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Naburimannu

Nabu-ri-man-nu (also spelled Nabu-rimanni; Greek sources called him Ναβουριανός, Nabourianos, Latin Naburianus) (fl. c. 6th – 3rd century BC) was a Chaldean astronomer and mathematician.

Classical and ancient cuneiform sources mention an astronomer with this name:

 * The Greek geographer Strabo of Amaseia, in Geography 16.1–.6, writes: "In Babylon a settlement is set apart for the local philosophers, the Chaldaeans, as they are called, who are concerned mostly with astronomy; but some of these, who are not approved of by the others, profess to be writers of horoscopes. (There is also a tribe of the Chaldaeans, and a territory inhabited by them, in the neighborhood of the Arabs and of the Persian Gulf, as it is called.) There are also several tribes of the Chaldaean astronomers. For example, some are called Orcheni [those from Uruk], others Borsippeni [those from Borsippa], and several others by different names, as though divided into different sects which hold to various dogmas about the same subjects. And the mathematicians make mention of some of these men; as, for example, Kidenas, Nabourianos and Soudines".
 * The damaged colophon of a cuneiform clay tablet (VAT 209; see ACT 18) with a Babylonian System A lunar ephemeris for the years 49–48 BC states that it is the [tersit]u of Nabu-[ri]-man-nu.  This is similar to the colophons of two System B clay tablets that say that they are the tersitu of Kidinnu.

The following is an excerpt of a century of scholarship discussed in the sources referenced below. The meaning of tersitu is not known definitively. Already Franz Xaver Kugler proposed that tersitu can be interpreted as "table" here; in another context it seems to mean something like "tool", but in yet another the word refers to a blue enamel paste. P. Schnabel, in a series of papers (1923–1927), interpreted the phrase as an assignment of authorship. Based on this, he argued that Naburimannu developed the Babylonian System A of calculating Solar System ephemerides, and that Kidinnu later developed Babylonian System B. Otto E. Neugebauer has remained reserved to this conclusion and disputed Schnabel's further inferences about Naburimannu's life and work. The mathematician B.L. van der Waerden later (1963, 1968, 1974) concluded that System A was developed during the reign of Darius I (521–485 BC). System A, which uses step functions, appears to be somewhat more primitive than System B, which uses zigzag linear functions, although System A is more consistent than System B. While it thus appears that System A preceded System B, both systems remained in use at least until the 1st century BC.

The earliest preserved System A clay tablets (BM 36651, 36719, 37032, 37053) calculate an ephemeris for the planet Mercury from 424 to 401 BC. The oldest preserved lunar tablets date from 306 BC in the Hellenistic period. If Naburimannu was the originator of System A, then we can on that basis place him in Babylonia sometime between the Persian and Macedonian conquests.

title: Naburimannu


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Talk:Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act

Untitled
In what country? --rmhermen

U.S. Symtym 20:16, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm new to this, but this article really needs a redirect from EMTALA, which is, the majority of the time, is how it is referred to. I always forget that you won't pick up this article in Wikipedia because "EMTALA" is not listed. Symtym 20:16, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Well I hope I did the redirect correctly. symtym 22:02, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Seems to have worked, Wikipedia now has a 7th in page ranking on Google for "EMTALA" and was not listed previously. symtym 23:32, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Neutrality
How do I question the neutrality of this article?

This article is horribly written, is not based in fact, and is completely slanted against EMTALA and America's immigrant population. There is nothing neutral about it.

 * Terrible article. It reads like an anti-immigration opinion piece and fails to provide even a basic overview of the statute. I deleted most of that and threw in the conspicuously-missing basic statutory requirements, so hopefully that will be the seed for a better, neutral article. This is a source for basic information about the statute, not a place for people with axes to grind to air their thoughts on how immigration is destroying the American health care system. Start a new article for that, or go to the main article on immigration and try to sneak it in there.68.73.56.11 16:14, 2 May 2007
 * As regards bankruptcy, Koch's piece is a working paper that has an interesting hypothesis but is by no means the central, undisputed truth in the area. Many policy scholars have concluded that the idea that EMTALA causes widespread bankruptcy is a myth. I'd add that data indicate that the decrease in the raw number of hospitals is due to a wave of hospital consolidations in the 1990s and increased efficiency (not increased burdens on institutions from EMTALA), and that the burdens on ERs are not the result of uninsured patients abusively seeking non-urgent care so much as an increased gross number of privately insured patients seeking appropriate care. See, for example "The Scapegoat: EMTALA and Emergency Department Overcrowding," Laura Hermer, Brooklyn Journal of Law and Policy, 2006(2).
 * Basically, EMTALA is commonly the source of intuitive fingerpointing as regards institutional problems in health care and insurance, but those conclusions don't hold up under close scrutiny--at the very least, they are under such heavy controversy that an unpublished working paper is hardly the final word on the matter for purposes of inclusion in an encyclopedia.68.73.56.11 17:40, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

05:37, 27 August 2007 (UTC) agreed. there is no counter that what would happen if the poor were not treated, they'd die on the pavement. also, one could be critical of the legislation that it requires unequally some hospitals more than others to fund free services, without helping to compensate for the added costs. What is destroying the USA health system is a lack of universal health coverage. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Robauz (talk • contribs)

I agree. This article's main thrust is that EMTALA is the primary source of rising healthcare costs, without attributing the rise of obesity, drug-seeking behavior, or malpractice premiums to the overall jump in costs. This article definantly needs a neutrality tag. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.5.235.198 (talk) 15:28, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

I agree as well. I added a NPOV template which was reverted despite this discussion. I found this part particularly biased: "However, because it requires only that hospitals stabilize the emergency, EMTALA is an incomplete safety net that fails to meet international standards for universal care." Whether a safety net is 'incomplete' is entirely subjective. Also, the international standards for universal healthcare is left without a reference - do such standards even exist? I'm going to add the template back again. --Vince | Talk 06:45, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

 * I have modified the sentence you referenced and provided two reliable sources for the characterization of the U.S. safety net as incomplete. There have been numerous international comparisons done which could probably support the broader assertion, but they are in peer-reviewed medical journals that I don't have access to. However, I believe the changes I've made should address your POV concerns. --Sfmammamia 18:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

 * I have made some changes. The prior phrasing implies that it is fact that "EMTALA is part of an increasingly strained, incomplete safety net for the uninsured." when policy papers were the citation. Clearly this depends on the definition of a safety net and what makes it complete - while in European EMTALA would be a poor hack of a solution, in the US it may not be viewed that way. I'm just trying to slowly make changes that will make this article more neutral. I think the policy opinions are important, but they needed to be cited as such.

--Vince | Talk 03:19, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

 * I'm fine with your changes. Is there other material justifying the NPOV tag or can that be removed at this point? --Sfmammamia 16:23, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

 * Sorry, I didn't see your message on my watchlist for some reason. I saw that someone removed it, and I think that's ok. I would say that this article should present some other policy assessments of EMTALA (it relies heavily on the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured paper). Overall, it's becoming a good encyclopedic article. Good job everyone --Vince | Talk 21:12, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Cleanup
I just made an edit that covered several areas of the article, so I thought I would explain the reasons for my edits. My edit summary was "rm wordiness, rm statement unsupported by reference; rm tangentially referenced Texas section; replace former external links; see talk page." Excessive wordiness was removed for concise text (readability); the statement about 90% of illegal immigrants being uninsured may be true, but I did not find it in the study linked to as a reference - removed as unreferenced; the section about Texas hospitals was only tangentially related to the material in the referenced article - removed as unreferenced; someone had replaced three very good external links with a link about Barbara Clark - reinstated former external links. The article really could use a (referenced) section about Texas hospitals. That would be very appropriate. It also could use some work explaining the requirements of the act, giving more of the body of the article to the act itself instead of problems related to it. Right now it reads as an article about what is wrong with EMTALA. I'll see what I can do about that later. 152.16.188.107 00:48, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

This article was awful, improved in early 2007, and is now awful again. It seems that the same person who wrote the original piece discarded more careful, improved language by just labeling it "vandalism." See the Aug. 10, 2007 revisions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:SOAP#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.211.222.74 (talk) 00:28, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone know the annual cost of EMTALA?
SesameRoad 16:19, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

 * One paper published by Duke University outlined a cost estimate approach (making it clear that it was based on a lot of assumptions) and came up with the following: "All told, EMTALA results in expected costs of $4.4 billion ($1.3, $11.0) and expected benefits of $2.1 billion ($0.4, $4.9)" The figures in parentheses appear to represent low-high ranges. In my mind, the figures are of dubious value because they involve so many assumptions. A May 2003 American Medical Association study said that emergency physicians and other specialists combined lost $4.2 billion in revenue in 2001 providing care mandated by EMTALA, but physician care represents only part of the cost of operating an emergency room, so an accurate figure for that year would have to have been higher than $4.2 billion. -- Sfmammamia 01:12, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Question regarding article title and current name of law
The web page at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services cites the name of the law as Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (no word "Active"). Is there a reason Wikipedia does not follow suit? -- Sfmammamia 22:18, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

This line seems like conjecture, not a statement of fact...
At the end of the article, the line "Nevertheless, since non-citizens make up 21.2% of the uninsured, and they are the least likely of the uninsured to use emergencies rooms, their cost is at most $8.6 billion per year" seems like conjecture to me. I don't know how to clean it up though.

