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The contribution presents and discusses a recent tool designed for those who work in the field of linguistic integration of migrants and refugees without a specific training in linguistics and language teaching, the Guide for the linguistic inclusion of migrants (Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, 2022). This tool, available in five languages, was developed by European universities as part of the European project INCLUDEED (Social cohesion and INCLUsion: DEveloping the EDucational Possibilities of the European Multilingual Heritage through Applied Linguistics) and develops, looking particularly at the non-specialist reader, topics such as the profile of the migrant learner in the migratory context, the intercultural dimension linked to language teaching and literacy, language teacher training and the potentials and limitations of available teaching materials.

The article presents the research connected to 7ling, an open-access modern European language learning app, developed within the KA2 Erasmus+ project XCELING - Towards Excellence in Applied Linguistics. Innovative Second Language Education in Egypt. The app is targeted at migrants and refugees, especially Arabic-speaking ones, giving them the opportunity to learn French, English, Portuguese, Spanish, German and Italian. The paper also presents assessment and validation activities, mostly related to the Italian section, based on focus-group interviews, surveys administered to trial-users, Italian-language teachers and students (mostly Arabic-speaking), which aimed to improve the product during its development.

In this introduction, the editors of the journal comment on the first four years of the journal and discuss some aspects of the recent Italian legislation for access to teaching.

La lingua dei segni italiana (LIS) è oggetto di ricerca scientifica da oltre quaranta anni ed è insegnata a pieno titolo nell’Università italiana da più di venti anni. In particolare, all’Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia e all’Università di Catania, la LIS può essere scelta come lingua di specializzazione al pari delle altre lingue offerte. L’insegnamento della LIS si può ora giovare della recente pubblicazione del QCER - Volume Complementare (Consiglio d’Europa, 2020), un manuale innovativo e inclusivo perché, rispetto alla versione del 2001, include le competenze linguistiche nelle lingue dei segni. Tre sono le principali novità: i) l’inserimento di espressioni neutrali rispetto alla modalità comunicativa (es. “il parlante/segnante”), ii) l’equiparazione funzionale delle videoregistrazioni ai testi scritti, e iii) un intero capitolo dedicato ai descrittori specifici per le lingue dei segni (suddivisi in competenze linguistiche, sociolinguistiche e pragmatiche). Questo contributo propone alcune riflessioni sull’applicazione di questi descrittori al caso specifico dell’insegnamento della LIS tracciando precise linee di progettazione didattica ed esempi di interventi formativi. L’impatto del Volume Complementare sui corsi di LIS nelle Università italiane comporterà ricadute positive non soltanto sul fronte dell’insegnamento ma anche, più in generale, sulla formazione dei professionisti sordi e udenti che lavorano con la LIS e con le persone sorde. Sign languages in the Companion volume and the teaching of LIS in Italian universities Italian Sign Language (LIS) has been studied by researchers for over forty years and has been taught in its own right in Italian universities for more than twenty years. In particular, at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and at the University of Catania, LIS can be chosen as a language of specialization on a par with the other languages ​​on offer. LIS teaching can now benefit from the recent publication of the CEFR - Companion Volume (Council of Europe, 2020), an innovative and inclusive handbook as, compared to the 2001 version, it includes the linguistic competence in sign languages. In this regard, there are three main innovations: i) the inclusion of neutral expressions in terms of communication modality (e.g. “the speaker/signer”), ii) the recognition of the functional equivalence between video recordings and written texts, and iii) an entire chapter dedicated to language-specific descriptors of sign languages (organized into linguistic, sociolinguistic, and pragmatic skills). This paper discusses the application of these descriptors to the specific case of LIS teaching by tracing paths in didactic planning and providing examples of training interventions. The impact of the Companion Volumeon LIS courses in Italian universities will have positive effects not only on the teaching itself but also, more generally, on the training of deaf and hearing professionals who work with LIS and deaf people.

