The Daedalus system: A tool for the Italian investigating magistrate

Daedalus is a computer tool, developed by an Italian magistrate - Carmelo Asaro - and integrated in his own daily routine as an investigating magistrate conducting inquiries, then as a prosecutor if and when the case investigated goes to court. This tool has recently been adopted by magistrates in judiciary offices throughout Italy, spawning moreover other related projects. First, this paper describes a sample session with daedalus. Next, an overview of an array of judicial tools leads to positioning daedalus in the context of the spectrum.

Trade credit linkages along the supply chain: evidence for the Italian textile sector

We examine the trade credit linkages among firms within a supply chain to reckon the effect of such linkages on the propagation of liquidity shocks from downstream to upstream firms. We choose a sample appropriate for this task, consisting of a large data set of Italian firms from the textile industry, a well known example of a comprehensive manufacturing cluster featuring a large number of small and specialized firms at each level of the supply chain. The results of the analysis indicate that the level of trade credit that firms provide to their suppliers is positively related to the level of trade credit granted to their clients: when the level of trade credit granted to clients divided by sales goes up by 1, the level of trade credit provided to suppliers divided by cost-of goods-sold goes up by an amount that varies between 0,22 and 0,52. Since all firms along the chain are linked by trade credit relationships, an increase in the level of trade credit granted by wholesalers generates a liquidity cascade throughout the chain. We designate the overall increase in the level of trade credit among all firms in the chain as a result of a unitary impulse in the level of trade credit granted by wholesalers as the multiplier effect of trade credit for the industry chain. We estimate such multiplier to vary between 1.28 and 2.04. We also investigate the effect of final demand on the level of trade credit sourced by firms at various levels of the chain and, in particular, whether such effect is amplified for firms further up in the chain as a result of liquidity propagation via trade credit linkages. We uncover evidence of such amplification when the links of liquidity transmission along the chain are individually modeled and estimated. An unitary increase in wholesalers’ sales is found to produce an effect on trade payables among firms at the top of the chain (i.e., Preparers and Spinners) that is more than twice as big as the corresponding effect among firms at the bottom of the chain (i.e., Wholesalers).

L'histoire assassinee: Manfredo Tafuri and the present

Italian historian Manfredo Tafuri develops his ‘historical project’ in architecture during the 1960’s and 1970’s in three seminal books, which reach the English speaking specialist audience with a certain delay. Histories and Theories of Architecture (1968), which prepares the ground for the redefinition of a critical and independent history of architecture is first translated in English in 1979. Architecture and Utopia (Progetto e utopia, 1973) is translated in 1976, and becomes a point of reference for architectural histories and for the definition of architectural theories, mainly in the United States. The Sphere and the Labyrinth (1980), translated in 1987, is the text which formally defines and presents the ‘historical project’. Tafuri’s dense and highly politicized prose is often subjected in the English versions to numerous simplifications and reductive interpretations. Yet, the time lag and the space between languages that these translations occupy are inhabited by polemical and fertile reactions to the texts from the world of architectural design. Symptomatic of all, Aldo Rossi’s L’architecture assassinée, a rebuke in drawing to some of Tafuri’s remarks in Architecture and Utopia that seemed to suggest -but the interpretation is arguable– the ‘death’ of architecture as project (progetto). Tafuri’s texts instigate a dialogue between architectural history and practice, particularly relevant at a time in the development of the discipline when history was being redefined in its critical role as a ‘project’ –thus appropriating the active and propositional role traditionally assigned to architectural design–, while architectural design –still coping with the legacy of Modernism and with changed production systems- often found itself relegated to the paper of exhibitions, competitions and theoretical projects. This paper explores the relationship between architectural history and design in Tafuri’s work, focusing on recent reconsideration and interpretations of his work. It argues that, beyond instrumental simplifications, Tafuri’s ‘project’ remains active and essential in architecture’s critical culture today.

Delivering processing instruction in classroom and virtual contexts

Processing Instruction (PI) is an approach to grammar instruction for second language learning. It derives its name from the fact that the instruction (both the explicit explanation as well as the practices) attempt to influence, alter, and/or improve the way learners process input. PI contrasts with traditional grammar instruction in many ways, most principally in its focus on input whereas traditional grammar instruction focuses on learners' output. The greatest contribution of PI to both theory and practice is the concept of "structured input", a form of comprehensible input that has been manipulated to maximize learners' benefit of exposure to input. This volume focuses on a new issue for PI, the role of technology in language learning. It examines empirically the differential effects of delivering PI in classrooms with an instructor and students interacting (with each other and with the instructor) versus on computers to students working individually. It also contributes to the growing body of research on the effects of PI on different languages as well as different linguistic items: preterite/imperfect aspectual contrast and negative informal commands in Spanish, the subjunctive of doubt and opinion in Italian, and the subjunctive of doubt in French. Further research contributions are made by comparing PI with other types of instruction, specifically, with meaning-oriented output instruction.

Second language processing: an analysis of theory, problems and possible solutions

Second Language Processing examines the problems facing learners in the second language classroom from the theoretical perspectives of Processing Instruction (structured input) and Enhanced Input. These two theories are brought to bear on a variety of processing problems, such as the difficulty of connecting second language grammatical forms encoding tense and mood as well as noun-adjective agreement with their meaning. Empirical studies examine a range of languages including Japanese, Italian and Spanish, through which the authors suggest practical solutions to these processing problems.

Grammar acquisition and processing instruction: Secondary and cumulative effects

Research on Processing Instruction has so far investigated the primary effects of Processing Instruction. In this book, the results of a series of experimental studies investigating possible secondary and cumulative effects of Processing Instruction on the acquisition of French, Italian and English as a second language will be presented. The results of the three experiments have demonstrated that Processing Instruction not only provides learners the direct or primary benefit of learning to process and produce the morphological form on which they received instruction, but also a secondary benefit in that they transferred that training to processing and producing another morphological form on which they had received no instruction.

'Marginal gothic': mediating the monstrous in British romanticism

In this paper I look at texts from the Romantic Period which strategically employ elements of the Gothic genre in what I describe as a `marginal` relationship with the Gothic canon. My intention is both to explore the way the boundaries of the genre might be extended, and to cast fresh light on some of the texts discussed, specifically in relation to the ways in which the `monstrous` is perceived and portrayed as villainy. In the first half of the paper, using Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry on the Sublime and the Beautiful as a starting point, I consider Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, Godwin’s Caleb Williams, Radcliffe’s The Italian, and Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell as all in various ways examples of `marginal Gothic` that present evil doing as monstrous aberrations, also noting the contemporary reception of Beckford’s Vathek, praised in 1786 for its `accuracy and credibility`. In addition, I suggest that Wordsworth’s `Tintern Abbey` and Book VI of The Prelude provide evidence of marginal, but significant, Gothic influence that references Radcliffe’s and Burke’s explorations of a terror of the unknown. In the second half of the paper I focus on Scott’s Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer (1815) as an important example of a `marginal` Gothic novel. Scott’s reference to Vathek at a key point in his plot suggests that he had read Beckford’s novel as entirely `Gothic`. This discussion incorporates a comparison between Mannering’s youthful enthusiasm for astrological divination, and themes to be found in Shelley’s Frankenstein, notably with respect to the nature of Victor Frankenstein’s response to `old` and `new` science and medicine, and to the creation and control of Gothic monstrosity. In these and in other instances, it will be argued that the `marginal Gothic` of Scott’s novel may be read as a precursor to Shelley’s work. [From the Author]