WISER: A Semantic Approach for Expert Finding in Academia based on Entity Linking

We present WISER, a new semantic search engine for expert finding in academia. Our system is unsupervised and it jointly combines classical language modeling techniques, based on text evidences, with the Wikipedia Knowledge Graph, via entity linking. WISER indexes each academic author through a novel profiling technique which models her expertise with a small, labeled and weighted graph drawn from Wikipedia. Nodes in this graph are the Wikipedia entities mentioned in the author's publications, whereas the weighted edges express the semantic relatedness among these entities computed via textual and graph-based relatedness functions. Every node is also labeled with a relevance score which models the pertinence of the corresponding entity to author's expertise, and is computed by means of a proper random-walk calculation over that graph; and with a latent vector representation which is learned via entity and other kinds of structural embeddings derived from Wikipedia. At query time, experts are retrieved by combining classic document-centric approaches, which exploit the occurrences of query terms in the author's documents, with a novel set of profile-centric scoring strategies, which compute the semantic relatedness between the author's expertise and the query topic via the above graph-based profiles. The effectiveness of our system is established over a large-scale experimental test on a standard dataset for this task. We show that WISER achieves better performance than all the other competitors, thus proving the effectiveness of modelling author's profile via our "semantic" graph of entities. Finally, we comment on the use of WISER for indexing and profiling the whole research community within the University of Pisa, and its application to technology transfer in our University

La grammaticografia della lingua russa in italiano (1882-1917)

The purpose of this article is to offer an analysis of the grammar resources for teaching and learning Russian as an L2 (grammar books, textbooks, method books) published in Italian between 1882 and December 1917 – therefore, leaving out books published after the post-Revolution reform of Russian orthography. The analysis will focus on their publishing, textual, structural and content aspects; the use of different linguistic registers of the L2 and their corresponding purposes; the target audience. Finally, the books’ methodological and glottodidactic approaches for teaching and learning Russian as an L2 will be discussed

The Grzymała Lubański Affair

The purpose of this article is to examine the personal and professional life of Henryk Grzymała Lubański. A Polish Garibaldian who was completely erased from public memory after his death, Lubański was extremely active in promoting the Russian and Polish languages and Russian and Polish literature among Italians. This article, which is based on a variety of unpublished archival sources, is the first to be entirely dedicated to this subject. This work contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the history of Slavic studies and Russian studies in Italy in the second half of the 19thcentury.The purpose of this article is to examine the personal and professional life of Henryk Grzymała Lubański. A Polish Garibaldian who was completely erased from public memory after his death, Lubański was extremely active in promoting the Russian and Polish languages and Russian and Polish literature among Italians. This article, which is based on a variety of unpublished archival sources, is the first to be entirely dedicated to this subject. This work contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the history of Slavic studies and Russian studies in Italy in the second half of the 19thcentury

L’INSEGNAMENTO DELLA LINGUA RUSSA NELL’UNIVERSITÀ ITALIANA DAL 1864 AL 1892

Il presente lavoro, basato principalmente su fonti e documenti d’archivio del XIX° secolo, costituisce una panoramica degli sviluppi storici nella metodologia e nei programmi d’insegnamento del russo come lingua straniera nella seconda metà del XIX° secolo in Italia (1864-1892). Sono quindi esaminati i corsi di russo come lingua straniera tenuti presso la Regia università di Napoli da G. Lignana, il Real Collegio Asiatico da D. De Vivo, e la Regia università di Roma da H. Grzymała Lubański, dedicando speciale attenzione ai manuali di grammatica russa per parlanti non madrelingua. Teaching Russian in Italian Universities from 1864 to 1892Based mainly on 19th century sources and archived documents, this paper offers an overview of the historical developments in teaching Russian FL and programs during the second half of the 19th century in Italy (1864-1892). The courses in Russian FL examined were conducted at the Royal University of Naples by G. Lignana, at the Royal Asian College in Naples by D. De Vivo, and at the Royal University of Rome by H. Grzymała Lubański, with special attention on Russian grammar textbooks for non-native speakers

Teaching Slavic languages in Italy at a university level (from 1864 to 1918)

il presente articolo si prefigge di ricostruire i primi tentativi di avviare corsi di lingue slave in Italia, e osservare la situazione dell’insegnamento delle lingue slave all’università dal 1864 al 1918. Il lavoro è basato principalmente su fonti poco conosciute o mai studiate in precedenza

Improving keratoconus management with central corneal regularization and corneal collagen cross-linking protocol treatment

