Italian Practices Research Articles

Italian practices in German lute tablature 
manuscripts, c.1500: practical script appearance

Abstract This article considers two manuscript lute tablatures—PL-WRk 352 and A-Wn Mus. Hs. 18827, both of which circulated in southern Germany and northern Italy in the 1530s and 40s—from the perspective of their function as performing manuscripts and portable travelling notebooks. The focus is on the transfer of Italian lute practices to the German regions, based on the study of notation. The analysis of prescriptive and descriptive notation, and also of the scribes’ manner of working with tablature prints and other manuscripts as models, demonstrates the coherence of print and manuscript culture at the time, as well as a flexible approach to the interaction of improvised playing and detailed notation. This continuity can be shown for the period from about 1500 to the 1540s. The two German manuscripts were based on northern Italian lute practices: not merely in the repertory itself, but also in its treatment and in the manner of recording it in the form of copies or prescriptively notated music entries. These results significantly expand and enrich our ideas about early lute practice in southern German regions.

The differences of Slovenian and Italian daily practices experienced in the first wave of covid-19 pandemic

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic situation with the lockdown of public life caused serious changes in people's everyday practices. The study evaluates the differences between Slovenia and Italy in health-related everyday practices induced by the restrictive measures during first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsThe cross-sectional cohort study examined changes through an online survey conducted in nine European countries from April 15–28, 2020. The survey included questions from a simple activity inventory questionnaire (SIMPAQ), the European Health Interview Survey, and some other questions. To compare difference in changes between European countries we examined Italy with severe and its neighbour country Slovenia with low incidence and victims of COVID-19 epidemic. 956 valid responses from Italy (N = 511; 50% males) and Slovenia (N = 445; 26% males) were investigated.ResultsDuring the survey, there was a 4.7-fold higher incidence and 12.1-fold more deaths (per 100,000) in Italy than in Slovenia. Barring periods and measures were similar, the latter more stringent in Italy. We found more changes in Italy than in Slovenia: physical inactivity increased (Italy: + 65% vs. Slovenia: + 21%; p < 0.001), walking time decreased (Italy: -68% vs. Slovenia: -4.4%; p < 0.001); physical work increased by 38% in Slovenia (p < 0.001), and recreation time decreased by 37% in Italy (p < 0.001). Italians reported a decrease in quality of general health, fitness level, psychological well-being, quality of life and care for own health (p < 0.001); Slovenians showed a decline in psychological well-being and quality of life (p < 0.001) but generally had a higher concern for their own health (p = 0.005). In pooled participants, changes in eating habits (meal size and consumption of unhealthy food), age and physical inactivity were positively correlated with increases in body mass, while changes in general well-being and concern for health were negatively correlated.ConclusionThe study shows that the negative impact of COVID -19 measures is greater in Italy where the pandemic COVID -19 was more prevalent than in Slovenia with low prevalence. Additional consideration should be given to the negative impact of COVID-19 measures on some health-related lifestyle variables when implementing further measures to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic.

Parliament v. Courts: Who has the Final Word?

Abstract Ludovika – University of Public Service, Faculty of Public Governance and International Studies organized an international online conference on 29 November 2021 on the justiciability of parliamentary procedures. As part of the conference, four presentations were given, focusing on the issue of legal remedies against parliamentary proceedings and the lack thereof. In this context, the speakers reflected on the question of whether the justiciability of parliamentary procedures is a threat to the rule of law or a necessary element of it, and on the question of how a constitutional court can become an arbitrator in political conflicts and how does it shape the constitutional concept of parliamentarism. The presentations provided a comprehensive overview of the Hungarian, Austrian, Italian, and Czech practices. The conference was moderated by Zsolt Szabó, Senior Research Fellow at the Ludovika – University of Public Service and the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Parliamentary Studies.

