L'Inserzione vocalica nelle lingue romanze, con particolare riguardo per le varietà italo-romanze

The title of my doctoral dissertation is "Vowel Insertion in Romance Languages, with Special Reference to Italo Romance Varieties". The main purpose of my work is to propose a principled classification of non etymological vowel insertion sensitive to the phonetic phonological context (henceforth vocal insertion) in the Romance languages in a diachronic perspective. The traditional classification of vowel insertion is based on the positions in which the phenomenon occurs. Hence, three positions are generally recognized: prosthesis in word initial position, epenthesis in word medial position, and epithesis in word final position. In the linguistic literature, this classification is broadly accepted a priori, yet the nature of vowel insertion in Romance languages is better captured if we consider other factors, as segmental and phonotactic context. Thus, we propose a revision of that tradizional classification. An essential bibliographic contribution was the work of Sampson (2010), Vowel Prosthesis in Romance, where he identifies three categories of "prostheses", providing various examples from many Romance languages. My classification was obtained by applying the criteria chosen by the scholar to other positions. The result of my research was the identification of five major categories, which are called InsVoc S, InsVoc R, InsVoc C, InsVoc Oss and InsVoc Nat respectively. InsVoc stands for vocal insertion; the following letters represent the relevant context in which each category operates. Thus S represents the initial etymological cluster; R represents the presence of the rhotic or sonorants; C represents the final consonant and Oss represents oxytone. Vocal insertion has operated mainly adjacent to the aforementioned contexts in diachrony. The four categories just mentioned have worked in words derived directly from Latin, while InsVoc Nat has only targeted loan words, as vowel insertion is one of the most frequently observed strategies for adapting the loan words to the phonological structure of the receiving language, i. e. nativization, which is represented by Nat. The dissertation is divided into two main parts: the first part discusses the general properties of vocal insertion (mainly its activation and diffusion within a linguistic system) as a diachronic process from a cross linguistic point of view, with special attention to the Romance domain. In the literature, vocal insertion is widely known by scholars of the eighteenth century (eg Schuchardt 1867) and several attempts have been made so far to describe its behaviour and to explain why it occurs in various theoretical frameworks. Nevertheless, after a century and a half of studies, the nature of vocal insertion is still unclear in all its aspects. The purpose of the first part of the thesis is to propose a possible synthesis of vocal insertion studies in the literature and to discuss a possible coherent and global interpretation of its phenomenology. In the second part I consider the properties of each major category of vowel insertion in Romance languages. I discuss various aspects of the major categories such as diatopic distribution, possible causes and possible ways of spreading within a language system, based on data obtained in different Romance varieties. As I mentioned above, the nature of vocal insertion has not yet been clarified in all its aspects, and in the future, new proposals and interpretations will certainly come forward. The interpretation I proposed in the first part of my work could be denied in future studies, but irrespective of its theoretical account, the fact remains that vowel insertion in the Romance words inherited directly from Latin works canonically in the contexts described above, represented in my work by the letters S, R, C and Oss. Any future attempt at interpreting this phenomenon would have to consider these contexts, and the identification of these contexts is precisely the main scientific contribution of my dissertation

Automated end user-centred adaptation of web components through automated description logic-based reasoning

Context: This paper addresses one of the major end-user development (EUD) challenges, namely, how to pack today?s EUD support tools with composable elements. This would give end users better access to more components which they can use to build a solution tailored to their own needs. The success of later end-user software engineering (EUSE) activities largely depends on how many components each tool has and how adaptable components are to multiple problem domains. Objective: A system for automatically adapting heterogeneous components to a common development environment would offer a sizeable saving of time and resources within the EUD support tool construction process. This paper presents an automated adaptation system for transforming EUD components to a standard format. Method: This system is based on the use of description logic. Based on a generic UML2 data model, this description logic is able to check whether an end-user component can be transformed to this modeling language through subsumption or as an instance of the UML2 model. Besides it automatically finds a consistent, non-ambiguous and finite set of XSLT mappings to automatically prepare data in order to leverage the component as part of a tool that conforms to the target UML2 component model. Results: The proposed system has been successfully applied to components from four prominent EUD tools. These components were automatically converted to a standard format. In order to validate the proposed system, rich internet applications (RIA) used as an operational support system for operators at a large services company were developed using automatically adapted standard format components. These RIAs would be impossible to develop using each EUD tool separately. Conclusion: The positive results of applying our system for automatically adapting components from current tool catalogues are indicative of the system?s effectiveness. Use of this system could foster the growth of web EUD component catalogues, leveraging a vast ecosystem of user-centred SaaS to further current EUSE trends

