Articles de revues sur le sujet « Fattori investigativi »

- This contribution lies in the opening between the interest of social research for a deeper understanding of phenomena tied to the quality of life, and the need to intervene in public health as well as identify priority areas of action for the promotion of peoples' health and quality of life. The pilot study carried out in Rome in fact aimed to test a survey instrument on the quality of life from a health perspective. It analyzed the interaction between the environmental dimension, the social-economical and the psychosociological ones and their impact on the quality of life of people who live in urban areas. The purpose of this first contribution is to consider what might influence the promotion of wellbeing, in relation to different levels of human action (macro, meso and micro). The results underline a prominent influence of the psycho-sociological dimension on the perception of individual quality of life and a less substantial influence of the socio-economical one. The absence of a relation with the macro factor, which ecological data of the Municipalities of Rome characterizes as an element of urbanization of the territory, needs further investigation. This can be obtained through a sample survey that guarantees the representativeness of the Roman population.

The authors report the results obtained from an investigation carried out on their territory regarding the risk factors of erectile deficit. Apart from having achieved the real purpose (publicising the matter and the activity of the Urological Andrology Centre), some interesting data were also obtained.

The COVID pandemic had countless repercussions on the family system, starting with the need to support young people in distance education training. Family and school realities have had to find new ways of relating with mutual overlap. Investigating how family members supported the learning of their children/grandchildren aged 6-16 was the aim of the international research activity coordinated by the University of Bath (UK). This contribution intends to account for the Italian data by exploring the possible relationships between the potential vulnerability factors of the pre-covid household and the activities that can be considered protective and supportive factors for households. The aim is not only to understand which competences and network systems have been activated in a period of exceptional gravity, but rather not to disperse, but on the contrary to enhance, those processes that have proved useful especially in fragile contexts. Covid, DAD e famiglie. Il caso italiano in un’indagine internazionale sul sostegno familiare ai processi di apprendimento. La pandemia di COVID ha avuto innumerevoli ripercussioni sul sistema famigliare a partire dalla necessità di supportare i giovani nelle attività di formazione in DAD. Le realtà familiari e scolastiche hanno dovuto trovare nuove modalità di relazione con un reciproco sconfinamento. Indagare come i membri della famiglia hanno sostenuto l’apprendimento dei loro figli/nipoti dai 6 ai 16 anni è stato l’obiettivo dell’attività di ricerca internazionale coordinata dall’università University di Bath (UK).Il presente contributo intende dar conto dei dati italiani esplorando le possibili relazione tra i fattori potenziali di vulnerabilità della famiglia pre-covid e le attività che possono essere considerate fattori di protezione e di supporto per i nuclei familiari. Non si tratta soltanto di comprendere quali competenze e sistemi di rete, sono stati attivati in un periodo di eccezionale gravità, quanto piuttosto non disperdere, ma al contrario valorizzare, quei processi che si sono dimostrati utili soprattutto nei contesti di fragilità.

The author investigates the "youth universe" in Italy; specifically, the hard relationship between it and politics and institutions, characterized by a lack of trust and credibility. The question of the absence of work makes the Italian case unique and exemplary: young people are precarious, inadequately paid. Unemployment, the late age to the first job and atypical contracts impoverish young people of the potential wealth they could carry around: innovation, change, planning, growth and future; all that exclude them from the country's decision-making processes. Thus, housing autonomy and economic independence are postponed, hence the transition to adulthood. Deprived of the fixed points that guided previous generations, today's young people do not recognize themselves into any ideology, do not feel represented by any political force. An investigation carried out close to the elections of March 4, 2018 confirmed what has been exposed so far and noted that the consequent discontent found a possibility of expression and change in the neophyte Movimento 5 Stelle. Therefore, it is appropriate to ask ourselves what are the motivations and conditions that have led young people, disappointed and disillusioned, to move away from "traditional politics". It is urgent to promote a cultural revolution to give young Italians the role of protagonists of present, backed by tradition but making space to the new and welcoming the future. Which role does the family play as the primary agency for political education? What proposal can make pedagogy of family educational relationships?

This paper aims at investigating lower and upper secondary students’ attitudes towards linguistic diversity, here assumed as an extension of the language attitude construct. The research focuses on individual factors, as well as on aspects related to the educational context. Drawing from a larger study, data was gathered from a considerable number of informants in a representative number Italian regions, employing a Likert scale-based questionnaire and through the triangulation of different information from a variety of sources. Results showed that gender, school grade, number of languages known and the migratory background are all predictors of attitudes towards linguistic diversity. Moreover, the adoption of éveil aux langues and CLIL and the purposeful use of the schoolscape though specific activities promoting plurilingualism and intercultural reflection have a significant impact on students’ attitudes. Gli atteggiamenti degli studenti della scuola secondaria verso la diversità linguistica: un’indagine sugli aspetti individuali ed educativi nelle scuole italiane Questo articolo mira a indagare gli atteggiamenti degli studenti della scuola secondaria inferiore e superiore verso la diversità linguistica, qui assunta come un’estensione del costrutto di attitudine linguistica. La ricerca si concentra sia su fattori individuali sia su aspetti legati al contesto educativo. Attingendo da uno studio più ampio, i dati sono stati raccolti da un numero considerevole di informatori rappresentativi di diverse regioni italiane, utilizzando un questionario basato sulla scala Likert e attraverso la correlazione di diverse informazioni tratte da una varietà di fonti. I risultati hanno mostrato che il genere, il grado scolastico, il numero di lingue conosciute e il background migratorio sono tutti indicatori di atteggiamenti verso la diversità linguistica. Inoltre hanno messo in evidenza che l’adozione di éveil aux langues, del CLIL e l’uso mirato dello schoolscape, attraverso attività specifiche che promuovono il plurilinguismo e la riflessione interculturale, hanno un impatto significativo sugli atteggiamenti degli studenti.

Il presente lavoro espone gli esiti della costruzione e validazione del questionario "La didattica Laboratoriale: apprendimenti e stili di conduzione con l'approccio IBSE" finalizzato a misurare il grado di conoscenza dell'approccio Inquiry-Based Science Education e lo stile di conduzione nella didattica laboratoriale, che ha visto coinvolti 523 corsisti del corso di specializzazione per le attività di sostegno didattico dell'Università degli Studi di Palermo; il test di misurazione costruito è composto da 42 item suddiviso in cinque macro-aree su scala Likert a 5 punti. Dall'analisi quantitativa condotta è emerso che il questionario ha buona concordanza, pensato per indagare sulle conoscenze dell'approccio investigativo e migliorare lo stile di conduzione della didattica laboratoriale. Quest'ultima risulta utile a facilitare l'acquisizione di una competenza in ogni ordine di scuola. Il laboratorio, infatti, rappresenta la modalità trasversale che promuove nello studente una preparazione completa e capace di continuo rinnovamento. Dall'analisi sono emersi risultati molto soddisfacenti per quanto riguarda l'attendibilità e la validità del questionario costruito. A seguito dell'analisi fattoriale condotta sono stati estrapolati i due fattori più rappresentativi, denominati Stili di conduzione nella didattica laboratoriale e Conoscenza dell'approccio Inquiry-Based Science Education. Infine, è stata condotta un MANOVA 2 X 2 per esplorare differenze ascrivili agli anni di servizio e al grado di istruzione dove si presta insegnamento. Tale indagine ha rilevato una correlazione tra la conoscenza e l'applicazione dell'approccio IBSE alla didattica laboratoriale tanto maggiore quanto più sono gli anni di servizio e all'interno degli ordini di scuola primaria e secondaria di primo grado. 

