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The geographic dimension lies at the very heart of the Atlantic Alliance: this is why the extension of the Alliance’s scope has often been a divisive issue. Between the late 1980s and the early 1990s, when the Soviet Union dissolved, there were efforts to develop a new Mediterranean strategy, more attentive to the emerging threats. The Mediterranean Dialogue (1994) and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (2004) were the two most important tools developed to this end. None of these programs was successful. The emphasis that NATO placed on technical cooperation triggered criticism, while the partners’ aloofness cooled down NATO’s initial expectations. The weight of the Eastern European members and their fear of the new Russian activism favoured a return to the old “deterrence and defence” posture, which – according to the Mediterranean members – underestimates their needs and makes NATO more vulnerable. The Arab Springs and their results emphasised the weakness of NATO position and the limits of a purely military approach to regional security. The efforts started in 2016 to rebalance the Alliance have led to few results. Lacking an overall vision on the transformations affecting the MENA region, the Alliance is currently losing relevance vis-à-vis other subjects, returning to a posture that sees the Mediterranean as an appendix of the traditional central theatre. Keywords: Atlantic Alliance; NATO; Arab Springs; Mediterranean Policy; European Security and Defence

The qualitative study «Promoting the culture of evaluation at school. The INVALSI experience at school» conducted between 2011-2012 by a research team from the University of Milan-Bicocca collected the ideas, opinions and perceptions of school actors on the INVALSI learning assessment experience. Adopting a «multi-vocal perspective», through individual and focus group interviews the viewpoints of different stakeholders within each school (nr. 16) have been examined: school directors (nr. 12), teachers of all grade levels (nr. 106) – some of them referents for the INVALSI evaluation in their school, and middle and high school students (nr. 100) who took INVALSI tests three or four times during their school career. The interpretative hypothesis, confirmed by the present study, considered that the organizational and communication procedures implemented by INVALSI, before and during test administration and correction, and especially during the process of returning the results, have important effects on the perceived quality of national evaluation in schools, on how the tests are proposed to students by school directors and teachers, and ultimately on the students’ attitude towards the tests. The experiences collected in this study seem to mirror the antinomy described in literature between accountability and program evaluation, social control and social development objectives. Results highlight the complexity in combining those different approaches, accountability, reflection and self-assessment within the school from a coherent, systemic and procedural viewpoint.

O trabalho aborda a figura do Dumping Social nas relações de trabalho. Analisa a possibilidade de aplicação de indenização de ofício pelo juiz ao verificar a prática irregular da empresa. Tal conduta suprime direitos trabalhistas em prol do lucro e gera concorrência desleal. Tem como objeto a conceituação do tema, a apresentação dos prejuízos causados aos trabalhadores, à sociedade e à economia. Traz legislações vigentes esparças que, analisadas de maneira conjunta, fundamentam a possibilidade de condenar empresas ao pagamento de indenização. Aponta os principais argumentos contrários à condenação ao pagamento indenizatório pelo cometimento de Dumping Social. Vislumbra a condenação como um meio de inibir tais práticas ilegais, proteger os direitos dos trabalhadores, assegurar o não prejuízo à sociedade e resguardar as empresas da concorrência desleal. Abordou-se de maneira sintética o tema no âmbito internacional. Conclui-se que os direitos fundamentais e os objetivos da República devem ser respeitados e que as empresas que se utilizam das práticas ilegais de Dumping Social devem ser condenadas como forma preventiva, pedagógica e sancionatória. Foi utilizado o método dedutivo para elaboração deste trabalho.

We present a brief survey on finite covers in model theory. In particular, we focus on those covers whose automorphism group over the base structure is either abelian or finite. In the last section we show some recent results due to Hrushovski ([15]) concerning groupoids and finite internal covers.

The test explores the question of identity in children of migrants who were born in Italy and/or experience migration at an early age. In particular the author examines observations made by nursery school educational assistants about “second generation” children regarding the experience of belonging contemporarily to two cultures, the delicate process of transculturalistion and early exposure to discrimination.

Copyright of Journal of Wound Management is the property of Cambridge Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Wound Management is the property of Cambridge Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Five children with tuberous sclerosis (TS), a polysystemic disease, had cardiac tumors detected by B-mode echocardiography. In a fetus, sonography performed at the eighth month showed the presence of a cardiac mass and of polycystic kidneys: the diagnosis of TS was confirmed postnatally because of the presence of calcified cerebral nodules. A newborn dichorial twin had paroxysmal tachycardia at ten days. B-mode echocardiography showed the presence of seven intracardiac tumors, and cerebral CT the presence of multifocal periventricular calcifications. An absence in a nine month old baby prompted an electrocardiogram that proved abnormal; a B-mode echocardiography showed large apical cardiac tumor; again cerebral CT showed periventricular calcified nodules. Two girls, 9 and 10 y.o. respectively, affected by TS, with normal electrocardiograms, both presented a small, asymptomatic, intracardiac mass demonstrated sonographically. In recent years, prenatal sonography and B-mode echocardiography in patients with TS demonstrated with increasing frequency the association of cardiac tumors (rhabdomyomas) with TS. Tumor detection often precedes the appearance of the cutaneous and neurological signs typical of the disease. This paper emphasizes the role of echocardiography in detecting cardiac tumors, as an early sign for the diagnosis of tuberous sclerosis, and to depict the natural history of cardiac rhabdomyoma with its variable clinical presentation and prognosis.

Transient hyperphosphatasemia of infancy is a biochemical syndrome characterized by a striking, transient increase in serum alkaline phosphatase in children without any evidence of bone or liver disease and of a familial occurrence. The abnormal isoenzyme pattern frequently observed in this syndrome may represent an excessively sialylated form of the liver isoenzyme, not normally removed from circulation. Here are described four new cases of this syndrome, followed biochemically and clinically until normalization of the serum abnormalities; a review of literature is also presented.

A case of acute B hepatitis in a male 3 month-old baby born to an asymptomatic-HBsAg-carrier mother is reported. There is a good evidence to support the hypothesis of a vertical transmission at delivery. In fact the mother failed to exhibit any reactivity for e/anti-e system and resulted DNA-polymerase negative.

We measured the whole blood filtration time of 30 healthy subjects. The influence of hematocrit, fibrinogen, leucocyte and platelet count on filtration time was also evaluated. Multiple regression analysis did not demonstrate any effect of the above-mentioned parameters when they were separately considered. We have subsequently taken from the entire population a group of 14 subjects in which were simultaneously found values of hematocrit greater than or equal to 41%, fibrinogen greater than or equal to 210 mg/100 ml and platelet count greater than or equal to 250,000/mm3. The filtration time was significantly higher in this group (69 +/- 4 sec) than in the remaining 16 normal subjects (56 +/- 4 sec), p less than 0.05. These data suggest that the simultaneous variation of several parameters could modify the whole blood filtration time, while these parameters have no effect when taken separately.