Migranti, identità culturale e immaginario mediatico

Il volume raccoglie i contributi scientifici della quinta edizione della Summer School “Migranti, Diritti Umani e Democrazia”, promossa dall’Università degli Studi di Palermo, focalizzando l’attenzione sulle tensioni del Nord Africa, con la vicenda libica in primo piano, e sulle rappresentazioni sociali degli stranieri nei mass media, quale scenario al negativo dei mondi migranti. Il testo contribuisce a disvelare meccanismi mentali e simbolici, mettendo in luce le dinamiche politico–mediatiche che fanno da sfondo alla costruzione dei processi comunicativi e delle retoriche pubbliche e cerca di mostrare come le immagini dell’“invasione di massa” degli stranieri e l’informazione emergenziale abbiano finito con l’alimentare ulteriori pregiudizi negli autoctoni

Average Rate of Downlink Heterogeneous Cellular Networks over Generalized Fading Channels - A Stochastic Geometry Approach

In this paper, we introduce an analytical framework to compute the average rate of downlink heterogeneous cellular networks. The framework leverages recent application of stochastic geometry to other-cell interference modeling and analysis. The heterogeneous cellular network is modeled as the superposition of many tiers of Base Stations (BSs) having different transmit power, density, path-loss exponent, fading parameters and distribution, and unequal biasing for flexible tier association. A long-term averaged maximum biased-received-power tier association is considered. The positions of the BSs in each tier are modeled as points of an independent Poisson Point Process (PPP). Under these assumptions, we introduce a new analytical methodology to evaluate the average rate, which avoids the computation of the Coverage Probability (Pcov) and needs only the Moment Generating Function (MGF) of the aggregate interference at the probe mobile terminal. The distinguishable characteristic of our analytical methodology consists in providing a tractable and numerically efficient framework that is applicable to general fading distributions, including composite fading channels with small- and mid-scale fluctuations. In addition, our method can efficiently handle correlated Log-Normal shadowing with little increase of the computational complexity. The proposed MGF-based approach needs the computation of either a single or a two-fold numerical integral, thus reducing the complexity of Pcov-based frameworks, which require, for general fading distributions, the computation of a four-fold integral.Comment: Accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Communications, to appea

Il pluralismo religioso come etica civile.

This paper proposes to think the category of religious pluralism as an essential mindset of contemporary society. Religions, even today, go to war; sometimes it happens that a religious representation turns its prophetic vision in an extremist perspective to be applied against a perceived enemy. Often conflicts, never dormant, come back on presenting a new look and the cause is not a difference of belief or doctrine; as evidenced by Enzo Pace (2004), conflicts become an important symbolic device in identity politics. However, it is the duty of civil perspective reasoning on a proactive and inclusive perspective for the construction of the common good and the compresence of religious cultures

Reception studies and audiovisual translation: eye tracking research at the service of training in subtitling

In a recent article about viewers' choice of shows and series, The Guardian referred to contemporary television as "comfort TV" and "prestige television", including all those streaming services that have recently pushed the very concept of television beyond traditional borders, while also giving it a new, vibrant life. ‘Comfort’ is most likely referred to the ease of consumption, both in terms of space (with portable technologies) and time (no longer univocally fixed by broadcasters). ‘Prestige’, as the quote says, is related to the incredible, and increasing, array of choices available; whereas quality can be referred to overall production standards, but perhaps not always to translation. As consumption of contemporary television, including streaming services, increases and diversifies, the need to understand, monitor and cater for the viewers' needs and expectations is ever more important, also through the lens of translation. This article discusses a recent experiment on the reception of a subtitled TV series by young Italian viewers, carried out using eye tracking and questionnaires. The experiment is here presented mainly to highlight the relevance, and the great potential, of reception studies applied to the training of audiovisual translators, and more specifically of subtitlers. After all, learning an eminently practical skill has to encompass as thorough a knowledge of its users as possible. Inspired by the curiosity of a subtitling company about viewers’ comprehension and appreciation of subtitled audiovisual texts viewed on screens of different sizes, this experiment was conducted using authentic subtitled materials and, as often happens with experimental research, it provided results that were largely unexpected, also bringing to the fore issues (such as reading speed) that had not been considered central at the onset. In the following sections, key concepts in which the experiment is grounded will be explored, followed by the discussion of issues which have emerged from the experiment itself. As for the results, only a few will be presented, with a view to highlighting their relevance for the training of subtitlers

