“Tea for two”: the Archive of the Italian Latinity of the Middle Ages Meets the CLARIN Infrastructure

This paper aims at showing how integrating the Archive of the Italian Latinity of the Middle Ages(ALIM) into the ILC4CLARIN repository can provide mutual benefits. Making ALIM availableto a large community of scholars and researchers, on the one side, represents the first step to reduce the lack of resources for Medieval Latin in CLARIN and, on the other side, constitutesan unprecedented contribution to not only linguistic investigations, but also to the studies ofthe culture and science at the basis of the Western European society. The paper describes theadopted approach aiming to keep intact the structure of the archive and its metadata, which areboth accurately mirrored into the ILC4CLARIN repository in order to maintain existing accesspractices of the users. This structure can be found in exactly the same state within the CLARIN VLO. Finally, the paper illustrates the advantages of experimenting with some ALIM data, once introduced within the CLARIN Language Resource Switchboard service: first results are shown from the analysis of some texts with the UDPipe tool suite and the distant reading tool Voyant

A kinematic study of planetary nebulae in the dwarf irregular galaxy IC10

We present positions, kinematics, and the planetary nebula luminosity function (PNLF) for 35 planetary nebulae (PNe) in the nearest starburst galaxy IC10 extending out to 3kpc from the galaxy's centre. We take advantage of the deep imaging and spectroscopic capabilities provided by the spectrograph FOCAS on the 8.2m Subaru telescope. The PN velocities were measured through the slitless-spectroscopy technique, which allows us to explore the kinematics of IC10 with high precision. Using these velocities, we conclude that there is a kinematic connection between the HI envelope located around IC10 and the galaxy's PN population. By assuming that the PNe in the central regions and in the outskirts have similar ages, our results put strong observational constraints on the past tidal interactions in the Local Group. This is so because by dating the PN central stars, we, therefore, infer the epoch of a major episode of star formation likely linked to the first encounter of the HI extended envelope with the galaxy. Our deep [OIII] images also allow us to use the PNLF to estimate a distance modulus of 24.1+/-0.25, which is in agreement with recent results in the literature based on other techniques.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRA

The colours of BL Lac objects: a new approach to their classification

We selected a sample of 437 BL Lac objects, taken from the RomaBZCat catalogue, for which spectroscopic information and SDSS photometry is available. We propose a new classification of BL Lacs in which the sources' type is not defined only on the basis of the peak frequency of the synchrotron component in their Spectral Energy Distribution (types L and H), but also on the relevance of this component with respect to the brightness of the host galaxy (types N and G, for nuclear or galaxy dominated sources). We found that the SDSS colour index u-r=1.4 is a good separator between these two types. We used multiband colour-colour plots to study the properties of the BL Lac classes and found that in the X-ray to radio flux ratio vs u-r plot most of the N (blue) sources are located in a rather narrow strip, while the G-sources (red) are spread in a large area, and most of them are located in galaxy clusters or interacting systems, suggesting that their X-ray emission is not from a genuine BL Lac nucleus but it is related to their environment. Of the about 135 sources detected in the gamma-rays by Fermi-GST, nearly all belong to the N-type, indicating that only this type of sources should be considered as genuine BL Lac nuclei. The J-H, H-K plot of sources detected in the 2MASS catalogue is consistent with that of the "bona fide" BL Lac objects, independently of their N or G classification from the optical indices, indicating the existence in G-type sources of a K-band excess possibly due to a steep, low frequency peaked emission which deserves further investigations. We propose to use these colour plots as a further tool for searching candidate counterparts of newly discovered high-energy sources.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures. Submitted 29/08/2011 to MNRAS, first referee report received 31/10/2011, accepted 21/02/201

Cancer incidence in Italian contaminated sites

Introduction. The incidence of cancer among residents in sites contaminated by pollutants with a possible health impact is not adequately studied. In Italy, SENTIERI Project  (Epidemiological study of residents in National Priority Contaminated Sites, NPCSs)  was implemented to study major health outcomes for residents in 44 NPCSs.Methods. The Italian Association of Cancer Registries (AIRTUM) records cancer incidence in 23 NPCSs. For each NPCSs, the incidence of all malignant cancers combined  and 35 cancer sites (coded according to ICD-10), was analysed (1996-2005). The observed cases were compared to the expected based on age (5-year period,18 classes),  gender, calendar period (1996-2000; 2001-2005), geographical area (North-Centre and  Centre-South) and cancer sites specific rates. Standardized Incidence Ratios (SIR) with  90% Confidence Intervals were computed.Results. In both genders an excess was observed for overall cancer incidence (9% in men  and 7% in women) as well as for specific cancer sites (colon and rectum, liver, gallbladder,  pancreas,  lung,  skin  melanoma,  bladder  and  Non  Hodgkin  lymphoma).  Deficits  were  observed  for  gastric  cancer  in  both  genders,  chronic  lymphoid  leukemia  (men),  malignant thyroid neoplasms, corpus uteri and connective and soft-tissue tumours and  sarcomas (women).Discussion. This report is, to our knowledge, the first one on cancer risk of residents in  NPCSs. The study, although not aiming to estimate the cancer burden attributable to  the environment as compared to occupation or life-style, supports the credibility of an  etiologic role of environmental exposures in contaminated sites. Ongoing analyses focus  on the interpretation of risk factors for excesses of specific cancer types overall and in  specific NPCSs in relation to the presence of carcinogenic pollutants.

