197,237 research outputs found
Taverna Workflows: Syntax and Semantics
No full textThis paper presents the formal syntax and the operational semantics of Taverna, a workflow management system with a large user base among the e-Science community. Such formal foundation, which has so far been lacking, opens the way to the translation between Taverna workflows and other process models. In particular, the ability to automatically compile a simple domain-specific process description into Taverna facilitates its adoption by e-scientists who are not expert workflow developers. We demonstrate this potential through a practical use case
THE INTERTWINED THREADS: CARDS, FRAGMENTS, MEMORIES
No full textThe note is mainly based on the structural bonds that connect the landscape-cultural mosaic. Sometimes there are clear and well-coordinated links, sometimes they are instead fragments of the past or vague intuitions for the future that must be replaced in a coherent framework. By transferring what was affirmed by De Mauro (1990) we can imagine a vague and imprecise conceptual framework where "we speak ill and we understand each other badly", but where interaction and negotiation allow us to refine a possible understanding. The palimpsest is one of the tools that allow time travel, while protocols are those that reduce the likelihood of false interpretations, even if they limit the fantasy of artistic perception. The conclusion recalls the splendid synthesis of the changing fate of the fragments of spiritual and material life that was given by Calvino in one of his invisible cities. Clarice, a city that alternates splendor and misery, succeeds in regenerating and reusing all the material signs of its past, in improper and paradoxical ways, because in the end the order of succession of the eras has been forgotten
Proceedings of the 21st IPSAPA/ISPALEM International Scientific Conference
No full textSince 2005 the IPSAPA conference focuses on the successful keyword
"landscape-cultural mosaic." Sometimes it prevailed realism, sometimes
economics, sometimes evolutionary dynamics, sometimes the pursuit of
excellence. This edition confirms the return to the domain of imagination and
fascination of discovery, taking the line of the conferences of 2009 and 2010,
named respectively "The backstage of the landscape-cultural mosaic . Invisible,
Inaccessible, Inexistent" and "Wonderland in the landscape-cultural mosaic.
Idea, Image, Illusion". The fantastic invention was present in part in the 2013
conference entitled "Utopias and dystopias in the landscape-cultural mosaic.
Visions, Values, Vulnerability". The unstructured reality was the subject of the
previous conference (2016) entitled "Erratic of the landscape-cultural mosaic.
Emotion, Energy, Experience
FROM ORDER TO ERRATICITY
No full textAccording to the laws of physics, order has a cost, in terms of the creation of some form of disorder somewhere else, as the entropy states. The paper considers examples taken from everyday’s life, and their empirical solutions. There exist exact methods for creating and maintaining order, found at the origin of artificial intelligence by Simon, referred to as linked lists. Unlike what is generally supposed erraticity is not a pure randomness problem, but rather must take into account actual bifurcations, possibly not reversible. Since we are interested also on the cultural side of mosaic, it is correct to start from persons whose life has been important, but erratic, with relevant turns in their activity, or in their long time fortune. The examples we give, should suggest the reader to look for other examples according to his own inspiration. An exercise, that is only sketched in the paper, is to look for the turning points that we can find in the history of landscape or in the history of towns. When does erraticity arise, how long does it remain undefined and subject to randomness, when becomes irreversible
Sguardi ecologici. Note introduttive,
No full textil contributo presenta le motivazioni teoriche per pensare una formazione ecologica alla coscienza di appartener
Proceedings of the 20th IPSAPA/ISPALEM International Scientific Conference. The Erratic Behavior of the Landscape-cultural Mosaic: Emotion, Energy, Experience
No full textThe 20th IPSAPA conference was held in Reggio Calabria on July 7-8, 2016.
The call for papers was followed by the participants more faithfully than usual,
and the papers cover most of the foreseen items in a balanced way. The call for
papers therefore is also a good outline for the introduction to this book.