The real estate market is affected by great uncertainty due to the nexus of various factors: a) the specificity of the assets traded, which are illiquid, unique and very hetherogeneous from each other; b) the ‘structural disequilibrium’ of the market caused by the differences emerging in elasticity of supply with respect to demand; c) the non-competitiveness of the market, which often turns into a bilateral monopoly; d) the great variability of market prices. Since the subprime mortgage crisis that broke out at the end of 2006 in the United States, it has clearly emerged that, in a sector that represents about a third of world wealth, it is necessary, on the one hand, to implement proper and increasingly sophisticated valuation tools, to support the design of effective risk management strategies and, on the other hand, to improve the reliability of real estate data, in order to allow for a more robust verification of the hypotheses on the trend of the cash flows generated by the investment and a more accurate valuation of the investment risk and, consequently, of the project expected rate of return. The main objective of this work is to investigate the accuracy and robustness of the estimates of real estate investors of the expected returns on an urban development project in a medium-sized city representative of the North East of Italy. Using a simulation-based approach, the gap between the observed internal rate of return, estimated ex post on the basis of the actual trend of the parameters that influence investment returns, and the expected internal rate of return, calculated ex ante on the basis of the information available at the time of the investment decision. Firstly, we constructed the time series from 1995 to 2015 of the expected and observed internal rates of return of investments in the residential sector. We obtained the time series of the cash flows generated by the investment under investigation by implementing a simulation-based approach. Starting from the comparison between observed internal rate of return and expected internal rates of return, we identified ex post the risk implicitly assumed by the investor at the time of the decision to undertake the investment. Secondly, the effectiveness of the Capital Asset Pricing Model as a method for estimating the return on a property investment was verified, by comparing the project’s observed (ex post) internal rate of return with its ex ante rate of return, estimated through the Capital Asset Pricing Model. To carry out the above analyses, we constructed the time series of observed and expected internal rate of returns from 1995 to 2015 of investments in the residential sector. The time series of the internal rate of returns of real estate investments were obtained by implementing a simulation-based approach to determine the cash flows of real estate investments representative of the context under investigation and by adopting as model inputs the parameters usually adopted in ex-ante and ex-post real estate valuations. Starting from the comparison between observed and expected internal rate of returns, we identified ex-post the risk implicitly assumed by the developer at the time of the decision to undertake the investment. Finally, by investigating the determinants of the divergence between the investment’s observed and expected internal rate of return and cyclical variables, we identified the factors (i.e., the macroeconomic fundaments) which, in the period under investigation, affected investment risk and, consequently, investment return. Finally, by investigating the relationships that account for the difference between the observed and expected internal rate of return and the economic factors that can determine the current stage in economic cycles, we identified the determinants of invetment risk and returns. Il mercato immobiliare è affetto da grande incertezza dovuta a una concatenazione di diversi fattori: a) la specificità dei beni scambiati che sono illiquidi, unici e molto eterogenei tra loro; b) il “disequilibrio strutturale” del mercato causato dalla diversa elasticità del- l’offerta rispetto alla domanda; c) la non concorrenzialità del mercato che, assume spesso le caratteristiche del monopolio bilaterale; d) la grande variabilità dei prezzi di mercato. A partire dalla crisi dei mutui sub- prime scoppiata alla fine del 2006 negli Stati Uniti, è emerso chiaramente come, in un settore che rappresenta circa un terzo della ricchezza mondiale, sia necessario, da un lato, operare con strumenti valutativi adeguati e sempre più sofisticati, in grado di suppor- tare l’individuazione di strategie efficaci di gestione dei rischi e, dall’altro, migliorare l’affidabilità dei dati immobiliari, in modo da consentire una verifica più ro- busta delle ipotesi sull’andamento dei flussi di cassa generati e una stima più accurata del rischio e, conseguentemente, del tasso di rendimento atteso. Obiettivo principale del presente lavoro è di investigare l’accuratezza delle previsioni effettuate da un ipotetico operatore immobiliare sul rendimento di un investi- mento a sviluppo in una città di medie dimensioni rap- presentativa della provincia dell’Italia settentrionale. Attraverso un approccio basato sulla simulazione, è stato calcolato lo scarto fra il tasso interno di rendimento effettivo, stimato ex post in base all’andamento effettivo dei parametri influenti sul rendimento stesso, e il tasso interno di rendimento atteso, calcolato ex ante sulla base delle informazioni disponibili al mo- mento della decisione d’investimento. In primo luogo, è stata costruita la serie storica dal 1995 al 2015 dei tassi interni di rendimento attesi ed effettivi dell’investi- mento immobiliare residenziale a sviluppo. Le serie storiche sono state ottenute mediante la simulazione dei flussi di cassa di investimenti immobiliari rappresentativi della realtà indagata. A partire dal confronto fra tassi interni di rendimento effettivi e tassi interni di rendimento attesi è stato individuato, ex post, il rischio assunto implicitamente dall’investitore al momento della decisione di intraprendere l’investimento stesso. In secondo luogo, è stata verificata la bontà del Capital Asset Pricing Model come metodo di stima del rendi- mento di un investimento immobiliare a sviluppo, confrontando il tasso interno di rendimento effettivo e il tasso di rendimento ex ante stimato attraverso il Capi- tal Asset Pricing Model stesso. Infine, indagando sulle relazioni che intercorrono fra lo scarto fra tasso di rendimento interno effettivo e atteso e le variabili congiunturali, sono stati individuati i fattori che, nel periodo considerato, hanno maggiormente influito sul rischio al quale si è esposto l’investitore al momento di investire.

An approach was presented to improve the performance prediction of marine propeller through computational fluid dynamics (CFD). After a series of computations were conducted, it was found that the passage in the former study was too narrow, resulting in the unnecessary radial outer boundary effects. Hence, in this study, a fatter passage model was employed to avoid unnecessary effects, in which the diameter was the same as the length from the propeller to the downstream outlet and the diameter was larger than the previous study. The diameter and length of the passage were 5D and 8D, respectively. The propeller DTMB P5168 was used to evaluate the fat passage model. During simulation, the classical RANS model (standard k-ε) and the Multiple Reference Frame (MRF) approach were employed after accounting for other factors. The computational performance results were compared with the experimental values, which showed that they were in good agreement. The maximum errors of Kt and Kq were less than 5% and 3% on different advance coefficients J except 1.51, respectively, and that of η was less than 2.62%. Hence the new model obtains more accurate performance prediction compared with published literatures. The circumferentially averaged velocity components were also compared with the experimental results. The axial and tangential velocity components were also in good agreement with the experimental data. Specifically, the errors of the axial and tangential velocity components were less than 3%, when the r/R was not less than 3.4. When the J value was larger, the variation trends of radial velocity were consistent with the experimental data. In conclusion, the fat passage model proposed here was applicable to obtain the highly accurate predicted results.

La scrittura narrativa dei giuristi è spesso incentrata sulle stesse esperienze professionalmente praticate, al punto che le scelte autorali, per quanto arbitrarie e creative, tendono ad omologare una comune difficoltà di allontanamento da quegli ambienti. Tuttavia, molte opere e racconti, pur facendo iniziare le loro storie d’invenzione dove finiscono i mestieri, si propongono di sfidare il diritto, cercandone talora un’affermazione postuma, più autentica di quella raggiunta dalla verità giudiziaria. Ed è la grande tradizione dei romanzi civili o comunque dei romanzi di genere, che cioè traggono dalle dinamiche della giustizia, specie investigativa e poi processuale, il substrato di tutte le relazioni, facendo diventare personaggi i soggetti e le parti dell’attività giudiziaria. Per altri autori, invece, proprio il limite della ricostruzione giudiziaria opera da ostacolo ad una ennesima rincorsa verso la verità storica: in tale secondo genere di letteratura, in Italia più recente e praticato da scrittori di provenienza per lo più non penalistica, sarebbe vano espiare la continua colpa dell’approssimazione al reale cui le forme giuridiche la costringono. Il patto con il lettore allora si rovescia: non più il “riordino giusto” della vita, la proiezione dell’ideale nella legge, il destino collettivo raddrizzato, ma la organizzazione dell’oblio. Contro il mondo reale, il romanzo si fa più fantastico, le storie più tarate sulle esistenze dei singoli. Quando l’invenzione mescola ogni fattore costitutivo del diritto, la riscrittura della realtà è completa e però sottotraccia riemerge il riavvicinamento molto abile alla verosimiglianza. Che è forse l’orizzonte più prezioso della maturità del giurista.

Abstracttitle RIASSUNTO /title Il presente saggio suggerisce una nuova interpretazione della biologia lamarckiana basata su un'analisi delle diverse immagini sul vivente fra Sette e Ottocento. In particolare, la nouvelle chimie introdusse un nuovo concetto di combustione che rovesci il modo d'intendere il calore corporeo. Oltre a ci documentabile che la nouvelle chimie inaugur una nuova epoca cambiando l'organizzazione della cosiddetta 'macchina animata': il corpo vivente divent un naturale composto costantemente soggetto a trasformazioni materiali. Grazie alla nouvelle chimie il vivente divent un sistema naturale, ovvero un'unit regolata da due distinte leggi fisico-chimiche: il principio di conservazione del calore (1783) e il principio di conservazione della massa (1789). La convinzione che la macchina vivente fosse soggetta alla dinamica newtoniana cominci a sgretolarsi: l'immagine di una complicata macchina mor per dar vita al nuovo concetto di sistema. Il vivente non era pi un fatto riguardante la meccanica, ma diventava un discorso relativo alla fisico-chimica.

This investigation quantified body composition and aerobic capacity and examined the interrelationships of these measures in 20 morbidly obese females (M age = 34.6 yrs) prior to gastric bypass surgery. Fifteen subjects were hydrostatically weighed at residual lung volume in order to determine body composition. Eighteen subjects performed a maximal modified progressive treadmill test to determine aerobic capacity. Results indicated that the 15 subjects who were weighed hydrostatically were heavier (M wt = 132.34 kg) and fatter (M % fat = 53.18) than any previously described individuals. Relative weight, which is used as a criterion to determine surgery eligibility, was not significantly (p > .05) correlated to percent body fat. Mean aerobic capacity (V̇O2 = 14.99 ml • kg-1 mir-1) was comparable to Class III cardiac patients and was limited by the individuals’ extreme body weight. Since relative weight was shown to be an insensitive measure of obesity, it is recommended that percent fat be measured and used as a means to determine eligibility for gastric bypass surgery. Further study of these individuals is warranted in order to determine what effects large weight loss following surgery will have on parameters of body composition and aerobic capacity. Understanding how large weight loss affects these parameters will aid in designing effective postsurgical exercise rehabilitative programs for future patients.

This investigation studied the importance of muscle glycogen levels for body temperature regulation during cold stress. Physiological responses of eight euglycemic males were measured while they rested in cold (18 degrees C, stirred) water on two separate occasions. The trials followed a 3-day program of diet and exercise manipulation designed to produce either high (HMG) or low (LMG) preimmersion glycogen levels in the muscles of the legs, arms, and upper torso. Preimmersion vastus lateralis muscle glycogen concentrations were lower during the LMG trial (144 +/- 14 mmol glucose/kg dry tissue) than the HMG trial (543 +/- 53 mmol glucose/kg dry tissue). There were no significant differences between the two trials in shivering as reflected by aerobic metabolic rate or in the amount of body cooling as reflected by changes in rectal temperature during the immersions. Postimmersion muscle glycogen levels remained unchanged from preimmersion levels in both trials. Small but significant increases in plasma glucose and lactate concentration occurred during both immersions. Plasma glycerol increased during immersion in the LMG trial but not in the HMG trial. Plasma free fatty acid concentration increased during both immersion trials, but the change was apparent sooner in the LMG immersion. It was concluded that thermoregulatory responses of moderately lean and fatter individuals exposed to cold stress were not impaired by a substantial reduction in the muscle glycogen levels of several major skeletal muscle groups. Furthermore, the data suggest that, depending on the intensity of shivering, other metabolic substrates are available to enable muscle glycogen to be spared.