P.S. This is my first Discussion contribution, and I'm still learning. Please be gentle with me! :)

Freedomfreak (talk) 23:27, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071129091346/http://www.kff.org/uninsured/upload/Threadbare-Holes-in-America-s-Health-Care-Safety-Net-report.pdf to http://www.kff.org/uninsured/upload/Threadbare-Holes-in-America-s-Health-Care-Safety-Net-report.pdf
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On emergencies that occur at the hospital.
May need to delete all of this article that is supported by "EMTALA: Court Ruling on Meaning of Appropriate Transfer to Another Facility," www.nursinglaw.com - which is currently footnote 10 - cites to a page on nursinglaw (a blog? "Legal eye newsletter for the nursing profession").

The statements on nursinglaw are based on Lopez-Soto v. Hawayek, 988 F. Supp. 41 (D. Puerto Rico, 1997).

However, this case was reversed by

Lopez-Soto v. Hawayek, 175 F. 3d 170 - Court of Appeals, 1st Circuit 1999 https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15759067756734936195&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr

Even if the case hadn't been reversed by a higher court, those are very strong statements about what triggers EMTALA that should have stronger support than a single district court (whose holding only applies to Puerto Rico). I have emailed the blogger/writer at nursinglaw.com and given him this information. Hopefully he will correct himself, but even if he does not, I recommend that this be deleted:

"A normal pregnancy delivery. In a case reviewed by courts, EMTALA did not cover the hospital stay.[10] If a patient is already in the hospital for another reason and develops an emergency condition, EMTALA similarly does not apply.[10]"

Ileanadu (talk) 17:17, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

 * Further support that this language should be deleted, see f.n. 29 in Hospital Liability by James Walker Smith (Law Journal Press 2017)

in section 6.01[3] 6-10: "child's birth in operating room triggered duty to stabilize." https://books.google.com/books?id=WhgYHTF3ftMC&pg=SA6-PA10&lpg=SA6-PA10&dq=lopez-soto+v.+hawayek&source=bl&ots=sNvGZ_hPyE&sig=E-YEZwhVd_-8gxWwsvroOqOkpfA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwivo-C95LnYAhUFPN8KHUFhAZAQ6AEIOjAF#v=onepage&q=lopez-soto%20v.%20hawayek&f=false Ileanadu (talk) 17:37, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

The linked source (nursinglaw, source 10) is now a dead link (as is source number 9).Livingfractal (talk) 03:16, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

I think the biggest issue with this language is that "another reason" is lacking any precision. Is the patient there to be transferred? Whose patient are they? What type of patient are they? Is the "patient" there to buy flowers for a an individual admitted to the hospital? Furthermore, the language seems to imply that the hospital is not required to address the emergency, and so language could be added to specify that there are state laws requiring adequate services, and a link to the page describing the law which the governing body overseeing EMTALA says covers admitted inpatient and outpatient emergencies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deemed_status#Meeting_Conditions_for_Coverage_and_Conditions_of_Participation. Livingfractal (talk) 03:16, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

As for "A normal pregnancy delivery. In a case reviewed by courts, EMTALA did not cover the hospital stay." What case? What court? Also, what is "a normal pregnancy". A quick review of the literature points out that if a woman presents anywhere on a hospital campus, and appears to be in labor, then they are to be examined. If it is a "true labor", then they must be stabilized. I mean, it is even in the title of the law. To quote the written policy of hospital: ""Emergency Medical Condition” means ... with respect to a pregnant woman who is having contractions ... that there is inadequate time to effect a safe transfer to another hospital before delivery;" http://www.wakehealth.edu/uploadedFiles/User_Content/AboutUs/Facts_and_Figures/EMTALA.pdf Livingfractal (talk) 03:16, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Broken and redundant links for several citations
Several citations throughout this article are either redundant (like 7 and 9) or they are broken (like 7, 9, and 10).Livingfractal (talk) 04:07, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Emergency Abortions
The "Emergency Abortions" section says this: "HHS issued guidance on EMTALA protections for clinicians applying regardless of state laws …" It says that "guidance" is out there, but doesn't tell us anything about what that guidance actually says. I'm adding a brief description. MiguelMunoz (talk) 03:44, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Giovanni Falcone

Giovanni Falcone (18 May 1939 – 23 May 1992) was an Italian judge and prosecuting magistrate. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, Sicily, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Sicilian Mafia. After a long and distinguished career, culminating in the Maxi Trial in 1986–1987, on 23 May 1992, Falcone was assassinated by the Corleonesi Mafia in the Capaci bombing, on the A29 motorway near the town of Capaci.

His life parallels that of his close friend Paolo Borsellino. They both spent their early years in the same neighbourhood in Palermo. Though many of their childhood friends grew up in an environment in which the Mafia had a strong presence, both men fought against organised crime as prosecuting magistrates. They were both killed in 1992, a few weeks apart. In recognition of their tireless effort and sacrifice during the anti-mafia trials, they were both awarded the Gold Medal for Civil Valor and were acknowledged as martyrs of the Catholic Church. They were also named as heroes of the last 60 years in the 13 November 2006 issue of Time.

Early life
Falcone was born in 1939 to a middle-class family in the Via Castrofilippo near the seaport district La Kalsa, a neighbourhood of central Palermo that suffered extensive destruction by aerial attacks during the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943. His father, Arturo Falcone, the director of a provincial chemical laboratory, was married to Luisa Bentivegna. Giovanni had two older sisters, Anna and Maria. Falcone's parents emphasised the importance of hard work, bravery and patriotism; he later said they 'expected the maximum' from him. At school Falcone would get into fights with larger children if he thought his friends were being picked on.

The Mafia was present in the area but quiescent; Tommaso Spadaro, a boy with whom he played ping-pong in the neighbourhood Catholic Action recreation centre, would later become a notorious Mafia smuggler and killer, but mafiosi were not a major presence in his childhood. As boys, Falcone and Borsellino, who were born in the same neighbourhood, played soccer together on the Piazza Magione. Both had classmates who ended up as mafiosi. Falcone grew up at a time when Sicilians did not acknowledge the existence of the Mafia as a coherent organised group; assertions to the contrary by other Italians were often seen as 'attacks from the north'.

After a classical education, Falcone studied law at the University of Palermo following a brief period of study at Livorno's naval academy. Falcone and Borsellino met again at Palermo University. While Falcone drifted away from his parents' middle-class conservative Catholicism towards communism, Borsellino was religious and conservative; in his youth, he had been a member of the Fronte Universitario d'Azione Nazionale (FUAN), a right-wing university organisation affiliated with the neo-fascist MSI (Movimento Sociale Italiano). However, neither ever joined a political party, and although the ideologies of their political movements were diametrically opposed, they shared a history of opposing the Mafia. Their different political leanings did not thwart their friendship. Falcone wanted a naval career but his father thought him too independent-minded for the armed forces, and sent him to study law.

After graduating in 1961, Falcone began to practice law before being appointed a judge in 1964. Falcone eventually gravitated toward penal law after serving as a district magistrate. He was assigned to the prosecutor's office in Trapani and Marsala, and then in 1978 to the bankruptcy court in Palermo.

First trial against the Mafia
In early 1980, Falcone joined the ‘Office of Instruction’ (Ufficio istruzione), the investigative branch of the Prosecution Office of Palermo. He started to work at a particularly tense moment (→ 'Years of Lead'). Judge Cesare Terranova, a former parliamentary deputy and Antimafia reformer who had been the main prosecutor of the Mafia in the 1960s, was to have headed this office, but he was killed on 25 September 1979. Only two months earlier, on 21 July 1979, Boris Giuliano had been assassinated; he headed the police investigation squad investigating heroin trafficking by the Mafia headed by Rosario Spatola and Salvatore Inzerillo. Taking Terranova's place was Rocco Chinnici, who was murdered by the Mafia in July 1983.

On 5 May 1980, Giuliano's successor in investigating the heroin network, Carabinieri captain Emanuele Basile, was killed. The next day, the prosecuting judge Gaetano Costa signed 55 arrest warrants against the heroin-trafficking network of the Spatola-Inzerillo-Gambino clan. From Sicily, heroin was moved to the Gambino crime family in New York, who were related to the Inzerillos. Chinnici appointed Falcone to investigate the case, one of the biggest Antimafia operations in more than a decade. Costa signed the indictments after virtually all of the other prosecutors in his office had declined to do so – a fact that leaked out of the office and eventually cost him his life: he was murdered on 6 August 1980, on the orders of Inzerillo. Falcone was given bodyguards the next day.

In this tense atmosphere, Falcone introduced an innovative investigative technique in the Spatola investigation, seizing bank records to follow "the money trail" created by heroin deals to build his case, applying the skills he had learned unravelling bankruptcies. He was probably among the first Sicilian magistrates to establish working relationships with colleagues from other countries, thus developing an early understanding of the global dimensions of heroin trafficking, while enhancing the meagre investigative resources of his office. A colleague was astonished to discover that Falcone, who had no computers at his disposal, was personally recording the details listed on printouts of transactions that he had requisitioned from every bank in Palermo province.

