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After outlining the basic principles of superconductivity and the history of its development, this paper describes some of the potential applications of the technology, particularly for the electricity supply industry. It charts the development of the use of superconductors in energy research from the mid-1960s on, reviewing the projects developed over that period, and considers why the impetus behind such projects dissipated in the 1980s. The events of the last 18 months — since the discovery of high temperature superconducting materials — and the subsequent explosion of interest in the new materials are then examined. Of particular interest here is the contrast between the emergence of a powerful coalition of government, industry and science in a number of countries anxious to obtain maximum advantage from the technology and the reaction of the energy research community. The paper concludes by identifying the problems of the new materials and of superconductivity itself for the ESI, suggesting how they might interact in the future, and considers how these developments illustrate the relationship between the innovation process and technology choice in the energy sector.

Numerical simulation by the finite-element method is one of the most powerful means for simulating sheet forming processes, including the possibility to predict the development of defects such as wrinkling. In this paper, numerical simulations of the integral hydroforming of shell products, the hydroforming process of tubular products and the viscous pressure forming of a superalloy corrugated part are reported. The simulations were conducted using the explicit finite-element code LS-DYNA and the code DEFORM.

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This paper relates altogether to the practical construction and use of the voltaic battery. Guided by the principles developed in former series, the author concluded that in voltaic instruments in which the copper surrounded the zinc, there was no occasion for insulation of the contiguous coppers, provided they did not come into metallic contact; and therefore in the construction of some new instruments he interposed paper only between the coppers instead of the usual insulating plate of porcelain or glass. The battery thus constructed is essentially the same with Dr. Hare's; and the author recommends even his form of trough for the purpose of putting the acid on to, and moving it from the plates. By attending to certain points described, as many as 40 pairs of plates could be packed into a space not more than 15 inches in length, and thus a very portable, and, at the same time, powerful and convenient trough might be obtained. In comparing this form of trough with others, the author used acids of constant strength, took note of their quantity, allowed them to act in the troughs until the power of the apparatus had nearly ceased, estimated the quantity of effect by his volta-electrometer, and then estimated the quantity of zinc in the battery employed in producing the effect by the results of an analysis of a given portion of the exhausted charge. In this way it was easy to tell how much zinc was dissolved from any one plate, or from all the plates, and to compare it with the quantity of water decomposed in the volta-electrometer. Thus, with a perfect battery of 40 pairs of plates, an equivalent of water decomposed in the volta-electrometer would be the result of the solution of an equivalent of zinc from each zinc plate, or forty equivalents in the whole; but with a battery not so perfect, a greater proportion of zinc would be dissolved by the acid in the cells.

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The author is confirmed in his views regarding the arrangement of the nervous filaments distributed to the uterus, as described in his papers printed in the Philosophical Transactions for 1841 and 1842, by his recent dissection of a gravid uterus at the full period, and which he considers as demonstrative of the accuracy of all the statements which are contained in those communications.

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In a former paper, published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1843, the author gave an account of the observations he had made on the phænomena of elliptic polarization by reflexion from certain metallic surfaces, but with reference only to one class of comparative results. He has since pursued the inquiry into other relations besides those at first contemplated, and the present paper is devoted to the details of these new observations, obtained by va­rying the inclination of the incident rays, and the position of the plane of analysation, and by employing different metals as the re­flecting surfaces. By the application of the undulatory theory of light to the circumstances of the experiments and the resulting phænomena, the law of metallic retardation is made the subject of ana­lytic investigation. A polariscope of peculiar construction, of which a description is given at the conclusion of the paper, was employed in the experiments: and tables are subjoined of the numerical re­sults of the observations.

This paper aims to investigate the possible use of a control system that combines the concept of active members and a direct output feedback method to mitigate the seismic vibration of civil engineering structural systems. An active member, according to the definition used in this paper, is an added structural member in which an actuator, a sensor and a simple controller are highly integrated. By integrating these fundamental control devices together, the active members will be less vulnerable to environmental influence; moreover, each active member can be used as an independent control mechanism. In this study, an output feedback control algorithm called the Modal Truncated Output Feedback (MTOF), suitable for the active member control, is adopted. With this algorithm, the failure or malfunction of one active member will not impair the entire control system. A numerical example of the shear building type is used to demonstrate the proposed control system. It is shown that the concept of active members and the MTOF control algorithm together form a very stable, effective, and reliable control system for vibration control of seismic structures.

