Design and development of a low NOx Coanda ejector burner

Small gaseous combustion systems are being targeted by strict pollution legislation which will provide challenges to reduce the NOx being emitted. A novel type of gas burner has been successfully designed and developed which incorporates a Coanda ejector to promote recirculation of flue gas from the burner exit. This provides a combustion system which gives very low emissions of NOx and CO, whilst maintaining a high degree of flame stability over a range of air/fuel ratios and fuel flow rates. Recirculation of flue gas was obtained by manipulating the aerodynamics of the system, without the aid of external duct work or moving parts. The design of the burner allowed very low pollutant emissions near stoichiometric conditions, resulting in high temperatures of the exit gas. Potential applications of this type of burner are in small and intermediate furnaces where low NOx emissions are required. Moreover, very high-temperature applications, such as glass furnaces could benefit in both cost and pollutant emissions from such a burner.

Entering dystopia, entering Erewhon

Abandon hope all ye who enter here: a society cannot be truly dystopian if travellers can come and go freely. Anti-utopias and 'satirical utopias' - that is, societies considered perfect by their advocates but not by the implied reader - must be well-regulated enough to prevent the possible disruption caused by a visitor. There is no exit at all from the classic twentieth-century dystopias, which end either in an actual death, like that of the Savage in Huxley's Brave New World (1932), or in a spiritual death like Winston Smith's in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Any glimmers of hope that the protagonist may have felt are quickly destroyed.

Data uncertainty in real estate forecasting

The rapid expansion of the TMT sector in the late 1990s and more recent growing regulatory and corporate focus on business continuity and security have raised the profile of data centres. Data centres offer a unique blend of occupational, physical and technological characteristics compared to conventional real estate assets. Limited trading and heterogeneity of data centres also causes higher levels of appraisal uncertainty. In practice, the application of conventional discounted cash flow approaches requires information about a wide range of inputs that is difficult to derive from limited market signals or estimate analytically. This paper outlines an approach that uses pricing signals from similar traded cash flows is proposed. Based upon ‘the law of one price’, the method draws upon the premise that two identical future cash flows must have the same value now. Given the difficulties of estimating exit values, an alternative is that the expected cash flows of data centre are analysed over the life cycle of the building, with corporate bond yields used to provide a proxy for the appropriate discount rates for lease income. Since liabilities are quite diverse, a number of proxies are suggested as discount and capitalisation rates including indexed-linked, fixed interest and zero-coupon bonds. Although there are rarely assets that have identical cash flows and some approximation is necessary, the level of appraiser subjectivity is dramatically reduced.

Traditional Chinese medicine research in the post-genomic era: good practice, priorities, challenges and opportunities

Background and aims: GP-TCM is the 1st EU-funded Coordination Action consortium dedicated to traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) research. This paper aims to summarise the objectives, structure and activities of the consortium and introduces the position of the consortium regarding good practice, priorities, challenges and opportunities in TCM research. Serving as the introductory paper for the GPTCM Journal of Ethnopharmacology special issue, this paper describes the roadmap of this special issue and reports how the main outputs of the ten GP-TCM work packages are integrated, and have led to consortium-wide conclusions. Materials and methods: Literature studies, opinion polls and discussions among consortium members and stakeholders. Results: By January 2012, through 3 years of team building, the GP-TCM consortium had grown into a large collaborative network involving ∼200 scientists from 24 countries and 107 institutions. Consortium members had worked closely to address good practice issues related to various aspects of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) and acupuncture research, the focus of this Journal of Ethnopharmacology special issue, leading to state-of-the-art reports, guidelines and consensus on the application of omics technologies in TCM research. In addition, through an online survey open to GP-TCM members and non-members, we polled opinions on grand priorities, challenges and opportunities in TCM research. Based on the poll, although consortium members and non-members had diverse opinions on the major challenges in the field, both groups agreed that high-quality efficacy/effectiveness and mechanistic studies are grand priorities and that the TCM legacy in general and its management of chronic diseases in particular represent grand opportunities. Consortium members cast their votes of confidence in omics and systems biology approaches to TCM research and believed that quality and pharmacovigilance of TCM products are not only grand priorities, but also grand challenges. Non-members, however, gave priority to integrative medicine, concerned on the impact of regulation of TCM practitioners and emphasised intersectoral collaborations in funding TCM research, especially clinical trials. Conclusions: The GP-TCM consortium made great efforts to address some fundamental issues in TCM research, including developing guidelines, as well as identifying priorities, challenges and opportunities. These consortium guidelines and consensus will need dissemination, validation and further development through continued interregional, interdisciplinary and intersectoral collaborations. To promote this, a new consortium, known as the GP-TCM Research Association, is being established to succeed the 3-year fixed term FP7 GP-TCM consortium and will be officially launched at the Final GP-TCM Congress in Leiden, the Netherlands, in April 2012.