He learned that the chemists of the French Connection had moved clandestine labs for refining heroin from Marseille to Sicily. At the end of 1980, he visited the United States and started to work with the U.S. Justice Department, resulting in "some of the biggest international law enforcement operations in history", such as the Pizza Connection. The inquiries extended to Turkey, an important stopover on the route of morphine base; to Switzerland, where bank secrecy laws facilitated money laundering; and to Naples, where cigarette smuggling rings were being reconfigured as heroin operations. At the end of 1981, Falcone finalised the Spatola case for trial, which enabled the prosecution to win 74 convictions, based on Falcone's "web of solid evidence, bank and travel records, seized heroin shipments, fingerprint and handwriting analyses, wiretapped conversations and firsthand testimony" that proved that "Sicily had replaced France as the principal gateway for refining and exporting heroin to the United States".

Antimafia pool

Falcone was plagued by a chronic lack of resources in his capacity as magistrate. A law to create a new offence of Mafia conspiracy and to confiscate Mafia assets was introduced by Pio La Torre, but it had been stalled in parliament for two years before La Torre was murdered on 30 April 1982. In May 1982, the Italian government sent Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa, a general of the Italian Carabinieri, to Sicily with orders to crush the Mafia. However, not long after arriving, on 3 September 1982, the General was gunned down in the city centre, his young wife by his side. Sicilians rose up in outrage. Outside the church, the politicians who attended were jeered and spat on, and blamed by Sicilians for tolerating the Mafia for so long. In response, the Italian government finally offered investigators the backing they needed, and Pio La Torre's law was passed 10 days later.

Falcone's responsibilities as a magistrate put tremendous strain on his personal life. In May 1986, he married his fiancée, Francesca Morvillo; Falcone had Mayor Leoluca Orlando himself conduct the private ceremony.

He became part of Palermo's informal Antimafia Pool, created by Judge Rocco Chinnici. This was a group of investigating magistrates who closely worked together sharing information and developing new investigative and prosecutorial strategies. Most important, they assumed collective responsibility for carrying Mafia prosecutions forward: all the members of the pool signed prosecutorial orders to avoid exposing any one of them to particular risk, such as the one that had cost judge Gaetano Costa his life. Along with Falcone, the group included Paolo Borsellino, and.

Maxi Trial
The Antimafia pool laid the groundwork for the Maxi Trial against the Sicilian Mafia at the preliminary investigative phase. Following Chinnici's murder in July 1983, Antonino Caponnetto headed the pool. Falcone's friend Antonio Cassara (who headed the police squad hunting fugitives) was murdered in 1985. Falcone led the prosecution for the trial, which began 10 February 1986, and ended on 16 December 1987. Of the 475 defendants—both those present and those tried in absentia—338 were convicted. A total of 2,665 years of prison sentences was shared out between the guilty, not including the life sentences handed to the 19 leading Mafia bosses and killers, including Michele Greco, Giuseppe Marchese and—in absentia—Salvatore Riina, Giuseppe Lucchese and Bernardo Provenzano.

One of the most important factors in the trial was the testimony of Tommaso Buscetta, the first-ever Sicilian Mafiosi boss to become an informant (pentito). His assertion that the Mafia was not a collection of separate gangs but a single organisation led some magistrates and detectives to question his credibility. After an interview, Falcone became convinced that Buscetta was genuine and treated him with respect. Buscetta's key revelation was that a governing council, known as the Commission or Cupula headed a collective structure, thereby establishing that the top tier of Mafia members were complicit in all the organisation's crimes. This premise became known as the Buscetta theorem.

Setback
When Falcone's record of success and high profile led to resentment from some quarters, he was not given the job he coveted as chief prosecutor in Palermo. The new incumbent did not accept that the hierarchical Mafia structure revealed by the Maxi Trial actually existed, and he attempted to force Falcone to work on cases of wife beating and car theft. Falcone became so frustrated that he spoke of resigning. During 1988 Falcone collaborated with Rudolph Giuliani, at the time U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, in operations against the Gambino and Inzerillo families. Rumours impugning his integrity deeply troubled Falcone during this period.

On 20 June 1989, a sack filled with dynamite sticks was discovered near a beach house Falcone had rented in the town of Addaura by policeman Nino Agostino. Although Falcone had been threatened before, this failed attempt bothered him to the extreme because it had all the signs of an inside job. At the time, he was meeting Swiss prosecutors Carla Del Ponte and Claudio Lehman from Lugano who were helping to investigate the Mafia's financial holdings in Switzerland. Falcone believed that the assassination attempt not only involved the Mafia but some people in government as well. During the investigations into the money laundering networks of the Mafia, it became clear that former Palermo police chief Bruno Contrada, who had moved to the intelligence service SISDE, had warned a suspect about his impending arrest so that he could escape in time.

Falcone received an effusive congratulatory phone call from Giulio Andreotti after the narrow escape. Falcone privately thought it odd that Andreotti, who he had never spoken to, would suddenly contact him, and he mused about the significance of the incident to a friend. Unknown to Falcone the efforts to kill him were suspended while the Maxi trial verdicts went through the appeals process that had often set convicted Mafia members free. Later investigations into the murders of two police officers, Antonino Agostino and Emanuele Piazza, who worked for the secret service, revealed that they had secretly defused the bombs that had been placed by a Mafia commando aided by other secret service men. Agostino and his wife were killed on 5 August 1989 outside their home, and Piazza on 15 March 1990.

Transfer to Rome
Exhausted and frustrated by the antagonism in Palermo, Falcone accepted a post in the Ministry of Justice in Rome offered to him by Claudio Martelli, the new minister of Justice in a new government of Giulio Andreotti in March 1991. The transfer was initially seen as a capitulation by Falcone, but he himself thought of it as a tactical move to better fight the Mafia. His first action was to prepare a decree to repair the disastrous sentence by Supreme Court judge Corrado Carnevale, known as the “sentence-killer”, that allowed most of the remaining defendants of the Maxi Trial to walk free from prison. The Martelli decree led to the immediate re-arrest of the Mafia bosses.

While in Rome he started to restructure the Italian prosecution system, creating district offices to fight the Mafia and a national office to fight organised crime. Next was his move to prevent Carnevale from reviewing the sentence of the Maxi Trial. In a blow to the Mafia, the Maxi Trial convictions were upheld by the Supreme Court in January 1992. To the surprise of many, Falcone's move to Rome was very successful. He achieved a genuine revolution in the judiciary. The Mafia began to realize that Falcone was even more dangerous in Rome than he had been in Palermo.

Death

The Maxi trial sentences being upheld by the Supreme Court were a blow to the Mafia's prestige. The council of top bosses headed by Riina reacted by ordering the assassination of Salvatore Lima (on the grounds that he was an ally of Giulio Andreotti), and Falcone. Lima was shot dead on 12 March 1992.

Giovanni Brusca was tasked with killing Falcone. Riina wanted the murder carried out in Sicily in a demonstration of Mafia power; he instructed that the attack should be on Highway A29, which Falcone had to use to get from the airport to his home on his weekly visits. Four hundred kilograms (881 lbs.) of explosives were placed in a culvert under the highway between Palermo International Airport and the city of Palermo, near the town of Capaci. Brusca's men carried out test drives, using flashbulbs to simulate detonating the blast on a speeding car, and a concrete structure was specially created and destroyed in an experimental explosion to see if the bomb would be powerful enough. Leoluca Bagarella assisted at the scene during preparations.

Brusca detonated the device by remote control from a small outbuilding on a hill to the right of the highway on 23 May 1992. Giovanni Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo and police officers Rocco Dicillo, Antonio Montinaro and Vito Schifani were killed in the blast. The explosion was so powerful that it registered on local earthquake monitors. Riina reportedly threw a party, toasting Falcone's death with champagne, according to the pentito Salvatore Cancemi.

Thousands gathered at the Church of Saint Dominic for the funerals which were broadcast live on national TV. All regular television programs were suspended. Parliament declared a day of mourning. His colleague Paolo Borsellino was killed in another bombing 57 days later, along with five police officers: Agostino Catalano, Walter Cosina, Emanuela Loi, Vincenzo Li Muli, and Claudio Traina.

In the major crackdown against the Mafia following Falcone and Borsellino's deaths, Riina was arrested on 15 January 1993, and was serving a life sentence, until his death in 2017, for sanctioning the murders of both magistrates as well as many other crimes. Brusca, also known as lo scannacristiani (the people slaughterer), was convicted of Falcone's murder. He was one of Riina's associates and admitted to detonating the explosives. Dozens of mafiosi were sentenced to life imprisonment for their involvement in Falcone's murder.

Reports in May 2019 indicated that a Cosa Nostra insider revealed that John Gotti of the Gambino crime family had sent one of their explosives experts to Sicily to work with the Corleonesi Mafia clan to help plan the bombing that would kill Falcone.

Legacy
Palermo International Airport has been named Falcone-Borsellino Airport in honour of the two judges and hosts a memorial of the pair by the local sculptor Tommaso Geraci. Monuments commemorating Falcone and the other victims of the Capaci bombing were placed around Italy, including in Peschiera del Garda. Falcone was posthumously awarded the Train Foundation's Civil Courage Prize, which recognises "extraordinary heroes of conscience". A monument to Falcone stands also at the FBI's National Academy in Virginia to honour his contributions to the "Pizza Connection" case.

