10081 research outputs found
Sort by
The Edges of Meaning. Schizophrenia between Semiotics, Psychopathology and Cognitive Sciences
Get PDFLa schizofrenia rappresenta uno dei più grandi enigmi per l’impresa conoscitiva umana: non si conosce la sua eziologia, né le sue basi biologiche e cerebrali. Non è neanche chiaro cosa accada nell’esperienza di chi ne soffre, che sembra vivere in un mondo altro. La scarsa conoscenza dell’esperienza schizofrenica e la distanza tra questa e il senso comune hanno portato molti studiosi a inquadrare questo disturbo come illogico, irrazionale, insensato. Il presente lavoro tenta di confutare tale impostazione, mostrando come il mondo di senso dello schizofrenico si altera, non si disgrega; si trasforma, non si annulla.
Il campo di studi all’interno del quale si colloca la ricerca è la semiotica, disciplina che studia i sistemi e i processi di significazione e i modi attraverso cui l’essere umano dà senso al mondo. L’intera indagine è inserita in un quadro interdisciplinare in costante dialogo con la psicopatologia fenomenologica e le scienze cognitive contemporanee, e si sviluppa a partire da numerosi testi autobiografici di pazienti schizofrenici, report psichiatrici, articoli di giornale, film e romanzi sul tema.
L’ipotesi su cui si muove il lavoro è che sia possibile comprendere la schizofrenia come un problema costitutivamente semiotico, il cui nucleo è da rintracciarsi in una radicale metamorfosi delle modalità di produrre e interpretare il significato. La scommessa sottesa è che la semiotica possa contribuire in modo sostanziale alla comprensione delle modalità attraverso cui la nostra cultura concettualizza la schizofrenia e dei modi in cui gli schizofrenici danno senso al mondo.
Il lavoro indaga, quindi, i legami tra schizofrenia e cultura, la storia del concetto nosografico, e le alterazioni dei processi di significazione nei casi di eloquio disorganizzato, nei racconti autobiografici e nei deliri, cercando anche di fornire strumenti utili alla pratica clinica.Schizophrenia represents one of the greatest enigmas for human knowledge: its aetiology is unknown, as its biological and neurological basis. It is even unclear what happens in the sufferers' experience, who seem to live in another world. The lack of knowledge of the schizophrenic experience and the distance between this experience and common sense have led many scholars to define this disorder as illogical, irrational, and senseless. On the contrary, the present work shows how the schizophrenic world of meaning alters, does not disintegrate; it changes, does not dissolve.
The investigation is situated in an interdisciplinary framework where Semiotics, the discipline that accounts for systems and processes of signification, dialogues with phenomenological psychopathology and contemporary cognitive sciences. The inquiry is developed by taking into account several autobiographical texts of schizophrenic patients, psychiatric reports, newspaper articles, movies and novels on this subject.
The leading hypothesis is that it is possible to understand schizophrenia as a constitutively semiotic problem, represented by a radical metamorphosis of meaning production and interpretation. So the bet we made is that Semiotics can contribute to understanding how our culture conceptualises schizophrenia, and the ways in which people with schizophrenia make sense of the world.
Therefore, the thesis investigates the links between schizophrenia and culture, the history of the nosographic concept, and the alterations of the signification processes in disorganised speech, autobiographical narratives, and delusions, providing valuable tools for clinical practice
Development of a numerical platform for the modeling and optimal control of liquid metal flows
Get PDFThe main purpose of this work is to develop a numerical platform for the turbulence modeling and optimal control of liquid metal flows.
Thanks to their interesting thermal properties, liquid metals are widely studied as coolants for heat transfer applications in the nuclear context. However, due to their low Prandtl numbers, the standard turbulence models commonly used for coolants as air or water are inadequate.
Advanced turbulence models able to capture the anisotropy in the flow and heat transfer are then necessary. In this thesis, a new anisotropic four-parameter turbulence model is presented and validated. The proposed model is based on explicit algebraic models and solves four additional transport equations for dynamical and thermal turbulent variables. For the validation of the model, several flow configurations are considered for different Reynolds and Prandtl numbers, namely fully developed flows in a plane channel and cylindrical pipe, and forced and mixed convection in a backward-facing step geometry.
