1,066 research outputs found
A Digital Touch : The “Body Issue” in Computational Creativity
Full text linkIn this article, Mattia Merlini and Stefano Maria Nicoletti ask themselves if machines ever take our place in the creation of art, and particularly music. Despite the outstanding results of some well-known Ais, the authors argue that machines present some intrinsic limits in creative contexts. In particular, their attention focuses on what they call the »body issue«, i.e. the role of the body in the experience and creation of music, grounded in contemporary findings in neuroscience, especially on embodied cognition, and also on the theories of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Roland Barthes
Considerations on Approaches and Metrics in Automated Theorem Generation/Finding in Geometry
No full textIntroduzione [a I cartolari del notaio Stefano di Corrado di Lavagna]
No full textSaggio introduttivo all’edizione dei frammenti dei protocolli del notaio Stefano di Corrado di Lavagna nel quale viene fatta l’analisi codicologica dei frammenti e si ricostruisce la biografia del notaio. Vengono inoltre esaminate la tipologia dei documenti, le tecniche redazionali del notaio e l’organizzazione burocratica della Chiesa genovese nella seconda metà del secolo XIII.
Introduction essay to the edition of the fragments of the protocols of the notary Stefano di Corrado of Lavagna in which the analysis of the codex fragments and reconstructs the biography of the notary is made by the author. She also examined the types of documents, the technical drafting of the notary and the bureaucratic organization of the Church of Genoa in the second half of the thirteenth century
Developmental changes in the modulation of cyclic AMP formation by the metabotropic glutamate receptor agonist 1S,3R-aminocyclopentane-1,3-dicarboxylic acid in brain slices.
No full textMetabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) have been recently described as a family of guanine nucleotide-binding regulatory protein-coupled receptors with multiple signal transduction pathways. At least one of these receptors appears to be negatively coupled to adenylyl cyclase when stably expressed in transfected cells. We have studied how activation of native mGluRs modulates cyclic AMP (cAMP) formation in brain slices prepared from rats at different ages. 1S,3R-1-Aminocyclopentane-1,3-dicarboxylic acid (1S,1R-ACPD), a selective agonist of mGluRs, slightly increased basal cAMP formation but reduced forskolin-stimulated cAMP formation in adult hippocampal slices, in agreement with previous results. The action of 1S,3R-ACPD on basal cAMP formation was not reproduced by the ionotropic receptor agonists N-methyl-D-aspartate, kainate, and alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methylisoxazole-4-propionate and was antagonised by L-2-amino-3-phosphonopropionate (L-AP-3). L-AP-3, however, did not prevent but rather mimicked the inhibitory action of 1S,3R-ACPD on forskolin-stimulated cAMP formation. In hippocampal slices from 1-, 8-, or 15-day-old rats, 1S,3R-ACPD increased basal cAMP formation but failed to reduce the action of forskolin. A similar development pattern of modulation was observed in hypothalamic slices with the difference that 1S,3R-ACPD did not stimulate basal cAMP formation in the hypothalamus of adult animals. These results suggest that inhibition of forskolin-stimulated cAMP formation by 1S,3R-ACPD is mediated by a specific mGluR subtype that is preferentially expressed in the adult
Brain Nerve Growth Factor Unbalance Induced by Anabolic Androgenic Steroids in Rats
No full textPIERETTI, S., M. MASTRIOTA, P. TUCCI, G. BATTAGLIA, L. TRABACE, F. NICOLETTI, and S. SCACCIANOCE. Brain Nerve Growth Factor Unbalance Induced by Anabolic Androgenic Steroids in Rats. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., Vol. 45, No. 1, pp. 29-35, 2013. Purpose: Anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) are synthetic androgen-like compounds that are abused in sport communities despite their adverse effects. Nerve growth factor (NGF) influences neuronal differentiation and survival, and it also mediates higher brain functions such as learning and memory. Changes in NGF expression have been implicated in neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer disease. Hence, we decided to study the effect of chronic AAS exposure on brain NGF profile, NGF-dependent cholinergic function, and related behavioral performance. Methods: Male Wistar rats were injected for 4 wk with either nandrolone or stanozolol at daily doses (5.0 mg.kg(-1), s.c.) that are considered equivalent to those abused by humans. NGF levels and NGF receptor (TrkA and p75NTR) expression were measured in the hippocampus and in the basal forebrain. Choline acetyltransferase expression was evaluated in basal forebrain. Spatial learning and memory were assessed using the Morris water maze. Results: AAS treatment caused region-specific changes in the expression of NGF and its receptors. Both nandrolone and stanozolol increased NGF levels in the hippocampus and reduced NGF levels in the basal forebrain, reduced p75NTR expression in the hippocampus, and failed to affect TrkA expression in the basal forebrain. Finally, AAS treatment reduced the expression of choline acetyltransferase in the basal forebrain and impaired the behavioral performance in the Morris water maze. Conclusion: The evidence that supraphysiological doses of AAS cause neurotrophic unbalance and related behavioral disturbances raises the concern that AAS abuse in humans may affect mechanisms that lie at the core of neuronal plasticity
Amyloid beta protein does not interact with tachykinin receptors coupled to inositol phospholipid hydrolysis in human astrocytoma cells.
