Futility

This is not the place to discuss the frequently reviewed historical and philosophical aspects of alchemy, but it is worthwhile to recall some rather late adherence to the precepts of alchemy by giants of the human intellectual endeavor. Johann Wolfgang Goethe is best known for his poetry and literature as the author of Faust. Tie himself, however, considered some of his major achievements to be in science. His interests were varied but also related to chemistry. He developed an early interest in alchemy, which, however, he overcame in later life. Goethe s classic character Faust reflects his fascination with the alchemist s effort to produce gold but eventually recognizes its futility and failure. 

Man, that recipe is WEAK But hey That s 10% final product in one pot. Yeeshl Why bother Don t take this first method seriously folks. It was just Strike s way of illustrating the futility of easy answers. All the rest of the stuff in this section is much, much better. 

As a general rule, marketing research studies involving comprehensive coverage of competitive firms requkes personal contacts. Telephone inquiries usually are futile unless the respondent is a friend of long-standing, the mail surveys are generally unsuitable. 

Molybdate is also known as an inhibitor of the important enzyme ATP sulfurylase where ATP is adenosine triphosphate, which activates sulfate for participation in biosynthetic pathways (56). The tetrahedral molybdate dianion, MoO , substitutes for the tetrahedral sulfate dianion, SO , and leads to futile cycling of the enzyme and total inhibition of sulfate activation. Molybdate is also a co-effector in the receptor for steroids (qv) in mammalian systems, a biochemical finding that may also have physiological implications (57). 

A possible way to restrict the temperature rise is the use of a material having a high specific heat. An increase in the weight would be futile, as it would require more material and prove to be a costly proposition. A motor s constructional features should be such as to provide good heat dissipation through its body. 

Suits and Bueche conclude their case-histories with a superb analysis of the sources, tactics and uses of applied research, and make the comment The case histories just summarised show, first of all, the futility of trying to label various elements of the research and development process as basic , applied or development . Given almost any definition of these terms, one can find variations or exceptions among the examples. ... 

The 2,6-DHMP condensation produced only one dimer and a significant amount of trimer as depicted in Scheme 8. The structure of the trimer was not reported. The reaction path is analogous to that of 2-HMP, but occurred at a faster rate. 2,6-DHMP was the only derivative to form a significant amount of trimer under the reaction conditions studied. This supports the idea that ortho-linked PF polymers should have a faster cure than others. It also points out the futility of attempting to manufacture an ortho-Ymkcd polymer under alkaline conditions. Extension of the polymerization process as depicted in Scheme 8 leads to a continual reduction in the amount of para functionality available for condensation as shown in Table 7. 

It is not possible to translate the above reasoning to turbulent flow, as turbulent flow equations are not reliable. However, in practice it is typical to assume that the same analogy is also valid for turbulent flow. Because of this hypothesis level, it is quite futile to use the diffusion factor D g in the Schmidt number instead we will directly use the number D g as in the Sherwood number. Hence in practical calculations Sc = v/D b-... 

In collecting the data care should be taken to avoid data paralysis (see Part 2 Chapter 14). The various quality tools can be used to prioritize the identified problems and corresponding decisions. As with all data collection tasks, you should show a direct correlation between what you are collecting and the goals to be achieved and all conclusions should lead to positive action, otherwise the effort has been futile. 

Attempts have been made to distinguish kinetically between terms such as those in Eqs. (3-183) and (3-184) on the basis that their different charge types should lead to different salt effects upon the rate. This is futile. A fuller discussion is given... 

Because substrate cycles such as this appear to operate with no net benefit to the cell, they were once regarded as metabolic quirks and were referred to as futile cycles. More recently, substrate cycles have been recognized as important devices for controlling metabolite concentrations. 

By this time Polya s Theorem had become a familiar combinatorial tool, and it was no longer necessary to explain it whenever it was used. Despite that, expositions of the theorem have continued to proliferate, to the extent that it would be futile to attempt to trace them any further. I take space, however, to mention the unusual exposition by Merris [MerRSl], who analyzes in detail the 4-bead 3-color necklace problem, and interprets it in terms of symmetry classes of tensors — an interpretation that he has used to good effect elsewhere (see [MerRSO, 80a]). 

The use of quantum mechanics, or more specifically, orbitals and electronic configurations in teaching general chemistry is now such a widespread trend that it would be utterly futile to try to reverse it. Moreover, orbitals and configurations have been extremely useful in providing a theoretical framework for the unification of a multitude of chemical facts. 

Often the authors set their own ground rules in a probably futile attempt to satisfy the inquisitiveness of those from another technical discipline in an expeditious manner, and yet not to incur the criticism of those highly knowledgeable in the subject area. The writers have followed this important but perilous course. 

As might be expected, improved spectrographie equipment is leading to an extension of x-ray emission as a technique for analysis, and this extension in turn points up opportunities for further improvement. One result is that we find ourselves in a period marked by rapidly changing equipment that soon becomes obsolescent. Description of all the equipment currently available is therefore futile. We shall accordingly restrict ourselves (with one exception see Section 9.9) to a representative list of products manufactured in the United States. 

As discussed in Vol 7, it is rather futile to assign numerical values to the impact or friction sensitivity of PETN (or any other expl), although the average critical stress of VSkbar for PETN impact initiation (Ref 85a) may be significant. 

Trying to routinely compensate for variable FW quality is a futile exercise wide swings in water chemistry inevitably occur, and severe boiler waterside problems will likely result under these operating conditions. 

In rat liver mitochondria, in state 4, the AP was estimated to be about 220 mV, with the membrane potential representing about 90% of this (Nicholls, 1974 Appendix 3). Similar values have been reported for human and rat skeletal muscle mitochondria in state 4 (Stumpf et al., 1982). The control of the rate of electron transport is not only determined by the availability of ADP, but also of Pj oxidizable substrates, and oxygen. There is evidence for futile cycling of protons in intact normal rat hepatocytes (Brand et al., 1993). Recently, Porter and Brand (1993) found a correlation between the proton permeability of the inner membrane of liver mitochondria and body size in animals from the mouse (20 g) to horses (150 kg) with a decrease in permeability with increasing weight of several-fold at a constant... 

Although the fundamental chemomechanical transduction processes seem to be the same in all types of vertebrate muscle, contraction in smooth muscle is characterized by much greater involvement of enzymatically catalyzed control reactions. In smooth muscle the control reactions themselves involve the use of phosphorylation-dephosphorylation cycles. Moreover, they are futile in the sense they cause the expenditure of bond energy without a tangible work resultant, i.e., compounds synthesized or external work done. 

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