In popular culture

 * Giovanni Falcone (1993), starring Michele Placido as Falcone;
 * Excellent Cadavers (1999), with Chazz Palminteri in the role of Falcone;
 * Il Capo dei Capi (2007), with Andrea Tidona in the role of Falcone;
 * Vi perdono ma inginocchiatevi, a 2012 TV movie that tells the story of the men of the escort of Giovanni Falcone;
 * Era d'estate (2016), starring Massimo Popolizio in the role of Falcone;
 * The Traitor (2019), with Fausto Russo Alesi in the role of Falcone.

title: Giovanni Falcone


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Bagheria

Bagheria (Baarìa ) is a city and comune in the Metropolitan City of Palermo in Sicily, located approximately 10km to the east of the city centre.

Etymology
According to some sources, the name Bagheria (by way of old Sicilian Baarìa) originates from the Phoenician term Bayharia meaning "land that descends toward the sea."

History
Since its founding, the town has gone by the names of Bayharia, Baharia, and Baarìa. In 1658 Giuseppe Branciforti, Prince of Butera and former Viceroy of Sicily, built a large villa and established the region as the preferred location for the vacation homes of Palermo's elites. Villas like the fortified Villa San Marco (designed by Andrea Cirrincione) with angled bastions and a drawbridge soon followed. The area experienced a boom in villa building roughly coinciding with the period of Savoyard (1713–21) and Habsburg (1721–30) rule and continuing for several decades thereafter. The two most striking baroque residences, Villa Valguarnera and Villa Palagonia were designed by the architect Tommaso Napoli in 1712 and 1715 respectively. Both were completed only decades later. Napoli had been influenced by his experiences in Rome and Vienna and this is reflected in his designs. Other architects and clients like Giuseppe Mariani and the Prince of Aragona also looked to prints of Roman exemplars when constructing the Villa Aragona (now Cutò) in 1714.

By 1763, tastes were changing. The Villa Villarosa, supervised by the young G. V. Marvuglia, was directly modeled on more neoclassical plans published by Jean-François de Neufforge in 1760. In 1769, one of the descendants of the original Prince of Butera redesigned his estate into a well-planned town, allowing him to collect rents from the inhabitants. Bagheria was a preferred stopping point for Europeans pursuing the Grand Tour in Sicily including Patrick Brydone, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Soane, Karl Friedrich Schinkel and many others.

In the 20th and 21st centuries, the Baroque and Neoclassical architecture of Bagheria was largely obscured by unregulated building.

Main sights

 * Villa Palagonia, renowned for its complex external staircase, curved façades, and marble. Designed by Tommaso Maria Napoli, it is today open to the public.
 * Other notable building include Villa Butera, Villa Valguarnera, Villa Trabia, Villa Spedalotto, Villa San Cataldo, Villa Villarosa, Villa San Marco, Villa Filangeri, Villa Sant'Isidoro, Villa Ramacca, Villa Serradifalco, Villa Larderia, Villa Campofranco.
 * The Museum of the painter Renato Guttuso with a permanent exhibition of his work is placed in Villa Cattolica. A famous collection of old sicilian toys, il Museo del Giocattolo di Pietro Piraino, is placed in Villa Cuto.

Religion
Although the official feast day of St. Joseph, the town's patron saint, is March 19, it is celebrated in Bagheria the first Sunday of August; religious celebrations are held throughout the week leading up to Sunday, when more solemn ceremonies are initiated; the following Monday evening festivities conclude with a fireworks display.

Culture and notable people
Bagheria was the birthplace of many well-known 20th century figures: poet Ignazio Buttitta, politician Michelangelo Galioto, photographer Ferdinando Scianna, artists Renato Guttuso and Nino Garajo (1918—1977, Rome), gangster Joe Aiello, and film director Giuseppe Tornatore. Tornatore portrayed his love for his town in the multiple award-winning film Nuovo Cinema Paradiso in 1989 and the 2009 film Baarìa, featuring the history of the town from the 1930s to the 1980s through the life of a local family.

The town is also depicted in The Godfather Part III.

Bagheria is the setting of Dacia Maraini's eponymous autobiographical work.

Diego D'Amico (1893-1947), who represented the Christian Democrats in the Constituent Assembly of Italy from 1946 to 1947, was from Bagheria.

title: Bagheria


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Milazzo

Milazzo (Milazzu; Mylae; Μύλαι) is a municipality (comune) in the Metropolitan City of Messina, Sicily, southern Italy; it is the largest commune in the Metropolitan City after Messina and Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto. The town has a population of around 31,500 inhabitants.

History
Several civilizations settled in Milazzo and left signs of their presence from the Neolithic age. In Homer's Odyssey Milazzo is presumably the place where Ulysses is shipwrecked and meets Polyphemus.

Historically, the town originated as the ancient Greek Mylae (Μύλαι) in Magna Graecia, an outpost of Zancle, occupied before 648 BC, perhaps as early as 716 BC. It was taken by the Athenians in 426 BC. The people of Rhegium planted the exiles from Naxos and Catana in 395 BC as a counterpoise to Dionysius the Elder's foundation of Tyndaris; but Dionysius soon took it. In the bay Gaius Duilius won the first Roman naval victory over the Carthaginians (260 BC).

In 36 BC the naval Battle of Mylae was fought offshore. The fleet of Octavian, commanded by Marcus Agrippa, engaged that of Sextus Pompey. While the battle was nearly a draw, Sextus could not replace his losses, and was thus weaker at the following Battle of Naulochus (36 BC), where he was utterly defeated.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, under the Byzantines, the town became one of the first episcopal seats of Sicily. In the 9th century Milazzo was conquered by the Arabs, who built the first nucleus of the castle here. Frederick II of Hohenstaufen further fortified the town and created a personal hunting park. The castle was later mostly rebuilt in the age of Charles V of Spain.

Milazzo was also the seat of a battle in 1718 between Spain and Austria, and of another fought by Giuseppe Garibaldi against the Kingdom of Two Sicilies during his Expedition of the Thousand.

Geography
Milazzo borders with the municipalities of Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto, Merì and San Filippo del Mela.

Milazzo is the point of reference of a vast territory, from Villafranca Tirrena to Patti (over 200,000 inhabitants). Is also, an important centre of the Strait of Messina Metropolitan Area (who also includes areas of Reggio Calabria), with the nearby town Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto. Located at the base of a peninsula that juts into the Tyrrhenian Sea with a small promontory, the town is 43 km from the city of Messina.

Main sights

 * Castle of Milazzo. Begun by the Arabs, enlarged by the Normans, restored and strengthened by Frederick II, it is surrounded by walls with round towers built under Alfonso V of Aragon, with a Gothic portal dating from the 14th century. Near the castle are the ruins of the fourteenth-century palace of the grand jury and the old cathedral (1603) probably built on a design by architect Camillo Camillians.

Other sights include:
 * the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
 * the Baroque Church of the Holy Crucifix (1629), housing a wooden canopy from the 18th century and a wooden crucifix from the early 17th century.
 * Rock church of St. Anthony of Padua
 * Sanctuary of St. Francis of Paola

Economy
Over time, the town is moving forward towards the sea by recording a continuous development of agriculture and fishing activities, commercial and industrial.

Transportation
The port of Milazzo is a departure point for ferries to the Aeolian Islands and Naples.

title: Milazzo


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User talk:Zisa

Ciao Zisa.

Siamo sicuri che ci serve un link ad Antonietta Bagarella? Intendi fare un articolo su questo? - Gianfranco

Sicuri... certo. farò ... sarà un dizionario di maf... ehm. e vabbè... vado a cercare marsala con l'uovo... :) ci wikipediamo dopo pasqua... se hai qc da dì prima ... usa il mio username da qua ... ed aggiungilo ad 'iol' dominio (lo sai) ... (ho spamfobia) ... cmq, buona pasqua ;-) Zisa

hello, I have a question for you at Talk:Caffeine. Thanks. Koyaanis Qatsi, Monday, April 1, 2002

Per your comment on my talk page: Don't feel bad, I did notice you - however Gianfranco had the pleasure of welcoming you aboard (at least I think that is what he said...). I can't do it all myself :) (although I sometimes try) --maveric149, Saturday, April 6, 2002

http://www.bobcatstudios.com/WBsIIIPix/OSX.jpg

OS X crashed :D

Jimbo Visit
I will be at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 23 October, 2004, speaking at the ACM Reflections | Projections Conference 2004 -

This conference runs from 22. - 24. October 2004; it would be fantastic to have a Wikipedia booth, if I can get volunteers for it.

Do you think you could come? Jimbo Wales 16:27, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

.. would have loved to, but was in UK back then -a.

Lu Sicilianu
Ciau Zisa Mi adduni ca parri/scrivi lu sicilianu. Sai c'avemu accuminciatu la wikipedia siciliana? Ancura avemu assai di fari, ma nsomma... Hai tempu d'aiutarinni? Salutamu --pippudoz 05:50, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC) ps I speak and write both Italian and English if you prefer.