Organic certification, export market access and the impacts of policy: Bayesian estimation of avocado smallholder “times-to-organic certification” in Michoacán Mexico

This study analyzes organic adoption decisions using a rich set of time-to-organic durations collected from avocado small-holders in Michoacán Mexico. We derive robust, intrasample predictions about the profiles of entry and exit within the conventional-versus-organic complex and we explore the sensitivity of these predictions to choice of functional form. The dynamic nature of the sample allows us to make retrospective predictions and we establish, precisely, the profile of organic entry had the respondents been availed optimal amounts of adoption-restraining resources. A fundamental problem in the dynamic adoption literature, hitherto unrecognized, is discussed and consequent extensions are suggested.

Wave-breaking characteristics of midlatitude blocking

In this article, Northern Hemisphere winter midlatitude blocking is analysed through its wave-breaking characteristics. Rossby wave breaking is identified as a key process in blocking occurrence, as it provides the mechanism for the meridional reversal pattern typical of blocking. Two indices are designed to detect the major properties of wave breaking, i.e. the orientation (cyclonic/anticyclonic–direction of breaking or DB index) and the relative contribution of air masses (warm/cold–relative intensity or RI index). The use of the DB index differentiates between the anticyclonic cases over Europe and Asia and the cyclonic events over the oceanic basins. One of the three regions displaying cyclonic type was found over the Atlantic Ocean, the other two being over the Pacific Ocean. The first of these is located over the western side of the Pacific and is dominated by warm air extrusions, whereas the second is placed northward of the exit region of the jet stream, where the meridional θ gradient is much weaker. Two European blocking types have been detected using the RI index, which separates out the cases dominated by warm and cold air masses. The latter cases in particular exhibited a well-structured dipole, with associated strong anomalies in both temperature and precipitation. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society

Employee turnover, HRM and institutional contexts

Literature on comparative capitalism remains divided between approaches founded on stylized case study evidence and descriptions of broad trends, and those that focus on macro data. In contrast, this study explores the relevance of Amable’s approach to understanding differences in employment relations practice, based on firm-level micro data. The article examines employee–employer interdependence (including turnover rates) in different categories of economy as classified by Amable. The findings confirm that exit – whether forced or voluntary – remains more common in market-based economies than in their continental counterparts and that institutionalized employee voice is an important variable in reducing turnover. However, there is as much diversity within the different country categories as between them, and across continental Europe. In Denmark’s case, high turnover is combined with high unionization, showing the effects of a ‘flexicurity’ strategy. While employee voice may be stronger in Scandinavia, interdependence is weaker than in continental Europe.

A characterization of the food industries

Consistent conjectures applied to the food industries are investigated. This is a homogeneous-product, quantity-setting model with identical firms. When firm numbers are fixed, the consistent conjecture is monopolistic. When variable, consistency requires firm output to expand with exit and contract with entry, but no conjecture exists that is consistent with equilibrium.

Direct observations of the evolution of polar cap ionization patches

Patches of ionization are common in the polar ionosphere where their motion and associated density gradients give variable disturbances to High Frequency (HF) radio communications, over-the-horizon radar location errors, and disruption and errors to satellite navigation and communication. Their formation and evolution are poorly understood, particularly under disturbed space weather conditions. We report direct observations of the full evolution of patches during a geomagnetic storm, including formation, polar cap entry, transpolar evolution, polar cap exit, and sunward return flow. Our observations show that modulation of nightside reconnection in the substorm cycle of the magnetosphere helps form the gaps between patches where steady convection would give a “tongue” of ionization (TOI).

