2,650 research outputs found
Reassembling Skins and Bones: Indigenous Posthumanism in Linda Hogan’s Solar Storms
No full textWhile posthumanism has contributed to questioning the foundations of humanism and the consequent process of exclusion it engendered of all those diverging from the universal category of ‘Man,’ numerous scholars have criticized this diverse philosophical movement from Indigenous perspectives. Multiple critics suggest a tendency within posthumanist strands of thought to oppose dualistic approaches presenting them as universal without considering the preexisting non-dualistic frameworks articulated by Indigenous scholars, while also appropriating Indigenous epistemes without acknowledging them, running the risk of becoming complicit with colonial violence and with what Rauna Kuokkanen has defined ‘epistemic ignorance.’ For this reason, projects of decolonizing posthumanist scholarship entail engaging and establishing a dialogue with Indigenous studies, fostering a ‘multiepistemic literacy.’ Acknowledging the productive potential of an alliance between Indigenous and posthumanist discourses in reorienting the conversation toward issues of settler colonialism, land sovereignty and Indigenous self-determination, this paper aims to apply an Indigenous posthumanist perspective to Chickasaw author Linda Hogan’s Solar Storms. In particular, the paper will focus, on the one hand, on representations within the novel of taxidermic practices, deeply tied to colonial violence, that transform animals into posthuman commodified objects, and, on the other, on instances of reassembling skins and bones in acts of regenerative creation, which, unlike taxidermy, acknowledge the need for reciprocity and processes of relational becoming. These new combinations of matter constitute on the part of the protagonist a way of envisioning new modes of being human, relating to the more-than-human, and affirming Indigenous self-determination
Multi-modal diagnosis combining case-based and model-based reasoning: a formal and experimental analysis
No full textAbstractIntegrating different reasoning modes in the construction of an intelligent system is one of the most interesting and challenging aspects of modern AI. Exploiting the complementarity and the synergy of different approaches is one of the main motivations that led several researchers to investigate the possibilities of building multi-modal reasoning systems, where different reasoning modalities and different knowledge representation formalisms are integrated and combined. Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) is often considered a fundamental modality in several multi-modal reasoning systems; CBR integration has been shown very useful and practical in several domains and tasks. The right way of devising a CBR integration is however very complex and a principled way of combining different modalities is needed to gain the maximum effectiveness and efficiency for a particular task. In this paper we present results (both theoretical and experimental) concerning architectures integrating CBR and Model-Based Reasoning (MBR) in the context of diagnostic problem solving. We first show that both the MBR and CBR approaches to diagnosis may suffer from computational intractability, and therefore a careful combination of the two approaches may be useful to reduce the computational cost in the average case. The most important contribution of the paper is the analysis of the different facets that may influence the entire performance of a multi-modal reasoning system, namely computational complexity, system competence in problem solving and the quality of the sets of produced solutions. We show that an opportunistic and flexible architecture able to estimate the right cooperation among modalities can exhibit a satisfactory behavior with respect to every performance aspect. An analysis of different ways of integrating CBR is performed both at the experimental and at the analytical level. On the analytical side, a cost model and a competence model able to analyze a multi-modal architecture through the analysis of its individual components are introduced and discussed. On the experimental side, a very detailed set of experiments has been carried out, showing that a flexible and opportunistic integration can provide significant advantages in the use of a multi-modal architecture
Lope de Vega, «El príncipe inocente», eds. T. Miguel Magro y E. Cowling
No full textObra ressenyada: Lope de Vega; T. MIGUEL MAGRO y E. COWLING (eds.), El príncipe inocente. Valladolid: Agilice Digital, 2019
TOLERANCE OF SCLEROTINIA-SCLEROTIORUM TO GLYCEOLLIN-I A SOYBEAN PHYTOALEXIN
No full textGlyceollin I was fungistatic rather than fungicidal toward Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. Within the mycelial mat apical cells were more vulnerable than mature cells. S. sclerotiorum removed large amounts of glyceollin from solution by a non-energy-requiring process
Field evaluation of old Italian apple cultivars for scab susceptibility
