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This paper discusses the interactional construction of personal trajectories of migrant children with a focus on its implications for the enhancement of children's agency. The discussion is supported by the analysis of three extracts transcripts of audio or video-recorded classroom activities that illustrate the main forms of facilitation of migrant children's agency as authorship of narratives of personal trajectories of migration, also showing that facilitation is influenced by children's language proficiency. The construction of narratives can be context for the negotiation of hybrid integration, at the intersection between forms of facilitation, social and cultural contexts and personal trajectories and experiences.

Migrant children may display problems of participation in school interactions with adults and peers, depending on their difficulties in speaking the host country's language and understanding its culture. This condition amplifies the general view of children as incompetent in producing and acting knowledge. This paper analyses video-recorded interactions in kindergartens in Reggio Emilia (Italy), involving migrant children, teachers and Italian children. These schools are famous worldwide for their methodology, based on treating children as competent agents. I focus on the participants' actions constructing conversational sequences and the systems that these interactional sequences construct. The analysis highlights that migrant children are given recognition as competent agents, and that their status and authority is promoted in producing and acting knowledge. Recognition and promotion of migrant children's agency, status and authority are based on forms of facilitation, coordination and negotiation, enhanced by initiatives taken by teachers and Italian children. These initiatives give particular relevance to: a. migrant children's personal expressions and display of competent agency, and b. their linguistic and cultural difficulties. Initiatives combining these two aspects promote the social construction of a form of hybrid identity, both personal and cultural, which is constructed and appraised in the interaction.

This article analyses intercultural education outcomes produced in the setting of teaching Italian as a second language (ISL) in an Italian school. Intercultural education is produced in interactions which are based on specific cultural presuppositions, i.e. expectations regarding learning, role hierarchy and evaluation of student performances. Sixteen hours of interactions associated with ISL teaching in a multicultural classroom were audiotaped, transcribed and analysed. The analysis highlights three ways in which cultural diversity becomes meaningful. First, cultural diversity is constructed as one task of learning. Second, cultural diversity is constructed as conflictive interaction. Third, cultural diversity is constructed as a point of departure for positive school performance. These three ways of giving meaning to cultural diversity reveal a prevailing ethnocentric form of ISL teaching, as a consequence of educational presuppositions which do not take the difficulties of intercultural communication seriously. Recently, "dialogue" has been invoked to address ethnocentrism; however, the conditions of effective intercultural dialogue are uncertain. (Contains 2 notes.)

This essay presents the theoretical framework and main results of a research on intercultural mediation which has been performed in eight multicultural classrooms of Italian secondary schools. Intercultural mediation is conceived as a form of dialogic communication which should empower empathic and equal relationships between the participants by changing the existent negative patterns (dialogic mediation). The empirical features of mediation have been investigated in the interactions between mediators and adolescents in the selected classrooms. The analysis demonstrated that some dialogic actions were effective in empowering students' personal expressions, promoting effective reflections and new narratives about their relationships, and management of their conflicts. Two limitations of dialogic mediation emerged from the analysis: (1) dialogic actions were always effective in demonstrating mediators' involvement and coordination with students, but they were only occasionally effective in promoting dialogue among students; (2) promotion of active participation was more frequently successful than coordination of reflection and conflict management.

This article presents the theoretical framework, methodology and the main results of a comparative research on the promotion of children's social participation in Italy and Scotland, which was based on politicians', managers' and practitioners' representations. Promotion of participation here is considered a form of social intervention in which adults construct and treat children as citizens entitled to be involved in decision-making processes, due to their competence in self-expression and making choices. The study revealed a coexistence of different images of childhood and social intervention, as well as some interesting differences and similarities between the two socio-cultural contexts.

Self-expression is a key concept for sociological studies on childhood since it is the cue for children's self-socialization and agency. Hence promoting children's agency and social participation requires their self-expression to be facilitated in their interaction with adults. The analysis in this article of a set of interactions in Italian schools sheds light on how promotion of children's self-expression succeeded or failed through specific adult intervention and forms of communication. This analysis may be interesting for a reflection on how to promote children's participation and self-expression in education systems.