Since 2005 IPSAPA conference focuses on the successful keyword "landscapecultural
mosaic". Sometimes it prevailed realism, sometimes economic
sustainability, sometimes the evolutionary dynamics, sometimes the pursuit of
excellence. This time we went back to the domain of the imagination and to the
fascination of discovery, taking the line of the conferences of 2009 and 2010,
called respectively: "The backstage of the landscape-cultural mosaic: Invisible,
Inaccessible, Inexistent" and "The Wonderland in the landscape-cultural mosaic:
Idea, Image, Illusion". The fantastic invention was present in part also in the
2013 conference entitled "Utopias and dystopias in the landscape-cultural
mosaic: Visions, Values, Vulnerability"
Proceedings of the 19th IPSAPA/ISPALEM - International Scientific Conference. The Turning Point of the Landscape-cultural Mosaic: Renaissance Revelation Resilience
No full textTurning Point is the provocative term geologist and (today) opinion leader Gregg Braden uses to encourage all of us to reflect on the ways that science and culture are traveling. In his work "he is known internationally as a pioneer in building a bridge between science and indigenous skills in view of real solutions for today's world." This is not the first laudator temporis acti (admirer of the past) but his characteristic is to challenge many stereotypes of the contemporary world from the inside, and not just as a confused outside observer as sometimes happens in nostalgic literature. For him the turning point is the obliged moment to bring back the world before it falls into a chaotic structure no longer controllable. Experts of complexity however tell us that progress can only be born in a world that hovers on the brink of chaos. Braden, after living as an expert in the world of complexity, casts doubts on this statement and sets limits beyond which the risk of uncontrollable fall becomes too high. Its wide reflection on resilience shows the need to maintain, while there is still time, a reserve capacity, unexpressed but accessible
Proceedings of the 18th IPSAPA/ISPALEM International Scientific Conference - The Usefulness of the Useless in the Landscapecultural Mosaic: Liveability, Typicality, Biodiversity
No full textThis year's IPSAPA/ISPALEM conference urged attendees, as usual, to critically reflect on certain fundamental concepts for the analysis of the landscape-cultural mosaic, by encouraging on the one hand, methodological analysis, and on the other, their application in the field. The fundamental concepts for this year were the true, the beautiful, the good and their counterpoints (false, ugly, bad) viewed in their relationship with the two ambiguous parameters of useful and useless. The last two conferences were decidedly oriented towards the '"useless", as they were titled Wonderland and Utopia, while in this edition the orientation was directed towards the equilibrium between the two worlds of the useful and the useless (first volume), with the operative corollaries of biodiversity and of typicality, in a frame of liveability (second volume)
Which Factors Influence Attentional Functions? Attention Assessed by KiTAP in 105 6-to-10-Year-Old Children
No full textThis research revealed the children with difficulties in attentional functions among healthy children attending primary school and aimed to identify the possible sociodemographic factors, such as the child’s age, gender, and school grade, that could influence attentive performance. The participants were 105 children aged 6–10 years (M age = 8.6; SD = 1.04), attending primary schools. Family economic condition was mostly at a medium level (63.5%), and parents most frequently had 13 years of schooling. The computerized test KiTAP was administered to children to assess their attentional functions. Results showed a higher frequency of omissions and false alarms and a reduced speed in alertness, go/no-go, and sustained attention tasks compared to Italian norms. Hierarchical regression analyses were run with school grade, gender, and current age as independent variables and mean reaction times (and standard deviation), number of omissions, and false alarms as dependent ones. The results showed that male gender and attending a lower grade impacted on lower attentional performance in several subtests. Girls showed the best performances in tests of distractibility and impulsive reaction tendencies, while higher school grade positively influenced divided and sustained attention. These results could be useful to identify children with major attentional difficulties, and some recommendations for future studies and the implementation of attention empowerment programmes are proposed
Benders Decomposition on Large-Scale Unit Commitment Problems for Medium-Term Power Systems Simulation
No full textThe Unit Commitment Problem (UCP) aims at finding the optimal commitment for a set of thermal power plants in a Power System (PS) according to some criterion. Our work stems from a collaboration with RSE S.p.A., a major industrial research centre for PSs in Italy. In this context the UCP is formulated as a large-scale MILP spanning countries over a year with hourly resolution to simulate the ideal behaviour of the system in different scenarios. Our goal is to refine existing heuristic solutions to increase simulation reliability. In our previous studies we devised a Column Generation algorithm (CG) which, however, shows numerical instability due to degeneracy in the master problem. Here we evaluate the application of Benders Decomposition (BD), which yields better conditioned subproblems. We also employ Magnanti-Wong cuts and a "two-phases scheme", which first quickly computes valid cuts by applying BD to the continuous relaxation of the problem and then restores integrality. Experimental results on weekly instances for the Italian system show the objective function to be flat. Even if such a feature worsens convergence, the algorithm is able to reach almost optimal solutions in few iterations
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