US hegemony and the origins of Japanese nuclear power : the politics of consent

This paper deploys the Gramscian concepts of hegemony and consent in order to explore the process whereby nuclear power was brought to Japan. The core argument is that nuclear power was brought to Japan as a consequence of US hegemony. Rather than a simple manifestation of one state exerting material ‘power over' another, bringing nuclear power to Japan involved a series of compromises worked out within and between state and civil society in both Japan and the USA. Ideologies of nationalism, imperialism and modernity underpinned the process, coalescing in post-war debates about the future trajectory of Japanese society, Japan's Cold War alliance with the USA and the role of nuclear power in both. Consent to nuclear power was secured through the generation of a psychological state in the public mind combining the fear of nuclear attack and the hope of unlimited consumption in a nuclear-fuelled post-modern world

Analogue switch-off: Multi-channel viewing by 'the reluctant 50%'

The paper is concerned with the switch-off of analogue television and explores key issues about technology, audiences and communications policy. The main argument is that the characteristics of the 'second 50%' are very different from the first half of households that have chosen to adopt digital, and that concerns are as much about content as cost. The paper reports a small, largely qualitative, study of households where analogue television has been switched off – the only place in the UK where this has happened, as a Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) trial. Qualitative data on the transformation of audience behaviour with the arrival of digital is contextualised by an analysis of British government policy on analogue switch-off. The paper compares and contrasts the discourse of digital TV with viewing expectations and experiences. It reflects on choice, viewing behaviour and the shaping of technology and raises critical questions about government policies on analogue switch-off

Carbon dioxide fixation as a central redox cofactor recycling mechanism in bacteria

The Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle (Calvin cycle) catalyzes virtually all primary productivity on Earth and is the major sink for atmospheric CO2. A less appreciated function of CO2 fixation is as an electron-accepting process. It is known that anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria require the Calvin cycle to accept electrons when growing with light as their sole energy source and organic substrates as their sole carbon source. However, it was unclear why and to what extent CO2 fixation is required when the organic substrates are more oxidized than biomass. To address these questions we measured metabolic fluxes in the photosynthetic bacterium Rhodopseudomonas palustris grown with 13C-labeled acetate. R. palustris metabolized 22% of acetate provided to CO2 and then fixed 68% of this CO2 into cell material using the Calvin cycle. This Calvin cycle flux enabled R. palustris to reoxidize nearly half of the reduced cofactors generated during conversion of acetate to biomass, revealing that CO2 fixation plays a major role in cofactor recycling. When H2 production via nitrogenase was used as an alternative cofactor recycling mechanism, a similar amount of CO2 was released from acetate, but only 12% of it was reassimilated by the Calvin cycle. These results underscore that N2 fixation and CO2 fixation have electron-accepting roles separate from their better-known roles in ammonia production and biomass generation. Some nonphotosynthetic heterotrophic bacteria have Calvin cycle genes, and their potential to use CO2 fixation to recycle reduced cofactors deserves closer scrutiny