Advanced Urbanism / UNIGE Approaches

Abbordaggio critico sulla condizione contemporanea del progetto architettonico e lo spazio urbano in relazione alle nuove tecnologie e la societ\ue0 della informazione. Progetto KAAU, Konsortium For Advanced Architecture and Urbanism, collegato con un Erasmus Grant. Report del Symposium International Meeting KA-AU ADVANCED URBANISM, NEW WAYS FOR DESIGN 2018, Ordine degli Architetti Genova 24/09/201

Grid-selvitys. Näkökulma tietojärjestelmien yhteiskäytön edistämiseen

Raportissa kuvataan yleisesti grid-käsitemaailmaa sekä gridin kehittymisen ja soveltamisen nykyvaihetta ja tulevaisuuskuvaa. Käsitteellä grid ei ole yhtä ja ainoaa yleisesti hyväksyttyä määritelmää. Tietojärjestelmissä grid voidaan hahmottaa infrastruktuurina, johon kuuluu joukko erilaisia resursseja: mm. prosessointivoimaa, tietovarastoja, verkkoyhteyksiä ja sovelluspalveluita. Rapaortissa esitellään lisäksi gridin roolia tietoyhteiskunnan kehityksessä sekä grid-ajattelun asemaa ja etenemistä Suomessa, Euroopassa ja myös laajemmin kansainvälisesti

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Peripheral backwater or innovative upland? : patterns of Franciscan patronage in renaissance Perugia, c. 1390 - 1527

In 1400, Perugia had little home-grown artistic talent and relied upon foreign painters to provide its major altarpieces. A century later, this situation had been reversed with Perugino, Pintoricchio and Raphael all active in the city. By investigating commissioning patterns III Franciscan establishments in Perugia from 1390 to c.1527, this thesis identifies the circumstances leading to this change. It argues that artistic innovation in such peripheral places is often undervalued or automatically attributed to external factors. Focusing upon five Minorite establishments, the importance of local religious, familial and notarial networks on patronal decisions is newly evaluated. Geography-based models of the introduction and spread of ideas, particularly theories of centre-periphery and cultural exchange, are considered as a means of explaining Perugia's changing artistic status. The introduction analyses theories regarding the autonomy of peripheral patrons, the innovative potential of the periphery and the repetition of paradigms. It finds that existing models fail fully to acknowledge the periphery's contribution to artistic development which should be reappraised. Chapters 1 and 2 chart Perugian patrons' shifting preference from foreign to local painters and attribute this to changes in training, political stability, increased civic identity, and an aspirational humanist court. Chapters 3 and 4 assess the dominance of the Peruginesque style. They propose that Raphael's early success lay in his perfection of this aesthetic, along with female BaglionilOddi and Franciscan patronal support. This occurred in a temporary competitive vacuum, characteristic of places beyond the centre. In conclusion, some current theories undervalue the contribution of local patrons and fail to accommodate the innovative potential of peripheral places like Perugia. Ideas are generated in both places and influences flow between them through processes of exchange involving painters and patrons. Local patronal networks provide a matrix within which valid tastes are promoted independently of external pressures

The Essence of Software Engineering

Software Engineering; Software Development; Software Processes; Software Architectures; Software Managemen