Cibali

Testo e disegni sul Masterplan elaborato durante il Workshop "intersections_2010" dal Gruppo di lavoro guidato da Roberto Collovà e Gaetano Licata e relativo all'area degli impianti sportivi Cibali a Catania. L'ipotesi centrale del Masterplan, a partire dallo spostamento di parte della linea ferrata a raso esistente (Circumetnea) in sede sotterranea (Metropolitana)- si fonda sulla urbanizzazione dello stadio esistente attraverso l'addizione di nuovi funzioni che lo trasformino in un macroedificio a uso misto e lo integrino con il tessuto edilizio del Borgo di Cibali. Il libro raccoglie i progetti dei 7 gruppi che hanno partecipato al Workshop, tra cui Kengo Kuma, Manuel Aires Mateus, Henri Bava

Esperienze e frammenti di paesaggio

L’esperienza di un “Laboratorio di Arte dei giardini e Architettura del paesaggio” è documentata in questo saggio attraverso frammenti di una didattica dialettica e interattiva: estratti del materiale didattico fornito agli studenti a supporto delle lezioni teoriche/comunicazioni. Le relazioni tra paesaggio e arte, letteratura, fotografia, alcuni specifici progetti, scelti per la loro dimensione di "progetti minimi", sono illustrati, con contributi esterni di Simone Arcagni, Roberto Collovà, Sergio Sanna e Germàn Valenzuela. Gli esercizi con elaborati e riflessioni degli studenti come risposte individuali al quadro teorico e concettuale proposto, basato su una osservazione e descrizione dei luoghi proposti, in particolare nell'esercizio "trova un giardino". L'esercizio finale, rappresentato attraverso una selezione di progetti, diversi tra loro per concetto e scala, è il progetto, prima concettuale e poi concreto, di una passeggiata "lungo il mare" di Palermo Un diagramma-calendario illustra cronologicamente l’articolazione del laboratorio e un disegno d’insieme riassume, come un risultato in parte inaspettato, quaranta progetti di passeggiate