This experiment evaluated the productivity of 500 Angus cows that differed in genetic merit for either subcutaneous rib fat depth (Fat) or residual feed intake (RFI) based on estimated breeding values (EBVs) and managed under two levels of nutrition. Reproductive rate over four calving opportunities in mature cows and growth performance of progeny to weaning was assessed. Level of nutrition significantly affected all body composition traits for both Fat and RFI line cows. Cows on High-Nutrition were 14–16% heavier (P < 0.001) than those on Low-Nutrition. Differences in EBVs for fatness were reflected in phenotypic fatness at maturity. High-RFI line cows were fatter for both scanned rump (P8) and rib (RIB) fat depth relative to their Low-RFI contemporaries. Of those cows that were lactating, there was no significant effect of line or nutrition on pregnancy rate or days to calving (DC). There was, however, a trend (P < 0.1) in the Low-Fat line cows towards longer DC compared with the High-Fat line cows. There was no significant effect of either line or nutrition on calf birthweight. Calves with mothers on High-Nutrition were 8% heavier at weaning (P < 0.001) than those on Low-Nutrition. Lower EBVs for RFI was associated with higher 200-day growth EBV and heavier calves at weaning. Current carcass BREEDPLAN EBVs can be used to select for changes in cow body composition if desired. In this experiment, Angus cows selected for lower RFI or with below-average fatness EBV and had raised a calf at every previous opportunity were not compromised in pregnancy rate or DC at maturity under varying nutrition such as can be experienced during normal seasonal conditions in southern Australia. However, selection for lower RFI was associated with lower weaning rate (P < 0.05), which warrants further investigation to confidently predict the implications for commercial cattle production.

The experiment was an investigation into the interaction between body condition at calving and the provision of additional dietary energy or protein to a total mixed ration (TMR) in late gestation on milk production and indices of reproductive performance. Seventy-two Holstein–Friesian multiparous cows (12 per treatment) were fed to achieve target body condition scores (BCS) of either 4 (3.5–4.5) or 6 (5.5–6.5) units by 1 month before they calved (July). They were individually fed 1 of 3 diets during the last 26 (s.d. ± 7.4) days before calving date (mean of 19 August; s.d. ± 9.7). The 3 diets were (1) a TMR containing maize silage, barley grain, canola meal and hay, fed at 1.5% of liveweight (control diet), (2) the TMR plus 3.5 kg DM of wheat-based pellets (energy diet), and (3) the TMR plus 3.1 kg DM of soyabean meal (protein diet). Cows grazed highly digestible pasture after calving at pasture allowances of about 35 kg DM/cow.day, and were supplemented with 6 kg DM of cereal grain-based pellets per day. Cows were fed this diet for an average of about 10 weeks, from calving until the start of mating at the end of October. The provision of additional dietary energy and protein before calving did not affect post-partum production, and there were no interactions with body condition. On average, the BCS 6 cows were 111 kg heavier (P<0.05), and were 1.8 units of body condition higher (P<0.05), than the BCS 4 cows. The thin cows maintained body condition during the month before parturition while the fat cows lost condition. The cows offered additional protein improved their body condition (+0.07 units) during this time, while the cows in the other 2 dietary treatments lost condition (–0.10 units). Average daily rumen fluid pH was lowest in the cows fed the additional energy. Blood urea and rumen fluid ammonia concentrations were increased markedly by feeding the protein diet. In comparison with cows offered the control and energy diets, the cows offered additional protein had the highest (P<0.05) urine pH levels (6.24 v. 5.64 and 5.59 for the protein, control and energy diets, respectively), the lowest (P<0.05) blood serum concentrations of calcium at calving (1.74 v. 2.06 and 1.99 mmol/L for the protein, control and energy diets, respectively), and tended to have more milk fever and retained foetal membranes. Regression analysis indicated that the response to improving BCS at calving was 1.1 kg milk per additional BCS at calving (P<0.05), and the fatter cows produced milk with a higher (P<0.05) milk fat concentration (3.46 v. 3.07%) than the thinner cows. There was no effect (P>0.05) of treatment on days to first ovulation or in-calf rates although only about 80% of cows conceived during the 12-week mating period.

Abstract This study aimed to examine the correlation of carcass weight, fat depth, muscle depth, and predicted lean yield in commercial pigs. Data were collected on 850,819 pork carcasses from the same pork processing facility between October 2017 and September 2018. Hot carcass weight was reported following slaughter as a head-on weight; while fat and muscle depth were measured with a Destron PG-100 probe and used for the calculation of predicted lean yield based on the Canadian Lean Yield (CLY) equation [CLY (%) = 68.1863 − (0.7833 × fat depth) + (0.0689 × muscle depth) + (0.0080 × fat depth2) − (0.0002 × muscle depth2) + (0.0006 × fat depth × muscle depth)]. Descriptive statistics, regression equations including coefficients of determination, and Pearson product moment correlation coefficients (when assumptions for linearity were met) and Spearman’s rank-order correlation coefficients (when assumptions for linearity were not met) were calculated for attributes using SigmaPlot, version 11 (Systat Software, Inc., San Jose, CA). Weak positive correlation was observed between hot carcass weight and fat depth (r = 0.289; P &lt; 0.0001), and between hot carcass weight and muscle depth (r = 0.176; P &lt; 0.0001). Weak negative correlations were observed between hot carcass weight and predicted lean yield (r = −0.235; P &lt; 0.0001), and between fat depth and muscle depth (r = −0.148; P &lt; 0.0001). Upon investigation of relationships between fat depth and predicted lean yield, and between muscle depth and predicted lean yield using scatter plots, it was determined that these relationships were not linear and therefore the assumptions of Pearson product moment correlation were not met. Thus, these relationships were expressed as nonlinear functions and Spearman’s rank-order correlation coefficients were used. A strong negative correlation was observed between fat depth and predicted lean yield (r = −0.960; P &lt; 0.0001), and a moderate positive correlation was observed between muscle depth and predicted lean yield (r = 0.406; P &lt; 0.0001). Results from this dataset revealed that hot carcass weight was generally weakly correlated (r &lt; |0.35|) with fat depth, muscle depth, and predicted lean yield. Therefore, it was concluded that there were no consistent weight thresholds where pigs were fatter or heavier muscled.

A circa cent’anni dall’avvio dell’indagine linguistica ed etnografica di Paul Scheuermeier e degli altri raccoglitori, l’Atlante linguistico ed etnografico dell’Italia e della Svizzera meridionale (Sprach- und Sachatlas Italiens und der Südschweiz) costituisce una pietra miliare per lo studio delle varietà italo-romanze, all’incrocio tra dialettologia, geografia linguistica ed etnografia, tra “parole” e “cose” (Wörter und Sachen). Questo contributo, pur se alieno da pretese di completezza, propone una lettura ragionata di alcune carte linguistiche relative ai sistemi di coltivazione dei campi e ai tipi di colture, prendendo come riferimento geografico il territorio della provincia veronese e i punti di rilevazione selezionati dai compilatori dell’AIS, i quali sono collocati in località della provincia stessa che appaiono significative dal punto di vista linguistico. Il confronto tra gli esiti lessicali del dialetto veronese e quelli delle varietà venete orientali e dei dialetti gallo-italici permette di formulare alcune ipotesi circa la distribuzione spaziale dei fatti linguistici e il meccanismo delle innovazioni onomasiologiche in quella specifica porzione del dominio italo-romanzo, operazione che non va discosta - nel pieno rispetto dello spirito metodologico dell’Atlante italo-svizzero - da riflessioni e approfondimenti di carattere etnografico circa l’humus culturale e socio-economico che a quei fenomeni soggiace. Tiling the Land and Types of Crops in the Province of Verona: a Reading of the Italian-Swiss Atlas Almost a century after the beginning of the linguistic and ethnographic investigation by Paul Scheuermeier and the other collectors, the Linguistic and Ethnographic Atlas of Italy and Southern Switzerland (Sprach- und Sachatlas Italiens und der Südschweiz) still sets a milestone in the study of the Romance linguistic varieties in the Italian peninsula, at the crossroads between dialectology, linguistic geography and ethnography and between “words” and “things” (Wörter und Sachen). This paper, without any claim for completeness, provides a critical reading of some linguistic maps concerning tiling the land and types of crops, taking as a geographical reference the territory of the province of Verona and the measuring/recording points selected by the compilers of the Italian-Swiss Atlas, which are significant from a linguistic point of view. The comparison between the lexical outcomes of the Veronese dialect and those of the other Venetian and Gallo-Italic dialects points out some evidence about the spatial distribution of linguistic facts and the mechanism of onomasiological innovations in a specific portion of the Romance linguistic domain. This operation, in full respect of the methodological pattern of the Italian-Swiss Atlas, comes along with ethnographic issues regarding the cultural and socio-economic background of linguistic phenomena.

