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"Copper Economic aspects."
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Expectations of modernity
Once lauded as the wave of the African future, Zambia's economic boom in the 1960s and early 1970s was fueled by the export of copper and other primary materials. Since the mid-1970s, however, the urban economy has rapidly deteriorated, leaving workers scrambling to get by. Expectations of Modernity explores the social and cultural responses to this prolonged period of sharp economic decline. Focusing on the experiences of mineworkers in the Copperbelt region, James Ferguson traces the failure of standard narratives of urbanization and social change to make sense of the Copperbelt's recent history. He instead develops alternative analytic tools appropriate for an \"ethnography of decline.\" Ferguson shows how the Zambian copper workers understand their own experience of social, cultural, and economic \"advance\" and \"decline.\" Ferguson's ethnographic study transports us into their lives—the dynamics of their relations with family and friends, as well as copper companies and government agencies. Theoretically sophisticated and vividly written, Expectations of Modernity will appeal not only to those interested in Africa today, but to anyone contemplating the illusory successes of today's globalizing economy.
eBook
The war below : lithium, copper, and the global battle to power our lives
Tough choices loom if the world wants to go green. The United States and other countries must decide where and how to procure the materials that make our renewable energy economy possible. To build electric vehicles, solar panels, cell phones, and millions of other devices means the world must dig more mines to extract lithium, copper, cobalt, rare earths, and nickel. But mines are deeply unpopular, even as they have a role to play in fighting climate change. These tensions have sparked a worldwide reckoning over the sourcing of these critical minerals, and no one understands the complexities of these issues better than Ernest Scheyder, whose exclusive access has allowed him to report from the front lines on the key players in this global battle to power our future.
Book
Copper microenvironments in the human body define patterns of copper adaptation in pathogenic bacteria
Copper is an essential micronutrient for most organisms that is required as a cofactor for crucial copper-dependent enzymes encoded by both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Evidence accumulated over several decades has shown that copper plays important roles in the function of the mammalian immune system. Copper accumulates at sites of infection, including the gastrointestinal and respiratory tracts and in blood and urine, and its antibacterial toxicity is directly leveraged by phagocytic cells to kill pathogens. Copper-deficient animals are more susceptible to infection, whereas those fed copper-rich diets are more resistant. As a result, copper resistance genes are important virulence factors for bacterial pathogens, enabling them to detoxify the copper insult while maintaining copper supply to their essential cuproenzymes. Here, we describe the accumulated evidence for the varied roles of copper in the mammalian response to infections, demonstrating that this metal has numerous direct and indirect effects on immune function. We further illustrate the multifaceted response of pathogenic bacteria to the elevated copper concentrations that they experience when invading the host, describing both conserved and species-specific adaptations to copper toxicity. Together, these observations demonstrate the roles of copper at the host–pathogen interface and illustrate why bacterial copper detoxification systems can be viable targets for the future development of novel antibiotic drug development programs.
Journal Article
Mitochondrial copper depletion suppresses triple-negative breast cancer in mice
Depletion of mitochondrial copper, which shifts metabolism from respiration to glycolysis and reduces energy production, is known to be effective against cancer types that depend on oxidative phosphorylation. However, existing copper chelators are too toxic or ineffective for cancer treatment. Here we develop a safe, mitochondria-targeted, copper-depleting nanoparticle (CDN) and test it against triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). We show that CDNs decrease oxygen consumption and oxidative phosphorylation, cause a metabolic switch to glycolysis and reduce ATP production in TNBC cells. This energy deficiency, together with compromised mitochondrial membrane potential and elevated oxidative stress, results in apoptosis. CDNs should be less toxic than existing copper chelators because they favorably deprive copper in the mitochondria in cancer cells instead of systemic depletion. Indeed, we demonstrate low toxicity of CDNs in healthy mice. In three mouse models of TNBC, CDN administration inhibits tumor growth and substantially improves survival. The efficacy and safety of CDNs suggest the potential clinical relevance of this approach.
Triple-negative breast cancer is inhibited by depleting mitochondrial copper in mice.
