The quality of leadership (QL): the EFQM leadership criterion in relation to the 360° feedback evaluation method

The European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) integral quality management model covers nine issues: five so-called enabler criteria and four so-called result-oriented criteria. The first enabler criterion concerns leadership and covers all kind of strategic management aspects. However, directly or indirectly, the leadership of the board of directors or its individual members is characterized and scored. An even more explicate technique, originated in a totally different way, is the 360° feedback evaluation method. In this paper both methods are compared and practiced on various individuals. A checklist was developed to facilitate scoring in the EFQM leadership submodel. Both methods, although from a different origin, could be linked easily, covered very similar aspects and gave results that were in excellent agreement with each other. The scoring showed almost identical results, supporting in large the use of the integral EFQM model. Received: 25 May 2002 Accepted: 17 July 2002 Presented at the European Conference on Quality in the Spotlight in Medical Laboratories, 7–9 October 2001, Antwerp, Belgium Correspondence to H. M. J. Goldschmidt     

Effect of Particle Size and Capping on Photoluminescence Quantum Efficiency of 1,3,5-Triphenyl-2-pyrazoline Nanocrystals

Organic nanocrystals of 1,3,5-triphenyl-2-pyrazoline(TPP) with a series of sizes were synthesized by reprecipitation method.The luminescence quantum efficiency of TPP nanocrystals increases from 24.2% for the nanocrystals with an average size of 300nm to 34.6% for those with an average size of 20nm.Surface capping by polyvinyl pyrrolidone(PVP) will improve the quantum efficiency of TPP nanocrystals.The size-dependence and capping-induced variation of the luminescence quantum efficiency was elucidated in viewpoint of aggregation quenching and the equilibrium between the TPP monomers and the aggregates in TPP nanocrystals.     

氟的离子选择电极瞬时电位法测定

研究了氟离子选择电极瞬时电位分析法，其检出限和Nernst响应下限均低于传统电位分析法，空白液切换到试液时瞬时电位达到稳定的峰电位Vp比传统电位法的响应快得多，可以实现小体积试液的快速准确分析；用该法测定了自来水和矿泉水中氟的含量；利用校正曲线的截距和检出限计算了LaF3的溶度积，在0.1mol/L KNO3介质中Ksp(LaF3)=10^-28.45，在0.001mol/L柠檬酸钠＋HAc-NaAc缓冲液（pH=5.50，离子强度I＝0.10mol/L)介质中溶度积K′sp(LaF3)=10^-26.26；据此，计算得柠檬酸与La^3 络合物的稳定常数K1=10^5.46和K2=10^3.99；用离子水合吉氏自由能ΔGh(F^-,g)解释了不同浓度F^-试液瞬时电位的跃迁时间。     

Brownian motion of nonlinear oscillators: The projection operator method and its application to a double-well-potential oscillator

A projection operator method is presented, which provides the most efficient way for calculating the stationary behavior of nonlinear Brownian motion. A continued-fraction expansion of the Fourier-Laplace transform of the displacement correlation function or the spectral density is used. This method utilizes a successive optimization procedure on the nonlinear terms and includes the method of statistical linearization as the lowest order approximation. A systematic way to calculate the continued fraction numerically up to sufficient order for convergence is developed, which enables us to obtain the spectral density of a system previously uncomputable.Numerical computations of the spectral density of a nonlinear oscillator with a double-well potential are presented and compared with the results obtained by statistical linearization.This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant CHE 75-20624.     

Simultaneous extraction of organotin, organolead and organomercury species from soils and litter

Extracting organotin compounds (OTC) from soils is difficult due to the high cation exchange and complexation capacity of soils, and little information about OTC in soils is available. In this study, a new extraction method, combining 1 M CaCl₂, 0.1% tropolone, and glacial acetic acid was developed. Recoveries of mono-substituted OTC from spiked plant litter, and soil samples were improved substantially to 40% compared to classical glacial acetic acid extraction commonly used in sedimentology, yielding <10% recovery in C-rich soil samples. Simultaneously, the recovery of other OTC, trimethyllead and monomethylmercury was satisfactory. The recoveries of most species from the spiked litter, upland and wetland soils exceeded 70%. The new method extracted much more organometallics from unspiked organic soils and litter than microwave- and ultrasound-assisted extraction and accelerated solvent extraction, most likely due to exchange of organometallics from the solid phase by Ca²⁺. The method is simple, highly efficient and with low contamination. Together with GC-ICP-mass spectrometry, the method allows the detection of these organometallics in the pg g⁻¹ range and it is particularly suitable for soil and plant materials with low organometallics contents.     