The Shaping of Environmental Identity in Germany and Italy: Actors and Practices

One of the important components of environmental policy in recent years is the formation of environmental identity. This article analyzes the German and Italian practices of ecological identity formation, identifies the actors of such a policy, and evaluates the prospects of ecological identity formation in the European Union. Based on case studies and in-depth interviews, the author describes the experience of implementing the Zero Waste concept in the Italian municipality of Capannori and the coastal German city of Kiel. The conclusion that the success of measures to form an environmental identity is influenced by the nature of political culture, the level of economic development, regional development features, but also by targeted environmental education initiatives and the success of grassroots practices in the environmental sphere, is substantiated. As the research has shown, in promoting eco-practices at the local level in Italy the leadership factor plays a large role, including in the framework of protest eco-activism, in Germany ‒ the self-organization of local communities in cooperation with the city authorities. The politicization of environmental identity contributes to the consolidation of citizens around environmental priorities. However, factors such as generation gaps and uneven regional development, as well as the rise of populism, can contribute to deepening divisions and confrontations around the environmental agenda.

Local Recipes in the National Kitchen: The Life and Legacies of Ada Boni’s Il talismano della felicità

Ada Boni’s 1925 Il talismano della felicità has for almost 100 years been the Italian domestic manual par excellence. Whether actively used or simply preserved as a family keepsake, Boni’s cookbook has been a fixture in generations of Italian kitchens. This article argues that Il talismano is a major work of Italian national literature. Boni rejects the model established by Pellegrino Artusi’s La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiar bene, offering instead a female-focused domestic manual by a woman and for women. Over its long publication history, Il talismano transforms from an instructional guide for bourgeois housewives into an artifact of Fascist nationalism, and then into a comprehensive compendium of all the foods eaten in Italy. Ongoing revisions and adaptations – including an important 1950 American edition – reflect Il talismano’s desire to provide a model of Italian identity rooted in the hyperlocal variety of Italian culinary traditions and practices.

Lifeblood of the Parish: Men and Catholic Devotion in Williamsburg, Brooklyn by Alyssa Maldonado-Estrada

Reviewed by: Lifeblood of the Parish: Men and Catholic Devotion in Williamsburg, Brooklyn by Alyssa Maldonado-Estrada Katherine Dugan Lifeblood of the Parish: Men and Catholic Devotion in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. By Alyssa Maldonado-Estrada. New York: New York University Press, 2020. 296 pp. $32.00. When Alyssa Maldonado-Estrada stepped into the basement of the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, she stepped into a world where Catholic masculinity is constructed and sustained. As she argues in Lifeblood of the Parish: Men and Catholic Devotion in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, this world is "how religious men come to understand themselves and be recognized as men" (2). This Catholic manhood entails tattoos that articulate religious commitments and the work of the annual Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and the Dance of the Giglio. Framing her intervention, Maldonado-Estrada points out that the nuances of Catholic men's lives are understudied: "[i]t is odd to say it, but laymen are largely invisible in histories of Catholic devotional life. Or they are foils, by contrast heightening the piety of women" (10). This book enters a long conversation about Catholic devotionalism, which has historically centered women's experiences. Turning to men's devotional lives, this book charts the nature of man-making devotional labor. The structure of this book moves swiftly through arguments about the locations of religious practice, the role of labor in prayer, the place of money in festivals, questions about public performance of masculinities, and analysis of gentrification and the shifting nature of [End Page 81] urban religion. Among the many contributions this text makes to Catholic studies, three are especially poignant. First, in this book, devotionalism takes place in a relatively unexplored set of registers: bodies, joking, work, men's relationships and male homosocial spaces. Maldonado-Estrada posits that the men's tattoos are "devotional objects" that mediate relationship between themselves and the divine (48). Likewise, the aesthetics of this devotionalism are such that the men embody a "devotion that allows men to transgress, to play with vibrant aesthetics . . . and white heteronormativity" (54). This expands where scholars locate devotionalism: from women's spaces to men's; from inside churches to outside; and from subdued to vibrant aesthetics. Second, Maldonado-Estrada's attention to nuances of her ethnographic method is a model. While she notes that a woman in men's spaces should not have to talk or think so much about her gendered positionality (17), the way she does unfold the layers of her own positionality offers a thoughtful contribution to questions about method. She refuses to shy away from the way her female body, her Puerto Rican identity, her ability to paint, and her willingness to joke with the men in these pages built her method. During her years of fieldwork, Maldonado-Estrada spent countless hours building ethnographic relationships with the men who constitute the "lifeblood" (210) of this festival. This is how she "made real friendships that exceed the language of methodology" and "became a woman researcher who belonged in the masculine spaces of the feast" (104). The craft and style of her self-reflective negotiations enrich the work. Third, Lifeblood of the Parish is also a portrait of the shifting landscape of urban Catholicism in the early twenty-first century. This is about gentrification, changing parish demographics, and an urban Catholicism that is tied to Italian practices. When Maldonado-Estrada turns her descriptive eye to what she calls "public masculinity" (143) on display in the feast, she argues that the "muscle" of the Dance of the Giglio facilitates a normative heterosexuality through homosocial spaces (163). That space asserts a particular interpretation of Italian American identity onto the streets of Williamsburg—even among the changing demographics of the neighborhood (209). The focus on laymen's lives addresses a significant lacuna in Catholic studies. Maldonado-Estrada's decision to focus on masculinities is an important intervention: we all know women are around the edges of these men's devotional lives, but that is where they remain for the men in this book. This is a book and a story about men's lives, marked as men—the accompanying women fall outside the frame...