Group, field and isolated early-type galaxies I. Observations and nuclear data

This is the first paper of a series on the investigation of stellar population properties and galaxy evolution of an observationally homogeneous sample of early-type galaxies in groups, field and isolated galaxies. We present high S/N long-slit spectroscopy of 86 nearby elliptical and S0 galaxies. 8 of them are isolated, selected according to a rigorous criterion. This survey has the advantage of covering a larger wavelength range than normally found in the literature, including [OIII]5007 and Halpha, both important for emission correction. Among the 86 galaxies with S/N>15 (per resolution element, for r_e/8 central aperture), 57 have their Hbeta-index corrected for emission, average correction is 0.190A in Hbeta; 42 galaxies reveal [OIII]5007 emission, of which 16 also show obvious Halpha emission. Most of the galaxies in the sample do not show obvious signs of disturbances nor tidal features in the morphologies, although 11 belong to the Arp catalogue of peculiar galaxies; only 3 of them (NGC750, NGC751, NGC3226) seem to be strongly interacting. We present the measurement of 25 central line-strength indices calibrated to the Lick/IDS system. Kinematic information is obtained for the sample. We analyse the line-strength index vs velocity dispersion relations for our sample of mainly low density environment galaxies, and compare the slope of the relations with cluster galaxies from the literature. Our main findings are that the index-sigma_0 relations presented for low-density regions are not significantly different from those of cluster E/S0s. The slope of the index-sigma_0 relations does not seem to change for early-type galaxies of different environmental densities, but the scatter of the relations seems larger for group, field and isolated galaxies than for cluster galaxies.Comment: Accepted for publication in the MNRA

Voci germaniche nel medioevo latino

Il contributo prende in esame alcuni aspetti delle interferenze linguistiche e culturali tra latinità italiana medievale e tradizione germanica, focalizzando l’attenzione sulle Leges Langobardorum e, in particolare, sull’Editto di Rotari, di cui si presenta brevemente il progetto di una nuova edizione

Verso un'edizione digitale dell'Editto di Rotari

Il progetto editoriale che viene per la prima volta presentato in questo saggio nasce da una collaborazione tra le Unità di ricerca di un Programma di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale (PRIN-2012) in cui operano congiuntamente i due autori del presente saggio, e si suddivide in due fasi. La prima fase è volta a fornire un’edizione diplomatico-interpretativa dei testimoni “piemontesi” dell’Editto di Rotari (d’ora in poi ER), ovvero: Vercelli, Biblioteca Capitolare Eusebiana, CLXXXVIII (ms 2) e Ivrea, Biblioteca Capitolare, XXXIV (ms 3). I testi criticamente definiti confluiranno nell’Archivio della Latinità Italiana del Medioevo e le immagini verranno visualizzate tramite un software specifico, denominato EVT (Edition Visualization Technology), che sarà presentato nella sez. 11. La seconda fase, più a lungo termine, prevede l’allestimento dell’edizione critica del testo dell’Editto sulla base della collazione e recensione completa dei testimoni pervenuti, della cui necessità si argomenterà nella sez. 5

Il lessico longobardo delle migrazioni tra storia e leggenda

Prendendo in esame la terminologia longobarda relativa al campo semantico delle migrazioni e contestualizzandola dal punto di vista linguistico, storico e culturale, gli autori intendono innanzitutto ripercorrere lo “story telling” delle etnogenesi plurime dei Longobardi, alla luce sia delle fonti medievali (in particolare le Leges Langobardorum, ma anche l’Origo gentis Langobardorum, la Historia gentis Langobardorum e la documentazione epigrafica), sia della rivisitazione del concetto di Völkerwanderung che ha caratterizzato la ricerca storica dell’ultimo decennio. Si studieranno, inoltre, i termini con cui i Longobardi stessi definiscono il ‘migrante’, nonché i concetti di ‘asilo’ e ‘rifugio’ con le loro implicazioni giuridiche e politiche. I termini longobardi analizzati nell'articolo, nonché – ove presenti – le relative glosse latine, saranno inclusi in un glossario digitale che costituirà parte integrante del progetto di edizione delle Leges attualmente in corso ad opera degli autori e che permetterà di mettere a sistema le informazioni ortografiche, linguistiche e culturali riferibili a ciascun lemma

Atom pair potential for molecular dynamics simulations of structural and dynamical properties of aluminosilicates: test on silicalite and anhydrous Na-A and Ca-A zeolites and comparison with experimental data

An empirical atom pair potential for aluminosilicates including coulombic interactions explicitly, and suitable for molecular dynamics simulations, has been tested on an aluminium-free molecular sieve (silicalite) and on the anhydrous aluminium-rich zeolite A, containing Na or Ca cations. This represents a first step towards a realistic potential that is able to reproduce the details of the structure and dynamics of aluminosilicates. The results are in reasonable agreement with experimental data, both structural (taken from the literature) and spectroscopic (most of which are new). For structures showing disordered extraframework ion distributions, point-charge models are insufficiently accurate and polarization effects should be taken into account. Previously proposed model potentials are discussed