Multiple Wesen

Abstract in tedesco del Poster Multiple Wesen, esposto al Simposio internazionale „Lunar Base. Bauen fuer ein Leben auf dem Mond” tenuto a Kaiserslautern il 12-13 Maggio 2009. Was baut man auf dem Mond? Wie baut der Erdmensch auf dem Mond? Wofür wird gebaut? Für wem wird gebaut? Welche Nutzungen, wie groß, welche Materialien? Man kann weiter fragen,... Sind dieses überhaupt die richtige Fragen? Kann man überhaupt vom Bauen auf dem Mond sprechen? Oder geht es darum, was der Mensch auf den Mond mit bringt, aus seiner Kenntniss, seinen Vorstellungen, seinen Träumen, seiner Erfahrung: was bringt er von dem Reich des Bekannten (der Erde) in das Reich des nur Vorstellbaren (dem Mond). Also: sich mit dem Mond zu beschäftigen - ausgenommen für die sehr wenigen, die schon dort waren – heißt, sich mit sich selbst zu beschäftigen, mit dem eigenen Wissen und dem Bild vom Mond. Alle Voraussetzungen, die einem irdischen architektonischen Entwurf zu Grunde liegen, fehlen; zu diesem Zeitpunkt kann man sich arbiträr Rahmenbedingungen geben: (Größe, wo, welche Nutzung, welche Lebensdauer, welche Materialien) so zu sagen ein Mondprojekt in einem Erdprojekt zu entwickeln, dadurch schnell eine „abgesicherte“, unangreifbare Lösung zu erlangen. Aber macht dieses Sinn? Bedeutet dies, die Spannung und die Erforschung des Neuen sowie das kreative Potential örtlicher Schwierigkeiten im Vorfeld auszuschließen? Wir schlagen vor, anstatt auf hiesige Fragen irdische Antworten zu formulieren, Strukturen zum Mond zu bringen; Raumstrukturen, die durch mentale Konzepte begründet sind, welche die vielen Fragen - auch welche die wir jetzt nicht zu fragen gewagt haben - aufnehmen können. Diese Strukturen, aber auch kleine räumliche Gebilde, helfen dem Vorstellungsvermögen der Forscher, Ingenieure, Wissenschaftler und alle Mondinteressenten. Neutrale Strukturen, ohne jetzt genau alle physische Eigenschaften festlegen zu wollen, sollen Raum werden können für Wohnen, Arbeiten, Forschen, Landen, Binden, Schützen, Aufbewahren, usw. - abhängig von den Fragen, die sich zu gegebener Zeit formulieren lassen und ständig ändern werden. Wir denken an sehr flexible Strukturen, die viel aufnehmen und aushalten können, sich sehr schnell transformieren lassen, also multiple Wesen, die zunächst die Vorstellung eines belebten Mondes anregen sollen. Dieser Strukturenkatalog soll dem Wissenschaftler zur Verfügung stehen, um das Mitdenken seiner räumlichen Bedürfnisse zu stützen. Comunicato stampa Contributo degli studenti di Architettura al Simposio “Lunar Base - Costruire per una vita sulla Luna” A Kaiserslautern in Germania è in corso (12-13-maggio) il Simposio “Lunarbase - Bauen fuer ein Leben auf dem Mond” (www.lunar-base.net) organizzato dalla DLR (Agenzia aerospaziale tedesca) e dalla TU Kaiserslautern. Scienziati, ingegneri, architetti e designer di tutto il mondo presentano i loro piani e le loro visioni per una possibile vita sulla Luna. Alcune nazioni tra le quali la Cina, la Russia e gli Stati Uniti stanno elaborando piani concreti per la costruzione di stazioni lunari come basi per missioni equipaggiate su Marte, con un orizzonte temporale intorno al 2020. La proposta degli studenti dei Laboratori di I anno di Progettazione architettonica, tenuti dal Prof. Gaetano Licata con la collaborazione del dottorando in Design Michele Cammarata nel nuovo corso di Laurea triennale in Scienze dell’Architettura (SdA) e nel Corso di Laurea quinquennale (4/s), è stata selezionata dal comitato organizzatore che ne ha richiesto l’elaborazione sotto forma di un Poster (A0) attualmente esposto durante il Simposio. Si tratta di un montaggio di modelli tridimensionali elaborati dagli studenti e denominati “multiple Wesen”. Questi modelli, in quanto concetti di architettura assolutamente astratti, si prestano a contribuire a quel bagaglio di conoscenze, visioni, sogni e immaginazione, che chiunque voglia “confrontarsi” con una realtà solo immaginabile come quella della Luna, ha bisogno di “portare con sé” dalla Terra. Concetti mentali di spazi possibili – “Raumstrukturen” - a sostegno degli scienziati, per poter continuare a immaginare insieme sempre più concretamene la vita e la ricerca direttamente sulla Luna. Pa, 13.05.2009 ([email protected]

MEANING, TRANSLATION AND SCIENTIFIC THEORIES IN W.V.O. QUINE

The problems and the views about translation between languages are at the heart of the debate concerning the science and the epistemic value of scientific theories. Are scientific theories representations of truth and do they express true facts (phenomena) of the world or are they simply instruments and “hypotheses” which can be more or less useful in the interpretation of phenomena and in the technological applications? (Cf. Popper, 1956). The epistemology of W.V.O. Quine is an extreme form of empiricism. His view on knowledge as a way “from stimulus to science”, without reference to a determined and univocal world of objects, is bound to an ontological relativity where theory is undetermined with respect to experience. In my opinion, Quine’s conception of science, as well as that of his followers, is something like a “black box” view, because his absolute empiricism denies the possibility of true descriptions of phenomena. Moreover, the instrumentalism proposed by Kuhn and Quine is self-contradictory because better or worse “instruments” can exist, in a technical sense, with respect to reality

THE INTERVENTIONIST THEORY OF CAUSALITY AND ARISTOTLE’S CONCEPT OF CAUSE: AN ILLUMINATING METAPHOR FOR EPISTEMOLOGY

My aim in this work is twofold. On the one hand I want to show that the interventionist account of causality is fully in line with philosophical tradition and recalls the intuition which leaded Aristotle to propose an analysis of natural becoming through the employment of the four causes and the isolation of portions of becoming through the correlation of potency and act; on the other hand, I will point out that the strong insight about natural becoming, which Aristotle and the interventionism share, sheds light on what causation is and on what its meaning and usefulness are. Moreover the discussion on the interventionist account and its metaphorical origin will allow me to find arguments against some classical anticausalist positions (e.g. Hume and Russell)