Greetings from Italy
Heya, I saw your name on the poetry project page. Since, among other things you decidedly lean towards Sicilian culture like me I hope you'll like the new article about the Sicilian School. I come from there, so I thought I might just set the record straight about Sicily's contribution to the Italian language and literature which I think has been neglected for too long. Buon lavoro Zisa! --Wikipedius 12:19, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Regional notice board
You are wellcome to join the Argentine regional notice board. -Mariano 17:29, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

User categorisation
You were listed on the Wikipedians/Italy page as living in or being associated with Italy. As part of the User categorisation project, these lists are being replaced with user categories. If you would like to add yourself to the category that is replacing the page, please visit Category:Wikipedians in Italy for instructions. --Army1987 21:13, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedians in Spain
Hello Zisa this message is a invitation to categorize your userpage in the category: Category:Wikipedians in Spain or in the adecuate sub-category and erasing your name from the equivalent list since the lists of users are in process of being transformed into categories. Remember: You can categorize your user page in more than one category. example: your actual location and your origin country.

for more info see: User categorisation and Category:Wikipedians by location

Saludos. --Mnts 07:20, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Usercategorization
You were listed on the Wikipedians/Brazil page as living in or being associated with Brazil. As part of the User categorisation project, these lists are being replaced with user categories. If you would like to add yourself to the category that is replacing the page, please visit Category:Wikipedians in Brazil for instructions. Rmky87 05:46, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Project!
I am kindly inviting you to join our new project page!

--Sebastian Kessel Talk 17:18, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Mensaje de un wikipedista norteamericano
¡Saludos, compañero de Wikipedia! I'm coming to Argentina soon and wanted to see if any of my fellow Wikipedians were interested in meeting up, etc...I'm flying into BsAs on Jan. 25th and I don't know many people there, so if you'd be into talking/getting together, let me know. Feel free to leave a message on my user page...seeya around - Paul 22:33, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Asthma Country
Which country were you in when you created the article entitled Asthma? Alec - U.K. 10:46, 7 November 2006 (UTC) - Probably Italy. Zisa Sep 2012

Proposed deletion of Frutta martorana

The article Frutta martorana has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern: "The only source on this page doesn't refer to this food, but to other foods. Also, I'm not sure if it originated in Messina (Palermo yes)."

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title: User talk:Zisa


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Termini Imerese

Termini Imerese (Tèrmini ) is a town of the Metropolitan City of Palermo on the northern coast of Sicily, in Italy. It is one of the most important towns of the Metropolitan City of Palermo, from which it is 33 km away. The town is easily reachable through its well developed infrastructures: there are three highway exits along the A19, its station is the meeting point between all of the Sicilian railway lines and its seaport links the town with other important maritime Italian cities. It has a judicial district. It's culturally interesting for the close Greek ruins of Himera, its numerous churches, Roman ruins, prehistorical finds and the annual celebration of the Carnival, one of the oldest of Italy. In the heart of the old town, at its lower level, there are the thermal baths of the Grand Hotel delle Terme, where precious hot waters flow since Roman age. In the areas of Termini and the near Sciara and Caccamo there's the Oriented Nature Reserve of Mount St. Calogero, which is located between the coast of Termini Imerese Gulf and the surrounding fertile flat territory. In the east zone of the town, there's an important industrial area, especially known for the former factory which was owned by FIAT and for the ENEL power plant “Ettore Majorana”.

Ancient history
The site of the town has been populated since prehistoric times, as many archaeological excavations have shown through the years. Its documented history begins in 409 BC after the second Battle of Himera when its more ancient neighbour, Himera (now completely within the comune's borders), was completely destroyed by the Carthaginian army under Hannibal Mago. Those who survived the devastation moved to a site then called "Thermae" which is today known as Termini and became the successor to Himera. The new town of Thermae or Therma, called for the sake of distinction Thermae Himerenses, obviously derived its name from the hot springs for which it was celebrated, and the first discovery of which was connected by legends with the wanderings of Hercules. It appears to have quickly become a considerable town, though it continued to be subject to Carthaginian rule.

In the First Punic War its name is repeatedly mentioned. In 260 BC, a body of Roman troops were encamped in the neighbourhood when they were attacked by Hamilcar and defeated with heavy loss.

Roman age
Before the close of the First Punic War (241 BC), Thermae was besieged and taken by the Romans but the city seems to have been treated with unusual favour by its conquerors. Cicero tells us that the Romans allowed the Thermitani to govern their city and territory with their own laws as a reward for their steady fidelity. As they were on hostile terms with Rome during the First Punic War, it can only be to the subsequent period that this "fidelity" applies.

In the time of Cicero (80-40 BC), Thermae appears to have been a flourishing place, carrying on a considerable amount of trade, though he speaks of it as oppidum non maximum. He attested the magnificence of the ancient city and the taste of its citizens for the encouragement of art,  calling it in primis Siciliae clarum et ornatum as statues were preserved by the Thermitani to whom they had been restored by Scipio after the conquest of Carthage.

It seems to have become a colony in the time of Augustus (27 BC - 14 AD), whence we find mention in inscriptions of the Ordo et Populus splendidissimae Coloniae Augustae Himeraeorum Thermitanorum. Thermae colonia is mentioned by Pliny and must refer to this town, though he seems to confuse it with Thermae Selinuntiae (modern Sciacca) on the south coast which was not a colony.

There are few subsequent accounts of Thermae; but, as its name is found in Ptolemy and the Itineraries, and from the impressive aqueduct and some other remains it appears to have continued in existence throughout the period of the Roman Empire, and probably never ceased to be inhabited, as the modern town of Termini Imerese retains the ancient site as well as name.

Medieval and modern eras
Following the fall of the Roman Empire, the city entered a period of decline. Termini continued to exist as a bishopric until the 12th century, though the list of bishops contains various gaps and uncertainties. Under Norman rule, the city was at first a royal city; it subsequently became one of 42 città demaniali, cities administered directly by the crown rather than local nobility. Above all, from the Middle Ages through the beginning of the 19th century, Termini served as a major center for the collection and shipping of grain and other foodstuffs stored and subjected to duty in a special government warehouse complex (the caricatore regio). The presence of the caricatore improved the fortunes of the city, turning it into one of the major ports of Sicily and strengthening its commercial relationships with the maritime republics of Genoa, Pisa and Venice as well as the major Mediterranean ports (Marseille, Barcelona, etc.) and, during the 16th century, those of the Atlantic. Towards the end of the 18th century, Termini became the site of the Ereina Imerese branch of the Ereina di Palermo academy, followed soon thereafter by the establishment of the Accademia Euracea, later the Accademia Mediterranea Euracea. In the 19th century, however, the closing of the caricatore precipitated a profound economic crisis that lasted until the end of the 20th century, when artisanal and proto-industrial activity began to replace the traditional agricultural base of the city's economy. A period of population decline, linked primarily to emigration to the Americas, was balanced at the beginning of the 20th century by immigration from Agrigento, Messina and Ragusa.

Between 1970 and 2011, Termini was home to a large Fiat automobile manufacturing facility, where small cars such as the 126, the original Panda, and the Punto have been manufactured. The plant was the sole assembly site for the second generation Lancia Ypsilon built between 2005 and 2011. In 2006 the plant celebrated its four millionth car produced. At the end of 2011, Fiat sold the plant to Chinese car manufacturer Chery. From January 2015, it was owned by Blutec, until its owner was arrested by the Guardia di Finanza in 2020. The plant was subsequently put up for sale again in 2023.

There is also a power station operated by Enel with a generation capacity of 454 MW.

Main sights

 * Roman aqueduct bridge with two tiers of arches and other parts of the aqueduct of Cornelius
 * Roman amphitheatre probably from the Augustan age built into houses between Via Garibaldi and Via San Marco. It has a double ambulatory, a remarkable for such a small building (around 98 x 75 m). The cavea was partly excavated and partly built up: a part of the lower order of the arches remains visible high on the western part (in via Anfiteatro).
 * Temple of Victory at Himera
 * Cathedral of St. Nicholas of Bari (1604). It houses a statue by Giorgio da Milano (1487) and several works by Ignazio Marabitti.
 * Church of St. Catherine of Alexandria (1?th-16th centuries). It is home to a series of frescoes depicting the life of the namesake saint.
 * Church of Santa Maria di Gesù (late 15th century). Works inside include a sculpture attributed to Giorgio da Milano and a high-relief by Domenico Gagini (c. 1480)

Aqueduct
The Roman aqueduct bridge is the largest and best preserved of the island.

The source was located 5 km east of the city, at the foot of Monte San Calogero where the remains of the two settling tanks can still be seen in the locality of Brucato.

The aqueduct needed to cross the Barratina stream and the earliest the crossing was made at Fontana Superiore with a siphon about 600 m long, of which the well preserved hexagonal compression tower remains, 16 m high and resting on a square plinth of 6 m sides. On five of the sides were windows and from the east side the conduit started. On this tower was once a large inscription, now disappeared: aquae Cornealiae ductus p. XX. The last letters ("twenty feet") perhaps corresponds to the sides of the building.

Later it seems that the aqueduct passed further downstream: in Figurella a double-order bridge of arches is still visible (originally nine in the lower, fifteen in the upper: two arches for each order collapsed), 14 m high. The structure with facing blocks is the same as that of the amphitheatre and the curia and shows that it belongs to the same building project of the Augustan colony.