Location of saddle points and minimum energy paths by a constrained simplex optimization procedure

Two methods are proposed, one for the location of saddle points and one for the calculation of steepest-descent paths on multidimensional surfaces. Both methods are based on a constrained simplex optimization technique that avoids the evaluation of gradients or second derivative matrices. Three chemical reactions of increasing structural complexity are studied within the PRDDO SCF approximation. Predicted properties of reaction hypersurfaces are in good overall agreement with those determined by gradient minimization and gradient following algorithms in connection with various ab initio SCF methods. Computational efforts required by the new procedures are discussed.     

Enhanced Oxidation of Simvastatin at a Multi‐Walled Carbon Nanotubes‐Dihexadecyl Hydrogen Phosphate Composite Modified Glassy Carbon Electrode and the Application in Determining Simvastatin in Pharmaceutical Dosage Forms

A sensitive electrochemical method for the determination of simvastatin (SV) was established, based on the enhanced oxidation of SV at a multi‐walled carbon nanotubes‐dihexadecyl hydrogen phosphate composite modified glassy carbon electrode (MWNTs‐DHP/GCE). The voltammetric studies showed that MWNTs instead of DHP or GCE could effectively catalyze the oxidation of SV. The dependence of oxidation current on SV concentration was explored under optimal conditions, which exhibited a good linear relationship in the range of 1.0×10^?7–7.5×10^?6 M. The detection limit of SV was also examined and a low value of 5.0×10^?8 M was obtained for 5 min accumulation (σ=3). This electrode was applied to the detection of SV in drug forms and the results were in accordance with those obtained by UV spectroscopy.     

Catalytic Kinetic Spectrophotometric Method for Determination of Phosphate Ion

The kinetic method for the determination of phosphate microamounts was described. The developed method is based on catalytic effect of phosphate on sodium pyrogallol-5-sulphonate （PS） by dissolved oxygen. The reaction was followed spectrophotometrically by measuring the rate of change in the values of the absorbance of the oxidation product at 437 nm. The optimum reaction conditions are PS （0.44×10^-3 mol·L^-1） and HClO4 （3.6×10^-6 mol·L^-1） at 25 ℃. Following this procedure, phosphate can be determined with a linear calibration graph up to 0.23 μg·mL^-1. The interference effect of several species was also investigated and it was found that the most common cations and anions did not interfere with the determination. The developed procedure was successfully applied to the determination of phosphate in natural waters and soil.     

The index of ideality of correlation: improvement of models for toxicity to algae

Toxicity to algae is important characteristic of substances from ecologic point of view. The CORAL software (http://www.insilico.eu/coral) gives possibility to build up model of toxicity to algae using data on the molecular architecture and experimental toxicity, without additional data on physicochemical and/or biochemical parameters. Considerable improvement of the model is observed in the case of using the index of ideality of correlation (IIC) in the role of additional criterion of predictive potential. The IIC is calculated with using of the correlation coefficient between experimental and calculated values of endpoint for the calibration set, with taking into account the positive and negative dispersions between experimental and calculated values. The best model calculated with use the IIC is characterized (the validation set) by n?=?50, r²?=?0.947, RMSE?=?0.401 whereas, model calculated without use the IIC is characterized by n?=?50, r²?=?0.805, and RMSE?=?0.539. The suggested models are built up in accordance to five OECD principles.

     

Ab initio study on the mechanism of reaction HNCO+NH2

Ab initio UMP2 and UQCISD(T) calculations, with 6-311G** basis sets, were performed for the titled reactions. The results show that the reactions have two product channels: NH₂+ HNCO?NH₃+NCO (1) and NH₂+HNCO?N₂H₃+CO (2), where reaction (1) is a hydrogen abstraction reaction via an H-bonded complex (HBC), lowering the energy by 32.48 kJ/mol relative to reactants. The calculated QCISD(T)//MP2(full) energy barrier is 29.04 kJ/mol, which is in excellent accordance with the experimental value of 29.09 kJ/mol. In the range of reaction temperature 2300–2700 K, transition theory rate constant for reaction (1) is 1.68×10¹¹–3.29×10¹¹ mL·mol^-1·s^-1, which is close to the experimental one of 5.0×10¹¹mL·mol^-1·s^-1or less. However, reaction (2) is a stepwise reaction proceeding via two orientation modes,cis andtrans, and the energy barriers for the rate-control step at our best calculations are 92.79 kJ/mol (forcis-mode) and 147.43 kJ/mol (fortrans-mode), respectively, which is much higher than reaction (1). So reaction (1) is the main channel for the titled reaction.