No full textScab resistance is one of the main targets in apple breeding. Plants with low susceptibility to this disease are checked to introduce in biological or integrated fruit growing systems or as a source of durable resistance in breeding programs. The local or ancient apple germplasm offers good examples of tolerance and adaptation to biotic and abiotic stresses. For this reason, fifty old Italian apple cultivars from Central Italy were observed for three years in a collection at the experimental farm of Tuscia University . Cultivars Golden Delicious, Ozark Gold and the scab resistant Florina were considered as control. The plants, grafted on M26 rootstock, were not sprinkled with fungicides during the experiment. The symptoms on samples of 100 leaves per plant and on all the fruits were periodically checked during the growing season and classified on the basis of their intensity and diffusion; the incidence of the disease was then calculated. The difference among cultivars was relevant. While the test cultivars, with the exception of Florina, showed susceptibility to scab, with high incidence both at fruit and leaf level, some of the old cultivars (Agostina, Fragola, Musella, Rosa Romana, Agre, Paradisa) did not show any symptom on the leaves or only slight attack were detected during the three years. Only two cultivars, Fragola and Musella, fruits were not affected by the disease. Many cultivars showed few symptoms and low incidence of disease (Rosa Romana, Rosa, Rosetta, S. Agostino)
Orbit determination of space debris using a bi-static radar configuration with a multiple-beam receiver
No full textIn this work the use of a multi-beaming radar system is analyzed and a possible setup of a closed loop system (i.e. from measurement and data acquisition to orbit determination) is described. The Orbit Determination (OD) algorithms are specialized for a bistatic radar configuration where the Medicina Northern Cross radio-telescope (owned by the University of Bologna-Italy) is considered as a receiver. The Northern Cross is composed of two perpendicular arms: the E/W arm is 564 m long and consists in a single cylindrical antenna with a width of 29.4 m, whereas the N/S arm is made of 64 parallel antennas with a length of 22.6 m and a width of 7.5 m. The collecting area reaches 27,400 sqm and, by considering a complete upgrade of the radar with the installation of new receivers on the focal lines, up to 22,880 possible theoretical independent beams could cover the field-of-view of 55.47 (E/W) deg x 1.8 (N/S) deg. By looking at the sequence of beams that are illuminated, it is thus possible to estimate, with an higher level of detail with respect to the single-beam system, the ground track of the transiting object. Given this peculiar system, tailored orbit determination algorithms have to be developed. The orbit determination algorithm receives as input the data processed by the acquisition system, that digitally assembles measured radar echoes, using Fast Fourier Transform, to provide the signal for each beam. These inputs are the measured Doppler shift, time delay, the illumination time and measured power intensity associated to each beam. By combining these information with the knowledge of beam distribution and pointing it is possible to refine the orbital parameters of known objects or to perform a preliminary OD. A few LEO objects are considered to generate simulated data that are then used to feed the developed OD algorithms. In this way the performances of the algorithms can be tested and the effectiveness of this innovative configuration for space debris measurements, that couples a bistatic radar and a multi-beaming receiver, can be assessed
Polypoid angiomyofibroblastoma-like tumor of the oral cavity: a hitherto unreported soft tissue tumor mimicking embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma.
No full textWe report on a previously unrecognized fibro-myofibroblastic tumor in the oral cavity of a 15-year-old girl. Morphologically, the tumor mimicked a rhabdomyosarcoma, botryoid variant. It was composed of mitotically active small- to medium-sized, vimentin+/desmin+, round- to oval- to epithelioid-shaped cells embedded in an alternating fibrous to myxoid/edematous stroma. These cells were separated from the overlying squamous epithelium by a rim of fibrous stroma. The tumor contained abundant small- to medium-sized, thin-walled blood vessels without hyalinization. Frequently, neoplastic cells condensed around these vessels. An unusual and striking feature was the presence of numerous hyalinized collagen mats, including "amianthoid-like fibers", similar to those observed in myofibroblastomas. The presence of these collagen mats and the expression of desmin, in association with no immunoreactivity to myogenin and MyoD1, were in keeping with the fibro-myofibroblastic nature of the tumor, excluding the diagnosis of embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma. Regarding fibro-myofibroblastic tumors, we believe that the present case falls within the wide spectrum of benign stromal tumors, originally described in the lower female genital tract, but potentially occurring also at extragenital sites. As morphological and immunohistochemical features were reminiscent of, but not identical with, angiomyofibroblastoma, the term "polypoid angiomyofibroblastoma-like tumor" is proposed. Awareness and recognition of this tumor is crucial to avoid a diagnosis of malignancy
Inovação no setor público: um estudo sobre o software de gestão administrativa da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina
No full textDissertação (mestrado profissional) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Sócio-Econômico, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Administração Universitária, Florianópolis, 2015.Esta dissertação tem por objetivo avaliar o processo de aquisição e adoção do software de gestão administrativa pela Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC), no período compreendido entre o quarto trimestre do ano de 2009 ao segundo trimestre de 2015, sob a suposição de que ele ainda não se concretizou como um padrão eficiente de comunicação entre os setores, observando também o seu enquadramento sob a ótica da teoria da inovação. Para tanto, foi elaborada uma pesquisa bibliográfica sobre administração pública, administração universitária, inovação, inovação no setor público, governo eletrônico, sistemas de informação e avaliação de sistemas de informação. Posteriormente foi desenvolvida uma pesquisa documental que elencou os processos administrativos relacionados com o software adquirido, as instruções normativas comuns ao setor público federal no que diz respeito à contratação de soluções de tecnologia da informação (TI) e demais documentos pertinentes ao caso. Também foi realizada uma pesquisa que reuniu respostas de dois grupos de interesse: 12 dos 21 servidores da área de sistemas de TI e 8 representantes de 6 dos 13 setores que compõe a administração central da instituição. Os principais resultados da dissertação foram a concretização da relação da introdução do software com o conceito de inovação e inovação no setor público, a identificação da falta de um planejamento inicial para a aquisição do software, problemas na campanha de conscientização dos usuários sobre o novo sistema e na geração de lideranças e multiplicadores, além de inadequações às normatizações comuns ao setor público federal.Abstract : This dissertation aims to assess the acquisition and adoption of administrative management software from the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC), in the period between the fourth quarter of 2009 to the second quarter of 2015, under the assumption that it has yet to materialize as an efficient standard of communication between sectors, also noting its classification from the perspective of innovation theory. To this end, a bibliographical research on public administration, university administration, innovation, innovation in the public sector, e-government, information systems and evaluation of information systems, was prepared. Later, a documentary research was developed, listing the administrative processes related to acquired software, the common normative instructions to the federal public sector with regard to the hiring of information technology (IT) solutions, and other documents relevant to the case. It was also realized a survey with two groups of interest: 12 of the 21 IT servers and 8 representatives of the sectors that are part of institution central administration. The main results of the dissertation were the achievement of the introduction of the software related to the concept of innovation and innovation in the public sector, identifying the lack of initial planning for the software acquisition, problems in the progress of the awareness campaign on the new system and the generation of leaders and multipliers, as well as inadequacies to common norms to the federal public sector
Nuovi diritti umani e nuovi soggetti: i diritti delle generazioni future
No full textThe thesis deals with the subjects of rights of future generations through both philosophical and legal perspective.
The Introduction considers the phenomenon of new subjects in legal theory and, more widely, the outbreak of new human rights related to the technological development.
The First Chapter faces the problem of the definition of “future generations” and identifies three different approaches. The first one, the “Remotist” approach, defines “future generations” just as the future humankind extremely distant from the present time. The second, the “Proximist” approach, looks at “future generations” as a concept involving exclusively our direct descendants. The third one, the “Indeterminist” approach, includes the future progenies of all time, faraway and near. This last perspective is the one adopted along the thesis.
The Second Chapter applies the results of the first one, trying to answer to the question about the possibility of recognizing a proper legal subjectivity to future generations. In this path, conceived and unborn babies have been included inside the definition.
The Third Chapter discusses the theories that deny both subjectivity and rights of future generations.
The last Chapter examines, instead, the philosophical conceptions that affirm the relevance of Futures’ interests or the proper legal dimensions of future generations, considered as subjects with proper rights. As a first step, I studied the origin of the future generations theory in a theological perspective; then, I investigated the relations among the Intergenerational Responsibility and Contractualism, Utilitarianism and Hans Jonas philosophy.
The Conclusion has been conceived both as a resumé of the research and as an “open ending”, in which I indicate the directions the work will be developed in the future. Notably, I studied the “Declaration of Rights for Future Generation” – redacted under the UNESCO’s aegis – and the problem of the Human Rights Proliferations
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