‘Greening’ Green Infrastructure. Good Italian Practices for Enhancing Green Infrastructure through the Common Agricultural Policy

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was established by the European Community in the 1950s to provide financial support to farmers in member states, increase agricultural productivity by promoting technical progress, and ensure a fair standard of living for farmers. Over time; awareness about the externalities of intensive farming would prompt environmentally friendly practices. These include, in the current programming period 2014–2020, the so-called “greening”, which consists of: (i) crop diversification; (ii) the maintenance of permanent grassland surfaces; and (iii) the availability of 5% of arable land for ecological focus areas devoted to agricultural practices beneficial for the climate and the environment. These provisions, spurred by a decades-long debate that also stresses the importance of creating/restoring ecological connectivity on different scales to counter land fragmentation, are in tune with spatial planning initiatives throughout Europe. Here the point is how to combine these directions with either “ecological networks” (EN), designed as physical corridors to be preserved and enhanced for plants and animals’ mobility needs; or “green infrastructure” (GI), defined on the European level as a “strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural areas with other environmental features designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services” (European Commission; 2013). While in several European countries environmental measures targeting farmers and ecological networks directed at specific areas have been merged in a place-based approach, Italy is lagging behind. In general, no guidelines have been provided on the national level to support regional paths, while regions and municipalities lack the resources to implement GI. Conversely, while greening policies in the framework of the CAP are properly funded, they lack directions to be efficiently allocated. Against the backdrop of such concerns, this paper frames and reflects upon ongoing practices in three pilot areas in different Italian regions, selected based on desk analysis, in-depth interviews, and direct knowledge. Here, despite or thanks to the legislative framework, experimental approaches have been adopted to harness performance issues in targeted areas through broad participation by public and private stakeholders and multilevel governance schemes, opening possible pathways in view of the forthcoming programming period.

Accounting rules and value relevance: A new perspective from the Italian market

The purpose of this study is to question the basic assumption of the higher value relevance (meaning its superior ability to represent the value of assets and liabilities) of the International Accounting Standard (IAS-IFRS), as compared to Italian accounting practices. Value relevance refers to the vast literature which investigates if and how financial data includes useful information for investors; in other words, if it represents a robust basis for their investment decisions. Analyzing both Anglo-Saxon and other European countries, the literature shows a heterogeneous scenario and divergent results. Unlike previous studies, this study links market and book values by means of the price to book value ratio, considering a sample of Italian listed companies on the Mercato Telematico Azionario, the main segment of the Italian Stock Exchange. Moreover, to strengthen the empirical results the research takes into account a longer period (1996-2015), bearing in mind the change in Italian accounting practices occurring in 2005 as a result of the adoption of IAS-IFRS. The study is consistent with that part of the literature which argues that the accounting discipline underlying IAS-IFRS shows a discrepancy between its theoretical purpose of expressing the current value of a company and its applicable accounting standards. In this respect, the results obtained are somewhat different from the mainstream view, suggesting that the introduction of the IAS-IFRS does not contribute to reducing the gap between the stock market capitalization and the respective book value of a company. Therefore, the Italian national accounting discipline, based on conservative accounting, quite surprisingly appears more value relevant; in other words, it seems to be more able to capture the business value assumed by investors

