Michigan State University

About: Michigan State University is a education organization based out in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 60109 authors who have published 137074 publications receiving 5633022 citations. The organization is also known as: MSU & Michigan State.

Optimization of hydrolytic and oxidative enzyme methods for ecosystem studies

Abstract: Microbial digestive enzymes in soil and litter have been studied for over a half century, yet the under- standing of microbial enzymes as drivers of ecosystem processes remains hindered by methodological differences among researchers and laboratories. Modern techniques enable the comparison of enzyme activities from different sites and experiments, but most researchers do not optimize enzyme assay methods for their study sites, and thus may not properly assay potential enzyme activity. In this review, we characterize important procedural details of enzyme assays, and define the steps necessary to properly assay potential enzyme activities in environmental samples. We make the following recom- mendations to investigators measuring soil enzyme activities: 1) run enzyme assays at the environ- mental pH and temperature; 2) run proper standards, and if using fluorescent substrates with NaOH addition, use a standard time of 1 min between the addition of NaOH and reading in a fluorometer; 3) run enzyme assays under saturating substrate concentrations to ensure V max is being measured; 4) confirm that product is produced linearly over the duration of the assay; 5) examine whether mixing during the reaction is necessary to properly measure enzyme activity; 6) find the balance between dilution of soil homogenate and assay variation; and 7) ensure that enzyme activity values are properly calculated. These steps should help develop a unified understanding of enzyme activities in ecosystem ecology.

Maximum boost control of the Z-source inverter

Abstract: This paper explores control methods for the Z-source inverter and their relationships of voltage boost versus modulation index. A maximum boost control is presented to produce the maximum voltage boost (or voltage gain) under a given modulation index. The control method, relationships of voltage gain versus modulation index, and voltage stress versus voltage gain are analyzed in detail and verified by simulation and experiment.

Good-Enough Representations in Language Comprehension

Abstract: People comprehend utterances rapidly and without conscious effort. Traditional theories assume that sentence processing is algorithmic and that meaning is derived compositionally. The language processor is believed to generate representations of the linguistic input that are complete, detailed, and accurate. However, recent findings challenge these assumptions. Investigations of the misinterpretation of both garden-path and passive sentences have yielded support for the idea that the meaning people obtain for a sentence is often not a reflection of its true content. Moreover, incorrect interpretations may persist even after syntactic reanalysis has taken place. Our good-enough approach to language comprehension holds that language processing is sometimes only partial and that semantic representations are often incomplete. Future work will elucidate the conditions under which sentence processing is simply good enough.