The Commodities Fetish? Financialisation and Finance Capital in the US Oil Industry

This article explores the financialisation of the world’s most important commodity, oil. It argues that much of the literature on the financialisation of commodities tends to adopt a dualistic approach to financial markets and physical producers, where financial and non-financial activities are assumed to be externally-related and counterposed to one another. The article locates the roots of this analytical separation in a mistaken acceptance of the fetish character of interest-bearing capital (IBC) – a view that the exchange of loanable sums of capital represents a relationship between money-capitalists rather than a relationship to the moment of production. Against such dichotomous readings, the article argues that the financialisation of oil needs to be understood as part of the reworking of ownership and control across the oil commodity circuit, expressed through the combined centralisation and concentration of capital over the money, productive and commercial moments. This argument is demonstrated through an original empirical investigation of the US oil industry, including 20 years of weekly trading data on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and a detailed study of more than 160 oil and energy-related firms in the US. By mapping the structural weight and connections between different capitalist actors involved in accumulation across the oil sector, we gain a better understanding of the ultimate dynamics (and beneficiaries) of the carbon economy.

Methods for simultaneous determination of legacy and insensitive munition (IM) constituents in aqueous, soil/sediment, and tissue matrices

Currently, no standard method exists for analyzing insensitive munition (IM) compounds in environmental matrices, with or without concurrent legacy munition compounds, resulting in potentially inaccurate determinations. The primary objective of this work was to develop new methods of extraction, pre-concentration, and analytical separation/quantitation of 17 legacy munition compounds along with several additional IM compounds, IM breakdown products, and other munition compounds that are not currently included in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Method 8330B. Analytical methods were developed to enable sensitive, simultaneous detection and quantitation of the 24 IM and legacy compounds, including two orthogonal high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) column separations with either ultraviolet (UV) or mass spectrometric (MS) detection. Procedures were developed for simultaneous extraction of all 24 analytes and two surrogates (1,2-dinitrobenzene, 1,2-DNB; o-NBA) from high- and low-level aqueous matrices and solid matrices, using acidification, solid phase extraction (SPE), or solvent extraction (SE), respectively. The majority of compounds were recovered from four tissue types within current limits for solids, with generally low recovery only for Tetryl (from 4 to 62%). A preparatory chromatographic interference removal procedure was adapted for tissue extracts, as various analytical interferences were observed for all studied tissue types.

Analytical Separation of Carcinogenic and Genotoxic Alkenylbenzenes in Foods and Related Products (2010–2020)

Alkenylbenzenes are potentially toxic (genotoxic and carcinogenic) compounds present in plants such as basil, tarragon, anise star and lemongrass. These plants are found in various edible consumer products, e.g., popularly used to flavour food. Thus, there are concerns about the possible health consequences upon increased exposure to alkenylbenzenes especially due to food intake. It is therefore important to constantly monitor the amounts of alkenylbenzenes in our food chain. A major challenge in the determination of alkenylbenzenes in foods is the complexity of the sample matrices and the typically low amounts of alkenylbenzenes present. This review will therefore discuss the background and importance of analytical separation methods from papers reported from 2010 to 2020 for the determination of alkenylbenzenes in foods and related products. The separation techniques commonly used were gas and liquid chromatography (LC). The sample preparation techniques used in conjunction with the separation techniques were various variants of extraction (solvent extraction, liquid-liquid extraction, liquid-phase microextraction, solid phase extraction) and distillation (steam and hydro-). Detection was by flame ionisation and mass spectrometry (MS) in gas chromatography (GC) while in liquid chromatography was mainly by spectrophotometry.

Metabolomics Technologies for the Identification and Quantification of Dietary Phenolic Compound Metabolites: An Overview

In the search for natural products with properties that may protect against or slow down chronic and degenerative diseases (e.g., cancer, and cardiovascular and neurodegenerative conditions), phenolic compounds (PC) with benefits for human health have been identified. The biological effects of PC in vivo depend on their bioavailability, intestinal absorption, metabolism, and interaction with target tissues. The identification of phenolic compounds metabolites (PCM), in biological samples, after food ingestion rich in PC is a first step to understand the overall effect on human health. However, their wide range of physicochemical properties, levels of abundance, and lack of reference standards, renders its identification and quantification a challenging task for existing analytical platforms. The most frequent approaches to metabolomics analysis combine mass spectrometry and NMR, parallel technologies that provide an overview of the metabolome and high-power compound elucidation. In this scenario, the aim of this review is to summarize the pre-analytical separation processes for plasma and urine samples and the technologies applied in quantitative and qualitative analysis of PCM. Additionally, a comparison of targeted and non-targeted approaches is presented, not available in previous reviews, which may be useful for future metabolomics studies of PCM.

