A novel method of current efficiency determination

A simple and rapid method, based on the open-circuit decay of potential, is described for the determination of the current efficiency with which metals are electrodeposited. The advantages and disadvantages of the method are discussed.

Reinventing Nordic Openness : Transparency and State Information in Finland

The study explores new ideational changes in the information strategy of the Finnish state between 1998 and 2007, after a juncture in Finnish governing in the early 1990s. The study scrutinizes the economic reframing of institutional openness in Finland that comes with significant and often unintended institutional consequences of transparency. Most notably, the constitutional principle of publicity (julkisuusperiaate), a Nordic institutional peculiarity allowing public access to state information, is now becoming an instrument of economic performance and accountability through results. Finland has a long institutional history in the publicity of government information, acknowledged by law since 1951. Nevertheless, access to government information became a policy concern in the mid-1990s, involving a historical narrative of openness as a Nordic tradition of Finnish governing Nordic openness (pohjoismainen avoimuus). International interest in transparency of governance has also marked an opening for institutional re-descriptions in Nordic context. The essential added value, or contradictory term, that transparency has on the Finnish conceptualisation of governing is the innovation that public acts of governing can be economically efficient. This is most apparent in the new attempts at providing standardised information on government and expressing it in numbers. In Finland, the publicity of government information has been a concept of democratic connotations, but new internationally diffusing ideas of performance and national economic competitiveness are discussed under the notion of transparency and its peer concepts openness and public (sector) information, which are also newcomers to Finnish vocabulary of governing. The above concepts often conflict with one another, paving the way to unintended consequences for the reforms conducted in their name. Moreover, the study argues that the policy concerns over openness and public sector information are linked to the new drive for transparency. Drawing on theories of new institutionalism, political economy, and conceptual history, the study argues for a reinvention of Nordic openness in two senses. First, in referring to institutional history, the policy discourse of Nordic openness discovers an administrative tradition in response to new dilemmas of public governance. Moreover, this normatively appealing discourse also legitimizes the new ideational changes. Second, a former mechanism of democratic accountability is being reframed with market and performance ideas, mostly originating from the sphere of transnational governance and governance indices. Mobilizing different research techniques and data (public documents of the Finnish government and international organizations, some 30 interviews of Finnish civil servants, and statistical time series), the study asks how the above ideational changes have been possible, pointing to the importance of nationalistically appealing historical narratives and normative concepts of governing. Concerning institutional developments, the study analyses the ideational changes in central steering mechanisms (political, normative and financial steering) and the introduction of budget transparency and performance management in two cases: census data (Population Register Centre) and foreign political information (Ministry for Foreign Affairs). The new policy domain of governance indices is also explored as a type of transparency. The study further asks what institutional transformations are to be observed in the above cases and in the accountability system. The study concludes that while the information rights of citizens have been reinforced and recalibrated during the period under scrutiny, there has also been a conversion of institutional practices towards economic performance. As the discourse of Nordic openness has been rather unquestioned, the new internationally circulating ideas of transparency and the knowledge economy have entered this discourse without public notice. Since the mid 1990s, state registry data has been perceived as an exploitable economic resource in Finland and in the EU public sector information. This is a parallel development to the new drive for budget transparency in organisations as vital to the state as the Population Register Centre, which has led to marketization of census data in Finland, an international exceptionality. In the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the post-Cold War rhetorical shift from secrecy to performance-driven openness marked a conversion in institutional practices that now see information services with high regards. But this has not necessarily led to the increased publicity of foreign political information. In this context, openness is also defined as sharing information with select actors, as a trust based non-public activity, deemed necessary amid the global economic competition. Regarding accountability system, deliberation and performance now overlap, making it increasingly difficult to identify to whom and for what the public administration is accountable. These evolving institutional practices are characterised by unintended consequences and paradoxes. History is a paradoxical component in the above institutional change, as long-term institutional developments now justify short-term reforms.

U12-type Spliceosome: Localization and Effects of Splicing Efficiency on Gene Expression

The removal of non-coding sequences, introns, is an essential part of messenger RNA processing. In most metazoan organisms, the U12-type spliceosome processes a subset of introns containing highly conserved recognition sequences. U12-type introns constitute less than 0,5% of all introns and reside preferentially in genes related to information processing functions, as opposed to genes encoding for metabolic enzymes. It has previously been shown that the excision of U12-type introns is inefficient compared to that of U2-type introns, supporting the model that these introns could provide a rate-limiting control for gene expression. The low efficiency of U12-type splicing is believed to have important consequences to gene expression by limiting the production of mature mRNAs from genes containing U12-type introns. The inefficiency of U12-type splicing has been attributed to the low abundance of the components of the U12-type spliceosome in cells, but this hypothesis has not been proven. The aim of the first part of this work was to study the effect of the abundance of the spliceosomal snRNA components on splicing. Cells with a low abundance of the U12-type spliceosome were found to inefficiently process U12-type introns encoded by a transfected construct, but the expression levels of endogenous genes were not found to be affected by the abundance of the U12-type spliceosome. However, significant levels of endogenous unspliced U12-type intron-containing pre-mRNAs were detected in cells. Together these results support the idea that U12-type splicing may limit gene expression in some situations. The inefficiency of U12-type splicing has also promoted the idea that the U12-type spliceosome may control gene expression, limiting the mRNA levels of some U12-type intron-containing genes. While the identities of the primary target genes that contain U12-type introns are relatively well known, little has previously been known about the downstream genes and pathways potentially affected by the efficiency of U12-type intron processing. Here, the effects of U12-type splicing efficiency on a whole organism were studied in a Drosophila line with a mutation in an essential U12-type spliceosome component. Genes containing U12-type introns showed variable gene-specific responses to the splicing defect, which points to variation in the susceptibility of different genes to changes in splicing efficiency. Surprisingly, microarray screening revealed that metabolic genes were enriched among downstream effects, and that the phenotype could largely be attributed to one U12-type intron-containing mitochondrial gene. Gene expression control by the U12-type spliceosome could thus have widespread effects on metabolic functions in the organism. The subcellular localization of the U12-type spliceosome components was studied as a response to a recent dispute on the localization of the U12-type spliceosome. All components studied were found to be nuclear indicating that the processing of U12-type introns occurs within the nucleus, thus clarifying a question central to the field. The results suggest that the U12-type spliceosome can limit the expression of genes that contain U12-type introns in a gene-specific manner. Through its limiting role in pre-mRNA processing, the U12-type splicing activity can affect specific genetic pathways, which in the case of Drosophila are involved in metabolic functions.

