Technical Barriers to Trade in the European Union: Importance for the Accession Countries. CEPS Working Document No. 144, April 2000

With trade in industrial products between the EU and the CEECs now essentially free of tariff and non-tariff restrictions, the principal impact of accession to the EU on trade flows will be through access to the Single Market of the EU. A key element of this will be the removal of technical barriers to trade. In this paper we try and highlight the importance of technical barriers to trade between the EU and the various CEECs, distinguishing sectors according to the different approaches to the removal of these barriers in the EU: mutual recognition, detailed harmonisation (old approach) and minimum requirements (new approach). We utilise two sources of information on technical regulations: a sectoral classification from a previous study of the impact of the Single Market and our own detailed translation of EU product related directives into the relevant tariff codes. The analysis suggests that the importance of technical barriers varies considerably across the CEECs. The adjustment implications of access to the Single Market are likely to be greatest for those most advanced in their accession negotiations

Intrinsic resistivity and the SO(5) theory of high-temperature superconductors

The topological structure of the order parameter in Zhang's SO(5) theory of superconductivity allows for an unusual type of dissipation mechanism via which current-carrying states can decay. The resistivity due to this mechanism, which involves orientation rather than amplitude order-parameter fluctuations, is calculated for the case of a thin superconducting wire. The approach is a suitably modified version of that pioneered by Langer and Ambegaokar for conventional superconductors.Comment: 4 pages, including 1 figure (REVTEX); references added, minor corrections mad

Andreev interferometry as a probe of superconducting phase correlations in the pseudogap regime of the cuprates

Andreev interferometry - the sensitivity of the tunneling current to spatial variations in the local superconducting order at an interface - is proposed as a probe of the spatial structure of the phase correlations in the pseudogap state of the cuprate superconductors. To demonstrate this idea theoretically, a simple tunneling model is considered, via which the tunneling current is related to the equilibrium phase-phase correlator in the pseudogap state. These considerations suggest that measurement of the low-voltage conductance through mesoscopic contacts of varying areas provides a scheme for accessing phase-phase correlation information. For illustrative purposes, quantitative predictions are made for a model of the pseudogap state in which the phase (but not the amplitude) of the superconducting order varies randomly, and does so with correlations consistent with certain proposed pictures of the pseudogap state.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures; 3 references adde

Design Considerations for Engineered Myocardium

The fabrication of biomimetic heart muscle suitable for pharmaceutical compound evaluation and disease modeling is hindered by limitations in our understanding of how to guide and assess the maturity of engineered myocardium in vitro. We hypothesized that tissue architecture serves as an important cue for directing the maturation of engineered heart tissues and that reliable assessment of maturity could be performed using a multi-parametric rubric utilizing cardiomyocytes of known developmental state as a basis for comparison. Physical micro-environmental cues are recognized to play a fundamental role in normal heart development, therefore we used micro-patterned extracellular matrix to direct isolated cardiac myocytes to self-assemble into anisotropic sheets reminiscent of the architecture observed in the laminar musculature of the heart. Comparison of global sarcomere alignment, gene expression, and contractile stress in engineered anisotropic myocardium to isotropic monolayers, as well as, adult ventricular tissue revealed that anisotropic engineered myocardium more closely matched the characteristics of adult ventricular tissue, than isotropic cultures of randomly organized cardiomyocytes. These findings support the notion that tissue architecture is an important cue for building mature engineered myocardium. Next, we sought to develop a quality assessment strategy that utilizes a core set of 64 experimental measurements representative of 4 major categories (i.e. gene expression, myofibril structure, electrical activity, and contractility) to provide a numeric score of how closely stem cell-derived cardiac myocytes match the physiological characteristics of mature, post-natal cardiomyocytes. The efficacy of this rubric was assessed by comparing anisotropic engineered tissues fabricated from commercially-available murine ES- (mES) and iPS- (miPS) derived myocytes against neonatal mouse ventricular myocytes. The quality index scores calculated for these cells revealed that the miPS-derived myocytes more closely resembled the neonate ventricular myocytes than the mES-derived myocytes. Taken together, the results of these studies provide valuable insight into the fabrication and validation of engineered myocardium that faithfully recapitulate the characteristics of mature ventricular myocardium found in vivo. These engineered tissue design and quality validation strategies may prove useful in developing heart muscle analogs from human stem cell-derived myocytes that more accurately predict patient response than currently used animal models.Engineering and Applied Science