RETORYKA EKSPRESYWNEJ EGZEMPLIFIKACJI W JĘZYKACH TYPOLOGICZNIE ODLEGŁYCH – NA PRZYKŁADZIE WYBRANYCH WYPOWIEDZI POLSKICH ORAZ JAPOŃSKICH

A confrontative analysis of distant natural languages proves fully useful in terms of cognition when, as a result, formal differences in statement/utterance structures arising from typological dissimilarities, yet disclosing universal communication strategies, can be noticed. This refers also to the colloquial rhetoric, which is illustrated by this attempt at comparing the strategy of expressive exemplifi cation combined with the mechanism of negation in Polish and Japanese. Usages of the Polish negative pronoun żaden (no, none) are compared here based on an extensive corpus of colloquial sentences to the corresponding Japanese exemplifi cation structure based on the use of the form nanka, which, in turn, permits the observation of characteristic shifts in the hierarchy of the exponents of the former and the latter semantic function mentioned here. The synthetic nature of the Polish structure places the negation higher in the hierarchy, thus prevailing over the meaning of the exemplifi cation, while in the Japanese language the analytical separation of both meanings places the exemplifi cation and the negation at an equal level as part of the separately shaped thematic-rhematic segmentation of statements/utterances.

Development and validation of a rapid selective high-throughput LC-MS/MS method for the determination of triclabendazole sulfoxide concentrations in sheep plasma and its use in bioequivalence studies

Triclabendazole is one of the main drugs used to treat liver fluke in livestock. A rapid LC-MS/MS method was developed and validated to determine ovine plasma levels of triclabendazole sulfoxide.A Gemini NX-C18 column was used to achieve analytical separation, with gradient elution of a mobile phase composed of 0.1% formic acid in acetonitril and 0.1% formic acid in water at flow rate of 0.6 mL/min. MRM with positive ESI ionization was used for the detection of triclabendazole sulfoxide (m/z 360.10 from m/z 376.97). Fenbendazole was used as internal standard. Plasma protein precipitation with acetonitrile was used for sample processing.The method was validated with regards to selectivity, linearity (r > 0.9939), within run and between run precision (CV < 8.9%) and accuracy (bias < 8.9%) over the concentration range 1–100 µg/mL plasma.The method developed is simple, selective and can be applied in bioequivalence and bioavailability studies.

Ion Mobility–Mass Spectrometry for Bioanalysis

This paper aims to cover the main strategies based on ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) for the analysis of biological samples. The determination of endogenous and exogenous compounds in such samples is important for the understanding of the health status of individuals. For this reason, the development of new approaches that can be complementary to the ones already established (mainly based on liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry) is welcomed. In this regard, ion mobility spectrometry has appeared in the analytical scenario as a powerful technique for the separation and characterization of compounds based on their mobility. IMS has been used in several areas taking advantage of its orthogonality with other analytical separation techniques, such as liquid chromatography, gas chromatography, capillary electrophoresis, or supercritical fluid chromatography. Bioanalysis is not one of the areas where IMS has been more extensively applied. However, over the last years, the interest in using this approach for the analysis of biological samples has clearly increased. This paper introduces the reader to the principles controlling the separation in IMS and reviews recent applications using this technique in the field of bioanalysis.

Research Progress on Synthesis and Application of Cyclodextrin Polymers

Cyclodextrins (CDs) are a series of cyclic oligosaccharides formed by amylose under the action of CD glucosyltransferase that is produced by Bacillus. After being modified by polymerization, substitution and grafting, high molecular weight cyclodextrin polymers (pCDs) containing multiple CD units can be obtained. pCDs retain the internal hydrophobic-external hydrophilic cavity structure characteristic of CDs, while also possessing the stability of polymer. They are a class of functional polymer materials with strong development potential and have been applied in many fields. This review introduces the research progress of pCDs, including the synthesis of pCDs and their applications in analytical separation science, materials science, and biomedicine.