Somewhere over the rainbow: Italy and the regulation of same-sex unions

While almost all European democracies from the 1980s started to accord legal recognition to same-sex couples, Italy was, in 2016, the last West European country to adopt a regulation, after a tortuous path. Why was Italy such a latecomer? What kind of barriers were encountered by the legislative process? What were the factors behind the policy change? To answer these questions, this article first discusses current morality policymaking, paying specific attention to the literature dealing with same-sex partnerships. Second, it provides a reconstruction of the Italian policy trajectory, from the entrance of the issue into political debate until the enactment of the civil union law, by considering both partisan and societal actors for and against the legislative initiative. The article argues that the Italian progress towards the regulation of same-sex unions depended on the balance of power between change and blocking coalitions and their degree of congruence during the policymaking process. In 2016 the government formed a broad consensus and the parliament passed a law on civil unions. However, the new law represented only a small departure from the status quo due to the low congruence between actors within the change coalition

The Politics of Migration in Italy: Perspectives on Local Debates and Party Competition, by Pietro Castelli Gattinara

Book review: The Politics of Migration in Italy: Perspectives on Local Debates and Party Competition by Pietro Castelli Gattinara Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2016, 214 pp. &nbsp

Scattering amplitudes in super-renormalizable gravity

We explicitly compute the tree-level on-shell four-graviton amplitudes in four, five and six dimensions for local and weakly nonlocal gravitational theories that are quadratic in both, the Ricci and scalar curvature with form factors of the d'Alembertian operator inserted between. More specifically we are interested in renormalizable, super-renormalizable or finite theories. The scattering amplitudes for these theories turn out to be the same as the ones of Einstein gravity regardless of the explicit form of the form factors. As a special case the four-graviton scattering amplitudes in Weyl conformal gravity are identically zero. Using a field redefinition, we prove that the outcome is correct for any number of external gravitons (on-shell $n-$point functions) and in any dimension for a large class of theories. However, when an operator quadratic in the Riemann tensor is added in any dimension (with the exception of the Gauss-Bonnet term in four dimensions) the result is completely altered, and the scattering amplitudes depend on all the form factors introduced in the action.Comment: 25 pages, 2 Figure

Implementation and impact of pediatric antimicrobial stewardship programs: a systematic scoping review.

Background: Antibiotics are the most common medicines prescribed to children in hospitals and the community, with a high proportion of potentially inappropriate use. Antibiotic misuse increases the risk of toxicity, raises healthcare costs, and selection of resistance. The primary aim of this systematic review is to summarize the current state of evidence of the implementation and outcomes of pediatric antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) globally. Methods: MEDLINE, Embase and Cochrane Library databases were systematically searched to identify studies reporting on ASP in children aged 0-18 years and conducted in outpatient or in-hospital settings. Three investigators independently reviewed identified articles for inclusion and extracted relevant data. Results: Of the 41,916 studies screened, 113 were eligible for inclusion in this study. Most of the studies originated in the USA (52.2%), while a minority were conducted in Europe (24.7%) or Asia (17.7%). Seventy-four (65.5%) studies used a before-and-after design, and sixteen (14.1%) were randomized trials. The majority (81.4%) described in-hospital ASPs with half of interventions in mixed pediatric wards and ten (8.8%) in emergency departments. Only sixteen (14.1%) studies focused on the costs of ASPs. Almost all the studies (79.6%) showed a significant reduction in inappropriate prescriptions. Compliance after ASP implementation increased. Sixteen of the included studies quantified cost savings related to the intervention with most of the decreases due to lower rates of drug administration. Seven studies showed an increased susceptibility of the bacteria analysed with a decrease in extended spectrum beta-lactamase producers E. coli and K. pneumoniae; a reduction in the rate of P. aeruginosa carbapenem resistance subsequent to an observed reduction in the rate of antimicrobial days of therapy; and, in two studies set in outpatient setting, an increase in erythromycin-sensitive S. pyogenes following a reduction in the use of macrolides. Conclusions: Pediatric ASPs have a significant impact on the reduction of targeted and empiric antibiotic use, healthcare costs, and antimicrobial resistance in both inpatient and outpatient settings. Pediatric ASPs are now widely implemented in the USA, but considerable further adaptation is required to facilitate their uptake in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa