I tried to reproduce your problem with this code and it didn't appear so I suggest you to test it with your LaTeX distribution. If the same problem is come back, it's probably your LaTeX version or your version of babel package.
\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
\usepackage[main=english,frenchb]{babel}
\begin{document}
\begin{minipage}{10cm}
\begin{itemize}
\item The predicate \textbf{authenticateWidth} is defined to associate \textbf{Federation and Centre individuals}, e.g. \textit{AuthenticateWidth(Birminghamoz, INPDR)} refers to the fact that identity certificates issued from the centre \textit{Birminghamoz} can be automatically verified by INPDR.
\end{itemize}
\begin{itemize}
\item The predicate \textbf{\emph{trust}} is defined to associate \textbf{Centre} individuals, e.g. \emph{trust}(\emph{Udine02}, \emph{Berlin03}) refers to an organisational trust relation between centres \emph{Udine02} and \emph{Berlin03}.
\end{itemize}
\end{minipage}
\end{document}
As Ian Thompson wrote, I suggest you to send an example of your code to reproduce the problem. It would be very useful to solve your problem and to help others with the same trouble and that a typical rule adopted by professional software developers.
\documentclass{...}
, the required\usepackage
's,\begin{document}
, and\end{document}
. That may seem tedious to you, but think of the extra work it represents for TeX.SX users willing to give you a hand. Help them help you: remove that one hurdle between you and a solution to your problem. – Martin Schröder Mar 30 '18 at 16:06