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The collapse of tubes in a cold-drawing process using a V-grooved tubespin block machine is analyzed for the first time in this paper. A collapsed shape is assumed for the analysis based on the observation of the actual collapsed shape of the tube cross section. The draw pull force is converted into the load acting on the cross-sectional plane. Since the tube is very long compared with its cross-sectional dimensions, a ring of unit length under plane-strain deformation is considered. The effects of plastic strain hardening rate, semi-groove angle, friction, and the thickness and diameter of the tube on the collapse, are studied in detail and the results are presented graphically. A special case, the crushing of a tube between two parallel rigid plates, is considered and the results are compared with the existing analytical and experimental results found in the literature. The close agreement of the analytical predictions with the experimental data verifies the validity of the model and analysis presented in this paper.

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Shape optimization in connection with numerical modelling is used to reduce bending and associated flexural stresses in buried concrete arches. Modelling of the arch is carried out via a nonlinear finite element model that accounts for soil constitutive relations, soil–structure interactions, sequential construction stages and soil compaction. Centre line of the arch is parameterized by Bezier curve with three degrees of freedom that are subjected to optimization by genetic and Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm. The paper presents a parametric study which aims to determine the optimal shapes for buried arches of various span/rise ratios, backfill depths and foundation soil types. In the second part of the paper it shows a theoretical reduction in tensile stresses obtained by shape optimization of concrete arch culvert with a 9.4 m span tested at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

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The Kawasaki CO2 Capture (KCC) system involves a solid adsorbent method that captures CO2 in exhaust gases using low-temperature steam; thus, it can use waste heat easily and save more energy than conventional technology. In this paper, we establish a design method for a large-scale plant using the KCC moving-bed method, and conduct parametric testing using a 5 ton/d bench scale test plant to find the characteristics of the moving-bed method. Using the relationship between the residence time of the adsorbent material and the CO2 adsorption load, we found that design specifications could be applied to a large-scale plant.

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This paper conceptualises the development of an innovation diffusion readiness (IDR) framework used for monitoring innovation diffusion maturity levels within the architectural and engineering design (AED) firm context. To achieve this, a survey was conducted with a number of Australian AED firms, using a validated survey instrument developed elsewhere. The key findings based on the study sample of 158 professionals representing 44 AED firms showed that the overall level of IDR among the sampled firms was moderate to high. Using cluster analysis, three main clusters of these firms were uncovered: Very High, High and Moderate IDR. Further analysis indicated that clusters with higher IDR appeared to perform significantly better in diffusing innovative design practices. This finding highlighted that firms shifting to a higher IDR cluster could achieve a significant improvement in the diffusion of this type of innovation. The paper also provided a number of recommendations for future research.

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This paper attempts to measure the size of South-South FDI in developing East Asia and the trends in it, and the characteristics of the investing countries and the investments themselves. It also summarizes the findings of studies in individual countries of the effects of these investments. The studies of individual countries will be used to try to find some consensus on differences between South-South FDI and North-South FDI. Among the comparisons of the two types of FDI we try to summarize are be findings about their industrial composition, their effects on their host countries and their host-country firms’ productivity, wages, and employment, and how these differ across industries.

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The purpose of the study was to systematically review economic evaluations of vaccine programs conducted in mainland China. We searched for economic evaluations of vaccination in China published prior to August 3, 2015 in eight English-language and three Chinese-language databases. Each article was appraised against the 19-item Consensus on Health Economic Criteria list (CHEC-list). We found 23 papers evaluating vaccines against hepatitis B (8 articles), Streptococcus pneumoniae (5 articles), human papillomavirus (3 articles), Japanese encephalitis (2 articles), rotavirus (2 articles), hepatitis A (1 article), Enterovirus 71 (1 article) and influenza (1 article). Studies conformed to a mean of 12 (range: 6-18) items in the CHEC-list criteria. Five of six Chinese-language articles conformed to fewer than half of the 19 criteria items. The main criteria that studies failed to conform to included: inappropriate measurement (20 articles) and valuation (18 articles) of treatment and/or vaccination costs, no discussion about distributional implications (18 articles), missing major health outcomes (14 articles), no discussion about generalizability to other contexts (14 articles), and inadequate sensitivity analysis (13 articles). In addition, ten studies did not include major cost components of vaccination programs, and nine did not report outcomes in terms of life years even in cases where QALYs or DALYs were calculated. Only 13 studies adopted a societal perspective for analysis. All studies concluded that the appraised vaccination programs were cost-effective except for one evaluation of universal 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV-7) in children. However, three of the five studies on PCV-7 showed poor overall quality, and the number of studies on vaccines other than hepatitis B vaccine and PCV-7 was limited. In conclusion, major methodological flaws and reporting problems exist in current economic evaluations of vaccination programs in China. Local guidelines for good practice and reporting, institutional mechanisms and education may help to improve the overall quality of these evaluations.

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