Recovery Capacity of the Finance System of Italian Municipalities After the Currency Crisis of 1992

This paper is a first pioneering attempt to apply the concept of resilience to the analysis of the public finance systems of local governments, a concept already used and ＂abused＂ in various disciplines and fields of science. In particular, it proposes an attempt to estimate the recovery capacity of Italian Municipalities in a crucial period of our country＇s financial history, between 1992 and 2000, or between the currency crisis and the introduction of the Euro. However, the analysis also involved the subsequent trends, in order to demonstrate that the current vulnerability of the municipal public finance system, in particular of the Municipalities of Southern Italy, depends not only on the economic cycle but also on the continuous and incessant changes in the financing mechanisms of local governments established by the central government. The analysis showed a lower financial resilience of the Municipalities of the Mezzogiorno （island and continental） compared to those of the Center-North. The determinants of this phenomenon were found, for one part, through the analysis of the financial data of the Italian Municipalities - as presented by the SVIMEZ in its annual reports on the economy of the Mezzogiomo - and, for another part, through the critical synthesis of significant economic events which occurred during the period examined.

Treatment Frequency and Long-term Efficacy Observation on Electric Pudendal Nerve Stimulation for Stress Urinary Incontinence

Objective： To observe the effect of different treatment frequency of electric pudendal nerve stimulation （EPNS） on stress urinary incontinence （SUl）. Methods： A total of 60 female SUl cases were randomly allocated into group A and group B, 30 in each group. Cases in both groups were treated with EPNS, 3 times a week for group A, versus twice a week for group B. Then clinical symptoms, stress urinary incontinence and quality of life （QOL） were assessed respectively before treatment and after 12 times of treatment by using questionnaire. In addition, for 99 cases whose clinical symptom scores were reduced by more than 50% after EPNS treatment, a telephone interview follow-up was conducted. Results： The cases in the treatment group were better than those in the control group in the enhancement of clinical effects, the decline of VAS scores and the improvement of clinical symptoms and sign integrals, with statistical significance （P〈0.01 or P〈0.05）. Conclusion： EPNS has positive effect for female SUl; different treatment frequencies have certain impact on clinical effect： the effect achieved by 3 times a week was better than that by twice a week; and this therapy has stable long-term effect.

The Effect of Learners' Autonomous Textbook Selection on Intermediate Iranian EFL Learners' Speaking Ability

The ability to employ the language as a communicational tool often serves as a measure of one＇s speaking success in the language learning class. This research sought to investigate the effect of learners＇ autonomous textbook selection on the speaking ability of Iranian English as foreign language （EFL） learners. Moreover, finding and analyzing factors considered by the learners in selecting the textbooks were another aim of this research. Sixty Iranian intermediate EFL learners from the Simin Language Institute in Ramsar, Mazandaran, Iran, were selected as the participants of the study based on their scores on Oxford Placement Test. This test determines the level of the students＇ English proficiency. These participants were randomly assigned into the control and experimental groups. An interview procedure was run as their pretest. The experimental group studied from their selected books, besides the researcher＇s teaching in the class. After 16 sessions, a posttest, the same as the pretest, was run as well. The quantitative results indicated the superior performance of the experimental group over the control group. Furthermore, an analysis of the Litz＇s （2000） questionnaire shows that learners considered criteria such as practical considerations, layout and design, activities, skills, language type, subject and content of the selected books.