Indefinite determiners in informal Italian: A preliminary analysis

This paper presents the results of a pilot study on the distribution of indefinite determiners in contexts with narrow scope interpretation in current informal Italian. It individuates the available forms and presents their diatopic distribution. The research is based on data collected through an online questionnaire designed to detect optionality. The results show that in narrow scope indefinite contexts, i.e. negative statements, both the zero determiner and the definite article are widespread throughout the country. The partitive determiner is only found in episodic sentences and is limited to restricted geographic areas. In all contexts and areas, a large degree of optionality is found. In some context and area, however, it is possible to identify one form more prominent than the others. This can be related to the context, which may favour some specialized meaning of one specific form, e.g. saliency and small quantity, or to diatopic variation due to language contact with the dialect, as shown by comparing present-day informal Italian with the dialectal data reported in AIS and analysed in Cardinaletti and Giusti (2018)

Dependency, licensing, and the nature of grammatical relations

Dependency is a general term that refers to different structural relations. We highlight three very general classes of phenomena that are often captured by this term: (i) the structural relation between a lexical head (e.g., V, N, A) and the functional structure projected by it such as the relation between a verb and an auxiliary or between a noun and a determiner; (ii) the local selectional relation between a lexical head and the constituents that are combined merged with it to satisfy its argument structure, as in the case of the verb and the direct and indirect objects; (iii) the structural relation created by two different constituents that share the same referential index. In the latter case, we observe two major types: a constituent is displaced, as in the case of the subject of a passive clause or a wh-constituent; or two constituents share the same referent but have different functions in the clause (or in different clauses), as is the case of pronouns and their antecedents

Introduction

This volume includes selected and adapted papers from The Romance Turn VII, held in Venice on October 1-3, 2015. As for previous edi-tions, the conference brought together researchers from across Europe and overseas with the aim of communicating results and developing further research in the acquisition of Romance languages. The selected papers focus on a broad range of topics which are at the heart of the current debate on language acquisition (clitic pro-nouns, left-dislocations, passives, relative clauses, wh-questions) in a number of different acquisition settings: L1 and L2 acquisition, bilin-gualism, typical and atypical development. In addition to syntax, the volume covers other modules of grammar: semantics, pragmatics, and phonology, and adds a perspective on language processing to the cur-rent discussion on the acquisition of Romance languages. It mainly focuses on Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, and Romanian, in a compara-tive perspective with other Romance languages (Catalan, European Portuguese, French, Spanish) and languages of other language families (English, German, Persian, Sesotho, Turkish, etc.). One contribution on bilinguals with Greek as one of the two languages opens a perspective on a Balkan non-Romance language which may be interesting to be compared with Romanian

Influence of dietary vitamin E supplementation on cholesterol oxidation and fresh colour in beef aged for 3 and 14 days

The effects of dietary vitamin E supplementation on the susceptibility to lipid oxidation and colour of the Longissimus thoracis (LT) muscle aged in vacuum packaged conditions for 3 or 14 days were studied. For this purpose, Charolais cattle were fed on a diet providing daily 60 mg (control) or 5500 mg of vitamin E per animal (supplemented) for 30 and 60 days before slaughter. Dietary vitamin E supplementation increased the liver vitamin E content, but not in the LT muscle of treated animals. The vitamin supplementation for 30 and 60 days has shown non-consistent effects in reducing cholesterol oxidation products of vacuum-packed aged meat. However, the vitamin E supplementation for 60 days was effective on Lightness stability in LT muscle during vacuum-packed ageing. Overall, from the practical standpoint, this study suggests that supranutritional supplementation up to 60 days may not increase the vitamin E content of Charolais LT muscle giving little, if any, benefits on meat colour and cholesterol oxidation. However, the present study suggests that it would be interesting to determine in which extent specific oxysterols are related to the meat colour and whether colour parameters can be useful for predicting the formation of cholesterol oxidation products along the industrial meat production chain.The effects of dietary vitamin E supplementation on the susceptibility to lipid oxidation and colour of the Longissimus thoracis (LT) muscle aged in vacuum packaged conditions for 3 or 14 days were studied. For this purpose, Charolais cattle were fed on a diet providing daily 60mg (control) or 5500mg of vitamin E per animal (supplemented) for 30 and 60 days before slaughter. Dietary vitamin E supplementation increased the liver vitamin E content, but not in the LT muscle of treated animals. The vitamin supplementation for 30 and 60 days has shown non-consistent effects in reducing cholesterol oxidation products of vacuum-packed aged meat. However, the vitamin E supplementation for 60 days was effective on Lightness stability in LT muscle during vacuum-packed ageing. Overall, from the practical standpoint, this study suggests that supranutritional supplementation up to 60 days may not increase the vitamin E content of Charolais LT muscle giving little, if any, benefits on meat colour and cholesterol oxidation. However, the present study suggests that it would be interesting to determine in which extent specific oxysterols are related to the meat colour and whether colour parameters can be useful for predicting the formation of cholesterol oxidation products along the industrial meat production chain

Orbits in bootstrapped Newtonian gravity

Bootstrapped Newtonian gravity is a nonlinear version of Newton’s law, which can be lifted to a fully geometric theory of gravity starting from a modified potential. Here, we study geodesics in the bootstrapped Newtonian effective metric in vacuum and obtain bounds on a free parameter from Solar System data and S-star orbits near our Galaxy center. These bounds make vacuum bootstrapped Newtonian gravity experimentally indistinguishable from General Relativity

Malpractice and patient safety descriptors: an innovative grid to evaluate the quality of clinical records

Introduction: The medical record contains all the health information related to the patient’s clinical condition and its evolution during hospitalization. It was defined by the Italian Ministry of Health in 1992 as "The information tool designed to record all relevant demographic and clinical information about a patient during a single episode of hospitalization". The documents and information in a Medical Record must meet the following criteria: traceability, clarity, accuracy, authenticity, pertinence and completeness. The objectives of our study was to develop a tool capable of assessing the quality of the clinical record and pointed the critical point at the Organizational, Technical - Professional, Managerial level. Methods: To evaluate the quality of the medical documentation, we created an assessment grid composed of 4 sections with a total of 92 criteria. This grid was tested on 200 medical records that were randomly selected from 25 (18 medical and 7 surgical) wards of a teaching hospital in Rome. Results: The grid contains 4 sections. The first part regards administrative and clinical data; the second assesses the quality of hospital stay and surgical/invasive procedures; the third part is concerned with the discharge of the patient and the fourth aims to identify the presence of advisory reports given to the patient. This grid has been validated to verify internal consistency with Cronbach's Alpha = 0,743. Conclusions: Medical records were analyzed using a validated tool with grids to identify critical issues in care activities. Weaknesses in the system were identified in order to improve planning. The sample testing also in terms of ‘self-assessment' represents a tool to introduce activities to improve safety and quality of care, greatly reducing the costs of litigation

Quality assessment of medical record as a tool for clinical risk management: a three year experience of a teaching hospital Policlinico Umberto I, Rome

Introduction: The medical record was defined by the Italian Ministry of Health in 1992 as "the information tool designed to record all relevant demographic and clinical information on a patient during a single hospitalization episode". Retrospective analysis of medical records is a tool for selecting direct and indirect indicators of critical issues (organizational, management and technical). The project’s aim being the promotion of an evaluation and self-evaluation process of medical records as a Clinical Risk Management tool to improve the quality of care within hospitals. Methods: The Authors have retrospectively analysed, using a validated grid, 1,184 medical records of patients admitted to the Teaching Hospital “Umberto I” in Rome during a three-year period (2013-2015). Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS for Windows © 19:00. All duly filled out criteria (92) were examined. “Strengths” and "Weaknesses" were identified through data analysis and Best and Bad Practice were identified based on established criteria. Conclusion: The data analysis showed marked improvements (statistically significant) in the quality of evaluated clinical documentation and indirectly upon behaviour. However, when examining some sub-criteria, critical issues emerge; these could be subject to future further corrective action

Multiple Agreement in Southern Italian Dialects.

Manzini and Savoia (2005: 688-701) report on the existence in Southern Italian varieties of Sicily, Calabria and Apulia of multiple (V1+V2) finite verb constructions replacing or coexisting with infinitival constructions. In their survey, they note variation and restrictions on a number of properties, among which (i)-(v): (i) The presence / absence and form of a linker (ii) The position of an object clitic bundled on V1 or V2 (iii) Restrictions on V1 to andative verbs, modals, and aspectual auxiliaries (iv) Restrictions on person and tense (v) The possibility that subject agreement and tense features be reduced on V1 or V2, Despite the observed variation, M&S treat the phenomenon in a unified way as control structures with possible restructuring. In this paper, we will reconsider a proposal by Cardinaletti and Giusti (2001) who claim that in Milazzese, there are two different finite verb constructions, named Inflected construction and Finite construction, respectively, both coexisting with the infinitival construction. Restructuring and clitic climbing onto V1 only occurs in the infinitival and inflected constructions; while the finite construction does not allow for it. The inflected construction has full Tense+Agr realization on V2 and allows for a reduced form of V1; while the Finite construction has full Tense+Agr realization on V1 and allows for a reduced T on V2, parallel to infinitivals