Abstract La nuova legge italiana per la protezione della concorrenza e del mercato è oggetto di grande interesse nel Regno Unito, a motivo dell’intenzione del governo di modificare il sistema britannico di regolamentazione della concorrenza, soprattutto per quanto riguarda i cartelli.La nuova legge deve ancora essere presentata, ma un libro bianco è stato preparato dal governo.La necessità di cambiare la legislazione al riguardo è emersa, in parte, perché essa è piuttosto antica (la prima legge è del 1948) e per vari aspetti inefficace, ed in parte per la difficoltà di conciliarla con la regolamentazione comunitaria.L’industria britannica teme che la diversità tra sistema nazionale e sistema comunitario di tutela della concorrenza possa tradursi in procedure concorrenti e con risultati discordanti, cosa che metterebbe in svantaggio le imprese britanniche rispetto a quelle degli altri partners comunitari.È rimarchevole il fatto che la legge italiana sia non soltanto modellata sulla base della legge comunitaria, ma che essa affermi che la legge nazionale non sarà applicata quando la Comunità europea abbia giurisdizione.Nel Regno Unito, invece, si insiste sulla possibilità di compiere indagini a livello nazionale, pur accettando il primato della legislazione comunitaria, in caso di contrasto. Si ammette che pratiche o accordi vietati dalla Commissione non possono essere consentiti, ma si sostiene che possono essere vietati, a livello nazionale, accordi e pratiche ammessi a livello comunitario.Peraltro, l’apparentemente chiara distinzione contenuta nella legge italiana tra i compiti della legislazione nazionale e quelli della legislazione comunitaria rischia di venir meno tutte le volte che i due ordinamenti interpreteranno le leggi in modo diverso. Questa possibility era stata alla base dell’opposizione del Regno Unito al conferimento alla Commissione europea della giurisdizione esclusiva per le fusioni di «dimensione comunitaria».Il sistema britannico è basato sul concetto di «interesse pubblico», che è per sua natura impreciso, anche se esso viene applicato in modo pragmatico e flessibile, cosa da non sottovalutare se si tiene conto del fatto che in questo campo le opinioni convenzionalmente accolte possono cambiare.Vi sono tuttavia numerosi vantaggi in un sistema che, come quello italiano, è basato su proibizioni, e di essi tiene conto il libro bianco governativo: dà messaggi più chiari alle industrie su cosa sia consentito, conferisce poteri investigativi più precisi all’Autorità della concorrenza e può anche stabilire sanzioni per comportamenti illegali, con possibili effetti deterrenti.L’Autorità italiana dovrebbe dare assoluta priorità alla eliminazione degli accordi decisamente anti-concorrenziali, come quelli diretti alla fissazione dei prezzi, alle domande ed offerte concordate, ed alla suddivisione del mercato. Si tratta di accordi che hanno raramente una giustificazione di carattere efficientistico o di altra natura.I cartelli su cui è necessario concentrarsi sono quelli di carattere orizzontale, mentre i cartelli verticali non sembrano rilevanti, almeno di regola. Pertanto, l’avere inserito anche i cartelli verticali nella legislazione italiana (conformemente a quella europea) complica molto il lavoro dell’Autorità (a motivo dell’intenso lavoro burocratico che ne conseguira) senza effettivamente contribuire alla tutela della concorrenza, che potrebbe in questo caso avvenire attraverso il ricorso alla categoria dell’abuso di posizione dominante.Per quanto riguarda le concentrazioni, sebbene quelle orizzontali siano il modo più semplice mediante cui si può giungere all’abuso di posizione dominante, bisogna riconoscere che esse costituiscono una parte molto controversa della politica della concorrenza. Vi è il problema di stabilire le dimensioni della concentrazione da sottoporre a controllo, nonché quello della prevalenza di altre considerazioni, attinenti, per esempio, alla promozione dello sviluppo regionale, rispetto ai principii della concorrenza.A proposito delle concentrazioni, bisogna distinguere il caso in cui le attività in questione siano esposte alla concorrenza internazionale da quello in cui non lo siano. In quest’ultimo caso, gli effetti delle concentrazioni devono essere esaminati con attenzione maggiore, per verificare se possano aver luogo benefici sotto il profilo di una maggiore efficienza o sotto altri aspetti. Si tratta, comunque, di valutazioni molto complesse, che non possono risolversi con una semplice formula circa il tasso di concentrazione.La repressione dell’abuso di posizione dominante è indubbiamente una parte essenziale della legislazione per la tutela della concorrenza. Tale è quindi anche nel Regno Unito, dove peraltro l’inesistenza di proibizioni rende difficile ottenere effetti deterrenti. Peraltro, un limite all’accoglimento del sistema previsto dall’art. 86 del Trattato CEE (così come del corrispondente articolo 3 della legge italiana) è costituito dalla difficoltà di definire l’«impresa dominante” e, ancor più, l’«abuso», con la conseguenza che si rischia di rendere ancora più difficile la vita delle imprese, che si troverebbero di fronte al divieto di compiere atti «illegali” che non sono precisamente definiti.Sebbene siano state numerose nel Regno Unito le indagini in materia di abuso di posizione dominante, nella maggior parte dei casi esse hanno condotto alla conclusione della loro infondatezza. È probabile che l’Autorità italiana abbia esperienze analoghe.Per quanto possano essere diverse, da Paese a Paese, le leggi sulla concorrenza e gli stessi ordinamenti, nonché i sistemi economici e sociali, è sorprendente la somiglianza tra i problemi che le autorità responsabili della tutela della concorrenza si trovano di fronte.

Within the framework of the research and innovation strategy RIS3 “Sustainable Living” (POR-FSE, funded by the Veneto Region), for the improvement of the resilience and adaptation capacity of the Veneto territory to environmental crises and emergencies, the subject of the contribution returns the results of the participatory experimentation of the project H.E.L.P. Veneto ‘ High-efficiency Emergency Living Prototypes Veneto - Sustainable adaptive residences for temporary stay in environmental emergencies. The research concerns the design of a minimum flexible emergency living module, replicable on a large scale, multifunctional, sustainable, powered by off-grid systems and integrated into the built environment. The housing unit uses timber, a material linked to the local building tradition, whose prefabricated modular reversibility follows principles of circular reuse. Moreover, the constructive adaptability of the interior spaces is reflected in a “liquid space” capable of transforming itself according to the needs of the occupants. The paper introduces a form of participatory design of the emergency housing module, based on the engagement of small and large companies, related to different segments of the construction market, a leading sector in the economy of Veneto. The participatory approach borrows from Architectural Technology the tools needed to understand the characteristics of the settlement system, the potential of the project and the value of scientific stakeholder engagement in the process. Using the Soft System Methodology, direct investigation protocols have been constructed relating to the performance of the living unit. Using Strategic Options Development and Analysis (SODA), the results of the experimented survey (large-scale questionnaires) were decoded, interpreted and systematised. The processing of the answers allowed the stakeholders to validate the potential of the proposed module and, at the same time, to be informed about its characteristics. The innovation of the method lies precisely in the modelling phase, which makes it possible to integrate the results of the hard and soft data analyses and to make it clear how participation plays an essential role in the process of designing and validating the proposed module. Nell’ambito della strategia di ricerca e innovazione RIS3 “Sustainable Living” (POR-FSE, finanziato dalla regione Veneto), per il miglioramento della capacità di resistenza e di adattamento del territorio veneto a crisi ed emergenze ambientali, l’oggetto del contributo restituisce gli esiti della sperimentazione partecipata del progetto H.E.L.P. Veneto High efficiency Emergency Living Proto- types Veneto – Residenze adattive sostenibili per la permanenza temporanea in regime di emergenza ambientale. La sperimentazione riguarda la progettazione di un modulo minimo abitativo di emergenza flessibile, repli- cabile a larga scala, polifunzionale, sostenibile con impianti a funzionamento off-grid e integrato nell’ambiente costruito. L’unità abitativa utilizza il legno, materiale legato alla tradizione costruttiva locale, la cui reversibilità modulare prefabbricata segue principi di riuso circolare. Inoltre, l’adattabilità costruttiva degli ambienti interni si riflette in uno “spazio liquido” capace di trasformarsi in base alle esigenze dell’abitare. Il contributo propone una forma di progettazione partecipata del modulo abitativo emergenziale, basata sull’engagement delle realtà aziendali di piccole e grandi dimensioni, relative ai diversi segmenti di mercato dell’edilizia, settore trainante della regione Veneto. L’approccio partecipativo mutua dalla Tecnologia dell’Architettura gli strumenti di conoscenza atti alla comprensione delle caratteristiche del sistema insediativo, delle potenzialità del progetto e del valore dell’engagement scientifico degli stakeholder nel processo. Utilizzando la Soft System Methodology sono stati costruiti dei protocolli di indagine diretta che combinano la conoscenza prestazionale dei processi insediativi nell’unità ambientale. Mediante la Strategic Options Development and Analysis (SODA) sono stati decodificati, interpretati e sistematizzati i risultati della survey sperimentata (questionari ad ampia scala). L’elaborazione delle risposte ha fatto sì che il sapere esperto degli stakeholder validasse le potenzialità del modulo proposto informandosi, al contempo, sulle caratteristiche dello stesso. L’innovazione del metodo risiede proprio nella fase di modellazione, la quale permette di integrare i risultati delle analisi dei dati hard e quelle dei dati soft, e di rendere chiaro come la partecipazione svolga un ruolo essenziale nel processo di animazione e validazione del modulo proposto.

Il contributo si propone di indagare i molteplici fattori, anche di carattere istituzionale, dai quali traggono origine gli errori giudiziari considerati elementi ineludibili di ogni sistema processuale. L’opera, oltre ad analizzare l’influenza che il processo penale mediatico può determinare sul libero convincimento del giudice, esamina alcuni casi emblematici di condanne pronunciate su false confessioni, errata percezione di comunicazioni intercettate, testimonianze inaffidabili e ricognizioni scorrette senza tralasciare gli errori commessi sulla scena del crimine originati, nella maggior parte delle ipotesi, da inesperienze o disattenzioni del personale investigativo. Vengono individuati, in una prospettiva de iure condendo, i possibili rimedi finalizzati ad evitare condanne o imputazioni ingiuste o, quantomeno, a ridurre i drammatici effetti che gli errori giudiziari provocano, in via immediata e diretta, sulla sfera personale e patrimoniale della vittima di una errata amministrazione della giustizia. Infine, l’A. si sofferma sugli strumenti riparatori previsti dal sistema giuridico italiano analizzando non soltanto la loro funzione ma anche i criteri che il giudice deve considerare nella quantificazione dell’indennizzo.

