The influence of the physical environment on the self-organised foraging patterns of ants

Among social insects such as ants, scouts that modulate their recruiting behaviour, following simple rules based on local information, generate collective patterns of foraging. Here we demonstrate that features of the abiotic environment, specifically the foraging substrate, may also be influential in the emergence of group-level decisions such as the choice of one foraging path. Experimental data and theoretical analyses show that the collective patterns can arise independently of behavioural changes of individual scouts and can result, through self-organising processes, from the physico-chemical properties of the environment that alter the dynamics of information transfer by chemical trails.     

Using chemical process simulation to design industrial ecosystems

Chemical process simulation (CPS) software has been widely used by chemical (process) engineers to design, test, optimise, and integrate process plants. It is expected that industrial ecologists to bring these same problem-solving benefits to the design and operation of industrial ecosystems can use CPS. This paper provides industrial ecology researchers and practitioners with an introduction to CPS and an overview of chemical engineering design principles. The paper highlights recent research showing that CPS can be used to model industrial ecosystems, and discusses the benefits of using CPS to address some of the technical challenges facing companies participating in an industrial ecosystem. CPS can be used to (i) quantitatively evaluate and compare the potential environmental and financial benefits of material and energy linkages; (ii) solve general design, retrofit, or operational problems; (iii) help to identify complex and often counter-intuitive solutions; and (iv) evaluate what-if scenarios. CPS should be a useful addition to the industrial ecology toolbox.     

Insektenpheromone

Pheromones — semiochemicals used by insects for intraspecific chemical communication — can be isolated and with special analytical techniques their chemical structure elucidated. With stereoselective synthesis methods, presented by the preparation of sex attractants and aggregating pheromones of moths and beetles, respectively, a synthetic access to compounds is given which can be used for behavior manipulation of insects. Aside the importance of these compounds for investigations of the sensoric process the possibility of their application in an integrated and biological pest control is discussed.     

Quantification of human amniotic fluid constituents by high resolution proton nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy

We have investigated the ability of high-resolution proton NMR spectroscopy to provide a biochemical constituent screening of human amniotic fluid (AF). Proton NMR spectra were obtained at 300 MHz on AF from patients undergoing amniocentesis in the mid-trimester. Only AF from normal pregnancies (normal fetal karyotype, normal a-fetoprotein levels, normal birth outcome) was used in this study. The AF supernatant was lyophilized and resuspended in deuterated water containing 0.1 mm phosphate buffer and 6.02 mm disodium maleate. Identification of low molecular weight compounds was confirmed by two-dimensional NMR spectra (primarily correlated spectroscopy, or COSY) and standard addition techniques. A broad profile of compounds were ‘NMR visible’ in a single proton spectrum, including creatinine, glucose, organic acids (acetate, citrate, and lactate) and several amino acids (alanine, histidine, leucine, phenylalanine, tyrosine and valine). The proton spectrum was unaffected by prior freezing/thawing of AF samples. We were able to quantify compounds by comparison with an added concentration standard (maleate) at concentrations as low as 30 μm. Good agreement with literature values based on other analytical techniques was obtained.