European projects on district energy-renovations and Italian best practices

Buildings are the major source of greenhouse gas releases: lowering their energy consumption and emissions is particularly challenging for the existing building stock. This topic was examined at an individual building level in the International Energy Agency’s EBC Annex 56. However, the increasing request of nearly zero energy buildings highlight another important topic: the need of an increase in energy production for satisfying the required amount of renewable energy sources. This task could be solved at the district level for the existing buildings, even if it is a complex issue. This work presents a general introduction on the topic of Urban and Regional Integrated Energy Planning, with a focus on the regional and supraregional process to create and manage energy plans. After the first introductory part, the method is explained through a description of its main phases and the tools used. The subsequent section presents a general overview on the European projects that deal with the problem of district regeneration; the ones that are more related to the topic of this work are considered in a deeper way through tangible applications in Italian cities. The study of already done examples will help in the definition of benefits and drawbacks, with the aim to defining newer and better energy planning procedures.

Are Evidence-Based Guidelines Reflected in Clinical Practice? An Analysis of Prospectively Collected Data of the Italian Thyroid Cancer Observatory.

The goal of evidence-based practice guidelines is to optimize the management of emerging diseases, such as differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC). The aim of this study was to assess therapeutic approaches for DTC in Italy and to see how closely these practices conformed to those recommended in the 2009 American Thyroid Association (ATA) guidelines. The Italian Thyroid Cancer Observatory was established to collect data prospectively on thyroid cancers consecutively diagnosed in participating centers (uniformly distributed across the nation). Data on the initial treatment of all pathologically confirmed DTC cases present in the database from January 1, 2013 (database creation) to January 31, 2016, were analyzed. A total of 1748 patients (77.2% females; median age 48.1 years [range 10-85 years]) were enrolled in the study. Most (n = 1640; 93.8%) were papillary carcinomas (including 84 poorly differentiated/aggressive variants); 6.2% (n = 108) were follicular and Hürthle cell carcinomas. The median tumor diameter was 11 mm (range 1-93 mm). Tumors were multifocal in 613 (35%) and presented extrathyroidal extension in 492 (28%) cases. Initial treatments included total thyroidectomy (involving one or two procedures; n = 726; 98.8%) and lobectomy (n = 22; 1.2%). A quarter of the patients who underwent total thyroidectomy had unifocal, intrathyroidal tumors ≤1 cm (n = 408; 23.6%). Neck dissection was performed in 40.4% of the patients (29.5% had central compartment dissection). Radioiodine remnant ablation (RRA) was performed in 1057 (61.2%) of the 1726 patients who underwent total thyroidectomy: 460 (41.2%) of the 983 classified by 2009 ATA guideline criteria as low-risk, 570 (87.1%) of the 655 as intermediate-risk, and 82 (93.1%) of the 88 as high-risk patients (p < 0.001). RRA was performed in 44% of the cases involving multifocal DTCs measuring ≤1 cm. The treatment approaches for DTCs used in Italy display areas of inconsistency with those recommended by the 2009 ATA guidelines. Italian practices were characterized by underuse of thyroid lobectomy in intrathyroidal, unifocal DTCs ≤1 cm. The use of RRA was generally consistent with risk-stratified recommendations. However, its frequent use in small DTCs (≤1 cm) that are multifocal persists, despite the lack of evidence of benefit. These data provide a baseline for future assessments of the impact of international guidelines on DTC management in Italy. These findings also illustrate that the dissemination and implementation of guideline recommendations, and the change in practice patterns, require ongoing education and time.

Earnings management and goodwill impairment

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to understand whether managerial behavior in impairing goodwill arising from M &amp; As has changed after the adoption of IAS/IFRS, searching for evidences of earnings management (EM) practices. Thus, our goal is to provide a response to the following research questions. Are goodwill impairments used by listed firms’ managers to manipulate earnings? If so, what kind of EM practice is mostly used?Design/methodology/approach– In this paper the authors tested the following hypothesis:H1. In the year of the deal’s closure and in the following four years, the management detects impairment of goodwill in difformity with the previous Italian regulations and related accounting practices. Moreover, the authors tried to determine, for each considered firms, potential symptoms of typical DEM practices widely debated in the financial accounting literature (income smoothing, income minimization, income minimization, or big bath accounting).Findings– Our analysis does not prove evidence of certain EM practices, but it highlights very clearly that, after the adoption of IAS/IFRS, managers’ behavior has deeply changed. Moreover, the analysis shows that there is no univocal choice in favor of a specific EM practice and that every firm pursues its own “strategy.”Originality/value– Considering the importance of the topic from both the perspectives of managerial (with regard to M &amp; As valuation processes) and financial accounting (with regard to intangibles valuation fulfilled by applying the impairment test instead of the amortization), this work aims to provide a multi-dimensional contribution to the current debate.