Since buoyancy effects cannot be neglected in liquid metals-cooled fast reactors, the second aim of this work is to provide mathematical and numerical tools for the simulation and optimization of liquid metals in mixed and natural convection. Optimal control problems for turbulent buoyant flows are studied and analyzed with the Lagrange multipliers method. Numerical algorithms for optimal control problems are integrated into the numerical platform and several simulations are performed to show the robustness, consistency, and feasibility of the method
On Reasonable Space and Time Cost Models for the λ-Calculus
Get PDFSlot and van Emde Boas Invariance Thesis states that a time (respectively, space) cost model is reasonable for a computational model C if there are mutual simulations between Turing machines and C such that the overhead is polynomial in time (respectively, linear in space). The rationale is that under the Invariance Thesis, complexity classes such as LOGSPACE, P, PSPACE, become robust, i.e. machine independent.
In this dissertation, we want to find out if it possible to define a reasonable space cost model for the lambda-calculus, the paradigmatic model for functional programming languages. We start by considering an unusual evaluation mechanism for the lambda-calculus, based on Girard's Geometry of Interaction, that was conjectured to be the key ingredient to
obtain a space reasonable cost model. By a fine complexity analysis of this schema, based on new variants of non-idempotent intersection types, we disprove this conjecture. Then, we change the target of our analysis. We consider a variant over Krivine's abstract machine, a standard evaluation mechanism for the call-by-name lambda-calculus, optimized for space complexity, and implemented without any pointer. A fine analysis of the execution of (a refined version of) the encoding of Turing machines into the lambda-calculus allows us to conclude that the space consumed by this machine is
indeed a reasonable space cost model. In particular, for the first time we are able to measure also
sub-linear space complexities. Moreover, we transfer this result to the call-by-value case.
Finally, we provide also an intersection type system that characterizes compositionally this new reasonable space measure. This is done through a minimal, yet non trivial, modification of the original de Carvalho type system
RICORDACI: Ricerca sulla Conservazione, Restauro e Diagnosi di Film Cinematografici
Get PDFThis thesis is the result of the RICORDACI project, a three-year European-funded initiative involving the collaboration between the University of Bologna and the restoration laboratory of the Cineteca di Bologna, L'immagine Ritrovata, which aimed to develop innovative solutions and technologies for the preservation of cinematographic film heritage.
In particular, this thesis presents new analytical methodologies to exploit two types of portable miniaturized Near Infrared spectrometers working in Diffuse Reflectance over the Short Wave Infrared (SWIR) range, to study the near infrared (NIR) spectral behavior of film base materials for an accurate, non-invasive and fast characterization of the polymer type; and for films with cellulose acetate supports, they can be employed as a diagnostic tool for monitoring the Degree of substitution (DS) affected by the loss of acetyl groups. The proposed methods offer non-invasive, fast, inexpensive and simple alternatives for the characterization and diagnosis of film bases to help the strategic planning and decision-making regarding storage, digitalization and intervention of film collections.
Secondly, the thesis includes the evaluation of new green cleaning systems and solvents for the effective, fast and innocuous removal of undesired substances from degraded cinematographic films bases; these tests compared the efficiency of traditional systems and solvents against the new proposals. Firstly, the use of Deep Eutectic Solvent formulations for removing softened gelatin residues from cellulose nitrate bases; and secondly, the employment of green volatile solvents with different application methods, including the use of new electrospun nylon mats, for avoiding the dangerous use of friction for the removal of Triphenyl Phosphate blooms from the surface of cellulose acetate bases.
