Mode Of Accumulation Research Articles

Stochastic neuropeptide signals compete to calibrate the rate of satiation.

Neuropeptides have important roles in neural plasticity, spiking and behaviour1. Yet, many fundamental questions remain regarding their spatiotemporal transmission, integration and functions in the awake brain. Here we examined how MC4R-expressing neurons in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVHMC4R) integrate neuropeptide signals to modulate feeding-related fast synaptic transmission and titrate the transition to satiety2-6. We show that hunger-promoting AgRP axons release the neuropeptide NPY to decrease the second messenger cAMP in PVHMC4R neurons, while satiety-promoting POMC axons release the neuropeptide αMSH to increase cAMP. Each release event is all-or-none, stochastic and can impact multiple neurons within an approximately 100-µm-diameter region. After release, NPY and αMSH peptides compete to control cAMP-the amplitude and persistence of NPY signalling is blunted by high αMSH in the fed state, while αMSH signalling is blunted by high NPY in the fasted state. Feeding resolves this competition by simultaneously elevating αMSH release and suppressing NPY release7,8, thereby sustaining elevated cAMP in PVHMC4R neurons throughout a meal. In turn, elevated cAMP facilitates potentiation of feeding-related excitatory inputs with each bite to gradually promote satiation across many minutes. Our findings highlight biochemical modes of peptide signal integration and information accumulation to guide behavioural state transitions.

Extensive culture: expressions of endlessness in the metaverse and the limits of data accumulation

ABSTRACT Developing the central concept of extensive culture this article seeks to situate notions of the metaverse within wider and longer term cultural shifts. It places such notions within established moves toward a seeming limitlessness or endlessness in culture. It takes inspiration from Georg Simmel's (1917) piece on ‘The Crisis of Culture’, in which Simmel claimed that modernity was simultaneously becoming both more extensive and more intensive. Through its focus on extensive culture the article explores how we might approach expressions of seeming endlessness. The article deals centrally with the metaverse as an instance of such an expression. It argues that these expressions are an integral part of how culture is imagined and how transformations are envisioned, especially with regard to the expansions of data structures. The article shows how the development of a heightened extensive culture takes shape and form within the visions of seeming endlessness and apparent formlessness that accompany and define these expressions. As these expressions of extensive culture find form in concepts like the metaverse these visions of endlessness reshape the limits and frontiers of data structures. The article concludes by reflecting on how particular expressions of extensive culture can illustrate the intricate and interreliant relations between extensive modes of culture and data accumulation.

Effect of the particle shape on the shear mechanical behavior of coral sand

Abstract Coral sand particles exhibit a wide range of shapes, which can be divided into four shapes, e.g., blocky, dendritic and rodlike, flaky, and shell debris. The particle shape of these mixtures is defined by the sphericity, concavity, aspect ratio, flatness and overall regularity, which ranges from 0 to 1. The effect of particle shape on the strength, crushing characteristics, and critical state parameter is systematically investigated through a series of triaxial drainage shear tests under different confining pressures. And the relationship between critical state parameters and mechanical parameters is established. The test results demonstrate the existence of an evident strain-hardening phenomenon in the stress–strain curve of coral sand, accompanied by a strain-softening phenomenon when the bias stress reaches its peak value. The sample is initially subjected to shear shrinkage, followed by shear expansion. The volumetric deformation of the coral sand decreased with increasing peripheral pressure. The particles are transformed from rough irregular shapes to smooth spheres as evidenced by an increase in the shape parameter. The greater the degree of irregularity in the shape of the particles, the more pronounced the resulting change in size reduction. In addition, the critical state parameter was found to be influenced by the shape of the coral sand particles and the mode of particle accumulation. The overall shear resistance of coral sand particles was found to depend on particle rearrangement in addition to particle surface roughness and interparticle friction. It is proposed that the general regularity critical state parameter equation relates the particle shape of coral sand to its critical state mechanical properties, which is of great importance to the practical application and research of coral sand in engineering, and provides an effective means of predicting mechanical properties granular materials.

The New Politics of Inflation and Economic Disruption: Unlearned Lessons from the 1980s and 1990s in Australia

In the 1980s, debate over inflation and unemployment in Australia promised to lead to new institutional priorities based on revised, corporatist principles. However, labour's functional capacity to influence policy, particularly anti‐inflation policy, evaporated during the neoliberal era. Recently, new contradictions in the economy have emerged (as well as a new mode of accumulation, with altered production demands and political pressures), exposing lessons that remain unlearned from the prior stagflation years and permanent problems and incapacities for the contemporary polity.