L\u2019allattamento tra cura e cultura: dall\u2019Africa all\u2019ipertrofia tecnologica

Breastfeeding is a practice so far unobtrusively studied by cultural and medical anthropology, an act placed between nature and culture, between private and social women spheres and which, like birth and pregnancy. It expresses hierarchies in roles and gender relations among biopolitical dynamics which denote the organization of society itself. As a cultural practice, breastfeeding differs itself on the basis of the so-cial and ethnic belonging of the mother and the child, leading to ritual differences such as the law of the \u201ckinship of milk\u201d in muslim societies or the apothecary taboo of Sub-Saharan Africa. The paper reflects on how much this is occurring in Western society where breastfeeding is less and less widespread and how much the lobbies in-fluence technological and biomedical hypertrophy

Anthropological reflections on breastfeeding between care and culture

Breastfeeding is a practice so far unobtrusively studied by cultural and medical anthropology, an act placed between nature and culture, between private and social women spheres and which, like birth and pregnancy. It expresses hierarchies in roles and gender relations among biopolitical dynamics which denote the organization of society itself. As a cultural practice, breastfeeding differs itself on the basis of the social and ethnic belonging of the mother and the child, leading to ritual differences such as the law of the \u201ckinship of milk\u201d in muslim societies or the apothecary taboo of Sub-Saharan Africa. The paper reflects on how much this is occurring in Western society where breastfeeding is less and less widespread and how much the lobbies influence technological and biomedical hypertrophy

Demologia e Cultural Heritage

L'attuale offerta di una cultura uniformante, esito della globalizzazione e della massificazione della comunicazione, impone di custodire maggiormente anche a livello istituzionale,il senso della propria identit\ue0 culturale e territoriale. Il prerequisito affinch\ue9 la tradizione e la cultura identitaria divengano risorsa per gli uomini e i territori, \ue8 la conoscenza dei beni culturali, tradizionali e non, che ogni comunit\ue0/territorio possiede a sua caratterizzazione. Da qui, il riconoscimento del valore sistematico delle ricerche sulla cultura popolare, dei folkloristi italiani dell\u2019800, tra i quali spiccano i nomi di Pitr\ue8 e Salomone Marino, ai cui studi \ue8 dedicato il volume

Intersemiotic transcreation: the life and afterlife of Giuseppe Verdi's Macbeth.

Macbeth was a nobleman, a king, a supporter of Christianity in Scotland, but most of all he was, and still is, the protagonist of countless adventures, told through music, singing, verse, prose, fiction, film. And translated into an infinite array of languages. The stories of Macbeth, all together and seen one at a time, embody the very essence of translation, in creative ways. This essay sets forth the notion of intersemiotic transcreation precisely with reference to the story of Macbeth, by reconstructing its evolution and by focusing especially on Giuseppe Verdi\u2019s worldwide famous opera named after the Scottish king. A detailed analysis is also offered of two contemporary English versions of Giuseppe Verdi\u2019s Macbeth, in an attempt to understand where translation finishes, if it does, and where intersemiotic transcreation starts. Both types of translation examined (interlingual surtitles and singing translation) recall processes of transmutation, change, (re)creation and transcreation, and bear witness to the creativity which goes hand in hand with writing and translating, over the centuries and across codes of communication

Photonic circuits for generating modal, spectral, and polarization entanglement

We consider the design of photonic circuits that make use of Ti:LiNbO$_{3}$ diffused channel waveguides for generating photons with various combinations of modal, spectral, and polarization entanglement. Down-converted photon pairs are generated via spontaneous optical parametric down-conversion (SPDC) in a two-mode waveguide. We study a class of photonic circuits comprising: 1) a nonlinear periodically poled two-mode waveguide structure, 2) a set of single-mode and two-mode waveguide-based couplers arranged in such a way that they suitably separate the three photons comprising the SPDC process, and, for some applications, 3) a holographic Bragg grating that acts as a dichroic reflector. The first circuit produces frequency-degenerate down-converted photons, each with even spatial parity, in two separate single-mode waveguides. Changing the parameters of the elements allows this same circuit to produce two nondegenerate down-converted photons that are entangled in frequency or simultaneously entangled in frequency and polarization. The second photonic circuit is designed to produce modal entanglement by distinguishing the photons on the basis of their frequencies. A modified version of this circuit can be used to generate photons that are doubly entangled in mode number and polarization. The third photonic circuit is designed to manage dispersion by converting modal, spectral, and polarization entanglement into path entanglement