The European Union budget

This paper analyses the current budgetary system of the EU, its features and the differences in it from the budgets of nation states, particularly from the standpoint of budgetary revenue and expenditure. Below there is an analysis of the system of the redistribution of EU budgetary resources via the Structural Funds, leading to different net positions of the member states in the use of budgetary resources. The object of the system is to achieve the maximum economic and social cohesion within the EU. The article points out that processes of EU enlargement and the creation of a new “financial perspective” will lead to many problems in the fulfilment of these objectives.budget, European Union, net transfers, enlargement of the EU

Anomalous metallicity and electronic phase separation in the CsC60 polymerized fulleride

133Cs and 13C-NMR have been used to study the electronic properties of the polymerized phase of CsC60 at ambient and under hydrostatic pressure. The salient result of this study is the finding of fluctuations in the local field at 133Cs site which are independent of the applied pressure and due to thermally activated changes in the local electronic environment of 133Cs nuclei. We establish that the phase separation between magnetic and nonmagnetic domains observed in the low temperature state at ambient pressure is the result of a slowing down of these fluctuations likely related to polaronic charge excitations on the polymers.Comment: 15 pages and 6 figures(preprint format).Revised version resubmit to PR

Multiple Reentrant Phase Transitions and Triple Points in Lovelock Thermodynamics

We investigate the effects of higher curvature corrections from Lovelock gravity on the phase structure of asymptotically AdS black holes, treating the cosmological constant as a thermodynamic pressure. We examine how various thermodynamic phenomena, such as Van der Waals behaviour, reentrant phase transitions (RPT), and tricritical points are manifest for U(1) charged black holes in Gauss-Bonnet and 3rd-order Lovelock gravities. We furthermore observe a new phenomenon of "multiple RPT" behaviour, in which for fixed pressure the small/large/small/large black hole phase transition occurs as the temperature of the system increases. We also find that when the higher-order Lovelock couplings are related in a particular way, a peculiar isolated critical point emerges for hyperbolic black holes and is characterized by non-standard critical exponents.Comment: 50 pages, 28 Figures v2: minor corrections, references adde

Nanodiamond as a vector for siRNA delivery to Ewing sarcoma cells

We investigated the ability of diamond nanoparticles (nanodiamonds, NDs) to deliver small interfering RNA (siRNA) in Ewing sarcoma cells, in the perspective of in vivo anti-cancer nucleic acid drug delivery. siRNA was adsorbed onto NDs previously coated with cationic polymer. Cell uptake of NDs has been demonstrated by taking advantage of NDs intrinsic fluorescence coming from embedded color center defects. Cell toxicity of these coated NDs was shown to be low. Consistent with the internalization efficacy, we have shown a specific inhibition of EWS/Fli-1 gene expression at the mRNA and protein level by the ND vectorized siRNA in a serum containing medium

Kinetics of natural degradation of cyanide from gold mill effluents

Most Canadian gold mining facilities utilize the cyanidation process in which cyanide is added to sequester gold from the ore. After zinc addition, gold is precipitated from a gold-cyanide complex. Waste streams from the process generally contain a sufficiently high concentration of cyanide and heavy metals that treatment is essential. The oldest treatment method practiced by Canadian gold mines for cyanide destruction is "natural degradation". Based on the literature review of the previous studies, the most important mechanism in the natural degradation of cyanide was recognized as being volatilization. Among the variables affecting the volatilization process the three most important were selected for this study, namely: temperature, UV light and aeration rate. The experimental pH chosen was 7.0. In order to evaluate the relative importance of these variables a full 23 factorial design was employed and appropriate experiments conducted over a period of one year. The synthetic solutions examined were simple cyanide (NaCN), four single metallo-cyanide complexes (Cu, Zn, Ni and Fe) and two mixtures - a "low mix" containing a low concentration of metals relative to the total cyanide concentration and a "high mix", saturated with metals. Analysis of the results of the experimental design led to the conclusion that temperature had the largest effect upon reaction kinetics. The rate of aeration together with temperature had a significant effect upon the volatilization rate within the first 48 to 72 hours. Ultraviolet irradiation only had a significant effect upon the decay rate of the iron cyanide complex and low mix. A mathematical model for the degradation of a single metallo-cyanide complex solution was postulated for a batch reactor taking into consideration the law of conservation of mass, and assuming that chemical equilibrimn existed between hydrocyanic acid (HCN) and cyanide ion (CN-). The rate of volatilization of HCN and metal decay rate were the mechanisms assumed to be controlling the cyanide degradation process. The best estimates of the metal decay coefficients from single metallo-cyanide solutions used to simulate the experimental data of the mixed metallo-cyanide solutions are as follows: [Figure Removed] The model fits the data at the 95% confidence level for five of the eight test conditions; however, for the other three it is poorer. The model, calibrated using coefficients from the synthetic solutions, has been applied to actual gold mill effluents. Results show that the model can be used for the basic estimate of the cyanide degradation rate. For a more precise result, a recalibration of the model is necessary as a function of the particular gold mill effluent's metal content.Master of Engineering (ME