Public Libraries and Lifelong Learning

This literature review examines the role of public libraries in supporting lifelong learning (LLL). The first part considers the impact of recent economic and social changes in the field of education. Thanks to official documents, the paper tries to answer the question on how is it possible to transform the information society into the learning society? The new learning culture is largely described besides focusing on the concept of LLL. The second part describes the themes related to the new role of libraries and librarians involved in LLL services. When public libraries, between the 1990s and the 2000s, are recognized as the pillars for a democratic knowledge society, the position of the libraries in the communities changes, thanks to cooperation and new partnerships into the formal, non formal and informal education system. Besides the infrastructures, the networks and the provision of services, libraries offer neutral and supportive local learning settings. As demonstrated by the experiences in the field of Information Literacy, guidance and training constitute the strategic value of libraries. In order to achieve the democratic goals of an inclusive society, libraries have to pay attention to their public and to the different needs of their users. This new scenario ask librarians to become agents of change, prepared to meet the new demands of technology and, morover, of people. New information professionals need new qualifications and professional recognition, into a perspective of a lifelong career. This study dedicates a part to the Italian case, in order to understand the state of the art of the role of public libraries in LLL in this geographical area and comparing the situation with that of other European countries. The final part offers a recognition of the main trends and problems related to the role of public libraries and LLL. In some areas it is evident a gap between the international policy and the current practices

Image-based metric heritage modeling in the near-infrared spectrum

Digital photogrammetry and spectral imaging are widely used in heritage sciences towards the comprehensive recording, understanding, and protection of historical artifacts and artworks. The availability of consumer-grade modified cameras for spectral acquisition, as an alternative to expensive multispectral sensors and multi-sensor apparatuses, along with semi-automatic software implementations of Structure-from-Motion (SfM) and Multiple-View-Stereo (MVS) algorithms, has made more feasible than ever the combination of those techniques. In the research presented here, the authors assess image-based modeling from near-infrared (NIR) imagery acquired with modified consumergrade cameras, with applications on tangible heritage. Three-dimensional (3D) meshes, textured with the non-visible data, are produced and evaluated. Specifically, metric evaluations are conducted through extensive comparisons with models produced with image-based modeling from visible (VIS) imagery and with structured light scanning, to check the accuracy of results. Furthermore, the authors observe and discuss, how the implemented NIR modeling approach, affects the surface of the reconstructed models, and may counteract specific problems which arise from lighting conditions during VIS acquisition. The radiometric properties of the produced results are evaluated, in comparison to the respective results in the visible spectrum, on the capacity to enhance observation towards the characterization of the surface and under-surface state of preservation, and consequently, to support conservation interventions

Depressive symptom and oncological uncontrolled pain: assessment and evaluation in 562 patients

n/

FIRST ASSESSMENTS ON HERITAGE SCIENCE ORIENTED IMAGE-BASED MODELING USING LOW-COST MODIFIED AND MOBILE CAMERAS

Three-dimensional modeling of cultural heritage, especially concerning large scale studies, as for example, archaeometry, diagnostics and conservation intervention applications, which usually require high-resolution and multi-spectral analyses, necessitates the use of complicate and often expensive equipment. Recent developments regarding low-cost commercially available spectrally modified digital reflex cameras, smartphones with good quality image sensors, mobile thermal cameras in combination with automated or semi-automated photogrammetric software implementing Structure from Motion (SfM) and Multiview Stereo (MVS) algorithms constitute some cheaper and simpler alternatives. Although, the results of the integration of these types of sensors and techniques are often not evaluated as metric products. The presented research combines the above-mentioned instrumentation and software to implement and evaluate low-cost 3D modeling solutions on heritage science-oriented case studies, but also to perform some first assessments on the resulting models' metric properties, quality of texture and usefulness for further scientific investigations

