Global warming, shortage of low-cost oil resources and the increasing demand for energy are currently controlling the world's economic expansion while often opposing desires for sustainable and peaceful development. In this context, atomic energy satisfactorily fulfills the criteria of low carbon gas production and high overall yield. However, in the absence of industrial fast-breeders the use of nuclear fuel is not optimal, and the production of high activity waste materials is at a maximum. These are the principal reasons for the development of a new, fourth generation of nuclear reactors, minimizing the undesirable side-effects of current nuclear energy production technology while increasing yields by increasing operation temperatures and opening the way for the industrial production of hydrogen through the decomposition of water. The construction and use of such reactors is hindered by several factors, including performance limitations of known structural materials, particularly if the life of the projected systems had to extend over the periods necessary to achieve low costs (at least 60 years). This book collects lectures and seminars presented at the homonymous NATO ASI held in autumn 2007 at the Institut d’Etudes Scientifiques in Cargèse, France. The adopted approach aims at improving and coordinating basic knowledge in materials science and engineering with specific areas of condensed matter physics, the physics of particle/matter interaction and of radiation damage. It is our belief that this methodology is crucially conditioning the development and the industrial production of new structural materials capable of coping with the requirements of these future reactors.

Personalized medicine employing patient-based tailor-made therapeutic drugs is taking over treatment paradigms in a variety of ?elds in oncology and the central nervous system. The success of such therapies is mainly dependent on ef?cacious therapeutic drugs and a selective imaging probe for identi?cation of potential responders as well as therapy monitoring for an early bene?t assessment. Molecular imaging (MI) is based on the selective and speci?c interaction of a molecular probe with a biological target which is visualized through nuclear, magnetic resonance, near infrared or other methods. Therefore it is the method of choice for patient selection and therapy monitoring as well as for speci?c e- point monitoring in modern drug development. PET (positron emitting tomography), a nuclear medical imaging modality, is ideally suited to produce three-dimensional images of various targets or processes. The rapidly increasing demand for highly selective probes for MI strongly pushes the development of new PET tracers and PET chemistry. ‘PET chemistry’ can be de?ned as the study of positron-emitting compounds regarding their synthesis, structure, composition, reactivity, nuclear properties and processes and their properties in natural and - natural environments. In practice PET chemistry is strongly in?uenced by the unique properties of the radioisotopes used (e. g. , half-life, che- cal reactivity, etc. ) and integrates scienti?c aspects of nuclear-, organic-, inorganic- and biochemistry.

This fully updated Second Edition focuses sharply on clinical PET-CT and SPECT-CT examinations, omitting lengthy physics discussions. The book is now strictly disease oriented and integrates PET-CT and SPECT-CT applications completely. When both techniques are relevant for a disease, they are discussed together; when only one is relevant, it is discussed alone. More than 1,200 illustrations are included. A bound-in DVD contains over 80 cases to be viewed in three orthogonal planes and different CT windows organized as reference and self-assessment files. The cases provide excellent training and allow readers to test their abilities in making diagnoses on their own.

This book is an in-depth analysis of three of the most crucial years in twentieth-century Italian history, the years 1943-46. After more than two decades of a Fascist regime and a disastrous war experience during which Italy changed sides, these years saw the laying of the political and cultural foundations for what has since become known as Italy's First Republic. Drawing on texts from the literature, film, journalism, and political debate of the period, Antifascisms offers a thorough survey of the personalities and positions that informed the decisions taken in this crucial phase of modern Italian history.