Per la situazione comunicativa della compravendita al dettaglio, in alcune linguo-culture è tuttora ammesso, se non proprio auspicabile, l’evento comunicativo della negoziazione del prezzo. Lo stesso evento, nella linguo-cultura italiana odierna, potrebbe apparire inopportuno e non essere incentivato; lo conferma il fatto che difficilmente la negoziazione del prezzo è inclusa nei sillabi dei corsi di italiano L2/LS: tendenzialmente non compare nei dialoghi ideati per gli attuali apprendenti di italiano. Eppure, come mostrano i numerosi manuali di conversazione e grammatiche bilingui o trilingui raccolti per questa indagine, in passato l’evento comunicativo della negoziazione del prezzo era rappresentato nei dialoghi, a partire almeno dal XVI secolo e sino al primo Novecento. Sulla base del corpus di testi menzionato, la presente ricerca illustra come poteva articolarsi l’evento comunicativo della negoziazione del prezzo, ripercorrendo le mosse comunicative e gli atti linguistici ammessi e la loro evoluzione in diacronia; sono altresì considerati i molteplici fattori che possono averne condizionato la rappresentazione (come i destinatari delle opere e le diverse lingue madri tematizzate) e la sua progressiva regressione. “I am not able to bargain. Tell me the last price”. Bargaining in Italian language between the 17th and 20th centuries Due to the communicative situation of retail buying and selling, in some languages and cultures, the communicative event of bargaining is still admitted, if not actually desirable. The same event, in today's Italian language, might appear inappropriate and not be encouraged; this is confirmed by the fact that bargaining is hardly included in the syllabi of Italian L2/LS courses: it does not tend to appear in dialogues designed for today's learners of Italian. Yet, as the numerous bilingual or trilingual conversation manuals and grammars collected for this investigation show, in the past, the communicative event of bargaining was represented in dialogues, starting at least from the 16th century until the early 20th century. Based on the corpus of texts mentioned, the present research illustrates how the communicative event of bargaining could be articulated, tracing the communicative moves and linguistic acts admitted and their evolution in diachrony; the multiple factors that may have conditioned its representation (such as the addressees of the works and the different mother tongues thematised) and its progressive regression are also considered.

The child abuse in its various forms, physical, sexual and psychological violence, is a complex phenomenon, potentially able to alter not only the natural development of the subject abused, but also his ability to relate to others. This paper aims to point out the way that the child has to take from the moment he decided to take over being a victim of abuse at the time when it is called to testify about the abuse right away, with all the difficulties that this witness implies, not only for the child himself, but also for those who are called upon to decide and rule on the quality of that testimony. The art. 196 of the current Code of Criminal Procedure recognizes everyone the ability to testify, then, including minors. Nothing therefore prevents the operators from taking information from a child in criminal trials. Moreover, investigators have wide discretion not only "if" hearing the minor, but also on the methods to do it. This entails serious risks on the authenticity of the evidential result: mnestic lability, suggestibility, tendency to pander to the interlocutor's expectations, all of which are typical factors of the minor that can compromise the correct reconstruction of the facts. RiassuntoL’abuso dell’infanzia, nelle sue diverse forme, fisica, sessuale e psicologica, è un fenomeno complesso, potenzialmente in grado di alterare non solo il naturale sviluppo del soggetto abusato, ma anche la sua capacità di rapportarsi agli altri. Il presente lavoro mira a sottolineare il cammino che il minore si trova a dover compiere dal momento in cui decide di rilevare il suo essere vittima di abuso al momento in cui è chiamato a testimoniare circa l’abuso subito, con tutte le difficoltà che tale testimonianza implica, non solo per il minore stesso, ma anche per coloro che sono chiamati a decidere e pronunciarsi sulla qualità di tale testimonianza. Il vigente codice di procedura penale all’art. 196 riconosce a chiunque la capacità di testimoniare, inclusi dunque i minori. Nulla vieta perciò, agli operatori, di assumere informazioni dal minore nell’ambito del procedimento penale. Per di più gli investigatori godono di ampia discrezionalità non solo sul “se” sentire il minore, ma anche sulle modalità di questa audizione. Ciò comporta seri rischi sulla genuinità del risultato probatorio: labilità mnestica, suggestionabilità, tendenza ad assecondare le aspettative dell’interlocutore, che sono tutti fattori tipici del soggetto minorenne che possono compromettere la corretta ricostruzione dei fatti. ResumenEl maltrato infantil, en sus diversas formas, física, sexual y psicológica, es un fenómeno complejo, potencialmente capaz de alterar no sólo el desarrollo natural del sujeto maltratado, sino también su capacidad de relacionarse con los demás. El presente trabajo pretende subrayar el camino que el niño debe recorrer desde el momento en que decide detectar su condición de víctima de abuso hasta el momento en que es llamado a testificar sobre el abuso sufrido, con todas las dificultades que este testimonio implica, no sólo para el propio niño, sino también para aquellos que están llamados a decidir y pronunciarse sobre la calidad de este testimonio. El actual Código de Procedimiento Penal, en su artículo 196, reconoce la capacidad de toda persona para testificar, incluidos los menores de edad. Por lo tanto, no hay nada que impida a los operadores obtener información del menor en el contexto del proceso penal. Además, los investigadores gozan de un amplio margen de discrecionalidad no sólo en cuanto al "si" de la audiencia del menor, sino también en cuanto a las modalidades de la misma. Esto conlleva graves riesgos sobre la autenticidad del resultado probatorio: discapacidad mnésica, sugestión, tendencia a cumplir con las expectativas del interlocutor, todos ellos factores propios del sujeto menor que pueden comprometer la correcta reconstrucción de los hechos.

ObjectivesIn utero glycemia is an important determinant of fetal growth. Women with gestational diabetes are more likely to deliver large-for-gestational age babies that are at increased risk for obesity. The maternal nutritional state modulates the development of offspring biological systems during the critical periods of gestation and lactation. Carbohydrate typically contributes most of the dietary energy, however, there are very few mechanistic studies investigating the effects of maternal dietary carbohydrate quality on fetal and offspring outcomes. Therefore, we sought to investigate the direct effects of maternal carbohydrate quality on sex-specific offspring metabolic programming.MethodsFemale C57BL/6 mice were fed one of five isocaloric diets: four high-sugar diets based on glucose, sucrose, isomaltulose or fructose (all containing 60% energy as carbohydrate), or a standard, minimally processed, chow diet, and were mated with chow-fed males. Half of the dams were sacrificed for fetus dissection and placental collection, with the remaining giving live birth. All dams were metabolically profiled before and during pregnancy, and pups were similarly profiled at 12 weeks of age.ResultsOverall, glucose-fed dams were heavier and fatter than chow or isomaltulose-fed dams. Female fetuses from glucose and isomaltulose-fed mothers weighed less and had smaller livers, than those from chow-fed mothers, with isomaltulose-fed female fetuses also having decreased placental mass. In contrast, male fetuses responded differently to the maternal diets, with heart mass being significantly increased when their mothers were fed fructose-containing diets, that is, sucrose, isomaltulose and fructose. High-sugar fed female offspring weighed the same, but were significantly fatter, than chow-fed offspring at 12 weeks of age, while glucose and isomaltulose-fed male pups displayed a similar phenotype to their mothers’.ConclusionWhile both glucose and isomaltulose diets constrained fetal growth in females, only placentas from isomaltulose-fed dams were significantly smaller than those from chow-fed mothers, suggesting the mechanisms through which fetal growth is reduced may be different. Female fetuses of isomaltulose-fed mothers were also lighter than sucrose-fed fetuses suggesting the glycemic index, or rate of glucose digestion and absorption, may be an important factor in determining nutrient availability to the growing fetus.

