In A Medicated Empire, Timothy M. Yang explores the history of Japan's pharmaceutical industry in the early twentieth century through a close account of Hoshi Pharmaceuticals, one of East Asia's most ...influential drug companies from the late 1910s through the early 1950s. Focusing on Hoshi's connections to Japan's emerging nation-state and empire, and on the ways in which it embraced an ideology of modern medicine as a humanitarian endeavor for greater social good, Yang shows how the industry promoted a hygienic, middle-class culture that was part of Japan's national development and imperial expansion. Yang makes clear that the company's fortunes had less to do with scientific breakthroughs and medical innovations than with Japan's web of social, political, and economic relations. He lays bare Hoshi's business strategies and its connections with politicians and bureaucrats, and he describes how public health authorities dismissed many of its products as placebos at best and poisons at worst. Hoshi, like other pharmaceutical companies of the time, depended on resources and markets opened up, often violently, through colonization. Combining global histories of business, medicine, and imperialism, A Medicated Empire shows how the development of the pharmaceutical industry simultaneously supported and subverted regimes of public health at home and abroad.
Antimicrobial photodynamic therapy (aPDT) has been explored as an innovative therapeutic approach because it can be used to inactivate a variety of microbial forms (vegetative forms and spores) ...without causing significant damage to host tissues, and without the development of resistance to the photosensitization process. This study assesses the photodynamic antifungal/sporicidal activity of tetra- and octasubstituted phthalocyanine (Pc) dyes with ammonium groups. Tetra- and octasubstituted zinc(II) phthalocyanines (1 and 2) were prepared and tested as photosensitizers (PSs) on Fusarium oxysporum conidia. Photoinactivation (PDI) tests were conducted with photosensitizer (PS) concentrations of 20, 40, and 60 µM under white-light exposure at an irradiance of 135 mW·cmsup.-2, applied during 30 and 60 min (light doses of 243 and 486 J·cmsup.−2). High PDI efficiency corresponding to the inactivation process until the detection limit was observed for both PSs. The tetrasubstituted PS was the most effective, requiring the lowest concentration and the shortest irradiation time for the complete inactivation of conidia (40 µM, 30 min, 243 J·cmsup.−2). Complete inactivation was also achieved with PS 2, but a longer irradiation time and a higher concentration (60 µM, 60 min, 486 J·cmsup.−2) were necessary. Because of the low concentrations and moderate energy doses required to inactivate resistant biological forms such as fungal conidia, these phthalocyanines can be considered potent antifungal photodynamic drugs.
In this study, heterostructured g-Csub.3Nsub.4/Ag–TiOsub.2 nanocomposites were successfully fabricated using an easily accessible hydrothermal route. Various analytical tools were employed to ...investigate the surface morphology, crystal structure, specific surface area, and optical properties of as-synthesized samples. XRD and TEM characterization results provided evidence of the successful fabrication of the ternary g-Csub.3Nsub.4/Ag–TiOsub.2 heterostructured nanocomposite. The heterostructured g-Csub.3Nsub.4/Ag–TiOsub.2 nanocomposite exhibited the best degradation efficiency of 98.04% against rhodamine B (RhB) within 180 min under visible LED light irradiation. The g-Csub.3Nsub.4/Ag–TiOsub.2 nanocomposite exhibited an apparent reaction rate constant 13.16, 4.7, and 1.33 times higher than that of TiOsub.2, Ag–TiOsub.2, and g-Csub.3Nsub.4, respectively. The g-Csub.3Nsub.4/Ag–TiOsub.2 ternary composite demonstrated higher photocatalytic activity than pristine TiOsub.2 and binary Ag–TiOsub.2 photocatalysts for the degradation of RhB under visible LED light irradiation. The improved photocatalytic performance of the g-Csub.3Nsub.4/Ag–TiOsub.2 nanocomposite can be attributed to the formation of an excellent heterostructure between TiOsub.2 and g-Csub.3Nsub.4 as well as the incorporation of Ag nanoparticles, which promoted efficient charge carrier separation and transfer and suppressed the rate of recombination. Therefore, this study presents the development of heterostructured g-Csub.3Nsub.4/Ag–TiOsub.2 nanocomposites that exhibit excellent photocatalytic performance for the efficient degradation of harmful organic pollutants in wastewater, making them promising candidates for environmental remediation.
Market Menagerie examines technological advance and market regulation in the health industries of nations such as India, Brazil, South Africa, Nigeria, and Japan. Pharmaceutical and life science ...industries can reinforce economic development and industry growth, but not necessarily positive health outcomes. Yet well-crafted industrial and health policies can strengthen each other and reconcile economic and social goals. This book advocates moving beyond traditional market failure to bring together three uncommonly paired themes: the growth of industrial capabilities, the politics of health access, and the geography of production and redistribution.
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