NATURE, PLACE AND USEFULNESS OF FUZZY LOGIC IN THE ANALYSIS OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

Fuzzy Logic is nowadays a very popular logic methodology. Different kinds of applications in cybernetics, in software programming and its growing use in medicine seems to make Fuzzy Logic a very important calculus in science and technology. Fuzzy logic is based on the fuzzy set theory (Zadeh, 1965). In the classical set theory the value of membership function of an element to a set is 0 or 1, while in the fuzzy set theory the membership function of an element to a set may have limited or infinite values that are between 0 and 1. Therefore in the fuzzy logic systems partially true premises provide partially true conclusions. The FL system is a simple model of fuzzy logic: connectives, inference rules and examples of inferences will be discussed. Is fuzzy logic against the principles of classical logic or is it an extension of classical logic? Probabilistic and fuzzy logic deals with uncertainty: is probabilistic logic reducible to fuzzy logic? What does it mean? Moreover, I will answer to the question whether Fuzzy logic is or is not the key of the formalization of natural language

DAVIDSON AND THE CORRESPONDENCE THEORY OF TRUTH

Donald Davidson, in his works on theories of meaning, looks for a compositionalism in which single words do not correspond to single meanings: parts of sentences do not have proper meanings, they only give a systematic contribution to the sentences in which they occur. This is a holistic conception of meaning, where the meaning of the sentences depends on their structure, and the meaning of each element of the structure is only an abstraction from the totality of sentences in which it occurs. It is possible to indicate the meaning of a sentence, or of a word, only indicating the meaning of all sentences of the language. In True to the Facts (1969), Davidson studies the correspondentist conceptions of truth. The correspondence theories are founded on a simple and ineluctable idea, they are true but banal and useless. The American philosopher claims he is defending a kind of theory of correspondence: the truth can be explained through reference to a relationship between language and the world; however it is clear that the correspondence that Davidson accepts is not the classical form of correspondence theory. Indeed, using the slingshot argument he refuses the classical strategy of facts and the semantic atomism

CORRESPONDENCE AND MEANING. ARISTOTLE, WITTGENSTEIN’S TRACTATUS AND THE SEMANTIC HOLISM

The birth of philosophy of language, the progresses of logic, those of linguistic sciences and the “linguistic turn”, since the beginning of twentieth century, have given new energies to the studies on the relation between ontology and semantics, but this question is much more ancient. The contemporary correspondence theory of truth could be regarded as produced under Russell’s and Wittgeinstein’s influence, but the influence, actually, comes foremost from Aristotle, because the correspondentist view of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is almost a repetition, in modern terms, of the logical-linguistic Aristotelian ontology. As a matter of fact, the Aristotelian shape of Frege’s theory of proposition influenced both Russell’s logical atomism and the view of the young Wittgenstein. This does not mean that Aristotle was an analytic philosopher ante litteram, but that the similarity between world and language was deeply studied and employed long before the linguistic turn. Following both Aristotle and Wittgenstein, the fundamental idea at work is that our ontology has the same structures of our verbal language. This thesis raises more problems than it seems at first glance

Elderly Onset Celiac Disease: A Narrative Review.

Celiac sprue is a chronic disease, which usually occurs in children and young adults. However, it can develop in any age group, and the prevalence is increasing even in the elderly population. The atypical patterns of clinical presentation in this age group sometimes can cause a delay in diagnosis. Given the lower sensitivity and specificity of serological tests in the aged population, clinical suspect often arises in the presence of complications (autoimmune disorders, fractures, and finally, malignancy) and must be supported by endoscopic and imaging tools. In this review, we highlight the incidence and prevalence of celiac disease in the elderly, the patterns of clinical presentation, diagnosis, and the most frequent complications, with the aim of increasing awareness and reducing the diagnostic delay of celiac disease even in the elderly populatio