131,939 research outputs found
On the origins of Italian anzi
No full textThe diachronic investigation of discourse markers has proven challenging since its inception in the late Eighties. Their context dependency and frequent association with informal, colloquial usage have raised methodological, as well as theoretical, questions, as historical work has to rely on written texts, which record speech with varying degrees of accuracy, and provide no access to prosodic cues. Using Old to Present Day Italian databases, in particular the Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, the contribution details the evolution of discourse marker anzi 'on the contrary' from spatial and temporal uses to its present-day contrastive-corrective function, by focusing on the role of the comparative structure in the shift. The importance of different types of contexts and genres will be discussed, for instance, Old Italian volgarizzamenti, translations or adaptations (or both) of Latin prose originals into vernacular versions, where the rendering with anzi can be compared to the original item in the Latin source text. © 2018 Jacqueline Visconti, published by De Gruyter
Mantua under Gianfrancesco Gonzaga (1407-1444) : war, politics and diplomacy in a Lombard buffer state
No full textThis thesis aims to assess the importance of Gianfrancesco Gonzaga
and his state in early quattrocento politics. The central geographical
position of Mantua placed it in the forefront of the conflict between
Venice and Milan which dominated Gianfrancesco's life. It was a conflict
during which both protagonists tried to exploit Mantua to further their
own expansionist aims.
Such a clash of interests naturally placed immense pressures
upon Gianfrancesco. As always, his primary aim was to maintain the
existence of his state and this meant that he had to manoeuvre himself
between the two rivals. He was to place the strategic advantages of
Mantua and his own talents as a military commander first of all at the
disposal of Venice, the traditional ally and protector of the Mantuan
state, and subsequently, in 1438, when he became suspicious of Venetian
motives, at the disposal of Filippo Maria Visconti. The central portion
of the thesis investigates Gianfrancesco's relations with these two very
different masters and attempts to clarify the issues and motives which
prompted his change of loyalty in 1438.
In many respects, the role which Gianfrancesco was called
upon to play was an unenviable one. While it is true that he himself
obtained a considerable degree of prestige as Commander of the Venetian
army as well as the 'kudos' of an Imperial title, the dual role of ruler
and soldier of fortune which had been thrust upon him bristled with
problems, and these are also investigated in this study.
The period of Gianfranceso's rule provides us with an
excellent opportunity to observe the problems and decisions which
confronted a small state like Mantua at a time of political crisis.
The part which Gianfrancesco and Mantua played in that crisis has
been underestimated and this thesis attempts to redress the balance
Architetti italiani per la città cinese. L'allestimento della mostra all'Expo di Shanghai / Italian Architects for chinese City. The exhibition at Expo Shanghai
No full textNote sul progetto di allestimento della esibizione Italian Archietcture for Chinese Cities tenutasi all'Expo di Shangai nel 2010 promossa dall'Accademia Nazionale di San Luca ed in collaborazione con il Commissariato Italiano di Governo per l'Expo e curata da Franco Purini e Uberto Siola
A box model simulating the evolution of polar stratospheric clouds and their chemical effects in the stratosphere. A preliminary test case study
No full text
Big Data for the Sustainability of Healthcare Project Financing
No full textThis study aims to detect if and how big data can improve the quality and timeliness of information in infrastructural healthcare Project Finance (PF) investments, making them more sustainable and increasing overall efficiency. Interactions with telemedicine or disease management and prediction are promising but still underexploited. However, given the rising health expenditure and shrinking budgets, data-driven cost-cutting is inevitably required. An interdisciplinary approach combines complementary aspects concerning big data, healthcare information technology, and PF investments. The methodology is based on a business plan of a standard healthcare Public-Private Partnership (PPP) investment, compared with a big data-driven business model that incorporates predictive analytics in different scenarios. When Public and Private Partners interact through networking big data and interoperable databases, they boost value co-creation, improving Value for Money and reducing risk. Big data can also help shortening supply chain steps, expanding economic marginality and easing the sustainable planning of smart healthcare investments. Flexibility, driven by timely big data feedbacks, contributes to reducing the intrinsic rigidity of long-termed PF healthcare investments. Healthcare is a highly networked and systemic industry that can benefit from interacting with big data that provide timely feedbacks for continuous business model re-engineering, reducing the distance between forecasts and actual occurrences. Risk shrinks and sustainability is fostered, together with the bankability of the infrastructural investment
Healthcare Digitalization and Pay-For-Performance Incentives in Smart Hospital Project Financing
No full textThis study aims to explore the impact of healthcare digitalization on smart hospital project financing (PF) fostered by pay-for-performance (P4P) incentives. Digital platforms are a technology-enabled business model that facilitates exchanges between interacting agents. They represent a bridging link among disconnected nodes, improving the scalable value of networks. Application to healthcare public–private partnerships (PPPs) is significant due to the consistency of digital platforms with health issues and the complexity of the stakeholder’s interaction. In infrastructural PPPs, public and private players cooperate, usually following PF patterns. This relationship is complemented by digitized supply chains and is increasingly patient-centric. This paper reviews the literature, analyzes some supply chain bottlenecks, addresses solutions concerning the networking effects of platforms to improve PPP interactions, and investigates the cost–benefit analysis of digital health with an empirical case. Whereas diagnostic or infrastructural technology is an expensive investment with long-term payback, leapfrogging digital applications reduce contingent costs. “Digital” savings can be shared by key stakeholders with P4P schemes, incentivizing value co-creation patterns. Efficient sharing may apply network theory to a comprehensive PPP ecosystem where stakeholding nodes are digitally connected. This innovative approach improves stakeholder relationships, which are re-engineered around digital platforms that enhance patient-centered satisfaction and sustainability. Digital technologies are useful even for infectious disease surveillance, like that of the coronavirus pandemic, for supporting massive healthcare intervention, decongesting hospitals, and providing timely big data
Shielded Computations in Smart Contracts Overcoming Forks
No full textIn this work, we consider executions of smart contracts for implementing secure multi-party computation (MPC) protocols on forking blockchains (e.g., Ethereum), and we study security and delay issues due to forks. In this setting, the classical double-spending problem tells us that messages of the MPC protocol should be confirmed on-chain before playing the next ones, thus slowing down the entire execution. Our contributions are twofold: For the concrete case of fairly tossing multiple coins with penalties, we notice that the lottery protocol of Andrychowicz et al. (S&P ’14) becomes insecure if players do not wait for the confirmations of several transactions. In addition, we present a smart contract that instead retains security even when all honest players immediately answer to transactions appearing on-chain. We analyze the performance using Ethereum as testbed.We design a compiler that takes any “digital and universally composable” MPC protocol (with or without honest majority), and transforms it into another one (for the same task and same setup) which maintains security even if all messages are played on-chain without delays. The special requirements on the starting protocol mean that messages consist only of bits (e.g., no hardware token is sent) and security holds also in the presence of other protocols. We further show that our compiler satisfies fairness with penalties as long as honest players only wait for confirmations once. By reducing the number of confirmations, our protocols can be significantly faster than natural constructions
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