Il contributo propone all’attenzione il II Rapporto sull’applicazione della legge italiana in materia di “procreazione medicalmente assistita” (PMA) (Legge 40/2004), elaborato nell’aprile 2009 all’indomani della quarta relazione ministeriale del 25 marzo 2009 sullo stesso tema. La particolarità del presente Rapporto consiste nell’indagare su uno dei due obiettivi della legge 40/2004: tutelare il diritto alla vita del concepito. Infatti, mentre è alta la concentrazione sull’obiettivo di “superare la sterilità e la infertilità”, lo scopo di difendere il diritto alla vita del concepito considerato dalla stessa legge “soggetto” al pari degli altri soggetti coinvolti nelle procedure di PMA, è troppo spesso dimenticato. Il Rapporto vuole proprio rimediare a tale dimenticanza e si chiede: di quanti nuovi esseri umani è stata evitata la distruzione per effetto della legge? Poiché, come si legge nel contributo, è chiaro che le tecniche di PMA per il fatto stesso di procreare “in vitro” espongono alla morte gli embrioni anche quando vengono trasferiti nelle vie genitali della donna (ed è questa, infatti, una delle principali riserve etiche nei confronti delle tecniche di PMA), l’indagine si occupa solo di vedere come è stato tutelato il diritto alla vita degli embrioni non trasferiti, cioè non destinati alla nascita, dalla Legge 40/2004. Emerge che l’effetto più benefico della legge è quello di aver evitato nel solo triennio 2005-2006-2007 la possibile formazione soprannumeraria di embrioni e la conseguente possibile distruzione, diretta o dovuta alla crioconservazione, di oltre 120.000 embrioni. La seconda parte della ricerca è condotta confrontando anche i dati di altri Paesi europei e dimostra che il rispetto dei limiti posti a tutela del diritto alla vita hanno anche garantito meglio la salute della donna e non hanno diminuito la percentuale del “successo”. Come è noto la recente sentenza n. 151/2009 della Corte Costituzionale ha gravemente compromesso la legge proprio nel punto di maggiore sensibilità nei confronti della tutela concreta del diritto alla vita del concepito. L’auspicio è che i dati raccolti in questo II rapporto vengano comunque presi in seria considerazione. ---------- The contribution proposes the II Report of April 2009 on the application of the Italian Law on “medically assisted reproduction” (PMA) (Law 40/2004). The peculiarity of the present Report consists of investigating one of the two purposes of the Law 40/2004: to protect the right to life of newborns. In fact, if, on one hand, attention to the purpose of “overcoming sterility and infertility” the Law considers, on the other hand the purpose of defending the right to life of newborn, that is considered as “subject” just like the others subjects involved in PMA procedures from the same law, is too often forgotten. The Report intends to remedy for this forgetfulness and it asks: how many new human beings have been saved thanks to the Law? It makes clear that the most beneficent effect of the Law is that, in the period 2005-2007, it has avoided the possible production of excess embryos and the consequent possible suppression – direct or due to the cryoconservation – of over 120.000 embryos. The second part of the search is conducted also comparing data of other European Countries and it shows that the respect of the imposed limits for protecting the right to life has also guaranteed the woman’s health and it has not reduced the outcome percentage.

Anders Toftgaard: “Perhaps even this distress it will some day be a joy to recall”. On Giacomo Castelvetro’s manuscripts in The Royal Library, Copenhagen. In exile from his beloved Modena, Giacomo Castelvetro (1546–1616) travelled in a Europe marked by Reformation, counter-Reformation and wars of religion. He transmitted the best of Italian Renaissance culture to the court of James VI and Queen Anna of Denmark in Edinburgh, to the court of Christian IV in Copenhagen and to Shakespeare’s London, while he incessantly collected manuscripts on Italian literature and European contemporary history. Giacomo Castelvetro lived in Denmark from August 1594 to 11 October 1595. Various manuscripts and books which belonged to Giacomo Castelvetro in his lifetime, are now kept in the Royal Library in Copenhagen. Some of them might have been in Denmark ever since Castelvetro left Denmark in 1595. Nevertheless, Giacomo Castelvetro has never been noticed by Danish scholars studying the cultural context in which he lived. The purpose of this article is to point to Castelvetro’s presence in Denmark in the period around Christian IV’s accession and to describe two of his unique manuscripts in the collection of the Royal Library. The Royal Library in Copenhagen holds a copy of the first printed Italian translation of the Quran, L’Alcorano di Macometto, nel qual si contiene la dottrina, la vita, i costumi et le leggi sue published by Andrea Arrivabene in Venice in 1547. The title page bears the name of the owner: Giacº Castelvetri. The copy was already in the library’s collections at the time of the Danish King Frederic III, in the 1660’s. The three manuscripts from the Old Royal collection (GKS), GKS 2052 4º, GKS 2053 4º and GKS 2057 4º are written partly or entirely in the hand of Giacomo Castelvetro. Moreover, a number of letters written to Giacomo Castelvetro while he was still in Edinburgh are kept among letters addressed to Jonas Charisius, the learned secretary in the Foreign Chancellery and son in law of Petrus Severinus (shelf mark NKS (New Royal Collection) 1305 2º). These letters have been dealt with by Giuseppe Migliorato who also transcribed two of them. GKS 2052 4º The manuscript GKS 2052 4º (which is now accessible in a digital facsimile on the Royal Library’s website), contains a collection of Italian proverbs explained by Giacomo Castelvetro. It is dedicated to Niels Krag, who was ambassador of the Danish King to the Scottish court, and it is dated 6 August 1593. The title page shows the following beautifully written text: Il Significato D’Alquanti belli & vari proverbi dell’Italica Favella, gia fatto da G. C. M. & hoggi riscritto, & donato,in segno di perpetua amicitia, all ecc.te.D. di legge, Il S.r. Nicolò Crachio Ambas.re. del Ser.mo Re di Dania a questa Corona, & Sig.r mio sempre osser.mo Forsan & haec olim meminisse iuvabit Nella Citta d’Edimborgo A VI d’Agosto 1593 The manuscript consists of 96 leaves. On the last page of the manuscript the title is repeated with a little variation in the colophon: Qui finisce il Significato D’alquanti proverbi italiani, hoggi rescritto a requisitione del S.r. Nicolo Crachio eccelente Dottore delle civili leggi &c. Since the author was concealed under the initials G.C.M., the manuscript has never before been described and never attributed to Giacomo Castelvetro. However, in the margin of the title page, a 16th century hand has added: ”Giacomo Castelvetri modonese”, and the entire manuscript is written in Giacomo Castelvetro’s characteristic hand. The motto ”Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit” is from Vergil’s Aeneid (I, 203); and in the Loeb edition it is rendered “Perhaps even this distress it will some day be a joy to recall”. The motto appears on all of the manuscripts that Giacomo Castelvetro copied in Copenhagen. The manuscript was evidently offered to Professor Niels Krag (ca. 1550–1602), who was in Edinburgh in 1593, from May to August, as an ambassador of the Danish King. On the 1st of August, he was knighted by James VI for his brave behaviour when Bothwell entered the King’s chamber in the end of July. The Danish Public Record Office holds Niels Krag’s official diary from the journey, signed by Sten Bilde and Niels Krag. It clearly states that they left Edinburgh on August 6th, the day in which Niels Krag was given the manuscript. Evidently, Castelvetro was one of the many persons celebrating the ambassadors at their departure. The manuscript is bound in parchment with gilded edges, and a gilded frame and central arabesque on both front cover and end cover. There are 417 entries in the collection of proverbs, and in the explanations Giacomo Castelvetro often uses other proverbs and phrases. The explanations are most vivid, when Castelvetro explains the use of a proverb by a tale in the tradition of the Italian novella or by an experience from his own life. The historical persons mentioned are the main characters of the sixteenth century’s religious drama, such as Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, Elizabeth, James VI, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and his son, Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, Gaspard de Coligny and the Guise family, Mary Stuart, Don Antonio, King of Portugal, the Earl of Bothwell and Cosimo de’ Medici. The Catholic Church is referred to as “Setta papesca”, and Luther is referred to as “il grande, e pio Lutero” (f. 49v). Giovanni Boccaccio and Francesco Petrarca are referred to various times, along with Antonio Cornazzano (ca. 1430–1483/84), the author of Proverbi in facetie, while Brunetto Latini, Giovanni Villani, Ovid and Vergil each are mentioned once. Many of the explanations are frivolous, and quite a few of them involve priests and monks. The origin of the phrase “Meglio è tardi, che non mai” (52v, “better late than never”) is explained by a story about a monk who experienced sex for the first time at the age of 44. In contrast to some of the texts to be found in the manuscript GKS 2057 4º the texts in GKS 2052 4º, are not misogynist, rather the opposite. Castelvetro’s collection of proverbs is a hitherto unknown work. It contains only a tenth of the number of proverbs listed in Gardine of recreation (1591) by John Florio (1553?