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\"Antonio Gramsci is a giant of Marxian thought and one of the world's greatest cultural critics. Antonio A. Santucci is perhaps the world's preeminent Gramsci scholar. Monthly Review Press is proud to publish, for the first time in English, Santucci's masterful intellectual biography of the great Sardinian scholar and revolutionary. Gramscian terms such as 'civil society' and 'hegemony' are much used in everyday political discourse. Santucci warns us, however, that these words have been appropriated by both radicals and conservatives for contemporary and often self-serving ends that often have nothing to do with Gramsci's purposes in developing them. Rather what we must do, and what Santucci illustrates time and again in his dissection of Gramsci's writings, is absorb Gramsci's methods.\" -- Publisher description.

Explores how analyzing themes of world literature can help to lessen the distance between contemporary world conditions & the texts of Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels. It is contended that the Communist Manifesto proclaimed the emergence of a world literature based on economic analyses, especially the notion of a \"world market.\" The insights of Marx & Engels into the \"inevitable globalization of literature,\" the commodification of intellectual labor, & advances in communication, are said to suggest development of an international information industry with the potential to hold disparate ideas, theories, & cultures. The place of the circulation & effects of \"intellectual productions\" in the structure of the world market is discussed, & distinctions between the critical effects of world literature, & the tendency to construct an \"artificial & indistinct universality,\" are explored. It is concluded that the successful transformation of intellectual products from critical moments into objects of consumption by the world market would mean the end of the era of world literature. 24 References. J. Lindroth

New York, 2010, 207 pp.: 978-1583672105 £12.30 (pbk) Antonio Santucci is relatively unknown to exclusively English language readers. [...] his untimely passing in 2006, Santucci was perhaps the most renowned Italian scholar of Antonio Gramsci's life's work, known for editing numerous collections of Gramsci's writings and producing countless commentaries on the Sardinian's life and political activities.

Objective: This study assessed the efficacy of the cervical pessary combined with progesterone to prevent preterm birth in pregnant women with short cervix and previous preterm birth. Methods: This post hoc analysis of the randomized, multicenter P5 trial examined the efficacy of the cervical pessary associated with vaginal progesterone versus progesterone alone for preventing recurrent preterm birth in 155 pregnant women with cervical length ≤30 mm and prior spontaneous preterm birth (sPPTB) (main subgroup), and in 85 women with cervical length ≤25 mm and sPPTB (higher-risk population). The primary outcome was spontaneous preterm birth (sPTB) before 34 weeks; secondary outcomes included sPTB rates before 37, 32, and 28 weeks, analyzed using Odds Ratio (OR) and Kaplan–Meier curves. A secondary objective was to identify predictive factors for sPTB recurrence in the cohort with prior preterm birth (n = 479), irrespective of treatment allocation. Results: Demographic profiles were balanced between groups. The addition of a cervical pessary to progesterone did not result in a significant reduction in sPTB before 34 weeks: to cervix ≤30 mm, OR 1.169 (95% CI 0.524–2.609; p = 0.703) and 1.167 (95% CI 0.466–2.921; p = 0.742) for ≤25 mm; similar null findings were observed across all gestational age thresholds. Kaplan–Meier survival curves demonstrated no significant differences between groups (p > 0.05). Secondary analysis (n = 479) identified principal predictors of sPTB recurrence, regardless of the cervical length: higher education (OR 2.37; 95% CI 0.99–5.63; p = 0.024), previous cervical conization (OR 4.78; 95% CI 1.08–21.19; p = 0.039) previous low birth weight < 2.5 kg (OR 2.43; 95% CI 1.22–4.85; p = 0.051), prior miscarriages (OR 1.36; 95% CI 1.10–1.69; p = 0.005), current twin pregnancy (OR 14.86; 95% CI 4.35–50.68; p < 0.001) and cervical funneling (OR 3.60; 95% CI 1.79–7.24; p < 0.001). Predictive models achieved an AUC of 0.719, with 87.0% sensitivity and 58.8% specificity. Conclusions: These findings do not support the routine use of cervical pessary combined with progesterone in women with dual risk factors. In this Brazilian population, specific clinical and obstetric characteristics—including higher education, cervical funneling, prior low birth weight delivery, previous conization, current twin gestation, and prior miscarriage—could identify women at increased risk for recurrent preterm birth.

Non-evaporable getters (NEGs) are metallic compounds of the IV group, particularly titanium and/or zirconium-based alloys and are usually used as pumps in vacuum technologies since they are able to sorb, by chemical reactions, most of the active gas molecules, with particular efficacy towards hydrogen isotopes. This work suggests an alternative application of these materials to fusion nuclear reactors, where there is the need to recover small amount of tritium from the large helium flow rate composing the primary coolant loop. Starting from the tritium mass balance inside the primary coolant loop, the amount of coolant to be routed inside the coolant purification system (CPS) is identified. Then a feasibility study, based on the bulk getter theory, is presented by considering three different commercial alloys, named ST707, ST101 and ZAO. The results provide the mass, the area and the regeneration parameters of the three different alloys necessary to fulfill the requirements of the CPS unit. By comparing the features of the three alloys, the ZAO material appears the most promising for the proposed application because it requires the lower amount of material and a lower number of regeneration cycles.

A simplified kinetic model for autohydrolysis of hemicelluloses from sugarcane bagasse was evaluated in the context of a global process in a batch reactor. In this work, all sugars, oligomers, and decomposition products from hemicelluloses were taken into account in the determination of kinetic parameters. This approach has not been reported in previous kinetic studies which assume just the xylan, xylose, and furfural as compounds from hemicelluloses. Experimental results for hemicelluloses removal from residual solids and dissolved fractions in the liquor are reported at various temperatures and reaction times. Because of the decomposition of sugars in the pretreatment liquors, optimal temperatures and reaction times were maintained at 170 °C and 90 min. Under these conditions, 61.7 % of hemicelluloses were converted to oligomeric and monomeric sugars. In addition, 90 % of cellulose was preserved in the residual solid fraction. Correlation parameters between the kinetic model and experimental data validate the proposed model, although deviations from an Arrhenius-type model were observed. The reaction steps for production of oligomers, monomers, and sugar derivatives/decomposition compounds present activation energies of 143.1, 158.9, and 138.3 kJ/mol, respectively.