This paper aims to uncover the multilevel causes of the Fukushima nuclear disaster (March 2011) by shedding light on the history of electric utilities and nuclear power development in Japan, the ...location choice of Fukushima as a site for building a nuclear power plant, and the unwillingness of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) to learn. Instead of reducing the disaster's cause exclusively to the tsunami beyond “conceivable hypothetical possibilities” (souteigai), I investigate, from a historical angle, the institutional factors of nuclear development, including the industrial and government complex for nuclear development known as the “nuclear village” (genshiryoku mura). Among the four major reports conducted by fact-finding commissions, only the Kitazawa Report and the Kurokawa Report examined how the nuclear village is associated with the disaster in terms of monopolistic structure and regulatory capture. Theory based on quantitative analysis with bad assumptions and without a history might lead us to negative implications, and causal laws. If we pay attention to history and the realism of behavioral assumptions (i.e., the unwillingness to learn and the opportunism of agents), we can mitigate the risk of acting based on bad evidence, and thus increase the likelihood of forming good policies for nuclear safety.
•Nuclear development in Japan implies numerous institutions and few capabilities.•The land chosen in Fukushima would be unsuitable for a nuclear power plant.•Ecosystem governance enables us to deviate from the myth of nuclear safety.
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Hydrogen sulphide (H2S), a potentially toxic gas, is also involved in the neuroprotection, neuromodulation, cardioprotection, vasodilatation and the regulation of inflammatory ...response and insulin secretion. We have recently reported that H2S suppresses pancreatic β‐cell apoptosis induced by long‐term exposure to high glucose. Here we examined the protective effects of sodium hydrosulphide (NaHS), an H2S donor, on various types of β‐cell damage.
EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH Isolated islets from mice or the mouse insulinoma MIN6 cells were cultured with palmitate, cytokines (a mixture of tumour necrosis factor‐α, interferon‐γ and interleukin‐1β), hydrogen peroxide, thapsigargin or tunicamycin with or without NaHS. We examined DNA fragmentation, caspase‐3 and ‐7 activities and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production in the treated cells thereafter. Apoptotic cell death in isolated islets was also assessed by the terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase‐mediated deoxyuridine triphosphate nick end labelling (TUNEL) method.
KEY RESULTS NaHS suppressed DNA fragmentation and the activities of caspase‐3 and ‐7 induced by palmitate, the cytokines or hydrogen peroxide. In contrast, NaHS failed to protect islets and MIN6 cells from apoptosis induced by thapsigargin and tunicamycin, both of which cause endoplasmic reticulum stress. NaHS suppressed ROS production induced by cytokines or hydrogen peroxide but it had no effect on ROS production in thapsigargin‐treated cells. NaHS increased Akt phosphorylation in MIN6 cells treated with cytokines but not in cells treated with thapsigargin. Treatment with NaHS decreased TUNEL‐positive cells in cytokine‐exposed islets.
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS H2S may prevent pancreatic β‐cells from cell apoptosis via an anti‐oxidative mechanism and the activation of Akt signalling.
The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA) as a dietary supplement on milk yield and composition as well as iron status and immune response in ...lactating dairy cows. In this study 13 lactating Holstein cows were randomly assigned to either a control group or a treatment group supplemented with 10 mg of 5-ALA per kilogram of dry matter. During feeding, 5-ALA was mixed with a small amount of the total mixed ration and top-dressed. The experiments followed a crossover design with 2 periods. Each period consisted of an adaptation period of 12 d and a test period of 2 d. Dairy cows fed the diet supplemented with 5-ALA exhibited increased counts of white blood cells and granulocytes compared with the control group. The rate of phagocytosis and mitogen-induced proliferation of peripheral blood mononuclear cells in cows fed 5-ALA were higher than in cows fed a basal diet. However, 5-ALA did not affect iron status or plasma biochemical composition. Supplementation with 5-ALA improved milk protein and milk casein contents; however, it had no effect on milk production, milk fat, lactose, total solids, or solids-not-fat, compared with the control. We conclude that dietary supplementation of 5-ALA to lactating dairy cows may have a positive effect on milk protein synthesis and the immune response.
The influence of water vapor in the air on the performance and durability of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) has been investigated for the-state-of-the-art cathodes, (La
0.8Sr
0.2)
0.98MnO
3 (LSM) and ...La
0.6Sr
0.4Co
0.2Fe
0.8O
3 (LSCF). Durability experiments were carried out at 800
°C up to 1000
h with various water vapor containing-air fed to the cathode side. Both types of cathode materials were basically stable under typical water vapor concentrations in the ambient air. Degradations could be accelerated at much higher water vapor concentrations, which could be associated with the decomposition of the cathode materials. Temperature dependence of this degradation was analyzed between 700
°C and 900
°C under 10
vol% water vapor concentration, which showed that the effect of water vapor depends strongly on the temperature and led to a severe degradation at 700
°C within a short time period for both cathode materials.