Purpose. To evaluate safety and efficacy of customized central corneal regularization (CCR), together with simultaneous accelerated corneal collagen cross-linking (A-CXL) - CCR-CXL protocol, to treat keratoconus-related corneal ectasia. Design. Retrospective, comparative observational case series. Methods. Patients that had undergone combined CCR-CXL protocol. Main inclusion criteria were keratoconus visual acuity deterioration and contact lens intolerance. All patients underwent complete ophthalmological evaluation, corrected distance visual acuity (CDVA) and Scheimpflug-corneal tomography. Central corneal regularization was performed by ablation using flying spot laser. Subsequently, the stroma was saturated with 0.17% riboflavin-5-phosphate added every 2 minutes, followed by A-CXL 9 mW/cm2 for 10 minutes. CDVA, medium keratometry value (Kmed), and total corneal morphological irregularity index (CMI) of patients were analyzed before surgery and after 1, 3 and 12 months. A P value of.05 or less was considered statistically significant. Results. 46 eyes of 39 keratoconus patients were treated. At 1 month, the mean CDVA (LogMar) increased from 0.19 ± 0.02 to 0.12 ± 0.02 (P < .05), and the difference remained stable at month 12. Kmax decrease was statistically significant from 57.02 ± 5.65 to 50.21 ± 4.48 (P < .05). CMI decreased significantly from 47.8 ± 2.84 to 30.1 ± 2.4 (P < .01). Conclusions. CCR-CXL protocol is safe and effective in arresting keratectasia progression and increasing corneal optic regularity in keratoconus. These findings showed a significant improvement in CDVA, keratometry values and corneal optical aberrations after being treated with the CCR-CXL protocol. Copyright © Società Editrice Universo (SEU

Experimental evidence of s-wave superconductivity in bulk CaC6_{6}

The temperature dependence of the in-plane magnetic penetration depth, $\lambda_{ab}(T)$, has been measured in a c-axis oriented polycrystalline CaC$_{6}$ bulk sample using a high-resolution mutual inductance technique. A clear exponential behavior of $\lambda_{ab}(T)$ has been observed at low temperatures, strongly suggesting isotropic s-wave pairing. Data fit using the standard BCS theory yields $\lambda_{ab}(0)=(720\pm 80)$ Angstroem and $\Delta(0)=(1.79\pm 0.08)$ meV. The ratio $2\Delta(0)/k_{_B}T_{c}=(3.6\pm 0.2)$ gives indication for a conventional weakly coupled superconductor.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Linear and nonlinear electrodynamic response of bulk CaC6 in the microwave regime

The linear and nonlinear response to a microwave electromagnetic field of two c-axis oriented polycrystalline samples of the newly discovered superconductor CaC6 (Tc = 11.5 K) is studied in the superconducting state down to 2 K. The surface resistance Rs and the third order intermodulation distortion, arising from a two-tone excitation, have been measured as a function of temperature and microwave circulating power. Experiments are carried out using a dielectrically loaded copper cavity operating at 7 GHz in a "hot finger" configuration. The results confirm recent experimental findings that CaC6 behaves as a weakly-coupled, fully gapped, superconductor. The weak power dependence of Rs encourages a further investigation of this novel superconductor as a possible alternative to Nb in specific microwave applications.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Appl. Phys. Let

Intrinsic nonlinearity probed by intermodulation distortion microwave measurements on high quality MgB2 thin films

The two tone intermodulation distortion arising in MgB2 thin films synthesized by hybrid physical-chemical vapour deposition is studied in order to probe the influence of the two bands on the nonlinear response of this superconductor. The measurements are carried out by using a dielectrically loaded copper cavity operating at 7 GHz. Microwave data on samples having critical temperatures above 41 K, very low resistivity values, and residual resistivity ratio larger than 10, are shown. The dependence of the nonlinear surface losses and of the third order intermodulation products on the power feeding the cavity and on the temperature is analyzed. At low power, the signal arising from distortion versus temperature shows the intrinsic s-wave behavior expected for this compound. Data are compared with measurements performed on Nb and YBCO thin films using the same technique.Comment: Revised version. Submitted to APL on October 7th 200

Microwave losses of bulk CaC6

We report a study of the temperature dependence of the surface resistance RS in the graphite intercalated compound (GIC) CaC6, where superconductivity at 11.5 K was recently discovered. Experiments are carried out using a copper dielectrically loaded cavity operating at 7 GHz in a "hot finger" configuration. Bulk CaC6 samples have been synthesized from highly oriented pyrolytic graphite. Microwave data allows to extract unique information on the quasiparticle density and on the nature of pairing in superconductors. The analysis of RS(T) confirms our recent experimental findings that CaC6 behaves as a weakly-coupled, fully gapped, superconductor.Comment: 2 pages, submitted to Physica C (M2S-HTSC 2006 Proceedings