–1625), but by contrast these explanations can be used, on the one hand, as a means to an anthropological investigation of the past and on the other hand they give us precious information about the life of Giacomo Castelvetro. For instance he cites a work of his, “Il ragionamento del Viandante” (f. 82r), which he hopes to see printed one day. It most probably never was printed. GKS 2057 4º The manuscript GKS 2057 4º gathers a number of quires in very different sizes. The 458 folios in modern foliation plus end sheets are bound in blue marbled paper (covering a previous binding in parchment) which would seem to be from the 17th century. The content spans from notes to readyforprint-manuscripts. The manuscript contains text by poets from Ludovico Castelvetro’s generation, poems by poets from Modena, texts tied to the reformation and a lot of satirical and polemical material. Just like some of Giacomo Castelvetro’s manuscripts which are now in the possession of Trinity College Library and the British Library it has “been bound up in the greatest disorder” (cf. Butler 1950, p. 23, n. 75). Far from everything is written in the hand of Giacomo Castelvetro, but everything is tied to him apart from one quire (ff. 184–192) written in French in (or after) 1639. The first part contains ”Annotationi sopra i sonetti del Bembo” by Ludovico Castelvetro, (which has already been studied by Alberto Roncaccia), a didactic poem in terza rima about rhetoric, “de’ precetti delle partitioni oratorie” by “Filippo Valentino Modonese” , “rescritto in Basilea a XI di Febraio 1580 per Giacº Castelvetri” and the Ars poetica by Horace translated in Italian. These texts are followed by satirical letters by Nicolò Franco (“alle puttane” and “alla lucerna” with their responses), by La Zaffetta, a sadistic, satirical poem about a Venetian courtisane who is punished by her lover by means of a gang rape by thirty one men, and by Il Manganello (f. 123–148r), an anonymous, misogynistic work. The manuscript also contains a dialogue which would seem to have been written by Giacomo Castelvetro, “Un’amichevole ragionamento di due veri amici, che sentono il contrario d’uno terzo loro amico”, some religious considerations written shortly after Ludovico’s death, ”essempio d’uno pio sermone et d’una Christiana lettera” and an Italian translation of parts of Erasmus’ Colloquia (the dedication to Frobenius and the two dialogues ”De votis temere susceptis” and ”De captandis sacerdotiis” under the title Dimestichi ragionamenti di Desiderio Erasmo Roterodamo, ff. 377r–380r), and an Italian translation of the psalms number 1, 19, 30, 51, 91. The dominating part is, however, Italian poetry. There is encomiastic poetry dedicated to Trifon Gabriele and Sperone Speroni and poetry written by poets such as Torquato Tasso, Bernardo Tasso, Giulio Coccapani, Ridolfo Arlotti, Francesco Ambrosio/ Ambrogio, Gabriele Falloppia, Alessandro Melani and Gasparo Bernuzzi Parmigiano. Some of the quires are part of a planned edition of poets from Castelvetro’s home town, Modena. On the covers of the quires we find the following handwritten notes: f. 276r: Volume secondo delle poesie de poeti modonesi f. 335v: VII vol. Delle opere de poeti modonesi f. 336v; 3º vol. Dell’opere de poeti modonesi f. 353: X volume dell’opre de poeti modonesi In the last part of the manuscript there is a long discourse by Sperone Speroni, “Oratione del Sr. Sperone, fatta in morte della S.ra Giulia Varana Duchessa d’Urbino”, followed by a discourse on the soul by Paulus Manutius. Finally, among the satirical texts we find quotes (in Latin) from the Psalms used as lines by different members of the French court in a humoristic dialogue, and a selection of graffiti from the walls of Padua during the conflict between the city council and the students in 1580. On fol. 383v there is a ”Memoriale d’alcuni epitafi ridiculosi”, and in the very last part of the manuscript there is a certain number of pasquinate. When Castelvetro was arrested in Venice in 1611, the ambassador Dudley Carleton described Castelvetro’s utter luck in a letter to Sir Robert Cecil, stating that if he, Carleton, had not been able to remove the most compromising texts from his dwelling, Giacomo Castelvetro would inevitably have lost his life: “It was my good fortune to recover his books and papers a little before the Officers of the Inquisition went to his lodging to seize them, for I caused them to be brought unto me upon the first news of his apprehension, under cover of some writings of mine which he had in his hands. And this indeed was the poore man’s safetie, for if they had made themselves masters of that Magazine, wherein was store and provision of all sorts of pasquins, libels, relations, layde up for many years together against their master the Pope, nothing could have saved him” Parts of GKS 2057 4º fit well into this description of Castelvetro’s papers. A proper and detailed description of the manuscript can now be found in Fund og Forskning Online. Provenance GKS 2052 4ºon the one side, and on the other side, GKS 2053 4º and GKS 2057 4º have entered The Royal Library by two different routes. None of the three manuscripts are found in the oldest list of manuscripts in the Royal Library, called Schumacher’s list, dating from 1665. All three of them are included in Jon Erichsen’s “View over the old Manuscript Collection” published in 1786, so they must have entered the collections between 1660 and 1786. Both GKS 2053 4º and GKS 2057 4º have entered The Royal Library from Christian Reitzer’s library in 1721. In the handwritten catalogue of Reitzer’s library (The Royal Library’s archive, E 15, vol. 1, a catalogue with very detailed entries), they bear the numbers 5744 and 5748. If one were to proceed, one would have to identify the library from which these two manuscripts have entered Reitzer’s library. On the spine of GKS 2053 4º there is a label saying “Castelvetro / sopra Dante vol 326” and on f. 2r the same number is repeated: “v. 326”. On the spine of GKS 2057 4º, there is a label saying “Poesie italiane, vol. 241”, and on the end sheet the same number is repeated: “v. 241”. These two manuscripts would thus seem to have belonged to the same former library. Many of the Royal Library’s manuscripts with relazioni derive from Christian Reitzer’s library, and a wide range of Italian manuscripts which have entered the Royal Library through Reitzer’s library have a similar numbering on spine and title page. Comparing these numbers with library catalogues from the 17th century, one might be able to identify the library from which these manuscripts entered Reitzer’s library, and I hope to be able to proceed in this direction. Conclusion Giacomo Castelvetro was not a major Italian Renaissance writer, but a nephew of one of the lesser-known writers in Italian literature, Ludovico Castelvetro. He delivered yet another Italian contribution to the history of Christian IV, and his presence could be seen as a sign of a budding Italianism in Denmark in the era of Christian IV. The collection of Italian proverbs that he offered to Niels Krag, makes him a predecessor of the Frenchman Daniel Matras (1598–1689), who as a teacher of French and Italian at the Academy in Sorø in 1633 published a parallel edition of French, Danish, Italian and German proverbs. The two manuscripts that are being dealt with in this article are two very different manuscripts. GKS 2052 4º is a perfectly completed work that was hitherto unknown and now joins the short list of known completed works by Giacomo Castelvetro. GKS 2057 4º is a collection of variegated texts that have attracted Giacomo Castelvetro for many different reasons. Together the two manuscripts testify to the varied use of manuscripts in Renaissance Italy and Europe. A typical formulation of Giacomo Castelvetro’s is “Riscritto”. He copies texts in order to give them a new life in a new context. Giacomo Castelvetro is in the word’s finest sense a disseminator of Italian humanism and European Renaissance culture. He disseminated it in a geographical sense, by his teaching in Northern Europe, and in a temporal sense through his preservation of texts for posterity under the motto: “Perhaps even this distress it will some day be a joy to recall”.