A selection of samples, obtained from a particular copper-alloy domestic artefact of Roman style from Pompeii, has been analysed by using different techniques (IR, Raman, SEM-EDX, FAAS), in order to investigate the chemical nature and composition of the metals utilised for such manufacturing pieces. The surface analysis of the bright red metallic microfragments conducted by different analytical techniques, emphasises the presence of pure unalloyed copper and confirms the absence of other metallic species on the upper layers. On the contrary, the mapping analysis of the section of the laminar metal of the investigated sample shows a consistent enrichment in tin content. Finally, destructive analysis by FAAS confirms that the artefact looks like a bronze metal alloy, with a medium Sn content of about 6.5%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper focuses on the risk of disconnection between policies and practices in the field of culture. General (and abstract) approaches to cultural policies are likely to get the attention of politicians and officers in culture departments in local government agencies and the press in the name of city branding, cultural districts, creativity and the like. To what extent this rhetoric is translated into actual and consistent actions is open to debate. Work on institutional, organizational and resource aspects related to the implementation of elegant policy designs does not always enter the agenda. The short-termism of political cycles is likely to make things even worse. The same bias is usually found in cultural policy studies, with a few exceptions that pay attention to reconstructing actual cultural policies instead of the ritualism of making “grand strategies”. Drawing from management studies, the paper adopts a different approach to the evaluation of cultural policies, investigating the relationship between different phases of the process at the micro level: planning, resource allocation, actions and results. The analysis of 10 years of cultural policies in Bologna – one of the European Capitals of Culture for 2000 – will serve as a specific focus to test and develop the analytical approach. We note the lack of adequate accountability tools, and call for the identification of more empirically rooted ways of addressing attention to actual behaviour, implementation, and budget developed in management studies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

An isolated human cranium, dated to the early Eneolithic period, was discovered in 2015 at the top of a vertical shaft in the natural Marcel Loubens gypsum Cave (Bologna area, northern Italy). No other anthropological or archaeological remains were found inside the cave. In other caves of the same area anthropic and funerary use are attested from prehistory to more recent periods. We focused on investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of this individual, since the cranium shows signs of some lesions that appear to be the results of a perimortem manipulation probably carried out to remove soft tissues. Anthropological analyses revealed that the cranium belonged to a young woman. We analysed the taphonomic features and geological context to understand how and why the cranium ended up (accidentally or intentionally) in the cave. The analyses of both the sediments accumulated inside the cranium and the incrustations and pigmentation covering its outer surface suggested that it fell into the cave, drawn by a flow of water and mud, likely from the edges of a doline. The accidental nature of the event is also seemingly confirmed by some post-mortem lesions on the cranium. The comparison with other Eneolithic archaeological sites in northern Italy made it possible to interpret the find as likely being from a funerary or ritual context, in which corpse dismemberment (in particular the displacement of crania) was practiced., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Background: Consensus guidelines define indications for cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT), but the variability in implant rates in 'real world' clinical practice, as well as the relationship with the epidemiology of heart failure are not defined., Methods and Results: In Emilia-Romagna, an Italian region with around 4.4 million inhabitants, a registry was instituted to collect data on implanted devices for CRT, with (CRT-D) or without defibrillation (CRT-P) capabilities. Data from all consecutive patients resident in this region who underwent a first implant of a CRT device in years 2006-2010 were collected and standardized (considering each of the nine provinces of the region). The number of CRT implants increased progressively, with a 71% increase in 2010 compared to 2006. Between 84 and 90% of implants were with CRT-D devices. The variability in standardized implant rates among the provinces was substantial and the ratio between the provinces with the highest and the lowest implant rates was always greater than 2. Considering prevalent cases of heart failure in the period 2006-2010, the proportion of patients implanted with CRT per year ranged between 0.23 and 0.30%., Conclusions: The application in 'real world' clinical practice of CRT in heart failure is quite heterogeneous, with substantial variability even among areas belonging to the same region, with the need to make the access to this treatment more equitable. Despite the increased use of CRT, its overall rate of adoption is low, if a population of prevalent heart failure patients is selected on the basis of administrative data on hospitalizations.

Purple codices are among the most relevant and prestigious book productions of Late Antique and Medieval age. They usually contained texts from Holy Writings written with golden or silver inks on parchment dyed in a purple hue. According to the tradition, the colour of parchment was obtained by the well renowned Tyrian purple dye. From the material point of view, however, very little is known about the compounds actually used in the manufacture of these manuscripts. Presently, the information available is limited to the ancient art treatises, with very few diagnostic evidences supporting them and, moreover, none confirming the presence of Tyrian purple. It is more than apparent, then, the need to have at disposal larger and more complete information at the concern, in order to verify what came to us from the literary tradition only. In this study, preliminary results are presented from non-invasive investigation on a VI century purple codex, the so-called CodexBrixianus, held in the Biblioteca Civica Queriniana at Brescia (Italy). Analyses were carried out with XRF spectrometry, UV-visible diffuse reflectance spectrophotometry, molecular spectrofluorimetry and optical microscopy. The results suggest the hypothesis that Tyrian purple had been used as a minor component mixed with other less precious dyes such as folium or orchil., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In the Roman wall paintings different white colours were used, named Paraetonium, Melinum, Anularia, Eretria, Argentaria, etc. FTIR, Raman spectroscopy and X-Ray diffraction were applied to study different white pigments, such as calcite, aragonite, dolomite and huntite, white carbonates present in archaeological findings from Roman walls in the Mediterranean region. This study showed that it is possible to distinguish and identify these components in white colours. About 450 samples of Roman wall paintings were analysed and it was observed that often aragonite is associated to precious coloured pigments. On the basis of the obtained results some considerations about the period in which the different kinds of white pigments were used are proposed.