Archivio istituzionale della ricerca - Università degli Studi di Venezia Ca' Foscari
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Less is More: Boosting Coverage of Web Crawling through Adversarial Multi-Armed Bandit
No full textCrawlers are critical for ensuring the dependability and security of web applications by maximizing the code coverage of testing tools. Reinforcement learning (RL) has recently emerged as a promising approach to improve crawler exploration. However, existing approaches based on Q-learning face two major limitations: being state-based, they rely on brittle state abstractions that fail to generalize across diverse applications, and they employ rewards that prioritize underused actions but are not necessarily proportional to the improvement in code coverage. In this paper, we first substantiate the limitations of two popular Q-learning-based crawlers. We then propose Multi-Armed Krawler (MAK), a new crawler based on the Adversarial Multi-Armed Bandit problem. MAK is stateless and does not require the definition of brittle state abstractions that do not generalize to new web applications. By modeling the crawling process through a traditional graph abstraction and introducing an extrinsic reward correlated with code coverage, MAK compensates for the loss of expressiveness coming from its stateless nature. Our experimental results on public web applications show that MAK achieves greater coverage and faster convergence than its counterparts
COSMICA: A GPU-Optimized Code for Solar Modulation Studies
No full textWe present COSMICA, an opensource high-performance GPU-accelerated numerical code for modeling cosmic ray solar modulation, and its application to study CR diffusion parameters. Developed within the framework of the ICSC-Italian Research Center on High-Performance Computing, Big Data and Quantum Computing (Spoke-3), COSMICA is undergoing continuous software optimization to maximize efficiency on NVIDIA architectures. COSMICA is coupled with SDEGnO, another ICSC project, designed for the efficient parameter tuning, exploring the large parameter space in solar modulation studies. As a first physical use-case study, we exploit COSMICA to investigate Forbush Decreases (FDs), which are transient cosmic ray intensity reductions caused by interplanetary disturbances. The analysis leverages the high-precision daily measurements from AMS-02, which provide cosmic ray fluxes across a wide range of rigidities. The ability to simultaneously study not only protons but also helium isotopes offers complementary insights into charge- and mass-dependent transport effects. By analyzing FD events, we assess localized variations in diffusion parameters and their impact on cosmic ray transport. The results confirm the stability of the rigidity dependence of the diffusion tensor, supporting the use of FDs as probes of localized well constrained heliospheric conditions. The computational efficiency of COSMICA paves the way for large-scale simulations, systematic FD catalogue analysis and a more in-depth understanding of the parameter that regulates the solar modulation, together with their dependencies
Exploring Cultural Heritage through Play: Insights from TwoCase Studies Combining Immersive and Traditional Play
No full textCultural Heritage embodies the core of a society’s identity, values, and historical narratives, requiring innovative and engaging approaches to support its preservation and dissemination. Serious games, which merge educational content with interactive and immersive gameplay, have emerged as effective tools for enhancing public engagement with cultural heritage. This paper presents an exploratory comparative study of two serious games designed to foster Cultural Heritage awareness through distinct interaction modalities: XR-Paestum Gate and Silkroadopoly. XR-Paestum Gate is a virtual reality serious game centered on the archaeological site of Paestum, employing immersive technologies to foster emotional engagement and stimulate curiosity through experiential exploration. Silkroadopoly, in contrast, is a board game enhanced with interactive digital components, designed to convey the historical narratives of the Silk Road and deepen players’ understanding through collaborative and strategic gameplay. While each game targets different experiential dimensions both demonstrate potential in enriching cultural learning, fostering not only interest but also a deeper sense of connection to historical contexts. The findings of this exploratory study offer valuable insights for the design of future interactive systems for cultural education, highlighting the potential of integrating diverse gaming formats to create accessible, meaningful, and impactful learning experiences
Autenticità e artigianato in una destinazione caratterizzata da overtourism: una questione di “equilibrismi”
Get PDFThis article explores the theme of authenticity in craft work within overtourism contexts, with a particular focus on Venice. Based on the dual perspective of craft as both a site for tourists’ pursuit of authenticity and for producers’ construction of meaning, the study investigates how crafters balance artistic identity with tourist-driven commercial needs. Through a qualitative comparative analysis of three craft workshops, three main strategies emerge to address the tension between authenticity and commercialization. The findings enhance tourism authenticity studies and contribute to understanding craft as a form of entrepreneurship in extreme contexts such as overtourism
A Road to The North: Italy, the Lombards and the Barbarians between National Historiography, Archaeology and Policy
Get PDFa long time, Italian academic tradition viewed the cultural and historical inter-pretation of the Lombards as simple and uniform, shaped largely by the 19th-century author Alessandro Manzoni, a key cultural figure and author of The Betrothed. In his view, modern Italians were seen as direct descendants of the Romans, periodically reemerging during defining national epochs like the Renaissance and the Risorgimento. Within this framework, the Lombards were dismissed as just another group of foreign invaders. This perspective has significantly shifted in recent decades. Following the decline of Italy’s ‘First Republic’, the rise of regional political movements, and the development of the European Union, the Lombards have been reinterpreted in more complex ways: in some cases, being viewed as regional ancestors supporting new territorial identities; in others, as early contributors to a pan-European identity. These reinterpretations parallel earlier local-national tensions after Italy’s unification in 1861. Archaeological discoveries have further supported these revised views
La normatività della trascendenza: Jürgen Habermas