Che cosa è non decidibile: cinque regioni del coto vedado

In questo articolo, l'A. richiama l'attenzione sul concetto di «sfera dell'indecidibile» coniato da Luigi Ferrajoli, ponendolo a confronto con la nozione di «coto vedado» di Ernesto Garzón Valdés e con l'analoga idea di «territorio» o «frontiera» inviolabile elaborata da Norberto Bobbio: le tre nozioni indicano l'insieme di principi e regole costituzionali che nessun potere politico può violare negli stati democratici di diritto, al centro del quale si trovano i diritti individuali fondamentali. L'A. propone un'interpretazione estensiva della teoria della democrazia di Bobbio capace di offrire una soluzione più avanzata al problema dei limiti del potere politico democratico. Invita a riconoscere nelle «regole del gioco» indicate da Bobbio le condizioni (in senso logico) della democrazia, articolate in due serie: cinque condizioni formali, contenute nelle regole di competenza e di procedura che riguardano il «chi» e il «come» delle decisioni collettive; e cinque condizioni sostanziali, contenute nei principi normativi impliciti nella «sesta regola» dell'elenco di Bobbio, che prescrivono limiti e vincoli al «che cosa», ossia alla sostanza delle medesime decisioni. Tali condizioni sostanziali corrispondono a quelle che l'A. chiama le «cinque regioni del coto vedado». L'A. torna in conclusione sulla concezione di Ferrajoli, in cui riconosce un miglioramento teorico rispetto alle elaborazioni esplicite sia di Bobbio sia di Garzón Valdés; ma sostiene che la teoria delle condizioni e precondizioni della democrazia ricavata per interpretazione estensiva dalla costruzione teorica di Bobbio offre un miglior fondamento razionale alla costruzione della «sfera dell'indecidibile»

Nozioni seminali. Variazioni aristoteliche sul tema poli-

In this article, the author proposes to analyze and translate, through a semiotic and semantic exercise, the meaning of the terms that indicate and express the first principles of the Aristotelian political logos. The analysis will focus on chapters 1-6 of the third book of Politics, where Aristotle models and remodels the fundamental notions of his political philosophy and, more specifically, their sequences of definitions and inter-definitions. The primitive terms that appear since the beginning of the book are three: polis, polites, politeia. In some passages a fourth term is added to them, politikos, an adjective turned into noun. A further term emerges to complete the series, although with a more controversial meaning, politeuma. All of these terms exhibit an air of family, since they share the same root: poli-; but, when these terms are being translated into modern languages, this common root is usually fragmented and even dissolved. For the most part, we translate polis with «city», but city as a state, in the broadest and most general meaning, we translate polites with «citizen», politeia with «constitution», politeuma with «government». But state, citizen, constitution, government —as phonemes— have no semiotic relationship, they show no family air. The author suggests to try restoring, even in modern translations, the unity of the linguistic family upon which Aristotle constructs his fundamental notions. Consequently, he proposes a range of possible translations, as follows: Polis as political institution, political entity, political collectivity, collective political subject; polites as individual political subject, member of the political collective; politeia as «politicy», political form, political identity; politeuma as political body, political class, political organ. This way, says the author, one is able to give a more precise meaning to the definitions and inter-definitions of Aristotle and to correct many misunderstandings that are hidden in the current ways of translating the terms, as well as to dissolve certain ambiguities and sometimes even implausibility of the resulting expressions. Moreover, the author insists that these are polysemic terms: the set of connotations and denotations associated with their (multiple) uses make each of them a «stem» notion, which contains in nuce, dynamei, a range of possibilities for different semantic specializations and conjugations, just like stem cells that biologists call «multipotent». However, he upholds that restoring kinship (also) at a semiotic level between these notions does not at all multiply the ambiguity, but rather that it can contribute to the clarification of one notion with the other, as well as reestablish plausibility and sensitivity to the different specialized meanings of the terms just by bringing them back to a single stock. The author tests the effectiveness of his semiotic-semantic suggestions by proposing a re-translation of some canonical passage, in which Aristotle engages with the definition and inter-definition of fundamental terms. The first is the famous incipit of the third book of Politics, in which the first four terms appear in a network of inter-definitions, followed by the re-translation and the more detailed analysis of the steps dedicated to the figure of the polites, the «individual political subject», in which the author points out a specific ambiguity of the Aristotelian discourse. Then the author examines the semantic oscillations within the uses of politeia, between the formal and the material definition of the «political identity» of the polis. Finally, the author offers a reconstruction of the nexus between politeia and politeuma, that is, between «political identity» and «political body»