Italian-Hungarian Relationships over 100 Years of Monument Preservation (1849-1949)

The beginnings of independent Hungarian monument preservation go back to the first half of the 19th century. The undertaking to form a legal body for the registration and protection of monuments began in the 1840s, with the National Monument Committee finally established in 1881. The paper analyses the most important Hungarian restoration works in the context of Italian monument restoration theories and practices of the investigated timespan; it also highlights the determining role of the Hungarian Academy in Rome through its patronage programmes for architects.

The value of accreditation for cancer patients: from end users to partners.

The Organisation of European Cancer Institutes (OECI) accreditation program is a resource for European cancer patients, insofar as it certifies the quality and organization of cancer care in European cancer centers. As the report on the accreditation program implementation in Italy showed, cancer patient organizations and their volunteers play a fundamental role within the cancer institute, particularly in informing and guiding cancer patients. This article explores Italian best practices and suggests embedding the lessons learned in the OECI accreditation program. Furthermore, the article launches the concept of a European Cancer Patients Bill of Rights in cancer institutes, to be used as a tool by both OECI centers and European Cancer Patient Coalition members to enhance the quality of the collaboration between cancer centers and patient organizations.

“Made in Italy”: The Italian Contribution to the Development of Business Marketing Discipline and Practices

ABSTRACTPurpose: The authors analyze the main contributions of Italian literature in the business-to-business field as it relates to the characteristics of the Italian industrial manufacturing system. Even if not directly labeled as business-to-business marketing, Italian and other scholars who have studied Italian business experiences have largely faced the topic of business marketing management with innovative approaches and distinctive benchmark examples. In particular, the analysis of the Italian contribution to business marketing relies on the specific nature of the Italian industrial structure as recognized by the international literature. In this respect, the authors argue that three main areas of interest progressively arose from the peculiarities of the Italian industrial system: industrial districts, subcontractors/subcontracting relationships, and mid-sized manufacturing companies. These three research topics have been thoroughly investigated by both Italian and international scholars. They analyze the contributions that Italian researchers provided to advance business marketing discipline and practices.Methodology/approach: The authors reviewed the literature of the main contributions developed in the three individual areas of research that have a strong focus on the Italian experience. The methodology was in three steps. First, the review planning process was guided by the three areas of research that were assumed to have a major contribution to business marketing discipline. Second, the SCOPUS database was used as a primary source for paper identification by using a keywords search method. Third, the dataset was refined by excluding non relevant contributions (not focused on business management and marketing or not specifically dealing with the three areas of interest) and validating/integrating the original dataset by using other complementary sources (e.g., Google Books, Google Scholar). Finally, a set of 268 products were taken into account in the analysis.Findings: The results of the analysis suggest that the Italian contribution to the field of business marketing is valuable in light of the three chosen areas of research. These three empirical arenas—industrial districts, subcontractors, and mid-sized firms—contribute to providing a better understanding of business market structure and dynamics as well as the improvement of business marketing studies.Originality/value: The article is an original and first attempt to elaborate and reflect on the contribution of the Italian business experience literature to the advances of business marketing discipline. The authors develop an original comprehensive review of “Made in Italy” business marketing and management research that has not been used in previous studies. The review will increase international knowledge of Italian practices and theoretical frameworks that can contribute to the reinforcement of the business-to-business marketing discipline.

Dance in Handel’s London Operas by Sarah McCleave (review)

Dance in Handel's OperasEMBODIMENT: DANCE, AND OPERA Dance in Handel's Operas. By Sarah McCleave. (Eastman Studies in Music, vol. 96.) Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2013. [xiii, 266 p. ISBN 9781580464208. $80.] Music examples, illustrations, tables, bibliography, index.In her impeccably researched book, Dance in Handel's Operas, Sarah McCleave introduces her readers to a historical world where theatrical dance was as dramatically useful as the da capo aria. Focusing on London's most prominent eighteenth-century composer, McCleave shows how and why Handel integrated different styles and genres of dances into his operas for the stage. Yet her title masks the true scope of her book: she does not limit herself to Handel, or even to opera seria. On a broader scale, her project revises the history of theatrical music in using a new, illuminating argument: that dance had a varied range of affective, dramatic, and stylistic uses and meanings, rather than simply providing decorative spectacle. In order to accomplish her ambitious project, McCleave unites musical and dramatic analysis with documentary evidence from texts, libretti, and published dance manuals. Her book is an exemplary model of how to breathe new life into operas that have been studied as a vocal repertory.McCleave's project is also a necessary step in reevaluating England as a center of cultural, national, and musical diversity in the eighteenth century. Her book's argumentative thread claims that Handel embraced different styles of dance (French, Italian, and homegrown English influences) for the purposes of connecting to and manipulating his audience's understanding of the affective and dramatic meanings behind these styles and corresponding genres. She identifies eight major influences on the different ways in which Handel incorporated and integrated dance into his operas, and she treats all of these in her book's chapters: (1) seventeenthcentury Italian libretti, (2) French tragedies en musique (Jean-Baptist Lully/Philippe Quinault), (3) English theatrical dance, (4) his training in Hamburg, (5) contemporary Italian practices, (6) the tastes of his audiences, (7) pantomimes, and (8) contemporary social dance (pp. 182- 88). Such a multitude of influences demonstrate that understanding the dramatic meaning behind Handel's dances is a complex enterprise, not only for us as modern readers, but for eighteenth-century audiences as well.Significantly, Handel was not the first, nor the last, to approach the integration of dance styles into opera in this way. Throughout the book, which is organized chronologically, McCleave makes a considerable effort to connect Handel's innovations with both his English predecessors as well as those who worked in during the first and second Royal Academies: London provides early examples of operas in which creative artists blended French and Italian operatic conventions, with a tradition leading from [Peter Anthony] Motteux through to Handel and [Marie] Salle, and from them to [Francesco] Vanneschi (p. 167). This is a great strength of her book, and especially of chapter 4. While focusing on opera seria, McCleave gives other theatrical genres similar weight, providing a thorough picture of how dance shaped the dramatic profiles of many different kinds of productions. Moreover, such an inclusive focus abolishes the age-old impression of Handel as a musical genius; instead, McCleave illustrates quite convincingly that Handel's integrative approach was as much influenced by his English surroundings and opportunities to work with certain dancers as by his prior training in Hamburg.While McCleave's general argument is one of multinational diversity of style and genre, her chapters analyzing Handel's use of dance in his operas (chapters 1 through 3) focus on how the composer used dance in order to create or dissipate dramatic tension. Handel's ability to shape exquisite dramatic depth in his vocal music has been of keen interest to many scholars, but McCleave shows how he accomplished similar feats in his dance music. …

EU RETURN POLICY AND INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW: KEEPING THE BALANCE BETWEEN BORDER SECURITY AND HUMAN DIGNITY

This article focuses on the current state of EU immigration legislation and aims to provide a critical analysis in light of international human rights law. Over the past ten years, EU Summits have emphasized the need for the adoption of new legislative measures to converge to a true European common policy on immigration. At present the mainstream debate on immigration in Europe focuses on several different topics. On the one hand, there is the need to secure the borders and control undocumented immigration, while on the other hand there is the question of the protection of migrants’ human rights and the improvement of the EU immigration system. There is also a third element, which is EU relations with the immigrants’ countries of origin. The current legal framework articulated around the Return Directive sets out the rules and principles to be applied by Member States to third country nationals who do not fulfil, or no longer fulfil, conditions of entry in accordance with EU legislation. I intend to examine the EU return policy in the light of EU law and of international human rights law. In addition, I discuss Italian and Spanish practices in their relations with the countries of origin.