The results obtained will help improving the efficiency of the interventions needed before the digitalization of historical cinematographic films and will pave the way for further investigation on the use of green solvents for cleaning polymeric heritage objects.Esta tesis es el resultado del proyecto RICORDACI, una iniciativa de tres años de duración financiada con fondos europeos en colaboración entre la Universidad de Bolonia y el laboratorio de restauración de la Cineteca di Bologna, L'immagine Ritrovata, cuyo objetivo fue desarrollar soluciones y tecnologías innovadoras para la conservación del patrimonio cinematográfico. En particular, esta tesis presenta el uso de dos tipos de espectrómetros portátiles miniaturizados que trabajan en reflectancia difusa en el infrarrojo de onda corta (SWIR-NIR), para estudiar los soporte de las películas, logrando así una caracterización precisa, no invasiva y rápida del tipo de polímero; y en el caso de películas en acetato de celulosa, también el diagnóstico del grado de sustitución (DS). Los métodos propuestos ofrecen alternativas no invasivas, rápidas, económicas y sencillas para la caracterización y el diagnóstico de soportes fílmicos, con el fin de ayudar a la planificación estratégica del almacenamiento, la digitalización y la intervención de las colecciones fílmicas. En segundo lugar, la tesis incluye la evaluación de nuevos sistemas de limpieza y solventes ecológicos para la eliminación eficaz, rápida e inocua de películas cinematográficas degradadas; estos tests comparan la eficacia de sistemas y disolventes tradicionales frente a las nuevas propuestas. En primer lugar, presenta el uso de formulaciones de disolventes eutécticos profundos para eliminar residuos de gelatina reblandecida de bases de nitrato de celulosa; y en segundo lugar, el empleo de disolventes volátiles verdes con diferentes métodos de aplicación, incluido el uso de nuevos tapetes de fibra de nylon electrohilado, para evitar la fricción durante la eliminación de concreciones de fosfato de trifenilo sobre soportes de acetato de celulosa. Los resultados obtenidos ayudarán a mejorar las intervenciones de las películas cinematográficas históricas y abrirán el camino a nuevas investigaciones sobre el uso de disolventes verdes para la limpieza de objetos patrimoniales polimérico
In-transit televisions: productive patterns and urban imageries of mobility
Get PDFIl termine go-tv fa riferimento a i sistemi di videocomunicazione collocati a bordo di mezzi di trasporto e in ambienti collegati, ad alto transito di passeggeri. Limitando l’analisi al territorio italiano, la ricerca intende ricostruire le coordinate storiche del suo sviluppo, inquadrandolo entro il più ampio contesto dei media contemporanei. Da un punto di vista teorico, sono considerati sia il legame del mezzo con l’ambiente urbano, sia le interconnessioni tra comunicazione, mobilità e trasporti, riflesse nel particolare statuto sociale e topologico chiamato in causa dai suoi luoghi di consumo. Dall’approvvigionamento alla messa in onda dei contenuti, cardine speculativo del lavoro è la disamina, su base esplorativa, delle consuetudini commerciali e professionali sottese a questo speciale canale di distribuzione audiovisiva, nel quadro di apposite pratiche d’azienda, campionate nel solco degli studi sulla produzione mediale. Tre sono gli snodi principali del progetto: la proposta di una definizione univoca del fenomeno, condivisibile dai diversi attori coinvolti nella filiera, una prima modellizzazione del suo profilo mediale e una mappatura dei principali casi di go-tv rinvenibili a livello nazionale, arricchita da una serie di studi di caso."Go-tv" refers to video-communication systems located onboard transportation vehicles and in connected venues, in high-transit locations. The research focuses on the Italian territory and provides the main historical coordinates of the development of this medium, framed within the wider context of contemporary media. From a theoretical level, the dissertation considers both the relation between this medium and the urban environment and the interconnections between communication, mobility, and transportation. Its consumption places, indeed, call into question a particular sociological and topological status. The main output of this work consists of an explorative analysis of the commercial and professional habits underlying this particular channel of audiovisual distribution, which is examined in the wake of media production studies. The project revolves around three main points: the proposal of a univocal definition of the phenomenon, a tentative modelling of its media profile and a mapping of the main cases of Italian go-tvs, complemented by a series of case studies
Developmental Semiotics of Learning. Sign production, abduction and exaptation in accessing literacy
