The genius of Erasmus Darwin

The Genius of Erasmus Darwin provides insight into the full extent of Erasmus Darwin's exceptional intellect. He is shown to be a major creative thinker and innovator, one of the minds behind the late eighteenth-century industrial revolution, and one of the first, if not the first, to perceive the living world (including humans) as part of a unified evolutionary scenario. The contributions here provide contextual understandings of Erasmus Darwin's thought, as well as studies of particular works and accounts of the later reception of his writings. In this way it is possible to see why the young Samuel Taylor Coleridge was moved to describe Darwin as 'the first literary character in Europe, and the most original-minded man'. Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin's grandfather, was one of the leading intellectuals of eighteenth-century England. He was a man with an extraordinary range of interests and activities: he was a doctor, biologist, inventor, poet, linguist, and botanist. He was also a founding member of the Lunar Society, an intellectual community that included such eminent men as James Watt and Josiah Wedgwood. Contents: Introduction; Setting the scene, Jonathan Powers; Prologue 'Catching up with Erasmus Darwin in the New Century', Desmond King-Hele. Section 1: Medicine: Physicians and physic in 17th and 18th century Lichfield, Dennis Gibbs; Dr Erasmus Darwin MD FRS (1731–1802): England's greatest physician?, Gordon Cook; William Pale (1743–1805) and James Parkinson (1755–1824): two peri-Erasmatic thinkers (and several others), Christopher Gardner-Thorpe; The vertiginous philosophers: Erasmus Darwin and William Charles Wells on vertigo, Nicholas Wade. Section 2: Biology: The Antipodes and Erasmus Darwin: the place of Erasmus Darwin in the heritage of Australian literature and biology, John Pearn; Erasmus Darwin on human reproductive generation: placing heredity within historical and Zoonomian contexts, Philip Wilson; All from fibres: Erasmus Darwin's evolutionary psychobiology, C.U.M. Smith; Two special doctors: Erasmus Darwin and Luigi Galvani, Rafaella Simili. Section 3: Education: But what about the women? The lunar society's attitude to women and science and to the education of girls, Jenny Uglow; The Derbyshire 'Darwinians': the persistence of Erasmus Darwin's influence on a British provincial literary and scientific community, c.1780–1850, Paul Elliot. Section 4: Technology: Designing better steering for carriages (and cars); with a glance at other inventions, Desmond King-Hele; Mama and papa: the ancestors of modern-day speech science, Philip Jackson; Negative and positive images: Erasmus Darwin, Tom Wedgwood and the origins of photography, Alan Barnes; Section 5: Environment: Erasmus Darwin's contributions to the geological sciences, Hugh Torrens; The air man, Desmond King-Hele; Erasmus Darwin, work and health, Tim Carter; Section 6: Literature: The progress of society: Darwin's early drafts for the temple of nature, Martin Priestman; The poet as pathologist: myth and medicine in Erasmus Darwin's epic poetry, Stuart Harris; 'Another and the same': nature and human beings in Erasmus Darwin's doctrines of love and imagination, Maurizio Valsania. Epilogue: 'One great slaughter-house the warring world': living in revolutionary times, David Knight; Coda: Midlands memorabilia, Nick Redman; Appendix: The Creation of the Erasmus Darwin Foundation and Erasmus Darwin House, Tony Barnard; Index.

NOx storage-reduction characteristics of Ba-based lean NOx trap catalysts subjected to simulated road aging

In order to study the effect of washcoat composition on lean NOx trap (LNT) aging characteristics, fully formulated monolithic LNT catalysts containing varying amounts of La-stabilized CeO2 (5 wt% La2O3) or CeO2-ZrO2 (Ce:Zr = 70:30) were subjected to accelerated aging on a bench reactor. Subsequent catalyst evaluation revealed that aging resulted in deterioration of the NOx storage, NOx release and NOx reduction functions, whereas the observation of lean phase NO2 slip for all of the aged catalysts indicated that LNT performance was not limited by the kinetics of NO oxidation. After aging, all of the catalysts showed increased selectivity to NH3 in the temperature range 250–450 °C. TEM, H2 chemisorption, XPS and elemental analysis data revealed two main changes which can explain the degradation in LNT performance. First, residual sulfur in the catalysts, present as BaSO4, decreased catalyst NOx storage capacity. Second, sintering of the precious metals in the washcoat was observed, which can be expected to decrease the rate of NOx reduction. Additionally, sintering is hypothesized to result in segregation of the precious metal and Ba phases, resulting in less efficient NOx spillover from Pt to Ba during NOx adsorption, as well as decreased rates of reductant spillover from Pt to Ba and reverse NOx spillover during catalyst regeneration. Spectacular improvement in LNT durability was observed for catalysts containing CeO2 or CeO2-ZrO2 relative to their non-ceria containing analog. This was attributed to (i) the ability of ceria to participate in NOx storage/reduction as a supplement to the main Ba NOx storage component; (ii) the fact that Pt and CeO2(-ZrO2) are not subject to phase segregation; and (iii) the ability of ceria to trap sulfur, resulting in decreased sulfur accumulation on the Ba component.

Experiences in using a contingency factor-based validation methodology for spreadsheet DSS

The use of spreadsheets has become routine in all aspects of business with usage growing across a range of functional areas and a continuing trend towards end user spreadsheet development. However, several studies have raised concerns about the accuracy of spreadsheet models in general, and of end user developed applications in particular, raising the risk element for users. High error rates have been discovered, even though the users/developers were confident that their spreadsheets were correct. The lack of an easy to use, context-sensitive validation methodology has been highlighted as a significant contributor to the problems of accuracy. This paper describes experiences in using a practical, contingency factor-based methodology for validation of spreadsheet-based DSS. Because the end user is often both the system developer and a stakeholder, the contingency factor-based validation methodology may need to be used in more than one way. The methodology can also be extended to encompass other DSS.

Valorisation of vietnamese rice straw waste:catalytic aqueous phase reforming of hydrolysate from steam explosion to platform chemicals

A family of tungstated zirconia solid acid catalysts were synthesised via wet impregnation and subsequent thermochemical processing for the transformation of glucose to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF). Acid strength increased with tungsten loading and calcination temperature, associated with stabilisation of tetragonal zirconia. High tungsten dispersions of between 2 and 7 W atoms·nm−2 were obtained in all cases, equating to sub-monolayer coverages. Glucose isomerisation and subsequent dehydration via fructose to HMF increased with W loading and calcination temperature up to 600 °C, indicating that glucose conversion to fructose was favoured over weak Lewis acid and/or base sites associated with the zirconia support, while fructose dehydration and HMF formation was favoured over Brönsted acidic WOx clusters. Aqueous phase reforming of steam exploded rice straw hydrolysate and condensate was explored heterogeneously for the first time over a 10 wt% WZ catalyst, resulting in excellent HMF yields as high as 15% under mild reaction conditions.