Extended depth-of-field wide-field fluorescence microscopy with a micro-mirror array lens system for versatile cellular examination.

We present a versatile extended depth-of-field (EDOF) wide-field fluorescence microscopy using a new, to the best of our knowledge, active device, micro-mirror array lens system (MALS) for calibration-free and orientation-insensitive EDOF imaging. The MALS changed the focal plane during image acquisition, and the system could be operated in any orientation. Two EDOF imaging modes of high-speed accumulation and low-speed surface sectioning were implemented. The performance was demonstrated in non-contact imaging of conjunctival goblet cells in live mice and depth-resolved cellular examination of ex-vivo human cancer specimens. MALS-based EDOF microscopy has potential for versatile cellular examination.

Development Paths in a Settler Society: The Challenges of the Communist Movement in Brazil

This article addresses the challenges faced by the Communist movement in Brazil by revisiting the contradictions inherited from a colonial mode of accumulation. This was originally a class system based on slavery and composed of the metropolitan colonizer, the settler, and the colonized class. After independence in 1822, which entailed a settler rebellion against the metropolitan colonizer and the continuing exploitation of the colonized, the settlers reproduced the colonial mode of accumulation internally and oversaw the transition to a capitalist mode of production. An interclass, bourgeois–labor alliance occurred in the mid-twentieth century but was limited to the ranks of the settlers and underpinned by the myth of “racial democracy.” It included a degree of confrontation with imperialism coupled with industrial development but reproduced the colonial mode of accumulation internally. This article sheds light on the contradictions that followed, including the military regime installed in 1964 and the neo-colonial transition in the 1990s, under finance capital. In light of the bourgeoisie’s shifting alliances at the expense of the sovereign aspirations of the working people, an interclass alliance has become impossible. Only a truly popular political project is capable of liberating the nation and that is the only one the Communists should espouse.

Micro-PIXE imaging of the rib bones of rats

The ribs are bones that constitute the ribcage and consist of three regions: cartilage, costochondral junction with growth plate structures, and hard bone. In this study, frozen sections of rat ribs were prepared, and the distributions of calcium (Ca), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), and sulfur (S) were examined using particle-induced X-ray emission with microprobe (micro-PIXE) analysis. Areas with high Ca and P accumulation were observed in the interior of the rib cartilage. Histograms comparing the Ca accumulation in the three rib regions showed that the mode of accumulation of Ca in the cartilage are similar to that of the costochondral junction but distinct from that of the hard bone. The cartilage section did not possess an alkaline phosphatase-concentrated area that reflects the hard bone mineralization and is enriched in the costochondral junction. These data indicate differences in the mineralization process between cartilage and hard bones.

Plant-soil relations of selenium, molybdenum and vanadium in the Richmond District of Central Queensland, Australia

Abstract Background and aims The Richmond District of Queensland (Australia) hosts seleniferous soils and is the habitat of selenium (Se) hyperaccumulator plants. These soils are also naturally enriched in vanadium (V) and molybdenum (Mo). This study aimed to survey soils and plants of the Richmond area with a focus on the Se hyperaccumulator Neptunia amplexicaulis. Methods Field collection of plant specimens and soils from the seleniferous outcrops of the Richmond District (including the Julia Creek area) was undertaken and the samples were analyzed for Se, V, Mo and other elements. Results The results show that three modes of Se accumulation can be observed with most plant species having from ~10 μg Se g−1 up to 70 μg Se g−1 in shoots, some having between 75 and 250 μg Se g−1 in shoots while both N. amplexicaulis and Acacia tephrina contained 450–700 μg Se g−1 in their shoots. There was high Se accumulation in the phyllode tips of A. tephrina. Previously unrecorded populations of N. amplexicaulis were discovered near Julia Creek. Selenium concentrations in soil are lower than historically reported from similar localities (up to 23.2 mg Se kg−1). Molybdenum concentrations between 213 and 329 μg Mo g−1 occurred in the two Se hyperaccumulators N. amplexicaulis and A. tephrina, whilst Salsola australis had the highest accumulation of V (31–66 μg V g−1). Conclusions The results suggest that the Toolebuc Formation is the source of Se in the region, but temporal variability alters how much Se is bioavailable to plants. The presence of high Mo in plant tissues is linked to Se hyperaccumulation, and V accumulation appears to have little impact on plant ecology.

Study on the electrical-thermal properties of lithium-ion battery materials in the NCM622/graphite system.