Get PDFCon questa ricerca si intende costruire una semiotica specifica che sia in grado di fare luce sui processi di apprendimento della lettoscrittura durante l’età evolutiva. È un campo di ricerca a cui hanno contribuito numerose discipline: la psicologia e le neuroscienze trattano la lettoscrittura come uno stato cognitivo a cui l’essere umano accede nel corso dello sviluppo individuale, mentre l’archeologia cognitiva e la linguistica considerano lo stesso fenomeno dal punto di vista della filogenesi culturale. Queste stesse discipline possono essere distinte in due categorie a seconda dell’adozione di una prospettiva internalista, in cui lettura e scrittura sono rappresentate come attività compiute dal cervello e dai neuroni, o di una prospettiva distribuita, in cui si tratta di studiare l’evoluzione e la presa in carico delle forme materiali della lingua scritta. Gli strumenti di una semiotica interpretativa e cognitiva consentono di mediare e tradurre tra queste prospettive differenti e rendere ragione del modo in cui l’apprendimento di una pratica culturale socialmente regolata e costruita a partire da forme materiali disponibili, produce profonde modificazioni a livello neurofisiologico, nei vincoli di un’architettura cerebrale che - per quanto plastica - pone divieti e passaggi obbligati. Questa ricerca propone un ruolo centrale della produzione segnica e dell’inferenza abduttiva nei processi di apprendimento, nel processo di acquisizione delle competenze fondamentali dell’emergent literacy (la scoperta del fonema e la phonemic awareness) e, conseguentemente, nei processi di riciclaggio ed exaptation che si danno a livello neurofisiologico.The present research intends to build a specific semiotics, able to shed light on the learning processes of reading and writing during the developmental age. Several disciplines inform this field of research: whereas psychology and neuroscience consider reading and writing skills as a cognitive state reached by the human being in the course of his/her individual development, cognitive archeology and linguistics consider the same phenomenon from a cultural phylogeny perspective. These very disciplines can be divided into two categories, depending on whether they adopt an internalist perspective — where reading and writing are assessed as activities performed by the brain and the neurons — or a distributive one — which studies the evolution and the adoption of written language’s material form.
Interpretative and cognitive semiotics allow to mediate and translate between these different perspectives, illustrating how learning a socially regulated practice built upon available material forms can produce deep modifications at a neurophysiological level, within the constraints of a cerebral architecture which — albeit plastic — imposes its rules and forced paths.
The present study suggests that sign production and abductive inference have a central role in the learning processes, as well as in the process of acquiring the fundamental skills of emergent literacy (the discovery of the phoneme and phonemic awareness) and, as a result, in the recycling and exaptation functions that take place at a neurophysiological level
Approccio multidisciplinare alla gestione della pesca della vongola (Chamelea gallina)
Get PDFTo responsively manage the striped venus clam (Chamelea gallina) fisheries, a multidisciplinary approach has been adopted through the investigation of new and updated biological aspects (e.g. age, growth, reproduction, size at first maturity, fecundity) and the interaction gear- target or non-target species (e.g. reburial ability, survival potential and exerted damage). The striped venus clam is an important socio-economic species in the Italian fishery context, highly regulated by national and international laws aiming at guaranteeing both social and ecological sustainability. Studies on growth and reproduction revealed that the size at first maturity is reached within the first year of life, whereas the present Minimum Conservation Reference Size of 22 mm is reached at two year of age. The annual reproductive cycle, which is driven by rises in seawater temperature and chlorophyll-a concentration, spans during the warmer months (late spring-summer) with multiple spawning events of different intensity occurring over the spawning period, and the number of potentially emitted gametes is positively related to shell size. Reburial tests conducted on undamaged specimens highlighted the ability of clams to rebury in the sediment once discarded, independently from the size. On the other hand, survival experiments in the laboratory and at sea, on both damaged and undamaged individuals, served to demonstrate that the species has a high survival rate, thus supporting the claim that discarded individuals can contribute to restock the natural populations. Moreover, the evaluation and quantification of damage induced by dredging on the discarded macro-benthic fauna living associated with C. gallina highlighted that soft-shelled or soft-bodied species are the most affected by the fishing process and subjected to a higher mortality. All these findings are of pivotal importance to rationally support the management measures to be adopted in the striped venus clam fishery
Security enhancements and flaws of emerging communication technologies
No full textThe multi-faced evolution of network technologies ranges from big data centers to specialized network infrastructures and protocols for mission-critical operations. For instance, technologies such
as Software Defined Networking (SDN) revolutionized the world of static configuration of the network - i.e., by removing the distributed and proprietary configuration of the switched networks -
centralizing the control plane. While this disruptive approach is interesting from different points of
view, it can introduce new unforeseen vulnerabilities classes. One topic of particular interest in the
