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The identity of active sites for redox reactions within vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) isstill controversial despite decades of research into the matter. Here, we use density functional theory to examine the premise of selected surface functional groups as active sites and provide mechanistic insights into the reaction pathway for the positive electrode reaction. The adsorption of electroactive species on phenol and carbene‐like edge carbon sites was compared using model aromatic clusters. Phenol groups were not favorable sites for the chemisorption of VO2+ in either V‐down or O‐down approach In contrast, carbene‐like edge carbon sites readily adsorbed VO2+ via an oxygen‐down approach, mimicking gas‐phase CO2 adsorption mechanisms. Subsequent steps to complete the reaction pathway are a series of proton adsorptions and reaction products desorption. The rate‐determining step for a reaction pathway using an edge site is VO2+ desorption step with a Gibbs energy of activation of +84 kcal mol−1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cachexia syndrome develops in patients with diseases such as cancer and sepsis and is characterized by progressive muscle wasting. While iNOS is one of the main effectors of cachexia, its mechanism of action and whether it could be targeted for therapy remains unexplored. Here, we show that iNOS knockout mice and mice treated with the clinically tested iNOS inhibitor GW274150 are protected against muscle wasting in models of both septic and cancer cachexia. We demonstrate that iNOS triggers muscle wasting by disrupting mitochondrial content, morphology, and energy production processes such as the TCA cycle and acylcarnitine transport. Notably, iNOS inhibits oxidative phosphorylation through impairment of complexes II and IV of the electron transport chain and reduces ATP production, leading to energetic stress, activation of AMPK, suppression of mTOR, and, ultimately, muscle atrophy. Importantly, all these effects were reversed by GW274150. Therefore, our data establish how iNOS induces muscle wasting under cachectic conditions and provide a proof of principle for the repurposing of iNOS inhibitors, such as GW274150 for the treatment of cachexia. Synopsis: Cachexia is a condition marked by severe skeletal muscle atrophy in patients affected by diseases such as cancer or sepsis. The inflammation‐induced factor inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) was found to promote muscle wasting by causing mitochondrial dysfunction and energetic stress. In an LPS‐induced model of septic cachexia, muscle wasting was prevented by iNOS impairment through genetic knockout or use of the pharmacological inhibitor GW274150.Muscle wasting was prevented by GW274150 in the C26 adenocarcinoma‐induced model of cancer cachexia.Metabolic processes, including glycolysis, the TCA cycle, acylcarnitine metabolism, and oxidative phosphorylation were dysregulated by iNOS.Cachexia‐induced loss of mitochondrial structure and content in skeletal muscle was prevented by iNOS inhibition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Activation of AMPK has been associated with pro‐atrophic signaling in muscle. However, AMPK also has anti‐inflammatory effects, suggesting that in cachexia, a syndrome of inflammatory‐driven muscle wasting, AMPK activation could be beneficial. Here we show that the AMPK agonist AICAR suppresses IFNγ/TNFα‐induced atrophy, while the mitochondrial inhibitor metformin does not. IFNγ/TNFα impair mitochondrial oxidative respiration in myotubes and promote a metabolic shift to aerobic glycolysis, similarly to metformin. In contrast, AICAR partially restored metabolic function. The effects of AICAR were prevented by the AMPK inhibitor Compound C and were reproduced with A‐769662, a specific AMPK activator. AICAR and A‐769662 co‐treatment was found to be synergistic, suggesting that the anti‐cachectic effects of these drugs are mediated through AMPK activation. AICAR spared muscle mass in mouse models of cancer and LPS induced atrophy. Together, our findings suggest a dual function for AMPK during inflammation‐driven atrophy, wherein it can play a protective role when activated exogenously early in disease progression, but may contribute to anabolic suppression and atrophy when activated later through mitochondrial dysfunction and subsequent metabolic stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cachexia is a debilitating syndrome characterized by involuntary muscle wasting that is triggered at the late stage of many cancers. While the multifactorial nature of this syndrome and the implication of cytokines such as IL-6, IFNγ, and TNFα is well established, we still do not know how various effector pathways collaborate together to trigger muscle atrophy. Here, we show that IFNγ/ TNFα promotes the phosphorylation of STAT3 on Y705 residue in the cytoplasm of muscle fibers by activating JAK kinases. Unexpectedly, this effect occurs both in vitro and in vivo independently of IL-6, which is considered as one of the main triggers of STAT3-mediated muscle wasting. pY- STAT3 forms a complex with NF-κB that is rapidly imported to the nucleus where it is recruited to the promoter of the iNos gene to activate the iNOS/ NO pathway, a well-known downstream effector of IFNγ/ TNFα-induced muscle loss. Together, these findings show that STAT3 and NF-κB respond to the same upstream signal and cooperate to promote the expression of pro-cachectic genes, the identification of which could provide effective targets to combat this deadly syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper poses theoretical and empirical questions to the resurgent literature on primitive accumulation in critical political economy. The first section outlines the different understandings of capitalism, and of its relationship to primitive accumulation, in the literature, and argues that they complicate efforts to identify instances of primitive accumulation. The second section examines the history of frontier agricultural expansion in Southeast Asia to critique the literature's assumptions about who carries out, and who resists, primitive accumulation. The third section draws on work on Southeast Asian political economy to show that the literature pays insufficient attention to the institutions that govern capitalist social relations. The paper argues that these questions of agency, governance, and the nature of capitalism need to be answered in order to make effective use of the concept of primitive accumulation and to distinguish it from cognate concepts like enclosure and commodification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers observation on the addition of ten new member states or AC10 in the European Union (EU) on May 1, 2004. At a stroke 75 million people became new citizens of the EU, thereby swelling its total population to more than 430 million and its economy to €850 billion. Further enlargement is envisaged: Bulgaria and Romania are slated to accede in 2007, and negotiations have also begun with Croatia. In March 2004, tourism and EU enlargement was the topic of a panel discussion at the International Tourismus Börse exposition in Berlin, Germany. For the sake of simplicity in public relations, it may be necessary to present the AC10 states as a coherent, collective entity. In reality, of course, they are far from a homogeneous group. The concurrent existence of similarities and differences is also evident in terms of tourism products and offers, as well as the organisation and structure of demand and supply. An immediate impact for the AC10 is the introduction and growth of flights operated by budget airlines from west European markets. Profile and market positioning is a key consideration and requires careful, long-term management, particularly in central and eastern Europe. Social costs of tourism may arise from the promotion of foreign investment opportunities.