Sister cities

 * 🇺🇸 Elk Grove Village, United States, since 2002
 * 🇲🇹 La Valletta, Malta, since 2014
 * 🇲🇽 Zihuatanejo, Mexico, since 2014
 * 🇱🇹 Vilnius, Lithuania, since 2014
 * 🇮🇹 Maranello, Italy, since 2016

title: Termini Imerese


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Pentito

Pentito (lit. "repentant"; plural: pentiti) is used colloquially to designate collaborators of justice in Italian criminal procedure terminology who were formerly part of criminal organizations and decided to collaborate with a public prosecutor. The judicial category of pentiti was originally created in 1970s to combat violence and terrorism during the period of left-wing and right-wing terrorism known as the Years of Lead. During the 1986–87 Maxi Trial and after the testimony of Tommaso Buscetta, the term was increasingly applied to former members of organized crime in Italy who had abandoned their organization and started helping investigators.

Role and benefits
In exchange for the information they deliver, pentiti receive shorter sentences for their crimes, in some cases even freedom. In the Italian judicial system, pentiti can obtain personal protection, a new name, and some money to start a new life in another place, possibly abroad.

This practice is common in other countries as well. In the United States, criminals testifying against their former associates can enter the Witness Protection Program, and be given new identities with supporting paperwork. The Italian Mafia bosses Buscetta and Francesco Marino Mannoia were allowed to live in the U.S. under new identities in the Witness Protection Program when Italy did not yet have such a program.

Cases
Among the most famous Mafia pentiti is Tommaso Buscetta, the first important pentito. He was helpful to judge Giovanni Falcone in describing the Sicilian Mafia Commission or Cupola, the leadership of the Sicilian Mafia in the 1980s, and identifying the main operational channels that the Mafia used for its business.

In Italy, important successes were achieved with the cooperation of pentiti in the fight against terrorism (especially against the Red Brigades), by Carabinieri general Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa (who was later killed by the Mafia).

In the period until the 1990s, there were very few, albeit significant, pentiti such as Tommaso Buscetta, Salvatore Contorno, Antonino Calderone, etc. However, this changed significantly during the early 1990s. From 1992, over a thousand mafiosi have agreed to collaborate with Italian justice. In some cases, pentiti have invented stories to obtain reductions in jail time. A famous case regarded the popular TV anchorman Enzo Tortora, who was falsely accused of cocaine trafficking and Camorra membership by a pentito named Giovanni Melluso. Tortora was detained for years before being cleared; he developed cancer and died soon after the case was finally solved, some say because of the emotional stress of his imprisonment.

Important pentiti of the Sicilian Mafia

 * Leonardo Vitale (1941–1984) was the first to become a pentito in 1973, although originally his confessions were not taken seriously.
 * Tommaso Buscetta (1928–2000) was the first high-profile pentito against the Sicilian Mafia. He started to collaborate with the anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone in 1984. His testimony was of crucial importance in the landmark Maxi Trial of 1986–87.
 * Salvatore Contorno (born 1946) started to collaborate in October 1984, following the example of Buscetta.
 * Leonardo Messina (born 1955), member of the San Cataldo clan, who became an informant in 1992. He was the greater accuser of Giulio Andreotti.
 * Antonino Giuffrè (born 1945), boss of Caccamo and member of Corleonesi, turned informant in 2002, after his arrest.
 * Antonino Calderone (1935–2013) started to collaborate in April 1987.
 * Francesco Marino Mannoia (born 1951) started to collaborate in October 1989 because his brother had been murdered. He was the first pentito who used to belong to the winning faction of the Second Mafia War (1981–83).
 * Giovanni Brusca (born 1957), the murderer of anti-Mafia prosecutor Falcone, began to collaborate in 1996.
 * Santino Di Matteo (born 1954), became an informant in 1993 after his arrest; offered information relating to the Capaci bombing, for this reason his son Giuseppe was kidnapped, murdered and dissolved in acid.
 * Salvatore Cancemi (1942–2011), another of Falcone's assassins, turned himself to the Carabinieri in July 1993 and immediately began collaborating.
 * Giuseppe Marchese (1963), Filippo Marchese's nephew and who became an informant in 1992.
 * Gaspare Mutolo (born 1940), started to collaborate in prison in May 1992 and was the first mafioso who spoke about the connections between the Cosa Nostra and Italian politicians.

Other important pentiti

 * Pasquale Barra (1942–2015), the first pentito and high-ranking member of Raffaele Cutolo's Nuova Camorra Organizzata.
 * Pasquale Galasso (born 1955), former high-ranking member of the Nuova Famiglia faction of the Camorra.
 * Carmine Alfieri (born 1943), former Boss of Bosses of the Nuova Famiglia.
 * Carmine Schiavone (1943–2015), former high-ranking member of the Casalesi clan.
 * Maurizio Abbatino, former boss of the Banda della Magliana.
 * Felice Maniero (born 1954), former boss of the Mala del Brenta.

Cultural acceptance
In some southern Italian communities, the Mafia has a significant presence, and in these areas becoming a pentito is tantamount to a death sentence. Indeed, the Mafia family of Totò Riina based in the town of Corleone habitually extended the death sentence of the pentiti over to their relatives. For example, several of Tommaso Buscetta's close family members were killed in a long series of murders.

Commentary on the term
It is often pointed out that the correct term should be collaboratori di giustizia, or "collaborators with justice". The word pentito implies a moral judgment that is considered inappropriate for the courts of justice to make.

Criticism
In Italy, pentiti have come under criticism because of the favours they receive and because they would invent stories to receive benefits; they would invent stories to persecute people they do not like; their employment is seen as a reward for criminals, instead of a punishment; and they would be unreliable since they come from a criminal organization. Criticism comes most often from politicians, especially when they or an associate of theirs is under investigation for connections to the Mafia. It is therefore interpreted by some as an attempt to discredit one's own accusers, instead of a genuine preoccupation of the common citizen's civil rights. Luciano Violante, a politician and former president of the Italian Antimafia Commission, countered that "We do not find information about the Mafia among nuns."

Laws have been passed that bar pentiti from obtaining substantial benefits unless their revelations are later deemed new material, and lead to concrete results. The State can collect revelations only for six months after the initial intention to collaborate, after which they cannot be used in court. This has had the effect of reducing the appeal of becoming a pentito since a single mafia associate does not know whether his knowledge will be useful to the prosecutors at the time of defection. Defection from the mafia in Italy have subsequently sharply reduced from the height reached in the early nineties, and results in the fight against mafia have reduced accordingly.

title: Pentito


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Zakopane

Zakopane (Podhale Goral: Zokopane) is a town in the south of Poland, in the southern part of the Podhale region at the foot of the Tatra Mountains. From 1975 to 1998, it was part of Nowy Sącz Voivodeship; since 1999, it has been part of Lesser Poland Voivodeship. its population was 27,266. Zakopane is a centre of Goral culture and is often referred to as "the winter capital of Poland". It is a popular destination for mountaineering, skiing, and tourism.

Zakopane lies near Poland's border with Slovakia, in a valley between the Tatra Mountains and Gubałówka Hill. It is connected by rail and road to the provincial capital, Kraków. Zakopane lies 800–1,000 metres above sea level and centres on the intersection of its Krupówki and Kościuszko Streets.

History

The earliest documents mentioning Zakopane date to the 17th century, describing a glade called Zakopisko. In 1676, it was a village of 43 inhabitants. In 1818, Zakopane was a small town that was still being developed. There were only 340 homes that held 445 families. The population of Zakopane at that time was 1,805: 934 women and 871 men. The first church was built in 1847, by Józef Stolarczyk.

Zakopane became a center for the region's mining and metallurgy industries; by the 19th century, it was the largest center for metallurgy in the region of Galicia. It expanded during the 19th century as the climate attracted more inhabitants. By 1889, it had developed from a small village into a climatic health resort. Rail services to Zakopane began on October 1, 1899. In the late 1800s, Zakopane constructed a road that went to the town of Nowy Targ and had railways that came from Chabówka. Because of easier transportation, the population of Zakopane had increased to about 3,000 people by the end of the 1800s. In the 19th century, Krupówki Street was just a narrow beaten path that was meant for people to get from the central part of town to the village of Kuźnice.

The ski jump on Wielka Krokiew was opened in 1925. The cable car to Kasprowy Wierch was completed in 1936. The funicular connected Zakopane and the top of Gubałówka in 1938.

Because of Zakopane's popular ski mountains, the town gained popularity which made the number of tourists increase to about 60,000 people by 1930.

During the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, the town was invaded by Germany, and the Einsatzgruppe I entered the town on September 4, 1939, to commit various crimes against Poles. In March 1940, representatives of the Soviet NKVD and the Nazi Gestapo met for one week in Zakopane's Villa Tadeusz, to coordinate the pacification of resistance in Poland. Throughout World War II, Zakopane served as an underground staging point between Poland and Hungary.

From 1942 to 1943, 1,000 prisoners from the German Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp were set to work in a stone quarry. In 1944, during the Warsaw Uprising, the Germans deported thousands of Varsovians from the Dulag 121 camp in Pruszków, where they were initially imprisoned, to Zakopane. Those Poles were mainly old people, ill people and women with children. In mid-October 1944, there were 3,800 registered Poles, who were expelled from Warsaw, and probably another 3,800 unregistered expellees. In January 1945, the Germans retreated from Zakopane and the German occupation ended.

Immediately after the war, a children's Home for Holocaust Survivors was established in Zakopane.