To elucidate the impact of pretransplant body mass index (BMI) on the clinical outcome, we performed a retrospective study with registry data including a total of 12 050 patients (age ⩾18 years) who ...received allogeneic hematopoietic SCT (HSCT) between 2000 and 2010. Patients were stratified as follows: BMI<18.5 kg/m(2), Underweight, n=1791; 18.5⩽BMI<25, Normal, n=8444; 25⩽BMI<30, Overweight, n=1591; BMI⩾30, Obese, n=224. The median age was 45 years (range, 18-77). A multivariate analysis showed that the risk of relapse was significantly higher in the underweight group and lower in the overweight and obese groups compared with the normal group (hazard ratio (HR), 1.16, 0.86, and 0.74, respectively). The risk of GVHD was significantly higher in the overweight group compared with the normal group. The risk of non-relapse mortality (NRM) was significantly higher in the overweight and obese group compared with the normal group (HR 1.19 and HR 1.43, respectively). The probability of OS was lower in the underweight group compared with the normal group (HR 1.10, P=0.018). In conclusion, pretransplant BMI affected the risk of relapse and NRM after allogeneic HSCT. Underweight was a risk factor for poor OS because of an increased risk of relapse. Obesity was a risk factor for NRM.
To develop more highly-efficient SOFCs, we have investigated the thickness of highly resistive layer which consist of solid solutions of CeO2–ZrO2 system generally observed between YSZ electrolyte ...and cathode-interlayer made of doped CeO2. In terms of the effect of the dopant in the CeO2-based interlayer materials on the thickness of the solid solution, the use of YDC or LDC for the interlayer results in a thinner solid solution compared to that obtained when a GDC interlayer was used. When adapted into SOFCs, I-V tests at 800°C indicated that the cell with a YDC interlayer exhibited substantially better performance than the cell with a GDC interlayer.
•The effect of dopants in the CeO2-based material on the thickness of (Ce,Zr)O2 in SOFC cells was examined.•Compared to GDC, the use of YDC and LDC can reduce the Ce diffusion distance into the YSZ electrolyte.•A cell with a YDC interlayer was confirmed to exhibit significantly improved cell performance compared to a cell with GDC.
Many species of reef-building corals are mixotrophic, relying on both photoautotrophy performed by their dinoflagellate symbionts and heterotrophy from consumption of zooplankton. Autotrophy and ...heterotrophy supply corals with specific
ω
3 fatty acids, which can be used as trophic markers and record the contribution of each feeding strategy. This study investigated whether the reef-building coral
Mussismilia hispida
, endemic to Brazil, is able to shift between predominantly autotrophic and predominantly heterotrophic by monitoring the concentration of fatty acids in the host tissue. We then examined whether shifts are related to changes in temperature and wind stress. For that purpose,
M. hispida
colonies were monitored for a year with monthly tissue sampling. Symbiont concentration was determined and lipid extraction performed. Four fatty acids were quantitatively analyzed by gas chromatography with flame ionization detector: the autotrophy markers: stearidonic acid (SDA), docosapentaenoic acid (DPA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), and a heterotrophy marker: cis-gondoic acid (CGA). Three preliminary experiments confirmed the specificity of SDA, DPA and CGA, but not of DHA. Shifts of predominance occurred multiple times during the year and were associated with minimal temperatures and wind stress. Colonies underwent mild bleaching during summer months, which they seemed to compensate with heterotrophic feeding. Our major findings include the validation of three FATM and a trophic index for coral reef ecology studies and also describing the in situ occurrences of shifts between feeding modes, while highlighting the role of temperature and meteorological events.
Verification and validation of automated driving systems' safety are some of the biggest challenges for the introduction of automated vehicles into the market. Scenario-based safety assessment is an ...efficient and repeatable method to test the systems' safety before their deployment in the real world. However, even with limited traffic situations identified as critical to the system behavior, there is still an open range of parameters to describe each situation. Thus, defining specific parameter ranges is crucial to realize the scenario-based safety assessment approach. This study proposes a method to parameterize scenarios extracted from real-world traffic data, analyze their distribution and correlation, and incorporate them into the definition of reasonably foreseeable parameter ranges through the contextualization of resulting ranges with reasonable risk acceptance thresholds from different fields and international environments. Representative values can be selected from these specific parameter ranges to extract specific concrete scenarios applicable for the systems safety assessment. The applicability of the proposed method is demonstrated using parameter ranges obtained to define two sets of 960 cut-in and 6,442 deceleration scenarios extracted from a new set of traffic data collected from Japanese highways under the SAKURA initiative. The outcomes will enable comparisons with traffic data from other countries and inform automated driving system developers, standardization bodies, and policymakers to develop automated vehicle safety assessments applicable internationally.
Extended thermodynamics of dense gases Arima, T.; Taniguchi, S.; Ruggeri, T. ...
Continuum mechanics and thermodynamics,
11/2012, Letnik:
24, Številka:
4-6
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
We study extended thermodynamics of dense gases by adopting the system of field equations with a different hierarchy structure to that adopted in the previous works. It is the theory of 14 fields of ...mass density, velocity, temperature, viscous stress, dynamic pressure, and heat flux. As a result, most of the constitutive equations can be determined explicitly by the caloric and thermal equations of state. It is shown that the rarefied-gas limit of the theory is consistent with the kinetic theory of gases. We also analyze three physically important systems, that is, a gas with the virial equations of state, a hard-sphere system, and a van der Waals fluid, by using the general theory developed in the former part of the present work.
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