Robert N. Bellah (1927-2013)

Robert N. Bellah’s comparative and cultural sociology appears compatible with an evolutionary science and seeks to investigate the cultural developments of biological beginnings. The behavioral and symbolic aspects of evolution according to Bellah build on genetic capacities, they are however not genetically controlled and it is there that Bellah tries to find the origins of religion. The essay discusses some of the major themes explored by Bellah in his cultural sociology: Japanese civilization; the American civil religion in the social and political model represented by the United States; the evolution of religions and the Axial Age

A Study on Quench Detection for Cable-in-Conduit Conductors With Co-Wound Tapes

The primary Quench Detection System (QDS) of the Central Solenoid (CS) of the ITER magnet system must be able to distinguish the resistive component of the voltage, arising during quench, from the inductive one due to time-varying magnetic fluxes. This task is especially challenging for the six modules composing the CS (CSMs), with a coil self-inductance of the order of similar to 1 H, subjected to current ramps up to similar to 10 kA/s. Each CSM is equipped with stainless-steel tapes wrapped around the outer conduit of the conductor, referred to as Co-Wound Tapes (CWTs), linked to a magnetic flux approximating the one linked to the conductor itself. This work focuses on the definition of a model able to compute the voltages measured by the QDS with the high precision required. The analysis is based on a 2D axisymmetric FEM model of the entire CSM in a stand-alone configuration. A novel 3D approach based on an integral computation method allows one to account for the twisting of the conductor sub-cables of the last cabling stage (petals). The model is applied to quantify the impact of three main error sources contributing to the residual voltage signal measured by the QDS: the difference in self-field flux linked to the conductor and to the CWT, the inhomogeneity of the background field and the twisting of the petals

At what cost? Environmental regulation and corporate cash holdings

This paper examines the relation between environmental protection laws and corporate cash holdings. Using a panel of public firms across 31 countries, we show that laws protecting the environment reduce cash holdings, consistent with environmental protection regulations weakening firms’ liquidity positions through heightened operating costs and lower profit margins. In cross-sectional analyses, we document that high-market power firms and firms in countries with lenient anti-tax avoidance rules suffer from cash-holding reductions to a lesser extent. Overall, these findings suggest that environmental protection laws map negatively into firms’ cash balances and shed new light on the economic consequences of environmental laws

Overall survival with adjuvant pembrolizumab in renal cell carcinoma — the shock of the lightning

In the KEYNOTE-564 trial, patients with resected clear cell renal cell carcinoma at a high risk of relapse experienced disease-free survival and especially overall survival benefits following treatment with pembrolizumab, which in turn was established as the novel standard adjuvant therapy for these patients. Accurate patient selection is crucial. Managing post-pembrolizumab recurrence is challenging owing to limited evidence for guiding therapeutic decisions based on clinical features

Critical border studies

Sovereignty, citizenship, and territory, three of the notions that we have just men- tioned, are obviously foundational concepts for modern Western political theory. It is not surprising that critical border studies engage with them. The border is indeed a constitutive element of each of those notions. Following up on this, the entry discusses the development of critical border studies over the last decades and point to open question for future researc

Critical current throughout the BCS-BEC crossover with the inclusion of pairing fluctuations

The present work aims at providing a systematic analysis of the current density versus momentum characteristics for a fermionic superfluid throughout the BCS-BEC crossover, even in the fully homogeneous case. At low temperatures, where pairing fluctuations are not strong enough to invalidate a quasiparticle approach, a sharp threshold for the inception of a back-flow current is found, which sets the onset of dissipation and identifies the critical momentum according to Landau. This momentum is seen to smoothly evolve from the BCS to the BEC regimes, whereby a single expression for the single-particle current density that includes pairing fluctuations enables us to incorporate on equal footing two quite distinct dissipative mechanisms, namely, pair breaking and phonon excitations in the two sides of the BCS-BEC crossover, respectively. At finite temperature, where thermal fluctuations broaden the excitation spectrum and make the dissipative (kinetic and thermal) mechanisms intertwined with each other, an alternative criterion due to Bardeen is instead employed to signal the loss of superfluid behavior. In this way, detailed comparison with available experimental data in linear and annular geometries is significantly improved with respect to previous approaches, thereby demonstrating the crucial role played by quantum fluctuations in renormalizing the single-particle excitation spectrum