No full textL'articolo espone le tesi dell'ultimo Habermas sulla religione e sul suo rapporto con la sfera normativa. Infine confronta questa tesi con la nozione hegeliana di eticità e, da ultimo, con la riflessione adorniana sulla trascendenza
Gait synchronisation in pedestrian dyads: The influence of social interaction
Get PDFSpontaneous gait synchronisation is commonly observed in pedestrian groups and has been studied extensively in controlled settings. Here, we investigate this phenomenon in a natural environment using a pedestrian trajectory dataset collected with range sensors in a public space, along with annotations for social groups and their interaction levels. To quantify synchronisation, we analyze the lateral periodic swaying of pedestrians, computed as orthogonal displacements from smoothed trajectories. Using the Hilbert transform, we derive instantaneous phase of pedestrians' gait residuals and then compute relative phases for all dyads. Additionally, we calculate the Gait Synchronisation Index (GSI) to quantify the level of synchronisation between pedestrians. Results show significantly higher GSI, stronger phase locking around zero, and lower phase variance in dyads with high interaction levels compared to less interactive pairs and randomly chosen pairs of pedestrians. These findings highlight the role of social interaction in gait synchronisation and provide insights into crowd dynamics and motor coordination, with potential applications in socially-aware robotics and intelligent transportation systems
Las “almas”de Pedro Salinas: poesía y cartografía
No full textVanni Scheiwiller's (1934–1999) illustrated miniature anthology Poeti stranieri del ’900 tradotti da poeti italiani (1956) is a tour de force. Read almost seventy years later, it reminds us how much the cultural world has changed. It also highlights the boldness of presenting a selection of the best European and American poets in direct translation. The anthology includes texts by French, Spanish, Catalan, and Chilean poets, representing Latin America, as well as poets writing in German, Russian, and English from both sides of the Atlantic. We may be surprised by the publisher's generosity in offering such a book as a New Year's gift in 1956. Times have changed radically. In this article, I will comment on one of the poems chosen by the anthologist: "Un'anima tu avevi" by Pedro Salinas, translated by Vittorio Bodini
Introduction: Migrant Labor in the Platform Economy. The Intersection of Labor Digitization, Platform Capitalism, Migration, and Resistance
No full textIn the last forty years, since the end of organisation of production by the so-called Taylorist-Fordist criteria and the beginning of the neo-liberal revolution, work in the advanced economies has undergone profound transformations. These have been driven by key changes in production and its organisation, such as the increasing externalization of production phases, along with the consequent – enormous – growth of the service economy, and the rapid development of digital technologies.
More recently, a key role has been played by the development of platform capitalism and the gig economy as a way of organizing work and providing services. Some of the most important global companies, such as Uber, Amazon, Deliveroo, Helpling, etc. operate in this booming sector, which received a further boost during the Covid-19 pandemic. These companies supply a variety of key services such as ride-hailing, domestic and care work, food delivery, and many others, which are provided by a diverse workforce in terms of gender, nationality, and age, and in very different working conditions. One of the main effects of the expansion of the gig economy has been a further reduction of workplace rights and the growth of precarious labour. While reduced security for workers was already happening because of the financialization of the economy, which counterposed shareholders’ and workers’ interests, the intrinsic complexity of the service economy and the impact of information technology, the gig economy has accelerated this process.
There are no comprehensive data on the precise number of people employed across this sector and even less on migrant and foreign workers. However, even in countries with high unemployment or with a huge supply of unskilled labour, it is widely documented that migrant workers provide a large share of the labour power behind a range of gig economy services. They constitute a vital infrastructure for these platforms, which can rely on a perpetual influx of migrant workers in sectors such as logistics, deliveries, care, and cleaning, etc. On the one hand, occupations in the gig economy are often degraded, as they imply longer working hours at lower salaries, and therefore find in migrants workers who can fill them. On the other hand, they also offer migrants much-needed income opportunities, particularly for those who lack skills and are not easily employable or those whose legal status is less secure.
While there is growing academic interest in the platform economy, its technological aspects, its business model and working conditions, very little research has focused on the role of migrant labour and its governance at the intersection of labour market regulation, social welfare, international migration and migration policies. Some research has recently focused on struggles in the logistics sector in Italy – mostly engaged in by migrant workers. However, there are still huge gaps in research on how platform-mediated gig work impacts the structural vulnerability of migrant workers and how this can be addressed by welfare policies
Tra stile e propaganda: gli haori e l'identità del Giappone del primo Novecento
No full textIl saggio esplora il ruolo dell'haori, una giacca tradizionale giapponese, come veicolo di propaganda nel Giappone del primo Novecento, un'epoca di profonde trasformazioni culturali e artistiche. L'analisi si concentra sull'interazione tra stile, identità nazionale e diffusione ideologica, soprattutto in relazione all'espansione imperiale.
In un contesto di coesistenza di correnti artistiche come l'ukiyoe, lo Shinhanga e il Sōsaku hanga, l'haori emerse con decorazioni interne spesso celate (haura), una tradizione radicata nel periodo Edo. Questa caratteristica permise una propaganda discreta, definita “patriottismo nascosto”, che rinforzava i valori nazionalistici senza ostentazione pubblica, a differenza dell'abbigliamento per bambini, che presentava immagini esplicite per l'indottrinamento precoce.
Le raffigurazioni sugli haori mostravano scene di battaglia, aerei da guerra, mappe del Manchukuo e simboli nazionalistici come il Monte Fuji, glorificando la nazione e i suoi successi militari. Attraverso un sapiente adattamento dello stile Yōga e del simbolismo naturalistico del Nihonga, l'haori divenne un mezzo eccezionalmente efficace e culturalmente sofisticato per la diffusione di ideologie