One of the major goals in ecology is to determine the mechanisms that drive the asymptotic increase in ecosystem productivity with plant species diversity. Niche complementarity, the current paradigm for the asymptotic diversity-productivity pattern, posits that the addition of species to a community increases productivity because each species specializes on different resources and thus can mor...

A ̄occulent Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain with the ability to express both the LAC4 (coding for b-galactosidase) and LAC12 (coding for lactose permease) genes of Kluyveromyces marxianus was constructed. This recombinant strain is not only able to grow on lactose, but it can also ferment this substrate. To our knowledge this is the ®rst time that a recombinant S. cervisiae has been found to fe...

Background Workplace health promotion (WHP) strongly requires the employer's efforts to improve the psychosocial, ergonomic, and physical environments of the workplace. There are many studies discussing the socio-economic advantage of WHP intervention programmes and thus the internal and external factors motivating employers to implement and integrate such programmes. However, the socio-economi...

OBJECTIVE To estimate the impact of trends in smoking and obesity prevalence on productivity loss among petrochemical employees from 1980 to 2009. METHODS Smoking and obesity informations were collected during company physical examinations. Productivity loss was calculated as differential workdays lost between smokers and non-smokers, and obese and normal-weight employees. RESULTS During 19...