Nutrient management planning on Irish dairy farms

End of Project ReportThe objective of the work undertaken was to investigate nutrient use on intensive dairy farms. A survey of 12 dairy farms was undertaken in 1997 to determine nutrient management practices. These were compared with current nutrient advice and recommended practices. Data recording was completed by the farmer and supplemented by regular farm visits to assist with and validate the process. The mean farm size was 64.8 ha with an average of 128 cows and an annual milk yield per cow of 5594 kg. The mean stocking rate was 2.58 Livestock Units/ha. Dairy cows accounted for highest proportion of the total livestock with most of the younger stock consisting of dairy replacements. Approximately 80% of soil P levels were greater than 6 mg/l while 67% of soils had soil K levels in excess of 100 mg/l. The mean soil P and K levels on the grazing and silage areas were 11 and 128 mg/l, 12 and 117 mg/l, respectively. The mean farm nutrient balance (inputs - outputs) established an annual surplus of N, P and K of 304, 18 and 53 kg/ha, respectively. The adoption of nutrient management plans instead of current practice would reduce N, P and K inputs on average by 44, 13 and 24 kg/ha, respectively. The use of the Teagasc revised P nutrient advice would further reduce the P input requirements by 2 kg/ha. On average the farms had 90% of the 16 week slurry storage capacity. Approximately 14, 42, 14 and 31% of the slurry was applied in spring, summer, autumn and winter, respectively. In all cases there was significant between farm variability. The soil P fertility on the survey farms is skewed towards index 3 and 4 when compared with the average for all samples received at Johnstown Castle. There is no agronomic advantage in terms of crop or animal production for soils to have P levels in excess 10 mg/l. This result indicates that P inputs to farms of this type can be reduced in many cases without prejudicing production potential. The nutrient balance conducted highlighted the extent of the nutrient surpluses and the between farm variability. The data suggest that there is not a serious nutrient surplus on the survey farms, which would require the use of additional off-farm land for slurry recycling, as obtains on pig and poultry farms. The study also indicates that although farm unit cost savings may be small in adopting nutrient management planning, overall farm savings may be significant. For example on the survey farms, savings of up to £2,000 can be achieved apart from the obvious positive environmental impact

Live Robot Sensor View

The Valparaiso University Robotics Team\u27s Robotic Football group has requested an application to process and display real-time sensor data during gameplay. Data of interest to both the build and drive teams includes the robot\u27s uptime, current speed, motor power, control stick orientation, and battery life. This information will be sent to a Raspberry Pi single-board system by Arduino chips on each robot via MQTT and processed and presented by the application being built. To achieve this, the tool will be built on the Django web server framework, using Python. Challenges involve working with multiple stakeholders, multiple networked objects sending data simultaneously, and rapidly-evolving technical considerations

Live Robot Sensor View

The Valparaiso University Robotics Team\u27s Robotic Football group has requested an application to process and display real-time sensor data during gameplay. Data of interest to both the build and drive teams includes the robot\u27s uptime, current speed, motor power, control stick orientation, and battery life. This information will be sent to a Raspberry Pi single-board system by Arduino chips on each robot via MQTT and processed and presented by the application being built. To achieve this, the tool will be built on the Django web server framework, using Python. Challenges involve working with multiple stakeholders, multiple networked objects sending data simultaneously, and rapidly-evolving technical considerations

Density of states in d-wave superconductors disordered by extended impurities

The low-energy quasiparticle states of a disordered d-wave superconductor are investigated theoretically. A class of such states, formed via tunneling between the Andreev bound states that are localized around extended impurities (and result from scattering between pair-potential lobes that differ in sign) is identified. Its (divergent) contribution to the total density of states is determined by taking advantage of connections with certain one-dimensional random tight-binding models. The states under discussion should be distinguished from those associated with nodes in the pair potential.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur