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The Inflected Construction in the dialects of Sicily: Parameters of micro-variation
No full textSicilian dialects display an instance of verbal Pseudo-Coordination (V1[TAM.Agr]a V2[TAM.Agr]), here referred to as the Inflected Construction or IC (cf. Cardinaletti & Giusti 2001, 2003), that can occur in very different configurations. Aim of this paper is to discuss the following parameters of micro-variation, by providing new data from recent fieldwork: (i) the restriction of the IC to some V2s; (ii) the possibility for the IC to occur across moods and tenses and to display complete paradigms for person features; (iii) the reduction of go as V1, and of other possible V1s, to a prefix-like invariable form. In the paper, three major types of IC are identified: Type 1 IC is only possible in some persons of the indicative present and in the 2sg of the imperative; Type 2 IC features the extension of the paradigm to other simple tenses of the indicative; Type 3 IC displays a full-fledged paradigm in the indicative (3 simple tenses), subjunctive and imperative
Comparing adaptive capacity index across scales: The case of Italy
No full textMeasuring adaptive capacity as a key component of vulnerability assessments has become one of the most challenging topics in the climate change adaptation context. Numerous approaches, methodologies and conceptualizations have been proposed for analyzing adaptive capacity at different scales. Indicator-based assessments are usually applied to assess and quantify the adaptive capacity for the use of policy makers. Nevertheless, they encompass various implications regarding scale specificity and the robustness issues embedded in the choice of indicators selection, normalization and aggregation methods. We describe an adaptive capacity index developed for Italy’s regional and sub-regional administrative levels, as a part of the National Climate Change Adaptation Plan, and that is further elaborated in this article. The index is built around four dimensions and ten indicators, analysed and processed by means of a principal component analysis and fuzzy logic techniques. As an innovative feature of our analysis, the sub-regional variability of the index feeds back into the regional level assessment. The results show that composite indices estimated at higher administrative or statistical levels neglect the inherent variability of performance at lower levels which may lead to suboptimal adaptation policies. By considering the intra-regional variability, different patterns of AC can be observed at regional level as a result of the aggregation choices. Trade-offs should be made explicit for choosing aggregators that reflects the intended degree of compensation. Multiple scale assessments using a range of aggregators with different compensability are preferable. Our results show that within-region variability can be better demonstrated by bottom-up aggregation methods
Giovanni Sbordone, Al primo colpo di cannone. La crisi delle certezze socialiste di fronte alla Grande guerra (1914-1915), Roma, Ediesse, 2016
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Anti-migrant islamophobia in Europe. Social roots, mechanisms and actors
No full textDuring the last two decades of rising anti-migrant racism in Europe, Islamophobia has proven to be the highest, most acute, and widely spread form of racism. The article shows how anti-migrant Islamophobia is a structural phenomenon in European societies and how its internal structure has specific social roots and mechanisms of functioning. Such an articulate and interdependent set of key themes, policies, practices, discourses, and social actors it is intended to inferiorise and marginalise Muslim immigrants while legitimising and reproducing social inequalities affecting the majority of them. The article examines the social origins of anti-migrant Islamophobia and the modes and mechanisms through which it naturalises inequalities; it focuses on the main social actors involved in its production, specifically on the role of some collective subjects as anti-Muslim organizations and movements, far-right parties, best-selling authors, and the mass-media
Trade creation and diversion: effects of EU enlargement on agricultural and food products and selected Asian countries
No full textBased on estimation of the gravity equation, this article aims to scrutinise the trade effects emanating from the economic integration of the European Union (EU) by focusing on the trade diversion and trade creation effects of the fifth EU enlargement on 12 groups of agricultural and food products. This paper analyses the changes due to the EU’s enlargement of trade patterns in the agricultural and food sectors among the EU member states and between EU and non-EU countries as well as the effects of the enlargement on exports of agricultural and food products from selected Asian countries to the EU market. Our analysis shows no decline in exports from EU to non-EU countries. Trade creation effects are significantly high for 4 product groups: seafood, woody plants, beverages and tobacco, and animal and vegetable materials. However, trade diversion effects are found in animal and vegetable oils and textile fibres. Moreover, the economic integration has had no significant effect on exports from Asian countries, namely agricultural and food products. The data of 38 countries cover the period 1999–2015
Polarization of the vaccination debate on Facebook
No full textBackground: Vaccine hesitancy has been recognized as a major global health threat. Having access to any type of information in social media has been suggested as a potential influence on the growth of anti-vaccination groups. Recent studies w.r.t. other topics than vaccination show that access to a wide amount of content through the Internet without intermediaries resolved into major segregation of the users in polarized groups. Users select information adhering to theirs system of beliefs and tend to ignore dissenting information. Objectives: The goal was to assess whether users’ attitudes are polarized on the topic of vaccination on Facebook and how this polarization develops over time. Methods: We perform a thorough quantitative analysis by studying the interaction of 2.6 M users with 298,018 Facebook posts over a time span of seven years and 5 months. We applied community detection algorithms to automatically detect the emergence of communities accounting for the users’ activity on the pages. Also, we quantified the cohesiveness of these communities over time. Results: Our findings show that the consumption of content about vaccines is dominated by the echo chamber effect and that polarization increased over the years. Well-segregated communities emerge from the users’ consumption habits i.e., the majority of users consume information in favor or against vaccines, not both. Conclusion: The existence of echo chambers may explain why social-media campaigns that provide accurate information have limited reach and be effective only in sub-groups, even fomenting further opinion polarization. The introduction of dissenting information into a sub-group is disregarded and can produce a backfire effect, thus reinforcing the pre-existing opinions within the sub-group. Public health professionals should try to understand the contents of these echo chambers, for example by getting passively involved in such groups. Only then it will be possible to find effective ways of countering anti-vaccination thinking
Quasi-Newton-Based Preconditioning and Damped Quasi-Newton Schemes for Nonlinear Conjugate Gradient Methods
No full textIn this paper, we deal with matrix-free preconditioners for Nonlinear Conjugate Gradient (NCG) methods. In particular, we review proposals based on
quasi-Newton updates, and either satisfying the secant equation or a secant-like equation at some of the previous iterates. Conditions are given proving that, in some sense, the proposed preconditioners also approximate the inverse of the Hessian matrix. In particular, the structure of the preconditioners depends both on low-rank updates along with some specific parameters. The low-rank updates are obtained as by-product of NCG iterations. Moreover, we consider the possibility to embed damped techniques within a class of preconditioners based on quasi-Newton updates. Damped methods have proved to be effective to enhance the performance of quasi-Newton updates, in those cases where the Wolfe linesearch conditions are hardly fulfilled. The purpose is to extend the idea behind damped methods also to improve NCG schemes, following a novel line of research in the literature. The results, which
summarize an extended numerical experience using large-scale CUTEst problems, is reported, showing that these approaches can considerably improve the performance of NCG methods
326. Pittore lombardo o veneto, fine del XVI-inizio del XVII secolo, San Girolamo in preghiera nella grotta
No full textScheda di catalogo del dipinto inv. 6718 del museo di Castelvecchio a Verona