The phenomenon of fire or even explosion caused by thermal runaway of lithium-ion power batteries poses a serious threat to the safety of electric vehicles. An in-depth study of the core-material thermal runaway reaction mechanism and reaction chain is a prerequisite for proposing a mechanism to prevent battery thermal runaway and enhance battery safety. In this study, based on a 24 Ah commercial Li(Ni0.6Co0.2Mn0.2)O2/graphite soft pack battery, the heat production characteristics of different state of charge (SOC) cathode and anode materials, the separator, the electrolyte, and their combinations of the battery were investigated using differential scanning calorimetry. The results show that the reaction between the negative electrode and the electrolyte is the main mode of heat accumulation in the early stage of thermal runaway, and when the heat accumulation causes the temperature to reach a certain critical value, the violent reaction between the positive electrode and the electrolyte is triggered. The extent and timing of the heat production behaviour of the battery host material is closely related to the SOC, and with limited electrolyte content, there is a competitive relationship between the positive and negative electrodes and the electrolyte reaction, leading to different SOC batteries exhibiting different heat production characteristics. In addition, the above findings are correlated with the battery failure mechanisms through heating experiments of the battery monomer. The study of the electro-thermal properties of the main materials in this paper provides a strategy for achieving early warning and suppression of thermal runaway in batteries.

Urban social movements as extended class actors: struggles over reproduction in Buenos Aires, New York City and Hamburg

Along with a resurgence in urban social movements (USMs) since the Global Financial Crisis in 2007–08 has come renewed interest in what form(s) of social struggle these movements represent. This is because USMs cannot be straightforwardly explained by the contradiction between capital and labour, as they happened outside the workplace. With the aim of conceptualising USMs, a comparative and empirical case study was conducted on urban development and protest in New York City, Buenos Aires and Hamburg. Approaches ranging from spatial theory to urban sociology and political economy informed the theoretical framework. The study was empirically based on 47 interviews with activists, as well as the observation of participants at protest events and document analysis (both of publications by urban protest initiatives and urban development statistics). Emerging similarities regarding the relational and cognitive structures of investigated protests suggest that contemporary USMs are collective actors counteracting urban dispossession and are thus linked to the capitalist mode of accumulation. Therefore, the article argues for an understanding of USMs as extended class struggles over social reproduction in the city. This terminology is intended not only to highlight that USMs are expressions of the crisis of social reproduction in cities, but also to categorise the characteristic features of USMs – which represent struggles for the use value of a city. USMs can, moreover, contribute to social change, especially if they are able to provide alternative means of social reproduction through the appropriation of urban space.

Imperialism, Ecological Imperialism, and Green Imperialism: An Overview

Abstract This article aims to explore the relationship between imperialism and political ecology, the identifying characteristics of the historical development of ecological imperialism, and the ecosocial implications of its cosmetic adaptation—namely, green imperialism—in a context of growing threat and biophysical concern. We first provide a succinct updated definition of imperialism based on world-systems analysis, which serves to understand imperialism as the system of economic domination of global capitalism, placing countries at the core of the system at one pole of extraction of labor, energy, and material resources, and those at the periphery at the opposite pole of supply. This hierarchization helps to understand ecological imperialism as a series of externalizations that the core tends to implement globally, transforming the periphery into a drain for these externalizations. As part of it, green imperialism appears as a new mode of accumulation aimed at preserving the imperial mode of living in the core legitimized by supposedly environmentally beneficial policies and discourses. We conclude by addressing the need for a fruitful dialogue between the critiques of ecologically unequal exchange and the radical positions of contemporary degrowth in order to reduce the most harmful productive sectors and favor a socially just transition and development in the Global South.

Transnational Queer Materialism

The introduction to this special issue takes up the narrations and values produced by the travels of words like queer of color, race, and racial capitalism to both comobilize and retheorize queer of color critique and the content and contours of global racial capitalism. With and beyond the story of US empire and the transatlantic slave trade—from peripheral European engagements with Africa to the circulation of caste in Africa via Indian Ocean worlds—in this special issue the authors examine some of the histories and present modes of capitalist accumulation that are relevant to telling global stories of race and capitalism. A queer/trans lens keeps the authors’ attention trained as well on the arrangements and estrangements of the sex/gender systems that power such narratives of race and capitalism. So positioned, the authors enter ongoing debates on the geopolitics of queer studies, the import of queer materialism, and theorizations of racial capitalism by asking (1) What is the “racial” of racial capitalism?, and (2) What is the “of color” in queer/trans of color critique? The questions form a method for thinking global racial capitalism and queer/trans of color study together—what the authors call transnational queer materialism.

