Creating the cultures of the future: cultural strategy, policy and institutions in Gramsci. Part two: Cultural strategy and institutions in Gramsci’s early writings and political practice

In this article, I consider Gramsci’s pre-prison writings and political practice in relation to questions of cultural strategy and institutions. I argue that the analysis of these early texts, which were written in the years in which Gramsci was active in party organisation and leadership, is fundamental not only for understanding the nature of Gramsci’s early and continued involvement with questions of cultural strategy and institutions, but also as a key for interpreting cultural policy themes that he later developed in the prison notebooks, and which originated in earlier debates

On the mechanisms governing gas penetration into a tokamak plasma during a massive gas injection

A new 1D radial fluid code, IMAGINE, is used to simulate the penetration of gas into a tokamak plasma during a massive gas injection (MGI). The main result is that the gas is in general strongly braked as it reaches the plasma, due to mechanisms related to charge exchange and (to a smaller extent) recombination. As a result, only a fraction of the gas penetrates into the plasma. Also, a shock wave is created in the gas which propagates away from the plasma, braking and compressing the incoming gas. Simulation results are quantitatively consistent, at least in terms of orders of magnitude, with experimental data for a D 2 MGI into a JET Ohmic plasma. Simulations of MGI into the background plasma surrounding a runaway electron beam show that if the background electron density is too high, the gas may not penetrate, suggesting a possible explanation for the recent results of Reux et al in JET (2015 Nucl. Fusion 55 093013)

La co-infection par le virus de l'immunodéficience humaine (VIH) et le virus de l'hépatite C (VHC) ou le virus de l'hépatite B (VHB)

Co-infection HIV/HCV or HBV is frequent because of the common ways of transmission of these various viruses. HIV-infected patients are living longer since the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy. However, co-infection with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) or hepatitis B virus leads to increased morbidity from liver disease and higher overall mortality. Noxious interactions between these viruses are currently well-known in particular acceleration by the HIV of the natural history of HCV or HBV infection. Recent progress was made in the diagnosis and management of the patients Co-infected by HIV/HCV or HBV Although remarkable, this progress does not occult the need for continuing the preventive measures to reduce the acquisition of new infections and the development of new drugs more effective and better-tolerated to ensure a more important therapeutic success for all the Co-infected patients

Non-specific symptoms and post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome in patients with Lyme borreliosis: a prospective cohort study in Belgium (2016–2020)

Background: Patients with Lyme borreliosis (LB) may report persisting non‑specific symptoms such as fatigue, widespread musculoskeletal pain or cognitive difficulties. When present for more than 6 months and causing a reduction in daily activities, this is often referred to as post‑treatment Lyme disease syndrome (PTLDS). This study aimed to compare the occurrence of symptoms between LB patients and controls, to estimate the proportion of LB patients developing PTLDS and to identify risk factors. Methods: A prospective cohort study was set up including three subpopulations: patients with an erythema migrans (EM) (i) or disseminated/late LB (ii) and a non‑LB control group (iii). At 6‑ and 12‑months follow‑up, the occurrence of several symptoms, including six symptoms used to define PTLDS, i.e. muscle pain, joint pain, fatigue, memory problems, difficulties concentrating and problems finding words, and impact on daily activities, was compared between LB patients and controls. Finally, the proportion of LB patients developing PTLDS as defined by the Infectious Disease Society of America was estimated, including a time frame for symptoms to be present. Results: Although the risk of presenting PTLDS‑related symptoms was significantly higher in EM patients (n = 120) compared to controls (n = 128) at 6 months follow‑up, the risk of presenting at least one of these symptoms combined with impact on daily activities was not significantly higher in EM patients, at either 6‑ or 12‑months follow‑up. A significant association was found between disseminated/late LB (n = 15) and the occurrence of any PTLDS‑symptom with an impact on daily activities at both time points. The proportion of patients with PTLDS was estimated at 5.9% (95% CI 2.7–12.9) in EM patients and 20.9% (95% CI 6.8–64.4) in patients with disseminated/late LB (RR = 3.53, 95% CI 0.98–12.68, p = 0.053). No significant risk factors were identified, which may be explained by small sample sizes. Conclusions: In our study, PTLDS was present in both LB cohorts, yet with a higher percentage in disseminated/late LB patients. Additional research is needed into risk factors for and causes of this syndrome. In addition, development and validation of standardized methods to assess the PTLDS case definition, easily applicable in practice, is of great importance

Enhanced performance in fusion plasmas through turbulence suppression by megaelectronvolt ions

© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.Alpha particles with energies on the order of megaelectronvolts will be the main source of plasma heating in future magnetic confinement fusion reactors. Instead of heating fuel ions, most of the energy of alpha particles is transferred to electrons in the plasma. Furthermore, alpha particles can also excite Alfvénic instabilities, which were previously considered to be detrimental to the performance of the fusion device. Here we report improved thermal ion confinement in the presence of megaelectronvolts ions and strong fast ion-driven Alfvénic instabilities in recent experiments on the Joint European Torus. Detailed transport analysis of these experiments reveals turbulence suppression through a complex multi-scale mechanism that generates large-scale zonal flows. This holds promise for more economical operation of fusion reactors with dominant alpha particle heating and ultimately cheaper fusion electricity.N

Disruption prediction with artificial intelligence techniques in tokamak plasmas

In nuclear fusion reactors, plasmas are heated to very high temperatures of more than 100 million kelvin and, in so-called tokamaks, they are confined by magnetic fields in the shape of a torus. Light nuclei, such as deuterium and tritium, undergo a fusion reaction that releases energy, making fusion a promising option for a sustainable and clean energy source. Tokamak plasmas, however, are prone to disruptions as a result of a sudden collapse of the system terminating the fusion reactions. As disruptions lead to an abrupt loss of confinement, they can cause irreversible damage to present-day fusion devices and are expected to have a more devastating effect in future devices. Disruptions expected in the next-generation tokamak, ITER, for example, could cause electromagnetic forces larger than the weight of an Airbus A380. Furthermore, the thermal loads in such an event could exceed the melting threshold of the most resistant state-of-the-art materials by more than an order of magnitude. To prevent disruptions or at least mitigate their detrimental effects, empirical models obtained with artificial intelligence methods, of which an overview is given here, are commonly employed to predict their occurrence—and ideally give enough time to introduce counteracting measures