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

Emerging CO2 capture systems

In 2005, the IPCC SRCCS recognized the large potential for developing and scaling up a wide range of emerging CO2 capture technologies that promised to deliver lower energy penalties and cost. These included new energy conversion technologies such as chemical looping and novel capture systems based on the use of solid sorbents or membrane-based separation systems. In the last 10 years, a substantial body of scientific and technical literature on these topics has been produced from a large number of R&D projects worldwide, trying to demonstrate these concepts at increasing pilot scales, test and model the performance of key components at bench scale, investigate and develop improved functional materials, optimize the full process schemes with a view to a wide range of industrial applications, and to carry out more rigorous cost studies etc. This paper presents a general and critical review of the state of the art of these emerging CO2 capture technologies paying special attention to specific process routes that have undergone a substantial increase in technical readiness level toward the large scales required by any CO2 capture system

Androgen Receptor Signaling in Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer Alters Hyperpolarized Pyruvate to Lactate Conversion and Lactate Levels In Vivo

Purpose: Androgen receptor (AR) signaling affects prostate cancer (PCa) growth, metabolism, and progression. Often, PCa progresses from androgen-sensitive to castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) following androgen-deprivation therapy. Clinicopathologic and genomic characterizations of CRPC tumors lead to subdividing CRPC into two subtypes: (1) AR-dependent CRPC containing dysregulation of AR signaling alterations in AR such as amplification, point mutations, and/or generation of splice variants in the AR gene; and (2) an aggressive variant PCa (AVPC) subtype that is phenotypically similar to small cell prostate cancer and is defined by chemotherapy sensitivity, gain of neuroendocrine or pro-neural marker expression, loss of AR expression, and combined alterations of PTEN, TP53, and RB1 tumor suppressors. Previously, we reported patient-derived xenograft (PDX) animal models that contain characteristics of these CRPC subtypes. In this study, we have employed the PDX models to test metabolic alterations in the CRPC subtypes. Procedures: Mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance analysis along with in vivo hyperpolarized 1-[ 13 C]pyruvate spectroscopy experiments were performed on prostate PDX animal models. Results: Using hyperpolarized 1-[ 13 C]pyruvate conversion to 1-[ 13 C]lactate in vivo as well as lactate measurements ex vivo, we have found increased lactate production in AR-dependent CRPC PDX models even under low-hormone levels (castrated mouse) compared to AR-negative AVPC PDX models. Conclusions: Our analysis underscores the potential of hyperpolarized metabolic imaging in determining the underlying biology and in vivo phenotyping of CRPC. © 2018, World Molecular Imaging Society