Climate
Zakopane has a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification: Dfb), with the main factor behind its relative coldness compared to the rest of Poland is its altitude. In general, the temperature tends to fall with altitude, therefore Zakopane is almost 3 C-change colder than northern Kraków, which is more than 600 m lower than Zakopane. With higher altitudes, the climate gets even colder, therefore, on the top of Kasprowy Wierch (1987 m above sea level), the climate is tundra-like (Köppen: ET). The tree line is located at about 1500 m above sea level in the Tatra Mountains.

Winters are typically frosty but are relatively sunny for Poland - in fact, Zakopane receives among the most sun in winter in the country. Snow is normally abundant, particularly in the higher altitudes, which makes Zakopane among the most popular ski resorts in Poland. Summers are cool to warm but rarely get hot.

The defining feature of the local climate is the location on the northern slope of the Tatra mountains. Zakopane receives significantly more precipitation than cities on the lowlands to the north of the Carpathians, and just like in the mountains in general, there might be sudden weather changes from sunny to rainy, and vice versa. Occasionally, a very warm foehn wind locally known as halny may dramatically increase the temperatures, sometimes beyond 10 C in winter.

Extreme temperatures range from −34.1 °C on February 1, 1956 up to 32.8 °C on August 8, 2013; the record cold daily maximum is −19.6 °C, set on February 1, 1956, while, conversely, the record warm daily minimum is 23.4 °C on August 29, 1992.

Architecture
The Zakopane Style of Architecture is an architectural mode inspired by the regional art of Poland's highland region known as Podhale. Drawing on the motifs and traditions in the buildings of the Carpathian Mountains, the style was pioneered by Stanislaw Witkiewicz and is now considered a core tradition of the Goral people.

The most prominent examples of the style are:

 * Villa Koliba - built in 1892–93 by Stanisław Witkiewicz
 * Villa Oksza - built in 1894–95 by Stanisław Witkiewicz
 * Villa Pod Jedlami - built in 1897 by Stanisław Witkiewicz
 * Chapel in Jaszczurówka - built in 1904–07 by Stanisław Witkiewicz
 * Tatra Museum - built in 1913–24 by Stanisław Witkiewicz
 * Grand Hotel Stamary - built in 1903-05 by Eugeniusz Wesołowski

Other important sights in Zakopane include:

 * Holy Family Church - Romanesque Revival church built in 1879–96 by Józef Pius Dziekoński
 * Church of Our Lady of Częstochowa - wooden church built in 1847, located next to the Old Cemetery in Pęksowy Brzyzek
 * Old Cemetery in Pęksowy Brzyzek - burial place of many artists, architects, writers, sculptors and mountaineer, among them Stanisław Witkiewicz, Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer, Władysław Hasior and Sabała. There is also a cenotaph of Witkacy.
 * Modernist stations of the Kasprowy Wierch cable railway (1935–36) and the Gubałówka Hill funicular (1938)

Culture
Since the end of the 19th century Zakopane was an important place for many artists, who frequently visited, worked or lived here, especially during the Young Poland period.

Today the city hosts many museums and galleries:
 * Tatra Museum
 * Museum of Tatra National Park
 * Museum of Zakopane Style at Villa Koliba
 * Villa Oksza Art Gallery
 * Karol Szymanowski Museum in Villa Atma
 * Jan Kasprowicz Museum in Villa Harenda
 * Kornel Makuszyński Museum
 * Władysław Hasior Gallery
 * Kamil Stoch Museum Galeria Kamiland
 * Museum of the Armed Resistance in the former Hotel Palace

Sports
The Tatras are a popular destination among hikers, skiers, ski-tourers and climbers.

Mountaineering

There is a network of well-marked hiking trails in the Tatras and according to the national park regulations the hikers must stick to them. Most of these trails are overcrowded, especially in the summer season.

The High Tatras offer excellent opportunities for climbing (up to X UIAA grade).

In summer, lightning and snow are both potential hazards for climbers, and the weather can change quickly. Thunderstorms are common in the afternoons. In winter the snow can be up to several meters deep.

Skiing
In the winter, thousands arrive in Zakopane to ski, especially around Christmas and in February. The most popular skiing areas are Kasprowy Wierch and Gubałówka. There are a number of cross country skiing trails in the forests surrounding the town.

Zakopane hosted the Nordic World Ski Championships in 1929, 1939, and 1962; the winter Universiades in 1956, 1993, and 2001; the biathlon World Championship; several ski jumping world cups; and several Nordic combined, Nordic and Alpine European Cups. It hosted the second Alpine World Ski Championships in 1939, the first outside the Alps and the last official world championships prior to World War II.

Zakopane made unsuccessful bids to host the 2006 Winter Olympics and the 2011 and 2013 Alpine World Ski Championships.

Football
In Zakopane, there are two football clubs – one of them is KS Zakopane, which was established in 2007 as a result of the merger of ZKP Zakopane and Jutrzenka Zakopane. It currently competes in the B-class league, in the Podhale II group. Its matches are played at the facility located at Orkana Street 6.

In the 2015/2016 season, the Football Club Zakopane was reactivated. After a successful 2015/16 season, in which the ZKP players managed to secure a promotion-eligible spot in the Podhale C-class, they are now playing in the Podhale B-class league.

Tourism

Zakopane is visited by over 2,500,000 tourists a year. In the winter, Zakopane's tourists are interested in winter sports activities such as skiing, snowboarding, ski jumping, snowmobiling, sleigh rides, snowshoe walks, and Ice skating. During the summer, Tourists come to do activities like hiking, climbing, bike and horse ride the Tatras mountain, there are many trails in the Tatras. Tourists ride quads and dirt bikes that you can rent. Swimming and boat rides on the Dunajec river are popular. Many come to experience Goral culture, which is rich in its unique styles of food, speech, architecture, music, and costume. Zakopane is especially popular during the winter holidays, which are celebrated in traditional style, with dances, decorated horse-pulled sleighs called kuligs and roast lamb.

A popular tourist activity is taking a stroll along the town's most popular street: Krupówki. It is lined with stores, restaurants, carnival rides, and performers.

During the winter and summer seasons, Krupówki Street is crowded with tourists visiting the shops and restaurants. In the summer, a local market along Krupówki Street offers traditional Goral apparel, leather jackets, fur coats, shoes, and purses. Venders also sell foods like the famous oscypek smoked sheep cheese, fruit, vegetables, and meats. There are also many stands with Zakopane souvenirs.

Zakopane is popular for its nightlife. At night there are always people walking around town checking out the different bars and dance clubs. Most of these bars and dance clubs are located on Krupowki street.

Other activities include also Zakopane's Thermal Baths - a modern aquapark with outside swimming pools with thermal water.

A scene in Andrzej Wajda's film Man of Marble (Człowiek z marmuru) was filmed in Zakopane, introducing the town to a worldwide audience.

The mountain scenes from the Bollywood film Fanaa were filmed around Zakopane.

International relations
Zakopane participates in town twinning to foster international links.
 * 🇧🇬 Bansko, Bulgaria
 * 🇦🇷 San Carlos de Bariloche (Argentina)
 * Bavel (Netherlands)
 * 🇹🇷 Polonezköy, Turkey
 * 🇸🇰 Poprad, Slovakia
 * 🇫🇷 Saint-Dié-des-Vosges (France)
 * 🇵🇱 Sopot, Poland
 * 🇺🇦 Stryi, Ukraine
 * 🇸🇰 Vysoké Tatry, Slovakia
 * 🇩🇪 Siegen, Germany

Notable structures

 * COS Zakopane speed-skating rink
 * Gubałówka Hill Funicular
 * Kasprowy Wierch cable car
 * Wielka Krokiew ski jumping ramp

Notable residents

 * Tytus Chałubiński (1820 – 1889 in Zakopane), Polish physician and co-founder of the Polish Tatra Society
 * Klemens Bachleda (1851–1910), Polish mountain guide and mountain rescuer, worked from Zakopane
 * Stanisław Witkiewicz, (1851 – 1915) Polish painter, architect, writer and art theoretician
 * Jan Kasprowicz, (1860 – 1926) poet, playwright, critic and translator; a foremost representative of Young Poland
 * Mariusz Zaruski, (1867–1941) Polish Brigadier-General, a pioneer of Polish sports yachting, a climber of the Tatra Mountains, a photographer, painter, poet, a seaman, a conspirator, a social activist and teacher
 * Jerzy Żuławski, (1874 – 1915) Polish literary figure, philosopher, translator, alpinist and nationalist
 * Władysław Orkan, (1875 – 1930) Polish writer from the Young Poland period
 * Mieczysław Karłowicz, (1876 – 1909) Polish composer, conductor, mountaineer and photographer of the Tatra Mountains
 * Karol Szymanowski, (1882 – 1937) Polish composer and pianist, member of the modernist movement Young Poland; his house in Zakopane, the Villa Atma, is now a museum
 * Kornel Makuszyński, (1884 – 1953) Polish writer of children's and youth literature, elected member of the Polish Academy of Literature in interwar Poland
 * Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (1885 – 1939), Witkacy, a painter, philosopher, playwright, novelist and photographer
 * Olga Drahonowska-Małkowska, (1888 – 1979 in Zakopane), with her husband, founded scouting in Poland
 * Count Edward Bernard Raczyński (1891 – 1993) Polish diplomat, writer, politician and President of Poland in exile
 * Aniela Chałubińska (1902–1998), Polish geographer, geologist and university professor
 * Anna Zofia Krygowska (1904–1988) Polish mathematician, known for her work in mathematics education
 * Wawrzyniec Żuławski (1916 in Zakopane – 1957) Wawa Polish alpinist, educator, composer, music critic, and musicologist
 * Władysław Hasior, (1928 – 1999) Polish contemporary sculptor from Podhale region, a painter and theatre set designer
 * Teresa Bogucka (born 1945 in Zakopane), journalist, writer, a democratic opposition activist in Communist Poland
 * Andrzej Gąsienica-Makowski (born 1952 in Zakopane) politician, led the Nonpartisan Bloc for Support of Reforms
 * Janusz Waluś (born 1953 in Zakopane) assassinated Chris Hani, General Secretary of the South African Communist Party
 * Liz Glazowski, (born 1957 in Zakopane) Polish-American model, Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month in April 1980
 * Sergiusz Pinkwart, (born 1973) Polish journalist, writer, classical musician and traveler, Magellan Award winner
 * Małgorzata Mirga-Tas (born 1978), Polish-Romani visual artist
 * Małgorzata Babiarz, (born 1984 in Zakopane) professionally known as Megitza is a singer, double bass player and composer