A novel function of the proneural factor Ascl1 in progenitor proliferation identified by genome-wide characterization of its targets

Proneural genes such as Ascl1 are known to promote cell cycle exit and neuronal differentiation when expressed in neural progenitor cells. The mechanisms by which proneural genes activate neurogenesis--and, in particular, the genes that they regulate--however, are mostly unknown. We performed a genome-wide characterization of the transcriptional targets of Ascl1 in the embryonic brain and in neural stem cell cultures by location analysis and expression profiling of embryos overexpressing or mutant for Ascl1. The wide range of molecular and cellular functions represented among these targets suggests that Ascl1 directly controls the specification of neural progenitors as well as the later steps of neuronal differentiation and neurite outgrowth. Surprisingly, Ascl1 also regulates the expression of a large number of genes involved in cell cycle progression, including canonical cell cycle regulators and oncogenic transcription factors. Mutational analysis in the embryonic brain and manipulation of Ascl1 activity in neural stem cell cultures revealed that Ascl1 is indeed required for normal proliferation of neural progenitors. This study identified a novel and unexpected activity of the proneural gene Ascl1, and revealed a direct molecular link between the phase of expansion of neural progenitors and the subsequent phases of cell cycle exit and neuronal differentiation.

Ice Shelf Water plume flow beneath Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, Antarctica

[1] A two-dimensional plume model is used to study the interaction between Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, Antarctica and its underlying ocean cavity. Ice Shelf Water (ISW) plumes are initiated by the freshwater released from a melting ice shelf and, if they rise, may become supercooled and deposit marine ice due to the pressure increase in the in situ freezing temperature. The aim of this modeling study is to determine the origin of the thick accretions of marine ice at the base of Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf and thus improve our understanding of ISW flow paths. The model domain is defined from measurements of ice shelf draft, and from this ISW the model is able to predict plumes that exit the cavity in the correct locations. The modeled plumes also produce basal freezing rates that account for measured marine ice thicknesses in the western part of Ronne Ice Shelf. We find that the freezing rate and plume properties are significantly influenced by the confluence of plumes from different meltwater sources. We are less successful in matching observations of marine ice under the rest of Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, which we attribute primarily to this model’s neglect of circulations in the ocean outside the plume.

Identified consumers: an experiment on the informativeness of cross-demand price effects

Often, firms have no information on the specification of the true demand model they are faced with. It is, however, a well established fact that trial-and-error algorithms may be used by them in order to learn how to make optimal decisions. Using experimental methods, we identify a property of the information on past actions which helps the seller of two asymmetric demand substitutes to reach the optimal prices more precisely and faster. The property concerns the possibility of disaggregating changes in each product’s demand into client exit/entry and shift from one product to the other.

Control of final moisture content of food products baked in continuous tunnel ovens

There are well-known difficulties in making measurements of the moisture content of baked goods (such as bread, buns, biscuits, crackers and cake) during baking or at the oven exit; in this paper several sensing methods are discussed, but none of them are able to provide direct measurement with sufficient precision. An alternative is to use indirect inferential methods. Some of these methods involve dynamic modelling, with incorporation of thermal properties and using techniques familiar in computational fluid dynamics (CFD); a method of this class that has been used for the modelling of heat and mass transfer in one direction during baking is summarized, which may be extended to model transport of moisture within the product and also within the surrounding atmosphere. The concept of injecting heat during the baking process proportional to the calculated heat load on the oven has been implemented in a control scheme based on heat balance zone by zone through a continuous baking oven, taking advantage of the high latent heat of evaporation of water. Tests on biscuit production ovens are reported, with results that support a claim that the scheme gives more reproducible water distribution in the final product than conventional closed loop control of zone ambient temperatures, thus enabling water content to be held more closely within tolerance.

If the British left: agricultural policy outside the CAP?

If the Conservative party wins Britain’s General Election in 2015 the incoming Government intends to negotiate a new settlement with the EU, and then hold an in-out referendum. Opinion polls suggest a narrow majority would vote to leave. To exercise an informed choice the electorate would need to know what feasible alternatives are available, so that these can be assessed and debated. Furthermore, in the event of a no vote the Government must be ready to implement its alternative strategy: Plan B. This implies that both a new EU settlement, and Plan B, need to be negotiated concurrently. There has been no serious attempt to explain what Plan B would mean for UK farm policy. Would, for example, British farmers continue to receive the level of support that they currently enjoy; would support be more focussed on environmental objectives? WTO rules on most-favoured-nation treatment and regional trade agreements would apply. Could a WTO compatible agri-food trade agreement be negotiated with its former EU partners, or would Irish and Brazilian beef face the same tariff barriers on imports into the British market? For the EU, the loss of a major net contributor to EU finances could result in a re-examination of the CAP budget.

Don’t trust your poll lead: how public opinion changes during referendum campaigns

Politicians call (or call for) referendums with increasing frequency. But how can they know they will win? Looking at the polls is not enough: opinion during referendum campaigns is often volatile. But this chapter shows that there are nevertheless some recurring patterns that allow us to make reasonable predictions in most cases.