Development of an efficiency equation for solar evaporator- collectors

Considering the growing energy needs and concern for environmental degradation, clean and inexhaustible energy sources, e.g solar energy are receiving greater attention for various applications. The use of solar energy systems for low temperature applications reduces the burden on conventional fossil fuels and has little or no harmful effects on the environment. The performance of a solar system depends to a great extent on the collector used for the conversion of solar radiant energy to thermal energy. A solar evaporatorcollector (SEC) is basically an unglazed flat plate collector where refrigerant, like R134a, is used as the working fluid. As the operating temperature of SEC is very low, it collects energy both from solar irradiation and ambient energy leading to a much higher efficiency than the conventional collectors. The capability of SEC to utilize ambient energy also enables the system to operate at night. Therefore it is not appropriate to use for the evaluation of performance of SEC by conventional efficiency equation where ambient energy and condensation is not considered as energy input in addition to irradiation. In the National University of Singapore, several Solar Assisted Heat Pump (SAHP) systems were built for the evaluation of performance under the metrological condition of Singapore for thermal applications of desalination and SEC was the main component to harness renewable energy. In this paper, the design and performance of SEC are explored. Furthermore, an attempt is made to develop an efficiency equation for SEC and maximum efficiency attained 98% under the meteorological condition of Singapore.

Principle of a Dual Current Source Converter for AC Motor Drives

The principle of operation of a dual current source converter is briefly explained. The combination of two single current source converters (SCSC) to form a ``dual (duplex) current source converter'' (DCSC) is proposed. The DCSC is shown to have the following merits: 1) it retains all the advantages of the SCSC; 2) it reduces the harmonic content of the current waveform considerably; and 3) since the load current is shared equally between two current source converters, ratings of the individual components employed in the circuit are considerably lowered. A DCSC can be an attractive choice for sophisticated large horsepower drives where a good performance of the drive rather than cost is a prime factor. An open-loop control scheme employing the DCSC for an ac motor drive has been successfully implemented in the laboratory. Oscillograms of the improved load current waveforms are shown.

The principle of microscopic reversibility in organic chemistry - a critique

The principle of microscopic reversibility is one of the few generalising principles used in organic chemistry which have their roots in the fundamental laws of thermodynamics. It has, therefore, been highly popular. However, although the principle has some important uses, its general application is not without pitfalls. The principle is easy to misunderstand and to misapply: indeed, some of its formulations are semantically dubious. The principle is most dangerous when used as a charm, for it is more subtle than some of its formulations suggest. But above all, the principle may not be used for deducing or disproving the mechanism of a reaction, except when the mechanism in the reverse direction is known independently. For, such use is, perhaps, the deadliest misapplication.

A unified view of energetic efficiency in active drag reduction, thrust generation and self-propulsion through a loss coefficient with some applications

An analysis of the energy budget for the general case of a body translating in a stationary fluid under the action of an external force is used to define a power loss coefficient. This universal definition of power loss coefficient gives a measure of the energy lost in the wake of the translating body and, in general, is applicable to a variety of flow configurations including active drag reduction, self-propulsion and thrust generation. The utility of the power loss coefficient is demonstrated on a model bluff body flow problem concerning a two-dimensional elliptical cylinder in a uniform cross-flow. The upper and lower boundaries of the elliptic cylinder undergo continuous motion due to a prescribed reflectionally symmetric constant tangential surface velocity. It is shown that a decrease in drag resulting from an increase in the strength of tangential surface velocity leads to an initial reduction and eventual rise in the power loss coefficient. A maximum in energetic efficiency is attained for a drag reducing tangential surface velocity which minimizes the power loss coefficient. The effect of the tangential surface velocity on drag reduction and self-propulsion of both bluff and streamlined bodies is explored through a variation in the thickness ratio (ratio of the minor and major axes) of the elliptical cylinders.

Novel Investigation on Principle of Similarity for Microgravity Two-Phase Flow

根据两流体同心环状流线性稳定性分析的结果 ,对微重力气 /液两相流地面模拟实验所应遵循的相似准则进行了探讨 ,得到了一个新的重力无关性准则 ,即Bond数和环形区流体相的毛细数之比的绝对值不大于 1 .此外 ,微重力气 /液两相流模拟实验还必须满足两个条件 ,即流量比和气相表观Weber数应与所模拟的流动中对应数值相等 . In the present paper, the principle of similarity for two phase flows at microgravity is studied based on the results of the linear stability analysis of the two fluid concentric annular flow configuration. A new criterion of gravity independence, namely the absolute value of the ratio between the Bond number and the capillary number of the phase flowing in the annulus is no more than one, is achieved. It is also pointed out that the flowrate ratio and the gas superficial Weber number must have the same ...