Roundtable: Queer/Trans of Color Transits and the Imaginaries of Racial Capitalism

In this roundtable, scholars respond to the following guiding questions of the special issue: Racial capitalism in US scholarship is necessarily and rightfully narrated through the Transatlantic slave trade. While this is a globally relevant history for understanding the past and the present of transnational racial orders, what other histories and present modes of capitalist accumulation are relevant to telling a global history of racial capitalism? How do queer hermeneutics reckon with global and transnational histories of social differentiation that ground in other or additional intellectual traditions of what we might expansively call “race”? How would queer of color critique as an analytic be useful to question the very making of abject and abnormal bodies, the structures of knowledge and regimes of truth that produce them, and the political economies that necessitate them? To what extent does positioning queer and trans of color critique as methods objects and subjects, “beyond identity politics,” or even “the Human,” alleviate or otherwise reconfigure these issues?

SUPER-APPIFICATION: CONGLOMERATION IN THE MOBILE ECOSYSTEM

“Super apps” are on the rise and gaining popularity worldwide, especially in Southeast Asia, India and Africa. These are “do-everything apps” that offer a wide range of services in a single interface, making them more integrated into people's lives. Super apps thus highlight the organisation, political economy and geopolitics of the platformisation process in the app economy. While most studies on super apps focus on Chinese and Southeast Asian apps, this paper examines super apps from around the world to better understand and discuss the phenomenon. Specifically, it examines and discusses (1) what “super apps” are, (2) by whom they were developed, (3) when they were created or how they evolved over time, and (4) where—in which countries or regions or parts of the world—they emerged. We provide a typology of super-app constellations based on the different characteristics identified in a global collection of 40 super-apps. We discuss the local or regional differences between apps, their historical emergence, modes of capital accumulation and the challenges and implications arising from them for critical research. The rise of super-apps and their integration into people's daily lives in general invites us to delve deeper into the relatedness and situatedness of apps, and focus in particular on the unique conglomeration processes currently taking place in the mobile ecosystem.

Endogenous growth and human capital accumulation in a data economy

We build an endogenous growth model featuring a new mode of human capital accumulation in a data economy. Data are generated as the byproducts of economic activities and then used by consumers for human capital accumulation apart from education. Although we find similar growth patterns compared with those in the related literature, economic growth is further accelerated by the new use of data factor. Quantitative analyses suggest that although the accumulation of human capital is promoted by the increasing importance of data, this promotion is not unlimited since data may over-absorb resources and crowd out education. In the transition dynamics, we see that consumers suffer temporary welfare loss. However, as data become a key factor in human capital accumulation, welfare ultimately increases. Our paper provides a first view of the effect of the data factor in the process of human capital accumulation.

Pharmacokinetic Parameters of Recombinant Human Cyclophilin A in Mice.

Cyclophilin A (CypA) is an isomerase that functions as a chaperone, housekeeping protein, and cyclosporine A (CsA) ligand. Secreted CypA is a proinflammatory factor, chemoattractant, immune regulator, and factor of antitumor immunity. Experimental data suggest clinical applications of recombinant human CypA (rhCypA) as a biotherapeutic for cancer immunotherapy, stimulation of tissue regeneration, treatment of brain pathologies, and as a supportive treatment for CsA-based therapies. The objective of this study is to analyze the pharmacokinetics of rhCypA in a mouse model. rhCypA was isotope-labeled with 125I and injected intraperitoneally (i.p.) or subcutaneously (s/c) into female mice as a single dose of 100μg per mouse, equivalent to the estimated first-in-human dose. Analysis of 125I-rhCypA biodistribution and excretion was performed by direct radiometry of the blood, viscera, and urine of mice 0.5-72h following its administration. rhCypA showed rapid and even tissue-organ distribution, with the highest tropism (fT=1.56) and accumulation (maximum concentration,Cmax=137-167μg/g) in the kidneys, its primary excretory organ. rhCypA showed the lowest tropism to the bone marrow and the brain (fT = 0.07) but the longest retention in these organs [mean retention time (MRT)=25-28h]. This study identified promising target organs for rhCypA's potential therapeutic effects. The mode of rhCypA accumulation and retention in organs could be primarily due to the expression of its receptors in them. For the first time, rhCypA was shown to cross the blood-brain barrier and accumulate in the brain. These rhCypA pharmacokinetic data could be extrapolated to humans as preliminary data for possible clinical trials.