last years is industrial network security, an interest which started to rise in 2016 with the introduction of the Industry 4.0 (I4.0) movement. Networks that were basically isolated by design are now
connected to the internet to collect, archive, and analyze data. While this approach got a lot of momentum due to the predictive maintenance capabilities, these network technologies can be exploited
in various ways from a cybersecurity perspective. Some of these technologies lack security measures
and can introduce new families of vulnerabilities. On the other side, these networks can be used
to enable accurate monitoring, formal verification, or defenses that were not practical before. This
thesis explores these two fields: by introducing monitoring, protections, and detection mechanisms
where the new network technologies make it feasible; and by demonstrating attacks on practical
scenarios related to emerging network infrastructures not protected sufficiently. The goal of this
thesis is to highlight this lack of protection in terms of attacks on and possible defenses enabled
by emerging technologies. We will pursue this goal by analyzing the aforementioned technologies
and by presenting three years of contribution to this field. In conclusion, we will recapitulate the
research questions and give answers to them
Methods for integrating machine learning and constrained optimization
Get PDFIn the framework of industrial problems, the application of Constrained Optimization is known to have overall very good modeling capability and performance and stands as one of the most powerful, explored, and exploited tool to address prescriptive tasks. The number of applications is huge, ranging from logistics to transportation, packing, production, telecommunication, scheduling, and much more. The main reason behind this success is to be found in the remarkable effort put in the last decades by the OR community to develop realistic models and devise exact or approximate methods to solve the largest variety of constrained or combinatorial optimization problems, together with the spread of computational power and easily accessible OR software and resources.
On the other hand, the technological advancements lead to a data wealth never seen before and increasingly push towards methods able to extract useful knowledge from them; among the data-driven methods, Machine Learning techniques appear to be one of the most promising, thanks to its successes in domains like Image Recognition, Natural Language Processes and playing games, but also the amount of research involved.
The purpose of the present research is to study how Machine Learning and Constrained Optimization can be used together to achieve systems able to leverage the strengths of both methods: this would open the way to exploiting decades of research on resolution techniques for COPs and constructing models able to adapt and learn from available data.
In the first part of this work, we survey the existing techniques and classify them according to the type, method, or scope of the integration; subsequently, we introduce a novel and general algorithm devised to inject knowledge into learning models through constraints, Moving Target.
In the last part of the thesis, two applications stemming from real-world projects and done in collaboration with Optit will be presented
The European legal approach to Open Science and research data
Get PDFThis dissertation proposes an analysis of the governance of the European scientific research, focusing on the emergence of the Open Science paradigm: a new way of doing science, oriented towards the openness of every phase of the scientific research process, able to take full advantage of the digital ICTs. The emergence of this paradigm is relatively recent, but in the last years it has become increasingly relevant. The European institutions expressed a clear intention to embrace the Open Science paradigm (eg., think about the European Open Science Cloud, EOSC; or the establishment of the Horizon Europe programme). This dissertation provides a conceptual framework for the multiple interventions of the European institutions in the field of Open Science, addressing the major legal challenges of its implementation. The study investigates the notion of Open Science, proposing a definition that takes into account all its dimensions related to the human and fundamental rights framework in which Open Science is grounded. The inquiry addresses the legal challenges related to the openness of research data, in light of the European Open Data framework and the impact of the GDPR on the context of Open Science. The last part of the study is devoted to the infrastructural dimension of the Open Science paradigm, exploring the e-infrastructures. The focus is on a specific type of computational infrastructure: the High Performance Computing (HPC) facility. The adoption of HPC for research is analysed from the European perspective, investigating the EuroHPC project, and the local perspective, proposing the case study of the HPC facility of the University of Luxembourg, the ULHPC. This dissertation intends to underline the relevance of the legal coordination approach, between all actors and phases of the process, in order to develop and implement the Open Science paradigm, adhering to the underlying human and fundamental rights