This document illustrates the results of a discussion of two multi-disciplinary expert panels on pricing and reimbursement of medicines. Experts work in different organizations. The discussion focused on comparator(s), endpoint(s), negotiation of prices of new medicines and/or indications to include in the List 648, as well as the role of cost-effectiveness in the price and reimbursement negotiation. The debate took place during the fourth edition of the Seminari di Mogliano, organized on the 30th of September/1st of October, 2021. The two panels agreed on a general need to enhance interaction among the different stakeholders, in the early assessment and negotiation phases, and to increase the transparency/reproducibility of the decisions taken. The experts have also emphasized the need (i) to improve clarity in the evaluation of additional therapeutic value and the place in therapy with respect to comparators and how comparators are identified; (ii) to create work groups to identify the most appropriate endpoint(s), for each therapeutic area and level of unmet needs; (iii) to provide for a systematic use of cost-effectiveness when an added therapeutic value is delivered by a new medicine. With regard to the 648 List, the experts advocated for an overall reorganization of the current rules governing the special uses of drugs.

Starting from the case of parabolic motion, this contribution proposes a comparison and analysis of a historical text, some high school physics textbooks and one university textbook, from mathematical, physical, and linguistic points of view. The analysis shows how school textbooks, marked by disciplinary autonomy, have lost the intrinsic interdisciplinary dimension of historical texts. The university textbook is a synthesis of and a compromise between these divergent approaches. The results of the analysis represent a first starting point for the planning of targeted educational interventions and an important step to achieve interdisciplinarity in the school context between language education and science subjects.

El artículo tiene como objetivo presentar las relaciones existentes entre Derecho, Economía y Ética (desde la dimensión de la Justicia), partiendo de la noción de dignidad humana como experiencia.

This paper analyzes the linguistic variability of students’ answers to the questions administered within the Invalsi tests for grade 8 in the school year 2017/2018. From a quantitative point of view, the open-ended questions were classified on the basis of the linguistic variability of the relative answers; this classification made it possible to observe different behavioral patterns and deduce general indications. From a didactic point of view, the study allows to outline focused reflections on the verbalization of answers to reading comprehension questions. From a practical point of view, the study may guide further reflection on how to formulate open-ended questions in order to reduce the variability of answers.

UNA COMPLESSA EREDITÀ: RICORDANDO FABRIZIO FRASNEDI (1944-2015) a cura di Cristiana De Santis, Yahis Martari, Matteo Viale

Il contributo propone una rilettura di alcuni saggi linguistici di Fabrizio Frasedi da cui emergono i tratti caratterizzanti del suo approccio, fondato sull'eclettismo intellettuale e una concezione “militante” della cultura, insofferente agli steccati disciplinari. Nei suoi saggi sull’italiano contemporaneo spiccano, tra le altre cose, una visione “musicale” della lingua, l’attenzione ai rapporti con le arti e alle ricadute didattiche, nella sua visione inscindibilmente connesse con la riflessione linguistica. “We must teach agility”: old and new linguistic earthquakes in Fabrizio Frasnedi’s reflection The paper proposes a re-reading of some linguistic essays of Fabrizio Frasedi from which the characterizing features of his approach emerge, based on intellectual eclecticism and a “militant” conception of culture, intolerant of disciplinary barriers. In his essays on contemporary Italian, among other things, a “musical” view of the language, attention to relations with the arts and didactic repercussions, in his vision inextricably connected with linguistic reflection, stand out.

PRESENTAZIONE

In this introduction, the editors of the journal present the third issue and discuss some aspects of the teaching of Italian during the health emergency.

Despite the authoritative warnings (from IPCC to COP 21, from Pope Francis to Greta Thunberg) climate crisis is reaching irreversibility. Besides essential mitigation measures (stopping as soon as possible extraction and use of fossils, useless and harmful Major Projects, relocations to save on environmental and labour costs, and analogous) adaptation measures must be put in place as soon as possible to face life conditions becoming more and more difficult. International institutions and governments have not been up to the task, therefore local communities must lead the turn, recreating inside themselves and in their mutual relations conditions that promote a wider autonomy both in managing their own territories and in the production field through the reterritorialisation of many activities now spread throughout the planet. Efficiency and energy generation from local and differentiated renewable sources; ecological, proximity and multifunctional agriculture and farming for a healthy and sustainable diet; ecodesign finalized to zero waste; drastic reduction of mobility based on private motorization and care of hydrogeological systems. These are the core intervention fields for the unavoidable ecological conversion: a process requiring a strong popular participation, but also an inevitable conflict with the established powers.

