Small-medium firms represent more than 90% of Italian firms, 50% of Italian production and 2/3 of employment and they need support in innovation process especially in known technology. The Italian small-medium firm, in fact, operates chiefly in medium to low technology sectors. They are often too small to make the necessary investments in training, computer systems, research and development, bu...

This study investigated the realization of Italian geminate-singleton contrasts by naïve and advanced L2 speakers of Italian whose L1 was German, a language with no consonantal length contrasts. We show that geminate-singleton differences could be established by all groups although there were significant differences in the geminate-singleton duration ratios across groups (Italian > advanced lea...

Human immunodeficiency virus type 2 (HIV-2) infection is geographically restricted, affecting West African countries such as Guinea- Bissau and Cape Verde. We describe a recent case of HIV-2 infection in an Italian patient. Phylogenetic analysis of the V3 region of HIV-2 indicated that the Italian patient was infected by HIV-2 subtype A2. The sequence obtained from the Italian patient clustered...

Objectives: After the establishment of Mussolini’s dictatorship, Italian psychiatry gave a significant contribution to the promotion of eugenics principles and of fascist racism. Materials and Methods: In 1938 the Italian Society of Psychiatry (SIP), embodied by its president Arturo Donaggio, signed the Manifesto of Racist Scientists. Results: This document provided scientific justification to ...

BACKGROUND Ageing population implies an increasing demand for health care services and resources, unsustainable according to current previsions. The European Commission is tackling this challenge throughout initiatives such as the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP-AHA), where all the efforts are aligned to the common goal of adding two active and healthy years to...

The Italian Protura were studied basing on 5103 specimens from 198 sampling areas, along with bibliographic data from 49 collecting sites. 17 out of the 20 Italian regions are covered. As a result, 40 species have been identified (belonging to 8 genera and 4 families), 6 of which are new records for the Italian fauna.A key to the Italian species is reported, followed by a series of distribution...

Italian children are immersed in a gesture-rich culture. Given the large gesture repertoire of Italian adults, young Italian children might be expected to develop a larger inventory of gestures than American children. If so, do these gestures impact the course of language learning? We examined gesture and speech production in Italian and US children between the onset of first words and the onse...

BACKGROUND Ethanol is the most widely used drug in the world and a human teratogen whose consumption among women of childbearing age has been steadily increasing. There are no Italian or Spanish statistics on ethanol consumption during pregnancy nor any information regarding prevalence of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). There is also a reasonable suspic...

Background: The Childhood Attachment and Relational Trauma Screen (CARTS) is a computer-administered survey designed to assess retrospectively the socio-ecological context in which instances of child abuse may have occurred. To date, studies supporting the validity of the CARTS have only been undertaken in English-speaking North American populations. Validation projects in other countries and c...

the article by brenna and spandonaro on interregional mobility for acute hospital care in italy raises important issues concerning social and territorial equity in a healthcare system. based on regions and private providers’ strategic behavior, the hypothesis adopted to explain patient cross-border mobility (cbm), demonstrated by statistical analysis, may be further explored using qualitative m...