Portable dynamic fundus instrument

A portable diagnostic image analysis instrument is disclosed for retinal funduscopy in which an eye fundus image is optically processed by a lens system to a charge coupled device (CCD) which produces recordable and viewable output data and is simultaneously viewable on an electronic view finder. The fundus image is processed to develop a representation of the vessel or vessels from the output data

Kink propagation in a two-dimensional curved Josephson junction

We consider the propagation of sine-Gordon kinks in a planar curved strip as a model of nonlinear wave propagation in curved wave guides. The homogeneous Neumann transverse boundary conditions, in the curvilinear coordinates, allow to assume a homogeneous kink solution. Using a simple collective variable approach based on the kink coordinate, we show that curved regions act as potential barriers for the wave and determine the threshold velocity for the kink to cross. The analysis is confirmed by numerical solution of the 2D sine-Gordon equation.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures (2 in color

A diachronic Italian corpus based on “L’Unità”

In this paper, we describe the creation of a diachronic corpus for Italian by exploiting the digital archive of the newspaper “L’Unità”. We automatically clean and annotate the corpus with PoS tags, lemmas, named entities and syntactic dependencies. Moreover, we compute frequency-based time series for tokens, lemmas and entities. We show some interesting corpus statistics taking into account the temporal dimension and describe some examples of usage of time series

DIACR-Ita @ EVALITA2020: Overview of the EVALITA2020 diachronic lexical semantics (DIACR-Ita) task

This paper describes the first edition of the “Diachronic Lexical Semantics” (DIACR-Ita) task at the EVALITA 2020 campaign. The task challenges participants to develop systems that can automatically detect if a given word has changed its meaning over time, given contextual information from corpora. The task, at its first edition, attracted 9 participant teams and collected a total of 36 submission runs

Prejudices towards people with intellectual disabilities: reliability and validity of the Italian Modern and Classical Prejudices Scale

Background Prejudices and negative attitudes towards intellectual disabilities (IDs) may hinder social inclusion of ID individuals, limiting their well‐being. This study investigated the psychometric characteristics of the Italian Modern and Classical Prejudices Scale (MCPS‐IT) towards people with ID and the effects of gender, age and socio‐economic status (SES) on prejudices. Method The MCPS‐IT was administered to 474 adults (69% women, age range 18–70 years, M = 33.13) in conjunction with a questionnaire evaluating socio‐demographic information (SES), the contact and the education about ID people and the social dominance orientation. Results Results confirmed that Italian MCPS has a two‐factor structure that measures in a reliable and valid way prejudice towards people with ID. Multivariate analyses of variance confirmed a weak gender difference in both scales and age differences in modern scale. No SES differences were found. Conclusion The Italian MCPS represents a valid scale that can be used to monitor the social context of people with ID

Vitis vinifera L. germplasm diversity: a genetic and ampelometric study in ancient vineyards in the South of Basilicata region (Italy)

The evaluation of the existing grapevines biodiversity in several areas still unexplored in Basilicata region has been carried out. A four years survey in ancient vineyards of Potenza was performed to investigate grapevine biodiversity. 85 collected accessions were subjected to genetic characterization through nine microsatellite markers. A total of 42 genotypes were obtained. The comparison with national and international databases allowed the identification of 26 accessions corresponded to new autochthonous genotypes and minor/local cultivars, in addition 16 international and national cultivars commonly cultivated in several Italian regions were found (data not shown in this work). Results indicated that minor/local cultivars were mainly cultivated in the near regions. The genetic profile of 9 new autochthonous grapevines was described here for the first time. Comparison of the genotypes, allelic frequencies, allelic sizes and ampelometric traits on mature leaves are highlighted. Conservation of new autochthonous and minor/local cultivars in germoplasm collections has been carried out including them in the germoplasm collection of CREA-VE in Arezzo in order to save grapevine biodiversity and allows further agronomical and enological evaluation

Creep, Relaxation and Viscosity Properties for Basic Fractional Models in Rheology

The purpose of this paper is twofold: from one side we provide a general survey to the viscoelastic models constructed via fractional calculus and from the other side we intend to analyze the basic fractional models as far as their creep, relaxation and viscosity properties are considered. The basic models are those that generalize via derivatives of fractional order the classical mechanical models characterized by two, three and four parameters, that we refer to as Kelvin-Voigt, Maxwell, Zener, anti-Zener and Burgers. For each fractional model we provide plots of the creep compliance, relaxation modulus and effective viscosity in non dimensional form in terms of a suitable time scale for different values of the order of fractional derivative. We also discuss the role of the order of fractional derivative in modifying the properties of the classical models.Comment: 41 pages, 8 figure

Developing and evaluating a five minute phishing awareness video

Confidence tricksters have always defrauded the unwary. The computer era has merely extended their range and made it possible for them to target anyone in the world who has an email address. Nowadays, they send phishing messages that are specially crafted to deceive. Improving user awareness has the potential to reduce their effectiveness. We have previously developed and empirically-validated phishing awareness programmes. Our programmes are specifically designed to neutralize common phish-related misconceptions and teach people how to detect phishes. Many companies and individuals are already using our programmes, but a persistent niggle has been the amount of time required to complete the awareness programme. This paper reports on how we responded by developing and evaluating a condensed phishing awareness video that delivered phishing awareness more efficiently. Having watched our video, participants in our evaluation were able to detect phishing messages significantly more reliably right after watching the video (compared to before watching the video). This ability was also demonstrated after a retention period of eight weeks after first watching the video

Diffusion in multiscale spacetimes

We study diffusion processes in anomalous spacetimes regarded as models of quantum geometry. Several types of diffusion equation and their solutions are presented and the associated stochastic processes are identified. These results are partly based on the literature in probability and percolation theory but their physical interpretation here is different since they apply to quantum spacetime itself. The case of multiscale (in particular, multifractal) spacetimes is then considered through a number of examples and the most general spectral-dimension profile of multifractional spaces is constructed.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figures. v2: discussion improved, typos corrected, references adde

Vortex polarity switching by a spin--polarized current

The spin-transfer effect is investigated for the vortex state of a magnetic nanodot. A spin current is shown to act similarly to an effective magnetic field perpendicular to the nanodot. Then a vortex with magnetization (polarity) parallel to the current polarization is energetically favorable. Following a simple energy analysis and using direct spin--lattice simulations, we predict the polarity switching of a vortex. For magnetic storage devices, an electric current is more effective to switch the polarity of a vortex in a nanodot than the magnetic field