1972 to 1985, and incorporated as dewatered cake from 1980 to 1996 and air-dried solids from 1987 to 2002. The mean annual loadings of nutrients and trace elements from biosolids in 1 ha were 735 kg N, 530 kg P, 4.5 kg Cd, 30.7 kg Cu, and 0.11 kg Hg in the fields of the biosolids-amended watershed, and negligible in the fields of the control watershed. Sampling of surface water was conducted monthly in the 1970s, and three times per year in the 1980s and 1990s. The water samples were collected from 12 reservoirs and 2 creeks receiving drainage from the fields in the control watershed, and 8 reservoirs and 4 creeks associated with the fields in the biosolids-amended watershed for the analysis of NO3- -N (including NO2- N), NH4+-N, and total P, Cd, Cu, and Hg. Compared to the control (0.18 mg L(-1)), surface water NO3- -N in the biosolids-amended watershed (2.23 mg L(-1)) was consistently higher; however, it was still below the Illinois limit of 10 mg L(-1) for public and food-processing water supplies. Biosolids applications had a significant effect on mean concentrations of ammonium N (0.11 mg L(-1) for control and 0.24 mg L(-1) for biosolids) and total P (0.10 mg L(-1) for control and 0.16 mg L(-1) for biosolids) in surface water. Application of biosolids did not increase the concentrations of Cd and Hg in surface water. The elevation of Cu in surface water with biosolids application only occurred in some years of the first decade, when land-applied sludges contained high concentrations of trace metals, including Cu. In fact, following the promulgation of 40 CFR Part 503, the concentrations of all three metals fell below the method detection level (MDL) in surface water for nearly all samplings. Nitrate in the surface water tends to be higher in spring, and ammonium, total P, and total Hg in summer and fall. Mean nitrate, ammonium, and total phosphorus concentrations were found to be greater in creeks than reservoirs. The results indicate that application of biosolids for land reclamation at high loading rates from 1972 to 2002, with adequate runoff and soil erosion control, had only a minor impact on surface water quality.     

Movement of trichloroethene in a discontinuous permafrost zone

At a site with discontinuous permafrost in Fairbanks, Alaska, releases of trichloroethene (TCE), an industrial solvent, have caused contamination of the groundwater. The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between the migration pathway of the TCE groundwater plume and the distribution of the discontinuous permafrost at the site. The TCE plume configuration is substantially different than what regional hydrology trends would predict. Using GIS, we conducted a geostatistical analysis of field data collected during soil-boring installations and groundwater monitoring well sampling. With the analysis results, we constructed maps of the permafrost-table elevation (top of permafrost) and of the groundwater gradients and TCE concentrations from multiyear groundwater sampling events. The plume concentrations and groundwater gradients were overlain on the permafrost map to correlate permafrost locations with groundwater movement and the spatial distribution of TCE moving with groundwater. Correlation of the overlay maps revealed converging and diverging groundwater flow in response to the permafrost-table distribution, the absence of groundwater contamination in areas with a high permafrost-table elevation, and channeling of contaminants and water between areas of permafrost. In addition, we measured groundwater elevations in nested wells to quantify vertical gradients affecting TCE migration. At one set of nested wells down gradient from an area of permafrost we measured an upward vertical gradient indicating recharge of groundwater from the subpermafrost region of the aquifer causing dilution of the plume. The study indicates that the variable distribution of the permafrost is affecting the way groundwater and TCE move through the aquifer. Consequently, changes to the permafrost configuration due to thawing would likely affect both groundwater movement and TCE migration, and areas that were contaminant-free may become susceptible to contamination.     

Estimation of Process Change for Industrial Pollution Abatement

Abstract

When forecasting the impacts of pollution control regulations upon industries which produce pollutants jointly with ordinary outputs, potential input and production process adjustments must be identified and assessed. The problem addressed here is that the empirical approximation of Joint production processes by a single-equation Least Squares (LS) regression misrepresents restrictions on input substitution possibilities. In such cases, some inputs are allocated to both production processes, which provides the jointness. But other inputs contribute to only one process and do not contribute to adjustment opportunities in the other process. Since single-equation LS regression assumes that all inputs can be substituted throughout the production process, its application results in a misspecified empirical model. This paper presents a theoretical framework that motivates the use of Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) estimators to directly approximate such processes. The advantage to using the SUR estimators is that they exploit the related nature of the input decisions so that a more accurate model of the processes can be estimated. The framework is demonstrated with an application to the case of SO₂ abatement by coal-fired electricity generating units. The results indicate that these units could efficiently burn more low-BTU, low-sulfur coal to maintain the same electricity output with a lower SO₂ emission rate. More generally, this application demonstrates the usefulness of the framework developed here.     

Establishing and using study criteria to ensure the rigor and robustness of survival compliance testing at hydroelectric dams

An elaborate set of criteria have been developed by fish managers and regulators to assure the accuracy, precision, representativeness, and robustness of survival compliance studies coordinated within the Federal Columbia River Power System in the northwestern USA. Dam passage survival, defined as survival from the dam face to the tailrace mixing zone, must be ≥96 % for spring out migrating juvenile salmonids [i.e., yearling Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) and steelhead (O. mykiss)] and ≥93 % for summer outmigrants (i.e., subyearling Chinook salmon). Survival must be estimated with a standard error ≤1.5 %. However, these quantitative benchmarks are only part of a multifaceted set of criteria, including representative dam operations, river discharge levels, and fish selection, along with tests of model validity that must be satisfied. These criteria are illustrated using acoustic-tag survival compliance studies conducted at The Dalles Dam on the Columbia River, 2010–2012. The results suggest evaluation criteria for survival compliance tests must balance the needs for rigor and robustness with the ability to reasonably perform the tests in naturally varying riverine systems.     

Fetal akinesia/hypokinesia sequence: Prenatal diagnosis and intra-familial variability

Intrauterine fetal movement plays a key role in normal embryonic and fetal development (Moessinger, 1983). When movement is absent or decreased, abnormal development takes place which can be appreciated in newborns and/or fetuses with the fetal akinesia/ hypokinesia sequence. This sequence is caused by a number of heterogeneous entities which result in decreased fetal movements by the action of intrinsic or extrinsic factors. Prenatal diagnosis of the akinesia/hypokinesia sequence may be possible during the second trimester through the use of real-time ultrasonographic evaluation of fetal movement. We report a family with three consecutive affected pregnancies in which the prenatal presentation of this sequence varied. Based on the phenotypic findings of the three affected fetuses, we believe that although they superficially resemble those features found in the New–Laxova syndrome, they are probably affected with a distinctly different lethal form of akinesia/ hypokinesia transmitted in an autosomal recessive fashion.