Although capitalism is now widely seen to be the world's only remaining form of political economy, most discussion of capitalism is vague regarding what it is and gives it little analytical importance. In this paper, I attempt to determine whether two more explicit conceptions of capitalism– those of Ellen Meiksins Wood and Hernando de Soto– can shed any light on the literature on rural smallholder commodity production in the Asia Pacific, and vice versa. I use the papers collected in this volume to analyse the relevance of‘market dependence’ (Wood) and the various‘mysteries of capital’ (de Soto) for agrarian relations in the Asia Pacific. The paper tries to point towards a definition of capitalism that distinguishes it from such related terms as commercialisation, markets, and globalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the large amount of academic attention that Southeast Asian shrimp farming has received since the 1980s, few attempts have been made to explain the remarkable variation in the industry's organization across countries and localities. This paper compares the development of shrimp farming in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand, arguing that differences can be traced to variations in the initial conditions under which shrimp farming was established, the different ways that national aquacultures are embedded in the regional political economy and the ways in which different countries have responded to the characteristic environmental problems the sector causes itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates current issues surrounding the role and development of rural tourism in southeastern Europe (SEE) (Romania, Bulgaria, Albania and much of former Yugoslavia), setting this within the wider context of change in post-communist central and eastern Europe (CEE). It examines local and global factors of development and change, particularly within the context of aspirations towards sustainability. The paper concludes that the impacts of EU membership — both of the 2004 enlargement, and later potentially for the countries of southeastern Europe themselves — is likely to be crucial in market and product development for rural tourism. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents topics discussed in the "Rural Tourism Management: Sustainable Options Conference" held in September 1998. Cultural tourism and rural heritage; Tourism in rural diversification; Rural sustainability for central and eastern Europe; Tourism in rural community building.

Despite significant increases in international tourist arrivals and tourism receipts since the fall of communism in central and eastern europe as a whole, in the rural southeastern corner of the continent, a region well-endowed with a range of natural and cultural tourism resources, instability and uncertainty have constrained international tourism development in the 1990s. This regional context for tourism development and the specific issues which surround a tourism-led development model in a small developing country are addressed with particular reference to the recent experience of Albania. As part of a sustainable rural development programme, rural tourism's role as a counterbalance to rejuvenated mass coastal tourism is evaluated. Potentially an important vehicle for cultural expression and employment regeneration, the adoption of rural tourism as a development vehicle is faced with a number of obstacles, which national, and perhaps international, development programmes need to address. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study which examined ways in which Albania and its changing fortunes have been represented through images derived from academic sources and popular media. Details on the three image components of the Balkans; English language literature on Albania; Conclusions.

Cachexia is a debilitating syndrome characterized by involuntary muscle wasting that is triggered at the late stage of many cancers. While the multifactorial nature of this syndrome and the implication of cytokines such as IL-6, IFNγ, and TNFα is well established, we still do not know how various effector pathways collaborate together to trigger muscle atrophy. Here, we show that IFNγ/TNFα promotes the phosphorylation of STAT3 on Y705 residue in the cytoplasm of muscle fibers by activating JAK kinases. Unexpectedly, this effect occurs both in vitro and in vivo independently of IL-6, which is considered as one of the main triggers of STAT3-mediated muscle wasting. pY-STAT3 forms a complex with NF-κB that is rapidly imported to the nucleus where it is recruited to the promoter of the iNos gene to activate the iNOS/NO pathway, a well-known downstream effector of IFNγ/TNFα-induced muscle loss. Together, these findings show that STAT3 and NF-κB respond to the same upstream signal and cooperate to promote the expression of pro-cachectic genes, the identification of which could provide effective targets to combat this deadly syndrome., (© 2017 The Authors. Published under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.)