No full textWe have tested the interaction between amyloid beta protein (A beta P) and tachykinin receptors in cultured UC-11MG astrocytoma cells, which express high affinity substance P receptors and respond to substance P with an unusually large stimulation of polyphosphoinositide hydrolysis. Both the full-length A beta P (A beta P1-40) and the fragment 25-35 (A beta P25-35) did not affect the stimulation of [3H]inositolmonophosphate (InsP) formation by substance P. A beta P25-35 was also inactive when applied to the cultures 18 or 72 h prior to the assay. In addition, A beta P25-35 did not displace specifically bound [3H]SarMet substance P from its recognition sites in intact UC-11MG cells. These results suggest that, at least in this specific cell type, amyloid peptides do not interact with substance P receptors
Neurological research in Italy from 2020 to 2023
No full textBackground To assess the state of neurological scientific research in Italy in the time interval 2020-2023. Methods Elsevier's modular integrated platform "SciVal" was used to analyze bibliometric research products starting from scientific production data uploaded onto Scopus. We considered the research area "Neurology" in the 01/01/2020-14/06/2023 time interval, and the following variables were extracted: number of published studies, number of citations, Field-Weighted Citation Impact, and percentage of international collaborations. The contribution of Italian scientists to the neurological research was compared to that of the other nations. Results Research identified 90,633 scientific papers in the neurological area worldwide, with a total of 472,750 citations. The products assigned to Italian groups were 6670 (53,587 citations, Field-Weighted Citation Impact 1.68, 41% international collaborations). Conclusions According to the present study, Italian neurological research 2020 to 2023 ranks fifth globally and third in Europe
Of flesh and steel: computational creativity in music and the body issue
Full text linkCould machines ever take our place in the creation of art, and particularly music? The outstanding results of some well-known AIs (e.g. EMI, Flow Machines) might make us believe that this is the case. However, despite this evidence it seems that machines present some intrinsic limits both in creative and non-creative contexts (already highlighted by John Searle and the debate around mechanism). The arguments of this paper are centred around this very belief: we are convinced that the utopian claims regarding all-round machine intelligence are not plausible and that our attention should be directed towards more relevant issues in the field of computational creativity. In particular, we focus our attention on what we call the “body issue”, i.e. the role of the body in the experience and creation of music, that we consider problematic for the idea of a truly creative machine (even if we take into consideration weaker renditions of artificial intelligence). Our argument is based on contemporary findings in neuroscience (especially on embodied cognition) and on the theories of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Roland Barthes
Specchi di carne e cesellatura musicale: Limiti della creatività computazionale tra corpo e coscienza
No full textIn this paper, we present a critical stance towards what we call 'strong' conceptions of computational creativity (CC): after discarding theories that uphold the possibility of fully replicating the human mind – creativity included – through computational models, we will employ 'weak' conceptions of CC to investigate how our creativity works and how 'art' is shaped in its meaning and richness. We will then sketch four 'issues' paired to four arguments that bring the human back into the game of CC, focusing on the role played respectively by the individual's place in society, subjective experience, corporeality, and consciousness in the creative process. Focusing mainly on the latter two, we will present extensive arguments rooted in (post-)phenomenology and neuroscience, factoring stances that belong to semiotics and anthropology/archaeology of material culture
Artifact for the paper Solving Queries for Boolean Fault Tree Logic via Quantified SAT
No full text<p>Artifact accompanying the publication Nicoletti, S.M., Saaltink, C., Volk, M., Hahn, E.M., and Stoelinga,M., <em>Solving Queries for Boolean Fault Tree Logic via Quantified SAT.</em> The artifact contains an implementation, example files and the script run_experiments.sh to reproduce results in Sections 5 and 6 of the paper.</p>
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