Al-Qaeda - terrorists, hypocrites, fundamentalists? The view from within

This article investigates the ideology of Al-Qaeda as perceived from within the network. Particular attention is paid to the ideological background of Al-Qaeda's intellectual leadership, its sociopolitical context and the nature of its recruits. The inner logic of the Al-Qaeda organisation advances an intellectual concept that is not based on the main schools of Islamic theology, but on a new ideological starting point that results from the application of Islamic principles to sociopolitical change. With its political goals reinforced by the teachings of the Quran, exemplified by the content and rhetoric of a recently discovered training manual, the organisation creates powerful imagery embedded in the collective consciousness of the Muslim community. Thus, the message provided by Al-Qaeda inspires its followers to commit violent acts of destruction while being fully convinced that they are fulfilling the ordained will of Allah.

Peter Robinson

Profile article in Italian by Fabrizio Caramagna with sample aphorisms in English by Peter Robinson and Italian translation by Caramagna with Sara Bauducco and Ornella Trevisan

Validation of the GRAPE single view aerosol retrieval for ATSR-2 and insights into the long term global AOD trend over the ocean

The Global Retrieval of ATSR Cloud Parameters and Evaluation (GRAPE) project has produced a global data-set of cloud and aerosol properties from the Along Track Scanning Radiometer-2 (ATSR-2) instrument, covering the time period 1995�2001. This paper presents the validation of aerosol optical depths (AODs) over the ocean from this product against AERONET sun-photometer measurements, as well as a comparison to the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) optical depth product produced by the Global Aerosol Climatology Project (GACP). The GRAPE AOD over ocean is found to be in good agreement with AERONET measurements, with a Pearson's correlation coefficient of 0.79 and a best-fit slope of 1.0±0.1, but with a positive bias of 0.08±0.04. Although the GRAPE and GACP datasets show reasonable agreement, there are significant differences. These discrepancies are explored, and suggest that the downward trend in AOD reported by GACP may arise from changes in sampling due to the orbital drift of the AVHRR instruments.

Anxious adults vs cool children: children's view on smoking and addiction

Tobacco addiction represents a major public health problem, and most addicted smokers take up the habit during adolescence. We need to know why. With the aim of gaining a better understanding of the meanings smoking and tobacco addiction hold for young people, 85 focused interviews were conducted with adolescent children from economically deprived areas of Northern Ireland. Through adopting a qualitative approach within the community rather than the school context, the adolescent children were given the opportunity to freely express their views in confidence. Children seem to differentiate conceptually between child smoking and adult smoking. Whereas adults smoke to cope with life and are thus perceived by children as lacking control over their consumption, child smoking is motivated by attempts to achieve the status of cool and hard, and to gain group membership. Adults have personal reasons for smoking, while child smoking is profoundly social. Adults are perceived as dependent on nicotine, and addiction is at the core of the children's understanding of adult smoking. Child smoking, on the other hand, is seen as oriented around social relations so that addiction is less relevant. These ideas leave young people vulnerable to nicotine addiction. It is clearly important that health promotion efforts seek to understand and take into account the actions of children within the context of their own world-view to secure their health

Dealing with complexity: an autopoietic view of the People's Planning Campaign, Kerala

Complexity is integral to planning today. Everyone and everything seem to be interconnected, causality appears ambiguous, unintended consequences are ubiquitous, and information overload is a constant challenge. The nature of complexity, the consequences of it for society, and the ways in which one might confront it, understand it and deal with it in order to allow for the possibility of planning, are issues increasingly demanding analytical attention. One theoretical framework that can potentially assist planners in this regard is Luhmann's theory of autopoiesis. This article uses insights from Luhmann's ideas to understand the nature of complexity and its reduction, thereby redefining issues in planning, and explores the ways in which management of these issues might be observed in actual planning practice via a reinterpreted case study of the People's Planning Campaign in Kerala, India. Overall, this reinterpretation leads to a different understanding of the scope of planning and planning practice, telling a story about complexity and systemic response. It allows the reinterpretation of otherwise familiar phenomena, both highlighting the empirical relevance of the theory and providing new and original insight into particular dynamics of the case study. This not only provides a greater understanding of the dynamics of complexity, but also produces advice to help planners implement structures and processes that can cope with complexity in practice.

Re-conceptualising public participation in spatial planning: a view through autopoiesis

This article examines the relevance of the concept of autopoiesis for public participation in spatial planning. The concept of autopoiesis within social science, as advanced by Niklas Luhmann (1995) argues for a systemic, consistent and sophisticated theory of society based on a systems view, as opposed to more familiar action-based theories (for instance as in the case of the Habermasian tradition). By examining the relevance of the concept for public participation in spatial planning, this article highlights specific aspects of public participation that draw attention to dimensions of planning that are not currently explicitly highlighted within mainstream discourses in planning

Barbara Torelli Benedetti, Partenia, a pastoral play. A bilingual edition edited with notes and translation

This edition presents for the first time in print what is probably the earliest known secular, 'regular' play by a woman in Italy. As suggested in the introduction to the work, Torelli's play offers a fascinating example of female dramaturgy and creative adaptation of the pastoral genre in the context of late sixteenth-century Parma. Critical textual study is combined with new biographical material on the author and her literary milieu. The edition provides the first detailed palaeographical study of the complex Cremona manuscript of the play, which unusually includes emendations thought to be in the hand of the author herself (besides others). The transcription also describes for the first time in detail a newly discovered second manuscript of the play in Rome. The play-text is presented in the original Italian with a new facing English translation. Also included is the first transcription of the paratextual verse from the Cremona manuscript and the first transcribed collection of the author’s extant verse (both with translation).

Modi di dire

Encyclopedia entry for "idioms" and "idiomatic expressions" in Italian

Dare voce agli invisibili: Il teatro di Beppe Rosso

The article – which is co-authored with Irene Zagrebelsky – focuses on the work of the Italian playwright and actor Beppe Rosso, and it is the most detailed critical account on Rosso’s production so far. Based on original material and interviews, it not only analyses Rosso’s widely acclaimed “Trilogy of invisibility” in the light of recent political events in Italy, but it also – in its first two sections – introduces the so called “teatro di narrazione” to Italian scholars in the UK, and in its two last sections opens up new perspectives on the relationship between contemporary theatre, citizenship and political participation.

Le calunnie etniche nella lingua italiana

“Le calunnie etniche nella lingua italiana” (“Ethnic slurs in the Italian language”) is a very long chapter (c. 35.000 words) included in the second volume (pp. 513-587) of the multi-volume La cultura italiana, published by UTET in 2009-2010. (http://cultura.utet.it/cultura/catalogo/details.jsp?id=2076). La cultura italiana is an innovative multidisciplinary 12 volume (8.000 pages) work directed by the internationally acclaimed scientist Luigi Cavalli Sforza (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Luca_Cavalli-Sforza); each volume has been coordinated and edited by a very prominent Italian scholar, and every contribution has been written by academics with national and international reputations. The second volume of La cultura italiana has been coordinated by Professor Gian Luigi Beccaria, and is entirely devoted to language (“Lingue e linguaggi”). “Le calunnie etniche” brings together, for the first time in Italy, methodological issues and case studies on ethnic slurs in Italian and Italian dialects, and it particularly sheds new light on the semantic field of zingaro (gypsy), highlighting both the historical construction of the label, through the analysis of a huge amount of sources, and its social and political implication.