Sport

 * Stanisław Marusarz (1913 in Zakopane – 1993 in Zakopane) Polish Nordic skiing competitor in the 1930s
 * Jan Wojciech Bachleda-Curuś (1951 in Zakopane – 2009) Polish alpine skier who competed in the 1976 Winter Olympics
 * Wojciech Fortuna (born 1952 in Zakopane), ski jumper, Olympic gold medallist
 * Kamil Stoch, (born 1987 in Zakopane) Polish ski jumper, world champion and three-time Olympic gold medalist
 * Oskar Kwiatkowski, (born 1996 in Zakopane), Polish snowboarder

Notable visitors

 * Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846–1916)
 * Bolesław Prus (1847 – 1912)
 * Joseph Conrad (1857 – 1924)
 * Stefan Żeromski (1864 – 1925)
 * Bronisława Dłuska, (1865 – 1939) Polish physician, older sister of physicist Marie Curie
 * Marie Curie (1867 – 1934)
 * Józef Piłsudski (1867 – 1935)
 * Vladimir Lenin (1870 – 1924)
 * Alfred Döblin (1878 – 1957)
 * Aniela Zagórska (1881 – 1943) niece of Joseph Conrad
 * Rudolf Weigl (1883 – 1957)
 * Edward Rydz-Śmigły (1886 – 1941), Marshal of Poland, who painted some Zakopane sights
 * Artur Rubinstein (1887 – 1982)
 * Julian Tuwim (1894 – 1953), died in Zakopane
 * Krystyna Skarbek (1908 – 1952)
 * Stanisław Lem (1921 – 2006)
 * Charles III (born 1948)

title: Zakopane


text:
Syntactic category

A syntactic category is a syntactic unit that theories of syntax assume. Word classes, largely corresponding to traditional parts of speech (e.g. noun, verb, preposition, etc.), are syntactic categories. In phrase structure grammars, the phrasal categories (e.g. noun phrase, verb phrase, prepositional phrase, etc.) are also syntactic categories. Dependency grammars, however, do not acknowledge phrasal categories (at least not in the traditional sense).

Word classes considered as syntactic categories may be called lexical categories, as distinct from phrasal categories. The terminology is somewhat inconsistent between the theoretical models of different linguists. However, many grammars also draw a distinction between lexical categories (which tend to consist of content words, or phrases headed by them) and functional categories (which tend to consist of function words or abstract functional elements, or phrases headed by them). The term lexical category therefore has two distinct meanings. Moreover, syntactic categories should not be confused with grammatical categories (also known as grammatical features), which are properties such as tense, gender, etc.

Defining criteria
At least three criteria are used in defining syntactic categories:

 * The type of meaning it expresses
 * The type of affixes it takes
 * The structure in which it occurs

For instance, many nouns in English denote concrete entities, they are pluralized with the suffix -s, and they occur as subjects and objects in clauses. Many verbs denote actions or states, they are conjugated with agreement suffixes (e.g. -s of the third person singular in English), and in English they tend to show up in medial positions of the clauses in which they appear.

The third criterion is also known as distribution. The distribution of a given syntactic unit determines the syntactic category to which it belongs. The distributional behavior of syntactic units is identified by substitution. Like syntactic units can be substituted for each other.

Additionally, there are also informal criteria one can use in order to determine syntactic categories. For example, one informal means of determining if an item is lexical, as opposed to functional, is to see if it is left behind in "telegraphic speech" (that is, the way a telegram would be written; e.g., Pants fire. Bring water, need help.)

Lexical categories vs. phrasal categories
The traditional parts of speech are lexical categories, in one meaning of that term. Traditional grammars tend to acknowledge approximately eight to twelve lexical categories, e.g.

 * Lexical categories
 * adjective (A), adposition (preposition, postposition, circumposition) (P), adverb (Adv), coordinate conjunction (C), determiner (D), interjection (I), noun (N), particle (Par), pronoun (Pr), subordinate conjunction (Sub), verb (V), etc.

The lexical categories that a given grammar assumes will likely vary from this list. Certainly numerous subcategories can be acknowledged. For instance, one can view pronouns as a subtype of noun, and verbs can be divided into finite verbs and non-finite verbs (e.g. gerund, infinitive, participle, etc.). The central lexical categories give rise to corresponding phrasal categories:

 * Phrasal categories
 * Adjective phrase (AP), adverb phrase (AdvP), adposition phrase (PP), noun phrase (NP), verb phrase (VP), etc.

In terms of phrase structure rules, phrasal categories can occur to the left of the arrow while lexical categories cannot, e.g. NP → D N. Traditionally, a phrasal category should consist of two or more words, although conventions vary in this area. X-bar theory, for instance, often sees individual words corresponding to phrasal categories. Phrasal categories are illustrated with the following trees:

 * Syntactic category1.jpg

The lexical and phrasal categories are identified according to the node labels, phrasal categories receiving the "P" designation.

Lexical categories only
Dependency grammars do not acknowledge phrasal categories in the way that phrase structure grammars do. What this means is that the interaction between lexical and phrasal categories disappears, the result being that only the lexical categories are acknowledged. The tree representations are simpler because the number of nodes and categories is reduced, e.g.

 * Syntactic category 2.jpg

The distinction between lexical and phrasal categories is absent here. The number of nodes is reduced by removing all nodes marked with "P". Note, however, that phrases can still be acknowledged insofar as any subtree that contains two or more words will qualify as a phrase.

Lexical categories vs. functional categories
Many grammars draw a distinction between lexical categories and functional categories. This distinction is orthogonal to the distinction between lexical categories and phrasal categories. In this context, the term lexical category applies only to those parts of speech and their phrasal counterparts that form open classes and have full semantic content. The parts of speech that form closed classes and have mainly just functional content are called functional categories:

 * Lexical categories
 * Adjective (A) and adjective phrase (AP), adverb (Adv) and adverb phrase (AdvP), noun (N) and noun phrase (NP), verb and verb phrase (VP), preposition and prepositional phrase (PP)

 * Functional categories
 * Coordinate conjunction (C), determiner (D), negation (Neg), particle (Par), preposition (P) and prepositional phrase (PP), subordinate conjunction (Sub), etc.

There is disagreement in certain areas, for instance concerning the status of prepositions. The distinction between lexical and functional categories plays a big role in Chomskyan grammars (Transformational Grammar, Government and Binding Theory, Minimalist Program), where the role of the functional categories is large. Many phrasal categories are assumed that do not correspond directly to a specific part of speech, e.g. inflection phrase (IP), tense phrase (TP), agreement phrase (AgrP), focus phrase (FP), etc. (see also Phrase → Functional categories). In order to acknowledge such functional categories, one has to assume that the constellation is a primitive of the theory and that it exists separately from the words that appear. As a consequence, many grammar frameworks do not acknowledge such functional categories, e.g. Head Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Dependency Grammar, etc.

 * Note: The abbreviations for these categories vary across systems; see .

Labels in the Minimalist Program
Early research suggested shifting away from the use of labelling, as they were considered to be non-optimal for the analysis of syntactic structure, and should therefore be eliminated. Collins (2002) argued that, although labels such as Noun, Pronoun, Adjective and the like were unavoidable and undoubtedly useful for categorizing syntactic items, providing labels for the projections of those items, was not useful and was, in fact, detrimental to structural analysis, since there were disagreements and discussions about how exactly to label these projections. The labeling of projections such as Noun Phrases (NP), Verb Phrases (VP), and others have since been a topic of discussion amongst syntacticians, who have since then been working on labelling algorithms to solve the very problem brought up by Collins.

In line with both Phrase Structure Rules and X-bar theory, syntactic labelling plays an important role within Chomsky's Minimalist Program (MP). Chomsky first developed the MP by means of creating a theoretical framework for generative grammar that can be applied universally among all languages. In contrast to Phrase Structure Rules and X-bar theory, many of the research and proposed theories done on labels are fairly recent and still ongoing.

title: Syntactic category