Effect of centre volume on pathological outcomes and postoperative complications after surgery for colorectal cancer: results of a multicentre national study

Background: The association between volume, complications and pathological outcomes is still under debate regarding colorectal cancer surgery. The aim of the study was to assess the association between centre volume and severe complications, mortality, less-than-radical oncologic surgery, and indications for neoadjuvant therapy.Methods: Retrospective analysis of 16,883 colorectal cancer cases from 80 centres (2018-2021). Outcomes: 30-day mortality; Clavien-Dindo grade >2 complications; removal of >= 12 lymph nodes; non-radical resection; neoadjuvant therapy. Quartiles of hospital volumes were classified as LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH, and VERY HIGH. Independent predictors, both overall and for rectal cancer, were evaluated using logistic regression including age, gender, AJCC stage and cancer site.Results: LOW-volume centres reported a higher rate of severe postoperative complications (OR 1.50, 95% c.i. 1.15-1.096, P = 0.003). The rate of >= 12 lymph nodes removed in LOW-volume (OR 0.68, 95% c.i. 0.56-0.85, P < 0.001) and MEDIUM-volume (OR 0.72, 95% c.i. 0.62-0.83, P < 0.001) centres was lower than in VERY HIGH-volume centres. Of the 4676 rectal cancer patients, the rate of >= 12 lymph nodes removed was lower in LOW-volume than in VERY HIGH-volume centres (OR 0.57, 95% c.i. 0.41-0.80, P = 0.001). A lower rate of neoadjuvant chemoradiation was associated with HIGH (OR 0.66, 95% c.i. 0.56-0.77, P < 0.001), MEDIUM (OR 0.75, 95% c.i. 0.60-0.92, P = 0.006), and LOW (OR 0.70, 95% c.i. 0.52-0.94, P = 0.019) volume centres (vs. VERY HIGH).Conclusion: Colorectal cancer surgery in low-volume centres is at higher risk of suboptimal management, poor postoperative outcomes, and less-than-adequate oncologic resections. Centralisation of rectal cancer cases should be taken into consideration to optimise the outcomes

Ocean warming and acidification detrimentally affect coral tissue regeneration at a Mediterranean CO2 vent

Among the main phenomena that are causing significant changes in ocean waters are warming and acidification, largely due to anthropogenic activities. Growing evidence suggests that climate change is having more substantial and rapid effects on marine communities than on terrestrial ones, triggering several physiological responses in these organisms, including in corals. Here we investigated, for first time in the field, the combined effect of increasing seawater acidification and warming on tissue regeneration rate of three Mediterranean scleractinian coral species characterized by different trophic strategies and growth modes. Balanophyllia europaea (solitary, zooxanthellate), Leptopsammia pruvoti (solitary, non-zooxanthellate) and Astroides calycularis (colonial, non-zooxanthellate) specimens were transplanted, during a cold, intermediate, and warm period, along a natural pH gradient generated by an underwater volcanic crater at Panarea Island (Mediterranean Sea, Italy), characterized by continuous and localized CO2 emissions at ambient temperature. Our results show a decrease in regenerative capacity, especially in the zooxanthellate species, with increasing seawater temperature and acidification, with demonstrated species-specific differences. This finding suggests that increasing seawater temperature and acidification could have a compounding effect on coral regeneration following injury, potentially hindering the capacity of corals to recover following physical disturbance under predicted climate change

Karl Korsch e il marxismo come crisi

Il saggio ricostruisce la vicenda storica e politica di Karl Korsch, mostrando i presupposti teorici che hanno portato alla redazione del libro su Marx

Whose underground? Entangled territorialization and mining cooperatives in eastern Congo’s gold frontier

This article uses the term ‘entangled territorialization’ to assess the active role of mining cooperatives in manipulating the access to natural resources in a context of limited state authority. The case study at hand, which concerns the ‘discovery’ of gold deposits in Luhihi, Democratic Republic of Congo in 2020, discusses the contrasting capabilities of two mining cooperatives, COOMIUKI, and COMILU, to position themselves as ‘quasi-state actors’ in a fragmented landscape of artisanal and small-scale gold mining formalization. The paper’s main contributions are twofold. First, it shows how mining cooperatives actively teritorialize the access to gold desposits due to their central role in the social relations of production. Second, it demonstrates that mining cooperatives are important players who, in specific circumstances, are able to influence the spatial organization of natural resource extraction and marketization in important ways