Journal Article
An Economic Evaluation of the Health and Agricultural Damages Caused by Copper Mining in Chile
This study assesses the environmental damage caused by copper mining on surface water bodies in Chile. The few official records on the discharges and concentrations of arsenic and copper only allow for identifying the impacts of some mining operations in the regions of Coquimbo, Valparaíso, and O’Higgins. The economic valuation is carried out through the impact pathway approach, which relates copper production, discharges, concentrations, and dose-response coefficients to establish effects on health and agriculture. The results show that the economic damage due to water pollution occurs mainly in the regions of Coquimbo and O’Higgins. The above is explained because the greatest externalities are generated in agricultural areas, while the damage to health is low because of the small population exposed (97.6% versus 2.4%). Finally, total damages represent 0.43%, 0.26%, and 0.0001% of copper sales in the mining operations analyzed in the regions of Coquimbo, O’Higgins, and Valparaíso, respectively. Este estudio tiene como objetivo evaluar el daño ambiental provocado por la minería del cobre sobre cuerpos de agua superficiales en Chile. Los pocos registros oficiales sobre las descargas y concentraciones de arsénico y cobre solo permiten identificar los impactos de algunas operaciones mineras en las regiones de Coquimbo, Valparaíso y O’Higgins. La valoración económica se realiza a través del método de la función de daño, la cual relaciona la producción de cobre, descargas, concentraciones y coeficientes de dosis-respuesta para establecer los efectos sobre la salud y agricultura. Los resultados muestran que el daño económico por la contaminación del agua ocurre principalmente en las regiones de Coquimbo y O’Higgins. Lo anterior, se explica porque las mayores externalidades se producen en las zonas agrícolas, mientras que el daño a la salud es bajo por la escasa población expuesta (97,6% versus 2,4%). Finalmente, los daños totales representan respectivamente el 0,43%, 0,26% y 0,0001% de las ventas de cobre en las operaciones mineras analizadas en las regiones de Coquimbo, O’Higgins y Valparaíso.
Journal Article
Atp7b-dependent choroid plexus dysfunction causes transient copper deficit and metabolic changes in the developing mouse brain
Copper (Cu) has a multifaceted role in brain development, function, and metabolism. Two homologous Cu transporters, Atp7a (Menkes disease protein) and Atp7b (Wilson disease protein), maintain Cu homeostasis in the tissue. Atp7a mediates Cu entry into the brain and activates Cu-dependent enzymes, whereas the role of Atp7b is less clear. We show that during postnatal development Atp7b is necessary for normal morphology and function of choroid plexus (ChPl). Inactivation of Atp7b causes reorganization of ChPl’ cytoskeleton and cell-cell contacts, loss of Slc31a1 from the apical membrane, and a decrease in the length and number of microvilli and cilia. In ChPl lacking Atp7b, Atp7a is upregulated but remains intracellular, which limits Cu transport into the brain and results in significant Cu deficit, which is reversed only in older animals. Cu deficiency is associated with down-regulation of Atp7a in locus coeruleus and catecholamine imbalance, despite normal expression of dopamine-β-hydroxylase. In addition, there are notable changes in the brain lipidome, which can be attributed to inhibition of diacylglyceride-to-phosphatidylethanolamine conversion. These results identify the new role for Atp7b in developing brain and identify metabolic changes that could be exacerbated by Cu chelation therapy.
Journal Article
Identifying price bubbles in copper market: Evidence from a GSADF test approach
This paper uses the test proposed by Generalized Supremum Augmented Dickey-Fuller to identify whether there are multiple bubbles in copper price. The empirical results show that base on market fundamentals, there are seven bubbles existed from January 1980 to March 2023. Through analyses, the first two bubbles can be explained by the demand from Japan by the industry concentration and persistent supply constraint. The third to sixth bubbles are mainly negatively impacted by the global financial crisis and growing demand of China. The last bubble is caused by the economic recovery from Covid-19. The logit regression has stated that aluminum price, copper production, all metals index and GDP have a positive impact on copper bubbles, while China’s copper imports and precious metals price negatively explains copper bubbles. The main contributions are the investigation of the copper price bubbles, its determinants and the different technique of GSADF to detect copper price bubbles. Furthermore, it provides helpful information for those investors to make reasonable investment decisions and thus, avoid potential price risk.
Journal Article
Designing a resilient and sustainable closed-loop supply chain network in copper industry
Due to industrialization, copper demand has increased over the last decades. Recycling rate of copper is high and its scrap requires less energy than primary production, so sustainable closed-loop supply chain network design is considered a primary decision. Besides, the uneven distribution of copper has exaggerated the destructive effects of natural disasters such as earthquakes on mines. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no research about copper supply chain network design. In this paper, a copper network is designed and backup suppliers are used as a resilience strategy to reduce the effects of earthquakes on mining operations. Without backup model and with backup model are presented as multi-objective and are compared with each other. In each model, the economic objective is to maximize the supply chain profit; the environmental objective is to minimize water consumption and air pollutants; and the social objective is to maximize social desirability by considering security and unemployment rates. The models are formulated using mixed-integer linear programming and they are solved by ε-constraint and weighted sum methods. Results show that, with backup model increases the supply chain responsiveness. Also, the model is able to improve the economic and social performances of the supply chain. But in environmental aspect, it performs worse than without backup model. This is because the backup suppliers are added to the supply chain and their exploitation will create negative environmental effects. In addition, using copper scraps saves costs, energy and the consumption of this non-renewable metal.
Journal Article