As companies compete for customers' attention in a world of ever-increasing choices, customer service has shifted from a "nice to do" activity to a major strategic challenge—and often a matter of corporate survival. This assessment tool allows you to do a quick size up of your company's current level of customer service in relation to that of other companies, and to begin to identify ways to gain maximum competitive advantage through customer service. Before reading ahead, take 10 minutes to complete the Assessment on the next page. Customer service has never been more important—or as difficult—to deliver in a consistently superior way. As products and services become more complex and customers more sophisticated and demanding, companies around the world struggle to satisfy their customers' expectations and earn their loyalty.

A gene for expression of horse heart myoglobin in Escherichia coli has been constructed in one step from long synthetic oligonucleotides. The synthetic gene contains an efficient translation initiation signal and used codons that are commonly found in E. coli. Unique restriction sites are placed throughout the gene. It has been inserted in a phagemid vector and is expressed from the lac promoter in E. coli at high efficiency, the soluble heme protein representing approximately 10% of soluble protein. Two versions of horse heart myoglobin were produced with aspartic acid or asparagine at residue 122. Comparison of chromatographic mobilities of these two proteins with authentic horse heart myoglobin identified aspartic acid as the correct residue 122. The availability of this gene, which is designed to facilitate oligonucleotide mutagenesis or cassette mutagenesis, will allow systematic structure-function analysis of horse heart myoglobin.

Comparison of the 5'-flanking regions of several cell cycle-regulated DNA replication genes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae has revealed the presence of a common sequence, 5'-ACGCGT-3', which is upstream and proximal to mapped transcription initiation sites. This sequence, which is the cleavage site for the restriction endonuclease MluI, is present twice in the upstream region of the yeast thymidylate synthase gene TMP1. Previous studies have implicated these MluI sites as critical components in the cell cycle-dependent transcription of TMP1. In this study, we examined more closely the importance of the ACGCGT sequences for the transcription of this gene. Using site-directed mutagenesis in combination with deletion analysis and subcloning experiments, we found that (i) while both of the TMP1 MluI sites contribute to the total transcription of this gene, the distal site is predominant and (ii) the 9-bp sequence ACGCGTTAA encompassing the distal MluI site exhibits properties of a cell cycle-stage dependent upstream activation sequence element. The results of this study support the notion that the ACGCGT sequence is an integral component of a transcription system which coordinates the cell cycle-dependent expression of DNA replication genes in S. cerevisiae.

Journal Article A convenient procedure for the synthesis of oligodeoxyribonucleotide affinity columns for the isolation of mRNA Get access Tom Atkinson, Tom Atkinson * Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, 2146 Health Sciences Mall, University of British ColumbiaVancouver, BC V6T 1W5, Canada *To whom correspondence should be addressed Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Shirley Gillam, Shirley Gillam Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, 2146 Health Sciences Mall, University of British ColumbiaVancouver, BC V6T 1W5, Canada 1Present address: Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Research Centre, 950 West 28th Avenue, Vancouver, BC V5Z 4H4, Canada Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Michael Smith Michael Smith Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, 2146 Health Sciences Mall, University of British ColumbiaVancouver, BC V6T 1W5, Canada Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Nucleic Acids Research, Volume 16, Issue 13, 11 July 1988, Page 6232, https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/16.13.6232 Published: 11 July 1988 Article history Received: 23 May 1988 Published: 11 July 1988

Site-directed mutagenesis has been used to produce a T----A change at nucleotide 70 of phi X174 genome. This generates an am codon, TAG, in the gene K reading frame without affecting the amino acid, leucine, encoded by the overlapping gene A. The gene K mutant produces small plaques on su- hosts. It has an identical latent period, but a more reduced burst size than that of the wild-type phi X174. The reduced burst size in the gene K mutant suggests that the gene K protein, although not essential, has a role in increasing infectivity by increasing the burst size three- to sixfold.

A novel mutagenesis procedure based on the insertion of a hexameric nucleotide sequence into Rsa I restriction sites of cloned DNA has been applied to a copy of the Fujinami sarcoma virus (FSV) genome with the aim of identifying functional regions in the transforming protein. Mutations specifying peptide insertions in both the NH2- and the COOH-terminal fps-specific portions of the transforming protein reduce or abolish the capacity of the genome to induce transformed foci in rat-2 cells. Insertion of multiple copies of the hexamer into one central position in the oncogene results in dislocation of the NH2- and COOH-terminal regions in the primary structure, but has no inhibitory effect on focus induction. Taken together, the results imply that both the NH2- and COOH-terminal fps-specific portions of the FSV oncogene product possess determinants which function in fibroblast transformation, and that cooperation of these two regions is not sensitive to their separation in the primary structure.

Effective social indicators must be stable when individual or societal characteristics are unchanged and dynamic when circumstances alter. Highly reliable measures may be poor indicators because they are insensitive to change. Little evidence is available on the sensitivity or validity of objective and subjective indicators. A lack of panel data has restricted the assessment of the stability of subjective measures.This paper examines longitudinal data on a representative sample of 2162 Canadians interviewed in 1977 and again in 1979. Test-retest correlations of approximately 0.50 were obtained for satisfaction and self-anchoring ladder measures among respondents who reported no significant changes in their lives during the past two years. Correlations were substantially lower, as expected, for those reporting life changes. Comparisons of the absolute values of these subjective indicators show that very little change in quality of life measures occurs when stable circumstances are reported but the indicators rise or fall significantly when situations change with downward adjustments being more dramatic than upward modifications. Positive and negative life events had little effect on overall evaluations of life quality.In general, these findings provide very strong evidence for the stability and validity of subjective indicators over time. These measures, with one exception, were constant in unchanging situations and sensitive to change when it occurred.

Abstract— The energies of the lowest excited singlet, Es, and triplet, Et, states, and singlet‐triplet splitting energies, ΔEs,t, were determined on 18 carcinogenic and 31 noncarcinogenic polycyclic aromatics. A highly significant correlation was found between carcinogenic activity and the energy of the excited singlet state. Compounds with an Es < 312 kJ/mol were 4.8 times more likely to be carcinogens than those compounds with Es 312 kJ/mol (P= 0.015). Compounds whose singlet energies fell within the narrow range of 297 ≤Es≤ 310 kJ/mol were 22.8 times more likely to be carcinogens than those compounds which fell outside this range (P= 0.00006). A significant correlation between carcinogenic activity and Et energies was not found, while the correlation involving ΔEs,t energies was intermediate between the Es and Et correlations. The phosphorescence lifetimes, τp, of the 18 carcinogenic aromatics and 27 of the noncarcinogenic aromatip were determined, and were shown not to be correlated with carcinogenic activity. When either the Et or ΔEs,t energies were plotted as a function of Es it was found that the carcinogens tended to form in an elliptical cluster. Compounds whose Es and Et energies placed them within the ellipse were 9.7 times more likely to be carcinogens than those compounds which fell outside the ellipse (P= 0.002), while with the Es, ΔEs,t ellipse, compounds which fell inside were 20.6 times more likely to be carcinogens than those which fell outside (P= 0.0004). Es, Et, ΔEs,t and τp values were also determined on 12 carcinogenic and 4 noncarcinogenic alkyl substituted benz[a]anthracenes. There was no significant difference between the carcinogens and noncarcinogens and the “elliptical” correlation predicted both the carcinogens and noncarcinogens to be carcinogenic. The results suggest that either some property(ies) of the lowest excited singlet state, but not its energy, or some molecular property(ies) which runs parallel to singlet state energies may be important in determining carcinogenic activity in polycyclic aromatics.