Employment Protection and Training: The Italian Practices

Employment Protection and Training: The Italian Practices

The city-territory: large-scale planning and development policies in the aftermath of the Belice valley earthquake (Sicily, 1968)

This article examines a particular case of post-disaster planning: the ‘city-territory’ of the Belice Valley. As a consequence of an earthquake which devastated a depressed rural area of western Sicily in 1968, town planners, supported by special post-disaster legislation, undertook a planning experiment aimed at redeveloping the disaster area and promoting its social and economic transformation. The Belice Valley plan became an experiment in socio-economic engineering, and the idea of combining reconstruction and development was associated with a particular spatial layout: the ‘city-territory’. Based on archival research, this work examines this planning idea, its roots and its outcome. I will argue that, despite its peculiarities, the ‘city-territory’ idea was deeply rooted in the Italian and international culture and practices of the day, which were particularly favourable for large-scale planning and development policies. I will also demonstrate that the attempt to realize this plan for a ‘city-territory’ was hindered by a radically transformed context and by a general crisis of industrial development policies. This case study, therefore, attempts to shed light on a key issue of 1960s and 1970s international planning culture and practice, and illustrates some of the reasons for its partial failure.

Respiratory Outcomes of Patients With Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: An Italian Nationwide Survey

Despite recommendations, respiratory therapies remain partially underutilized in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and different practices are described in different countries. We surveyed attitudes and practice in Italy on ALS and other neuromuscular diseases (NMDs). A questionnaire on ALS/NMD management was mailed to 178 pneumology units, which we classified into high-volume and low-volume centers according to the number of ALS/NMD patients followed in the last 5 years. Seventy-six pneumology units (43%) responded, and the responding units had 1,772 ALS patients and 1,490 NMD patients. Difficulty clearing respiratory secretions and disturbed sleep were the main reasons the ALS patients were referred to pneumology units. Vital capacity (measured in the sitting position) and arterial blood gases were measured regularly, while respiratory muscle function and cough ability were routinely assessed in over 85% of the pneumology units (mainly in high-volume centers), and 94% of pneumology units could provide noninvasive ventilation. Treatment of NMDs was similar to that of ALS, except for tracheostomy, which was less frequently performed in patients with NMDs. A multidisciplinary team approach to care was employed in approximately 90% of the responding pneumology units. Approximately a third of the units accessed palliative care services. Combined pulmonary function evaluation, long-term noninvasive ventilation, and assisted cough have become usual practices for ALS patients. Italian practices for ALS did not significantly differ from the approach to other NMDs.

Un ensemble funéraire du début du Bronze final à Aix-en-Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône) : les sépultures secondaires à crémation du site du Conservatoire

The urban requalification of southern areas of the city of Aix-en-Provence led to an archaeological excavation on a plot where the future academy of music and dance (‘ Conservatoire’) is to be built. It brought to light five secondary cremation graves which can be dated to the beginning of the Late Bronze Age. This discovery illustrates a specific practice not very well-known in Southern France for that period. These small graves each contained only a funerary urn in which were found the remains of a single individual, sometimes accompanied by small fragments of animal bones but without any trace of the funerary pyre. The graves are sealed by a sort of pebble tumulus which rests upon the cover of the funerary urn, made of a small limestone slab in one case and probably of some perishable material in three other cases. These small mounds could also be interpreted as visual marks for the location of the graves. A crushed pot close to one of the graves may also be considered as a funerary deposit. Anthropological studies show that the bones were partially collected from the primary cremation structure. However, great variability can be observed between the different tombs regarding the quantity of bones and the anatomical parts selected. The typology of the urns indicates that they belong to an advanced phase of the Late Bronze Age I, 13th century BC, which is confirmed by 14C dates from the carbonates remaining in the burnt bones. The study of burial behaviour regarding the structure of the tombs reveals similarities with contemporaneous cemeteries in north-western Italy dated to the Late Bronze II and, in particular, with Canegrate in Lombardy. This new funerary group thus confirms the Transalpine origin of the practice of cremation in southern France at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age and constitutes its most western example. Unlike other cemeteries discovered in eastern Provence, the " Conservatoire" cemetery is located in an area where the influence of northern Italian ceramic productions is less important. While the funerary practices are related to Italian practices the urns themselves belong to the local style. It is the sign of a partial acculturation, testifying that the lower Rhone valley at that time was a buffer zone between traditions found to the North and the South of the Alps. Finally, this discovery invites us to question the importance of cremation in the funerary practices of southern populations at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age. Indeed, until now, the few graves belonging to this type were only known in the Alp regions, close to Italy. They were thus interpreted as linked to a specific status of the deceased or as the result of individual mobility. Now, we may wonder whether the data available reflect reality or whether they depend, on the contrary, on the difficulty of identifying small funerary groups such as the one unearthed in Aix-en-Provence.