Background “The sense of taste,” write Nelson and colleagues in a 2002 issue of Nature, “provides animals with valuable information about the nature and quality of food. Mammals can recognize and respond to a diverse repertoire of chemical entities, including sugars, salts, acids and a wide range of toxic substances” (199). The authors go on to argue that several amino acids—the building blocks of proteins—taste delicious to humans and that “having a taste pathway dedicated to their detection probably had significant evolutionary implications”. They imply, but do not specify, that the evolutionary implications are positive. This may be the case with some amino acids, but contemporary tastes, and changes in them, are far from universally beneficial. Indeed, this article argues that modern food production shapes and distorts human taste with significant implications for health and wellbeing. Take the western taste for fried chipped potatoes, for example. According to Schlosser in Fast Food Nation, “In 1960, the typical American ate eighty-one pounds of fresh potatoes and about four pounds of frozen french fries. Today [2002] the typical American eats about forty-nine pounds of fresh potatoes every year—and more than thirty pounds of frozen french fries” (115). Nine-tenths of these chips are consumed in fast food restaurants which use mass-manufactured potato-based frozen products to provide this major “foodservice item” more quickly and cheaply than the equivalent dish prepared from raw ingredients. These choices, informed by human taste buds, have negative evolutionary implications, as does the apparently long-lasting consumer preference for fried goods cooked in trans-fats. “Numerous foods acquire their elastic properties (i.e., snap, mouth-feel, and hardness) from the colloidal fat crystal network comprised primarily of trans- and saturated fats. These hardstock fats contribute, along with numerous other factors, to the global epidemics related to metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease,” argues Michael A. Rogers (747). Policy makers and public health organisations continue to compare notes internationally about the best ways in which to persuade manufacturers and fast food purveyors to reduce the use of these trans-fats in their products (L’Abbé et al.), however, most manufacturers resist. Hank Cardello, a former fast food executive, argues that “many products are designed for ‘high hedonic value’, with carefully balanced combinations of salt, sugar and fat that, experience has shown, induce people to eat more” (quoted, Trivedi 41). Fortunately for the manufactured food industry, salt and sugar also help to preserve food, effectively prolonging the shelf life of pre-prepared and packaged goods. Physiological Factors As Glanz et al. discovered when surveying 2,967 adult Americans, “taste is the most important influence on their food choices, followed by cost” (1118). A person’s taste is to some extent an individual response to food stimuli, but the tongue’s taste buds respond to five basic categories of food: salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami. ‘Umami’ is a Japanese word indicating “delicious savoury taste” (Coughlan 11) and it is triggered by the amino acid glutamate. Japanese professor Kikunae Ikeda identified glutamate while investigating the taste of a particular seaweed which he believed was neither sweet, sour, bitter, or salty. When Ikeda combined the glutamate taste essence with sodium he formed the food additive sodium glutamate, which was patented in 1908 and subsequently went into commercial production (Japan Patent Office). Although individual, a person’s taste preferences are by no means fixed. There is ample evidence that people’s tastes are being distorted by modern food marketing practices that process foods to make them increasingly appealing to the average palate. In particular, this industrialisation of food promotes the growth of a snack market driven by salty and sugary foods, popularly constructed as posing a threat to health and wellbeing. “[E]xpanding waistlines [are] fuelled by a boom in fast food and a decline in physical activity” writes Stark, who reports upon the 2008 launch of a study into Australia’s future ‘fat bomb’. As Deborah Lupton notes, such reports were a particular feature of the mid 2000s when: intense concern about the ‘obesity epidemic’ intensified and peaked. Time magazine named 2004 ‘The Year of Obesity’. That year the World Health Organization’s Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health was released and the [US] Centers for Disease Control predicted that a poor diet and lack of exercise would soon claim more lives than tobacco-related disease in the United States. (4) The American Heart Association recommends eating no more than 1500mg of salt per day (Hamzelou 11) but salt consumption in the USA averages more than twice this quantity, at 3500mg per day (Bernstein and Willett 1178). In the UK, a sustained campaign and public health-driven engagement with food manufacturers by CASH—Consensus Action on Salt and Health—resulted in a reduction of between 30 and 40 percent of added salt in processed foods between 2001 and 2011, with a knock-on 15 percent decline in the UK population’s salt intake overall. This is the largest reduction achieved by any developed nation (Brinsden et al.). “According to the [UK’s] National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), this will have reduced [UK] stroke and heart attack deaths by a minimum of 9,000 per year, with a saving in health care costs of at least £1.5bn a year” (MacGregor and Pombo). Whereas there has been some success over the past decade in reducing the amount of salt consumed, in the Western world the consumption of sugar continues to rise, as a graph cited in the New Scientist indicates (O’Callaghan). Regular warnings that sugar is associated with a range of health threats and delivers empty calories devoid of nutrition have failed to halt the increase in sugar consumption. Further, although some sugar is a natural product, processed foods tend to use a form invented in 1957: high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). “HFCS is a gloopy solution of glucose and fructose” writes O’Callaghan, adding that it is “as sweet as table sugar but has typically been about 30% cheaper”. She cites Serge Ahmed, a French neuroscientist, as arguing that in a world of food sufficiency people do not need to consume more, so they need to be enticed to overeat by making food more pleasurable. Ahmed was part of a team that ran an experiment with cocaine-addicted rats, offering them a mutually exclusive choice between highly-sweetened water and cocaine: Our findings clearly indicate that intense sweetness can surpass cocaine reward, even in drug-sensitized and -addicted individuals. We speculate that the addictive potential of intense sweetness results from an inborn hypersensitivity to sweet tastants. In most mammals, including rats and humans, sweet receptors evolved in ancestral environments poor in sugars and are thus not adapted to high concentrations of sweet tastants. The supranormal stimulation of these receptors by sugar-rich diets, such as those now widely available in modern societies, would generate a supranormal reward signal in the brain, with the potential to override self-control mechanisms and thus lead to addiction. (Lenoir et al.) The Tongue and the Brain One of the implications of this research about the mammalian desire for sugar is that our taste for food is about more than how these foods actually taste in the mouth on our tongues. It is also about the neural response to the food we eat. The taste of French fries thus also includes that “snap, mouth-feel, and hardness” and the “colloidal fat crystal network” (Rogers, “Novel Structuring” 747). While there is no taste receptor for fats, these nutrients have important effects upon the brain. Wang et al. offered rats a highly fatty, but palatable, diet and allowed them to eat freely. 33 percent of the calories in the food were delivered via fat, compared with 21 percent in a normal diet. The animals almost doubled their usual calorific intake, both because the food had a 37 percent increased calorific content and also because the rats ate 47 percent more than was standard (2786). The research team discovered that in as little as three days the rats “had already lost almost all of their ability to respond to leptin” (Martindale 27). Leptin is a hormone that acts on the brain to communicate feelings of fullness, and is thus important in assisting animals to maintain a healthy body weight. The rats had also become insulin resistant. “Severe resistance to the metabolic effects of both leptin and insulin ensued after just 3 days of overfeeding” (Wang et al. 2786). Fast food restaurants typically offer highly palatable, high fat, high sugar, high salt, calorific foods which can deliver 130 percent of a day’s recommended fat intake, and almost a day’s worth of an adult man’s calories, in one meal. The impacts of maintaining such a diet over a comparatively short time-frame have been recorded in documentaries such as Super Size Me (Spurlock). The after effects of what we widely call “junk food” are also evident in rat studies. Neuroscientist Paul Kenny, who like Ahmed was investigating possible similarities between food- and cocaine-addicted rats, allowed his animals unlimited access to both rat ‘junk food’ and healthy food for rats. He then changed their diets. “The rats with unlimited access to junk food essentially went on a hunger strike. ‘It was as if they had become averse to healthy food’, says Kenny. It took two weeks before the animals began eating as much [healthy food] as those in the control group” (quoted, Trivedi 40). Developing a taste for certain food is consequently about much more than how they taste in the mouth; it constitutes an individual’s response to a mixture of taste, hormonal reactions and physiological changes. Choosing Health Glanz et al. conclude their study by commenting that “campaigns attempting to change people’s perception of the importance of nutrition will be interpreted in terms of existing values and beliefs. A more promising strategy might be to stress the good taste of healthful foods” (1126). Interestingly, this is the strategy already adopted by some health-focused cookbooks. I have 66 cookery books in my kitchen. None of ten books sampled from the five spaces in which these books are kept had ‘taste’ as an index entry, but three books had ‘taste’ in their titles: The Higher Taste, Taste of Life, and The Taste of Health. All three books seek to promote healthy eating, and they all date from the mid-1980s. It might be that taste is not mentioned in cookbook indexes because it is a sine qua non: a focus upon taste is so necessary and fundamental to a cookbook that it goes without saying. Yet, as the physiological evidence makes clear, what we find palatable is highly mutable, varying between people, and capable of changing significantly in comparatively short periods of time. The good news from the research studies is that the changes wrought by high salt, high sugar, high fat diets need not be permanent. Luciano Rossetti, one of the authors on Wang et al’s paper, told Martindale that the physiological changes are reversible, but added a note of caution: “the fatter a person becomes the more resistant they will be to the effects of leptin and the harder it is to reverse those effects” (27). Morgan Spurlock’s experience also indicates this. In his case it took the actor/director 14 months to lose the 11.1 kg (13 percent of his body mass) that he gained in the 30 days of his fast-food-only experiment. Trivedi was more fortunate, stating that, “After two weeks of going cold turkey, I can report I have successfully kicked my ice cream habit” (41). A reader’s letter in response to Trivedi’s article echoes this observation. She writes that “the best way to stop the craving was to switch to a diet of vegetables, seeds, nuts and fruits with a small amount of fish”, adding that “cravings stopped in just a week or two, and the diet was so effective that I no longer crave junk food even when it is in front of me” (Mackeown). Popular culture indicates a range of alternative ways to resist food manufacturers. In the West, there is a growing emphasis on organic farming methods and produce (Guthman), on sl called Urban Agriculture in the inner cities (Mason and Knowd), on farmers’ markets, where consumers can meet the producers of the food they eat (Guthrie et al.), and on the work of advocates of ‘real’ food, such as Jamie Oliver (Warrin). Food and wine festivals promote gourmet tourism along with an emphasis upon the quality of the food consumed, and consumption as a peak experience (Hall and Sharples), while environmental perspectives prompt awareness of ‘food miles’ (Weber and Matthews), fair trade (Getz and Shreck) and of land degradation, animal suffering, and the inequitable use of resources in the creation of the everyday Western diet (Dare, Costello and Green). The burgeoning of these different approaches has helped to stimulate a commensurate growth in relevant disciplinary fields such as Food Studies (Wessell and Brien). One thing that all these new ways of looking at food and taste have in common is that they are options for people who feel they have the right to choose what and when to eat; and to consume the tastes they prefer. This is not true of all groups of people in all countries. Hiding behind the public health campaigns that encourage people to exercise and eat fresh fruit and vegetables are the hidden “social determinants of health: The conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, including the health system” (WHO 45). As the definitions explain, it is the “social determinants of health [that] are mostly responsible for health iniquities” with evidence from all countries around the world demonstrating that “in general, the lower an individual’s socioeconomic position, the worse his or her health” (WHO 45). For the comparatively disadvantaged, it may not be the taste of fast food that attracts them but the combination of price and convenience. If there is no ready access to cooking facilities, or safe food storage, or if a caregiver is simply too time-poor to plan and prepare meals for a family, junk food becomes a sensible choice and its palatability an added bonus. For those with the education, desire, and opportunity to break free of the taste for salty and sugary fats, however, there are a range of strategies to achieve this. There is a persuasive array of evidence that embracing a plant-based diet confers a multitude of health benefits for the individual, for the planet and for the animals whose lives and welfare would otherwise be sacrificed to feed us (Green, Costello and Dare). Such a choice does involve losing the taste for foods which make up the lion’s share of the Western diet, but any sense of deprivation only lasts for a short time. The fact is that our sense of taste responds to the stimuli offered. It may be that, notwithstanding the desires of Jamie Oliver and the like, a particular child never will never get to like broccoli, but it is also the case that broccoli tastes differently to me, seven years after becoming a vegan, than it ever did in the years in which I was omnivorous. When people tell me that they would love to adopt a plant-based diet but could not possibly give up cheese, it is difficult to reassure them that the pleasure they get now from that specific cocktail of salty fats will be more than compensated for by the sheer exhilaration of eating crisp, fresh fruits and vegetables in the future. Conclusion For decades, the mass market food industry has tweaked their products to make them hyper-palatable and difficult to resist. They do this through marketing experiments and consumer behaviour research, schooling taste buds and brains to anticipate and relish specific cocktails of sweet fats (cakes, biscuits, chocolate, ice cream) and salty fats (chips, hamburgers, cheese, salted nuts). They add ingredients to make these products stimulate taste buds more effectively, while also producing cheaper items with longer life on the shelves, reducing spoilage and the complexity of storage for retailers. Consumers are trained to like the tastes of these foods. Bitter, sour, and umami receptors are comparatively under-stimulated, with sweet, salty, and fat-based tastes favoured in their place. Western societies pay the price for this learned preference in high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and obesity. Public health advocate Bruce Neal and colleagues, working to reduce added salt in processed foods, note that the food and manufacturing industries can now provide most of the calories that the world needs to survive. “The challenge now”, they argue, “is to have these same industries provide foods that support long and healthy adult lives. And in this regard there remains a very considerable way to go”. If the public were to believe that their sense of taste is mutable and has been distorted for corporate and industrial gain, and if they were to demand greater access to natural foods in their unprocessed state, then that journey towards a healthier future might be far less protracted than these and many other researchers seem to believe. References Bernstein, Adam, and Walter Willett. “Trends in 24-Hr Sodium Excretion in the United States, 1957–2003: A Systematic Review.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 92 (2010): 1172–1180. Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. 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