Technologies of a humble natural resource: The sand mining industry and marginal value in Bombay/Mumbai, 1920-2020

ABSTRACT Like many other natural resources, sand has become integral to technologies that symbolize modernity and development, but that depend upon an imperative of low cost. In India, sand began to be commoditized in the early twentieth century as an input in a powerful new building technology, reinforced cement concrete (RCC). With the expansion of cities and major infrastructure projects since independence and especially since the 1990s, sand mining has nonetheless remained characterized by small-scale enterprises and small technologies; it is also controlled by regional powerholders who operate on the legal margins, widely referred to as ‘sand mafias’. This article draws upon archival and ethnographic research on sand mining for construction in the city region of Bombay/Mumbai to show that the sand mining industry there has effectively come to operate over time through various methods of drawing marginal value from devalued labour techniques and delegitimized or tactical modes of operation. These destructive-productive activities, at a broad level, constitute micro-practices of contemporary capitalism (modes of flexible accumulation) on a resource frontier. But equally, for many of the people involved in them, their value lies in their unpredictable excesses and terrains of resource-making that likewise buoy changes in the technological assemblage.

China, colonialism, neocolonialism and globalised modes of accumulation

ABSTRACT The idea that China is the supreme overseas capital accumulator is part of a discourse of China as colonialist or neocolonialist. The discourse exists not because Chinese behaviour aligns with scholarly understandings of colonialism or neocolonialism, but as a rhetorical device to discredit China as the US’s ‘strategic rival’. In this paper we show that China does not practice colonialism or neocolonialism and examine the question of how China’s activities fit into modes of globalised capital accumulation abroad. We argue that China’s mode overlaps, but is also distinct from, the East Asian developmental states’ approach. It is even more dissimilar to the US’s archetypal neoliberalism. Two areas in which China most diverges are its deployment of state-owned enterprises and Communist Party of China leadership, and the concomitant alignment of Chinese firms overseas with home and host-state policies. In analysing Chinese capital accumulation abroad, we adumbrate a Chinese mode that reflects ‘two semis’: China’s semi-peripheral status and its semi-neoliberalism.

Investigating the prognostic value of constructing disulfidptosis-related gene models for lung adenocarcinoma patients.

Disulfidptosis is a novel mode of cell death, a programmed mode of intracellular disulfide accumulation due to solute carrier family 7 member 11 (SLC7A11)-mediated abnormalities in the cell membrane cystine transport system. Numerous studies have confirmed the prominent role played by SLC7A11 in tumors, but the involvement of SLC7A11 as an important mediator of disulfidptosis in the death process of lung adenocarcinoma cells remains unclear. We obtained 4,107 SLC7A11-related genes and analyzed them using a total of 1,040 lung adenocarcinoma transcriptome sequencing data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) cohort and GEO (Gene Expression Omnibus) cohort and 991 relevant clinical data. First, we screened for differential genes and identified molecular subtypes for assessing characteristic differences between lung adenocarcinoma subtypes under the influence of SLC7A11-associated genes. Then, risk score models were constructed to assess the prognosis, immune infiltration, tumor microenvironment, and drug treatment effects in lung adenocarcinoma patients. Finally, we also analyzed the distribution of cell types and expression of characteristic genes within the tumor using a single-cell database. In addition, relevant drug sensitivities were predicted. We screened 956 genes with significant differences and identified 2 molecular subtypes and found significant differences in their prognosis and that subtype B had a significantly better survival prognosis than subtype A. In addition, we found that pathways associated with cell proliferation division and DNA repair were enriched in the high-risk type A samples. Finally, we constructed a robust risk-scoring system, and our risk analysis revealed a general reduction of various immune cell components and tumor stromal components in the immune microenvironment of high-risk lung adenocarcinoma and a distinct immune infiltration pattern of immune cells, which was associated with a lower survival rate. Our comprehensive analysis of SLC7A11-related genes suggests that disulfidptosis has a potential value in the tumor microenvironment, immunity, clinical outcome, and prognosis of lung adenocarcinoma. These findings may increase our understanding of disulfidptosis as a novel cell death paradigm and provide ideas for assessing the prognosis of lung adenocarcinoma and developing new diagnostic and therapeutic strategies.

TWO STAGE PLASMA SOURCE FOR LARGE SCALE BEAM GENERATION

The operation of a cylindrical plasma accelerator with an anode layer in the mode of ion space charge accumulation and the use of an ion flow accelerated by a space charge is investigated. In particular, the presence of highvoltage and diffusion modes with the formation of a secondary flow has been established. The output plasma flow current can reach 70% of the discharge current on the anode layer. The relationship between the connection scheme of the additional independent cathode and the plasma source parameters is shown.