Purpose: This observational study aimed to investigate the incidence of herpes zoster (HZ) among at-risk subjects aged ≥50 years, characterize them and assess annual healthcare utilization and costs from the Italian National Health System (NHS) perspective. Methods: Records of reimbursed drug prescriptions, hospitalizations and outpatient specialist care from the Fondazione ReS database were linked to identify patients aged ≥50 years at HZ risk (i.e. cardiovascular disease/chronic obstructive pulmonary disease/diabetes/immunosuppression, according to the Italian National Vaccine Prevention Plan – PNPV 2017-2019) in 2013. New HZ events (incidence per 1,000) were researched in 2 years, and subjects with HZ in the previous year were excluded. Antiviral and pain therapy consumptions, hospitalizations for HZ and costs paid by NHS were assessed annually. Results: From 12,562,609 inhabitants in 2013, a total of 1,004,705 patients (18.5% aged ≥50 years) at risk without a previous event were selected. The 2-year incidence of HZ was 5.9 per 1,000 (mean age 74 ± 10 years; 54.3% female). Patients aged 80-89 (7.2 per 1,000), females (6.7 per 1,000) and immunosuppressed subjects (6.9 per 1,000) had the highest incidence rates. One year after the new HZ episode, 82.2% were treated with specific antivirals (79.3% brivudine), generating an annual average cost/treated of €106; 8.0% were hospitalized for HZ, with an average cost/hospitalized of €3,927; the overall mean cost/incident patient was €402. Conclusions: This analysis provided HZ incidence in subjects aged ≥50 years considered at risk by the PNPV and its burden from the NHS perspective. Our findings can help health governance to improve clinical decisions and economic positioning concerning zoster vaccine plan.

In this introduction, the editors of the journal present the second issue and propose some reflections on the teaching of Italian during the current health emergency.

In this introduction, the editors of the journal present the first issue, explain their objectives and thank those who have contributed to the initiative.

The global challenge posed by the start of Anthropocene and climate change is ecological conversion, which is different from green economy, since it is not guided only by market opportunities, but by a conscious and participated plan affecting all aspects of social coexistence. Ecological conversion involves a transition from large centralised plants managed by hierarchical structures to a multiplicity of small plants distributed and managed through participatory processes that must affect both the institutional dimension of local governments and the governance of enterprises. All this entails a radical, albeit gradual and never complete, process of reterritorialisation of productions, markets and monetary circulation, albeit within a global dimension guaranteed by the world web. Local and global coexist by focusing on the former the management of physical processes (atoms), on the latter the information circulation (bits). Key actors of this transformation, which includes a dimension of conflict against the current arrangements of the world-economy and the powers that rule it, can only be municipal administrations, in federalist view that focus economic and political relationships on national, continental and planetary networks of municipalities.

We report a case of chronic osteomyelitis caused by Burkholderia cepacia presenting with multiple bone localizations in an infant affected by end-stage renal disease. In order to avoid the amputation of the extremities, a salvage procedure was attempted: all lesions were curetted completely and filled in with bone cement. At 24 months follow-up all lesions are completely healed.

The present paper provides a historical and linguistic survey of the use of verbal tenses in Italian scientific texts. As linguistic studies show, contemporary texts are characterized by the high frequency of the Present tense, since it leads to atemporal, generally valid statements. In scientific texts, the narrative component of discourse is weakened and the Present tense plays a dominant role even though the narrative component is significant. By contrast, during the 1600s – on the eve of the experimental method – scientific texts show a wide range of verbal tenses and moods, according to the model provided by literary texts. This distributional pattern is confirmed by an analysis based on a large corpus of scientific texts covering a period stretching between the 1600s and the end of the 1800s. The historical trend of tense frequency in scientific texts shows the increasing presence of the Present tense and of "narrative" tenses (according to Weinrich's classification) as opposed to "commentative" tenses.

RECENSIONE

The experimental research is an example of application of a new methodology of social science called methodological cognitivism to a problem belonging to the sociology of science and empirical epistemology.The object of study is the behaviour of falsification and confirmation of different actors in the scientific community. The social differences among actors are related to the expertise and to the discipline. The experiment is based on the interview of 180 subjects. The questions are about three different kinds of relation: cause, permission and prohibition.The results shows the same ability in confirmation between the different expertises and disciplines but a different ability in falsification according to the expertise and partly to the discipline.