Future potential specificity

The availability of biomass and the allocation of biomass resources across energy sectors are crucial, as this energy source is faced with high expectations with regard to its future potentials. Although the potential analysis undertaken here is focused on the electricity sector, with regard to biomass, all energy sectors have been considered. The total domestic availability of solid biomass is approximately 221 Mtoe/yr (9.2 PJ/yr).3 To indicate the European perspective in a broader context, it is assumed that biomass can be imported to the European market. Specifically ... 

In keeping with the earlier format we aim to provide the readership with sufficient practical details for the preparation and successful use of the relevant catalyst. Coupled with these specific examples, a selection of the products that may be obtained by a particular technology will be reviewed. In the different volumes of this new series we will feature catalysts for oxidation and reduction reactions, hydrolysis protocols and catalytic systems for carbon-carbon bond formation inter alia. Many of the catalysts featured will be chiral, given the present day interest in the preparation of single-enantiomer fine chemicals. When appropriate, a catalyst type that is capable of a wide range of transformations will be featured. In these volumes the amount of practical data that is described will be proportionately less, and attention will be focused on the past uses of the system and its future potential. 

Information gained from assays and future potential The application of esterases assays have provided the first direct evidence that cell lysis (as distinguished from loss terms such as grazing and sedimentation) may be an important factor in marine systems (see Kirchman, 1999). While the meaning of cell lysis, its incidence and ecological importance remain unclear (see Franklin et al, 2006), and there are concerns about the assay, we currently lack objective, independent methods with which to measure lysis (cf, Agusti and Duarte, 2002). In future, it may be possible to identify particular esterases that are truly found only within cells and choose substrates that are more specific for them. 

Information gained from assays and future potential So far, few field measurements have been made of caspase-like activities (Berman-Frank et al., 2004 Vardi et al., 1999), but the assay methods appear to be sensitive enough to allow use in natural communities. As work using cultures proceeds, and our understanding of cell death processes improves, assays of capase-like activity may offer an important means to distinguish different forms of cell mortality. Aside from bulk in vitro assays, the availability of ceU-permeable substrates, coupled with flow cytometry will provide improved resolution and specificity (e.g. Bidle and Bender, 2008). 

In this book we hope to have dealt with many of these immense opportunities which these new developments have created. We have examined the current technical literature in detail and it is clear that there is almost unlimited future potential to save time, money, and energy while developing new products with unparalleled perfoimance. It would be nice to think that this book would be read cover to cover but we know that most people will skim through it to find the sections that apply to their work or area of interest. We have attempted to structure the book to make it useful both as a textbook and as a series of monographs. It has been categorized in a way that should match the interests of those with specific needs. Where technologies are shared by more than one application we have duplicated the same information in different formats in two or more sections. 

While membrane technologies will not provide the solution to every problem in the near future, their specific properties and advantages (compactness, modularity, microstructures, improved functionalities, easy control and, most of the time, an isothermal use without requirement for the addition of chemical additives) will allow broader fields of application. The following examples testify to their huge potential, as expected from laboratory experiments, while showing also the root of their unexpected but practical use in present day industrial processes and plants. 

Workforce skills must include both technology and business expertise. An understanding of technology - its current capabilities as well as its future potential - is now integral to business decision making. Business leaders need innovation partners who are at the frontiers of research and deeply steeped in the issues and dynamics of specific industries. 

Polylactic acid is likely to have significant future potential in a variety of applications due to specific advantages compared with conventional petroleum-based polymers. The cost-performance balance of PLA has resulted in its use in many applications, including packaging, fibers, and medicals. The use of PLA as an alternative to petroleum-based polymers will increase demand for agricultural products such as corn and sugar beets, and is an advanced example of sustainable technology. 

A summary selection of recent specific applications of TMDSC is given here to illustrate the present and future potentials of the technique. Reactions involving partial diffusion can be studied by TMDSC such as... 

At the present time, targets for analgesic potential have not been realized. However, their role in modulating neural membrane excitability makes them a promising target for future development. Specific chloride channel modulators in development for the treatment of pain are not known but are often contributors to action of other transmitters such as GABA and glycine. 

Conjugated polymers, in the undoped state, exhibit the electronic and optical properties of semiconductors in combination with the mechanical properties of general polymers, making them potentially useful for a wide array of applications particularly in organic optoelectronic devices such as polymer LEDs, photodetectors, photovoltaic cells, etc. Development in the performance of such devices has advanced rapidly, and prototype devices now meet realistic specifications for practical applications. In spite of such successful achievements in the scope of device application, however, there is still controversy over the nature of the electronic structure and the appropriate description of the underlying physics of elementary excitations. Since these issues are both scientifically interesting and critically important to the assessment of the future potential of devices based on conjugated polymers, more detailed... 

For a detailed description of the basic principles of Raman spectroscopy, the associated instrumentation and potential for spectroscopic imaging, the reader is referred to some of the many excellent texts in the literature. This chapter provides an introduction to Raman spectroscopy and how it is measured. It outlines some experimental considerations specific to biospectroscopy and explores applications from molecular through cellular to tissue imaging for biochemical analysis and disease diagnostics. The complementarities and potential advantages over IR spectroscopy [Fourier Transform (FTIR) and Synchrotron Fourier Transform (S-FTIR)] are described. Finally, the future potential of the development of Raman spectroscopy for biochemical analysis and in vivo disease diagnostics are projected. 

By using a curved evanescent wave, one can, in principle, obtain focusing of an electron beam simultaneously with reflection. Of course, all these potentialities of laser-induced reflective electron optics should be the subject matter of future studies, specifically into the damage threshold of the materials used for the formation of the high-intensity femtosecond evanescent laser light waves. 

In the future, it is expected to be possible to make more routine use of additional wave types, specifically shear or S waves (polarised to horizontal and vertical components) which have a transverse mode of propagation, and are sensitive to a different set of rock properties than P waves. The potential then exists for increasing the number of independent attributes measured in reflection surveys and increasing the resolution of the subsurface image. 

Another factor is the potential economic benefit that may be realized due to possible future environmental regulations from utilizing both waste and virgin biomass as energy resources. Carbon taxes imposed on the use of fossil fuels in the United States to help reduce undesirable automobile and power plant emissions to the atmosphere would provide additional economic incentives to stimulate development of new biomass energy systems. Certain tax credits and subsidies are already available for commercial use of specific types of biomass energy systems (93). 

The drug SC-558 acts by a fourth mechanism, specifically inhibiting COX-2. It is a weak competitive inhibitor of COX-1 but inhibits COX-2 in a slow, time-dependent process. Specific COX-2 inhibitors will likely be the drugs of the future because they selectively block the inflammation mediated by COX-2, without the potential for stomach lesions and renal toxicity that arise from COX-1 inhibition. 

In comparison with traditional biphasic catalysis using water, fluorous phases, or polar organic solvents, transition metal catalysis in ionic liquids represents a new and advanced way to combine the specific advantages of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis. In many applications, the use of a defined transition metal complex immobilized on a ionic liquid support has already shown its unique potential. Many more successful examples - mainly in fine chemical synthesis - can be expected in the future as our loiowledge of ionic liquids and their interactions with transition metal complexes increases. 

---